Free Republic

President Obama wasted little time giving his perspective on the Supreme Court's decision to uphold his sweeping health care law. "This is a good day for millions of Americans who can continue to benefit from the protections and economic security provided by the Affordable Care Act," Obama said in an emailed statement Thursday, a few hours after the ruling. But for millions of Americans, it was just another bad day without the economic security of a job. The unemployment rate has held above 8% for 40 straight months. It ticked up to 8.2% in May, and would actually be around...

Manufacturing activity shrunk in June for the first time in three years as new orders dried up, according to a key report released Monday that points to a deteriorating U.S. economy. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index fell to 49.7% from 53.5% in May, in the first reading below the 50% line indicating expansion or contraction since July 2009. Read “Recession now much more likely.” The report was worse than the MarketWatch-compiled forecast of 52.3%. After the release of the ISM data, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note (US:10_YEAR) dropped sharply, indicating traders rushing for perceived safe investments...

Unemployment ebbs and flows, but one measure of the nation's economic health, average weekly wages, rarely dips. Until now. In the latest demonstration of the struggling economy that threatens President Obama's reelection, average weekly wages fell in 2011, one of only five declines since the category was created in 1978 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a just-released review of employment in the nation's largest 322 counties, BLS found that weekly wages dropped over the year by 1.7 percent to $955 in the fourth quarter of 2011 from a high of $971 in the fourth quarter of 2010. That...

Now that the United States has universal health care, where will Canadian politicians go when they get sick?

The US particle collider Tevatron has jumped in just ahead of the Large Hadron Collider's results announcement this week to say that their machine has found the "strongest indication to date" of the God particle. The LHC's baby American cousin stopped bashing particles off each other back in March 2001 but the scientists have kept crunching the numbers from the 500 trillion collisions produced to wring the last drops of data out. Today, the boffins said their data "strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson" but we're still not there yet. “It is a real cliffhanger," the DZero...

Before yunz head dahntahn to work, or start to red up the house n‘at, join us every morning for coffee (or whatever gets yinz started) and maybe some serious discussion of the issues (or not!) Listen to the Quinn & Rose Morning Show at: www.wpgb.com (104.7 Pittsburgh, Pa) http://wysl1040.com/ (Rochester, NY) http://www.640whlo.com/main.html (Akron, OH) (airs later from 9-12) http://www.wncoam.com/main.html (Ashland, OH) http://www.talkradio560.com/ (Frostburg, MD) http://wicofm.com/ (Salisbury/Ocean City, MD WOBX - Outer banks NC http://tunein.com/radio/The-War-Room-with-Quinn--Rose-p34761/ for archived shows And now on 166 XM

General Assembly Overrides Vetoes on Budget, Fracking, Racial Justice ActPerdue goes 0-for-3 at close of GOP's first session as majority in 140 years By Barry Smith Jul. 3rd, 2012 RALEIGH – An override of Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue’s budget veto highlighted a day of votes in which the Republican-controlled General Assembly shot down the governor’s vetoes three times. The General Assembly on Monday night voted to override Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of the state budget bill, clearing the way for adjournment and allowing lawmakers to go home to campaign for the November 2012 general election. Lawmakers also overrode vetoes...

Yitzchak Shamir, who passed away Saturday, called Binyamin Netanyahu "squishy" and "too soft," according to James Baker, who was Secretary of State under George H. W. Bush. Shamir himself was "really hard-line," in Baker's view. However, the diplomat said, Shamir's relationship with President George H. W. Bush got off to a bad start when Bush felt Shamir had misled him regarding settlement in Judea and Samaria (Yehuda and Shomron). An interview with Baker last year gives fascinating insights into the dynamics that led to the Madrid Conference in 1991 and the Oslo Accords in 1993. The loan guarantee request came...

Would appreciate advice from all investment minded Freepers! I've recently come into $100K, and am at a loss as to how to invest it. The stock market seems to be a lottery of policy rather than market forces. Will there be inflation or deflation? Buy real estate while it's low? Sink it into Precious Metals? Emergency supplies? I'm paralyzed, but need to do something with it. Would love to hear what the resourceful people here would do. Thanks for all your ideas!!

