New U.S. jobless claims jump 38,000 to 368,000

So much for "Happy Days".

The number of people who filed new applications for U.S. unemployment benefits climbed 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 368,000 in the week ended Jan. 26, putting them at a one-month high, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected claims to climb to 355,000. Initial claims have returned to a level that prevailed through the later stages of 2012 after touching a five-year low earlier this month.

Claims are often extremely jumpy in January after the end of the holidays and the start of a new year. Companies let go of temporary hires and some people wait until after the holidays to file claims. Initial claims from two weeks ago were unrevised at 330,000.

The average of new claims over the past month, meanwhile, edged up by 250 to 352,000. The four-week average reduces seasonal volatility in the weekly data and is seen as a more accurate barometer of labor-market trends. Also, Labor said continuing claims increased by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.2 million in the week ended Jan. 19.

GDP Shows Surprise Drop for U.S. in Fourth Quarter

Looks like the beginning of another Bush recession.

The U.S. economy posted a stunning drop of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, defying expectations for slow growth and possibly providing incentive for more Federal Reserve stimulus.

The economy shrank from October through December for the first time since the recession ended, hurt by the biggest cut in defense spending in 40 years, fewer exports and sluggish growth in company stockpiles.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter. That's a sharp slowdown from the 3.1 percent growth rate in the July-September quarter.

US: Consumer Confidence falls to 58.6 in January

Change without much hope.

The most awaited piece of data for today surprised investors negatively, as Consumer Confidence in the US fell from 66.7 (revised from 65.1) to 58.6 in January. Actual data came in much lower than the 64.0 expected.

Unions Crumble Without Stimulus Spending

Unions haven't been about the worker for decades, they're all about self perpetuation.

Overall union membership dropped by about 400,000 members from 2011 to 2012, a decline of 11.8 to 11.3 percent of the U.S. workforce. But the worst news for union leaders is where the decline occurred: in what had been their only growth sector, government workers.

More than half of the loss came among government workers. The majority of union members are now government workers and government workers have a union membership rate of 37 percent, about five times higher than the private sector.

An irony for private-sector labor unions has always been that their larger ideological aims of protecting workers from abuse are often at odds with their more urgent objectives of growing membership rolls and increasing dues payments.

Barack Obama To Shut Down Southern Air Defense Systems

Red Dawn scenario?

As the U.S. government continues to expand surveillance and monitoring systems to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars within the borders of the United States, a recent announcement regarding the country’s southern air defense systems is raising eyebrows.

Our southern border is, in part, protected by the Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS), which utilizes moored balloons hovering at about 15,000 feet to identify low flying aircraft and missiles that may penetrate the border and cross into U.S. airspace.

The system is utilized by the U.S. Air Force, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection for a number of missions including detection of drug smuggling and preservation of the air sovereignty of the continental United States.

According to Exelis Systems Corporation, the company that built and jointly maintains TARS with the U.S. Air Force, the government has ordered a complete shutdown of Aerostat flight operations...

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

Photo of the Day

Hundreds of thousands join record-breaking U.S. March for Life.

You may have missed it as CNN,NBC,ABC,CBS,and NPR didn't feel it important enough to report on.

Utah Biz Owner Fires Employees Because They Supported Obama

Love it when those chicken come home....

Dead weight? A business owner in Utah has become the latest employer to blame President Obama's health care reform bill for layoffs and has doubled down on his public disdain for the current administration by admitting he singled out Obama supporters.

Terry Lee, owner of Cedar City-based Terry Lee Forensics, told the Salt Lake Tribune that he was so impressed by a Vernal, Utah, smoothie bar's policy of asking liberal patrons to pay more, that he, too, took action to recoup losses he said were incurred by Obamacare.

George Burnett, owner of I Love Drilling Smoothie & Juice Bar, said recently he is asking liberal customers to pay an extra dollar for their beverages.

Lee posted a commiserating comment on The Tribune's smoothie bar story this week:

Love it. We had to let two employees go to cover new Obongocare [sic] costs and increased taxes. Found two Obongo supporters and gave them the news yesterday. They wanted the idiot in the Whitehouse [sic], they reap the benefits.

Obama Inc Trying to Use Banks to Destroy Gun Manufacturers

Fascism pure and simple.

There were fairly clear policy rules once upon a time. If you wanted to pass gun control, you would get up, use a bunch of kids as props and put in a Senate bill that would get the job done. That’s still being done, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Obama Inc. is consolidating control over the economy which puts its minions in the position of being able to make policy through economic pressure and policy. Under Socialism, you don’t have to pass a law, you just have to use your economic control to make the companies enforce the law.

Growing government control over banks and investment companies, directly and indirectly, allows those institutions to be used to target firearms manufacturers.

