Tag: Obama administration

In Telemundo Interview, Joe Biden Says 3 Million Deportations Is ‘Nothing’ to Apologize For

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Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he had “nothing” to apologize for when asked about the millions of illegal aliens deported under the Obama administration.

Biden, who served as vice president for eight years under the Obama administration, was again confronted about the high number of deportations that took place during his time in office. He was explicitly asked if he should apologize for the roughly 3 million people who removed from the U.S. under his tenure, in a Noticias Telemundo exclusive interview.

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Commentary: DACA in Review

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The time has come to end the Obama Administration’s controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. President Trump attempted to end the program as it began—through executive action— only to be thwarted by the federal courts. The question was argued last month before U.S. Supreme Court. Since Americans have notoriously short memories, this is an excellent opportunity to review how the program was illegally and unconstitutionally instituted.

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Immigrant Activists Storm Biden Headquarters, Demand He Apologize for Deportations

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by Jason Hopkins   Immigrant rights activists protested inside Joe Biden’s campaign headquarters in Philadelphia, demanding the former vice president apologize for the deportations that took place during the Obama administration. “We are here with families who have had their families separated both under the Obama and Trump administrations, and we are demanding that Biden apologize for overseeing 3 million deportations under the Obama administration, and we are calling for Biden and 2020 Democratic candidates to commit to ending deportation and detention in their first day in office,” said a spokeswoman Wednesday during the Facebook live coverage of the protest. The group behind the rally, Movimiento Cosecha — which translates to “Harvest Movement” in English — has been behind other immigration-related protests, such as a push to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. Members of the organization wanted to bring attention to the Obama administration’s record on immigration enforcement. The protest highlighted a seemingly incongruous fact: Deportations were higher during the Obama administration than they are under the Trump White House. Norma is currently shutting down @JoeBiden's campaign office to share her story. Her son, who came at the U.S. at age 10, would have qualified for the "Obama-Biden DACA program"…

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Biden: Congress Should Immediately Make ‘Dreamers’ Citizens

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  Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, unveiling his immigration policy outline ahead of the first 2020 debates, is calling for Congress to grant citizenship immediately to more than 800,000 U.S. residents who were brought to the country illegally as children. The former vice president and Democratic polling leader unveiled some of his immigration priorities on Monday in a newspaper op-ed that blisters President Donald Trump for an “assault on the dignity” of the Latino community through policies and rhetoric designed to “scare voters” in 2020. “Trump repeatedly invokes racist invective to describe anyone south of the Rio Grande,” Biden writes, noting “horrifying scenes … of kids being kept in cages” and other “actions that subvert our American values and our ability to lead on the global stage.” Biden, who launched his 2020 campaign in April, calls for streamlining the asylum system for migrants and spending more on electronic security at U.S. borders rather than Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. And he blasts Trump’s latest threats of mass deportation and his decision to cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, three Central American nations that are sources of the increasing wave of migrants to the U.S. border. Trump, a Republican,…

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Commentary: Pursue Those Indictments!

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by Roger Kimball   Last month, Chris Buskirk wrote a column for the Spectator USA describing Representative Devin Nunes as “a hero of the Republic.” It was well-deserved praise. Nunes, a Republican Congressman from a rural district in California was, until January, chairman of the House Permanent Special Committee on Intelligence (he is now the ranking member). Nunes has worked tirelessly for more than two years to expose what our masters in deep-state Washington would bury from the glare of public scrutiny: the evidence that the entire Trump-Russian collusion narrative was a partisan effort, first, to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and, when that failed, to cover up the effort while still working assiduously to destroy the Trump presidency. As Buskirk points out, without Nunes’s terrier-like efforts—conducted, it has to be pointed out, against the background of scurrilous and unremitting calumnies from the Democrats and their bought-and-paid-for megaphones in the media—the public would likely be totally in the dark about what really happened over the course of 2016 as the Obama Administration and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign endeavored to “dirty up” Trump and his colleagues, calmly at first, and then with growing hysteria as Trump, against all the odds, emerged as a serious…

