Unemployment Claims Keep Rising Higher And Higher

Reuters - New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to 424,000 last week from a revised 414,000 in the prior week, pointing to a painfully slow improvement in the nation's job markets.

The Labor Department on Thursday revised the prior week's claims number up from an originally reported 409,000.

Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast that claims last week would decline to 400,000, rather than rise.

The four-week moving average of unemployment claims, considered a better measure of trends since it smoothes out weekly variations, eased slightly to 438,500 from a revised 440,250.

Last week marked the seventh straight week in which claims topped the 400,000 level, indicating that payroll growth is soft and may continue to be so for some time. A department official said there were no exceptional factors to account for the rise in last week's claims

Sen. Macro Rubio, "A Man On A Mission"

Sissy Willis - "I have been in the Senate just long enough to be disgusted by the reality that Washington has too many people who think their personal political careers are more important than our country’s future," says GOP rising star Marco Rubio, upstaging the Democrats and their media fellow travelers in the "MediScare" drama with a virtuoso solo performance that's bringing the twitterspere to their feet in a virtual standing ovation.

"THIS is how it's done … a man in a field of mice … take the fight to the Dems," twittered ecstatic Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin this morning, joining the throng of us narrative chasers out here in cyberspace retweeting and blogging about newly-minted Florida Senator Marco Rubio's response to the Democrats' "Mediscare" spin. In "Looking for Medicare Solutions, Not Politics As Usual" the first-generation Cuban American hottie uses the example of his immigrant parents to disarm opponents:

For me, Medicare is not a political talking point. My parents immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s. They worked hard for over 40 years to provide their children the chance to do all the things they themselves could not. But they never made much money.

As a result, they retired with precious little in savings. Medicare was and is the only way they could access healthcare.

Having lured his listeners with emotionally charged personal evocations of the American Dream, he reels us in:

Rep. Paul Ryan has offered a plan that would make no changes whatsoever for anyone age 55 and older. I support it because, right now, it is the only plan out there that helps save Medicare. Democrats oppose it. Fine. But, if they have a better way to save Medicare, what are they waiting for to show us? What is their plan to save Medicare?

Either show us how Medicare survives without any changes or show us what changes you propose we make. Anyone who supports doing nothing is a supporter of bankrupting Medicare.

Paul Ryan noticed and twittered a link to Rubio's speech, with editorial content:

Strong message from strong leader.

"I'm telling you, these two would make an unbeatable ticket," twittered diggrbiii aka RB of The Right Sphere and Big Journalism, linking to Ryan's tweet:

Rubio and Ryan should announce they're running on the same ticket. Today. And then go on a year-long speech tour.

Politico's Ben Smith reports that “American Conservative Union Chairman Al Cardenas said in an interview today that he thinks the eventual Republican nominee would be well advised to offer Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio a slot on the ticket — and that Rubio, if asked, would likely assent.” According to a new Gallup poll, Romney and Palin are leading the field. Palin/Rubio. Rolls right off the tongue.
Related: The Right Sphere's Brandon Kiser has a dream:

This is probably all a pipe dream, but you have to agree with Jonah Goldberg when he says ”politics is about moments, and this one is calling [Ryan]. Unless someone suddenly rises to the challenge, the cries of ‘Help us, Paul Ryan, you’re our only hope!’ will only get louder.”

Looks like someone named Marco just did.
Update: Fun banter with Brendan Loy on twitter, referencing the "man in a field of mice" opf our title:

Brendan: He should do something about that. Maybe get a cat.

