Top row: Laura Lane, Keri Bass, Erika Thomas, Curtis Fischer-Oelschlaeger  Bottom row: Joel Kolander

Nova Singers, under the direction of Dr. Laura Lane, presents two performances of A Nova Christmas, Friday, December 16 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, IA, and Saturday, December 17 at 7:30 pm, at First Lutheran Church, Galesburg.

Nova Singers' most popular concert of the year is just around the corner!  This year's program features songs on our newly recorded Christmas CD, including  Lauridsen's captivating O Magnum Mysterium and Moses Hogan's thrilling Glory, Glory, Glory to the Newborn King. We also have several new pieces that will take your breath away, such as Kesselman's arrangement of In the Bleak Midwinter and Stanford Scriven's Christ the Appletree.  These concerts also feature the world premiere of Daniel Godsil's newest Christmas arrangement, Choral Meditation on "Once in Royal David's City." And it wouldn't be A Nova Christmas without an audience sing-along!

A major highlight at these concerts is the release of Nova Singers' newest Christmas CD.  Artistic Director Laura Lane says, "I'm thrilled with our new Christmas CD, Mystery and Light, and can't wait for people to hear it.  I am very proud of the 7 CDs that Nova Singers has professionally recorded, and this eighth one is every bit as good.  In terms of the quality of sound, the expressiveness of the singing and the variety and beauty of the songs themselves, this may be our best one yet!"

Nova Singers, a professional vocal ensemble under the direction of Dr. Laura Lane, hopes to share our musical holiday spirit with you.  Nova Singers is known for bringing a wide variety of choral music to its audiences, and for the beauty and charm the singers impart to their music.  Dr. Lane has been serving the greater Galesburg and Quad-Cities communities since 1986, bringing her passion for music and expressive singing to audiences and singers alike.

Tickets will be available at the door. Admission is $16 for adults and $12 for seniors. Students are admitted free of charge. Nova Singers season tickets will still be available through this performance. Season ticket holders receive four concerts for the price of three. For information about group rates, tickets, recordings, or other Nova Singers events, call 309-341-7038, or e-mail nova@knox.edu.  Also, please take the opportunity to visit our Facebook page under the keywords 'Nova Singers.

The best way to thank our veterans and tell them 'good job' is to help them find a good job when they return home.

Federal law requires employers to re-hire National Guard servicemembers when they return from active duty service.  I've always been proud of how seriously Iowa employers take their duty to help re-integrate our returning soldiers back into normal day-to-day life.  But what about those veterans who were out of work when they were called up?

Late this summer, 2,800 members of the Iowa National Guard returned from a deployment to Afghanistan.  In a survey conducted after they returned home, more than 600 of these men and women reported being out of work.  That's the equivalent of an unemployment rate of over 21 percent in this group - nearly four times the Iowa unemployment rate.

Unemployment among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans isn't just a problem unique to Iowa.  Nationally, these vets are unemployed at a rate nearly twice the national average.

Creating jobs for these veterans will not only help them, but it will also address the greater unemployment problem in our country.

That's why for several months, I've worked to promote the idea of cutting taxes for employers who hire unemployed veterans who are returning from active duty service.

In August, I introduced the Combat Veterans Back to Work Act, a bill that provides tax credits for employers that hire unemployed veterans.  This idea, which attracted some rare bipartisan support in Congress, was  incorporated into two new tax credits that were signed into law by President Obama last month.

The first, known as the Returning Heroes tax credit, provides up to $5,600 in tax credits for every unemployed veteran hired by an employer.  The second, called the Wounded Warrior tax credit, doubles the existing tax credit for firms that hire unemployed veterans with service-connected disabilities.

The bottom line is that these tax credits will help the bottom line of businesses and help get veterans back to work - a win-win for our economy and many brave men and women.

If you're a veteran or a business interested in learning more about these tax credits, I encourage you to contact my Waterloo office at (319) 287-3233.

by Rep. Bruce Braley (IA-01)

Prepared Floor Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley

Why Didn't the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security know about the Connection between Fast and Furious to Agent Terry's Death?

Thursday, December 1, 2011

***Click here for video of Grassley's speech.***

For nearly a year, I have been investigating the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Operation Fast and Furious.

