A "BIG LIE"? Gallup CEO blasts official 5.6 percent jobless rate

The chairman of the venerable Gallup research and polling firm says the official U.S. unemployment rate is really an underestimation and a “big lie” perpetuated by the White House, Wall Street and the media.

What CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton revealed in his blog Tuesday about how the Labor Department arrives at the monthly unemployment rate is no secret — including that Americans who have quit looking for work after four weeks are not included in the survey.

The department’s current rate of 5.6 percent unemployment is the lowest since June 2008, with President Obama using his State of the Union address and campaign-style stops across the country to tout an economic recovery.

“Our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999,” Obama said in the opening lines of his January 20 address before Congress.“Our unemployment rate is now lower than it was before the financial crisis.”

Clifton says the “cheerleading” for the 5.6 number is “deafening.”

“The media loves a comeback story,” he writes. “The White House wants to score political points, and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.”

Since the start of the Great Recession, which economists largely agree began in late 2007, the unemployment rate peaked at 10 percent in October 2009 and finally got under 6 percent in September 2014.

Clifton says Americans out of work for at least four weeks are “as unemployed as one can possibly be” and argues that as many as 30 million of them are now either out of work or severely underemployed.

He points out that an out-of-work engineer, for example, performing a minimum of one hour of work a week, even mowing a lawn for $20, also is not officially counted as unemployed.

In addition, those working part time but wanting full-time work — the so-called “severely underemployed” — also are not counted.

“There’s no other way to say this,” Clifton says. “The official unemployment rate … amounts to a big lie.”

His arguments are similar to those made by Washington Republicans after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the rate each month during the height of the recession. However, Gallup is an 80-year-old, nonpartisan firm.

The bureau did not return a request for comment.

Clifton suggests the biggest misconception about the official rate is that it doesn’t denote “good” full-time jobs.

“When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth — the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real — then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t ‘feeling’ something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class,” he said.

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A "BIG LIE"? Gallup CEO blasts official 5.6 percent jobless rate

House votes to overturn Obama immigration actions, bill heads to Senate - VIDEO: White House blasts move to block Obama"s immigration action

The Republican-led House voted Wednesday to overturn President Obama’s immigration actions from last November — and to unravel a directive from 2012 protecting immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children — sending the bill to the Senate where it faces an uncertain fate. 

The House voted 236-191 to approve the legislation, which funds the Homeland Security Department through the rest of the budget year to the tune of $40 billion. But as part of that bill, Republicans added provisions to gut the president’s immigration directives. 

Despite deep Democratic opposition, the House voted 237-190 on an amendment to undo the actions Obama announced in November that provide temporary deportation relief, and offer work permits, to some 4 million illegal immigrants. 

Another amendment would cancel Obama’s 2012 policy that’s granted work permits and stays of deportation to more than 600,000 immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as kids. That measure passed more narrowly, 218-209, as more than two dozen Republicans joined Democrats in opposition. 

Republicans say Obama’s moves amounted to an unconstitutional overreach that must be stopped. 

“We do not take this action lightly, but simply there is no alternative,” House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday. “It’s not a dispute between the parties or even between the branches of our government. This executive overreach is an affront to the rule of law and to the Constitution itself.” 

But as the White House threatened a veto, Democratic leaders claimed the GOP provisions would hurt immigrant families — and ultimately hurt Republicans politically. 

“The amendments … that the Republicans are tacking onto the bill, or at least trying to tack onto the bill, to keep the Department of Homeland Security open are inconsistent with our nation’s values and its history. They would tear families apart,” House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said. 

Even with Republicans in control of the Senate the bill faces tough chances there, especially because House GOP leaders decided to satisfy demands from conservative members by including a vote to undo the 2012 policy that deals with younger immigrants known as “Dreamers.” The amendment, which is opposed by some of the more moderate Republicans in the House, would ultimately expose those young people to deportation. 

Security-minded lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also are worried about using the DHS funding bill to wage the immigration fight, saying security funding should not be put at risk, particularly in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. Current DHS funding expires at the end of next month. 

In the Senate, Republicans would have to rally a 60-vote majority to advance the legislation, and they have only 54 members. 

With even some Republicans voicing reservations, the Senate may have to strip out the immigration provisions and send a straight DHS funding bill back to the House, as the Feb. 27 deadline looms. 

This, then, could set up another fight between GOP leadership and the conservative reaches of the party. 

One senior House GOP aide told Fox News, “I don’t know how this one ends.” 

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, in a written statement, said the bill would not pass the Senate. “Republicans have only been in control for a week and already they are picking an unnecessary political fight that risks shutting down the Department of Homeland Security and endangering our security,” he said, urging Republicans to pass a “clean” funding bill.

Some House Republicans acknowledged that the Senate is likely to reject their approach. 

