Black Friday Is One Of The Busiest Days For Gun Purchases

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (AP) — More gun sales than ever are slipping through the federal background check system — 186,000 last year, a rate of 512 gun sales a day, as states fail to consistently provide thorough, real-time updates on criminal and mental histories to the FBI.

At no time of year is this problem more urgent. This Friday opens the busiest season for gun purchases, when requests for background checks speed up to nearly two a second, testing the limits of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

The stakes are high: In the U.S., there are already nine guns for every 10 people, and someone is killed with a firearm every 16 minutes. Mass shootings are happening every few weeks.

"We have a perfect storm coming," FBI manager Kimberly Del Greco told The Associated Press during a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the system.

Much of the responsibility for preventing criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns is shouldered by about 500 men and women who run the system from inside the FBI's criminal justice center, a gray office building with concrete walls and mirrored windows just outside Bridgeport, West Virginia.

By federal law, NICS researchers must race against the clock: They have until the end of the third business day following an attempted firearm purchase to determine whether or not a buyer is eligible.

"They won't proceed or deny a transaction unless they are ABSOLUTELY certain the information they have is correct and sufficient to sustain that decision," FBI spokesman Stephen G. Fischer told the AP.

In roughly two percent of the checks handled by the FBI, agents don't get this information in time. If three business days pass without a federal response, buyers can legally get their guns, whether or not the check was completed.

Americans are buying more than twice as many guns a year now as they did when the background checks were first implemented in 1998. And that means more gun sales are effectively beating the system.

The federal government often takes the heat in debates over gun rights, but the FBI says states are largely to blame for this problem. They voluntarily submit records, which are often missing information about mental health rulings or criminal convictions, and aren't always rapidly updated to reflect restraining orders or other urgent reasons to deny a sale.

"We are stewards of the states' records," Del Greco said. "It's really critical that we have accurate information. Sometimes we just don't."

There are more than 48,000 gun retailers in the U.S., from Wal-Mart stores to local pawn shops. Store clerks can use the FBI's online E-Check System, which federal officials say is more efficient. But nearly half the checks are phoned in. Three call centers — in Kentucky, Texas, and Wheeling, W.Va. — take these calls from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day but Christmas.

NICS did about 58,000 checks on a typical day last year. That surged to 145,000 on Black Friday 2013. They're bringing in 100 more workers than usual for the post-Thanksgiving rush this year.

The call centers have no access to privileged information about buyers' backgrounds, and make no decisions. They just type in their name, address, birthdate, Social Security Number and other information into the system. On Black Fridays, the work can be grueling: One woman took a call that lasted four hours when a dealer phoned in the maximum 99 checks.

"Rules had to be stretched," recalled Sam Demarco, her supervisor. "We can't transfer calls. Someone had to sit in her seat for her while she went to the bathroom."

In the years since these background checks were required, about 71 percent have found no red flags and produced instant approvals.

But ten factors can disqualify gun purchasers: a felony conviction, an arrest warrant, a documented drug problem or mental illness, undocumented immigration status, a dishonorable military discharge, a renunciation of U.S. citizenship, a restraining order, a history of domestic violence, or an indictment for any crime punishable by longer than one year of prison time.

Any sign that one of these factors could be in a buyer's background produces a red-flag, which sends the check to the FBI researchers to approve, deny or investigate. They scour state records in the federal database, and often call local authorities for more information.

"It takes a lot of effort ... for an examiner to go out and look at court reports, look at judges' documents, try to find a final disposition so we can get back to a gun dealer on whether they can sell that gun or not," Del Greco said. "And we don't always get back to them."

These workers have considerable responsibility, but little independent authority. They must use skill and judgment, balancing the rights of gun owners and the need to keep would-be killers from getting firearms.

Researcher Valerie Sargo said outstanding warrants often come up when they examine a red flag, and that can help police make arrests.

"It makes you feel good that this person is not supposed to have a firearm and you kept it out of their hands," she said.

It also weighs on them when the red flags aren't resolved in time. Tacked to a cubicle wall, a sign reads: "Our policy is to ALWAYS blame the computer."

FBI contractors and employees oversaw more than 9 million checks in the first full year, when the NICS system was established as part of Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1998. By last year, they oversaw more than 21 million. In all, only 1.25 percent of attempted purchases are denied. Denials can be appealed.

People can get guns without background checks in many states by buying weapons at gun shows or from individuals, a loophole the National Rifle Association does not want closed. But even the NRA agrees that the NICS system needs better data.

"Any database is only going to function as well as the information contained within," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

Del Greco doesn't see the states' data improving soon, which only adds to the immense challenge of getting through huge numbers of requisite checks on Black Friday.

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Stroud can be reached through Twitter @mattstroud.

Six Years Later, Walmart Still Hasn't Paid A $7,000 Fine For Black Friday Worker's Death

WASHINGTON -- This coming Black Friday will mark six years since a worker died beneath a throng of shoppers at a Walmart on Long Island. Although federal regulators faulted the retail giant in the tragedy, Walmart still hasn’t been compelled to pay the modest $7,000 fine that was levied against it.

The case, Department of Labor v. Walmart Stores, has not moved forward since HuffPost reported on it a year ago -- on appeal with a federal review commission that handles workplace safety fines. As of this writing, the commission lists the status of the case as “pending review.”

The case was first referred to the commission three and a half years ago. A spokeswoman for the commission said it does not comment on the timeline for pending cases.

It’s common for employers to appeal whatever penalties the Labor Department’s safety inspectors issue against them, including when workers are killed on the job. But the case of 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, who had worked at Walmart for only a week when he was asphyxiated beneath the Black Friday crowd, underscores just how long those appeals can drag on, even in cases where the fines are comparably small.

Brooke Buchanan, a Walmart spokeswoman, said the retailer has made significant changes in recent years to minimize the frenzy among shoppers and make for a safer atmosphere, including spreading out merchandise that's on special and staggering sales times.

"After this horrible incident that happened six years ago, we took major steps working with crowd experts, law enforcement and people who do this for a living to see and help set up our stores," Buchanan said.

As HuffPost previously reported, Walmart, which had net sales of $473 billion last fiscal year, probably isn’t disputing the penalty in order to save $7,000, the maximum amount the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can fine a company for serious violations. Indeed, the company has already spent millions of dollars in legal costs just to fight the case. For Walmart, more significant than the nominal fine itself would be the ramifications if the fine were upheld.

OSHA used what’s known as the general duty clause as the foundation for its fine against Walmart. The clause holds that employers have a basic responsibility to provide a workplace that’s “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to [their] employees.”

In essence, the agency argues that Walmart should have foreseen the dangers presented by a mass of excited shoppers waiting at the store’s doors. An administrative law judge agreed back in 2011, though Walmart appealed that decision to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, where cases often wait years for review.

OSHA regulations tend to be very specific, and the agency doesn’t often reach for the general duty clause because it isn’t so easy to prove what should be a “recognizable” hazard. Employers, unsurprisingly, often criticize citations using the general duty clause as too vague. That's what happened when OSHA cited a poultry processor recently for violating the clause and putting workers in danger of ergonomic hazards. Before that, OSHA hadn’t tried to wield the clause in such a case in more than a decade.

In the Black Friday case, Walmart would be more eager to defeat OSHA's arguments than to avoid the $7,000 penalty. The company has argued that the dangers on Black Friday could not have been predicted. If regulators ultimately succeed in their case, OSHA would theoretically have an easier time putting Walmart and other retailers on the hook for Black Friday disasters in the future.

