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President Donald Trump fired Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, on Thursday. Hayden was informed of the president’s decision through an email from Trent Morse, the deputy director of presidential personnel. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately,” the email said. Hayden was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2016 to serve a 10-year term, which was set to expire next year.

Conservative critics of President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Library of Congress were blindsided Wednesday when a key Republican engineered her lopsided confirmation by the Senate despite concerns she is, in the words of one opponent, “an unqualified, far-left progressive.” The Senate voted 74-18 to confirm Carla D. Hayden, who leads Baltimore’s public library system, as the 14th librarian of Congress. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., rushed Hayden’s nomination to the floor even as Blunt’s office declined to answer The Daily Signal’s inquiries Wednesday morning about the status of the nomination. U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote (go to link) All...

.... Carla Hayden is unfit for the post to which she was nominated. She promised to guide libraries on following E-Rate law. Instead, she recommended skirting the law (by advising libraries to allow adults to unfilter computers for themselves) while advising libraries to get their own attorneys. As a result, some libraries have been skirting the law as the ALA recommends. Some libraries go further than the ALA recommends, like the Brownsville Public Library which illegally obtains E-Rate funding for Internet access but does not filter "adult" computers. The result is libraries nationwide continue to endanger children by the very...

The Obama administration wants to unilaterally raise taxes on phone bills nationwide, bypassing Congress. As White House Spokesman Josh Earnest put it:“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a lot of action in Congress, so the President has advocated an administrative, unilateral action to get this done. We’re not going to wait for Congress to act.”The increased tax would go to a government-run program called E-Rate, which was ostensibly designed to connect low-income schools to high-speed Internet. … Schools applying for E-Rate subsidies run into a number of barriers that lead to delays in distributing funds and connecting schools. … Because of the...

Few, if any, of the confrontations captivating Washington this summer will affect daily life in America more than a subdued regulatory process that will begin Friday in an office building far from the capital's downtown power centers. On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission will start restructuring the "E-rate" under which Washington provides funds to help schools connect to the Internet. This seemingly obscure decision could trigger an education revolution by enormously accelerating the deployment of tablets and other digital tools into classrooms. Even lawyers' eyes may glaze over when confronted with the gray columns in the "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking"...

Don't get too excited yet, but there's a chance your monthly telephone bill will get a few dollars cheaper. Some members of Congress have begun speculating whether a government entitlement program riddled with waste and corruption and funded by taxes on telecommunications companies should be terminated. If the so-called E-rate program ended, the average phone bill would drop by $10 or more a year, an annual total of $2.25 billion. There's no way to tell whether E-rate is working, its setup likely violates federal law, and nobody seems to be in charge. Rep. Joe Barton, chairman of the House Committee...

<p>The $2.25 billion e-rate fund, which has helped thousands of schools and libraries get connected to the Internet, is riddled with fraud and financial abuse, according to a new report.</p> <p>The report, released on Thursday by The Center for Public Integrity, is based largely on investigations by the Federal Communications Commission.</p>

The $2.25 billion E-Rate program has helped connect thousands of schools and libraries to the Internet, but it may also be enriching unscrupulous contractors, according to a report released yesterday. The program is ‘‘honeycombed with fraud and financial shenanigans,’’ said the report from the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. The report is in large part based on investigations by the Federal Communications Commission. ‘‘They found problems everywhere they’ve looked, and they haven’t looked very hard at this point,’’ said Bob Williams, the author of the report. E-Rate, created in 1996 by Congress, offers subsidies of 20 percent to 90...

On phone bills, a revolting charge By MORTON LURIE RALEIGH - Today marks the anniversary, more than 200 years past, of "The shot heard 'round the world" and the start of our revolt against England in 1775. A revolt set off by a tax, a minor tax. A tax that put little hardship on the colonists of what was then British America. It was even a tax levied for a good purpose (the common defense of the colonies). But it was laid on arbitrarily and without consultation by the remote British Parliament. It was an affront to the traditional and...