In this July 7, 2003 file photo, Philip Bailey, from left, Maurice White, and Ralph Johnson, of Earth Wind & Fire hold up the plaques from their induction at the Hollywood Rock Walk at a ceremony in Los Angeles. (Photo: AP/Matt Sayles)
Maurice White, the founder and of Earth, Wind & Fire, has died at age 74 at home in Los Angeles on Wednesday, his brother said. White founded Earth, Wind & Fire in the late 1960s, a group that went on to sell more than 90 million albums worldwide.
White and the group pioneered an eclectic musical style that resonated tones of his early influences growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, and working at the influential Chicago music labels Chess and Okeh.
The band’s many hits included “September,” ”Shining Star,” a cover of the Beatles’ “Got to Get You into My Life” and “Boogie Wonderland.” Earth, Wind & Fire won six
Left: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a town hall event Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, in Rochester, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) | Right: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., discusses Russian aggression during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, in Simi Valley, Calif. (PHOTO: AP)
While Donald Trump maintains his big double-digit lead, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has overtaken Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the latest New Hampshire Republican primary tracking poll. Cruz has essentially remained flat at 14%, despite his win in the Iowa caucus, but Rubio has siphoned off 7 points to hit 15%, up from 8% when tracking began.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is in fourth place with 8%; Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 7%; and, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is drawing 5%.
“Marco Rubio’s problem is that he is exclusively pulling support from the governors,” said PPD’s senior political analyst Richard Baris. “All of his bump post-Iowa has come from that establishment lane. Trump’s supporters, and to a lesser extend Cruz’s supporters, are dug in.”
The billionaire real estate mogul leads in the PPD average of New Hampshire Republican primary polls by 23.4%, with Kasich at 11.9% and Rubio at 11.5% and rising. Cruz is holding steady with 11%. The consistency of Cruz’s support is reflective in the electorate.
“The best Cruz can hope for in New Hampshire is an electorate that touches 20% evangelical, maybe slightly more,” Baris said. “The independents are excited about the GOP side of the race and are disproportionately expected to participate there, not in the Democratic race. That is working to the benefit of Trump.”
Trump draws 38% of likely independent voters and 35% of likely Republican voters in the Granite State. No one else is even close.
Worth noting, Trump’s supporters are more likely to say their minds are made up–and by a statistically significant margin–which limits his downside potential barring a complete implosion. Only a quarter of his supporters say they are not decided, while Cruz’s level has ranged from 35% to 42%. With the temporary exception of Gov. Kasich, who was displaying fairly firm support in the first three days of tracking, the rest of the GOP field’s support is very soft.
But Kasich’s supporters are now beginning to show signs of weakening, as well. Forty-three percent (43%) of Kasich voters are now indicating they could change their mind. The rest of the competitors in the field see roughly half of their supporters willing to pull the lever for someone else on Tuesday.
Data collection by live interviewers from Abt SRBI, Inc. This is a probability sample of 1410 New Hampshire Registered Voters (RVs) collected using an overlapping dual-frame random digit dial design with a 50% landline/50% cell phone target split (actual split of RVs is 53% LL/47% cell). Using the model detailed below, the survey classified 487 RVs as Republican Likely Voters (LVs).
Likely voters are defined as those who are following news of the election “very closely” or “somewhat closely” (Q3=1,2), “always” or “almost always” vote when there’s an election (Q4=1,2), and say that they “definitely will vote,” or have “already voted” in the election (Q5=5,6). Voters who have just registered (Q4=6) are also defined as likely voters if they “definitely will vote,” or have “already voted” in the election (Q5=5,6) and are following news of the election “very closely” (Q3=1). Independent registrants who don’t know or refuse to state which ballot they will take are also screened out. Out of 1410 RVs, 487 are defined as Republican Likely Voters.
An unemployed American speaks to a recruiter at a jobs fair. (Photo: Mark Ralston AFP/Getty)
The Labor Department reported on Thursday that weekly jobless claims rose by 8,000 to 285,000 last week, higher than the estimate for 280,000. The prior week was revised lower by 1,000 to 277,000.
A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors impacting this week’s initial claims and no state was triggered “on” the Extended Benefits program during the week ending January 16.
