DeVos at Education Says CommonCore is Dead, Sorta

Posted on January 18, 2018January 18, 2018 by Denise Simon

Fake news should also include news that is not reported unless you go find it as cable news such as CNN does not cover it.

In the case of education, there has been some significant success, CommonCore is dead, at least at the agency. But there is still a privacy concern as well as legislation on the databases dealing with students and families.

HR4174 is another federal bill that will weaken parental and citizen authority and give the federal government flexibility to gather any data on any citizen on any topic they want, to answer their desired policy questions.

HR4174 was developed in response to the report by the Commission on Evidence-Based Policy-making (CEP). The justification is to monitor the effectiveness of federal programs, however no evidence is provided to:

demonstrate that the federal government has the capacity to use evidence in policy development

demonstrate the federal government has the capacity to protect personal data

demonstrate the federal government has the capacity to collect data accurately in the first place

Cradle to grave….does the Department of Education address this as CommonCore is dead?

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Betsy DeVos: Common Core is dead at U.S. Department of Education

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos gave a far-ranging speech today in Washington at an American Enterprise Institute conference, “Bush-Obama School Reform: Lessons Learned.”

She announced the death of Common Core, at least in her federal agency.

DeVos also decried the federal government’s initiatives to improve education. “We saw two presidents from different political parties and philosophies take two different approaches. Federally mandated assessments. Federal money. Federal standards. All originated in Washington, and none solved the problem. Too many of America’s students are still unprepared,” she said.

And she touched on a favorite topic, school choice.

“Choice in education is not when a student picks a different classroom in this building or that building, uses this voucher or that tax-credit scholarship. Choice in education is bigger than that. Those are just mechanisms,” she said. “It’s about freedom to learn. Freedom to learn differently. Freedom to explore. Freedom to fail, to learn from falling and to get back up and try again. It’s freedom to find the best way to learn and grow… to find the exciting and engaging combination that unlocks individual potential.”

It was a long speech so I have edited it a bit here:

By Betsy DeVos

To a casual observer, a classroom today looks scarcely different than what one looked like when I entered the public policy debate thirty years ago…The vast majority of learning environments have remained the same since the industrial revolution, because they were made in its image. Think of your own experience: sit down; don’t talk; eyes front. Wait for the bell. Walk to the next class. Repeat. Students were trained for the assembly line then, and they still are today.

Our societies and economies have moved beyond the industrial era. But the data tell us education hasn’t.

The most recent Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, report, with which you are all familiar, has the U.S. ranked 23rd in reading, 25th in science and 40th in math. And, you know this too: it’s not for a lack of funding. The fact is the United States spends more per pupil than most other developed countries, many of which perform better than us in the same surveys.

Of course there have been many attempts to change the status quo. We’ve seen valiant efforts to improve education from Republicans and Democrats, liberals, conservatives and everyone in between.

The bottom line is simple: federal education reform efforts have not worked as hoped.

That’s not a point I make lightly or joyfully. Yes, there have been some minor improvements in a few areas. But we’re far from where we need to be. We need to be honest with ourselves. The purpose of today’s conversation is to look at the past with 20/20 hindsight, examine what we have done and where it has – or hasn’t – led us.

With No Child Left Behind, the general consensus among federal policymakers was that greater accountability would lead to better schools. Highlighting America’s education woes had become an American pastime, and, they thought, surely if schools were forced to answer for their failures, students would ultimately be better off.

President Bush, the “compassionate conservative,” and Senator Kennedy, the “liberal lion,” both worked together on the law. It said that schools had to meet ambitious goals… or else. Lawmakers mandated that 100 percent of students attain proficiency by 2014. This approach would keep schools accountable and ultimately graduate more and better-educated students, they believed.

Turns out, it didn’t. Indeed, as has been detailed today, NCLB did little to spark higher scores. Universal proficiency, touted at the law’s passage, was not achieved. As states and districts scrambled to avoid the law’s sanctions and maintain their federal funding, some resorted to focusing specifically on math and reading at the expense of other subjects. Others simply inflated scores or lowered standards.

