9/11 13 Years Later and the Importance of '110 Stories'

It’s hard to believe it’s been 13 years since that horrific terrorist attack on American soil. That day on 9/11 in 2001, four coordinated attacks were made on our nation, including the unforgettably, frighteningly horrible fall of the Twin Towers at NYC’s World Trade Center. I was lucky: I worked in Tower Two of the WTC for five years before moving to California. My cousin Fred was not: a bond trader at Canter Fitzgerald on the 106th floor of Tower One, he was one of the thousands of innocent people who never made it home that day; one of the thousands of lives needlessly lost forever.

I think of him and all the innocent people who lost their lives on that tragic day. More than three thousand people, mostly but not all Americans, died in that tragic attack. The entire world has changed as a result of 9/11 and the lives of all Americans changed from that day.

Many Americans, especially those under the age of 20, don’t understand the gravity of emotion, fear, and anger we experienced that sad day. Tell a teenager what it was like getting on an airplane without taking off your shoes and they’ll think you’re from Mars. Many may not know why it happened, how it happened, or even who masterminded that destructive day that has affected the heart and soul of Americans and other free peoples, all over the world.

For my cousin Fred, for those teenagers, for those who served with courage and gave the ultimate sacrifice and for the future of our country: those are some of the reasons my friend and former Marine Arleigh Dotson and I are producing Sarah Tuft’s powerful play 110 Stories on Thursday, September 11 at 7:30 pm at the James R. Armstrong Theater in Torrance. As we did successfully last year, we’re presenting the play as a staged reading, giving the actors the opportunity to let the powerful personal dialogues of 9/11 survivors tell their unforgettably moving stories.

110 Stories shares the emotions, experiences, and fears of those who survived the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor in 1941. Featuring playwright Sara Tuft’s superb writing we will tell the stories and portray the lives of the survivors with a great cast that includes Dean Cain (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Out of Time, Beverly Hills 90210), Elya Baskin (Air Force One, Spiderman 2 & 3) and Lee Purcell (Valley Girl, Big Wednesday, Persons Unknown).

We also want to honor and support the men & women in our Armed Forces. They are called upon to selflessly protect our American way of life, our freedom, and the liberties most of us take for granted, so proceeds from Thursday night’s performance will benefit two excellent local non-profit organizations: Politiquest, which benefits voters with non-partisan debates and voter information, and Operation Gratitude, which serves our men and women in the Armed Forces in active combat theaters worldwide with thousands of care packages each year.

Everyone involved in the production is contributing their time, resources, and energies for the very same reason: to remember and honor the lives of the people who died that day. For the cast, the producers, the show staff and management, and the audience too, it’s a time when individuals come together to be part of a memorial and memorable performance for those who were lost.

We are producing the play again this year because we will never forget what happened that day, we will never stop honoring the innocents who died on 9/11 and continue to remind ourselves of the American values that are at the heart of what makes our country great. We want to educate every generation of our youth about this horrific and historic event and to always remember and honor the lives lost from that day. 

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Fighting For The Poor: Former ACORN Lawyer Sells Home For $21 Million

The former top lawyer for the Association for Communities Organizing for Reform Now (ACORN) just made a killing selling his ritzy New York City townhouse.

Arthur Z. Schwartz, who served as ACORN’s general counsel during the tumultuous years of 2009 and 2010, sold his 8,540-square foot house for a cool $20.89 million — quite a few pennies more than the $499,990 he bought the house for in 2003. According to the New York Observer, Schwartz did make some significant improvements to the house, which likely drove up its value.

But the legal blog Above the Law wonders how the ex-ACORN lawyer was able to afford such a luxurious house and the ritzy upgrades to it considering his work record of primarily representing left-wing groups.

Schwartz currently serves as the board president for the public law firm Advocates for Justice. According to the firm’s statement of purpose, they “fight for the rights of the poor and the rights of working people, to fight for racial justice and equal rights, and to assist those who organize the poor and working people, and who advance the fight for equality.”

Schwartz’s biography describes him as one of New York’s top labor lawyers and as working for labor interests for over 30 years. It even lists a long quote of praise from liberal Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer.

“All too many people get involved are doing it because they’re saying there’s something in it for numero uno. But there are lots of people who are in it for the right reasons.  And if you had to pick someone who symbolizes that it would be Arthur Schwartz,” Schumer said in 2003. “Whenever anyone calls on Arthur to do something good, he’s there and he doesn’t ask what’s in it for him and he doesn’t ask how much money there is. He just does it.”

ACORN was a community-organizing group that declared it worked for the interests of the poor. It was rocked by scandal after James O’Keeefe recorded undercover video of ACORN workers in 2009 advising him and a fellow activist on how to engage in criminal activity. The group closed down in 2010 following the controversy.

In 2009, then ACORN general counsel Schwartz trashed O’Keefe for going after an organization “whose principal purpose is to help poor people.”

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IRS Employee In Florida Charged With Bogus Filings, Wire Fraud

An IRS employee has been charged with skimming money off tax refunds through an elaborate scheme by which the employee encouraged clients to file bogus Residential Energy Credits, Historic City News reports.

