February 22, 2018 6:54 pm / no comments
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is calling on Americans to embrace a vision of “education freedom” that empowers students and parents with a “multitude of pathways” toward new opportunities.
DeVos, speaking during a question-and-answer session Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, said one such pathway would be educational savings accounts to benefit military families who don’t want to send their children to failing public schools.
“For too many decades,” Americans have had a “singular focus on going to a four-year college or university,” DeVos said during the exchange with Kay Coles James, president of The Heritage Foundation. “But there is a multitude of pathways [with] many opportunities beyond high school.”
James asked DeVos a series of questions during a wide-ranging discussion at CPAC that touched on the Trump administration’s policy goals, the prospects for school choice, options for military families, and the status of First Amendment freedoms in educational settings.
President Donald Trump has been “very eloquent” in helping students to understand at a young age that they can pursue many avenues as alternatives to a four-year college, DeVos said.
About 6 million jobs remain unfilled across America, she told the CPAC audience, because of “a mismatch in skills.”
James asked DeVos to comment on the
February 22, 2018 1:45 pm / no comments
President Donald Trump’s Cabinet is more conservative than President Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet was in the 1980s, a top official with the American Conservative Union declared during a Thursday panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Addressing fellow panelists and hundreds of conservative activists gathered at the annual conference, Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, said Reagan’s Cabinet was “not nearly as conservative” as Trump’s is.
“Trump’s Cabinet is the most conservative” of any administration in recent memory, Schneider said.
Schneider was the moderator of a CPAC panel titled “Do Not Pass Go! How Government is Killing Capitalism.” He was joined by Jim Burnley, former U.S. secretary of transportation; lawyer and physician Greg Dolin, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union; and Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.
Burnley, who served in the Reagan administration, said the comparison between Trump and Reagan “is not perfect” since Trump has been in office only for one year.
But he and fellow panelists agreed that the Trump administration has made significant progress in rolling back government regulations.
Burnley cited a 1916 rule that prevented states from purchasing highway safety devices as an example of counterproductive regulations. He said he anticipates that the Trump
February 22, 2018 1:45 pm / no comments
President Donald Trump’s Cabinet is more conservative than President Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet was in the 1980s, a top official with the American Conservative Union declared during a Thursday panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Addressing fellow panelists and hundreds of conservative activists gathered at the annual conference, Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, said Reagan’s Cabinet was “not nearly as conservative” as Trump’s is.
“Trump’s Cabinet is the most conservative” of any administration in recent memory, Schneider said.
Schneider was the moderator of a CPAC panel titled “Do Not Pass Go! How Government is Killing Capitalism.” He was joined by Jim Burnley, former U.S. secretary of transportation; lawyer and physician Greg Dolin, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union; and Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.
Burnley, who served in the Reagan administration, said the comparison between Trump and Reagan “is not perfect” since Trump has been in office only for one year.
But he and fellow panelists agreed that the Trump administration has made significant progress in rolling back government regulations.
Burnley cited a 1916 rule that prevented states from purchasing highway safety devices as an example of counterproductive regulations. He said he anticipates that the Trump
February 14, 2018 4:58 pm / no comments
Congress appears ready to crack down on individuals and groups who work on behalf of Russia and other foreign nations but don’t fully disclose those ties.
Legislation toughening requirements and closing loopholes in the 80-year-old Foreign Agents Registration Act is advancing in response to growing concerns that some advocacy groups and lobbyists have been permitted to conceal financial and other connections with foreign governments.
In a recent phone interview with The Daily Signal, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., who introduced the legislation amending the law, expressed confidence that his bill could clear both houses of Congress with broad support.
“We are grateful this became a bipartisan bill and that the leadership of the judiciary committees in the House and Senate saw real value in it, and this has created a groundswell of support,” Johnson said, adding:
I suspect we are going to move the bill because transparency is good for everyone, and this is about disclosing to the American people who is trying to influence our politics. We have lots of foreign influences attempting to lobby the federal government all the time, and transparency is not a big thing for us to ask.
Johnson tweeted Tuesday:
#UraniumOne paid $$$ to
February 14, 2018 4:58 pm / no comments
Congress appears ready to crack down on individuals and groups who work on behalf of Russia and other foreign nations but don’t fully disclose those ties.
Legislation toughening requirements and closing loopholes in the 80-year-old Foreign Agents Registration Act is advancing in response to growing concerns that some advocacy groups and lobbyists have been permitted to conceal financial and other connections with foreign governments.
In a recent phone interview with The Daily Signal, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., who introduced the legislation amending the law, expressed confidence that his bill could clear both houses of Congress with broad support.
“We are grateful this became a bipartisan bill and that the leadership of the judiciary committees in the House and Senate saw real value in it, and this has created a groundswell of support,” Johnson said, adding:
I suspect we are going to move the bill because transparency is good for everyone, and this is about disclosing to the American people who is trying to influence our politics. We have lots of foreign influences attempting to lobby the federal government all the time, and transparency is not a big thing for us to ask.
