By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
House Speaker John A. Boehner on Thursday flatly ruled out chances of the House passing the Senate's immigration bill, saying his chamber will debate its own bill instead.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell 23,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, a level consistent with solid job growth.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he won't start to pick any big fights with Republicans because he's afraid of upsetting the momentum to pass an immigration bill — and that includes delaying President Obama's Labor Department nominee.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose 32,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the most since late March. The jump comes after applications fell to a five-year low.
A plunge in the cost of gas drove down a measure of U.S. consumer prices last month by the most since December 2008. Excluding the drop in fuel costs, prices were largely unchanged.
Sharp drops in fuel and food costs reduced a measure of U.S. wholesale prices in April by the most in three years. Outside those volatile categories, inflation stayed tame.
Gina McCarthy's already bumpy road to becoming Environmental Protection Agency administrator took another detour Thursday morning when Senate Republicans boycotted a committee vote on her nomination, blocking it for now.
The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 323,000, a fresh five-year low. The decline signals fewer layoffs and possibly more hiring.
Friday's official jobs numbers were better than expected. The Labor Department says 165,000 private-sector positions were created in April, pushing the unemployment rate down to 7.5 percent, a decline of only a tenth of a percentage point from March.
The downsizing of the U.S. government may not be returning all the taxpayer savings it was intended.
U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in April, and hiring was much stronger in the previous two months than the government first estimated. The job increases helped reduce the unemployment rate from 7.6 percent to a four-year low of 7.5 percent.
Wall Street rocketed into record territory Friday after the government released its latest jobs report, with the Dow Jones index of 30 top stocks cracking the 15,000 mark for the first time in history. Stocks retreated later in the day, but still posted a record closing price of 14,973.96, up 142.38 points or 0.96 percent.
Unemployment dropped a notch further to 7.5 percent last month as businesses created another 165,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday morning in a report that showed the economy maintained steady growth despite federal budget cuts.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell last week to seasonally adjusted 324,000, the lowest since January 2008. The drop points to fewer layoffs and possibly more hiring.
Encouraging news about the job market and higher profits from CBS, Facebook and other companies gave stocks a lift Thursday.
