Another resileint Jobs Report rises again

The temptation is to try and find another way to describe the American economy, besides resilient, but in Fridays Jobs report from the US Labor Dept, the word still applies, as does the redundant unemployment rate as a “near historic low”; all ways to say that things haven't really changed in the last few months, another headache for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and another feather in the reelection cap for President Joe Biden.

187,000 new jobs is the banner headline, and yest, the unemployment figure is 3.5 generating that historic low, the term so beloved by all in the media; but, despite however cringeworthy the term may be, it does apply, and while there was a lessening of jobs, the economy, is still, dare we say it, resilient.

Certainly, the lessening of jobs from June is welcome, in the battle against inflation, but not still enough, and wage growth, good news, air quotes, here, is at 4.4%, still mostly present from June, and also keeping ahead of inflation, allowing most Americans to continue shopping, especially now that supply bottlenecks have eased and that new sofa, might be tempting, as manufacturers with surplus inventory on hand, is hanging a sale sign on their websites, and store windows.

A fly in the ointment might be the lowering of the US creditworthiness, by Fitch, to not triple A plus, but merely good; and, while everyone wonders why, the bruised feelings of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aside, in the scheme of things it might be a clarion call to the political headwinds that seem to be just around the corner.

Be that as it may, there are a few downturns: retail, that hazy term, called business services, and temporary agencies, which cautious employers are avoiding using, as they attempt to hang onto the employees they have, without incurring unneeded expenses.

Those that predict recession, much like the Biblical prophets of doom may prove to be disappointed, since that seems, at best, to be a soft recession if it occurs, at all; and, economists are still debating that as they individually count sheep to fall asleep at night.

Remaining steadfast is the the amount of people in the workforce, and as The New York Times reported on Friday, “Labor force participation remained steady overall, but that masks changes in the critical category of folks between the age of 25 and 54. Among those, 89.4 percent of men are now working or looking for work, exceeding their prepandemic level slightly. Among prime aged women, 77.5 percent are working or looking for work.”

If we want to remain optimistic, then once again, from the Times: ““We are converging towards a more sustainable pace,” said Lydia Boussour, a senior economist at the consulting firm EY-Parthenon, noting that wages and the rate of hiring don’t always move in tandem. “The labor market is rebalancing, but it’s a gradual process, and that explains why we’re still seeing some tightness.”

In that vein, trying to identify who were the winners and who were the losers might prove problematic, with previous highs in leisure and hospitality, now slowing to 17,000, and Tech is still dragging mud,and the aforementioned temporary services hitting rock bottom; but, health came came in at a plus of 63,000, and others merely flat. So, without a star, what does the casting look like?

With the pandemic in the rear view mirror, the fact that the US exceeded 2019 levels of employment gets top billing. And, who directs the publicity? One big guess? 

President Biden: “Unemployment near a record low and the share of working age Americans who have jobs at a 20-year high: that’s Bidenomics,” he said in a statement. “This follows recent news that our economy continues to grow, while inflation has fallen by nearly two thirds and is at its lowest level in more than two years.“

Costarring is construction, who after shedding jobs in residential home building, more than made up for it with nonresidential construction. Once again, an opine from the TImes: “Residential builders cut 5,500 jobs in July. But those declines were more than offset by growth in nonresidential building. That could reflect in part the recent growth in factory building, which is almost certainly tied to government investments in manufacturing.”

For all the Fed watchers, and there are many, the September meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee may show another rate increase, according to some forecasters which say that nothing is off the table, echoing Powell in his earlier comments. On the other side of caution, are others, and Yahoo Finance, gave the following:

"The July jobs report is just one data point before the September FOMC meeting, but we think it offers enough evidence of cooling labor market conditions to weigh in favor of no additional rate hikes," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a client note on Friday. "However, an upside surprise in any of the forthcoming data on the labor market and inflation would put another rate hike back on the table."

June Jobs report still shows a tight labor market

Resilient, durable, and solid are just a few of the adjectives that highlight the June Jobs report released by the US Labor Dept, on Friday, but much like the three previous months, nothing significant has changed, and even with the 209,000 non farm jobs gained, the news of a slight reduction in the unemployment rate from 3.7 to 3.6 might give a glimmer of hope for a reduction in inflation, it is not enough, and it is widely anticipated that at its July meeting the Federal Reserve will give yet another rate increase.

