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Six months into a stock-market rally, Wall Street apparently saw more good news last week when a Labor Department report showed employment had jumped to 9.7 percent in August. Exactly why Friday's news -- joblessness at a 26-year high -- produced a 97-point gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a good question, but if the stock market were perfectly predictable, we'd all be rich. Alas, we are all much poorer than we were two years ago. The Dow, which peaked above 14,000 points in October 2007, fell below 6,600 in early March -- a 53 percent decline in...

CASS SUNSTEIN WANTS TO prove that ideology sends judges in the wrong direction, but all he's proven is that ideology sends Cass Sunstein in the wrong direction. Sunstein, University of Chicago-based legal scholar and advisor to Senate Democrats in the judicial nomination battles, published a draft study on the relationship between political ideology and judicial decisionmaking. He's rather proud of his findings, in case you didn't notice. Then again, considering that he promoted them months ago in a New York Times op-ed, in an issue of The American Prospect and in his latest book, it's been hard not to notice....

# STATE NAME YEAR STARTED DOB 1 Arkansas Blanche Lincoln 1999 1960 2 California Barbara Boxer 1993 1940 3 Colorado Michael Bennet 2009 1964 4 Connecticut Chris Dodd 1981 1944 5 Hawaii Daniel Inouye 1963 1924 6 Illinois Roland Burris 2009 1937 7 Indiana Evan Bayh 1999 1955 8 Maryland Barbara Mikulski 1987 1936 9 Nevada Harry Reid 1987 1939 10 New York Chuck Schumer 1999 1950 11 North Dakota Byron Dorgan 1993 1942 12 Oregon Ron Wyden 1996 1949 13 Pennsylvania Arlen Specter 1981 1930 14 Vermont Patrick Leahy 1975 1940 15 Washington Patty Murray 1993 1950 16...

Much of the money given to General Motors and Chrysler to prevent them from collapsing will never be recovered, according to a report released Wednesday by the Congressional Oversight Panel.

A Congressional oversight panel warns taxpayers are facing huge losses on the government’s $81 billion auto industry bailout. Elizabeth Warren, the panel’s chair, discusses the findings. * The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is “highly unlikely” to be repaid. * Full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company’s stock to reach unprecedented heights. * The report also recommended that the Treasury Department provide a legal analysis justifying the use of financial rescue funds for the automakers. * In all, the government has invested $74 billion in...

Yedioth Ahronoth claims in hours Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's was nowhere to be found on Monday, he was actually in Moscow discussing weapons deals between Russian, Iran. Reports claim he leased private jet from millionaire Yossi Meiman in order to leave country. PMO asserts Netanyahu was in security facility in Israel, did not leave State's territory. Putin's spokesman denies meeting between Russian PM, Israeli counterpart

NewsBuster--and FReeper--Mark Finkelstein was a guest yesterday on the Joe Scarborough Show, the nationally-syndicated radio show that the Morning Joe anchor co-hosts with Mika Brzezinski. Listen to audio here. For days, Scarborough had been lambasting Republicans for going after Pres. Obama on his speech to schoolchildren. Finkelstein argued that it was not so much the potential for indoctrination as the cult of personality which was objectionable. He pointed out that the Obama-centric study guide for the speech was of a piece with messianic image that the president has allowed to grow up around him, going back to the presidential campaign...

This is the Speechifying Presidency but whatever President Barry Soetoro’s pontifications are on Wednesday night regarding Health Care Reform the fact of the matter is he tried to hoodwink and bamboozle the nation with a rush to passing this bill already. We all know that he originally demanded that Congress have the Health Care Reform bill on his desk to sign before Congress’ August recess. What you didn’t know is that even if Congress would have been totally successful in accomplishing that task Democrats have written the bill so that the actual reform doesn’t start until 2013—2013?!? (see story) Wait...

Reflecting on the funeral of Senator Edward Kennedy, Terry Mattingly recalls-- and brings to greater public attention-- the 2004 letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, then Archbishop of Washington, on Holy Communion and pro-abortion politicians. In the summer of 2004, the Vatican sent a letter to the United States addressing one of the hottest issues facing the church here — whether politicians who back abortion rights should receive Holy Communion.The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sent the guidelines to the leader of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. However, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick...

