Unemployed Americans wait in line for to fill out applications for jobless benefits. (Photo: Reuters)
Weekly jobless claims rose by a whopping 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 287,000 for the week ended Dec.26, the U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 270,000 in the latest week, offering analysts a signal the labor market lost steam last month.
Though claims rose by the largest number since July, it is still coming off a 42-year low. Still, the number of jobless claims is impacted by the number of eligible applicants and, with long-term unemployment chronic, the untold story is just how few those eligible applicants are at this point. The claims report showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid rose 3,000 to 2.20 million in the week ended Dec. 19.
The 4-week moving averag–widely considered to be a better gauge of conditions, as it irons-out week-to-week volatility–was 2,220,250, an gain of 9,250 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 2,211,000.
Labor Department said there were no special factors influencing the numbers.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending December 12 were in Alaska (4.8), Puerto Rico (2.9), Montana (2.8), New Jersey (2.7), Pennsylvania (2.7), West Virginia (2.6), California (2.5), Illinois (2.4), Wyoming (2.4), Connecticut (2.3), and Nevada (2.3).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending December 19 were in Virginia (+2,047), Illinois (+1,954), Iowa (+1,128), Kentucky (+1,116), and Kansas (+1,076), while the largest decreases were in California (-2,903), Michigan (-2,586), Pennsylvania (-1,280), Texas (-1,152), and New York (-1,119).
File: TSA officers check bags at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photos: Amy Zerba/Getty/Newscom/PPD)
I don’t know about you, but I’d like to think that the feds have screened the other passengers sitting on my airplane. To do that, they also have to screen me. That’s the deal.
In America, any state-issued driver’s license had long been acceptable ID for passing security checks at airports. That lax attitude changed after Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists turned four commercial jetliners full of passengers into missiles, killing thousands more on the ground. All four planes took off from U.S. airports.
On the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, Congress passed the Real ID Act. It tightens standards for state driver’s licenses used to board flights. Among other information, applicants must provide their Social Security number and immigration status. The licenses must also contain a chip or other technology that can be read by a computer. The deadline for compliance is approaching.
Some states have done their duty and issued secure driver’s licenses. Others have made enough progress that their licenses are acceptable for the time being. And a few states — Washington, Minnesota and New Mexico, for example — have largely not complied. Barring another extension of the deadline, their driver’s licenses will soon be inadmissible as proof of identity at airport security.
Consider the stakes.
When Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 crashed last year, killing all 239 aboard, the world shuddered to learn that two of the passengers had carried fake passports. The two, it turned out, were not terrorists but ordinary Iranians trying to move to Germany.
Everyone, Americans included, noted that known terrorists bent on destruction could probably have secured similar phony ID. But there’s a tendency, especially among Americans, to rapidly forget what obsessed them the year before.
With the deadline for Real ID drawing near, hostility has again flared toward letting the federal government do what it must to ensure that passengers flashing driver’s licenses at airport security are who they say they are.
To me, the main difference between a secure driver’s license and an insecure one is that the insecure one can be used for committing crimes, among them identity theft and fraud. But to many foes of Real ID, secure ones’ threat to privacy is a more serious matter.
The foes argue that requiring enhanced licenses is tantamount to creating a national identity card. That presupposes that a national identity card would be a terrible thing. Actually, the gentlest of European democracies have national identity cards, and they haven’t turned into police states.
Besides, Americans already have a national ID number, courtesy of Social Security. When the Social Security program was established in 1935, its enemies fulminated against the issuance of numbers, with some of the arguments now being hurled at Real ID.
As historian Douglas Brinkley writes, “Critics likened the process to the social engineering used in fascist nations, notably Nazi Germany, predicting that American workers would be forced to wear metal tags on chains around their necks and charging that ‘surveillance is a part of the plans of the (Franklin D.) Roosevelt administration.'”
It was inevitable that an ID requiring proof of immigration status would rankle defenders of undocumented workers. One wishes for a solution to the immigration problem that is humane to both those settled here illegally and American workers competing with them for jobs. (Such a plan would legalize the status of most of the undocumented while cutting off future illegal entry.)
That said, it is politically unwise to let concerns about inconveniencing people here illegally trump (excuse the expression) concern over national security.
An air disaster set off by passengers getting on board with fake ID would move many fence-sitters to the side of Real ID. But let’s not wait for it.
