Free Republic

How Long Can U.S. Economy’s Sweet Spot Last This Time? Economics / US EconomyFebruary 23, 2013 - 07:50 PM GMT By: Sy Harding Until recently, the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and meltdown has been in stealth mode all the way, much of the country either unaware of the progress - or in denial that it was happening. That’s even been true of investors, whose success depends so much on being able to separate the facts and reality from the static and noise. Statistics measuring money flow in and out of mutual funds show that many investors followed their...

Bloomberg’s Josh Barro criticizes the James Madison Institute’s poll showing that 65 percent of Florida voters oppose implementing ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion. Barrow is mostly wrong. But even when he’s right, he’s still wrong. Disclosure: I helped JMI formulate their poll questions. Barro complains that JMI conducted a “push poll.” His first complaint is:

Employers in the U.S. may soon have to hire more workers with criminal backgrounds under new equality guidelines issued by the federal government. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s guidelines warn companies against rejecting minority applicants who have committed a felony or other offense, recommending that those companies eliminate policies which ‘exclude people from employment based on a criminal record.’ According to the EEOC, civil rights laws already prohibit employers from selectively hiring job applicants who are of different ethnic backgrounds but have matching criminal histories. The latest update from the EEOC was issued out of concern that employers might disproportionally...

A number of African-American leaders joined together Friday to challenge the gun control proposals currently being considered on Capitol Hill, claiming gun control laws are inherently racist. “There’s a direct correlation between gun control and black people control,” Stacy Swimp, president and CFO of the Frederick Douglass Society, said at the event at the press conference sponsored by the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (C.U.R.E). Swimp compared the call for universal background checks for gun purchase to the time when blacks were required to register with the government. “The first gun laws were put into place to register black...

What government spends the most on health care? Is it Canada or the United Kingdom, which are famous (or, if these stories are any indication, infamous would be a better description) for single-payer healthcare systems? Is it Sweden, the home of the cradle-to-grave welfare state? Or France, the land of the world’s most statist people? How about Italy or Greece, nations that have spent themselves into fiscal crisis? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. The United States spends more money, on a per-capita basis, than any of those countries. Here’s a chart from a Forbes analysis prepared by Doug Holtz-Eakin and...

Last week, I sat through four excruciating hours of legislative hearings before the Ways and Means Committee of MarylandÂ’s House of Delegates. I was waiting to testify on behalf of Citizens in Charge against House Bill 493. For the 20 years before last November, not a single citizen-initiated referendum made it to the Maryland ballot. Why? The state boasts the countryÂ’s most draconian rules for verifying petition signatures. An attorney running his own petition effort had his signature disallowed because he did not sign one of his two middle names or write the initial. Most states use the standard of...

In its wisdom -- and yes, I am being ironic -- the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a ruling Tuesday that revives a California inmate lawsuit to force the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to hire a paid, full-time Wiccan chaplain. Oddly, the three-judge panel found that the complaint "did not contain sufficient facts to support a cognizable legal theory under the First Amendment." Nonetheless, the court overturned a federal judge's 2011 dismissal of the lawsuit. It's enough to make you wonder whether Samantha twitched her nose and cast a spell on the...

The White House is preparing to cede more ground to Senate Republican foes and hand over documents related to the Benghazi attacks to try to secure the confirmation of John Brennan to run the CIA, POLITICO has confirmed. After releasing official timelines, an investigation and sending Cabinet officials up to Capitol Hill for hearings, now the Obama administration has agreed to surrender email messages between top national security officials that discuss how to describe the Sept. 11 attack, a Senate aide confirmed Friday evening.

An Army veteran in New York is facing up to seven years in prison for possessing five empty 30-round ammunition magazines. Nate Haddad told WGRZ-TV he was parked on a road last month waiting to meet someone interested in buying them off him when police approached. According to the station, the magazines were for an AR-15 rifle, the same type of weapon Haddad once carried in combat. Magazines over 10 rounds have been illegal in New York since 1994, unless they were manufactured before the law went into effect. Haddad says he thought his were legal, until he found out...

Washington D.C., Feb 23, 2013 / 04:12 pm (CNA).- New governmental reports on sexual behavior in America show significant rises in both sexually-transmitted infections and use of emergency contraception in recent years. Government estimates “show that there are about 20 million new infections in the United States each year,” said that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a new fact sheet released this month. The report was one of two recent studies by the organization surveying the behavior of sexually active individuals in the U.S. Based on surveys and public disease reports, the group estimated “that there are...

