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With the unemployment rate ticking higher, and the pace of job creation still at a pathetically low rate (by historical standards), we're compelled to revisit this chart. It's put together every monthly by Bill McBride at Calculated Risk, and it shows the trajectory of job losses in all of the various post-WWII recessions. This current recession (and recovery) is the bright red line. As you can see, the downtrend was far worse than anything else we'd seen since WWII, and the rise is far more meager than anything else we had seen.

WASHINGTON (AP)—As Americans debate whether they are better off now than they were four years ago, there is a similar question with a somewhat easier answer: Are you safer now than you were when President Barack Obama took office? By most measures, the answer is yes. More than a decade after terrorists slammed planes into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside, Americans have stopped fretting daily about a possible attack or stockpiling duct tape and water. Getting through airport security has become a routine irritation, not a grim foreboding. While the threat of...

Obama visits DNC headquarters By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 9/14/12 4:21 PM EDT President Obama is spending some time Friday afternoon at the Democratic National Committee's headquarters on Capitol Hill. Obama campaign traveling press secretary Jen Psaki said the president would "attend political meetings" at the DNC. The political sessions come after a day of official events: the Transfer of Remains Ceremony for four Americans killed in Libya and a celebration of U.S. Olympians on the South Lawn of the White House. In the evening, Obama will attend a closed-press fundraiser...

An 11-year-old boy was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse after his disabled mother was beaten so severely with an extension cord that she was hospitalized, authorities said.

Obama Corrected by Former Worst President

Federal authorities have identified a Coptic Christian in southern California who is on probation after his conviction for financial crimes as the key figure behind the anti-Muslim film that ignited mob violence against U.S. embassies across the Mideast, a U.S. law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official said Thursday that authorities had concluded that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was behind “Innocence of Muslims,” a film that denigrated Islam and the prophet Muhammad and sparked protests earlier this week in Egypt, Libya and most recently in Yemen. It was not immediately clear whether Nakoula was the target of a...

A Spring Garden man savagely beaten last summer by a bunch of teenagers has sued three of them for damages - and their mothers, for negligence. Timothy McCoy, 37, had just gotten off a bus and was walking to the movies when a group of about six to eight teens attacked him without provocation as he walked south on Fourth Street near Walnut about 2 p.m. on July 29, 2011, according to the lawsuit filed this month in Common Pleas Court.

Someone had better roust Barack Obama from whatever fundraiser he is attending at the moment and let him know there is a crisis going on. The State Department is belatedly trying to secure our embassies and consulates around the world; in the meantime, rioters swarmed over the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia, tore down the American flag and replaced it with the black flag of al Qaeda.

A U.S. official says an elite Marine rapid response team is headed to Sudan in the wake of violence and protests against the embassy in Khartoum. The deployment comes as Sudanese police opened fire on protesters trying to climb the walls of the U.S. Embassy. The Marine unit, known as a fleet antiterrorism security team, was sent in response to Friday's violence and as a precautionary measure, The move follows news that Marines arrived on the ground in Yemen to deal with the aftermath of another attack on the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Sanaa. They arrived in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Al Jazeera is reporting that American and Israeli flags are being burned in London. Israeli and US flags being burned in London according to Al Jazeera. We know that the University of Texas has evacuated their campus after a phoned-in bomb threat from Al-Qaeda. No bombs were found. Fargo, North Dakota, state university has ordered all employees and students off campus after receiving a bomb threat. But everything's okay because I got an e-mail from the Obama campaign. Ambassadors are being murdered, former SEALs are dying, embassies are burning across the Middle East, but don't worry, we...

Chicago police cleared out a Southwest Side funeral home today after a large group of friends of slain rap artist Lil Jojo gathered around his casket and nearly knocked it over. The scene drew outrage from relatives of the slain 18-year-old and other mourners, including one who picked up a microphone and exclaimed, "Y'all being disrespectful!"

There is no rational justification for irrational mob violenceSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is emphatic that the anti-Islam video “Innocence of Muslims” is “disgusting.” This happens to be what most Americans feel about our flag being desecrated. For some reason, foreign governments don’t heap praise on the United States and its traditions every time their people commit acts of disrespect toward us. U.S. politicians could learn from their example. In belated remarks Thursday marking the end of Ramadan, Mrs. Clinton expressed official disapproval of the film which has been blamed for the latest wave of anti-U.S. violence in the...

A national organization advocating for marriage being defined as between one man and one woman has declared victory in the political primaries of Rhode Island and New Hampshire. The National Organization for Marriage sent out a statement on Wednesday referring to the defeat of several pro-same-sex marriage candidates in the Democratic primary as a "massacre." "A massive last-minute surge of money from pro gay marriage millionaire Tim Gill couldn't drown out the voice of the people, who defeated five out of six pro gay marriage state senators," read the statement from Brian Brown, president of NOM. "The media and pro...

