NYSE repoens after trading stopped amid United Airlines, WSJ.com tech issues

Trading was halted for more than two hours on the New York Stock Exchange floor Wednesday after an internal technical issue was detected – which then set off speculation that a cyber-glitch at United Airlines and a temporary online outage at the Wall Street Journal newspaper were connected.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama had been briefed on the glitch that took out trading on the floor of the NYSE by White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco and chief of staff Denis McDonough.
He also said despite indications that it was not a cyber-breach, the administration was “keenly aware of the risk that exists in cyber space right now.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson tried to allay fears, saying, “It appears from what we know at this stage that the malfunctions at United and at the stock exchange were not the result of any nefarious actor.”
He added, “We know less about the Wall Street Journal at this point except that their system is back up again as is the United Airline system.”
Trading at the NYSE stopped around 11:30 a.m. ET though NYSE - listed shares continued to trade on other exchanges such as the Nasdaq.

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• Were tech glitches at NYSE and United a warning bell?

The NYSE, which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange and is the world’s largest stock exchange based on market capitalization, has experienced technical difficulties in the past. However, Wednesday’s issue by all accounts was out of the ordinary.
Shortly after the outage, which was unusual and symbolic, the NYSE tweeted that the issue was internal and not a breach.
"The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach," the exchange tweeted. "We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue."
Still, the timing of the event coincided with other cyber glitches.
The Wall Street Journal’s homepage displayed a 504 outage though other sections on the online paper’s website, continued to function. The homepage had been quickly restored following the outage.
“I think the Wall Street Journal piece is connected to people flooding their web site in response to the New York Exchange to find out what’s going on.” FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence committee. “In my business we don’t love coincidences, but it does appear that there is not a cyber-intrusion involved.”
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., the top Democrat on the cyber-security subcommittee, told Fox News that the NYSE incident has “the appearance” of a cyberattack and noted the coordination of multiple sites.
An FBI official told Fox News that the bureau has offered its assistance concerning the NYSE situation, but at this time it does not appear to be nefarious.
Stocks were already trading lower Wednesday when the glitch occurred. Traders had been worried about China’s inability to stop a steep drop in its own market. Traders have also been skittish as talks between Greece and its creditors seemed to have stalled.
U.S. stocks closed with sizable losses with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 261 points, Standard & Poor's 500 gave up 34 points and the Nasdaq was down 87 points.

Despite San Francisco criticism, Clinton once backed sanctuary city policies

High-profile Democrats now speaking out about San Francisco's "sanctuary" treatment of an illegal immigrant charged with the murder of a young woman weren't always so critical of the policies. 
Hillary Clinton and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., both criticized San Francisco for ignoring a federal request to hold Francisco Sanchez -- who already had been deported five times -- when he went into city custody in March. He was released in April, and is now in jail for the murder last week of Kate Steinle, 32. 
"The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported," Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, said in an interview with CNN. "So I have absolutely no support for a city that ignores the strong evidence that should be acted on." 
But Clinton, when she was a New York senator running for president in 2007, was openly supportive of sanctuary city policies, which limit cooperation with federal immigration officials. 
Clinton said during an MSNBC debate that these policies exist to encourage people to report crimes. Without them, she said, "You will have people hiding from the police. And I think that is a real direct threat to the personal safety and security of all the citizens." 
Asked if she would allow sanctuary cities to disobey federal law, Clinton said: "Well, I don't think there is any choice. The ICE groups go in and raid individuals, but if you're a local police chief and you're trying to solve a crime that you know people from the immigrant community have information about, they may not talk to you if they think you're also going to be enforcing the immigration laws. Local law enforcement has a different job than federal immigration enforcement." 
Feinstein also has raised questions about San Francisco's actions, as has California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. 
California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democratic member of the House, has not spoken out on the case. 
Feinstein, in a letter, called on San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to start cooperating with federal immigration officials who want to deport felons such as Sanchez. 
"I strongly believe that an undocumented individual, convicted of multiple felonies and with a detainer request from ICE, should not have been released," Feinstein said. "We should focus on deporting convicted criminals, not setting them loose on our streets." 
Feinstein, though, got the ball rolling on the city's policies when she served as mayor from 1978-1988. She signed legislation in 1985 making the city a "sanctuary" for immigrant refugees from Central America. 
That policy was expanded significantly after Feinstein left office and now limits cooperation with federal officials for a range of illegal immigrant cases. 
Feinstein said in her letter that "dangerous criminals" should not be released. 
The mayor's office has said it reached out to Homeland Security officials to determine if there's a way to cooperate while still upholding the city's sanctuary policy. 
"Mayor Lee shares the senator's concerns surrounding the nature of Mr. Sanchez's transfer to San Francisco and release," said Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for the mayor. "As the mayor has stated, we need to gather all of the facts as we develop potential solutions." 
San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi defended Sanchez's release and the city law requiring it to ignore ICE detainer requests. The sheriff said ICE could have obtained a warrant or court order to keep Sanchez in custody. 
"My long-held belief is that local law enforcement should not be in the civil immigration detainer business," Mirkarimi said last year. 
Sanchez entered a not guilty plea Tuesday in the shooting death of Steinle last week at a popular San Francisco tourist spot. 
His bail was set at $5 million and he could face life in prison if convicted in the murder.

Gowdy counters Clinton claim she 'never had a subpoena,' reveals document

House Republicans investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya on Wednesday released a March subpoena issued to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, one day after she said in a nationally televised interview that she "never had a subpoena" in the email controversy. 
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the Benghazi panel, said he had "no choice" but to make the subpoena public "in order to correct the inaccuracy" of Clinton's claim. 
Clinton told CNN on Monday that she "never had a subpoena," adding: "Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation." 
Gowdy said the committee issued the March 4 subpoena to Clinton personally after learning the full extent of her use of private emails while serving as secretary of state. 
Regardless of whether a subpoena was issued, "Secretary Clinton had a statutory duty to preserve records from her entire time in office, and she had a legal duty to cooperate with and tell the truth to congressional investigators requesting her records going back to September of 2012," Gowdy said in a statement. 
The dispute over the subpoena is the latest flashpoint in an increasingly partisan investigation by the House panel, which was created to probe the September 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. 
Gowdy and other Republicans have complained that Clinton and the State Department have not been forthcoming with release of her emails and note that the State Department has said it cannot find in its records all or part of 15 work-related emails from Clinton's private server. 
The emails all predate the assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility and consist mainly of would-be intelligence reports passed to Clinton by longtime political confidant Sidney Blumenthal, officials said. 
Gowdy has said the missing emails raise "serious questions" about Clinton's decision to erase her personal server, especially before it could be analyzed by an independent third-party arbiter. 
A Clinton campaign spokesman has said she turned over 55,000 pages of materials to the State Department, "including all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal."

South Carolina House approves removal of Confederate flag

Just The Beginning.

