Free Republic

ORIGINAL POST: Last economic datapoint of the day: April factory orders come out at 10:00 AM ET. Analysts expect an increase of 0.2%. That compares to a decline of 1.9% in the previous month. Given all the bad news in econ data-world these days, this one will be closely watched for confirmation or negation of the trend. UPDATE: The numbers are out and bad. Factory orders fell 0.6% in April, which is way worse than the 0.2% growth anticipated. Last month was revised to a decline of 2.1% from a decline of -1.5%. And ext-transport, the decline was a solid...

Alan Krueger, head of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, pointed out that the country has added jobs for 27 months in a row, including 4.3 million jobs in the private sector. The economy still has a few bright spots. Americans bought cars and trucks a strong pace last month, giving automakers their best May since 2008. Underscoring the challenge for Obama with five months to go in the campaign, a May poll by The Associated Press and GfK, a research company, showed that 52 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy while 46 percent approved. Some financial analysts...

US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, a US officer has said in comments carried in US media. Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, commander of US special forces in South Korea, told a conference held in Florida last week that Pyongyang had built thousands of tunnels since the Korean war, The Diplomat reported. "The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites," Tolley said, according to The Diplomat, a current affairs magazine. "So we send (South Korean) soldiers and US soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance."...

A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a "closed fracture" of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation. Zimmerman faces a second degree murder charge for the Feb. 26 shooting that left the unarmed 17-year-old high school junior dead. Zimmerman has claimed self defense in what he described as a life and death struggle that Martin...

Report says 40 percent of the public breathes unhealthy airBy Andrew Restuccia - 04/25/12 02:53 PM ET More than 40 percent of the public lives in regions with unhealthy levels of air pollution, a new report from the American Lung Association says. The public health group, in its annual State of the Air report, said air quality has dramatically improved in recent decades as a result of the Clean Air Act. But it warned that more action is needed to better protect the public from air pollution like smog or soot. The report finds that more than 127.2 million people,...

A major Israel TV station on Sunday night broadcast a detailed report on how Israel will go about attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the event that diplomacy and sanctions fail and Israel decides to carry out a military strike. The report, screened on the main evening news of Channel 10, was remarkable both in terms of the access granted to the reporter, who said he had spent weeks with the pilots and other personnel he interviewed, and in the fact that his assessments on a strike were cleared by the military censor. No order to strike is likely to be...

Economists have worried all along that job growth couldn't sustain the strong December-to-February pace. They also worry that a 66-cent run-up in gasoline prices (to a national average $3.94 a gallon) so far this year will discourage consumer spending -- though American households are more resilient financially after cutting their debts. Most economists expect annual growth this year of just 2.5 percent. Normally, it takes annual growth of 4 percent to lower the unemployment rate 1 percentage point over a year. The job market is improving largely because the pace of layoffs has fallen sharply. The staffing firm Challenger, Gray...

Tweet from The Colbert Report: Nation! First Lady @MichelleObama will appear on The Colbert Report on Wednesday, April 11. Tune in at 11:30pm / 10:30c. Quite the media blitz the First Lady and the President have been on lately. You would think that if the First Lady wanted to reach a sizable audience, though, she would do a guest spot on a program that gets more viewers like "Pawn Stars" or a cartoon rerun on Nickelodeon or something on cable access. Well, Colbert is a true-blue friend to the Barack Obama re-election campaign and a fellow crusader in the left's...

At 7:50 am Friday morning, CNNMoney reported on the embarrassingly small number of jobs the “green” energy industry has contributed to the nation’s workforce. The story was titled “‘Green’ jobs just a small portion of workforce.” -------- “As Kermit knows, it’s not easy being green,” the story began. “There were only 3.1 million green jobs in the U.S. in 2010.” Translation: After receiving billions in federal subsidies ($100 billion from the stimulus program alone), “green” jobs account for only 2.4 percent of the nation’s employment. Seeing as how taxpayer dollars are being thrown at “green” energy projects under the guise...

The Visitation Report into the Church in Ireland, ordered by Pope Benedict XVI, the full text of which may be found here, says "It must be stressed that dissent from the fundamental teachings of the Church is not the authentic path towards renewal." The sexual abuse crisis which exploded throughout the Catholic Church in Ireland [and elsewhere] has its origin in a Culture of Dissent. For, as Father Vincent Miceli has reminded us, "falsity is the heart of immorality." Betrayal arises in man's heart and is soon manifested in his actions which often culminate in criminal violence. But, as Fr....

