Free Republic

The great and terrible Chick-fil-A has come to Babylon. I’m pretty sure that’s a quote from Ghostbusters, right before the “dogs and cats living together” bit. Yes, the mighty and controversial, but undisputed King of chicken has come at last to New York City, and despite any past enmity, the city is thrilled and the residents are lined up for blocks to get the precious. Being from the south, Chick-fil-A has long been a passion of mine. If you’re wondering, I order the classic as is. I put a little mayo and mustard on it. I escape to euphoria. And...

Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson caused “embarrassment” to a company he consulted for by lobbying then-Sec. of State Hillary Clinton in an email he sent through her longtime friend and ally, Sidney Blumenthal, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller. The company, Symbion Power, made the claim in response to a lawsuit filed in New Mexico last week by Wilson, who served as ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe during the Bill Clinton administration. Wilson claims that Symbion and its co-founders, Paul Hinks and Lord Richard Westbury, engaged in fraud, breach of contract and civil conspiracy...

Madison— The collapse of Gov. Scott Walker's presidential campaign could actually propel conservative legislation in Wisconsin over the next several months. From ending all public money to Planned Parenthood to allowing state retailers to sell goods at cost or at a loss, lawmakers are considering proposals that conservatives have sought to pass in Wisconsin for years. Bills before the Legislature this fall could put new limits on biomedical research and remake the state's ethics and elections agency. The controversial bills could match scientists against activists opposed to abortion and big Wisconsin retailers like Kwik Trip of La Crosse against far...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has disclosed that his record property tax hike plan entails significant cuts for nearly 300,000 homeowners, leaving Chicago businesses predicting they will face hikes of up to 50 percent. The second-term mayor last week proposed a $544 million property tax increase, the city's biggest ever, to help fix one of the worst-funded city pension systems in America ... Emanuel's office, which has said one in four dollars of the tax hike would come from the city's central business district, did not contest the 50-percent figure. But a mayoral aide insisted Emanuel's plan is his best effort...

Staples, the largest office products company in the United States, will close all of its stores on Thanksgiving Day this year. Instead, the retailer will offer its customers online-only deals on the holiday and then reopens stores at 6 a.m. on Black Friday, the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. The company said in a statement Thursday that customers and employers should enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday at home with friends and family. “We want our customers and associates to enjoy Thanksgiving their own way,” Demos Parneros, president of North American Stores & Online at Staples, said in a company...

President Barack Obama says he won’t give Republicans controlling Congress concessions on must-pass legislation to increase the government’s borrowing cap. Lifting the so-called debt limit is required to forestall a market-quaking, first-ever default on U.S. obligations like interest payments and government pension benefits. …

The manufacturing sector continued to cool in September, registering the slowest growth in more than two years as economic weakness around the globe and a stronger dollar hit exports. But the lack of momentum, outside the auto sector, hasn't kept the rest of the economy from chugging along. Autos zipped out of showrooms last month at the fastest rate since July 2005. The Institute for Supply Management's U.S. factory gauge slid 0.9 point last month to 50.2 — just above the 50 neutral level. Exports were the weakest link in a sluggish report, contracting at a rate that matches the...

New diesel cars from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo and other manufacturers have been found to emit substantially higher levels of pollution when tested in more realistic driving conditions, according to new data seen by the Guardian. Research compiled by Adac, Europe’s largest motoring organisation, shows that some of the diesel cars it examined released over 10 times more NOx than revealed by existing EU tests, using an alternative standard due to be introduced later this decade. Adac put the diesel cars through the EU’s existing lab-based regulatory test (NEDC) and then compared the results with a second, UN-developed...

The Fox News report that the Teamsters have decided not to endorse Hillary Clinton’s candidacy at this time, shortly after her pronouncement of her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, does not surprise and shows the peril of trying to be all things to all constituencies. On the one hand, there is a need to placate environmentalists and climate change true believers who oppose the pipeline from Canada. Among them is billionaire Tom Steyer, an eco-zealot who has pledged his fortune in support of Democratic candidates who want to repeal the Industrial Revolution who want us to rely on solar...

For a third month in a row, native-born Americans saw their job numbers tumble while immigrants experience solid gains. According to the montly Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers just released, "foreign-born" jobs numbers increased by 14,000, while those for "native-born" Americans fell off a cliff, by 262,000. Over the past three months, the job numbers for native-born have dropped by nearly 1 million, exactly the number of jobs President Obama promised to add when he ran for re-election in 2012. During that period, jobs for immigrants grew 218,000.