Where the Bush administration emphasized NCLB’s stick, the Obama administration focused on carrots. They recognized that states would not be able to legitimately meet the NCLB’s strict standards. Secretary Duncan testified that 82 percent of the nation’s schools would likely fail to meet the law’s requirements — thus subjecting them to crippling sanctions.

The Obama administration dangled billions of dollars through the “Race to the Top” competition, and the grant-making process not so subtly encouraged states to adopt the Common Core State Standards. With a price tag of nearly four and a half billion dollars, it was billed as the “largest-ever federal investment in school reform.” Later, the Department would give states a waiver from NCLB’s requirements so long as they adopted the Obama administration’s preferred policies — essentially making law while Congress negotiated the reauthorization of ESEA.

Unsurprisingly, nearly every state accepted Common Core standards and applied for hundreds of millions of dollars in “Race to the Top” funds. But despite this change, the United States’ PISA performance did not improve in reading and science, and it dropped in math from 2012 to 2015.

Then, rightly, came the public backlash to federally imposed tests and the Common Core. I agree – and have always agreed – with President Trump on this: “Common Core is a disaster.” And at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.

On a parallel track, the Obama administration’s School Improvement Grants sought to fix targeted schools by injecting them with cash. The total cost of that effort was seven billion dollars.

One year ago this week, the Department’s Institute of Education Sciences released a report on what came of all that spending. It said: “Overall, across all grades, we found that implementing any SIG-funded model had no significant impacts on math or reading test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment.”

There we have it: billions of dollars directed at low-performing schools had no significant impact on student achievement.

So where does that leave us? We saw two presidents from different political parties and philosophies take two different approaches. Federally mandated assessments. Federal money. Federal standards. All originated in Washington, and none solved the problem. Too many of America’s students are still unprepared.

Throughout both initiatives, the result was a further damaged classroom dynamic between teacher and student, as the focus shifted from comprehension to test-passing. This sadly has taken root, with the American Federation of Teachers recently finding that 60 percent of its teachers reported having moderate to no influence over the content and skills taught in their own classrooms.

Let that sink in. Most teachers feel they have little – if any — say in their own classrooms.

That statistic should shock even the most ardent sycophant of “the system.” It’s yet another reason why we should shift power over classrooms from Washington back to teachers who know their students well.

Federal mandates distort what education ought to be: a trusting relationship between teacher, parent and student.

Ideally, parent and teacher work together to help a child discover his or her potential and pursue his or her passions. When we seek to empower teachers, we must empower parents as well. Parents are too often powerless in deciding what’s best for their child. The state mandates where to send their child. It mandates what their child learns and how he or she learns it. In the same way, educators are constrained by state mandates. District mandates. Building mandates… all kinds of other mandates! Educators don’t need Washington mandating their teaching on top of everything else.

But during the years covered in your volume, the focus was the opposite: more federal government intrusion into relationships between teachers, parents and children.

First, we need to recognize that the federal government’s appropriate role is not to be the nation’s school board. My role is not to be the national superintendent nor the country’s “choice chief” – regardless of what the union’s “Chicken Littles” may say! Federal investments in education, after all, are less than 10 percent of total K-12 expenditures, but the burdens created by federal regulations in education amount to a much, much larger percentage.

The Every Student Succeeds Act charted a path in a new direction. ESSA takes important steps to return power where it belongs by recognizing states – not Washington — should shape education policy around their own people. But state lawmakers should also resist the urge to centrally plan education. “Leave it to the states” may be a compelling campaign-season slogan, but state capitols aren’t exactly close to every family either. That’s why states should empower teachers and parents and provide the same flexibility ESSA allows states.

