DC Bumps Its Minimum Wage To Highest In The Nation But Activists Still WANT MORE

NEVER ENOUGH

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser was proud to announce Wednesday the minimum-wage hike that took effect that day, though just across town activists were still fighting for more.

At $9.50, the District of Columbia minimum wage was already higher than any state in the nation before it rose to $10.50 Wednesday.

“Raising the minimum wage will give tens of thousands of Washingtonians a raise and boost the bottom lines of our local businesses,” Bowser said. “It’s good for workers, businesses and our economy,”

The minimum-wage hike came as part of a three-year initiative approved by the D.C. council in 2013 that will see it climb again in 2016 to $11.50– but some in the city still want more.

At a Board of Elections hearing later Wednesday afternoon, activists fighting for a $15 minimum wage attempted to get a ballot referendum in place to vote for another wage increase.

The “Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2016,”  a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation, would continue the city’s incremental minimum wage increases, starting at $12.50 in 2017. It would creep up again each year until reaching $15.00 per hour by 2020.

Upon reaching $15.00 in 2020, the minimum wage would then increase annually to match the rising cost of living in the city.

D.C. government employees, though, would be exempt from the minimum wage levels if the law goes into effect.

If the board decides that the proposed initiative deserves a spot on the ballot, the activists will need to collect more than 20,000 signatures on a petition before it makes its way to voters.

Via: Daily Caller

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Federal Judge Asks IRS for Update on Lois Lerner's Emails

A District of Columbia federal judge has ordered the IRS to give him a status update on the release of Lois Lerner's emails, as well as those by other IRS officials. 

U.S District Judge Emmet Sullivan said in a June 18 order that he wants a status of the recovery and release of the emails recovered by the IRS watchdog agency, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), sent to the court by June 29, Judicial Watch said in a statement. In addition, Sullivan set a hearing and a scheduling of a status conference for July 1.

"[F]ile a supplemental report, setting forth any new information regarding: (1) TIGTA’s recovery of emails from the backup tapes; (2) TIGTA’s production of emails to the IRS; (3) the IRS’s review of emails and production to the plaintiff; and (4) the status of the TIGTA investigation. This report shall be filed by no later than June 29, 2015," he wrote. 

The judge issued an order on June 4 telling the IRS to give answers about Lerner's emails, which were once declared lost, by June 12, which the federal agency complied with. The order came after Judicial Watch asked the court if all emails that TIGTA had recovered had been turned over. 

On June 12, the IRS said that it was in "the process of conducting further manual deduplication of the 6,400" emails. Although Judicial Watch has noted that the IRS watchdog already said previously that it had gone through the process of identifying and removing duplicate emails. 

The IRS has yet to turn over any of the emails by the former IRS official that were requested by Judicial Watch in its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that it filed in October 2013. 

Judicial Watch asked Sullivan in a court filing it sent on June 15 that the IRS be kept from "stonewalling" any further and turn over the documents it asked for in the FOIA request once and for all. 

Via: NewsMax

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Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit against Secretary of State John Kerry to Force Action on Clinton Emails

Seeks to compel compliance with Federal Records Act provision requiring agency heads to account for official records

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State John Kerry in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel Secretary Kerry’s compliance with the Federal Records Act and challenge “the failure of Defendant Kerry to take any action to recover emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton” and other U.S. Department of State employees unlawfully removed from the agency (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. John F. Kerry (No. 1:15-cv-00785)).

Kerry’s predecessor at the State Department, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conducted official government business using a secret, unsecured email server and email accounts. Her top aides and advisors also used non-“state.gov” email accounts to conduct official business.

In 2014, Clinton “unilaterally determined which of her emails were official government records and, in December 2014, returned at least a portion of these public records – as many as 55,000 pages of records – to the State Department.”

In the lawsuit, Judicial Watch argues the following:

The Clinton emails are agency records subject to the [Federal Records Act (FRA)] and the State Department’s failure to retain, manage, and search these agency records has compromised the Department’s retention of records that concern or relate to Secretary Clinton and other high level State Department officials who used non-“state.gov” email addresses.

As noted by Judicial Watch, the Federal Records Act stipulates:

Agencies may only dispose of records on terms approved by the Archivist of the United States, who is head of the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”). … This process is the exclusive procedure by which all federal records may be disposed of or destroyed. …

The FRA imposes a direct responsibility on an agency head to take steps to recover any records unlawfully removed.