The residential energy credits on Form 5695 were allegedly over-inflated, resulting in excessive refunds to which the individuals were not entitled. Charles Corbitt, the accused IRS employee in West Palm Beach, Florida, filed tax returns for clients while he was still employed at the IRS. After falsifying energy credits and obtaining lower tax liabilities for his clients, he apparently took a portion directly from tax refunds as a tax preparation fee.

The indictment detailed an example where Corbitt once secured a $6,029 tax refund for a woman when he marked down that she had made energy efficient improvements to her home. Despite no actual improvements being made, Corbitt collected a $300 fee, which was placed in the bank account of his former girlfriend. Corbitt would often calculate the preparation fee based on a flat rate or in proportion to the size of the refund.

Currently investigating the matter is the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley III announced the charges on Wednesday and stated that Assistant United States Attorney Malisa Chokshi will be named as the prosecutor.

If convicted of the wire fraud charge, 36-year-old Corbitt could face up to a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.

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Obama Admin Actuaries: Obamacare’s Going To Spike Health Care Spending

Obamacare and an aging population are going to send health care spending far back up beginning next year, according to a Wednesday report. 

According to a report published in the journal Health Affairs by actuaries from federal Obamacare administrator the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the health-care law is contributing to a renewed boost in health care spending. The findings contradict the White House’s own line on health spending, after officials attempted to claim a recent slowdown in health spending growth as a trimuph of Obamacare.

In 2013, health spending grew at a slower rate of 3.6 percent, according to the Health Affairs study, “as a result of the sluggish economic recovery, the effects of sequestration, and continued increases in private health insurance cost-sharing requirements.” 

Next year, though, CMS actuaries expect health spending to climb even higher, projecting 5.6 percent growth in 2014, 4.9 percent growth in 2015 and 6.1 percent every year afterward through 2023. One primary drivers of the skyrocketing health care spending: Obamacare.

“The combined effects of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions, faster economic growth, and population aging are expected to fuel health spending growth this year and thereafter,” according to the report.

But the Obama administration has bragged that its health-care law was doing the opposite.

“For years, healthcare costs in America skyrocketed, with brutal consequences for our country,” White House health policy adviser Jeanne Lambrew wrote in a January blog post. “The Affordable Care Act, for the first time in decades, has helped to stop that trend.”

The CMS report would appear to contradict that. It largely vindicates some independent health experts’ view that economic downturn over the past several years stopped many Americans from spending on health care. 

The actuaries expect the Medicaid expansion — currently only accepted by 27 states — to boost program spending by 12.8 percent in 2014; but not to worry, Medicaid spending is scheduled to grow only 6.7 percent in 2015, when a temporary boost in payments to health care providers will expire (though that will likely make doctors even more difficult for Medicaid patients to find).

In 2013, that left governments of all levels with a $1.3 trillion bill for health care. But by 2023, federal, state and local governments are projected to be spending $2.5 trillion on health care, due to Obamacare subsidies, the Medicaid expansion and Medicare growth.

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Email Reveals Lois Lerner Ignored Political Expenditures By Unions

The official at the center of the Internal Revenue Service tea party scandal once dismissed complaints that labor unions were not reporting millions of dollars in political activities on their tax forms, according to an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

In 2007, Lerner responded directly to a complaint that some major labor unions reported completely different amounts of political expenditures when filing with the IRS and the Department of Labor.

At the time of the email, Lerner was the Director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS.

Lerner wrote, “We looked at the information you provided regarding organizations that report substantial amounts of political activity and lobbying expenditures on the DOL Form LM-2, but report little to no political expenditures on the Form 990 filed with the IRS.”

“We believe this difference in reporting does not necessarily indicate that the organization has incorrectly reported to either the DOL or the IRS,” Lerner concluded.

Don Todd, the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) at the time the email was sent, confirmed seeing Lerner’s email and remembering similar complaints at the time. OLMS oversees labor union financial disclosures within the Department of Labor.

“The law’s never been enforced,” Todd told TheDCNF. “The IRS was telling us it would cost more to enforce the law then they would collect.”

In 2006, the year leading up to Lerner’s email, the national headquarters for the AFL-CIO reported no direct or indirect political expenditures with the IRS on their 990 form, leaving the line 81a blank. That same year, the AFL-CIO reported $29,585,661 in political activities with the Department of Labor.

Also in 2006 the Teamsters Union reported no political expenditures with the IRS while at the same time reporting $7,081,965 with the Labor Department.

Again in 2006, Unite-Here reported no political activity with the IRS and $1,451,002 with the Labor Department.

In 2005, the National Education Association also reported no political expenditures with the IRS while at the same time reporting $24,985,250 with the Labor Department.

Labor union political spending overwhelmingly benefits Democrats. Todd told TheDCNF Lerner may have been playing favorites. Lerner has been accused of singling out tea party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Lerner acknowledged in the 2007 email, “The definition of political campaign activity required to be reported on Form LM2 coincides with the definition of political campaign activity expenditures required to be reported on Form 990.”

But she did offer some possible reasons for the discrepancies. “The Form LM-2 does not separate this reporting from the reporting of lobbying expenditures,” she wrote. 

“Furthermore, even if section 501(c)(5) labor organizations were required to report their lobbying expenditures, the amount required to be reported on Form LM-2 includes activity, such as attempting to influence regulations, that is not required to be reported as lobbying, as the IRS limitations apply to legislative lobbying.”

