Addressing graduates at a historically black college in Maryland Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama urged students to “be an example of excellence to the next generation” in a time when popular culture dominates the ambitions of young African-Americans.   

In an address at Bowie State University, Mrs. Obama told graduates to bear the goals of the university’s founders in mind by highlighting the role of education in the black community. 

Citing the high dropout rates of African-American students, Mrs. Obama lamented that--  despite their ancestors’ fights to ensure that African Americans have access to education -- too many young people still “can’t be bothered.” 

“Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper,” she said. 

Obama said that graduates can serve as an example by rebutting voices within the black community who stigmatize education. 

“Please reject the slander that says a black child with a book is trying to act white,” she said. 

This story was originally published on Fri May 17, 2013 2:18 PM EDT

It hasn’t been a fun week in the West Wing, but President Barack Obama insisted Friday that his focus remains on job creation despite Washington’s tendency to get “distracted”  by political battles. 

“I know it can seem frustrating sometimes when it seems like Washington’s priorities aren’t your priorities,” he said at a manufacturing plant in Baltimore, Md.  “I know it all seems like folks down there are more concerned with their jobs than with yours. Others may get distracted by chasing every fleeting issue that passes by but the middle class will always be my Number One focus, period.” 

The president’s remarks at Ellicott Dredges, a manufacturer of equipment used for infrastructure projects, came at the end of a week that saw the White House buffeted by competing scandals. On Wednesday, the administration released 100 pages of emails to try to stem controversy over alleged tinkering with official talking points in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack; also on Wednesday, in a last-minute statement to the press, Obama harshly reprimanded IRS officials and announced the resignation of the agency’s acting director after revelations that its staff targeted conservative groups for additional scrutiny. 

But Obama’s message Friday was one of a bright future for a nation still scarred from the 2008 economic downturn. 

“You might not know it if you were just watching the news, and you’re exposed to all the partisan battles and brinksmanship in Washington, but the truth is there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about where this country is headed,” he said. 

The president also announced Friday that he has signed a Presidential Memorandum that will help cut down wait times to begin federal infrastructure projects by overhauling the permitting system. 

Obama urged workers in attendance to keep the pressure on lawmakers in Washington to keep working towards more job creation.   

“Sometimes our leadership isn’t focused where we need to be focused,” he said. “And that’s where you come in.”

This story was originally published on Fri May 17, 2013 2:00 PM EDT

The outgoing head of the IRS disputed Republicans’ suspicions that the tax-collecting agency’s targeting of conservatives was motivated by partisanship at the first congressional hearing on the scandal.

Steven Miller, the acting commissioner of the IRS who submitted his resignation from that role earlier this week, appeared on Friday to face lawmakers’ pointed questions about the revelations that IRS officials had inappropriately singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

But he and J. Russell George, the IRS inspector general whose report unearthed the controversy that has dominated Washington this week, testified that there was no evidence of political motivations among IRS employees who targeted conservative advocacy groups applying for nonprofit status. They instead blamed incompetence.

“I do not believe that partisanship motivated the practices of the people described in the IG report,” Miller said. “I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people who were trying to be efficient in their work.”

GOP lawmakers also repeatedly sought to ferret out any information as to whether Miller had talked with White House officials about the targeting of conservatives, or – more ominously – had shared confidential tax information with the administration. (The implication of that line of questioning involved last year’s presidential election, when Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s own tax practices became an issue in the election.)

To that end, George testified that he told the Treasury Department's general counsel and deputy secretary Neal Wolin of the investigation before the 2012 election.

In the week following the first revelations of the inspector general report, conservatives have seized upon the scandal to ding President Barack Obama, demanding criminal prosecutions of IRS officials, and accusing the president (as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., did Thursday) of a “culture of intimidation.” GOP members of the committee spent much of the hearing trying to advance that narrative

But Miller repeatedly – and, at times, tersely – disputed speculation that IRS officials were deliberately targeting ideological opponents of the Obama administration, and denied that he had misled Congress in previous testimony about the IRS’s actions. When asked sharply by Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., how he would characterize his previous, inaccurate testimony to Congress, Miller shot back: "I always answer questions truthfully, Mr. Camp."