But let’s recognize that many states are now struggling with what comes next. State ESSA plans aren’t the finish line. Those words on paper mean very little if state and local leaders don’t seize the opportunity to truly transform education. They must move past a mindset of compliance and embrace individual empowerment.

Under ESSA, school leaders, educators and parents have the latitude and freedom to try new approaches to serve individual students.

My message to them is simple: do it!

Embrace the imperative to do something truly bold… to challenge the status quo… to break the mold.

One important way to start this process is to make sure that parents get the information they want and need about the performance of their children’s schools and teachers. ESSA encourages states to be transparent about how money is spent, down to the school-building level.

Some states have developed information that is truly useful for parents and teachers. Others have worked just as hard to obfuscate what is really going on at their schools. To empower parents, policymakers and teachers, we can’t let “the system” hide behind complexity to escape accountability.

We must always push for better.

ESSA is a good step in the right direction. But it’s just that – a step. We still find ourselves boxed in a “system,” one where we are in a constant battle to move the ball between the 40-yard lines of a football field. Nobody scores, and nobody wins. Students are left bored in the bleachers, and many leave, never to return.

So why don’t we consider whether we need a new playbook?

That brings me to point number two. And, to finish the analogy… let’s call a new play: empowering parents.

Equal access to a quality education should be a right for every American and every parent should have the right to choose how their child is educated. Government exists to protect those rights, not usurp them.

So let’s face it: the opponents of parents could repeal every voucher law, close every charter school, and defund every choice program across the country.

But school choice still wouldn’t go away. There would still be school choices… for the affluent and the powerful.

Let’s empower the forgotten parents to decide where their children go to school. Let’s show some humility and trust all parents to know their kids’ needs better than we do.

Let’s trust teachers, too. Let’s encourage them to innovate, to create new options for students. Not just with public charter schools or magnet schools or private schools, but within the traditional “system” and with new approaches yet to be explored.

What we’ve been doing isn’t serving all kids well. Let’s unleash teachers to help solve the problem.

You know, I’ve never heard it claimed that giving parents more options is bad for mom and dad. Or for the child. What you hear is that it’s bad for “the system” – for the school building, the school system, the funding stream.

That argument speaks volumes about where Chicken Little’s priorities lie.

Our children deserve better than the 19th century assembly-line approach. They deserve learning environments that are agile, relevant, exciting. Every student deserves a customized, self-paced, and challenging life-long learning journey. Schools should be open to all students – no matter where they’re growing up or how much their parents make.

That means no more discrimination based upon zip code or socio-economic status. All means all.

It’s about educational freedom! Freedom from Washington mandates. Freedom from centralized control. Freedom from a one-size-fits-all mentality. Freedom from “the system.”

Choice in education is not when a student picks a different classroom in this building or that building, uses this voucher or that tax-credit scholarship. Choice in education is bigger than that. Those are just mechanisms.

It’s about freedom to learn. Freedom to learn differently. Freedom to explore. Freedom to fail, to learn from falling and to get back up and try again. It’s freedom to find the best way to learn and grow… to find the exciting and engaging combination that unlocks individual potential.

Which leads to my final point: if America’s students are to be prepared, we must rethink school.

What I propose is not another top-down, federal government policy that promises to be a silver bullet. No. We need a paradigm shift, a fundamental reorientation… a rethink.

“Rethink” means we question everything to ensure nothing limits a student from pursuing his or her passion, and achieving his or her potential. So each student is prepared at every turn for what comes next.

It’s past time to ask some of the questions that often get labeled as “non-negotiable” or just don’t get asked at all:

Why do we group students by age?

Why do schools close for the summer?

Why must the school day start with the rise of the sun?

Why are schools assigned by your address?

Why do students have to go to a school building in the first place?

Why is choice only available to those who can buy their way out? Or buy their way in?

Why can’t a student learn at his or her own pace?

Why isn’t technology more widely embraced in schools?

Why do we limit what a student can learn based upon the faculty and facilities available?

