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Sam Knight - page 46

Sam Knight has 859 articles published.

More Americans Agree with Bernie, Say ‘Enough with the Damn Emails’

House Benghazi Select Committee chair Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) may have earned plaudits from his colleagues for overseeing an Oct. 22 eleven-hour grilling of presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton. But the American people appear to collectively believe the public hearing was a song-and-dance; a waste of time. According to the results of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday, 42 percent of Americans said days after the hearing that they believed Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State is “important,” with 37… Keep Reading

Sacked Contractor Worker to Test Temporary Whistleblower Safeguards

A former US Forest Service (USFS) contractor employee asked a federal appeals judge to review his rejected whistleblower complaint, citing temporary legal protections granted to federal contract workers. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) said on Monday that it filed the litigation on behalf of Terry Schaedig, who alleged he was terminated for reporting “gross mismanagement” of federal lands by his boss. In a US Department of Agriculture whistleblower retaliation complaint lodged in 2014 by Schaedig, he claimed to have earned the ire of superiors… Keep Reading

If There’s A “War On Coal,” Dem Sens Ask Obama to Step it Up

Eight liberal senators asked the Obama administration to exact a higher cost on coal producers leasing mining rights on federal lands. The lawmakers appealed to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to tweak policies to better account for the impact of coal production on the United States. “Until the market price for coal reflects its true cost to society, taxpayers will continue to bear the costs of more extreme weather, collapsed ecosystems, stranded infrastructure, increased incidences of heart and lung disease, and other effects of… Keep Reading

U.S. Splashed $43 Million in Afghanistan On A $500,000 Gas Station

The US spent $43 million in Afghanistan on the construction of a single gas station, a government comptroller reported on Monday. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said that the natural gas filling station in Sheberghan, Afghanistan should have only cost the taxpayer about $500,000 to build. “The main purpose of the project was to demonstrate the commercial viability of [compressed natural gas] for automobiles in Afghanistan as part of a broader effort to take advantage of Afghanistan’s domestic natural gas reserves… Keep Reading

Menendez Details Human Rights Report Selectiveness; Admin Interference Paved Way for Malaysia to Join TPP

A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee described how a key annual State Department human rights inquiry with broad implications may have been manipulated by political appointees. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) on Thursday detailed how the annual Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report–the subject of intense committee scrutiny since August–last year employed selective analyses in politically sensitive cases. “You can’t say that certain things in that reporting period that happen to be good for that country would be included even though they’re not on the reporting period,” he… Keep Reading

More Evidence “Ferguson Effect” Is Pseudo-Science: Fear of Crime at New Low

Someone forgot to tell the public about the “Ferguson Effect.” Despite high-profile accusations in Washington that increased nationwide scrutiny of police officers has led to a crime wave, Americans are reporting feeling safe at record levels. The results of a Gallup poll published on Thursday showed the lowest percentage of respondents in fifteen years fearing three types of break-ins. The number of survey participants fearing muggings in 2015 also dropped by five points to 25 percent; a ten-year low. “Worry about each of these crimes… Keep Reading

Fed Keeps Key Interest Rate Constant; Imminent Hike Expected But Not Inevitable

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday again declined to raise interest rates. The central bank’s Board of Governors said in a press release that its Federal Open Market Committee “today reaffirmed its view that the current 0 to 0.25 percent target range for the federal funds rate remains appropriate.” “Inflation has continued to run below the Committee’s longer-run objective,” the Fed noted. Last month, in a quarterly survey, 13 out of 17 Fed governors said that a rate increase should occur this year. The median projected… Keep Reading

Obama Admin Hails Alliance With Gulf Monarchies as Yemen Burns

The Obama administration on Wednesday hailed its support of authoritarian Persian Gulf monarchies who are currently conducting what has been described as a criminal military campaign in Yemen. Anne Patterson, head of the State Department’s Bureau Of Near Eastern Affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that White House policies have led to a noticeable improvement in ties between the United States and the controversial oil-rich Middle Eastern kingdoms. “I think relations with our Gulf allies have improved quite dramatically due to the work on… Keep Reading

Proposals Designed to Blunt CISA Spooking, Opacity Fall

The Senate voted down last-ditch attempts at muting more of the hawkish aspects of the Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA). The body rejected motions to pass amendments aimed at preserving personal privacy online and a key transparency law. The final effort, in the form of an amendment proposed by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.),would have required the Department of Homeland Security to participate in a cross-agency effort to scrub sensitive information from private sector data received under CISA. It was rejected on Tuesday afternoon in 41-54… Keep Reading

Department of Education to Expand Forgiving Student Loan Repayment Program

A Department of Education often panned for its stance on education debt announced new rules designed to protect student borrowers. The department announced Tuesday that in December it will expand eligibility by 5 million to its most forgiving repayment plan. It also said that at the start of the next academic year, it will restrict colleges’ use of fee-riddled debit cards to discharge loan disbursements. “Schools outsource the processing of that money to banks and other financial firms in exchange for millions of dollars in… Keep Reading

Pentagon Still Won’t Call for Syria No-Fly Zone After Increased Russian Aid to Assad

The Obama administration is still considering intensifying humanitarian intervention in Syria, and the Pentagon still isn’t recommending any specific major course of action. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on Tuesday told the Senate Armed Services Committee that President Obama “hasn’t taken anything like this off the table,” but detailed challenges the US military would face if it attempted to establish a no-fly zone or a humanitarian corridor in Syria. He characterized both types of missions as “substantial” new obligations for the US military. One of the… Keep Reading

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