Free Republic

The U.S. economy slowed in the first quarter to one of the weakest paces of the five-year recovery as the frigid winter appeared to have curtailed business investment and weakness overseas hurt exports. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, advanced at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.1% in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had forecast growth at a 1.1% pace for the quarter. The broad slowdown to start the year halted what had been improving economic momentum during much of 2013....

Earlier this month there was tremendous press attention to new data indicating that enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s health insurance exchanges had surpassed 7 million. The White House took a victory lap while much of the press, desperate to write something positive after months of reporting on website glitches and insurance plan cancellations, characterized the milestone as good political news for ACA supporters. Our national discussion, however, is missing the truly significant story here; what is unfolding before our eyes is a colossal fiscal disaster, poised to haunt legislators and taxpayers for decades to come. It is quite...

Three key conclusions emerge from this analysis: First, the enormous flow of legal immigrants in to the country — 29.5 million 1980 to 2012 — has remade and continues to remake the nation's electorate in favor of the Democratic Party.Second, the partisan impact of immigration is relatively uniform throughout the country— from California to Texas to Florida — even though local Republican parties have taken different positions on illegal immigration. The decline does not seem to vary with the local Republican Party's position on illegal immigration. Third, if legal immigration levels remain at the current levels of over one million...

Marking the latest HealthCare.gov setback, the Obama administration today will announce a yearlong delay of online enrollment for small businesses looking to purchase health coverage through federal-run exchanges, according to an HHS notice obtained by POLITICO. Small businesses have been able to apply through paper applications since Oct. 1, and HHS will announce alternative sign-up methods, like enrolling through an agent or broker or directly through an insurer. “We’ve concluded that we can best serve small employers by continuing this offline process while we concentrate on both creating a smoothly functioning online experience in the SHOP Marketplace, and adding key...

Like the cavalry riding to the rescue, the Corker-Hoeven 1192 page amendment is purportedly the "magic bullet" to salvage the Rubio-Schumer amnesty bill (S 744). The unstated objective is to make border security the focal point of the bill and the sole criterion on which to judge its viability. The premise is that if you can fix the border security problem then the rest of the bill can go sailing through with 70 or more votes from the Senate. It is a cynical, dishonest, orchestrated distraction by both parties to divert attention from what they really want to achieve with...

Entitlement spending and immigration are two issues that threaten America’s financial future. The two controversies meet in the case of the newly arrived elderly, many of whom have discovered they can cash in on an overly generous welfare system. The scam is simple. Senior immigrants typically live with their foreign-born adult children who already have gained their U.S. citizenship. After five years of green-card status, the parents can apply for citizenship. From 2000 through 2011, about a million persons aged 60 or over were granted citizenship, accounting for about 13 percent of total naturalizations. Often, the immigrant children are highly...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Americans support Social Security and are willing to pay more to preserve and even improve benefits, according to a new survey released today by the nonpartisan National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI). The new study, Strengthening Social Security: What Do Americans Want?, finds a sharp contrast between what Americans say they want and changes being discussed in Washington, such as cutting benefits by using a “chained” Consumer Price Index to determine Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). Large majorities of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, agree on ways to strengthen Social Security — without cutting benefits. Fully 74%...

Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions. The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution. President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor and ordered the re-trial of people accused of attacking protesters when ex-President Mubarak held office. Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei accused Mr Mursi of acting like a "new pharaoh". Mr ElBaradei said the new declaration effectively placed the president above the law. "Morsi today usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh. A major blow to the...

In October, 70 members of the French youth group Génération Identitaire occupied the Poiters mosque to protest against the influence of Islam in France. The youths climbed to the roof and unfurled a banner with the name of their movement. Now the movement is back with a powerful video—

Insults to the Islamic prophet Muhammad are part of an organized assault on Muslim religious and cultural values and cannot be brushed aside, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said Wednesday, rejecting the case for free speech made by President Obama just a day earlier. “The obscenities that I have referred to that were recently released as part of an organized campaign against Islamic sanctities are unacceptable,” Morsi said, referring to a crude Internet video that mocks Islam. We reject this. We cannot accept it,” Morsi said, his voice thin with anger. “We will not allow anyone to do this by word...

