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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans cut their spending in June for the first time in nearly two years after seeing their incomes grow by the smallest amount in nine months. The latest data offered a troubling sign for an economy that is adding few jobs and barely growing. Consumer spending dropped 0.2 percent in June, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. It was the first decline since September 2009. Some of the decline was the result of food and energy prices moderating after sharp increases earlier this year. When excluding spending on those items, consumer spending was flat. Still, consumers also cut...

President Barack Obama alienated 37,00 twitter followers last night with scores of tweets urging followers to contact their local Congressman over the debt deal. With his approval rating sitting at an all-time low of 40 per cent amidst the debt crisis, tens of thousands of Americans unfollwed the President to avoid the deulge. The president’s staff sent a total of 118 tweets asking his followers to write their Republican lawmakers to demand a compromise on debt legislation. The first tweet read: 'The time for putting party first is over. If you want to see a bipartisan #compromise, let Congress know....

Harry Reid ‘Tea Party Aren’t Real Americans’??On July 27, 2011 by velvethammer

Americans sweltered today in the scorching heat in what was officially the hottest day of the year in scores of cities across the country. The heatwave covered a million square miles, affecting 141million Americans. New York's Manhattan experienced the hottest ever July 22 recorded, with an overwhelming 104-degree temperature in Central Park. The Washington DC region continued to be smothered in heat and humidity with temperatures reaching 102 degrees but with a heat index of more than 120 - hotter than Death Valley at daybreak

All over America, restlessness and frustration are growing. It has now been almost three years since the great financial crash of 2008, and yet the U.S. economy is still a complete and total mess. Click here to see the facts > In fact, there are all sorts of signs that things are about to get even worse, and the American people are just about fed up. Virtually every major poll, survey and measure of consumer confidence shows that the American people are becoming more pessimistic about the economy. Millions of hard working Americans that worked their fingers to the bone...

In the early days of America’s nascent republic, the founding fathers envisioned a secular government with a wall of separation between the affairs of church and those of the state. The First Amendment of the US Constitution stipulates that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” and Article VI specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” A growing number of Christian conservatives, apostolics and evangelicals, however, believe the founding fathers got it wrong, that devout Christians...

Tax the rich, give to the poor with the White House choosing who wins and who loses. RCP - “Americans are not like — ‘I demand this, you know, I draw the red line here and I draw this in the sand.’ They just want us to get something done that’s sensible, that spreads the sacrifice and spreads the prosperity,” White House press secretary jay Carney said at Tuesday evening’s press conference.

IDF sources claimed Monday night that new intelligence information obtained by Israel in recent days shows that participants of the flotilla planning to break Israel’s sea blockade over the Gaza Strip later this week plan to kill IDF soldiers who board their ships. According to the information obtained by the IDF, some of the participants have prepared a number of sacks with sulfur, which they plan to pour on the soldiers as they board the vessels. “This is a chemical weapon and if poured on a soldier it can paralyze him,” an IDF source told The Jerusalem Post Monday night....

In the wake of the recent memo from the Obama administration which announced “prosecutorial discretion” in dealing with illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country have been speaking out what many of them are calling a “backdoor amnesty.” On Wednesday, ICE Union president Chris Crane told PRNewswire: “Any American concerned about immigration needs to brace themselves for what's coming. This is just one of many new ICE policies in queue aimed at stopping the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the United States. Unable to pass its immigration agenda through legislation, the Administration is now implementing it...

Imagine a Republican president, giving a speech on tough economic times in which he claimed that the plight of Americans who are hurting is what is on his mind every day as he walks to the Oval Office. Imagine that same Republican president, in that same speech, bragging that he has "a better plane" and "a bigger entourage" than when he was a candidate. Now imagine the howls from the MSM about such president's vainglory and insensitivity. President Obama gave just such a speech today.