In a deal to avoid prosecution, Walmart agreed to develop a new crowd control plan the year after Damour's death. For its part, OSHA has started issuing guidance each year on how stores can handle their sales events safely. The agency recently sent letters to the major retailers urging them to adopt their own plans ahead of Black Friday.

“Retail workers should not be put at risk,” David Michaels, the head of OSHA, said last week.

Black Friday Is One Of The Busiest Days For Gun Purchases

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (AP) — More gun sales than ever are slipping through the federal background check system — 186,000 last year, a rate of 512 gun sales a day, as states fail to consistently provide thorough, real-time updates on criminal and mental histories to the FBI.

At no time of year is this problem more urgent. This Friday opens the busiest season for gun purchases, when requests for background checks speed up to nearly two a second, testing the limits of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

The stakes are high: In the U.S., there are already nine guns for every 10 people, and someone is killed with a firearm every 16 minutes. Mass shootings are happening every few weeks.

"We have a perfect storm coming," FBI manager Kimberly Del Greco told The Associated Press during a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the system.

Much of the responsibility for preventing criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns is shouldered by about 500 men and women who run the system from inside the FBI's criminal justice center, a gray office building with concrete walls and mirrored windows just outside Bridgeport, West Virginia.

By federal law, NICS researchers must race against the clock: They have until the end of the third business day following an attempted firearm purchase to determine whether or not a buyer is eligible.

"They won't proceed or deny a transaction unless they are ABSOLUTELY certain the information they have is correct and sufficient to sustain that decision," FBI spokesman Stephen G. Fischer told the AP.

In roughly two percent of the checks handled by the FBI, agents don't get this information in time. If three business days pass without a federal response, buyers can legally get their guns, whether or not the check was completed.

Americans are buying more than twice as many guns a year now as they did when the background checks were first implemented in 1998. And that means more gun sales are effectively beating the system.

The federal government often takes the heat in debates over gun rights, but the FBI says states are largely to blame for this problem. They voluntarily submit records, which are often missing information about mental health rulings or criminal convictions, and aren't always rapidly updated to reflect restraining orders or other urgent reasons to deny a sale.

"We are stewards of the states' records," Del Greco said. "It's really critical that we have accurate information. Sometimes we just don't."

There are more than 48,000 gun retailers in the U.S., from Wal-Mart stores to local pawn shops. Store clerks can use the FBI's online E-Check System, which federal officials say is more efficient. But nearly half the checks are phoned in. Three call centers — in Kentucky, Texas, and Wheeling, W.Va. — take these calls from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day but Christmas.

NICS did about 58,000 checks on a typical day last year. That surged to 145,000 on Black Friday 2013. They're bringing in 100 more workers than usual for the post-Thanksgiving rush this year.

The call centers have no access to privileged information about buyers' backgrounds, and make no decisions. They just type in their name, address, birthdate, Social Security Number and other information into the system. On Black Fridays, the work can be grueling: One woman took a call that lasted four hours when a dealer phoned in the maximum 99 checks.

"Rules had to be stretched," recalled Sam Demarco, her supervisor. "We can't transfer calls. Someone had to sit in her seat for her while she went to the bathroom."

In the years since these background checks were required, about 71 percent have found no red flags and produced instant approvals.

But ten factors can disqualify gun purchasers: a felony conviction, an arrest warrant, a documented drug problem or mental illness, undocumented immigration status, a dishonorable military discharge, a renunciation of U.S. citizenship, a restraining order, a history of domestic violence, or an indictment for any crime punishable by longer than one year of prison time.

Any sign that one of these factors could be in a buyer's background produces a red-flag, which sends the check to the FBI researchers to approve, deny or investigate. They scour state records in the federal database, and often call local authorities for more information.

"It takes a lot of effort ... for an examiner to go out and look at court reports, look at judges' documents, try to find a final disposition so we can get back to a gun dealer on whether they can sell that gun or not," Del Greco said. "And we don't always get back to them."

These workers have considerable responsibility, but little independent authority. They must use skill and judgment, balancing the rights of gun owners and the need to keep would-be killers from getting firearms.

Researcher Valerie Sargo said outstanding warrants often come up when they examine a red flag, and that can help police make arrests.

"It makes you feel good that this person is not supposed to have a firearm and you kept it out of their hands," she said.

It also weighs on them when the red flags aren't resolved in time. Tacked to a cubicle wall, a sign reads: "Our policy is to ALWAYS blame the computer."

FBI contractors and employees oversaw more than 9 million checks in the first full year, when the NICS system was established as part of Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1998. By last year, they oversaw more than 21 million. In all, only 1.25 percent of attempted purchases are denied. Denials can be appealed.

People can get guns without background checks in many states by buying weapons at gun shows or from individuals, a loophole the National Rifle Association does not want closed. But even the NRA agrees that the NICS system needs better data.

"Any database is only going to function as well as the information contained within," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

Del Greco doesn't see the states' data improving soon, which only adds to the immense challenge of getting through huge numbers of requisite checks on Black Friday.

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Stroud can be reached through Twitter @mattstroud.

Restaurant Decides Not To Fire Teen Who Asked For Time Off For Cancer Treatment

A Chicago-based restaurant chain appears to have shifted into damage control this week following a report that one of its employees was fired after asking for time off in order to undergo surgery as part of his cancer treatment.

In an interview with NBC Chicago that first aired Saturday, 19-year-old Jonathan Larson, a delivery driver at Rosebud Restaurants’ location in Naperville, Illinois, claimed he was fired by his employer after he told the restaurant he would need to take six weeks off from his job for back surgery related to his diagnosis with cancer of the brain and spine.

“[My manager] said, ‘No, by that time I’ll already have another driver hired. Just leave, I have to make some phone calls,” Larson told NBC. “I’m really disappointed and saddened by it. It’s not something I can help.”

The story was shared widely and prompted a backlash, including many individuals leaving negative comments on Rosebud Restaurants’ Facebook page.

On Saturday, the restaurant chain posted a statement acknowledging the Larson report, stating “we want you to know that we’re listening and since learning of the incident have acted swiftly to better understand what transpired.” The restaurant also said it had spoken with Larson about the incident.

In a second statement posted Sunday, the restaurant indicated it had spoken with Larson’s family and confirmed that his job would be waiting for him after his surgery. In a comment posted in response to the statement, Larson confirmed he would be meeting with restaurant chain leadership and the manager who fired him “to try and resolve the situation.”

“Rosebud always strives to treat its employees and customers as family but, in this case, we did not live up to our own expectations,” the statement read. “Like so many, we have been inspired by Jon Larson's personal strength and perseverance in his battle to beat cancer. We hope Mr. Larson makes a full and speedy recovery and returns to his job with Rosebud soon.”

In a comment on the Facebook page of the Naperville restaurant on Sunday, Debbie Sitko, who identified herself as Larson’s mother, said she was initially “angry along with disappointed and sad for my son” but that she is “please[d] with the way Rosebud is handling the situation at this time.”

Larson and Sitko did not respond to requests for comment. Rosebud Restaurants declined to comment for this story, but stood by the statements the company made on its Facebook page.

Several laws protect employees from being fired under similar circumstances, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; and the Illinois Human Rights Act. The Huffington Post has been unable to confirm specifics of Larson's situation that would have determined which law was most applicable.

Rosebud Restaurants operates 10 restaurants in and near Chicago. The company was sued last year by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly refusing to employ African-Americans in its restaurants on account of their race. Joseph Taylor, the company's former CEO, filed a separate lawsuit this year alleging that he was fired because he suggested "there may be some merit" to the EEOC lawsuit.

