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Politics

pelosi_obama_reid_ap

From left, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, President Barack Obama and the soon-to-be former Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Photos: AP)

Leading congressional Democrats have been trying to cope with their historic loss to Republicans in last week’s midterms, and have apparently come to a consensus — it’s Obama’s fault. A series of blistering attacks on the president have dominated the headlines and, despite the attempts to downplay the attacks, they are growing in number and prominence.

“I do think that a bit of the hyperbole over the president is overplayed,” DSCC director Guy Cecil said at a Playbook lunch after the election. “He’s done everything we’ve asked.”

But that’s just not how the Reid camp sees it, at all.

Immediately after it became clear that a Republican wave was in the making, David Krone, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) chief of staff, put operation “Blame Obama” in place.

Krone told the The Washington Post that Reid and other Senate leaders begged President Obama at a March 4 meeting to transfer millions in party funds and help raise money for Reid’s outside group, Senate Majority PAC. “We were never going to get on the same page,” Krone told The Post. “We were beating our heads against the wall.”

Reid’s office, David Krone in particular, have long relied upon the liberal-leaning Washington Post to carry their water. Adam Jentleson, Reid’s communications director,  retweeted multiple links to the story.

Jentleson even went so far as to repeatedly retweet the story via his followers:

According to a Democratic operative, the rapid-response story was “a way to protect Reid for the losses that we knew we were going to face.”

“The way it was done was to ensure that people knew Reid had no fault,” the statement given to The Hill read.

Meanwhile. speaking to members of her dwindling minority caucus in what was supposed to be a private call, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attempted to argue her case for why they should keep her in her leadership role. The answer was two-fold, and crystal clear — she can still raise money, and it was all Obama’s fault.

“I know where the money is,” Pelosi said. “I know where to get it.”

Even as Pelosi officially launched her bid to retain her position, a demoralized caucus is stirring with ideas of new leadership, though she is still favored to hold her position.

“My sense is that there is a growing appetite within the caucus for change,” a Democratic strategist said. “At what point do we say, ‘OK, we’ve exhausted this approach to leadership,’ or, ‘This current leadership has taken us about as far as we can go, we need some new ideas and fresh voices?’ ”

While many members were quietly listening to Pelosi’s pitch, which also included a vague proposal to “find new voters” in the next election, some spoke bluntly of the president’s role in their defeat. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said the party had messaging issues, but that President Obama should shoulder some blame.

“The whole zeitgeist for years has been the president, who has the bully pulpit, refusing to attack the Republicans, refusing to differentiate, refusing to defend his own policies,” Nadler said, according to one readout of the call published by Roll Call.

Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), a top Pelosi lieutenant and Co-Chairwoman of Democratic Steering and Policy, offered the view that Obama was central to their historic defeat, as Democrats now have their lowest number of members in nearly a century.

”This election again, in my view, was focused around President Obama. And it was not decided on a House of Representatives strategy. We had base voters who were disappointed in the President and who did not come out.”

However, Democrats’ excuses, which included repeatedly citing low-turnout and fundraising prowess, are largely without merit. Save for the Senate contest in Virginia, which has yet to be called, midterm turnout was up from 2010 across the board in states with competitive Senate and gubernatorial contests.

PPD’s post election research found the 2014 midterm electorate largely mirrors the electorate that tossed out Republican majorities in 2006, and is over 80 percent of the turnout seen in the electorate in 2012. In Colorado, now Sen.-elect Cory Gardner defeated Democratic Sen. Mark Udall by flipping the independent voter-rich Colorado Springs and Denver suburbs back to Republicans. The same group of voters that favored President Obama over Mitt Romney by 5 points backed Gardner by double-digits. Gardner also won at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.

In Georgia, home to a race every model except for PPD predicted would go to a runoff, it turned out to not even be close. Sen.-elect David Perdue, as well as incumbent Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, outperformed among black voters, who represented roughly 30 percent of the electorate, despite the Democratic campaign handing out flyers threatening another shooting of a black teenager if Perdue were to defeat Michelle Nunn.

Democratic claims of a shortage of money due to Obama’s shortfalls and other factors, are equally bogus.

