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In his final year in office, former President Barack Obamas administration spent a record $36.2 million defending itself from Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, according to a new Associated Press analysis.

When the money is broken down, the AP found that the biggest chunks were spent by the Justice Department ($12 million), the Department of Homeland Security ($6.3 million) and the Pentagon ($4.8 million).

The Obama administration also deniedaccess to requested documents and information more than any previous administration. The AP report revealedthat Obamasgovernment set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that, despite searching, they couldnt find a single page of files that were requested.

Thenews wire also concluded that the Obama administrationset the record for outright denial of access to files by refusing to quickly consider requests described as newsworthy.

The AP offered this critique of Obamas oft-repeated promise to be the most transparent administration in history:

The figures reflect the final struggles of the Obama administration during the 2016 election to meet President Barack Obamas pledge that it was the most transparent administration in history, despite wide recognition of serious problems coping with requests under the information law. It received a record 788,769 requests for files last year and spent a record $478 million answering them and employed 4,263 full-time FOIA employees across more than 100 federal departments and agencies. That was higher by 142 such employees the previous year.

While control of the executive branch has changed parties, it does not necessarily mean more transparency is on the way.

President Donald Trump has not spoken much about government transparency. And last week,several journalists criticized Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for deciding to travel to Asia this week without a press pool to document his stops in Japan, South Korea and China.

CNNs Jake Tapper described the decision as insulting to any American who is looking for anything but a state-run version of events.

The Washington, D.C., bureau chiefs at CNN, the Washington Post, Fox News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR and otherswrote in a letter to Tillersons staff that they were deeply concerned about the secretary of state choosing to ditch the media.

The rest is here:
Obama admin spent record amount of money fighting FOIA lawsuits - TheBlaze.com

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Posted: Mar 15, 2017 11:13 AM

A free and independent press is criticalfor America to prosper.

Our press is pretty free as far as I know but lacks fairness.

As my colleague, Fox News Radios Todd Starnes, points out, Newsrooms are the least diverse place in America.

The mainstream media views each new day under President Donald Trump as another day to de-legitimize his presidency and cut him down as a human being.

The best example of this washow the press changed their coverage in real time on the night of November 8, 2016 when their favored candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost in an electoral upset to the one theyd mocked since his ride down the escalatorin Trump Tower.

For the past eight years the press didnt cover certain stories even though they were occurring but with Trump in the Oval Office, the mainstream media has suddenly jumped up their game in holding the administration accountable.

The media is still on a witch hunt for dirt on Trump. No surprise, thats part of the medias job, but we see a huge double standard in how theyre covering Trump compared to how they covered the Obama years.

NBC released the 2005 Access Hollywood tapes right before the election, and Trumps poll numbers predictably plummeted. Then on Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow had a countdown to Trumps tax returnsget this, from 2005 and totaling only two pages. Instead of pointing to facts, she led with questions and speculations questioning Trumps legitimacy as president.

None of this should come as a surprise from the same media that overlooked President Obamas many gaffes one being that he campaigned in all 57 states and failed to look into his unknown past.

The mainstream media is giving it their all to make the Trump-Russia connection, with MSNBC making baseless claims almost 24/7. Yet, they ignored Obamas 30-year history with questionable characters like his mentor and card-carrying Communist member, Frank Marshall Davis, then-Pastor Jeremiah Wright who famously said, God d**n America, and domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Although Obama acknowledged them in his memoir, the media discredited their ties to him as right-wing conspiracy theories.

This is extremely frustrating, and it should anger all Americans, because regardless of politics, we deserve better.

Weve heard a lot about the rising anti-Semitism since the election, damage done to Jewish cemeteries and threats against Jewish community centers and schools. This is horrible, news-worthy material.

But it isnt something new under Trump its been going on for some time now.

In fact, there were more than 7,000 anti-Semitic incidents under Obama, but they were largely ignored, according to journalist Seth J. Frantzman.

Then theres the attack on Secretary Ben Carson for comparing slaves to immigrants a similar comment was made by Obama just last year!

Not to get redundant here, but Senator Marco Rubio was attacked for telling Americans they have to prioritize healthcare if they want it the same argument Obama made to pass Obamacare.

