Bits & Bytes

TRUMP ECONOMY: From Jeffry Bartash at MarketWatch – “The number of people who applied for jobless benefits in mid-February fell sharply and returned near post-recession lows, suggesting the U.S. labor market is still going strong and keeping the economy on firm footing. … The U.S. is still adding new jobs at a rapid clip to keep the unemployment rate near the lowest level in decades. A tight labor market is also forcing companies to pay workers more.”

• https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobless-claims-sink-23000-to-216000—recent-spike-appears-to-be-false-alarm-2019-02-21

TRUMP’S BIG BEAUTIFUL WALL: Construction recently began on six miles-worth of concrete and steel barrier of the sort that border agents prefer, because it is immensely successful in deterring illegal border crossings. This wall section will be supplemented by detection technology, lighting, video surveillance, and an all-weather patrol road parallel. The $145 million was included in U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s budget for fiscal year 2018.

• https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-new-wall-in-new-mexico-is-real-and-its-20-miles-long

ANOTHER CARAVAN: Another caravan of more than 1,000 mostly Central American migrants has overwhelm officials at the southern Mexican border and entered illegally. They’re marching north toward us. The pressure on the southern border is evident in the number of apprehensions for illegal entry, which is way up this year.

• https://www.foxnews.com/world/new-caravan-forms-as-mexican-cities-that-border-us-keep-swelling-with-migrants
• https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/border-apprehensions-jump-84-606-000-expected-this-year

CHICAGO TRAGEDY: From John Kass at the Chicago Tribune – Two dozen detectives were assigned to investigate Jussie Smollett’s alleged mugging. That just doesn’t seem right. Make no mistake. I’m not blaming the detectives, or the Chicago Police Department. They work for a politician. His name is Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who famously announced a few years ago that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Can Chicago afford that, what with all the unsolved murders and shootings in this town? No.

• https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-jussie-smollett-kass-20190219-story.html

PERSPECTIVE: For the leftists suffering intense disappointment over the unraveling of the Jussie Smollett hate hoax

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (published 1952)

SEAN SPICIER: Sean Spicier is a very funny satire on Twitter. Though the account is clearly labeled, “I’m not him”, the ever-humorless Left is constantly triggered by posts they attribute to Trump’s first White House Press Secretary.  Some recent goodies:

• Not sure you can call what Jussie Smollett did a hate hoax. It worked…I hate him
• Any more of this and the Academy Awards might have to add another category…Best Actor in a Hate Crime Hoax
• Using kids to sell the Green New Deal makes a lot of sense really…it does sound like it was written by a bunch of 9-year old
• Don’t know why everyone’s so worked about this…Planned Parenthood can still perform their one or two cancer screenings a year
• In preparation for closing the Mueller investigation, AG Barr will meet with Trump family members in secret to discuss grandkids and stuff

NEBRASKA STATE SEN. ERNIE CHAMBERS – On Tuesday, he got up on the floor of the Nebraska legislature and called the American flag “a rag” then compared it to the Nazi swastika. Chambers is the Independent senator for North Omaha.

• https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/02/nebraska-lawmaker-ernie-chambers-compares-to-us-flag-to-nazi-swastika-video/

DEMOCRAT BUSTED: John Fry, an IRS Analyst was arrested and charged this past week for releasing former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s tax returns to creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti. Unsurprisingly, his social pages show him to be anti-Trump.

• https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/02/confirmed-john-fry-the-irs-analyst-who-leaked-michael-cohens-tax-returns-is-a-far-left-trump-basher-who-supports-beto-orourke/

FACEBOOK BAN: Last week, Facebook permanently banned a human rights activist right after she updated her profile picture to commemorate 21 African Christians slaughtered by ISIS.

• https://pjmedia.com/trending/facebook-bans-human-rights-activist-for-commemorating-christians-slaughtered-by-isis/

NOT THE BABYLON BEE: Pro-LGBT news publication calls Trump a racist – Out Magazine, which doubles as a gay advocacy platform calling Donald Trump “racist” for trying to get foreign regimes to stop jailing and killing people for being gay.

• https://www.mrctv.org/blog/lgbt-magazine-calls-trump-racist-telling-iran-stop-killing-and-jailing-gays

WHITE NATIONALIST ARRESTED: Fortunately, they caught this guy before he hurt anyone on his hit list – Authorities arrested US Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson “last week on weapons and drugs charges.” The motion for pretrial detention revealed horrific details like how intended “to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.” The federal prosecutors described him as a “domestic terrorist” and “white nationalist” who kept a hit list of journalists and Democratic lawmakers.

• https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/02/coast-guard-lt-charged-with-planning-terror-attack-targeting-dems-journalists-others/

SICK: Former GOP Chairman Michael Steele said on MSNBC that Trump probably wasn’t happy the FBI stopped a white nationalist from killing liberals & media people. MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace responded: “That’s a brave thing to say.” Wait, wut? Slandering Donald J. Trump on MSNBC is “brave”? Do these people even listen to themselves?!

• https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/02/sick-former-gop-chairman-trump-probably-wasnt-happy-fbi-stopped-white-nationalist-from-killing-liberals-video/

MAGA ATTACK: A Massachusetts woman has been charged with assault and battery after hitting a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat off of a stranger’s head at a Mexican restaurant. When asked why she did it, the 41-year-old whack job said the man was a “motherf***er” for supporting President Trump. Right … and not at all like what you are for assaulting a man for wearing a hat.

• https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/02/video-massachusetts-woman-charged-with-assault-and-battery-for-hitting-maga-hat-off-strangers-head/

WHERE DOES MOVIE MONEY COME FROM? I’ve often wondered about this – The maker of prop money says he makes two types: one for close-ups and one that will look real from about 15 inches away. He calls them high grade and standard grade.

“Our standard grade prop money is printed on both sides, but has an optical illusion built into it. It looks realistic at an arm’s length, but when you start bringing it closer, it actually changes over and it reveals itself as fake.” The trick, he said, is to make it look real on camera but fake if somebody tries to spend it at a store.

It also has “fake money” and “movie prop” etc. printed repeatedly on both sides. See above.

“We also have a high grade type, better known as close up money. That’s the one you use for a close-up scene, or if somebody is counting money and putting it in someone else’s hands. That looks fantastic. But since it looks so real, we can print it on one side only.”

• https://www.cnn.com/style/article/rjr-props-fake-money/index.html