The Senate's No. 2 Republican wants to extend the national borrowing limit through the 2016 elections, hoping to take full advantage of a political opening with House Speaker John Boehner's sudden decision to retire. With the Treasury Department warning on Thursday that the debt ceiling will be reached by Nov. 5, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn is eager to see the White House and congressional leaders cut a major deal on a fiscal package that includes a long-term increase of the national borrowing limit. "I personally would like to see Speaker Boehner help clear the deck for the people who...

“It is best for the country for King Salman to step down as well. We cannot take sick people in top leadership,” the grandson of Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, the state’s founder, told Britain's The Times daily. He also said that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman would "have to be punished and thrown out.”

There are 3,553,000 more foreign-born workers employed today than when President Obama took office in January 2009, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).There are currently close to 25 million foreign-born workers employed in the United States, and this number increased by 14,000 in September. In January 2009, when the president took office, there were only 21,928,000 foreign-born workers employed.The BLS does not distinguish between legal immigrants who are permitted to work here and illegal aliens in this data set.While the number of employed foreign-born workers is increasing, the number of native-born workers has declined. For the...

Congress allowed a fee intended to discourage outsourcing by companies that rely on H-1B visas to replace U.S. workers to expire Wednesday night. “Congress watched employers discriminate against Americans in hiring and firing, and then ship American jobs overseas. Congress promised to do something about these pernicious practices -- and it did. It made them cheaper,” IEEE-USA President Jim Jefferies said. The $2,000 outsourcing fee (along with a $2,150 fee on L-1 visas) applies only to firms with more than 50 percent of their workforce on H-1B or L-1 visas, a small percentage of tech employers, including the top outsourcing...

Andy KierszOctober 2, 2015 The September jobs report was broadly disappointing, with very few points of optimism. Along with non-farm payrolls and wage growth missing expectations, the civilian labor force participation rate — the percentage of the US population that is either working or looking for a job — fell by 0.2 percentage points to 62.4%. This is the lowest reading since October 1977.(snip)

And so the "most important payrolls number" at least until the October FOMC meeting when the Fed will once again do nothing because suddenly the US is staring recession in the face, is in the history books, and as previewed earlier today, at 142K it was a total disaster, 60K below the consensus and below the lowest estimate. Just as bad, the August print was also revised far lower from 173K to 136K. And while it is less followed, the household survey was an unmitigated disaster, with 236,000 jobs lost in September.Putting it into perspective, in 2015 job growth...

While the September jobs number was an absolute disaster, here is the real punchline: in September, the people not in the labor force soared by a whopping 579,000 to a record 94.6 million, up from the previous record 94.0, even as number of people employed - according to the household survey used to calculate the "5.1%" unemployment rate - tumbled by 236,000 to 148.8 million. And as a result of this latest surge in people who aren't working, nor want to work, the participation rate crashed yet again, and sliding from 62.6% to 62.4%, it was the lowest since October...

<p>The U.S. economy added only 142,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.1 percent.</p> <p>Analysts had forecast growth of a much more robust 206,000 jobs and an unchanged unemployment rate.</p> <p>Wages were flat in In September, with average hourly earnings at $25.09, following a 9-cent gain in August. Hourly earnings have risen by 2.2 percent over the year. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees were unchanged at $21.08 in September, the department said.</p>

LONDON (Reuters) - Gains for European and Asia stocks capped a wild week for financial markets on Friday, ahead of a key U.S. jobs report that could determine the chances of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates before year-end. Concerns about U.S. monetary policy and slowdown in emerging markets led by China have hit commodities markets and related stocks like Glencore and sent credit spreads wider this week in the wake of a summertime surge in volatility. An escalation of fighting in Syria, with Russian air strikes marking its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, has so far failed to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin's relentless ambition has raised his nation to prominence. Russia has become an international player in the geopolitical game of chess. There's a problem for him, however. Putin has attempted to impose Russian interests first in the Ukraine and now in the Middle East. As a result, he is gradually pushing Russia closer and closer to default, just as the arms race with the U.S. during the Reagan years helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia Can't Compete With the U.S. If you take in all the angles, Russia is playing a game it...