Free Republic

Wikileaks has gotten their hands on a copy of Obama’s phony TPP trade bill. It contains 29 chapters but only 5 pertain to trade. Wikileaks will be publishing the entire bill and they have already released the chapter on Investment. It’s very interesting. It is written in a such a way as to give multinational companies a huge advantage on trade. If a public hospital is built close to a private one, the private hospital has the right to sue the country for expected losses. That is outrageous. Here is where you can find the chapter on investment: https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/WikiLeaks-TPP-Investment-Chapter/page-2.html The...

A week ago Friday was an unusual day for the editorial page of The New York Times. An unsigned editorial in the paper lashed out at the president for his public statements about reengaging in Iraq. A Paul Krugman column attacked the administration’s defense of the new trade agreement. Both pieces said the administration was being … (how shall we say it?) … dishonest. Granted, this was nothing like the language Krugman and the Times typically use to describe Republicans. A few days earlier, Krugman accused Jeb Bush of “cowardice and vileness” with respect to his statements about Iraq. In...

Bob Woodward, who along with Carl Bernstein brought down President Nixon back in the 70s, has called the Obama administration a a "rat's nest of concealment and lies." He could have well added that it is run like a mafioso family, complete with threats and harsh punishments for not taking an offer you can't refuse. Woodward, himself was threatened, when he exposed that the sequester came from Obama and not the republicans.

EU ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has accused the EU insitutions of being too ready to use the data protection “shield” as an argument against being more transparent. “Data protection is viewed as a major shield against transparency in these institutions. I see it on so many levels,” she said at a public discussion on Brussels lobbying on Wednesday (11 May). She noted that while in some member states a distinction is made between an official acting in their private capacity and acting as a public servant, “that distinction is far too blurred” in Brussels. Her remarks were directed at EU commissioner...

Our scientific method and traditions of free speech and open debate are under assault as never before, by intolerant inquisitors in our media, universities, government agencies, and even Congress and the Vatican. They threaten our most basic rights and freedoms, our political and scientific processes – and ultimately our continued innovation and invention, energy reliability and affordability, job creation and economic growth, and modern living standards, health and welfare. Congressman Grijalva and Senators Markey, Boxer and Whitehouse sent letters to universities, think tanks and companies, demanding detailed information on skeptics’ funding and activities – in an attempt to destroy their...

Everybody has a particular figure in the news who drives them a little bonkers. You may recall that for some reason, media hosannas for Chelsea Clinton stick in my craw. I’m perfectly happy to see Chelsea Clinton go off and live a happy life as a mom or doing whatever she likes away from the public spotlight. But I’m tired of the media telling us she’s remarkably accomplished in her own right, her keynote addresses to conferences like SXSW, treating her like she’s an A-list celebrity and fascinating figure, the “Woman of the Year” and “Mom of the Year” awards,...

The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir Putin's latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: "Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World." The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world's largest uranium producers and brought Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain. But the untold story behind that story is one that...

Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records regarding its response to the January 1, 2014, explosion of an apartment building in the largely Muslim Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The FOIA lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch v U. S. Department of Justice (No.1:14-cv-02212)).

Iran and and six world powers have agreed on the outlines of an understanding that would open the path to a final phase of nuclear negotiations but are in a dispute over how much to make public, officials told The Associated Press Thursday. The officials spoke outside week-long talks that have busted through a March 31 deadline in an effort to formulate a general statement of what has been accomplished and documents setting down what the sides need to do by the end of June deadline for a deal. Swiss officials facilitating the negotiations set a news conference for later...

The State Department has cancelled daily press briefings in Washington, D.C. three days in a row as John Kerry continues to try to strike a nuclear deal with Iran.

A former staffer to Jeb Bush established a group earlier this year that can raise money without disclosing its donors, a revelation that has drawn criticism from campaign-finance watchdogs who say the group will allow the likely 2016 candidate to benefit from contributions his campaign might prefer not to disclose. The nonprofit corporation—called Right to Rise Policy Solutions, sharing the same “Right to Rise” name as two other political-action committees raising money for Mr. Bush’s potential campaign—is the latest addition to a group of politically linked organizations not required to disclose their donors. Other potential 2016 candidates, including Louisiana Gov....

Politicians frequently claim they’ve been misquoted or misunderstood by reporters. See Scott Walker’s spokeswoman’s response to a Wall Street Journal report about his position on amnesty. But there’s a sure way to avoid that: Keep reporters out of the room. The Phoenix Business Journal reports that’s what Gov. Walker did when he spoke this week to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. It was part of a series featuring presidential contenders. “I’d love to tell you what he had to say that was important enough for him to travel thousands of miles from home, but I can’t,” Travis Arbon writes. “The...

Search giant (GOOGLE) averages a White House meeting a week during Obama administration. As the federal government was wrapping up its antitrust investigation of Google Inc., company executives had a flurry of meetings with top officials at the White House and Federal Trade Commission, the agency running the probe. Google co-founder Larry Page met with FTC officials to discuss settlement talks, according to visitor logs and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt met with Pete Rouse, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, in the White House. The documents don’t show exactly what was discussed...

SEATTLE (Tribune News Service) — President Barack Obama continues to boast that he runs “the most transparent administration in history” with a straight face. But the claim doesn’t even pass the giggle test. His administration has an abysmal record of prosecuting more whistleblowers than any predecessor. His administration’s compliance with the Freedom of Information Act has gotten worse, rather than better, the longer he is in office. And he routinely sidesteps the seasoned White House press corps to sit for interviews with the likes of YouTube stars. Add to the list of transgressions the new disclosure that former Secretary of...

For the second consecutive year, the Obama administration more often than ever censored government files or outright denied access to them under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press. The government took longer to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn't find documents, and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.

The White House’s new rules exempting an administrative office from being subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have raised eyebrows among transparency advocates. The FOIA allows citizens to obtain government documents from federal agencies. In a Federal Register notice scheduled to publish on Tuesday morning, the action to exempt the Office of Administration is listed as a final rule, implying there will be no opportunity for public comment. The notice highlights that the Executive Office of the President, Office of Administration, is removing regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations related to the status of records created and...

Lies, lies, and nothing but lies. The lies end now. As reported moments ago, the White House is voiding a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA (incidentally the same act that discovered none of Hillary Clinton's "personal" government-business emails since they were not even stored on government property!) which as USA Today explains, makes "official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office." And just like that the lie of Obama's transparency is over, and it couldn't come at a worse time for...

WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- The White House Office of Administration on Monday announced it's deleting regulations subjecting it to the Freedom of Information Act seven years after a federal judge ruled the office doesn't have to comply with the law. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled in June 2008 the Office of Administration was not subject to FOIA regulations because it doesn't employ "the type of substantial independent authority that the D.C. Circuit has found sufficient to make an (executive office of the president) component an agency under the FOIA." The Office of Administration provides administrative support and business...

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, warned that public talks on the formulating nuclear deal with Iran will make it exceedingly difficult for the US to prevent Ian from developing nuclear abilities. Kerry stated that he is concerned by reports that details of the nuclear talks will be exposed in the next few days. .....

White House is declining to say whether President Barack Obama has a private email account like one used by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that has sparked a political furor. White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Tuesday aboard Air Force One en route with Obama to Atlanta that the White House doesn't discuss Obama’s email account publicly to guard the security of the president’s communications. He said, however, that anything Obama sends or receives is preserved, including his emails with Clinton. …