Free Republic

Real Unemployment Rate Hits 16.8% Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/04/2009 08:22 -0500 As markets digest the worse, yet somehow better, than expected 9.7% unemployment, the real state of the labor market is much worse, as indicated by the U-6 number, which has hit a recent record of 16.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis. As a reminder, the "U-6 represents total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers." In other words, in reality the U.S. labor market is likely about...

Can you believe this....??????: "There's no "I" in "team," but there is definitely one in "Biden." With President Obama off on vacation, his second in two weeks, unofficial Acting President Joe Biden has stepped into the vacuum, claiming credit Thursday for the successes of the administration's $787 billion stimulus package and fielding questions on health care reform -- something his boss hasn't done in nearly two weeks." If GW had ever, ever shown any sign of taking a breather like this with Cheney assuming temp duty as POTUS.....the MSM would have been doing double back-flips 24/7 while screeching at a...

Asked if controversial White House official Van Jones continues to enjoy the confidence of President Obama given recent revelations about his involvement with those who suggest the Bush administration knew about the 9/11 attacks and allowed them to happen in order to justify a war for oil, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Friday morning would only say "he continues to work in this administration." Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, last night issued a statement apologizing for past controversial remarks and said a petition which he signed suggesting that President...

(on why she is not holding any town hall meetings during the recess): I’m not doing town meetings; I’m not going to give those people a forum. I’m not going to give these other people, who, when you come down to it, a large number of them are anti-government, they don’t want Medicare or Social Security either; and the notion that they showing up with guns, I think, is totally dangerous. Your father was shot, we’ve had too many presidents assassinated, I can’t believe President Obama said it was not a concern to him.

"Currently there are over five thousand active volcanoes underwater varying from ones larger than any on the surface to cones no larger than an automobile. The net reslut of this action is thermal heating of the oceans, at key positions, which in turn reaches the surfaceto be carried aloft into the atmosphere to become part of our surface weather pattern system. As the oceans are heated winds of a high velocity are created and driven over the land areas due to temperature differential. In the Pacific Ocean there are ocean basins - volcanoes, of which there are estimated to be...

Iran is accusing the United States of using "forged documents" and relying on subterfuge to build its case that Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. The Associated Press has obtained a letter by Iran's chief envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency in Vienna that says Washington's allegations against Iran are "fabricated, baseless and false." The eight-page document was sent Friday to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Next week, the IAEA's 35-nation board will take a hard new look at Iran's nuclear program. Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful and geared solely toward...

A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home. Fifty-four-year-old William Maser fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away. The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities say nobody was hurt.

Frank Gwozdz says coyotes have made a meal out of his livestock so often in the past several months that the farmer is thinking of leaving agriculture. “They are wiping me out,’’ Gwozdz said ...from his 110-acre farm in Dartmouth in Southeastern Massachusetts. In the past several months, Gwozdz said, coyotes have killed two cows, four calves, 14 goats, two lambs, two sheep, and numerous geese, ducks, and chickens. “They are getting bolder and bolder,’’ Gwozdz said of the coyotes... Gwozdz said he and his family have tried to deter the animals, sometimes by standing guard into the early morning...

Just had this e-mailed to me from Progressive after I along with my entire family got rid of every policy for Progressive Insurance when they pulled out of the Glenn Beck show on Fox. Dear __________,Recent media reports have created the incorrect impression that Progressive pulled advertising in response to specific comments made on The Glenn Beck Show, but that is not the case. The fact is that we did not intentionally place any of our advertising on the show, so when we learned that our ad had aired, we corrected the error. Our goal is to reach a broad...

A majority of the nation receives its news from Fox News. I have been arguing to friends recently that the Main Stream Media is actually outlets such as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, and that NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN are actually the fringe media due to their low ratings and viewership. This brings me to a story from Byron York in today's Washington Examiner. Mr. York takes a look at the amount of coverage that the Van Jones controversy is receiving from "fringe" media outlets. The results are not very surprising: From a Nexis search a few...

