White House Cites Domestic Violence in Push for Immigration Reform

    The White House is ramping up a new push for the president's version of comprehensive immigration reform.  In an opening salvo, White House advisor on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal wrote a blog entry entitled, "Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Survivors Can’t Afford to Wait", saying that "it’s up to Republicans in the House to decide whether to move forward with immigration reform."  Ms. Rosenthal framed the argument in the context of the just-ended Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October:

Domestic Violence Awareness Month has ended, but our work to end abuse continues. Today, in this country, women and children continue to suffer from unspeakable violence because they are afraid to seek help without legal status. When immigrant survivors of abuse without legal status are, according to one study, half as likely to call the police to seek the help they need, we must act.

Rosenthal goes on to say the federal law (Violence Against Women Act) already contains provisions to help immigrant victims of abuse, more needs to be done.

Since it was first signed into law in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act or VAWA has recognized the need for special protections for immigrant survivors of abuse, including self-petitions and categories of visas for victims of violent crimes and human trafficking. But while VAWA includes key provisions to help immigrant survivors, it is not enough. 

Rosenthal cites fear of deportation, potential homelessness, and economic dependence as reasons many immigrant women - documented or undocumented - do not seek help.  She noted that the Senate had passed legislation already, and asserted that "[u]nlike many other issues in Washington, immigration reform is one that both parties can agree on."


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Despite Urging 'Redskins' to Change Name, Pres. Obama Celebrates 'Blackhawks' [Updated]

    Stepping into the controversy over the team name for the Washington Redskins in early October, President Obama said in an interview with the AP:

"If I were the owner of the team and I knew that the name of my team, even if they've had a storied history, that was offending a sizable group of people, I'd think about changing it,” Obama said.

    But on Monday, the president hosted the NHL Stanley Cup champions, his own hometown Chicago Blackhawks, at the White House, and there was no indication the president felt any reticence about using that team's Native American-derived handle.  The White House tweeted the president's words:

"Championships belong in Chicago. So to the @NHLBlackhawks, thank you for bringing it back home!" —President Obama
— White House Live (@WHLive) November 4, 2013

According to the pool report, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D), Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) attended the White House event.

There was no word on whether or not team mascot Tommy Hawk was able to attend the ceremony.


UPDATE: After this post went up at The Weekly Standard, I received a fair amount of feedback, mostly negative, asserting that "Blackhawks" was not comparable to "Redskins" for a variety of reasons:

• Blackhawk's are named after the 333rd Machine Gun Battalion of the 86th Infantry Division from World War I.
• "Redskins" is a deragatory term used to describe the color of a Native American person's skin color. The term "Blackhawk" is the actual name of a Native American tribe and is used as a term of honor and respect."Redskins" is a deragatory term used to describe the color of a Native American person's skin color. The term "Blackhawk" is the actual name of a Native American tribe and is used as a term of honor and respect.
• Chief Black Hawk was an actual person who played an important part in Illinois history. Its not a general term that denigrates a segment of our great country.

While I acknowledge that the responders have a point about the team names themselves, it is difficult to believe that someone who is offended by "Redskins" would not be equally offended by a mascot named "Tommy Hawk" as illustrated above.  I am not as concerned with keeping/changing team names as I am about selective outrage.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

FCC: Lifeline Program Fraud and Abuse Surpasses Two Million Subscribers

    In a continuing crackdown on the federal government's Lifeline program, commonly known as "Obama phones", the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has revealed that fraud and abuse in the program exceeded two million subscribers.  New rules were established after it became clear that subscribers and providers were taking advantage of the system:

The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has worked aggressively to enforce these new rules since their adoption, taking actions worth over $15 million, in addition to today’s $32.6 million in proposed forfeitures. Numerous additional investigations are ongoing. Moreover, over 2 million duplicate subscriptions have been eliminated, and the FCC’s reforms are on track to save the Fund more $2 billion over three years.

