A NEWS CO-OP IN DC SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE

Tag archive

newswire - page 67

Congressional GOP Advances Bill Citing Murderous Hafez Al-Assad Campaign as Inspiration

by

The House Judiciary Committee passed legislation on Wednesday inspired, in part, by authoritarian crackdowns, including a brutal campaign waged by former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. It was approved in a 17-10 vote split along party lines, with Republicans backing the measure and Democrats opposing it. The bill calls on the Secretary of State to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. “Findings” listed in an earlier version of the proposal noted that in 1980 “the Government of Syria banned the Muslim Brotherhood from the country;…

Keep Reading

Constitutional Crisis on the Horizon: GOP Leaders Pledge No Hearing on SCOTUS Nominee

by

The Supreme Court looks set to remain short-handed long into the future after GOP Senate leaders formally pledged to resist any effort by President Obama to seat a new justice on the high court’s bench. In a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday, Republican members of the Judiciary Committee stated that they would not consider any Obama nomination to replace the hyper-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Led by Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.), they claimed that their obstruction was formed on sound constitutional grounds.…

Keep Reading

Obama Mounts One Last Effort to Close Guantanamo

by

The president submitted to Congress on Tuesday a plan to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay—a proposal that hinges on convincing GOP lawmakers to lift the ban on bringing detainees into the US. The blueprint named 13 different locations stateside, including already existing prisons and military bases in Kansas, Colorado, and South Carolina, that the Pentagon believes would be suitable to house the remaining Gitmo population. “It’s not just about closing the facility at Guantanamo, not just about dealing with the current group…

Keep Reading

Pentagon Inspector General Advances Inquiry of Afghan Child Abuse, U.S. Cover-Up

by

The Pentagon’s Inspector General is stepping up its investigation of widespread child abuse in the Afghan Military and an alleged cover up of it by American military leaders. In a memo written late last week, Deputy IG Kenneth Moorfield said the inquiry would be deepening “in response to concerns raised by the staff of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and various Members of Congress.” Moorfield also noted that it would be looking for Pentagon violations of the Leahy Law—a statute that, in theory, forbids…

Keep Reading

“What’s The Deal With Airline Travel,” Americans Increasingly Ask Federal Regulators

by

If you have recently felt more cheated than normal by airlines, you aren’t alone, according to the US government. Air travelers lodged more complaints with federal regulators last year than they did in 2014, the Department of Transportation said Thursday. The number of complaints filed with the department’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division was up by 29.8 percent in 2015—to 20,170, from 15,539 in 2014. The most frequently cited grievances in both years were broadly classified by the department as “flight problems”—cancellations, delays, and missed connections. It reported hearing 6,433…

Keep Reading

POTUS to Meet with Dissidents In Cuba During Historic Trip Next Month

by

President Obama confirmed on social media Thursday morning that he will go to Cuba in March, becoming the first sitting US head of state to visit the island nation since 1928. “Next month, I’ll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people,” he said on Twitter. “We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly,” he added, claiming that “America will always stand for human rights around the world.” The president’s visit…

Keep Reading

Government Now Using 227-Year-Old Law to Fight Encryption

by

Apple CEO Tim Cook remained defiant after a federal judge earlier this week ordered his company to help the FBI break into an iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters. In an open letter published Wednesday morning, Cook promised to fight the order, and called the actions by the US government an “unprecedented step” in its efforts to undermine privacy protections. Like all new iPhones manufactured in the last few years, the device belonging to Syed Rizwan Farook used full-disk encryption, which prevents anyone—including…

Keep Reading

Pentagon Unmoved By McCain Captured Sailors Subpoena Threat

by

A spokesman for the Department of Defense brushed aside a deadline set by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to divulge the full details of how ten US sailors were captured last month in Iranian waters. In a briefing Tuesday, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook rejected criticism lodged by the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman. McCain claimed earlier this week the administration has been slow-walking a full debrief of the incident. “The Navy is doing its due diligence, following its protocols with these ten sailors and with this incident in…

Keep Reading

Bailout Architect: Dodd-Frank Won’t Stop Another “Reactor Melt Down”

by

The president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve and a former Treasury Department official who helped craft the 2008 Wall Street bailout warned that Dodd-Frank financial reforms won’t stop the US government from rescuing “Too Big to Fail” banks. Neel Kashkari said Tuesday in Washington that the landmark legislation has helped “strengthen our financial system” with a variety of new regulations, but that they won’t prevent federal officials from extending publicly-funded emergency lifelines to crucial industry actors. “[N]o rational policymaker would risk restructuring large firms and…

Keep Reading

Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown Press Fed to Implement Crucial “Too Big To Fail” Rule

by

Democratic lawmakers are pushing the Federal Reserve to implement Dodd-Frank rules that were supposed to have already eroded the “too big to fail” status of the nation’s largest financial institutions. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asked Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday for updates on the Fed’s final assessment of resolution plans that the firms were ordered to draft by the landmark 2010 law. Yellen told Brown that the ruling would come “in the not too distant future,” but declined to specify when. Warren reminded the Fed…

Keep Reading

Despite Recent Financial Tremors, Yellen Stands Firm on “Gradual” Interest Rate Increases

by

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Wednesday that the central bank is unlikely to consider backing off planned interest rate increases, despite recognizing the recent uptick in financial turmoil both at home and abroad. She made the remarks on Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee in response to questions asked by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). “We have not yet seen a sharp drop-off in growth, either globally or in the United States. But we certainly recognize that global market developments bear close watching,” Yellen…

Keep Reading

1 … 65 66 67 68 69 … 73
Go to Top