Harry Reid’s Senate Majority PAC, a group supporting Senate Democrats, put out more than 40,000 Senate-focused television ads this election cycle, which was far more than any other outside spending group. The contribution by the PAC to the Democrat money advantage this cycle is actually understated by that number because, for every 20 ads run this cycle, 1 was put out by Reid’s group.

It’s an astonishing revelation considering the Reid-led Democratic criticisms of Citizens United, the billionaire philanthropist Koch brothers and Karl Rove. American Crossroads, Rove’s Republican-backing group, reportedly raised a little more than $28 million this cycle, but Reid’s group far exceeded those numbers by simply tapping Wall Street and K Street.

Nearly two-thirds of the money raised by Reid’s PAC — $34 million— came from big contributors giving half a million dollars or more, according to research of the Center for Public Integrity.

Congressional Democrats have tried to cope with

Polls

president obama job approval polls

President Obama’s job approval polls are tracked and aggregated on PPD, including polls conducted by Gallup, Reuters, AP/GfK, Rasmussen Reports and more.

President Obama’s job approval rating fell to 37 percent in the Reuters poll that tracked through November 7, a new low for the president in the tracking survey. Only 17.6 percent of Americans “strongly approve” of the job Obama is doing as president, while out of the 58 percent who say they disapprove a whopping 36.8 percent say they “strongly disapprove” of him.

The president’s total approval level is soft, as nearly as many (15.5 percent) Americans who say they strongly approve only “somewhat approve,” but less (14.9 percent) “somewhat disapprove.”

The survey is a rolling average, but two days of data used in the results were tracked the day before the Republicans retook control of the U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections, netting 7 seats on Election Day with two others — one of which, Alaska, PPD called for Republican Dan Sullivan — still yet to be called by the Associated Press.

The contest in Louisiana went to a runoff, but Democrat Mary Landrieu has little to no path to victory, and the Democrats have pulled their support out of the race.

Obama’s average approval rating is dangerously close to falling into the 30s, altogether. In fact, if not for Rasmussen Reports, which we’ve heavily criticized in recent days and in the past, artificially propping up the president’s support with their outlier results.

“The president’s average approval ratings would’ve fallen further throughout last year if not for Rasmussen Reports consistently releasing results that are from 8 to 10 points more favorable than the average, as a whole,” said PPD’s senior political analyst, Richard D. Baris. “Particularly in the last month, Obama’s approval was already tracking in the high 30s one or two days a week when we excluded Rasmussen.”

President Obama's job approval rating fell to

Opinion, Video

This week on the McLaughlin Group, Pat Buchanan, Eleanor Clift, Mortimer Zuckerman and Tom Rogan debate Republicans big win, the economy, Obama’s global stature and Hillary.

At one point in the discussion, Pat Buchanan said that Tuesday vote was a vote of no confidence in the president, who is only still in power thanks to the American system of government.

“Barack Obama was rejected and repudiated,” Buchanan said. “If he had been prime minister of Great Britain, considering all the losses of seats he had, he would have resigned by now and he would be gone.”

He went on to criticize the Washington pundits and media class, both of whom seem to focus on how much the Republicans can cooperate with the president to get things done, when in reality, they were elected to stop him from doing what he is doing.

 

“But this city is somewhat in denial. They say the country has told Republicans to go back to Washington and work with Barack Obama,” he added. “The country said the exact opposite. They rewarded Republicans for standing up and hammering Obama repeatedly. They punished the Democrats for working with Obama. So, I think if there is any mandate here it is for Republicans to go back and put forward their own positive agenda based on their own principles.”

This week on McLaughlin Group, Pat Buchanan

Policy

ohio-voter-fraud

Oct. 2, 2012: Voters cast their ballots at a Franklin County polling location on the first day of in-person absentee voting in Columbus, Ohio. Photo: REUTERS)

The integrity of American elections has been compromised. With each and every new election cycle comes blatant instances of voter fraud, which threaten self-governance because it threatens the very social compact that lays at the heart of public trust and confidence in governance.

