Trump’s teasing
jobs report tweet raises questions
WASHINGTON — With a tantalizing tweet, President Donald Trump seemed to tease a positive jobs report on Friday, a protocol-defying step that moved markets and raised questions about the appropriateness of the president publicly hinting at information that could make or lose fortunes.
Treasury yields jumped and the value of the dollar increased within seconds of Trump’s 7:21 a.m. tweet that said he was “looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning,” suggesting that traders likely were making investment decisions based on what they extrapolated from Trump’s post. The director of the White House National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, said he briefed Trump on the jobs report on Thursday evening.
One hour and nine minutes after Trump’s tweet Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 223,000 jobs were created in May, beating expectations, and that the unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent. Though Trump’s tweet drew sharp criticism, Kudlow defended it as appropriate.
“Why not? He didn’t give any numbers,” Kudlow told reporters at the White House. “I just want to interject this radical notion: The jobs report was really good, the economy is doing really well.”
The jobs data come out once a month and can lead to massive buying or selling trends on Wall Street, depending on how the information is received. Trump has made the roaring stock market a centerpiece of his administration and re-election campaign, though Wall Street has faced recent uncertainty due to the administration’s saber-rattling over tariffs.
Missouri governor quits in scandal, signs ‘revenge
porn’ law
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Just hours before he left office Friday, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens signed scores of new laws, including a measure that makes it a crime to try to threaten a person using a private sexual image — the same allegation that led to his downfall.
In the flurry of last-minute activity, the scandal-plagued governor approved 77 new laws, granted several pardons and commutations and won at least a temporary reprieve in a court battle over campaign records. He posted a long Facebook message touting his accomplishments — without any mention of why he was quitting — and quietly left Capitol about an hour before his resignation took effect.
A short time later, fellow Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Parson was sworn in as Greitens’ successor and immediately pledged “to bring honor, integrity (and) transparency to the governor’s office.”
“We have an opportunity beginning today to have a fresh start in state government,” Parson said.
The “revenge porn” law signed by Greitens creates a felony that will apply to cases when someone threatens the nonconsensual dissemination of a private sexual image by coercing another person to refrain from an action.
From distillers to farmers, trade war would cause casualties
WASHINGTON — If a trade war is coming, the cheesemakers of Wisconsin are standing in the line of fire. So are the farmers of the Great Plains and the distillers of Kentucky. And the employees of iconic American brands like Harley-Davidson and Levi Strauss.
The likelihood of a trade conflagration leapt closer to reality this week after the United States imposed tariff on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union. Infuriated, the jilted U.S. allies vowed to retaliate with tariffs of their own. And in a separate dispute, China is poised to penalize $50 billion in U.S. goods — many of them produced by supporters of President Donald Trump in the America’s agricultural heartland.
“They’re going to hit the farmers,” said Bryan Klabunde, a farmer in northwestern Minnesota. “We want things fair for all industries, but we’re going to take the brunt of the punishment if other countries retaliate.’”
President Donald Trump, who entered office promising to rip up trade deals and crack down on unfair trading practices, is clashing with trading partners on all sides. To the north, he’s battling Canada; to the south, Mexico; to the east, Europe; across the Pacific Ocean to the west, China and Japan.
“The president seems to be creating trade (and other) disputes with everyone — allies and adversaries alike — and it’s difficult to discern any coherent strategy,” said Rod Hunter, a former National Security Council staffer under President George W. Bush. “The impacts of the disputes have been limited so far, but the economic and political costs will go up as retaliation by trading partners begins in earnest.”
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Saintly educator with a dark side: ‘Rev’ gets up to 26 years
BOSTON — Shaun Harrison was a Boston high school dean and anti-violence advocate known by students as “Rev” for his pastor-like demeanor. But the pious facade hid a dark double life.
He boasted to students of his gang ties, drugs and guns. He recruited one of them, a 17-year-old student from a broken home, to deal marijuana in school, authorities said.
But after a dispute over slumping sales, Harrison shot the teen in the back of the head with a .380 pistol as they walked on a snowy city street in 2015 and left him for dead, prosecutors said.
Except Luis Rodriguez didn’t die. He dragged himself up and flagged down a passing car. In the hospital, Rodriguez uttered the name of his would-be killer: “Rev.”
Harrison, now 58, was sentenced Friday to as many as 26 years in prison for assault and other charges, capping the sad tale of a wannabe saint, who, prosecutors say, was revealed to be a dangerous, predatory fraud.
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MSNBC’s Reid apologizes again for old blog posts
NEW YORK — MSNBC’s Joy Reid is apologizing again for past blog posts, including one that had an image of Sen. John McCain superimposed on the body of a campus killer and another where she urged people to watch a conspiracy film tied to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Reid said Friday there are things for which she is embarrassed and regretful about a blog she began writing in 2005. News organizations have been combing through some of those deleted blog posts to examine her writings.
Buzzfeed uncovered a doctored image of McCain’s head atop the gun-toting body of the Virginia Tech campus shooter, in a post from 2007. In a separate post a year earlier, she urged people to see a film partly funded by Alex Jones of “Infowars” that falsely alleged the U.S. government planned the 2001 attacks.
“I’ve … spoken openly about my evolution on many issues and know that I’m a better person today than I was over a decade ago,” Reid said.
Reid apologized earlier this spring for anti-gay language found in some other old writings, and suggested she’d been a victim of a hacker that inserted offensive language. But after hiring a computer expert, she later acknowledged that she could not prove that a hacker had any hand in what happened.