We: Or maybe a mama grizzly.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Sen. Reid Slams Obama On Israel

Ed Morrissey - If Barack Obama got stung by a lecture from Benjamin Netanyahu last week after publicly insisting on using the 1967 borders as a demarcation for a future Palestinian state, at least he expected the leader of Israel to scold him over the demand. He probably didn’t expect one from Harry Reid. Hours after Obama’s attempt to backpedal at AIPAC from Thursday’s speech, Reid denounced even the concept of issuing demands in speeches and declared that only negotiations between the parties could create mutually defensible borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state. Reid even managed to sound angry about it:   

The most powerful Democrat in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on  Monday night publicly rejected President Barack Obama’s decision to use a recent speech to lay out aspects of a potential peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
“The place where negotiating will happen must be at the negotiating table – and nowhere else,” Reid declared in a speech to an annual gathering in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “Those negotiations … will not happen – and their terms will not be set – through speeches, or in the streets, or in the media.”
When the Senate leader added, “No one should set premature parameters about borders, about building, or about anything else,” the lights quickly came up on the vast audience and most in the crowd at the Washington Convention Center rose to their feet and applauded.

Wow. Reid usually only musters that kind of passion when declaring America the loser in a war.
The White House refused comment on Reid’s remarks, but they sting. Obama framed his remarks on Thursday as merely a public statement of the principles that have guided American policy on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for more than a decade, at least, and he’s right about that much. Previous administrations had the good sense to keep that quiet, however, and work on both sides to gain ground (pardon the pun) on an eventual, mutually-acceptable map. Both sides seem to have understood this as well. Now, just as with the earlier fumble on building in Jerusalem, Obama has changed the negotiating dynamic, and not in favor of Israel.
Reid’s speech puts Obama firmly outside of the mainstream on this issue. The White House is finding itself isolated on the fringe and losing the battle of public opinion. If Obama hoped for a game changer with his speech on Thursday, he got one — but not in the way Obama imagined.

Obama Re-Election Campaign Digging Up Dirt On Gov. Chris Christie

Nice Deb- Even though Christie has said on numerous occasions, in no uncertain terms, he. will. not. be running, (“Short of suicide, I don’t really know what I’d have to do to convince you people that I’m not running. I’m not running,” he’s insisted), the Obama camp is spending resources trawling for dirt on the Republican rock-star governor.
The NY Post reports:

The Obama campaign is trying to keep its efforts from public view, concerned they would only elevate Christie’s already impressive standing within the Republican Party, sources said.
The operatives have chosen not to dispatch their own people to New Jersey, but instead are talking to people there and in New York who know Christie from his time in the governor’s office, as a gubernatorial candidate and as US attorney.
Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, did not respond to messages.

That would be Jim, “we will punch them back twice as hard” Messina. Only they’re not “punching back”, they are on the offensive against a man who has never been anything but cordial with the president.
Of rumors that Christie is considering a run, a “flattered” Christie spokesman said:

“This is just wishful thinking . . . He is not running, and he is not cracking the door open even a little bit.”

Since this is how Obama wants to roll, maybe some Republican opposition researchers should  do a little more digging into Obama’s Chicago years, Columbia years, and Occidental years.

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They could start by reading Stanley Kurtz’s “Radical In Chief”, and Jack Cashill’s, Deconstructing Obama.

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And let’s not forget his WH corruption with Michelle Malkin’s;Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies

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And then maybe,  just maybe they could look into that puzzling CT Social Security number issue.

See also:

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The Other McCain: Obama’s Smear Machine

On the one hand, this looks like mind-games: Democrats are trying to mess with Republicans’ heads, to promote the notion that Team Obama is unbeatable even by the GOP elite’s “dream candidate.” On the other hand, the fear of a ferocious Chicago-style attack is very real, as the New York Times obliquely notes in its story on Mitch Daniels’ decision:

Saying that his family did not want to go through a campaign, Mr. Daniels became the third high-profile Republican in eight days to choose not to compete for the chance to challenge Mr. Obama. . . .
But after weeks of deliberating in public and making clear that his wife and four daughters had deep reservations — caused in part by the knowledge that they would be exposed to intensive scrutiny over a period in the 1990s when Mr. Daniels and his wife, Cheri, divorced and then remarried — he said he was unsuccessful in swaying his family.

As we know, Obama has no compunction at all about using an opponent’s divorce records to destroy his political career.

Linked by Michelle Malkin in Buzzworthy, thanks!