Economy Slips, Percentage of Working Americans Lowest Since 1979

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The nation’s economy added 88,000 jobs in March, a figure far below expectations that is likely to trigger new doubts about the strength of the economy.

While the unemployment rate fell to 7.6 percent, that reflected 496,000 workers leaving the workforce, not a strengthening labor market. The 63.3 percent labor participation rate is the lowest since 1979.

Analysts had expected job gains near 200,000 in March. The report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is likely to renew a debate in Washington about the direction of the economy. Republicans seized on the numbers to criticize President Obama, with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) quoting a former Obama economic adviser to describe the figures as a “punch to the gut.”

“Today’s jobs report is disappointing,” Cantor said in a statement. “Our economy is not creating enough jobs, and too many working men and women are still in the unemployment line.

“For months, we’ve heard plenty of excuses from the White House and Congressional Democrats for why unemployment remains high. It’s time to stop making excuses and start working together on common sense solutions to address our lingering unemployment problem, and the stagnant economy,” Cantor said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats Defeat Efforts to Prohibit Welfare Debit Card Use at Strip Club ATM's

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Photo Credit: JoeInSouthernCA

An attempt by Colorado lawmakers to ban welfare recipients from withdrawing their benefits at ATMs located inside strip clubs was killed by Democrats Thursday night, even though the state House’s third-ranking Democratic legislator supported the measure.

Democratic Rep. Dan Pabon lent his support to the Republican-led proposal, offered as an amendment during a debate on the state budget Thursday night, because it would hew to a similar federal rule, according to the Denver Post. Pabon introduced a bill on the issue two years ago, but it didn’t clear the state Senate.

State welfare recipients receive their benefits on debit cards that can be used for purchases just like credit cards or to withdraw cash from ATMs. Current rules already prohibit them from withdrawing money at ATMs located in liquor stores, casinos, bingo parlors and gun stores, but the strip club loophole has never been closed.

Read more from this story HERE.

This Week's House of Horrors Trial Testimony: 'It Would Rain Fetuses. Fetuses and Blood All Over the Place'

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In the continuing trial of ‘House of Horrors’ abortionist Kermit Gosnell, one of his former employees, now incarcerated, testified that “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.”

Steven Massof’s chilling testimony continued, “I felt like a firemen in hell. I couldn’t put out all the fires.”

According to LifeNews,

Massof spoke eerily in slow and deliberate manner, almost over-articulating his words. That, along with his “scuzzy” appearance made him appear creepy and –at least to this observer–somewhat revolting. He seemed to take an odd sarcastic glee in relating the illegal activities and filthy conditions under which he worked for approximately nine years.

Massof, who went to a medical school in Granada but never completed residency, was allegedly used by abortionist Gosnell to assist in the murder of babies born in failed abortions.

He also testified that the clinic performed forced abortions and identified women, such as Elizabeth Hampton (right), who would “hold down the women” who were not cooperating during the killings.

As part of a plea deal, the former employee previously pled guilty to three counts of third degree murder and dozens of federal drug charges.

As we reported previously, Massof’s former employer, Kermit Gosnell, is charged with eight murders. Witnesses have testified that Gosnell, or his employees, cut the necks of numerous late term babies delivered after abortions [warning: graphic photo of one of Gosnell’s alleged victims HERE]. Gosnell’s attorneys are claiming racism.

Dr. Ben Carson to Remain John Hopkins Commencement Speaker Despite Comparing Homosexuality to Bestiality, Pedophilia

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Johns Hopkins University will keep neurosurgeon Ben Carson as its commencement speaker despite his offer to withdraw after his controversial comments about same-sex marriage, the Washington Blade reports.

Carson sparked outrage when he appeared on Fox News March 26 and compared the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to bestiality and pedophilia.

A petition signed by a majority of the School of Medicine graduating class said Carson was an “inappropriate choice” for commencement speaker. Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins who has become a conservative darling since a speech earlier this year criticizing President Barack Obama and gay marriage, said on MSNBC he was ready to withdraw as speaker, but the school said he was still scheduled.

The Blade, citing an anonymous source, said the school would make an announcement about Carson later this week. Johns Hopkins would neither confirm nor deny the report.

“We are engaged in active discussions with members of our community, including faculty members and students, to determine the best way forward with regard to our medical school graduation,” Johns Hopkins director of media relations Kim Hoppe told HuffPost in an email.

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Obama Apologizes For Sexually Harassing Attorney General

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Photo Credit: Ben Margot

By Michael D. Shear. President Obama late Thursday night called Kamala Harris, the California attorney general, and apologized to her for telling a group of wealthy donors that she is the “best-looking attorney general in the country.”

Read story on Obama’s remark towards CA AG HERE.

Mr. Obama made the comment on Thursday morning at a fund-raiser outside San Francisco. He praised Ms. Harris as being “brilliant,” adding, “she is dedicated and she is tough” before commenting on her looks.

There was a quick reaction on social media sites, with some people accusing Mr. Obama of being sexist and others defending his comment as harmless.

But the president’s aides apparently knew the potential for political damage. Soon after Air Force One returned Mr. Obama from his West Coast fund-raising trip, he called Ms. Harris and apologized, according to Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.

“You know, they are old friends and good friends,” Mr. Carney said, “and he did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general’s professional accomplishments and her capabilities.” Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s ‘best-looking’ remark was sexist

By Ruben Navarrette Jr. It’s a good thing that Barack Obama is only the president of the United States and leader of the free world, and that he doesn’t have a really important job like television sportscaster.

Because in that other role, as we learned a few months ago, a man is simply not allowed to publicly compliment a woman on her good looks without getting in big trouble.