The four-week moving average–which is widely considered a better gauge, as it irons out volatility–came in at 284,750, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s four-week average was revised down slightly by 250 from 283,000 to 282,750.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending January 16 were in Alaska (4.8), Montana (3.3), Pennsylvania (3.3), West Virginia (3.3), New Jersey (3.2), Puerto Rico (3.1), Connecticut (3.0), Illinois (2.9), Wyoming (2.9), and Massachusetts (2.8).
The largest increase in initial claims for the week ending January 23 were in Kansas (+65), while the largest decreases were in California (-21,269), Pennsylvania (-6,355), Georgia (-6,113), Michigan (-5,036), and New Jersey (-4,111).
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to a crowd at the Barton Coliseum, the Arkansas State Fairgrounds on Wednesday Feb. 3., 2016.
Donald Trump held a rally at the Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas Wednesday night that allegedly drew a record-breaking crowd. The previous record was held by ZZ Top, who drew 11,451 people to the Barton Coliseum in 1974. On Twitter, Trump thanked “everyone in Little Rock” and touted a “record crowd of 12K.”
Ralph Shoptaw, the general manager of the state fair, announced the allegedly record-breaking crowd count, which is now being disputed by some media reports. The Daily Mail, for instance, put up a series of photos such as the one below, labeled with the caption “not exactly full.” Other outlets, including the Detroit News, jumped on the story and ran with it.
To be sure, that is not a full house depicted in that photo. The empty livestock arena has a published capacity of 10,195, but we don’t need a headcount to see that crowd is not anywhere close to threatening full capacity. So, what’s the deal? Could it be that The Donald completely exaggerated (no, not him)?
Not exactly. Here’s a video of the Trump rally in Little Rock Wednesday night, brought to you by the folks at Right Side News. The place is packed. The Daily Mail, which is bordering on tabloid journalistic standards, published photos of the event as people began to shuffle in the door. Trump was also a full two hours late, according to people who attended the rally, and attendees were loosely walking around the arena until they got word he was in the house.
[brid video=”26990″ player=”2077″ title=”FULL Event Donald Trump MASSIVE Rally in Little Rock AR (2316)”]
That’s an enormous crowd. Because there was no official count (we asked), there is no way to be sure whether the crowd came close to hitting the 12,000 mark or slightly under, which could still break the record. If The Donald is going to claim HUGE “record-breaking” crowds, then it would probably be wise to insist on an official headcount.
However, for the Daily Mail to not only mislead but also plaster a man’s picture on the Internet to call his integrity into question (Mr. Shoptaw)–all with the intent to hurt a presidential candidate–is pretty disgusting.
Regardless, what can’t be disputed is that Trump draws the largest crowds out of any candidate, Republican or Democrat. In New Hampshire on Wednesday, the crowd that showed up to hear Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was under 400 strong and, former Gov. Jeb Bush, pleaded with a crowd of roughly 50 to “please clap.”
Gov. Rick Scott congratulates a little high achiever at Carlos Finley Elementary School in Miami on June 6, 2015. (Photo: Carolyn Allen)
Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a public health emergency for four counties in the state of Florida with confirmed cases of the Zika virus.
“Today I am directing Surgeon General Dr. John Armstrong to declare a public health emergency in the four counties that have individuals with the Zika virus,” Gov. Scott said in a statement. “Although Florida’s current nine Zika cases were travel-related, we have to ensure Florida is prepared and stays ahead of the spread of the Zika virus in our state.”
There are currently a total of nine travel-associated cases (defined as disease believed to be contracted outside of the state) of the Zika virus across Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Lee and Santa Rosa Counties.
“Our Department of Health will continue to be in constant communication with all county health offices, hospitals and the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” Gov. Scott added. “We know that we must be prepared for the worst even as we hope for the best.”
In addition to directing Surgeon General Dr. John Armstrong to declare a public health emergency in four counties, the executive order also:
Directs the Surgeon General to immediately notify the Commissioner of Agriculture of this threat to public health and outlines that statute authorizes the Commissioner of Agriculture to issue a mosquito declaration in Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Lee and Santa Rosa Counties. The Executive Order also says that special attention for mosquito sprays shall be paid to residential areas, as CDC guidance indicates that backpack mosquito spray measures may be most effective.
Directs the Florida Department of Health to make its own determinations as to further resources and information needed in the State from the CDC to combat the spread of Zika and other measures that may need to be taken to protect public health.
