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In his first speech to the Navy League, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out a grim portrait of a smaller fleet, one with fewer aircraft carriers, few or no new submarines and a sharply curtailed expeditionary capability for the Marines. Gates told a somber audience today that he did “not foresee any significant top-line increases in the shipbuilding budget beyond current assumptions. At the end of the day, we have to ask whether the nation can really afford a Navy that relies on $3 to $6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines, and $11 billion carriers.” On top of that, as...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. retailers including discounter Costco Wholesale and teen chain Zumiez posted slightly disappointing April same-store sales, and the early report suggested Wall Street's hopes for a consumer rebound may be getting ahead of the pace of recovery. Six out of nine retailers who posted sales results at stores open at least a year came in short of analyst expectations, according to a tally by Thomson Reuters. An additional 19 store chains were due to report. "Nobody has told American consumers that the recession is over although some officials have rosy predictions of growing consumer spending," consumer...

Democrats are getting desperate. Thanks to mountains of unpopular legislation, they’re careening full speed ahead towards huge losses in November. They’re looking towards their charismatic Dear Leader to help save them, and so Obama is trying to recapture the magic from his campaign. So, Obama sent out a call for pretty much everyone except older white people to help out his buddies when election season rolls around. Unfortunately, he’s already lost one of those groups: the young voters. Cue the hysterical “Get Out The Vote” campaigns! Less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama announced his plan to re-build the...

WASHINGTON — Is George W. Bush about to start a political comeback? Written off as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history when he left office, the 63-year-old Bush has been keeping a low profile, fading from view as the country turned its attention to his successor, President Barack Obama . Now, some events might be turning in Bush's favor just as he and his family emerge to tell their side of the story, first with the release this week of Laura Bush's memoir, "Spoken From the Heart," then in November with the release of his book, "Decision Points."...

The nation’s non-union contractors, who constitute the bulk of the construction industry, say President Obama has given a “massive payback” to unions by implementing an executive order that would help them secure billions of dollars in construction contracts on public projects -- and a House Republican congressman agrees. The executive order, implemented in mid-April, encourages federal agencies to use “project labor agreements” or PLAs on their construction projects, which could require any non-union workers to pay into ailing union pension funds and follow work guidelines set out by a union. Ben Brubeck, who is director of the labor and federal...

Some militaries are defeated in battle; others lose the war before the firing even begins. For example, it is the general consensus among military historians that the French military lost in World War Two before the first German panzer had crossed the frontier. A combination of preparing to fight the last war, inadequate investment in modern air and ground power, the wrong organization and French politics basically ensured that Germany would defeat France. The United States may be replicating the French experience. Rather than maintaining control of the high ground and with it control of the initiative in future conflicts,...

Growing Anger At Collapse Of U.S.A. Standard Of Living Politics / US Politics Apr 25, 2010 - 07:03 AM By: Global Research Hiram Lee writes: A series of recent studies conducted by the Pew Research Center shed new light on the scope of the economic crisis in the US and the level of hostility the majority of the American population holds for the US government. Released in March, before the passage of the Obama administration’s health care legislation, a survey entitled “Health Care Reform—Can’t Live With It, or Without It” indicates that 92 percent of Americans give the national economy...

Recent research from the New York Times / CBS News poll revealed that 18% of Americans identify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party, classify themselves "very conservative" and are very pessimistic about the direction of the country and severely critical of Washington and, of course, Obama. Over 90% of them believe that the country moves to a wrong path and the same percentage disapproves of the president and his administration policy. Already 92% of respondents estimated that Obama leads the country "toward socialism" (an opinion shared by more than half the population in general). Moreover, the expressions of popular...

Obama's Sixty Fifth Week in OfficeThe List" for 4/22/2010 Obama's health care overhaul law will increase the nation's health care tab instead of bringing costs down, government economic forecasters concluded Thursday in a sobering assessment of the sweeping legislation.Obama argued for more government regulation and the SEC watches pornWhite House press secretary Robert Gibbs- The President doesn't take--and didn't in the campaign--money from registered federal lobbyists -----Presidential ties to lobbyists... HERE ... and HERENetanyahu is amenable to an interim agreement in the West Bank that would include the establishment of a Palestinian state within temporary bordersGrassley Slams GM, Administration Over...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17

Press airs grievances to Gibbs By: Mike Allen April 17, 2010 12:06 PM EDT White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met with a delegation from the White House press corps for 75 minutes on Thursday in an effort to improve frayed relations between the two sides. Ed Chen, a White House correspondent for Bloomberg News who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said he asked for the meeting “to clear the air because in my 10-plus years at the White House, rarely have I sensed such a level of anger, which is wide and deep, among members over...

