Free Republic

If you are waiting for Windows 11 side-taskbar support before upgrading to the latest operating system, you may be waiting for a long time, according to a recent Microsoft Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. When Windows (11) was first released, the most controversial changes were the new centered Start Menu and the reduced functionality of the Windows taskbar. In the past, the Start Menu was left-aligned on the taskbar, and it was possible to move the taskbar, so it was pinned to the top, sides, and bottom of the screen. However, with Windows 11, Microsoft took away the ability to...

In an unusual move, FBI agents working the Hillary Clinton email case had to sign a special form reminding them not to blab about the probe to anyone unless called to testify. Sources said they had never heard of the “Case Briefing Acknowledgment” form being used before, although all agents must initially sign nondisclosure agreements to obtain security clearance. “This is very, very unusual. I’ve never signed one, never circulated one to others,” said one retired FBI chief. An FBI agent currently on the job admitted, “I have never heard of such a form. Sounds strange.” Meanwhile, FBI agents expressed...

It's Sunshine Week, so perhaps some enterprising White House reporter will ask press secretary Jay Carney why President Obama rewrote the Freedom of Information Act without telling the rest of America. The rewrite came in an April 15, 2009, memo from then-White House Counsel Greg Craig instructing the executive branch to let White House officials review any documents sought by FOIA requestors that involved "White House equities." That phrase is nowhere to be found in the FOIA, yet the Obama White House effectively amended the law to create a new exception to justify keeping public documents locked away from the...

Illustrating how government hides information from the American public, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch used a fake name to conduct official Department of Justice (DOJ) business in agency emails obtained by Judicial Watch. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer Lynch, Barack Obama’s second attorney general, skirted public-records laws by using the alias Elizabeth Carlisle in emails she sent from her official DOJ account. In the records provided to Judicial Watch, the DOJ explains it as necessary to “protect her security and privacy and enable her to conduct Department business efficiently via email.” This begs the question of how many...

Justice Department official Bruce Ohr did not disclose Fusion GSP was paying his wife Ohr was demoted from his post after the information emerged Willfully falsifying government ethics documents can result in jail time Bruce Ohr, the Department of Justice official who brought opposition research on President Donald Trump to the FBI, did not disclose that Fusion GPS, which performed that research at the Democratic National Committee’s behest, was paying his wife, and did not obtain a conflict of interest waiver from his superiors at the Justice Department, documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation show. The omission may...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton struck a deal with the State Department while serving in the Obama administration that allowed her to take ownership of records she did not want made public, according to recently released reports. Clinton and her then-deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin were permitted to remove electronic and physical records under a claim they were "personal" materials and "unclassified, non-record materials." Judicial Watch made the revelation after filing a FOIA request with the State Department and obtaining a record of the agreement. The newly released documents show the deal allowed Clinton and Abedin to remove...

President Obama and his successors in the Oval Office are not obligated to make public the names of individuals visiting the White House, according to a decision of the federal Circuit Court for the District of Columbia made public Friday. The case was brought by Judicial Watch, the government watchdog nonprofit that has been fighting a long legal battle seeking to force release of the White House visitor logs as public records under the Freedom of Information Act. But in a decision that is drawing intense criticism from across the ideological spectrum, the circuit court said the president has a...

'We should ... set up a stand-alone PC in the Secretary's office, connected to the internet (but not through our system) to enable her to check her emails from her desk' (Washington, DC) - Judicial Watch announced today that it recently received records from the Department of State disclosing plans by senior State Department officials to set up a "stand-alone PC" so that Clinton could check her emails in an office "across the hall" through a separate, non-State Department computer network system. Referencing the special Clinton computer system, Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, writes Clinton Chief of...

...Today, looking at the chart, there are many more “promises kept” than there are “promises broken.” Yet anyone who has been paying attention over the last few years would surely see that Mr. Obama had broken a tremendous amount of promises. So why does PolitiFact still have Mr. Obama’s promises kept at nearly twice those broken? I decided to take a look. The first thing I did was see what promises were considered broken. It’s a fairly hefty list, but some of the very largest are completely missing. The biggest, and most famous, broken promise is that “if you like...

Since 1993, the Census Bureau has made available detailed data about federal government expenditures in its Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR). The 2012 report will be the last one. Through the CFFR website, the public had access to such data as federal expenditures made at the county level for programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare as well as for more obscure federal spending programs. How much did the federal government send to Autauga County in Alabama for a hazardous materials training program? That data was available, but now it is concealed. The CFFR states: The U.S. Census Bureau...

Most member states and EU institutions are keen to draw a new veil of secrecy over how they appoint top officials and enforce EU law. The rights of journalists, NGOs and average people to get access to internal EU documents is currently governed by a regulation from 2001. It is already hard to gain access because there is no simple registry of which documents exist and because it can take long legal battles to make institutions drop their objections—for instance, on grounds that it would violate people's privacy, threaten national security or that there is no "overriding public interest" to...

Hedge Funds Feel New Heat By GREGORY ZUCKERMAN February 23, 2008; Page A1 The past decade has been the era of the hedge fund, as investors snapped them up for their track record of beating the market with often highly complex trades. But now, as the credit crunch upends financial markets, that very complexity is coming back to bite some of them. In the past year, shares of Fortress Investment Group LLC -- which became the symbol of hedge-fund success when it went public last February -- are down 50% as investors wring their hands about the value of its...

Barack Obama may find that overpromising and underdelivering will leave openings for political opponents to score real points, especially when the opponent has a clear record from which to punch. Obama has tried to argue that he has the most transparency between Hillary and himself on earmarking, but compared to John McCain, that sounds like damnation through faint praise: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is on track to become the Democratic presidential nominee, and he's getting the attention his accomplishment deserves. Thursday, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, and the Republican National Committee treated Obama like the front-runner he is...

Here's the problem with the P word. You use it to describe a violent child sexual predator and killer. You use it to describe a businessman merely accused of some financial shenanigans. Using the same label for the two of them means they are nearly equal in your site. If A=P and B=P then A=B. This is the 'us/them' mentality that makes law enforcement professionals so dangerous. You are invited to consider why you think one accused minor offender is equal (in your judgment) to one heinous violent predator. Even if the former is guilty, there is no comparison in...