[brid video=”26987″ player=”2077″ title=”Bernie Sanders Clinton can’ be both progressive an…”]
Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders railed against Hillary Clinton for pretending to be progressive while taking millions of dollars from Wall Street.
“On some days she says she is a progressive, on that particular day she said she is a moderate,” Sanders said of a comment Clinton made in 2015. “Our campaign is funded by the people. To a significant degree, her campaign is funded by Wall Street and big money interests.”
Sanders, who barely lost the Iowa Democratic caucus and is currently leading Clinton in New Hampshire by a wide margin, made the comments during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“Most progressives that I know really do not raise millions of dollars from Wall Street,” Sanders told Blitzer. “Most progressives that I know are firm from day one in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP agreement. They didn’t have to think about it a lot. They were opposed to Keystone from day one, they didn’t have to vacillate on that issue.”
We are here not to discuss the complex #OscarsSoWhite controversy but to address another sore point with perhaps similar origins: the #OscarsSoGorgeous phenomenon.
At the risk of running afoul of some ardent fan clubs, let us note that the Academy Awards for best actress tend to favor the young and beautiful, often for playing the down and out. Some older actresses survive the nominating process, but observe how many wouldn’t be there had they not established their careers on earlier goddess roles.
This helps explain why there are so few good parts for women who are dark and short — or, for that matter, white but less than spectacular. As with the lack of black nominees, the perpetual dearth of non-beautiful actresses surely reflects the socializing preferences of the white men in charge.
This is not to disparage Jennifer Lawrence’s acting talents, which many say are considerable. But it seemed odd that she was chosen to play the lead in “Joy,” a performance for which she has been nominated as best actress. “Joy” is based on the true story of Joy Mangano, a hard-luck working mother who found success inventing and selling homely mops.
Now the real Mangano is a fine-looking woman with strong Mediterranean features. But she was not born porcelain-skinned and blue-eyed. She did not pursue her dreams with a team of hair stylists maintaining the highest standards through her deepest indignities.
The Hollywood version lingers on endless close-ups of Lawrence’s mug — a picture of northern European perfection, currently a “face of Dior.” Of course, Lawrence has been on the cover of Vogue, which calls her “Hollywood’s blockbuster blonde.”
In 2006, Julia Roberts won best actress for “Erin Brockovich,” a real-life story about a blunt, working-class girl’s legal victory. Nothing wrong with the real Brockovich’s looks, but Erin was never the Roberts-level babe who could dominate the glossies from the lowliest fan mags to Vogue.
Roberts broke into stardom in “Pretty Woman,” playing a character who was supposed to be beautiful. Had Roberts not already achieved stardom as a dazzler, would she have been cast in the meaty role of a vulgar crusader?
The 2003 Oscar went to former model Charlize Theron for her role as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in “Monster.” Fan magazines at the time marveled at how teams of makeup artists were able to turn a stunner into an ugly wretch.
You’d think that roles to play these tortured women would create opportunities for extraordinarily talented actresses of ordinary appearance, but that’s not how Hollywood usually works. Hollywood demands that female actors do double-duty as thespians and glamour queens.
On Oscars night we see how, when it comes to gender, Hollywood actors inhabit two entirely different planets. The men romp into the Dolby Theatre, while the women must run the gauntlet of red carpet humiliation. You see them freeze in cheesy poses, every detail of their facades followed by a week of microscopic critique.
At the ceremony itself, the male winners joyfully bound up the stairs to the stage. The female winners in spikes gingerly climb the stairs, no doubt terrified that a heel could lock into a long hem.
So this is a night to pity the bombshells as well as the great female actors who never had the chance to win the great parts. Why even bother with this dated vision when we can stream fascinating stories of three-dimensional women on our own screens day or night? And small wonder the Oscar audience numbers have been tanking.
Hillary Clinton speaks on the evening of the Iowa Democratic caucus, Feb. 1, 2016. (Photo: AP)
This has not been a good week for Hillary Clinton. She prevailed over Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses by less than four tenths of one percent of all votes cast, after having led him in polls in Iowa at one time by 40 percentage points. In her statement to supporters, standing in front of her gaunt and listless looking husband, she was not able to mouth the word “victory” or any of its standard variants. She could barely hide her contempt for the Iowa Democrats who deserted her.