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Former Obama Aide Indicted for Lying to DOJ

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by Paul Ingrassia   Former Obama White House counsel, Greg Craig, was indicted Thursday on two charges of lying to federal investigators about consulting work his former firm did on behalf of Russia-backed ex-Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Craig was accused of lying to the Department of Justice for allegedly making false statements and concealing “material facts,” which were revealed in a settlement announced Thursday. Craig’s former firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, was hit with a $4.6 billion fine for working with Paul Manafort in 2012 on behalf of Ukraine. The federal investigation began as an offshoot of the Mueller probe that was later handed off to Manhattan federal prosecutors. It was transferred to D.C. prosecutors in March, who leveled Thursday’s charge on Craig. Craig’s indictment stands as a violation of the DOJ’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) unit, the agency in charge of enforcing foreign lobbying laws. Craig is the first Democrat to be indicted in connection to the Mueller investigation. This prosecution comes amid reports that the DOJ, facing pressure by the Trump administration and top Republican lawmakers, is now considering investigating Obama-era abuses. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, signaled…

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Commentary: Of Course the Obama Administration Spied on the Trump Campaign – That’s What a FISA Is For

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by Robert Romano   “I think spying did occur… but the question is whether it was predicated, adequately predicated?” That was Attorney General William Barr testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Science and Justice on April 10, acknowledging that the Trump campaign was spied on by the Obama administration during the 2016 election campaign. Barr outlined his impending review of the conduct of the Justice Department, the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies in launching surveillance and an investigation of the Trump campaign for conspiring with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election — a crime we now know was never committed. And of course spying occurred. The nearly three-year investigation was complete with Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, approved in federal court, that allowed federal officials to look at Trump campaign emails, listen to phone calls and see other communications. That’s what a FISA warrant does. It’s for surveillance, which is right in the name of the statute. That is spying. What’s worse, the months-long surveillance resulted in individuals being prosecuted for unrelated process crimes and otherwise destroyed people’s lives, only to find out later there was no conspiracy or coordination with Russia after an exhaustive probe…

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Immigrant Deaths Under Trump Virtually Unchanged Since Obama Era

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by Jason Hopkins   Immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Trump administration are dying at virtually the same rate as they did during the Obama administration. During former President Barack Obama’s first year in office, 10 foreign nationals died in ICE custody. Five passed away in 2012, and 12 died in 2016, according to ICE data obtained by the Washington Examiner. The numbers are not far removed from President Donald Trump’s first two years in office. Ten detainees died in 2017 and 12 died in 2018, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. There have been no reported deaths in the fiscal year 2019 as of March 5. Not only are current deaths on par with the Obama administration, but they remain far lower than the numbers from about 15 years ago. Thirty-two people died in the calendar year 2004, and 20 died in 2005. A far larger number of foreign nationals were caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during the 1990s and early 2000s, which led to more immigrants being detained than is currently the case. The data contradicts a narrative pushed by many Democrats that the current administration is less humane to foreign nationals that…

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Tennessee Star Report Speaks With One America News Network’s Neil McCabe as He Explains the ‘Dynamic’ at the McAllen, Texas Border

Julie Carr

On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Steve Gill talked to Neil McCabe of One America News Network while he is visiting the McAllen, Texas border about the absence of a border wall and the interesting dynamic surrounding the area. Further into the conversation McCabe disclosed how the current laws as created under the Obama Administration were designed for failure and provided a deliberate loophole for illegals of all backgrounds to enter the United States. Gill: And our on the spot correspondent from One America News, Neil McCabe is down in McAllen, Texas, right on the border. I guess is there a border wall there or is that one of those areas where there is nothing keeping somebody from coming across the border, Neil? McCabe: Well there’s some wall and then there are places where you can sort of walk around the wall. And so there are sections of wall. But it’s a very interesting dynamic down here. This is my first time actually on the border, so very exciting Steve. Gill: More members of Congress should…

