Palin Won't Seek Re Election

Breaking news from Alaska...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has told associates that she will not seek re-election next year, freeing her to pursue a White House bid in 2012, according to two GOP sources.

Palin is to make her decision known later this afternoon from her home in Wasilla with her husband, Todd, and family by her side.

By not running for re-election, Palin liberates herself from the political constraints that come with running for president while still in elected office.

Leaving office at the end of next year,

Obviously, it's now all but certain that Palin will run for the Presidency in 2012. This is also what I recommended she do if she were to run.

(UPDATE) Fox News is reporting that Palin won't merely not run for re election but will step down as Governor later this month.

550,000 Lost Jobs in July: A Thought Experiment

Shock waves were sent through both our economy and our political apparatus yesterday. They were swift and significant and in fact, no one has yet fully determined these shock waves. These shock waves occurred after the release of June's employment data. The June numbers showed job losses of 467,000. This number is important on several different levels. First, the number is awful in its own vacuum. Second, the jobs numbers were improving for four months in a row. June broke that mini streak. So, where is our economy? Not only are we losing an extraordinary amount of jobs but it's unclear if things are getting better, worse, or staying the same.

Now, imagine, if you will, if July's numbers show a loss of 550,000 jobs or frankly anything worse than 500,000. That would be a near death blow for the Obama agenda until at least after November of 2010. Some of you maybe thinking that I am a wishful thinking, if you will, partisan. First, I am not wishing for any one's pain. Second, a second straight month of worsening jobs means that at best the employment picture is lousy and its unclear where it's headed. At worst, it's lousy and getting worse.

In such an environment, all of Obama's policies will become toxic. Until the job's picture becomes more clear, no moderate or conservative politician is going to want to have anything to do with any of his domestic agenda. Imagine you're a moderate Democrat from North Carolina? Are you really going to vote for cap and trade, which Republicans will deem cap and tax, when the economy is hemorrhaging half a million jobs monthly? Would you be on board with a massive new health care entitlement given how "well" the stimulus was performing? Remember, perception is reality. At this point, any moderate Democrat knows all too well that the economy is not only really bad and getting worse. That blame will be laid at the president and anyone that supported him. That's not an environment in which a legislature is likely to support some sort of sweeping presidential legislation.

The entire legislature will become totally impotent if we have a second job's number in a row that shows things are not only awful but getting worse. The public is growing increasingly skeptical of Obama's domestic agenda. Another month in which things get even worse is all it takes for public outcry to get so strong that his agenda grounds to a halt.

Here's somethings to keep in mind. The July job's numbers will come out the first friday of August. Within weeks, Obama and his Democratic allies will want to begin taking some sort of votes on health care reform. It will be hard enough to pass in a normal climate. In a climate where the public believes that his policies are making things worse, it will simply be impossible.

Furthermore, it will be months, in the best case, before the president can show any evidence that in fact his policies are working. A bad July job's number means that August's number will be even more vital. Of course, unless the number shows a dramatic improvement, even if it improves that will only make September's number vital. Even if both September and August show improvements over July, the president will have little credibility to claim that things are getting better. After all, that's exactly what he said starting in March and look how that went. Worse yet, even in the best of scenarios, we'll be sitting on the first Friday of October (employment data is almost always released the first Friday of the following month) will another 300,000 lost jobs and nearly 4 million lost jobs since Obama took over.

Not only will Obama have almost no credibility left on the economy, but the public will stand for nothing legislatively besides something that can clearly create jobs, and create them quick. Health care reform, cap and trade, and education overhauls will do none of that.

Furthermore, if there's even worse July numbers, it means that none of his policies will have made any more forward movement. As such, we'd be sitting in October and the Senate will still have had no cap and trade bill even come out of committee. There'd be no health care bill with any votes to speak of. The legislative process will have been destroyed.

