Free Republic

Study says military justice lacks full transparency By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes European edition, Sunday, August 17, 2008 The full report ... For the full report on public access to military court proceedings, go to http://www.rcfp.org/militarydockets ARLINGTON, Va. — The military justice system is "not nearly as transparent as it should be" according to journalism professor Barbara Fought. Fought is the director of the Tully Free Speech Center at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Journalism, which conducted a recent study along with the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the press on media access to military court...

Regulators need to shed light on derivatives By John Coffee Published: June 29 2008 18:18 | Last updated: June 29 2008 18:18 Worldwide, if securities regulators believe in one thing, it is the value of transparency. Sunlight, they know, is the best disinfectant. But sometimes in confusion they pull down the blinds. This has just happened in the US and, as a result, transparency in the market for corporate control is in danger. Unlike other regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission has chosen – at least provisionally – to disregard equity derivatives and thus allow acquirers to use them to...

Clinton's records vanished after warning May 12, 2008 By Jerry Seper - Hillary Rodham Clinton's Rose Law Firm billing records, found in the White House residence in January 1996 two years after they had been subpoenaed by government regulators, disappeared shortly after the first lady was warned that the firm's billing problems were "very serious" and the then-ongoing Whitewater investigation could result in criminal charges, newly obtained records show. More than 1,100 pages of grand jury testimony, investigative reports, memos, charging documents, chronologies, narratives and draft indictments, previously undisclosed but now being "processed" at the Library of Congress, say Mrs....

Google Government : Government transparency is key to limited government Starlee Rhoades, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, March 19, 2008 It’s National Sunshine Week, whose goal – “a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information” -- is worth celebrating. The national trend towards “Google-government” -- having government spending, contracts, and other information posted online in easily searchable databases that are available to all citizens -- is one Arizona should embrace. In 100 Ideas for 100 Days the Goldwater Institute offered several ideas to legislators and other policymakers that would shine more sunlight on various government functions and...

From NBC's Mark MurrayThis Friday, the Clinton and Obama campaigns have traded numerous charges -- over national security, NAFTA, expectations for March 4, and the delegate math. The Obama camp now has added yet another topic to the discussion: Clinton's tax returns."Senator Clinton’s refusal to make this very basic disclosure has raised a number of eyebrows among advocates for increased transparency," the Obama campaign says in a memo. "As her top Ohio supporter Governor Ted Strickland said in his 2006 campaign, if a candidate is not releasing his or her “tax return, what is he hiding? We should question what’s...

Okay, first a little background for Freepers who haven't been following all of these stories. STORY #1: Coughlin & Islam at the Pentagon Stephen Coughlin was a Pentagon analyst [in fact the ONLY Pentagon analyst] with a specialization in Koranic & Hadithic formulations of Jihad. At the urging of one Hasham Islam [also known as "Hesham H Islam"], in the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Coughlin was fired in early January of 2008 [or late December of 2007]. After an enormous uproar in the intelligence community, and with the help of Congresswoman Sue Myrick [R-NC], Coughlin was finally...

WASHINGTON — Resisting calls from Barack Obama to release her income tax returns, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she would only do so if she secures the Democratic presidential nomination and contended her rival had been less than candid about his relationship with major campaign contributors. In a televised interview Monday with Politico.com and local television station WJLA, Sen. Clinton said her financial holdings had been disclosed in her Senate ethics filings and that she had liquidated all her assets when she became a presidential candidate so her investments would not present a conflict of interest. After the former first...

Hillary Rodham Clinton's daily schedules as first lady will be forwarded to former President Clinton by Friday for review, the first of two steps without a fixed time limit before any are released to the public, the National Archives said Wednesday. Former President Clinton will have 30 days — possibly longer, if he requests an extension — to review the 10,000 pages of his wife's daily schedules before they will be sent to the White House for its review, said Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the National Archives. The Bush administration does not have a time limit to review the...