Here is video of Sen. Saxby Chambliss talking to Stuart Varney yesterday where he said Republicans will be looking for Obama to show some "humility" in his speech tonight, based on the outcry from Americans this past month against a Government take over of Health Care. Chambliss added that "humility" is "against his inclination." He makes the comment at around the 2:30 mark of the video. The whole segment contains a discussion of what Obama and the Democrats may try to do to pass a Health Care bill. . . (VIDEO)

... "Americans seem easily to forget that individual rights and freedoms depend fundamentally on vigorous state action," Holmes and Sunstein write. "Without effective government, American citizens would not be able to enjoy their private property in the way they do. Indeed, they would enjoy few or none of their constitutionally guaranteed individual rights. Personal liberty, as Americans value and experience it, presupposes social cooperation managed by government officials. The private realm we rightly prize is sustained, indeed created, by public action." Holmes and Sunstein are not Marxists. They vigorously defend property rights and the value of a society that "encourages...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (Sept. 8) — A decision by the University of Wyoming to name a new center for international students for former Vice President Dick Cheney is drawing criticism from people who say Cheney's support for the Iraq war and harsh interrogation techniques should disqualify him from the distinction. The former vice president and wife Lynne are expected to attend Thursday's dedication of the new Cheney International Center on the Laramie campus. Protesters plan to be there, too. The center is funded in part with $3.2 million the Cheneys donated to the university in several installments while he was vice...

Author’s Note: What you are about to read didn’t actually happen… yet. Charlie Sheen: I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with our 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, while he was out promoting his health care reform initiative. I requested 30 minutes given the scope and detail of my inquiry; they said I could have 20. Twenty minutes, 1200 seconds, not a lot of time to question the President about one of the most important events in our nation’s history. The following is a transcript of our remarkable discussion. Charlie Sheen – Good...

Again, this is a sad day for the Marines, but I sense that there is more here than casualties. Or better said, there is more here than a mere tactical or intelligence failure. I fear that we are attempting to win hearts and minds without the necessary concomitant force projection. We all know that the Anbar experience will not directly apply to Helmand, or Kunar, or anywhere else for that matter. But if we can look past that nuance we can learn from the campaign for Anbar and what lessons it might have for us in Afghanistan.

This version of queso is like a cross between traditional queso and nachos. Serve with tortilla chips and you've got yourself a party!

The Second Bill of Rights FDR's Unfinished Revolution & Why We Need It More Than Ever ....The problem, as he describes in his engaging, thoughtful and original book, "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution & Why We Need It More Than Ever," is that we didn't go far enough, and an opportunity was lost to extend our notion of rights to include social, cultural and economic entitlements, to go alongside the more conventional civil and political freedoms that Americans otherwise enjoy.....

While thousands of kids in our area watched President Obama's speech today, kids in Sioux Falls' Catholic Schools did not. They continued their normal class work as the President delivered a speech meant for them. We wanted to know what went into that decision so tonight, we asked. As the President spoke, urging kids to stay in school and become the leaders of tomorrow, kids in Sioux Falls Catholic Schools were not watching. A decision made by Catholic school district leaders and backed by parents like Barbaba Paa. "I was not sure what was going to be the content of...

Nicole GelinasKrugman, Keynes, and Ketchup The Times columnist offers exactly the wrong fix for the financial crisis. 9 September 2009 In “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?,” a lengthy essay on the financial crisis, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman urges fellow economists to re-embrace Keynesian theory, which would help “incorporate the realities of finance into macroeconomics.” In Krugman’s view, we should accept that finance introduces unacceptable gyrations into the broader economy and learn how to smooth these fluctuations with government spending, following the principles of economist John Maynard Keynes. But Krugman’s critique overestimates the...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 31% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-nine percent (39%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8 (see trends). Republicans continue to lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

While the left is engaged in damage control over Obama's speech to our school children by pointing out that both Reagan and H.W. Bush did the very same thing, there is a difference.