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Friday’s job report added to this week’s economic optimism. US employers added 225,000 jobs in January, which blew predictions out of the water. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly, at 3.6 percent. Wages increased 3.1 percent from the previous year; wages have grown at an average pace of 3 percent for the last 18 months. Interestingly, the “labor-force participation rate,” meaning the percentage of Americans seeking employment, also increased. Economists have predicted that this number will decrease due to baby boomer retirement from the workforce, but this number has remained constant. This report is an exciting finish to a week...

After a months-long impeachment process that has exposed many divisions in the nation, the Senate voted to acquit President Trump Wednesday on two articles brought by Democratic members of the House: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The votes were 52-48 and 53-47, with Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, voting to convict the president on the first article. Other than Romney, the Senate votes fell along partisan lines, with every Democrat voting to convict and every Republican voting to acquit. The acquittal came the day after Tuesday's State of the Union address. Speaking Thursday in the East Room of the...

......one of the people involved in the cleanup was John Dennis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Republican challenger this fall. Dennis has a better chance of seeing Tupac alive and managing a Telegraph Hill Old Navy than he does of winning the election, but at least he’s a lot better known than he was one week ago — and it’s all thanks to an antifa hooligan threatening to kill him. Dennis managed to get a video of the exchange with a charming bearded man he said was with one of the antifa groups.

Washington (CNN)A federal appeals court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by congressional Democrats alleging President Donald Trump violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by refusing to allow lawmakers to review and approve his financial interests. The ruling is a major triumph for the President, who's intensely sought to keep his business affairs in private, just days after the Republican-held Senate voted to acquit him on impeachment charges for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The case's dismissal effectively kneecaps one of several attempts Democrats have made to dig up more information about Trump's business holdings. Before Friday's ruling...

Reprise: “Harry Reid, My Brother” FEBRUARY 6, 2020 BY DAN PETERSON I’ve plainly angered and alienated a number of people over the past day or so because of my belief that Mitt Romney’s principled and courageous vote in the Senate regarding the impeachment of President Trump is worthy of respect, regardlesss of one’s stance on the merits of his vote. So — what the heck! — it occurs to me that I might as well resurrect a blog entry that I posted almost exactly three years ago, on 4 February 2017, that also attracted considerable wrath and invective in my...

Total cases: More than 31,000 as of Friday morning. Total deaths: At least 636 worldwide as of Friday morning 10:56 am: VP Pence praises China’s ‘unprecedented level of transparency’ in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak Vice President Mike Pence said Beijing has demonstrated “an unprecedented level of transparency” with world health officials amid the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak. “It’s heartbreaking but we stand ready with China to provide them any and all support,” he told CNBC’s Wilfred Frost on “Squawk on the Street.” Pence referenced Thursday’s phone call between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, after which...

Virginia Democrats mistake their legislative control as a mandate for extreme liberal social re-engineering — and it shows where the rest of the party is headed. For the first time in 26 years, Virginians voted a Democrat majority into both the state’s House and Senate. Four weeks into the General Assembly, the new majority is voting in laws restricting parents’ rights, removing religious protections, and disturbing rights traditional to Virginians.“The aggressive onslaught of hostile legislation is new this year,” said Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia. “Virginia has never even had a public policy discussion about forcing...

Whither the Democrats? Will they lurch so far left that they fall off a cliff, dragging the entire party to ruin? Or will they listen to the voices from the middle of the country telling them to stop being crazy and get to work? With Joe Biden sinking into irrelevancy, Elizabeth Warren fading fast, and other candidates preparing their exit speeches after the New Hampshire primary is over, the Bernie Sanders juggernaut is ready to steamroll the opposition and ride Trump hatred and socialist delusions all the way to the Democratic convention in July. Can anyone stop him? The genuine...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., fired back at former CIA Director John Brennan for labeling him "beneath contempt" for reading the alleged impeachment whistleblower's name during the Senate trial. Brennan wrote on Twitter than Paul "typifies the worst" of President Trump's "craven enablers." "Any Senator excusing this dangerous behavior makes a mockery of public service," Brennan said. "History will revile all of you." Paul reacted by pointing to Brennan's service under President Obama, including his role in using the dubious anti-Trump "dossier" to launch a counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. "You want to know what’s a mockery of public service,...