Furthermore, the Republicans would be screaming jobs, jobs, and more jobs. There would be enough fearful Democrats that there would simply no longer be enough votes to pass any of Obama's agenda until the jobs picture was clearly heading positive. Even in a best case scenario, we wouldn't see that until the next spring. At that point, we'd simply be too close to the next elections to get anything done. As such, one more worsening jobs report and you can kiss Obama's entire domestic agenda good bye.

Emory University and the Unholy Alliance Between Research and Big Pharma

It's often a topic of discussion among professors in the field of psychiatry and related fields. There is a growing influence by the pharmaceutical industry on research provided on it by those in academia. Often, junkets and seminars are paid for University psychiatry professors by the drug companies. In fact, the relationship is so close that it's unclear just how much the research these academics do on the drugs that pharmaceuticals develop. In fact, the relationship has gotten so cozy that their role as watchdog over the industry has likely been totally compromised.

Back in January, I featured an extreme example of just one such relationship. The relationship was between Dr. Charles Nemeroff and several of the drug companies he did research on:Cyberonics, Glaxo Smith Kline, and Pfizer. For years, Dr. Nemeroff received in the neighborhood of $2.6 million from these pharmaceutical companies. In exchange, he wrote favorable articles on drugs these companies were bringing to market. Even worse, he didn't report a very big chunk of this income. News of this corruption hit the media in October of last year. At the time, Dr. Nemeroff was head of the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University. This quid pro quo became the subject of an investigation by Senator Charles Grassley. The investigation found that not only was Dr. Nemeroff compromised by his cozy relationship with the pharmaceuticals, but Emory University was lax in their own supervision of Dr. Nemeroff. Worse yet when presented with evidence, the administration not only close ranks around Dr. Nemeroff, but they even attempted to hide the corruption. Email exchanges show that the cover up by Emory University goes all the way to the top of the medical school and includes the Dean of the Medical School, Claudia Adkison.

In one infamous exchange, Adkison not only admits knowing about the fraud but pronounces relief that a Wall Street Journal reporter wasn't "sophisticated enough to ask the right questions".

thank goodness the reporter wasn't sophisticated enough to ask the right questions

...in working on handling the reporter I tried to make this story go away because Emory's name is in the middle of it

....I am embarrassed and uncomfortable that I write to colleagues around the country to try to defend this when I know all the issues.

Shockingly, Dr. Nemeroff was in fact removed from head of the Psychiatry Department at Emory but remains a tenured professor, earning six figures and in a position to continue to do research on the very pharmaceutical industry he has been so clearly corrupted by. In fact, Dr. Nemeroff would have faced absolutely no disciplinary action had Grassley not done the investigation. Everything that Emory has done in this case has been strictly in response to his investigation. (the staff at Emory University never responded to emails as is their M.O. in any of my exposes of that university) No one involved in the cover up including Adkison was disciplined.

Well, now it's happened again at Emory University. This time it is a Professor Zachary Stowe.

Emory University has disciplined a prominent psychiatrist who was being paid by an antidepressant maker at the same time he was conducting federal research about the use of such drugs in pregnant women.

The university said its medical school dean issued a letter of reprimand on April 30 to psychiatrist Zachary Stowe related to his "external relationships." Dr. Stowe was instructed to immediately eliminate conflicts related to current federal grants and was barred from having any conflicts for the next two years.

Dr. Stowe, the director of the Women's Mental Health Program at Emory, is considered a leading expert on the use of antidepressants in pregnant women. He is listed as the primary investigator on at least three National Institutes of Health grants, beginning in 2003 and continuing through last year, that involve antidepressant use in pregnant women and the effects on children delivered by those women.

Dr. Stowe received nearly $200000 in about two years from Glaxo SmithKline all while working on research on their anti depressent drug, Paxil. This time, unbelievably, all Dr. Stowe faced was a "letter of reprimand". Even more shockingly, he was barred from having any more such conflicts for TWO YEARS. In other words, even though it was proven that Dr. Stowe was corrupted by his relationship with a pharmaceutical, he faced no financial or professional demotion, let alone being fired outright.

