Middle Class Decline Looms Over Final Years of Obama Presidency

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By Howard Schneider. Barack Obama enters the final two years of his presidency with a blemish on his legacy that looks impossible to erase: the decline of the middle class he has promised to rescue.

The revival of middle-class jobs has been one of Obama’s mantras since he took office in 2009 fighting the worst economic crisis in generations. It was a major theme of his last State of the Union address and is expected to feature in the one scheduled for Tuesday.

Administration officials said on Saturday the president would propose higher capital gains taxes, new fees on large financial firms, and other measures to raise $320 billion for programs and tax breaks aimed at the middle class . . .

But for the middle class the scars of the recession still run deep. Federal Reserve survey data show families in the middle fifth of the income scale now earn less and their net worth is lower than when Obama took office. (Read more about the middle class decline HERE)

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Majority of U.S. Schools Poor Enough for Lunch Help

By Reuters. The share of public school students who qualify for free or reduced lunch in the United States has grown to 51 percent, in an indication of growing poverty, according to a report released on Friday.

The problem is most acute in Mississippi where 71 percent of students were in that category, according to the report from the Southern Education Foundation.

The group identified the share of students from low-income families by analyzing 2013 federal data on children who qualify for free or reduced lunch at school, which is offered to those from families at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, the poverty level is less than $24,000 a year and 185 percent of that figure is about $44,000. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Senators Defy Threatened Obama Veto on Iran Sanctions

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerAs talks over Iran’s nuclear program resumed Sunday in Geneva, lawmakers in Congress moved forward with legislation to impose new sanctions on Tehran, defying a veto threat from President Obama.

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee announced that it would meet Thursday to consider bipartisan sanctions legislation by Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.

It’s an indication that the two senators have lined up enough support to deliver Obama a humiliating defeat on the issue just days after he publicly threatened to veto any proposed sanctions. Last month, Kirk told the Washington Examiner that he and Menendez were aiming for legislation that could receive bipartisan support sufficient to overcome any presidential veto.

House lawmakers are working on their own sanctions bill.

Support for sanctions is strong in both chambers of Congress, in spite of intense administration lobbying on the issue. Legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran passed the House in July 2013 by a 400-20 vote. In the Senate, an earlier version of the legislation by Menendez and Kirk had majority support last year but was blocked by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. (Read more about the veto on Iran sanctions HERE)

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It’s Patriots vs. Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX!

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By Zuri Berry. And then there were two.

The NFC champion and No. 1-seeded Seattle Seahawks will meet the AFC champion and No. 1-seeded New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday, Feb. 1 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.

The Seahawks topped the Green Bay Packers, 28-22, in overtime on Sunday afternoon at CenturyLink Field while the Patriots bested the Indianapolis Colts, 45-7, on Sunday night to secure their spots on the NFL’s biggest stage.

Seattle will get a chance to defend its Lombardi Trophy against the last team to repeat as Super Bowl champions. The Patriots won back-to-back titles during the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

“To have a chance to go back to the Super Bowl is extraordinarily fun for us, and I hope everybody else, too,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said after Sunday’s win over the Packers. “We’re going to do everything we can to go get it done when the time comes.” (Read more about the teams in super bowl XLIX HERE)

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Looks Like Darrelle Revis Will Stay With Patriots, Despite the Lower Pay

By Ben Volin. Darrelle Revis has been a Patriot for a full season, and the perception about him around here is still all wrong.

Not the perception about him on the field, of course. He came here with a reputation of being one of the best cornerbacks in the league, and he has lived up to every outsized expectation as the Patriots take their best defense in almost a decade into Sunday’s AFC Championship game against the Colts.

It’s about what Revis is really like on the inside. There’s a misperception about what makes him tick.

Anyone who follows the NFL knows Revis likes to get paid. Some of Revis’s most memorable moments include him holding out of training camp with the Jets as a rookie in 2007, holding out again in 2010, and the massive contract he signed with Tampa Bay two years ago worth $16 million per season.

But don’t mistake business savvy with greed. He hates the “mercenary” label. His friends and confidants quickly point out that Revis never missed a regular-season snap because of a contract holdout. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Here’s the Shocking Reason Duke Reversed its “Muslim Call to Prayer” Decision

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[Editor’s note: Everyone thought initially that it was public outrage that motivated Duke in its cancellation of the Muslim prayers. Instead, the article below suggests that Duke cancelled the prayers over the university’s concern about protecting Muslims. Yes, you read that right. And who did Duke think the Muslims needed protection from? From those who were “vitriolic” in their opposition to the call to prayer. The article follows.]

In the face of mounting controversy, Duke University reversed itself Thursday afternoon and announced it will not allow a Muslim call to prayer from its iconic chapel Friday . . .

