Promises, Promises...

[Jolie Rouge]

Promises, Promises...


“I don’t know the key to success,
but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

- Bill Cosby


Is Obama Alienating His Base? Interesting tidbit I received via email:


Democrats risk alienating one of their most important constituencies by advancing the Waxman-Markey climate change bill this week or any time before an economic recovery is underway, according to the non-partisan National Center for Public Policy Research.
The National Center for Public Policy Research bases this conclusion on the results of a nationwide poll it commissioned of African-Americans. The poll, released today, suggests anxiety in the black community over Waxman-Markey-style regulations.

The survey of 800 African-Americans included 640 self-identified Democrats (80%) and 32 Republicans (4%).

* 76% of African-Americans want Congress to make economic recovery its top priority, even if it delays action on climate change;
* 38% believe job losses resulting from climate change legislation would fall heaviest on the African-American community. Only 7% believe job losses would fall heaviest on Hispanics and only 2% believe they would fall heaviest on whites;

* 56% believe Washington policymakers have failed to adequately take into account the economic and quality of life concerns of the African-American community when formulating climate change policy;

* 52% of respondents aren't willing pay anything more for either gasoline or electricity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 73% are unwilling to pay more than 50 cents more for a gallon of gas and 76% are unwilling to pay more than $50 more per year for electricity to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions;


.... Ridenour added, "As the overwhelming majority of the people we polled are self-identified Democrats and Obama voters, one would expect them to largely agree with the Democratic leadership on this high-profile issue, but they don't. This may in part be why Speaker Nancy Pelosi has run into strong resistance to the Waxman-Markey bill from Democratic Congressmen representing the central states."


The full survey is here. http://www.nationalcenter.org/NCPPR_National_Minority_Energy_Study_090623.pdf


Considering that 90% of black voters voted for Obama, he might want to listen to what they have to say. A mere 2% shift in the black vote in 2004 helped hand George Bush the election: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/18/nation/na-faith18?pg=1


There's no question that the faith initiative -- combined with the administration's support for banning gay marriage and promoting school vouchers -- has already helped reshape Bush's image among some traditionally Democratic African Americans. And the change in black support on Nov. 2, though only a 2-percentage-point increase nationwide, helped secure Bush's reelection victory. The gains were greater in battleground states.

In the crucial state of Ohio, where the faith-based program was promoted last fall at rallies and ministerial meetings, a rise in black support for Bush created the cushion he needed to win the presidential race without a legal challenge in that state.

A corresponding erosion of support among gays who are increasingly angry and frustrated with the Obama administration could easily shift the nation back to the right in 2012: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/18/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5095815.shtml


Aravosis has called for a boycott of a fundraiser tonight for the Democratic Congressional and Senatorial Committees. He said gay rights may have to "punish" the Democratic party in order to move forward its agenda.
"Our people tend to have a lot of money, (and) we vote 70 percent Democrat," Aravosis said, explaining the political weight behind the gay community.

The phenomenon that may well sink Barack Obama in 2012 is the same thing that got him elected: hope. Or perhaps a better term for this phenomenon is raised expectations. This is a man who spent promises like a drunken sailor in order to cobble together the coalition that swept him into office last November.

But what helped at the ballot box may hurt him now that he's in office. Many of the constituencies that supported him have competing expectations of the man they elected. In struggling to satisfy a plethora of mutually exclusive goals, Obama risks accomplishing nothing and satisfying no one. Interestingly, the increasing disarray of a largely marginalized Republican Party is actually beginning to work against him: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/21/without_bush_hes_own_his_own_97091.html


In a conversation the other day with a White House official, I heard something I'd never expected from an employee of Barack Obama's. "I wish," he said, "George Bush would speak up a little more."
In the five months since he left the presidency, Bush has immersed himself in his memoir. He has stayed home in Texas and rarely spoken publicly. The result has been that he has largely disappeared from the news and -- the point the Obama aide was making -- pretty much has been forgotten.

Bush's silence has made it harder for Obama to keep the public focused on Bush as being responsible for our present difficulties -- the weak economy, the unsettled wars, the scandals of Guantanamo and the detainee program.



Without a powerful (and easy to demonize) opponent, Obama and his policies are finally beginning to receive scrutiny that should have occurred before the election:


Five months into his tenure, Obama has become the only president the American people think about. And a series of polls last week showed that when Americans think about Obama, they are becoming increasingly critical.



Complicating all of this is Obama's own lack of leadership - his lack of core beliefs, of direction; of focus: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124596573543456401.html


New White Houses are always ardent for change, for breakthroughs. They want the sentence even when they don't know the sentence exists, even when they think it's a paragraph. The Obama people want, "He was the president who gave all Americans health care," and, "He lessened income inequality," and, "He took over a failed company," and other things. They wants a jumble of sentences and do a jumble of things. But an administration about everything is an administration about nothing.

Mr. Obama is not seeing his sentence. He's missing it. This is the sentence history has given him: "He brought America back from economic collapse and kept us strong and secure in the age of terror." That's all anybody wants. It's all that's needed.

It is a great and worthy sentence, the kind that gives you a second term and the affectionate memory of history. If Mr. Obama earns it and makes it true of himself, he will be called good to great. But you have to meet it, you have to do it.

To get the first part of the sentence right would take a lot—restoring the confidence of the nation, getting spending down so people don't feel a sense of horror as they look at the future, getting or keeping the dollar sound, keeping the banks up and operating. A friend says that what's missing is an adult and responsible sense of limits, that we need to remember—we need to be reminded by our leaders—that it's not un-American to see limits. It's adult to see limits, it's right and realistic.


The irony here is that Obama's election was largely a backlash against a president who, his critics said, focused too much on the war on terror and didn't listen enough to his critics. Obama seems to be making the opposite mistake: listening too much and focusing too little.

It may well be his undoing.

Posted by Cassandra at June 26, 2009 08:09 AM



http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2009/06/promises_promis.html

[Jolie Rouge]

The White House strikes back
Jonathan Martin
Thu Jul 16, 5:52 am ET

On the defensive over the economy and health care, the White House is shooting back with a double-barreled message for its critics and skeptics.

To Republicans who say the stimulus isn’t working: Back off.

To moderate Democrats wary of health care reform: We’re watching you.

Earlier this week, the administration launched a coordinated effort to jam Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican who’s argued that the government should “cancel the rest of the stimulus spending.” No fewer than four Cabinet secretaries wrote to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer — also a Republican — to ask her if she agreed with Kyl that it was time to turn off the state’s stimulus spigot.
“If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, as Sen. Kyl suggests, please let me know,” wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. For good measure, he attached a three-page addendum listing each of the Arizona projects paid for by the $521 million the state is getting.