Lerner conceded, “Having said that, we did see some instances that raised concerns and we referred that information to our Dallas office to determine whether examination is warranted.” It does not appear any further investigation was conducted.

The Bush administration mandated more detailed disclosure requirements for labor unions, but they were relaxed by the Obama administration’s Labor Department.

An IRS spokesman told TheDCNF the agency had no “immediate comment” on the matter.

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Did Brennan dodge a bullet?

CIA Director John Brennan may have dodged a bullet over his agency’s potentially unconstitutional snooping on the Senate, but critics insist his reprieve is only temporary.

Calls for the spy leader to resign after the CIA admitted that officials spied on the Senate have lost steam in recent weeks, since lawmakers left town for a five-week summer recess.

November’s midterm elections and crises from Syria to Ukraine could distract Congress from forcing the director to offer a public mea culpa in the short term.

But lawmakers and advocates pushing for a change at the top of the spy agency say that the issue has only been temporarily sidelined and won’t disappear for good.

"I absolutely stand by my call for CIA Director John Brennan to resign," Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), the first senator to call for him to step down earlier this summer, said in a statement to The Hill.

"The CIA's spying on its overseers in Congress and Brennan's failure to acknowledge any serious wrongdoing by the agency demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership,” he added. 

“There are still significant unanswered questions about the search of the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers — and Director Brennan and CIA leadership must be accountable to Congress on this matter," said Udall.

The CIA’s inspector general caused a shockwave on Capitol Hill a month ago, when it concluded that five agency officials had “improperly accessed” Senate Intelligence Committee computers to review staffers’ files and emails.

The snooping was conducted through a network to share files for the Senate committee’s report on the CIA’s history of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, such as waterboarding.

The admission set off a whirlwind of criticism for the agency and validated charges from committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who accused the CIA of unconstitutionally violating the separation of powers during a March floor speech.

It was especially bad news for Brennan, who had flatly denied Feinstein’s allegation as groundless and “beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we’d do.”

At least three senators — Udall along with Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — called for Brennan to resign after the incident, and many more put the spy chief on notice to offer a full explanation.

Then: Nothing.

The CIA inspector general report came out on July 31, the day many lawmakers were already eyeing flights back home for the August recess. Empty desks on Capitol Hill prevented the incident from turning into a full-blown scandal and added to the radio silence about the issue in the press.

“The news on this dropped the day that everyone was going out of town,” said one Senate aide who asked not to be named. “That’s the whole reason it’s fallen off the radar.”

Once Congress comes back this week, the aide said, focus will return to the CIA’s spying.

“This is not something that’s going to go away,” said the aide.

Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First, said it was “frustrating” that the spying had been “overshadowed by other events and by congressional recess.” But Wala hoped lawmakers would put pressure on Brennan and the White House “to ensure that there’s real accountability for these kinds of actions and there are measures put in place to ensure that it never happens again.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee has not announced any future public hearings, however, which could make a showdown unlikely for now. 

Feinstein has also praised Brennan's response to the spying and has not indicated that she wants to publicly rake him over the coals.

Additionally, political math in the precious few weeks between Labor Day and the midterm elections on Nov. 4 could further cloud the issue.

“What I’ve heard is people are looking at it as ‘How is this going to help me in the election?’” said James Lewis, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If it doesn’t help, they won’t pursue it.”

“Topic No. 1 is who will control the Senate in January,” he added. For many congressional offices, “this is less important.”

There are, though, a number of opportunities for Brennan to feel the heat.

After the CIA’s inspector general confirmed the spying allegations, Brennan referred the matter to an internal accountability board chaired by former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who used to sit on the Senate intelligence panel. If his board finds any indication that Brennan knew about or condoned the officials’ infiltration of Senate computers, his job would almost certainly be in jeopardy.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is also preparing to release an unclassified version of its report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation methods, many of which President Obama has called torture. The redacted version of the 6,800-page document is expected to chronicle horrific abuse done in the name of fighting terrorism. 

Brennan was not in charge of the agency when those policies were implemented under former President George W. Bush, but he will nonetheless have to walk a tightrope to both defend the institutional reputation of the CIA and atone for its history. Statements that show disrespect for Congress could put him back in the hot seat.

More broadly, tensions between the agency and its congressional overseers are riding high, and trust between the two institutions is almost nonexistant. Any intelligence failure or verbal slip-up could cause simmering outrage to spill over.

“Because of all of these other developments, I think that the atmosphere is kind of super-heated,” said John Prados, a CIA historian and project director at George Washington University’s National Security Archive.

“Any other thing that can serve as a spark to ignite the gasoline makes the very whole thing very hot indeed.”

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Agency Wants To Extend Worker Protections To Illegal Immigrants

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) made a pledge Friday to help ensure immigrant workers are protected under the law, including those who may be in this country illegally.

The EEOC and the Mexican foreign affairs ministry signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” promising education programs and outreach to aid immigrant workers.

The memorandum states that its intended purpose is to “establish a collaborative relationship to provide Mexican nationals in the United States with information, guidance, and access to education and training resources to help them understand and exercise their workplace rights, particularly with regards to reducing violence against them under the law and regulations that are administered and enforced by the EEOC.”