A widely read PPD investigation into voter fraud in the Buckeye State back in 2012, put President Obama’s tiny 2-point margin in doubt, or rather explained it beyond a doubt. Bombshell data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) was similarly used by The Washington Post to demonstrate that non-U.S. citizens easily explain President Obama’s tiny 2008 margin in North Carolina and Missouri, now-Sen. Al Franken’s (ObamaCare’s final vote) that same year, and many others.

In this era, there are actual voters, there are voters who still manage to vote from six feet under, and there are imported voters. Then, there are also the voters that apparently love to vote so much, they do so multiple times in one contest.

Long gone are the days when actual voters vote in and decide elections, alone. Sure, American political history is riddled with stories of Tammany Hall, the Chicago machine, and other inner-city fraud operations. However, never have we had such widespread fraud, nor the technological ability to put an end to what many still outrageously claim does not even exist.

The dominant proposal to restore integrity to elections is the voter ID requirement, or voter ID laws. Unfortunately, proposing voters meet the same requirement for getting into a football, basketball, or baseball game labels you a racist. Thus, I have another proposed solution, one that uses human incentive rather than honesty to ensure voter fraud is all but eliminated.

Since every election is a contest — or, in essence, it shares with American sports the very same competitive drive to a zero-sum outcome — then, we should treat it as such. When rules are broken in sports, then there are penalties. So, I submit the following proposal should be drafted into federal legislation by the newly elected Republican majority in Congress, which holds:

In instances of systematic voter fraud that overwhelmingly benefits the candidate of one party or another, then for every fraudulent vote that is found, the party’s individual candidate shall be penalized 1,000 votes. Further, as each individual’s flag or penalty so harms their team, instances of systemic voter fraud shall penalize the party that sought to benefit by defrauding American voters.

As a result, in accordance with guidelines to be set forth by each individual state legislature, which much be approved by the state’s chief executive, the party’s presidential nominee shall also be penalized the number of Electoral Votes decided upon should that party’s nominee win the state during the following president contest. Though the remaining Electoral Votes must be appropriated to the opposite party’s nominee, how those appropriations are made will, too, be decided upon by the state legislatures.

In other words, let’s incentivize political parties to police their own GOTV machines by conducting in-house oversight. Every contest has rules and, when those rules are broken, there are penalties. In North Carolina, officials found at least 145 illegal aliens registered to vote, and only in the country due to President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order. The state’s secretary of state office told PPD two days before Election Day that at least hundreds of other non-U.S. citizens were on the rolls, but likely upwards of 10,500.

However, they did not have the time to deal with it before the election. PPD’s election projection model actually showed Thom Tillis with a 51 percent chance of success, but tipped the scales for now-defeated Sen. Kay Hagan because of voter fraud. Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler released a study in 2011, which found that nearly 5,000 illegal aliens cast votes in the closely contested and decided U.S. Senate election in 2010.

Nevertheless, each instance is a gross example of systemic voter fraud that benefitted one party disproportionately, thus the objection that holds assessing which party benefits from voter fraud will be difficult, is a false objection. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about “cracking and packing” congressional district, “I can’t define porn, but I know it when I see it.”

If you like the rough draft of my idea, then you’ll be happy to know we are now putting a petition behind it, and would love to have your support. But, for now, you can also show your support by sharing it on social media with your friends.

[caption id="attachment_7366" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Oct. 2, 2012:

Politics

obama_ag_nominee_loretta_lynch_ap

In this June 17, 2013 file photo, Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, speaks during a news conference in Brooklyn. (Photo: AP)

WASHINGTON – President Obama has chosen Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., as his nominee to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder. The decision sets up a potential nomination debate during the lame-duck session before the newly-elected Republican majority assumes power in the U.S. Senate.

Naturally, Republicans wanted the president to wait to nominate and the Senate to wait to consider any successor until the new Congress is seated, but the president plans to announce his pick on Saturday.

“Ms. Lynch is a strong, independent prosecutor who has twice led one of the most important U.S. Attorney’s offices in the country,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. “She will succeed Eric Holder, whose tenure has been marked by historic gains in the areas of criminal justice reform and civil rights enforcement.”

