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In March, Senator Rand Paul blocked an attempt to ban TikTok from being used in the United States. This week, he did it again. Ten months ago it was Republican Senator Josh Hawley who wanted a ban. On Wednesday, it was Hawley again. Hawley requested unanimous consent to pass his bill that would basically prevent TikTok from being used in the United States by imposing sanctions on TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Limited, citing alleged privacy violations he believes constitute a national security threat. Paul objected, thinking the ban was a stupid idea. He pointed out that banning the app, which...

Mark Keam, a long-serving Democratic member of the House of Delegates from northern Virginia, has resigned his seat, a move that will set up a special election to fill the vacancy in the blue-leaning district. An attorney who was first elected to his Fairfax County-based seat in 2009, Keam said in an interview Tuesday that he had stepped down to take a job in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Keam said he will serve as a deputy assistant secretary running the National Travel and Tourism Office, which is focused on bringing foreign travelers to the...

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday blamed America’s struggle with inflation on “Putin’s war in Ukraine.” Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You heard Secretary Yellen say this week she got it wrong about inflation. In July, you told Bloomberg that inflation would be temporary about a year ago. As recently as six months ago, you were calling inflation, quote, a short-term problem, not a long-term problem. so, you got it wrong, too.”

WASHINGTON -- Two pipe bombs left at the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees, discovered just before thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, were actually placed the night before, federal officials said Friday. The FBI said the investigation had revealed new information, including that the explosive devices were placed outside the two buildings between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 5, the night before the riot. The devices were not located by law enforcement until the next day. It is not clear whether that means the pipe bombs were unrelated to the next day’s riot...

While most of the attention on Hunter Biden has focused on his dealings in Ukraine and China when his father was in the White House, he also cashed in on cushy jobs and sweetheart deals throughout his dadÂ’s long Senate career. Hunter Biden profited from his fatherÂ’s political connections long before he struck questionable deals in countries where Joe Biden was undertaking diplomatic missions as vice president. In fact, virtually all the jobs listed on his resume going back to his first position out of college, which paid a six-figure salary, came courtesy of the former six-term senatorÂ’s donors, lobbyists,...

The Commerce Department slapped duties of nearly 220 percent on Canada’s Bombardier C Series aircraft Tuesday in a victory for Boeing that is likely to raise tensions between the United States and its allies Canada and Britain. Commerce ruled that Montreal-based Bombardier used unfair government subsidies to sell jets at artificially low prices in the U.S. “The U.S. values its relationships with Canada, but even our closest allies must play by the rules,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said. Canada responded by saying it “strongly disagrees” with the U.S. move. “This is clearly aimed at eliminating Bombardier’s C Series aircraft from...

The Senate voted Monday to confirm billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as secretary of commerce in President Trump's Cabinet. Ross was approved by a vote of 72-27, with 20 Democrats and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, joining 51 Republicans to vote "aye." Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., did not vote due to his ongoing recovery from back surgery. The Senate later voted 67-31 to move forward on the nomination of Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., to lead the Interior Department. A final vote on Zinke's confirmation could occur on Tuesday or Wednesday. Ross is the 14th member of Trump's Cabinet to be cofirmed, with...

The US has raised its import duties on Chinese steelmakers by more than five-fold after accusing them of selling their products below market prices. The taxes specifically apply to Chinese-made cold-rolled flat steel, which is used in car manufacturing, shipping containers and construction. The US Commerce Department ruling comes amid heightened trade tensions between the two sides over several products, including chicken parts. Steel is an especially sensitive issue. US and European steel producers claim China is distorting the global market and undercutting them by dumping its excess supply abroad.

As many a former factory worker can attest, U.S. companies have invested so heavily in technology that some plants now practically run themselves. This illustrate a rethinking under way on how to measure economic output, a discussion that is leading to an overhaul of government data this week that will show the U.S. economy is a bit larger than previously thought. This will change on Wednesday when the Commerce Department releases decades of revised data that will include R&D as a category of investment. Under the new framework, R&D added about $300 billion to GDP in 2010. This could give...