I have followed up on questions from that investigation as the Senate Judiciary Committee held oversight hearings over the past few weeks with both Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Each of them testified about the aftermath of the shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.  And I have sought to clarify with FACTS some of the half-truths that were said during those hearings.

Each claimed that they were ignorant of the connection between Agent Terry's death and Operation Fast and Furious until my letters with whistleblower allegations brought the connection to light.

However, documents that have come to light in my investigation draw those claims into question.

I'd like to address a couple of those discrepancies.

Secretary Napolitano went to Arizona a few days after Agent Terry's death.

She said that she met at that time with the FBI agents and the assistant U.S. attorneys looking for the shooters.

She also said that at that point in time, nobody knew about Fast and Furious.

Yet documents show that many people knew about Fast and Furious on December 15, the day Agent Terry died.

Secretary Napolitano referenced the FBI agents looking for the shooters.

The head of that FBI field division was present at the December 15 press conference about Agent Terry's murder.  At that very press conference, the FBI head told a chief Assistant U.S. Attorney about the connection to an ongoing Phoenix ATF investigation.

That same night, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke confirmed that the guns tied back to Fast and Furious.

These connections were made days before Secretary Napolitano's visit.

The very purpose of her visit was to find out more about the investigation.

That leaves a very important question.

The Department of Homeland Security oversees the Border Patrol.  Why wouldn't the Phoenix FBI head have told Secretary Napolitano that the only guns found at the scene of Agent Terry's murder were tied to an ongoing ATF investigation?

And let's not forget the U.S. Attorney's office.

Secretary Napolitano said she met with the assistant U.S. attorneys looking for the shooters.

The chief assistant U.S. attorney for the Tucson office, which coordinated the Terry investigation, found out about the ATF connection directly from the FBI.

So, a very important question comes up.  Why would they conceal the Fast and Furious connection from Secretary Napolitano days later?

The Tucson office was overseen by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Dennis Burke, who confirmed to Tucson that guns came from Operation Fast and Furious.

When Ms. Napolitano was Governor of Arizona, Mr. Burke served as her chief of staff for five years.  Secretary Napolitano acknowledges that she had conversations with him about the murder of Agent Terry.

So, a very important question comes up.  Why would Mr. Burke conceal the Fast and Furious connection from Secretary Napolitano?

Even before Secretary Napolitano came to Arizona, emails indicate Mr. Burke spoke on December 15 with Attorney General Holder's Deputy Chief of Staff, Monty Wilkinson.

Before finding out about Agent Terry, Mr. Burke emailed Mr. Wilkinson that he wanted to "explain in detail" about Fast and Furious when they talked.

So, a very important question comes up.  On that phone call, did U.S. Attorney Burke tell Mr. Wilkinson about the case's connection to a Border Patrol agent's death that very day?

The next day, the Deputy Director of the ATF made sure briefing papers were prepared about the Fast and Furious connection to Agent Terry's death.

He sent them to individuals here in Washington, D.C., in the Deputy Attorney General's office at the Justice Department.

Within 24 hours, they were forwarded to the Deputy Attorney General.

They were accompanied by a personal email from one of the Deputy Attorney General's deputies, explaining the situation. Two weeks later, that Deputy Attorney General, Gary Grindler, was named the Attorney General's Chief of Staff.

Yet a month and a half after Agent Terry's death, Attorney General Holder was allegedly ignorant of the Fast and Furious connection.

So, a very important question is unanswered.  Why wouldn't Mr. Grindler bring up these serious problems with Attorney General Holder, either as his Deputy Attorney General or as his Chief of Staff?

It's clear that multiple highly-placed officials in multiple agencies knew almost immediately of the connection between Operation Fast and Furious and Agent Terry's death.

The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have failed to adequately explain why Attorney General Holder and Secretary Napolitano allegedly remained ignorant of that connection.  Whether it's the Attorney General or the Secretary, or members of their staff, somebody wasn't doing their job.

In the case of Secretary Napolitano, either she was not entirely candid with me and others, or this was a gross breach on the part of those who kept her in the dark.

The Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security lost a man.

It was their right to know the full circumstances surrounding that.

No one likes the unpleasant business of having to 'fess up, but the FBI, ATF, and U.S. Attorney's Office owed it to Agent Brian Terry and his family to fully inform the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.

This was the death of a federal agent involving weapons allowed to walk free by another agency in his own government.

