This is James Clapper ‘Feelin’ Pretty Good’
Posted: November 17, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Terrorism, U.S. News | Tags: 2016, Director of National Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation, House Intelligence Committee, James Clapper, The Washington Examiner, United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 1 CommentDuring a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, Clapper said he “felt pretty good” about the decision…(read more)
Source: Washington Examiner
BUSTED: State Dept. Admits Intentionally Altering Video of Iran Press Conference
Posted: June 1, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Diplomacy, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: Disneyland, Fox News Channel, Government Accountability Office, Iran, James Rosen, Jen Psaki, The Washington Examiner, United States Department of State, United States Department of Veterans Affairs Leave a commentWhen it was revealed that the video had been edited to remove those comments, the State Department quickly restored the entire video, and blamed the missing video on a ‘glitch.’
Pete Kasperowicz reports: The State Department admitted Wednesday that a 2013 press briefing video was purposefully altered to remove a portion of a discussion about the Iran nuclear talks, after an unknown State Department official asked that it be edited out.
“James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that.”
— Psaki to Fox News reporter James Rosen
Spokesman John Kirby’s announcement contradicted the position held by the department for the last three weeks, during which officials said the video was missing because of a “glitch.”
“The missing video clip was revealed more than three weeks ago, and it involves then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who was asked in 2013 whether officials ever lie to the public to protect national security interests.”
But Kirby said officials didn’t know who asked for the video to be edited, and said the department is unlikely to investigate further into who wanted the video to be edited.
Kirby said he asked the Office of the Legal Adviser to look into the issue, and that officials “learned that a specific request was made to excise that portion of the briefing. We do not know who made the request to edit the video, or why it was made.”
Kirby insisted that the person who made the edit only remembers that he or she got a call from someone at the State Department, who was passing on a request from the departments’ Public Affairs Bureau. But he said the person who received the call didn’t remember who the caller was, and doesn’t know who in that bureau made the request. Read the rest of this entry »
NARRATIVE, INTERRUPTED: U.S. Becoming Safer Compared to Europe in Both Fatalities and Frequency of Mass Public Shootings
Posted: January 8, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Politics, Self Defense, Terrorism | Tags: #NotJustAGun, Brussels, Citizenship of the European Union, European Council, European Union, Gun control, Gun violence, Guns, Illegal immigration, Iran, Member state of the European Union, Paris, Sudan, Syria, The Washington Examiner, United States, United States Congress, United States House of Representatives, Washington State 5 CommentsUS Now Ranks 11th in Fatalities and 12th in Frequency.
“But we are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency. It doesn’t happen in other advanced countries. It’s not even close. And as I’ve said before, somehow we’ve become numb to it and we start thinking that this is normal.”
– President Obama, announcing his new executive orders on guns, January 7, 2016
This claim is simply not true. Between January 2009 and December 2015, there are 11 European countries with a higher frequency of these mass public shootings than the US, and 10 European countries with a higher rate of deaths from these attacks.
Indeed, over that same period of time, the European Union (EU) suffered 303 deaths from mass public shootings, while the US had 199. In terms of injuries from these attacks the gap was even much greater, with EU countries facing 680 versus just 197 for the US. However, given the EU’s larger population, the per million people fatality rate for the US and the EU as a whole are virtually identical (0.62 for the US and 0.60 for the EU). By contrast, the injury rate in the EU is much higher (0.61 for the US and 1.34 for the EU).
This past year was a particularly bad one for Europe, with 8 Mass Public Shootings versus only 4 for the United States. Indeed, these 8 Mass Public Shootings for Europe in 2015 count for one-third of all their attacks over the entire seven year period of time…(read more)
Even if one puts it in terms of frequency, the president’s statement is still false, with the US ranking 12th compared to European countries.
Click on tables to enlarge them.
Mission Accomplished: U.S. Drops to 16th on ‘Economic Freedom’ List, Behind Canada, Chile
Posted: September 14, 2015 Filed under: Economics, Global, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Anti-Americanism, Canada, Cato Institute, Chile, Economic freedom, Economic Freedom of the World, Fraser Institute, Hong Kong, Property, Russian Empire, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Examiner, United Kingdom, United States 1 CommentThe top 10: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Jordan, Ireland, Canada, with the United Kingdom and Chile tied at 10.
“The United States, once considered a bastion of economic freedom, now ranks 16th in the world after being as high as second in 2000.”
Paul Bedard reports: The United States, ranked second in worldwide economic freedom as recently as 2000, has plummeted to 16th, according to a new report of world economies.
“A weakened rule of law, the so-called wars on terrorism and drugs, and a confused regulatory environment have helped erode economic freedom in the United States, which remains behind Canada and other more economically free countries such as Qatar, Jordan and the U.A.E.”
— Fred McMahon, Fraser Institute
The Fraser Institute’s annual report, Economic Freedom of the World, showed that the country’s drop started in 2010, the second year of the Obama administration.
“Economic freedom breeds prosperity and economically free countries like Canada offer the highest quality of life while the lowest-ranked countries are usually burdened by oppressive regimes that limit the freedom and opportunity of their citizens.”
