Free Republic

President Barack Obama’s former senior White House adviser and campaign manager David Plouffe accused House Republicans of “committing economic treason” during the partial government shutdown on Thursday. In a snarky tweet about Republicans’ attempts to negotiate an end to the government shutdown, Plouffe dredged up the “birther” issue in order to discredit the GOP: David Plouffe @davidplouffe Maybe throw in a Special Counsel to investigate the President's birthplace and the House GOP will stop committing economic treason. 8:56 AM - 10 Oct 2013

News flash from the AFL-CIO’s blog: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When U.S., corporations sit on more than $800 billion without creating jobs, when banks hoard more than $1 trillion in profits without lending to small businesses and consumers and when health insurance companies with tens of billions in profits demand huge premium increases, there are only two words to describe such greed says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: “Economic treason!” Addressing the Ohio AFL-CIO convention in Columbus today, Trumka called on union members to mobilize and rally behind “economic patriots” in a “knock down drag-out” fight against the “false populism and name calling” that...

The euro, worth 83 cents in the early George W. Bush years, is at $1.45. The British pound is back up over $2, the highest level since the Carter era. The Canadian dollar, which used to be worth 65 cents, is worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in half a century. Oil is over $90 a barrel. Gold, down to $260 an ounce not so long ago, has hit $800. Have gold, silver, oil, the euro, the pound and the Canadian dollar all suddenly soared in value in just a few years? Nope. The dollar has...

AVIC I Will Build CF34s For Its Planes Fledgling Chinese planemaker AVIC I announced this week it recently signed a deal with General Electric to manufacture turbofan engines for its upcoming ARJ21-700 regional aircraft. Xinhua reports AVIC I (an abbreviation of its full name, China Aviation Industry Corporation I) will build the CF34-10A powerplants for use on its planes. A subsidiary of the planemaker will build the engines at a plant in the northeastern city of Shenyang. The partnership is billed as the first such agreement between a Chinese company and a foreign entity for the production of passenger aircraft...

Beijing’s state-run Xinhua news service was quick to herald the latest lobbying effort on China’s behalf launched by the Club for Growth, a libertarian organization dedicated to electing public officials who agree with its free trade ideology. “More than 1,000 top American economists have signed a petition to urge Congress not to impose protectionist measures against China,” read the story filed by Xinhua from Washington on August 3. What the Club for Growth is protesting are two bills passed by the Senate Finance and Banking Committees seeking to pressure Beijing to cease its currency manipulation, a practice that gives producers...

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 Everybody knows that the loss of huge portions of their home U.S. market to imports has decimated U.S.-owned automakers Ford and GM (as well as Chrysler, which is no longer U.S.-owned, but shares many of Detroit’s biggest problems). What everybody doesn’t know is that literally dozens of U.S.-based manufacturing industries have suffered the same kinds of losses since the late 1990s. The clear bottom line, as revealed by the U.S. Business & Industry Council’s latest annual survey of domestic manufacturing’s competitiveness: The United States is a military superpower, but is steadily becoming an industrial also-ran. The...

At this point in our history, is what we really need a Treasury Secretary who is a pedigreed "Friend of China?" That is a term the Communist Chinese apply to individuals who have proven their affinity for the People's Republic by service of one kind or another. Communist China arguably has no better or more powerful friend in the whole of the Western world than the man President Bush has just appointed to be this nation's chief financial officer: Henry Paulson. Mr. Paulson has made a very successful career, an immense personal fortune and an astounding financial empire at the...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is joining with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to help advance diversity within the Bentonville-based retailer’s operations, the company confirmed Tuesday. Dee Breazeale, a Wal-Mart vice president, will serve on the chamber’s corporate advisory council, which works to educate corporate America on the benefits of workplace diversity. “We are honored to have Wal-Mart's support of the NGLCC. Our partnership will not only provide more opportunities for the NGLCC, but the business community as a whole,” Justin Nelson, chamber co-founder and president, said in a news release. “We are pleased with this addition to our...

As the Senate Finance Committee considers President Bush’s nomination of Henry Paulson to be the next secretary of the Treasury, the question is not whether he will be confirmed. That seems assured, as senators in both parties behave like star-struck groupies in the presence of a Wall Street “master of the universe,” whose net worth, from his time as a senior executive of Goldman Sachs, is estimated to be on the order of $600 million. Rather, the question is: Will any of his Senate interlocutors even bother to explore the nominee’s troubling fifteen-year ties to Communist China and the potential...

WASHINGTON - Immigration issues are always ripe for demagoguery, particularly in an election year. But the solution to the very real problems along the U.S.-Mexican border can be found, ironically, in that other part of the world that demagogues love to ridicule: old Europe. Two years ago, the European Union admitted 10 new members. Like Mexico, all of these nations were poor, some of them fairly backward and most recently ravaged by war and dictatorship. The leaders of the European Union wisely created policies for fostering regional economic and political integration that make the North American Free Trade Agreement "look...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The Labor Department reported the economy added 108,000 payroll jobs in December. The consensus forecast was 207,000, and my forecast, published by Reuters was 180,000. Unemployment fell to 4.9 percent, mainly because fewer adults chose to participate in the labor force. In the fourth quarter, 438,000 jobs were added, and this is consistent with GDP growth in the range of 3.0 to 3.5 percent Economic growth appears to be moderating from the red hot numbers posted in the third quarter, and if the Fed does not push interest rates too much...

Author Jerome Corsi and Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., will be guests tomorrow on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show to discuss the White House's effort to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that could lead to a North American union, despite having no authorization from Congress. Corsi and Tancredo will join Liddy for the entire 11 a.m. hour, Eastern time, and take calls from listeners. Corsi reported this week that Bush administration working groups have not disclosed the results of their work despite two years of massive effort within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The...

Based on the facts as I see them, the American people are about to get arguably the rudest awakening in the last one hundred years. The middle class will vanish, our social programs will fall into insolvency, and a select few people will make a hell of a lot of money at the expense of the rest of us. Imagine the arrogance necessary for one to believe he’s justified in wrecking three vibrant cultures – the US, Canada and Mexico – just to make his financial bottom line more attractive. Hitler, as twisted and evil as he was, sincerely believed...

Exporting America: The list Here is a list of companies we've confirmed are "Exporting America." These are U.S. companies either sending American jobs overseas, or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor, instead of American workers. A 3Com 3M A. Schulman, Inc. Aalfs Manufacturing Aavid Thermal Technologies Abbott Laboratories ABC-NACO Accenture Access Electronics Accuride Corporation Accuride International Acme Packaging Adaptec ADC Admanco Adobe Air Adobe Systems Admanco Advanced Energy Industries Aei Acquisitions Aetna Affiliated Computer Services AFS Technologies A.G. Edwards Agere Systems Agilent Technologies A.H. Schreiber Co. AIG Air Products & ChemicalsÊ Alamo Rent A Car Albany International Corp. Albertson's Alcoa...