It’s overdue A big revision from the BLS today: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday revised down its estimate of total employment in March 2024 by a whopping 818,000, the largest such downgrade in 15 years. That effectively means there were 818,000 fewer job gains than first believed from April 2023 through March 2024. So, instead of adding a robust average of 242,000 jobs a month during that 12-month period, the nation gained a still solid 174,000 jobs monthly, according to the latest estimate. The revision is based on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which draws from state unemployment insurance records that reflect actual payrolls, while the prior estimates come from monthly surveys. However, the estimate is preliminary and a final figure will be released early next year. These numbers might not be exactly right, however: Some economists, however, are questioning the fresh figures. Goldman Sachs said the revision was likely overstated by as much as 400,000 to 600,000 because unemployment insurance records don’t include unauthorized immigrants, who have contributed dramatically to job growth the past couple of years.
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I’ve told the story before, but it bears repeating in the context of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. I attended the 2008 convention in 2008 and it was a pretty ecstatic atmosphere. The Democrats were about to nominate their first Black candidate for president and his very close primary competitor, Hillary Clinton was the first woman to make a serious run for it. There had been plenty of bad blood during the primary and there were still some raw feelings that needed to be dealt with before the full celebration could begin. It was up to Clinton to heal the breach and it wasn’t going to be easy. On the night Hillary was to give her big endorsement speech, I stood next to a group of young Black women who were clearly skeptical of her and were big fans of Barack Obama. They were not expecting much.
In case you missed the full roll call last night: For those of you who wanted that playlist here it is!
And it was spectacular It went viral in a hurry Thank you Barack. We needed that. David Kurtz at TPM has a nice wrap up of the Obamas’ speeches last night: Barack and Michelle Obama welcomed the Democratic convention to their hometown of Chicago, with sterling back-to-back speeches that harkened to the brighter pre-Trump days. Neither has lost a step as orators, with precision timing and panache that very few politicians have ever mustered, except that Michelle is not a politician and this was never her day job. While he struck familiar themes from his two-terms as president and wove them into the Harris-Walz campaign messaging in a way designed to make her a natural successor to his legacy, it was that pantomimed dart at the manhood of the man who did succeed him that brought down the house. He was great as always. But in spite of his usual rave up Red state, Blue state stuff toward the end, it was much harder hitting against the opposition than I remember, even aside from the comedy. A lot of silly analysis overnight about Michelle eschewing her motto – “When they go low, we go high” – as if calling out racism and misogyny is going low.
But massive fundraising does say something The cash just keeps flowing: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ election effort has raised around $500 million since she became the Democratic presidential candidate, sources told Reuters, an unprecedented money haul that reflects donor enthusiasm going into the Nov. 5 election. Four sources familiar with the fundraising effort told Reuters that figure had been banked for Harris in the four weeks since she jumped into the race on July 21. Campaign cash is critical for advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts that help bring people to the polls and persuade undecided voters to swing a candidate’s way. Harris entered the fray after President Joe Biden stepped aside from the top of the Democratic ticket, unleashing floods of funding that had dried up in the weeks after Biden’s disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump… Harris’ team raised $310 million in July, bringing the total amount of money raised by her and Biden before he dropped out to more than $1 billion, the most rapid crossing of that fundraising threshold in history, according to the campaign.
Tim Walz spent 24 years in the Army National Guard. He retired to run for congress. Now they are swiftboating him which is totally expected. It’s what they do. But now they’ve exposed their own military lies. Vote Vets tweeted this: 🚨If you’re looking for a textbook example of Stolen Valor, look no further than Donald Trump’s campaign and the 50 Veterans who signed this letter. 29 of the signatures come from Republicans who falsely claim they retired from military service. The most egregious example is Ronny Jackson, the former Navy officer reduced in rank from Rear Admiral to Captain after retirement: Vote Vets sets the record straight: @RonnyJacksonTX – you were demoted from Rear Admiral to Captain – why are YOU committing stolen valor for claiming you’re a retired flag officer? And that’s not the only indictment of Jackson. He was busted down in rank because of sexual harassment, drunken behavior and inappropriate distribution of narcotics. He really should shut his pie hole. How about the rest of these liars?
The fact checkers at the NY Times actually thought it was important to ding JB Pritzker for that joke: I just don’t know what to say anymore about what’s happening at the NY Times. They have totally lost their way. Other fact-checkers have had a different impression: Meanwhile, here’s the latest on Trump’s tremendous billionaire business savvy from Michael Hilzik in the LA Times: Hiding in plain sight in the first annual report issued by the parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform was a statement of inescapable, well, truth. Issued, perhaps appropriately, on April 1 by Trump Media and Technology Group, the report said: “The value of TMTG’s brand may diminish if the popularity of President Trump were to suffer.” This was cited as a “risk factor” in holding the company’s stock. So here we are. Since July 21, when President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run against Trump, the stock has been spiraling toward oblivion. TMTG may lack any meaningful remedy if President Donald J. Trump minimizes his future use of Truth Social.
As anyone who knows me or reads my work knows, I have an infinite amount of interest in writing about the Holocaust, in whatever genre: history, fiction, essay, travelogue, diary, memoir, poetry, whatever. I also have an infinite appetite for voices in writing about the Holocaust: sardonic, ironic, bemused, impatient, poignant, heroic, anti-heroic, sociological, callow, creepy, fantastical, comedic, whatever. But the article in the September issue of Harper’s, “My Auschwitz Vacation,” by the writer Tanya Gold, tested my patience. It’s unbearably familiar and hackneyed. How many articles can we read on the silliness and stupidity of a tourist’s response to an extermination camp? Teenagers go to Auschwitz and take selfies. Justin Bieber visits the Anne Frank House and writes in […]
In two weeks, I start teaching. My class this fall is Politics Through Literature, which I’ve taught before but have made some big changes to. There are still seats available in the class. If you’re a student at Brooklyn College or any of the colleges in the CUNY system, or if you’re a student in the New York area (the class meets in person), you should sign up for the class. We meet on Monday and Wednesday mornings, from 9:30 to 10:45. The course readings are below; the syllabus is here. I’ve decided to open the semester with a set of readings on sex and sickness—Amia Srinivasan’s essay on teaching pornography and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor—and how our most […]
“Did you know the Kamala price hikes have cost the average American family $28,000?” — Donald Trump, in a TikTok video, Aug. 15 Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter. “As a result of Kamala’s inflation price hikes, they’ve cost the typical household a total of $28,000. These are numbers coming from the government. They are not coming from me.” — Trump, media event in Bedminster, N.J., Aug. 15 Former president Donald Trump rarely updates his political rhetoric — he’s using many of the same lines against Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 that he used against Joe Biden in 2020 — so it’s always news when a fresh talking point emerges. In recent days, Trump has claimed that the “average American family” or the “typical household” has suffered a hike in spending of $28,000 under the Biden presidency. Nobody knows where he got that amount and the campaign isn’t saying.