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Mark Keam, a long-serving Democratic member of the House of Delegates from northern Virginia, has resigned his seat, a move that will set up a special election to fill the vacancy in the blue-leaning district. An attorney who was first elected to his Fairfax County-based seat in 2009, Keam said in an interview Tuesday that he had stepped down to take a job in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Keam said he will serve as a deputy assistant secretary running the National Travel and Tourism Office, which is focused on bringing foreign travelers to the...

Several storylines related to the events of January 6 have crumbled under closer scrutiny over the past 10 months: the “fire extinguisher” murder of Officer Brian Sicknick; the notion it was an “armed” insurrection and a grand “conspiracy” concocted by right-wing militias; claims that the building sustained $30 million in damages, and so on. In the meantime, the Biden regime has attempted to cover up key aspects of that day, including the name of the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, which was only recently revealed. Justice Department lawyers continue to resist the release of 14,000 hours of surveillance...

The U.S. Commerce Department is failing to do its part to protect national security and keep sensitive technology out of the hands of China’s military, according to a U.S. congressional advisory report (pdf).The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report said the Commerce Department had been slow to create a list of sensitive technology that should be scrutinized before export to China.The lag in developing the list of emerging and foundational technologies, as required by a 2018 law, may exacerbate national security risks, the report said.The Commerce Department, entrusted to strengthen U.S. export control laws, “has, to date, failed to...

The FBI Uncovers Even More Clinton Emails Judicial Watch Sues for Details the Census Bureau Plan to Hire Foreign Nationals Communists Working in U.S. Steal Billions in Scientific Research Happy Thanksgiving! The FBI Uncovers Even More Clinton Emails The government malfesance in the Clinton email scandal is seeming never-ending. The State Department just confessed to a court that FBI found more Clinton emails that were then over to State for review. In the November 15, 2019 filing, the State Department informs the court that the FBI located additional Clinton emails that potentially had not been previously released: [T]he Federal...

President Donald Trump retreated from his quest to add a question about US citizenship to the 2020 census on Thursday, instead asking government agencies to provide records that could determine a head-count of citizens without polling census-takers directly. The turnaround comes after Trump repeatedly said he would continue fighting to insert the question despite a Supreme Court ruling that dealt a blow to the effort last month. It reflects legal reality intersecting with Trump's desire to bolster his image as an immigration hard-liner as he moves ahead with his 2020 reelection bid. Instead of attempting to put the question on...

The House Oversight Committee announced Monday it will hold a vote to recommend holding Attorney General William P. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress, saying they’ve refused to turn over documents about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

...On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016. FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.* I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important detail. Again, notice how Comey doesn’t use Priestap’s actual name, but refers to his position and title. Again, watch [Prompted]...

WASHINGTON - A bunch of economic numbers from the government this week, which should be taken with a large grain of salt, were expected to show the economy was doing much better in the past three months. Well, we've seen these periodic, fragmentary numbers many times before, only to see the economy continue to slowly slog along at its painfully lackluster, jobs-challenged pace for the past six and a half years now. President Obama will recite the exaggerated economic numbers that his cherry-picking speech writers select to prove that he's brought the economy back from the bring of recession. But...

Face it, America is hurtling toward third world status, and the signs are all around us, from the growth of a violent underclass to the rise of an oligarchy to a government that lies without shame and re-doubles on those lies when challenged.  One of the other symptoms is the emergence of phony government statistics. John Crudele of the New York Post has broken story after story oin fraud in the Census Bureau’s statistics, which are used for many political and economic purposes, affecting the lives of all Americans. Based on sources throughout the Bureau, he is now charging widespread...

There's been a few headlines decrying the Obama Commerce Department's decision to cede control of ICANN to "the world". Most people react to these with some mild foreboding or irritation. It really is a big deal though. If the US really does transfer ICANN control to some international body, it could permanently and irretrievably destroy trust in the entire Internet. In fact, it probably will.

