Free Republic

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton claimed Tuesday there is “no evidence” to prove raising the minimum wage costs jobs. “I also want to raise the minimum wage, and I support the effort here in Washington state to do that,” Clinton said at a rally in Everett, Washington. “There is no evidence that the minimum wage being increased costs jobs, so I’m supporting what you’re trying to do here, and I want to raise it across the country.” Clinton favors a $12 per hour minimum wage, 20 percent less than the $15 an hour desired by socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).

In a survey conducted of 2,001 registered voters by media and polling company and Fortune partner Morning Consult, 70% of those questioned said that the country has “gotten off on the wrong track.” And when asked about the issue most important to them in the upcoming election, 37% said the economy, well ahead of the next most important issue, security, which was most important for just 17% of voters. So who do Americans think can get the economy back on the right track? Donald Trump, if their expectations for the stock market are any guide. According to the Fortune-Morning Consult...

Donald Trump was the clear favorite in today’s winner-take-all Arizona primary, even before the Brussels terrorist attacks. The immigration issue and the flood of early voters favors him, as does the fact that some of those early voters will have cast ballots for Marco Rubio before he dropped out last Tuesday night. If they had known Rubio would no longer be a candidate, many of those voters might have gone with Cruz. But polls have been tricky and often erratic this year (think Michigan and the surprise win of Bernie Sanders). For example, the latest poll showing a 14 point...

First of all, I want to thank Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for reviewing his position on the issue of H1-B Visas. All too often politicians are either completely inflexible in their positions, or they are swayed by whatever political wind is blowing at the time. The problem with H1-B Visas is not that they have been abused. The biggest problem with the program as it has been implemented is that it amounts to nothing more than indentured servitude. H1-B Visa candidates are sponsored by a company, and their visa is tied directly to employment with that company. This creates a...

H-1B visas are designed to bring foreign professionals with college degrees and specialized skills to fill jobs when qualified Americans cannot be found. But in recent years, global outsourcing companies have dominated the program, winning tens of thousands of visas and squeezing out many American companies, including smaller start-ups. Congress set a limit of 85,000 visas annually, and more than 10,000 companies applied in 2014. But just 20 companies received more than 32,000 visas, according to Ronil Hira, a professor at Howard University who studies visa programs and analyzed federal H-1B data. The top 20 included several large outsourcing firms...

Jo-Ann was a child prodigy who went to college at age 14. She graduated and landed a coveted job at Citigroup. Soon she was flying around the world leading meetings. Then she jumped to a management role at a financial printer. She was middle class, maybe even on her way to the upper middle class ... until the tech bubble burst. And September 11th hit. The U.S. fell into a recession and companies cut back. In 2002, Jo-Ann was forced to train the Indian workers that would replace her. After she was laid off, she struggled to find a good...

The ability of the US manufacturing sector to produce increasing amounts of output with fewer and fewer workers should be recognized as a sign of economic strength and vitality, not economic weakness. Thanks to advances in technology, the factory floor today is one with modern, advanced, state-of-the-art equipment that requires fewer employees, but with greater skills and training than in the past. The trend in US manufacturing over the last 30 years – more and more output with fewer and fewer workers – is exactly like the transformation that revolutionized US farming over the last 100 years or more. With...

The number of people receiving benefits from the Social Security Administration topped 60,000,000 for the first time at the beginning of 2016. ... The total number of beneficiaries includes retired workers and their dependents, survivors of deceased workers, and disabled workers and their dependents. ... In February, there were 151,074,000 people employed in either full or part-time jobs in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics ... There were 123,206,000 people employed full-time in February, according to BLS’s seasonally adjusted numbers. That equals approximately 2.05 full-time workers per each beneficiary of the Social Security Administration. ... The...

Over the past 28 years there has been a sea change in the media. Not only has the monopoly of the so-called mainstream media been shattered but the phenomenal rise of conservative media has been truly stunning. It began in 1988 with the national syndication of Rush Limbaugh and his distinctive brand of conservative political commentary espoused in an entertaining and captivating way, which opened the flood gates for other conservatives, together with Rush, to dominate the talk radio airwaves. In the 1990’s the internet, through hundreds of websites, gave voice to journalists to report stories either ignored or downplayed...

