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McCain, Bayh Seek Americorps Growth Updated: Wed, Nov 07 5:03 PM EST By ROBERT GEHRKE, Associated Press Writer By ROBERT GEHRKE, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - AmeriCorps, set up eight years ago to encourage young people to do public service, should be expanded to include work on homeland defense, Sens. John McCain and Evan Bayh said Wednesday. The senators are seeking a fivefold increase in the program, bringing the number of volunteers to 250,000 by 2010, with 100,000 of the new volunteers devoted to security needs, such as public health programs and disaster relief. "No one argues there is ...

This nasty administration spent much time going after Gerald Walpin, who until a few weeks ago was the inspector general for AmeriCorps. Walpin's claim was that he was fired because he made the mistake of Investigation a friend of Obama (FOB), Kevin Johnson former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California, for the misuse of AmeriCorps funds. Because he was investigating the president's friends, Walpin, whose position as an inspector general is supposed to be protected from political appointees and the White House, was fired. Pressed for a reasoning for the dismissal the Administration said the IG seemed...

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill has become the first Democrat to question the White House over the firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. McCaskill, who, like Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, is a champion of inspectors general, co-wrote the 2008 legislation requiring the president to give 30 days' notice, and cause, before firing an inspector general.

This week the White House announced $234 million in grants to Americorps and other "service"-oriented nonprofits through the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The press release reports: Together with other positions in AmeriCorps VISTA and NCCC, AmeriCorps is on track to support more than 85,000 members this year, the first step towards the Serve America Act goal of 250,000 annual AmeriCorps members by the year 2017. These numbers don't approach the perhaps hyperbolic remark by candidate Obama in July 2008 that "[w]e've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as...

WASHINGTON -- Responding to criticism from a Senate Democratic ally, President Obama explained why he fired the Inspector General of the AmeriCorps without the 30-day notification required by law, calling Gerald Walpin so "confused" and "disoriented" that there was reason to question "his capacity to serve."

Photo illustration by Matthew Sheffield Key Republicans in both the House and the Senate are accusing the White House of giving “incomplete and misleading” information to investigators probing the president’s abrupt firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin. In return, the White House is hinting that documents concerning its actions in the Walpin affair may be protected by executive privilege. Both developments are part of an escalating conflict between GOP lawmakers and the Obama administration. Republicans are deeply skeptical of the White House explanation for the June 10 firing of Walpin, a tough investigator who had been probing misuse of...

A prominent Democratic politician who was banned from receiving federal aid three years ago over fraud charges is once again raking in government funds from the very same program he abused. It pays to be a FOTO -- Friend of the Obamas. Our publicly subsidized con artist is Sacramento mayor and former NBA star Kevin Johnson. He donated the maximum individual amount to Obama for America, campaigned across the country for Obama in 2008, and bragged to California media during his mayoral run about his friendship and access to both Barack and Michelle Obama. The Obama administration's Corporation for National...

~SNIP~ For example, among the formula of budget sequestration’s across-the-board cuts, split 50-50 between military and non-military spending, AmeriCorps will likely lose out. This core program, supported and used by many nonprofits, will likely lose member slots—in the thousands—and in all likelihood there will be a reduction in the level of federal commitment to each AmeriCorps member. Young Invincibles and the National Priorities Project reported that the likely cut in the AmeriCorps program itself would be $38 million. Remember that AmeriCorps is actually a suite of programs, including AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps VISTA, and the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community...

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction runs several programs that heavily emphasize racial issues in public schools. Some feel that one of those programs – an Americorps operation called VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) – may go a bit overboard by encouraging white students to wear a white wristband “as a reminder about your (white) privilege.” Geared towards high school students, the program “seeks to build capacity in schools and districts serving low-income families to develop an effective, sustainable, research-based program of family-school-community partnerships,” according to its Facebook page. That sounds reasonable enough. But the program’s approach becomes a...