Kimberly Smith-Brown, a spokeswoman for the EEOC, confirmed that such protections would apply to illegal immigrants.

Smith-Brown told The Daily Caller News Foundation, “Undocumented workers are afforded the same protections under the law. The EEOC will assist anyone who believes that they have been discriminated against.”

Smith-Brown added, “When someone does come to us with a complaint, we will assist them with their claim. The EEOC does not ask the documentation status of anyone that comes to our offices. An undocumented worker is afforded the same protections under the law as everyone else.”

“This year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” EEOC general counsel David Lopez declared during the signing. “Today we moralize a relationship to help insure this historic pact and other anti-discrimination laws be enforced to all workers that work and live in this country,

“In 2012, the EEOC adopted a strategic enforcement plan setting forth its enforcement priority for the year 2012 to 2016. One of the agencies top enforcement priorities is to combat discrimination against immigrant, migrant and other vulnerable populations,” Lopez added.  “We doubled our efforts to ensure even the most vulnerable workers are protected by the law, even those who live and work in the shadows” Lopez stated.

EEOC Chairwoman Jacqueline A. Berrien remarked, “Today’s memorandum of understanding is just the most recent example of an ongoing collaboration between the government of Mexico and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”

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Obama Administration Punishes Oklahoma for Repealing Common Core Standards

The U.S. Department of Education (USED) has punished the state of Oklahoma for repealing the Common Core standards and reverting to its previous academic standards by rescinding the state’s waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB), making it the second state ever to lose its waiver from the law.

As Caitlin Emma of Politico reports, Indiana, on the contrary, was granted a one-year extension of its waiver from NCLB because, though Gov. Mike Pence (R) declared he was the first governor to repeal the Common Core standards, his state’s replacement standards are remarkably similar to the Common Core and, as such, still met the requirements for the waiver.

The fact that Oklahoma’s waiver was denied while Indiana was granted an extension makes it clear that, despite the protests of Common Core supporters that the standards are “voluntary” and “state-led,” the federal government is, in fact, determining which states will receive reprieves from federal restrictions based on their choices of academic standards.

States that adopted “college- and career-ready standards” in math and English Language Arts that are “common to a significant number of states” or “certified by a state network of institutions of higher education” avoided NCLB requirements, which include providing school choice, tutoring, and reconfiguring failing schools. Most states simply adopted the Common Core to obtain the waivers, inviting even further federal intrusion into their education policies.

“It is outrageous that President [Barack] Obama and Washington bureaucrats are trying to dictate how Oklahoma schools spend education dollars,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) said in a statement. “Because of overwhelming opposition from Oklahoma parents and voters to Common Core, Washington is now acting to punish us. This is one more example of an out-of-control presidency that places a politicized Washington agenda over the well-being of Oklahoma students.”

Fallin signed a repeal bill of the Common Core standards in early June that also allowed her state to return to its previous PASS standards. Fallin also serves as chairwoman of the National Governors Association (NGA), one of the developers and owners of the copyright of the Common Core standards.

The loss of the waiver means that 100 percent of Oklahoma students must be performing math and reading at grade level at most schools by this school year. The USED expects the state to use student test results from last school year to determine which schools are meeting the requirement. Those schools that fall short will have to take steps toward improvement, which could include a total reconfiguration of the staff or a private or state takeover of the school.

Oklahoma will also have to set aside about $29 million in federal Title I dollars to pay for tutoring, school choice, and professional development.

According to Politico, the USED wanted the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education to determine whether the PASS standards were rigorous enough to allow the NCLB waiver, but the agency failed to do so prior to the state’s filing of its application for a waiver extension.

“Having college-and-career-ready standards matters because it provides critical thinking and problem solving skills – skills that students need to succeed in college and beyond,” said USED press secretary Dorie Nolt. “Oklahoma was unable to demonstrate that its students are learning high standards this year, which the state committed to do under its ESEA flexibility request.”

“State leaders still have the opportunity to demonstrate that their standards are rigorous or design new standards to ensure their students are ready for college, career and life – just like Indiana and several other states have done,” Nolt added.

Though the USED continues to employ language that suggests the Common Core standards are “rigorous” and worthy of setting the bar for individual states, no independent research has been conducted to validate that claim. The 45 state boards of education that signed onto the Common Core standards did so without ever having seen the standards because they were yet to be published.

As Jason Richwine at National Review Online wrote Monday, a recent compendium of 60 research papers related to Common Core design and implementation – collected by the Center for Education Policy at George Washington University – found that only 2 of the 60 papers are in fact even devoted to measuring Common Core’s effects on student test scores. Both papers, Richwine states, “employ the dubious correlation-across-states methodology, and both give mixed results at best.”

Richwine concludes:

Much like the push for government preschool, the Common Core movement is suffused with much hope but little evidence. That’s clear from how the standards were developed in the first place. As an important article from last November’s American Journal of Education points out, most of the research evidence behind Common Core focuses on identifying problems – America’s poor international ranking, achievement gaps, high school graduates without basic skills, etc. But when it came to writing standards to address those problems, the Common Core developers had little to go on except the standards of high-performing nations and the “professional judgment” of various stakeholders.

