| Morning Jolt – February 28, 2013 By Jim Geraghty Here's your Thursday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! Jim Will the White House Regret Telling Woodward & Others They'll Regret Public Disagreement? This will be a story worth watching: The White House vs. Bob Woodward. I'll let David Jackson of USA Today summarize: It's Bob Woodward versus the White House. The bestselling author and Washington Post reporter is protesting White House pushback over his criticism of how President Obama and aides are handling the sequester issue. "It was said very clearly, you will regret doing this," Woodward told CNN, citing an e-mail he received from "a senior person" at the White House. "I mean, it makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, you're going to regret doing something that you believe in," Woodward said. In a statement, the White House said that "of course no threat was intended. As Mr. Woodward noted, the email from the aide was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation. The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more. And Mr. Woodward responded to this aide's email in a friendly manner." All we can say is: We know more than a few reporters have received similar e-mails from White House officials. Yelling has also been known to happen. "More than a few reporters have received similar e-mails from White House officials." So Obama staffers regularly tell reporters "they'll regret" writing stories detrimental to the president, and we're only hearing of this now? Apparently the Easiest Government Program to Cut: Jailing Illegal Immigrants Well, dang: The Associated Press has learned that the Homeland Security Department official in charge of the agency's immigration enforcement and removal operations has resigned after hundreds of illegal immigrants were released from jails because of government spending cuts. In an email obtained Wednesday by the AP, Gary Mead told coworkers that he was leaving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the end of April. Mead is the head of enforcement and removal operations at ICE. Mead had told co-workers of his resignation in the email sent Tuesday, hours after U.S. officials had confirmed that a few hundred illegal immigrants facing deportation had been released from immigration jails due to budget cuts. For what it's worth, an ICE spokesperson is insisting this is perfectly normal; he "announced several weeks ago to ICE senior leadership that he planned to retire after 40 years." Uh-huh. Permit me to quote the suddenly not-linkable Allahpundit of . . . SeveralDegreesAboveWarmAir.com: So, even though releasing the detainees very conveniently served Obama's goal of increasing the pants-wetting over sequester cuts while also very conveniently making the amnesty fans in his base happy, this was just Gary Mead going rogue without any direction from the White House. And Obama's so mad about it that Mead has to clear out his desk immediately two months from now. Let me gently suggest that in the unlikely event Mead really did order this on his own, perhaps he was just acting in the spirit of his boss, who not so subtly suggested a few days ago that if a deal wasn't reached on cuts ASAP then border security might have to go bye-bye for awhile. Dana Perino isn't buying this story, either: "Strains credulity to think that ice releases thousands of illegals and no one there ran it up the food chain. Not even a 'heads up'? Hmmm." In case you had missed it, the very first place the federal government has decided to save money was the $164 per day it spends on jailing illegal immigrants. Our government's priorities in action, my fellow citizens! Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have released "several hundred" immigrants from deportation centers across the country, saying the move is an effort to cut costs ahead of budget cuts due to hit later this week. Announcing the news Tuesday, ICE officials said that the immigrants were released under supervision and continue to face deportation. After reviewing hundreds of cases, those released were considered low-risk and "noncriminal," officials said. The releases took place over the last week and were an effort "to ensure detention levels stay within ICE's current budget," said ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christiansen, citing uncertainty caused by a budget standoff in Washington. "All of these individuals remain in removal proceedings. Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety," she said. Of course, you may have noticed . . . sequestration hasn't taken effect yet. Apparently government policies have prequels now. If you're calling "horsepuckey" -- or, you know, some other variation of that term -- on this decision, you're not alone: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she's appalled to hear that the Department of Homeland Security has begun releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants from custody. It's the first of potentially thousands of immigrants to soon be freed before mandatory federal budget cuts go into effect. The Obama administration has been issuing dire warnings about the impact of the sequestration. Brewer is a Republican. She calls the releases granted before Friday's deadline for sequestration cuts "pure political posturing." Brewer says "this represents a return to exactly the kind of catch-and-release procedures that have long made a mockery of our country's immigration system." 'Hey, don't look at us, we just work here,' insists the White House. The White House said Wednesday that it played no part in the decision to release hundreds of undocumented immigrants from detention centers, but a Texas Republican congressman is demanding answers. White House press secretary Jay Carney said the decision was made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement "without any input from the White House." He said ICE made the decision "as a result of fiscal uncertainty" over automatic spending cuts that are to take effect March 1 if Congress and President Obama do not reach a deal on a federal budget. Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthy as part of the deal; Republicans are opposed. On Wednesday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul sent a letter to ICE Director John Morton demanding the total number of people released, where they were released from and the specific reason why each of them was deemed releasable. "This decision reflects the lack of resource prioritization within the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is indicative of the department's weak stance on national security," McCaul wrote in his letter. Hey, look at the bright side, we've just cut spending by at least $16,400! On the Sequester, Arne Duncan Doesn't Sweat the Details . . . Or, You Know, Facts You may have noticed that Arne Duncan is . . . well, I'll let you fill in the derogatory term of your choice. I'll just say that there are people in the education community who are more or less my polar opposite politically who are convinced that you can confuse our secretary of education by calling him into the Oval Office and telling him to sit in the corner. His "hey, aren't sports awesome!" video for International Education Week is a good example of this phenomenon. He's also, um . . . full of crap: The descriptions of the post-sequester landscape that have been coming out of the Obama Administration have been alarming, specific -- and, in at least some cases, hyped. "There are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can't come back this fall," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." When he was pressed in a White House briefing Wednesday to come up with an example, Duncan named a single county in West Virginia and acknowledged, "whether it's all sequester-related, I don't know." And, as it turns out, it isn't. Officials in Kanawha County, West Virginia say that the "transfer notices" sent to at least 104 educators had more to do with a separate matter that involves a change in the way West Virginia allocates federal dollars designated for poor children. The transfer notices are required by state law and give teachers a warning that they may be moved to a different position next school year. They don't necessarily mean a teacher has been laid off, said Pam Padon, director of federal programs and Title 1 for the Kanawha County public schools. "It's not like we're cutting people's jobs at this point." She said those 104 notices will ultimately result in the elimination of about five to six teaching jobs, which were likely to be cut regardless of the sequester. "The major impact is not so much sequestration," she said. "Those five or six jobs would already be gone regardless of sequestration." In addition, the county notified all of its Head Start teachers that they may be out of a job, not because of sequestration, but because the Obama administration had recently labeled the Kanawha County program "deficient", a designation that requires it to compete for funding instead of getting an automatic renewal. Say, how has the U.S. Department of Education been spending its money lately? Museums, nature centers, and zoos all contribute to memorable educational moments for many students. Rarely do trips to the movie theater fall on that list, let alone those funded by federal taxpayers. The Dallas Independent School District spent $57,000 in federal funds to send about 4,400 fifth-grade boys from 132 schools to watch Red Tails, a film portraying the Tuskegee airmen of World War II. The girls in each class were left to watch a movie about a spelling bee, a decision that may have violated antidiscrimination laws. The trip was paid for with federal Title I funds, which are "earmarked for educating disadvantaged children." What Should the Right Expect from Chris Christie? Guy Benson argues that conservatives should see Chris Christie for what he is: a mixed-bag kind of guy who's probably about as conservative as we can hope for in a deeply Democratic state like New Jersey: [In this week's speech before the legislature] Christie went on to renew his call for a ten percent across-the-board income tax cut, introduce a school choice initiative, tout the pension and healthcare reforms he extracted from government unions, and extol the results on his property tax cap. Sure, there's still plenty of room for criticism. Despite job gains, the state's unemployment rate remains too high. Christie's proposed spending is lower than it was in FY 2008, but is higher than last year's budget. And his unpersuasive defense of the Medicaid gambit is only somewhat tempered by his reminder that he is "no fan of the Affordable Care Act," having twice vetoed an Obamacare exchange in the Garden State. But for every frustrating or indefensible call he's made, he's done something like yank New Jersey out of a job-killing carbon emissions scheme, or strip Planned Parenthood of state funding. In other words, Christie's performance has been a mixed bag for conservatives. Which brings us to the impulse to purge. I have no beef with conservatives who say they couldn't support Christie for president. I have no quarrel with those who mount strong, principled arguments against some of his actions; indeed, I share more than a few of their criticisms. But I am alarmed and slightly perplexed by the "he's dead to us" posture many conservatives have adopted toward the truculent governor. A bit of perspective is in order. New Jersey isn't purple. It isn't even light blue. It is a deep blue state. Last year, it was one of only a small handful of states where Barack Obama actually expanded his victory margin over 2008. The voters of New Jersey chose to return perennially-embattled liberal Senator Bob Menendez to Capitol Hill . . . by a 20-point margin. And New Jerseyans haven't elected a Republican US Senator since the Nixon era. This represents exceptionally hostile terrain for any Republican, let alone a quasi-conservative one (and no, Christie didn't actually say he agrees with Andrew Cuomo on "98 percent" of issues). Still, there is this palpable sense that Christie is inching closer and closer to the Full Schwarzenegger or the Full Bloomberg before our eyes. Whether or not he wins a second term isn't such a big question anymore; now the more important one is what he wants to do with that second term. ADDENDA: If you have tried to "friend" me on Facebook in the past and I've ignored you, it's nothing personal; it's just because I only used my Facebook page for personal stuff -- staying in touch with old friends, sharing pictures of my kids, stalking girls I went to high school with, you know, the usual. (Or, you know . . . maybe I secretly find you weird.) But I've been convinced that there's a large audience out there that never ventures out of Facebook, so here's a work-related page. Like it, comment to it, share articles and blog posts, make fun of dorky pictures of me, do as you like. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I'll be on MSNBC's Daily Rundown tomorrow, probably around 9:40 or so. What are the odds we talk sequestration? Get all the latest news, 24/7, at www.NationalReview.com Save 75%... Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for the print edition or here for the digital. National Review also makes a great gift! 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