The Term 'Black Friday' Has Lost All Meaning

Black Friday is not just a single day anymore.

In the past few years, U.S. retailers have stretched "Black Friday," which once meant the day after Thanksgiving, across days and even weeks of bargains. That trend could continue if companies -- struggling to grow sales in an anemic economy -- find the new strategy pays off.

The change could give hope to shoppers tired of rising at the crack of dawn, or leaving their Thanksgiving table, to battle other shoppers for cheap DVD players. It could also make life a little easier for Americans who rely on Black Friday sales to take care of their holiday shopping.

For now, many of the best deals are still to be found in stores on Black Friday and, increasingly, on Thanksgiving Day. Target, for example, is opening stores at 6:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving. But it also offered some Black Friday deals on Nov. 10, nearly three weeks before the traditional Black Friday, with more sales to come in the days before Thanksgiving.

The extended deals are part of a larger strategy to offer a Black Friday that's convenient for shoppers, according to Jenna Reck, a Target spokeswoman.

"Black Friday at Target this year is about giving our guests access to top Black Friday deals no matter how, where or when they want to shop," Reck wrote in an email.

Online juggernaut Amazon is starting its Black Friday sale on Nov. 21, six days before Thanksgiving and the earliest it has ever offered Black Friday deals, said Julie Law, an Amazon spokeswoman.

The company made the shift after an uptick in traffic last year on the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving, Law said. "Those days that we see customers shopping more, we're going to make sure that we've got great deals on those days," she said.

Walmart, the nation's biggest retailer, has made the shift to a longer Black Friday period most explicitly. It touts what it calls the “New Black Friday” -- five days of deals. It's also hosting its second annual “Pre-Black Friday Event,” starting Friday, Nov. 21 at 8 a.m., giving shoppers the chance to buy TVs, Lego sets, KitchenAid Stand Mixers and other items at prices the company claims match or beat competitors’ lowest offers. This year's Pre-Black Friday sale has twice the number of items offered last year, according to the company.

Duncan Mac Naughton, the chief merchandising officer for Walmart U.S., told reporters at a New Jersey Walmart on Tuesday that the retailer was "building the shoulders" of Black Friday.

“If you look at the customer today, they’re very dynamic, they want to shop at different times,” he said.

“You could choose to go out on Thanksgiving and stand on line and be cold," he said, or customers could start their shopping as early as this Friday with the Pre-Black Friday Event.

Online prices start dropping in mid-November and are typically best on Thanksgiving Day, according to the chart below from Adobe. Some stores are also offering "Black Friday" sales starting several days before Thanksgiving:

This shift is partly a response to changing shopping habits. People keep getting more comfortable with online buying, and the idea of trundling out to stores during retailer-mandated times for specific discounts keeps getting less appealing.

Just 28 percent of Americans say they plan to set foot inside a store on Black Friday, according to a recent survey from Bankrate.com, a personal finance site.

Offering deals earlier and more often is also a way for retailers to better get their hands on the limited disposable income of shoppers whose incomes have stagnated in recent years.

“They’re targeting consumers on the lower end who once their budget is gone, it’s gone,” said Ken Perkins, the founder of Retail Metrics, a retail analytics firm. “They’re really trying to pull sales in as early as possible.”

When Black Friday first started to become popular decades ago, retailers offered “really incredible, earth-shaking” deals on that day, according to Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School who is the former CEO of Sears Canada. Now, shoppers may actually get better deals the closer it gets to Christmas, as retailers try to unload their excess inventory before the holiday, Cohen told The Huffington Post.

Still, there’s a strong perception that any sale involving the term “Black Friday” offers the best discount, thanks to retailer and media hype. “This is sort of a mass psychosis,” Cohen said. “This whole frenzy is completely unwarranted.”

Shoppers in a New York City Macy's during the week before Christmas in 1942.

The slow stretching of Black Friday across several days may be a sign of calmer times to come. Retailers are leaning less on extreme discounts to draw people into stores, Carol Spieckerman, the CEO of newmarketbuilders, a retail strategy firm, told HuffPost. Instead, a broader period of discounts will likely create a more relaxing environment that encourages shoppers to spend their time browsing in one store instead of hopping between harried shops for discounts.

“If you look at the way most major retailers are staging out their deals, this year marks a really major departure from that frenzied prescribed herding mentality and into a more reasonable, trusting environment,” Spieckerman said.

Goldman Sachs Fires Employees Over Leak Of Confidential NY Fed Info

(Adds details, background, statement from New York Fed)

By Tanya Agrawal

Nov 20 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc said it fired two employees over the leaking of confidential information from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, raising again questions about the bank's alleged cozy relationship with its regulator.

The bank said a junior employee was sacked for passing on to a colleague information from the New York Fed, his former employer, while a supervisor was fired for knowing about the matter but not escalating it.

The disclosure of the firings comes a day before a U.S. Senate subcommittee is scheduled to start hearings on whether the Fed's relationship with the banks it regulates is too close.

The hearing follows the release of secretly recorded conversations between the New York Fed and Goldman officials that suggested Fed officials were reluctant to push Goldman for answers on a transaction with Spain's Banco Santander.

Goldman said on Thursday it had immediately reported the incident that led to the firings to the New York Fed.

The junior banker had been employed with the bank for less than four months, Goldman said.

The confidential information provided Goldman a window into the New York Fed's private insights, including details about at least one of the bank's clients, the New York Times reported, citing lawyers familiar with the matter.(http://nyti.ms/1yVpoq6)

It is unclear whether Goldman's bankers used the information, the Times added.

The "revolving door" relationship between Goldman and other government agencies such as the New York Fed has been a source of criticism in the past, with frequent movement of employees between the bank and its regulators.

Current New York Fed President William Dudley, for example, was Goldman's chief economist until 2005.

In an internal memo obtained by Reuters, Goldman said the proper handling of confidential information was among its highest priorities and that it had a specific policy prohibiting an employee's use of information obtained from former employers.

Goldman added that it was reviewing its policies regarding hiring staff from government institutions to ensure they were effective and robust.

The New York Fed said in a statement it had detailed rules and controls for protecting confidential information.

"Of course, we also know that we are not perfect, that information today is more difficult to safeguard, and we are resolute to learn from our experiences." (Additional reporting by Rama Venkat Raman and Avik Das; Editing by Rodney Joyce and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Goldman Sachs Fires Employees Over Leak Of Confidential NY Fed Info

(Adds details, background, statement from New York Fed)

By Tanya Agrawal

Nov 20 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc said it fired two employees over the leaking of confidential information from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, raising again questions about the bank's alleged cozy relationship with its regulator.

The bank said a junior employee was sacked for passing on to a colleague information from the New York Fed, his former employer, while a supervisor was fired for knowing about the matter but not escalating it.

The disclosure of the firings comes a day before a U.S. Senate subcommittee is scheduled to start hearings on whether the Fed's relationship with the banks it regulates is too close.

The hearing follows the release of secretly recorded conversations between the New York Fed and Goldman officials that suggested Fed officials were reluctant to push Goldman for answers on a transaction with Spain's Banco Santander.

Goldman said on Thursday it had immediately reported the incident that led to the firings to the New York Fed.

The junior banker had been employed with the bank for less than four months, Goldman said.

The confidential information provided Goldman a window into the New York Fed's private insights, including details about at least one of the bank's clients, the New York Times reported, citing lawyers familiar with the matter.(http://nyti.ms/1yVpoq6)

It is unclear whether Goldman's bankers used the information, the Times added.

