Broke, Woke & Trending Folk 8/2: Rittenhouse’s strange vote choice, Chelsea Clinton’s secret deal with Kamala,awful jobs report, lead in chocolate, and much more

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Here is a collection of stories happening across the country, displaying the state of the economy, the heartbeat of American culture, and the craziness of modern-day politics…

1) 12 Days: Kamala Harris has not held a press conference since emerging as presumptive Democratic nominee

From Fox News: Vice President Kamala Harris has gone 12 days without holding a formal press conference since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Harris announced that she had locked up the nomination late on July 22, declaring that she had won commitments of backing from a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention. She has since hit the campaign trail, spoken at various events, and even chatted with reporters here and there, but hasn’t done a formal press conference or wide-ranging interview in the 12 days that have followed.

She also failed to appear at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, where former President Trump made headlines on Wednesday with a heated question-and-answer session. On Thursday, she briefly addressed reporters at Joint Base Andrews as she and President Biden greeted Americans freed from Russia in a massive prisoner swap, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Harris, who became the likely nominee without receiving a single primary vote when President Biden announced he would step aside last month, has been so elusive that The New York Times published excerpts from an interview she conducted last year to see where her answers “land now.”

 

2) Chelsea Clinton angling for ambassadorship if Kamala Harris wins election: sources

From New York Post: Chelsea Clinton has eyes on an ambassadorship if Kamala Harris becomes president, according to sources.

“Chelsea really wants to be the ambassador to the UK,” said a Clinton source. “There’s a reason why Bill and Hillary came out in the first five minutes to support Kamala’s presidential bid — they were currying favor.”

The source said the Clintons have been “working on this idea for a long time.”

The former first daughter, who is vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, would also love a gig in France, the source said.

 

3) Schumer Won’t Say Whether Biden’s Radical SCOTUS Overhaul Will Get A Vote

From Daily Wire: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) appears unwilling to commit to a vote on President Joe Biden’s radical plan to overhaul the Supreme Court, according to a recent report from Fox News digital. While he did say on Monday that he was in favor of most if not all of Biden’s plan — which calls for term limits for Supreme Court Justices in addition to several other provisions — the only part that he signaled a willingness to move forward on in the near future was a legislative measure that would deny immunity to former presidents.

“I am particularly pleased President Biden called for undoing the damage of the Court’s recent immunity decision,” he said. “An option I am considering is drawing up legislation clarifying that the President is NOT immune from violations of federal law.”

Biden’s plan also called for a code of ethics that could be enforced against members of the high court and an amendment to the Constitution that stated presidents did not have immunity from criminal prosecution once they left office — and the report noted that none of those provisions were likely to make it through a divided Congress.

 

4) Disaster: U.S. Economy Added Just 114,000 Jobs in July, Unemployment Surges

From Breitbart: Employers in the United States added 114,000 workers to their payrolls in July, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate jumped to 4.3 percent. Economists had been expecting 180,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent.

The disappointing payroll growth and the sudden jump in unemployment suggest that the economy may be heading into a recession. The 4.3 percent unemployment rate brings the three-month average 50 basis points above the lowest three-month average over the past 12 months, a threshold known as the “Sahm Rule” that historically has indicated the beginning of a recession.

Private payrolls grew by just 97,000. Average hourly wages rose by 0.2 percent, below the 0.3 percent expected by economists. Compared with a year ago, average hourly earnings are up 3.6 percent, below the 3.8 percent gain recorded last month.  The average workweek ticked down to 34.2 hours from 34.3 hours.

 

5) Kyle Rittenhouse’s Presidential Vote Choice Sparks Reaction

From Dom Lucre via X/Twitter: Kyle Rittenhouse announced to the surprise of everyone that he will vote for Ron Paul for President in 2024 because he says we need ‘champions for the 2nd amendment.’ Rittenhouse explained why he will write Ron Paul’s name in due to the 2nd amendment and claims Donald Trump ‘has bad advisors which makes him bad on the 2nd amendment.’

Rittenhouse: “Hi, I’m Kyle Rittenhouse, Outreach Director for Texas Gun Rights. A lot of people are upset that I said I’m going to be writing in Ron Paul for president of the United States. And that is true. I will be writing in Ron Paul. Unfortunately, Donald Trump had bad advisors making him bad on the second amendment, and that is my issue. If you cannot be completely uncompromisable on the second amendment, I will not vote for you and I will write somebody else in. We need champions for the second amendment or our rights will be eaten away and eroded each day. I support my decision and I have no take backs.”

 

6) Interest rate cuts are on the horizon, but high mortgage rates could be here to stay

From Fox Business: The Federal Reserve laid the groundwork for a September interest rate cut at the conclusion of its two-day meeting Wednesday, but the much-anticipated reduction may offer little relief to Americans squeezed by higher borrowing costs.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters at a press conference after the central bank voted to hold rates steady at a two-decade high that a September rate cut could be “on the table” if inflation continues to cool.

“We’re getting closer to the point at which it’ll be appropriate to reduce our policy rate,” Powell said, “but we’re not quite at that point.”

Even then, rates are unlikely to come down enough to provide any real reprieve to would-be homebuyers who have seen a key tenet of the American dream slip away due to astronomically high mortgage rates.

 

7) Simone Biles jabs Trump: ‘I love my Black job’

From The Hill: Olympic gymnast Simone Biles took a swipe at former President Trump on X after she won another gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“I love my black job,” Biles said in a post on the social platform X Friday. Biles won the gold medal for women’s all around gymnastic performance on Thursday, following up on her team gold award from earlier in the week.

 

8) Joe Manchin is not seeking reelection after filing deadline passes

From Washington Examiner: Sen. Joe Manchin’s (I-WV) ability to keep reporters and fellow senators guessing on his nearly every move is perhaps second to none.

So when the Democrat-turned-independent declared last year he wouldn’t seek reelection against long odds in the ruby red state, reporters still sought to confirm he hadn’t had a change of heart long after.

West Virginia’s filing deadline for independent candidates seeking political office came and went on Thursday. True to Manchin’s word, the secretary of state’s online candidate list bore no mention of the 76-year-old’s name.

In the days leading up, Manchin quipped that perhaps he may still launch an 11th-hour campaign for some sort of office in the Mountain State.

 

9) Lead found in nearly half of dark chocolate, other cocoa products, study finds

From Fox Business: A multiyear study of dozens of chocolate products shows an alarming percentage containing heavy metals above the state of California’s recommended levels, but most are deemed safe by the federal government’s standards.

Researchers from George Washington University tested 72 cocoa-containing products from 2017 to 2022 and found 43% contained lead at a higher concentration than deemed safe under California’s Prop 65 law, and 35% exceeded the recommended level of cadmium, according to findings released this week in Frontiers in Nutrition magazine.

 

10) Major Weather System Heads For Florida As Forecasters Issue Multiple Warnings

From Daily Caller: The National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a forecast late Thursday regarding a system with the potential to form into a tropical development over the Gulf of Mexico and Florida by Saturday.

The system is currently sitting over Haiti and the Dominican Republic and is expected to move southwest as Friday moves into the weekend, according to NHC data. There’s a chance the system could form into a larger storm throughout Friday as it heads toward the U.S. Either way, Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas are on alert for heavy rains with the potential for flash flooding through the weekend.

A broader radar forecast shared by Zoom Earth showed the system’s potential for moving up the western coast of Florida through August 3 before making its way back to the Atlantic by August 5. In this scenario, the storm would regain strength over the Atlantic near Jacksonville and Charleston as it hovers off the coast between the two cities.

 

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