Then, there is the case of Dr. J. Douglas Bremner. Up until 2005, he thought about the pharmaceutical industry the way most academics in his field did. While he was exposed to the cozy relationship between pharmaceuticals and his colleagues, he'd never written or spoken out much about its consequences. That all changed in 2005. A non profit gave Dr. Bremner a grant to study the side effects of an acne drug named Accutane. Dr. Bremner not only found that Accutane had significant side effects like depression and even suicide, but Dr. Bremner began to conclude that the corrupt relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and those employed with reseaching it had contributed to white washing much of the warning signs of its side effects.

In fact, his book, Before You Take That Pill: Why The Drug Industry May Be Bad For Your Health, published in March 2008. You'll find little in the form of support and public relations about this book at Emory University. That's peculiar since Emory has a well funded and established public relations department. Whenever an Emory University professor publishes a book, the P.R. department at Emory University releases press releases to media contacts. Then, lead by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, local Atlanta media, where Emory University is located, do a series of book reviews of said books. None of that happened in the case of the book by Dr. Bremner. Even though Dr. Bremner brought his book to the AJC himself, they never reviewed it. (it should be noted that at any given time as much as 40% of AJC staff is Emory alumni) In fact, the story gets even more peculiar. Dr. Bremner discovered a press release that Emory had created for his book.

Douglas Bremner, MD an Emory University and Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center researcher, was concerned about the way information was communicated about medications and supplements, so he decided to take action. After two years ofdoing his own research on hundreds of the most popular medications, he has written a book called "Before You Take that Pill," which is scheduled to be released on February 28, 2008.

"You have the right to know the risks and benefits of the pills you take and to form an active partnership with your doctor to make decisions about what is right for you," says Dr. Bremner. "We all want to live as long as possible," he continues. "If this book allows you to use medications safely and convinces you to change your diet and lifestyle to prevent disease, I will consider it a success."

The book covers over 300 of the most commonly prescribed prescription drugs, the fifty top-selling prescription drugs, vitamins, and the best selling herbs and supplements. Also included in the book are drugs that are not used much any more but that are particularly unsafe and haven't been taken off the market yet by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Bremner says the U.S. is focused on developing newer drugs. But those drugs are more expensive and drive up health care costs and are not necessarily more effective than the older drugs. He says that pharmaceutical companies are not required to prove that new drugs are better and have fewer side effects than the older drugs they are claiming to replace. In addition to that, vitamins and supplements and some medications can be avoided altogether if people are encouraged to stick with a healthy diet, exercise regularly and wash their hands to avoid infection.

"Despite the fact that Americans spend twice as much on health care as any other country in the world, we have some of the worst health care outcomes," says Dr. Bremner. "In a survey of 13 industrialized nations, the United States was found to be the last in many health related measures, and overall was second to the last!"

Dr. Bremner read and analyzed journal articles, editorials, and drug research related to all the medications he describes in this book. Additionally, he reviewed investigative reporting about the safety of the drugs in credible publications such as the New York Times, and he consulted colleagues with specialties related to the medication he was researching.

Says Dr. Bremner "My goal in writing this book is to give patients all the information they need to be aware of the effects of the medications they are taking so that they can have knowledgeable conversations with their physicians, and make informed decisions together."

Dr. Bremner is professor of Psychiatry and Radiology at Emory University School of Medicine, director of the Emory Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit and director of Mental Health Research, Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Bremner performs research using brain imaging to look at the effects of medications on the brain and brain correlates of mental disorders. He is a board-certified psychiatrist and nuclear medicine physician and has authored or co-authored over 200 peer reviewed articles and book chapters and three books, including "Before You Take that Pill".

At the last minute, this press release was pulled and NOT sent out to media. The P.R. department at Emory University told Dr. Bremner, " Because we felt that your publisher was doing a good enough job on that already". Bremner published his book months before either scandal broke openly. It was an open secret among Emory Psychiatry faculty that both Stowe and Nemeroff had a cozy rleationship with the pharmaceuticals though at the time, no one know just how cozy. Ultimately, the timing of Dr. Bremner's book was both ironic and instructive. Both scandals effectively proved the point he made months earlier in the book.