Sanders isn’t even a Democrat. According to official Senate records, he is an “Independent Socialist” who votes to organize the Senate with the Democrats, and sits on the Senate floor with them. Clinton, of course, is the heiress to the mightiest Democratic political apparatus in the land. Hence the question: What do the Iowa Democrats know that caused thousands of them to flee from her?
They know she is a crook.
On the Friday before Monday’s caucuses, the State Department, which Clinton headed in President Obama’s first term, revealed that it discovered 22 top-secret emails on the private computer server to which Clinton diverted all her governmental email traffic. This acknowledgement marks a radical departure from previous State Department pronouncements and is a direct repudiation of Clinton’s repeated assertions.
She has repeatedly asserted that she neither sent nor received anything “marked classified” using her private email server. The State Department, until last Friday, has backed that up by claiming that while the substance of at least 1,300 of her emails was confidential, secret or top secret, they were not “marked” as such when she dealt with them.
These are word games. First, under the law, nothing is “marked classified.” The markings are “confidential” or “secret” or “top secret,” and Clinton knows this. Second, under the law, it is not the markings on the email headers that make the contents state secrets; it is the vulnerability of the contents of the emails to impair the government’s national security mission that rationally characterizes them as secrets.
Clinton knows this because she signed an oath on Jan. 22, 2009 recognizing that state secrets retain their secrecy status whether “marked or unmarked” by any of the secrecy designations. She knows as well that, under the law, the secretary of state is charged with knowing state secrets when she comes upon them.
Yet, in order to further Clinton’s deceptive narrative, the State Department has consistently claimed that it retroactively marked at least 1,300 emails as state secrets. It did this until last Friday.
Last Friday, the State Department revealed that 22 emails it found on Clinton’s private server were in fact top secret, and were in fact marked top secret, and were in fact sent to or received from President Obama. This is a revelation that substantially undermines Clinton’s political arguments and is catastrophic to her legal position.
Politically, Clinton has lost the final argument in her public arsenal — that she did not recognize top-secret data unless it was marked as top secret. She has also lost the ability to claim, as she has repeatedly, that she neither sent nor received anything marked classified, as meaningless as that phrase is.
Legally, the ground under Clinton continues to crumble. The more she denies, the more she admits. How can that be? That is so because her denials are essentially an admission of ignorance, forgetfulness or negligence, and, under the law, these are not defenses to the failure to safeguard state secrets entrusted to the secretary of state. They are, instead, recognition of that failure.
Late Monday afternoon, before the Iowa caucuses convened and after Clinton’s political folks had lobbied their former colleagues at the State Department to re-characterize what they found and revealed late last week, the State Department reversed itself and claimed that the 22 emails were not “marked” top secret.
It was too little and too late. The cat was out of the bag and Iowa Democrats knew it. Few really believed that the State Department would state publicly that the 22 emails were top secret and then state publicly that they were not, without a political motivation and irrespective of the truth. All this is infuriating to the FBI, which perceives these word games as mocking its fidelity to the rule of law.
Sanders’ presence in the Democratic primaries will continue to give Democrats who mistrust Clinton a safe political haven. But he is not Clinton’s real worry. Her real worry is an FBI committed to the rule of law and determined to fortify national security by gathering the evidence of her mishandling state secrets.
Let’s be as blunt about this as the FBI will be: Causing state secrets to reside in a nonsecure, nongovernmental venue, whether done intentionally or negligently, constitutes the crime of espionage.
And there is more. When asked about the consequences of Clinton’s brazen exposure of state secrets to anyone who knows how to hack into a nonsecure computer, an intelligence operative winced as if in pain when he remarked that the nation’s then chief diplomat surely compromised the “sources, methods, and lives” of her colleagues.
Even Democrats who see Clinton as a symbol of their long-time wish for a progressive female in the Oval Office are beginning to recognize that anyone who has jeopardized American lives for political gain is unworthy of their votes, unworthy of their trust and unworthy of public office.
President Barack Obama stands with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, during an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. (Photo: AP)
But compared to some people, maybe I’m just an amateur Cassandra. Or even a Pollyanna.
Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal has an ultra-pessimistic column today arguing that “many of us believe the entitlement programs need to be reformed” but worrying about “Republicans who pose as ‘conservative’ defenders of Social Security and Medicare.”
And part of his column is rather convincing since he points out that Donald Trump has criticized Republicans who favor reform.