...Egypt has violated the cardinal principle of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty by remilitarizing the Sinai...[Egypt] then announced plans to purchase state-of-the-art submarines...that have no conceivable use except against Israel...

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Federal officials are reviewing the probation of a local man believed to the maker of an anti-Islam film that ignited a firestorm in the Muslim world, a court spokeswoman said Friday. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was convicted in 2009 of bank fraud and was placed on supervised probation for five years. Federal officials consider Nakoula to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Islam "Innocence of Muslims." A review of his federal probation is ongoing, said Karen Redmond, spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Redmond didn't provide details of why and when the probation review was...

The U.S. has increased embassy security worldwide after the assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens and three other consular officials, and violent protests at U.S. embassies in Egypt and Yemen. Protesters have been angered by a film that mocks Islam's Prophet Mohammed. The online film "Innocence of Muslims" has attracted widespread condemnation including remarks from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy and Pakistan's foreign ministry. Violent protests erupt at embassies as U.S. seeks killers The tension has also provoked comment throughout the press in the Arab world. CNN samples some of the commentaries: Lebanon Daily StarIn an editorial...

An Islamic group headed by influential cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Friday demanded Pope Benedict XVI apologise to Muslims over inflammatory remarks he made in 2006. The Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars also accused the pope of fuelling "sedition" between Muslims and Christians, in a statement coinciding with the start of the pontiff's three-day visit to Lebanon. The union "demands the pope of the Vatican apologise to Muslims over what he said during his speech in Germany... just as he had apologised to Jews," said the statement issued late on Thursday. In 2006, Benedict offended Muslims by appearing to...

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, NBC White House correspondent and MSNBC “The Daily Rundown” host Chuck Todd more-or-less predicted that President Barack Obama would win Florida in November, citing the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that gives Obama a five-point edge over Republican candidate Mitt Romney in that state.

Great uncertainty continues to shroud the ideological composition of the insurgency that is raging across Syria. The motivations of the rank-and-file of the Free Syrian Army (FSA - the armed wing of the Syrian National Council [SNC] opposition movement) and the constellation of factions that claim to be fighting under its auspices, are provoking serious concern. Displays of sectarianism, expressions of Salafist dogma and a spate of improvised explosive device (IED) and suicide attacks redolent of al-Qaeda that are occurring with growing frequency in Syrian cities, validate fears of the presence of radical Islamists within the armed opposition. Islamist militants...

N. Korean fishing boats retreat after violating West Sea border 2012-09-12 20:20 Seven North Korean fishing boats crossed the tense western maritime border with South Korea twice on Wednesday, but moved back into the North’s waters after a South Korean naval boat broadcast warning messages, military officials said. The North Korean fishing boats sailed 1.5 kilometers into the South’s waters around 7:30 a.m., but retreated after South Korean patrol boats broadcast a warning, officials at Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. At the time, a North Korean government boat also briefly crossed the de facto sea border trying to escort...

What does the deadly violence against U.S. officials in Libya and Egypt say about the Arab Spring? Is Mitt Romney ready to lead in this international atmosphere? Is our current president? SHOSHANA BRYEN The violence in Egypt and Libya — now spreading to Morocco and Kuwait — is an indication that the U.S. is unable to buy leverage. We bombed Qaddafi and undermined Mubarak on behalf of the revolution, but it has not engendered warm feelings toward us — or our president — in their successors. (In Morocco, they’re carrying signs that say “Death to Obama.”) Revolutionary movements either have,...

I watched CBS (Scot Pelley) just to see how they covered the Campus bomb threats and the Embassy problems overseas. There was no mention of either. Plenty of puff pieces. Sad.

New American Crossroads ad

President Obama and his fellow Democrats spent their convention down in Charlotte trying to persuade voters that the U.S. economy is on the right track...But yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke finally admitted what most folks outside Washington already knew: The economy, three years into a supposed recovery, remains in terrible shape...

The pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future is preparing a new round of television ads in the state of Michigan, breaking the GOP's silence on the airwaves there, according to several sources familiar with the group's plans. The Romney-boosting group will run commercials in the Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing markets between Sept. 19 and Oct. 2, one media-tracking source said. The dollar figure for the buy remains to be seen, but the geographic scope is pretty comprehensive. ROF will also air ads soon in Wisconsin, according to a second source. The Romney campaign and its independent-spending allies have...

For months, Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky has been predicting the costs and complications of the state voter ID amendment if it passes in November. Mansky has made public appearances at civic events and spoke at a state House news conference, where he's cautioned voters that Ramsey County will foot a heavy price to correct a problem that he says does not exist: widespread voter fraud. Now, some St. Paul Republicans are sending him a message of their own: Please be quiet and resign. In a public statement Thursday, Sept. 13, Greg Copeland, chairman of the St. Paul Republican...