“What began as something that was meant to be unifying was turning into something that was the opposite,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. “It was clear we needed to reconsider.”

A Duke administrator had earlier touted the move as a way to promote religious inclusiveness at the school. But the university received hundreds of calls and emails, “many of which were quite vitriolic,” Schoenfeld said. “The level of vitriol in the responses was unlike any other controversy we have seen here in quite some time.”

There also were security concerns, Schoenfeld added.

Muslim community members will instead gather on the quadrangle outside the chapel and do the call to prayer, called the “adhan,” before moving to their regular location in the chapel basement for prayers. They have met there for the past several years. (Read more about the shocking reason Duke University reversed their decision HERE)

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Feds Spend Hundreds of Thousands to Teach Doctors How to Talk to ‘Fat Kids’

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A new project from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is using computer simulated training sessions to teach doctors in Minnesota how to talk to fat kids.

The nearly $500,000 study using “virtual role play” to coach doctors is the latest attempt by the federal government to combat obesity.

“Obesity in the United States is at historically high levels and is an important health problem,” the grant for the project states. “Interventions targeting children are a high priority because children bear the greatest lifetime health risk from overweight and obesity.”

“Health professionals in primary care settings are influential in the lives of families,” it continued. “Even brief advice delivered well can have a meaningful impact, and yet, health care providers indicate that lack of efficacy and skill, impact, patient motivation, and educational materials keep them from routinely addressing obesity prevention and treatment in their practices.”

The grant was awarded to SiMmersion, LLC, a communications training company that simulates conversations with virtual actors. In one example video a law enforcement officer interviews a neighbor of a man who “may be dealing drugs out of his house.” “On-screen assistants,” smaller computer animated people, give two thumbs up when the conversation is going well. (Read more on what the feds spend their money on HERE)

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Obamacare Exchanges Have Decreased Competition Among Insurers

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By Alyene Senger. Unsurprisingly, Obamacare has made yet another problem worse—creating a government exchange that is less competitive than the prior individual market.

In 2009, when President Obama was trying to sell his health care reform ideas to Congress, he promised a competitive marketplace, where costs would decrease and quality would increase. He said:

We’ll…[create] a new insurance exchange — a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage.

But thus far, much like his other promises, this one falls flat on all fronts. (Read more on what the Obamacare exchanges have done HERE)

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Top Obamacare Official Steps Down

By Sarah Ferris. Tavenner is leaving after five turbulent years overseeing the agency. Her tenure included the disastrous rollout of the government’s HealthCare.gov website as well as, most recently, an inflated tally of total ObamaCare enrollment.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee last month grilled Tavenner about the miscount, which had helped push the first-year enrollment total for ObamaCare past 7 million — a milestone that was celebrated by the administration at the time.

Tavenner said some figures were “inadvertently” double-counted, an explanation that was greeted with deep skepticism from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose staff identified the error.

“Tavenner had to go,” Issa wrote Friday in a statement provided first to The Hill.

“She presided over HHS as it deceptively padded the Obamacare enrollment numbers. It was a deplorable example of an agency trying to scam the American people. They weren’t successful this time because of Congressional oversight. We deserve better.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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First the IRS, Now the EPA Accused of Destroying Agency Communications

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Judson Berger. The Environmental Protection Agency, on the heels of the controversy at the IRS over missing emails, is facing a probe of its own over whether it improperly scrubbed text messages.

The EPA inspector general’s office announced this week it is launching an audit into the agency’s policies for keeping text messages. The audit was prompted by a complaint from Republicans on the House science committee, worried the EPA may have “deleted thousands of text messages” that should have been preserved.

Jennifer Kaplan, spokeswoman for the EPA inspector general’s office, confirmed the complaint prompted the audit.

“Our auditors were persuaded that this is something that they needed to look into,” she told FoxNews.com.

The official IG notice said they would examine whether the EPA followed policies on preserving text messages, or whether they deleted or destroyed messages that should have been saved — and if so, whether anyone was disciplined.(Read more about “EPA Accused of Destroying Texts” HERE)

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Louisiana Residents Fear EPA’S Plan to Burn Explosives Near Their Land

By Chris Butler. The Environmental Protection Agency has a plan in rural Webster Parish to burn 15 million pounds of propellant explosives, originally designed for military use, into the northern Louisiana atmosphere.

People exposed to it might develop cancer or blood pressure problems or even pass on birth defects to their children, experts warn.

Parish residents fear these toxins, which could rise two miles into the atmosphere depending on weather conditions, might eventually cover their entire corner of the state or spread into Texas or Arkansas.

Puzzlingly enough, officials with the Environmental Protection Agency, who otherwise won’t hesitate to force landowners to go through long, costly environmental impact statements, aren’t doing the same here.