The concept of waivers given to states by the federal government for fulfilling certain education requirements and the punishment of states by the federal government for not fulfilling those requirements continues to emphasize the fed’s movement toward domination of education in the United States.

This week Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) of Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration, alleging that it illegally manipulated states with federal grant money and regulations that forced them to adopt the Common Core standards.

The news of Jindal’s lawsuit came following an announcement by PARCC, one of the federally funded multi-state Common Core test consortia, that, in fact, the controversial standards and their associated tests are intended to drive curriculum, an area that is legally off-limits by the federal government.

Breitbart News also reported Tuesday that Terry Holliday, Kentucky school commissioner and president of the board of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the other nonprofit that developed and owns the copyright to the Common Core standards, called out the USED on several occasions this month as well for violating state and federal laws regarding the standards and assessment processes of states.

Kentucky – the first state to sign onto the Common Core standards – was rejected by the USED in its request for a waiver from implementation of the Next-Generation Science Standards.

“I believe the current waiver process represents a major federal intrusion into the rights of each state to develop, implement, and manage the public education of the state,” Holliday wrote in a blog post.

Common Core champion and Fordham Institute president Michael Petrilli called the USED’s move on Oklahoma a “terrible decision.”

“While Bobby Jindal doesn’t have a case against Arne Duncan, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin sure as heck does,” he said. “I hope she sues. Nothing in ESEA gives the secretary of education the authority to push states around when it comes to their standards.”

Petrilli, however, does not seem to mind private corporations “pushing states” into the Common Core standards.

As Breitbart News reported August 18, a new non-profit organization, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and with connections to the Fordham Institute, is being launched with the task of reviewing textbooks and other instructional materials to ensure they are aligned with the Common Core standards.

EdReports says it will review instructional materials that say they are aligned to the Common Core standards so that teachers, principals, school districts, and state officials who are in charge of purchasing curricula know what to buy.

The Oklahoma congressional delegation has responded to the Obama administration’s punitive action against the state in a press release.

"The Obama Administration doesn't like when Oklahomans buck big government regulations, and today the Administration responded by penalizing our children with failing to grant the one-year extension of the ESEA flexibility," said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R).

"Oklahomans want education reform that sets standards created and certified by Oklahoma's institutions, community leaders, and parents,” Inhofe added. “Instead of supporting these values, the Obama Administration has chosen to make it more expensive and difficult to achieve the state's education goals that, once met, will exceed the requirements set by the U.S. Department of Education.”

“As seen with ObamaCare taxes or the Endangered Species Act rulings, today's decision continues the trend of this Administration punishing Oklahoma for making decisions that represent the goals and interests of its constituents," the senator said.

“Our state stood firm against further federal intrusion into the education of our children by rejecting the Common Core curriculum and determining that local educational leaders could best develop the appropriate curriculum for Oklahoma students,” said Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R). “Instead of applauding this constitutional decision and leadership, the Obama Administration decided today to reject the requested one year extension of flexibility previously granted to Oklahoma under ESEA.”

“This politically motivated decision is the perfect example of how the unconstitutional federalization of education has effectively taken away the power reserved for the states and the people by our founders,” Bridenstine continued. “It's time to abolish the federal Department of Education and return power to the states consistent with the 10th Amendment.”

Oklahoma state House leaders also commented on the Obama administration’s punitive action toward the state.

“I challenge the U.S. Dept. of Education to ‘demonstrate’ that Common Core is college and career ready in Oklahoma before they begin dictating how we run our state’s education system,” said Rep. Jason Nelson (R) in a statement emailed to Breitbart News. “They can’t do it. Each state’s college remediation requirements are different and they have absolutely no idea if Common Core meets their own requirements."

“In the Obama administration’s determination to compel Oklahoma to stay with Common Core, they plan to impose onerous federal regulations on our education system that were unnecessary this morning but are now, amazingly, necessary this afternoon,” Nelson added. “It’s obvious that states like Oklahoma must not flinch in taking back control of our standards if we truly want standards that can be ‘demonstrated’ to be college and career ready. Unfortunately, this letter is the latest example of the slow death of federalism which is being replaced with flawed logic.”

Washington was the first state to lose its NCLB waiver when the state legislature failed to remedy the fact that its teacher performance evaluations were not tied to statewide student assessment results.

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White House Tries to Hide Amnesty Behind Gov’t Shutdown

White House spokesman Josh Earnest tried Thursday to portray the rising GOP opposition to President Barack Obama’s proposed amnesty for millions of illegals as a partisan rerun of the 2013 government-shutdown budget fight.

“We would hope that the Republicans wouldn’t do the same thing again, over a common-sense, bipartisan effort [by Obama] to try to mitigate at least some of the worst problems that are caused by our broken immigration system,” Earnest said.

But GOP legislators, candidates and staffers are already working to highlight the public’s worry about the economic impact of Obama’s much-touted plan to provide work permits to millions of illegals during the next several weeks.

“Subverting the rule of law and the legislative process to declare millions of people [amnestied] would be an extremely unpopular action, and would be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb in some of the [2014 Senate] races,” said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is intended to help elect more GOP Senators.