BREAKING NEWS –  The South Carolina House approved taking down the Confederate flag from Capitol grounds early Thursday, a stunning reversal in a state that was the first to leave the Union in 1860 and raised the flag again at its Statehouse more than 50 years ago to protest the civil rights movement.
The move came after more than 13 hours of contentious debate, weeks after the deadly shootings of nine black church members, including a state senator, at a Bible study in Charleston. The House approved the Senate bill 93-27, and still has one more vote than appeared to be perfunctory since they had met two-thirds approval.
It is possible the flag could come down Thursday or Friday, but the exact timing is unknown.
The bill is set to go to Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, who supports it.
“Today, as the Senate did before them, the House of Representatives has served the state of South Carolina and her people with great dignity,” Haley said in a statement early Thursday. “I’m grateful for their service and their compassion. It is a new day in South Carolina, a day were can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state.”
A group of Republicans mounted an opposition Wednesday to immediately removing the flag from the Capitol grounds, but at each turn, they were beaten back by a slightly larger, bipartisan group of legislators who believe there must be no delay.
As House members deliberated into the night, there were tears of anger and shared memories of Civil War ancestors. Black Democrats, frustrated at being asked to show grace to Civil War soldiers as the debate crept into the 12^th hour, warned the state was embarrassing itself.
The closest vote in the GOP-controlled body came on an amendment to place the state flat beside the monument to Confederate soldiers at the front of the Statehouse.
Changing the Senate bill could have meant weeks or even months to remove the flag, perhaps blunting the momentum that has grown since the church massacre.
Republican Rep. Jenny Horne scolded fellow members of her party for stalling the debate with dozens of amendments as she reminded them she was a distant relative of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
She cried as she remembered the funeral of her slain colleague state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, who was gunned down as his wife and daughter locked themselves in an office.
"For the widow of Sen. Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury and I will not be a part of it!" she screamed into a microphone.
Horne said she didn’t intend to speak but got frustrated with fellow Republicans.
Opponents of removing the flag talked about grandparents who passed down family treasures and lamented that the flag had been “hijacked” or “abducted” by racists.
Rep. Mike Pitts, who remembered playing with a Confederate ancestor’s cavalry sword while growing up, said for him the flag is a reminder of how dirt-poor Southern families fought Yankees not because they hated blacks or supported slavery, but because their lands was being invaded.
Pitts said those soldiers should be respected just as soldiers who fought in the Middle East or Afghanistan. Pitts then turned to a lawmaker he called a dear friend, recalling how his black colleague nearly died in Vietnam.
"I'm willing to move that flag at some point if it causes a twinge in the hearts of my friends," Pitts said. "But I'll ask for something in return."
The debate began less than one day after the U.S. House voted to ban the display of Confederate flags at historic federal cemeteries in the Deep South.
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said Democrats were united behind the Senate bill, which would send the flag to the state's Confederate Relic Room — near the resting place for the final rebel flag that flew over the Statehouse dome until it was taken down in 2000.
Democrats didn't want any new flag going up because it "will be the new vestige of racism," Rutherford said.
After the break around 8 p.m., Rutherford said Democrats were willing to let the other side make their points, but had grown tired. He said while much had been said about ancestors of the Confederacy, “what we haven’t heard is talk about nine people slaughtered in a church.”
"The whole world is asking, is South Carolina really going to change, or will it hold to an ugly tradition of prejudice and discrimination and hide behind heritage as an excuse for it," Neal said.
Other Democrats suggested any delay would let Ku Klux Klan members planning a rally July 18 a chance to dance around the Confederate flag.
"You don't have to listen to me. But there are a whole lot of people outside this chamber watching," Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said.
Under the Senate proposal, the Confederate flag would have to come down within 24 hours of the governor signing the bill.
In Washington, the vote by the U.S. House followed a brief debate on a measure funding the National Park Service, which maintains 14 national cemeteries, most of which contain graves of Civil War soldiers.
The proposal by California Democrat Jared Huffman would block the Park Service from allowing private groups to decorate the graves of Southern soldiers with Confederate flags in states that commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. The cemeteries affected are the Andersonville and Vicksburg cemeteries in Georgia and Mississippi.
Also Wednesday, state police said they were investigating an unspecified number of threats against South Carolina lawmakers debating the flag. Police Chief Mark Keel said lawmakers on both sides of the issue had been threatened, but he did not specify which ones.

Sanctuary City Cartoon

Negotiators again extend deadline in Iran nuclear talks

International negotiators have extended their deadline once again as they struggle to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. 
Negotiators had been running up against a Tuesday deadline, after initially extending a June 30 deadline amid lingering differences. On Tuesday morning, the State Department said the new deadline is now Friday, as talks continue. 
"We've made substantial progress in every area, but this work is highly technical and high stakes for all of the countries involved," State Department official Marie Harf said in a statement. "We're frankly more concerned about the quality of the deal than we are about the clock, though we also know that difficult decisions won't get any easier with time -- that is why we are continuing to negotiate." 
She said they're taking the talks "day to day" in pursuit of a comprehensive agreement, and Secretary of State John Kerry will remain in Vienna for discussions. 
"To allow for the additional time to negotiate, we are taking the necessary technical steps for the measures of the Joint [Plan] of Action to remain in place through July 10," Harf said, referring to a prior interim agreement. 
The extension raises questions about whether world powers can resolve their differences and strike a deal to cut off Iranian pathways to a bomb. President Obama earlier warned that the U.S. could walk away if they're in danger of seeing a bad deal. 

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• Kerry says Iran deal could go 'either way' as deadline nears

Republican lawmakers have long warned that's the direction talks are heading. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently urged all sides to hit pause on the discussions and reassess their goals. 
The extension of talks poses a potential complication for Kerry and his team. Under congressional legislation passed earlier this year, if a deal is submitted after July 9, Congress can claim 60 days to review and vote on the agreement. If a deal is submitted before then, the time frame is only 30 days. 
Missing that deadline could leave any deal in limbo until September, while Congress reviews it. 
It was becoming evident by early Tuesday that talks would press on. Fox News learned that the hotel rooms arranged for the reporters in Vienna with Kerry had been extended through Saturday, July 11. 
Meanwhile, Iran threw another wrinkle into the mix on Monday by pushing for an end to the U.N. arms embargo on the country -- a parallel deal that the United States opposes as it seeks to limit Tehran's Mideast power and influence. 
Lifting the arms embargo would be separate from a long-term accord that foresees limits on Iran's nuclear programs in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. But Iran also sees existing U.N. resolutions affecting Iran's nuclear program and the accompanying sanctions as unjust and illegal. It has insisted that those resolutions be lifted since the start of international negotiations nearly a decade ago to limit its nuclear-arms making capability. 
After world powers and Iran reached a framework pact in April, the U.S. said "important restrictions on conventional arms and ballistic missiles" would be incorporated in any new U.N. guidelines for Iran. It also said "a new U.N. Security Council resolution ... will endorse" any deal. 
Russia and China have expressed support for lifting the embargo, which was imposed in 2007 as part of a series of penalties over Iran's nuclear program. 
But the U.S. doesn't want the arms ban ended because it could allow Tehran to expand its military assistance for Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled government, for the Houthi rebels in Yemen and for Hezbollah in Lebanon. It also would increase already strong opposition to the deal in Congress and in Israel. 
Over the weekend, diplomats reported tentative agreement on the speed and scope of sanctions relief for Iran in the potential nuclear accord, even as issues such as inspection guidelines and limits on Iran's nuclear research and development remained contentious.