Judicial Watch has tried to gain access to the records from Hillary Clinton's task force on revamping the American health-care system, and has been met with considerable resistance. After seeing the first batch released by the Clinton library, one can certainly understand why. In a press release from Judicial Watch earlier this evening, they excerpted some explosive passages within the documents, passages which will create some uncomfortable questions for Hillary on the campaign trail. First, an internal critique of Hillary's plan marveled at the unprecedented scope of government control over a private industry -- at least in peacetime: A June...

Election '08: If Hillary Clinton is proud of her experience and record of change, why are 2 million pages of her White House files locked up? Watching your husband is not experience.The last time Sen. Clinton was a genuine agent of change was when she led the secretive Health Care Task Force in 1993-94 that labored mightily to propose a Godzilla-size bureaucracy that would have nationalized one-seventh of the nation's economy. To receive medical care you would have gone to the equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles. That proposal was one of the key factors in the GOP tsunami...

Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday. The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million, roughly the same amount it gave toward the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions. The presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has for months faced questions about the source of the money for her husband's presidential library. During a September...

AUSTIN — Toll road critics were turned down in their request for wide-ranging transportation department documents, but a judge gave them more time to narrow their request as part of a lawsuit against the state. Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, led by San Antonio resident Terri Hall, sued the Texas Department of Transportation in September to fight the department's toll road efforts. The group claims the "Keep Texas Moving" promotional campaign violates a ban on state officials using their authority for political purposes. It also wants to stop agency officials from lobbying Congress to allow more tolling. On Thursday,...

When a mayor of New York leaves office, little goes out the door but memories — unless he's Rudy Giuliani. Government rules discourage the city's most powerful officeholder from departing with more than token gifts collected on the job. Ed Koch, mayor from 1978 to 1989, recalls keeping some neckties. His successor, David Dinkins, walked away with knickknacks from his desk, including a crystal tennis ball and a collection of photographs documenting his meetings with celebrities and business icons. When Giuliani stepped down, he needed a warehouse. Under an unprecedented agreement that didn't become public until after he left office,...

sugar tariffs, put in place by law and enforced by the USDA, are so complicated that many people give up worrying about it. After all, paying $2.25 for a five pound bag of sugar is no big deal. Unless you consider that we could be paying as low as a dollar for that five pound bag, and wholesale purchases of sugar by companies like Coca-Cola, Heinz, and Kraft would pay even less. So here's the Sugar Tariff in action: First, USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation lends money each year to sugar cane processors at a specific rate per pound of sugar....

LAS VEGAS — The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a complaint against a federal judge who awarded more than $4.8 million in judgments and fees to people with whom he had long-standing political and business ties. U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan of Las Vegas, who was featured in a 2006 Los Angeles Times investigation into the Nevada judiciary, was cleared of allegations that he had personal connections with those involved in cases he heard. Many of those relationships "were not of the nature or extent alleged" and didn't affect the judge's impartiality, the 9th Circuit Judicial...

It's a real estate developer's sugar-plum dream: a mega-shopping mall complete with 10 Broadway-style theaters, an indoor river, a Tuscan village and a 39-story luxury hotel sheathed in green solar panels shaped like giant blades of grass. Plus as much as $1 billion in government-backed financing, thanks in part to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not everyone thinks the plan, known as Destiny USA and still in the early bulldozer stage, is a good idea. Many on the Syracuse City Council consider its tax breaks a waste of public money. Others fear it could damage the struggling downtown area. Others question...

The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China Rep. Christopher Cox, Chairman Member, House Leadership Chairman, House Policy Committee Member: Committe on Commerce, Committee on Government Reform and Oversight Rep. Norman Dicks, Ranking Democrat Ranking Member: Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Member: Committee on Appropriations Rep. Porter Goss, Vice Chairman Chairman, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Member: Committee on Rules Rep. Doug Bereuter Member: Committee on International Relations, Committee on Banking and Financial Services Rep. James V. Hansen Chairman, Committee on Standards of Official Conduct Member: Committee...

Dear (RNC donor's name), In 2004, Hillary claimed that all of the records at the Clinton Library would be opened. She said on CNN's Larry King Live, "That's one of the things the library really stands for. It physically stands for openness with all the glass and the light. But he wants it to be a place where people come and really study. And everything's going to be available." Nearly three years after the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library and the ensuing Freedom of Information Act Requests, less than half of one percent of the library's documents are open...