“They’re not going to pass this bill,” Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., said in predicting the Senate outcome. 

Obama has threatened to veto the House bill, and Democrats roundly denounced it, even as immigrant advocates warned Republicans they risked alienating Latino voters who will be crucial to the 2016 presidential election. 

“Just two weeks into this new Congress, Republicans have turned a bipartisan issue, funding our Department of Homeland Security, into a cesspool of despicable amendments that cater to the most extremist anti-immigrant fringe,” Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., said in a House debate. 

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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House votes to overturn Obama immigration actions, bill heads to Senate - VIDEO: White House blasts move to block Obama"s immigration action

GOP blasts Obama plan to tax highest earners - VIDEO: What to expect in address

FILE: May 22, 2010: President Obama outlined a foreign policy vision at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. (AP)

Congressional Republicans on Sunday pummeled President Obama’s plan to increase taxes on America’s highest wage earners, dismissing the proposal as not serious and a “non-starter.”

The plan was released late Saturday by the White House and attempts to increase taxes on the top earners and others to pay for cuts for the middle class.

The president is scheduled to further explain the plan on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address.

“The notion … that in order for some people to do better, someone has to do worse is just not true,” Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Raising taxes on people that are successful is not going to make people that are struggling more successful. … It would also be counter-productive.”

Among the other Obama proposals are increasing the investment tax rate, eliminating a tax break on inheritances, giving a tax credit to working families and expanding the child care tax credit — in total roughly $320 billion in tax hikes over the next 10 years.

The president also wants to impose a financial fee on some of the country’s largest financial firms. His full fiscal 2016 budget is scheduled to be released to the GOP-led Congress next month.

However, the centerpiece of the proposal is to increase to 28 percent the capital gains and dividends rate on couples making more than $500,000 a year. The top capital gains rate has already been raised from 15 percent to 23.8 percent during Obama’s presidency.

Rubio on Sunday also criticized Obama’s recent proposal to offer some Americans free community college tuition.

“I’m all for reforming our higher education system,” said Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential candidate. “In the 21st century, to have the skills you need for a middle-class job, you need higher education of some form or fashion. It may not be a four-year degree. The problem is he just wants to pour that additional money into the broken, existing system.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, called the plan “a non-starter.”

“We’re not just one good tax increase away from prosperity in this nation,” Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He also argued that elected officials need to “quit spending this money that we don’t have.”

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer appeared on Sunday talk shows to support the plan, which he argues is an effort to further stimulate economic recovery.

“Now that the economy’s in a stronger place than it’s been in a very long time, we need to double down on our efforts to deal with wage stagnation and declining economic mobility,” Pfeiffer told CBS.

He also said the “simple proposition,” or solution, is to ask the wealthy to pay a little more and invest more in the middle class.

Obama also got support from leading House Democrats, including Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland, and Sander Levin, Michigan.

“It’s clear that President Obama and Democrats are focused on reducing the economic squeeze being felt by the middle class,” said Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. “I’m pleased that pieces of this proposal overlap with the plan I recently outlined.”

Levin, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the president’s proposals “focus right where we need to — creating opportunity for middle-class families and those struggling to join the middle class.”

The offices of GOP congressional leaders also criticized the plan.

A spokesman for Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the chamber’s Ways and Means Committee, which writes federal tax law, said the proposal was “not a serious plan.”

“We lift families up and grow the economy with a simpler, flatter tax code, not big tax increases to pay for more Washington spending,” said spokesman Brendan Buck.

Ryan said last week that he was focused on broader tax code reform and that his committee would not pass a tax increase to fund transportation infrastructure projects, amid talk Congress will pursue such an increase.

“It’s not surprising to see the president call for tax hikes, but now he’s asking Congress to reverse bipartisan tax relief that he signed into law,” a top staffer for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told The Hill newspaper.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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GOP blasts Obama plan to tax highest earners - VIDEO: What to expect in address

Shehzad blasts ton as Pakistan grind Kiwis by 147 runs

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — Opener Ahmed Shehzad hit a swashbuckling hundred and Shahid Afridi made a fiery 55 and took three wickets to lead Pakistan to a crushing 147-run win over New Zealand in the third one-dayer in Sharjah yesterday.

Shehzad’s 120-ball 113 created the foundation of Pakistan’s biggest-ever total against New Zealand of 364-7 before they dismissed the Black Caps for 217 in 38.2 overs to go 2-1 up in the five-match series.

Pakistan won the first game by three wickets in Dubai while New Zealand took the second by four wickets, also played in Sharjah.

The win was Pakistan’s second biggest win against New Zealand, just behind their 153-run win at Karachi in 2002.

Shehzad’s knock — his sixth one-day hundred — was spiced with a dozen boundaries and two sixes while Afridi pulverised the bowlers with three sixes and six boundaries off just 25 balls.