1) The Republican nominee for president in 2016 will be
a. Donald Trump by unanimous acclamation of the Republican National Convention.
b. Ted Cruz by unanimous acclamation of the convention.
c. Mitt Romney after a contested, bitter, brokered convention.
d. none of the above.
2) The Democratic nominee for president in 2016 will be
a. Hillary Clinton.
b. Bernie Sanders.
c. Al Gore after a contested, bitter, brokered Democratic National Convention.
d. not Hillary Clinton, because she will be indicted by a federal grand jury for various crimes.
3) The voters will elect in a landslide
a. whoever promises to give them the biggest piece of the federal pie.
b. whoever scares them the most.
c. whoever comes across as most faithful to the Constitution.
d. a sleeper candidate not yet on the scene.
4) The 2016 Republican platform will promise
a. to eradicate the Islamic State group by using ground troops and fighting an all-out war.
b. to replace Obamacare with a lighter, easier version of it.
c. to make abortion illegal, except for in cases of rape and incest.
d. to bring the troops home and let the Russians fight the Islamic State.
5) The 2016 Democratic platform will promise
a. a 2016 version of “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.”
b. free health care for those who want it.
c. criminalizing hate speech.
d. all of the above.
6) The Super Bowl will be won by
a. the Carolina Panthers.
b. the New England Patriots, but only by cheating.
c. the New York Jets after the greatest comeback in NFL history.
d. none of the above.
7) The World Series will be won by
a. the New York Mets.
b. the San Francisco Giants.
c. the Boston Red Sox, but only after they acquire A-Rod from the Yankees.
d. none of the above.
8) In 2016, climate change
a. will be embraced by the Republican Party in a dramatic turnabout.
b. will be defined as an article of faith by Pope Francis.
c. will be exposed as a fraud.
d. will leave the public marketplace of ideas.
9) The Supreme Court
a. will invalidate all spying without a warrant based on individualized suspicion.
b. will invalidate race as a factor to be taken into account by government-owned schools.
c. will continue to expand First Amendment rights.
d. will finally invalidate Obamacare.
10) Congress will
a. continue to finance the federal government by borrowing money.
b. will let President Barack Obama declare war.
c. will impeach President Obama for refusing to enforce federal law.
d. do none of the above.
11) Pope Francis will
a. permit divorced and remarried Roman Catholics to receive the Blessed Sacrament.
b. forgive everyone’s sins during the 2016 Year of Mercy.
c. remove the requirement for a miracle as a condition for declaring someone to be a saint.
d. resign and become a simple parish priest in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
12) The Hollywood industry will
a. offer movies directly to consumers.
b. suffer its most crippling actor strike in its history.
c. continue its leftward view of human existence.
d. leave California because of the drought.
13) The highest taxes in the United States will be in
a. New Jersey, where they are now.
b. New York City because Mayor Bill de Blasio will tax the rich at 50 percent of income.
c. in California.
d. none of the above.
14) One year from today
a. Hillary Clinton will be in prison.
b. Donald Trump will be selling pencils.
c. Chris Christie will have been in the Olympics.
d. the president-elect will be someone who did not participate in any 2015 presidential debates.
15) One year from today
a. the government will be able to take any property from you that it wants.
b. the Environmental Protection Agency will be able to regulate your use of a lawn mower and a rake.
c. the National Security Agency will still be able to capture your keystrokes on your computer in real time.
d. none of the above will be true.
16) In 2016, President Obama will announce
a. that he will become the president of the University of Chicago.
b. that he has lost his license to practice law.
c. that he and Michelle Obama will soon divorce.
d. that he was not born in the United States.
17) In 2016
a. Fox News Channel will surpass the broadcast networks in audience share.
b. Bill O’Reilly will run for public office and lose.
c. A-Rod will get sexual reassignment surgery.
d. Madonna will enter a convent.
18) By the end of 2016
a. the Islamic State will be dead and gone.
b. the Islamic State will have signed a peace treaty with the West.
c. Vladimir Putin will be out of office.
d. none of the above will have happened.
19) One year from today
a. gasoline will cost less than $1 a gallon.
b. a Big Mac will cost $10.
c. half the newspapers presently in the country will be out of business.
d. Apple will be producing an iPhone that it claims can contact dead relatives.