— Fred McMahon, Fraser Institute
The world-recognized report showed that the U.S. fell in several areas, including legal and property rights and regulation.
“The United States, once considered a bastion of economic freedom, now ranks 16th in the world after being as high as second in 2000,” said the report issued Monday morning. Read the rest of this entry »
Trey Gowdy Frustrated by Dem Stonewalling
Posted: September 3, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Classified information, Email address, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Freedom of information laws by country, Gawker, Government agency, Hillary Clinton, The Washington Examiner, United States Department of Justice, United States Department of State 1 CommentRyan Lovelace reports: Two top Clinton aides, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan, will appear before the House Select Committee on Benghazi next month, but when will the committee interview several other top Obama administration officials and Clinton allies?
“What can I do to make the Department of State produce Jake Sullivan’s emails to me? I’ve asked. I’ve sent a subpoena. I don’t know what else I can do. I can’t send the FBI to get him.”
House Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., described how the committee intends to finish its work before the calendar year 2015 ends, in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner.
“I have a freshman in college who could go pull up all of her emails and have them printed off by this afternoon. I don’t know what takes so long, but it’s been months and months and months. And we still don’t have all the documents we’ve asked for.”
Gowdy discussed his desire to interview key Obama and Clinton operatives, including former State Department deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin, State Department undersecretary for management Patrick Kennedy, and State Department chief of staff Jon Finer. He also indicated his frustration at the lack of information former State Department policy planning director Jake Sullivan has produced.
Sullivan now serves as a top foreign policy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Abedin is a top aide and confidant of Clinton, and Kennedy and Finer remain at the State Department.
Gowdy said he wants all of the documents relating to these individuals before interviewing them, but continues to face an uphill battle. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Snapshot of the Electorate with Pollsters Carroll Doherty and Ed Goeas
Posted: June 26, 2015 Filed under: Economics, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank, U.S. News | Tags: Adult, African American, Capitol Hill, Multiracial American, Pew Research Center, Race (human classification), Republican Party (United States), Ripon Society, The Washington Examiner, United States Leave a comment
Carroll Doherty, Director of Political Research at the Pew Research Center, and Ed Goeas, President and CEO of the Tarrance Group, discuss the American electorate and the Presidential election next year at a breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society on June 2, 2015 in Washington, DC.
POLL: 72% fear economic crash, concern ‘highest ever’…
OH YES THEY DID: Clinton Foundation Hit with Racketeering Lawsuit
Posted: May 27, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice | Tags: Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation, Federal government of the United States, Florida, Freedom Watch, Hillary Clinton, Larry Klayman, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, The Pantsuit Report, The Washington Examiner, United States Department of State 1 CommentKlayman said a major reason for his lawsuit involves the fact that Cheryl Mills, then-chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, and the secretary of state herself ‘lied to the lower court’ in by claiming there were no documents related to a pair of Freedom of Information Act requests he filed in 2012 while knowing those records actually did exist on the private server.
Sarah Westwood reports: Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation have been hit with a racketeering lawsuit in Florida court.
The lawsuit, filed by Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, includes a legal request to have the Florida judge seize the private server on which Hillary Clinton and her aides hosted their emails while she served as secretary of state.
Klayman has filed dozens of lawsuits against the Clintons and other prominent politicians.
The racketeering, influenced and corrupt organizations, or RICO, case alleges the former first couple and their family philanthropy traded political favors for donations or generous speaking fees for Bill Clinton while his wife was the nation’s chief diplomat.
“Hillary Clinton deleted 32,000 email messages from her email server that included her communications arranging, negotiating, and agreeing upon speaking engagements by Bill Clinton in return for large speaking fees and donations to The Clinton Foundation.”
“Negotiations by email about influencing U.S. foreign policy or U.S. Government actions to benefit donors to … The Clinton Foundation or sponsors of speaking engagements would not be captured on a U.S. Government email account because her emails would not be with a U.S. Government official,” Klayman said in court documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.
[Read the full text here, at WashingtonExaminer.com]
“Hillary Clinton deleted 32,000 email messages from her email server that included her communications arranging, negotiating, and agreeing upon speaking engagements by Bill Clinton in return for large speaking fees and donations to The Clinton Foundation,” the documents, dated May 20, said.
“It’s a perfect RICO case, it fits completely. Our Congress doesn’t even have the guts to subpoena her documents. They’d rather get on Fox News. So we felt had to bring that case. Somebody’s got to do it.”
— Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch
Klayman pushed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order a “neutral forensic expert … to take custody and control of the private email server and reconstruct and preserve the official U.S. Government records relating to the conduct of U.S. foreign policy during Defendant Secretary Clinton’s term as Secretary of State.” Read the rest of this entry »
BLOGAGGEDON: Democrats on FCC to Introduce New Regulation on Donors, Internet
Posted: February 11, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere | Tags: Center for Competitive Politics, Democratic Party (United States), Drudge Report, Ellen L. Weintraub, Federal Election Commission, Internet, Political action committee, Republican Party (United States), Supreme Court of the United States, The Washington Examiner 2 CommentsPaul Bedard reports: Claiming that thousands of public comments condemning “dark money” in politics can’t be ignored, the Democrat-chaired Federal Election Commission on Wednesday appeared ready to open the door to new regulations on donors, bloggers and others who use the Internet to influence policy and campaigns.