It proved too much for New Zealand who were jolted right at the start with lanky paceman Mohammad Irfan (2-26) dismissing Anton Devcich (nought) and Martin Guptill (12) by the sixth over.

Captain Kane Williamson hit 46 while Ross Taylor made 31 during a stand of 45 for the third wicket but Afridi (3-37) had Taylor bowled while Haris Sohail dismissed the New Zealand skipper to leave them struggling at 115-4.

Sohail also had Jimmy Neesham (two) and Nathan McCullum (15) to finish with 3-45.

Luke Ronchi was the last man out, bowled by Afridi for 41.

The 23-year-old Shehzad, who has scored hundreds in all three formats this year, built invaluable partnerships after giving Pakistan a brisk start of 63 with Mohammad Hafeez who made a 26-ball 33 with five fours and a six.

Shehzad added another 70 for the second wicket with Younis Khan (35) and 77 for the third with Asad Shafiq (23).

His innings helped Pakistan overcome the loss of regular skipper Misbah-ul Haq, who has been ruled out of the series due to a hamstring injury sustained in the second match.

Shehzad finally holed out in the 37th over as paceman Matt Henry also removed Shafiq with the very next ball.

Stand-in skipper Afridi and Sohail (28-ball 39) ensured Pakistan did not lose sight of a big total with an 89-run stand for the fifth wicket off just 45 balls.

Sohail hit five boundaries and a six.

Afridi’s whirlwind knock helped Pakistan collect 125 runs in the last ten overs. Sarfraz Ahmed chipped in with 30 not out off 14 balls.

Ironically, New Zealand had scored the previous highest total of 338-4 at this ground against Bangladesh in 1990.

Anderson’s ten overs cost 96 runs as the Kiwi bowlers were hit to all corners of the park.

Misbah was replaced by Umar Akmal while New Zealand brought in McCullum, Neesham and Guptill. The fourth and fifth matches will be played in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Friday.

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Shehzad blasts ton as Pakistan grind Kiwis by 147 runs

Jamaica sprint star Usain Bolt blasts officials for Gay’s doping ban

Tyson Gay (left) pictured with Usain Bolt of Jamaica (File)

GLASGOW, Scotland, Wednesday July 23, 2014, CMC - Jamaican sprint super star Usain Bolt has criticized anti-doping officials for reducing American sprinter Tyson Gay’s doping ban after he tested positive for an anabolic steroid last year.

Gay and Bolt’s fellow Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell, both 31, failed drug tests for oxilofrine, in July 2013.

Gay was given a one-year ban and Powell was initially suspended for 18 months.

“I’m not really happy with the situation and with how it was done,” Bolt said.

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“I think for someone like [fellow Jamaican] Asafa [Powell] to get a ban of 18 months for that [stimulant oxilofrine] and then Tyson Gay get just one year because of cooperating, I think it is sending a bad message into the sport that you can do it [dope], but if you cooperate with us, we’ll reduce the sentence.”

Powell claimed his ruling was “unfair and unjust”, and said a legal supplement he took, Epiphany D1, was contaminated.

He appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and his ban was subsequently reduced to six months.

Former 100m and 200m world champion Gay could have been banned for up to two years but received a lighter penalty because he co-operated with the US Anti-Doping Agency.

“I don’t think that’s the right way to go,” Bolt insisted.

“… because you are pretty much telling people that this is a way out, it’s a way of beating the system”.

Both Gay and Powell have now returned to action.

Bolt is scheduled to race for the first time this year in the Commonwealth Games 4x100m relay next week.

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Jamaica sprint star Usain Bolt blasts officials for Gay’s doping ban

ACM blasts Samuda

Sport

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

THE Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM) is alarmed by reports in the Jamaican media that attorney-at-law Milton Samuda confiscated the video tapes of journalists, who had conducted an interview with his clients, erased material then returned the tapes.In a release issued yesterday, the ACM said:“We note in his statement that the attorney, Mr Milton Samuda, intimated that the journalists voluntarily handed over their equipment in response to his request, because they allegedly had breached an agreement.“Regardless of how he came in possession of the tapes, ACM finds Mr Samuda’s action obnoxious and a violation of press freedom as practised in modern democracies across the world.”The release added: “Tampering with journalists’ equipment and sanitising their stories or pictures is par for the course in autocratic and undemocratic regimes, none of whom can match Jamaica’s exalted position as a leader in press freedom in the Americas. Indeed, ACM hopes that Mr Samuda’s action has not blemished Jamaica’s image in the wider international media community.”The ACM has called on the Jamaican Bar Association and other civil society groups to “call out Mr Samuda for his foul play and infringement on Freedom of Expression enshrined in the Jamaican Constitution which the press exercises on behalf of citizens”.SAMUDA… erased material then returned the tapes

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ACM blasts Samuda