Free Republic

Scrub-a-dub-dub. When Brandon Friedman took to Twitter to plant the seeds for another attack on Bowe Bergdahl’s whistle-blowing platoon mates, his bio proudly announced his role as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “What if [Bergdahl's] platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership?” he tweeted, before calling for everyone to “withhold judgment” about allegations that Bergdahl deserted. “I’m not a fan of such speculation,” he added. Uh huh. And then Friedman scrubbed his Twitter bio. Here’s the Google cache from Jun 3, 2014:

Administration officials showed senators video of Bergdahl to support claims that his health was failing. The Obama administration gave senators a classified briefing Wednesday night on just what thinking went into the prisoner trade to recover Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan. But that won't end questions from Congress. "This gentleman needs to be looked into, quite extensively," said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., following the briefing, referring to questions about whether Bergdahl deserted the military. During the classified briefing, senators were shown a roughly minute-and-a-half-long "proof of life" video of Bergdahl, which the Taliban had provided, in which the soldier "didn't...

(CNSNews.com) – Amid reports that Qatar will allow five senior Taliban terrorists freed from Guantanamo Bay in the controversial Bergdahl exchange to move around freely, a State Department spokeswoman on Tuesday repeatedly declined to discuss “specifics” of the agreement struck with Qatar. Marie Harf said the deal involved “very sensitive diplomatic negotiations” involving the Gulf state and there were “probably very good reasons” not to make the details public.

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf engaged in a heated exchange Tuesday with a reporter over the circumstances surrounding Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s capture five years ago, saying she does not think his squad mates have the best idea of what happened when he disappeared. When Fox News reporter Lucas Tomlinson asked, “Does the State Department consider Sergeant Bergdahl to be a deserter?” Harf replied, “The State Department — no, Lucas. Look, what we’ve said is we are going to learn the facts about what happened here.” “He’s been in captivity, Lucas. I think he’s probably the person who knows...

Newly freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is not being asked about the circumstances of his “capture” by the Taliban, though a note he left at his base back in 2009 could help tell the story, a senior defense official told ABC News today. The official, who spoke about the sensitive details of Bergdahl’s case on the condition of anonymity, said that Bergdahl is not being interrogated at the American military medical facility in Germany, to which he was brought this weekend after being released from five-year captivity by the Taliban. The official said there are legitimate concerns about Bergdahl’s physical...

"...If they truly fear the unchecked growth of presidential power, then their best option is to come to the table and force compromise. It's the one sure way to keep Obama from going cowboy (or, in their minds, tyrant)."

I have lost track of the DOJ action on General Petraeus. Is he still under investigation or have they closed it out? If still open has anyone in congress or the media asked the simple question: why? I assume if he is still under investigation that it is to keep him quiet about the Obama administration policies a d to kill any political aspirations.

Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, has a plan to become Republicans' "worst nightmare" if he is indeed appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the select committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. (clip) Grayson said he would use the Benghazi hearings as an opportunity to draw attention to other issues important to "ordinary Americans" that have not received as much attention. (clip) Following DeLauro's proposal, liberal groups hatched another idea: send Grayson. A petition on the CREDO group's website has already garnered more than 65,000 signatures. (clip) Grayson said it's up to Pelosi to determine...

Last Wednesday, as the House was preparing for its new investigation into the Benghazi attacks, House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers gathered Republican members of his committee for a meeting. While the main purpose of the meeting was to discuss surveillance reforms the committee was about to pass, Rogers also warned his colleagues about the upcoming select committee to investigate Benghazi. “He was saying this could be a rabbit hole,” one House member told The Daily Beast. “He was warning us that we should not let this investigation get into conspiracy theories.” Contrary to the caricature of Republicans, as singularly...

Hunter Biden, the younger son of Vice President Joe Biden, will be joining Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, the company announced in a statement. “The company’s strategy is aimed at the strongest concentration of professional staff and the introduction of best corporate practices, and we’re delighted that Mr. Biden is joining us to help us achieve these goals,” Alan Apter, Burisma Holdings’ chairman of the board of directors, said in a statement, which was reported by The Moscow Times on Tuesday. Biden, joining the board, will be in charge of the legal unit, the company said and will provide support...