During a broad FEC hearing to discuss a recent Supreme Court decision that eliminated some donor limits, proponents encouraged the agency to draw up new funding disclosure rules and require even third-party internet-based groups to reveal donors, a move that would extinguish a 2006 decision to keep the agency’s hands off the Internet.
Noting the 32,000 public comments that came into the FEC in advance of the hearing, Democratic Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub said, “75 percent thought that we need to do more about money in politics, particularly in the area of disclosure. And I think that’s something that we can’t ignore.”
But a former Republican FEC chairman said in his testimony that if the agency moves to regulate the Internet, including news voices like the Drudge Report as GOP commissioners have warned, many thousands more comments will flood in in opposition of regulation. Read the rest of this entry »
Report: Military Brass Demand NBC Reporter Apologize for Calling Chris Kyle ‘Racist’
Posted: February 10, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: Ayman Mohyeldin, Brian Williams, Chris Kyle, Iraq War, Iraqi people, Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe, MSNBC, NBC, The Washington Examiner 1 CommentThis is the latest black eye for the Peacock Network, which has been in panic mode since its star anchor, Brian Williams, backtracked on his story that he had been shot at during his 2003 trip to Iraq
NBC is once again under fire from Iraq War veterans — this time for a correspondent’s claims that sniper Chris Kyle was “racist.”
“Mohyeldin’s statements were an inexcusable slap in the face to the widow of Chris Kyle and to all those in the armed forces who continue to serve our country in harm’s way.”
More than 20 retired generals and admirals penned a letter to Comcast, which owns NBC, following a Jan. 29 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” with Middle East reporter Ayman Mohyeldin, according to a report in the Washington Examiner.
“Some of what people have described as his racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these, you know, killing sprees in Iraq on assignment,” Mohyeldin said of Kyle, whose career was recently the subject of the blockbuster movie “American Sniper.”
Host Joe Scarborough was taken aback by his colleague’s comments, saying, “All right, when we come back, Ayman is going to kick around Santa Claus.” Read the rest of this entry »
Despite Judge’s Orders Obama Administration Refuses to Hand Over IRS Abuse Documents
Posted: December 8, 2014 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, White House | Tags: Cause of Action, Confidentiality, Inspector General, Internal Revenue Service, Jack Lew, The Daily Caller, The Washington Examiner, United States Department of the Treasury, United States Secretary of the Treasury, White House Leave a commentJohn Hayward reports: Hey, remember how a watchdog group called Cause of Action filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents pertaining to the investigation of taxpayer information handed over to the White House by the IRS, and the request went nowhere, so they sued, and a judge told the Treasury Department they had to cough up the documents, and then the Treasury Inspector General was all like, “Oh, wow, we’ve got 2,500 pages of documents on this deal, so we need a little more time to finish going through them before we hand them over?”
If it wasn’t so bad – if there wasn’t a ‘smidgen of corruption’ – why try so hard to keep these records silent?”
Never mind about seeing those documents, peons. The Administration has decided not to hand them over after all, citing a statute that basically says the privacy of the people whose privacy the White House violated would be violated by revealing details of the White House violation to the public. It all sounds pretty fishy to Cause of Action, as quoted in the Washington Examiner:
Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, said Treasury was using “sophisticated” lawyering to weasel out of providing the documents. And he noted that their letter said that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is now looking into “potential liability” that his tax aides broke laws in sharing taxpayer information with the White House. Read the rest of this entry »
Regulation Power Play: The Chill is On
Posted: October 24, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Democratic Party (United States), Drudge Report, FEC, Federal Election Commission, The Washington Examiner, Washington, Website, YouTube 2 CommentsIn a surprise move late Friday, a key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission called for burdensome new rules on Internet-based campaigning, prompting the Republican chairman to warn that Democrats want to regulate online political sites and even news media like the Drudge Report.
Democratic FEC Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel announced plans to begin the process to win regulations on Internet-based campaigns and videos, currently free from most of the FEC’s rules. “A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long over due,” she said.
“Regrettably, the 3-to-3 vote in this matter suggests a desire to retreat from these important protections for online political speech — a shift in course that could threaten the continued development of the Internet’s virtual free marketplace of political ideas and democratic debate.”
The power play followed a deadlocked 3-3 vote on whether an Ohio anti-President Obama Internet campaign featuring two videos violated FEC rules when it did not report its finances or offer a disclosure on the ads. The ads were placed for free on YouTube and were not paid advertising.
Under a 2006 FEC rule, free political videos and advocacy sites have been free of regulation in a bid to boost voter participation in politics. Only Internet videos that are placed for a fee on websites, such as the Washington Examiner, are regulated just like normal TV ads. Read the rest of this entry »