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The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits climbed further last week, a reminder that labor-market conditions remain difficult. But in a gauge designed to predict the course of the economy, the index of leading indicators rose for the fourth consecutive month in July. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose 15,000 to 576,000 last week...

From Local, to State, to the Federal Government, every day brings the introduction of a new taxing proposal. In Illinois, September 1st marks a rise in taxes on Alcohol, Candy, Soft Drinks and even Personal Hygiene products, as the state follows the lead of other governments taking the same action. At a federal level, income tax hikes, the sunset of multiple tax breaks, proposals for new taxes on energy, health care and even the food you eat are gaining momentum. Yesterday was no different as The Hill reported on a bold new initiative launched by the AFL-CIO and some congressional...

Rassmussen Obama at 45% Approval, 53% disaapprove.

Just societies spring from virtuous laws and virtuous citizens; they don't arrive by force of presidential charisma or bureaucratic edict. History is rife with examples of centrally planned “social justice” — schemes that germinated in the febrile minds of philosophers dreaming of alabaster cities; places where the enlightened few would lead lesser humanity to tables spread with plenty. Tyrants always promise tables laden with perfectly sliced “pies,” and — from the city walls — views of perfectly leveled playing fields stretching, uninterrupted, to a rose-hued horizon. Only, those promises are never kept. Egalitarian dreamers beget boneyards surrounded by steel-reinforced concrete...

Here is video of Charles Krauthammer saying yesterday that former Vice-President Dick Cheney is "winning" on the issue of Enhanced Interrogation - what those on the Left call "torture." Krauthammer talks about the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) - the mastermind of the September 11 attacks - would say nothing until he was subjected to enhanced interrogation tactics (waterboarding). But afterward, Krauthammer says he became a "professor," giving information that saved untold numbers of lives from further attacks. Krauthammer said Americans know intuitively that these tactics have kept the nation safer, and the Left is losing the argument. ....

Several Core Constituencies Souring on Obama UTICA, New York - President Barack Obama's job approval rating is down to 42%, with a decline in approval from Democrats the leading factor. The latest Zogby Interactive poll of 4,518 likely voters conducted from August 28-31 found 48% disapprove and 42% approve of the job Obama is doing. The poll found 75% of Democrats approve of Obama's performance, a drop of 13 points among Democrats from an interactive poll done July 21-24 of this year. That same poll found 48% of all likely voters approving of Obama's job performance, and 49% disapproving. In...

John Kerry has taken on a new persona. He apparently is communicating with the dead. Not since the days of Mary Todd Lincoln, has Washington D.C. experienced this phenom! For those who might not know, Mary Todd Lincoln took to holding seances in the White House after the tragic loss of her young son William from typhoid fever. Now it seems Kerry is doing the same after the death of Ted Kennedy, in hopes of channeling Ted's thoughts into the Democrats health care debate and passing reform legislation. On ABC'S This Week with George Stephanopoulos the topic with Kerry was...

On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war. Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians had suffered worse horrors than the soldiers. By May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe: Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. A hundred million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the...

That's right folks! The caterwauling liberals who have been whining for more of our hard earned taxpayer dollars to pay for state run health care are either too stupid to know or don't want you to know that we have in many parts of America, universal health care. Not only that, just like the ones in Canada, Britain and elsewhere, it is cumbersome, costly and a failure. I decided to take a break from my series on Vladamir Lenin and the United States to write about this after receiving several nagging emails from those who read my articles here and...

The Obama administration brags that Cash for Clunkers was a success because it revived the suffering auto industry. But who really benefited from this $3 billion program? The majority of cars bought with taxpayer-paid incentives of $3,500 to $4,500 each were foreign cars. Toyota and Honda were the big winners. For years, Americans have been pursuing the goal of self-sufficiency in oil, a natural resource essential to our standard of living. But the effort to get our government to revoke its ban on drilling for oil in American waters off of our shores has been consistently checkmated by the liberals...

Here’s another story that would be front page if a Republican was president. It’s being smothered by the Democrat controlled media because it exposes their master as a sexist hypocrite. Where are the hundreds of female journalists who should be demanding an answer as to why Obama pays women less than men? His “do as I say not as I do” attitude has been the M.O. for Obama since his first day in office. On July 1 a report on the salaries of Obama White House staffers was quietly released and shoved under the rug by the media. It showed...