The U.S. Senate on Monday killed a measure that would have forced the Obama administration to provide the public with information each year on the number of persons killed or injured overseas in targeted strikes.Congress’ decision to abandon the measure, which would have been included in a larger intelligence bill, marks the latest in the federal government’s longstanding tradition of keeping information regarding targeted strikes, which are typically carried out by unmanned drones, from the public eye. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a letter to the Senate warned that the measure would compromise U.S. intelligence operations overseas, the...

Grand Rapids city officials gave detailed information about a tax dispute involving the Acton Institute to a select reporter, but not to the nonprofit fighting to prove it is a charitable organization, according to documents received through a Freedom of Information Act request. In fact, an Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty official complained that the organization was struggling to get information about the appeal of its rejection of an application for tax exemption just two business days before a scheduled hearing. Acton Institute Director of Finance Tom Vogt sent an email to City Commissioner Dave Shaffer...

A Bay Area federal judge says the Obama administration can keep secret a memo spelling out the legal rationale for a 2011 drone attack in Yemen that killed a U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist mastermind. The ruling dismissed a suit by the First Amendment Coalition, an open-government advocacy group in San Rafael. The organization sued after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric whom authorities suspected of organizing an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009. Another U.S. citizen was also killed in the drone attack, and Awlaki's U.S.-born, 16-year-old...

The Federal Government lies as a matter of policy and habit. Occasionally  "legitimate" media detect and dissect the lies, but they more often simply report them as true. The resultant "conspiracy theories" are often more believable than the Government lies which spawned them. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-yhiV4wcMc] Video linkFrom Benghazi to ObamaCare to the Israel - Palestinian "peace process" to the Iran Scam to the Bundy Ranch standoff and beyond, "our" Government has lied to us repeatedly and there have been no signs that it intends to stop or even to slow down. The lies have rarely been for legitimate national security reasons and have far more often been to promote...

WASHINGTON — Colorado officials warned a House committee Tuesday that a lack of transparency in the Obama administration’s efforts to protect the sage grouse as an endangered species threatens the scientific validity of the process. Rob Roy Ramey of Nederland, an independent biologist whose career has focused on species protection, told the House Natural Resources Committee that the process has been closed to the scientific community and that federal officials refuse to share certain data being used to make a final determination. “It can be like pulling teeth to try and obtain that data,” Ramey said. “The (information) is shared...

The Census Bureau’s Philadelphia office wasn’t just corrupting the nation’s unemployment rate by fabricating data. It was also filing false information about inflation in this country. Just how large an effect this fraud was having on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — and consequently the cost of living adjustments for Social Security recipients and others — is not yet known.

Michigan residents who want to keep tabs on what government officials are doing may soon be able to do so without having to pay excessive fees. A vote in the Michigan House could be taken this week on House Bill 4001, which would lower the fees government bodies can charge for FOIA request materials. The bill is an attempt to update the state's FOIA law and bring it in line with its original intent, said Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, the sponsor of the bill. Rep. Shirkey "There are necessary exemptions to FOIA, but the core of the law should be...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Internal Revenue Service told House Republicans on Wednesday that it would take years to provide all the documents they have subpoenaed in their probe of how the agency handled tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status. The comments by IRS chief John Koskinen drew a frosty response from Republicans who run the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, one of several congressional panels investigating the controversy. The panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned him he should comply with the request "or potentially be held in contempt" of Congress, a sometimes threatened but...

Last December just before Christmas I took my car to a Body Shop for repairs. I received an estimate, which gave me an idea of how much I would be charged. My insurance company also gave me a clear quotation on how much they would cover. Once the repairs were completed, I received an itemized receipt showing exactly what I paid for parts and labor. The process was expensive, but it was not difficult to understand. Healthcare, however, is an entirely different matter. Once we learn we need a procedure or a test, we often have very little idea what...

That’s right, the Obama White House has quietly rewritten a portion of the Freedom Of Information Act to exclude what it calls “White House equities” from being released without a White House review. The rewrite was inspired by a 2009 memo by then White House counsel, Greg Craig: The Greg memo is described in detail in a new study made public today by Cause of Action, a Washington-based nonprofit watchdog group that monitors government transparency and accountability.How serious an attack on the public’s right to know is the Obama administration’s invention of the “White House equities” exception?“FOIA is designed to...