Why?

Now, I don’t have all the answers or policy prescriptions. No one person does. But people do know how to help their neighbors. People do know how they can help a dozen students here or 100 there. Because they know the students. They know their home lives. They know their communities. They know their parents. They know each other.

I’m well aware that change — the unknown – can be scary. That talk of fundamentally rethinking our approach to education seems impossible, insurmountable.

But not changing is scarier. Stagnation creates risks of its own. The reality is… we should be horrified of not changing.

DoJ Official Explains the Terror and Immigration Report

Posted on January 17, 2018January 17, 2018 by Denise Simon

Politico published an item regarding the White House press briefing on 1/17/2018 where a Justice Department official, Ed O’Callaghan explained several terror cases inside the United States had connective tissue to chain migration as well as illegal immigration in an effort to give rise to the whole debate on Capital Hill as it relates to DACA, funding the border wall and shutting down the Federal government if no deal is reached. The only paragraph that did not have some bias slant to it is:

The report’s release, part of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last year, comes as the White House is pushing for changes in the U.S. immigration system that would end the diversity visa lottery program — through which a terrorist who killed eight people with a rented truck entered the U.S. — and chain migration, the practice of legal immigrants sponsoring family members’ entry into the country.

So, what is in this report?

Executive Order 13780 Section 11 Report – Final by zerohedge on Scribd

Most of the critical national security enhancements implemented and effectuated as a result of Executive Order 13780 are classified in nature, and will remain so to prevent malicious actors from

exploiting our immigration system.

However, to “be more transparent with the American people and to implement more effectively policies and practices that serve the national interest,” Section 11 of Executive Order 13780 requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, to collect and make publicly available the following information:

(i) Information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; convicted of terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; or removed from the United States based on terrorism-related activity, affiliation with or provision of material support to a terrorism-related organization, or any other national-security-related reasons;

(ii) Information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been radicalized after entry into the United States and who have engaged in terrorism-related acts, or who have provided material support to terrorism-related organizations in countries that pose a threat to the United States;

(iii) Information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including so-called “honor killings,” in the United States by foreign nationals; and, (iv) Any other information relevant to public safety and security as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General, including information on the immigration status of foreign nationals charged with major offenses.

According to a list maintained by DOJ’s National Security Division, at least 549 individuals were convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2016. An analysis conducted by DHS determined that approximately 73 percent (402 of these 549 individuals) were foreign-born. Breaking down the 549 individuals by citizenship status at the time of their respective convictions reveals that:

1. 254 were not U.S. citizens;

2. 148 were foreign-born, naturalized and received U.S. citizenship; and,

3. 147 were U.S. citizens by birth.

8 specific cases were listed in the report with a summary of each case. The Boston bombers were not listed in this report. They went from a tourist visa, to asylum status, to green card and one got citizenship. We also have the San Bernardino killers that arrived on a marriage visa and a cultural visa. Both of those have stay limits. The argument here in both cases they are in the spirit of chain migration.

Diplomatic favors? How about that Christmas Day bomber? How was he granted a visa?

The Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had initially had his visa denied in 2004, four years prior to his 2008 application. In 2004, he applied again, and the initial denial was overturned because a supervisory consular officer decided Abdulmuttalab’s father was too prominent in Nigerian politics and finance to upset the U.S. diplomatic applecart in that country and deny his son a visa. Ironically, this was the same father who four years later visited the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and sought to help the U.S. keep his son out of the U.S., only subsequently to have the U.S. decide he was not important enough to listen to.

The legal kicker in this visa story is that on Abdulmuttalab’s 2008 application, he lied and said he had never received a prior denial, enough to deny him a visa under law and keep him out of the country. As the matter was “considered resolved,” State Department did not look again at the 2004 denial when the young Al Qaeda operative sought another visa in 2008. Instead, he was granted the multi-year visa he used to attend an Islamic convention in Houston in 2008 and again for airline check-in on Christmas Eve.