The latest schooling of the media occurred when they feigned outrage at President Trumps latest prosecutor purge,backing off only when they learned Clinton and Obama did the same thing.

In a similar fashion, Trump revealed he wanted to make massive cuts to the federal government, gutting waste anywhere possible. The media acted like this was the first time its been done before, but President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich did a similar thing in the '90s.

The press has a job to do inform the American public, but as of late, the mainstream media has been too busy lying or ignoring crucial facts in their stories to further their propaganda.

The media wants to make you think President Trump is illegitimate and corrupt even though his actions havent been outside the mainstream, especially when compared to his radical predecessor, Obama.

Its just one story after another. Trump acts. The media cries wolf. At some point, the mainstream media has to have a come-to-Jesus-moment or were in for some sort of breaking point.

To paraphrase George Orwell, we need to call on the media to do a revolutionary act in a time of universal fake news, report the facts.

See original here:
The Mainstream Media Was AWOL During the Obama Years - Townhall

Former President Barack Obamatook a break from hitting Broadway with his daughter Malia, showing off his more relaxed style andwelcoming rounds of applause on the sidewalkto escape to Hawaii for (another) warm weather getaway.

While the Obamas spent plenty of time in the Aloha State during their eight years in the White House they traveledthere every December into January for the holidays this is Obamas first post-presidency trip tothe state where he was born.

And while hes there, hes partaking in one of his favorite activities: golf.

Obama wore a white polo and blue shorts for the occasion, as well as a wide smile (which has been present on his face since pretty much the exact moment he left office.)

FROM COINAGE: This Is How Much It Would Cost to Paint the White House (And More Crazy Facts)

Obamas time on the golf course during his eight years in office was criticized by current President Donald Trump. However, since the 45th president was sworn into office in January, Trump himself has taken several golfing trips.

The Obamas have been getting a lot of sun time in since leaving the White House.After now-President Trumps inauguration, they flew directly to Palm Springs, and then took a trip to Richard Bransons private island in the British Virgin Islands, where he was spotted grinning widely while indulging in water sports including kite surfing.

See more here:
Former President Barack Obama Grins While Golfing in His Home State of Hawaii - PEOPLE.com

It should come as no surprise that an Obama political appointee (with the cooperation of the media) would try to create a phony scandal out of a routine event. With every new administration, the incoming president asks all U.S. attorneys appointed by the prior administration to resign. After all, they are political appointees, just like cabinet officials and the attorney general, other cabinet members and literally thousands of other jobs within the executive branch.

In 2009, President Barack Obama asked for the resignation of George W. Bush-appointed U.S. Attorneys. When he replaced virtually all of them, it was treated as nothing out of the ordinary. Thats because it wasnt.

In March 1993 President Bill Clinton had Attorney General Janet Reno fire 93 of the 94 U.S. Attorneys appointed by the prior administration. (Only Michael Chertoff was retained, apparently at the request of Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.) Again, there was no outrage over these firings.

Yet today, Preet Bharara, Obamas U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is being portrayed by some as a political martyr because he was fired after he refused the Trump administrations request to resign along with the remaining 45 Obama appointees in the U.S. Attorney slots. The fuss being made about this is just as phony as the outrage ginned up in 2006 by political opponents of President George W. Bush. They were shocked, SHOCKED!, that Bush had dared replace eight U.S. Attorneysall of whom had been appointed by Bush himself.

All the sensational coveragepast and presentignores one simple and controlling fact: All political appointees, including U.S. Attorneys, serve at the pleasure of the president.

All the sensational coveragepast and presentignores one simple and controlling fact: All political appointees, including U.S. Attorneys, serve at the pleasure of the president. That is why only 46 Obama appointees were asked to resign last week; all the others had already left.

That is why only 46 Obama appointees were asked to resign last week; all the others had already left.

They knew, as does everyone else in Washington politics and the media that they were expected to resign as soon as the new president was inaugurated and move on to the no doubt very lucrative jobs they are now being offered in big law firms all over the country.