Obama was reported not to be operational without his blackberry communication device. He even had a "special", extra secure device configured just for his use. Is it not a requirement that all communications orginating from the President of the United States have some kind of transcript so as to be able to reconstruct events in case of a disaster, or a gross mistake made by our elected officials? How can any kind of transcription made from a blackberry conversation? Is it recorded? Who is Obama talking to in secret on his blackberry? Inquiring minds just asking questions....

The game was up. Gathered in a first-floor conference room at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a huddle of senior Lehman Brothers executives realised that their firm was bust. A last-ditch effort to get Barclays to buy the 185-year-old Wall Street bank had failed. The British were not coming. Bankruptcy was the only card left to play.

Yesterday at monument square in Portland, liberal envirowackos from all over Maine rallied to shrill for lower standards of living for Maine residents in the name of the greenhouse myth, not to mention helping the government grow bigger and take away more of our hard earned money. The rally, which featured city council members, teamsters, America hating communists and others also circulated petitions calling for green energy in Maine, cap and trade and green jobs. The truth is that Maine is already strangled by environmental regulations against the economy. WE told you a year ago about a plan to build...

With highest jobless rate, Spain rallies Spanish stock index performing surprisingly strong, but some stay away By Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch MADRID (MarketWatch) -- Judging by the amount of road work clogging up Spain's capital city currently, with Madrid practically being unearthed, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in the midst of a dynamic and growing economy. However, that's anything but the case. Public works programs have been going on across Spain under the government's so-called "PlanE" bid to stimulate the bleakest economy in Europe, where the jobless rate hit 18.5% in July and is expected to top 20% in...

Joe Biden delivered a speech yesterday in which he made this, shall I say, laughable quote. President Joe Biden on Thursday said the government's sweeping stimulus effort "is in fact working" despite steady Republican criticism and public skepticism. "The recovery act has played a significant role in changing the trajectory of our economy, and changing the conversation in this country," Biden said. "Instead of talking about the beginning of a depression, we are talking about the end of a recession." Nearly 200 days into the effort, Biden delivered an upbeat report card about the $787 billion rescue effort that President...

"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."-Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Sun Tzu is credited with writing those words 2,500 years ago, but they could have been written as a warning to President Obama as he refuses to acknowledge who we are fighting against, Islamist extremists. He refuses to even understand how our enemy...

It's one thing for a sitting president to address a nation, but it's an entirely different animal when he targets children to push his failed, socialist agenda. How is it "God" cannot even be mentioned in our public schools...the very cornerstone of our country's founding...but Obama can peddle his socialist candy to our children? Enough is enough. Liberals have no boundaries and are desperate to brainwash anyone who will listen. Call your district superintendent, your child's principal, or write your local paper. If a school has to ask your permission for your child to take a field trip, or watch...

The raised fist (also other names, including clenched fist) is a salute most often used by political and social activists of a leftist, anti-fascist, or simply anti-capitalist orientation, such as Marxists, anarchists, communists, pacifists, trade unionists, and black nationalists. Generally the fist is regarded as an expression of solidarity, strength or defiance. Photo at the website http://www.stealthfusion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4162

A breakdown in communications at the highest level between the US and the UK led to the shock collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers in September last year, a Guardian/Observer investigation has revealed. The downfall of Lehman, which triggered the biggest banking crisis since the Great Depression, came after a rescue bid by the high street bank Barclays failed to materialise.

David Axelrod as Christopher Walken I got a fever, and the only prescription is more Obama! By Jonah Goldberg ABC News reports that Barack Obama has returned to Washington, only to step off the plane and “into his next domestic crisis.” He “planned to leave the details of health-care reform to Congress, but today the White House says he’ll play a much stronger role.” The Associated Press says Obama is “backing away” from his “‘it’s-all-on-the-table’ approach” and is “prepared to get louder and more involved in the details of a health care overhaul.” “This weekend,” NBC Nightly News explained in...