US Economy Smashes Expectations Adding 312,000 Jobs in December

The U.S. economy beat expectations in December, adding 312,000 jobs, according to the official figures released by the Department of Labor on Jan. 4.

Wall Street analysts expected the United States to gain 180,000 jobs in December. The official numbers beat the Wall Street estimate by 43 percent. The jobs gain is the biggest in 10 months and can help allay a recent upsurge in fears about the economy’s health that has roiled financial markets.

The unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percent from 3.7 percent in November. In December last year, the unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent. The average hourly wage rose 3.2 percent from the same time last year.

Most of the jobs gains were in health care, food service, construction, manufacturing, and retail, the Labor Department said. The health care industry added 50,000 jobs, the most of any industry. Food service and construction sectors followed with 41,000 and 38,000 jobs respectively.

The upbeat employment report from the Labor Department on Friday stood in stark contrast with reports this week showing Chinese factory activity contracting for the first time in 19 months in December and weak manufacturing across much of Europe and Asia.

Data for October and November was revised to show 58,000 more jobs added than previously reported. The economy created 2.6 million jobs last year compared to 2.2 million in 2017.

The December employment surge pushed the total U.S. employment past 150 million jobs for the first time in history.

“This is the 12th jobs report following the historic rewrite of our nation’s tax code, and the trend remains the same: strong growth for America,” Rep. Kevin Brady said in a statement. “This is what Republicans aimed for with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—this full year of major job and wage gains is worth celebrating.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-economy-smashes-expectations-adding-312000-jobs-in-december_2756888.html

America #1 in Child Sex Trafficking and Pedophilia – CPS and Foster Care are the Pipelines

Many Americans hold to a national pride that believes the United States is, or at least was, the greatest country in the world.

Few would argue that America is “not what it used to be” when considering the “greatness” of America today.

Current American President Donald Trump was swept into power because he ran on a campaign slogan to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), suggesting that what was once considered “great” in America no longer is.

This pride that America is greater than most other countries of the world, that it is the land of opportunity and hope, was perhaps best articulated by the American poet Emma Lazarus who penned the following words that today are etched into a plaque attached to the Statute of Liberty standing in the harbor of New York City, which was once considered the gateway to America:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Today, depending on how one measures “greatness,” America could still be considered greater than other countries in certain aspects, such as having the world’s largest economy, or the world’s most powerful military force.

But there is one area where America exceeds all other nations’ of the world that hopefully most Americans would not be proud to admit: America is the #1 destination for pedophilia and child sex trafficking, and this huge market exists mainly because it is funded by taxpayers through the U.S. government Child Protection Services and foster care system.

The Problem of Child Sex Trafficking in the U.S. Is Real and Documented

In 2016, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) published a six-month investigation looking at 125,000 unaccompanied minors who had crossed the U.S. borders into the United States since 2011, reportedly fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

This U.S. Senate report concluded that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), had failed to protect these children from human trafficking, leaving them vulnerable to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers.

U.S. law requires HHS to ensure that unaccompanied alien children (UAC) are protected from human trafficking and other forms of abuse, but Sen. Portman’s report made it clear that this was not happening, and that the U.S. had become a popular destination for child sex trafficking, increasing dramatically since 2014 under the Obama administration:

Since 2014, the United States has experienced a large increase of unaccompanied alien children from Central America at the southern border. The number of UACs apprehended increased from approximately 8,000 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 to almost 69,000 in FY2014 and 39,970 in FY2015.

The causes of the surge of UACs are disputed, but all stakeholders, including HHS, agree that one reason UACs come to this country is that they are ‘brought into the United States by human trafficking rings.’

According to the State Department’s 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report, ‘[t]he United States is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, transgender individuals, and children—both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals—subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor.’ (Source.)

http://medicalkidnap.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/02/Portman-Child-Trafficking-Report.pdf

https://medicalkidnap.com/2018/08/05/america-1-in-child-sex-trafficking-and-pedophilia-cps-and-foster-care-are-the-pipelines/

Part 1

>>4597522

The man, Miguel Briseno, had, at various times, taken care of up to 12 girls at one time, and a total of 180 girls had passed through his care according to a report by San Antonio Express-News.

Sheriff Brown told the San Antonio Express:

“It’s not a question about whether there are more, it’s just about how many.”

“Those girls were taken from some environment and then you have some jackass like him abusing these girls that already have troubles,” Brown said.

“I’m aggravated at the whole system. I’m aggravated at the company that placed these girls. It was a money-making deal, the way they were running those girls through there like livestock. It wasn’t about making a better world for them. They were making a profit off them.”