The "revolving door" relationship between Goldman and other government agencies such as the New York Fed has been a source of criticism in the past, with frequent movement of employees between the bank and its regulators.

Current New York Fed President William Dudley, for example, was Goldman's chief economist until 2005.

In an internal memo obtained by Reuters, Goldman said the proper handling of confidential information was among its highest priorities and that it had a specific policy prohibiting an employee's use of information obtained from former employers.

Goldman added that it was reviewing its policies regarding hiring staff from government institutions to ensure they were effective and robust.

The New York Fed said in a statement it had detailed rules and controls for protecting confidential information.

"Of course, we also know that we are not perfect, that information today is more difficult to safeguard, and we are resolute to learn from our experiences." (Additional reporting by Rama Venkat Raman and Avik Das; Editing by Rodney Joyce and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Wall Street Banks Manipulated Commodity Prices At Consumers' Expense, Senate Report Finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three big Wall Street banks that have owned commodities such as aluminum exposed themselves to risk and in some cases manipulated prices in a way that raised costs for consumers, a Senate investigation has found.

The heavy involvement of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley in the business of storing and moving commodities like oil, aluminum, uranium and copper also gives them unfair trading advantages in financial markets, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Aluminum cans that hold beverages like soda or beer are held up as an example. Goldman has used its stockpile of aluminum — in a cluster of warehouses near Detroit — to cause delivery delays to create shortages and inflate the metal's price, according to the report. The price for beverage makers and ultimately consumers is forced higher, it said.

Goldman maintains there has been no shortage of aluminum and prices have fallen substantially since 2008. In addition, the bank says, more than 75 percent of the aluminum it holds in storage doesn't go into "queues" that can back up and delay deliveries.

The three banks, among the biggest in the U.S., have faced increased scrutiny in recent years of their activities in commodities. Lawmakers and federal regulators are asking whether banks should be allowed to control power plants, warehouses, oil refineries and pipelines. The Federal Reserve proposed earlier this year restricting banks' activities in markets for physical commodities. Under current Fed rules, banks that engage in commodities activities must hold capital to absorb potential losses from the activities.

Activities like oil refining and uranium mining "expose major banks to catastrophic risks that are poorly understood," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the subcommittee's chairman, said at a news conference Wednesday. The costs from an oil spill, mine explosion or power plant disaster could exceed a bank's capital reserves and insurance coverage, potentially forcing taxpayers to bail it out, Levin warned.

"There's great risk to the economy," he said. "We need to restore the separation of commerce and banking."

The three banks maintain that they manage their commodities businesses prudently against risks.

"Morgan Stanley is proud of its comprehensive approach to risk management, which has enabled the firm to manage its commodities business prudently and effectively over the last three decades," the bank said in a statement.

In some cases, they have sold physical commodities businesses to nonbank companies and are in the process of selling others.

The report doesn't specifically allege price manipulation by Morgan Stanley. It says the bank's involvement in oil storage and transport gave it access to valuable non-public information about shipments and pipelines that it could profit from in trading.

Goldman says it's in the physical commodities business because that enhances its key role as a middleman for producers, consumers and investors in the financial markets linked to the products. The risks cited by the Senate report are actually "quite limited and manageable," in Goldman's view.

JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank, says it holds enough capital to cover it in the event of a physical disaster that caused its liability to exceed its insurance coverage.

Executives of the three banks' commodities divisions are scheduled to testify at a hearing Thursday by the investigative subcommittee. In a second hearing on Friday, Fed Gov. Daniel Tarullo and Larry Gasteiger, an enforcement official at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, are testifying.

As an example of price manipulation, the report cites JPMorgan's involvement in the electricity market. In July 2013, the bank agreed to pay $410 million to settle accusations by U.S. energy regulators that it manipulated electricity prices between September 2010 and November 2012. The FERC said JPMorgan used improper bidding strategies to squeeze excessive payments from the agencies that run the power grids in California and the Midwest.

CVS's Cigarette Ban Appears To Have Boosted Sales

CVS's move to ban cigarette sales earlier this year seems to be paying off.

Revenue jumped 9.7 percent in CVS' latest quarter from the same period a year ago, the company, which has rebranded itself as CVS Health, reported on Tuesday. That was due in part to a nearly 16-percent gain in revenue for CVS's pharmacy services, which rose to $22.5 billion in the quarter from $19.4 billion a year earlier.

The gain in pharmacy-services revenue helped offset a 4.5-percent year-over-year drop in sales in what is known as the "front of the store" -- where things like magazines, candy, greeting cards and toothpaste are sold -- in stores open a year or more. And that drop was due to the end of cigarette sales, CVS said.

This all fits into CVS’s grand strategy to rebrand itself as a more healthful company, said Vishnu Lekraj, an analyst who covers CVS for the investment research firm Morningstar.

CVS's pharmacy services trade, where the 16-percent increase in revenue occurred, is where the company earns big bucks by contracting with large employers and insurance companies to administer prescription-drug coverage. And it can better attract corporate partners with a healthier brand, Lekraj said.

"They can’t market themselves as a health-care servicer when they’re selling one of the most unhealthy products around,” he said.

Front-of-store sales at CVS will keep falling in the near term, but that doesn't really matter, Lekraj said. The money that CVS can earn by grabbing a larger portion of the country's expanding health-care market will likely outweigh the annual $2 billion it loses through cigarette sales, which only made up a small percentage of its revenue in the first place.

Health-care spending in the U.S. is projected to grow by 5.6 percent this year and by another 6 percent a year from 2015-2023, according to predictions by federal auditors. There are millions of people newly insured by the Affordable Care Act. And CVS is also turning itself into a low-budget doctor's office: The company has more than 900 "Minute Clinics" nationwide that offer quick service for things like flu shots or blood-pressure tests, luring in customers who may not want to wait (or travel) to see a doctor.

Supreme Court Agrees To Hear New Challenge To Obamacare

Obamacare once again faces death before the Supreme Court.

The justices announced Friday they will decide on a lawsuit claiming that the language of the Affordable Care Act doesn't allow the government to provide tax credits to low- and moderate-income health insurance consumers using the federally run Obamacare exchanges operating in more than 30 states. The lawsuit contends that the ACA only permits subsidies to be distributed by state-run exchanges.

President Barack Obama's administration maintains this argument is baseless and that Congress always intended these subsidies to be available nationwide.

A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, King v. Burwell, would utterly devastate Obamacare.

The chief aim of the law is to expand health insurance coverage and offer financial assistance to families that can't afford it. Since most states declined to set up their own health insurance exchanges, the federal government was left to set them up instead. As a result, more than two-thirds of the people who had signed up for health insurance of April 30 purchased their insurance from a federal exchange. Among all enrollees, 85 percent received subsidies to help pay for it -- that's almost 5 million people. The average value of these tax credits was $264 a month, which represents a discount off the sticker price of more than three-quarters.

The Supreme Court is taking up the case -- a decision that required the consent of at least four of the nine justices -- despite the fact that no appeals court has decided in favor of the plaintiffs. The Obama administration had asked the court to hold off on hearing the King lawsuit or similar cases including Halbig v. Burwell, given there was no split decision at the appeals level.

In 2012, the high court voted 5-4, including Chief Justice John Roberts, to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate that nearly every U.S. resident obtain health coverage or face tax penalties.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a press conference Friday that administration officials "continue to have high confidence in the legal argument," and that it's common sense that people in all states should be eligible for financial assistance under the Affordable Care Act.

"The congressional intent here is quite clear," Earnest said.

A Supreme Court decision against the Obama administration would essentially trigger huge price increases for the health insurance held by millions of consumers, but the consequences wouldn't stop there.