This is incredibly embarrassing to the State Department. Despite State’s spin on this “new” fact, what this makes clear is that: (1) the intelligence community was not primarily to blame after all for failure to revoke the visa, as it should never have been issued in the first place; but (2) raises – once more – a larger issue of the State Department’s policies regarding visa issuance; and (3) whether State should continue to be responsible for the visa process. More here.

The Democrats are in a pre 9/11 mentality. After the 9/11 Commission Report, recommendations and solutions were drafted of which the congressional leaders all approved. In particular, go to page 24 of the summary as it relates to immigration.

Syrians: “Barrel Bombs are More Merciful”…Russia?

Posted on January 15, 2018January 15, 2018 by Denise Simon

In 2016, it was Russia dropping the barrel bombs on Aleppo and Homs.

Warplanes from Russia’s lone aircraft carrier and a missile frigate struck targets in Syria on Tuesday, bombing areas southwest of the embattled city of Aleppo, as Syrian government aircraft renewed barrel bomb attacks on the city itself.

The first-ever Russian strikes from the Mediterranean-based carrier Admiral Kuznetsov were described by the Kremlin on Tuesday as targeting extremists in Idlib and Homs provinces. More here.

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Now that Aleppo, Idlib and Homs are for the most part ghost towns, people that fled to Idlib and Ghouta are being killed by even more Russian barrel bombs.

The war in Syria is forgotten by the West and that is shameful. What the media is ignoring is reporting on the never ending war and suffering. Why is this an issue? Because the United States is still in Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition is working with its Syrian militia allies to set up a new border force of 30,000 personnel, the coalition said on Sunday, a move that has added to Turkish anger over U.S. support for Kurdish-dominated forces in Syria.

A senior Turkish official told Reuters the U.S. training of the new “Border Security Force” was the reason that the U.S. charge d‘affaires was summoned in Ankara last week, and President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said the development was worrying and unacceptable.

The force, whose inaugural class is currently being trained, will be deployed at the borders of the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of militias in northern and eastern Syria dominated by the Kurdish YPG. More here.

Meanwhile, as Russia has become a full time military occupier in Syria, Foreign Minister Lavrov is yelling squirrel and blaming the United States for destroying peace globally. Yup..imagine that. He has a full list of grievances against the United States.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the United States of destabilizing the world, airing a list of grievances over the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

Lavrov dedicated the opening of his annual press conference Monday to castigating the US, which is expected to soon issue a fresh round of sanctions against Russia over its interference in the 2016 US election. Russia has long denied meddling in the vote.

Lavrov criticized the US for issuing regular “threats” in relation to events in North Korea and Iran, saying they had “further destabilized” the global situation.

He did not mention President Donald Trump by name, but the US President has issued stern threats to North Korea and Iran, sending a series of fiery Twitter posts attacking the leadership in both nations.

Trump has openly ridiculed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Twitter over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear testing and threatened military intervention. He recently lambasted the Iranian leadership for being repressive, “brutal and corrupt,” and supported anti-government protesters challenging the government in six days of rallies.

Lavrov accused the US of provoking tensions on the Korean peninsula.

“The United States quite plainly says that the military confrontation is inevitable, however, everyone understands the catastrophic consequences of such recklessness,” he said.

He also criticized the US for expanding its military exercises around North Korea, “which provoked a new escalation of tensions,” while others were working through diplomatic channels to resume talks with Pyongyang.

Lavrov warned the US not to back out of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump had vowed to tear up the 2015 agreement, brokered by the Obama administration, alongside several European allies, Russia and China. The deal obliges Iran to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for eased sanctions.

Trump signed a waiver on Iran sanctions Friday under the deal, but signaled that he would not do so again. He has been under pressure from foreign allies and, according to US officials, his own national security team to stick to the deal.

The day he signed the waiver, however, Trump also announced new separate sanctions on 14 Iranian individuals and entities, in a move that has rattled Tehran.

