Free Republic

Twitter Files show agency's mission is now "a perversion of the First Amendment," 33-year veteran says. House Republicans think federal agencies have become a weapon against their own apolitical employees and the constitutional rights of Americans. House Democrats think House Republicans have become a weapon against the prerogatives of federal agencies. The parties traded laundry lists of grievances stemming from agency and congressional investigations, from the Benghazi attack to the Russia collusion hoax, at the first hearing Thursday of the House Judiciary Committee's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Minority Democrats deemed the subcommittee itself a threat...

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday proposed significant limits on levels of lead in processed baby food that could reduce exposure to the contaminant by as much as 27%. The new draft guidance applies to packaged foods — items sold in jars, pouches, tubs and boxes — intended for babies and children under 2 years old.

HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, announced Wednesday it will no longer finance new oil and gas fields as part of its updated climate strategy. Climate campaigners welcomed the moved saying HSBC provided a new baseline for other major banks but urged the bank to go further. The bank said it would still provide financing to existing fossil fuel projects “in line with current and future declining global oil and gas demand.” It would also continue to provide finance and advisory services to energy sector clients but will assess the companies’ plans to transition to clean energy. “It sets a new minimum...

The US Federal Reserve continues to grapple with inflation, which at 7.7% (October CPI) is more than triple the Fed’s 2% target, without causing a recession by lifting interest rates too high. The Fed has two options when it comes to interest rate increases designed to tackle the highest US inflation since the early 1980s. The first is it continues to hike rates, beyond what the economy can handle, causing a recession, usually defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. This is the “Volcker Fed” playbook. In 1979, then US Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker faced a serious...

PETALING JAYA: The United States will charge a Malaysian man, with a “Datuk Seri” title, with conspiracy to engage in wildlife trafficking and money laundering. In a statement, the US Attorney for the southern district of New York said Teo Boon Ching, 57, was extradited from Thailand yesterday after he was arrested in June for his second wildlife trafficking offence.US attorney Damian William said Teo was a leader of a transnational criminal enterprise which trafficked rhinoceros horns and enriched poachers who killed endangered animals.Teo, who is said to have businesses in Malaysia and Thailand, had allegedly trafficked and smuggled rhinoceros...

Furlough Program Guidelines PenFed has the following options available for members working for an affected agency who are impacted by the recent government shutdown: 1. Skip Payment 2. Furlough Loan Product 3. Direct Deposit Assistance In order to receive assistance, PenFed may ask you to provide a copy of your furlough letter as verification that you work for an affected agency. Depending on the nature of the program below, the representative will alert you if a copy of your furlough letter is required. Learn more about these options below or contact PenFed at 1-800-247-5626 to speak with a Member Service...

New NEH grants include $30,000 for the 'oral histories' of LGBTQ community in Idaho! The National Endowment for the Humanities' list of taxpayer-funded projects includes $300,000 for conversations about water, $75,000 for a database of podcasts, and $30,000 for oral histories of lesbian and gay Idahoans. The NEH released its list of its first projects under the Trump administration this week. Jon Peede, the acting chairman of the NEH and Trump appointee, has discretion for signing off on every grant award. The $39.3 million list of projects comes after the president sought the elimination of the agency, as well as...

http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/05/gop-files-federal-appeal-stop-michigan-recount/95005692/ Link only

Truncated title. Full title: Feds Order Colleges to Stop Checking Criminal/School Discipline History Because it Discriminates Against Minorities The Obama administration has ordered the nation’s colleges and universities to stop asking applicants about criminal and school disciplinary history because it discriminates against minorities. Institutions are also being asked to offer those with criminal records special support services such as counseling, mentoring and legal aid once enrolled. The government’s official term for these perspective students is “justice-involved individuals” and the new directive aims to remove barriers to higher education for the overwhelmingly minority population that’s had encounters with the law or...

Federal workers are far more likely to be audited by the IRS or get arrested for drunk driving than they are to be fired from the civil service payroll for poor performance or misconduct. The odds are one-in-175 for the IRS audit and one-in-200 for the drunk driving arrest, while the odds for a fed to be fired in a given year are one-in-500, according to the Government Accountability Office. The rate is higher for employees who are in the one-year probationary period that follows their hiring.