Brewer knew she’d been thrown a high, hard one.

“The governor is hopeful that these federal Cabinet officials are not threatening to deny Arizona citizens the portion of federal stimulus funds to which they are entitled,” her spokesman said in a statement. “She believes that would be a tremendous mistake by the administration. And the governor is grateful for the strong leadership and representation that Arizonans enjoy in the United States Senate.”

The administration took a gentler approach with its own Wednesday, when Organizing for America, President Barack Obama’s campaign-in-waiting, launched ads in a handful of states aimed at pushing centrist Senate Democrats to get behind health care reform. The ads don’t identify their targets by name, and they talk up the urgency of passing a bill without talking down its skeptics.

“It’s time for health care reform,” implores a woman in the ad who’s struggling with health care bills because of her son’s cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

The two different approaches — a fist to the nose and a gentle elbow nudge — reflect a White House that increasingly recognizes the political stakes at play in reviving the economy and passing health reform this year.

At the White House Wednesday, Obama stressed the need for speed, saying that Wednesday’s approval of a bill by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee should “provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess.”

Republicans are hammering the White House and its allies in Congress on the $1 trillion Congressional Budget Office price tag for the House health care plan and the tax on the wealthy that some Democrats would use to pay for it. At the same time, polling suggests that the GOP is making a dent with its arguments that the Democrats are spending too much with too little to show for it.

The coordinated assault against Kyl came after weeks of frustration in watching GOP members of Congress trash the stimulus as ineffective while their own states and districts received millions in funding thanks to the act. In some cases, congressional Republicans have even sought to claim credit for the money in a bill they opposed.

There hadn’t been an aggressive pushback,” lamented one administration official.

So after seeing Kyl and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) again paint the legislation as a failure on Sunday talk shows, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel directed that the letters from the Cabinet secretaries be sent to Brewer, according to two administration officials.

And then the DNC made sure other Republicans saw the message being delivered to Arizona by touting the letters.



“If Republicans want to bash job creation in their own home states for political purposes, that’s their choice, but we aren’t going to hesitate to point out that they are putting their party’s political strategy above good jobs for the people they were elected to represent,” said Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan. “And we sure as hell aren’t going to let Republicans or their allies get away with misleading anyone about the jobs being created by the recovery act.”

A senior administration official put it plainly: “You can either be for the recovery act or against it.”
Kyl responded by accusing the White House of threatening his state.

“It’s unfortunate that President Obama and his administration seem unwilling to debate the merits of the stimulus bill and acknowledge its shortcomings,” the senator said in a statement. “Instead, they have resorted to coordinated political attacks with the [DNC] and the politicization of departments of government by using Cabinet secretaries to issue thinly veiled threats to the governor and the people of Arizona.”

Not surprisingly, the administration is taking a more subtle approach in pushing Democrats on health care.

While acknowledging the 30-second ads going up in eight states are largely aimed at its own senators, White House aides and other Democratic officials say the spots and coordinated grass-roots push by the president’s political apparatus are less about pressuring than providing air cover for the tough vote.
“Senators in these states are key voices in this debate, and with this ad and with all that we are doing on the ground we want them to know — and all their colleagues to know — that they have the support of their constituents to do the right thing and reform health care, consistent with the president’s principles, this year,” said Sevugan.

Obama aides no longer feel it’s enough to have only third-party groups airing ads that push health care reform in key states and are now demonstrating how much the administration is invested in getting a bill.

“We’re in a different place now,” said one official.

"The fight has been [joined],” said another, pointing to the “crucial” next weeks before the congressional recess to explain why.

Just how much the ads will sway Democratic senators remains to be seen, though. When asked about them Wednesday, some of the moderates being targeted responded with a collective shrug befitting the mild nature of the commercials.

“It’s fine with me,” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a member of the Finance Committee. “Nothing is unusual anymore — it’s been happening for years. Every time there is a major issue that comes before Congress, they run ads in my state, so this is absolutely standard procedure.”

Asked if it was productive for Obama to run the ads, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said: “It really doesn’t matter to me literally one way or another.”

She added: “When the president has a health care plan, I’ll be happy to support it, but he doesn’t have one right now. The president doesn’t have a plan right now. Congress is putting plans together, and we are debating every different aspect of it.”


http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090716/pl_politico/25003

[janelle]

You mean he didn't deliver on the ice cream he promised everyone if he got elected? I am shocked!!!!!!!

[pepperpot]

“I don’t know the key to success,
but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

- Bill Cosby
:agree nice quote

[Jolie Rouge]

Some Obama Promises Must Wait
Adriel Bettelheim, Cq Staff
Mon Aug 17, 6:14 am ET

President Obama sounded a bit like a weary air traffic controller on Aug. 10, when he was quizzed during a three-way summit with leaders from Mexico and Canada about a promised overhaul of U.S. immigration laws.

"I've got a lot on my plate, and it's very important for us to sequence these big initiatives in a way where they don't all just crash at the same time," the president said in response to a reporter's question.

While Obama said he expects Congress to send draft legislation his way later this year, the issue, at least for the moment, has been relegated to the back burner.

Triage is a necessity in an administration confronted by a deep recession, with a president who is simultaneously shepherding big initiatives addressing health care, climate change, education and financial regulation.

Obama and his aides understand there is only so much bandwidth to accommodate these efforts -- and to complete work on fiscal 2010 spending bills and second-tier issues, such as a proposed rewrite of the rules for student lending.

But that means a large number of political promises Obama made during his historic campaign have been pushed to the back of the agenda. Most, in fact. The PolitiFact.com Web site, which compiled a list of 515 Obama pledges, lists 374 under the category of "no action."

To be sure, Obama has begun to make good on some of his most prominent promises.

Just days after he was sworn in, he issued orders to shut the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and limit harsh interrogation methods. Initiatives to overturn federal funding curbs on embryonic stem cell research, deliver a major address to the Islamic world and stem mortgage foreclosures, to cite just three others, followed suit.

Many other high-profile issues have been deferred, either because they involve time-consuming negotiations with Congress or because Obama simply doesn't want to expend the political capital. Here are five that are not likely to be acted on before year's end:

Revise 'No Child Left Behind' The 2002 education law (PL 107-110) was passed with bipartisan fanfare and promoted by former President George W. Bush as one of his most important domestic policy achievements. But its focus on standardized testing as the measure of achievement and the way it expanded the federal government's role into what has been traditionally a local issue prompted heated calls for revision.

During his campaign, Obama said he would overhaul the law "so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them" and pledged to find innovative ways to recruit and reward good teachers.

