Another Jobs Report Disappoints: 113,000 New Jobs, Unemployment Rate to 6.6 Percent

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner The Labor Department’s jobs report disappointed for a second consecutive month Friday, bringing the news that the U.S. created just 113,000 jobs in January, as the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent.

December’s even weaker job report was little revised, from 74,000 to 75,000.

Friday’s jobs number fell short of expectations, which were for 180,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 6.7 percent

The report contained few indications, however, that the drop in the unemployment rate in January was due to out-of-work Americans continuing to quit the job hunt and leave the ranks of those counted as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey. The labor force participation rate ticked up from a multi-decade low of 62.8 percent to 63 percent. A broader rate of unemployment, which reflects those forced into part-time work or only marginally attached to the labor force, fell from 13.1 to 12.8 percent.

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CBO Report Fallout: Specter of Welfare State Jolts Democrats

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Photo Credit: Charles DharapakThe White House and congressional Democrats are trying to limit the fallout from the politically damaging conclusion in a Congressional Budget Office report that the Obamacare entitlement creates a major incentive for some people not to work.

While some critics focused on a finding by the CBO that Obamacare will result in 2.5 million fewer workers over a decade, conservatives said the bigger fundamental issue highlighted in the report is one familiar to the welfare state — that taxpayer-funded government subsidies provide disincentives for full-time work.

“People used to be stuck in jobs because they needed the health insurance,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a practicing physician and a specialist on health care policy at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. “Now they’re going to be prevented from taking jobs because they need the subsidies.”

The CBO forecast continued to reverberate across Capitol Hill on multiple issues. The nonpartisan budget agency’s prediction that the U.S. jobless rate likely will stay above 6 percent through 2016 was revealed as Senate Democrats were preparing a push for another extension of benefits to the long-term unemployed, raising the prospect that the government will face much higher benefit costs over the coming years.

The Senate is expected to stage a test vote Thursday on extending the long-term jobless benefits.

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Report: Ex-Girlfriend Physically Attacked George Soros and his Lawyers During Deposition

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Photo Credit: Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty ImagesGeorge Soros’ ex-girlfriend flew into a rage and hit the billionaire before slapping Hollywood lawyer-to-the-stars Marty Singer in the face, knocking off his glasses, during a heated hearing in her $50 million lawsuit against the mogul.

Court papers filed by Singer say Brazilian actress Adriana Ferreyr, who dated Soros for five years until 2011 and is suing him for allegedly reneging on a promise to buy her a $1.9 million apartment, screamed “f - - king a - - hole” at the mogul then lunged at the lawyers during Soros’ deposition at her attorney’s office.

The papers filed Friday include an account by Singer — who also reps Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger — that Ferreyr “suddenly and without warning . . . lunged at Mr. Soros, who is 83-years-old, and struck his head with her hands, knocking off the headphones he was wearing to amplify the audio . . . Ms. Ferreyr pulled back her arm to strike Mr. Soros in the face. I was able to grab both of Ms. Ferreyr’s arms to move her away from Mr. Soros.”

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Obama Says ‘Freedom of Religion is Under Threat’ as Catholics Sue Administration

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Photo Credit: Reuters In a speech during Thursday morning’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama acknowledged, “It’s also clear that around the world, freedom of religion is under threat.”

“No society can truly succeed unless it guarantees the rights of all its people, including religious minorities,” he added later.

The Obama administration has been harshly criticized by the Catholic church and civil liberties organizations concerned that Obamacare mandates that organizations provide their employees free access to contraceptives through their health care plans, even if their religious faith calls contraception a sin.

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Could Another ObamaCare Extension Be in the Works Going Beyond 2016?

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Photo Credit: Fox News Following a string of setbacks, the Obama administration reportedly is considering yet another extension of existing individual health insurance policies in an effort to smooth the transition to the federal exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.

Aetna Inc. Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini told analysts during a conference call he heard the plans could be extended. So did Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson.

Meldelson said the Obama administration may decide to let policyholders keep their coverage for an additional three years but refused to confirm if a decision had already been made on the subject.

Avalere Health is a market analysis firm, but Mendelson said his company was not advising the administration on exchange policy. He said he has had informal discussions with administration officials about the extension, but he didn’t identify them.

Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the administration was “continuing to examine all sorts of ways to provide consumers with more choices and to smooth the transition as we implement the law.”

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Video: Leno’s Star-studded Farewell From ‘The Tonight Show’ for Second Time

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NBC/Universal“I don’t like goodbyes; NBC does,” Jay Leno said in his latest last opening monologue, as he bid farewell to “The Tonight Show” — again — on Thursday night.