Miller, the ousted acting commissioner of the IRS, was the primary object of lawmakers’ scrutiny at Friday’s hearing, particularly Republicans who expressed incredulity and outrage at the IRS fiasco.

“Is this still America?” asked Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who said the IRS controversy were evidence of a government “drunk on power.”

Republicans came to the hearing armed with plenty of outrage and examples of Tea Party groups from their home districts running into red tape in their nonprofit applications, which they used to pummel Miller throughout the hearing. The outgoing commissioner parried their attacks by responding that he was not permitted to comment on specific cases.

Democrats spent the bulk of the committee’s hearing, though, warning their GOP colleagues against cultivating evidence of a scandal where there is none. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., asked both Miller and George, the inspector general, whether they had unearthed any evidence of political motivation in IRS officials’ scrutiny of conservatives.

They replied identically: “We did not, sir.”

Those answers scarcely satisfied Republicans, who have sensed a major opportunity – combined with simultaneous controversies this week involving the Obama administration’s handling of last year’s terror attack in Benghazi, and the Department of Justice’s seizure of Associated Press journalists’ phone records – to play offense against the White House.

For their part, Democrats have largely tried to match Republicans in their outrage at the IRS controversy, led by the president himself. Obama said this week that he was “angry” at the IRS for its actions, and asked for Miller’s resignation. Obama named Daniel Werfel, who currently serves as controller of the Office of Management and Budget, as the new acting IRS commissioner on Thursday.

Jason Reed / Reuters

Outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller listens at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative groups on Capitol Hill, May 17, 2013.

The president has said he didn’t learn about the actions taken by the IRS to target conservative and Tea Party groups until details of the inspector general report leaked to the media last Friday.

But while the controversy will likely spur plenty of future hearings into the IRS wrongdoing, Friday’s testimony – for now – could help limit the political fallout to the IRS itself.

“As acting commissioner I want to apologize on behalf of the IRS for the mistakes that we made and the poor service that we provided,” Miller said in his opening statement. He said later in the hearing that he should ultimately be held accountable for IRS employees’ missteps, but denied that meant he was personally involved in directing political targeting.

Related stories:

Obama names acting IRS chief, denies knowledge of IRS report

This story was originally published on Fri May 17, 2013 7:43 AM EDT

A bipartisan House group says it has reached a deal in principle on its version of comprehensive immigration reform.

"The bipartisan group working on #immigration in House has made a deal in principle" Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart tweeted late Thursday after the eight members met.

That's good news for immigration advocates, who feared that the years-long work of the House group would break apart over disputes involving the parameters of a mandatory E-Verify system and other issues. While the Senate Gang of Eight bill remains the more high-profile template for final immigration legislation, a breakdown in House negotiations wouldn't have been a positive sign for the progress of compromise immigration measures in the House.

Things didn't look good earlier this week, with one Republican in the group saying he was likely to leave if a resolution wasn't reached.

House Speaker John Boehner said earlier Thursday that he was "concerned" that the group - which includes four Republicans and four Democrats - was still hung up without a deal.

"I am concerned that the bipartisan group has been unable to wrap up their work, there are very difficult issues they're working on," he said. "But I continue believe the House needs to do something and I believe works it will, how we get there, we'll see."

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 7:36 PM EDT

President Barack Obama will appoint a White House budget officer to the be the new acting Internal Revenue Service commissioner, an announcement made following a fresh declaration from the president that he knew nothing about the inspector general’s report detailing improper IRS actions until it was leaked.

After announcing the resignation of acting IRS Director Steven Miller on Wednesday evening, the president emerged Thursday afternoon to answer questions from the press about actions taken by IRS employees to single out conservative and Tea Party advocacy groups for extra scrutiny in their applications for nonprofit status.

"I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the I.G. report before the I.G. report had been leaked ... through the press," said Obama. "Typically, the I.G. reports are not supposed to be widely distributed or shared. They tend to be, you know, a process that everybody's trying to protect the integrity of. But, what I'm absolutely certain of is that the actions that were described in that I.G. report are unacceptable."

The president declined to endorse appointing an independent counsel to investigate the controversy -- an idea that some Republicans have demanded. The criminal investigation initiated by the Justice Department, combined with the administration's efforts to cooperate with lawmakers in their investigations, Obama argued, should be sufficient.