However, a planned reauthorization has been crowded out by other domestic priorities, particularly Obama's push to retool the U.S. health care system, making it unlikely that a planned reauthorization will move quickly. Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants to complete a nationwide listening tour before submitting a proposal to Congress. His department is also overseeing the expenditure of about $100 billion in new funding.

Confronting China Obama stated last year that China's rise posed one of the most important foreign policy challenges to the United States in the coming decade. He promised to discourage China from manipulating its currency, the yuan, to keep the prices of its goods cheap and generate trade surpluses. And he pledged to discourage China's support for genocidal and repressive regimes in Sudan, Burma, Iran and Zimbabwe.

Though Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said during his confirmation hearing that the administration would act "aggressively" using "all the diplomatic avenues" to change China's currency practices, the White House has stopped short of making a formal declaration to Congress that China is manipulating the yuan to gain an unfair trade advantage. Such a move could spark punitive action and countermeasures from China.

Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao instead launched a "strategic and economic dialogue" in April. Experts such as Brookings Institution visiting fellow Dennis C. Wilder sense there is more continuity than change in the administration's approach to engaging China -- characterized by non-ideological dialogue that stresses positive areas for cooperation.

One difference is the administration's elevation of climate change to a top-tier issue. The administration understands that efforts to pass climate change legislation in Congress hinge, in part, on getting China to do its part in reducing the global carbon footprint.

Fully Funding Veterans' Programs Obama, who as a senator served on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, spoke during the campaign about the "sacred trust to care for our nation's veterans" and complained about years of chronic underfunding of the Veterans Administration medical care system.

He pledged to fully fund the VA and make the VA budget must-pass legislation.

But it's Congress that is doing most of the heavy lifting to make the promise reality. The House in June passed a measure (HR 1016) that would put veterans' health care programs on a two-year budget cycle and make funding more predictable. The VA would receive $108.9 billion, about 15 percent more than in fiscal 2009 (PL 110-329) and equal to President Obama's fiscal 2010 budget request.

Once money is released, the VA would detail to Congress any impediments to estimating future budgetary needs. The Office of Management and Budget would then request advance funding a year ahead of time and make the VA submit to Congress detailed explanations of those spending figures. The agency then would have to update Congress by July 31 of each year on whether the advance appropriations would be sufficient to meet the department's needs.

This would give the VA more certainty, but not as much as Obama pledged.

Rebuilding the Gulf Coast During the campaign, Obama said he would "keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast" and take steps to prevent failures in emergency planning and response seen during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Specifically, Obama would ensure New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, free up rebuilding funds that had been allocated but not released and to rebuild hospitals and schools.

Much of the work remains on the drawing boards. The administration got into a tussle with Sen. David Vitter, R-La., after he briefly stalled the nomination of Craig Fugate to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency because new federal flood maps included areas that were not previously designated flood zones, including much of Louisiana's Cameron Parish, Grand Isle, and Lafourche Parish.

Federal regulations prohibit FEMA recovery funds from being used for rebuilding in areas designated as "V-Zones" because of their risk for future flooding.

An August 2009 report from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program concludes the region still faces major challenges due to blight, unaffordable housing and vulnerable flood protection.

Though New Orleans' economy is weathering the recession fairly well, the report says some districts continue to have high numbers of vacant and blighted residences, and that essential service workers can't afford fair market rents. And while 16 additional schools opened in the New Orleans area in the previous 12 months, the entire area remains vulnerable to storm-related flooding. A storm-surge protection system now being built by the Army Corps of Engineers would not adequately protect against another storm of Katrina's magnitude, the report states.

Importing Prescription Drugs In spite of its overwhelming focus on overhauling the health care system, the administration has been silent on one of Obama's signature health care promises: allowing consumers to import drugs made in FDA-approved facilities in countries where they are often sold for less.

During the campaign, Obama charged that some drugmakers were exploiting Americans by charging premiums of as much as 67 percent higher than the prices they charge for the same medicines in Europe and Canada.

But Obama's administration has since cut a deal with the pharmaceutical industry in which drugmakers promised to provide $80 billion in discounts to seniors and the government over 10 years to help pay the cost of a health system overhaul.

Ironically, Obama's 2008 presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., offered an amendment during debate on a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee health plan that would have written such an importation provision into law. Democrats helped defeat it by a 10-12 vote, arguing that allowing access to the cheaper drugs from abroad was potentially dangerous in light of all the hazards Americans have faced in recent months from risky imported products.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20090817/pl_cq_politics/politics3191976;_ylt=Aq5wUlQHX9OZzhXWEQ0jq6Ss0NUE; _ylu=X3oDMTJ0NzJ2aGp2BGFzc2V0A2NxLzIwMDkwODE3L3Bvb Gl0aWNzMzE5MTk3NgRjcG9zAzIEcG9zAzcEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2t lBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3RyaWFnZXNvbWVvYg--

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama must shift focus off Guantánamo
Juan Carlos Zarate – Wed Oct 21, 5:00 am ET

Washington – As the Obama administration's self-imposed deadline to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay nears, the United States could have a new mess of its own making to clean up.

Come Jan. 2010, if Guantánamo remains open, and this looks increasingly likely, the president's credibility among Congress, the American people, and the international community would be weakened.

Even worse, the legal and policy questions surrounding how to hold detainees legitimately in the war on Al Qaeda and its allies – a formulation the president uses intentionally – would remain muddled. The international focus would remain on the closure of Guantánamo.

The president's commitment to close Guantánamo by Jan. 22 without fully understanding both the dangerousness of most of the remaining detainees and the legal and diplomatic complications of detention policies surrounding Guantánamo was a mistake.

Failing to have a plan and to work with Congress to transfer the remaining detainees further hamstrung the administration's efforts.

But it's not too late to reshape the nature of the domestic and international debate about detention of Al Qaeda-related terrorists. The Bush administration tried but lacked the credibility to redirect the world's focus.

Instead of focusing attention on closing Guantánamo, the new White House should use the president's credibility abroad to focus attention on the underlying legal and policy questions related to detention and terrorism prevention, for which Guantánamo is only a symptom.

There remains no consensus about how to hold suspected terrorists and insurgents in a seemingly endless global conflict, in which the theaters of conflict range from recognized war zones and ungoverned havens to city centers and suburban neighborhoods.

Neither the laws of war nor criminal legal principles fit the challenges presented by an amorphous transnational enemy wearing no uniform and intending to inspire a religiously motivated movement to commit catastrophic atrocities.

This is a hybrid conflict still in need of legal and policy innovation.