Since Obuma was elected to POTUS, I have been coming to Free Republic to get news, opinions and a few laughs. Most of the serious posts were bemoaning the out of control government and what could be done about it. "Oh Whoa is Me!". Then along comes a constitutional conservative. For the first time since Ronald Reagan, we have a constitutional candidate running for the GOP nomination. This man was elected by conservatives to go to Washington and stand up to the elites that no longer listen to the American people. He didn't go to Washington and "fall in" with...

Donald Trump is brilliant when it comes to getting to the weak spot, and, of course, we’ve seen it throughout this campaign… You had some very might and powerful politicians who have crumbled to nothing trying to go up against Donald Trump… so I might say that tonight he is previewing just a sampling of how he might go after Hillary Clinton in a general election.

WASHINGTON — Surprise: America's discouraged workers are finding jobs — or so it seems. Unanticipated by many economists, this is good news for the country (and, assuming it continues, probably for Democrats this fall). Ever since the Great Recession, economists have worried that the severity and length of the slump would forever consign many workers to the sidelines. Their prolonged disconnect from jobs would corrode their morale, contacts and job skills. For years, the numbers seemed to confirm these fears. The labor-force participation rate — the share of Americans 16 and over with a job or looking for one —...

and "Rent boy Marco Rubio."

WILDWOOD - A city man was charged this week with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Juan Nieves-Barrios, 26, a restaurant dishwasher was charged with aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. Police said Nieves-Barrios is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. Nieves-Barrio was lodged Tuesday at the Cape May County jail on $175,000 bail set by state Superior Court Judge John C. Porto.

The Northern Marianas are a collection of 15 islands in the Pacific Ocean, located at about the focal point of the Pacific Rim. It's a United States territory, 179 square miles of land -- an area smaller than New York City -- that happens to jut out above the surface of the water. And on Tuesday morning, before you even woke up, it made Donald Trump the first man to qualify for the Republican presidential nomination.

As the Republicans brace for an all-important Ohio primary, the candidates are already making their last-minute pitches with the hope of swaying the voters to their respective sides. -snip- While Trump is a hardliner when it comes to saying no to illegal immigrants, even proposing for the U.S.-Mexico bordering wall, Kasich has taken a whole lot of a softer stance on the matter. Speaking in front of a crowd in Ohio, Kasich rationalized his position on immigration by drawing a line between illegal immigrants who have criminal records and illegal immigrants in general. He said that while those who violate...

Although I have to admit that the incredible obtuseness that seems to invade normally sensible people is beyond me. Nick Cater has an article in The Oz today on Donald Trump’s primary appeal is that he’s not a politician. This is his point: The inconvenient truth for the political class is that in so far as Trump exploits hate, the principal object is not Hispanics, Muslims or homosexuals but them. The anger welling up from below is anger directed at urban sophisticates like themselves. Americans regularly elect presidents who are not part of the political class. Eisenhower was the last,...

John Kasich touts Ohio’s comeback story on the campaign trail, saying he brought this Rust Belt state back from the economic brink, creating jobs, slashing tax rates and cutting government spending. The problem is that vision is unrecognizable to many Ohioans, especially those struggling to make it in the state’s gritty urban centers, such as Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo — all ranked among the nation’s most economically distressed big cities. Cleveland, host of this summer’s Republican convention, is the No. 1 most economically distressed large city in America, with 53 percent of adults not working, according to an analysis by...

The economic boom that Florida is experiencing now from population gains could lead to labor shortages and a drain on state resources in the future, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Sarasota could be among the communities hardest hit by the graying of America, the report said. That’s because the city is an affluent community, and it may be hard for the caregivers who serve the elderly and tend to be lower paid to afford to live there, the report said.

Gov. John Kasich defended Monday his support of an immigration overhaul that includes the legalization of nonviolent illegal immigrants, telling supporters on the eve of the Ohio primary that it is unrealistic to think that the federal government is going to boot illegal immigrants out of the country. The issue of illegal immigration has been a dividing line in the GOP presidential campaign, including here in Ohio, where businessman Donald Trump has vowed to finish the fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and make the Mexican government pay for it, and promised to make people living in the country illegally to...