Lavrov said that US threats to walk away from the deal would undermine any future agreement with North Korea.

“It’s sad that United States once again gives a reason to doubt their ability to be reliable contract partners,” he said.

“And if this agreement is being taken aside and Iran is being told — you stay within the frame of agreements but we will return the sanctions — well, put yourself in place North Korea’s place. They are being promised that sanctions will be lifted if they say no to their nuclear program, what if they do it but sanctions are still there?”

Relations between Moscow and Washington deteriorated in 2017, as several US investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election got underway. The US tightened sanctions against Russia and closed several of its diplomatic compounds in the country, while Moscow forced the US to cut back on its diplomatic staff in Russia.

Lavrov laughed when CNN asked if he regretted Trump’s ascension to the presidency, given the diplomatic tumult, and whether he might now prefer it if Hillary Clinton had won the election.

“This is not what diplomats do — regret something that has happened. We work with facts, and facts are what we have today, so we just do what needs to be done to advance Russia’s interests under the current circumstances,” he responded.

US officials have not publicly responded to Lavrov’s comments.

Google Worked for Democrats Against Republicans

Posted on January 15, 2018January 15, 2018 by Denise Simon

3. Throughout the Class Periods, and in violation of California law, Google employees

who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects

raised in the workplace and relevant to Google’s employment policies and its business, such as “diversity” hiring policies, “bias sensitivity,” or “ social justice,” were/are singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google, in violation of their legal rights.

4. Google’s open hostility for conservative thought is paired with invidious

discrimination on the basis of race and gender, barred by law. Google’s management goes to extreme—and illegal—lengths to encourage hiring managers to take protected categories such as race and /or gender into consideration as determinative hiring factors, to the detriment of Caucasian and male employees and potential employees at Google.

5. Damore, Gudeman, and other class members were most racized, belittled, and punished

for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being

Caucasians and/or males. This is the essence of discrimination —Google formed opinions about and

then treated Plaintiffs not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in groups

with assumed characteristics.

***

Sounds precisely like the Obama IRS when it did the same thing. It is yet another kind of cyber war.

If there is any doubt about Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Obama and Hillary –>

Clinton Status Memo Mentioning Google’s Eric Schmidt by Joe Schoffstall on Scribd

More here.

Yup that commie phrase we have come to know well…white privilege…in the case of Google it was ‘white male privilege’.

Google Punished Gudeman for His Views on Racism and Discrimination

88. After being reported to Google, Google HR spoke with Gudeman in or around

September 2015 regarding his posts.

89. Google HR discussed Gudeman’s viewpoints on race and/or gender equality, and his

political viewpoints. Google HR chastised him for attempting to stand up for Caucasian males and his conservative views.

90. At the end of the HR meeting, Gudeman was issued a verbal warning.

91. Gudeman complained to his colleagues about the lack of fairness that conservatives

received at Google, and the leeway Google provided for liberals to express their thoughts and opinions without repercussions.

92. After the 2016 presidential election, many employees at Google began to panic, having

expected a different outcome fully in line with their political views.

The Corporate Internal Blacklist

131. Google’s management-sanctioned blacklists were directed at specific Google

employees who tactfully expressed conservative viewpoints in politically-

charged debates. In one case, Jay Gengelbach, a L6 SWE Manager, publicly bragged about blacklisting an intern for failing to change his conservative views.

133. Kim Burchett (“Burchett”), a L7 SWE Manager, proposed creating an online

companywide blacklist of political conservatives inside Google. She was kind enough to suggest to her readership that they might deserve “something resembling a trial” before being added.

134. On August 7, 2015, another manager, Collin Winter, posted threats directed at a Google employee as a result of raising concerns of harassment and discrimination

to Urs Holzle. Winter stated: “I keep a written blacklist of people whom I will never allow on or near my team, based on how they view and treat their coworkers. That blacklist got a little longer today.”