In May, President Obama formally announced a preventive detention system, admitting that there are some individuals too dangerous to release. This is an important decision that reflects the reality of the threats the president rightly perceives and the inadequacies of the current legal systems to deal with such threats. It is also a decision that disappoints the left, which expected that Obama would rely wholly on criminal trials to hold terrorist suspects or let them go free.

The president should now explain this decision to the world and reshape the nature of the Guantánamo debate.

By doing so, he can reclaim the high ground for the US. He can use themes from his recent UN address and the mantle of his Nobel Peace Prize to challenge the international community to a constructive dialogue on detention of terrorist suspects. But he must defend his decision forcefully based on principle and national security interests.

The president and Congress should also examine alternative systems or procedures to detain suspected terrorists preventively and obtain intelligence while ensuring individual rights.

Several promising models have been put forward in this debate already – such as a new national security court – and elements from other systems around the world could prove useful, including rehabilitation programs as "half-way houses" for less dangerous violent extremists.

Whatever form this takes, the US needs to establish transparent rules for justifying continued detention while protecting basic individual rights, and it will need to gain some degree of international legitimacy. This can only be achieved if the president commits his own credibility to explaining the balance he has drawn.

This will be difficult. Any such discussion will pour salt in the wound of those who question the need for the continuity of Bush-era policies. It will be more difficult internationally. Much of the president's legitimacy – as articulated by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee – is built precisely on the perception that he has abandoned the policies of the past that have struck a balance in favor of US security to the detriment of international law.

The establishment of a preventive detention system, while Washington agonizes over the closure of Guantánamo, will force this issue. The president may find that this shift in focus will be the best way for him to preserve his credibility at home and abroad. And then he can begin to defend America's security decisions instead of apologizing for them.

In many ways, Obama is the ideal leader to clean up this mess and shape, along with Congress and international partners, a legitimate, long-term legal framework for preventively detaining terrorist suspects across the globe.

Juan Carlos Zarate was deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism from 2005 to 2009 and served as a prosecutor in the Terrorism and Violent Crime Section of the Department of Justice during the Clinton administration. He is now a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091021/cm_csm/yzarate

[Jolie Rouge]

From GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s office, a demand for transparency from the Obama Administration on its Gitmo relocation plans:

[Hoekstra,] the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, used a rare, open hearing of a House Intelligence Subcommittee to highlight the fact that nine months to the day after President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order to close Guantanamo Bay, the administration still has not presented a plan and is avoiding transparency with Congress.

“The National Security Act requires that Congress be kept fully and currently informed, but when it comes to Guantanamo Bay, the administration is doing anything but that,” Hoekstra said. “We have asked questions, sent letters and requested briefings, but this committee has received nothing in the way of meaningful answers. The administration’s lack of transparency with Congress and the American people on this critical national security issue has been absolutely shocking, so we had little choice but to use this hearing to speak out.”

Hoekstra said today’s Intelligence Community Management Subcommittee hearing on the requirements for congressional notification provided a perfect opportunity to discuss the fact that the administration continues to stonewall congressional requests for information on Guantanamo Bay. Rather than focus on the topic as an academic discussion, Republicans decided to instead focus on the real world implications of the administration’s failure of transparency with Congress.

Republicans invited Dave Munson, a private citizen from Standish, Mich., and founder of the Coalition to Stop Gitmo North, to testify on the challenges that the community has faced in accessing background and threat information on terrorist detainees from local, state and federal officials. A state prison in Standish that is slated for closure may or may not be under consideration for housing terrorist detainees moved from Guantanamo Bay.

“It’s dismaying that we cannot even get an answer as to whether or not the prison in Standish is still under serious consideration by the administration,” Hoekstra said. “One thing is clear, as Dave Munson has indicated, the people of Standish do not want detainees from Guantanamo Bay moved there, and the administration should remove the cloud that is hanging over their community.”

Hoekstra went on to say that he is aware of classified information related to Guantanamo threats and to renew his call for the administration to make threat assessments available to state and local officials.

Editors’ Note: Hoekstra, along with Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other ranking Republicans, introduced the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, H. R. 2294, to (1) affirm Congress’ opposition to transferring or releasing terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility into the United States; (2) prohibit the administration from transferring or releasing any terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay to any state without express approval from the state’s governor and legislature; and (3) prohibit the president from transferring or releasing a terrorist detainee into the United States unless he provides notification and certification to Congress.

[Jolie Rouge]

Campaign) Promises, (Campaign) Promises
posted at 9:46 am on October 29, 2009 by Howard Portnoy

Barack Obama is angry that he is taking heat for keeping a campaign promise.

No, no — it’s not the promise to be transparent. He’s broken that promise into so many pieces that the repair shop called and said he’s better off buying a new transparency. And it’s not the promise to change the tone of politics in Washington: his airing of the pettiest of grievances toward imagined offenders has the country more bitterly divided than ever.

It’s a “campaign” promise he made to his lovely wife, Michelle. He promised the one who wears the broad shoulders in the family that he would take her to New York after the election “for one of their ‘date nights’ — dinner and a Broadway play.”

You know, just when you thought the big lug couldn’t get any more lovable. . .! Think about it. Gives the country the middle finger when it comes to Afghanistan, turns his back on an ailing economy to attempt to radicalize the health care industry, and fills his administration with people who believe America’s biggest sin is that it hasn’t bent over backward far enough to be more like Europe, and his chief priority is keeping his promise to take the missus out for a big night? I thought her big night was hip hop night at the White House. (By the way, rumors are flying that the president has banned hip hop from the White House. Say it ain’t so. What will Congresswoman Barbara Lee and the rest of the Hip Hop Caucus Institute think?)

But I digress.

Obama told The New York Times Magazine for an article appearing in the Nov. 1 issue that he was pee-ohed at conservative commentators and Republican officials for making his date into a political issue. “If I weren’t president,” he said, “I would be happy to catch the shuttle with my wife to take her to a Broadway show, as I had promised her during the campaign, and there would be no fuss and no muss and no photographers. That would please me greatly.” His not being president would please me greatly, too.

Unfortunately for the world’s most dedicated husband, presidents are restricted to traveling by secure government aircraft and vehicles. That means that an evening out on the town for the first couple costs the American taxpayers a pretty penny. Naturally, the penny wouldn’t have been nearly as pretty if they elected to, say, eat in Washington (I hear the city has one or two restaurants that isn’t a McDonald’s) and go the Kennedy Center afterwards, but — hey! — a promise is a promise. And what the hell business is it of ours anyway?