Cerberus was bullied into dropping the Freedom Group which includes Remington and Bushmaster. Bushmaster has become a special target for the anti-2nd amendment movement. Now Rahm Emanuel is demanding that TD Bank and Bank of America end their lines of credit to firearms manufacturers unless they come out in support of Obama’s war on the Bill of Rights.

No place is it more evident than the Peoples Republic of Chicago.

Now They Tell Us: Obama's Tax Promises Were Bogus

Yes Virginia, Obama is a liar.

Remember all those mainstream news reports before the election about how President Obama's expansive spending plans would require massive tax hikes on everyone, not just millionaires and billionaires? Neither do we.

But somehow after the election, reporters are finally admitting that Obama's budget numbers simply don't add up and that new taxes on the middle class — including a European-style value added tax — are "inevitable.

" New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter, for example, wrote this week that the $620 billion in tax hikes on the rich that Obama secured as part of the fiscal-cliff deal are "hardly enough to stabilize the nation's debt in the next 10 years, let alone deal with the long-term budget deficit."

'What Difference Does It Make!?'Secretary Clinton Gets Heated During Benghazi Hearing

Brazen hubris!

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that the misinformation that came out about the Benghazi attacks in their immediate aftermath no longer mattered, saying that the important thing was to find the persons responsible.

Clinton had a heated exchange with Sen. Ron Johnson during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he questioned her about the initial reports on the motives behind the attacks on the U.S. Embassy that left four Americans dead. Initially, UN Ambassador Susan Rice blamed the attacks on protests over an anti-Muslim video when she appeared on the Sunday shows, apparently speaking off of talking points prepared by the intelligence community.

On Wednesday, Johnson accused her of “purposefully misleading the American people” by blaming nonexistent protests.

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. If it was because of a protest or if it was because guys out for a walk decided to go kill some Americans. What difference does it make?” Clinton shot back in a raised voice.

Inaugurating President Chamberlain

The best synopsis of the Presidents speech I've seen. Be sure and read the whole thing.

Obama’s speech: Very long on gaseous generalities; exiguous with details. “Par for the course,” you say. Yes and no. Yes, an inaugural speech is intended to set the tone for an administration rather than spell out in detail a policy program. I appreciated, as must every American of good will, his promise that his oath of office was before “God and country, not party or faction.” I wish I could believe it. Most leftist commentators I’ve checked in on have regarded the speech as they regard Barack Obama, as a consummate example of “pragmatism.” I find it curious that well-meaning leftists regard the president as a pragmatist. To me, he is a pragmatist only in his pursuit of a radical, Alinskyite agenda to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

He’s gone quite a distance already, and I suspect that the fellow who said, shortly after November’s election, that the country was in for a “four-year stress test” was right. And this is where I think Obama’s second inaugural sharply departs from most inaugurals of yore. The tone that he set: What was it? Reading through the speech (I will be honest: I couldn’t bear to listen to it live, I just couldn’t), I was haunted by an echo. The speech reminded me of something, of someone. Who was it? Woodrow Wilson? Yes, in part. But there was another ghost in the wings . . .

Got it: “Peace in our time,” the president said, “requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.”

First Term: Americans ‘Not in Labor Force’ Increased 8,332,000

Now here's Obama's true legacy.

(CNSNews.com) - The number of Americans age 16 or older who decided not to work or even to seek a job increased by 8,332,000 to a record 88,839,000 in President Barack Obama’s first term, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, the number of retired workers collecting Social Security increased by only 4,234,480.

The increase in Americans opting out of the labor force during Obama’s first term resulted in a decrease in the labor force participation rate from 65.7 percent in January 2009, the month Obama was first inaugurated, to 63.6 percent in December 2012, the latest month reported. Before Obama took office, the labor force participation rate had not been as low as 63.6 percent since 1981, the year President Ronald Reagan took over from President Jimmy Carter.

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

The 5 Worst/Recent Mass Murders Committed with a Firearm in the USA Came from the Left

Perhaps it's not firearms that should be banned but, rather, Democrats.

Ft Hood: Registered Democrat/Muslim.

Columbine: Too young to vote; both families were registered Democrats and progressive liberals.

Virginia Tech: Wrote hate mail to President Bush and to his staff. 

Colorado Theater: Registered Democrat; staff worker on the Obama campaign;

Occupy Wall Street participant; progressive liberal.

Connecticut School Shooter: Registered Democrat; hated Christians.

Common thread is that all of these shooters were progressive liberal Democrats.

Read rest HERE.

Holder Begs Court to Stop Document Release on Fast and Furious

Remember this: “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” - Barack Hussein Obama 1/21/2009

Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice have asked a federal court to indefinitely delay a lawsuit brought by watchdog group Judicial Watch. The lawsuit seeks the enforcement of open records requests relating to Operation Fast and Furious, as required by law.