Lynch, 55, is a Harvard Law School graduate and prosecutor serving her second tenure as U.S. attorney for Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island. She was appointed by Obama in 2010. If confirmed to fill Holder’s post, she would be the first black female attorney general.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the presumptive new majority leader in the Senate next session, issued a statement Friday night urging the Senate to wait until January to vote on the nomination.

“Ms. Lynch will receive fair consideration by the Senate,” he said. “And her nomination should be considered in the new Congress through regular order.”

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley , who currently serves as the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which must approve Obama’s nominee, struck a welcoming tone in his comments Friday night.

“Being selected to serve as our nation’s top law enforcement officer is both a tremendous honor and responsibility. As we move forward with the confirmation process, I have every confidence that Ms. Lynch will receive a very fair, but thorough, vetting by the Judiciary Committee,” he said in a statement.“I look forward to learning more about her, how she will interact with Congress, and how she proposes to lead the department.”

While Lynch doesn’t have a strong connection to President Obama, she does however have a long history with current Attorney General Eric Holder, the single-most political and controversial figure ever to serve in the post. She served on his Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys (AGAC), a 20-member body that provides counsel to Holder on policy.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, has indicated that he is unhappy Obama is making the nomination now, instead of during the new session, when Republicans will have the majority in both chambers.

Lynch grew up in Durham, North Carolina, the middle of three children. Her mother was a school librarian, her father a Baptist minister.

After Harvard, Lynch served as a federal prosecutor in New York’s Eastern District, receiving several key promotions over eight years until President Clinton nominated her as U.S. Attorney in 1998. After leaving that office in 2001, Lynch went into private practice specializing in commercial litigation, white collar criminal defense and corporate compliance issues before Obama appointed her in 2010 to return to her current post.

Critics say President Obama's AG nominee, Loretta

Polls

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Scott Rasmussen, the former head of the Republican-leaning robo pollster, Rasmussen Reports.

After receiving a black eye for badly calling the 2012 president election, Scott Rasmussen, the former head of Rasmussen Reports, parted ways with the public opinion enterprise he founded in 2003. The firm said it was over “disagreements” in business strategy. Now that the 2014 elections are over, two things are crystal clear.

First, as our readers well-know, we have long-criticized the polling firm’s methodologies and results. Today, it is an indisputable fact that those criticisms were valid. Second, even though he was wrong in 2012, Scott Rasmussen was right to object to the firm’s overly ambitious retooling project. They grossly overestimated Democratic support and, thus, their chances of holding the U.S. Senate. It wasn’t just that they overestimated Democrat support, but how badly they underestimated Republican support.

Rasmusssen was certainly not the only pollster to strike out, but they are the only ones — so far — pretending they didn’t.

In a post-election defense of their results, the staff published an article entitled 2014 Midterm Elections: How Did We Do in the Senate Races?, in which they decided to defend the indefensible, rather than apologize to their subscribers, media and viewers. It is extremely doubtful that many of them were hoping to read plain-old delusional denial the following day.

“It’s interesting to note that in the races in which the spread was really off for us (and the Real Clear Politics average of all pollsters), most of the time we were spot-on for the Democratic number but wrong on the Republican number,” they wrote. “But if you add the percentage of voters ‘not sure’ to the GOP side, you will come very close to the final Republican number.”

Not only is this simply not true if we look at their polling data, but nowhere in the history of American politics will you find an election cycle where that many undecided voters broke that decidedly in one direction in one day. While it is certainly true that the overwhelming majority of undecided voters heavily backed the Republican candidate, in general, the wave that resulted didn’t build overnight.

“We had only three races as Toss-Ups going into Election Day – Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina,” they added. “Republicans in Georgia and Iowa outperformed our numbers and those of other pollsters, too. North Carolina was just as close as we projected.”

Let’s scrutinize some of their polls — and claims — shall we?

Rasmussen Georgia Senate Polls Vs. Results

Georgia David Perdue (R) Michelle Nunn (D) Some other candidate Not sure
May 21-22, 2014 42% 45% 7% 6%
July 23-24, 2014 46% 40% 4% 10%
September 15-16, 2014 46% 41% 4% 9%
Sep 30-Oct 1, 2014 46% 42% 3% 9%
October 25-27, 2014 48% 48% 0% 5%
Final Outcome 53% 45.1%
Final Spread 7.8
RCP Average* 3.2

(Source: Rasmussen Reports, Georgia Secretary of State.)