Washington, D.C. –U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer released the following statement Friday in response to the sequestration report issued by the Office of Management and Budget:“There’s a one-word solution to the looming threat of these across-the-board cuts: revenues. The trigger was never meant to be activated, and we can avoid it as soon as Republicans get serious about a balanced deficit reduction plan.”

As Cabela's Inc. CAB +0.45%prepares the selection of guns it will sell for the holiday season and winter hunting, the outdoor-gear retailer has two plans: one if President Barack Obama is re-elected, and one if he isn't. The Sidney, Neb.-based retailer and other companies in the guns-and-ammo business say if Mr. Obama wins a second term they are preparing for a surge in sales—the same as they saw after he was elected in 2008—from buyers fearful the president would back policies to make buying a gun more difficult. If Republican challenger Mitt Romney wins, though, the chain plans to stock...

Israel media - Channel 2 - just reported that the US-commanded Multi-National Force Observors headquarters in the Sinai is under assault. Salafists laid seige to the building this afternoon and some 50 armed men stormed it. There is fighting going on in the building and there are dead inside. The MFO is the force that was established under the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. It is charged with guaranteeing the demilitarization of the Sinai. The MFO has two bases. I believe that the one under attack is in northern Sinai, built on an old Israeli Air Force base. The MFO has come...

Militants armed with rockets have attacked the main Allied military base in Afghanistan, leaving at least two people dead and a number of others hurt. The perimeter of Camp Bastion was breached as it was hit by small arms fire and there was major damage to buildings, an aircraft hangar and several military jets. The two soldiers killed are thought to have been US Marines. This facility is often subject to indirect fire, but officials in Afghanistan say the damage that has resulted is far more severe than normal. The attack was launched in the US area of the base.

DYSON: When we see these kind of conflagrations, we’re able to point the finger and say, ‘Oh, how horrible it is’ — but we’re horrible, too, because we’ve quietly fueled and fomented the kind of unnecessary hostility towards Muslims that we ought to take a mirror at and look at ourselves.

White House officials had asked Google earlier on Friday to reconsider whether the video had violated YouTube's terms of service. The guidelines can be viewed here Google said on Wednesday that the video was within its guidelines.

FELIX ZULAUF: Stocks Will Collapse, Gold Will Surge, And The 30-Year Bond Bull Market Is Over Rob WileSep. 14, 2012, 1:06 PM Felix Zulauf, a Swiss hedge fund manager, is out with another bearish forecast for stocks, bonds and currencies. Speaking to King World News, Zulauf says the 30-year bull cycle in Treasury bonds has ended, and that gold prices will soon surge again. I think we first see, over the next couple of years, the transfer of government debt from private balance sheets to central bank balance sheets. I do believe the 30 year bull market in government bonds...

When my son R.J. came home for a visit last month, priority one was completing a passport application. His chamber choir is touring Italy next spring, and he wanted to be sure he had everything in order. We printed out the passport application and looked it over carefully, making sure he had everything needed. To be safe, we turned in his old birth certificate at the Register of Deeds office and got a new “raised seal” certificate. Rather than taking a chance with a digital photo taken at home, we went to the Wal-Mart Photo Center to have passport photos...

A Wisconsin judge has struck down the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers. Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled Friday that the law violates both the state and U.S. Constitution and is null... *** It was not clear if the ruling means the law is immediately suspended.

[Obama and Clinton] again perpetuated the kind of intellectual dishonesty that cripples the U.S. response to radical Islamists. This concept of “senseless violence” is at the heart of the left’s refusal to confront the reality of radical Islamists. These are not acts of senseless violence. These are acts of war. Our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans...are combat casualties... ...the president is so committed to a leftist worldview that he cannot allow himself to face these facts. It is inconceivable that there just happened to be attacks in Egypt and Libya on Sept. 11. Yet...it had clearly not occurred...

Jay Carney in the White House briefing room today: (VIDEO AT LINK) This is, to put it bluntly, horrifying. At the very least it is incoherent. On one hand, the White House press secretary says we know the attacks are completely about a film, and not about the U.S. . . . but then we don’t have any information it wasn’t about a film. Have we done some investigation? What about reports that people storming our embassies hadn’t seen or hear about the film? And does the administration not understand that radical jihadists use such incidents to spur Muslims to...

HIRAM, Ohio - Hiram College issued a mandatory evacuation of its campus Friday evening, according to the school’s website . At about 5 p.m., students received a campus alert that stated the college had received a bomb threat. “We are taking this seriously, have notified local & federal authorities. Several other campuses received similar threats. Please remain aware of suspicious activities,” the alert said. Hiram College said it would update hiram.edu every 30 minutes with new information. Also on Friday, the University of Texas and the North Dakota State University were evacuated after bomb threats were phoned in within minutes...

