Free Republic

... On Wednesday, Mr. Welch and his wife and writing partner, Suzy Welch, told a gathering of women executives from a range of industries that, in matters of career track, it is results and performance that chart the way. Programs promoting diversity, mentorships and affinity groups may or may not be good, but they are not how women get ahead. "Over deliver," Mr. Welch advised. "Performance is it!" Angry murmurs ran through the crowd. The speakers asked: Were there any questions? "We're regaining our consciousness," one woman executive shot back. Mr. Welch had walked into a spinning turbine fan blade....

Eurozone Markit Final Manufacturing PMI numbers were released yesterday. The results, as I warned months in advance, were decidedly not pretty.   Final Markit Eurozone Manufacturing PMI at 34-month low of 45.9 Production declines across big-four economies for first time in the year-to-date Weak demand and falling intra-Eurozone trade volumes hurting both output and employment The weak PMI number reflected a drop in Eurozone manufacturing production for the second consecutive month, as new order inflows declined at the fastest pace since December. Austria was the only nation to see production rise in April. Manufacturers reported weak demand from both domestic and export...

Previously, we advanced two possible hypotheses that might explain what is currently happening with the number of seasonally-adjusted initial unemployment insurance claim applications being filed in the U.S. each week: The number of new jobless claims filed each week is in the process of leveling out somewhere between 370,000 and 380,000, which is about 60,000-70,000 higher than the typical levels that were recorded before the December 2007 recession began. Rising oil and gasoline prices in the U.S. have derailed the most recent falling trend in new jobless claims, and a new, negative trend has begun where the number of claims...

Remember the sci-fi cult classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"? The 1956 movie is about a small town where extraterrestrial "pods" take over the townspeople. Even pillars of the community change into zombielike clones, as revealed by their blank stares and abnormal impulses. Outwardly, though, the "pod people" remain unchanged. The town doctor, played by Kevin McCarthy, figures out what's going on, but, as the movie progresses, there are fewer real people to warn. Soon, they've all gone over to the Other Side! The climactic sequence features McCarthy, the last free man, running across a rugged landscape and onto a...

... In papers filed with the Supreme Court, administration lawyers have warned of “extraordinary disruption’’ if Medicare is forced to unwind countless transactions that are based on payment changes required by more than 20 separate sections of the Affordable Care Act. Opponents say the whole law must go. The administration counters that even if it strikes down the insurance mandate, the court should preserve most of the rest of the legislation. That would leave in place its changes to Medicare as well as a major expansion of Medicaid coverage.

A Grade 12 student in Nova Scotia has been suspended for wearing a T-shirt publicizing his religious beliefs. The South Shore Regional School Board suspended William Swinimer from Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin for five days for wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words, “Life is wasted without Jesus.” School board Superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake said the wording on the shirt is problematic because it is directed at the beliefs of others.

This week, failed terrorist Adis Medunjanin was found guilty of attempting to blow up the New York City subway system. Medunjanin’s two cohorts, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay pled guilty and cooperated with the feds. According to the New York Post, “the trio planned to detonate would have caused significant destruction and death in a subway car.” The story that goes untold is the one of the college that funded and facilitated the trio, while also ignoring the warnings of Islamic extremism on campus. The three failed terrorists met at Flushing High School where they became friends. Both Medunjanin...

The Obama administration's record on human rights, never strong, just got a whole lot worse. This week's dramatic saga of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng's escape from house arrest in Shandong province to safety inside the U.S. Embassy to the embassy's role in handing him over to Chinese authorities is a disgraceful tale. Once again, the Obama administration has chosen to put human rights violations on the back burner, as it has nearly every time it has been asked for help, whether from Iranian protesters in 2009 or Syrian freedom fighters today. Chen's fate was complicated by the arrival in...

The University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball team is heading to Washington D.C. to meet President Barack Obama this Friday...

It's hard to know which is worse: one's grief over Chen Guangcheng's fate or the fury over the Obama administration's abandonment of him to that fate. Chen was already an internationally known human rights activist when he remarkably showed up at the U.S. embassy in Beijing last week seeking refuge. A blind, self-taught lawyer from Shandong province, Chen had been held prisoner for 19 months for the crime of publicizing Chinese atrocities by those enforcing the "one child" policy. Chen had chosen a moonless night (his captors were not blind) to scale several high walls and stumble his way to...