    The two million is up from a figure of 1.1 million in an FCC press release just a month ago.
    The Lifeline program was started in 1985 to allow low income household to have basic and emergency phone service, but has grown dramatically since its inception.  The Wall Street Journal reported in February that payments ballooned from $819 million in 2008 to more than $2.2 billion in 2012.  The Journal investigation also found that the kind of fraud uncovered by the FCC in its current action was rampant:

A review of five top recipients of Lifeline support conducted by the FCC for the Journal showed that 41% [almost 2.5 million] of their more than six million subscribers either couldn't demonstrate their eligibility or didn't respond to requests for certification.

    The purpose of the November 1 press release was to announce that the FCC has proposed fines of $32.6 million against three providers for rules violations.  The FCC is accusing Conexions Wireless, i-wireless, and True Wireless of knowingly allowing multiple Lifeline subscriptions from the same household when the limit is one per household.  Service providers may request reimbursement from the government under the program on the condition that they have verified eligibility of their subscribers under Lifeline rules.  One of the companies, Conexions Wireless, also faces a $300,000 fine for "apparent willful and repeated failure to provide timely and complete responses to the FCC’s requests for information."
     The total proposed forfeitures against providers to date amount to a relatively small $47.6 million versus the apparent billions in fraud.  An email to the FCC requesting clarification regarding further actions possibly pending against providers has not yet been returned.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Obama Decries 'Winner-Take-All' Economy to Rich Folks 'Who Are Doing Very Well'

    President Obama attended a Democratic fund raising event in Weston, Massachusetts Wednesday night at the home of Alan and Susan Solomont.  Among the 60 attendees were a number of high-profile Democrats, according to the Boston Globe:

Among those expected to attend are House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Governor Deval Patrick; Ken Burns, the director of acclaimed documentaries; Representative Steve Israel, who is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; Swanee Hunt, former US ambassador to Austria; and retired US Navy admiral James Stavridis. 

Also expected are several members of congress, including John Tierney, of Salem; Niki Tsongas, of Lowell; and David Cicilline, of Rhode Island. Former congressman Barney Frank is also planning to attend, according to a DCCC aide.

    In his speech, the president blasted Republicans for further lowering Washington's image among voters by continuing obstructionism despite the Newtown shootings and Boston Marathon bombing that should have produced a "new spirit in Congress of people pulling together."  He also made some interesting remarks about the economy the United States finds itself a part of in the world today [emphasis added]:

We know that we are entering into an extraordinarily promising but also challenging time in this country.  International competition is fierce.  We have an economy that's never been more productive or more innovative.  But what we've also seen is an economy that produces a winner-take-all situation and folks like those in this room who are doing very well, there are a whole bunch of folks out there who are struggling.  You’ve got a middle class that is anxious about whether their children will be able to replicate their success.  There are questions as to whether, if you work hard in this country, you can still make it. 

     The Globe also noted that the fund raiser "ticket prices ranged from $16,200 per person to $64,800 per couple. The DCCC would not say how much Obama expected to raise in total."


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Energy Dept. Seeks Company to Turn Sunshine Into Gasoline

    Although CO2 has a bad reputation as a "greenhouse gas" that contributes to climate change, if the Energy Department (DOE) finds partners to capitalize on the research of one of its laboratories, someday cars might run on sunshine.  Technically, cars would run on the product of sunlight, CO2 and water using a "two-step solar thermochemical cycle" developed by the Albuquerque, New Mexico government lab.  The DOE posted the special notice seeking interested companies on the Federal Business Opportunities website on Tuesday:

Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) is conducting ongoing research and development into solar fuels, the conversion of sunlight, CO2, and H2O into high energy density, gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel pre-cursors...

Sandia is seeking a company or companies interested in this unique opportunity which will lead to the demonstration and deployment of this technology. 

    Researchers have been working on this idea for some time according to a 2007 press release from the Sandia lab.  At that time, one of the researchers speculated that although a prototype of a device to carry out the chemical process was already under development, it was "a good 15 to 20 years away from being on the market."  The special notice released this week did not contain a timetable, but did note that companies interested in the project "must have a significant interest in developing this technology to the demonstration and deployment stage."