135.

Also on August 7, 2015, another manager, Paul Cowan, reshared Collin Winter’s threat

to express his agreement with it and to indicate that he had also blacklisted Google employees with perceived conservative views. Cowan stated: “If you express a dunderheaded opinion about religion, about politics, or about ‘social justice’, it turns out I am allowed to think you’re a halfwit… I’m perfectly within my rights to mentally categorize you in my dickhead box… Yes, I maintain (mentally, and not (yet) publicly) [a blacklist]. If I had to work with people on this list, I would refuse, and try to get them removed; or I would change teams; or I would quit.”

Heck you can read the 161 page lawsuit here complete with screen captures of internal employee chats with each other. Swell place eh?

DoJ’s Bruce Ohr Demoted Again, Project Cassandra?

Posted on January 8, 2018January 8, 2018 by Denise Simon

Image result for Hezbollah Business Affairs Component

That’s it? On second thought, keep him employed to cough up the goods on Project Cassandra. More on that below. As an aside, in late December, Jeff Sessions ordered a complete review of Project Cassandra.

FNC: A Justice Department official demoted late last year for concealing his meetings with the men behind the anti-Trump “dossier” has been stripped of yet another title, Fox News has learned.

Bruce Ohr is no longer head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Separately, sources familiar with the discussions tell Fox News that the Justice Department is expected to comply with demands from the House Intelligence Committee to provide Ohr for an interview. He is scheduled to visit the committee on Jan. 17, sources said.

Fox News first reported in December that Ohr had been demoted from the position of associate deputy attorney general, after it was revealed he had conducted undisclosed meetings with dossier author Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that produced the salacious document.

Fox News also reported that his wife Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion GPS, specifically on research related to the dossier.

At the time of his demotion, DOJ officials told Fox News that Bruce Ohr had been “wearing two hats,” and would fall back to his other title and portfolio – as head of OCDETF.

Now, Ohr has been stripped of that role as well; former deputy director Thomas Padden is now acting director. It is unclear where Ohr has landed, only that he is still an employee with the Department of Justice.

One DOJ insider joked that Ohr might end up in “one of those offices without a phone.”

Fox News has also confirmed that Bruce Ohr, as the head of OCDETF, was directly involved with Project Cassandra, the interagency investigation spearheaded by the DEA that tracked a massive international drug and money laundering scheme allegedly run by Hezbollah.

The project recently was the subject of a critical and lengthy Politico report looking at how the Obama administration may have hampered the investigation. Those closest to Project Cassandra, including Derek Maltz, the now-retired supervisory DEA agent who was a major player in the operation, claim the project and its potential prosecutions were sidelined by senior Obama administration officials who didn’t want to upset Iran in the lead-up to the historic nuclear deal with Tehran in 2015.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised to look into what happened with the investigation.

He said in a statement last month: “While I am hopeful that there were no barriers constructed by the last admission to allowing DEA agents to fully bring all appropriate cases under Project Cassandra, this is a significant issue for the protection of Americans. We will review these matters and give full support to investigations of violent drug trafficking organizations.”

Sources close to the attorney general told Fox News that he was recently made aware of Ohr’s role in Project Cassandra and that Sessions is personally involved in the review and frequently asks for updates.

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The 76 page criminal complaint for Project Cassandra is here.

Hezbollah Business Affairs Component 85 tons of cocaine was sold to Los Zetas one of the most violent Mexican cartels. Bruce Ohr was head of the teams assigned to Project Cassandra.

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) (2016) announced significant enforcement activity including arrests targeting Lebanese Hizballah’s External Security Organization Business Affairs Component (BAC), which is involved in international criminal activities such as drug trafficking and drug proceed money laundering. These proceeds are used to purchase weapons for Hizballah for its activities in Syria. This ongoing investigation spans the globe and involves numerous international law enforcement agencies in seven countries, and once again highlights the dangerous global nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism.