“It defies all political logic that the president seems to think [executive amnesty] would be something that the American people would accept,” Dayspring said.

“There is no data that suggests that.”

Earnest tried his PR ju-jitsu during the regular daily press briefing.

“It certainly was a shame when Republicans engaged in a strategy to shut down the government [in 2013] over the Affordable Care Act and there were bad consequences from that government shutdown,” Earnest told reporters, after he was asked to comment about GOP legislators’ prediction that Congress would use its power of the purse to block presidential amnesties.

GOP opposition won’t block the president’s action, he said, because “the president is determined to take the kinds of common sense actions that are required to address the worst problems of our broken immigration system.”

Democrats say they won a big political victory in late 2013 when Obama allowed much of the federal government to shutdown at the end of the fiscal year, rather than accept GOP’s budget reforms of the unpopular Obamacare program.

Some Republican candidates and officials are already moving to describe the amnesty as an economic decision that would hurt Americans’ wages and job prospects.

Sen. Jeff Sessions and Arkansas Senate candidate Rep. Tom Cotton, are highlighting the economic impact.

That economic perspective was also pushed by Dayspring.

“Executive amnesty would not only subvert the law, but depress wages, and hurt the poorest Americans most of all — including legal immigrants looking to rise into the middle class,” said Dayspring, whose comments were first published by Breitbart.

“Immigration is viewed by many as part of the overall economic equation,” he said.

If Obama pushes ahead with the amnesty, Democratic candidates “will be complicit in slashing wages and making it even more difficult for unemployed Americans trying to get a job to find one,” he said.

So far, the NRSC had stayed on the sidelines in the immigration debate, partly because the GOP’s business donors want more cheap immigrant workers. Dayspring’s comments marks a shift toward a more populist posture, only nine weeks before the November midterm election.

The NRSC has sent polling data showing the public’s view of immigration as an economic factor to GOP campaign staffs, said an official familiar with actions taken by the NRSC.

“But it is up to each and every campaign to asses how this plays in their state,” the source added.

Earnest pushed the government shutdown angle after a reporter asked him about comments from some GOP legislators who said they would use their budget authority to block Obama’s unilateral amnesty.

“If the president wields his pen and commits that unconstitutional act to legalize millions, I think that becomes something that is nearly political nuclear,” Iowa Rep. Steve King told The Des Moines Register.

“I think the public would be mobilized and galvanized and that changes the dynamic of any continuing resolution [for the 2015 budget] and how we might deal with that,” he said.

That perspective was echoed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who told Breitbart that the 2015 budget debate will allow Republicans to address the planned unilateral amnesty.

“I assume there will be some sort of a vote on this… I’m interested to see what kinds of ideas my colleagues have about using funding mechanisms to address this issue,” Rubio said.

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IRS ethics lawyer facing possible disbarment, accused of lying

Maybe the nuclear industry doesn't need a Yucca Mountain after all.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday that nuclear waste could safely be stored on site indefinitely. The new rule also lifted a two-year moratorium on new licensing.

The move was a response to a June 2012 U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decision that said the agency must revise the environmental and economic consequences of long-term waste storage because it "has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository."

That repository, under federal law, is supposed to be the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. The Obama administration pulled the plug on reviewing that site in 2010.

A federal court said the NRC must make a decision whether to license it, but the agency says it doesn't have enough funding to finish the review. The Democratic-held Senate, led by Yucca opponent Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, isn't likely to give the NRC enough money to do so.

But Tuesday's ruling could pave the way for new licensing, which has been on hold since August 2012.

"The completion of this rulemaking is an important step that will facilitate final decisions on industry licensing actions pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," said Ellen Ginsberg, vice president, secretary and general counsel for the Nuclear Energy Institute. Seven applications are under review.

Some environmental groups, however, were discouraged by the decision.

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to analyze the long-term environmental consequences of indefinite storage of highly toxic and radioactive nuclear waste, the risks of which are apparent to any observer of history over the past 50 years. The commission failed to follow the express directions of the court," said Geoffrey Fettus, lead counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council in the federal court case.

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Senate torture report didn’t interview responsible CIA officers

Eleven years after the CIA last waterboarded a terror suspect, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is moving to uncloak its secret report on America’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques in the early years of the war on terrorism, and the U.S. intelligence community is preparing to fight back.

Current and former intelligence officials told The Washington Times they are furious that the Senate panel, headed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, did not interview the senior managers of the interrogation program launched after the Sept. 11 attacks or the CIA directors who oversaw it.

“The truth is they had their foregone conclusions with what they wanted to say in this report, and they did not want the facts to get into the way,” said Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., one of the CIA’s most respected retired officers and who, as head of the Agency’s clandestine service, oversaw the enhanced interrogation program that used sleep deprivation, waterboarding, uncomfortable positioning and other tactics to extract information from high-value al Qaeda operatives.

“The process has been political. It has been ideological. And it is just wrong,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who retired in fall 2007 and later wrote a best-selling book entitled “Hard Measures” that argued that the tactics, which critics have denounced as torture, saved American lives.

U.S. intelligence officials and Senate aides confirm that the Senate Intelligence Committee did not interview former CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Mike Hayden, nor did the committee staff interview the program’s direct day-to-day managers, like Mr. Rodriguez.