Bad fellows, bedfellows: British boss let himself be seduced by Libyan loon into freeing terrorist Editorials Gordon Brown meets with Moammar Khadafy at the G8 Summit in July. Here is an elegant solution to the quandary over where to house Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy when he visits the United Nations this month: Quarter him with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Why not? They're already in bed. Theirs has been a discreet relationship, conducted in private and lubricated by oil, an affair of convenience between a madman with blood on his hands, and a craven hypocrite with a price tag. Such...

Yale University long has been a citadel of political correctness and a prime example of the current academic rage for deconstructing truth. But this time it's reached the bottom (let's hope) of its flight from Lux et Veritas, Light and Truth. It's getting so that the only remaining evidence of either one at Yale may soon be confined to its motto. This time Yale's university press was about to publish a scholarly volume that would provide some historical and artistic context for those controversial cartoons that Danish newspapers published in 2005 and early 2006, including caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed,...

White House officials are increasingly worried liberal, anti-war Democrats will demand a premature end to the Afghanistan war before President Barack Obama can show signs of progress (AP photo). Article

After a long day at work on a commercial shoot, I decided to unwind with a little internet and cable television. Politics and punditry are my hobby, not my main source of income, so I indulge in a little cable news and internet sites as time permits. I’ve always felt it important to see the world outside the “echo chamber” of like-minded folks, so my television sits for far too many hours on MSNBC and the Huffington Post is bookmarked on my browser. What struck me from a few hours of watching leftist television and reading leftist gobbledygook is how...

Shadows of Saturn at Equinox Explanation: Unusual shadows and dark rings appeared around Saturn near its equinox last month. At that time -- early August -- Saturn's ring plane pointed directly at the Sun. Visible above, Saturn's moon Tethys casts a shadow visible only on the far right. Saturn's own shadow blacks out a large swath of rings on the right. The night side of Saturn glows with ringshine -- sunlight reflected by ring particles back onto Saturn. Images near equinox at Saturn are giving astronomers a chance to search for unexpected shadows that may illuminate previously unknown features of...

September 1, 1939. Seventy years ago, the Second World War began in Europe. German troops crossed the Polish border. German airplanes bombed fleeing civilians. This unprovoked attack prompted Britain and France—after an agonizing delay—to keep their commitment to Poland and declare war on Hitler. The former Soviet Union, under Josef Stalin’s brutal rule, had cleared the way for Hitler’s invasion just one week earlier by signing the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. That devils’ bargain allowed Stalin to invade Poland from the East and to gobble up the tiny Baltic republics. When Hitler two years later tore up that pact and invaded...

Iowa Health Dept. has drafted forms to force detention of people simply exposed to the flu - do not have to prove H1N1 has infected them even though the test is simple and cheap. No provision for mothers and fathers to visit children - or visit of pastors and priests, etc. - strict detention. No option for family doctor to visit - this is a crime if allowed to continue. Everyone needs to call the State house and Senators and House Members ASAP and demand that the rules be changed to require proof (and double proof to eliminate false positives)...

Come join the Freeper College Football Pick'Em League! For a little fun and relaxation with all the wonderful, smart, well informed Freepers who enjoy College Football... This is a fun activity for College Football fans- I have set up the game using the Confidence Points and the Point Spread to make it more challenging. It makes the games more interesting to watch when you are playing the pick'em game---- Go to Yahoo.com College Football Pick'Em Join Group Group ID- 15131 Password- Freedom

HURRICANE JIMENA DISCUSSION NUMBER 15 NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL EP132009 200 AM PDT TUE SEP 01 2009 THE SMALL EYE OF JIMENA BECAME LESS DISTINCT IN SATELLITE IMAGERY AROUND 0500 UTC...HOWEVER SINCE THAT TIME IT HAS WARMED AND IS EMBEDDED WITHIN VERY COLD CLOUD TOPS AND A RATHER SYMMETRIC CDO. THE LATEST DVORAK CI-NUMBERS REMAIN 6.5 FROM TAFB AND 6.0 FROM SAB...AND OBJECTIVE ADT ESTIMATES ALSO CONTINUE TO HOVER AROUND T6.5. BASED ON THE SATELLITE APPEARANCE AND UNCHANGED SATELLITE ESTIMATES...THE INITIAL INTENSITY WILL REMAIN 135 KT FOR THIS ADVISORY. AN AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT IS SCHEDULED TO...