(CNSNews.com) - The definitive study of contraception use in the United States--which was produced by the U.S. government's National Center for Health Statistics and published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--refutes the claim President Barack Obama made in a White House briefing on Feb. 10 that “nearly 99 percent of all women” have used contraception. In fact, according to the study--which looked at the contraception use of American women between the ages of 15 and 44--13.9 percent had never had heterosexual intercourse, period. Also, according to the study, 38.2 percent of American women age 15-44 said they...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined White House Press Secretary Jay Carney in the briefing room Monday to tout President Obama's energy policies and the increase in oil and gas production, but a new report from the Department of Energy (DOE), prepared in consultation with Interior officials undermines his claim. "On federal lands and water, we have moved forward in the last three years with a 13-percent increase in oil and gas production," Salazar said, dismissing Republican claims that production on federal lands has dropped, even if private production has increased. "I would say that those attacks are simply wrong. The...

Principal, counselor charged with failing to report abuseCounty News 9:08 p.m. Friday, March 2, 2012 By Alexis Stevens The Atlanta Journal-Constitution A Cobb County middle school principal and counselor were arrested for allegedly failing to report a student's abuse claims to police. Jerry Wright Dority, who was principal at Tapp Middle School in Powder Springs, and a counselor, Yatta Lynnette Collins, were both arrested Thursday morning and booked into the Cobb County jail, booking records show. The two have been placed on administrative leave, a school district spokesman said. Dority, 50, and Collins, 40, are each charged with one count...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" is off the air and it's a mystery why. An expected live version of the show was replaced by a repeat on Wednesday. Comedy Central said Thursday's live show will be off, too. The network said it was airing the repeats "due to unforeseen circumstances," but offered no other explanation.

The Mormon Church owns one of the most active and unregulated gun sale portals on the web, according to a national investigation released by the New York City Mayor's office. The website in question is KSL.com, the online hub for Utah's NBC affiliate and sister radio station, which are both owned and operated by the for-profit arm of the Mormon Church. In addition to local news, KSL.com produces a popular classifieds section that reaches millions of users well beyond Utah.The LDS connection drew little notice when Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading financier of the gun control movement, published the report...

Saying the economy is “growing stronger,” President Obama issued a strong warning to Congress on Friday: “Do not slow down the recovery ... don't muck it up!" Speaking at a fire house in Arlington, Va. — hours after a jobs report showed the unemployment rate dropped from 8.5 to 8.3 percent — a fiery Obama said Washington has to do everything in its power to help the economy. He urged Congress to pass a payroll tax cut extension without drama and delay. “They just need to get it done, [it] shouldn’t be that complicated,” Obama said.

I open my browser this morning and what do I find? "RUBIO RIPS TEAM GINGRICH" glaring across the front of Drudge Report... one of many negative headlines/stories related to Newt. So I guess the hit job continues. As others have pointed out, the bias he's displaying is obvious and sickening. Wonder what the reason behind this is? Newt kick his dog? Reject his advances?

Well, I’ve just finished scouring the White House visitor logs. Regular readers know I seem to be one of the few in the media who actually does such a thing. Regular readers also know that I’ve pointed out time and again that the logs are incomplete, misleading, obtuse, and designed to make it as difficult as possible to figure out who has visited and when. So, it is no surprise that neither director Tim Burton nor actor Johnny Depp — hosts of the big 2009 Hollywood Halloween bash at the White House — show up in the visitor logs. At...

Gun Rights Examiner and Sipsey Street Irregulars received information this evening that three of the prime Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives players in the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal have been relieved of duties. William Hoover, ATF's Deputy Director during Fast and Furious, who was recently reassigned as Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office, Assistant Director in Charge of Field Operations Mark Chait, likewise reassigned as head of the Baltimore Field Office, and Deputy Assistant Director of Field Operations William McMahon have reportedly been sidelined pending the outcome of the anticipated report from the Office...

It seems that if you're a New York Times reporter on a mission to prove something you think must be obvious and your research leads to the exact opposite result from what you smugly expected, you forge ahead and try to pretend that you proved your point anyway. At least that how it seems to have worked out for Times reporter Michael Luo in a report appearing in Tuesday's print edition which tried to show readers how one state which allows residents to carry concealed weapons with a permit is allegedly allowing large numbers of dangerous people to possess them....