Some of those officials told The Times they were told by Senate aides they weren’t interviewed because they once had been under possible criminal investigation.

But that investigation by a special Justice Department prosecutor was closed out more than two years ago, with no charges filed against any supervisor of the program.

“It is astonishing nobody ever reached out to us to interview us,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “Especially those people who were directors and program managers during that period of time.”

The Intelligence Committee confirmed Monday evening it did not interview the key managers of the program, instead relying on more than 6.3 million pages of contemporaneous documents, emails and cables as well as the CIA’s own prior interviews with more than 100 of its own employees.

“The committee could not conduct interviews because of an ongoing DOJ criminal investigation into CIA activities. Furthermore, interviews were not necessary because of the comprehensive documents available for review, including interview reports of senior CIA officers who carried out the program,” committee spokesman Tom Mentzer said in a statement to The Times.

“In preparing its response to the study, the CIA reached out to its own officials for their perspectives of the program, which were included in the CIA’s response and in meetings with committee staff. These views were considered by the committee in updating the report,” he said.

Mr. Hayden, who ran the CIA from 2006 to 2009, wrote in his regular column Tuesday in The Times that he is disappointed that journalists, op-ed writers and human rights groups got leaks from the report and appeared to have “more access than all but a very few former CIA senior officers whose actions are cataloged there but who have been denied access.”

Mr. Hayden said he, Mr. Tenet, and Mr. Goss, though never interviewed, were offered belated access to the report in late July, but only if they signed a nondisclosure agreement with the Senate committee.

“None of us had any influence on the Agency response other than an understandable plea to make it as robust and honest as possible,” he wrote in his column Tuesday.

On the flip side, Ms. Feinstein is upset that the Obama administration blacked out about 15 percent of the passages in the report for security reasons, redactions that she declared earlier this month undercut the report’s findings.

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Delta's good fight on Export-Import Bank marred by support for crony capitalism

It's rare to find big business lobbying for free enterprise against corporate welfare. So it's pretty depressing to find it lobbying for corporate welfare in other instances.

Delta Air Lines has made life difficult for the Export-Import Bank and its clients. Partly as a result, the political situation in Congress this year is the first real threat to renewal of Ex-Im's charter.

Why does Delta care? Delta flies internationally and so it competes against foreign airlines. Ex-Im’s primary business is subsidizing foreign airlines with U.S.-taxpayer-backed loan guarantees. In Fiscal Year 2013, more than 80 percent of Ex-Im's guarantee dollars subsidized Boeing sales.

Some of Boeing's customers compete directly with U.S. carriers like Delta. For instance, Air India received $3.3 million in Ex-Im loan guarantees between 2006 and 2009.

Delta argues that these subsidies “allowed Air India to flood the US-India market with extra capacity and crowd out competitors like Delta,” as Delta and industry allies wrote in a complaint in a 2012 court case against Ex-Im. “Delta stopped flying from New York to Mumbai in October of 2008 due to the Bank's loan guarantees to Air India,” they said.

Delta’s pain highlights the folly of export subsidies, which hurt U.S. consumers and U.S. companies that compete with the foreign buyers getting Ex-Im financing.

For instance, Ex-Im has subsidized Chinese steel mills and semiconductor fabrication plants, as well as a Mexican refrigerator factory. This helps the American companies who sell factory equipment to these overseas customers, but it hurts the U.S. manufacturers that compete with the foreign manufacturers.

Ex-Im’s victims often go unseen: the small businessman who got beat out for a bank loan by a subsidized exporter; the Iowa farmer who pays more for his farm equipment because Ex-Im drives up demand; the domestic manufacturer who sees the prices of his inputs (land, steel, tools, transportation) increase because his larger competitors get export subsidies.

This is why corporate welfare usually wins in Washington. The costs are diffuse and the victims are hidden, while the benefits are concentrated among a few highly visible (and vocal) beneficiaries.

Delta changed the landscape of the Ex-Im debate. For the first time, one of the victims is speaking out — highlighting how Ex-Im’s benefits to Boeing end up punishing U.S. carriers.

Let Boeing and its foreign customers line up financing in the free market, Delta’s executives and lobbyists argue.

Hurrah! Big business is favoring free enterprise over crony capitalism!

Except for the cases where free enterprise harms Delta, of course.

Delta has lobbied against allowing the export of crude oil. Delta operates an oil refinery in Philadelphia (a sensible move for a company very sensitive to the price of jet fuel). Current U.S. policy generally prohibits the export of crude oil, but allows the export of refined fuel.

This is a great deal for oil refiners in the U.S., who pay the artificially depressed U.S. price for crude, but can sell their refined fuel at the world price. Delta — a refiner now—is vocal in lobbying to keep the current policy.

Delta Senior Vice President Graeme Burnett testified to a Senate committee in January that Congress needs to preserve the export ban “to help this country achieve energy independence.”

In another fight, Delta sides with the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) in its effort to restrict Norwegian Air's routes to and from the U.S. Delta invokes fairness in this debate, too, arguing that Norwegian Air's expansion would violate the international “Open Skies Agreement,” codified by a series of treaties.

But ultimately, Delta is lobbying for government intervention that restricts consumer choice.