Oh, that’s right.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/10/29/campaign-promises-campaign-promises/

[Jolie Rouge]

Death of transparency, Pt. 98,765:
Pelosi blocks public from public option event
October 29, 2009 12:52 PM

Queen Nancy Pelosi reportedly ordered Capitol Hill police to block a GOP staffer from attending the Speaker’s public option announcement on Capitol Hill.

Transparency, schmansparency:



Power to the people!

As always, sunlight is the best disinfectant.



http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/29/death-of-transparency-pt-98765-pelosi-blocks-public-from-public-option-event/

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama's Broken Deficit Promise
By Jake Tapper | ABC News – 9 hrs ago

"This is big," wrote White House director of new media Macon Phillips in a February 23, 2009 blog post , "the President today promised that by the end of his first term, he will cut in half the massive federal deficit we've inherited. And we'll do it in a new way: honestly and candidly."

Indeed, President Obama did make that promise that day, saying , "today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay - and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control."

The 2013 budget the president submitted today does not come close to meeting this promise of being reduced to $650 billion for fiscal year 2013.

The president noted in that 2009 speech the Obama administration inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.

The deficit was similarly $1.3 trillion in 2011, is projected to be $1.15 trillion in 2012, and the president's budget claims it will be $901 billion in 2013.

George Stephanopoulos asked White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew about this yesterday:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, tomorrow's budget's going to make it clear that that promise will not be kept, not even close, really. The deficit will be well over $1 trillion for the fourth year in a row. Why?

LEW: You know, George, as I think you know, when we took office, the economy was falling so fast that the first thing we had to do was put a bottom in. That cost money in the Recovery Act. It cost money in terms of lost revenue and slower economic growth. We're on track now. We've seen several months of sustained economic growth and job creation, but we're not out of the woods yet. That's one of the reasons that we still need even this month for Congress to take action and pass the extension of the payroll tax cut. The president's budget is a plan for 10 years, and over the 10 years, what it would do is bring the deficit down to below 3 percent of the economy, which means that we won't be adding to the deficit based on current spending. Secondly, it'll bring the debt as a percentage of the economy down to a point that all international financial organizations look at and say is what you need to do to have stability.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But not even as quickly as you were projecting several months ago.

LEW: Well, look, the economic projections in a time of - of recovery from the deepest recession in a generation are going to fluctuate. Frankly, in the last three months, we've had better news than we expected in terms of job growth. That's a good thing. I think that what we have to do is focus on the long term and the short term at the same time. In the short term, we need to keep the economy growing. In the long term, we need to get the deficit under control in a way that builds the economy that can last for the future, where we build a manufacturing base, we have Americans with the skills to do the work for the future, we have energy so that we can provide for more of our energy needs, and we do it in a way that's consistent with American values so that everyone pays a fair share.

-Jake Tapper

http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-broken-deficit-promise-175014250--abc-news.html

comments

"I Will cut the deficit in half" - nope, "Unemployment won't rise above 8%" - nope, "I will unite the country" - nope. You've lost credibility sir.

...

Is this person EVER going to realize that you can't spend your way out of debt?? If I ran our household this way we'd be living on the streets...

...

Over a trillion dollars in next year's budget, and the White House says, "We're on track." On track to wind up like Greece? No thanks!

Yes, We Can...vote you out.

...

The only promise he kept was Obamacare and 70 percent of Americans didn't even want it. He had two years of liberal dem control and did nothing with it....except Obamacare.

..

Federal debt has increased by 44% from $10.6 trillion to $15.23 trillion under BO. Enough said. It's hard to say you cut the deficit in half when in reality you quadrupled it.

[Jolie Rouge]

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/lb0215cd20120214070729.jpg

[Jolie Rouge]

The Most Appallingly Hypocritical Administration Ever? (Updates)


The First Couple: One is a smoker, the other isn’t what you’d call petite. Together, they lecture the rest of us on what we should eat.

The vice president, a Catholic who supports abortion on demand and now supports gay marriage. Both of those go against Catholic teachings. But he lectures Paul Ryan on the grounds that his budget violates Catholic doctrine. http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/08/video-abortion-supporting-veep-scolds-ryan-over-violating-catholicism-on-budget/

The president who hired communists, palled around with terrorists and sat in the pews of a pastor who openly hates white people and America, says Romney should denounce some random woman for saying something “extreme.” http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/05/07/president-who-hired-communists-and-hung-out-with-terrorists-says-romney-must-rebuke-extreme-voices/

The president who has spent more money than all 43 presidents before him combined, tells the new French president not to do away with austerity. http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/wh-france-dont-end-austerity-measures/525066

These people have no standing to say any of what they say. Yet they say it all anyway. And we’re supposed to take them seriously.

More: David Axelrod, senior adviser of the president who calls for a “new tone” and “civility,” calls the Koch brothers “contract killers.” http://nation.foxnews.com/david-axelrod/2012/05/08/civil-axelrod-calls-rove-contract-killer

The president who spent last week spiking the football over killing Osama bin Laden had a fallback plan to blame the military if anything went wrong.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/07/mukasey-panetta-drafted-memo-to-insulate-obama-if-bin-laden-raid-went-bad-video/

These seem to be endless: Pro-choice White House requires parents to register their unborn children for White House tours. This same White House opposes requiring photo ID to vote, but try getting into it or any other major government facility in Washington without one. http://freebeacon.com/no-birth-certificate-required/

And another: The president who sees government as the answer to everything, says he’s a better small government president than Reagan. http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/05/08/obama-im-the-real-small-government-president-not-reagan/

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/05/08/the-most-appallingly-hypocritical-administration-ever/

comments

Regarding the registration of unborn children, a friend of mine posted this info:

The policy is designed for those rare instances in which a pregnant woman’s White House tour is scheduled near, or after, her due date, several officials familiar with the policy explained to Yahoo News. That’s because if Mom, Dad, and Son registered to be cleared by the Secret Service, but Mom, Dad, Son, and Little Sis’ show up at the White House, their security clearance is out of whack. And good luck getting the Secret Service to babysit. “All White House tour guests, regardless of age, are required to provide identification information as part of the tour request. This includes children and infants,” according to Secret Service Spokesman Brian Leary.

“In the particular instance of an infant yet to be born at the time of the tour request, if they are expected to participate in the tour parents are expected to provide basic information as a placeholder,” he told Yahoo News by telephone. “This placeholder information must be updated after the birth of the child and prior to the tour.”


http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/05/08/the-most-appallingly-hypocritical-administration-ever/

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama vowed to break from Bush’s national security policies. How’s he doing?
By Olivier Knox | The Ticket – 5 hrs ago.