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

IRS Audit Finds 1 in 4 Error Rate in Scanned Taxpayer Correspondence

    An audit by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released on October 24 found that while the IRS has improved the timeliness of scanning taxpayer correspondence into its Correspondence Imaging System (CIS) since an audit six years ago, the accuracy rate has apparently declined during that same time period.  The declining accuracy rate occurred even as the volume of paper correspondence fell nearly 20% from 10 million documents annually to about 8.1 million.  While the 2007 audit found database input errors in 18 percent of cases sampled, the 2013 rate was closer to 1 in 4 (24 percent.)
    From the report:

In its new audit, TIGTA found that the IRS has taken corrective actions to address the timeliness of scanning correspondence concerns that were raised in the prior audit report. However, the TIGTA found there is still inaccurate and incomplete data in the CIS. TIGTA compared 118 paper documents received from taxpayers to the images scanned into the CIS and found that 28 (24 percent) had one or more scan errors and documents scanned into the CIS are often incomplete, illegible, or inaccurate.

     The relatively small sample did not allow the OIG to project the 24 percent rate onto the entire CIS inventory, but Inspector General J. Russell George, who rose to prominence this summer during Congressional hearings on IRS treatment of non-profits applying for tax exempt status, found the results disturbing nonetheless:

“The continued problems in this area are troubling,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. “Miscoded or illegible scanned documents can result in taxpayers being asked multiple times to provide the same information, delay the issuance of refunds, change the order in which cases are worked, or result in the incorrect calculation of interest owed to taxpayers.”

   The report also found that more than half of open cases in the CIS inventory involve correspondence from taxpayers regarding identity theft.  Since identity theft cases are not always properly linked to existing cases in the CIS, the result is "multiple cases and different IRS employees working with the same taxpayers and taking conflicting actions to resolve the taxpayer’s case."  The audit found that as many as 46,000 taxpayers could have multiple case files that are not linked in the IRS's system.
    The IRS agreed to take steps to correct the findings in the audit report.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Obamacare Website Source Code Revised to Remove "No Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy" After Sebelius Testimony

    When Kathleen Sebelius testified at a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, she acknowledged the presence of a worrisome statement included in the source code of Healthcare.gov and promised that work was already underway to remove it.  A search of one portion of the code later on Wednesday revealed that the revision was at least partially complete.  The "no reasonable expectation" statement is gone from a large section of code where it had previously appeared.  Repeated attempts on Wednesday to verify that the code had been revised on the specific page where users are asked to accept the privacy policy were unsuccessful due to a system outage at Healthcare.gov for much of the day. However, Thursday morning, a successful logon revealed the statement has been removed there as well:

    As THE WEEKLY STANDARD first reported two weeks ago:

Buried in the source code of Healthcare.gov is this sentence that could prove embarrassing: "You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system."  Though not visible to users and obviously not intended as part of the terms and conditions, the language is nevertheless a part of the underlying code for the "Terms & Conditions" page on the site.

    Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) confronted Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI Federal Inc., one of the main contractors responsible for coding the site, about the language last week and she declined to take responsibility for including it, but said that it was a matter for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to address.  Wednesday, Rep. Barton took up the question with Sebelius, the head of Health and Human Services (HHS) of which CMS is a part.  The Washington Free Beacon reported on Sebelius's response:

“It is my understanding that that is boilerplate language that should not have been in this particular contract because there are — the highest security standards in place and people have every right to expect privacy,” Sebelius said to Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas). 

Sebelius assured Barton that the language would be removed saying, “we have had those discussions with CGI [Federal] and it is underway. I do absolutely commit to protecting the privacy of the American public and we have asked them to remove that statement.”

    Sebelius's response is a tacit admission from the federal government that the inclusion of the statement posed a legitimate privacy concern, a position not shared by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) who uttered his widely reported "monkey court" remark in response to Rep. Barton's inquiry at last week's hearing.
    The removal of the inappropriate privacy-related code is not the only revision made recently at the Obamacare website.  Earlier this week, copyright language was restored to an open-source script that was used by programmers at Healthcare.gov without proper attribution.  The change followed a mid-October report by THE WEEKLY STANDARD on the license violation.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.