State Dept. on Missing Legal Deadline for Human Rights Report by 113 Days: 'Of Course, We Have to Obey the Law’

(CNSNews.com) – Despite now being 113 days past the federally mandated deadline for releasing the 2014 Human Rights Reports, Rear Adm. (ret.) John Kirby, the newly appointed spokesperson for the State Department, said during a press briefing on Thursday that “of course [Obama officials] have to obey the law” that requires the department to release the annual reports by Feb. 25. 

Kirby then blamed the historical and largely unexplained delay on Secretary of State John Kerry’s “very intense travel schedule” and “routine staff and administrative delays.” Kirby also declined to say whether the reports are actually completed and when they will be released.

“Okay, so they have been completed then,” CNSNews.com pressed.

“I’m not going to talk about, you know, how dry the ink is on these things,” said Kirby.  “But I can tell you that we will release the report very, very soon.”

“Well it’s now 113 days late [on June 18], which is a historical record by almost a month,” CNSNews.com continued. “The Foreign Assistance Act mandates that these things be released by February 25 of every year. Does the Obama administration believe that they have any obligation to obey that law?” 

“Well, of course, we have to obey the law. We know we’re late. We’re working on the report. We’ll have it out very soon,” Kirby stated before attempting to move on.

Another reporter followed up, “But could you say why it’s -- I mean, it seems to be late every year. Is like, this year dif -- I mean maybe this year is a little bit longer, but they never come out on time. So --.”

“I can’t speak to the institutional history of homework here at the State Department. But again, we’ve acknowledged that it’s late. We understand that. We know the concerns surrounding that. It will be out very soon, very soon,” Kirby said before moving to a different topic.

Via: CNS News

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Obama Fails To Recognize D-Day, The Democrats Recognize Day By Quoting…Barack Obama

Barack Obama failed to recognize the day at all today, not even with his traditional picture of himself.

One might give him an excuse, as he was delivering the eulogy for Beau Biden today. However, he did manage to have time for tweets on what was really important to him, that he “intended to keep doing everything he could” for illegal aliens

But the Democrats did manage to recognize the day on their Twitter account, by tweeting a quote of…Barack Obama from last year. Remember when he went to the D-Day ceremony and was caught chewing gum?

The Democrats are inheriting his narcissism by extension…

Via: Weasel Zippers

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100 Days: State Dept. Sets Record for Violating Deadline for Human Rights Reports

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. State Department has set an all-time record this year in the duration of its failure to comply with the legal deadline for submitting its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to Congress.

Current law requires the department to submit the reports by Feb. 25. Today, June 5, is the 100th day past that deadline, and the State Department still has not presented the reports.

Prior to this year, 89 days was the longest the department went past the legal deadline before releasing the reports. The 89-day delay took place in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

As the post-deadline delay in the release of the human rights reports hit its 100th day today, the State Department was finding time to celebrate an event it billed as "Pride at State."

That event, scheduled for 2:00 p.m., will feature remarks by Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom and has been jointly organized by the department itself and GLIFAA, which State says is "the officially recognized employee affinity group representing LGBTI employees at the Department of State, USAID and foreign affairs agencies."

When the department does release the overdue human rights reports, they will include details of human rights abuses in, among other nations, Iran, Cuba, Malaysia and Vietnam. The administration is currently in the final phases of negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, has recently re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba and is planning to include Malaysia and Vietnam in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The annual reports were first published in 1977, under a legal mandate included in the 1976 International Security and Arms Export Control Act. According to the law as originally enacted, the reports were supposed to detail the human rights abuses in nations receiving security assistance from the United States so that members of Congress would be better informed about the nature of the governments that were receiving this type of aid.

Via: CNS News

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Shutdown Delays U.N. Probe of U.S. Human Rights Record; GOP Blamed

(CNSNews.com) – A United Nations’ review of the United States’ compliance with international human rights norms will not happen as scheduled because of the partial government shutdown, and the chairman of the reviewing body blames the Republican Party.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Committee was due to have examined the U.S. record on Thursday and Friday, but reluctantly agreed to postpone the session at the request of the U.S. government.

The discussion, which is expected to include scrutiny of such controversial issues as Guantanamo Bay detentions, National Security Agency surveillance and “stand your ground” laws, has been moved to next March.

The committee’s chairman, Nigel Rodley, said as he opened a three-week session on Monday that the panel was normally unwilling to grant extensions at short notice, but he felt he had no choice on this occasion.

The U.S. delegation had made it clear that it was willing to participate in the scheduled review, but could not, “for reasons that had been widely covered in the media.”

Rodley, a British international law professor, then went further, laying the blame for the rare postponement squarely at the door of the GOP and its stance on Obamacare.

Via: CNS News
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IRS Sued By The National Organization For Marriage For Leaking Tax Information

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) filed suit against the federal government and the Internal Revenue Service Thursday, claiming it had “irrefutable proof” someone within the agency illegally leaked the conservative organization’s confidential tax returns to its ideological opponents last year.

NOM is seeking damages from the disclosure, as well as to overturn a statute shielding the IRS from disclosing any information about the incident, according to a complaintfiled by the Act Right Legal Foundation on behalf of NOM in the Eastern District of Virginia Thursday.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) obtained the NOM’s 2008 tax returns in February 2012, which contained an unredacted list of donors, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The president of the HRC became a national co-chair for the Obama reelection campaign in 2012 a day later.

NOM Chairman John Eastman said the group was able to remove redaction layers from the PDF documents that were leaked, showing that they came from within the IRS. The unauthorized disclosure of tax information is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

No criminal charges have been filed after 18 months. An internal investigation by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) was conducted, but the results were never released.

Via: WFB

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Awesome: Alabama House Leader Moves To Block UN Poll Watchers From Operating In His State…

Montgomery – In response to news that poll watchers affiliated with the United Nations will be sent across the country to monitor balloting in various states and search for evidence of “voter suppression” during the upcoming November 6 presidential election, Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard said he will support legislation in the next session requiring all poll watchers in Alabama to hold U.S. citizenship.

“The United States is the worldwide beacon of free elections and the Republican form of government, so having an international squad from the United Nations playing referee in our elections is insulting and absurd,” Hubbard said. “We’ve been holding elections in the U.S. for the past 223 years without the United Nations playing a role or enforcing the rules, and we certainly don’t want or need them now.”

At the request of several liberal-leaning groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a United Nations affiliate, announced it will deploy a team of poll watchers to polling sites across the country in order to monitor and document potential disputes.

The poll watchers will come from Serbia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany and France, and other countries.

Hubbard said he will push the law in order to ensure U.N. observers are blocked from future elections in Alabama by allowing only those who are U.S. citizens to be certified as poll watchers in the state.

“If you can’t participate in an election in the United States, and if you can’t cast a vote in the United States, you really have no business serving as a poll watcher in an election being held in the United States,” Hubbard said. “It’s bad enough that Alabama remains trapped under the provisions of the Voting Rights Act, so we certainly don’t need anyone from the United Nations coming into our state and meddling in our elections, as well.”

Via: Yellow Hammer

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