Free Republic

The year 2011 is noteworthy since it will be the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It is also a year when the Republicans will gain control of the House and have a strong say in the Senate. American Thinker interviewed some influential Congressmen and former CIA officials to gain insight on what can be expected in 2011. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the newly appointed Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants to challenge and review the status quo presented by the Obama Administration by asking the hard questions through public and closed door hearings. He is going to make sure...

Anyone have any suggestions? Would a CB radio be good? What else would work in case of a crack-down on right-minded people?

GOP's Darrell Issa Plans Hundreds of Oversight HearingsPosted by Lucy Madison November 9, 2010 12:00 PM California Rep. Darrell Issa plans to greatly expand the scope of federal oversight upon his likely election to chair the oversight committee in the new Congress, he told Politico in an interview. "I want seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks," Issa said. Issa's election to chair the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform would herald a significant increase in the committee's activity, and not just from the past two years. California Rep. Henry Waxman, the committee's Democratic chair during the final two...

We now have the first sign that the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives will be holding the Obama administration accountable for it's over the top spending and hard to believe statistics. We also have the first sign of how the administration will react. Incoming Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) scheduled a meeting for today with Vice President Joe Biden, who oversees the administration's stimulus effort, to discuss accountability with regard to the $800+ billion stimulus bill and Mr. Biden has now postponed that meeting.

Democratic strategists say President Barack Obama needs to act fast to make sure that one of the most tangible consequences of the Republican takeover of the House — an army of GOP committee chairman seeking confidential executive branch deliberations — doesn’t swamp the day-to-day work of the White House. Veterans of the contentious battles of the Clinton administration warn that the Obama White House is entirely unprepared for the level of scrutiny it is about to experience. “They’ve already been complaining that they’re beleaguered by Congress,” said one veteran Democratic strategist. “I don’t think [White House aides] have the slightest...

The longstanding Democrat tactic of stealing elections threatens a reappearance on November 2. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise and rely on the voters' voice to be heard merely because the public has turned on the Democrats. A number of comments on my recent pieces dealing with electoral issues (particularly "The American Left Slides Into Psychosis") have mentioned the importance of protecting the vote to assure that standard corrupt Democratic tactics are not allowed to lessen the weight of the impending November avalanche. This is certainly a valid point in this age, when Stuart Smalley has found his way...

(CNSNews.com) – A new oversight report from Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, details what many analysts see as the failures of the Obama administration during the Gulf oil spill. The report lays out the ways in which the administration either failed to exercise authority it had or acted in ways that hindered the massive cleanup effort, pointing out that President Barack Obama appeared less than focused on the country’s largest environmental disaster in history. “President Obama and Administration officials failed in several instances to remove regulatory and bureaucratic impediments, and...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-optimizing-security-biological-select-agents-and-toxins-united-stat Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Executive Orders The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release July 02, 2010 Executive Order-- Optimizing the Security of Biological Select Agents and Toxins in the United States By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States that: (a) A robust and productive scientific enterprise that utilizes biological select agents and toxins (BSAT)...

WASHINGTON — The federal government didn't exhaust all its options before it committed tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars to bail out the American International Group during the height of the 2008 financial collapse, according to a new report from a congressional watchdog panel. The Congressional Oversight Panel , which was created to monitor the spending in the 2008 bank bailout bill known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, detailed in its latest monthly report the government's extraordinary rescue of AIG and its lingering effects on taxpayers and the financial markets.

WASHINGTON — With the recent death of SeaWorld trainer as background, animal-rights activists feuded with marine park operators at a Tuesday congressional hearing that had little to do with improved safety standards for animals or the people who train them. Instead, the debate centered on the educational value of parks such as SeaWorld, with the most pointed criticism coming from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which was not asked to testify but still called for a ban on the confinement of all killer whales. "Perhaps the most striking behavior [of killer whales] that is regularly observed in...