Maybe it’s because this is one of the EPA’s own special projects. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Deflationary Worldwide Vortex: 2015 Projected to be Lowest Inflation Year Since Great Depression

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Business WeekBy Peter Coy. Deflation is like a black hole, sucking seemingly everything into itself. Switzerland succumbed to the vortex on Jan. 15 when the central bank gave up trying to keep its currency from rising—a defeat that will punish the Swiss economy by making the nation’s goods more expensive on world markets.

Could the U.S. be next? The U.S. dollar is up about 11 percent since last summer by the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, a rise that makes American-made goods less competitive. And there is a whiff of deflation in the air this morning with the news that the U.S. Consumer Price Index fell 0.4 percent in December from the previous month, the biggest decline since the economy was in free fall six years ago. “Deflationary pressures continue to build,” Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West, wrote in a report today, Jan. 16, that cited a drop in import prices and came out before the news about the Consumer Price Index.

The bottom line is that the U.S. is probably safe. The economy is strong enough that it’s likely to withstand the deflationary drag emanating from Europe. The U.S. should expand a little more than 3.1 percent in 2015, better than the estimated 2.4 percent this past year, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. (Read more about the deflationary worldwide vortex HERE)

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Why U.S. Inflation is not Here to Stay

By Mehreen Khan. The world economy is in the grip of a deflationary crisis. Or at least that’s what most headlines seem to scream.

In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say there are two types of deflation going on in the developed world right now – the good type and the bad type.

It’s hard to discern which dynamics are at play where, but plummeting oil prices are undoubtedly part of the benign deflation that has helped push down price indices over the past months.

There are other types of beneficial deflation too. This includes when enhanced productivity leads to a better supply of goods and services and results in prices falling.

But if 2015 is likely to be the first year since the Great Depression that every major world economy will see inflation fall below 2pc, what does this mean for our longer-term prospects? (Read more from this story HERE)

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Betrayal! RINOs Secretly Crafting Broad Amnesty Bill, McConnell Says Forget Reversing Obama’s Amnesty; GOP Suicide Countdown Begins

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By Jonathan Strong. The GOP’s most outspoken proponent of comprehensive immigration reform let loose in an interview with reporters here, detailing quiet efforts to draft far-reaching legislation, saying House leadership is “committed” to bringing the hot-button topics on the floor and criticizing President Obama for carrying out too many deportations.

“We’re the party of deportation? Look at this president’s numbers!” Rep. Jeff Denham said.

The California Republican says he is part of a working group laying the ground work to bring forward comprehensive immigration reform, and that top-ranking Republicans are supportive of addressing the full gamut of immigration topics in legislation in 2015.

“I think leadership’s commitment is not only to bring up immigration reform, but to bring it up in multiple different bills. The question is the timing of that and the sequence of those bills,” Denham said.

“We’ve gotta be able to discuss the DREAMers, the 11.5 million that are here today, as well as a Guest Worker program, in the overall discussion of border security,” Denham said, later adding, “We’ve had a working group for quite some time on the various pieces of immigration on doing everything from a comprehensive bill to a step-by-step approach, but finding out who in our conference is actually open to debate and discussion.” (Read more about the Establishment’s efforts to commit “GOP suicide” HERE)

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McConnell Tells House GOP to Forget Reversing Obama’s Amnesty

By Alexander Bolton and Scott Wong. Senate GOP leaders are using their joint retreat with the House to warn conservatives that they’re not going to be able to reverse President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told House lawmakers that he needs at least six Democrats to pass legislation approved by the House that funds the Homeland Security Department and repeals Obama’s actions that protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation.

He told House Republicans not to expect miracles, since it would take 60 Senate votes to send the House bill to Obama’s desk, and McConnell only has 54 Republican votes. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Papa John’s Supports Female Employee Who Shot Armed Robber in the Face

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Papa John’s Pizza is standing by a pizza delivery woman who opened fire Sunday on an armed robber in an act of self defense.

The pizza franchise told FoxNews.com Thursday the employee, who hasn’t been named, will not be fired from the company.

The employee was making a delivery in Decatur, Ga., Sunday night when a man approached her vehicle, forcing her onto the ground at gunpoint, according to the DeKalb County Police Department. The woman, who had a gun in her pocket, was able to fire at the man while on the ground — striking the alleged assailant, identified as 24-year-old Donquaz Stevenson, in the face.

Stevenson was later found in a neighbor’s yard and arrested, according to police, who said the pizza delivery might have been a setup. Local media outlets reported that a second suspect carjacked the delivery woman’s silver 2000 Honda Accord and remains on the run.

Stevenson was charged with armed robbery and was being treated for a gunshot wound at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. (Read more about the employee who shot armed robber HERE)

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