(CNSNews.com) - A federal advisory committee appointed by the Obama administration to produce a report on climate change says that if Earth’s climate were still “primarily controlled by natural factors”—rather than by man-made global warming—then the next ice age would occur within the next 1,500 years. But now, because of humans, the committee says, the next ice age has been "delayed indefinitely." “Confirmation of what are called Milankovich cycles (cyclical changes in the Earth’s orbit that explain the onset and ending of ice ages) led a few scientists in the 1970s to suggest that the current warm interglacial period might...

Contrary to what various news outlets are reporting, President Obama is NOT proposing to cut government. The administration is proposing to take four independent federal agencies that specialize in corporate welfare – along with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative – and combine them with corporate welfare programs at the Department of Commerce to form what would I would argue should be called the Department of Corporate Welfare. According to reports, this rearranging of the deck chairs would save $300 million a year. That’s peanuts. Worse, those alleged savings will be of no consequence to taxpayers as there is...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm!" had a big meeting at the White House today where, all of a sudden, Barack Obama wants to make the government smaller. All of a sudden, Barack Obama's concerned about the inefficiency of the bureaucracy. All of a sudden, Barack Obama has realized that government isn't working for small business. All of a sudden, Barack Obama has realized the trouble that average people have dealing with the government. All of a sudden, Barack Obama has realized that there are one hundred... Oh. No, this is the way to put it. "The...

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for authority to close the Commerce Department and create a new export agency, an overhaul that could save US$3-billion and help inoculate him against Republican election-year charges that he is a big-government liberal. White House budget official Jeffrey Zients told reporters the reorganization would fold together the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other trade bodies now spread across Washington, giving businesses a single point of contact and ensuring federal spending goes further to boost exports. Obama was set to deliver remarks at 11:20 a.m. on the new, yet-to-be-named department that...

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for authority to close the Commerce Department and create a new export agency, an overhaul that could save $3 billion and help inoculate him against Republican election-year charges that he is a big-government liberal. White House budget official Jeffrey Zients told reporters the reorganization would fold together the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other trade bodies now spread across Washington, giving businesses a single point of contact and ensuring federal spending goes further to boost exports.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and his first idea is merging six sprawling trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. Obama will call on Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office. The Obama version would be a so-called consolidation authority allowing him to propose mergers that promise to save money and help consumers. The deal would entitle him to an...

Not a joke. On Fox Now. Would cost some extra hundreds of billions in new taxes.

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will nominate businessman John Bryson to lead the Commerce Department, a White House official said Tuesday. Bryson's appointment brings another private sector player into an administration that has been making a concerted effort to improve its relationship with the business community.

Wow!  What a nice job by CBS News, Armen Keteyian, and Katie Couric.  On 16 February, CBS News devoted some four minutes to an investigative piece into the scandal that should have rocked NOAA and the Obama administration last fall.  Our government is driving the fishing industry into oblivion with "unduly complicated" regulations and with federal agents who are "overzealous" and prone to "abusive conduct." The piece opened with Bill Lee, a fisherman from Rockport, MA, who has been forced out of business by the fines levied by NOAA.  Mr. Lee is articulate and the photogenic background of Motif...

SNIPPET: "Federal law enforcement officials call it a front for Hamas terrorists which "has been under numerous investigations for financing and [providing] aid and comfort to bad orgs and members." SNIPPET: "In gearing up for the 2010 Census, the General Services Administration (GSA) leased office space throughout the country. One location is a 6,654 square foot section of a two-story building on Edsall Road in Alexandria, Va. owned by the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque. The United States government is spending $582,000, or about $23,000 per month, to lease the space from November 2008 through the end of this year. SNIPPET: "The...

http://www.investigativeproject.org/pics/289_large.jpg SNIPPET: "A government agency sponsors a community outreach program, but limits media access solely to representatives of the community involved. In doing so, the most powerful press representative present was a publisher who has repeatedly endorsed two groups the United States has designated as terrorists. That's what happened last October when the Commerce Department co-sponsored a "Muslim-American Business Outreach Meeting" with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, Michigan. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) revealed that 75 people attended the invitation-only event. Most were touted as local Muslim and Arab-American business and community leaders. Invitations indicate...