Texas, like many states, has an ongoing federal lawsuit against them for allowing foster children to be abused and sexually trafficked.

U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack ruled against the State of Texas in December of 2015, stating that the foster care system named in the lawsuit was unconstitutional, and in her 255 page ruling, Judge Jack stated:

Texas’s PMC (Permanent Managing Conservatorship) children have been shuttled throughout a system where rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm. (Source.)

The Texas Tribune ran a series of articles in 2017, highlighting the problems of child sex trafficking in Texas:

Eighty-six percent of runaway children in the United States suspected of being forced into sex work came from the child welfare system, according to a 2016 analysis of cases reported to the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children.

Of the 79,000 child sex trafficking victims estimated to be in the state, the vast majority were in foster care or had previous contact with Child Protective Services, according to a recent University of Texas study.

Part 2

'Appalling': Russian Embassy Says UK Ducking Responsibility For Syrian Crisis

The Russian embassy in London on Friday hit back at UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for calling Moscow a threat to the rules-based international order.

"We do not accept the concept of a ‘rules-based international order.’ The international order must be based on international laws – legal norms agreed by all states," a spokesperson for the embassy said in a statement.

The spokesperson said London was trying to replace the idea of international laws by a set of vague rules to cover up its legal shortcomings and evade responsibility for breaking laws, while accusing others of violations.

The Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom also said Friday that it had been taken aback by London’s attempt to avoid responsibility for the Syrian crisis, shifting it onto Russia despite history of the Western coalition supporting militants in the Middle Eastern country.

"The cynicism with which Hunt shifts the responsibility for further developments in Syria onto Russia is appalling. Let's not forget that it is the United Kingdom alongside its allies, who bear a huge share of the blame for the many years the Syrian people suffering. Western countries encouraged the adversaries of Assad to an armed confrontation with the government, fueled their hopes for military assistance, consistently torpedoed Damascus peace initiatives, supported accomplices of terrorists and provocateurs like the White Helmets. In April 2018, they committed a direct act of aggression against Syria under the artificial pretext of a ‘chemical attack’, and now they are striving to waive all responsibility," embassy's spokesperson said in a statement.

It is the Syrian people who should decide the future of the country and not Moscow or London, the embassy noted.

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Thursday that Syrian President Bashar Assad appeared set to remain in power for a while due to Russia’s support. He said Russia, as a dominant power in Syria, was now also responsible for maintaining peace in the war-torn country, including making sure that chemical weapons are not used against people there.

Western states and Syrian opposition accused Damascus in April of being responsible for an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, which led to a series of missile strikes by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France on Syria. Damascus refuted the allegations saying that the attack was plotted by militants to discredit the government troops.

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201901041071227761-russian-embassy-uk-syria-crisis-responsibility/

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says he won't resign — even if President Trump asks him to

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday he has no plans to resign, despite President Donald Trump's harsh criticism about his job performance, according to Reuters. The president has accused Powell of hurting the economy by raising interest rates.

Powell told Reuters that he has not received any direct communication from the White House about his job performance, nor has Trump requested a meeting. Powell also told the outlet that, even if he's asked, he will not resign. Trump picked Powell to head the Fed in February.

How did he counter the criticism?

Economic momentum in the U.S. remains solid, Powell said just hours after a monthly U.S. jobs report suggested the economy remains strong. His comments led to an initial boost in stock indices, Reuters reported.

"Particularly with the muted inflation readings that we've seen coming in, we will be patient as we watch to see how the economy evolves," Powell told the American Economic Association. He also said the Fed is "not on a preset path of tightening policy and suggesting it could pause rate hikes as it did in 2016."

He added that, if needed, "we are always prepared to shift the stance of policy and to shift it significantly." Powell made the comments while speaking on a panel in Atlanta that included former Fed chiefs Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke.

Although the U.S. economy appears strong, the central bank "is sensitive to the risks highlighted by investors and will be patient with its monetary policy in 2019," Powell reportedly said.

"I'll just say that we are listening carefully to that…listening sensitively to the message that markets are sending and we are going to be taking those downside risks into account as we make policy going forward," he said.

Anything else?

Powell called the December jobs report "very strong" and said U.S. data seems "to be on track to sustain good momentum into the new year."

Earlier on Friday, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by 312,000 jobs. That was well above market expectations. Wages and labor force participation also increased. Both are considered indicators of sustained economic strength.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/federal-reserve-chairman-jerome-powell-wont-resign

https://www.rt.com/usa/448058-dark-overlord-leaks-11-september/

>>4597937

I think they are trying to taint evidence as a way to avoid prosecution of big players