As the Iowa Democratic Party sorts out the final results of their caucuses earlier this week, pollster Scott Rasmussen said that one thing is for certain — it was a real bad night for former Vice President Joe Biden. “Look, we have something at Ballotpedia, we call ‘pivot counties.’ These are the counties that went twice for Obama and then voted for Trump,” he explained. “In those 31 counties that contain people Democrats want to win back, you would think Joe Biden, having been on the ticket with Obama, would do really well,” said Rasmussen. “[Biden] won just one of...

Dr. Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist who first raised the alarm about the coronavirus in China, has passed away. When he tried to warn colleagues about the disease, he was arrested by the authorities for "rumor-mongering." "We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice — is that understood?" It is reported that he caught the disease from a patient or patients he was treating and died some days later. Do you believe this? Only about 2% of the people who contract this virus die from it....

President Trump has beaten his biggest political threat to date after being recently acquitted in the Senate’s impeachment trial. The latest Gallup Poll shows Trump reached a job approval rating of 49%, a record. Presiding over an economy that continues to expand during an election year will likely get Trump re-elected, according to Brad Neuman, director of market strategy at Alger, an investment management company. Although Trump’s approval ratings are high (relative to where they’ve been), his numbers aren’t as high as past presidents’ ratings were – Ronald Regan reached 68% in 1986 and Bill Clinton was at 56% in...

Because the American electorate is rather evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, turnout becomes the key to electoral success in November. While a lot can happen in nine months, there are five factors that I see discouraging Democrat turnout and helping the GOP. 1. The Biden family scandals Thanks to Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and the impeachment lynch mob, the lid has been blown off the Biden family’s practice of trading on the patriarch’s position to enrich themselves. Biden’s campaign is imploding, so he won’t be on the ballot. But the investigations of Hunter and Burisma are heating up and...

Whether one is a Donald Trump supporter or not, it’s impossible to deny this has been one of the best weeks for the Trump presidency ever. Whether one is a Donald Trump supporter or not, it’s impossible to deny this has been one of the best weeks for the Trump presidency. With record-high approval ratings and a primetime address to showcase the administration’s accomplishments, Trump emerged exonerated from the Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, ending a three-year effort to remove the president for the crime of winning the 2016 election while Democrats remain in chaos. The Iowa Circus To start,...

China's central government has ordered Wuhan to round up all suspected coronavirus patients as well as their close contacts in mass quarantine camps. The country's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called on a 'people's war' against the fast-spreading epidemic, which has killed at least 638 people and infected more than 31,520 globally. She demanded Communist officials of all levels take active lead in this 'wartime condition', or face being 'nailed onto the pillar of historical shame forever'. The city has around 14 million residents, but it remains unknown how many people would be quarantined or where they would be kept.

A federal appeals court in Washington threw out a lawsuit accusing President Trump of illegally profiting off his private businesses while in office, ruling that the Democratic lawmakers who brought the suit lack standing to bring the case.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Cuba) couldn’t be bothered to attend the 2020 State of the Union address, but she somehow managed to find the time to record a short message harshly criticizing President Trump’s decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh in the wake of Limbaugh’s recent announcement of having advanced lung cancer.   On Instagram live, @AOC hits Trump for awarding "virulent racist" Rush Limbaugh a medal of freedom #SOTU2020 pic.twitter.com/p8ZBGq02HC — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 5, 2020   Instagram video screen grab via Twitter She begins her video reaction to Rush Limbaugh receiving the...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Mark Steyn. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Mark Steyn, America's Undocumented Anchorman, is Rush Limbaugh's primary guest host. He is best known for his humorous quips behind an unrelenting defense of the Constitution.Welcome back, Rush! All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the...

Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win 2020? *SNIP* Bitecofer has already released her 2020 model, and is alone among election forecasters in giving the Democrats—who, of course, do not yet have a nominee—the 270 electoral votes required to claim the presidency without a single toss-up state flipping their way. She sees anyone in the top tier, or even the second tier of candidates, as strong enough to win back most of the Trump states in the industrial Midwest, stealing a march in the South in places like North Carolina and Florida, and...

Today’s doozy CG is from The Arkansas Gazette. AGH SLGB MIDBH, JRUO DUO ELGP RUHL IFIU SLGB EJDPPIEH DWHE. HMRE RE HMI EIWBIH LC EGWWIEE.---ETDJR ERFDUDUOD You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and...