Let me explain walking guns.  The federal government operates under the rule of law just like all of us have to live under that rule of law.  There are licensed federal gun dealers.  Federal gun dealers were encouraged to sell guns illegally to straw buyers and supposedly follow those guns across the border to somehow arrest people who were involved with drug trafficking and other illegal things.  And, two of these guns showed up at the murder scene of Agent Terry.

And, if that's not serious enough to brief up to the top of the department, then I don't know what is.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

WASHINGTON - Senator Chuck Grassley said today that the Senate has accepted an amendment he offered with Senator Barbara Boxer of California to limit taxpayer reimbursement for defense contractor salaries. The legislation will be included in a larger bill to authorize $662 billion in Pentagon spending for the next fiscal year.

Grassley said their reform amendment is aimed at runaway federal spending on contractor salary reimbursements.  Cost-reimbursement type contracts are used extensively by the Department of Defense.

"We can't afford to waste increasingly limited defense dollars," Grassley said.

Between 1998 and 2010, the benchmark for reimbursing executive salaries - separate from what these executives are paid by their private-sector employers - grew 53 percent faster than the rate of inflation.

Here is Grassley's statement to the Senate regarding the Boxer-Grassley amendment.

Grassley Statement

The Congressional Record

Thursday, December 1, 201

At a time when the national security budget is under immense pressure, it is vitally important that we spend our defense dollars more wisely.  The Boxer-Grassley amendment will contain runaway spending in contractor salary reimbursements.  Notice that I said "salary reimbursements" not salaries.  Someone not familiar with government contracting might ask why it's any of our business what government contractors get paid, and I would agree if we're talking about what their company pays them out of its own pocket.

When most people hire a contractor to renovate their bathroom or re-shingle their roof, they find the one that does the best work for the least cost.  Having done that, you're not likely to ask or care what their cut is or what they pay their crew.  To the extent that government contracts work the same way, the same principle applies.  Unfortunately, not all government contracts do work that way.

A large proportion of government contracts actually reimburse the contractor directly for the costs they incur, including for the salaries of their employees.  These types of contracts are risky because contractors lose the incentive to control costs.  They are only supposed to be used when a fixed price contract is not possible, for instance if the scope or duration of the work is not possible to determine at the outset.

Nevertheless, cost-reimbursement type contracts are used extensively by federal departments and agencies.  The Defense Department alone accounted for over $100 billion in cost reimbursement type contracts in fiscal year 2010.  President Obama has criticized the widespread use of these types of contracts and has set a goal of slowing the growth and ultimately reducing their use.  He's made a little progress.  However, we're talking about a small dent in a large bucket.  It's clear that cost type contracts are going to account for a major proportion of the dollars spent on federal contracting for the foreseeable future.  As a result, we must take steps to limit unreasonable expenditures under these types of contracts.

Senator Boxer and I worked together to try to head off this problem back in 1997.  At that time, we proposed capping salary reimbursements at the salary level of the President of the United States.  However, a compromise was ultimately enacted that capped how much the top 5 highest earning contractor executives could charge the federal government for their salaries.  The cap was set at the median salary of the top 5 executives at companies with annual sales over $50 million, which must be recalculated annually.  Since that time, the cap has more than doubled from $340,650 to $693,951.  That's 53 percent faster than the rate of inflation.

The House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Bill expands the current cap to all contractor employees, not merely the top 5 executives, closing a loophole that was being exploited.  The version of the National Defense Authorization Bill before the Senate extends the cap only to the top 10-15 executives.  However, Senator Boxer and I think it's time to reconsider a fixed cap at the level of the President's salary, which I should add was doubled by Congress to $400,000 since our previous proposal.  That's more than generous.  Surely the taxpayers shouldn't be asked to pay the salary of a contractor more than the President makes, which is twice what any cabinet secretary makes.  Keep in mind that this cap just limits how much Uncle Sam can be billed for, which is on top of whatever the company chooses to pay its employees out of its own pocket.

Not only would our straightforward cap save man-hours in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, which has to gather the data every year to determine the current convoluted cap, but it would save millions of dollars that need not be spent.  Again, we cannot afford to go on wasting our increasingly limited defense dollars.  We have to be more aggressive in weeding out waste in defense spending and this is one unnecessary expenditure that we can easily eliminate in favor of higher priorities.  I urge my colleagues to join us in this commonsense cost cutting measure.