Free Republic

'Most Transparent' White House Dumps FOIA Regulations for Itself Transparency advocates hammer Obama administration for change. President Barack Obama says he's running the most transparent administration in history, but transparency advocates aren't applauding. By Steven Nelson March 17, 2015 | 6:56 p.m. EDT The Obama administration announced Tuesday it will ditch regulations that subjected large portions of White House correspondence to public records requests, a decision derided by transparency advocates who wryly noted it was issued during a week celebrating open access to government.The notice exempting the White House's Office of Administration from the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After six years of testy relations, U.S. President Barack Obama may have to resign himself to the likelihood that he has not seen the last of Benjamin Netanyahu. A better-than-expected showing by the Israeli prime minister in Tuesdays closely fought election raises the prospect that he could remain a thorn in Obamas side, with the two men increasingly at odds over Iran diplomacy and Middle East peacemaking. U.S. officials responded cautiously as they waited to see whether Netanyahu or his centre challenger, Isaac Herzog, would get the nod from Israels president to begin the long and messy...

The returns on voting from ballot boxes indicate that the Likud has significantly extended its lead over Zionist Union. According to Israel Radio, officials have counted the votes of 25 percent of booths across the country. The results indicate that the Likud wins 32 Knesset seats while Zionist Union garners 25 seats. Yesh Atid is the third-largest party with 11 seats, Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu faction wins 10 seats, the Arab List nosedives to nine seats, the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas movement wins eight seats, Naftali Bennett's Bayit Yehudi dips further to seven seats, while Yisrael Beytenu, which has only mustered five...

House Republicans, unveiling their first budget blueprint since the party took control of Congress, issued a sweeping spending plan Tuesday that calls for complete repeal of ObamaCare, major changes to Medicare and controversial moves to boost defense spending despite tight budget limits. GOP leaders say their budget would balance in less than 10 years, and in that time cut spending by $5.5 trillion compared with current projections. The spending plan stands little chance of ever being signed by President Obama, but makes clear that the party is not dialing back its ambitions despite a rocky start to the latest congressional...

The recent massacres in Paris of the staff of Charlie Hebdo and the Jews in a kosher supermarket, and the increasing incidences of butchering young people coming out of pubs have made more people concerned about the rise of terrorism. Tens of thousands have come out to demonstrate. Since the 9/11 attack on New York and the Pentagon in 2001, there have been close to 25,000 terrorist attacks worldwide, all of which were perpetrated in the name of Islam. That is about 5 terrorist attacks every day. So far two million people have been killed and a similar number are...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared victory after the first exit polls released following Tuesday's elections showed the Likud ahead of, or tied with, the Zionist Union. Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page: "Against all odds, a great victory for the Likud, for the nationalist camp led by the Likud, and for the people of Israel." The numbers for Netanyahu's Likud were better than expected after pre-election polls had showed him trailing Isaac Herzog's Zionist Union by as much as five mandates. The Zionist Union rejected conjecture that the results of the exit polls show that Netanyahu will form the next...

Exit polls released after the close of voting in Israel's national election show that the race is too close to call. Israel's Channel 1 and Channel 10 both said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and Isaac Herzog's Zionist Union secured 27 seats each in the 120-seat Knesset. Channel 2, meanwhile, have Likud 28 seats and the Zionist Union 27. The numbers were published by Haaretz. What that is likely to mean is, as NPR's Emily Harris tells our Newscast unit, Israel's new government won't be immediately known. Emily says: "The new government will need approval from a majority of...

Earlier today, Judge Salim Joubran decided to ban Prime Minister Netanyahu's recorded message. In a press conference he held, Netanyahu protested the judge's decision: "I will not let anyone silence me". Judge Salim Joubran, chairman of the Central Elections Committee has decided to ban Prime Minister Netanyahu's recorded message from radio and television broadcast, since it was of a propagandist nature. The PM was quick to slam him for this decision: "The 'Anyone but Bibi' party speaks undisturbed. The only one not allowed to speak his mind is the prime minister from Likud. I will not let anyone silence me."...

Missouri’s lieutenant governor lashed out at the Justice Department on Monday, accusing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration of racism in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson last year. “There is more racism in the Justice Department than there is in anywhere I see in the St. Louis area,” Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder said in an interview with NewsMaxTV Monday. “We are making progress. We’ve come an enormous way in 50 years. That’s not to say we don’t have still have more to do. But it is...

The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials. With Yemen in turmoil and its government splintering apart, the Defense Department has lost its ability to monitor the whereabouts of U.S.-donated small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies. The situation has grown worse since the United States closed its embassy in Sanaa, the capital, last month and withdrew many of its military advisers. In...