So, not only did they badly underestimate Sen.-elect David Perdue’s margin by 5 points — actually, it was slightly more than that — but they overestimated Michelle Nunn’s support by 3.1 percent. Their results missed the margin, displaying a Democratic bias of least 8.1 percent. Perhaps defendable, if not for the pattern.

Rasmussen Iowa Senate Polls Vs. Results

Iowa Joni Ernst (R) Bruce Braley (D) Some Other Candidate Not sure
June 4-6, 2014 45% 44% 3% 9%
August 11-12, 2014 40% 40% 6% 8%
September 17-18, 2014 43% 43% 4% 10%
October 8-10, 2014 46% 43% 3% 7%
October 28-30, 2014 48% 47% 3% 3%
Final Outcome 52.2% 43.7%
Final Spread 8.5
RCP Average* 1.4

(Source: Rasmussen Reports, Iowa Secretary of State.)

Indefensible. Again, they underestimated Sen.-elect Joni Ernst by approximately 4.2 percent, but overestimated Bruce Braley’s by 4.7 percent. That’s an even worse 8.9-point Democratic bias.

The same is true for other partisan robo pollsters, including Public Policy Polling. Until recently, we haven’t been willing to pull the trigger and blacklist either firm, barring them from holding any weight in PPD’s election projection model. Unlike other models, we are sifting through the data not for purposes of retooling, but to validate the model’s stellar results to our readers. PPD’s debut couldn’t have been more successful this year, as we were the single-most accurate model of the 2014 midterm election cycle.

Our success was a combination of weighing “big picture fundamentals” more heavily than unreliable polling that gyrated wildly back-and-forth, unlike other models, and PPD’s Pollster Scorecard. Using the Scorecard, PPD’s election projection model calculates what we call “pollster bias,” or what others like Nate Silver often to refer to as a House Effect. We will be dealing with Silver in more detail in the days ahead, but for now it is worth noting that his pollster ratings actually factored in a 2.3-point Republican bias for Rasmussen Reports, which adjusted the margin to show a Braley win for that particular survey.

Without giving away trade secrets to those in desperate need of a model makeover, we will just simply say that our model is superior because we are able to pick up on pollster miscalculations almost in real-time, rather than waiting to be shocked by election results, as Silver and his readers are now. Further, PPD tracking polls are weighed heavier because we use Gold Standard polling practices, and track respondents in highly reliable voter files.

With our Pollster Scorecard, inaccurate pollsters like Rasmussen Reports are statistically unable to exert undeserved influence on our probabilities and ratings. They certainly cannot claim that they didn’t have any data to suggest they needed a methodological reboot, as PPD’s Pollster Scorecard picked up on their heavily Democratic bias earlier than 2014.

Less than two weeks before the 2013 Virginia governor race, Rasmussen’s survey showed Democrat Terry McAuliffe leading Republican Ken Cuccinelli 50 – 33 percent, in a survey that supposedly had a margin of error of just 3 percent. PPP, too, found the Democrat a 13-point favorite in the race. Rasmussen’s final poll conducted just a few days later, which they conducted after receiving serious public and private pushback, showed the race tightening to 7 points, an unlikely swing in a notoriously un-swingy electorate. PPP, too, found the Democrat a 7-point favorite.

Cuccinelli did lose the race, but by just over 2 points.

Historically, even as the state has become more and more competitive, a Republican candidate’s floor of support is nowhere near the low 30s and, in fact, it isn’t at all in the 30s. A simple comparison of snap-shot and tracking surveys on presidential job approval, which we’ve previously examined, also displayed a serious Democratic bias.

Rasmussen Reports was in clear need of a retooling effort after the 2012 elections, but they over-corrected their model. Rather than learning from their mistakes to earn back their credibility, they are instead hoping media and voters are too stupid to notice. Considering the enormous influence pollsters have on voters’ perceptions in elections, they should also feel an equally enormous responsibility. It’s obvious that they do not grasp the gravity of that responsibility, and that’s an insult to the industry, worst still to the voters, and is just one more thing the American people find wrong with American politics.