The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are racing is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society? On this side of the Atlantic, the model of a national welfare system with comprehensive entitlements, which is paid for by the wealth created through capitalist endeavour, has been accepted...as the essence of post-war political enlightenment. Cut But the US has a very different historical experience from European countries, with their accretions of national remorse and class guilt: it has a far stronger...

Nonfarm payroll employment changed little (-54,000) in August, and the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Government employment fell, as 114,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment continued to trend up modestly (+67,000). Household Survey Data The number of unemployed persons (14.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.6 percent) were little changed in August. From May through August, the jobless rate remained in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 percent. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult...

WASHINGTON -- Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel said yesterday that investigators have unearthed new allegations of misconduct against him, while House Democratic leaders increased the pressure on him to reach a settlement before a congressional trial starts Thursday. "We waited almost two years, and they finally investigated, and guess what -- they have some more alleged violations," Rangel said. The embattled pol did not reveal whether the latest accusations were previously unknown to the public or were related to the original charges that prompted the probe by the House Ethics Committee. The alleged misdeeds include Rangel using House stationery to solicit...

What if instead of granting amnesty in one fell swoop, we did so incrementally, say, to 20 percent of illegals a year for the next five years? That would still have the same ill effects, you say? OK, how about one million illegals a year until the job is done? I can hear it now: "Whoa, Duke, all you're proposing is to trade a knife through the heart for a death by a thousand cuts. A bad idea implemented more slowly is still a bad idea. And illegal means illegal." But wait -- if Congress passed an amnesty plan, it...

The Shanghai composite index has closed at a 15-month low after data pointed to slowing growth and rising inflation. The index dropped 19 points or 0.8% to 2,364 at the end of trading, its lowest close since April last year. Shanghai was one of the first markets to recover after the global financial crisis, but peaked in August last year. It has since fallen 32%.

Kent Weels, BP, briefing. Outstanding graphics.

Nearly 200 nations, signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), have agreed to work towards a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The members, meeting at the UN in New York, called for a conference in 2012 attended by Middle Eastern states - including Iran - to establish the zone. The unanimously agreed document also said that Israel should sign the NPT. US President Barack Obama backed the deal but said he was "strongly opposed" to Israel being singled out. The US says the reference could jeopardise efforts to persuade the Israelis to attend the 2012 talks. An Israel official...

This Sunday Fox news, is going to air a very important documentary about Barack Obama, Sunday night at 8:00 PM central / 9 PM Eastern.The report will go back to Obama's earlier days, showing even then his close ties to radical Marxist professors, friends, spiritual advisers, etc. It will also detail his ties to Rev. Wright for 20+ yrs. How he was participating with this man, and not for the reasons he states! The report has uncovered more of Obama's radical past, and we will see things that no one in the media is willing to put out there. It...

One French hostage has died and four others have been freed in a rescue operation by French troops on a yacht off Somalia, French officials say. Two pirates were killed in the operation and three were captured, the French presidency said. Officials said the rescue was launched when talks with the pirates broke down and threats became "more specific". Two French couples had been seized with a child, who was among those freed from the yacht, Tanit, seized last week. News of the operation came after a US captain made an unsuccessful overnight bid to escape from another seized vessel...

Any football match in France before which the country's national anthem is booed will now be "immediately stopped", French Sports Minister Roslyne Bachelot said Wednesday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy. The dramatic move followed the booing of "La Marseillaise" during France's 3-1 friendly win over Tunisia at the Stade de France in Paris on Tuesday. "Any match when our national anthem is whistled will be stopped immediately," Bachelot said after talks with Sarkozy and French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes. "Government members will immediately leave the arena where our national anthem has been whistled. "When whistling of our antional...