WHAT IS CAMP FEMA? Homeland Security graduates first Corps of Homeland Youth October 7, 2012. Vicksburg. The federal government calls them FEMA Corps. But they conjure up memories of the Hitler Youth of 1930’s Germany. Regardless of their name, the Dept of Homeland Security has just graduated its first class of 231 Homeland Youth. Kids, aged 18-24 and recruited from the President’s AmeriCorp volunteers, they represent the first wave of DHS’s youth corps, designed specifically to create a full time, paid, standing army of FEMA Youth across the country. http://campfema.com/ http://www.training.fema.gov/ http://educationviews.org/homeland-security-graduates-first-c... http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/dhs-graduates-first-class-in-fema-camp-corps-is-this-the-2012-hitler-youth-corps/question-3278039/?page=5&link=ibaf&q=what+is+the+fema+youth+corps%3F

NEW YORK (AP) — Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney is unlikely to win Bill Clinton's vote, but that doesn't mean he can't soak up a bit of the popular former president's luster. The two men stood side by side Tuesday as Clinton introduced Romney before the GOP candidate's speech to Clinton's annual global conference in New York. Clinton recalled working with Romney to save AmeriCorps, and praised the former Massachusetts governor's efforts to persuade fellow Republicans to support the national service program. Romney, taking the podium, returned the compliment. "If there's one thing we've learned in this election season,...

Later today, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, and Robert Velasco, the acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, will announce a new partnership between FEMA and CNCS designed to strengthen the nation's ability to respond to and recover from disasters. They'll be joined by Cecilia Muñoz, the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Walter Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. You can watch live right here at 11:00 am ET.

Remember the Gerald Walpin affair? Republican Sen. Charles Grassley does. Walpin was the inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the organization that runs the AmeriCorps service program. In June 2009, Walpin received a call from Norman Eisen, who was then the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform. Eisen told Walpin he had an hour to either resign or be fired. Eisen's call appeared to violate the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which is designed to protect inspectors general from political interference. The Act requires the president to give Congress 30 days'...

Obama in his own words: Obama Civilian Security (Youtube video) Obama's Civilian National Security Force (American Thinker initial examination) TSA Chooses AFL-CIO Branch as Its Union I don't know about the rest of you, but knowing how Obama likes to do things when he thinks people aren't looking(the media is never looking, never scrutinizing), he likes to do things behind closed doors and in a round-about way, it would on the surface seem as though this is a promise kept. Being as there's no real way we can know for sure if he's done yet, we'll have to rate this...

Twin Rivers Unified School District's use of AmeriCorps volunteers has pleased parents and angered the California School Employees Association, which has filed an unfair practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board. It is the second charge the CSEA and its Twin Rivers chapter have filed with PERB since April. Both charges are in the initial review stage, a PERB official said. Parents are countering the first charge with a petition to keep the youthful AmeriCorps volunteers, who tutor kids, hold after-school activities and assist in school cleanup events. Officials at the CSEA and its Twin Rivers chapter say the...

America, the Dependent by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2011 So much for the new era of fiscal responsibility. The federal government’s dependency drones have been spared the chopping block. After vowing to eliminate funding for President Obama’s bloated $6 billion AmeriCorps social justice army, House Republicans retreated — and will shrink the AmeriCorps budget by a minuscule 6.7 percent. Politicians originally sold AmeriCorps as an alternative to big government — a program to “renew the ethic of civic responsibility and the spirit of community throughout the United States.” With bipartisan support, the program has morphed into an all-purpose progressive...

WASHINGTON – Fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin is asking that his lawsuit challenging his abrupt and apparently illegal dismissal by the Obama administration be reinstated – and he wants a new judge assigned to the case. A Washington Times editorial published Sept. 1 suggests that District Judge Richard W. Roberts has not presided over Walpin's case with professional impartiality. The editorial details extensive personal and professional ties between Roberts and Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, the boss of the Department of Justice lawyers defending the administration against Walpin's suit. ~snip~ Roberts dismissed Walpin's suit on June 17 of this year,...

Gerald Walpin, whose lawsuit to win back his job as inspector general overseeing the Americorps program was dismissed two weeks ago, has filed an appeal in the case. Walpin, who was fired by President Barack Obama during his dogged efforts to investigate Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.,...

A federal agency inspector general fired last year by President Barack Obama amid claims of bizarre and incompetent behavior, Gerald Walpin, has lost the first round in his legal bid to win back his job.On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Roberts threw out a lawsuit Walpin brought in an attempt to be restored to his position at the Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs Americorps and other programs. Walpin has claimed that his firing was political retaliation for his opposition to wasteful spending by the agency and for his aggressive investigation of a friend of Obama, Sacramento Mayor and former...

One year to the day after illegally firing AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin, the Obama administration is scrambling to ward off further embarrassments related to the case. On Friday, Mr. Walpin's lawsuit for reinstatement moved forward another step. For this tempest to be raging a full year later shows how badly the administration botched the situation from the start. On June 11, 2009, President Obama fired Mr. Walpin without explanation to Congress despite having co-sponsored a law as senator that required such an explanation before an inspector general could be dismissed. The most public dispute between the administration and Mr....