President Barack Obama came to office vowing a clean break from George W. Bush's national security policies: He would end the war in Iraq, order a halt to harsh interrogation practices that met international definitions of torture and close Guantanamo Bay.

Three and a half years later, how's he doing? The independent investigative journalistic outfit Pro Publica has a handy interactive chart to let you know. "Interact with the whole thing," as no one says.

Now running for reelection, Obama has been highlighting the troop withdrawal from Iraq and the planned draw-down from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 (though he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai just signed an agreement that could have American soldiers stay in that war-torn country until 2024). "For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq," Obama told cheering supporters in Richmond, Virginia, on May 5. "Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to this country. Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat. And by 2014, the war in Afghanistan will be over."

But Guantanamo Bay is still open. And after insisting that America's civilian courts could handle trials of major accused terrorists, the administration has put alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial — before a military commission at Gitmo.

The timeline format is necessarily a bit spare. On Guantanamo Bay, for example, it notes Obama's January 21, 2009 order to close the facility, followed by his March 7, 2011 order giving the green-light to holding prisoners there indefinitely. In between, however, were years of bitter political fights with Republicans fiercely opposed to shutting Guantanamo Bay. And it was a Democrat, House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey, who in May 2009 stripped out the money Obama requested to close the prison from an appropriations bill — the first and perhaps most crippling blow to the president's stated goal because it came from an ally.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-vowed-break-bush-national-security-policies-doing-215817237.html

The older you get, you realize that Democrats and Republicans are the same. They preach to their followers, either on the right or left, but nothing ever changes after taking office. Other countries have a dozen viable candidates to chose from to be the leader of their, but here in the U.S. we only have two. It is choosing the lesser of two unfavorable choices.

..

After 3 1/2 years??? That's freaking courageous. Must be an election coming up.

..

The Iraq troop withdrawal date was implemented by Bush. But Obama was more than happy to take full credit for it.

..

Obama a man of many words? they make no sense, but he has a lot of them, so what he don't mind if there some lies in them,so many if the USA won't look into it,their democrat, they'll vote for me just because I'm a democrat.

..

It wouldn't have mattered who the President was....he had to leave Iraq as the Iraqi parliament voted that they did not want the US there anymore. I don't think this has anything to do with Obama as McCain would've had to leave as well no matter what they say. Illegal occupation of a country after the mandate would bring worldwide condemnation.

But if Obama wants to take credit and the idiots will follow so be it....The idiots believed "mission accomplished" during W's reign as well.

..

When he was running, Obama said he hated the Partiot Act most among what Bush did the most and it's still alive and well. Oh well he likes gay marriage now.

..

Well, Obama did stop capturing terrorists, and Team Obama stopped the trail of KSM then restarted it under strict conditions, but it's the constant release of secret/sensitive information for that "poll bounce" that seems to cause issues.[/i]

[Jolie Rouge]

Campaign) Promises, (Campaign) Promises
posted at 9:46 am on October 29, 2009 by Howard Portnoy

Barack Obama is angry that he is taking heat for keeping a campaign promise.

No, no — it’s not the promise to be transparent. He’s broken that promise into so many pieces that the repair shop called and said he’s better off buying a new transparency. And it’s not the promise to change the tone of politics in Washington: his airing of the pettiest of grievances toward imagined offenders has the country more bitterly divided than ever.

It’s a “campaign” promise he made to his lovely wife, Michelle. He promised the one who wears the broad shoulders in the family that he would take her to New York after the election “for one of their ‘date nights’ — dinner and a Broadway play.”

You know, just when you thought the big lug couldn’t get any more lovable. . .! Think about it. Gives the country the middle finger when it comes to Afghanistan, turns his back on an ailing economy to attempt to radicalize the health care industry, and fills his administration with people who believe America’s biggest sin is that it hasn’t bent over backward far enough to be more like Europe, and his chief priority is keeping his promise to take the missus out for a big night? I thought her big night was hip hop night at the White House. (By the way, rumors are flying that the president has banned hip hop from the White House. Say it ain’t so. What will Congresswoman Barbara Lee and the rest of the Hip Hop Caucus Institute think?)

But I digress.

Obama told The New York Times Magazine for an article appearing in the Nov. 1 issue that he was pee-ohed at conservative commentators and Republican officials for making his date into a political issue. “If I weren’t president,” he said, “I would be happy to catch the shuttle with my wife to take her to a Broadway show, as I had promised her during the campaign, and there would be no fuss and no muss and no photographers. That would please me greatly.” His not being president would please me greatly, too.

Unfortunately for the world’s most dedicated husband, presidents are restricted to traveling by secure government aircraft and vehicles. That means that an evening out on the town for the first couple costs the American taxpayers a pretty penny. Naturally, the penny wouldn’t have been nearly as pretty if they elected to, say, eat in Washington (I hear the city has one or two restaurants that isn’t a McDonald’s) and go the Kennedy Center afterwards, but — hey! — a promise is a promise. And what the hell business is it of ours anyway?

Oh, that’s right.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/10/29/campaign-promises-campaign-promises/

Watch ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z57pBR7tDeY&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce41Rg6zsXE&feature=player_embedded

[Jolie Rouge]

Michelle Malkin vs. Juan Williams On Obama's List Of Broken Promises
February 6, 2013

Michelle Malkin and Juan Williams argue about the consequences of Obamacare and the affect it has had on medical supply companies and small businesses.

MICHELLE MALKIN: Reality check. I may not be a 'real journalist' like you Juan, but I'm not a pollyanna either. And out here in the real world, the effects of Obamacare, including the medical device tax that is cutting R&D and causing layoffs across the country in the most innovative firms. The fact that so many people who were intending to go into medicine are no longer going into medicine. Thank you, brain drain, a big consequence now of Obamacare.

And the fact that so many small businesses, doctors, who were individual practitioners are either bailing and retiring all together or going into concierge care. Have you heard that term? Do you know the trends now of people who are shutting down their practices as they used to be constituted, dropped insurance all together, where now only the wealthiest can pay for care. Congratulations, Obamacare. Heckuvajob. (Hannity, February 6, 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNvQcrcusM&feature=player_embedded

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/02/06/michelle_malkin_vs_juan_williams_on_obamas_list_of _broken_promises.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Where the Sun Don’t Shine

President Obama promised transparency and open government.
He failed miserably.

So why do Washington watchdog groups look the other way?

By Paul D. Thacker|Posted Tuesday, March 12, 2013, at 5:23 AM

President Obama has failed to deliver on few promises as miserably as his vow to create a more transparent and open government. Shortly after being sworn into office, he sent a memo to federal agencies promising, “We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.”

At the time, I was a staffer on the Senate Finance Committee for Republican Charles Grassley and couldn’t help but laugh.

