LIFE IN THE OBAMA ERA: Poverty Number Highest Since Records Were Kept:

The official U.S. unemployment rate has indeed fallen steadily during the past few years, but the economic recovery has created the fewest jobs relative to the previous employment peak of any prior recovery. The labor-force participation rate recently touched a 36-year low of 62.7%. The number of Americans not in the labor force set a record high of 92.6 million in September. Part-time work and long-term unemployment are still well above levels from before the financial crisis.

Worse, middle-class incomes continue to fall during the recovery, losing even more ground than during the December 2007 to June 2009 recession. The number in poverty has also continued to soar, to about 50 million Americans. That is the highest level in the more than 50 years that the U.S. Census has been tracking poverty. Income inequality has risen more in the past few years than at any recent time.

Related: Number of Ultra Rich Increased 6% in 2014.

Hey, they don’t call him President Goldman Sachs for nothing.

MANY OF THESE PHRASES SEEM SUITABLE FOR THIS MORNING’S DISCOURSE: If Martin Luther Quotations Were Motivational Posters.

USA TODAY EDITORIALIZES: Obama’s wrong way to do the right thing: The sweeping nature of his immigration plan amounts to executive overreach.

Best-case scenario: The Supreme Court knocks it down quickly, as in the Steel Seizure Case, and then he and Congress have to actually come to something mutually satisfactory if anything is to happen. You know, the way the Constitution says.

Worst-case scenario: Americans decide we’re not living under the rule of law anymore, adopt third-world strategies of evasion, passive resistance.

BOMBSHELL: Email Proves that White House, DOJ Targeted Reporter Sharyl Attkisson.

Judicial Watch reports that the Obama administration has turned over about 42,000 pages of documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal. The administration was forced to turn the documents over to Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Judicial Watch is posting them on its web site. The administration turned them over on November 18, 2014.

One of the documents provides smoking gun proof that the Obama White House and the Eric Holder Justice Department colluded to get CBS News to block reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Attkisson was one of the few mainstream media reporters who paid any attention to the deadly gun-running scandal.

In an email dated October 4, 2011, Attorney General Holder’s top press aide, Tracy Schmaler, called Attkisson “out of control.” Schmaler told White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz that he intended to call CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer to get the network to stop Attkisson.

Schultz replied, “Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG.”

Schultz also told Schmaler that he was working with reporter Susan Davis, then at the National Journal, to target Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA). Issa led the House investigation into Fast and Furious. Davis now works at USA Today. In the email chain, Schultz tells Schmaler that he would provide Davis with “leaks.”

Davis wrote a critical piece on Issa a few weeks later.

Attkisson was later subjected to hacking of her computer by people who remain unknown, but who likely belong to a government agency. She and CBS parted ways earlier in 2014, and Attkisson has since said that the network blocked her reports from airing.

As Michael Barone says, gangster government.

POLL: Lukewarm Latino support for Obama executive action.

A six-percentage-point margin of approval is far short of overwhelming. A higher number of Latinos, 56 percent, told pollsters they would support congressional action on the issue, and 69 percent supported the idea of a pathway to citizenship for those now here illegally. But a core of Latinos opposed those measures too: 32 percent opposed congressional action, and 30 percent opposed a pathway.

And even more oppose unilateral Obama action. It turns out Latino support for the president’s strategy, which doesn’t even amount to a majority, is not quite as decisive as some advocates hope.

Plus, from IowaHawk: “LOL at all those Latin American immigrants who came here to escape tinpot dictatorships.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Obama’s Amnesty Threatens To Shut Constitution.

There’s more at stake here than mere political fortunes. We are at the constitutional tipping point that Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley warned us about as Obama continues to wield executive authority that he himself once said he did not have.

We live in a constitutional republic, and the president who says he cannot wait for the Congress to act ignores a Constitution that says he has to. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress exclusive authority to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization” and Article II, Section 3 says that it’s the president’s duty “to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

Yeah, he doesn’t care about that.

JAMES BOVARD: The Closer Intellectuals Get To Power, The More They Deceive.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: “The Court does not know how [the state] prioritizes projects, but dealing with an unconstitutional law should be towards the top of the list.” “In August, U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii struck down the California 10-day waiting period to buy guns for people who are known to the state to already own guns — a narrow but significant Second Amendment decision. Today, Judge Ishii declined to issue a stay of his decision; here’s part of the reasoning.”

MEANWHILE, IN BRITAIN: Labour Front-Bencher Sacked For Mocking Patriotism.

IOWAHAWK: “If he’s gonna pretend to make the law, we should pretend to obey it.”

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

IMPERIAL PRESIDENT: The Hill: Obama moves to give legal status to 5 million illegal immigrants.

Plus: Obama Would Veto Any Bill Undoing Immigration Executive Action.

And: Sen. Sessions reacts: We must stop Emperor Obama.

Plus, this observation on tone from Moe Lane, which is spot-on: “Barack Obama wants you to be angry. The Democrats NEED you to be angry. So don’t be. Smile, shake your head ruefully, and say no. Nicely.”

Plus, from Mickey Kaus: Don’t Count Out the Court.

With Obama’s executive amnesty imminent, anonymous White House aides are cockily dismissing John Boehner’s threatened lawsuit against it as a stunt. Even among opponents of executive amnesty — and I’m with them — there’s a tendency to pooh pooh the suit. It’s a loser, it will take forever to decide, it’s an attempt to ‘redirect Republican rage’ away from budgetary remedies like denying funding, etc.