Also last year, Dr. Bremner was brought into the office the aforementioned Claudia Adkison, the head of the Medical School, and grilled about why he was raising so many alarms about the relationship between academics and pharmaceuticals.

Then, not but two weeks ago, Bremner was told by faculty to remove all mention of Emory University from his blog, also titled Before You Take That Pill. In one blog post, Dr. Bremner commented on another blogger, Phillip Dawdy, an individual with bi polar disorder that was being forced to stop smoking in his building. Dr. Bremner referred to this as "eco fascism" and in the post he wrote a satirical letter in defense of Dawdy's right to smoke. Dr. Bremner was told that a complaint came into the university that said that in the blog post Dr. Bremner was effectively giving Dawdy medical advice even though he'd never diagnosed or treated him. (obligatory eye rolls here) As such, the university demanded that Dr. Bremner remove all mention of his affiliation with Emory University on his blog, and Dr. Bremner has complied.

I am fond of the Latin phrase, Res Ipsa Loquitor (the facts speak for themselves) I have hypothesized that the relationship between academia and pharmaceuticals has become so cozy that it has corrupted the role of watchdogs. Instead, Psychiatry professors get into bed so to speak with pharmaceutical companies. As such, universities receive massive grants from pharmaceuticals for research. Meanwhile, professors get paid by drug companies and write favorable reviews rather than honest ones. Let's see what the facts are here. One university has been exposed as having at least two professors as having unethical relationships with pharmaceuticals all while they write papers that are supposed to objectively review their drugs. Both are punished with nothing more than a slap on the wrist when these corrupt relationships are exposed. Another professor writes and speaks about the very corrupt environment that lead to the conflicts in the case of two of his colleagues. His book is buried by their P.R. department. The local media ignores it. Then, he is threatened and ultimately harrassed over his views. Res Ipsa Loquitor.

George Soros' Unholy Alliance with ACORN

What if a corrupt far left billionaire got together with a corrupt but effective grassroots group in an effort to radically change America ? That's exactly what's happening between George Soros and ACORN. Think of ACORN as instruments of George Soros grand plan. Soros wants to elect far left candidates, pass universal health care, props up the unions among many liberal ideological goals. Think of ACORN is the tool of implementation of his ideology, or at least a tool. On top of this, every policy which Soros uses ACORN to implement also helps President Obama. That's the stakes in this unholy alliance.

For instance, ACORN has an affiliate named Project VOTE. It's an organization that specializes in GOTV campaigns. Of course, the scam is that this group only goes into areas of the sort of candidate that Soros likes. So, while Project Vote does in fact do voter registration drives they do them almost exclusively in poor, African American neighborhoods. In other words, they would only do voter registration in neighborhoods that would back candidates that Soros would also back. Of course, Soros would never give money to ACORN directly. In fact, here, one of his own affiliates Democracy Alliance, gives money to Project Vote, itself an ACORN affiliate.

Whenever Soros does business it's like this. The reason for this is that the world that both Soros and ACORN inhabit is a maze of tax codes. 501 (C)3, 501 (C)4, and Soros favorite 527 among dozens. Each has its own rule for disclosure. The more tax benefits a non profit organization the more it has to disclose. By both Soros and ACORN creating multiple affiliate organizations it's nearly impossible to track the money. As it moves from one affiliate to another eventually outside folks aren't allowed to see all their records.
(O'Reilly's now famous diagram of Soros affiliates)

This way all sorts of shenanigans can go on without enough of a paper trail to prove it. There are stories that have reported that Soros was behind, what they call a rigged recount and he used ACORN in just such a way to do it in Minnesota for Al Franken. Of course, it goes without saying that Franken accounts for the 60th and filibuster proof vote in the Senate

Another way that Soros uses ACORN is in the area of universal health care. Here, the two form an alliance along with several other far left groups called Health Care for America Now. A Politico story recently characterized HCAN as "the groups that represent the base of the Democratic Party".on the issue of health care. One of the biggest donors in HCAN is the Tides foundation. That's another Soros affiliate. Meanwhile ACORN is one of a group of more than a dozen different organizations that created HCAN. HCAN runs as a 501 (c)4. Here are all the principles involved in creating this organization.

