The U.S. Added Only 70,000 Jobs In February Based On Withheld Taxes

Via sauced07

Two weeks ago, we looked at what is perhaps the best coincident indicator of the true, not-seasonally adjusted, picture of the US labor market, namely withholdings of income and employment taxes. We reported that while for most of 2015, tax withholdings rose at a rate of 5% or more from a year ago, on the back of job growth and gains in wages, commissions and other incentive pay, in recent months there has been a substantial dropoff in this key indicator.

As shown in the chart below, revenue inflows to the Treasury Department steadily slowed through the fall, bringing the annual growth rate down to just below 4% by the start of 2016. That’s when growth seemingly collapsed — to just 1.8% over the past five-plus weeks, from Jan. 11 through Feb. 16.

More @ Zero Hedge

University of Capetown

Via Nancy

 

 Dated

The Burning Platform

Exclusive Audio — Rubio Campaign Manager Plots Brokered Convention In Manhattan Donor Meeting To Take Nomination From Trump

Via Billy

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is plotting to take the Republican nomination away from Donald Trump using surreptitious tactics at a so-called “brokered convention,” according to an audio recording of his campaign manger in a private meeting with high dollar donors in Manhattan obtained exclusively by Breitbart News.

Last Wednesday evening in New York, according to CNN, Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan met privately with a group of supporters and top donors to chart Rubio’s path forward heading into Super Tuesday after abysmal performances from the first-term Florid Senator so far. During the meeting, Sullivan walked Rubio’s money men through the scenario he envisions he will use to stop Trump.

More @ Breitbart

My Brother is a grandfather again

Via Sister Anne

Born March 2nd on my brother Henry's birthday.  He's a proud grandfather, I am sure! :)

My Niece Claudia and Eduardo's Wedding

Ex-Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon dead after car crash

Via Jeffery "Sounds fishy"'

 

Former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, a pioneer of America's recent energy boom, died in a fiery car crash on Wednesday, one day after being indicted by a federal grand jury.

McClendon, 56, was driving alone and traveling very fast when his car "drove straight into" an overpass wall, according to the Oklahoma City Police Department. His 2013 Chevy Tahoe was immediately engulfed in flames and investigators concluded he was not wearing a seatbelt.

"There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the road but that did not happen," Captain Paco Balderrama of the Oklahoma City police said at a press conference.

More @ CNN

Please Pray For Dixie

 

This is the great, great, great granddaughter of Needham Leach, Aunt Angela, holding my daughter Dixie, the namesake of Dixie Washington Leach. Great Aunt Dixie also had another namesake who recently died in Pittsboro, Angela's aunt. Angela's Aunt Dixie, in turn, has a namesake, her Cousin Dixie, in Pittsboro.

  

 Daddy and Dixie with her "Baby Tiger" at our 40th. :)

 HK and Dixie at the 2004 Hunley Funeral Parade

 

 Bazz, his wife Rachel and Dixie at General Pender's grave at Calvary Episcopal church in Tarboro when they were our house guests some years ago.

 

A gentleman and a scholar, my mother's highest compliment.

  

 *Leach cousins in Pittsboro. The second person to the left of Dixie is Cousin Dixie who was named after her Aunt Dixie who was named after my Great Aunt Dixie below.

  

 

 

 

 

 Raffle: Dixie aced my III wine with a .22 at PATCON . :)

 
 

 Ella after her Nutcracker performance.

 

 

Scalia, the Constitution, and the Court

 

With the recent passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, folks are writhing in fear over the prospect of Obama appointing a new SC Judge. “This”, they say, “could be the most monumental appointment in history and could drastically change our political landscape” and this “is especially true with regards to how the 2nd Amendment is interpreted.”

This is all true, if you buy into the erroneous notion that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of constitutionality, and if the States do hot adhere to their duty, as Madison said, to “interpose for arresting the progress of evil” when a branch of the general government assumes powers never consented to it.

Scalia’s death has exposed what many who have studied the constitution’s history have said for years: That the court has assumed too much power in anointing itself -through “case law” and “court precedent”, rather than actual “constitutionalism”- as “the final say” on what the constitution means.

This is not what the Founders intended, and it is not what the constitution allows.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

GOP BOSSES SPIT IN THE VOTERS' FACES

Via Wes

 Bob Lonsberry

VERBATIM

You're not fighting Trump. 

You're fighting the people who are voting for him. 

The anti-Trump effort being waged by the Republican Party is essentially a fight against democracy. 