Absent financial assistance, many fewer people would be able to afford coverage and likely would drop their insurance or never purchase it. Higher prices also would discourage healthy people who are cheaper to insure from buying policies, leaving a sicker pool of customers on insurers' books. That, in turn, would force health insurance companies to raise rates further, driving even more people out of the market. The industry term for this phenomenon is "death spiral."

The plaintiffs in these lawsuits are zeroing in on a brief phrase included in the Affordable Care Act: "exchange established by the State," and asserting it makes distributing tax credits through a federal exchange illegal.

The Obama administration counters this language amounts to little more than a typo, at worst. The totality of the statute and the legislative history of its drafting plainly demonstrates Congress always intended to provide tax credits to people using any form of health insurance exchange, the administration and its supporters argue.

Last week, five Democratic lawmakers who helped author the law published an op-ed in the Washington Post on the subject. "None of us contemplated that the bill as enacted could be misconstrued to limit financial help only to people in states opting to directly run health insurance marketplaces," wrote Sens. Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Reps. Sander Levin (Mich.), George Miller (Calif.) and Henry Waxman (Calif.).

Congress could easily rectify the uncertainty about what the statute says by passing legislation to alter the language, but has failed to do so. And the Republicans poised to take control of the full Congress next year remain focused on attempting to repeal Obamacare or otherwise damage it, not move bills to make it function better. States also could choose to set up exchanges to ensure their residents can receive subsidies, but none of the ones that have failed to do so are poised to change course.

Jennifer Bendery contributed reporting.

Supreme Court Agrees To Hear New Challenge To Obamacare

Obamacare once again faces death before the Supreme Court.

The justices announced Friday they will decide on a lawsuit claiming that the language of the Affordable Care Act doesn't allow the government to provide tax credits to low- and moderate-income health insurance consumers using the federally run Obamacare exchanges operating in more than 30 states. The lawsuit contends that the ACA only permits subsidies to be distributed by state-run exchanges.

President Barack Obama's administration maintains this argument is baseless and that Congress always intended these subsidies to be available nationwide.

A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, King v. Burwell, would utterly devastate Obamacare.

The chief aim of the law is to expand health insurance coverage and offer financial assistance to families that can't afford it. Since most states declined to set up their own health insurance exchanges, the federal government was left to set them up instead. As a result, more than two-thirds of the people who had signed up for health insurance of April 30 purchased their insurance from a federal exchange. Among all enrollees, 85 percent received subsidies to help pay for it -- that's almost 5 million people. The average value of these tax credits was $264 a month, which represents a discount off the sticker price of more than three-quarters.

The Supreme Court is taking up the case -- a decision that required the consent of at least four of the nine justices -- despite the fact that no appeals court has decided in favor of the plaintiffs. The Obama administration had asked the court to hold off on hearing the King lawsuit or similar cases including Halbig v. Burwell, given there was no split decision at the appeals level.

In 2012, the high court voted 5-4, including Chief Justice John Roberts, to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate that nearly every U.S. resident obtain health coverage or face tax penalties.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a press conference Friday that administration officials "continue to have high confidence in the legal argument," and that it's common sense that people in all states should be eligible for financial assistance under the Affordable Care Act.

"The congressional intent here is quite clear," Earnest said.

A Supreme Court decision against the Obama administration would essentially trigger huge price increases for the health insurance held by millions of consumers, but the consequences wouldn't stop there.

Absent financial assistance, many fewer people would be able to afford coverage and likely would drop their insurance or never purchase it. Higher prices also would discourage healthy people who are cheaper to insure from buying policies, leaving a sicker pool of customers on insurers' books. That, in turn, would force health insurance companies to raise rates further, driving even more people out of the market. The industry term for this phenomenon is "death spiral."

The plaintiffs in these lawsuits are zeroing in on a brief phrase included in the Affordable Care Act: "exchange established by the State," and asserting it makes distributing tax credits through a federal exchange illegal.

The Obama administration counters this language amounts to little more than a typo, at worst. The totality of the statute and the legislative history of its drafting plainly demonstrates Congress always intended to provide tax credits to people using any form of health insurance exchange, the administration and its supporters argue.

Last week, five Democratic lawmakers who helped author the law published an op-ed in the Washington Post on the subject. "None of us contemplated that the bill as enacted could be misconstrued to limit financial help only to people in states opting to directly run health insurance marketplaces," wrote Sens. Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Reps. Sander Levin (Mich.), George Miller (Calif.) and Henry Waxman (Calif.).

Congress could easily rectify the uncertainty about what the statute says by passing legislation to alter the language, but has failed to do so. And the Republicans poised to take control of the full Congress next year remain focused on attempting to repeal Obamacare or otherwise damage it, not move bills to make it function better. States also could choose to set up exchanges to ensure their residents can receive subsidies, but none of the ones that have failed to do so are poised to change course.

Jennifer Bendery contributed reporting.

Why Obama And The Democrats Can't Get Any Love For The Economy

The U.S. economy is growing, unemployment is tumbling and stocks are at record highs. So why aren't President Barack Obama and the Democrats getting enough credit for that to avoid a big loss in Tuesday's midterm elections?

Maybe because, for way too many Americans, the economy might as well still be in recession.

Most of the benefits of the economic recovery that began in 2009 have accrued only to the wealthiest Americans. Middle-class Americans, meanwhile, have been left behind. Their wages and wealth have stagnated -- a key reason why polls show that most Americans think the economy is still in a recession, even though it technically started recovering five years ago.

Here's a chart, courtesy of Credit Suisse, that sums it up. It shows the ratio of wealth to household income, which has spiked during this recovery to levels not seen since just before the Great Depression:

This means the rich are getting richer at a much, much faster rate than the rest of us, who are not getting rich at all. The rich have benefited from a stock market that has more than doubled in value since 2009, while the average worker's wages have barely kept up with inflation:

Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, wealthier Americans tend to vote Republican, and merely getting richer in the past few years has not been enough to make them switch teams. Wealthy Americans also donate money to Republican candidatess, including the ones who are widely expected to take over the Senate and extend their control over the House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections.

Not all elections hinge on the economy, but it's not hard to draw a pretty straight line from the current economy to the gloomy outlook for Democrats in this election. Most Americans say the economy is their top issue, according to several recent polls, and only 38 percent of Americans think the economy is in OK shape, according to a recent CNN/ORC International poll. Just 35 percent of Americans approve of Obama's handling of the economy, according to Gallup.

Of course, midterm elections almost always go badly for the party that holds the White House. Going into the midterm election of 1986, President Ronald Reagan had a 60 percent approval rating and a decent economy on his side, and his party still lost control of the Senate and gave up a handful of seats in the House.

Aside from a one-off swoon in GDP in the first quarter, the economy has arguably been kinder to Obama in 2014 than it was to Reagan in 1986. GDP has bounced back sharply in the past two quarters. The unemployment rate has tumbled nearly a full percentage point this year, recently falling below 6 percent (compared with 7 percent for Reagan). The Dow and S&P 500 are constantly breaking records, and the Nasdaq is at levels not seen since the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000.

But unemployment has fallen at least partly because workers are leaving the labor force, not because of a massive boom in hiring. Workers are giving up looking for work, either because of early retirement or because they've just lost hope, meaning they no longer count as "unemployed" in the eyes of the government.