…the meaning of Trumpism…goes like this: “…Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security, they want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on Medicaid. And we can’t do that. And it’s not fair to the people that have been paying in for years and now all of the sudden they want [it] to be cut.” Mr. Trump is a political harbinger here of a new strand of populist Republicanism.
To be fair, Trump’s comments aren’t necessarily anti-reform. One could argue that he’s simply saying that benefits for existing retirees and older workers shouldn’t be adversely impacted.
But since “The Donald” hasn’t expressed any support for reforms that would create better and more viable options for younger workers, Jenkins is probably right to be pessimistic.
But he also argues that Tea Party-type Republicans are opposed to reform.
The tea party animus toward ObamaCare is…means-tested new entitlements…are viewed as a threat to the traditional, universal, “earned,” middle-class retirement programs of Social Security and Medicare. …The unspoken tea party stance of defending the good old-fashioned entitlements of “real” Americans is increasingly, in dog-whistle terms, what differentiates one Republican from another.
While it’s almost certainly true that there’s more animosity to redistribution-oriented programs such as Obamacare than there is to so-called earned entitlements, I think Holman misreads the Tea Party crowd.
Based on my speeches to – and other interactions with – these activists, I have never detected any measurable hostility to Social Security reform and Medicare reform. Fixing those programs may not be at the top of their agenda, but they’re not on the wrong side.
Moreover, I work closely with folks on Capitol Hill and I almost never hear about any meaningful opposition from Tea Partiers. And since House GOPers have approved budgets with genuine entitlement reform for five consecutive years, there’s been plenty of time for opposition to materialize.
Jenkins also is glum because Governor Christie, who has openly expressed support for reform, hasn’t fared well. And he notes that Senator Rubio has rejected reforms that would harm current seniors.
Chris Christie,who went nowhere in Iowa, did himself no favor by dragging Social Security and Medicare into every debate, however much those programs need to be addressed. Marco Rubio was just as quick to modify any implication that Republicans therefore are entitlement reformers: “We are talking about reforms for future generations. Nothing has to change for current beneficiaries. My mother is on Medicare and Social Security. I’m against anything that’s bad for my mother.”
I’m not a political expert, so I won’t pretend to know why Chris Christie didn’t get many votes in Iowa, but I don’t think it’s right to label Marco Rubio as an opponent. He’s been very upfront about supporting much-needed structural reform of Medicare and Medicaid. He simply doesn’t want to change the rules for existing retirees and older workers.
You can argue that such a condition makes it harder to save money in the short run, but I’m more concerned about dealing with the long-run fiscal challenge (as seen in these IMF,BIS, andOECDnumbers). So Rubio’s position doesn’t strike me as a problem. Indeed, I think he’s pushed the envelope in the right direction, particularly since he comes from a state with so many seniors.
And since Ted Cruz also has said similar things about entitlement reform, that means both top-tier GOP candidates (other than Trump) are willing to do the right thing to restore fiscal sanity.
To be sure, maybe I am being naively optimistic. Perhaps Rubio or Cruz will win and will decide to kick the can down the road, even with a GOP Congress that might be primed for reform.
If that happens and we miss what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for genuine entitlement reform, I’ll be very unhappy and Holman Jenkins will have demonstrated that pessimism is a much smarter assumption when contemplating the actions of politicians.
In which case my already-low opinion of politicians would drop to a record depth. And it also might be time to escape to a country that still has some sensible people and is less likely to suffer fiscal collapse.
A crowd gathers for Republican presidential candidate, and former U.S. Senator, Rick Santorum’s formally declaring his candidacy for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an announcement event in Cabot, Pennsylvania, May 27, 2015. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk
UPDATE: Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum announced that he is endorsing Sen. Marco Rubio in the Republican nomination for president.
EARLIER: Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will announce he is suspending his 2016 presidential campaign Wednesday night, sources tell People’s Pundit Daily.
The 2012 Iowa caucus winner’s decision comes after a poor showing on Monday. Santorum finished behind 2008 winner and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who also suspended his campaign this week.
The senator came in 11th place and picked up just 1% of the Iowa caucus vote, and now becomes the fourth presidential hopeful to drop out of the race this week. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, along with Sen. Rand Paul have called it quits. O’Malley placed a distant third in caucuses behind socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
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