PPD's senior political analyst, the People's Pundit

World

us troops in iraq

WASHINGTON – A new report from Fox News’ Justin Fishel and Jennifer Griffin claims President Obama has approved sending up to 1,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. The U.S. currently has 1400 U.S. troops in the failing state, which was left to the president in stable condition following the deeply unpopular, yet effective surge.

The decision would more than double the number being deployed to help Iraqi forces fight the Islamic State, and comes just one day after the president told reporters at a press conference “it is too early to tell” if the U.S. is defeating the terror army, also known as ISIS.

The president requested an additional $5.6 billion on Friday for the war against the Islamic State, which is supposedly to cover the additional troop deployments. The latest string of decisions by Obama represents a dramatic turnaround from his first-term foreign policy, which most experts agree caused the very vacuum in Iraq seized upon by ISIS. The increased U.S. involvement in the Middle East was dismissed by the White House, who said that U.S. personnel “will not be in combat,” but rather training, advising and assisting Iraqi forces near Baghdad and Irbil.

In total, the new proposal will cost $3.7 billion, which will be disproportionately appropriated toward the Department of Defense at $3.2 billion, while just $500 million will go to the diplomatic State Department.

WASHINGTON – A new report from Fox

Economy

jobs report applications

Americans seeking full- and part-time work fill out job applications at a workshop. (Photo: REUTERS)

The Department of Labor said Friday that the U.S. economy added 214,000 jobs in October, citing a BLS jobs report missing the expected 231,000-job gain. The headline unemployment number dropped to the lowest level since 2008 — 5.8 percent — driven in large part to a civilian labor force participation rate that has stubbornly remained at 62.8 percent.

In October, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, or persons who were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. However, they were not counted by the government as unemployed, because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks prior.

Among the marginally attached, there were 770,000 discouraged workers in the month of October, and 7 million persons employed part-time only for economic reasons, which are sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers.These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

The 214,000 jobs gained in October represented the ninth consecutive month that the economy has created more than 200,000 jobs, but many economists point to the underlying weaknesses, such as low or no wage growth, shrinking work-weeks, and employment-to-population ratios. With the Federal Reserve looking for growth in hourly wages as they craft a way to implement their announced policy shift away from money-printing and bond-buying, the numbers aren’t at all encouraging.

“Although the headline number is decent, the details behind the curtain will be particularly concerning to investors and Main Street,” said Todd Schoenberger, Managing Partner of LandColt Capital LP, in New York. “Wage growth is embarrassingly low, especially considering where we are in terms of the so-called economic recovery. And the variety of jobs continues to be a joke. Two-thirds of jobs created in 2014 pay just above minimum wage, whereas less than 50% of jobs created in 2013 were of the low-income variety. Today’s weak report validates Tuesday’s election outcome as voters remain angry at their economic outlook.”

Fed Chair Janet Yellen has repeatedly cited wage growth as a leading indicator for the Fed watching for signs that the labor market is truly strengthening beyond the misleading headline unemployment rate.

“U.S. unemployment fell to a six-year low of 5.8% in October as companies continued to take on staff in impressive numbers. The data add to signs that the economy is enjoying another period of strong growth in the fourth quarter. However, lackluster wage growth takes some of the shine off the improvement in the employment situation, and also acts as a bar to raising interest rates,” said Chris Williamson, analyst at research firm Markit.

However, there is a downside to rapid wage growth — inflationary pressure. When wages rise too quickly, then it can lead to runaway inflation and eventually cut into corporate profits. The Fed’s shocking announcement they would end quantitative easing led many on Wall Street and beyond to question whether the Fed underestimated the danger of inflation due to their policies aimed at propping up an otherwise weak economy.

As has been the case since the financial crisis, the majority of jobs created were in part-time or low-paying positions.

Food services and drinking places added 42,000 jobs, retail trade rose by 27,000, general merchandise stores added 12,000, while the manufacturing workweek was unchanged again at just 40.8 hours.