The moment a U.S. Attorney leaves, the First Assistant in that officea career prosecutortakes over until a new U.S. Attorney is confirmed by the Senate. All of that offices investigations and prosecutions continue uninterrupted. There is no partisan interference going on.

All of us can agree that law enforcement should be nonpartisan and carried out in an objective manner that meets the best interests of the administration of justice. But new presidents and new attorneys general are entitled to put in U.S. Attorneys who will carry out their policies and their priorities when it comes to enforcing the myriad federal laws covering everything from terrorism and organized crime to immigration and election fraud.

On many of these issues, the Trump administrations policy varies widely from the previous administration. For example, President Trump wants to enforce our immigration laws rather than ignore them. A cadre of U.S. Attorneys appointed to accommodate the old policy would make it virtually impossible to implement the new.

We know exactly what to expect from these holdovers because weve seen what happened when the Trump administration allowed Obama political appointees to remain at the Justice Department.

The prime example is Sally Yates, the former Deputy Attorney General, who enhanced her reputation (and her job prospects) with the progressive left when she announced that she would not defend President Trumps executive order on immigration. Her political allies portrayed her as a martyr, even though she let her political views interfere with her sworn duty to defend an executive order that her own department had already concluded was lawfully issued.

Preet Bharara, the now former U.S. Attorney for Southern New York, seems to be trying to stage the same type of media spectacle. Like all of the other remaining Obama political appointees, he was asked to resign. Unlike all the others, he refused to do so.

The administration then did the most natural thing in the world: it dismissed him. Bharara broke the news himself, tweeting out that he had been fired almost as soon as he got off the telephone call with Main Justice. This little bit of political theatre is apparently calculated to raise his profile, his cred and perhaps his market value among the Resist wing of the Left.

I am told by a knowledgeable media source that Bharara is extremely ambitious. New York papers have speculated that he may be ramping up for a run for governor or mayor. Another former Justice Department source confirmed that Bharara has grand political aspirations, adding that he is also extremely partisan.

The only real outrage here is that a politically ambitious prosecutor and his friends in the media are taking a totally routine event the request that a political appointee resign the post he was given under a prior administrations patronage and trying to turn it into a scandal.

Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former Justice Department official. Along with John Fund, he is the coauthor of Whos Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk and Obamas Enforcer: Eric Holders Justice Department.

Originally posted here:
Preet Bharara 'fired': A phony scandal created by an Obama appointee - Fox News

The Obama administration doled out more than $77 million to promote the former presidents signature health-care legislation in what could be its final full year of existence, contracts obtained by The Post on Sunday reveal.

They show the federal government contracted with Democratic-leaning p.r. firm Weber Shandwick to spend $74.15 million on July 28, 2016, and another $3.69 million on Sept. 9, 2016, promoting the plan.

Of that, $64 million funded an advertising blitz including TV, digital and radio $4 million went to creative development and production, $5 million to direct response marketing, $2 million to campaign strategy, $1 million to branding and $1.5 million to encourage small business enrollment.

An official of the current White House dismissed the Obama administrations last-ditch efforts to try to swell enrollment numbers.

Tens of millions in hard-earned taxpayer funds spent on TV ads wont sell a fundamentally flawed approach to health care, the official told The Post.

The Weber Shandwick contract was signed by Pam Jenkins, president of the firm. Its chairman, Jack Leslie, was picked by Obama in 2009 to be chairman of the US African Development Foundation.

Leslie donated $1,000 to Obamas 2012 re-election campaign and $2,700 in December 2015 to Hillary Clintons failed presidential campaign.

Jenkins and Leslie did not provide comment.

I firmly believe that nobody will be worse-off financially in the process that were going through, Price said on NBCs Meet The Press. Understanding that theyll have choices that they can select the kind of coverage that they want for themselves and for their family, not the government forces them to buy.

But Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) urged his House colleagues not to walk the plank and pass the bill because the GOP would suffer the consequences in the next election. Cotton told ABCs This Week that he believes the measure will cause premiums to rise and price people out of the health-care system.

Im afraid that if they vote for this bill, theyre going to put the House majority at risk next year, he said.

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Obama admin spent $77M to hype ObamaCare in 2016 - New York Post