While grilling former Pennsylvania Senator and presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on NBC's Sunday Meet the Press, host David Gregory was skeptical of the idea that Americans should be able to choose their own health care plan: "They're better off with the freedom that they've got in the vagaries of the private insurance market?" Gregory was responding to Santorum's criticism of ObamaCare: "[Obama] doesn't believe Americans can actually make decisions for themselves, that he has to tell you how much money you're going to, you're going to spend on health care." After doubting the value of freedom in

Contrary to what NBC's David Gregory said Friday, U.S. News & World Report editor Mort Zuckerman believes that in the wake of President Obama's Mideast speech, "The Israelis do not feel they have the Americans at their back for the first time since the founding of the state of Israel." Such was said during a heated debate about the subject on PBS's "McLaughlin Group" (Snip) Mclaughlin: You know what that's called? That's called betrayal. Zuckerman: Yes, that’s exactly what they feel. The Israelis do not feel they have the Americans at their back for the first time since the founding

The bleeding hearts at NPR (funded by you) are worried that Americans are celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden (world hide and seek champion 2001-2011). “Is there moral philosophical justification for rejoicing over the demise of someone like bin Laden?” the article asks, the argument seems to be that no, indeed there is not. In fact the article goes so far as to draw parallels between those celebrating Bin Laden’s death, and those that danced on the streets of Gaza after the 9/11 attacks. Here are a few simple reasons why the good folks at NPR do not know...

We Americans have been bemoaning a “leadership vacuum” in politics – and other matters – for some time now. Is there really a leadership vacuum, or has it been vacuumed away from us? Allow me to explain. In multiple parts of life, this author has been accused of “taking over” when a job needs to be done. It comes sort of naturally. In the last week, particularly in church choir, the leader has come out a few times (the first incident was upon request from the followers who were lost) and has gotten very frustrated with the number of people...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans are more pessimistic about the U.S. economic outlook than they have been since the start of the Obama administration and most believe the United States is on the wrong track, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday. The number of Americans who think the economy is getting worse jumped 13 percentage points in just one month, to 39 percent, the poll suggested. Just 23 percent said they thought the economy was improving, down 3 percentage points from the previous month. Seventy percent of respondents said the country was heading in the wrong...

Last November, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell proudly declared himself a socialist on national television. On Wednesday, "The Last Word" host took this a huge step further saying the whole idea that Americans are rugged individualists is an illusion because they're all really socialists (video follows with transcript and commentary): (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America's wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people, with a healthy skepticism of too...

One in five mothers in America have children with different fathers, a new study shows. Researchers found that the trend was higher in minority groups and mothers with low income and education backgrounds. The data was taken over a 27-year period from nearly 4,000 U.S. women who had been interviewed more than 20 times. The study's author Cassandra Dorius said of the one in five figure: 'To put it in perspective, this is similar to the number of American adults with a college degree. It's pervasive.'

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL * EUROPE NEWS * MARCH 3, 2011, 9:57 P.M. ET Frankfurt Shooting Suspect Had Links to Radical Islamists Suspect Had Contact to Radical Islamist Groups via Facebook By DAVID CRAWFORD, LAURA STEVENS and MARCUS WALKER FRANKFURT—The suspected gunman who killed two U.S. servicemen at Frankfurt airport Wednesday had links to Germany's radical Islamist circles, but German investigators say they currently believe he carried out the attack on his own. U.S. President Barack Obama said he is "saddened" and "outraged" by the shooting of a group of U.S. airmen in Germany. Video courtesy of Reuters Investigators suspect...

Folks, I have been in lurk-mode for about a year. However, the awful events in Christchurch NZ have prompted me to post this general update, for anyone in FReeperland who may be interested. By now, you will have heard the bare facts concerning the Christchurch earthquake, so I won't reiterate them here. The official death toll currently sits at just under 100, with expectations it may well rise to 300+. It is a terrible situation, one that New Zealand was never expecting. My beloved Guardian Angels NZ organization has 3 Lads in Christchurch. They are all OK, as are their...

The United States says it has not been able to move some of its non-essential diplomats from Libya, as governments send airplanes and ships to pick up their citizens stranded by Libya's bloody unrest. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday the United States was looking at various ways to move the diplomats, their families, and other Americans out of Libya. HE DID NOT ELABORATE ON WHY THE US COULD NOT DO SO ON TUESDAY.. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the safety and wellbeing of Americans is the highest U.S. priority. Meanwhile, Britain's foreign secretary says his country has...