Muhammad's Own Words Prophet of Doom was written to expose what Islam’s founder had to say about himself, his ambition, religion, and god. Before you use or criticize these quotes, please read this overview from the author. For those who are serious about the study of Islam, be sure to read the source material appendix, entitled Islam's Dark Past. War Ishaq:208 "When Allah gave permission to his Apostle to fight, the second Aqaba contained conditions involving war which were not in the first act of submission. Now we bound themselves to war against all mankind for Allah and His Apostle....

House Republicans on Friday passed a bill designed to block new loan guarantees for innovative energy projects like the failed Solyndra solar panel company that went bankrupt one year ago taking $535 million in taxpayers’ money with it. The measure passed mostly along party lines, 245 yeas to 161 nays, with 22 Democrats voting in favor of the bill and four Republicans voting against it. The legislation says no more applications submitted to the Energy Department after Dec. 31, 2011 can be considered for funding, effectively phasing out the program. However, the government stopped accepting all applications for the program...

ROME (JTA) – The Vatican significantly sharpened its condemnation of the violent attack in Libya that killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other U.S. State Department personnel.The comments came as Pope Benedict XVI began a two-day visit to Lebanon on Friday. “The very serious attack organized against the United States diplomatic mission in Libya, which led to the death of the ambassador and of other functionaries, calls for the firmest possible condemnation on the part of the Holy See,� said a statement Thursday by Vatican chief spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi. “Nothing, in fact, can justify the activity of terrorist...

Seattle would have more environmentally friendly buildings if environmentalists got out of the way.As a bastion of liberal values, Seattle is proud to be the capital of what some call Ecotopia. But local advocates of sustainable cities—densely packed urban landscapes with a mix of residential, commercial, industrial, and retail uses—are battling with Seattle’s neighborhood activists who, ironically, are using environmental regulations to stop construction of green-friendly buildings that would dramatically reduce energy use. Filing appeals based on the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) and the Growth Management Act (GMA), the activists have worked against the construction of two buildings, the...

A Violent 'Super Typhoon' Is Due To Hit Japan And South Korea This Weekend Joshua BerlingerSep. 14, 2012, 3:35 PMA violent super typhoon in the North Indian Ocean, named "Sanba" has begun to pick up steam and could start to affect residents of Japan and South Korea as early as Saturday morning. Winds have climbed up to 178 mph, which would make it the equivalent of powerful category 5 Hurricane, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. One resident said gusts were nearing 222 mph. Sanba is currently being tracked traveling north, and if it continues onwards, it could be...

Five of the six Rhode Island Senate candidates who support same-sex marriage lost during the state’s Democratic primaries Wednesday, despite massive backing from special-interest groups.“The Rhode Island Senate looks like it will again be safe for defending marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” National Organization for Marriage Northeast Director Chris Plante told CitizenLink.Incumbent Sen. Mike McCaffrey, who supports marriage and the right to life, beat Laura Pisaturo, who supports same-sex marriage.In addition to Pisaturo, the other same-sex marriage supporters challenging incumbents or vying for open seats who lost Wednesday are David Gorman, Gene Dyszlewski, Lewis Pryeor,...

QUEBEC — Calling Iran “the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today,” Canada’s foreign affairs minister, John Baird, abruptly announced Friday that his government had cut all diplomatic ties with the country.

I posted news about this not too long ago, and again months ago when I got in a little trouble. This is City Federation's press release and it is related to politics in a number of ways. Firstly it is a libertarian and Conservative leaning in their trivia sections, and all over the site. Secondly the game is not politically correct and they are going after Zynga which is. Zynga is all over Facebook and is their top social game maker. If members here recall they actually removed a building that was a wedding chapel as it was the politically...

The Japanese government can’t say it enough: Takeshima is ours. Senkaku is ours. And the Northern Territories are ours too! The territorial claims–which challenge those of South Korea, China and Russia, respectively–have been repeated like a broken record on nearly a daily basis. Domestic news organizations have devoted considerable ink and airtime to them as the tensions have brewed with neighbors. But in case you’ve been living under a rock during the last month, Japan has launched a blitz of media ads this week to drive the message home. About 70 domestic newspapers will carry ads this week reasserting Japan’s...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has renewed 180-day exceptions on Iran sanctions for Japan and 10 European Union nations due to their continued reductions of purchases of Iranian crude oil, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. Clinton said the exceptions would apply to Japan, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.

The best view of China's new flagship, which inspires fear in its enemies, could recently be had from a window on the fourth floor of an IKEA store in Dalian, a port city in northeastern China. Here, someone had scratched out a viewing hole in the opaque film masking the window, providing a view of the pier across the way—and of the Varyag. … Here in the West Pacific, tensions have been rising for months between China and America's partners. Beijing is in a dispute with Manila over the Scarborough Shoal, an uninhabited rocky atoll, most of which is only...