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That last major grade on the performance of the economy under former President Barack Obama is in. Lets call it a B.

The jobs report for January, based on surveys conducted during Obamas last month in office, shows that employers created 227,000 jobs during the month, which was well above economists forecasts. The unemployment rate is now 4.8%, a level just about any president would love to claim as a legacy. During Obamas 96 months in office, the economy added 11.5million jobs, for a monthly average of 120,000. Thats low, but it includes Obamas first 14 months, when the recession he inherited killed about 4.3 million jobs, a hole the Obama economy didnt climb out of until 2012.

Theres one glaring weakness to the Obama recovery: Wages fell for many Americans during the last 8 years, and new jobs created after the recession didnt pay as well as the jobs lost during the downturn. Data from Sentier Research shows that median household income, adjusted for inflation, was almost the same at the end of 2016 as when Obama took office in January 2009. That means the typical family has made no financial progress during the last 8 years. And Januarys data shows the average hourly paycheck rosejust 3 cents from December and 2.5% duringthe past year. Many ordinary people feel like they cant get ahead, and the numbers prove theyre right.

These charts tell the story of the Obama recovery. First, heres total employment:

Manufacturing employment:

Annual percentage growth in hourly earnings:

Source for all three charts: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Obama supporters give him credit for steering the country out of a grueling recession, while critics blame him for an unusually weak recovery. Both sides overstate their case. Like George W. Bush before him and Trump after him, Obama had to deal with profound economic changes that are hard for any president to control, such as an aging population and a technology revolution making many types of jobs obsolete. Besides, for six of his eight years in office, Obama faced a Republican-controlled Congress determined to thwart his economic priorities.

Trump begins his first term with strong momentum on jobs, with most economists predicting a continued recovery. And wage growth is picking up slightly, which could foretell better gains during the next couple of years, as labor markets tighten and employers have to pay more to get the workers they want.

But the Trump economy could stumble, too. Some of his big proposals, such as tax breaks and regulatory reform, could boost growth, at least for a year or two after they go into effect. But if tax cuts add substantially to the national debt, it could push inflation higher than desired and depress growth.

The biggest downer in Trumps economic plan is the threat of new border taxes on imports. The idea is to make imports more expensive, to encourage more domestic manufacturing. But price hikes on many everyday products subject to the tariffs would come first. If new jobs materialized, it wouldnt happen for months or years, while higher prices ate into living standards, especially for low-income workers. Meanwhile, other nations could impose their own tariffs on US imports, producing trade wars that weaken the overall economy rather than strengthening it.

Trump might just be bluffing about border taxes, as a way to get other concessions. Yet by trying to create more of the manufacturing jobs that might have supported a family 30 years ago, he may be chasing a mirage. Many experts say relatively unskilled workers doing manual labor will never earn decent wages in the future, since theres an oversupply of such workers and machines will replace many of them anyway. So Trump needs a Plan B for the economy, and probably a Plan C to deal with unexpected crises and inevitable disruptions. After a few years tangling with the real-world economy, Trump may think Obama did a pretty good job.

Editors note: This story has been updated to correct a math error; the economy added an average of 96,000 jobs per month under Obama, not 191,000.

Confidential Newman tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com

Rick Newman is the author of four books, includingRebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success.Follow him on Twitter:@rickjnewman.

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Obama's economic recovery has ended. Here's how he did - Yahoo Finance

A media firestormhas developed around the death of one U.S. serviceman who was killed over the weekend by al Qaeda radicals in a raid on Yemen the first casualty on President Donald Trumps watch.

The raid, which also resulted in three wounded U.S. service members and 14 dead militants, was part of a hunt for al Qaeda leaderQassim al-Rimi, according to Yemini rebel forces. In a statement to The Washington Post, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations in the Middle East, said a U.S. aircraft went down in a hard landing near where the operation took place and was intentionally destroyed.

In its assessment of the operation, which led to at least 30 civilian deaths, CENTCOM told Reuters that the operation was approved without evidence, ground support or adequate backup operations.