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Neil McCabe Tells The Tennessee Star Report That Secretary of Defense James Mattis ‘Was Really Trying to be That Third Term for President Barack Obama in the Pentagon’

Julie Carr

On Friday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Michael Patrick Leahy spoke with special guest and his former Breitbart colleague, Iraq war veteran and current Army Reserve Sergeant Neil McCabe. Now a Washington-based reporter for One America News Network,  McCabe spoke to Michael about his diverse career history, his take on James Mattis’s resignation, the ‘suicide pact’ between the Military Generals at the White House, and who he thinks is a front runner to fill Mattis’s shoes at the Pentagon. McCabe added the he believes retired Gen. Jack Keane is the front runner to replace Mattis as Secretary of Defense when he leaves on February 28. You can read a transcript of the conversation here: Leahy: Big news yesterday, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigns, his resignation letter, I’m sure you read it.  Basically said ‘I don’t agree with what you’re doing President Trump and therefor eyou deserve a Secretary of Defense who’s views are aligned with yours therefore I’m stepping down.’ McCabe: Well, I think the biggest secret that everyone knew in Washington was Mattis had to go. …

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EPA’s Andrew Wheeler Suggests the Obama Administration Put its Thumb on the Scale of the Latest US Climate Report

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by Michael Bastasch   Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler suggested the Obama administration told the authors of the latest National Climate Assessment (NCA) to emphasize “worst-case” global warming predictions. “And I don’t know this for a fact — I wouldn’t be surprised if the Obama administration told the report’s authors to take a look at the worst-case scenario for this report,” Wheeler told The Washington Post in an interview Wednesday. Wheeler isn’t the first to criticize the NCA’s focus on “worst-case” global warming predictions, but his comments sparked backlash from former President Barack Obama’s chief science adviser. .@eilperin asks @EPAAWheeler why he didn't read the full national climate assessment before it was released. #postlive pic.twitter.com/LCE9OSYJyC — Washington Post Live (@PostLive) November 28, 2018 John Holdren, Obama’s former science czar, told Politico that’s “absolutely false.” Holdren said the report considered a wide range of scenarios, and that he had no role in selecting the fourth NCA’s authors. The NCA is produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which includes officials from 13 federal agencies. “My only instruction was that the USGCRP should continue the distinguished tradition of the first three by drawing on the most current…

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Ben Carson’s HUD Revisits Obama Policies of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Regulation

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Ben Carson

By Robert Romano   “I would incentivize people who really would like to get a nice juicy government grant [to look at their zoning codes].” That was Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson in an Aug. 13 interview with the Wall Street Journal, announcing changes to the way the Trump administration would interpret the Obama era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation. There’s only one problem. This year, under Division L, Title II of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, Section 234, Congress passed a provision that states, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws as part of carrying out the final rule entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ … or the notice entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool’ …” A similar provision passed the Senate 87 to 9 in 2016. This overturned part of the regulation that conditions receipt of $3 billion of annual community development block grants to more than 1,200 cities and counties to rezone neighborhoods along income and racial criteria. The regulation said, “This final rule, and Assessment Tools and…

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Commentary: Obama Cybersecurity Failures Are The Real 2016 Election Story

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Barack Obama

by George Rasley   Remember when the Democrats lost the 2016 election and the charge was that the Russians “hacked” the election? Then the charge morphed into, the Trump campaign, or maybe even Trump himself, “colluded” with the Russians to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House? As Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times summarized the charges: Christopher Steele’s Democratic Party-financed dossier said Mr. Manafort worked with Russia to coordinate the hacking of Democratic Party computers. In addition, a number of media reports last year claimed that Mr. Manafort, Mr. Trump’s erstwhile campaign manager, sought Russia’s help to bolster his candidate. U.S. surveillance captured the collusion in copious amounts of phone records, the stories said. CNN declared in September: “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which is leading the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the election, has been provided details of these communications.” But, reported Scarborough, that and similar reports seemed to be dashed by Kevin Downing, Mr. Manafort’s attorney. He filed a brief in U.S. District Court subject to an accuracy review by a federal judge. In a cut-and-dried manner, he said Mr. Mueller has no evidence that Mr. Manafort communicated with Russian officials. Mr. Downing is defending Mr. Manafort against federal charges…