Judicial Watch had filed, on June 22, 2012, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking all documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious and “specifically [a]ll records subject to the claim of executive privilege invoked by President Barack Obama on or about June 20, 2012.”

The administration has refused to comply with Judicial Watch’s FOIA request, and in mid-September the group filed a lawsuit challenging Holder’s denial. That lawsuit remains ongoing but within the past week President Barack Obama’s administration filed what’s called a “motion to stay” the suit. Such a motion is something that if granted would delay the lawsuit indefinitely.

Assault Weapons Were NOT Involved in Sandy Hook Massacre

NO AR was used at Sandy Hook. Only 4 handguns were found.

Video HERE.

Shocker, from the beginning we were lied to by both the MSM and the President.

Graphic of the Day

Obama's speech illustrates he really doesn't have a clue.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-- Ben Franklin

House Democrats aim to repeal the debt ceiling

Just another way to hide the irresponsuble rampant liberal overspending from the American people.

One way out the debt ceiling showdown: getting rid of the debt ceiling altogether. A group of House Democrats is introducing legislation Wednesday that would repeal the federal debt limit.

Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) are behind the effort. Some of the same lawmakers attempted to repeal the debt limit in 2011. Given Republican control of the House, it is incredibly unlikely that this legislation will pass.

The debt limit dates to 1939, and stems from earlier limits on borrowing that were meant to give the Treasury secretary more freedom from congressional oversight. But attempts to use the debt ceiling to extract budgetary concessions from the White House began as early as 1953.

“There is certainly a time and a place for discussion of the proper levels of taxation and spending, and I am ready to have that discussion,” Nadler said in a recent Hill op-ed. “But such discussions need not – must not – be tied to the routine raising of the debt ceiling to pay for debts already incurred.”

The Pentagon's New 30,000-lb MOP Bomb Is Ready To Go

DAMN!

Boeing has successfully improved its 30,000-lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb UK’s Royal Air Force to support French forces deployed to Mali with airlifters. And drones. French Rafale “omnirole” fighter jets join air strikes in Mali. With brand new weapons. U.S. spyplanes, drones already flying over Mali France escalates war in Africa: Mirage 2000D bombers hit targets in North Mali Senior Pentagon officials told Congress the nation's largest conventional bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), is ready for action.

The Air Force said as much back in June after rushing the MOP back to Boeing for $82 million in modifications and enhancements, but this report puts it on the books as deployable ordnance.

According to Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio, on his annual report, the Pentagon’s director of operational testing Michael Gilmore confirmed that tests conducted with the heavy GBU-57, a 20-foot long, 30,000 pound GPS-guided bomb thought able to penetrate 200 feet of concrete before exploding, have demonstrated that the redesigned bomb is able to hit and destroy deeply buried targets.

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report

How long before Al Gore takes credit.

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

4th Quarter GDP Estimate Reduced to .8% from 1.5%

So much for the Rainbows and Unicorns promised by the Obama administration.

J.P.Morgan analysts cut their estimate for fourth-quarter GDP growth to an annualized 0.8% from a prior forecast of 1.5%.

“The trade deficit for the month was much wider than expected, and it now looks like net exports will subtract a few tenths from GDP growth in the fourth quarter,” according to a J.P. Morgan research note. Elsewhere, Barclays analysts cut their estimate for fourth-quarter GDP growth to 1.3% from 2.0%, while analysts with Morgan Stanley cut their forecast to 0.7% from 1.5%.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. trade deficit widened in November to the highest point since April. The trade gap widened 15.8% to $48.7 billion in November.

Sunday (not so) Funny

Thanks RR.

The Perfect Nosh

16 1/2 hours later, pulled pork to die for.

The Second Amendment Is Not About Hunting

Read the whole thing, it's bang on.

You know it. I know it. The unspoken truth is the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is about citizens resisting and overcoming tyranny. A common law and natural law right considered for 200+ years as an inalienable right. Speaking plainly, the 2nd is our bulwark against government which becomes despotic.

Armed free citizens are the final bulwark against tyranny by local, state or federal government.

When the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights committed our people to founding a new Nation guns were natural and necessary. For putting food on the table and, wait for it, personal defense against hostilities.

Armed citizens have a long history of taking action to correct despotic governments. Feudal economies faded away due in no small part to enough peasants acquiring arms. And the will to use them.

US: Initial Jobless Claims rose to 371K

Well at least the estimate for last week was revised DOWN breaking the streak of upward revisions of 77 weeks.

