south korea today. but he is delivering a strong message to north korea about its plan to test-fire a long-range missile. pyongyang claims it will launch a rocket-powered satellite next month, not a missile. south korea says regardless, the technology being used is a violation of a u.n. security council resolution. and former vice president dick cheney is recovering today after undergoing heart transplant surgery. cheney, who is 71 years old, was reportedly on the transplant list for over 20 months. he has had at least five heart attacks since 1978. no word op the identity of the heart donor, but cheney s family says they will, quote, be forever grateful. now to the 2012 contenders and the impact of the latest big contest in the presidential race. louisiana s republican primary, rick santorum easily won, capturing 49% of the vote. mitt romney came in a distant second with 27%. newt gingrich s southern roots, it didn t help him in this state. he got just 16% of the vote. r
gingrich, basically supported that court decision. they thought it was free speech, money is speech, as they see it. and it could have destroyed his campaign. we don t know until we see the results, but he could come in fourth or fifth tonight, after this pummeling he took out here. there s a couple of things. those ads were devastatingly effective, but for a couple of reasons. they were reinforced by a similar attack coming from ron paul. and the other is, a lot of the charges in those ads, the truth stings. it wasn t like these were wild distortions. that was, in fact, a pretty fair critique of gingrich s history. it wasn t one of those situations where something is just taken whole cloth or distorted in a really powerful way. suppose the same amount of money was spent by a super pac on behalf of newt gingrich that basically strdestroyed romney a guy who supported taxpayer-funded abortions, you know, did the whole thing with health care up in massachusetts, was a moderate up ther
gingrich, basically supported that court decision. they thought it was free speech, money is speech, as they see it. and it could have destroyed his campaign. we don t know until we see the results, but he could come in fourth or fifth tonight, after this pummeling he took out here. there s a couple of things. those ads were devastatingly effective, but for a couple of reasons. they were reinforced by a similar attack coming from ron paul. and the other is, a lot of the charges in those ads, the truth stings. it wasn t like these were wild distortions. that was, in fact, a pretty fair critique of gingrich s history. it wasn t one of those situations where something is just taken whole cloth or distorted in a really powerful way. suppose the same amount of money was spent by a super pac on behalf of newt gingrich that basically strdestroyed romney a guy who supported taxpayer-funded abortions, you know, did the whole thing with health care up in massachusetts, was a moderate up ther
that s not a good sign. usually when people are confident, think they can find a job, they come into the labor force. so the 9% to 8.6%, you know, that is a really good number. i ll take it. it s not as good as it looks. let s dig in deeper here. some of the up numbers, retail 50,000. was that business services 33,000, health care up, construction, though, down 12,000. i want to focus on two retail a lot of people asking already this morning how much is this uptick simply seasonal? the bureau of laib statistics the keeper of the data does seasonally adjust the data so they try to account for seasonal hiring. what this says is that the hiring that occurred in november is greater than they would normally expect in a november lead up. okay. so probably over states the case a bit but, you know, i think it is a reasonably good number. the declining construction, that probably overstates the weakness there, too, because actually construction activity, believe it or not, six years
seems? that is what the republicans are saying in republican fashion. let s face it, traditional republicans as opposed to the full mooners on the right radio are the quiet car in the conservative train. they don t yell, they make shir points in ways you have to pay attention to to get. if mitt romney is so great why did john mccain go to alaska to pick an alternative as his running mate last time if why did he pass over the number two candidate in the field, the guy he had to beat the win the nomination? if mitt romney is so great why does huckabee say terrible thing likes why doesn t hack bee have a soul in didn t romney save the salt lake of olympics? why is rick perry talking himself out now? what s the problem? some point backing him health care up in massachusetts. others point to his religion. or is it the empty suit problem,