Stock prices are at record highs, but most Americans don't own stocks. Middle-class workers who have managed to save a bit in 401(k) accounts don't have enough wealth to retire on for more than a year. Most stock gains have in fact gone to top earners, including CEOs, whose pay has skyrocketed to the point where they're making nearly 300 times as much as workers, as you can see in this chart from the Economic Policy Institute:

In thinking about 2014, a more telling comparison than 1986 is 1998, when President Bill Clinton enjoyed a great midterm election. The Republicans picked up no seats that year, the first such failure for a party out of the White House since 1934.

Clinton was lucky enough to be in office in the middle of the dot-com boom. That, of course, benefited the rich, just as the recent stock market rally has done. But in 1998, the middle class was getting a taste, too. Unemployment stayed below 5 percent all year -- close to what most economists would consider full employment. GDP was in the middle of a four-year growth boom of more than 4 percent annually, the strongest stretch since the 1960s.

Most importantly, hourly wage growth was more than twice the level of inflation that year, the biggest such gap since the early 1970s. In 1998, the middle class really felt like it was getting richer. That probably made it a lot easier to reward the party in power.

5 New GOP Governors Could Undercut Medicaid Expansion

The Republican wave at the polls Tuesday didn't just give the GOP more power to obstruct Obamacare in Congress and block Medicaid expansion in more than 20 states. It also could jeopardize health benefits already extended to Americans living near the poverty level.

Republican governors will replace Democrats in four states -- Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts -- that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. And the Republican succeeding Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is dubious about that state's expansion.

Heading into Election Day, advocates for more Medicaid were hopeful that Democrats would win gubernatorial races in Florida, Maine, Wisconsin and other states where Republican governors have blocked the policy, leaving millions uninsured. Instead, the only place where the tide could turn in favor of Medicaid expansion, which the Supreme Court made optional for the states in 2012, is Alaska. The race there remains undecided between independent Bill Walker, who supports the policy, and Gov. Sean Parnell (R).

Moreover, the new Republican governors in Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts will have the power to threaten health coverage for hundreds of thousands who have enrolled in expanded Medicaid. None has publicly threatened to do so, but the program has become more vulnerable in those states. Here's what the governors-elect have said about Medicaid.

Doug Ducey, Arizona

Gov. Brewer infuriated Republican lawmakers when she strong-armed the Medicaid expansion through the Arizona legislature last year. More than 230,000 Arizonans enrolled under the new rules as of last month, the state reported.

Ducey isn't making noise about undoing the expansion, but he wants the state to seek federal approval to alter the program, including adding a requirement that beneficiaries deposit money in health savings accounts. Ducey has also vowed to constrain Arizona's spending on Medicaid as federal funding for the expansion drops from 100 percent through 2016 to 90 percent by 2022.

In a statement on DougDucey.com, he said:

I will lead the effort to negotiate a Medicaid waiver for Arizona and to protect our state from Obamacare, one of the worst laws ever signed by any American president. ... The expansion of Medicaid as part of Obamacare receives significant federal money ... for the first three years. After that the rules will change, and Arizona taxpayers may need to pay considerably more. As governor I will prepare for all scenarios, and I will not allow a massive new entitlement to grow into a huge financial burden for future generations of Arizonans. We will keep a lid on health care costs, period.

Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas

Arkansas led the nation in creating an alternative model for expanding Medicaid that uses private insurance plans to provide health coverage. Gov. Mike Beebe (D) devised the so-called private option with the GOP-controlled state legislature. More than 200,000 people enrolled in Arkansas, and states with Republican governors like Ohio and Pennsylvania adopted similar policies. But the private option was nearly defunded this year because Arkansas law requires spending bills to receive a 75 percent vote in both houses of the legislature.

After Hutchinson's gubernatorial victory on Tuesday and gains by Republicans in the state legislature, winning that 75 percent will be even harder next year. Hutchinson has said he wouldn't have signed the bill creating the private option had he been governor at the time, but he has stopped short of calling for its repeal. Here's what he said in March after the legislature voted to keep the program alive:

Ultimately, I would have designed the health care plan for Arkansas differently. But as Governor, I will inherit the decisions the Governor and General Assembly made in the fiscal session. ... I view the Private Option as a pilot project; a pilot project that can be ended if needed. As Governor, I will assess the benefit of the Private Option and measure the long-term costs to the state taxpayers. As Governor, I will weigh the cost and benefits of the program and determine whether the program should be terminated or continued.

Bruce Rauner, Illinois

Rauner's position on the Land of Lincoln's Medicaid expansion, which has covered nearly 470,000 people, is clear: He's not going to fight the Democratic-controlled legislature over it, even though he wouldn't have adopted it in the first place.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Rauner said:

I would not have accepted expansion of Medicaid. ... It's been done now and I'm not advocating a rollback. But what I am advocating and always have and always will is we've got to restructure Medicaid in Illinois. It is filled with waste and fraud.

Larry Hogan, Maryland

Hogan's stance on the Medicaid expansion is difficult to parse, and his campaign didn't immediately respond to an email requesting clarification. Although he hammered his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, over Maryland's botched health insurance exchange, Medicaid expansion -- which has covered about 377,000 Marylanders -- wasn't a notable issue during the gubernatorial campaign. Hogan also faces a Democratic-led state legislature.

In an October interview with the Washington Times, Hogan seemed to indicate that he won't pick a fight over Medicaid:

He said that trying to take on Medicaid or powerful labor unions, as Republican governors have done in other states, would be a “fool’s errand.”

“We’re going to try to win the battles we can win. That’s tough enough as it is,” said Mr. Hogan. “It’s baby steps in Maryland.”

Charlie Baker, Massachusetts

Baker, a former health insurance executive, is one of the many, many Bay Staters frustrated by the bungled marriage of Massachusett's pre-Obamacare health care reforms with the federal Affordable Care Act. Problems included a poorly functioning website and people forced to accept temporary coverage under government programs instead of the private insurance they wanted. The issue of Medicaid expansion, however, wasn't part of Baker's platform, and his campaign didn't immediately reply to an email requesting comment.

Baker has pledged to cut the Massachusetts health care program loose from Obamacare. But given that generous Medicaid coverage was available in the state before the Affordable Care Act, scrapping the expansion would seem incompatible with protecting the program signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in 2006. Moreover, the state legislature remains in the hands of Democrats.

According to CharlieBaker2014.com:

Massachusetts should be able to return to its own system that worked and as governor Charlie will aggressively pursue a waiver for Massachusetts from the ACA.

To date, 27 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, which makes Medicaid available to anyone who earns up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- or about $15,300 for a single person.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated how much a single person making 133 percent of the federal poverty level earns. The correct figure is about $15,300.

Kmart Black Friday Shopping Will Start At 6 A.M. On Thanksgiving

Kmart will open its doors to Black Friday shoppers at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day and remain open for 42 hours straight, the company announced Monday. That's one hour longer than last year's marathon shopping session.

Sears, which like Kmart is owned by Sears Holdings Corp, will begin its Black Friday sales earlier than ever at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Kmart and Sears join a long list of stores waging a so-called "War on Thanksgiving," forcing millions of low-wage employees to spend their Thanksgiving holidays working.

A Kmart and Sears spokesperson told The Huffington Post in an email that stores will be staffed by seasonal associates and workers who volunteered to work on the holiday, both of whom will be compensated with "holiday pay."

"This holiday season is all about giving more to our members and because many like to start shopping well before Black Friday, we're excited to open our doors early on Thanksgiving and offer other early access opportunities for them to shop and save," Leena Munjal, senior vice president for Sears Holdings, said in a statement on the company's website.

Kmart certainly isn't the only store open on Thanksgiving. Most Walmart stores will be open all day. Macy's said it plans to open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving -- two hours earlier than last year -- and will pay workers time-and-a-half.