20) Ultimately
a. it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
b. that government is best which governs least.
c. taxation is theft.
d. all of the above are true.
My choices: 1d, 2d, 3b, 4a, 5b, 6c, 7d, 8b, 9a, 10a, 11a, 12a, 13a, 14a, 15d, 16c, 17a, 18d, 19c, 20d.
Obama at business roundtable summit proposing more regulations on April 18, 2014.
For those of us worried (with good reason!) about excessive regulation and red tape, 2015 was not a good year.
As you can see from the headline of this story in the The Washington Examiner,federal bureaucrats were very busy imposing new mandates and restrictions on the economy. Indeed, President Obama now has the cumulative record for red tape.
And to put the numbers in context, here’s a chart from the folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. On the left side, it shows the biggest red-tape year for every President before Obama. And then on the right side, it shows how Obama is consistently meeting or exceeding prior records.
All this bad news might be somewhat bearable if there was some reason to think we were turning a corner and that the worst was behind us.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Let’s now share another headline, this time from a report in The Hill.
The bottom line is that the Obama Administration is openly excited about the prospect of building upon the President’s dubious red-tape record.
Though I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. If you read the story, you’ll see that next year will be a perfect storm of pro-regulation bureaucrats being egged on by Obama’s regulatory appointees who see 2016 as their last chance to impose additional red tape on the economy’s productive sector.
But the private sector will become less dynamic as we become more like Greece. Here are some very depressing bits of information I’ve shared in the past.
For every bureaucrat at a regulatory agency,100 jobs are destroyedin the economy’s productive sector.
A World Bank studydetermined thatmoving from heavy regulation to light regulation “can increase a country’s average annual GDP per capita growth by 2.3 percentage points.”
P.S. While the regulatory burden in the United States is stifling, I think Greece and Japan win the record if you want to identify the most absurd specific examples of red tape.
Comedian/actor Bill Cosby performs at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino on September 26, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bill Cosby (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Comedian and actor Bill Cosby posted 10 percent of a $1 million bail in cash on Wednesday after he was arraigned on a felony sexual charge in Elkins Park, Pa. Cosby wore a spotted hoodie and walked with a cane as he nearly tripped moving up the steps to face Magisterial District Judge Elizabeth A. McHugh over a 12 year old case.
Judge McHugh ordered him to surrender his passport to the prosecutor and not to make contact with the alleged victim. Prosecutors brought charges after former Temple University employee Andrea Constand told police that Cosby, 78, drugged and violated her at his home near Philadelphia in 2004. Dozens of other women came forward with similar accusations against the once-beloved actor who played Dr. Cliff Huxtable from TV’s “The Cosby Show.”
While a previous district attorney declined to charge Cosby in 2005, prosecutors reopened the case over the summer due to the damaging testimony that was unsealed in a related civil lawsuit against Cosby. He previously admitted under oath to drugging several women with the intent to having sex with them, though he claimed to have consensual sex. Pennsylvania law gives prosecutors up to 12 years for some sex crimes, with the clock running out on this case in January.
Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele said earlier Wednesday in a press conference that Cosby was “charged with aggravated indecent assault.”
“Mr. Cosby made two sexual advances at her that were rejected,” Steele said. “Mr. Cosby urged her to take pills that he provided to her and to drink wine… He committed aggravated indecent assault against her.” She was “frozen, paralyzed, unable to move,” Steele said in announcing the charges.
In the aforementioned deposition, Cosby admitted to putting his hands down Constand’s pants that night and fondling her, but claimed to have taken her silence as consent. Constand maintains she was semi-conscious after he gave her pills he said would relax her.
A previous district attorney declined to charge Cosby in 2005.
Cosby recently filed a lawsuit alleging seven of the woman who accused him of sexual assault engaged in “nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to extract financial gain from him.” The comedian is seeking an unspecified amount in monetary damages and claimed the women inflicted emotional distress. As a result of the revelations, Boston University announced last month that it was rescinding an honorary degree they awarded to the entertainer in May 2014.
“This is the charge that we have the ability to go forward [with] under that statute of limitations,” Steele said of the aggravated indecent assault charge. “There are other alleged victims, and we are examining evidence in that. The charge that we are [announcing] here today involves one victim.”
