2015 ObamaCare enrollment falls slightly short of target

By Peter Sullivan - 03/11/16 04:33 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department has suspended its internal review into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or her top aides mishandled emails containing information now deemed 'top secret."

Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said Friday the department had paused the review to avoid interfering with an ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private server while she was America's top diplomat. She said the decision was made after the department sought the FBI's advice on how to proceed with the review and received word that it should follow its standard practice. Trudeau said the department's standard practice is to place internal reviews "on hold while there is an ongoing law enforcement investigation underway."

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

"Of course, we do not want our internal review to complicate or impede the progress of their ongoing law enforcement investigation," Trudeau told reporters. "Therefore, the State Department at this time is not moving forward with our internal review." Trudeau said the department would "reassess next steps" in the internal review process once the FBI completes its probe.

The department began the internal review in January when it announced that it had classified 22 emails that Clinton sent or received as "top secret" and would not be releasing them. None of the emails was marked classified at the time it was sent.

One aspect of the internal review, which was being conducted by the bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research, was to investigate whether any of the information in the emails was classified at the time of transmission. If and when it is completed, the review could result in counseling, warnings or other action against employees if it finds the information was mishandled.

GREAT THREAD!

Happens most fridays. Tune in next week!

HEY KIDS! IT'S FRIDAY! TIME FOR ANOTHER NEWS DUMP!

RUSH: CNN has reported that the two men supported of doing the attack in the Brussels airport have been captured alive in Brussels. One of the men, Mohamed Abrini, is thought to be the guy in the white coat and the blue hat that we've seen in that tape from the day of the attack. One of these guys arrested had come to Europe via Greece -- the Ellis Island of Europe now -- and stayed in a refugee camp. Did you hear that? He stayed in a refugee camp, and we had this big ceremony yesterday where Obama settled the first Syrian refugees in America with a pledge and a promise for many more.

Friday Document Dump: Benghazi Committee Finally Gets Work-Related Emails From Clinton’s Inner Circle

The Obama administration has turned over thousands of pages related to the Fast and Furious gun walking operation that turned into a shambles. Now, the House Select Committee on Benghazi received more than 1,100 written records from the State Department in response to requests and subpoenas over the work-related emails of Clinton’s inner circle when she served as Secretary of State. Clinton’s former Chief of Staff at State, Cheryl Mills, including her Deputy Chiefs of Staff Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin, were included in the subpoena. Oh, and these requests for these documents were made over a year ago (Benghazi House Committee):

Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (SC-04) released the following statement after the committee today received from the State Department a production of more than 1,100 pages of records, including files stored on network folders used by senior employees within the Office of the Secretary, and emails from Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin, Susan Rice, and Patrick Kennedy:

“It is deplorable that it took over a year for these records to be produced to our committee, and that our Democrat colleagues never lifted a finger to help us get them. Shame on them and everyone else who has demanded this committee to give up before gathering all of the facts. This investigation is about a terrorist attack that killed four Americans, and it could have been completed a lot sooner if the administration had not delayed and delayed and delayed at every turn. For example, the committee still does not have records we requested over a year ago, and we are still waiting for some witnesses to be made available for interviews. As soon as possible, we will release our report and interview transcripts so everyone can see the evidence for themselves, and I’m confident the value and fairness of our investigation will then be abundantly clear to everyone.”

Today’s production is responsive to a request made by the Select Committee in November 2014, and subpoenas issued in March 2015 and August 2015, and includes work-related emails from the personal email accounts of Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, and Huma Abedin, which the State Department has had since summer 2015.

Prior to today’s production, the Select Committee had already obtained and reviewed more than 72,000 pages of documents never before seen by a congressional committee. Just recently, the Select Committee received more than 1,600 pages of documents from the Office of the Secretary of State and gained access to crucial CIA recordsit sought for nearly a year. After months of negotiations with the White House, the Select Committee was finally able to question both Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes, which no other congressional committee had done.

The committee has been a source of frustration for Democrats, who feel it’s a political stunt on behalf of Republicans. Last October, Rep. Kevin McCarthy made that point explicitly clear when he said that the committee’s work is hurting Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers; a statement that drew the ire of Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chair of the Benghazi Committee, and Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who called McCarthy’s remarks “absolutely terrible.” Democrats saw an opening to possibly rid Congress of the Benghazi investigative venture by having Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) to put forward an amendmentto dissolve it in the Rules Committee. It failed. She then tried to put forward a privileged motion to House members to dismantle the Benghazi Committee; that too was voted down along party lines.