On April 30, 2015, Judicial Watch sent a letter to Kerry “notifying him of the unlawful removal of the Clinton emails and requesting that he initiate enforcement action pursuant to the FRA,” including working through the Attorney General to recover the emails.

Patrick Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, responded on Secretary Kerry’s behalf on May 14.  The letter ignored Judicial Watch’s demands that the Secretary comply with the FRA.

Judicial Watch alleges Kerry’s actions represent “an abuse of discretion” that has led to the continued withholding of official government records from the American people.

“Secretary Kerry is in cover-up mode for Hillary Clinton. While John Kerry may have replaced Hillary Clinton at the State Department, he has proven that when it comes to complying with federal records and disclosure laws, he and Clinton are cut from the same corrupted cloth,” stated Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president. “Secretary Kerry is in a position to provide the transparency and accountability his predecessor so casually dismissed. However, those in the Obama administration will do whatever they can, including ignoring the law, to protect Clinton, her ‘legacy’ and her 2016 presidential prospects. What a sad state of affairs it is when we must petition the courts to remind our leaders what the law is and that they are obligated to follow it.”

Via: Judicial Watch

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Obamacare Exchanges on Life Support

By Michelle Malkin

At a recent White House science fair celebrating inventors, a Girl Scout who helped design a Lego-powered page-turning device asked President Obama what he had ever thought up or prototyped. Stumbling for an answer, he replied:

"I came up with things like, you know, health care."

Ah, yes. "Health care." Remember when the president's signature Obamacare health insurance exchanges were going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, the remote control, jogger strollers, Siri, the Keurig coffee maker, driverless cars and Legos all rolled into one?

The miraculous, efficient, cost-saving, innovative 21st-century government-run "marketplaces" were supposed to put the "affordable" in Obama's Affordable Care Act. Know-it-all bureaucrats were going to show private companies how to set up better websites (gigglesnort), implement better marketing and outreach (guffaw), provide superior customer service (belly laugh), and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse (LOLOLOL).

You will be shocked beyond belief, I'm sure, to learn that Obamacare exchanges across the country are instead bleeding money, seeking more taxpayer bailouts and turning everything they touch to chicken poop.

Wait, that's not fair to chicken poop, which can at least be composted.

"Almost half of Obamacare exchanges face financial struggles in the future," The Washington Post reported last week. The news comes despite $5 billion in federal taxpayer subsidies for IT vendors, call centers and all the infrastructure and manpower needed to prop up the showcase government health insurance entities. Initially, the feds ran 34 state exchanges; 16 states and the District of Columbia set up their own.

While private health insurance exchanges have operated smoothly and satisfied customers for decades, the Obamacare models are on life support. Oregon's exchange is six feet under — shuttered last year after government overseers squandered $300 million on their failed website and shady consultants who allegedly set up a phony website to trick the feds. The FBI and the U.S. HHS inspector general's office reportedly have been investigating the racket for more than a year now.

Via: CNS News
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Efforts to enroll young in ObamaCare heads to Air Jordan debuts, late-night haunts

District of Columbia officials are recruiting young residents this weekend to enroll in ObamaCare by showing up where they “party by night and shop by day.”

Officials on Saturday visited two Footlocker stores where Nike’s exclusive Air Jordan 12 “Taxi” sneakers were going on sale. And they are scheduled to visit two Denny’s restaurants from 2 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

“My motto is ‘Get them health care while you get them Jordans,” DC Health Links representative Vanessa Brooks told Fox News outside a Footlocker in the city’s downtown.

“Get some health care to go along with them taxis, OK?” Brooks told those at the store. “You got to have it. And you need it.”

The Obama administration and other supporters of the Affordable Care Act have worked hard since enrollment started in October to connect with young people, knowing their participation will help cover the cost of the elderly and others who need more medical care.

Via: Fox News Politics

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Most state insurance exchanges ward off woes of HealthCare.gov BY TONY PUGH, BARBARA ANDERSON AND BRAD SHANNON

WASHINGTON — With millions of dollars in federal funding, a more harmonious political environment and the benefit of early planning, most of the state-run health insurance marketplaces are outperforming the clunky, glitch-prone federal website that serves the other 36 states.

