Free Republic

During this "Great Recession", unemployment has risen from under 5% at the beginning of the recession in December of 2007 to more than double that rate to reach its highest level so far in October of 10.2%. This is the second highest unemployment rate in the postwar period, surpassed only by the 10.8% rate in December of 1982. In light of such rather dismal employment figures, it is not surprising that the President will have a "jobs summit" in a few days to consider how to improve the employment market. Posner correctly indicates that the unemployment rate understates the employment...

RACINE, Wis. - Prosecutors charged Racine Mayor Gary Becker with child-sex felonies Thursday and said he had gone to a mall to meet a 14-year-old-girl he thought he had met during an online chat. A state agent had posed as the girl, and the 51-year-old mayor was arrested Tuesday at the mall in suburban Milwaukee. District Attorney Michael Nieskes said during a news conference after a court hearing Thursday that investigators also found records of 1,800 sexually explicit chats ion Becker's computer...

Racine - Authorities seeking felony charges against Mayor Gary Becker say the 51-year-old married father of two, who ran unopposed for re-election two years ago, used the Internet to try to arrange a sexual liaison with what he thought was a teen girl. Taken into custody at Brookfield Square mall Tuesday evening, Becker became one of the more than 475 people arrested by the state's 10-year-old Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. By now, it is relatively widely known that investigators from the Division of Criminal Investigation pose as youths on the Internet, looking for adults who want to have...