It seems undisputed at this point that Trump signed off on the raid,though White House press secretary Sean Spicer claimed the operation was planned by former President Barack Obamas administration, according to the Post:

[Spicer] said that the plan for the operation was first submitted by U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Middle East, to the Defense Department on Nov. 7, one day before the presidential election. A plan was approved by the Pentagon on Dec. 19 and turned over to the White House. Obama administration officials approved a plan for an operation during an interagency meeting Jan. 6, two weeks before President Trumps inauguration, and decided it would be best to carry it out in the dark of a moonless night, Spicer said. That meant waiting until after Trump took office.

Secretary of Defense James Mattisreviewed the plan on Jan. 24,the Post reported, and Trump was briefed on the matter byretired Gen. Michael Flynn, his national security adviser, the next day. The president then met with Mattis andMarine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and signed off on the operationone day later.

Butformer Obama staffers didnt remember it the same way, taking issue with Spicers claim that the operation was first organized by the ex-commander in chief. In fact, Colin Kahl, who was a security official in the Obama White House, called Spicers storyB.S.

I was there. No specific raid was discussed. The moonless night thing is B.S., he told the Wall Street Journal, adding that the White House never signed off onthat specific mission.

While the operation had been proposed, it was never green-lighted. Kahl said Obama felt going the missionwould mark a significant escalation in Yemen andshould be left to the next administration to decide.

Obama believed this represented a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in Yemen, and therefore thought the next administration should take a careful look and run a careful process, he told the WSJ.

War broke out in the region in 2014, when Shiite Houthi rebels captured the capital city of Sanaa. Since then, a Saudi-led military coalition has been working with the Yemeni government to reclaim the territory from radicals.

An al Qaeda official confirmed the killings, according to Politico, describing the attack as a massacre. He also said the raid killed women and children, but gave no evidence to support the claim.

CENTOM said itconcluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed, adding that its assessment of the operation seeks to determine if there were any still-undetected civilian casualties in the ferocious firefight.

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Former Obama staffer: It's 'BS' to say Obama approved Yemen raid - TheBlaze.com

Chance the Rapper is launching a clothing line inspired by the former first family, called Thank U Obama.

Among the items in the online shop that opened this week: a $40 King Obama shirt featuring an illustration of the former president sporting a crown, a $35 tee emblazoned with Malia, the name of Obamas 18-year-old daughter, and a $50 Obamas Wedding Tee featuring the words Barack n Michelle written on the front, with the couples wedding date listed on the back.

The message continues, The night Obama won his first term gave me so much hope, especially & most importantly as a black man. I decided to make a collection saying thank you and give me something to smile at every now and then when I look in the closet.

Chance the Rapper tweeted to his nearly 3 million followers on Thursday:

The site crashed but we back up #ThankUObama https://t.co/VwPC4cYgDi pic.twitter.com/GlDDQwQyQf

The majority of items for sale on the site are on back order. Some, including an $150 Obama All-Star Jersey are sold out.

A scrolling message on the site says, Do not wear. This is art.

Chance the Rapper, who like Obama is from Chicago, attended a state dinner at the White House last October. He revealed to ITK at the time that he had a recurring dance battle going on with the then-president and was looking forward to another dance-off with Obama.

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Chance the Rapper launches 'Thank U Obama' clothing line - The Hill (blog)

It would have been a major change for your wallet -- but the article isn't true. A fake news story making the rounds over the last week falsely claimed that former President Barack Obama will be replacing George Washington on the $1 bill.

It's not based on fact.

We thought about creating a new denomination for Obama, but George Washington has had plenty of time in the sun, says a spokesperson in the fake news story. Several versions of the article have appeared across the internet, showing that thousands of people have shared the story.

The post appears to have originally surfaced on a website called "Stuppid" in November 2014. It features a prominent Photoshopped image of former President Obama on a $1 bill. A disclaimer on that website says, "We aim to publish the stupidest, craziest stuff we can find." It appeared several times again in March 2015 and is making a comeback now on a site called True Americans.