The lessening of the unemployment rate got mixed reviews from some economists and observers but it was mixed at best. For some, the job losses were notable for the reduction in retail and tech services, a trend that we have seen before. But, equally concerning was that wages increased slightly to 4.4 percent but gave only a slight edge ahead of the inflation rate, currently at 4 percent.

Those sleepless nights for Fed Chair Jerome Powell will continue as he predicted that it was going to be a long slog to bring prices down to the 2 percent inflation that is the mandate of the Reserve.

As he noted in June, “there is a path to setting inflation back down to 2 percent without having to see the kind of sharp downturn and large losses in employment.”

Those early predictions of a soft recessionary landing that Powell noted along with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, from 14 months ago, may yet come to pass.

A big surprise was that while factories fell flat, new home sales rose despite high interest rates and for a 30 year fixed rate rising from 6.39 to 6.57, and for new homes, there was a gain of 23,000 jobs in construction alone, further emphasizing the conundrum that is the US economy.

There was some solid footing in the report, those of prime working years, ages 25 t0 54 shot up to its highest level since May of 2002, at 80.9 percent.

The US, like most of Western Europe, is facing the challenges left from the covid pandemic, and the increase in service costs has increased in areas such as airline travel, (on June 30th, TSA screened 2,884,783 passengers) as well as the cost of dining out, but with higher wages exceeding inflation, the increase is a gut punch for the former, and a pinch for the latter; and, especially for an industry that is in recovery from the decimation of the pandemic and lockdowns. But, Americans seem unabated in their quest for travel and restaurant meals.

Another surprise was that those of prime working ages, 25 to 54, increased 75.3 percent in June, the highest in the US since 1948. And, leading the pack were women hit 77.8 percent, with Black women at 60 percent.

While there are still less child care workers, employees, according to an NPR report, have bargaining power, and employers are willing to be flexible between hours worked to accommodate family life and remote working, for those that can.

CNN reports that this was “the third consecutive month that the participation rate for women between the ages of 25 and 54 has set a record high.”

Traditional roles for working women increased, they added, and included healthcare at a fast clip, as well as educational gains, and “greater inroads into traditionally male dominated fields such as construction, agriculture, and repair and maintenance.”

The bad news? Women are still making less than men, “about 82 cents for every dollar a man earned, according to a Pew Research Center report released in March.”

The Paradox of the US Economy

For even the most casual observer of the American economy, paradoxes abound: fears of recession, yet a strong labor market, strong wages and a record low unemployment record, high inflation, yet increased consumer spending, and a lack of affordable housing, coupled with lower gas prices. If it seems like a merry go round, then that may well be the best possible description.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has had the unenviable task of trying to tame inflation and keep the mandate of full employment and to hold inflation at 2 percent, and last week’s appearance before Congress gave him the opportunity to explain to lawmakers where he and the rest of the Board stand in their quest to lower prices.

Despite several rate increases, the Chair has to also consider a strong and durable labor market that seems, resilient at best, and stubborn, at worst 

Powell’s trademark stoicism and data driven approach have not always gone down well with many, and some Americans still think that the Reserve is a private bank adding problems of perception, and reality, to his mandated report.

At the House Financial Services Committee he noted that the US is far from taming the economic challenges and “wrestling down rapid price increases.”

The good news: “Inflation has moderated since the middle of last year”, but the problem is that even with the decrease to 4 percent, “getting inflation back down to 2 percent has a long way to go.”

Conundrums abound with the most prevalent is the lowered cost of gas and food prices, which has increased consumer spending on leisure and dining out, and as a recovery from the Covid pandemic it is welcome, but does nothing, despite higher interest rates to lower spending.

The Consumer Price Index released in the middle of last month showed the following:

“. . .  a rise of 0.1 percent in May on a seasonally adjusted basis, after increasing 0.4 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 4.0 percent before seasonal adjustment.”

The Associated Press noted that, “Yet some positive signs, even in the measures of core prices, suggest that underlying inflation pressures may be receding. The outsize increases in core prices were driven mainly by rising rents and by another spike in used car prices. Real-time data suggests that increases in those categories will soon ease and help cool inflation.”

That however is debatable in some quarters of both the financial community and the academy where many feel that this is a see-saw effect, at best, and not to be relied upon.