Federal figures show that nearly 3 of 4 Americans who enrolled in insurance coverage through online marketplaces in October did so through the exchanges run by 14 states and the District of Columbia. That’s nearly 80,000 people, compared with roughly 27,000 on the federal website HealthCare.gov, which had a goal of 500,000 enrollees for October.

Leading the enrollment success stories are states such as California, Washington, Kentucky, New York and Connecticut.

“There’s some extraordinary efforts being made in states across the country, and it augers well in terms of the overall implementation of the Affordable Care Act,” said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a national patient advocacy organization. “Once the federal marketplace website is fixed, I think we can expect similar” enrollment successes.

Some states owe their success to early starts of construction on their enrollment websites. But comparing the operation of the federal health insurance exchange with those of the state-run exchanges is not an apples-to-apples equation.

Via: McClatchyDC

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/22/209445/most-state-insurance-exchanges.html#storylink=cpy

U. S. Education Secretary: ‘White Suburban Moms’ Upset Common Core Shows Their Kids Aren’t ‘Brilliant’

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! IS HE SERIOUS WITH THIS CRAP?

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”

 

Yes, he really said that. But he has said similar things before. What, exactly, is he talking about?

In his cheerleading for the controversial Common Core State Standards — which were approved by 45 states and the District of Columbia and are now being implemented across the country (though some states are reconsidering) — Duncan has repeatedly noted that the standards and the standardized testing that goes along with them are more difficult than students in most states have confronted.

The Common Core was designed to elevate teaching and learning. Supporters say it does that; critics say it doesn’t and that some of the standards, especially for young children, are not developmentally appropriate. Whichever side you fall on regarding the Core’s academic value, there is no question that their implementation in many areas has been miserable — so miserable that American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a Core supporter, recently compared it to another particularly troubled rollout:

You think the Obamacare implementation is bad? The implementation of the Common Core is far worse.

Via: Washington Post

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The ACA’s Mission Creep - Look to Vermont and Washington, D.C., for early warning signs.

The new health-insurance exchanges were launched on October 1 amid empty promises and a host of delays and snafus. But what if the political architects of Obamacare’s insurance expansion consider this disastrously bad start only the beginning of a grander opportunity?

Let’s assume that the problems of hastily assembled and inadequately tested software will be solved. Then assume further that the recently relabeled “marketplaces” without market prices will eventually work to redistribute tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to several million currently uninsured Americans searching for coverage. What, then, are the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) intended to become after their rocky first year or two?

AN EARLY PREVIEW
The state-administered exchanges in Vermont and the District of Columbia provide an early preview. Each intends to become, within its jurisdiction, the “sole” destination for health-insurance purchases in the individual- and small-group-insurance markets.  

In April 2013, the D.C. city council voted to require any insurance carrier offering individual health-benefits plans on or after January 1, 2014, to offer them solely through the District’s American Health Benefits Exchange. It approved a similar requirement for any plans offered to small groups (50 or fewer employees) not already offering health insurance to their employees as of December 31, 2013. It delayed this requirement for one year for small-group health plans with “ACA-qualified” coverage that is already offered or renewed as of December 31, 2013. The latter insurance could be issued or renewed during calendar year 2014 through non-exchange distribution channels. But beginning January 1, 2015, all small-group health plans must be offered and issued or renewed solely through the District’s exchange. And in 2016, the D.C. government will expand the definition of small-group insurance to businesses with up to 100 employees.

Via: NRO

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States Struggle to Draw Interest in Obamacare Health Plans

Obamacare’s rollout has become a punch line for late-night comedians, Saturday Night Live, and the Country Music Awards, which all noted that only six people enrolled in the federal health exchange’s website on its first day.

But the federal exchange isn’t the only part of the health law that’s suffering. Several states and the District of Columbia don’t even break double digits within the first month. Some examples:

• Delaware is off to a slow start with only four state residents enrolling in Obamacare health plans. Four community groups in the state received $4 million in federal tax money to promote the exchange.
• North Carolina has managed to get one enrollee, but officials admit that the person has not paid—suggesting a “payment re-direct option” on the government servers isn’t working. The state is also confronting a “scammer,” who was trying to obtain personal information using an insurer’s name.
• Oregon has yet to enroll anyone on its exchange website, which still doesn’t work. The state hired 400 temporary workers to process paper applications.
• The District of Columbia enrolled only five people in its insurance exchange

Even Maryland’s health exchange, considered a model for state exchanges, has had a slow and troubled start. One example is Maryland resident Brian Shaffer, one of millions of Americans who lost his current coverage because it didn’t comply with Obamacare. He was denied several times from buying new insurance on the state exchange because the state wouldn’t verify his citizenship.