Characteristically, Leno wasn’t particularly maudlin or sentimental at first, at least compared to Johnny Carson’s “very heartfelt goodnight” that preceded Leno’s briefly interrupted stint as Carson’s successor.

In the closing moments, however, when it was just him at the desk, Leno did choke up, calling “The Tonight Show” “the greatest 22 years of my life,” talking about losing his parents in the first few years the show was on, and how the staff had become his family. Leno even quoted Carson’s sign-off, while saying he was “excited” for his successor, Jimmy Fallon.

“It really is time to go,” he said.

The role of honoring Leno fell largely to Billy Crystal, who lauded him as “America’s night light;” proceeded to reminisce about the early, hungry days of their 40-year relationship and careers; then treated Leno to a surprise rendition of a particularly appropriate song from “The Sound of Music,” performed by multiple stars, among them Oprah Winfrey.

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GOP Senators Send Letter to Obama Demanding Benghazi Explanation

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThree Republican senators have sent a letter to President Barack Obama demanding answers to questions his interview with Bill O’Reilly raised about the Benghazi attack.

In the letter, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, and John McCain of Arizona tell Obama that his interview “raises more questions than it answers,” and lay out some of the issues they want clarified.

The letter notes that Obama told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in the interview broadcast in two parts on Sunday and Monday that what “became clear was that the security was lax, that not all the precautions that needed to be taken were taken.”

The bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report concluded that the intelligence community provided “ample strategic warning” that Americans in Benghazi were at risk, the lawmakers wrote, yet Obama’s State Department ignored those warnings and failed to either increase security sufficiently or close the diplomatic facility.

The lawmakers also asked why then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on all five Sunday talk shows and said the United States had a strong security presence that was both “substantial” and “significant.”

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General: Supposed Anti-Group Incites Hatred and Violence Against Christian Organizations in U.S.

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Photo Credit: WNDLt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, the executive vice president for the Family Research Council, is blasting the Southern Poverty Law Center for still maintaining – a year after it was linked to a domestic terror case – an online feature that identifies the family group as a “hate” organization.

In an exclusive commentary on WND, Boykin notes that attacker Floyd Corkins II picked the FRC as a target – he testified he went there wanting to kill as many people as possible – through the SPLC feature.

That organization described FRC as a “hate” group even though it “actually is a pro-family organization championing faith, family and freedom,” Boykin wrote.

“It is the intention of the SPLC to fix animus and hostility on the organizations it places on its Hate Map,” Boykin wrote. While some are “racist or supremacist” groups, the map also includes those who simply “oppose liberalized standards of sexualized morality and the redefinition of marriage.”

“There is no resemblance of such groups to violent, extremist organizations. But, that is the point. The SPLC wants to associate groups that have voiced moral objections to same-sex marriage with groups like the Skinheads. It is a powerful campaign of defamation, bullying, and destruction.”

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Administration Eases Restrictions on Asylum Seekers with Loose Terror Ties

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Photo Credit: APThe Obama administration has unilaterally eased restrictions on asylum seekers with loose or incidental ties to terror and insurgent groups, in a move one senator called “deeply alarming.”

The change, approved by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry, was announced Wednesday in the Federal Register. It would allow some individuals who provided “limited material support” to terror groups to be considered for entry into the U.S.

Supporters of the change, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., argued that the current ban on anyone who has ever aided terrorists has unfairly blocked thousands of refugees.

“The existing interpretation was so broad as to be unworkable,” Leahy said in a statement. “It resulted in deserving refugees and asylees being barred from the United States for actions so tangential and minimal that no rational person would consider them supporters of terrorist activities.”

But critics say despite the good intentions, the change raises security concerns, particularly after a report published Thursday on asylum fraud.

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GOP Thwarts New Try to Restore Unemployment Benefits

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Photo Credit: Reuters Senate Republicans narrowly blocked the advance of legislation to restore benefits for the long-term unemployed on Thursday for the second time in less than a month, and Democrats said they intended to call yet another vote on the issue.

“We’re one Republican vote away from restoring unemployment benefits for 1.7 million Americans,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

The White House called the outcome disappointing.

The measure called for a three-month renewal of an expired program that provided up to 47 weeks of federal benefits when state-paid aid runs out, generally after 26 weeks. The cost was estimated at slightly more than $6 billion over a decade. It would have been offset by lowering pension obligations for some companies, a step that would have increased their taxable income.

The vote was 58-40, two shy of the 60 that backers of the measure needed to prevail. That understated the measure’s true support, because Reid sided with opponents at the last minute in a maneuver that will permit him to have the issue reconsidered under the Senate’s rules.

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