Free Republic

Specializes in bypassing Congress to enact 'progressive change' A senior progressive strategist and former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton who specializes in the use of executive authority to bypass Congress is reportedly joining the White House. The New York Times is reporting John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, has agreed to serve as counselor to President Obama for a year. Podesta last month announced the establishment of a new group, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, that will work within his Center for American Progress. The new center bills itself as a research and grant-making...

Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the original author of the Patriot Act, says Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be prosecuted for lying to Congress. "Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it," the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill. He said the Justice Department should prosecute Clapper for giving false testimony during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March. During that hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper whether the National Security Agency (NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper insisted that the NSA does not...

The College Football Czar: Week 12 Week eleven in review: The College Football Czar has finally seen ESPN’s new Saturday night intro featuring Eminem’s “Berzerk.” In case you haven’t yet had the misfortune of experiencing it, Mr. Em liberally samples (i.e., steals) parts of Billy Squier’s 1981 hit, “The Stroke.” Memo to ESPN: You can’t have it both ways. You must now either pretend that Billy Squier is cool, or admit that Eminem is not. So which is it? The BCS picture cleared up very slightly last Thursday, with Oregon’s 26-20 loss at Stanford, a game whose tone was set...

If you want to know why Democratic Senators appear to be panicking over Obamacare, it is probably because the White House has not been able to convince them that HealthCare.gov will be up and running as promised by November 30. And President Obama's HealthCare.gov surge czar Jeffrey Zients did nothing to calm that panic Friday on a conference call with reporters. Reuters reports: The Obama administration's HealthCare.gov adviser Jeffrey Zeints said on Friday that the trouble-plagued federal healthcare website is improving, but that higher volumes of visitors are exposing new capacity and software issues. In a conference call with...

Maya Shankar, a White House adviser cultivating a team tasked with subtly influencing Americans’ behavior, previously worked closely with the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, WND has learned. Shankar has discussed utilizing cognitive science for social activism and is a champion of so-called social justice.

The College Football Czar 2013 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2013 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you locate head coaches on the move. Most importantly, it includes early nominees for the...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is announcing a broader opt-out for religious nonprofits that object to providing health insurance that covers birth control. The administration is allowing religious nonprofits to offer coverage that does not include contraception. In such a case, a third-party issuer will handle all business related to providing birth-control coverage for women, according to a source familiar with the changes who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

I hate to criticize a fellow pilot, but when one engages in such sky-high hypocrisy, well . . . On Morning Joe today, former Obama car czar Steve Rattner, a very successful hedge fund manager, decried "climate-change denier[s]." This is the same Rattner who, at last report, owned a "15,000-square-foot mansion on Martha’s Vineyard, to which [he] flies regularly on a Dassault Falcon 2000 jet [see file photo] he pilots himself." Rattner wrung his hands over the fact that we're "putting millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every day." But just earlier this week, the New York Times...

The College Football Czar Week 9 Week eight in review: It was another above-average week for the College Football Czar, who went 14-4, improving his overall record to 106-50 and his winning percentage to .679. Among his better picks were the demise of the then-undefeated but badly inflated Cincinnati Bearcats, and Louisiana-Monroe’s 43-42 overtime win over Western Kentucky (predicted score 33-32). Although week eight certainly had its share of excitement, it did very little to shake up the rankings. The highest-ranked team to lose to a lower-ranked or unranked opponent was the #21 Bearcats, whose defeat is referenced above. #24...

Former Obama administration official Steven Rattner said on MSNBC that Jennifer Granholm "must have had some medications or something in her system" when she addressed the Democratic convention last month:

Romney is going to be busy fixing the state of the economy, so he is going to need to appoint some Czars. Here are a few to consider along with whom Romney should appoint: An Eric Holder Czar for criminalizing Eric Holder for being Eric Holder. (Rudy Giiulani since Attila the Hun is unavailable) A DOJ Czar for cleaning out all the Black Panthers and commie racist lawyers in the Department of Justice. ( J. Christian Adams ) A Top Secret Control Czar to investigate all the security leaks resulting in the death of overseas operatives. ( Dick Cheney )...