Just ask Brent Musburger. In January, after the BCS National Championship game, the ESPN commentator came under fire in the media and blogosphere. At issue: off-handed comments that Musburger made about University of Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend, Katherine Webb.

ESPN issued an apology, saying that the 73-year-old veteran sportscaster “went too far” in his commentary. In an interview with the New York Times, Michigan State University journalism professor Sue Carter called what Musburger said “extraordinarily inappropriate.” On the sports news website, BleacherReport.com, Jessica Isner suggested that his remarks were, at the least, “weird and creepy.”

It went on and on.

So what did Musburger say back then that was so terrible? As the camera focused on Webb, a former Miss Alabama, in the stands, the sportscaster turned to his co-announcer Kirk Herbstreit, a former quarterback at Ohio State University, and said: “You quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman.” Read more from this story HERE.

Emails: Democrats Illegally Gerrymandered Florida

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Florida Democrats coordinated with national party organizations and consultants in early 2012 to gerrymander congressional districts despite a state ban on such activities, emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The top state and national party leaders, including Florida congressmen Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ted Deutsch, and Alecee Hastings, signed off on the gerrymandered maps, according to the emails released during court discovery in Romo v. Scott, a legal challenge to redistricting maps that the GOP-controlled state legislature approved in 2012.

“For several months the Florida Democratic Party has engaged in a legal fight over redistricting in Florida,” Florida Democratic chair Rod Smith wrote to a representative of the Teamsters Union in March 2012. “We believe that Florida can be turned from red to blue if we are successful in our efforts.”

Democratic consultant Brad Wieneke described the gerrymander in one email chain on Florida’s 23rd Congressional District, which Slate has called the 23rd one of “the most gerrymandered congressional districts” in the country and which Wasserman Schultz represents in Congress.

“They want to scoop as many Jews out of Tamarac and Sunrise as they can,” Wieneke wrote. Redistricting maps produced by Democratic consulting firm NCEC Services were shared with attorneys at Perkins Coie, general counsel for the DNC, the emails show.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Budget to Include Cuts to Programs in Hopes of Deal

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President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say.

In a significant shift in fiscal strategy, Mr. Obama on Wednesday will send a budget plan to Capitol Hill that departs from the usual presidential wish list that Republicans typically declare dead on arrival. Instead it will embody the final compromise offer that he made to Speaker John A. Boehner late last year, before Mr. Boehner abandoned negotiations in opposition to the president’s demand for higher taxes from wealthy individuals and some corporations.

Congressional Republicans have dug in against any new tax revenues after higher taxes for the affluent were approved at the start of the year. The administration’s hope is to create cracks in Republicans’ antitax resistance, especially in the Senate, as constituents complain about the across-the-board cuts in military and domestic programs that took effect March 1.

Mr. Obama’s proposed deficit reduction would replace those cuts. And if Republicans continue to resist the president, the White House believes that most Americans will blame them for the fiscal paralysis.

Besides the tax increases that most Republicans continue to oppose, Mr. Obama’s budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries, administration officials said. The idea, known as chained C.P.I., has infuriated some Democrats and advocacy groups to Mr. Obama’s left, and they have already mobilized in opposition.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: Defense of Marriage Act Defenders are Going to 'Lose that Battle'

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that conservatives fighting to uphold the federal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman are going to “lose that battle.”

Paul suggested in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) that marriage should be defined by the states, rather than federally.

“If we keep it that way, maybe we can still have the discussion go on without making the decision go all the way one way or all the way the other way. Because I think, right now, if we say, ‘Oh, we’re only going to have, we believe in a federally mandated one-man-one-woman marriage,’ we’re going to lose that battle, because the country’s going the other way right now,” he said.

The Supreme Court is currently considering a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

Paul’s comments reflect the opinion shared among many libertarians, that defining marriage should be left up to the states. But conservative activists, and many GOP lawmakers, have defended the act, arguing it protects traditional marriage.

Read more from this story HERE.

Second Amendment Crumbling as Gun-Control Victories Spread

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Photo Credit: Brennan Linsley

The Second Amendment got attacked this week from three sides, leaving gun owners scrambling to find safe ground. While President Obama has lost momentum for federal gun-control laws, he has picked up victories with his allies in blue states and at the United Nations.

After Thursday, Connecticut should consider changing its state nickname from the “Constitution State” to the “Unconstitutional State” after Gov. Dannel Malloy signed an extremely restrictive gun-control law. The bill passed the state House Thursday morning and the Senate on Wednesday.

Before the Newtown tragedy, the Brady Campaign determined that Connecticut was the fifth highest-rated state for restrictive gun-control laws. Adam Lanza ignored those laws — such as including stealing the guns, carrying them without a permit and violating the federal “gun free” school zone — in his evil mission to murder school children and teachers.

Connecticut lawmakers decided that its current “assault weapon” ban, which had a two-characteristic test, was not severe enough, so all semi-automatic rifles with one scary-looking feature are illegal. The bill cites 100 specific makes and models that are banned, such as the AR and AK.

There is a new eligibility certificate required before purchasing or receiving a long gun, which is defined as any firearm that is not a pistol or revolver. These certificates cost $35 and are issued by the Commissioner of Emergency Services and Public Protection, but there is no time limit on how long the application process can take.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hypocrite-in-Chief: Blaming Sequester, Medicare Cancer Patients Turned Away While Obama Gives $1.2 Billion to Green Energy

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Photo Credit: Sarah L. Voisin

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially. Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients. “A lot of us are in disbelief that this is happening,” he said. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business.”

Some who have been pushing the federal government to spend less on health care say this is not the right approach.

Read more from this story HERE.

To read about the $1.2 billion giveaway to green energy companies, click HERE.