It's not that this monster has raised himself up to threaten the ivory castles of the blue bloods, it's that millions of people have stood up and said, “Enough is enough.” 

It is they against whom the GOP establishment is fighting. 

And that fight never turns out well. 

Donald Trump isn't Barry Goldwater in 1964, he is Andrew Jackson in 1828. He is going to storm the White House, and he is going to bring his unwashed hordes with him. The Trump campaign is built on the uniquely American premise that the people are sovereign, and that does not jibe with cozy arrangements of the country-club Republicans. For too long, the Republican Party has exploited its constituencies, instead of served them, and the beaten dog is about to bite.

Some have gone off after Ted Cruz, but most have gone off after Donald Trump.

Together, something approaching 80 percent of Republican voters thus far this primary season have told the party establishment to pound salt. You have the clueless elite, and then you have the voters who actually care about America.

And they have picked up a baseball bat to drive the money changers from the temple. 

It might be Trump who is being slammed upside the GOP head, but it is not Trump doing the slamming. It is the American people. Veterans and taxpayers, moms and dads, young and old. They are tired of being screwed, they are tired of being ignored, they are tired of being played. 

And Trump is their tool. 

And the Republican Party can resist them at its peril. 

Because the people will be heard. In this party, or the other party, or in a new party. In this election, or a future election, but certainly someday they will be heard. What Donald Trump has done is crack open the door of opportunity, he has given the voters a choice other than Party Hack A versus Party Hack B. When you give the people a chance to order something that's not on the menu, they do it. 

Bernie tried on the Democrat side, and has failed. 

Trump is trying on the Republican side, and is succeeding. 

And the party is losing. 

Every time you stand up and tell the voters that they are wrong, every time you disavow the results of your own party's primaries, every time you pledge to disqualify the candidate backed by the people, you unleash a firestorm of pent-up electoral rage. Traditional Republican voters have been punked by their party in election after election, with promises unkept and problems unsolved for generations on end. They are now joined by new voters who are unaccustomed to docility and disrespect. 

And it's payback time. 

While the Republican bosses go on the evening news to say, “Let them eat cake,” Republican voters go to the ballot box and say, “Let them eat lead.” This is one of those elections where they dip their finger in ink and hold it aloft as a sign they've voted. Except in this case it's the middle finger. 

And, yes, the goal is the White House, the objective is the federal government. But right now the Republican establishment stands in the way, and it can either be part of the solution or it can be part of the roadkill. 

Thus far it seems intent on self-destruction. 

And that's fine by me. 

Last night the people spoke, and the Republican bigwigs went into the backrooms to debate brokered conventions and third-party candidacies. Little did they realize that they were writing the last details of their own political obituaries. 

Because this isn't about Trump. 

It's about the people who vote for him, in record numbers. People who have flocked to the Republican ballot box in numbers unknown since the days of Reagan. The pigs at the trough of Republican power are condemning their party in the name of self-interest. They've got theirs, and they'll be damned if anyone else is going to get any. 

But they fight the unbeatable foe. 

The American people. 

The Republican Party is not trying to steal this election from Donald Trump, it is trying to steal it from the American people. It is trying to deny the franchise to those who fail to kiss its arse. It is declaring Trump voters second-class citizens.
And that never ends well. 

A fish rots from the head, and all the Republican Party needs is a good decapitation. 

Which every party attack on Donald Trump and his voters makes ever more certain.

- by Bob Lonsberry © 2016

Another Hate Crime: Third Marine Says He Was Beaten Unconscious

 

Grant Gray, who enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 2011 and spent most of 2015 serving in Afghanistan, tells Columbus, Ohio police he was the target of a hate crime.

Gray says he doesn’t remember much, but the officer who responded to the call said Gray was “stumbling” and recalled being beaten by three black men who repeatedly referred to him as “white.”

“I’m not going to lie to you. I have a concussion and I really don’t know the full details,” Gray told police. “I even had an Apple watch on and they didn’t steal that.”

More @ Breitbart

NC: Mo Brooks: 'Communist sympathizer' Maya Angelou doesn't deserve post office honor

Via Billy

A proposal to name a North Carolina post office after poet Maya Angelou received a "no" vote from Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, who questioned if the late author merited the honor.

Brooks and eight other Republicans voted against the resolution to rename a post office in Winston-Salem after Angelou, a Missouri native who spent much of her life in North Carolina.

Angelou died in 2014.

Brooks said he opposed the proposal due to Angelou's support of communism, particularly her backing of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

More @ AL