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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Gross domestic product expanded at a paltry 1.3% annual rate, the Commerce Department said Friday to mark the weakest six-month period since the recovery began. Furthermore, first-quarter GDP was drastically revised downward to show just a 0.4% gain from the initially reported 1.9% improvement. And the recession proved to be deeper than initially projected. See related story about the recession. Economists had forecast GDP, the inflation-adjusted, seasonally adjusted value of all goods and services produced in the United States, growing at a 1.6% rate in the second quarter.

Booming economic growth in 2005 flies in the face of economic “soft patch” WASHINGTON, D.C. – Another good piece of economic news came today as the Commerce Department reported retail sales grew at a torrid 1.4 percent pace in April. The gains far outpaced analyst’s expectations of 0.8 percent growth and continue to paint a picture of long term, sustained economic growth. Many left-leaning pundits and journalists have claimed in recent weeks that the U.S. economy was slowing down, but reality sharply contradicts this pessimistic outlook. “I have to question the intellectual credentials of anyone who looks at this economy...

Natan Sharansky is among the world's most consistent advocates of democratization as a basis for foreign policy. Born in Ukraine in 1948, he received a degree in mathematics from Moscow's Physical Technical Institute. A brilliant mathematician and chess master, he entered the limelight as a spokesman for the movement to emancipate Soviet Jewry. Arrested by the Soviet authorities in 1977 for his refusenik activities, he was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment. President Ronald Reagan interceded and, in 1986, won Sharansky's release as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. In his 1988 autobiography Fear No Evil,[1] he discussed both his emotional...