Fraud crackdown sends illegal immigrant licenses plummeting in NM

Gov. Susana Martinez

A crackdown on document fraud has sent the number of driver's licenses issued to illegal aliens in New Mexico plunging by 70 percent, while revealing that the state likely issued tens of thousands of bogus licenses after becoming the first state to adopt the controversial policy a dozen years ago.
Last year, New Mexico issued 4,577 licenses to foreign nationals, down sharply from the 2010 high of about 15,000. Officials in the administration of Gov. Susana Martinez, who opposes the policy but has been unable to get it repealed, say the huge drop came as soon as new procedures were implemented to identify fraudulent documents that had been submitted to obtain licenses.
“While this is encouraging news, Gov. Martinez still sides with an overwhelming majority of New Mexicans who believe we must repeal the dangerous law of giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, which has turned our state into a magnet for criminal activity,” said Mike Lonergan, spokesman for the governor.

“These people enter the country illegally then obtain a driver’s license through fraud and lies.”
- Bill Rehm, New Mexico state lawmaker

New Mexico became the first of 10 states to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens in 2003, under then-Gov. Bill Richardson, who claimed it would cut down on uninsured drivers in the state. But while the policy's effect on public safety has been inconclusive, critics say it launched a cottage industry for criminals to sell fraudulent documents.
Last year, federal officials broke up a five-year operation -- which extended from New Mexico to New York -- that saw illegal immigrants from Georgia paying as much as $2,000 to obtain documents to secure a New Mexico driver’s license.

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A high-profile case in 2012 saw five Albuquerque residents federally indicted in a multi-state license distribution scheme. Federal investigators said 30 people from five states were involved in the ring that provided false documents to illegal immigrants who had resided in South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia to fraudulently obtain 164 New Mexico driver's licenses.
"New Mexico's driver's license policy has once again attracted criminal elements to our state in pursuit of a government-issued identification card," Martinez said at the time. "Our current system jeopardizes the safety and security of all New Mexicans and it is abundantly clear that the only way to solve this problem is to repeal the law that gives driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."
Although it is impossible to say how many licenses were issued fraudulently, Republican State Rep. Bill Rehm, a retired county sheriff's officer, said more than 100,000 driver’s licenses have been issued to illegal immigrants, but only about 17,000 have filed a state income tax.
“These people enter the country illegally, then obtain a driver’s license through fraud and lies,” Rehm said. “We sparked a whole criminal industry by allowing this.”
Rehm is among a large number of opponents who have been unable to get the law repealed, despite Martinez's support. The critics say the policy has penalized legal residents of the state, because of a 2005  federal law aimed at preventing terrorists from getting fraudulent IDs. Because the federal REAL ID Act sets forth standards stricter than New Mexico's for federal recognition of identification documents, the Department of Homeland Security will not recognize licenses from states including New Mexico as ID for getting on a plane or entering federal buildings, for example.
“Because of this policy of giving licenses to illegal immigrants we continue to be non-compliant with the federal guidelines,” Rehm said.
Vivian Juarez, director of the Mexican Consulate in Albuquerque, declined to comment on the drop in licenses issued to Mexican nationals in New Mexico.

Oklahoma gov to keep Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds, report says

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said Tuesday the Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol will stay there despite the state's Supreme Court ruling it violated the Constitution and must be removed.
The Tulsa World reports Fallin and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reconsider the 7-2 decision that was handed down last week after a challenge from the ACLU of Oklahoma on behalf of three plaintiffs.
Lawmakers have also filed legislation to let people vote on whether to remove a portion of the state Constitution cited in the ruling; Article II, Section 5.
It reads: "No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such."
The state said last week the Ten Commandments are "obviously religious in nature and are an integral part of the Jewish and Christian faiths." The state Constitution bans using public money or property for the benefit of any religious purpose. The monument was privately funded by Republican Rep. Mike Ritze.
“Oklahoma is a state where we respect the rule of law, and we will not ignore the state courts or their decisions,” Fallin said. “However, we are also a state with three co-equal branches of government.”
Fallin cited a petition to rehear the case and legislation seeking to let people vote on amending the constitution in her argument to let the monument stay on Capitol grounds, according to the newspaper. 
Last week, Pruitt argued the monument was historical in nature and nearly identical to a Texas monument that was found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Oklahoma justices said the local monument violated the state's constitution, not the U.S. Constitution.
"Quite simply, the Oklahoma Supreme Court got it wrong," Pruitt said in a statement. "The court completely ignored the profound historical impact of the Ten Commandments on the foundation of Western law."
Ryan Kiesel, ACLU of Oklahoma executive director said Fallin is charged with enforcing the law, not predicting the "hypothetical future" of it. He also told the Tulsa World he wouldn't be surprised if Fallin denies a court order.
“Frankly, I would be astonished if we get to a point where the governor outright defies an order of our state’s highest court,” Kiesel said. “That said, if she does, there is a word for it. It is called contempt.”
As a result of the court ruling, some lawmakers have called for the impeachment of the justices who voted for it.
Several other religious orders have tried to erect religious monuments on Capitol grounds since the Ten Commandments was placed in 2012. Among them is a group that wants to erect a 7-foot-tall statue that depicts Satan as Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings and a long beard. A Hindu leader in Nevada, an animal rights group, and the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster also have made requests.