The most recent version has inspired comments like "LEAVE THE MONEY ALONE!" and "this should not be allowed."

More than two-dozen sites known to carry fake news have picked it up, and other sites have posted the same story under a headline asking a poll question. No contact information was available for the True Americans website.

An administrator for Stuppid's Facebook page told ABC News that they didn't remember writing the article and that they no longer write fake news. It appears its most recent article was posted last May, though its Facebook page was active in December.

Here's how we know this article isn't real:

"The law prohibits portraits of living persons from appearing on Government Securities," says the Treasury Department's website. "Therefore, the portraits on our currency notes are of deceased persons whose places in history the American people know well."

All former presidents on common U.S. paper money -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant -- are no longer living.

One of the hallmarks of fake news stories, especially those written outside the United States, are misspelled words -- and this one is a giveaway. The headline says: "Barrack Obama Will Be On New $1 Dollar Bill 2017." The former president's name is Barack Obama, with one "R."

The article has other typographical mistakes, such as a missing period and missing spaces. The article, published two weeks ago on True Americans, also says Obama "still has a year left" in his term -- around the time of Donald Trumps inauguration.

The fake story cites a person named "John Apple" from the Federal Reserve as a spokesperson on the topic, adding that "people within the Federal Reserve" chose Obama over former President Ronald Reagan to be featured on the bill.

In reality, paper money is printed and designed by the U.S Department of the Treasury and its Bureau of Engraving and Printing, not the Federal Reserve. Once the currency is printed, the agency's website says, the bills are "transferred and securely stored in the Federal Reserve Vault for future pickup and distribution by the Federal Reserve Banks."

Ironically, the $1 bill is one of the only major denominations of paper money that isn't currently being redesigned.

"I have directed the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to accelerate plans for the redesign of the $20, $10, and $5 notes," former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wrote in April.

Abolitionist Harriet Tubman will be on the $20 bill, the department announced in April 2016. But the $5 and $10 bills will still feature Lincoln and Hamilton, respectively.

"We anticipate that final concept designs for the new $20, $10, and $5 notes will all be unveiled in 2020 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote," Lew wrote.

Don't expect George Washington to leave the $1 bill anytime soon.

"Because the $1 note is infrequently counterfeited, the government has no plans to redesign this note," says the website of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

The $1 bill hasn't been touched since 1963. The $5, $10 and $20 bills were most recently resigned in 2008, 2006 and 2003, respectively, according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The department says the new designs for those bills won't be finished for another three years.

ABC News has launched "The Real News About Fake News" powered by Facebook data in which users report questionable stories and misinformation circulating on the platform. The stories will undergo rigorous reporting to determine if the claims made are false, exaggerated or out of context. Stories that editorial partners have also debunked will then appear flagged in your News Feed.

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No, Former President Obama Isn't Being Added to the $1 Bill - ABC News

Republican lawmakers checked off a second energy industry rule from their kill list Friday, as they and President Donald Trump cranked up what they promise will be a far-reaching effort to erase the Obama administrations regulatory legacy.

The Senate convened before sunrise and voted to revoke a SEC rule requiring energy and mining companies to reveal their payments to foreign governments. Trump is expected to sign off on that repeal, along with a Senate action Thursday revoking a regulation on coal-mining pollution in streams.

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Both moves represent the first successful use in 15 years of the Congressional Review Act, an obscure law that allows Congress to repeal recently enacted regulations by simple-majority votes. The House separately voted Friday to repeal an Obama-era regulation curbing greenhouse gas pollution from oil and gas wells an action the Senate must approve before it goes to Trumps desk.

The Republican effort to dust off the 1996 law is just one aspect of Trump's anti-regulation drive. Trump also signed an executive order Friday to start unraveling the Dodd-Frank financial regulations put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, which the new president and congressional Republicans complain are strangling the economy.

