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The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

Employers in the United States added 227,000 workers to their payrolls in November, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate edged up to 4.2 percent. Economists had been expecting 215,000 after storms and strikes saw the Labor Department report a much-worse-than-expected growth of just 12,000 in October. They had also forecast that the unemployment rate would rise one-tenth of a point from 4.1 percent. The October report was revised up by 24,000, bringing the estimate up to 36,000. The September jobs number was revised up by 32,000, from a gain of 223,000 to 255,000.

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the...

Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that the only way Republicans will move to a different leader than former President Donald Trump is if Vice President Kamala Harris has a “blowout” victory in November. Host Ari Melber said, “Politico has real reporting, and this isn’t just speculation about Republicans who say they’ve had it. It’s a tight race, and if Trump actually lost, they could rebuild instead of being stuck with him. Quote, ‘Republicans wishing for a Trump loss include long-standing GOP figures throughout the nation who believe and wouldn’t dare say this publicly but are...

All icing and no cake. That’s the only way to describe the Democratic National Convention that mercifully ended Thursday night with Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech as the party’s improbable nominee. The icing, of course, was all the joy shoved down America’s collective throats from Chicago, a city where more than two dozen have been shot since the convention began, all without a care in the world about the state of the country. On Night Three alone, the word “joy” was said 30 times by various speakers. But that wasn’t close to the word uttered most from podium. Instead, the gold...

Montana officials on Tuesday approved a proposed amendment for the November ballot which would enshrine the right to abortion throughout pregnancy into the state constitution. “Supporters ended up with more than 81,000 signatures, about 10.5 percent of registered voters. The campaign needed just over 60,000 signatures and to qualify 40 or more of the 100 state House districts by gathering the signatures of at least 10 percent of the number of people who voted for governor in 2020 in that district. The initiative qualified in 59 districts,” the Associated Press reported.

Documentarian Michael Moore still fears Democrats could lose big time in November, despite the establishment left’s non-stop euphoria over Kamala Harris. Michael Moore expressed his doubt in an interview this week with Britain’s The Guardian. “It was so depressing for so many weeks and then it was instantly not depressing,” he said. “I am hopeful now but it’s ours to blow – and we have a history of blowing it.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday he will put the finishing touches on an “action plan for peace” by the end of November. He added that he cannot discuss a ceasefire while Russian forces occupy Ukrainian territory. Zelensky touted his “action plan for peace” as an extension of June’s “Global Peace Summit” in Switzerland, which produced a communique calling for restoration of Ukraine’s “territorial integrity.” Representatives from 91 nations signed the communique, but Russia was not one of them. Russian President Vladimir Putin instead demanded Ukraine surrender its occupied eastern provinces to Russian control and abandon its plans to...

Left-wing activists in at least 11 states have launched efforts to place abortion on the ballot in November — and proposed constitutional amendments have officially qualified for the ballots in five of those states. When the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022 — exactly two years ago — it overturned Roe v. Wade, which had invented a federal right to abortion for 50 years. The Dobbs decision thus returned the issue of abortion to individual states and their elected representatives, changing the nature of the struggle between the pro-life movement and the abortion industry. Pro-abortion organizations...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is running for a fourth term in the Senate, he announced Monday, likely cementing the longtime progressive for the coming years in the upper chamber. Sanders, 82, is the second-oldest member of the upper chamber behind only Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.), who is 90. “This is the most important national election in our lifetimes,” Sanders said in a statement. “We must fight to make sure that we remain a democracy, not an authoritarian society. We must fight to make sure that we have a government which represents the working families of our country, not the billionaire...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November.McConnell, who turned 82 last week, was set to announce his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, a place where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders.“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on...

Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 74 percent, believe former President Trump will refuse to concede if he loses the 2024 election, a significant increase from similar surveys in 2020. The CNN poll released Monday signals that many voters expect election denial rhetoric to continue if Trump loses again in November. Just over half of respondents correctly expected Trump not to concede if he lost the 2020 election, about 55 percent in August 2020 and 58 percent in October of that year. He did indeed refuse to accept the results of the election, with his supporters later assaulting the Capitol on Jan....

Republican pollster Frank Luntz replied that he “would bet on” former President Donald Trump upon being asked after Wednesday night’s CNN debate whom he predicts will win the 2024 presidential election. A CBS News reporter asked Luntz after the debate, “If you had to bet $150,000 on who’s going to win in November, who would you bet on?” “I never dreamed that I would say this, but I would bet on Trump. I never – I thought it was done. I thought it was over,” he said. “You don’t come back from an impeachment, you don’t come back from January...

Private sector job creation slowed further in November and wages showed their smallest growth in more than two years, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday. Companies added just 103,000 workers for the month, slightly below the downwardly revised 106,000 in October and missing the 128,000 Dow Jones estimate. Along with the modest job growth came a 5.6% increase in annual pay, which ADP said was the smallest gain since September 2021. Job-changers saw wage increases of 8.3%, making the premium for switching positions the lowest since ADP began tracking the data three years ago.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska’s largest city declared a snow emergency last week after a winter storm dropped record snowfall amounts, and with more snow falling this week, Anchorage is now less than an inch away from achieving its snowiest November on record. Anchorage broke a daily snowfall record last Wednesday when 9 inches of snow fell in 24 hours. An additional 8.2 inches piled up the following day, setting another daily record. Another 3.6 inches fell on Friday, bringing the winter storm's three-day total to 20.8 inches between Nov. 8 and Nov. 10. Alaska was hit with another snowstorm earlier...

A November slowdown in inflation could give consumers relief both from rising prices and rapidly rising interest rates. Consumer price index (CPI) data released Tuesday by the Labor Department still showed inflation near 40-year highs. But a slower pace of price growth may help Americans catch a break from more than a year of rapid inflation, all while giving the Federal Reserve room to hike interest rates at a slower pace. “Cooling inflation will boost the markets and take pressure off the Fed for raising rates, but most importantly this spells real relief starting for Americans whose finances have been...

The U.S. economy gained 263,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate held even at 3.7 percent, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. Job growth in November beat the expectations of economists, who projected the U.S. to gain roughly 200,000 jobs last month, according to consensus projections. The unemployment rate remained just 0.2 percentage points above its pre-pandemic level as the job market continued to push through high inflation and rising interest rates to grow at a sturdy clip. The U.S. had added an average 392,000 jobs per month since the start of the year despite high...

Private companies added an estimated 127,000 jobs in November, a sharp slowdown from October and the lowest monthly gain in nearly two years, according to a new ADP jobs report. The estimate, which does not include public sector jobs, fell from 239,000 private jobs added in October and marks the latest sign of a cooling labor market as the Federal Reserve rapidly raises interest rates. Private companies added 357,167 monthly jobs on average last year, a steady pace spurred by the nation’s pandemic recovery that has since slowed amid the central bank’s monetary tightening, which is aimed at lowering inflation....