Free Republic

I mean, yes, they feel that way, but you're just not supposed to say it. While I love the ClimateWire headline -- "U.S. vows continuing effort toward a 17% emission cut" (subscription required), sort of like I vow to continue my effort toward hitting fewer pedestrians when I drive...not to hit fewer pedestrians when I drive...ah, J-school -- the following excerpt from the piece is simply beyond belief. Speaking to a U.N ‘Kyoto II' negotiating group in Bangkok, U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing "noted in a series of slides that U.S. emissions have declined about 8.7...

(CNSNews.com) –Jamie Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official who has reportedly made the Obama administration's to become considering the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was paid more than $26 million in total compensation as a top executive at Fannie Mae--before taxpayers had to bail out the mortgage giant. Gorelick, who left the Clinton Justice Department in 1997 to work for Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, was paid $26,466,834 in salary, bonuses, performance pay and stock options from 1998 to 2003, according to the Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae (2006), conducted by the Office...

A key U.S. official landed in Cairo on Monday to meet with military leaders and discuss the extra aid promised by Washington to help Egypt with its democratic transition. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns arrived days after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Egypt would be receiving an extra $150 million to help with the political transition. The $1.5 billion in foreign aid the U.S. gives annually to Egypt, which is unchanged in the State Department's budget.

An Obama administration official on Wednesday confirmed that four states -- including Florida, Tennessee and Ohio -- have been granted waivers from the regulatory requirements of the national health care law. Steve Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, confirmed the news under questioning from Rep. Cliff Stearns at an oversight hearing for the House Energy and Commerce committee.

President Obama will offer three plans to phase out the troubled home lending agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an administration official said Tuesday night. The plans range from a full government guarantee of the housing market to removing nearly all federal backstops for housing loans, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plans were first reported Tuesday night by The Wall Street Journal.

David Hansell, acting assistant secretary for a children and families agency within the Health and Human Services Department, on Monday touted the Obama administration’s “acceptance and embrace of the LGBT community,” including its efforts to encourage same-sex couples to adopt children. LGBT refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. The “Adopt Us Kids” Web site, described as “a cooperative agreement with the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children & Families, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,”

A White House senior adviser said Tuesday night that President Obama is "going to address [gun control]." In an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, David Plouffe responded to criticism that the president did not mention gun control in his State of the Union address. Some Democrats on Capitol Hill and gun-control advocates have called for new legislation in the wake of the deadly shooting that killed six and injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) earlier this month. Plouffe said Obama's speech on Tuesday was focused on the economy. He added that the president has been clear on his views on gun...

The Interior Department’s top drilling declined to give details on when the department will begin issuing new deepwater drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico. “I don’t want to hazard a guess as to exactly when the first deepwater permits will be issued,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said Wednesday. He added that he hopes new deepwater permits “will be approved before too long.” Bromwich said last week that he expects to begin issuing permits before the second half of the year. Asked by reporters for a more specific date, Bromwich

NEW ORLEANS -- A White House appointee says preserving a Gulf Coast ecosystem damaged by decades of erosion and months of crude oil that gushed from a deep-sea well off Louisiana will be an enormous undertaking, the "grandaddy" of restoration projects. "I have been involved in many ecosystem restoration projects, but this is the grandaddy of them all," said John Hankinson, a veteran of restoration projects in Florida. Hankinson was appointed in October as executive director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, a group that will recommend how to use the heavy fines likely to confront energy company...

Obama to delay 2012 budget by about a week: officialTue Dec 28, 7:01 am ET HONOLULU (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, who has pledged to tackle long-term U.S. debt and deficit challenges, will delay the delivery of his fiscal year 2012 budget by about a week until after February 14. An administration official said on Monday the delay was due to the long time it took for the U.S. Senate to confirm Jack Lew as Obama's new budget director, and because funding decisions for 2011 went so late into the year. The Democratic president nominated Lew in July but the...

CNN) -- Eighteen people were killed in separate shootings throughout Mexico's Ciudad Juarez on Saturday, marking it as one of the bloodiest days this year in the nation's most violent city, officials said Sunday. In one incident, a family of seven was slaughtered while they were outside their home in the southeastern part of the city, Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said. "Among [the seven killed] were two brothers who we believe were targeted," Gonzalez said. Local newspaper El Diario de Juarez reported that five of the bodies were found inside a car and another two bodies...

A former official with the Federal Election Commission, Hans von Spakovsky, blasted the Reid campaign, saying they are clearly engaging in coercion and illegal coordination under federal campaign finance rules. “I’ve never seen anything this blatant,” he told The Examiner. “Most corporations stay far away from this because they know they can get in big trouble if they tell their employees to go out and vote for a particular candidate. That’s a big no-no.” “There are two issues. The first is illegal coordination. The Reid campaign is specifically asking a corporation with the help of a union to get voters

At a debate sponsored by the Illinois League of Women Voters between Democratic incumbent Rep. Melissa Bean, GOP challenger Joe Walsh and Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer Wednesday, the audience loudly objected when the moderator, Kathy Tate-Bradish, insisted on proceeding without reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. In the end, she didn’t stand a chance against the 300-member audience. The camera captures Republican Joe Walsh’s reaction: Ms. Tate-Bradish reportedly scolded the crowd after the pledge ended, blaming the outburst on the Republican candidate. The LWV executive director, Jan Czarnik, also condemned the Pledge’s recitation, telling the local news, “It’s a phony...

Martin Freeman is set to star as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's two-movie adaptation of The Hobbit... Thorin Oakenshield...Richard ArmitageFili...Aidan TurnerKili...Rob Kazinskyetc...

Alan Krueger, a top economics official at the Department of Treasury, will leave his post next month to return to academia, becoming the latest in a string of departures from the Obama administration's economic team. A spokesman for the Treasury confirmed that Krueger, assistant secretary for economic policy, would return to Princeton University, where he previously served as a professor of economics. News of Krueger's departure comes after several other high-profile announcements of Obama economic advisers resigning amid concerns over the sluggish pace of the recovery.

An adviser to China's central bank has rebuffed criticism from the US over Beijing's exchange rate policy. In a speech in Beijing, Li Daokui said China "will not appreciate the yuan solely because of external pressure". His comments follow strong criticism in America that the yuan is significantly undervalued, damaging US exports. (Snip) China denies keeping its currency artificially cheap, and has warned against foreign pressure over what Beijing regards as an internal matter.

Washington - A former US State Department official has been sentenced to life in prison for spying, while his wife was ordered to spend nearly seven years behind bars for helping to pass highly classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said Friday. Walter Kendall Myers, 73, and wife Gwendolyn, 71, pleaded guilty in November to espionage charges and acting as agents for the Cuban government. Myers had also admitted to passing top secret information in a conversation with an undercover FBI agent, the Justice Department said.

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC -- Senior White House officials acknowledged Wednesday afternoon that the new regime of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran “would not be sufficient” in and of itself to change the behavior of the Iranian government and convince its leaders to stop its nuclear weapons program. But, they emphasized, these sanctions are just the beginning – the “1” of a “1,2,3 punch,” as one senior White House official put it. The next step: on June 17 the European Council will meet and impose even stricter sanctions on Iran. Then Congress will pass additional tough sanctions, which...

President Obama said Thursday that the White House is preparing to issue a formal explanation regarding the allegation that it offered Rep. Joe Sestak a job to drop out of the Democratic primary race against Sen. Arlen Specter. The president, addressing the matter in public for the first time since the Pennsylvania congressman leveled the claim in February, said the statement should answer questions about the claim and insisted "nothing improper" happened.