Government leaders target teacher sexual misconductBy Robert Tanner The Associated Press Saturday, November 3, 2007 The state government would open its now-secret books on teacher sexual misconduct in Maine. Missouri school districts would be barred from backroom deals that let misbehaving teachers quietly move on. New York would be able to swiftly remove convicted teachers’ licenses. Across the country, governors, legislative leaders and top education officials are pledging to close loopholes that have allowed teacher sexual misconduct to persist. In Congress, legislation that targets such misbehavior has gathered more sponsors. The efforts follow an Associated Press investigation last month that...

Michael Reagan is asking Democrats to lay off Hillary so that Republicans can have another go at her. I say to Republicans, beware of the “Blue Dress Democrats� and the Clinton effect. Reagan recently wrote, “I know you Democrats don't want to do us Republicans any favors, but just this once let us have our way. Give us the opportunity to give the Republican attack machine another shot at Hillary Clinton. Let her coast to victory in the primaries. Then we'll take it from there.� It appears, barring some spectacular development, that Hillary Clinton will most likely be the Democrats’...

Grover Norquist is the president of Americans for Tax Reform and a leading anti-tax activist. Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and a confirmed lefty. The two don't agree on much, but they are joining forces in support of a cause quickly gaining traction around the country: transparency, the notion that citizens are entitled to know how government spends their money. In the old days of paper, pen and typewriters, there were legitimate obstacles to widespread data-sharing. It was cumbersome to reproduce and transmit information on a mass scale. But a funny thing didn't happen after the information technology revolution....

Hsu victims get no refunds from candidatesBy: Ben Smith Oct 23, 2007 05:38 PM EST Source invested $40 million with Hsu in what its backers believed to be an apparel industry venture. Photo: AP When Democratic megadonor Norman Hsu was exposed as a scam artist, Democrats scrambled to get rid of the cash he had shoveled into their campaigns. They gave his contributions away to recipients from Habitat for Humanity to the U.S. Treasury to an upstate New York school for autistic children. There is a set of deserving recipients who haven’t seen a dime, however: Norman Hsu’s victims. A...

Edwards Slams Top Clinton Strategist's Ties to BlackwaterEdwards Assails Clinton as 'Corporate Democrat' By JAKE TAPPER Oct. 5, 2007 In a scathing attack, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards went after front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Friday, calling her a "corporate Democrat," comparing top Clinton campaign strategist Mark Penn to former Bush aide Karl Rove and assailing Penn's ties to Blackwater USA, the embattled private firm of military contractors accused by the Iraqi government of firing upon and killing 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians last month. "Bush has been a perfect example of cronyism because Blackwater has given hundreds of thousands of...

...When it comes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the presumed government backing is called an “implicit guarantee.” On Wall Street, it has many names — ex-post insurance, a Greenspan put, or now, a Bernanke put. Whatever you call it, its existence demands that markets be subject to adequate rules and oversight. That’s clearly not the case at present. Hedge funds and private equity firms, which are allowed to operate largely in secret, need to be subject to more official scrutiny so that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have a grasp of their activities before big problems occur and...

PORTLAND, Ore. The Oregon Supreme Court rejected an effort by the Mormon church to withhold financial information from the lawyers for a man who claims a "home teacher" frequently molested him about 20 years ago. Despite the legal defeat, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not immediately release the detailed financial information about its net worth, The Oregonian newspaper reported. Kelly Clark, an attorney for the Oregon man suing the church, said it would be good for a jury to have the information before considering his request for $45 million in punitive damages. A trial is scheduled...

Senate Sausage [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Brian Darling, director of Senate relations at the Heritage Foundation, e-mails: Someone once said not to watch how sausage or legislation are made. Today especially I prefer to be at the sausage factory. As if the Senate floor situation could get any worse, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's staff is now rewriting the Clay Pigeon amendment behind closed doors. It is the intent of the Majority Leader to bring this new unread Amendment up without the Republicans seeing the language. Yesterday Senator Reid did not have his massive 373 page amendment ready when he started...