Shooting renews scrutiny on 'sanctuary'-backing San Francisco sheriff

The murder of a young woman in San Francisco allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant has brought renewed scrutiny on the sheriff who released the defendant before the attack and has ardently backed policies making the city a “sanctuary” for undocumented immigrants. 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in March handed over defendant Francisco Sanchez on a drug-related warrant to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department.
However, the department released him several weeks later, after the charges were dropped, following a policy of not complying with federal requests to detain illegal immigrants for deportation.
"My long-held belief is that local law enforcement should not be in the civil immigration detainer business," San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said last year, after the policy was adopted.
Mirkarimi, a Democrat and former Green Party member, has argued since Sanchez allegedly shot to death 32-year-old Kate Steinle on July 1 that federal authorities should have issued a warrant or court order to hold Sanchez, who has seven prior convictions and has already been deported five times. 
But this claim has been met with skepticism, given the circumstances. “He should have honored the immigration hold,” immigration lawyer Francisco Hernandez told Fox News on Tuesday. 
Mirkarimi, elected in 2011, is up for re-election in November. Now, Steinle’s death, coupled with personal and departmental missteps, pose potential problems. 
In 2012, the sheriff was suspended from office after being charged with domestic violence battery, child endangerment and dissuading a witness in connection with an altercation with his wife.
He pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of false imprisonment and was reinstated about seven months later, after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors failed to get enough votes to remove him from office.
Still, Mirkarimi, a former board member, was sentenced to three years of probation and had to stay away from his wife for seven months.
A two-week-long, sheriff department-led search in 2013 to find a missing hospital patient also came under criticism, despite Mirkarimi’s apologies for the slow response. The female patient’s body was eventually found inside the hospital by an employee.
Mirkarimi, meanwhile, has actively defended so-called "sanctuary city" policies that San Francisco and dozens of other cities and counties across the country follow -- they essentially limit local authorities in assisting federal officials on immigration and deportation cases.
San Francisco sheriff's deputies who opposed the policies reportedly were secretly helping federal authorities get illegal immigrants off the streets, until March when Mirkarimi issued a directive stating only he could turn them over to ICE.
“Being able to say, ‘I’ll call ICE for this guy, but not call ICE for that guy or that woman or not that woman,’ that doesn’t make any sense,” Mirkarimi told a local CBS radio station on Monday, in defending his policy.
Mirkarimi has tried to push some of the blame on the feds in the aftermath of the killing on a popular city pier. 
“If ICE does not provide the proper legal instrument, they are jeopardizing also the city’s ability to detain somebody against their will,” he said. “We need ICE to step up. … ICE knew that he had been deported five times.You would have thought [Sanchez] met a threshold that he required a court order or a warrant. They did not do that."
ICE, though, said it issues nearly 200,000 detainers a year and that getting a warrant for each one is impossible because the judicial system would collapse under that kind of volume.
As a board supervisor from 2005 to 2011, Mirkarimi also proposed legislation to make San Francisco the first city in the country to sell marijuana. And he introduced legislation that ultimately made the city the first in the country to prohibit large supermarkets and drug stores from providing customers with non-biodegradable plastic bags.

Supreme Court Cartoon

Memphis professor behind racist tweets resurfaces at crosstown school

A Memphis professor who left her job under a cloud after a series of racist tweets and Facebook posts has resurfaced at a school across town, where some of her new faculty peers are not happy to have her as a colleague.
Zandria Robinson, who taught sociology at University of Memphis until resigning on June 11, had previously posted on Facebook and Twitter that she did not want her daughter attending school with “snotty privileged whites,” apparently ramped up her social media rhetoric after leaving the job. In a series of tweets that began June 26, nine days after white racist Dylann Roof gunned down nine African Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church, Robinson wrote that “whiteness is most certainly and inevitably terror” and said she expected to see “thinkpieces about how more mental health services could prevent white people from acting how they are conditioned to act.”
Officials at Rhodes College announced Robinson's hiring last week, and praised her for her "provocative" comments, some of which were first reported by the website SoCawlege.
"As a leading scholar and author in the areas of race, class, gender, culture, and the South, Dr. Zandria Robinson’s comments are sometimes provocative, controversial, and debatable," the school said in a statement.
However, not all professors are in full support of the controversial hiring. Rhodes College Economics Professor John Murray told National Review that the school is trying to counter bad publicity from a year ago, when people posting from on or just off campus wrote racist comments on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak. But he said hiring someone who made racists statements from a different perspective made little sense.
“It does seem kind of crazy that we’re inviting a person to come teach on our faculty who seems to dislike a chunk of our students,” Murray said.
University of Memphis spokeswoman Gabrielle Maxey told FoxNews.com Robinson was not fired, despite earlier reports.
"She resigned on June 11,” Maxey said.
Robinson has a climactic history of racially-provocative posts on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Robinson could not be reached for comment.

SC Senate votes to take down flag; House OK still needed

Burn all them books too!

 

COLUMBIA, S.C. –  The South Carolina Senate voted Monday to pull the Confederate flag off the Capitol grounds, clearing the way for a historic measure that could remove the banner more than five decades after it was first flown above the Statehouse to protest integration.
A second vote will be needed Tuesday to send the proposal to the House, where it faces a less certain future. But Monday's 37-3 vote was well over the two-thirds majority needed to advance the bill.
If the House passes the same measure, the flag and flagpole could be removed as soon as Gov. Nikki Haley signs the papers. The flag would be lowered for the last time and shipped off to the state's Confederate Relic Room, near where the last Confederate flag to fly over the Statehouse dome is stored.
The vote came at the end of a day of debate in which several white senators said they had come to understand why their black colleagues felt the flag no longer represented the valor of Southern soldiers but the racism that led the South to separate from the United States more than 150 years ago.
As the senators spoke, the desk of their slain colleague, Clementa Pinckney, was still draped in black cloth. Pinckney and eight other black people were fatally shot June 17 during Bible study at a historic African-American church in Charleston. Authorities have charged a gunman who posed for pictures with the rebel banner. Police say he was driven by racial hatred.
Several senators said the grace shown by the families of the victims willing to forgive the gunman also changed their minds.
"We now have the opportunity, the obligation, to put the exclamation point on an extraordinary narrative of good and evil, of love and mercy that will take its place in the history books," said Sen. Tom Davis, a Republican.
After the vote, Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Democrat whose suggestion that the flag be taken down while running for governor last year was called a "stunt" by Haley, was given a high-five from a fellow legislator.
"I thought it would happen, but never this fast," Sheheen said.
Republican Sen. Larry Martin, who for decades fought off attempts to remove the flag from Statehouse grounds, said the church shooting drew him to the same conclusion that his black colleague arrived at long ago — that the rebel flag "has more to do with what was going on in the 1960s as opposed to the 1860s."
Martin, who is white, had family who came to South Carolina's then-rugged northern backcountry from Scotland in the early 1800s. That was about the time the enslaved relatives of Sen. Darrell Jackson, a black Democrat, involuntary ended up near Columbia.
Jackson helped write the compromise that took the Confederate flag off the Statehouse dome in 2000 and put it in its current location on a pole on the Capitol's front lawn.
On Monday, he said his great-grandfather's brother fled a plantation and joined the Union army when Gen. William Sherman came storming through Columbia.
Jackson said he regretted not going further to get rid of the flag completely 15 years ago. But he welcomed the chance now to honor his great-grandfather, Ishmael Jackson, who escaped to freedom.
"You said we lost the war. No we didn't. Not Ishmael Jackson and the 57 percent of people who looked like him. As far as they are concerned, they won the war," Jackson said.
The Senate rejected three amendments. One would have put a different Confederate flag on the pole. A second would fly the flag only on Confederate Memorial Day, and the third would leave the flag's fate up to a popular vote.
State Sen. Lee Bright, who suggested the popular vote, said the Confederate flag has been misused by people like Dylann Roof, who is charged with murder in the church shootings and who posed in pictures with the rebel banner.
"I'm more against taking it down in this environment than any other time just because I believe we're placing the blame of what one deranged lunatic did on the people that hold their Southern heritage high," said Bright, a Republican.
The flag still has at least a few days to fly, even with Haley, business leaders and civil rights proponents wanting it down as soon as possible. There are indications the proposal could have a tougher road in the House. Some powerful Republicans have not said how they will vote, including Speaker Jay Lucas.
Some Republicans want to keep the flagpole and put a different flag on it. Suggestions have included the U.S. flag, the South Carolina flag and a flag that may have been flown by Confederate troops but does not have the same connections as the red banner with the blue cross and white stars.
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford vowed that no Democrat would vote for a bill that leaves the flagpole up.
The bill is expected to be sent directly to the House floor Wednesday with several amendments offered, said Republican Rep. Greg Delleney, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which would normally receive the bill before it got to the floor.
If any amendments pass, a conference committee would probably be needed to hash out differences.

