Free Republic

The more bizarre, the better, apparently -- a fashion collab between KFC and Crocs is a rousing success ... KFC says its fried chicken-scented shoes are already sold out!!! Someone had the bright idea to pair the famous foam clog company with the fried chicken icon to make limited-edition kicks -- and they flew off (virtual) shelves Tuesday, selling out in less than 90 minutes. The bucket clogs went for $60 a pair, with $3 from each sale going toward the KFC Foundation's employee scholarship fund. The Crocs look like a bucket of the Colonel's original and -- most shockingly...

Rising drug and alcohol overdoses, suicides, and disease from chronic alcoholism — labeled “deaths of despair” by one expert — are cutting the lives of white Americans short by nearly a half a year on average. Increases in these types of deaths among whites means that life expectancy for whites is not increasing as fast as it is for other groups, according to a government report that offers an unusual look at how different threats are affecting U.S. lifespans. “Things are moving in the wrong direction,” said Anne Case, a Princeton University researcher, of what she calls “deaths of despair.”...

U.S. hiring slowed to a near-standstill in May, sowing doubts about the economy’s health and complicating the Federal Reserve’s efforts to raise interest rates. While unemployment slid from 5 percent to 4.7 percent, the lowest since November 2007, the rate fell for a troubling reason: Nearly a half-million jobless Americans stopped looking for work and so were no longer counted as unemployed. Employers added just 38,000 jobs in May, the fewest in over five years. Less-educated workers bore the brunt of the hiring slump, with a quarter-million high school dropouts losing their jobs in May. That has perpetuated a long-term...

If anyone was "worried" about the Verizon strike taking away 35,000 jobs from the pro forma whisper number of 200,000 with consensus expecting 160,000 jobs, or worried about a rate hike by the Fed any time soon, you can sweep all worries away: moments ago the BLS reported that in May a paltry 38,000 jobs were added, a plunge from last month's downward revised 123K (was 160K). The number was the lowest since September 2010! There is no way to spin this number as anything but atrocious.