Before I worked on Capitol Hill, I was a reporter and broke a story about how Bush administration officials had silenced federal scientists who had tried to speak up about climate change after Hurricane Katrina. I based the article on documents and email messages I had uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act. Even though the Department of Commerce handed over the emails, I was disappointed to discover that portions of them had been illegally redacted to hide the involvement of specific political appointees.

After seeing years of heavy-handed secrecy and incessant White House claims of national security to hide the ball from Congress, I supported President Obama’s efforts to clean things up and restore some balance. But like most reporters, I am suspicious of these types of promises, especially from politicians. Regardless of who occupies the White House, I understand that power wants power. Scrutiny just gets in the way.

President Obama is no different. Whether it’s responding to Congress, media questions, or FOIA requests, this administration is no better than its predecessor. The big difference: Obama is a Democrat. And because he is a Democrat, he’s gotten a pass from many of the civil liberty and good-government groups who spent years watching President Bush’s every move like a hawk.

No one knows this better than John Kiriakou, the CIA agent who reported to federal prison two weeks ago for blowing the whistle on the agency’s use of torture. During an interview at an Arlington, Va., coffee shop, Kiriakou said the time has come for Washington watchdog groups—organizations like Public Citizen, Project on Government Oversight, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and others—to admit that President Obama hasn’t come close to making good on his promise to make government more transparent and accountable.

“Dan Ellsberg. He called me again last night,” said Kiriakou, referring to the man who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers and opened the world’s eyes to the United States’ long involvement in Vietnam. “We talk about this all the time. He keeps asking me, ‘Where is the outrage? If this were a Republican administration, people would be in the streets, right? We would be marching in the streets. But people cut Obama a break to the point of irrationality.’ ”

Indeed. Soon after he was sworn into office, Obama appointed an “ethics czar” named Norm Eisen, a successful attorney, who had been one of the president’s classmates at Harvard Law School and later became a major fundraiser to his campaign. Eisen was likely handed the ethics portfolio for a specific reason: He was steeped in the world of Washington watchdogs. (Eisen is one of the co-founders of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.) With Eisen on board, the administration was able to make cosmetic changes and neutralize harsh disapproval with a classic Washington maneuver—inviting potential critics to the White House for meetings. The administration understood that many of these groups would be satisfied by getting meetings with the ethics czar, and would calculate that if they became too critical of the president that their newfound “access” would be in peril. So the watchdogs have scampered up to the White House time and again, hopeful that maybe with the next election, the next initiative, maybe even the next meeting, something would change.

The most absurd example came a couple years ago when a group of Washington watchdogs went to the White House to give the president a “transparency” award, and the president refused to accept the award in public. The meeting wasn’t even listed on the president’s public schedule.

The watchdogs shouldn’t be fooled so easily. In March 2010, the Associated Press found that, under Obama, 17 major agencies were 50 percent more likely to deny FOIA requests than under Bush. The following year, the presidents of two journalism societies— Association of Health Care Journalists and Society of Professional Journalists—called out President Obama for muzzling scientists in much the same way President Bush had. Last September, Bloomberg News tested Obama’s pledge by filing FOIA requests for the 2011 travel records of top officials at 57 agencies. Only about half responded. In fact, this president has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined. And an analysis released Monday by the Associated Press found that the administration censored more FOIA requests on national security grounds last year than in any other year since President Obama took office.

Even when members of his own party ask questions, the Obama White House throws down an iron curtain. After demanding answers about the government response to the BP oil spill, Democratic Arizona Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva sent a long letter to Obama expressing disappointment with the “unjustifiable” redactions he received, “including entire pages blacked out in the middle of pertinent e-mail conversations.”

One of the most glaring examples of Obama’s failure on transparency is his response to the “Fast and Furious” fiasco—the botched attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to find Mexican drug lords by tracking guns smuggled from the United States into Mexico. The debacle came to light when ATF whistleblowers met with investigators working for Sen. Grassley. Grassley sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding answers; not realizing Grassley already had documents that laid out the operation, officials at Justice responded with false and misleading information that violated federal law. When Grassley pressed the issue, the Justice Department retracted its initial response but refused to say anything more, which has resulted in multiple hearings and subpoenas.

The storyline is classic Washington: Whistleblowers run to Congress about bad behavior; Congress demands answers; the White House throws up a wall. But where is the outrage, especially from the very groups who are supposed to be holding the government accountable? It doesn’t exist. Writing about Fast and Furious for the Huffington Post, Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight mused whether the entire inquiry being led by Republicans was merely “partisanship” run amok. Wouldn’t it have been more logical for her to ask why Democrats hadn’t joined Republicans in demanding that the White House respond?

Such a poor grasp of the facts could be caused by the involvement of Rep. Darrell Issa, who was ordered years ago by the Republican leadership to turn the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform into a war machine against the White House. However, in this case, Issa was in the right.

As the administration continued to insist they had no involvement or knowledge of the ATF program, Issa released several Fast and Furious wiretap applications with signatures of top Justice Department officials. Rather than attacking the administration’s stonewalling, Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, attacked Rep. Issa for releasing the sealed documents.

Never mind that every investigative committee releases sealed documents. (I cannot tell you how many times my Senate Finance Committee colleagues and I released documents that were under seal.) It’s how Congress functions and does its job. However, CREW’s close ties to ethics czar Eisen might explain why Sloan was so quick to go on the partisan attack.

Tired of stonewalling, House Republicans threatened Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt, forcing Obama’s hand. In 2007, presidential candidate Obama told the Boston Globe, “My view is that executive privilege generally depends on the involvement of the president and the White House.” He must take a different view of it now, as Obama declared executive privilege to protect the Department of Justice as well, compelling the House to vote for contempt.

Most Americans don’t care about arcane legal battles over separation of powers between the White House and Congress. On election night, it was obvious that the issue had not resonated outside right-wing media circles. When it became clear that Obama was going to win, an employee with one of Washington’s watchdogs tweeted, “Now am I allowed to criticize Obama on drones & assassination & military commissions & secret memos expanding secret surveillance powers??” Maybe it’s a bad joke, but the implication is that she and her cohort had been withholding criticism of the president until it became clear that he had beaten Mitt Romney.

[Jolie Rouge]

The ATF whistleblowers who brought the issue to Congress faced years of harassment from their agency but were ignored by Washington’s collection of good-government groups, who typically rally around whistleblowers. Only the Washington Times reported that Agent Peter Forcelli later resolved his disputes with the agency. After the election, Agent John Dodson was also cleared of any wrongdoings and was even praised by the ATF for taking the “courageous step of going to Congress to ensure that the public learned of the flawed tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious.”