Adding to the worries are those of bank solvency, especially after the fall of the Silicon Valley Bank, where there were Depression era fears by some.customers, and local lawmakers. While there were many fathers for that failure, Powell was quite clearly told off by the formidable Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren who said, “At the Fed, you are the one who lobbied, who drafted and who voted for weaker rules, and you were ultimately responsible . . . [for the behavior] of the Fed who fell down on the job.”

He responded by saying that the Fed had “learned some lessons” and added. “I would say we are committed to learning the right lessons from what happened to Silicon Valley Bank. I think there is a clear need to strengthen both bank supervision and regulation of banks of that size.”

To that effect he has appointed Vice Chair Michael Barr as the point person in that efforts and also noted that banks below $100 billion in assets would not “be impacted by any non-capital improvements.

Questioned further by Warren, the Chair added that "more capital means more stable banks and stronger banks, but there’s a trade-off there, you’ve got to make a judgment about where you draw the line.”

That line seems to have been drawn with the increase in interest rates that began last year and after a pause in May have resumed at a current range of 5 percent and 5.25 percent with the expectation that there will be more, and the Chair has said that there will be “at least two interest rate increases are likely necessary this year to being the inflation rate down to the US Central bank’s 2 percent target,” reported Bloomberg.

The Federal Open Markets Committee noted Powell, “that it will be appropriate to raise interest rates twice or more times by the end of the year.”

He added  that the FOMC is not focused on “a particular number of rate hikes” but to try to hit the mandated target of 2 percent.

It’s important to note that there has been a cooling of inflation, from its peak of 9.1 percent a year ago, but the cool down is too slow for many economic observers.

Moving away from the Hill, the challenges for many Americans are many, and that the increases hit the pocketbook for higher borrowing costs, and that the rates that the banks have is “passed onto consumers in the form of higher interest rates on things like auto loans and mortgages,” noted Dan Tolomay, chief investment officer of Trust Company of the South, in remarks to Fortune.

With a tight labor market and record unemployment of 3.7 the challenges are many and with core personal consumption at 4.7 percent in May, and in June, it was increased to 0.1 percent deleting volatile food and energy prices, for goods and for services at 0.3 percent, coupled with the lack of affordable housing in the rental market, and higher mortgage rates for home buying the die is set.

Home loan rates are now at 6.57 percent, and in late May Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey reported that the average for a 30 year fixed home loan rose nationwide from 6.39 percent within one week.

Wages have seen a decrease, and many working families are feeling the pinch, and for those in New York, Boston, and Chicago, the pinch is almost a punch, especially for minimum wage workers.

A new report from Housing Action Illinois reports that a salary of $57, 600 would be needed to rent a 2 bedroom apartment in Chicago, or $27.69 an hour, or working 85 hours a week for those making the minimum wage; and for people of color, most likely to be renters, the effect is especially pronounced.

Bob Palmer, policy director for Housing Action Illinois in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, last month noted the need for a greater public investment in affordable housing and said, “Obviously, it’s not a new problem, but the cost of housing in the private market continues to go up, and it is out of reach for people with the lowest incomes.”

With the defeat of the Biden Administration's plan to offer student debt relief from the conservative US Supreme Court, housing costs are going to be even more challenging, especially for those workers in their mid 20’s, but with an overall total of 43 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans.

It's all in the mix for the May Jobs report

If all things were predictable there would be no need for last Friday’s Jobs Report from the US Department of Labor, but that clearly showed that despite expectations that there would be less jobs, in fact there were more, much more, 339,000 to be exact and that has given the White House joy, but more sleepless nights for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, as he wrestles with inflationary prices and employers that just keep on hiring.

Some salve to his battered nerves may be that unemployment has hit 3.7 percent the highest since October, showing that there is some slowdown in hiring, but is it enough? That might not be since adults at prime working age have barely changed over the last quarter.

Saying that the job market is tight is an understatement, saying that it is hot is closer to the truth, and employers are also being cautious, no major layoffs, and letting attrition reduce their workforce instead.

The Feds have raised interest rates for more than a year to cool the labor market and control prices, but we aren’t there yet; also, despite the Cassandras that have predicted an inevitable recession for the last several months, that seems to be in abeyance, though predictions of any accuracy are hard to state, at least with conviction.

The happy camper amidst all of the hand wringing is President Joe Biden, who in a statement issued from the White House, said: “Today is a good day for the America and American workers.”