There was a silver lining for Jonah Goldberg in Piers Morgan's ambush interview of him allegedly concerning his new book, "The Tyranny of Cliches." Jonah couldn't have written a better script to illustrate his book's theme. Someone really should explain to Morgan that when a host invites a guest to discuss the guest's book, the host ought to at least make a good-faith effort to pretend he has the slightest interest in allowing the author to expound on the book's contents -- as opposed to using the author as a prop to indulge the interviewer's own arguments against conservatives and...

Dr. Jill Biden, wife of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, will visit Coast Guard Base Miami Beach Thursday to talk with spouses of Coast Guard members. She’s expected to talk at 4:30 p.m. First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Biden just celebrated the one-year anniversary of Joining Forces, their initiative to honor, recognize and serve veterans, service members and military families. Friday, Dr. Biden will be speaking at the Broward College graduation commencement ceremony.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent expose by Sharon Terlep about how Obama’s economic policies end up as bad investments- for the rest of us. You know? The 99 percent non-bailout people. OK, it’s really not about that. It’s about how even the worst union workers and plants under the UAW bailout got bailed out, while great workers at productive plants got the shaft- because they weren’t UAW shops.Reports Terlep:In the end, "we had to take care of our own members," says Cal Rapson, the former UAW vice president leading negotiations with GM. "It was unfortunate what happened to...

The new frontier just keeps arriving. New York magazine reports NBC programming chief Robert Greenblatt has given the go-ahead for a new sitcom called "The New Normal." NBC's new normal is about two gay men who start a family using a surrogate. Greenblatt is apparently so enamored with the concept that he's strongly considering having the 20th Century Fox TV-produced sitcom launch by August, following NBC's broadcast of the summer Olympics. The show comes from Ryan Murphy, the gay creator of "Glee," "American Horror Story," and "Nip/Tuck." This is only part of a growing Comcast/NBC Universal campaign promoting homosexuality. In...

Quick, hide under the covers. The nation's storyteller, Barack Obama, unveiled a frightening new fable on the Internet intended to scare women away from supporting fiscal conservatives in November. But as is increasingly common with Obama's social media propaganda initiatives, "The Life of Julia" immediately flopped. Why? Because 1) self-sufficient women voters aren't as sheeple-ish as Democratic strategists make them out to be, 2) conservative activists are overtaking Obama's zombie army online, 3) non-delusional Americans don't want cradle-to-grave utopians turning their country into the next Greece or Spain, and 4) responsible grownups are getting sick and tired of radical Saul...

“Start listening to Rush Limbaugh.” That was the unexpected message representatives from Media Matters for America and the National Organization for Women delivered to NOW chapter leaders in a secret, narrowly focused strategy session Wednesday night. In audio of the NOW/MMFA strategy webinar obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, the liberal organizations plotted the best ways to get the radio giant and veritable burr in their collective saddles off the air. Go after the local advertisers The key, according to Media Matters online outreach director Jay Carmona, is to target Limbaugh at the local level — specifically advertisers in local...

There was no single blow, stomp or strike to Robert Champion's bruised and battered body that killed him as he was pummeled by fellow Florida A&M University marching band members during a hazing ritual aboard a charter bus last fall. Instead, his death was caused by multiple blows from many individuals. That inability to pinpoint which blow ultimately caused the 26-year-old drum major's death led authorities to charge 13 defendants Wednesday with hazing rather than more serious counts like manslaughter or second-degree murder.

Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett points out a new Quinnipac poll of swing-state voters in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The poll is consistent with previous polling data on Obamacare, indicating that striking down all or part of Obamacare would not do great damage to the Supreme Court’s public image and perceived credibility.According to the poll, 53 percent of Florida voters, 52 percent of Ohio voters, and 46 percent of Pennsylvania voters think Congress should try to repeal the health-care law. This is notable for how far voters are willing to go in their opposition to Obamacare, when offered that...

Wondering where things stand on global warming? Let's go to the science of it. And by "science" I mean physical observations. Nothing complicated. What do thermometers say? What's happening with polar ice caps? And carbon dioxide? In the following analysis I use publicly available data as provided by government scientists at places like NASA, the U.K. Met office, and NOAA. This is the data we're told to use and trust. I'm using it and trusting it. Measured Temperatures. The two charts below show recent global temperatures (NASA/GISS data) in units of hundredths of a degree above the 1951-1980 average. The...

For the first time in seven decades, we live in a world without global leadership. In the United States, endless partisan combat and mounting federal debt have stoked fears that America's best days are done. Across the Atlantic, a debt crisis cripples confidence in Europe, its institutions and its future. In Japan, recovery from a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown has proven far easier than ending more than two decades of political and economic malaise. A generation ago, these were the world's powerhouses. With Canada, they made up the G7, the group of free-market democracies that powered the global...