The Department of Labor said Friday that

US

supreme_court_scotus

This June 27, 2012, file photo shows an American flag in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. (Photo: AP)

WASHINGTON – Are you ready for the the Supreme Court ObamaCare Round 2 coverage from media organizations that largely ignored a case with the potential to derail the law? A powerful U.S. appeals court invalidated ObamaCare subsidies for health insurance obtained through the federally-run HealthCare.gov on July 22. The ruling was a major blow to the president’s signature health care law, and all but ensured the constitutionality of the law would once again be decided in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, the justices of the high court agreed Friday to hear that challenge to ObamaCare, bringing the law back before the court after it survived a brush with death in 2012. Chief Justice Roberts, a so-called conservative justice, originally voted with the 4 would-be dissenters in the case before switching his vote to the liberal side, fearing a move to uphold what he thought to be an unconstitutional law would be more damning than rewriting the law and changing his vote for political reasons.

But the two cases are very different.

At issue in this case is the legality of subsidies, which opponents argue, are illegal. Indeed, the law specifically prohibits the federal government from handing out subsidies in the event the states choose not to, a state power already decided upon by the court during round 1 of challenges.

However, another federal appeals court on the same day the law was rejected, upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states.

Now, opponents of the subsidies argued the Supreme Court should resolve the issue now because it involves billions of dollars in public money. Obviously, at least four justices, which is the number needed to grant review, agreed with the argument. They feel it is important enough to decide now.

The case is likely to be heard in the spring of 2015.

“The plain language of the law makes it clear that subsidies are only to be provided for the purchase of health coverage through exchanges setup by the states,” Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Price, a physician, said in a statement. “Nevertheless, the Obama administration and others are asking the courts to disregard the letter of the law and instead rule based on bureaucratic rewrites and revisions.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, and his fellow-Democrats, argued the congressional intent behind the law was for eligible customers regardless of where they live to receive assistance from the government to subsidize the purchase of health care.

“The ACA is working. These lawsuits won’t stand in the way of the Affordable Care Act and the millions of Americans who can now afford health insurance because of it,” he said in a statement, calling the lawsuit “just another partisan attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act and to strip millions of American families of tax credits that Congress intended for them to have.”

Whether they successfully argue intent remains unclear, but what is clear is that the Democrat-controlled Congress could not add the provision because former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown won in an upset special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), which gave Democrats only a short time to pass an imperfect bill that previously excluded the right of the federal government to dole out subsidies on purpose, for political reasons.

The justices upheld the heart of the law in a 5-4 decision in 2012 in which Chief Justice John Roberts provided the decisive vote, preserving the law’s individual mandate to buy insurance.

This past June, the court again ruled on ObamaCare, this time siding with companies that had religious objections over the law’s requirement to provide contraceptive coverage. The ruling forced the administration to adjust the regulations, but did not seriously disrupt the health law.

However, if the government loses in federal court this time, then it will mean the end of ObamaCare as it stands now.

Are you ready for the the Supreme

US

michael_brown_mother

Lesley McSpadden, left, the mother of Michael Brown, sits for an interview. (Photo: AP)

Police are deciding whether to charge Michael Brown’s mother with felony armed robbery after a group of people were attacked in a parking lot in Ferguson, Missouri. Police are investigating whether Lesley McSpadden, Brown’s mother, recruited the attackers to beat the group selling the T-shirts of her son and rob them of the money and merchandise.

One person was allegedly beaten with a pipe and yet another individual was hospitalized from their injuries. Unbelievably, one of the victims was reported to be McSpadden’s former mother-in-law, Pearlie Gordon.

McSpadden and “a large group of about 20-30 subjects” rolled up and “rushed” the vendors. “You can’t sell this s**t,” the mother said, according to the police report.

Gordon allegedly refused to back down, instead stating that “unless McSpadden could produce documentation stating that she had a patent on her son’s name (Gordon) was going to continue to sell her merchandise,” the report said.

Police will decide whether or not to bring charges against McSpadden and the other suspects following a criminal investigation, but they say more than $1,500 in merchandise and $400 in cash was stolen by the suspects.

Police are deciding whether to charge Michael

People's Pundit Daily
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