Irvine, CA (LifeNews.com) -- After the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's stem cell research firm is following all of the state's public accountability laws, watchdog groups say the problems are continuing. Now they are having a hard time getting the National Academy of Sciences to open their meetings to the public. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights says NAS recently barred the public from a meeting of representatives of state public stem cell research programs at the National Academies' Beckman Center in Irvine.John Simpson, a spokesman for the consumer group, arrived late in the day intending to...

Tuesday May 15, 10:37 AM G-8 to hold 2-day talks in Germany from Fri., hedge funds top agenda (Kyodo) _ Group of Eight finance ministers will hold a two-day meeting beginning Friday in Germany, with ensuring the transparency of hedge funds topping the agenda. Finance Minister Koji Omi told a news conference Tuesday that the issue of hedge funds should be addressed in a balanced manner taking both their positive and negative aspects into account. "A free market mechanism is very important and it is essential that various economic activities are conducted under the rule of the free economy," Omi...

'Transparency' is not how Sun Tzu and China's PLA approach war By Lev Navrozov SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for...

WASHINGTON – After 33 years of secrecy, the U.S. State Department has finally declassified a document admitting it knew the late Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, plotted and supervised the murders of two U.S. diplomats in Sudan in 1973, a cover-up first exposed by WND in January 2001. The document, released earlier this year, with no fanfare, makes it clear the Khartoum operation "was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval" of Arafat, a frequent visitor to the White House throughout the 1990s who died in 2004. In the attack March 1, 1973,...

The President signed S.2590 into law this morning. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act mandates the Office of Management and Budget to create an online, searchable database of all government contracts, grants, and awards greater than $25,000. The full text of the bill can be found here Here is a transcript from the signing ceremony: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9:47 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Please be seated -- except for you all. (Laughter.) Welcome. Every April, Americans sit down and fill out their tax returns, and they find out how much of their hard-earned money is coming here to Washington. Once the...

Our view: House bill to clean up pork practices not nearly enough to stem budgeting abuses The earmark reform bill passed by the House last week is too little, way too late. Hailed by its supporters ---- including local U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad ---- the bill will require the House's powerful Appropriations Committee to disclose which earmarks it approves and which congressmen asked for them through the end of this year. Transparency is a worthy goal, and can only help keep our representatives accountable for their earmarks ---- the practice of placing special projects on spending bills unanimously and...

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 Sen. John McCain is at it again. The senior senator from Arizona has worked hard to earn an F-rating from Gun Owners of America. Once a presidential contender, Sen. McCain became the poster boy for the misnamed Americans for Gun Safety (AGS) several years ago and has sponsored several anti-gun bills and amendments. With such a record lurking in his closet, do you think Sen. McCain likes it when groups like Gun Owners of America point out his anti-gun antics? http://www.gunowners.org/a020706.htm

The complete list of the countries is down the pageObservations: situation in Ukraine has improved from 2.2 last year to 2.6 in 2005. (Thank you, Orange Revolution). Russia on the other hand went down from 2.8 last year to 2.4 in 2005. The only other country in the region which experienced an even worse drop was Belarus (from 3.3 to 2.6) Article for the Russian readers- here

KIEV, April 11 (Itar-Tass) - The Ukrainian government started on Monday inspections of foreign economic contacts of iron and steel mills and enterprises, mining iron ore. Premier Yulia Timoshenko said on Sunday that she discussed, with heads of power-wielding departments, a plan of inspection of all iron and steel mills and enterprises, mining iron ore. It is planned to find out as a result of inspections “at what prices metal products and raw materials are imported, at what prices they are later channeled to off-shore offices and at what prices they were sold from off-shore companies”. According to the premier,...

The "supermajority" issue is hardly the no-brainer some people make it out to be. So be wary of cheering along the current effort in Olympia to do away with the decades-old, constitutional voting provision for school levies. The no-brainer crowd crows that it is undemocratic to require a 60-percent passage rate for school money measures when politicians typically are elected to office with just more than 50 percent of the vote. And while it sounds well and good to say that the majority should always rule in any given election, the reality is, the majority rarely rules, given low voter...