The SEC rule that the Senate attacked Friday was required under Dodd-Frank, and was championed by Democrats and transparency advocates as a tool to curb corruption. Had such a rule been effect in past years, Exxon Mobil would have had to disclose what Russias government was getting from the companys multibillion-dollar investment in the country under then-CEO Rex Tillerson, who is now Trumps secretary of State.

Friday's unusually early Senate vote stemmed from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's clock management for the floor as well as senators' desire to catch flights home. Leaders in both chambers are acutely aware that the campaign to roll back Obama-era rules will be limited by Senate time restrictions, which also must make room for confirmation votes on Trump's Cabinet nominees and an ambitious GOP agenda on spending, health care and taxes.

For the next 60 days around here, thats probably the most important legislative activity moving these Congressional Review Act items through the chamber," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.).

Republicans are digging through a list of more than 200 measures that are ripe for repeal under the review act's time restrictions. They also must consider how many resolutions the Senate can deal with, given its slowness compared with the House.

The criteria will be based on how much the Senate can handle," said House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah). "Were not just going to repeal rules for the fun of repealing rules if the Senate doesnt have the time frame to actually pick them up."

The Congressional Review Act allows lawmakers to repeal any regulation completed within the past 60 legislative days. That means that any rule the Obama administration finished after mid-June is vulnerable, but that Congress must act by late May or early June, depending on each chambers schedule.

Once Congress uses the act to repeal a regulation, no future administration can enact any substantially similar rule without lawmakers' approval. Before this week, Congress had successfully used the review act only once, to overturn a Clinton administration rule in 2001.

Besides voting to repeal the SEC rule, both chambers also voted this week to vacate the coal-mining restrictions that the Interior Department had imposed in December, which were designed to protect steams from the waste created by mountaintop-removal coal mining. In addition, the House's vote Friday would wipe out the Obama administration's attempts to limit emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas wells on public lands.

The energy industry opposes the methane limits because it would make companies incur the expense of capturing the greenhouse gas and shipping it to market. But environmental groups say controlling methane emissions is crucial in fighting climate change. Greens also complain that letting companies vent their methane into the atmosphere deprives the government of revenue it should receive for fuel produced on federal property.

"Theres absolutely no reason why the industry cant and shouldnt be responsible for limiting the methane pollution they waste, leak, vent and flare from our public lands," said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. "This rollback is like an early Valentines Day gift from the Republican-led House to the oil and gas industry, showing that they love them more than their constituents and everyone who is affected by this pollution."

The methane rule is just one of dozens of late Obama administration regulations that Republicans lambaste as a burden on U.S. businesses, contending they offer few benefits but come with high costs.

Obviously, over-regulation has been a constant complaint around the country and one of the reasons the economys not doing as well as it should, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told POLITICO this week. So this is one tool we have available to us, obviously. So were going to do a number of these.

As soon as next week, the Senate is also expected to take up House-passed resolutions blocking rules that require background checks before Social Security recipients with mental health issues can buy guns, and order federal contractors to disclose labor law violations.

The House, meanwhile, has teed up several more resolutions likely to pass next week. Those would repeal rules on the reporting of work-related injuries and drug-testing requirements; teacher preparation; state education plans; and the use of public lands. More resolutions are in the works as Republican leaders sort through the list of rules that can be be eliminated, a House Republican aide said Friday.

The Trump administration may have to unwind other Obama-era rules through the regulatory process once his Cabinet is in place, or lawmakers may have to block them with appropriations riders, Republicans said.

Courts have never tested the provision of the Congressional Review Act that prohibits the executive branch from enacting rules similar to those lawmakers have repealed. It's almost certain to draw legal challenges in the future, although that's not much of a worry for Republicans now.

Were going to make a lot of lawyers rich, but if were going after regulations that I think are onerous then I think its worth the fight and we should do as much of it as we can," Cole said.

Eric Wolff and Alex Guilln contributed to this report.

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GOP assault on Obama's regs is just beginning - Politico