ACORN, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, Americans United for Change, Campaign for
America’s Future, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Campaign for Community Change, Children’s Defense Fund Action Council, Communications Workers of America, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), MoveOn.org, NAACP, National
Council of La Raza, National Education Association, National Women’s Law
Center, SEIU, UFCW, USAction, Women's Voices, Women's Vote and Working
America.

(Of course, you should notice other liberal icons in this group like La Raza, the SEIU,and Moveon.org) This group is now organizing advertisement campaigns against wavering Democrats like Mary Landrieu. They hold rallies, organize town halls, and make phone calls among many different other support activities in order to get universal health care passed. (four minutes into this video in front of HCAN, Congress Woman Jan Schakowski admits that the goal of universal health care is single payer)

Meanwhile, the guy that runs the Tides Foundation is a gentleman named Drummond Pike. He's close personal friends with Wade Rathke. Wade Rathke was the long time CEO of ACORN who was removed last summer because he covered up the embezzlement of his brother Dale. When this embezzlement was first made public, Wade turned the embezzlement into a loan and then sold said loan to Pike. As such, ACORN no longer owned the paper on what was owed. It's one of the perks for ACORN of having wealthy and powerful friends. It's no different than the quid pro quo they got from Bruce Ratner, owner of the Nets, to build a new stadium in Brooklyn.

Soros is also a supporter of the unions through his involvement with the SEIU. The SEIU contributes funds to Soros linked organizations, does GOTV activities, and any other grass roots activites for liberal causes. Of course, the local New Orleans 100 SEIU is run and was created by Wade Rathke. Yes, that's the same Wade Rathke that used to run ACORN. Furthermore, ACORN members often belong to the SEIU as well. The SEIU often uses ACORN to organize Alinsky like demonstrations in order to pressure hospitals, grocery stores, and other places of business to unionize.

Then, there's George Soros' good friends Herb and Marion Sandler. They created the Sub Prime Mortgage Company Golden West. They sold it to Wachovia for $24 billion in 2006. It ultimately lead to the demise of Wachovia. The Sandlers contribute a great deal to an organization called the Center for Responsive Lending. This organization was a champion for Community Reinvestment Act, which championed quotas for bank's mortgage lending an poorer areas. ACORN used this very CRA in order to perpetuate campaigns of intimidation on bankers in order to get them to comply with the CRA. The Center for Responsive Lending funded a lot of ACORN's CRA activities.

There are several things everyone should know. First, at all times their connections are loose and so difficult to track. Second, ironically, all of these connections are made that much easier by McCain/Feingold. In fact, it's not too far a stretch to say that McCain was used as a pawn by George Soros in creating the shadow government that Soros uses. After all, shadowy groups like 501 (c)3's and 527's would have much less power without McCain/Feingold. Now, Soros has a community organizing group to advance the agenda of a President, himself a former community organizer. Under no circumstances should we ever underestimate George Soros.

A Second Stimulus?

Paul Krugman used the occasion of the latest jobs numbers to continue peddling his idea that one stimulus isn't enough.

Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said the nation is on course for a "prolonged jobless" economic recovery unless the Obama administration steps in with a second round of government stimulus money.

"The fact of the matter is that the unemployment rate is much worse than the administration contemplated or that most people expected," Krugman told ABC News. "So the economy is much weaker than we thought it'd be, meaning, in fact, it could use more stimulus."

Krugman reminds me of one of those frat guys that puts a drink in your face even after your twelfth shot. To him, the irresponsibility of running up massive deficits is entirely beside the point. The answer to irresponsible massive government spending is in fact more irresponsible and massive government spending.