According to the Labour Department, the Americans that filed in their first initial claims for regular state unemployment-insurance benefits rose by 4K last week to a seasonally adjusted 371K in the week ended January 5, above expectations at 365K and coming from 367K (revised) in the previous print.

Continuing claims, which reflect people already receiving benefits, fell by 127K to a seasonally adjusted 3.109 million in the week ended December 29 vs. 3.236 million in the previous week (revised)

Economy Grows, Revenues Increase After Texas Slashes Spending

California, Illinois, etc should learn a lesson from this.....but they won't.

The Texas state comptroller estimated Texas will generate $96.2 billion in revenue for the 2014-2015 fiscal cycle and reported Texas collected $8.8 billion more in revenue than expected during the last fiscal year. When unemployment in Texas was at its highest in a decade and the state government faced a $27 billion shortfall in 2011, legislators wrote what was then described as a “cut-to-the-bone” budget.

And it worked.

According to the Associated Press, “unemployment now is at a four-year low of 6.2 percent, sales tax receipts are skyrocketing and money is pouring into state coffers behind a new energy boom.”

And while Texas is projected to have more revenue to spend, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have indicated they would “limit any increase in state spending to a sum of population growth plus inflation, or 9.85 percent,” to prevent Texas from racking another budget shortfall.

Texas has company.

Pic of the Day (Photobombing Dog)

Obama to Boehner: 'We Don't Have a Spending Problem'

Typical Libthink. Spending is never the problem, it's all about "revenue enhancement".

One of the reasons that President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner had difficulty agreeing to a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction and avoiding the "fiscal cliff" was that both men disagreed on the nature of the debt problem. Boehner believes that government spending is the problem while Obama believes the problem is the rising costs of health care, not government spending.

During those negotiations, Obama repeatedly told Boehner that "we don't have a spending problem," Boehner recalled in an interview with The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore.

A similar disagreement can be heard frequently on political talk shows. "We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem," Republicans repeat often. "We don't have a spending problem, we have a health care problem," Democrats often counter.

Monday Funny

Illinois Tax Hikes, Two Years Later: A Failure

As always, tax hikes had absolutely the opposite effect that was intended.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, upon signing income tax hikes into law on January 12, 2011: "We had to take decisive action. … Our fiscal house was burning."

Almost two years later, the Land of Lincoln is still aflame. The state began its 2013 fiscal year this past July with an estimated $8 billion of unpaid bills and a total of some 160,000 bills awaiting payment.

What about additional tax receipts garnered by the state’s dramatic income-tax hikes? Unseen and unfelt, according to the Republican state comptroller, who has acknowledged that the gains were undercut by financing pension contributions, Medicaid expansion, and the expiration of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus.

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

U6 Unemployment Rate Holds at 14.4%, Employment to Population Falls to 58.6%

More great news from Obamaville.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly jobs report. Now for the BLS Boogie. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 155,000 workers last month following a revised 161,000 advance in November that was greater than initially estimated.

The unemployment rate printed at 7.8% which is up from 7.7% in November but the same as the UPWARDLY REVISED print of 7.8%. U6 partial unemployment printed at 14.4%.

 Labor force participation remained at 63.6%.

And the civilian employment to population ratio fell to 58.6...

Despite fiscal cliff deal, taxes to rise for most Americans

Nothing to see here, just another broken Obama promise.

WASHINGTON (AP) — While the tax package that Congress passed New Year's Day will protect 99 percent of Americans from an income tax increase, most of them will still end up paying more federal taxes in 2013.

That's because the legislation did nothing to prevent a temporary reduction in the Social Security payroll tax from expiring. In 2012, that 2-percentage-point cut in the payroll tax was worth about $1,000 to a worker making $50,000 a year.

Households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will face an average tax increase of $579 in 2013, according to the Tax Policy Center's analysis. Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will face an average tax increase of $822.

Unemployment claims rose during holiday period

The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims rose by 10,000 in the week ended Dec. 29 to 372,000, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday.

That total was also 10,000 more claims than the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists, according to a Bloomberg report.

The prior week's figure was revised [UP] to show 12,000 more applications than previously reported. So it actually went up 22,000 from what was reported last week.

Des Moines Register publishes gun-ban column advocating deadly violence against NRA, GOP leaders

Nothing like a New Years dose of liberal fascism from the Heartland.

Donald Kaul retired earlier this year. Now he has decided to return to writing occasional opinion columns for OtherWords.org. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn. brought out all his ugliness.

In a column that appeared after the shooting with the headline "Kaul: Nation needs a new agenda on guns," he proposed a new liberal agenda: repeal the Second Amendment, declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal, and well, make violent threats to Republican leaders and NRA members. The Des Moines Register published this junk on December 29.

HAPPY NEW YEAR