Only Fox News covered the matter. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/15/fast-and-furious-whistleblower-cleared-by-atf/


Kiriakou says that it’s time for people to acknowledge the facts about the Obama administration’s attitude toward whistleblowers and transparency in general:


“I think these groups are stuck in a 2008 mentality where, ‘Oh my gosh, we have President Obama. :notworthy: He is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and he’s promised greater transparency, and he really wants to do that but he just can’t yet. It will come. It will come. We should trust him.’ ”

The occasion is not yet ripe for many in Washington to admit that the Obama administration is no different from those who have come before it. But time will come when the cognitive dissonance between what Obama says and what he does will be too much.

“We should judge him by his actions,” Kiriakou says. Hopefully, it won’t take another four years.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/03/barack_obama_promised_transparency_the_white_house _is_as_opaque_secretive.2.html


comments


“We should judge him by his actions,” Kiriakou says.

Action speak louder then words... his actions and words both are a lie.

..

The people in the media are the reason never have i seen a more biased non vetting of any president in my over 50 years of life. this guy was involved in the deaths of over 200 mexicans and brian terry and slept thru 4 americans getting slaughtered in benghazi. nary a peep out of you all. switch name to bush and you would have been on it 24/7, you guys nevermentioned it for over a moth both events. whats amazing you cannot beleive americans cannot trust you with the truth!

..

And the weft wing is most interested in making Obama look good at all costs. The media won't report things that shine an unflattering light on anything left wing. Since the press has no integrity left when it comes to Obama, SOMEONE has to say it when they see it! You don't have to dig very far to find unflattering things to show that the mainstream press doesn't think is newsworthy. Free healthcare that costs a fortune, lower unemployment that has turned out to be way higher than it was to start with. Doesn't matter because no matter what is presented, you and the media will say it's all made up by the Republicans to make him look bad. Believe me, he doesn't need help looking bad. He's got all of the media and loyal followers working overtime to make him look good

[Jolie Rouge]

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/10664_550231791707538_955553024_n.jpg

[Jolie Rouge]

Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu Dodges Reporters After Promising to Speak to Them
May 13, 2014 By Matthew Burke

Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana, considered vulnerable to defeat for her devotion to the highly unpopular Obamacare law, ducked and dodged away from reporters on Monday, breaking an earlier promise to speak to them.

KNOE’s Jenna Browder reports that Landrieu, who attended an event promoting the construction of a new water system in Ferriday, LA, “dodged us on her way out, telling us she didn’t have the time.”

However, Browder reports that Landrieu earlier agreed to discuss “her work in Washington and the upcoming election” with the media after the event was over.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j64iQpRWns&feature=player_embedded

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/05/13/democrat-sen-mary-landrieu-dodges-reporters-after-promising-to-speak-to-them/

[Jolie Rouge]

Shorter Mary Landrieu: I Know I’m Probably Gonna Lose This Race, But Vote for Me or You’ll be Sorry
By Michael Hausam

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is in the political fight for her life and this interview does nothing to help her.

The Congresswoman who infamously signed Obamacare into law in exchange for the “Louisiania Purchase” of $300 million in federal Medicaid funds currently trails Republican Congressman Bill Cassidy by two points.

The money shot of her interview

“Getting rid of me and a few other people would not be good for the country and its future, in my view.”

Her poll numbers are deteriorating, she strongly supported the disastrous ObamaCare yet deceptively ran away from it, and she completely faked a Congressional hearing with a fake speech that received heavy criticism.

For nearly twenty years, Landrieu’s been part of a Senate that’s spent the country into oblivion … and she thinks it’s a bad thing if she gets the boot?

Thank you Mary; this is the most pathetic funniest thing we’ve seen in days. We’re not scared of you staying in office, you can just move on to being a lobbyist or whatever Congressional members do after their time in government nowadays.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxp7YQo1b9s&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxp7YQo1b9s&feature=player_embedded

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/05/135943-democratic-senator-struggling-re-election-accidentally-tells-us-really-thinks/

[Jolie Rouge]

$619 billion missing from government spending site
The website was supposed to show Americans how taxpayer money is being spent.
But federal agencies were unclear about how to make reports.
By By Josh Eidelson, BusinessWeek MSN Money Partner 4 hours ago

In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama teamed up with his Oklahoma Republican colleague Tom Coburn to help pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.

It was signed into law by President George W. Bush, who hailed it as a bipartisan accomplishment that "will allow Americans to log onto the Internet just to see how your money is being spent."

Running for president the next year, Obama declared, "This historic law will lift the veil of secrecy in Washington and ensure that our government is transparent and accountable to the American people."

Now the Government Accountability Office has released a report (PDF) assessing how well the website is holding up to that promise. http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/664536.pdf The answer? Not very well.


While agencies reported data on government contracts, the GAO found, they didn't do so for assistance awards, like loans or grants, adding up to about $619 billion for fiscal 2012. And in a sample of 385 awards it reviewed, the GAO was only able to confirm that 4 percent had fully complete and accurate information entered for every one of the 21 pieces of data that are supposed to be documented about it—a list that includes entries like "principal place of performance congressional district."

The GAO identified several culprits for the incomplete data, including technical issues with the website, a lack of guidance from the Office of Management and Budget on what information agencies were required to report, and insufficient oversight. Among the examples of oversight issues: The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy didn't report several awards it made, and told the GAO that the Department of Health and Human Services was supposed to take care of that reporting instead; HHS said that wasn't true.


The report recommends that the OMB -- in collaboration with the Treasury Department, which is taking over responsibility for the website -- issue clearer guidance and stepped-up oversight for agencies. Those recommendations echo past advice from the GAO, as well as provisions of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, which this year also passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and voice vote in the House and was signed by Obama in May.

In an e-mail, OMB spokesman Jamal Brown said the agency "is committed to federal spending transparency and working with agencies to improve the completeness and accuracy of data submissions to USAspending.gov. Many of the GAO’s recommendations are consistent with actions outlined in the DATA Act, which we are working with agencies to implement."

Coburn was quick to pounce on the new report -- and to use its findings to attack his co-sponsor for the apparent shortcomings in the implementation of his own act. "It is disappointing that the federal bureaucracy is so vast and unaccountable that the Administration cannot enact the president's signature accomplishment as a senator requiring the government to disclose how and where it spends money," Coburn said in a press release. http://money.msn.com/investing/post--dollar619-billion-missing-from-government-spending-site?ocid=ansmony11

http://money.msn.com/investing/post--dollar619-billion-missing-from-government-spending-site?ocid=ansmony11