Meanwhile, Costco and Sam's Club will remain closed on Thanksgiving.

Last year, Kmart's decision to open at 6 a.m. and remain open for 41 hours garnered some harsh criticism from shoppers who said it was inappropriate to be open all day on the holiday.

And the store's controversial decision barely paid off: Comparable-store sales at Sears and Kmart fell sharply during the holiday season last year.

Sears Holdings has been struggling for a while. The company is reportedly closing more than 100 underperforming stores and laying off thousands of workers as a part of its ongoing effort to generate cash.

The Economy Is Still The Biggest Issue For The Voters

WASHINGTON -- For all the talk about ISIS and Ebola, and all the political firestorms over the Affordable Care Act, most voters this year remain focused on the economy.

In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll of likely voters, 56 percent named the economy as one of the two issues most important to them. Health care, named by 35 percent, was a clear but relatively distant second choice, followed by immigration, "how things work in Washington" and foreign policy/terrorism. Three more topics -- social/women's issues, the environment and gun policies -- barely broke into the double digits.

Priorities diverged sharply between those supporting a Democratic candidate for Congress and those backing a Republican. While both groups overwhelmingly named the economy as a top issue, the Republican voters picked immigration and foreign policy as the second and third most important issues, with health care in fourth place. The Democratic voters, in contrast, rated health care nearly as important as the economy, with how things work in Washington, social issues and the environment following behind.

Voters under 30 were far more likely than their older counterparts to be concerned about the environment: 29 percent cited it as a top issue, compared to 10 percent or fewer in every other age group. Those with household incomes under $40,000 were considerably more likely to worry about health care than those with higher incomes. Women were slightly more likely than men to mention both health care and social issues.

Other findings from the poll:

Most voters agree on which issues dominate ad campaigns.
About two-thirds of voters remember seeing the economy and health care mentioned in political ads or campaign mailers. Around half also say they've seen immigration, social issues and how things work in Washington mentioned.

Analysis from Kantar Media/CMAG earlier this month found similar results, with both Democratic and Republican TV advertising in congressional races dominated by economic issues, like jobs or the budget, and health care. Environment and energy topics came in third.

But there's a partisan divide over each party's priorities.
Asked which two topics GOP candidates had discussed the most, voters again named the economy and health care. Very few thought that Republicans had spent much time on the environment, gun policies or social issues.

Supporters of the two parties, however, had different ideas on which of the top two issues the GOP had highlighted more. Over half of the likely Republican voters said the Republican Party was more focused on the economy, compared to 37 percent who said health care. The likely Democratic voters saw the GOP as paying about equal attention to both issues.

The Democratic Party, in contrast, was seen as focusing on social/women's issues: 43 percent of voters said that topic was among the Democrats' top concerns. Just 26 percent named the economy, and 23 percent identified health care.

The perception that Democrats have leaned heavily on social/women's issues was especially prevalent among groups that may not have been the intended targets of the message. Fifty percent of male voters and 51 percent of likely Republican voters said Democrats were focused on social issues, compared to just 35 percent of female voters and 36 percent of likely Democratic voters.

President Barack Obama isn't on the ballot, but he's still on voters' minds.
Nearly seven in 10 voters said they consider their congressional choice this year to be a referendum on President Obama and his policies, with many giving him a thumbs down. Forty-seven percent said they'll be voting against Obama, 22 percent said they'll be voting to support him, and 29 percent said he won't be a factor in their choice.

The likely Republican voters were nearly unanimous, with 86 percent saying they're against the president. The likely Democratic voters, though, were roughly evenly split between saying they'll vote to support Obama and saying he won't play a factor.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted Oct. 28-30 among 802 U.S. likely voters using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion and church attendance.

The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here.

I Experienced The Dreaded AT&T 'Throttling' Firsthand

Last month, when I was in California for a work trip, my phone suddenly became useless. Even though I was in downtown San Francisco, the data connection was so slow that it was pretty much impossible to download email, use apps, browse the Web or load photos on Instagram.

I was being "throttled." AT&T had deliberately slowed down my data speed because I used more than five gigabytes during a billing cycle, even though I have had an unlimited data plan since 2009. (AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans, but I have renewed my contract, so I've been allowed to keep it.)

AT&T began throttling in 2011. But the policy was thrust into the spotlight this week, when the Federal Trade Commission sued the telecom giant for slowing data speeds, sometimes by more than 90 percent, for unlimited data customers without "adequately disclos[ing]" the policy.

“AT&T promised its customers ‘unlimited’ data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise,” FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited.”

AT&T shot back, calling the suit "baseless" and pointing to a press release and "2,000" subsequent news articles when the company made the changes in 2011.

"[B]efore any customer is affected, they are also notified by text message," Wayne Watts, AT&T's senior executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement Tuesday.

The FTC said AT&T has throttled 3.5 million customers a total of 25 million times. I'm one of those customers.

Here's the thing. Even though I've gone over five gigabytes in four of the last five months, I've only gotten one text message from AT&T warning me that I was approaching the threshold. That was in May. Last month, my phone slowed without warning.

When I reached out to AT&T about why I only got a text message that first time, and I didn't get a text message each time I approached five gigabytes in a month, the company pointed to an obscure page on its website informing customers that their "speeds may be reduced without another text message reminder."

The company also said I had received a notice with my bill in summer 2011 announcing the changes. But as the FTC points out in its lawsuit, the notice doesn't "disclose the degree to which the customers’ data speed would be reduced,
and the impact that the reduced speed would have on customers’ ability to use their device."

"We stand by the statement from earlier this week," Mark Siegel, AT&T's executive director of media relations, told The Huffington Post in a phone call. "And we stand by what is available on our public website about how we handle our unlimited data customers."

AT&T could easily send texts each time customers approach the five gigabyte threshold. After all, the company sends texts when your bill is due, when it's paid, if you are going over your voice minutes and when it's added a cell tower in your area. Or it could send an email. I've received at least seven emails from AT&T this month, five for promotions or trying to get me to upgrade.

But throttling is something AT&T appears to want to keep quiet. Researchers hired by the company to conduct focus groups about throttling suggested not talking too much about it, according to the FTC lawsuit.

From the FTC lawsuit:

The researchers observed that “[t]he more consumers talked about it the more they didn’t like it.” This led the researchers to advise that “[s]aying less is more, [so] don’t say too much” in marketing communications concerning such a program.

AT&T says it throttles customers to manage network congestion. But the FTC says throttling happens even when the network isn't congested. AT&T doesn't throttle those people on its other data plans who use significant amounts of data, the FTC says in the lawsuit.

AT&T seems to use throttling to encourage unlimited data customers to sign up for tiered data plans, which make them pay for as much data as they use and can be more expensive for heavy users. Those who quit AT&T's unlimited data plans, the FTC points out, have been hit with early termination fees in the hundreds of dollars.

Verizon also has customers holding onto unlimited data plans, even though it doesn't offer them anymore. The company announced over the summer that it would throttle heavy unlimited data users during peak times, but backed off after receiving widespread criticism, including from the chairman of the FCC.

Unlimited data customers are not as valuable to the companies as those with tiered plans because they will pay the same each month regardless of how much data they use, forever. Data use is predicted to explode to 9.1 gigabytes a month in 2018, from 1.4 gigabytes per month last year, according to Cisco.