This effort is part of DEA’s Project Cassandra, which targets a global Hizballah network responsible for the movement of large quantities of cocaine in the United States and Europe. This global network, referred to by law enforcement as the Lebanese Hizballah External Security Organization Business Affairs Component (BAC), was founded by deceased Hizballah Senior Leader Imad Mughniyah and currently operates under the control of Abdallah Safieddine and recent U.S.-designated Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) Adham Tabaja. Members of the Hizballah BAC have established business relationships with South American drug cartels, such as La Oficina de Envigado, responsible for supplying large quantities of cocaine to the European and United States drug markets. Further, the Hizballah BAC continues to launder significant drug proceeds as part of a trade based money laundering scheme known as the Black Market Peso Exchange.

“These drug trafficking and money laundering schemes utilized by the Business Affairs Component provide a revenue and weapons stream for an international terrorist organization responsible for devastating terror attacks around the world,” said DEA Acting Deputy Administrator Jack Riley. “DEA and our international partners are relentless in our commitment to disrupt any attempt by terrorists and terrorist organizations to leverage the drug trade against our nations. DEA and our partners will continue to dismantle networks who exploit the nexus between drugs and terror using all available law enforcement mechanisms.”

Beginning in February 2015, based on DEA investigative leads, European authorities initiated an operation targeting the network’s criminal activities in that region. Since then, law enforcement authorities, closely supported by DEA, have uncovered an intricate network of money couriers who collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East. The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers using the Hawala disbursement system. A large portion of the drug proceeds was found to transit through Lebanon, and a significant percentage of these proceeds are benefitting terrorist organizations, namely Hizballah.

This investigation is a result of leads developed during the investigation into the Lebanese Canadian Bank.

The combination of aggressive international law enforcement investigations and Treasury’s ongoing sanctions (see below) pressure shows the scope of the global commitment to diminish the ability of Hizballah and its financial supporters to move funds worldwide.

Enforcement Action

With DEA and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) working closely with foreign counterparts in France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, authorities arrested top leaders of the European cell of this Lebanese Hizballah External Security Organization BAC last week. The most significant arrest was of the U.S.-designated SDGT Mohamad Noureddine, a Lebanese money launderer who has worked directly with Hizballah’s financial apparatus to transfer Hizballah funds via his Lebanon-based company Trade Point International S.A.R.L. and maintained direct ties to Hizballah commercial and terrorist elements in both Lebanon and Iraq.

The CPB National Targeting Center partnered with DEA and international counterparts such as Europol in this investigation. CBP’s continued cooperation with the DEA , and European law enforcement counterparts is a vital component in dismantling complex global drug trafficking and money laundering networks as well as enhancing the security of the United States border.

U.S. Treasury Sanctions

Separately, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions last week targeted Hizballah’s financial support network by designating Hizballah-affiliated money launderers Noureddine and Hamdi Zaher El Dine, as well as Trade Point International S.A.R.L, a company owned or controlled by Noureddine, pursuant to Executive Order 13224. This order targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. Noureddine and El Dine were designated for providing financial services to or in support of Hizballah, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Trade Point International S.A.R.L. was designated for being owned or controlled by Noureddine. As a result of Treasury’s action, all assets of the designated individuals or entities that are located in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are frozen, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

As part of its designation, Adam J. Szubin, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, stated that, “Hizballah needs individuals like Mohamad Noureddine and Hamdi Zaher El Dine to launder criminal proceeds for use in terrorism and political destabilization. We will continue to target this vulnerability, and expose and disrupt such enablers of terrorism wherever we find them.”

Participating offices and agencies:

DEA Philadelphia, DEA Miami, DEA Newark, DEA New York, DEA Special Operations Division, DEA Bilateral Investigative Unit, DEA country offices in Europe, as well as Bogota and Cartagena
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)
U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
EUROPOL
EUROJUST