Regulatory czar leaving White House to return to Harvard Law SchoolBy Justin Sink - 08/03/12 09:26 AM ET Cass Sunstein, a top adviser to President Obama who functions as a gatekeeper on federal regulations, is leaving the White House to return to Harvard Law School. Obama heralded Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, "for his friendship and for his years of exceptional service." "For the last three and a half years, Cass Sunstein has helped drive a series of historic accomplishments on behalf of the American people," Obama said in a statement. "From putting in place...

Mohamed Magid is the Obama administration’s go-to guy for Muslim outreach and advise on international affairs and counterterrorism. He is a regular visitor to the White House (even when the administration wants to conceal it), attends important administration speeches on the US Middle East policy at the State Department, he counsels the Department of Justice to criminalize defamation of Islam, he entertains the deputy national security adviser at his DC-area mosque, and he serves on the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism Working Group. He also advises the FBI and many other federal agencies. He has also been profiled...

A relatively unnoticed article by Associated Press reporter Kimberly Dozier two weeks ago outlined new Obama administration policy changes which consolidated power for authorizing drone attacks and assassinations under political appointees within the White House. The article identifies White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan as the official assuming the role of Obama’s de facto assassination czar, raising concerns even within the Obama administration that the White House is increasingly turning into “a pseudo-military headquarters” under the direction of just a few senior Obama administration officials. Adding to these concerns are serious questions about Brennan’s qualifications for this role. Advertisement Even...

Corporate news blackout as Obama designates John Brennan as the sole person in charge of designating people to be assassinated. John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you did not see on the Mainstream media today as the continue to run stories that serve to distract the masses from stories that matter. Most recently he publicly spoke about the drone program calling it moral and ethical and just. According to reports from the Associated Press, John Brennan has now seized the lead in choosing who will be targeted for drone attacks and raids and Obama has delegated...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray responded to House Republicans' budget questions in writing last week, and what a revealing letter it was. Instead of addressing concerns about the bureau's spending and hiring spree, Mr. Cordray ducked and weaved and adopted a defensive tone. In the age of trillion-dollar annual deficits, this is a stall worthy of public attention. The few numbers that Mr. Cordray did reveal in the letter are stunning. The consumer bureau, which is less than a year old, has already hired 828 employees as of the end of June, expects to employ 1,360 people by...

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly yesterday (18 April) to change the future direction of the EU's human rights policy and pave the way for a new position of "human rights czar". The report's author, British Labour MEP Richard Howitt (Socialists & Democrats), said the EU had finally "filled the gap" with the United States and would no longer lack the authority to make its case heard whenever human rights are violated across the globe—be it in Iraq, Syria or Burma. "Europe was negotiating improved trade terms with Gaddafi just four weeks before we started dropping bombs on him, and it...

In a rare public appearance, The Obama Administration's Information Czar Cass Sunstein gave a lecture at the NYU Law School in NYC yesterday, prompting Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange to attend. Watch as Luke confronts Sunstein multiple times on an academic paper he co-authored back in 2008 entitled "Conspiracy Theories" in which he called for cognitive infiltration of conspiracy groups by the government.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Diane C. Blizzard has been named Associate Director for Regulatory Policy and Investment Adviser Regulation in the Division of Investment Management. As Associate Director, Ms. Blizzard will supervise two offices that develop recommendations for rulemaking and other policy initiatives under the Investment Company Act and the Investment Advisers Act. Ms. Blizzard replaces Robert Plaze, who has become Deputy Director of the Division. Ms. Blizzard has been a member of the Division of Investment Management staff for 12 years, most recently serving as Managing Executive. She has previously held several policy roles, including...

Richard Clarke says evidence 'pretty strong' that China is stealing commercial secrets March 27, 2012, 12:18 PM — Former White House cybersecurity advisor Richard Clarke has made a career out of issuing security warnings. His most famous, of course, was his alert to Bush Administration officials in July 2001 -- 10 weeks before 9/11 -- that "something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." Clarke was talking about an attack on U.S. soil by Al-Qaida, the terrorist group he had been warning the new administration about -- to virtually complete indifference -- since that...