Aside from the usual he-lied/she-lied accusations, does anyone know if we citizens have any legal means by which these Congressional dirty-deals can be made public? Is there any way to legally force the televising of the meetings? Can any of our weenie Republicans bring some kind of civil suit? Can SCOTUS get involved? What are the procedures, if any, for intervention at any of these levels?I just cannot imagine that the intent of the Founding Fathers was to allow people like Pelosi, Reid, and Obama the freedom to impose dictatorial measures upon the people.One of our FR sharpies must have...

Next Monday, the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and United States of America. If the plaintiffs are successful, they could unravel one of the most used and persuasive tools in security technology sales: the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The particulars of the case aren’t really that important, but I’ll recount them quickly. Beckstead was a small accounting firm in Henderson, Nev. (just outside Las Vegas). It was audited by PCOAB in 2004 for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and several deficiencies were...

Oversight: After an unjust firing and campaign of character assassination, the former AmeriCorps inspector general has been cleared of acting improperly. Now where does he go to get his job and reputation back? On June 10, Gerald Walpin was fired with one hour's notice as the watchdog of AmeriCorps in violation of a federal law requiring Congress to be given a heads-up 30 days in advance. He then fell victim to a campaign of character assassination. When pressed for a reason for the sudden and improper dismissal of a federal watchdog, the White House responded with a letter to Sens....

Even the government-controlled media has had to take note of the wildly inaccurate numbers on the government's recovery.gov web site, and the stunning incompetence of listing tens of millions of dollars of stimulus as being spent in congressional districts that do not exist. Even Democrats are calling it sloppy and unacceptable. I'd suggest that it's worse than that, even. It's a small window into what Obama thinks of you. He holds those who distrust him and his policies in utter contempt and he doesn't feel accountable to those people at all. But possibly his greatest contempt is reserved for those...

A wide ranging congressional investigation into Countrywide Financial will dig into how the mortgage giant went about picking government officials to offer its VIP program, according to aides involved with the inquiry. Thanks to an agreement between Republicans and Democrats reached late Friday night, any name of a member of Congress involved in the VIP program will head straight to the ethics committee, while redacted copies of those documents will be given to the House Oversight and Government Reform. But the committee has cast a much wider net, looking into whether lobbyists or others in Washington helped identify mid-level Hill...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Treasury Department's inspector general is looking into the government's oversight of tax-exempt organizations like ACORN when they engage in political activities. The office of California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa disclosed the IG's decision on Thursday amid a controversy over videotapes of ACORN employees offering advice about how to establish a brothel with underage prostitutes.

The Obama administration plans to place federal employees in the largest immigration detention facilities in the country to monitor detainee treatment. WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to place federal employees in the largest immigration detention facilities in the country to monitor detainee treatment. This oversight role is currently handled by private contractors. But under the new plan, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would be placed at the largest jails to directly supervise how the detention centers are managed, according to people briefed on the government's plan. The government has been criticized for its treatment of immigration detainees, and Homeland...

The government could lose out on more than $2.7 billion if federal officials continue to undervalue part of the financial bailout package, a government watchdog panel will say on Friday. The Congressional Oversight Panel, working with a team of Harvard Business School professors, estimated that taxpayers had lost one-third of the value of the very small number of warrants that had already been sold by the Treasury Department

Oversight: If the White House really believes that AmeriCorps' inspector general was "confused" and "disoriented," how about open congressional hearings where the American people can see for themselves?The storm that erupted after the firing with one hour's notice of Gerald Walpin, the inspector general overseeing AmeriCorps, has not died down. Pressed for an explanation as to the reasons for the firing and why the law requiring Congress to be given notice and reasons 30 days in advance was not followed, the White House has resorted to old-time Chicago-style political smears.

Where is the Oversight to AmeriCorps Now? The Inspectors General for the AmeriCorps program (national service program which just received $5.7 billion) received a phone call Wednesday evening, June 10, 2009, from the Whitehouse council’s office who told him Obama would fire him if he did not resign in one hour. He did not resign. The following day the President Obama did inform Congress of the firing but without reason. A new law passed in 2008 said that if the President wants to fire Inspectors General he must give Congress 30 days notice and cause before firing. A co-sponsor of...