"I think it's going to be sufficient for us to be working with Congress," he said.

Just hours after that event, the White House said that Daniel Werfel, current controller of the Office of Management and Budget, would be named acting IRS chief, effective May 22.

In a press release, Obama said, "The American people deserve to have the utmost confidence and trust in their government, and as we work to get to the bottom of what happened and restore confidence in the IRS, Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time."

Later Thursday, NBC News confirmed that a second top Internal Revenue Service official has announced plans to leave the agency. An internal IRS memo says that Joseph Grant, commissioner of the agency's tax exempt and government entities division, will retire June 3.

Of the three controversies that dominated Washington this week, the IRS issue has proven the most politically noxious for Obama.

The White House has also been besieged by new questions about its response to last year's terrorist attack against a diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya, along with revelations that the Justice Department had monitored Associated Press journalists' phone records.

The IRS and AP cases have been particularly thorny politically for one of Obama's top allies in the cabinet, Attorney General Eric Holder, who on Wednesday faced grilling on Capitol Hill for his role in both controversies. Republicans renewed some of their longstanding demands that Holder resign his position, demands which the president rejected on Thursday.

"I have complete confidence in Eric Holder as attorney general," Obama said.

After weathering blistering criticism from Republicans, the administration has begun trying to craft its response to all three issues.

To that end, Obama on Thursday announced new measures meant to enhance security for U.S. diplomatic postings abroad as part of the administration's continued reaction to the Benghazi incident.

"I am intent on making sure we do everything we can to prevent another tragedy like this from happening again," Obama said at the White House.

His remarks come amid intensified efforts by Republican members of Congress to probe the Obama administration's reaction to the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The administration has sought to turn the narrative on that matter in its favor beginning Wednesday, when it released emails documenting how the administration crafted its first public responses to the attack.

Obama called on members of Congress in both parties to "come together" and work to authorize legislation to help fortify embassies and other diplomatic installations as a tribute to the deceased in Benghazi.

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obamaand Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrive for a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, May 16, 2013.

Still, the controversy involving the AP helped prompt the administration to renew its efforts to have Congress authorize a federal shield law that would protect journalists from having to disclose confidential details of their work in court.

"To the extent that this case has prompted renewed interest with respect to how do we strike that balance properly, I think that now's the time for us to revisit that legislation," Obama said. "I think that's a worthy conversation to have."

Whether any of Obama's actions will placate Republicans, who are eager to use these controversies to gain political traction and slow or halt the president's second-term agenda, remains to be seen.

Lawmakers in both parties plan a series of high-profile hearings, beginning on Friday, on each of the controversies. And Republicans in particular have been eager to make political hay of the administration's recent missteps.

Speaking before the president this morning on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the controversies were a mark of “remarkable arrogance” by the president and his administration, though Boehner said that the Republican-controlled House was still primarily focused on the business of legislating.

NBC's Peter Alexander and Kelly O'Donnell contributed to this report.

Related stories:

• First Thoughts: White House makes moves to stop the political bleeding
• Obama calls IRS flap 'inexcusable,' announces resignation of acting IRS chief

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 12:06 PM EDT

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Thursday proposed major changes to military laws for sexual assault cases, backing a bill to prevent military commanders from handling sexual assault cases that involve their subordinates. 

"We believe enough is enough. It is time to change this system that has been held over since George Washington that is simply not working today for the men and women who are serving," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a member of the Armed Services Committee who is spearheading the legislation.

"What does it say about us as a people, as a nation, as the foremost military in the world, when some of our servicemembers both men and women have more to fear from their fellow soldiers than from the enemy?" asked Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The bill would take serious sexual assault cases completely out of the military's chain of command if the potential sentence amounts to more than a year in prison -- the equivalent of a felony in a civilian court.

"When any single victim of sexual assault is forced to salute her attacker, clearly our system is broken," Gillibrand said.

The military has resisted such sweeping changes in the past, but a recent string of incidents has increased pressure on Defense Department leaders to change the policy. The top Air Force officer charged with preventing sexual assault was accused of attacking a woman in a Virginia parking lot, and a soldier at Fort Hood tasked with sexual assault prevention is under investigation for sexual abuse.