It also serves to bolster his chances in the 2024 presidential election, as economic concerns are always at the core of many the average voter, despite a general misbelief that American presidents control the economy, and that the Federal Reserve Bank is a private bank.

There is sustained growth in education and health care, to the tune of 87,000 jobs; business services at 64,000 (though we find the term vague); government, including state and local at 56,000; and still growing is leisure and hospitality at 48,000, as Americans in the post Covid period have increased travel and dining out, leading us to wonder how many Covid era bread machines, pasta makers and espresso makers will gather dust in the nation’s cupboards.

For those that are the money folks, the good news is that accounting and bookkeeping have shot up to 64,000, and the outlier is construction at an increase of 25,000, somewhat of a surprise, because as The New York Times noted, “is sensitive to rising interest rates.”

They also reported that Tom Gimbel, founder and chief executive of LaSalle Network, a staffing and recruiting firm, saying, the “consensus seems to be . . . that the economy could continue to be strong for the next 24 to 30 months.”

That old bugaboo, labor force participation is little changed at 62.6 percent, and those prime earners don’t seem eager to look for work. Part of the reason, of course, is that as some edge closer to retirement age the pull for the daily grind is not as strong as it used to be,

It’s important to note that these reports are taken in the first two weeks of each month, and are subject to revision, and we have seen both March and April figures revised to 93,000.

Bad news for Black workers, still occupying most of the service jobs in the country, have an increased unemployment figure of 5.6 for May, countering the previous month’s decline, which we felt, in the final analysis, might be illusory.,

Overall, as in previous months  this report presents a mixed bag for even the most sanguine observer, and despite the weak points shows a sustained patterns, but to lowball it might be a mistake, and there are those low wage earners who see that  inflation can eat away at their wages, and some are predicting a decrease in wages that would cause some pain.

Wages were 0.3 percent last month, showing a slowdown from April, and this is an area that will be closely watched by Powell and the Federal Reserve.

DeSantis: The man, the myth, the candidate?

After much anticipation and credible hints, Gov. Ron De Santis of Florida announced his candidacy for the 2024 US presidential election last week, and despite some technical difficulties with the announcement on Twitter, hosted by supporter and ally owner Elon Musk, for some it seemed, but to his many supporters it was the herald of a new day,

To those who are opposed to him, often vehemently, it seemed akin to the devil appearing on social media. Somewhere between the unbridled praise and the hatred, there exists a middle ground, and to that there seems to be doubts if he would win the Republican nomination in a party that seems to be locked down by former President Donald Trump; and, who despite legal action for financial misdeeds, and a sexual assault conviction, he has legions of supporters.

This is the question that hangs in the balance: will the former president be able to maintain his lock on the party, or will it push him aside? In the absence of a crystal ball, we have the polls which show him with a resounding lead.

Then again, there are the “never Trumpers'' in a distant third, and unafraid to say they do not want him on the ticket, but as we all know as political pundits, this is a numbers game, and when the numbers are not there, the nomination is absent, or even once accepted, if so, on the ticket can voters keep a candidate there? We saw the fall with Hillary Clinton in 2016, on election night as the numbers fell, and fell downward.

We noted earlier that for many months DeSantis was at the top of the game of political expediency, taking every issue dear to his base to the 10th power. Anti Gay legislation, check; Anti Trans rights, check; anti drag shows, check; no library storytime at the public library gone; book banning, check, and the list grows on till the very public and nasty fight with Disney over its support of gay rights.

Then the standard issue rightist policy, guns allowed with no checks and regulation, and all seemed well, until his collaborating with Texas governor, Gregg Abbot, to ship migrants to the liberal stronghold and vacation of wealthy Democrats and liberals, Martha's Vineyard, but that barely seemed to make a dent, despite all of the moral censures and the dupe perpetuated by rogue agents to lure these vulnerable people to fate.

That seemed to have no effect.

The Hill reported last week of a recent poll from the University of California Berkeley's Institute of Government studies that said, “44 percent of the Golden States likely GOP primary voters said they supported Trump, while 26 percent said they supported De Santis, an 18 point lead for the former president.”

This was contrasted with three months prior when the former president “trailed De Santis by 8 points with 37 percent supporting De Santis.”

Of course, there are other GOP candidates, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who was also the UN Ambassador from the US, under Trump; former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie who seems untainted by Bridgegate; and Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, expected to soon join the bandwagon this week, but with single digit polling, many are wondering what his chance of getting the nomination away from Trump, his former boss seem slim to none.