Since then, Republicans have alleged that Democrats have wasted $2 million obstructing the effort to get to the bottom of what happened in Libya on the night of September 11, 2012. Republicans noted how Democrats on the committee haven’t produced a single new document request, or a witness to interview from the Obama administration. They have doled out thousands of dollars in bonusesto their staffers, while complaining that the Select Committee is a waste of the taxpayers’ money.

Barack Obama Backs Down Over Operation Fast and Furious, Drops Executive Privilege Claim Over Some Documents

President Barack Obama, after years of fighting to hide Operation Fast and Furious documents, finally relented and officially dropped his claim to executive privilege over them.

“Four years after asserting executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents relating to a controversial federal gun trafficking investigation, President Barack Obama relented Friday, turning over to lawmakers thousands of pages of records that led to unusual House votes holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in 2012,” Politico’s Josh Gerstein wrote on Friday.

Fast and Furious remains the only scandal over which this president has used executive privilege power to hide documents from congressional investigators. Obama did not use the highly controversial power in any other scandal, including the following: Benghazi, IRS, Department of Justice phone-tapping, Pigford, General Services Administration (GSA), Solyndra, LightSquared, or EPA administrator email aliases.

In the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, the Obama administration let guns “walk”–or be trafficked without surveillance or any plan to regain control of them–into the hands of Mexican drug cartel criminals. As many as 2,000 high-powered rifles walked into Mexico as part of the scheme, and they were used to kill many Mexican citizens and even U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

Now, after House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) investigators have been litigating for years after Obama’s now former Attorney General Eric Holder was held in both criminal and civil contempt of Congress, the president has dropped his executive privilege claim over the documents. The civil contempt of Congress resolution sparked this lawsuit against the administration while the criminal contempt resolution would have led to charges against Holder, but the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia declined to press forward with prosecution. Holder has since resigned at Attorney General. Several other administration officials resigned over this scandal.

BREAKING: President Obama Turns Over Thousands of Fast and Furious Documents

Just moments before Attorney General Eric Holder was voted in contempt of Congress by Republicans and Democrats in June 2012 , President Obama asserted executive privilege over thousands of documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. Holder was held in contempt for stonewalling and failing to turn over the documents to the House Oversight Committee. Obama granted the executive privilege request despite claiming to have no knowledge about Operation Fast and Furious when it was active from 2009-2010.

Now after years of court battles and a federal judge striking down the executive privilege assertion, Obama has finally agreed turned them over. From POLITICO:

Four years after asserting executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents relating to a controversial federal gun trafficking investigation, President Barack Obama relented Friday, turning over to lawmakers thousands of pages of records that led to unusual House votes holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in 2012.

Justice Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush confirmed that the administration does not plan to appeal. He argued that Jackson's ruling validated Obama's initial claim of privilege.

“The Department of Justice is pleased that the district court ... continued to recognize that the deliberative process component of the executive privilege exists and was a valid basis for the Department to withhold certain documents when requested by the House in 2011. Although the Department disagrees with the district court's conclusion that the privilege was overcome in this particular case by disclosures and statements made in other contexts, the Department has decided not to appeal the court’s judgment and has provided a production of documents to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform," Rodenbush said in a statement.

“As we've long asserted, the Committee requires and is entitled to these documents. They are critical to the Committee’s efforts to complete meaningful oversight. The Committee has a duty to understand and shine light on what was happening inside DOJ during the time of this irresponsible operation. Yet DOJ has obstructed our investigative work for years," House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz issued in a statement. "Today, under court order, DOJ turned over some of the subpoenaed documents. The Committee, however, is entitled to the full range of documents for which it brought this lawsuit. Accordingly, we have appealed the District Court’s ruling in order to secure those additional documents.”

McAuliffe restores voting rights for 206K ex-felons; GOP calls it move to boost Clinton

BY GRAHAM MOOMAW Richmond Times-Dispatch

"restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons, a sweeping action the governor said was aimed at rectifying Virginia's "long and sad history" of suppressing African-American voting power."


Democrats would just like to let you know that only blacks are in prison. RACISTS!!!!