Collins and Gillibrand spoke at a press conference Thursday morning, where she was joined by an array of colleagues from both house of Congress and from both parties, including Collins, and Reps. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., and Krysten Sinema, D-Ariz.

Gillibrand's bill also requires that a decision about how a sexual assault case is handled -- whether it goes to trial and how the court-martial proceeds -- is made by someone who holds a rank equivalent to colonel.

It would also allow each military service's chief of staff to establish courts, empanel juries and pick judges to hear sexual assault cases, and write into law a proposal from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that prevents commanders from overturning sexual assault convictions or reducing guilty findings to lesser offenses.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

Senate subcommittee on Personnel Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. addresses the third panel on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, during the subcommittee's hearing on sexual assault in the military.

The event was held in advance of a planned meeting at the White House on the issue. President Barack Obama was to meet with Hagel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, the military service chiefs, military service secretaries, and the senior enlisted advisers.

Gillibrand and other lawmakers met earlier this month with top White House advisers -- the meeting was led by Valerie Jarrett, who is personally close to the president -- to discuss the problem.

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 11:25 AM EDT

Four of President Barack Obama's nominees moved forward Thursday with one, MIT physics professor Ernest Moniz, being unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be secretary of energy.

Another nominee -- Sri Srinivasan to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- was OK'd by the Senate Judiciary Committee and seems certain of confirmation by the full Senate.

But two other nominees -- Thomas Perez to head the Department of Labor and Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency -- face an uncertain future on the Senate floor.

In a party-line vote, a Senate committee Thursday approved the Perez nomination. 

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, strongly opposes Perez, who is now the assistant attorney general for civil rights.

The Iowa Republican accuses Perez of improperly arranging a swap. If the city of St. Paul, Minn., would withdraw a major fair housing case which was about to be argued before the Supreme Court, then the Justice Department would agree to not go to court in support of a whistleblower suing the city.

In his confirmation hearing last month before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Perez said a career Justice Department attorney had decided that the whistleblower had a weak case that didn’t merit intervention by the Justice Department on his side.

Led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., House Republicans have also crusaded against Perez. Issa got into an angry confrontation with Attorney General Eric Holder over the Perez nomination at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.

Another key Obama nominee, McCarthy, won approval Thursday on a party line vote by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Last week Republicans on the panel boycotted a meeting of the committee to underscore their demand for greater openness from the EPA on how it reaches its decisions and how it strikes deals with environmental groups to settle lawsuits.

Ranking Republican member, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said Thursday Republicans were now willing to move ahead on McCarthy because “we’re finally making real progress on the five key transparency requests that have been the focus of all the Republican members’ concerns about this nomination process.”

Vitter said the EPA had agreed to give GOP senators significantly more information on how it reaches its decisions. He said if the EPA provides more transparency, he would support handling the nomination on the Senate floor without a cloture vote, which would require 60 votes. If all of the Republican’ request for EPA transparency in five areas are met, Vitter said he would vote for McCarthy’s nomination on the Senate floor.

But referring to the Republican opposition, committee chairman Sen. Barbara Boxer, D- Calif., said, “I have never seen a nomination handled this way ... . I’m stunned at this. It’s kind of holding somebody hostage until you get an answer you want to have.”

Even if Vitter relents, the McCarthy nomination still faces a hold from Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who is protesting what he calls “bureaucratic infighting” among federal agencies which have delayed an environmental impact statement on the St. Johns Bayou-New Madrid Floodway Project in his state.

Obama got a significant victory Thursday when the Judiciary Committee unanimously approved his nomination of Deputy Solicitor General Srinivasan to serve on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the nation’s most powerful appeals court.

So far in his presidency Obama hasn’t gotten any nominee confirmed by the Senate to the D.C. circuit appeals court. That court is now divided between four judges appointed by Republican presidents and three judges appointed by Bill Clinton. (There are also six senior judges with a reduced workload who take part in some cases.) The court has four vacancies.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has called that court “more important than the Supreme Court because on so many of the issues that go there, they will have the final word.” It’s the end of the road for most cases since the Supreme Court accepts only a fraction of the requests for appeals. The court hears most of the challenges to decisions of regulatory agencies such as the EPA.