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Scott Pruitt’s Parting Gift: Nixing One More Obama-Era Regulation

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by Michael Bastach   A regulation to strictly limit the sale of refurbished truck engines was effectively repealed on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s final day in office. Pruitt’s last day at the agency was Friday, but that same day, EPA shifted its policy towards glider kits, which are trucks with refurbished engines. EPA would not enforce limits on glider kit sales until December 2019. Pruitt announced his resignation on Thursday amid a slew of ethics investigations. EPA officials told The New York Times “that, through the end of 2019, the EPA will not enforce an annual cap of 300 gliders per manufacturer that had been imposed in January.” The change comes as EPA prepares to finalize its repeal of regulations on glider sales. Glider manufacturer Fitzgerald petitioned Pruitt in 2017 to lift Obama era regulations. EPA was supposed to submit a finalized repeal of glider regulations earlier this year, but bureaucratic delays have kept Obama-era regulations in place. The Obama administration issued glider regulations in 2016, getting around the Clean Air Act by reclassifying gliders as “new motor vehicles.” Gliders are refurbished truck engines placed inside a new chassis. Environmentalists and major truck manufacturers, including Volvo, oppose lifting regulations on gliders.…

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Trump White House Has Smaller Staff, Spends Less on Salaries Than Obama White House

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Tennessee Star

by Jeremiah Poff   Over $20 million in taxpayer funds could be saved at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term in office due to his leaner White House operation. A new report on the White House Office Personnel revealed that Trump has a significantly smaller staff than his predecessor did at this time, according to an analysis by Open the Books, a government watchdog organization that focuses on spending. “Although the White House personnel budget is an infinitesimal part of the $3.9 trillion federal budget, it is an important forecasting indicator showing Trump’s deep commitment to cut the size, scope and power of the federal government and reign in waste,” wrote Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of Open the Books, in an op-ed for Forbes. As of June 30, 2018, the White House currently employs 374 people, three fewer than were employed in 2017. It’s also significantly lower than the 469 that were employed in 2010 by then President Barack Obama. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] In addition to maintaining a smaller staff size, Trump’s White House has also cut payroll by…

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Commentary: The Answer Is Don’t Bring Your Kid Here Illegally

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father daughter

by CHQ Staff   Have you noticed that every time establishment Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill try to ram through an amnesty for illegal aliens there’s a new immigration “crisis” to add a bit of pathos to their calls for open borders? The latest phony crisis is the plight of child border crossers who are being separated from their parents at the border. As our friend Michael F. Haverluck of OneNewsNow.com put it, Democrats and open borders Republicans are claiming the Trump administration is running concentration camps for children who illegally enter the United States alone or with parents who are being processed by the U.S. government. “We can’t find a solution to this problem without harming children without putting them in concentration camps?” former Obama 2012 Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter asked on Live with Stephanie Ruhle, according to TheBlaze. Virulent anti-Trumper, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, also chimed in on the issue by backing his Democratic colleague and going as far as to imply that President Donald Trump’s immigration policy resembles what was implemented under Nazis during World War II … or by slave holders before the Civil War. “And I would even say, Stephanie,…

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Senate Republicans Aim to Block the Confirmation of an Obama-Era Holdover Hostile to Religious Freedom

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Chai Fledblum

by Kevin Daley   A budding coalition of Republican lawmakers is opposing the renomination of Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) after President Donald Trump renominated the Obama-era commissioner to another term on the anti-discrimination panel. Much of the institutional religious right has mobilized in opposition to her reappointment, given the intensely progressive positions she has taken on a variety of issues, The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. “Commissioner Feldblum has a range of policy views that strike the general public as out of the mainstream,” a former senior career official at the EEOC told TheDCNF. Bloomberg Law reported that GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Steve Daines of Montana have joined with Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to block the Feldblum nomination. The four lawmakers are withholding support from a unanimous consent agreement necessary for her confirmation. The agreement would package Feldblum’s nomination with two other Republican appointees to the EEOC, allowing the Senate to process all three nominees on a single up-or-down vote. Absent unanimous consent, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would have to schedule separate confirmation votes for each appointee. As the backlog of Senate business builds, there is little…

