Free Republic

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped for a second straight week last week, unwinding some of the storm-related surge, which has muddled the labor market picture. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 393,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's figure was revised up to show 6,000 more applications than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 390,0000 last week. The four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends, increased 7,500 to 405,250, the highest level since October...

Benghazi Scandal: "Her meeting with GOP senators begs the question that if all she can do is read talking points handed to her by the White House then perhaps she should be the next White House press secretary." The above observation, courtesy of Richard Grenell, who served as spokesman for four U.S. Ambassadors to the U.N., is the flip side of our view that Susan Rice, who was sent out on five Sunday talk shows to explain Benghazi by a president who says she had "nothing to do with Benghazi," is as qualified to be the next secretary of state...

If we are to regain our freedom as sovereign nations, our search for the answers must take us beyond Barack Hussein Obama As dominant as he is in our worries and thoughts, the man they call Barack Hussein Obama is not the most important Agent of Change in daily life. Deliberately flamboyant by design, he’s only the most noticeable one. Obama is the handpicked decoy for this particular point in time; the one who draws attention away from One Worlders who work to capture America by stealth; the seemingly impossible to remove Candy Man, enabled by 50 percent of the...

Four Reasons To Remain Optimistic By Chris Mayer 11/28/12 The holidays are here. Please allow me be the first to say there’s reason for optimism. Yes… You read that right: optimism. I have been thinking a lot about this — about optimism and pessimism and the reasons for both — in recent post-presidential election days. It’s not that I care that Obama won or Romney lost. Please don’t misunderstand me. I didn’t (and still don’t) support either of them. It’s the whole process that gets me down. It brings out the worst in everybody. And I am always a little...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. Pete Wehner is a real gentleman. His reproofs are generally not caustic and are almost always intended to have his opponents listen to what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” Thus, when he recently criticized Kirsten Powers, he provided a most useful sketch of the history of Arab-Israeli conflicts in recent times, at least since 1967. Wehner’s column should be required reading for anyone taking part in Mideast policy discussions. In the main, we agree with his assessment of this good woman’s errors. But in gently rebuking Kirsten Powers,...

On November 19, Pravda’s Xavier Lerma wrote an article asserting that President (I use the term loosely) Barack Obama had been re-elected “by an illiterate society.” Some conservatives have been wont to dismiss and ridicule some of the dead-on assessments of the former Soviet newspaper since it was once in fact a Soviet newspaper. Some of this dismissal and ridicule did occur relative to Lerma’s piece; I think however, that such observations made by those who have been there and done that ought to be considered, if not heeded. Lerma writes “He [Obama] is a Communist without question promoting the...

While any and every bad data point recently has been summarily dismissed by the 'transitory' effects of Hurricane Sandy, it appears in the deepest darkest reality that there is more of a structural trend to this shift than simply a 'blip'. Claims missed expectations and prior data was revised higher leaving the four-week-average at its highest since October 2011 jumping back over 400k.

Who were all the great inventors, innovators, and philosophers? Who forged the West? Who birthed democracy? Who gave us our Constitution? While modern society prides itself on being unbiased, it’s no exception to the rule that every age has its fashionable prejudices — and unfashionable people. Among the latter today are white men, and the closer they are to “dead white male” status, to use a favored leftist descriptive, the greater the disdain in which they’re held. Thus do we see sneering at “old white men.” Earlier this year, Senator Harry Reid — one well acquainted through experience with old-white-male...

Lakshman Achuthan Vigorously Defends His Recession Call, Says We'll Know If He's Wrong Within One Month Sam RoNov. 29, 2012, 6:30 AM ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan is on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene, vigorously defending his recession call, which many have called dead wrong. In case you're catching up, back in September 2011 Achuthan predicted the U.S. would go into recession. Advisor Perspectives' Doug Short has a great summary of all of Achuthan's calls and appearances since then. Achuthan essentially lays out two parts to his defense this morning. First, a recession is not measured as two consecutive quarters of GDP....

