On Thursday, Americans learned that since 2007 the National Security Agency (NSA) has operated a top-secret program called PRISM that vacuums up the actual contents–not just so-called metadata, as with the National Security Agency’s phone record collections–of emails, video and voice chat,
An analysis by the former chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers finds that given today’s sluggish job growth, it will take over a decade for employment to return to pre-recession levels. Edward P. Lazear, now a fellow at
Roughly 80% of the Senate’s $955 billion farm bill, which is expected to pass this week, will go to bankroll food stamps over the next ten years. “The trillion-dollar farm and food stamp bill should not be called the ‘Farm
On Tuesday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) called President Barack Obama “the most stonewalling president this country has ever seen.” Grassley’s comments, which came during an interview with The Hill, represent a sharp contrast to Obama’s past claims that his is
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) failed to disclose an internal stress test that revealed the agency’s projected losses over 30 years could be up to $115 billion under severe economic conditions, a figure over $100 billion higher than the $13.5
During a Tuesday Congressional hearing, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted she called three companies under her agency’s regulatory to encourage them to support a non-profit, Enroll America, whose mission is to promote and enroll citizens for
On Monday, Fitch Ratings downgraded the Illinois state government’s credit rating. The decision to drop the state’s credit from an “A” to an “A-” came as state legislators failed to move forward on solving Illinois’ public-employee pension crisis, reports the Associated Press. Prior
Billionaire liberal activist Tom Steyer is mobilizing his NextGen Action political action committee (PAC) to kill the Keystone Pipeline. Steyer plans to hone in on Obama voters to defeat the pipeline, a risky political strategy that could deepen rifts between
U.S. manufacturing hit a wall in May, contracting to its lowest output levels in four years. The manufacturing slowdown caught analysts by surprise. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing index dropped from 50.7 in April to 49 in May.
An alarming newly rendered map by China’s mapping authority reportedly includes 80% of the South China Sea–a major passageway for international trade–as within China’s sovereign borders. As Forbes writer Gordon G. Chang notes, “each year, more than half of the
The number of new businesses creating jobs in America continues to fall as health care costs, America’s aging population, and increased regulations have made entrepreneurs more risk-averse. According to data compiled by the Wall Street Journal, venture capital invested in
Former Obama aides are cashing in on their high-powered connections and access to President Barack Obama, reports the Washington Post. Despite Obama’s promises to slow down Washington’s whirling revolving door, DC cronyism and influence peddling are alive and well. Take,
On Friday, Boeing announced plans to transfer 300 engineering jobs from Washington state to nonunion locations in Long Beach, California and North Charleston, South Carolina. The aeronautics giant also says it is considering opening a new design facility in Kiev,
The Democrat-controlled California State House and Senate have advanced five bills which the California Chamber of Commerce call “job killers,” including legislation that would end business tax breaks, raise minimum wage $1.25 an hour, and slap businesses with higher air
A new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis finds that average U.S. household has regained less than half (45%) of the wealth lost during the Great Recession. The new study stands in contrast to a March Federal
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius congratulated 2013 graduates by sharing the exciting news that Obamacare will provide them with free tests for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and birth control “without you paying a penny.” Sebelius’s open
Triumphalist progressive claims that early California figures prove Obamacare will reduce health insurance costs are coming to a screeching halt as closer analyses reveal Californians will actually experience a staggering 64% to 146% increase in individual health insurance premiums come
On Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Fox News that Attorney General Eric Holder should resign and that the Obama Administration does not respect the Bill of Rights. Asked by Megyn Kelly whether Holder should resign, Cruz said, “Yes, absolutely.”
In the midst of the widening Internal Revenue Service (IRS) conservative targeting scandal, the Obama Administration and Democrats are scrambling to downplay the IRS’s role in implementing Obamacare. That will be difficult to do, says the Washington Post. “The IRS
The Obama Administration and Pentagon officials continue to shrug off concerns over a new report by the Defense Science Board that revealed Chinese hackers have accessed over two dozen major U.S. weapons systems. “They [China] aren’t building an F-35 in
The Chinese government has reluctantly admitted the existence of “cancer villages,” rural areas in China marred by unusually high cancer rates. “China has been producing and utilizing toxic chemical products,” reads a government document obtained by CNN. “Many places experienced
As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to meet with President Barack Obama next week in California to discuss what Jinping calls “a new type of great power relationship,” the Washington Post is reporting that Chinese hackers have accessed designs for
In an open letter published on Saturday, Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff fired back at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman for his “spectacularly uncivil behavior” in the wake of a controversy over the scholars’ austerity findings. “It has
Aggressive and unprecedented lobbying by Silicon Valley paid off last week, as the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an immigration bill that will be a boon to the high-tech sector. Among the provisions Silicon Valley secured in their efforts to shape
In March, home prices increased 10.9% from last year at this time but are still down 28% from 2006 levels. Analysts say one key driver for the uptick in home prices is not individuals buying homes but rather large investor
In a surprising departure from Democrats’ strategy of intentionally lowering expectations for Obamacare’s January 2014 grand opening, New York Times progressive columnist Paul Krugman has declared that “the real Obamacare shock will be one of unexpected success” wherein “millions of
Even as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) political targeting scandal widens, an army of 2,137 IRS agents are gearing up to implement and police numerous aspects of Obamacare. Their enforcement of the law is under the leadership of Sarah Hall
New charts from Senate Budget Committee Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) show the dramatic rise in food stamp enrollments and welfare spending. Over the last decade, thirty million more individuals have signed up for food stamps. *** U.S. welfare spending last
An official Internal Revenue Service (IRS) organizational chart of the Tax Exempt & Government Entities division from February 2011 offers a more complete picture of the authority Lois Lerner–the now-removed IRS director of the tax-exempt unit–and Sarah Hall Ingram–presently tasked with
In their attempts to shift blame and evade clear answers to questions about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, disgraced former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and disgraced former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller both said that what the
Senate Democrats are looking to paint a recent Republican fracas between Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) as further evidence of an obstructionist GOP whose recalcitrance is bogging down budget negotiations. When Paul
U.S. stocks were down nearly 1% in early trading as the Nikkei experienced its largest drop in two years, closing 225 down, with news that Chinese factory figures shrank for the first time in seven months. Also worrying were Federal
On Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate for the 25 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. labor force dropped one percent from 9.1% in 2011 to 8.1% in 2012. Nationally, the U.S. unemployment rate
Progressive Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank joined the chorus of journalistic outrage over the Obama Administration’s decision to spy on Fox News reporter James Rosen and to seize and comb Associated Press reporters’ phone records, writing that “the administration’s actions shatter
NBC’s chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd said on Wednesday that the Obama Administration’s seizure of reporters’ emails and phone records is evidence that “they want to criminalize journalism.” Todd, who made his comments on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, said that
