The June jobs report issued by the Labor Department noted that total employment was down by 125,000 jobs for the month and that the 83,000-worker growth in the private sector was much smaller than expected. Despite the drop in employment, the unemployment rate dropped as well, to 9.5 percent.


Since his days as a U.S. Senator, Barack Obama has trumpeted renewable energy as the catalyst for the future growth of America’s economy. He believes to this day that investments in wind, solar, and ethanol energy will excite the marketplace and put Americans back to work.

Following the OPEC Summit in November of 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shook things up when he said the U.S. dollar was “a worthless piece of paper.” He had expressed concern over the dollar’s decreasing value and wondered aloud if the global marketplace should use another currency in the trading of oil. At the time, the world scoffed at the concept and looked at Ahmadinejad as a mad man.

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent beginning of the demise of the U.S .and global economies. That unofficial start to the end of economic normalcy as we once knew it represents one of the greatest mistruths of the past quarter-century, ranking right up there with the Bush administration's initial reasons for the invasion of Iraq.

On September 9, the federal government sent out a press release that said, “The Maritime Administration today issued an advisory to mariners and ship operators that piracy is likely to increase off the Horn of Africa and in the Indian Ocean now that monsoon season has ended.”

It can be said with certainty that the ever-expanding global economy, and our nation’s weakened position in it, is of America’s doing. Many Americans have grown to accept — and even demand — that they are consumers and recipients of government services.

As the recession continues to advance, many Americans have been hoping and praying that the Obama Administration and Congress can make things — good things — happen in our economy.

In a development policymakers cite as a huge win for intervention in the marketplace, last week the federal government nearly suspended the Car Allowance Rebate System (also known as cash for clunkers), owing to a lack of funds, after consumers burned through the budgeted amount in only four days.

On July 23, the U.S. Senate voted to defeat one of the most promising gun rights bills to come to the Senate floor in recent memory. The provision was introduced by Senator John Thune as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill. It would have granted national reciprocity for concealed-carry permits, requiring all states that allow concealed firearms to honor those permits of other states.

In a ruling issued in June, Niagara County (New York) Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza concluded that the Niagara Falls Police Department was justified in its use of a Taser to extract DNA from a suspect and that doing so was not unconstitutional. It is believed to be the first ruling of its kind in the United States, one that could set an ugly precedent for the continued pillaging of the Fourth Amendment, which has seen some very dark days since September 11, 2001.