Bekim Ukperaj, who works at a golf course in Stamford, Connecticut, and admitted he uses his phone "a lot," said he regularly exceeds five gigabytes of monthly data and is throttled. AT&T said it sent Ukperaj two text messages in January 2013 as he neared the data threshold, and included the throttling notice in his bill in 2011. But Ukperaj said he doesn't remember any notification that he was nearing five gigabytes. He now uses a tool on his LG G2 smartphone to alert him when he's getting close.

"A warning would have been nice in all those previous months I didn't alert myself," Ukperaj said, adding that sometimes his phone was useless for weeks while it was throttled. Ukperaj said that when he renewed his unlimited data contract in December, AT&T representatives didn't warn him that he could be throttled. "You'd think that if you renewed your contract, they'd say something more about the data limiting," Ukperaj said.

AT&T's 4G LTE network typically has download speeds of five to 12 megabits per second (Mbps), according to the FTC. When I was throttled in September, my download speed was cut to a slow 0.17 Mbps, rendering most of the functions on my smartphone useless.

Results of a speedtest while being throttled (left) and before being throttled (right).

"You're looking at data speeds that pretty much predate the smartphone era," Bill Menezes, an analyst who specializes in mobile networks at Gartner, the technology research firm, said when he reviewed the results of the speed test I conducted while being throttled in September.

Frank Guido, a Staten Island, N.Y.-based photographer, was so frustrated with his throttled data speed of 0.46mbps that after dealing with it for only two days he called AT&T and switched to a data plan he now shares with family.

"I'm away from home days at a time for my job so I can't live on Edge speed," he said, referring to the older, slower network.

He was an AT&T unlimited data subscriber who regularly went over five gigabytes a month, though he only first noticed his phone's data connection was slow over the weekend. He said that he has never received a text message or an email telling him he'd get throttled if he went over a certain number of gigabytes.

But after the FTC lawsuit was announced, he called to switch back to his unlimited data plan. Because AT&T no longer offers the plan, his request has to be approved by management. He'll find out in early November if AT&T approved the switch.

What Your Cell Phone Company Isn't Telling You When You Sign A Contract

When you sign a cell phone contract, you’re not just agreeing to pay thousands of dollars over a few years to AT&T or Verizon. You’re also signing away your right to sue the company or participate in a class action lawsuit against it.

If the cell phone provider systematically overcharges you or doesn't deliver, say, on its promise of "unlimited data," your only remedy -- unless the government steps in -- is forced arbitration, a private negotiation between the company and the customer where a non-judicial party decides your fate. Typically, the process is stacked in favor of the giant corporation.

Forced arbitration clauses have become widespread in recent years and there's one
buried in AT&T’s terms of service. It’s why the Federal Trade Commission, not customers, just sued AT&T for allegedly slowing down Internet speeds on customers' smartphones -- even though customers were complaining about the practice for years.

AT&T isn’t alone: the four other largest cell phone carriers – Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon – also have forced arbitration in their terms of service.

The policies are aimed primarily at restricting customers from class action lawsuits, but they also forbid customers from taking cell phone providers to just about any kind of court -- except small claims court, familiar to most Americans as the setting for The People’s Court; hardly the venue for exacting justice against multibillion dollar corporations.

Buried in these contracts from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are clauses that take away your right to sue

T-Mobile is unique in having a forced arbitration opt-out policy, but it must be completed within 30 days of activation to be valid. So before you applaud the company for such a progressive policy, consider the likelihood that someone who just bought a new phone would also have the forethought to consider the best potential legal strategy against the company they bought the phone from. If a customer really envisioned becoming entangled in a legal dispute with a company over a purchase, they wouldn’t probably simply avoid doing business with that company.

Telecom companies are hardly outliers. Banks, retail stores and electronics giants have all found ways to get customers to sign away their right to take a company to court.

Even Cheerios tried to jump on the bandwagon. In April, the General Mills' cereal brand changed its terms of service so that simply liking the cereal on Facebook voided a consumer’s right to sue. But after a New York Times story drew attention to the policy, the company quickly reversed itself.

In 2011, the practice was upheld by the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote in AT&T vs. Concepcion. The court also upheld the legality of class arbitration waivers. That means that not only can terms of service waive your right to participate in a class action lawsuit, but also your ability to enter arbitration with other consumers. Individual arbitration is the only option.

The legality of these types of class action waivers was broadened even further by the Supreme Court in 2013 to include terms of service between businesses in the case of American Express vs. Italian Colors Restaurant. The court held that American Express could include class action waivers in its terms of service with merchants.

Some customers have tried to find justice against cell providers in small claims court, including one California man who sued and won $850 from AT&T in 2012. The stakes are low, but the companies’ monetary and legal advantage is narrowed. Here’s how Consumerist described the scene: “Since lawyers are not allowed in California small claims courts, AT&T was represented by its area sales manager.”

If you’re looking for a venue outside small claims court to shame companies into changing their policies, a petition may not be your best bet. Change.org has a forced arbitration clause in its terms of service.

Walmart To Kick Off Holiday Shopping Season Day After Halloween

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart is doing whatever it takes to rope in holiday shoppers however they want to buy.

For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is offering free shipping on what it considers the season's top 100 hottest gifts, from board games to items related to Disney's hit film "Frozen" items, starting Saturday. The move comes as rival Target Corp. began offering free shipping on all items, a program that started late October and will last through Dec. 20.

Wal-Mart is also planning to offer discounts, or what it refers to as "rollbacks," on more than 20,000 items on a broad range of products, from groceries to TVs, starting Saturday. The timing is similar to last year, but the discounter said the assortment is broader. It's also pulling forward by nearly a month 15 24-hour online deals originally reserved for the Thanksgiving weekend and so-called Cyber Monday, about double from last year. For the first time, Wal-Mart will allow shoppers to pick up those 24-hour online specials at the store. They include 40-inch Element TVs for $199, down from $298, and Crayola Paint Makers for $12, down from $18.88. Customers will be able to purchase the deals online starting shortly after midnight on Monday.

The online deals are in addition to several hundred online holiday specials that start Saturday.

"We're trying to offer the best deals when they want them," said Steve Bratspies, Wal-Mart's executive vice president and general merchandise manager for Wal-Mart's U.S. division.

Wal-Mart unveiled some of the details of its holiday strategy as it considers matching online prices from competitors such as Amazon.com, a move that could help grab more customers but could also hurt profit margins. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based discounter has matched prices of local store competitors but has not followed other retailers including Best Buy and Target in matching prices of online rivals. But last month, Wal-Mart started to test the strategy in five markets: Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas; Phoenix; and northwest Arkansas.

Wal-Mart is trying to rev up sluggish sales in the U.S. as it battles competition from online retailers, dollar stores and drugstores. At the same time, it's also dealing with a slowly recovering economy that hasn't benefited its low-income shoppers. As a result, Wal-Mart's U.S. namesake stores, which account for 60 percent of its total business, haven't reported growth in a key sales measure in six straight quarters.

Wal-Mart's move underscores how stores are being forced to step up their game for the holiday shopping season, which accounts for about 20 percent of retail industry's annual sales. The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, forecasts a 4.1 percent sales increase to $616.9 billion for November and December from last year. But online sales, which are included in the forecast, are expected to increase anywhere from 8 percent to 11 percent.

Wal-Mart declined to say whether it was considering changing its price match policy for just the holidays or permanently. Deisha Barnett, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, says many store managers have matched online prices for customers on a case-by-case basis.

"Taking care of the customers who shop our stores is what we always aim to do," she added.

As for its free shipping holiday program, Wal-Mart said that it had store executives pick the 100 items and that products are guaranteed to arrive before Christmas. Wal-Mart's current policy is that online shoppers have to spend at least $50.

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