A request for comment was not returned Wednesday, but the allegations that have long plagued the comedian are now taking a serious toll. On November 19, NBC became the second outlet following Netflix to cancel projects with Bill Cosby, which came only one day after famous model and well-known TV host Janice Dickinson told “Entertainment Tonight” that she was sexually assaulted by the comic in 1982.
A poll taken in the wake of the cancelations and rash of new allegations found that—even though nearly half of Americans said they think it’s likely the rape allegations against comedian Bill Cosby were true—networks shouldn’t have cancelled his shows until he was found guilty of an actual crime. But now, according to the most recent survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports, just 21% of American adults now have a favorable view of Bill Cosby.
Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Harry S. Truman steams underway on March 29, 2003 in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. U.S. Navy / Getty Images File
The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Navy (IRCGN) carried out what Pentagon officials called a “highly provocative” live-fire rocket test next to the USS Harry S. Truman as it was exiting the Strait of Hormuz. The IRCGN fired unguided rockets 1,500 yards away from multiple ships–including the USS Harry S. Truman–as they were crossing international waters.
“The IRGCN’s actions were highly provocative,” Cmdr. Kevin Stephens, spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, said Wednesday in a statement to NBC News. “Firing weapons so close to passing coalition ships and commercial traffic within an internationally recognized maritime traffic lane is unsafe, unprofessional, and inconsistent with international maritime law.”
While the Pentagon official said the Iranians were “clearly not” targeting the ships in the U.S. fleet, the action was “unnecessarily provocative and unsafe.” They added the U.S. ships were in the “internationally recognized maritime traffic lane” when the Iranian navy (IRGCN) announced over maritime radio that it was about to conduct a live-fire exercise and told other vessels to remain clear.
The IRGCN has long threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to U.S. ships to try to intimidate the U.S. Navy. More recently, it has fired warning shots at a Singapore-flagged commercial ship in the Gulf and seized the Marshall Islands-flagged Maersk Tigris over an alleged business dispute there.
Existing and pending home sales reported by the National Association of Realtors. Photo: Reuters)
Pending home sales in November declined more than expected for the third time in four months, slipping 0.9% from a month earlier to a reading of 106.9. While the index conducted by the National Association of Realtors has increased year-over-year for 15 consecutive months, last month’s 2.6% annual gain was the smallest since October 2014.
“Home prices rising too sharply in several markets, mixed signs of an economy losing momentum and waning supply levels have acted as headwinds in recent months despite low mortgage rates and solid job gains,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. “While feedback from Realtors continues to suggest healthy levels of buyer interest, available listings that are move-in ready and in affordable price ranges remain hard to come by for many would-be buyers.”
Regional Pending Home Sales Data via NAR
The PHSI in the Northeast decreased 3.0% to 91.8 in November, but is still 4.3% above a year ago. In the Midwest the index rose 1.0% to 104.9 in November, and is now 4.1% above November 2014.
“Especially with mortgage rates likely on the rise, affordability issues could creep up enough to temper sales growth – especially to first-time buyers in higher priced markets,” Yun added.
Pending home sales in the South increased 1.3% to an index of 119.9 in November and are 0.5% higher than last November. The index in the West declined 5.5 percent in November to 100.4, but remains 4.5% above a year ago.
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Comedian/actor Bill Cosby performs at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino on September 26, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bill Cosby (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Bill Cosby has been charged with sexual assault over an encounter with a woman 12 years ago, according to the Associated Press and people familiar with the case. A former Temple University employee told police that Cosby, 78, drugged and violated her at his home near Philadelphia in 2004.
The once celebrated actor and comedian previously admitted under oath to drugging several women with the intent to having sex with them, though he claimed to have consensual sex. While a previous district attorney declined to charge Cosby in 2005, prosecutors reopened the case over the summer due to the damaging testimony that was unsealed in a related civil lawsuit against Cosby.
Dozens of other women came forward with similar accusations that made a mockery of his image as the wise and understanding Dr. Cliff Huxtable from TV’s “The Cosby Show.”
Many of those alleged assaults date back decades, and the statute of limitations for bringing charges has expired in nearly every case. But Pennsylvania law gives prosecutors up to 12 years for some sex crimes, with the clock running out on this case in January.
The former university employee settled her lawsuit against Cosby in 2006 on confidential terms. A lawyer for Cosby did not immediately return request for comment.
