Posted on 12/12/2014 9:33:07 AM PST by apoliticalone
After passing the Senate by unanimous consent on Monday, it seemed as if the FOIA Improvement Act would become law—a nearly identical version passed the House earlier this year. Today, however, it was up to Speaker of the House John Boehner to allow a vote on the bill’s final passage before the House adjourned this week. Instead, it was “held at the desk,” meaning Boehner may have just killed FOIA reform.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a law, signed in 1966, that gives U.S. citizens the right to access information from the federal government. Through FOIA, journalists and citizens alike have uncovered stories like the U.S. government turning down hundreds of millions of dollars in Katrina aid, the Pentagon ignoring a tip alleging 135 cases of fraud amounting to nearly $200 million, shortages in funding hampering cleanup at hazardous waste sites and 17,000 bridges failing to be inspected on schedule, to name a few.
“It is an uniquely American act, but it is a tool that needs to be continually sharpened,” says Nate Jones, the Freedom of Information Act Coordinator at the George Washington University's National Security Archive. “The government is pretty good at giving information to people it wants to give, but the Freedom of Information Act is really a gem that allows the public to have a fighting chance to get the information from the government that they want.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
“By tabling the bill until the new Congress is sworn in less a month from now, the Republicans can beef up the bill and make it even more pro-openness and pro-disclosure.”
I hope so, but I won’t hold my breath. That would take a man that’s shrewd and honest and pro-America. Perhaps he is shrewder and more pro America than I give him credit. His position favoring bailing out more anti American bankers and giving in to the pro illegal amnesty, cheap labor crowd, doesn’t give me hope.
I’d like to see a stronger government transparency bill passed under Repub bonafides that would force disclosure of gun running, IRS, Benghazi, etc. Obama would dare not veto it.
Your photo defines conniving politicians. Boehner has a better tan than O.
I hope that you are right. I am so tired of all the deception that comes from DC. I don’t like Boehner at all, can’t stand the Democrats at all. Krauthammer though said last night that the Omnibus bill is good and that the Republicans should sit back and enjoy the ride...... I don’t know who to believe anymore
He needs removed with extreme prejudice as they say. However, I am a pacifist, lol, and didn’t fall for the rino lies the last election. Didn’t vote for them and never will again.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Hardly. They can easily pass it - ensure reform begins - and come back next session and beef it up. Boehner is the enemy.
You should not be surprised we have a one Party system.
I think he looks like the obama girl.
flaccid boner has been compromised. Do you thing it was young girls or young boys?
I hear ya, It’s difficult to have must trust for Boehner, no doubt about it.
I’m with you, I don’t much care for Boehner either. I’m just hoping he can get something right now and then.
Agent Orange has been caught with an underage OompaLoompa.
Believe me, I don’t care much for Boehner or his band of GOPe nervous nellies. I just hope that they can a few things right and maybe the FOIA tabling is one of them. We’ll know soon enough.
http://e-pluribusunum.com/ for more info
According to several sources the FOIA reform was scuttled because of the banking lobbyists, Any surprise there? Our country is being scuttled while Boehner plays the national anthem and all sorts of patriotic music as background on his House Speaker phone line, while they block comments because his mailbox is full.
The people (and if we had a legitimate media) need to pit the two Parties against each other based upon how well they can lead by transparency and by exposing corruption and fraud. The political corruption is at the root of what is tearing our country down.
Now we are adding more immigrants from Latin America that are more adept at accepting corrupt governments than fighting it. That’s probably part of the amnesty rationale by the connected elites.
http://oversight.house.gov/release/issa-cummings-call-house-passage-foia-improvement-act/
December 9, 2014
Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., called on the House to pass and send the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Improvement Act to the President for his signature following its unanimous passage in the Senate last night.
“The FOIA Improvement Act will strengthen FOIA, the cornerstone open government law,” Issa and Cummings said in a joint statement. “The House unanimously passed companion legislation, H.R. 1211, earlier this year. The FOIA Improvement Act is a bipartisan bill that, after last night’s passage by the Senate, deserves to be taken up by the House and sent to the President.”
Negative, they pass it now, there’s no leverage to force Obumbles to sign an improved version. Think outside the box, noob, Boehner doesn’t get everything wrong.
Granted he’s a weak leader, and I don’t care much for him, but if you’re looking for the true enemies of liberty, you need to look further to the left. Hopefully the strengthened conservative wing of the R gang will vote in a new leader in January.
Oh boy, Elijah Cummings is all for it! He who gets his marching orders from Valerie Jarrett.
Hell, that’s reason enough alone to kill it. HA!
i despise boner almost as much as obama.
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