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From 2012 through 2014, the economy grew at an all-too-familiar rate of 2% annually, according to three years of revised figures the Commerce Department released Thursday. That’s a 0.3 percentage point downgrade from prior estimates.

The revisions were released concurrently with the government’s first estimate of second-quarter output.

Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace through the end of last year. That’s more than a half-percentage point worse than the next-weakest expansion of the past 70 years, the one from 2001 through 2007.

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Local police union is boycotting today’s visit by President Obama

Jerry Flynn, a Lowell cop on leave while serving as executive director of the New England Police Benevolent Association, said his organization’s executive board has chosen to boycott President Obama’s Labor Day breakfast address in Boston today to make a statement about violence against police:

“Our members are enraged at his lack of support of law enforcement. It’s clear that he has an agenda, and unfortunately the police are not part of his agenda.

Let’s face it, (there have been) eight people killed in a nine-day period, eight police officers, and his silence up until recently has been deafening. And the real sad part of this — and when I went to the White House in the first term with (Vice President) Joe Biden — he said to me that he would be the voice of law enforcement. Well, as much as I love and adore Joe, his voice has been silent as well. So it’s not an Obama problem, it’s an administration problem.

This is a horror show, this is an epidemic of lawless people trying to kill police officers for no apparent reasons. Case in point is the lieutenant who was pumping gas in Houston. Over 7,000 people were at that church, and where was he (Obama)? Why wasn’t he there instead of a unity breakfast?”

Referring to the looting and destruction in Ferguson, Mo., following the shooting of Michael Brown, Flynn continued:

“I mean, he had the opportunity to do things then and he didn’t, and all he’s done is escalated and allowed these people that are hellbent on causing problems to do so. We can’t continue to have people who have no intention to do anything but to be disruptive. These aren’t good citizens. These are thugs who go out and try to cause problems.

You can’t continue to have this kind of hatred and animosity and the lawlessness that’s going on in this country at the cost of police officers losing their lives. It’s irresponsible of the president and his administration.

A statement from Obama on behalf of police could be powerful, Flynn said:

“I think it would send a message to people in law enforcement that we have a commander in chief who actually is backing the people who are in the war on the street. And this is a war on the street. He’s got to come out and ask to be a unified group and to support law enforcement.

He’s got a new attorney general, what’s her agenda? What is her message going to be, that she’s actually putting forth? I don’t know the answer to that question. But certainly, what he’s doing now, what he hasn’t done now, has been supportive of those in law enforcement.”