These Big Government policies help Delta and their shareholders in the short run, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay for Delta to support them — or even good for Delta in the long run.

When Delta praises free enterprise in the Ex-Im fight, and then discards it when it comes to foreign airlines and oil exports, all opponents of Ex-Im suffer.

“These guys are not free-marketeers,” one Republican operative who favors Ex-Im growled at me about Delta. “These guys are just trying to grab onto what they want.”

In this context, all of Delta’s principled arguments are indistinguishable from special pleading.

Even in opposing corporate welfare, Delta opts for self-interest rather than principle. On Ex-Im, the company has never called for abolition, or limiting Ex-Im to small exporters. Instead, Delta simply wants Ex-Im to stop subsidizing wide-bodied jets—the kind that can fly across the ocean and compete with Delta.

“Delta focuses on specific policy issues that impact our customers, our employees and the communities we serve,” is how the airline explains it.

This seems on K Street like a reasonable, narrow request that occupies some sort of middle ground — we’re not questioning Congress’s wisdom in subsidizing big exporters, we just want you to fix this one problem the program causes us.

From another angle, though, it shows that there’s no principle to the argument. Why is Delta the only victim of Ex-Im that deserves a reprieve?

Lobbying on principle may seem like a foreign concept to K Street and big business. But for the victims of corporate welfare, it sure couldn’t work worse than the current approach.

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DHS saw no option but to free 169 illegals convicted of murder

The Obama administration says it had no choice but to release almost all of the 169 immigrants with homicide convictions that were let back onto the streets last year, claiming court decisions gave officials no choice in the matter — but it’s promising a new system to better screen who gets let out.

Of the 169 immigrants with homicide-related convictions released in fiscal year 2013, all but 15 were required to be let go because of specific court orders or because the immigrants had been held for too long under the rules established by a sweeping 2001 Supreme Court case, the Homeland Security Department said in an Aug. 15 letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Thomas S. Winkowski said they’re changing the rules to make sure a senior supervisor screens the release of those kinds of immigrants in the future.

“Ensuring that our enforcement policies and procedures are best suited to protect[ing] national security and public safety is paramount,” Mr. Winkowski told Mr. Grassley. “To make certain that we are doing everything we can in this regard, I am instituting new procedures requiring that an appropriate senior-level supervisor must approve before ICE releases potentially dangerous individuals.”

The 116 murderers were a fraction of the 36,007 criminals ICE released in 2013. The criminals had convictions ranging from homicide and manslaughter to drunken driving and sex crimes.

ICE says many of those it released were subject to some form of monitoring while out on the streets, such as an ankle bracelet. Others were required to call in to verify their whereabouts.

Mr. Grassley, though, said the administration needs to do more to warn localities that potentially dangerous criminals have been sent to live near them.

“The public needs to know when a person in the country illegally, and who has been convicted of a homicide, is released into their communities,” said the Iowa lawmaker and ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

According to data from ICE, the murderers are “associated” with 134 communities in the U.S. It was unclear whether that meant that’s where they were released or whether that’s where they currently reside.

California led the list with murderers associated with 48 different ZIP codes, including one in tony Beverly Hills and another in Murietta, a community that saw rallies objecting to plans to use the area to house some of the illegal immigrant children surging across the border in recent months.

New York City alone had 11 locations associated with the released murderers, spanning four of the five boroughs.

Even states not traditionally thought of as destinations for immigrants, such as Kentucky, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, each had one location associated with a released murderer, while Alaska, Iowa and Louisiana each had two localities.

The Obama administration says its hands are tied by the 2001 court decision, the Zadvydas case, which ruled that most immigration detention is not supposed to be punitive — meaning immigrants cannot be held indefinitely.

That means that when governments refuse to take back their citizens, the U.S. government is stuck in a bind and usually has to release them onto its streets. Mr. Winkowski said that decision and other court orders were responsible for 154 of the 169 releases.

Of the 169, Mr. Winkowski said one was granted voluntary departure and has left the country. He didn’t say what has happened to the others, and ICE officials declined to comment beyond what was in the letter.

Mr. Grassley has introduced legislation to clarify the law and let authorities continue to detain dangerous criminal immigrants.

And immigration experts said the Obama administration already has some tools it could use to force other countries to take their citizens back, including suspending diplomatic relations or curbing visas to come to the U.S. for government officials or citizens of recalcitrant countries.

“This administration hasn’t pursued that possibility, and State Department people don’t want to raise the issue because State Department feels immigration is small potatoes; they’ve got bigger fish to fry,” said Jan Ting, a law professor at Temple University and former high-ranking official at the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Mr. Ting also said the Zadvydas ruling allowed exceptions for dangerous immigrants and said the government should vigorously use those exceptions to keep hardened criminals off the streets.

ICE had initially said it was required to release 75 percent of murderers, then reduced that number to 72 percent. But the latest letter boosts that calculation to 91 percent.

Mr. Grassley had asked for more details on the murderers, including the judge and court that had ordered the release. Mr. Winkowski said his agency didn’t keep those statistics and said that would have to come from the Justice Department.

Mr. Grassley had also asked what conditions were placed on each convict who was released, but Mr. Winkowski didn’t address that in his letter.

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