Congressional deadline could stop the clock on Iran nuke talks

Time is running out for U.S. negotiators trying to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. Not only are they racing to meet a self-imposed Tuesday deadline, but even if that slips they'll run against a hard deadline Thursday that Congress set earlier this year.
Whether the U.S. and five other world powers can reach any agreement remains to be seen. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that diplomatic efforts "could go either way."
Talks were initially extended past a June 30 deadline until Tuesday. Officials, though, already have acknowledged the talks could leak past that deadline, too.
Yet Thursday may be the deadline that matters.
July 9 is the date U.S. lawmakers set for negotiators to complete a deal if they want Congress to review it within 30 days. If an agreement is submitted after July 9, Congress claims the right to take 60 days to review the text -- which could push a final congressional vote on the plan until September, leaving any agreement in limbo until then.
Bloomberg View recently reported that Colin Kahl, Vice President Biden's national security adviser, has called July 9 the "real political deadline."
A senior administration official, speaking with reporters on Friday, played down the July 9 deadline but admitted they'd prefer to get a deal in hand before then.
Already, the House Foreign Affairs Committee has set a hearing on the matter for Thursday, beginning the process of reviewing a potential deal. Whether that timeline is 30 or 60 days depends on when and if it comes in.
"This hearing will be the first in a series the Committee will hold should the Administration strike what might be one of the most significant agreements in decades. As I have said, no deal is far better than a bad deal," committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a statement.
Diplomats from all six nations were back in Vienna Monday for the presumed final leg of talks.
The EU's top foreign policy official, Federica Mogherini, said agreement was "very close." But Kerry said there was still a ways to go.
"We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most critical issues," Kerry told reporters outside the 19th-century Viennese palace that has hosted the negotiations.
World powers and Iran are hoping to clinch a deal soon, setting a decade of restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and granting Iran significant relief from international sanctions.
Kerry met for 3 1/2 hours on Sunday with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as top diplomats from the five other negotiating countries planned to return to Austria's capital later in the evening.
"It is now time to see whether or not we are able to close an agreement," Kerry said.
While "genuine progress" had been made and the sides "have never been closer, at this point, this negotiation could go either way. If the hard choices get made in the next couple of days, and made quickly, we could get an agreement this week," Kerry said. "But if they are not made, we will not."
The talks had appeared to be moving forward. On Saturday, diplomats reported tentative agreement on the speed and scope of sanctions relief for Iran in the accord, even as issues such as inspection guidelines and limits on Iran's nuclear research and development remained contentious.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of "sharper" deal contours.
"But that shouldn't deceive us," he said. "There's still a possibility that there will be a lack of courage and readiness in crucial points to build the bridges that we need to find to each other."
Tuesday's deadline is the latest that has been set for a comprehensive pact that would replace the interim deal world powers and Iran reached in November 2013. That package was extended three times, most recently on June 30, and Kerry appeared to be partly addressing critics of the diplomacy in the United States  who've argued that President Obama's administration has been too conciliatory over the course of  the negotiations. 
Obama and U.S. officials say that is untrue. But they've also fiercely defended their overtures to Tehran and their willingness to allow the Iranians to maintain significant nuclear infrastructure, on the argument that a diplomatic agreement is preferable to military conflict.

CDC official called Obama ‘Marxist,’ ‘amateur’ over 2014 border surge

A federal health official dealing with the surge of illegal immigrants last year at the southern U.S. border ripped President Obama for the months-long crisis, calling him a "Marxist" and “the worst pres we have ever had,” according to newly released internal emails.
The emails, obtained and published by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, show a June 9, 2014, exchange between Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logistics specialist George Roark and agency public health adviser William Adams.
Roark begins by writing: “Unreal, no country in the world would allow this.”
Adams responds: “Well, in ten years or less, they’ll all be voting … Commander’s intent …”
Roark concludes: "It is very clear that is the case. This fellow is the worst pres we have ever had. He truly is ‘the amateur’ but a Marxist, too.” 
Roark declined to talk to FoxNews.com on Monday, when reached by phone at the agency’s Atlanta headquarters. The CDC has yet to respond to a question about whether the agency addressed the email exchange with Roark or Adams, and whether either was reprimanded or punished.
Judicial Watch said it obtained the emails as part of an investigation into the CDC activating its Emergency Operations Center to deal with tens of thousands Central American immigrants, including many unaccompanied minors, trying to get into the United States at the Mexico border.
The center was opened to address concerns about the border-crossers’ health and the potential for them to bring contagious diseases and other illnesses into the country.
The Roark-Adams exchange was included in about 3,000 pages of emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, and more documents related to the Judicial Watch investigation are forthcoming, the group said Monday.
The U.S. law that gives some protection to illegal immigrants from non-bordering countries -- and puts unaccompanied minors into the hands of the Department of Health and Human Services -- was in fact signed by President George W. Bush in December 2008, days before Obama took office.
Judicial Watch also found in its investigation a June 18, 2014, email in which CDC intelligence analyst Daniel Bubacz said the situation that summer was the result of a “Leave No Child on the other Side of the Border Policy” -- a reference to the controversial federal education policy known as No Child Left Behind.