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 10:22 AM EDT

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 5:01 PM EDT

There’s never been much love lost between Attorney General Eric Holder and Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California – who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The tension between the two men was on full display Wednesday, when Holder flatly labeled Issa’s conduct during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee “shameful.”

The charge came after an aggressive exchange about Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez, whom Republicans say acted inappropriately during his time at the Justice Department.

“I am not going to stop talking now," Holder countered as Issa objected to the attorney general’s attempts to interject.

"It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress," Holder said. "It is unacceptable. It is shameful."

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 3:33 PM EDT

As the White House faces a trio of burgeoning controversies that have put the administration and agencies throughout Washington on the defensive, Attorney General General Eric Holder reiterated before a House panel Wednesday that he was not involved in the Justice Department's decision to seize two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as a part of a leak probe.

LIVESTREAM: House Judiciary Committee hearing

The Justice Department has also opened an investigation into revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for additional scrutiny. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder said that prosecutors are looking at several different statutes in the investigation of those actions. 

He said those potential violations could include an IRS statute that requires employees to do their jobs without favoritism, civil rights laws, the Hatch Act that restricts a federal employee's political activities, or the law against making false statements to investigators.

“The facts will take us wherever they take us,” he added, promising a nationwide investigation. 

Asked about the leak probe, Holder confirmed that Deputy Attorney General James Cole authorized the subpoenas on AP reporters' phone records after Holder recused himself from the matter.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

Attorney General Eric Holder is sworn in during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill May 15, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Holder first announced Tuesday that he had recused himself from the AP leak probe because he had previously been questioned by the FBI about the intelligence breach.

He added Wednesday that he also turned over his own phone records as a part of that questioning. 

He told the committee that he recused himself because he was one of the “relatively limited number of people” who had first-hand knowledge of the leaked information – and also because he had more regular communication with reporters than Cole.

“I was a possessor of the information that was ultimately leaked,” he added. “And the question then is, who of those people who possessed that information – which was a relatively limited number of people  within the Justice Department – who of those people actually spoke in an inappropriate way to the Associated Press,” he added.

In response to questions, he said that he did not know the date of his recusal for certain and that there was not a written record of it.  He also said that the White House would not have been informed of the recusal. 

Holder has been widely criticized by Republicans for DOJ's handling of the matter, scrutiny Holder noted at the beginning of his remarks.

"The head of the [Republican National Committee] called for my resignation in spite of the fact that I was not the person who was involved in that decision," he said.

The routine Justice Department oversight hearing became a hot ticket after two scandals – the DOJ probe and the revelations about the IRS – erupted since the end of last week. The Obama administration also continues to be dogged by lingering questions over its administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.

In opening remarks he was set to deliver before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder says the Justice Department “has taken critical steps to prevent and combat violent crime, to confront national security threats, to ensure the civil rights of everyone in this country, and to safeguard the most vulnerable members of our society.”

NBC's Pete Williams contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 1:07 PM EDT

The top elected Republican in Congress says he's looking for prison sentences for those associated with IRS efforts to single out conservative advocacy groups applying for tax-exempt status.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, stoked conservative ire toward the Obama administration on Wednesday in the wake of an IRS inspector general report chastising agency employees for subjecting conservative and Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny.

"My question isn't about who's going to resign," Boehner said at a weekly press conference on Capitol Hill. "My question's about who's going to jail."

While the IRS report suggested that the employees' actions were not prompted by any outside influence, Republicans have nonetheless seized on the controversy, and openly suggested that the administration was deliberately targeting conservatives through the IRS.

"“Basically all we’ve gotten from the IRS, on the other hand, is an attempt to scapegoat some folks out in Cincinnati and a laughable attempt to move past this whole issue with a ridiculous op-ed claiming ‘mistakes were made,'" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor.

McConnell and the other 44 Senate Republicans all signed a letter to the administration demanding that IRS witnesses and materials be fully made available to congressional investigators.

"There are laws in place to prevent this type of abuse," Boehner said. "Someone made a conscious decision to harass and hold up these requests for tax exempt status. We need to know who they are, and whether they violated the law. Clearly, somebody violated the law."

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 10:34 AM EDT