According to WJLA ABC7, Shaffer—who has researched his U.S. family history back to the Mayflower—faxed his driver’s license and birth certificate twice but the state said it needed more proof.

“I believe it’s just sheer stupidity,” he told WJLA.

Via: The Foundry

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Fired DOJ Atty. Sues: U.S. Ignored 9/11 Fundraising Evidence

A respected veteran federal prosecutor got fired for reporting government misconduct involving a terrorism fundraising operation run by 9/11 hijacker Mohamaed Atta, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court against the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Attorney General Eric Holder.

The complaint, filed this month in United States District Court for the District of Columbia, is downright chilling. It outlines an alarming retaliation plot at the upper levels of the DOJ to oust an esteemed prosecutor who had received numerous awards for outstanding performance. Scarier even is that the feds failed to act on evidence that linked domestic fundraising to the 9/11 terrorists because it was uncovered by the Assistant U.S. Attorney under fire for exposing government wrongdoing.  

The ousted prosecutor, identified only as John Doe in the complaint, led an investigation dubbed Money Exchange that uncovered evidence that Atta was raising cash for terrorist missions in the U.S. before 2000. Rather than focus on his solid investigative work, his bosses at the DOJ retaliated against him for refusing to sign off on an illegal search and seizure in the terrorism fundraising case. His superiors, George W. Bush appointees, approved the illegal search anyways and the prosecutor blew the whistle on the wrongdoing.

“John Doe made additional disclosures regarding his supervisors’ misconduct from 2005 through 2008 which are protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act,” the complaint says. “These additional protected disclosures included reports of misconduct by his superiors in disciplinary proceedings, in political hirings, and in mishandling of a terrorist investigation.”

Besides forcing the whistleblower out, the DOJ hierarchy continued punishing him by snubbing his topnotch investigative work on the terrorism financing case, which spanned several years. In fact, he came under fire for distributing a memo on the Money Exchange investigation to the DOJ counterterrorism division as part of an agency directive to promptly make disclosures of national security information to all law enforcement components.

Incredibly, authorities never followed through with the valuable evidence that the former federal prosecutor and his team provided, according to the lawsuit. “On May 23, 2008, John Doe urged the Acting United States Attorney to act upon the Money Exchange Memorandum because bank records underlying the terrorist funding would be destroyed after 7 years,” the complaint says.

“On May 27, 2008, the United State Attorney ordered John Doe to retrieve the May 5 Money Exchange Memorandum from all recipients. The Acting United States Attorney then criticized John Doe for “going outside the chain of command.” The Acting United States Attorney ordered John Doe to turn over the Money Exchange case materials to another AUSA. That AUSA never followed up on the Money Exchange Memorandum.”

If the allegations in the complaint are true, heads should roll at the DOJ for allowing a personal vendetta to interfere with a terrorism investigation. While the complaint doesn’t mention names, you can deduct that the Assistant U.S. Attorney suing the DOJ was pretty high up at the agency and probably has a boatload of evidence that authorities prefer to keep from going public.

Via: Judicial Watch

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Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova: SCOTUS Aware DOJ Advising Universities To Disregard Their Ruling On Race Based Admissions, Preparing To “Slap Them Down”

Relevant portion starts at 3:15.

Update to this story.

Joe DiGenova is a Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. He spoke on WMAL this morning, noting that the DOJ actually advised universities in writing to ignore the SCOTUS ruling on race based admissions. The ruling determined that you could not use race as the primary factor in determining admission. Yet, the DOJ letter advises the universities that they could carry on as they had been doing.

DiGenova said the SCOTUS was prepared to smack down the DOJ in “a big way”, that they were aware of the DOJ letter sent out to disregard their ruling and might even cite to it in their decision in an upcoming Michigan case.

Via: Weasel Zippers

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DC MAYOR VETOES WAGE BILL AFFECTING WAL-MART

Mayor Vincent Gray vetoed a bill Thursday that would force Wal-Mart and other large retailers to pay their employees at least $12.50 an hour, calling it a "job killer" that would not advance the goal of a living wage for District of Columbia workers.

