Yet more slow but steady good news on the job front: Employment grew solidly for a third straight month in February, a sign the economic recovery was broadening and in less need of further monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve. Employers added 227,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, while the unemployment rate held at a three-year low of 8.3 percent. It marked the...

Yes, bipartisanship is ailing but it is not totally dead: The House is expected to vote Thursday on a jobs bill that would mark rare agreement between the Obama administration and House Republicans. The proposal called the JOBS Act, short for “Jump-starting Our Business Startups,” comprises of six measures aimed at removing barriers to small business investment. Republican leaders and the White House...

Why bother writing articles, posts and comments based upon any analysis of facts, reality or logic? Honestly seeking scientific, rational and legal causation for the many events occurring in a complex world has become a waste of time. When pervasive apathy, congenital stupidity, willful ignorance, massive denial, and irrational religious and ideological dogmas dominate the majority of the U.S. electorate and...

Days ago, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin aired his views on Russia and the world in a Moscow newspaper – and they have not gone unnoticed. For Algeria’s Le Quotidien d’Oran, one of the Maghreb’s leading columnists, K. Selim, writes that whether people in the West like it or not, Putin’s old-fashioned view of the world and Russian interests are as valid as ever. For Le Quotidien...

You have to take good news where you find it, and the uplift from Michigan and Arizona is that simple greed has prevailed over religious zealotry as Mitt Romney wins with the help of older, better-educated and high-income voters who think the economy and the budget deficit are the major issues this year. Looking ahead to Super Tuesday, this bodes better for the electorate as the Ayatollah Santorum surge of theocratic...

With Russia’s presidential election this Sunday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wrote this 7,500 word opus in Moscow newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti, outlining what the once and apparently future Russian president thinks of the United States and NATO, the use of NGOs in foreign lands (like Egypt), Afghanistan and drug trafficking, the civil conflict in Syria, human rights in Russia and around the...

Has President Barack Obama, through his election and policies, created almost irreversible dissaray within the Republican Party? For Mexico’s Excelsior, José Luis Valdés Ugalde writes that intentionally and by happenstance, Obama’s emergence was an ‘anomaly that destabilized the political environment for the better,’ and at the same time, it ‘served as a call to arms for the...

Has enough time passed since the nuclear disaster in Japan for the world to resume nuclear plant building? Last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a construction permit for the first nuclear power plant to be built in the United States since 1978. According to this editorial from Japan’s Shimpo Hebei Shimbun, in Japan and the U.S., voices calling for a ‘nuclear renaissance’...

The latest polling shows Romney with a tenuous lead in Michigan. There has been no measurable momentum for either Romney or Santorum. Meanwhile, Santorum could win with Democratic votes. His campaign is robocalling Michigan Dems asking for their votes. Last week David Plotz gave voice (@8:19) to an interest theory on the rise of Santorum. It goes something like this… Romney’s whole campaign has...

Mike Daisey Takes a Bite Out of Apple by Michael Winship If you would seek proof of that famous Margaret Mead adage, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has,” look at what’s happening as more and more people protest Apple Inc.’s labor practices in China. Take it one step further: if you should ever doubt...

What is the height of arrogance, the epitome of a lack of empathy for those less fortunate, the perfect product of someone who enjoys rubbing his own fortune in the face of someone less fortunate? It’s this: An arrogant banker has done all in his power to enforce his position as the ‘one per cent,’ all the while reminding everyone else they’re not. After dining on a meal at a boutique Newport Beach,...

If you haven’t been paying attention there has been a coup in Greece.  Yes, the home of democracy has been taken over by the global banksters.  Unelected technocrats, some from Greece but most not, are now calling all of the shots in Greece.  They are pillaging the country in an attempt to extract as much wealth before the inevitable default of the country.  And Greece is just the beginning.  Steve...

WASHINGTON — We’ve heard this quickening drumbeat before. Last time, it led to the tragic invasion and occupation of Iraq. This time, if we let the drummers provoke us into war with Iran, the consequences will likely be far worse. Rat-ta-tat-tat. Weapons of mass destruction. Boom-shakka-boom. A madman in charge. Thump-thump-thump. Mushroom clouds. Tune out the anxiety-inducing percussion...

Okay, so a Republican gets to be president. What happens to the national debt? The national debt is likely to balloon under tax policies championed by three of the four major Republican candidates for president, according to an independent analysis of tax and spending proposals so far offered by the candidates. …WaPo Except for Ron Paul. His cuts would take $2 trillion out of the budget. Don’t...

With the cries for war against Iran growing louder by the day, diplomats have barely begun to come to girips with all of the likely ramifications. For Brazil’s Opera Mundi, columnist Ignacio Ramonet offers a look at the conflicting national ambitions and long-held animosities that will emerge as a result of any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – and suggests this is no time to dispense...

For nearly 2,000 years and starting again today, Christians spiritually begin their 40-day Lenten celebrations to prepare themselves for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ during the Easter Triduum. Ashes placed on the foreheads of believers constitute an ancient symbol reminding the faithful of their human mortality (from dust to dust). It is also the visual cue to begin a serious period of prayer,...

President Barack Obama’s reelection prospects may have improved slightly because the US economy is showing an uptick but the Greek debt crisis could still land a painful punch across the Atlantic in the late summer, hurting both Obama and American jobs. Tuesday morning, European finance ministers reached a complex deal to provide a 130 billion euro bailout for Greece to prevent a government debt default at...

The following is completely anecdotal, which means it is useless as intelligent analysis. I make no claim to understanding the theory or practice of figuring the inflation rate any more than I can “understand” the Holy Trinity or Quantum Mechanics. But something is horribly wrong with the “official” inflation numbers. They are meaningless to anyone who has to live in the real world and...

Have you ever been to Greece? If you have, then you know what has happened to that deeply historic, incredibly beautiful and once vibrant country is heartbreaking. And that its ills are self inflicted. The economic crisis in Greece has caused a devolution that is shocking by Western standards. Some 25 percent of all Greek companies have gone out of business since 2009, half of all small businesses are unable...

Complain as they might, have U.S. Republicans themselves brought on the ‘political’ budget President Obama submitted for fiscal year 2013? For Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, columnist Nikolaus Piper asserts that while the ideas in the president’s ‘reasonable’ budget are correct, Republicans were never going to pass them – and that ‘given the Republicans who want...