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Trump Administration Prepares for ‘Resistance’ Against Broadcasting Board of Governors Appointment

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Michael Pack

by Michael Gonzalez   If war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means, public diplomacy is a theater where states use ideas instead of ordnance. But in this important battlefield, the U.S. is not currently fighting with generals chosen by the commander in chief elected by the American people in 2016. The ideas are still being shaped by officials picked by President Barack Obama, not President Donald Trump. All of this may be about to change now that the White House has announced its intention to nominate Michael Pack to replace Obama appointee John Lansing as head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency in charge of broadcasting operations in support of freedom around the world. Pack, a documentary filmmaker, is a former executive with the liberal Corporation for Public Broadcasting and former president of the high-brow conservative Claremont Institute. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more. ] But don’t expect “The Resistance” to take Pack’s nomination lying down. Like those World War II Japanese soldiers who held out in Filipino jungles until well into the 1970s, that hardy band of stalwarts continues…

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Obama Interior Secretaries Spent More Than Ryan Zinke on Chartered Flights

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Ryan Zinke

by Kevin Mooney   Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has spent far fewer taxpayer dollars on chartered flights than his two predecessors in the Obama administration, public records show. The Daily Signal’s examination of travel records found that on average Zinke’s two predecessors spent more annually on such noncommercial flights, despite media reports critical of Zinke’s spending on travel. The cost of such chartered flights for Zinke totaled $72,849 in his first six months as interior secretary, the travel records show. The average annual cost of such flights for his two predecessors in the Obama administration, Ken Salazar and Sally Jewell, from fiscal years 2010 to 2016 was $155,515, according to records provided by the Interior Department to the House Natural Resources Committee. Salazar and Jewell spent just over $1 million on chartered flights over the seven years, the records show. Taxpayers were billed for more than $640,000 for Salazar’s chartered flights in fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012. Recent media reports, however, have taken critical looks at Zinke’s travel costs. The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General released a report Monday on Zinke’s use of chartered and military aircraft between March and September 2017, the span of fiscal year 2017 when he was interior secretary. The report came…

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Policy Watchdog Asks Probe of Labor Board Member Over Leak

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by Kevin Mooney   Allegations that a member of the National Labor Relations Board improperly disclosed internal deliberations should be investigated, a Washington labor policy analyst says in a letter to the board’s inspector general. Board member Mark Gaston Pearce “allegedly discussed information from documents involving internal Board deliberations” at a meeting of the American Bar Association last month, Competitive Enterprise Institute analyst Trey Kovacs tells the inspector general in the letter. Pearce “reportedly provided advance notice of an NLRB decision to issue an order to vacate the Board’s decision in Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors Ltd. and Brandt Construction Co.,” Kovacs writes in the letter to Inspector General David Berry, dated Wednesday. The board’s pro-union actions demonstrate how it operates as though Barack Obama were still president, and not Donald Trump, the Competitive Enterprise Institute analyst says. The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >> “There appears to be a troublesome double standard at the NLRB,” Kovacs told The Daily Signal in an email. “The NLRB Inspector General Office has shown zeal for investigating Republican NLRB members, but not Democratic members.” Just after noon Wednesday, a spokesman for the NLRB said…

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Julian Assange Credits Eric Holder’s DOJ with WikiLeaks’ Releases

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Eric Holder, Barack Obama

Julian Assange on Friday credited the Obama administration for putting him in place to publish sensitive documents through his WikiLeaks website, including Democratic emails released during the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Mr. Assange made the remarks on Twitter in response to a tweet last month by Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general in office when the Justice Department initiated its investigation of WikiLeaks following its publication of classified U.S. diplomatic and military documents in 2010.

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