Not so fast. I’m all for giving defunding a try — also holding up appointments — but don’t sell the lawsuit short. I’ll even go so far as to lay down an Yglesias style marker: If Obama’s executive action is as broad as described, the Supreme Court will strike it down.

I think he’s right. I agree that this is comparable to the Steel Seizure Case. And I’m also a fan of Richard Neely.

Plus — Exclusive! Must Credit Instapundit! — a photo of President Obama immediately after his speech.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 6 Ways To Make Sure Your Daughter Doesn’t Become A ‘Mean Girl.’

AT AMAZON, fresh deals on Bestselling Products, updated every hour.

Also, check out the Kindle Daily Deals.

TEACH OBAMA SUPPORTERS NOT TO RAPE: USA Today: Top Obama bundler accused of child rape.

Conservatives complain that President Obama gets a free pass from the media, which acts as a de-facto public-relations shop for the Democrat in the White House. Never has that charge seemed truer than now as an ugly rape scandal unfolds on the west coast.

On Wednesday, Portland police arrested Terrence Patrick Bean, who has been charged with two felony counts of having sex with a minor last year. This man is not just any old guy accused of having sex with a 15-year-old – he’s a big-money Democratic donor and liberal political activist with connections inside the Obama White House. Bean raised more than a half-million dollars for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

“Bean has been one of the state’s biggest Democratic donors and an influential figure in gay rights circles in the state,” reports oregonlive.com. “He helped found two major national political groups, the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and has been a major contributor for several Democratic presidential candidates, including Barack Obama.”

A search of the Federal Election Commission’s campaign-finance database turns up thousands in donations every cycle by Bean to the Democratic Party’s most powerful leaders, including Hillary Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Dick Durbin, and Rep. Barney Frank, among others. Photos of Bean posted online show him flying on Air Force One with Obama.

The scandal is escalating. Earlier today, according to local media Kiah Loy Lawson, allegedly 66-year-old Bean’s 25-year-old former boyfriend, was arrested by the Portland Sex Crimes Unit for sexually abusing the same boy. After the relationship between the two men ended, Lawson went public with claims that Bean had a practice of secretly videotaping himself having sex with others.

​This story was first reported by the local press, and there have been vague references to sexual trouble for Bean and Lawson since June, but the national media has not picked it up. That oversight is politically convenient for President Obama as he tries to pull off one of his riskiest political moves ever with his amnesty executive order.

Telling you what they want you to know is job #2; not telling you what they don’t want you to know is job #1.

TAKING ON THE SICILIAN MAFIA WITH GANDHI TACTICS. “Palermo, the largest city in Sicily, is at the heart of mafia country. In the past, trade association surveys have shown that about 80 percent of the town’s shops were paying pizzo. But now more than 900 Sicilian firms, a majority of them in Palermo, are publicly refusing to give money to the mob, thanks to one of the most remarkable social movements to emerge in the last decade. Addiopizzo—Italian for ‘Goodbye, protection money’—is resisting the racketeers with tactics you’re more likely to associate with Gandhi or the Arab Spring than a campaign against organized crime. The store mentioned on that tapped telephone call was affiliated with Addiopizzo, and the mafiosi didn’t think that trying to collect from it would be worth the inevitable trouble.”

Can we apply this approach to the IRS?

GALLERY: Buffalo Snow Photos.

WHEN POPEHAT turns poet.

SPYING: Feds To Apple: If We Can’t Read iMessages, A Child Will Die. Well, if that happens it will be because people don’t trust the feds to act appropriately.

GET READY FOR “BAD LUCK” AT THE Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals.

Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season.

And, save over 40% off the Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor. And also, over 40% off the Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor. Back when I was doing serious cardio I had a Polar heart rate monitor, and I thought it was very useful. The new ones, of course, are much fancier.

BY NOW EVERYONE HAS HEARD OF BOLLYWOOD, but the #3 film industry in the world — and it’s #2 by some measures — is Nigeria’s, known as “Nollywood.” My lovely and talented sister-in-law has started a service called Nollyland that lets you stream films to pretty much any device — the tech is really slick as it auto-sizes for different data rates and displays. Here’s an article on the service. And the films aren’t just from Nigeria, but also from Ghana and other African film industries.

Related: NollyLand app snapped up ‘like hotcakes.’

UPDATE: In the comments, people are asking for specific film recommendations. I emailed my brother, who’s watched a lot more of them than I have, and he replies: “King of Shitta is one of the most technically/artistically impressive movies. I’d go with that and A Christmas Passion, which is a tender love story.” And he relays that his lovely wife recommends Love of My Life. (Bumped).

WELL, NHTSA HASN’T COVERED ITSELF WITH GLORY LATELY: Obama nominates Mark Rosekind for next NHTSA administrator. “Rosekind has served the past four years as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent government organization that investigates transportation accidents and makes recommendations to other agencies on how to strengthen safety. His appointment is still subject to Senate approval, but safety advocates believe he’ll be an effective new leader for the beleaguered agency.”

NICK GILLESPIE: Uber’s Real Crime Is Giving In to Politics as Usual. Well, once they hired David Plouffe, that was pretty much a given, right?

SADLY, AN “ACTUAL DEBATE” ABOUT A CHARGED SUBJECT AT AN IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL IS NEWS NOWADAYS: An Actual Debate About Rape At Brown. But don’t get too excited: “Since this is Brown, where then NYC police commissioner Ray Kelly was shouted down and prevented from speaking, the planning for the debate came with several indicators as to how students are supposed to feel.” Over sixty grand a year tuition for that. . . .

MICHAEL TOTTEN’S NEW BOOK, Tower Of The Sun, is now shipping. That’s the Kindle link. Here’s the paperback link.