Cosby recently filed a lawsuit alleging seven of the woman who accused him of sexual assault engaged in “nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to extract financial gain from him.” The comedian is seeking an unspecified amount in monetary damages and claimed the women inflicted emotional distress. As a result of the revelations, Boston University announced last month that it was rescinding an honorary degree they awarded to the entertainer in May 2014.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki announces his White House bid in New Hampshire on May 28, 2015.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki announces late Tuesday he is suspending his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. This is the first race is Pataki’s political career that he has lost.
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Pataki led New York through the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but failed to gain traction in a crowded field of GOP candidates during an election season dominated by new faces and outsiders. Texas Sen. Tex Cruz said in a statement Tuesday night he was “grateful” for Pataki’s service to New York, particularly while serving as Governor on Sept. 11th.
“If we’re truly going to make America great again, we need to elect a president who will do three things: Confront and defeat radical Islam, shrink the size of Washington, and unite us again in our belief in this great country,” Pataki said.
2015 was a better time to be alive than most any prior point in history
A compilation of the 2016 presidential candidates in both the Republican Party and Democrat Party fields.
Terrorism! Crime! Deadly storms! Hillary Clinton!
We reporters focus on bad news, but at year’s end, let’s remember what went right. 2015 was a better time to be alive than most any prior point in history.
The rich got richer. Some people think that’s a problem, but why? Do rich people sit on their piles of money and cackle about how rich they are? Do they build giant houses that damage the environment? Well, they sometimes do.
But mostly they invest, hoping to get richer still. Those investments create jobs and better products and make most everyone else richer. Even if the rich leave money in banks, banks lend it to people who put it to productive use.
Sure, income inequality has grown — but so what? The rich don’t get richer at the expense of the poor. Poor people’s income grew 48 percent over the past 35 years. Bernie Sanders says that “the middle class is disappearing!” But that’s mainly because many middle-class people moved into the upper class. Middle class incomes grew 40 percent over the past 30 years.
This year we heard more horror stories about bad schools and students who don’t learn. But take heart: Seven more states passed education choice legislation.
That means more students can opt out of bad schools and pick better ones, and over the long haul competing schools will have to get better at what they do. That will lead to a brighter future for all students — and for society, which will benefit from their improved skills.
In 2015, two more states and Washington, D.C., legalized marijuana. Authorities are always reluctant to give up control, but gradually the end of the expensive, destructive and futile drug war will come.
Meanwhile, real crime — violence and thefts — continue to fall. We cover horrible mass shootings and spikes in crime in cities like Baltimore and St. Louis, but overall, crime is down — over the past 20 years, down by about half.
Unfortunately, terrorism has increased — mainly because of ISIS in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, there are far fewer deaths from war and terror than there were 30 years ago, and in America, the odds of you or your family being killed by a terrorist are infinitesimal compared to disease, accidents and a thousand more-ordinary threats.
Marriage is good for civilization. This year the Supreme Court declared that gay people may get married. Government shouldn’t be in the marriage business at all, since marriage is a contract between individuals, but if it’s going to wade into that issue, it’s better to have one clear rule instead of ugly ongoing fights about it.
Ending the political squabble means we can all go back to minding our own business and worrying about our own marriages.
In 2015, women in Saudi Arabia got to vote.
More countries elected leaders, rather than inheriting them.
The picture isn’t all rosy. As I mentioned, terrorism is up. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are on track to lead America into bankruptcy. We have eternal problems like hunger and disease.
But even those “eternal” problems are closer to being solved than they used to be.
Thanks to better vaccines, 6 million fewer children under the age of 5 die each year compared to 30 years ago.
Twenty-five years ago, 2 billion people lived in extreme poverty — that meant surviving on about a dollar a day, often with little access to basic needs like water and food. “Experts” predicted that number would rise as the population grew. Happily, thanks to the power of free markets, they were wrong. In the space of a generation, half the people most in need in the world were rescued.
Ten percent of the world’s people still live in dire poverty, but the trend is clear: Where there is rule of law and individual freedom, humanity is better off. As Marian Tupy of HumanProgress.org puts it, “Away from the front pages of our newspapers and television, billions of people go about their lives unmolested, enjoying incremental improvements that make each year better than the last.”
So enjoy it. Happy New Year!
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federal bureaucrats were very busy imposing new mandates and restrictions on the economy. Indeed, President Obama now has the cumulative record for red tape.
