A huge stock market rally kicked off when the U.S. Treasury was forced to pay out a net $32 billion last week after the Republican Congress failed to raise the legal debt ceiling on the U.S. government’s $18.113 trillion Ponzi debt scheme.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testified on the Iran nuclear accords before the House Foreign Affairs Committee as Congress deliberates whether they will vote to overturn what is largely seen as a “bad deal.”
Secretary of State John Kerry misled the House Foreign Affairs Committee in his attempt to defend the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday, claiming in his opening statement that Iran had complied with the interim agreement “completely and totally,” and that Iran was “required” by the deal to ratify a key agreement that would prevent it from developing dangerous nuclear technologies in the future. In fact, Iran violated parts of the interim agreement, and there is no guarantee that it will ratify the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew are making the rounds on Capitol Hill in an effort to sell the Iran deal. Their appearance at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday did not go well, as the three men struggled to answer basic questions and objections to the substance of the deal, as well as the process through which it had been rushed to the UN Security Council before coming to Congress. There were several new revelations at the hearing. Here are the 5 most important.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) has sent a letter to Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew asking for answers on the 2010 approval by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) of a controversial deal in which the Russian government gained control of 20 percent of America’s uranium deposits.
President Barack Obama has defended the impending nuclear deal with Iran by promising Americans that there will be automatic “snap-back” provisions to restore sanctions automatically if Iran cheats on its obligations: “If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place,” he said in April. On Wednesday, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told Bloomberg News that there would be no such provisions: “There can be no automaticity, none whatsoever,” he said.
Republican lawmakers are warning the Obama administration against taking executive actions to raise taxes after White House Press Sec. Josh Earnest indicated “the President is very interested in this avenue generally.”
Hey, remember how a watchdog group called Cause of Action filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents pertaining to the investigation of taxpayer information handed over to the White House by the IRS, and the request went nowhere,
For all its demagoguery about Wall Street, the Obama administration hasn’t been shy about tapping Wall Street talent to fill the ranks of his administration. Now, some Democrats are claiming to have had enough over “Obama’s nomination of Antonio Weiss to
WASHINGTON (AP) — Timothy Geithner says in a new memoir that he considered stepping down as Treasury secretary in 2010 after the financial crisis and suggested Hillary Rodham Clinton as a possible successor. President Barack Obama rebuffed Geithner’s suggestion, and
During Friday’s final plenary session at the Policy Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), thousands of pro-Israel activists were addressed by Olga Miranda, president of Local 87 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In the course
Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew did his best to spin the Obama administration’s stance on Israel at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference on Sunday night. The audience knew they were being treated like mushrooms: kept
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 19 (Reuters) – The Ukraine’s fundamentalproblem is that it suffers from an economic crisis and thecountry should ask the International Monetary Fund for help,U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Wednesday.
With just two days before America hits the debt ceiling deadline, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced on Tuesday his desire to raise it. “The goal here is to increase the debt ceiling,” said Boehner. “Nobody wants to default on our
A federal court recently scuttled Judicial Watch’s lawsuit on behalf of Kawa Orthodontics’ challenge of the Obama administration’s delay of the so-called “employer mandate” provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, but we’re not going away
On Wednesday, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew said that America would once again hit the debt ceiling by late February, despite Congress’ temporary debt limit increase back in October 2013. That agreement suspended the debt ceiling and funded the
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the US would exhaust its borrowing authority in late February, rather than early March as originally estimated. If Congress doesn’t lift the debt ceiling by then, the government would have to prioritize its
In the days before Christmas, Mary Williams Walsh of The New York Times wrote several important news stories about the bankruptcy of the City of Detroit. She described how the nation’s largest banks have used the bogey man known as
Washington has become the Scrooge that ruins Christmas for those of us involved in public policy. Instead of being a quiet period to commemorate the birth of Christ, enjoy time with our families, and to pleasantly work to deal with
At his last press conference on the year on Friday, President Obama reiterated that he won’t negotiate with Congressional Republicans on lifting the nation’s debt ceiling. “It is not something that is a negotiating tool,” Obama said. “It’s not leverage. It’s
Just days into the Obamacare occupation and our government-run health insurance “market” is in complete chaos. A massive system breakdown–or a “glitch” if you believe Obama–has caused mass frustration for consumers trying to wrap their heads around the behemoth healthcare
Saturday Reuters reported that IT experts it contacted saw serious problems in the design of the exchange website launched last week by HHS: One possible cause of the problems is that hitting “apply” on HealthCare.gov causes 92 separate files, plug-ins
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace would not let Treasury Secretary Jack Lew get away with the Administrations shutdown spin that this is unprecedented
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew did not give a straight answer to Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace about how many people signed up for Obamacare. Lew: “It’s the wrong question, We know that people take time to make important decisions like
On October 1, in the wake of the federal government shutdown, a Florida business owner has announced the filing of a federal lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s authority to delay the enactment of the so-called employer mandate provision of the