ST. PETERSBURG -- Last May, Tatiana N decided she wanted a higher salary than the average journalist can expect. After responding to an advertisement in the popular HeadHunter job-search website, she became a Kremlin-paid Internet troll. Tatiana -- who, like others interviewed for this story, asked that her last name not be used -- worked out of a 2,500-square-meter warehouse in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. The job paid 40,000 rubles a month, significantly more than the 25,000-30,000 most journalists make. But it came, she said, "with pain." Tatiana joined a round-the-clock operation in which an army of trolls disseminated...

A CBS News investigation has found that at least one foreign company with close ties to its government has been giving generously to the foundation run by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. Since its founding, the Clinton Foundation has invested millions each year for work in fighting AIDS and empowering women, but its recent uptick in donations from foreign governments has been raising questions about the potential influence on Hillary Clinton, as she gets ready to run for president. The foundation has raised at least $42 million from foreign governments - and according to an analysis by CBS News -...

WASHINGTON — The congressional push this week to secure the first Republican budget plan in nearly a decade is revealing a chasm between fiscal hawks determined to maintain strict spending caps and defense hawks who are threatening to derail any budget that does not ensure an increase for the military. “This is a war within the Republican Party,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who has vowed to oppose a final budget that does not ensure more military spending. “You can shade it any way you want, but this is war.” The divisions will be laid bare Tuesday...

Accusing Livni and Herzog as being liars for calling off rotation deal at the last minute, Netanyahu says the pair are running scared. Joining his fellow Likud MKs in disparaging Tzipi Livni's announcement that she was giving up her rotation agreement with Zionist Union co-chair Yitzhak Herzog, was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu himself. Right-wing politicians, a number of them from the Likud, took no time in expressing their ire at the announcement, particularly the fact it took place the night before elections. Netanyahu was similarly accusatory, telling Channel Two that Livni and Herzog are in a panic over the narrowing...

Zionist Union’s No. 2 drops bombshell 12 hours before election; Netanyahu, Herzog accuse each other of ‘panicking’. The Zionist Union’s Tzipi Livni announced Monday evening that she would give up the rotation of the premiership with the slate’s leader, Isaac Herzog, an agreement the two made months ago when her Hatnua party merged with his Labor Party. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the party was “panicking,” while Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett...

In a definitive disavowal of his Bar-Ilan two-state speech, prime minister makes last-minute attempt to draw voters from Bennett's Habayit Hayeudi. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau said Monday that if he were to be reelected, a Palestinian state would not be created, in a definite disavowal of his 2009 speech, in which he had voiced support for the principle of two states for two peoples. Netanyahu's remarks in an interview with the NRG website - which is owned by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and tied with the settler newspaper Makor Rishon - were a last-minute attempt to pull right-wing voters away...

snip...According to a 2014 federal oversight report from public research group American Transparency, taxpayer-backed SBA loans are popular with businesses serving “wealthy lifestyles.” The report, which analyzed SBA loans between 2007 and 2013, found that billions of dollars flowed to businesses that, in many cases, could obtain standard loans with standard interest rates. SBA loans offer advantageous low rates. snip Many of the loans, which ranged from $1 million to $5 million, went to luxury goods retailers, exclusive clubs, Fortune 100 companies, plastic surgery clinics and even private equity firms. Found among the list of borrowers were Rolex and Lamborghini...

It Takes a Traitor (and a Misfit) Commentary for 15 March 2015 By J.R. Nyquist Back in 1996, First Lady Hillary Clinton published a book titled, It Takes a Village. Given the political subculture of treason from which Clinton herself emerged, it might be more poignant to retitle the book, It Takes a Traitor. For this is our formative experience now. This is what our national education program signifies. At this moment, as we await the news from Moscow, with Putin and other principals disappearing at ten day intervals since the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, we have occasion to ask...

The US National Intelligence has removed Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, from its list of "terrorist threats." US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper scrapped Iran and Hezbollah from the list in an annual report recently delivered to the US Senate, citing their efforts in fighting terrorists, including the ISIL Takfiri group, Press TV reported. The unclassified version of the report titled “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities,” which was released on February 26, 2015, noted Iran’s efforts to battle extremists, including those of the ISIL terrorist group, who were perceived to constitute the greatest terrorist...

Federal Communications Commission FCC Before the Federal Communications CommissionWashington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet GN Docket No. 14-28 REPORT AND ORDER ON REMAND, DECLARATORY RULING, AND ORDER Adopted: February 26, 2015Released: March 12, 2015