Johnson tweeted Tuesday:
#UraniumOne paid $$$ to
February 13, 2018 6:42 pm / no comments
Two FBI officials who exchanged anti-Trump text messages on government equipment during the 2016 presidential campaign also conducted official business over private email accounts, according to a Senate report.
In one electronic text message on April 10, 2016, FBI official Peter Strzok told agency lawyer Lisa Page: “Gmailed you two drafts of what I’m thinking of sending Bill, would appreciate your thoughts. Second (more recent) is updated so you can skip the first.”
Strzok expressed frustration about being “left out of the loop,” according to the report from a Senate committee. It is not clear who “Bill” is.
Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal analyst at The Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department official, told The Daily Signal that use of private email makes it possible for federal employees to evade information requests.
“If an employee is using a personal email to discuss official business, then he is avoiding complying with the Federal Records Act and he is avoiding the Freedom of Information Act,” von Spakovsky said.
“I know that when I was at DOJ, we were told not to discuss any official business in private emails for these reasons, and because much of what we discussed was confidential and should not be
February 13, 2018 6:42 pm / no comments
Two FBI officials who exchanged anti-Trump text messages on government equipment during the 2016 presidential campaign also conducted official business over private email accounts, according to a Senate report.
In one electronic text message on April 10, 2016, FBI official Peter Strzok told agency lawyer Lisa Page: “Gmailed you two drafts of what I’m thinking of sending Bill, would appreciate your thoughts. Second (more recent) is updated so you can skip the first.”
Strzok expressed frustration about being “left out of the loop,” according to the report from a Senate committee. It is not clear who “Bill” is.
Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal analyst at The Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department official, told The Daily Signal that use of private email makes it possible for federal employees to evade information requests.
“If an employee is using a personal email to discuss official business, then he is avoiding complying with the Federal Records Act and he is avoiding the Freedom of Information Act,” von Spakovsky said.
“I know that when I was at DOJ, we were told not discuss any official business in private emails for these reasons, and because much of what we discussed was confidential and should not be disclosed.
February 9, 2018 6:59 pm / no comments
A legal watchdog is pressing the Justice Department in court for documents that could allow Americans to decide for themselves whether politically motivated FBI officials compromised the bureau’s investigations of Hillary Clinton’s email habits and Russian election meddling.
Judicial Watch, a conservative but nonpartisan foundation based in Washington, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Jan. 24 against the Justice Department, seeking electronic text messages between two FBI officials in which they expressed hostility toward Donald Trump and enthusiasm for Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The next day, Fox News reported that the department’s inspector general had used “forensic tools” to recover hundreds of text messages between the FBI officials that had gone missing.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the Justice Department, has said that Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, and Peter Strzok, then chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section while investigating the Clinton email scandal, exchanged more than 50,000 text messages when they reportedly were having an extramarital affair.
Judicial Watch filed suit after the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, declined to respond to its Dec. 4, 2017, request under the Freedom of Information Act asking for all records of communications, including emails, text messages,
February 9, 2018 6:59 pm / no comments
A legal watchdog is pressing the Justice Department in court for documents that could allow Americans to decide for themselves whether politically motivated FBI officials compromised the bureau’s investigations of Hillary Clinton’s email habits and Russian election meddling.
Judicial Watch, a conservative but nonpartisan foundation based in Washington, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Jan. 24 against the Justice Department, seeking electronic text messages between two FBI officials in which they expressed hostility toward Donald Trump and enthusiasm for Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The next day, Fox News reported that the department’s inspector general had used “forensic tools” to recover hundreds of text messages between the FBI officials that had gone missing.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the Justice Department, has said that Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, and Peter Strzok, then chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section while investigating the Clinton email scandal, exchanged more than 50,000 text messages when they reportedly were having an extramarital affair.
Judicial Watch filed suit after the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, declined to respond to its Dec. 4, 2017 request under the Freedom of Information Act asking for all records of communications, including emails, text messages,
February 7, 2018 6:53 pm / no comments
Barack Obama figures prominently in the newly released chain of electronic text messages between an FBI counterintelligence official and a bureau attorney who both expressed antipathy toward Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In a Sept. 2, 2016, text message to Peter Strzok, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, FBI lawyer Lisa Page suggests that, as president, Obama was tracking the progress of one or more cases.
She was in the process of crafting talking points for then-FBI Director James Comey, Page texted Strzok, because “potus wants to know everything we’re doing.”
“POTUS” has become a widely used acronym for president of the United States.
The Republican majority on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee produced a report, “The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI’s Investigation of It,” detailing major findings in the previously unseen text messages. The committee made them available for public consumption, Fox News first reported early Wednesday.
Trump tweeted late Wednesday morning:
NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2018
Because the FBI officially wrapped up its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state without bringing charges in July