This may seem crowded to the uninitiated, but is actually quite normal in modern day presidential elections till they drop out, or get dropped, by events like the Iowa caucus, that defeated Clinton, and raised the profile of Barack Obama.

California, as The Hill noted, in recent reportage, has a plethora of “never Trumpers”, but noted that “his presence looks large with Republican voters feeling he is being treated unfairly in the courts and public opinion.”

Identifying who would support DeSantis was partly the task of the latest poll showing that they are largely men without college degrees, aged 50 to 64 years old, but there is some pushback by many who say that DeSantis is not charismatic, if that is a factor in the minds of voters.

Trump, on the other hands, whether admired or derided does have a strong charisma, or a brand, that is wholly his own as he gives a litany of those he ridicules, not just Democrats, not just liberals, but those he claims are not really Republican, ironic since he once was far more liberal on domestic issues, as he developed his real estate empire in New York City.

This has proved so strong that “66 percent discredited the results of the verdict,” in the trial of E. Jean Carroll in her sexuaL abuse case, and thought that it was motivated by political revenge.

Earlier polls even “showed that nearly half (45 percent) of GOP voters believed that Trump is ‘definitely’ the better Republican candidate to beat President Joe Biden next year.”

In an interview with Newsweek Patrick Murray, of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said, "DeSantis lost ground before he even got out of the starting gate.”

April Jobs report exceeds expectations

Last week’s Jobs Report from the US Dept of Labor, for April, hit the surprise button on the expected numbers, economists expected 18,000 nonfarm jobs, but instead got a whopping 253,000, a figure that severely affects the US Federal Reserve’s attempts to tame inflation, and build upon the March Report that showed their previous efforts of lessening inflation that reflected a lessening, no matter how slight, of American employment, and what further measures could be taken to reduce the numbers further.

What the Fed did at their meeting in the first week of May was to increase the interest rate by another quarter point, dashing hopes that they would be able to hold off for a bit. No longer true, these high numbers also mean no recession, despite some soothsayers that say it is coming, almost shadowing the economic grim reaper.

The fear, as we have already seen, is that further cuts can become too much of a job killer and not only cost American jobs, but hurt America’s neediest families, a fear that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachuttes Democratic who has sounded alarms since the first increase.

March also showed that US employers are still trying to reach the brassring for the right type of employees to meet their specific needs, and more and more, or so it seems.

Mark Hamrick, senior economist analyst at Bankrate,said in a note, according to The HIll that, “once again, the job market has turned heads with its resilience.”

A bright spot is that the increase has shown in health care, education, and most notably leisure and travel industries, with an increase in legal immigration, to support the latter, in fact that has often been a stepping stone for recent immigrants to the US.

For Black Americans there is a record low, for March in the drop of unemployment to 4.7 percent, and shows a recovery from May of two years ago, when it was 16.8 percent, but community leaders are cautiously optimistic, concerned that these are mainly low paying service jobs.

With inflation still high, it may take one person working two jobs to support a family, and pay rent, especially with the nation’s lack of affordable housing, which has also hit middle income white families.

Consumer spending, the driver of the American economy, has dipped, but as Fed Chair, Jerome Powell stated to reporters there are still  cautionary fears of a recession, and he said, ”but, I don’t rule that out either. It’s possible that we have a mild recession.”

If that sounds like what he and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called a “soft recession” a year ago, that fear, no matter how it’s labeled, is still around.

For the banner rate of unemployment, we are seeing 3.4 percent, down from 3.5 percent in March, and as The New York Times noted, it “matched the level in January which was the lowest since 1969.”

Employer response may be focused, in part, say some, to reverse the earlier massive layoffs in the early days of the Covid pandemic.

Wage gains increased to 0.5 percent, statistically significant, but also increased to 4.4 percent over the last year.

A revision, fairly standard due to mid month reporting, to the earlier two months, created a net effect of 149,00 jobs combined; creating a three month average to 222,000 jobs, “a slowdown from the 400,00 added in August 2022,” added the Times.

Mach was revised downwards from 236,000 to 165,000, and February from 326,000 to 248.000.

What could create a wreck of the US economy is that the Republicans won’t negotiate on raising the debt ceiling, without cuts, especially to the so called entitlement programs, such a Social Security benefits, and Medicare and Medicaid, which would send millions of people into near poverty, upset the markets, especially Treasury notes, and have a deleterious global effect, and the words of “the full faith and credit of the United States,” would become meaningless.