The bill put Washington at the center of a national debate on how far cities should go in trying to raise pay for low-wage workers _ and whether larger companies should be required to pay more. Supporters _ including unions, clergy and other labor advocates _ said Wal-Mart could afford the higher wages, while opponents said the bill unfairly singled out certain businesses and would have a chilling effect on economic development.

Wal-Mart fought the legislation vigorously, pledging not to build three of the six stores it has planned for the nation's capital if the bill became law. But Gray, a Democrat, said the bill would have a much larger impact than many people realized.

"The bill is a job-killer, because nearly every large retailer now considering opening a store in the district has indicated they would not come here or expand here if this bill becomes law," Gray said, citing Target, Home Depot, Wegmans and others.

The D.C. Council approved the bill in July on an 8-5 vote, one short of a veto-proof majority. It will consider overriding the veto on Tuesday.

Councilmember Vincent Orange, a lead sponsor of the bill, said Wal-Mart's threats had prevented the mayor from standing up for the working poor.

"Wal-Mart put a gun to the mayor's head, and the mayor capitulated," said Orange, a Democrat. "Wal-Mart and the mayor should be ashamed that they're going to provide poverty wages to people who get up every day and go to work."

Via: Breitbart

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District of Columbia mayor proclaims ‘Lifeline Awareness Week’

OBAMAPHONES FOR EVERYONE

District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray has proclaimed the second week in September to be “District of Columbia Lifeline Awareness Week” in an effort to sign up more people for taxpayer-funded phones.

“[T]he Lifeline Assistance programs offer tremendous benefits for eligible consumers in America which help make basic telephone services more affordable and provide a discount to eligible low-income customers,” Gray wrote in his proclamation.

The Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia, an independent agency that regulates D.C. utilities, announced the Lifeline awareness week Thursday.

“The goal of the Public Service Commission is to sign up as many eligible District consumers as possible,” Commissioner Joanne Doddy Fort said in a statement. “We hope that by raising awareness of the Lifeline Program, we can ensure that the District’s Economy II Service Program can reach more consumers. In today’s highly interconnected world, no one should be left out.”

In D.C. the Lifeline Program is known as Economy II Service and under the federal and local program District residents who participate or are eligible for certain public assistance programs are able to receive phone service through Verizon’s Economy II Service as a discounted rate of $3.00 a month or, for seniors, $1.00 a month plus applicable fees.

The Lifeline Program, which is overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has come under criticism from Republicans recently as the program’s cost has more than doubled, from $822 million in 2008 (when the FCC expanded the program to subsidize cell phones) to $2 billion in 2012, leading some to label the phones provided though the program “Obamaphones.”

“This phone program has expanded far beyond its original intent, and as so many middle class Americans struggle underneath this economy, it is really offensive for Washington to make taxpayers pay for free cell phones for others,” Louisiana Republican Sen. Davis Vitter said in a statement earlier this year introducing a bill with Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe to end the mobile phone service subsidy in the Lifeline Program.

In August, a National Review reporter revealed in an article how she ended up receiving three taxpayer subsidized cell phones, despite being well off and upfront about her ineligibility. According to the author, as recently as June there were 13.8 million active Lifeline subscriptions.

Via: Daily Caller

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States That Spent Most Per-Pupil Get Labor Dept. Grants; States That Spent Least Get None

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Labor Department announced last week that it will distribute $75.7 million in taxpayer-funded YouthBuild grants to provide instruction and occupational training for high school dropouts, ages 16 to 24.

With some 5,000 individuals expected to benefit, the grants average $15,140 for each “out of school” individual. Meanwhile, the nation's elementary-secondary public school systems spent an average $10,615 per pupil in fiscal year 2010, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to a  June 2012 Census Bureau’s report, the District of Columbia spent the most on education in 2010 – $18,667 per student. The Labor Department just awarded a $1,099,932 YouthBuild grant to the city’s Sasha Bruce Youthwork Inc., which helps young people “transform their lives.”

New York spent the second highest amount on each pupil – $18,618. Six recipients in that state will receive a combined total of $5,209,046 from taxpayers through the YouthBuild grants.

New Jersey ranks third, spending $16,841 per pupil in fiscal year 2010. The Labor Department is awarding five grants to that state for a combined total of $4,323,900.

Census figures show that states spending the least per pupil were Utah ($6,064), Idaho ($7,106), Arizona ($7,848) and Oklahoma ($7,896). And none of those states received grant funding from the Labor Department.

Via: CNSNews

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