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Kerry: Reaching final Iran nuclear deal 'could go either way,' as deadline nears

Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the U.S. and Iran are closer to reaching a final nuclear deal but expressed uncertainty about hitting their 48-hour deadline, saying negotiations “could go either way.”
Kerry made his comments during a break in one-on-one talks in Vienna with Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Zarif said Saturday that he and Kerry’s teams made significant headway by reaching a tentative agreement on some sanctions now being imposed on Iran for its nuclear program.
However, the deal must be approved by diplomats from the five other world powers involved in the talks, who are returning to Vienna on Sunday.
In addition, major sticking points remain on such issues as inspections of Iranian nuclear-related facilities.
“We have in fact made genuine progress but … we are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues," said Kerry, who was in his ninth day of negotiations in Vienna. "While I completely agree with … Zarif that we have never been closer, at this point, this negotiation could go either way."
The United States and the five other world powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- have been negotiating with Iran for two years on curtailing that country’s uranium enrichment program toward creating a nuclear weapons.
The sides reached a framework agreement in April, with hopes of reaching a final deal this summer.
Tehran has denied that its enrichment program is for creating a nuclear weapon.
“If hard choices are made this week we can get an agreement,” Kerry also said. “If they are not made they will not. … If there's unwillingness to move on things that are important, of course we will walk away.”
If a deal is clinched by Tuesday, it would set up a decade of restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
Tuesday's deadline is the latest that has been set for a comprehensive pact that would replace the interim deal the world powers and Iran reached in November 2013.
The package was extended three times, most recently on June 30.
Critics of the United States’ diplomacy on the issue argue that President Obama's administration has been too conciliatory over the course of the negotiations.
Obama and U.S. officials say that is untrue. But they've also fiercely defended their overtures to Tehran and their willingness to allow the Iranians to maintain significant nuclear infrastructure, on the argument that a diplomatic agreement is preferable to military conflict.
“We want a good agreement, only a good agreement. And we are not going to shave anywhere at the margins in order just to get an agreement,” Kerry said. “This is something that the world will analyze, experts everywhere will look at. There are plenty of people in the nonproliferation community, nuclear experts who will look at this and none of us are going to be content to do something that can't pass scrutiny."

Christie vows to tackle thorny entitlement reform, accuses Paul of 'politicizing' national security

Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Sunday downplayed his so-so poll numbers, arguing that 2016 presidential campaigns are just beginning and that he has no fear about tackling entitlement reform.
Christie told “Fox News Sunday” that 71 percent of federal spending now goes to debt service and entitlement programs, which include Social Security and Medicaid.
“We need to reform these programs, and we can do it in a way that's not going to throw anybody off the cliff,” he said in an interview taped last week and aired Sunday. “I've put that plan forward, and I'm going to keep talking about it. It's the third rail of American politics. They say don't touch it. I'm going to hug it.”
Christie argued such programs must be revised and that current spending on them is hurting investments in national defense, infrastructure and education.
“That’s just not acceptable to me nor is a massive tax increase on the American people to pay for it,” he said.
Christie downplayed his polls numbers, which essentially have him ninth nationally and sixth in early-voting-state New Hampshire, saying “campaigns matter.”
“If they didn’t, we’d still elect people right now,” he said.
Right now, the huge 2016 GOP presidential field has 14 candidates and is expected to increase to 16 and include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Christie is not expected to win or have a top finish in first-in-the-nation voting in Iowa, where the Republican Party’s most conservative candidates historically do the best.
However, Christie, more of an East Coast moderate, is expected to do better in the less conservative New Hampshire and would be allowed to participate in the GOP primary debates if he stays among the top 10.
On Sunday, he disagreed with calls by fellow GOP presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for a constitutional amendment that would lead to retention elections for Supreme Court justices, following recent decisions on ObamaCare and gay marriage.
He suggested that Americans should consider a process similar to that in New Jersey in which justices are appointed for a seven-year term, followed by the governor having the opportunity to again consider whether to nominate them for a lifetime tenure. 
“I don't want to see judges raising money and running for election,” Christie said.
He also accused fellow GOP presidential candidate Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul of politicizing national security by arguing against a section of the post-9/11 Patriot Act that allows federal investigators to track the metadata of electronic communication to thwart more potential terror attacks.
“He's wrong, and what he's done has made American weaker and more vulnerable,” Christie told Fox News. “And he's done it and then cut his speeches and put them on the Internet to raise money off of them. He's politicizing America's national security.”

Congress returns to face busy agenda, funding deadline

Witch & Scarecrow.

After July Fourth fireworks and parades, members of Congress return to work Tuesday facing a daunting summer workload and a pending deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown in the fall.
The funding fight is shaping up as a major partisan brawl against the backdrop of an intensifying campaign season. Republicans are eager to avoid another Capitol Hill mess as they struggle to hang onto control of Congress and try to take back the White House next year.
Already they are deep into the blame game with Democrats over who would be responsible if a shutdown does happen. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has denounced Democrats' "dangerously misguided strategy" while House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California accuses Boehner and his Republicans of pursuing "manufactured crises."
The funding deadline does not even arrive until Sept. 30, but lawmakers face more immediate tests. Near the top of the list is renewing highway funding before the government loses authority July 31 to send much-needed transportation money to the states right in the middle of summer driving season.
The highway bill probably also will be the way lawmakers try to renew the disputed federal Export-Import Bank, which makes and underwrites loans to help foreign companies buy U.S. products. The bank's charter expired June 30 due to congressional inaction, a defeat for business and a victory for conservative activists who turned killing the obscure agency into an anti-government cause celebre.
Depending on the progress of the Obama administration's nuclear negotiations with Iran, lawmakers could also face debate on that issue. Leading Republicans have made clear that they are prepared to reject any deal the administration comes up with.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Sunday that Iran "should have faced a simple choice: they dismantle their nuclear program entirely, or they face economic devastation and military destruction of their nuclear facilities."
"It was actually both the fact of sanctions in 2013 and the threat of even tighter sanctions that drove them to the negotiating table," Cotton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said on ABC's "This Week."
"That's why we shouldn't have let up those sanctions," he added. "We should have insisted on the very simple terms that President Obama himself proposed at the outset of this process. Iran dismantles its nuclear program entirely and then they will get sanctions relief."
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said any agreement with Tehran must be "comprehensive."
"It's got to prevent Iran from any steps towards producing a nuclear weapons," said Cardin, also appearing on ABC. "That means you have to have full inspections, you have to have inspections in the military sites.  You have to be able to determine if they can use covert activities in order to try to develop a nuclear weapon."
Beyond the issue of Iran, the Senate opens its legislative session with consideration of a major bipartisan education overhaul bill that rewrites the much-maligned No Child Left Behind law by shifting responsibility from the federal government to the states for public school standards.
"We're seven years overdue" for a rewrite, said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn, the bill's chief sponsor.
The House also is moving forward with its own, Republican-written education overhaul bill, revived after leadership had to pull it earlier this year when conservatives revolted.
Even if both bills pass, though, it's uncertain whether Congress will be able to agree on a combined version to send to President Barack Obama. Indeed the prospects for any major legislative accomplishments arriving on Obama's desk in the remainder of the year look slim, though there's talk of the Senate following the House and moving forward on cybersecurity legislation.
That means that even though Obama was so buoyed when Congress sent him a major trade bill last month that he declared "This is so much fun, we should do it again," he may not get his wish.
But all issues are likely to be overshadowed by the government funding fight and suspense over how -- or if -- a shutdown can be avoided.
Democrats are pledging to oppose the annual spending bills to fund government agencies unless Republicans sit down with them to negotiate higher spending levels for domestic agencies. Republicans, who want more spending for the military but not domestic agencies, have so far refused. If there's no resolution by Sept. 30, the government will enter a partial shutdown.
It's an outcome all involved say they want to avoid. Yet Democrats who watched Republicans pay a steep political price for forcing a partial shutdown over Obama's health care law in 2013 -- and come within hours of partially shutting down the Department of Homeland Security this year -- claim confidence they have the upper hand.
"Given that a Democratic president needs to sign anything and you need Democratic votes in both chambers, the writing is on the wall here," said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.
Republicans insist Democrats are running a risk by opposing spending bills for priorities like troop funding -- but are not yet discussing how they will proceed if Democrats don't back down.
As a result it looks likely current funding levels could be temporarily extended beyond Sept. 30 to allow more time to negotiate a solution.
And it's not the only consequential deadline this fall. The government's borrowing limit will also need to be raised sometime before the end of the year, another issue that's ripe for brinkmanship. Some popular expiring tax breaks will also need to be extended, and the Federal Aviation Administration must be renewed. An industry-friendly FAA bill was delayed in the House recently although aides said that was unrelated to the Justice Department's newly disclosed investigation of airline pricing.
In the meantime, the presence of several presidential candidates in the Senate make action in that chamber unpredictable, Congress will be out for another recess during the month of August -- and in September Pope Francis will visit Capitol Hill for a first-ever papal address to Congress.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigns after 'no' vote against bailout