Abortion is the issue for GOP, or is it?

The recent court ruling against the medication abortion drug mifepristone has created a firestorm of protest among the drug’s manufacturer and women across the nation, as this unprecedented ruling from the judicial bench on a two-decade old approval from the US Federal Drug  Administration seems to be the latest attack after the Dobbs decision that vacated the right to abortion enshrined in the decades old decision of Roe v. Wade.

Moral implications aside, this latest move is still part and parcel of the burgeoning culture wars between the ultra conservative right and the liberal progressive wing in American political life, but supporting abortion in political life goes much deeper for the Republican party, as it attempts to woo and sustain votes, especially in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

The widespread coverage in the media has sparked debates, and legal maneuvers, that give a sustained voice to the issue, yet the depth of concern, supported by supporters of former President Donald Trump, is not the lone voice, as April’s 6-week abortion ban supported by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gives it a further push. 

Or, does it? 

Abortion rights has the support of both President Biden, and the Democratic Party, and they have campaigned on this issue as have other lawmakers across the country, and even some ardent supporters of Trump, having been defeated, want to back away from it, fearing that the GOP might lose another presidential race.

One issue that has the support of many, on both the extreme right and the middle right, are anti-trans bills, whether to ban gender affirming care, for those under 18, or banning transgender boys and girls from playing school athletics with the gender they identify and the issue is red hot and will only increase over time as a winnable issue for both the White House, and statehouse races.

Running almost parallel to the supposed teaching of Critical Race Theory in elementary and high schools, the two are hoped to secure a stronger base of support for the right, and also to try and regain the support of suburban women who left them over abortion access.

Reaching back into the past, especially the tumultuous 1960s, the area of gender rights and human sexuality has run the gamut from the advent of the Pill, and then Women's Lib and Gay Liberation, which seem like a quaint relic of the past, along with miniskirts and bell bottoms.

America’s near obsession with gender, and by extension sexuality, is an issue that can wax, and wane, and even withsame-sex marriage.  A 2022 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, (non-partisan) showed that “68 percent of respondents favored allowing same-sex couples to marry, including 49 percent of Republicans,” according to The New York Times.

The Times also reported that the same-sex ruling by the Supreme Court was a low point for those social conservatives and mourned the loss of fundraising dollars, and they quoted Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, who said, “we knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” and that issue is the burgeoning area of transgender rights , and the rise of young people identifying as trans.

There are now 20 Republican led states that have gone down the path of bathroom access, medically affirming treatments, and the aforementioned athletic participation.

The historic lead was the 2021 success of a veto override by the Republican led Arkansas legislature successfully banning “transition medication or surgery.”

Next up was DeSantis who signed a bill preventing transgender girls from playing K-12 sports,” but recognized a move to shore up his presidential aspirations.

Thursday the US House of Representatives passed a vote banning transgender girls from school sports. The vote passed strictly on partisan lines, and would change the definition of sex to be based “solely on a person’s genetics at birth,” reported The Washington Post, with its target on transgendered women and girls, and a recent poll conducted by the Post and The University of Maryland found a majority of Americans “opposed in high school, college, or professional women’s sports.”

All of this considered, and circling back to abortion, can anyone say that it’s a dead issue for the GOP? Not with uncertainty say most observers of Capitol Hill, and the Supreme Court, and certainly Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, US District Attorney of North Texas, who brought the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs, that argues that there are dangerous side effects to the drug, is an ardent foe of abortion rights.

Also on the agenda is the ant-science stance that the judge’s injunction and statements that there are effects of the drug, despite rigorous study by the FDA, and it’s not hard to see that by extension this could further amplify the anti-vax community who now have a prominent advocate running for the presidency in the person of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and some are even suggesting that he might be a vice- presidential candidate for Trump in 2024.

Dr. Jeremy Levin, chief executive of Ovid Therapeutics told the Times that the Texas lawsuit could not only eat away at the authority of the FDA, it, “much more importantly, it opens it up to a political determination of what a medicine is or isn’t and that is deeply horrific for vaccines, Alzheimer drugs, all the others.”

If successful, what would this lawsuit, on its way to the US Supreme Court, with a stay ending on Friday at midnight, do for a vaccine for the next epidemic?