In fact, Krugman has repeatedly referred to anyone that worries about the consequences of these massive deficits as "fear mongers".

Suddenly it seems as if everyone is talking about inflation. Stern opinion pieces warn that hyperinflation is just around the corner. And markets may be heeding these warnings: Interest rates on long-term government bonds are up, with fear of future inflation one possible reason for the interest-rate spike.


But does the big inflation scare make any sense? Basically, no — with one caveat I’ll get to later. And I suspect that the scare is at least partly about politics rather than economics.First things first. It’s important to realize that there’s no hint of inflationary pressures in the economy right now. Consumer prices are lower now than they were a year ago, and wage increases have stalled in the face of high unemployment. Deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger.

So if prices aren’t rising, why the inflation worries? Some claim that the Federal Reserve is printing lots of money, which must be inflationary, while others claim that budget deficits will eventually force the U.S. government to inflate away its debt.

The first story is just wrong. The second could be right, but isn’t.

In the world of Paul Krugman, governments can borrow and spend with absolutely no consequence. Furthermore, when borrowing and spending doesn't produced the desired effect, you just borrow and spend some more.

Krugman is both naive and delusional. He's naive because he lives in a hypothetical world. So far, the government hasn't even spent $100 billion of the initial $787 billion. We could pass a $5 trillion stimulus and it wouldn't make a difference since the government can't really spend it all that quickly. In Krugman's theoretical world, the government quickly spends trillions and those trillions filter into the economy. In the real world, governments deal with bureaucracy and red tape. As such, they spend money at a rather slow pace. Before we get a second stimulus, wouldn't we want to spend the first? Maybe, rather than demanding we pass more legislation, Krugman should demand that the government start spending the first legislation a bit more quickly.

Krugman is delusional in that he thinks he is "moving the debate". He's only moving the debate among his friends and colleagues in the world of punditry and academia. Beyond that, no one is seriously considering another stimulus. The public hates the first stimulus. There would likely be a mutiny if there was a second. Furthermore, the same Paul Krugman that also supports cap and trade and health care reform also wants the Congress to take up a second stimulus. When, exactly, does he think they will have time?

There is now the beginnings of commentary urging a second stimulus. Krugman is certainly the leader of this school of thought. Here's another column calling for the same thing. The administration has been coy regarding the matter. They need not be. Everyone should understand one thing, THERE WILL BE NO SECOND STIMULUS.

As for Krugman, he would be totally insignificant and not worth of mention if it weren't for the fact that he has a Nobel Prize, teaches at Princeton, and has a place of respect in the MSM. As such, is allowed to peddle this nonsense with almost no one challenging him in the basic ways I just did. It's unlikely that in any of the plethora of interviews he will do will anyone ask him how he plans on having the government spend all this money when they can't seem to spend the first stimulus. Because he has a position of respect, he's allowed to peddle this garbage with little scrutiny among his friends in the media.

The 2010 Republican Play Book: Res Ipsa Loquitor

The main characteristic of the so called W shaped economic is that the economy shows signs of recovery for a while and then suddenly begins to pull back. This can happen over and over. As such, words like choppy, stop start, and uneven are often used during a W shaped recovery. That's exactly the language used by George Soros earlier this week.

Billionaire investor George Soros on Tuesday predicted a "stop-go" economy for the United States, saying fears of inflation will drive up interest rates and choke off growth.

In this AP story, we find similar language.

Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, suggesting that the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.

In my opinion (and interestingly enough in the opinion of George Soros), the W shaped recovery is caused entirely by the borrow and spend policies of the Obama administration. Politically, that is beside the point and ultimately such a connection doesn't need to be made explicitly. In fact, all the Republicans need to do is state the facts, because the facts speak for themselves. (Res Ipsa Loquitor)

This past month's jobs report was the first clear sign that we are looking at a W shaped economy, and that is a political gift for Republicans. First, it turns the President into a bit of a pollyanna. For instance, here's what he told the AP today.

we have successfully stabilized the financial markets," and "started to see some stabilization on housing."

