Author: Molly Henneberg

The Obama Administration has not been lax in patroling the US-Mexico border, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano insisted to the Senate Judiciary Committee today.

Napolitano, also a former governor of Arizona, said, “I know that border i think as well as anyone. It is as secure now as it has ever been.”

The Secretary is trying to deflect the argument that a porous border forced Arizona to pass a controversial immigration law last week.

But Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the law last week that will make it a crime under state law to be in the US illegally, says the administration is not doing enough to stop the influx of illegal immigrants and drugs.

Brewer says she has sent 5 letters to President Obama, and spoken to him personally about the deteriorating border situation.  She says her entreaties have “been met with complete, total  disrespect to the people of Arizona. I mean, we don’t even get an answer back in regards to securing our border. So, given that, i think that it was time that Arizonans did step up.”

The White House said today that President Obama wants to take a “hard long look” at the law, and has directed the Justice Department to examine its options.

Attorney General Eric Holder said, “We are considering all possibilities including the possibility of a court challenge.”

But Republicans say a majority of Arizonans want this law.

“It has a 70-percent approval in Arizona,” according to House Minority Leader John Boehner, who continued, “I think that we ought to respect the people of Arizona and their right to make their own decisions.”

The law is set to go into effect in mid-summer.

Millions of students spend a summer, semester, or year learning the inside of a private sector industry.  Often they do it for school credit, but no pay.

The Department of Labor says most times that’s illegal, and it’s going to crack down on companies that don’t pay interns.

Labor lawyers, such as Kara Maciel at EpsteinBeckerGreen law firm, suggest businesses should review what they ask interns to do.  “If [interns] are performing administrative tasks, clerical tasks, answering phones, getting copies,”  Maciel says, “things that would otherwise displace a regular employee, then the Department of Labor may find that to be more looking like an employee than an intern.”  And therefore should be paid, she says.   

But business lobby groups note the economy is so tight, companies may have to cut the number of interns they hire, or not hire interns at all, if they all have to be paid. 

Barbara Lang, the Vice President and CEO of the DC Chamber of Commerce, says this will hit small businesses especially hard. 

“They will likely not be able to pay for it. Unless the government is going to provide some subsidy along with these requirements, they won’t be able to provide these experiences any more,” Lang says.

Supporters say the law should be enforced, and companies should not get free labor.  They also want to level the playing field between interns who can afford to work for free and those who can’t.

Ross Eisenbrey, the Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute, says, “If you can’t have an unpaid internship because you need to work, you’re poor, or your family just doesn’t have the means, you’re cut out, and that’s wrong.”

Eisenbray says the law does not apply to non-profit organizations or the federal government.

There is such a thing as a legally unpaid internship if it is truly a structured educational experience, for the benefit of the intern, rather than the company, with no promise of a job after the internship ends.

A group called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows has send a video to the President- called an “Urgent Letter to President Obama” – pressing him to hold the trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 co-conspirators in civilian courts, instead of military commissions. 

These families say if the President decides to keep the detainees in military comissions, he would be “buckling to political pressure.” The video features the mother of one of the women  killed in the World Trade Center towers.  The Peaceful Tomorrows group says it is an advocacy organization that seeks “effective, nonviolent responses to terrorism.”

The initial plan to try the detainees in federal court in Manhattan hit a wall with New York City officials and some Democratic lawmakers in Congress because of cost and security concerns. 

Today the White House says it is looking at “all available alternatives,” and that a decision is “a few weeks away.”

Five highly specialized mine rescue teams are on the scene of an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine-South, an underground coal mine near Whitesville, W. Va., according to a federal mine official.

Seven people were killed in the blast, and  19 more are unaccounted for at the site, about 30 miles south of the capital of Charleston. Charleston Area Medical Center has received at least one injured minor and is “preparing for other patients,” a spokeswoman said.

The state mine director said the explosion happened around 3 p.m. Monday. The mine is operated by Performance Coal Company, a subsidiary of Massey Energy based in Richmond, Va.

Operations started at Upper Big Branch Mine-South in 1994. About 200 people work there, and last year the mine produced about 1.2 million tons of coal.

Ellen Smith, the editor of Mine Safety and Health News, tells Fox News that Massey Energy paid $168,000 in uncontested civil penalties for violations related to this mine in 2009.

Upper Big Branch Mine-South has had three job-related deaths in the past 12 years.

Speaking in Iowa City, Iowa today, President Obama was interrupted by an audience member who was upset because a government-run health insurance “public” option wasn’t included in the new law.

The President went off of his prepared remarks and told the attendee that he and Democratic leaders “couldn’t get it through Congress.”

Mr Obama went on to say that this law is “a historic step” that “enshrines the principle that everyone gets health care coverage in this country, every single person.”

And while the President insisted that the new law is “middle of the road,” he told the applauding crowd that it “moves us in the direction of universal health care coverage.”

Today in his weekly radio address, President Obama said PAYGO is a “common sense rule.”

PAYGO, or Pay-as-you-go, requires Congress to pay for its spending, by cutting elsewhere in the budget or raising taxes. The President, who signed the bill yesterday, said PAYGO “helped lead to balanced budgets in the 1990s, by making clear that we could not increase entitlement spending or cut taxes simply by borrowing more money.”

Republicans have long opposed PAYGO because they say it enables lawmakers to increase taxes to fund more programs. A spokesman for Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) tells Fox that the Congressman believes PAYGO means “You pay, the Democrats go on spending.”