Addressing a DNC fundraiser in Florida, President Obama said that Tea partiers should be "grateful" to him for lowering their taxes. And AP reports that the president says, "he's been a little amused over the past couple of days when people at the rallies complained about taxes." Amused? Amused at trillion dollar deficits? Amused that his health care plan is one of the most unpopular pieces of major legislation in American history? Amused that our enemies in Iran and North Korea continually mock and laugh at the United States under his leadership? Amused at the utter, complete, and total failure...

<p>It is, of course, a really silly thing to even think about, given the clout of the Chicago Machine boys currently occupying the White House.</p> <p>But, just say, the Real Great Talker continues his spiraling descent in the polls over the next 12-18 months; already the Democrat is barely tied with Any Republican in opinion polls looking toward 2012.</p>

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: What was unprecedented this week was the unprecedented use of the word "unprecedented" by the president to describe a conference which was completely fatuous. What were the accomplishments? [Snip] Look, this was all a conference about changing the subject. The subject when it comes to proliferating nukes is Iran. If it requires nukes, it's the end of the NPT, it's the end of all effort to prevent a weapon from falling in the hands of terrorism. It's the biggest supporter of terrorism in the world. It will change the world. It will change the Middle East. Everybody...

Poll: 46% want Bush back By Eric Zimmermann - 04/14/10 11:02 AM ET Almost half of Americans prefer George W. Bush to President Obama, according to a new Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey. Forty-six percent of respondents said they'd like to have Bush back in the White House, while 48% prefer Obama. From PPP: Bush had atrocious approval ratings for his final few years in office, particularly because he lost a lot of support from Republicans and conservative leaning independents. Those folks may not have liked him but they now say they would rather have him back than Obama. 87%...

While the market cheers on the fantastic job “growth” of March 2010, the more astute of us are concerned with a growing tide of personal bankruptcies. March 2010 saw 158,000 bankruptcy filings. David Rosenberg of Gluskin-Sheff notes that this is an astounding 6,900 filings per day. This latest filing is up 19% from March 2009’s number which occurred at the absolute nadir of the economic decline, when everyone thought the world was ending. It’s also up 35% from last month’s (February 2010) number. Given the significance of this, I thought today we’d spend some time delving into numbers for the...

When I first set eyes on Barack Obama I knew that the Republicans didn’t have a chance at winning the Presidency. Obama, a young, handsome, bi-racial idealist whispering the poetry of hope and change was unstoppable when placed next to the old, white, sameness of John McCain. Everything about the Obama candidacy seemed perfectly orchestrated. His presidency, while less popular, has been equally choreographed. There is an almost beauty pageant perfection to his image. The beauty pageant world of President Obama continued this week with the signing of the Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia. NPR’s “Morning Edition” ran a story,...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has surpassed 11,000 today for the first time since September 2008. Yet, the U.S. could still be in recession, according to a statement released today by the National Bureau of Economic Research's Business Cycle Dating Committee. The group of academic economists declined to declare the recession over. According to the stock market, however, Wall Street would beg to differ. Who's right? Possibly neither.

Think Dow 11,000 is a big deal? Think again. The Dow Jones industrial average briefly hit the milestone Friday for the first time in 18 months before closing at 10,997. But Wall Street analysts who study key stock index levels say all the attention paid to 11,000 is more like a big distraction. They worry that investors are ignoring another number at their peril: The surprisingly low volume of trading. As stocks have risen over the past year, the volume reflects the vulnerability of a rally riding on the shoulders of relatively few participants. And that's given pause even to...

A recent analysis by Roger Simon of PJTV Media maintains that Obama is showing signs of mental illness. A wide variety of commentators have observed that Obama displays severe narcissism. Obama is conceited, and he is demonstrating a serious disassociation from reality. A recent case in point was Obama's bizarre and meandering 17-minute, 2,500-word answer to the simple question about how he could justify raising taxes for ObamaCare during a recession when citizens are already overtaxed. Obama's wildly inappropriate answer left the audience stunned and led commentator Charles Krauthammer to mockingly say, "I don't know why you are so surprised....