Republicans' challenge to Gregoire win raises question Wednesday, February 23, 2005 By NEIL MODIE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire won more votes from urbanites in the 2004 election while Dino Rossi, her Republican opponent, got more rural votes. Gregoire had probably more women's votes and Rossi more from men. OK, but which candidate captured the hearts of the convicted felons who broke the law by voting? Republicans said in court papers yesterday that at least 1,108 felons voted illegally, as did at least 55 other voters -- a total more than eight times as large as Gregoire's 129-vote...

"It's tough being Republican in this state," Rossi joked with the crowd of 75 - mostly Republicans - who filled the reception hall at Hawthorne Funeral Home and Memorial Park. "You have to win three times." ... "Achievement and accountability have to be the cornerstones of the K-12 education system," Rossi told the crowd, who applauded loudly. "We cannot achieve great things by lowering our standards." ... He also said he approves of performance audits, which aim to reduce government waste and improve efficiency. "The first question always should be, ‘Should government be doing this function in the first place,'"...

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom that it must steal in upon them by degrees and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes in order to be received. --David Hume, Of the Liberty of the Press, 1742...Mr. Carter, having staked his "observer" reputation on this ridiculously lopsided game, sealed the fate of the Venezuelans when he rushed to anoint Chávez as the winner and advised Mr. Powell to do the same. This betrayal of a neighboring democracy may one day leave ugly...

Internet revolution is forcing transparency Mark Tapscott November 15, 2004 Debates about “red states” and “blue states” aside, the 2004 presidential campaign made one thing clear: The Internet is rapidly establishing real-time transparency in government and the media as the sine qua non of American public policy. That’s good news for the American voter, because for the most part government and the major media remain for now much as they have been for the past half-century -- too remote, restrictive and elitist. Revolutions aren’t won in a day and sometimes progress is slow, so friends of openness in government can...

RIGA - Government ministers took the current wave of NGO hysteria to new heights this week when they suggested that billionaire George Soros had organized an attempt to overthrow the ruling coalition via nongovernmental organizations. Interior Minister Eriks Jekabsons' Aug. 19 statement that the security police would begin to analyze Delna, the local chapter of Transparency International, and that billionaire financer George Soros may be behind its actions caused consternation in the capital. This was followed by an interview with Deputy Prime Minister Ainars Slesers in the Russian language tabloid Vesti Segodnya on Aug. 27, in which Slesers claimed that...

Country rank Country CPI 2003 score Surveys used Standard deviation High-low range 1 Finland 9.7 8 0.3 9.2 - 10.0 2 Iceland 9.6 7 0.3 9.2 - 10.0 3 Denmark 9.5 9 0.4 8.8 - 9.9 New Zealand 9.5 8 0.2 9.2 - 9.6 5 Singapore 9.4 12 0.1 9.2 - 9.5 6 Sweden 9.3 11 0.2 8.8 - 9.6 7 Netherlands 8.9 9 0.3 8.5 - 9.3 8 Australia 8.8 12 0.9 6.7 - 9.5 Norway 8.8 8 0.5 8.0 - 9.3 Switzerland 8.8 9 0.8 6.9 - 9.4 11 Canada 8.7 12 0.9 6.5 - 9.4 Luxembourg...

Testimony of Chairman Alan GreenspanFederal Reserve Board's semiannual monetary policy report to the Congress Before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate July 16, 2002Chairman Greenspan presented identical testimony before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, on July 17, 2002 I appreciate this opportunity to present the Federal Reserve's Monetary Policy Report to the Congress. Over the four and one-half months since I last testified before this Committee on monetary policy, the economy has continued to expand, largely along the broad contours we had anticipated at that time. Although the uncertainties of earlier this...

Outlook far from promising By Philip Coggan Published: April 5 2002 16:55 | Last Updated: April 5 2002 16:59 The level of share prices is essentially a function of two things: the level of corporate profits and the rating investors are willing to award those profits.Market valuation is still a subject for intense debate, with some commentators such as Andrew Smithers of investment advisers Smithers & Co, arguing that US equities remain substantially overvalued.But it is hard to find a bull who believes shares are significantly undervalued; they tend to argue that valuations are fair and that share prices...