The Leftists are angry about Glenn Beck's popular art work titled "Obama in Pee Pee". Suddenly they have revived their platitudes about "respecting the office of the presidency"... (video)

Lindsay Lohan was arrested early Thursday morning in New York after an altercation with a woman at a Chelsea nightclub. She was charged with assaulting the woman at Club Avenue, police say.

Editor’s note: Below is the video and transcript of a special session of the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 2012 Restoration Weekend dedicated to the 2012 election. Restoration Weekend took place Nov. 15th-18th at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. PAUL ERICKSON: Ladies and gentlemen, pals and gals, children of all ages, welcome to After the Election, What Lies Ahead with Congressman Louie Gohmert and Congressman Allen West. And we have a bonus walk-on. Who is that strange from Minnesota? My name is Paul Erickson. I’m a private businessman. I build cities all over the world, but in my private...

Speaking on WMAL's Morning Mall, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said that he has no intentions of running for President in 2016, but did not rule it out completely saying to the effect that 'no one knows what he or she is going to do four years from now'. He said he had 'a lot of work to do' in the Senate in the next four years. He is an american treasure.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Avoiding the Inevitable in GazaPosted By Joseph Puder On November 28, 2012 @ 12:15 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 5 Comments The Israeli security cabinet also known as “The Nine” recently met to decide on the next course of action to be taken in the Gaza war.  At the same time, a string of foreign officials arrived in Israel, including the Foreign Ministers of France and Germany, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Tony Blair, special representative of the Quartet to the Middle East, as well as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  All of...

Sorry, but it is not the fiscal cliff. It is the complete shift in the US labor model, at least in the service sector, due to Obamacare. Here is what I am doing for the rest of the year -- working with every manager in my company so that as of January 1, 2013, none of our employees are working more than 28 hours a week. I think most readers know the reason -- we have got to get our company under 50 full time employees or else I am facing a bill from Obamacare in 2014 that will be...

The best thing the Republicans could do right now is to give Obama everything that he wants. Those of us who think, rather than feel, understand that Obama’s course will end up with the United States going bankrupt, because there isn’t enough money on the planet, much less the US, to pay for all the goodies the Democrats want to bestow on their favored constituents. Just to give you an example of how hopeless the situation is, the combined net worth of the Forbes list of America’s 400 wealthiest people is just over $1.7 trillion. So if you confiscate 100%...

Residents of the western Serbian village of Zarozje reportedly received a unique public health warning recently, when the town's mayor cautioned that a vampire was on the loose. That is not a joke, and the people of Zarozje are taking heed and stocking up on garlic bulbs and crosses. Here, a brief guide to this bizarre tale: Who is this supposed vampire? His name is Sava Savanovic. Local legend has it that long ago, he lived in an old water mill on the village's Rogacica River. He reportedly preyed on unsuspecting visitors who stopped by the mill in search of...

There's stupid and then there's CELEBRITY STUPID. At last week's Soul Train Awards show, Jamie Foxx, apparently high on hopium, declared Barack Obama to be Lord and Savior. More disturbingly, the crowd reacted with enthusiastic support for his allegedly jocular blasphemy. When 95% of African-American church members have no problem casting a vote in favor of a president with such screamingly anti-Christian policies, something is way wrong. Even fraudulent elections have consequences.

... Obama is having Mitt Romney over for lunch on Thursday and their meeting is already generating a lot of buzz. Here are five theories about the White House’s motives.... 1. Obama is extending a common courtesy... 2. Obama will offer Romney a Cabinet job... 3. Obama will enlist Romney in the fiscal cliff debate... 4. Obama wants Romney’s advice on business issues... 5. Obama wants closure on the 2012 presidential election, or something else?....

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - The French Connection – To Anti-SemitismPosted By Ari Lieberman On November 29, 2012 @ 12:46 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments When it comes to the Jews, the French have a long, checkered history of treachery. French anti-Semitism is well known and deeply embedded in French culture. It therefore comes as no surprise that France will likely be the first major Western power to recognize Palestinian statehood, according to a statement released by the French Foreign Ministry.No doubt, the continued Arab migration to France and the influence Muslims wield in that spineless country...