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned from his post Monday after Greek citizens voted to reject further austerity measures the day prior, the Associated Press reported.
Varoufakis said he was told shortly after the voters rejected Sunday's referendum regarding demands by international creditors to impose further austerity measures in exchange for a bailout package for its bankrupt economy, that the other eurozone finance ministers and Greece's other creditors would prefer he not attend the ministers' meetings.
Varoufakis issued an announcement saying Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had judged that Varoufakis' resignation "might help achieve a deal" and that he was leaving the finance ministry for this reason Monday.
Varoufakis is known for his brash style and fondness for frequent media appearances at the start of his tenure when the new government was formed in January. He had visibly annoyed many of the eurozone's finance ministers during Greece's debt negotiations.
"Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants... for my ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the prime minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement."
"For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today," Varoufakis wrote in a blog post, according to The Guardian.
“Like all struggles for democratic rights, so too this historic rejection of the Eurogroup’s 25th June ultimatum comes with a large price tag attached,” the post read, according to the Athenian newspaper Kathmerini.
“It is, therefore, essential that the great capital bestowed upon our government by the splendid NO vote be invested immediately into a YES to a proper resolution – to an agreement that involves debt restructuring, less austerity, redistribution in favour of the needy, and real reforms,” Varoufakis wrote.
He said the prime minister had judged it "potentially helpful to him" if he is absent from the upcoming meetings with Greece's creditors.
"I shall wear the creditors' loathing with pride," he said, adding that he fully supports the prime minister and the government.
Varoufakis had called the voters' rejection of the proposal a "brave" move, Sky News reported.
The referendum "will stay in history as a unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage," Varoufakis said.
With his brash style and fondness for frequent media appearances at the start of his tenure at the ministry when the new government was formed in January, Varoufakis had visibly annoyed many of the eurozone's finance ministers during Greece's debt negotiations.
Government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis said in a statement that a replacement for Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who resigned Monday, would be announced later in the day after a meeting of political party leaders.
Sakellaridis said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras "feels the need to thank (Varoufakis) for his ceaseless efforts to promote the government's positions and the interests of the Greek people, under very difficult conditions."
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was elected on promises to repeal the austerity demanded in return for a bailout from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund, and negotiations broke down late last month after dragging on unsuccessfully for five months.
With his hight-stakes gamble to call a referendum on creditor proposals with just a week's notice, Tsipras aimed to show creditors that Greeks, whose economy has been shattered and who face spiralling unemployment and poverty, have had enough and that the austerity prescribed isn't working.
At one Athens bank, an employee faced a crowd of elderly Greeks as he tried to distribute tag queue positions to eto enter into the bank to withdraw a maximum of 120 euros ($134) for the week, the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, a prominent lawmaker with one of Germany's governing parties says he doubts that the departure of Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis will make talks on Greece's financial future easier.
Carsten Schneider of the center-left Social Democrats told ZDF television that the resignation is "not so important" and what matters is what policies the Greek government wants to pursue, the Associated Press reported.
Varoufakis, who had annoyed many of his fellow eurozone finance ministers, said he was told that some ministers and other creditors would prefer that he not attend the ministers' meetings.
Schneider said that Varoufakis "can't keep his promises and is drawing the consequences by fleeing." He added that a new minister might create a little more trust, but what is needed is Greek willingness to accept reforms and stabilize the country.

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Watchdog: Agency spends more than it makes to collect wrongful payments

1935

The Bureau of Federal Old-Age Benefits, renamed the Bureau of Old-Age Insurance (BOAI) in 1937, was created in December 1935 and was the forerunner of today's Social Security Administration.

 

 The Social Security Administration (SSA) spends more money than it collects when trying to recover payments to individuals who received benefits for which they were not eligible. 
According to the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the SSA issued $128.3 million in "low-dollar" overpayments between 2008 and 2013, and then spent $323 million to collect them. The agency ultimately recovered only $109.4 million. 
"This resulted in SSA spending over $213.6 million more than it collected," the OIG said, in an audit released Wednesday. 
The OIG defines an overpayment as "benefit payments greater than the amount to which individuals are entitled." 
The overpayments were distributed through the SSA's Retirement and Survivors Insurance (RSI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. 
The SSA issued approximately $16.8 billion in disability insurance overpayments alone in the past decade. 
"Generally, SSA attempted to collect overpayments regardless of the amount," the OIG said. "In some cases, the value of the overpayment was less than what SSA spent to collect the overpayment. Therefore, for some overpayments, collection was not always cost-beneficial." 
A "low-dollar" overpayment is less than or equal to the agency's average cost to retrieve an overpayment.
 

