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| 1.3 million to lose unemployment benefits as Obama pushes for aid extension - Fox News Posted: 28 Dec 2013 08:58 AM PST  Dec. 25, 2013: President Barack Obama speaks to members of the military and their families in Anderson Hall at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.AP The nation's long-term unemployed will be cut off from federal unemployment benefits on Saturday, even as President Obama offers his support to two senators proposing to extend expiring federal jobless aid. Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island have proposed extending for three months benefits that more than 1 million Americans will lose. Obama called the two senators separately on Friday, describing it as an urgent economic priority. "This morning, the President placed separate telephone calls to Senator Jack Reed and Senator Dean Heller to offer his support for their proposal to extend emergency unemployment benefits for three months," White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. "The President said his administration would, as it has for several weeks now, push Congress to act promptly and in bipartisan fashion to address this urgent economic priority." Obama says the abrupt cut-off in cash assistance during the holidays will hurt economic growth and jobs. Economic adviser to the president Gene Sperling says the Senate will hold a vote on the proposal as soon as Congress returns next month. An estimated 1.3 million people will be cut off when the federally funded unemployment payments end Saturday. Some 214,000 Californians will lose their payments, a figure expected to rise to more than a half-million by June, the Labor Department said. In the last 12 months, Californians received $4.5 billion in federal jobless benefits, much if plowed back into the local economy. More than 127,000 New Yorkers also will be cut off this weekend. In New Jersey, 11th among states in population, 90,000 people will immediately lose out. Started under President George W. Bush, the benefits were designed as a cushion for the millions of U.S. citizens who lost their jobs in a recession and failed to find new ones while receiving state jobless benefits, which in most states expire after six months. Another 1.9 million people across the country are expected to exhaust their state benefits before the end of June. Republicans and some Democrats will likely want to make sure that any proposal to extend federal unemployment benefits is paid for. Many of them look at signs of economic growth and an unemployment rate now down to 7 percent and expected to drop further as evidence the additional weeks of benefits are no longer necessary. The effect of jobless benefits on the unemployment rates has been fiercely debated for decades. To qualify, people have to be seeking work. Conservative lawmakers such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky argue that the payments aggravate rather than relieve unemployment. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
| Posted: 28 Dec 2013 08:46 AM PST U.S. District Judge William Pauley's judgment comes just days after another federal judge ruled that PRISM, the NSA's mass surveillance program, could be unconstitutional. In the 54-page opinion, issued in New York, Pauley said that the agency's mass surveillance program "represents the government's counterpunch" to terror threats and such measures will help in "connecting fragmented and fleeting communications to reconstruct and eliminate al-Qaeda's terror network." "This blunt tool only works because it collects everything," Pauley, a former President Bill Clinton appointee, wrote. "Technology allowed al-Qaeda to operate decentralized and plot international terrorist attacks remotely. The bulk telephony metadata collection program represents the government's counterpunch," he added, according to a Reuters report. He dismissed a petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the constitutionality of NSA's indiscriminate data-collection program, which was revealed in June following the disclosures made by former defense contractor Edward Snowden. "There is no evidence that the government has used any of the bulk telephony metadata it collected for any purpose other than investigating and disrupting terrorist attacks," Pauley wrote, adding that "there have been unintentional violations of guidelines, those appear to stem from human error and the incredibly complex computer programs that support this vital tool." Pauley's judgment contrasts with U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon's Dec. 16, ruling that PRISM likely violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable search and seizure. Leon, appointed by former President George W. Bush, had granted a preliminary injunction against the collecting of phone records. The judge had described the NSA's widespread collection of telephone calls made in or to the U.S. as an "arbitrary invasion" of the lives of its own private citizens. Two differing judgments from the district courts could take the issue first to an appealing court and eventually before the U.S. Supreme Court. The ACLU said it plans to appeal the decision. "We are extremely disappointed with this decision, which misinterprets the relevant statutes, understates the privacy implications of the government's surveillance, and misapplies a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections," Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director said. "As another federal judge and the president's own review group concluded last week, the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephony data constitutes a serious invasion of Americans' privacy." Public Flood Twitter With "Traitor" Pauley Tweets The Friday's judgment also angered sections of public who took it to the social networking sites calling the judge a "traitor." Critics of NSA's mass spying policy vented their anger by flooding twitter, Facebook and other networking sites with angry tweets and posts. "U.S. District Judge William Pauley has abandoned his oath of office to uphold the Constitution and is a traitor to the American people," a user with the twitter handle @cypherdivine tweeted. "Judge Wm. Pauley "Another Appointed Hack/Traitor" rules in NSA Favor. What else would you expect?!" another tweet by Robert K Martin read. "Since 9/11 apparently means we don't have any freedoms any more, can we at least formally repeal the Bill of Rights? A tweet by Chris Adamson @invalidname read. |
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