First time I've tried initiating a post, hope I'm doing this correctly (apologies if I am not!). I have received an American Housing Survey Worksheet in the mail from the U.S. Department of Commerce (second census I've had in two years) asking for very private information (how much I pay in utilities, total real estate costs, how much I put down to purchase my home, how much I still owe, etc.). I am really getting upset by these intrusions. Is it legally expedient for me to answer these questions? I feel that my civil liberties are being invaded. I do...

Today I received "The American Community Survey" from the Commerce Dept. It is 28pp of very intrusive questions, from the time I usually leave for work (to the minute) to who I work for and how much I make to how much I pay for utilities, and much, much more. The questions are repeated for everyone who lives in my household and include name, address, and phone numbers. It says I am required by law to return this. Anyone here familiar with this? Any advice?

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm!" had a big meeting at the White House today where, all of a sudden, Barack Obama wants to make the government smaller. All of a sudden, Barack Obama's concerned about the inefficiency of the bureaucracy. All of a sudden, Barack Obama has realized that government isn't working for small business. All of a sudden, Barack Obama has realized the trouble that average people have dealing with the government. All of a sudden, Barack Obama has realized that there are one hundred... Oh. No, this is the way to put it. "The...

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for authority to close the Commerce Department and create a new export agency, an overhaul that could save US$3-billion and help inoculate him against Republican election-year charges that he is a big-government liberal. White House budget official Jeffrey Zients told reporters the reorganization would fold together the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other trade bodies now spread across Washington, giving businesses a single point of contact and ensuring federal spending goes further to boost exports. Obama was set to deliver remarks at 11:20 a.m. on the new, yet-to-be-named department that...

Should energy consumers pay extra taxes to fund government-mandated and subsidized renewable energy technologies? "Absolutely yes," says John Bryson, President Obama's nominee for Commerce Secretary. He made the remark at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California in 2009 and went on to extol the virtues of hidden rates in California, a state encumbered with some of the nation's highest electricity and unemployment rates. Bryson, retired CEO of the electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) and its parent company Edison International, excused the practice, saying, "That's been a part of the regulatory environment for the investor-owned utilities for as...

(CNSNews.com) – John Bryson, President Obama’s nominee to head the Commerce Department, told a University of California Berkeley audience in 2010 that a cap and trade system was a good way to hide a carbon tax from the public. Bryson, formerly the CEO of Edison International, said that a carbon tax was the new “third rail” of politics because politicians wouldn’t want to tax energy directly. “I think it’s still unlikely there’ll be a carbon tax bill because I think in the end a very high percentage of the members of Congress think it’s kind of the third rail to...

Post: The nominee for commerce secretary founded an anti-energy group and believes in redistribution of wealth to help poorer nations. At this rate, we'll be one of them. If personnel is policy, there can be no better choice to help implement President Obama's anti-growth energy policy and redistribution of wealth plans than his choice to be the next secretary of commerce, John Bryson. One would think that the former CEO of power company Edison International would have a more practical view of energy development and management. But he's earned Rep. Darrell Issa's description of him as a "green evangelist." Bryson...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will nominate businessman John Bryson to lead the Commerce Department, a White House official said Tuesday. Bryson's appointment brings another private sector player into an administration that has been making a concerted effort to improve its relationship with the business community.

Double-dips are good for ballroom dancers and useful to economists. The first is obvious. If you can execute an elegant dip or two during a tango it goes a long way toward obscuring flaws in the rest of your routine. The same is true for double-dip recessions, which you will be hearing a lot more about over the next week. It's hard to find an expert who correctly predicted the economy would be sinking again this summer. OK, this column did. But my sources and I understood that much of the economic gains this past spring were an illusion caused...

Hoaxes: Despite failures at Copenhagen, the fraud of the IPCC and the farce of Climate-gate, the administration wants an agency to monitor climate change. Why must we fund one-stop shopping for climate charlatans? As the climate freezes, there's no freeze on federal employment that will grow even more with the establishment of a new agency, the Climate Service office. The new agency was announced Monday by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This ministry of climate change propaganda will operate in tandem with NOAA's National Weather Service and National Ocean...