I would venture to guess that anyone who has tried to sell their property, get a loan, and certainly are in the business of securing home mortgages would beg to differ with that characterization. In fact, credit has gotten progressively more difficult to get since he came into office.

For the last couple months, he has been touting his stimulus as contributing to a bottoming out of the economy. He used the reduced job losses as evidence. Of course, job losses are no longer being reduced. After four months of seeing job losses shrink, they ballooned this month. By November of next year, the president will have likely claimed a bottom more than once only to have jobs numbers differe afterwards.

As such, not only are we still losing nearly half a million jobs monthly, but it's unclear which direction the job losses are heading. We could have a couple more months of improving jobs numbers only to have that momentum stopped like we had this month. What this means is that there is absolutely nothing redeeming about the economy.

All the so called green shots, anecdotal evidence of improvements, are nonsense. That was proven in one fell swoop with not only awful jobs numbers but increasingly awful. Since the stimulus was put into effect, we've lost more than 2 million jobs. If we only lose 300,000 jobs monthly till the end of the year (that would be herculean given that our best month was 350,000 lost jobs), that would be 1.8 million more lost jobs until the end of the year. There are no signs of recovery. Those signs are nothing more than illusions. We are still in the middle of a terrible recession and there's absolutely no evidence the end is near.

In the meantime, we have run our deficits from about half a trillion dollars to nearly 2 trillion dollars. This has caused a sudden rise in interest rates. I don't think it's mere coincidence that June's jobs numbers came at exactly the same time that mortgage rates rose nearly a full percentage point. Just think about it. With such an awful economy, we should see record low interest rates. That would reduce borrowing costs and help spur the recovery. Instead, all of the president's spending has put pressure on interest rates and stunted that avenue of recovery. Think about that for a minute. While our deficit has ballooned to nearly two trillion dollars, our economy will lose about four million new jobs. Meanwhile, the only thing we can say for sure that all of this spending has done is balloon interest rates which only stunts the economy even more. How's that for res ipsa loquitor?

Meanwhile, the president is working on cap and trade and health care. The PPIP, which was supposed to be critical in removing "toxic assets", has now been scaled back so that it is currently insignificant. So, while our economy continues in free fall, our president is determined to battle global warming and socializing medicine.

We will certainly hit 10% unemployment. We might hit 11%, and it might even get worse than that. Meanwhile, the president has spent nearly two trillion dollars, burying the country in debt, in hopes of creating jobs. It is this debt that has lead directly to higher rates and a weak dollar. While our economy continues in free fall, he's working furiously to combat global warming and socializing our health care system. Those are the facts and they are indisputable, and that's the story Republicans need to start saying now.

The Recession Is Still in Full Swing

So much for the so called green shots. Rumors of the economic recovery were greatly exaggerated. The month of June was another terrible month for jobs.

Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the government said on Thursday in a report that showed a labor market continuing to struggle with a deep
recession.

The June job losses were more than 100,000 greater than the 363,000 consensus of Wall Street economists polled by Reuters and broke a four-month trend of moderation in job losses.

The Labor Department data showed that in April and May, 8,000 fewer jobs were lost than previously reported. The May job losses were revised downward to 322,000, while the April losses were revised upward to 519,000

.

Starting February, the rate of job losses began to decrease. That seemed to come to a head when, in May, job losses dropped to 350,000. Given that January saw over 700,000, that was a marked improvement.

That all changed again in June. With job losses at 467,000, the job losses are increasing again. That means that any claim that the economy is bottoming out has been greatly exaggerated. Not only are the raw numbers awful but they are no longer improving. As such, the idea that the economy is bottoming out has just had cold water thrown on it.

Once again, we have a disparity in job losses and unemployment rate. This time job losses were much worse than expected while the unemployment rate grew by only .1%. So far, there's been no explanation of this.

The bottom line here is that the recession is in full swing and rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.