BURNS-Law enforcement agencies are remaining mum about plans to end militiamen's occupation of the Malheur Natiomal Wildlife Refuge headquarters. A splinter group of militia in town to support a local ranching family took over the federal office Saturday afternoon in a development that stunned the community and visiting militia. Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said in a statement late Saturday that " a collective effort from multiple agencies is currently working on a solution."........ Law enforcement response: During Saturday's rally, not a police officer was visible. And so far law enforcement agencies have not approached the refuge or blocked access...

Tensions over the treatment of two cattle ranchers in Oregon escalated into an armed standoff over the weekend when members of a rightwing militia occupied a wildlife refuge and threatened a confrontation with federal authorities. Ammon Bundy, the son of the Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was at the heart of a notorious showdown over cattle grazing rights last year, was among at least a dozen heavily armed men who seized the headquarters of the Malheur wildlife refuge on Saturday afternoon and said they would stay indefinitely. They occupied the building after an earlier peaceful protest over the treatment of...

Once again the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] has failed to notify the appropriate local officials and agencies of the spill in a timely manner.” These are the words of U.S. Congressman Scott Tipton (R-CO) of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District in response to another toxic spill resulting from EPA activities at an abandoned mine in western Colorado. According to the Denver Post, an EPA mine crew working Thursday at the Standard Mine in the mountains near Crested Butte, triggered another spill of some 2,000 gallons of wastewater into a nearby mountain creek. Supporting Tipton’s remarks to Watchdog Arena, the Denver Post...

Once again, the EPA, rather than preventing pollution, is causing toxic spill at a mine in Colorado. Last August 5th it was the Gold King Mine, and the 3 million gallon spill polluted the Animas River. This time, it was the Standard Mine, near Crested Butte, and 2000 gallons of wastewater flowed into a nearby creek. And the EPA, once again, is guilty of misconduct.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers’ final water rule under the Clean Water Act seeks to regulate almost every type of water in the country. And you don’t even need to get into the substance of the rule to know it’ll be a disaster. Here are three signs that this rule should be killed off immediately.

You can call it a bureaucratic blunder … or a Washington blooper. But any way you slice it a move by the federal government to make the city remove Times Square’s iconic billboards falls in the category of “whose bright idea is this?” It is known as the “Crossroads of the World,” the “Center of the Universe” and “the Great White Way,” but Times Square could become like the “Black Hole of Calcutta” if the federal government has its way, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported Tuesday. The feds say many of Times Square’s huge and neon-lit billboards must come down or...

The Bundy Ranch showdown has once again raised the issue the proliferation of SWAT teams and militarized response forces proliferating throughout the federal government, and the spread of military-style units to local governments. It is almost as if the state is arming itself to suppress the citizenry. John Fund at NRO has an excellent piece on the subject, The United States of Swat:

The controversy over a Nevada rancher’s decades-long use of public land without paying federal grazing fees has quickly become a national issue — one that Glenn Beck on Monday urged Americans to fully understand before taking a side on. “We did some research online with PsyID today, and found that there’s about 10 or 15 percent of the people who are talking about this online that are truly frightening,” Beck said on his television program. “They don’t care what the facts are. They just want a fight.” Beck said there are many “decent, small-government proponents from groups like the Tea...

First of all, nobody believes the government does not have enough money to pay down its debt. We would just have to stop doing things like feeding lazy losers. But what if we DID default? What if there was a cash-flow problem that caused FedZilla to miss a bond payment or two? Well, that would be a GOOD thing for us small-government conservatives. FedZilla loses its credit rating and cannot BORROW anymore. What could be better? We should all be WISHING for that!

WASHINGTON — The electric grid, as government and private experts describe it, is the glass jaw of American industry. If an adversary lands a knockout blow, they fear, it could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of Sept. 11. ~ SNIP ~ One goal of the drill, called "GridEx II", is to explore how governments would react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain...