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Congress sends health law repeal to Obama's desk for first time

Congress sent an ObamaCare repeal bill to the president’s desk for the first time on Wednesday, marking an election-year victory of sorts for Republicans who have tried since 2010 to scrap the law.
The bill repealing most of President Obama's signature health care law was approved in a final 240-181 House vote Wednesday afternoon, after clearing the Senate late last year. The legislation also would strip federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
The measure still faces certain doom at the White House, and Democrats derided the vote Wednesday as pointless. The president is sure to veto, and Republicans do not have the votes to override.
But the political theater marks the opening volley in a fresh ObamaCare fight under the Paul Ryan-led House, and one likely to energize the party’s election-year efforts.
“I fully anticipate the president will veto this, but I mean, how many times have we been saying we want to put bills on his desk that say who we are, what we believe versus what he believes, and that he will veto,” Speaker Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox News Tuesday night before the vote.
The new speaker’s next goal is to engineer and pass a bill – also for the first time – to replace the Affordable Care Act. Doing so could help Republicans respond to Democrats’ allegations that they have no viable alternative.
Ryan is tempering expectations for the GOP in this exercise.
In a recent meeting with reporters, the speaker indicated that the House was practically obligated to pass a health care reform replacement bill. He was confident the House could do so this year but underscored that he didn’t say the president would sign the legislation into law.
But this is still part of Ryan’s effort to contrast Republicans’ plans with the Obama agenda. Democrats have long hectored Republicans for failing to cough up a bill to replace the current health care law even as they try to repeal it. If they at least draft a bill, and even pass it, then the parties can argue over a concrete policy choice.
“We need to win the election, and the best way to win the election is give people a choice,” Ryan told Fox News, speaking generally about the two parties’ platforms.
Republicans have held more than 60 votes so far to repeal all or part of the health care law.
They only cleared this one past the Senate because they used a special set of budget rules known as “reconciliation.” This allowed the measure to pass with a simple majority – typically, Republicans would have needed to muster 60 votes to pass it.
Planned Parenthood has come under attack since videos surfaced last year of graphic discussions about harvesting fetal tissue.
Wednesday's vote, meanwhile, provided fresh fodder for the Democratic presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton warned in Iowa earlier this week that the vote shows the high stakes at play in the 2016 race. She, too, accused Republicans of offering no alternative.
“They have no plan. The Republicans just want to undo what Democrats have fought for decades and what President Obama got accomplished,” she said.

Joe Biden on 2016 decision: 'I regret it every day'

WASHINGTON –  Vice President Joe Biden says he regrets not running for president "every day" but that he made the right decision for himself and his family.
Biden tells television station WVIT in Connecticut that he plans to stay "deeply involved" in the campaign.
Biden seriously considered running but decided in October that he had waited too long. His 46-year-old son died last May.
The vice president says the Democratic primary has been a robust debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders devoid of personal attacks.
But he says the Republican primary hasn't been very illuminating.
Biden is calling out Ted Cruz and Donald Trump for comments made on the campaign trail. He says three of the Republican presidential candidates have told him "it's absolutely crazy."

Clinton's private email account exploits FOIA loophole, report says

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton’s unorthodox use of a private email account and personal server for government business exploited a loophole in the State Department's FOIA, or Freedom of Information Act, process, according to the findings of the first Inspector General report to stem from her email scandal. 
Congress asked the Office of Inspector General, the State Department's independent watchdog, to investigate the issue following the revelation that Mrs. Clinton did not use a government email account while secretary of state.
Fox News reviewed the 25-page report and its findings before they were made publicly available.
The report reads in part:
"FOIA neither authorizes nor requires agencies to search for Federal records in personal email accounts maintained on private servers or through commercial providers (for example Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail.)  Furthermore, the FOIA Analyst has no way to independently locate Federal records from such accounts unless employees take steps to preserve official emails in Department record keeping systems.”
The report strongly suggests that it relies on employees at all levels to follow the regulations, and when personal email is used, to forward copies to a State Department account so that it can be captured.
"Under current law and Department policy, employees who use personal email to conduct official business are required to forward or copy email from a personal account to their respective Department accounts within 20 Days.”
Clinton did not have a State Department email address to which she could forward message traffic from her personal account, and it remains unclear whether she provided all her State Department business emails to the State Department or federal courts, where FOIA lawsuits have been filed.
The report also found that the State Department wait time for Freedom of Information Act Requests far exceeds that of other departments. For example, FOIA requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 working days, and "some requests involving the Office of the Secretary have taken more than 500 days to process."
The State Department is also criticized for practices that "do not consistently meet statutory and regulatory requirements for completeness and rarely meet requirements for timeliness."
Given Clinton's use of a private account, where more than 1,000 classified emails have been identified, including at least two at the Top Secret level, it appeared ironic that the report states employees had not been reminded of their FOIA responsibilities "...since March 2009, when former Secretary Clinton sent a message commemorating Freedom of Information Day."
The OIG report makes four recommendations, including that the Office of the Secretary should fully comply with FOIA requirements. The department said it agreed with the recommendations and changes had been made.
State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in response late Wednesday, ‎”The Department is committed to transparency, and the issues addressed in this report have the full attention of Secretary Kerry and the Department’s senior staff. While the volume of State Freedom of Information Act requests has tripled since 2008, our resources to respond have not kept pace.
“That said, we know we must continue to improve our FOIA responsiveness and are taking additional steps to do so. That’s why Secretary Kerry asked the State Inspector General to undertake this review in March, and it’s why he appointed a Transparency Coordinator this Fall.”

China stocks nosedive, triggering another market halt

HONG KONG –  Chinese stocks nosedived Thursday, triggering their second daylong trading halt this week and sending share markets, Asian currencies and oil prices lower as investor jitters rippled across the globe.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 7.3 percent to 3,115.89 before "circuit breakers" suspended trading for the day. The Shenzhen Composite Index for China's second smaller stock exchange slumped 8.3 percent to 1,955.88.
Chinese government measures introduced last year to prop up share prices after a meltdown in June are being gradually withdrawn, leading to volatile trading. Investors are also unnerved that Beijing has allowed the yuan to weaken, a possible sign the No. 2 economy is in worse shape than thought.
"The sell-off in Chinese equities we have seen this week only emphasizes the point that the stock market intervention may have only delayed the sell-off," said Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG in Melbourne, Australia.
Chinese stock trading was also suspended on Monday after the market plunged.
The tempest in China's markets has been felt around the world. Foreign investors have little direct involvement in Chinese financial markets, but the size of China's economy means the wild gyrations are a source of concern internationally.
The latest slump comes after China's government guided the yuan lower over several days, an indication authorities are prepared to weaken the tightly controlled currency to boost flagging exports. The yuan rate was set Thursday morning at 6.5646 to the U.S. dollar, the weakest in nearly five years, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing data from the China Foreign Exchange Trading System.
In early European trading, France's CAC 40 was down 2.5 percent at 4,367.97 and Germany's DAX slid 3.1 percent to 9,899.50. Britain's FTSE 100 cratered 2.3 percent to 5,933.74. Futures augured sharp losses on Wall Street. Dow and S&P 500 futures were each down 2 percent.
The Shanghai benchmark has dropped 12 percent so far this year, which is barely a week old. Thursday's market plunge may have been exacerbated by investors rushing to sell before they were locked out by the automatic trading suspension, some analysts said.
The circuit breakers trip when there are big swings in the CSI 300 index. Trading halted temporarily barely 14 minutes into the morning session when stocks plunged 5 percent. When trading resumed 15 minutes later, stocks plunged further, falling more than the 7 percent limit that triggers a daylong trading freeze.
"There was some apparent panic selling with investors trying to reduce exposure before the mandatory triggers entered into effect," said Gerry Alfonso, trading head at Shenwan Hongyuan Securities in Beijing.
"Sentiment seems to be rather fragile at the moment as the soft macroeconomic environment together with the fear of not being able to sell during a market correction causing some anxiety among investors," he wrote in a note to clients.
Nicholson said, "It's difficult to see the circuit-breakers surviving long in their current form, given they only seem to be further contributing to the volatility in the Chinese market."
Among other Asian stock markets, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 2.3 percent to 17,767.34 and South Korea's Kospi lost 1.1 percent to 1,904.33.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 3.1 percent to 20,333.34 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 retreated 2.2 percent to 5,010.30.
Benchmarks in Taiwan, New Zealand and Southeast Asia also fell.
Oil prices touched their lowest in more than a decade. Benchmark U.S. crude futures fell $1.43, or 4.2 percent, to $32,54 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract on Thursday dropped $2, or 5.6 percent, to settle at $33.97 a barrel. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, fell $1.24, or 3.7 percent, to $32.99 a barrel in London.
In currency markets, the dollar fell to 117.66 yen from 118.67 yen in the previous day's trading as investors bought the Japanese currency as a safe haven. Some other Asian currencies retreated in concert with the yuan. The euro rose to $1.0795 from $1.0778.