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Standard & Poor's ratings agency has downgraded France's credit rating, French television channels reported on Friday, citing a government source. EU building flags brussels EyesWideOpen | Getty Images The channels did not provide further details. S&P warned in December that it could downgrade the credit ratings of several euro zone nations if European leaders failed to find a lasting solution to the debt crisis at a meeting of EU leaders that month. Several euro zone countries including France face an “imminent” downgrade by ratings agency S&P, Reuters and Dow Jones news agencies reported, sending the euro to a session low...

Obama recently signed a mysterious new law that proclaims all American soil is a "battleground," thereby allowing the president to indefinitely detain any American citizen without charges. Critics fear Obama will use his fun new unconstitutional powers to make his political enemies disappear, but that may not be necessary. The way things are going, most patriotic Americans will soon be six feet under, felled by apoplectic strokes brought on by reading the latest outrage committed by our "Commander in Chief." He may not have a limit to what he'll inflict; but our collective blood pressure may have a limit to...

Growing numbers of New Yorkers seeking food stamps have created an unwelcome spillover effect at some of New York City's job centers: overcrowding that in some cases has grown so severe, benefits were jeopardized. The crush of people grew so large at one Brooklyn center in November that the Fire Department intervened and prevented anyone from entering the building.

In another triumph for government transparency, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson signed the final MACT Rule last Friday, but she’s been keeping it secret until a formal announcement planned for today. MACT stands for Maximum Achievable Control Technology. It covers emission rules for various industries, controlling the technologies the EPA finds achievable in the same sense that a choke chain controls a dog. The new MACT rules are going to come down hard on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, despite serious questions raised by critics about the EPA’s methodology for calculating costs and benefits from the rule. Many of the...

EVERYONE knows that something is wrong. What they do not realize is that this has ALWAYS been a global game. What are the implications of a global economy? As bizarre as this may sound, everything in economic theory that supports government manipulation and intervention into the domestic economy rests upon theories that the economy is exclusively domestic and takes NOTHING into consideration affecting local events from an external source. Why is this important to understand? The Sovereign Debt Crisis began in Austria in 1931. Once one country goes, capital looks around and then attacks the next country perceived to be...

As Allahpundit wrote of last night's Senate vote to block the president's jobs bill, the outcome was just about as perfect as it could have been for the president, whose jobs package, loaded as it was with tax hikes Republicans were bound to reject out of hand, wasn't designed to pass in the first place. The vote last night provides the basis for Democrats to blame Republican obstructionism for the next 13 months of a slow-to-no recovery, and blame ‘em they will. But they won’t just blame “Generic Republicans.” As the Senate now lays its plans to vote piece by...

From Powerline.com comes a video that is beginning to go viral and to devastating effect for the Obama Administration. The President's words as a candidate, criticizing the Bush Administration, presented side-by-side with the statistics showing how much worse things have gotten under President Obama is an argument that is nearly impossible for any fair-minded person to rebut. http://www.breitbart.tv/devastating-video-obama-by-the-numbers/

Just out from Challenger, the latest survey of job cuts: Employers announced plans to shed 115,730 workers from their payrolls in September, making it the worst job-cut month in over two years. Heavy reductions planned by the military accounted for a large portion of September job cuts, signaling what may lie ahead as the federal government seeks across-the-board cuts in spending. September job cuts were 126 percent higher than the 51,114 announced in August, according to the latest report on monthly job cuts released Wednesday by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. They were 212 percent higher than...

No text, just a video at the website playing clips of Obama's speeches while comparing economic numbers when he made the speech, and currently.

THE MARKET IS GETTING WORSE: NASDAQ Off 3%, Dow off 240, Banks Getting Killed Joe Weisenthal Oct. 3, 2011, 2:48 PM UPDATE AT 2:50: With a little more than an hour to go, markets are getting killed even more. The Dow is off about 240. The NASDAQ is down 3^, and the S&P 500 is down 2.6%. All day has been a continuation and acceleration of the concerns that really got rolling in September, especially on the bank front. Morgan Stanley is down nearly 7%. At rival Goldman Sachs, CDS have hit their highest level since October 2008. Bank of...

The data process used to arrive at the administration’s determination that greenhouse gases endanger “the public health and welfare” violated the Environmental Protection Agency’s own peer review procedure, a new report from the EPA Office of the Inspector General reveals.Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, requested this report in April, asking that the OIG determine whether the EPA “followed key federal and Agency regulations and policies in developing and reviewing the technical data used to make and support its greenhouse gases endangerment finding.” Now, Inhofe is calling for a series of...

Fla. Rep. Allen West was asked if President Obama is just inept or if he is intentionally harming the economy. West says he’s definitely doing this on purpose. (Video at the Fox News link.)

Orders for long-lasting goods unexpectedly fell during August, the second drop in three months as manufacturers struggle with a bad economy. Durable-goods orders decreased by 0.1% from the prior month to $201.76 billion, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.2% rise in orders during August for durables, which are goods designed to last at least three years. The drop followed a 4.1% surge in July and a 1.1% decline during June. In an encouraging sign within an otherwise uninspiring report, a barometer used to gauge spending by businesses on equipment rose. Orders...

“Get out of the way.” With this statement, John Galt articulated the simple and necessary policy solution to the disastrous centrally-planned economy in Atlas Shrugged. It’s also sage advice that President Obama should consider before he unveils his latest jobs plan before the Joint Session of Congress tonight. This advice is strikingly prescient as our nation’s economy moves ever-closer to mirroring the calamitous state of affairs that befell society in Rand’s novel. During his two and half years in office, Obama has crushed the labor market with a pro-statist agenda, which includes ObamaCare, the stimulus package, coziness to Big Labor,...

If history is a guide, the odds that the American economy is falling into a double-dip recession have risen sharply in recent weeks and may even have reached 50 percent. Economies have a strong self-reinforcing nature. When people are optimistic, they spend, which begets hiring and then more spending. When people are anxious, they pull back, which leads to a cycle of hiring freezes and further anxiety that often lasts for months. The United States appears to have entered some version of the vicious cycle. Most ominously, job growth has slowed to a pace that typically signals the start of...

Obama’s Illegal Move On Immigration By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey Only Congress has constitutional authority to establish U.S. immigration policy, and fundamental reform requires legislative action. Thus the administration’s recent announcement that deportation will be sought only for undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States violates the separation of powers and is unconstitutional. No president, of course, can hope to expel every undocumented person in the United States — they number perhaps upward of 11 million people. Human and financial resources to identify, apprehend, process and promptly deport millions have been lacking for...

President Barack Obama told Scholastic News Kid Reporters during a TV interview that one of the "greatest challenges facing" their generation is “climate change.” "Another big challenge that your generation is going to face is the environmental challenge,” Obama stated, after citing the economy as another big issue. The interview was conducted by Scholastic News kid reporters as part of the new program on the “Challenges Facing America's Youth.” Video available here. Obama explained: “There are some big challenges around climate change. The temperature of the planet is getting warmer because of the pollution that we are sending up in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There weren't any jobs. What is there to say? In fact, I'll tell you, I don't know how they're gonna revise this number down. They revise the number down every month, right? How are they gonna revise zero down? Well, yeah, there had to be a net loss of jobs. Now, actually, there was a guy hired in August. And all of the networks had planned live interviews with the guy who got the job in August, but he got laid off on August 31st, so there was no job created. There was one guy who got...

<p>WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Job growth was unchanged in August, the weakest performance in almost a year...lower than the 53,000 gain expected.</p>

...after "the largest selloff in years" last week.