Trump stands by statements on Mexican illegal immigrants, surprised by backlash

Republican presidential candidate and real estate mogul Donald Trump on Saturday stood by statements he made recently that too many illegal immigrants from Mexico are criminals but said he was surprised by the backlash and that his comments are causing financial concerns.
“The crime is raging and it’s violent. And if you talk about it, it’s racist,” Trump told Fox News, three days after a purported illegal Mexican immigrant deported five previous times allegedly killed a woman in San Francisco.
Trump first made his inflammatory remarks during his non-scripted, June 16 presidential announcement speech.
“When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best,” he said during the announcement. “They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting."
Since then, a list of businesses have announced plans to cut ties with Trump’s vast business empire, while fellow Republican candidates and others have questioned Trump’s remarks.
NBC and Univision, for example, have decided not to air the Trump-owned Miss Universe Pageant, Macy’s is dropping his signature clothing line, New York Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered a review of Trump's city contracts and NASCAR is moving an annual banquet from the Trump National Doral resort in Miami. 
“I didn’t know it was going to be this severe,” Trump said Saturday, adding that he was surprised by the NASCAR decision, considering he has a good relationship with the group. “I am a whipping post.”
Still, Trump has drawn support from Americans who say he is openly confronting the severity of the immigration problem that others won’t publicly knowledge.
Trump also said Saturday that the problem isn’t limited to Mexico, that everybody entering the United States is not criminal or problematic and that his concerns are rooted in national security.
“It’s about safety,” he said. “Some of the people coming here are very violent people, not all.”
Trump and fellow GOP White House candidate and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have publicly exchanged remarks since Trump’s presidential announcement, with Rubio saying Trump’s comments about Mexicans were “offensive, inaccurate and divisive.”
After Mexican illegal immigrant Francisco Sanchez apparently killed 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco in a random attack Wednesday, Trump, who has proposed build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, sent a direct tweet to Rubio, the son of Cuban parents who has made immigration reform a part of his presidential campaign.
“What do you say to the family of Kathryn Steinle in CA who was viciously killed b/c we can’t secure our border? Stand up for US,” Trump tweeted.
Federal officials said local authorities repeatedly released Sanchez, who was in their custody as recently as this spring.
On Saturday, Trump said Rubio was “weak on immigration” and that fellow GOP White House candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry “could have done a lot more.”
He praised what he considers fellow candidate and Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s tough immigration stance, calling him “very brave.”

  Kathryn Steinle

  
Kathryn Steinle was shot Wednesday evening as she walked with her father and a family friend at Pier 14, one of the top tourist attractions in the city. Police arrested Sanchez about an hour after the shooting of the 32-year-old San Francisco resident.

 Sanchez

Sanchez has seven felony convictions and has been deported five times to his native Mexico, most recently in 2009, federal officials said.

Haley’s Charleston response, Confederate flag stand spark VP talk

First let's do away with the flags and then we can start burning all the books we don't like. 

What a great way FOR ME TO GET A FEW EXTRA VOTES.

South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley’s response to the Charleston massacre, highlighted by her call to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds, has thrust her back into the national spotlight and re-ignited talk about what role she might play in the 2016 race. 
Not only is Haley poised to be a powerful surrogate, there's already chatter that she could make a solid Republican vice presidential candidate.
"She’d be on anybody’s list,” Mike Huckabee, one 14 GOP presidential candidates and a former Arkansas governor, told Fox News on Tuesday. “She’s done a terrific job in South Carolina.”
Haley has been a high-profile Republican since she won the governorship as part of the 2010 Tea Party wave.
But her call to remove the Confederate battle flag after a white male fatally shot nine black people June 17 inside an historic African-American church in Charleston, S.C., has Republican presidential candidates, political observers and others suggesting her leadership in the aftermath shows she could be a pivotal player in the presidential race.
In addition, the Republican National Committee, South Carolina's U.S. senators and several of the GOP White House candidates have followed Haley in calling for the flag's removal, amid many Southerners’ belief that the flag is part of their heritage, not a symbol of white supremacy.
Haley, an Indian-American and the state’s first female governor, insists her call to remove the flag was deeply personal and beyond politics, repeatedly telling reporters she couldn’t “look her children in the face” while allowing the flag to fly.
But in a presidential campaign season, the political implications are unavoidable.
Juleanne Glover, who has worked on Republican presidential campaigns for Arizona Sen. John McCain and Steve Forbes and is now a senior adviser for the international firm Teneo Strategy, agrees that Haley could be a top vice presidential pick.
But she also argues Haley could play a far bigger role in the White House race that would begin much earlier than when candidates pick a running mate in summer 2016.
Glover suggested Tuesday that Haley’s backing and physical presence at campaign stops across early-voting South Carolina could make or break a candidate’s White House bid and that her voice on such topics as women’s issues, education reform and long-term immigration policy could “create a platform for 2016.” 
“She could play a pivotal role in all of these issues and in the future of the party,” Glover said. “She’s an American success story with a biographical narrative that lends itself to a larger, inspirational story. Friends who know her well have always been evangelical about her potential. They are not surprised.”
The decision by Haley, an elected official, to end her previous support for the flag, which was moved from atop the state capitol dome in 2000, indeed put her at the forefront of the issue.
However, she was not the first high-profile Republican to speak out.
Haley made the announcement, amid mounting public outcry, five days after the incident and three days after 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and 2016 GOP candidate Jeb Bush called it a symbol of racism.
Within the crowded GOP field, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham support the flag being taken down, while Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum have not taken a specific public stance. The field is expected to swell to 16 candidates.
As a female and a minority official, the 43-year-old Haley indeed has the potential to become a major figure in the new guard of the Republican Party.
But some political observers suggest she is still a work in progress.
Haley was elected last year to a second term with roughly 56 percent of the vote, the largest margin of victory for a South Carolina gubernatorial candidate in 24 years. But she won in an overwhelmingly Republican state and would likely need to broaden her appeal to be selected as a running mate.
In addition, the former state legislator, who has an accounting degree from Clemson University, has largely focused on job growth and state economic development and less on race and women’s issues.
And she has occasionally clashed with Democrats and Republicans alike in the state legislature.
Haley upset black Democrats in part over her refusal to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare and for supporting a state voter-identification law they consider discriminatory.
However, the week before the Charleston church killings, Haley signed into a law a bill requiring police officers to wear body cameras that was championed by  Democratic state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, killed while leading a bible study inside the church.
She also got support from Pinckney, an ardent progressive, for an economic-development plan to dredge the Savannah River.
Still, College of Charleston political Professor Kendra Stewart said Haley has perhaps an even more “contentious” relationship with the GOP-controlled legislature, with which she has clashed over spending, ethics reform and state agency control.
Stewart said Haley also has offended assembly leaders by criticizing them publicly and vetoing their legislation, which has resulted in efforts to override her vetoes.
Glover thinks Haley has had to battle with the old guard in both parties to achieve her political goals but acknowledges “some of the legislative tussles have not always helped burnished her image.”
Another big issue is simply the political calculations of picking any vice presidential candidate -- which includes such factors as the Democrats’ presidential nominee and whether the GOP nominee is, for example, a strong conservative or more of a moderate who would gain wider appeal with somebody like Haley.
Stewart suggests that Haley’s odds increase if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination or if an East Coast moderate like Christie is the Republican choice.
“If Clinton wins, it would be wise for Republicans to have a female or non-white male on the ballot,” Stewart said. “She’s very appealing to the Republican Party’s more conservative base. She would add some strength to that part of the ticket.”