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Kadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz angrily rejected a planned meeting to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Tuesday after the Prime Minister dissolved a panel, led by Kadima, for a new draft law. Prime Minister Netanyahu disbanded the committee, headed by Kadima Knesset Member Yochanan Plesner, without Cabinet approval, a move that could be a political ploy to put Mofaz in a corner and force him to quit the national unity coalition that is only several weeks old. The committee was working on legislation to replace the “Tal Law,” which focuses on the enlistment of hareidi religious youth, with an...

<p>Give that writer a prize.</p> <p>How many ways are there to say that Palestinians and Israelis are talking past each other because they have profoundly different needs and goals? Israel seeks recognition as a legitimate, permanent part of the region with the "secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force" that are the promise of U.N. Resolution 242. Palestinians seek to reverse the establishment of Israel, which they believe was created on their land and at the expense of their patrimony. Whose writing will make Abu Mazen say Jews are the indigenous people of the region and State of Israel is their rightful home? Dennis Ross's latest "six point plan" for a "two state solution" won't do it.</p>

Help Obama sung to the tune of Help Me Rhonda

Instead of a petition to repeal Obamacare, I think we should circulate a petition under which citizens pledge that if and when Obamacare is enacted, they will drop all their health insurance coverage. This would have the folloing effect: It puts the insurance companies on notice that Obamacare will bankrupt them. It puts the government on notice that they will suddenly be responsible for massive health care costs Its accelerates the inevitable, because eventually anyone with sense would choose not be have coverate, because the penalty is cheaper, and you don't have to worry about pre-existing conditions affecting your cost....

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Anthony Watts Umbrella Thorn Acacia, Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenyaby Adam Jones – click to order a photo or posterI’ve covered this before, such as when NASA posted satellite data showing that the biosphere is booming thanks to CO2 fertilization. This new study from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany suggests that the Umbrella Thorn Acacia trees will make a comeback. Tree trumps grass to rule the savannasA new study published today in “Nature” by authors from the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and the Goethe University Frankfurt suggests that large parts of Africa’s savannas...

Under increasing domestic pressure as the eurozone considers major integrative steps, Prime Minister David Cameron has said the UK may have a referendum on the EU, but his couched statement does not go far enough for increasingly restive Conservative euroskeptics. "The two words “Europe” and “referendum” can go together, particularly if we really are proposing a change in how our country is governed," Cameron wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. But he cautioned against an in/out referendum. "Leaving would not be in our country’s best interests", while a British vote to stay in the union would mean that subsequent attempts to...

What do you want....freedom or serfdom?

Outfoxed by Club Med Chancellor Merkel suffered a bruising defeat at last week's Brussels summit after leaders of Italy, Spain and France ganged up on her. Europe's power relations have shifted as a result. It looks like Germany will no longer be calling the shots in the EU. It was Monti, of all people, "Super Mario," as he's called in Berlin. The affable economics professor from Lombardy, the man the German Chancellery felt was the best thing that could have happened to Italy. The man who could "save Europe," at least according to Time magazine. It was Monti, of all...

Taiwan’s “Hsiungfeng” (Brave Wind) is now reportedly deployed and fully operational. Defense sources have claimed that 100 or so of the indigenously-developed 300-mile-range cruise missiles are now in Taiwan's arsenal - marking the first time that Taiwan has targeted the PRC. “To some extent, the weaponry can serve as a deterrent,” one expert has noted. “In case of war in the Taiwan Strait, the missiles could be used to attack the airports and other military bases of the People’s Liberation Army.” Taiwan's new missiles, however, are far outnumbered by the 1,600 short- and medium-range missiles now estimated to be aimed...

The High Sierra town of Mammoth Lakes said Monday that it filed for bankruptcy because it cannot afford to pay a $43-million breach-of-contract judgment against it brought by a developer. In a prepared statement, Mammoth Lakes officials said "bankruptcy, unfortunately, is the only option left" for the town, whose largest creditor, Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition, had won a state court order requiring full payment by June 30, 2012. Facing a judgment nearly three times the size of its annual operating budget and a $2.8-million shortfall in its 2011-12 fiscal year, the town had already cut many services and asked employees...