(Kayla Williams, a former sergeant with the U.S. Army, spoke in favor of the lifting of the ban on women serving in combat units on Feb. 21, 2013 at the Center for National Policy in Washington, D.C.) (CNSNews.com) - At an event to discuss the merits of lifting the ban on women serving in combat units in the U.S. military, a retired Army sergeant said that hygiene issues are not a problem, including menstrual cycles, which she said can be regulated or eliminated by using birth control. “Women can use hormonal birth control to regulate or eliminate their periods...

After a dismal winter, spring is nearly upon us, and everything is coming up roses at JCPenney. That, at least, is the message some investors expect to hear from CEO Ron Johnson Wednesday — despite forecasts that the flailing retailer will report a fourth-quarter loss on what could be the worst sales drop in its history. When Penney reports its results, Wall Street analysts forecast a loss, with sales down 24 percent to $4.1 billion, but many industry watchers estimate Penney’s comparable sales will plunge by upward of 30 percent.

Even during this desultory economic recovery, one industry thrives — the manufacture of synthetic hysteria. It is, however, inaccurate to accuse the Hysteric in Chief of crying “Wolf!” about spending cuts under the sequester. He is actually crying “Hamster!” As in: Batten down the hatches — the sequester will cut $85 billion from this year’s $3.6 trillion budget! Or: Head for the storm cellar — spending will be cut 2.3 percent! Or: Washington chain-saw massacre — we must scrape by on 97.7 percent of current spending! Or: Chaos is coming because the sequester will cut a sum $25 billion larger than was just shoveled out...

Boy, the anti-gun goobers were out in full force this past week giving us plebeians the down low on what we “need” to protect ourselves during everything from home invasions to rape situations. It was like listening to Obama talk about economics or Roseanne Barr gloss smoothly on the importance of Southern etiquette in marital conflicts. I heard so much horse scat coming from the left last week regarding self-defense that I am now befuddled as to whom I should give my “Are You Blanking Kidding Me” award to. Damn you, tyranny of many options. Damn you! First on...

The Talk Shows February 24th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Govs. Jack Markell, D-Del., and Scott Walker, R-Wis.; Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood; Govs. Deval Patrick, D-Mass., and Bobby Jindal, R-La.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Education Secretary Arne Duncan; Govs. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., Bob McDonnell, R-Va., Jan Brewer, R-Ariz., and John Chickenpooper, D-Colo.; Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa.; Sens. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Tim Kaine, D-Va,THIS WEEK (ABC): Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): LaHood;...

Blueprint NC is “a nonprofit that coordinates the activities of liberal-leaning nonprofits” in North Carolina and when this 501(c) group’s communications director Stephanie Bass forwarded a strategy memo to member organizations, she included a disclaimer: “CONFIDENTIAL to Blueprint, so please be careful – share with your boards and appropriate staff, but not the whole world.” Oops. The memo got leaked to reporter Mark Binker at WRAL in Raleigh. The contents are quite disturbing and clearly partisan: “The most effective way to mitigate the worst legislation is to weaken our opponents’ ability to govern by crippling their leaders (McCrory, Tillis, Berger,...

Like a breathless 13 year old girl at a One Direction concert, President Obama raced around the nation over the last week attempting to frighten Americans into opposing the modest cuts to the federal budget due through the sequester process on March 1. Never mind that the sequester was President Obama's idea. Never mind that these cuts amount to just 2 cents on every dollar of the federal budget. And, never mind that his Administration has made history, in a bad way, by running four straight trillion dollar plus deficits. No, there was the President standing in front of "first...

Did you hear the big news from the world of small business? Jewish delis are closing in both Los Angeles, and New York City. The trend has been a long time in the making, especially in New York City where Jewish delis’s used to number in the thousands and now total less than one hundred. Yet the Los Angeles Times reported this “news” just this past week, and the details that the report included – and the details that were ignored– point to some far greater problems. The article, written by Journalist Tiffany Hsu, notes that the decline of the...

Fox News political analyst and “Special Report” panelist Juan Williams said in an interview with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas that mainstream media outlets “stab” and “kill” dissenting voices. Williams was fired from National Public Radio in 2010 after saying he sometimes gets “nervous” when seated on an airplane with Muslims, while making a broader point about the importance of religious tolerance. “I always thought it was the Archie Bunkers of the world, the right wingers of world, who were more resistant and more closed-minded about hearing the other side,” he said. “In fact, what I have learned is, in...

<p>A new driver's license expected to be issued to some illegal immigrants in North Carolina has prompted state lawmakers and immigrant rights groups to voice concerns over the proposal.</p> <p>The proposed North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles license has a bright pink stripe and the bold words "NO LAWFUL STATUS."</p>