Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken

[Soul Crusher]

Obama on Illegal Aliens to Illegal Alien: We Don’t Want to Deport Them; 'We Want Them To Succeed’
CNSNews ^



Obama on Illegal Aliens to Illegal Alien: We Don’t Want to Deport Them; 'We Want Them To Succeed’ Monday, March 28, 2011 By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) -- When questioned by an illegal alien student today who showed him a deportation letter, President Barack Obama said he did not want to deport illegal alien students like the one who questioned him, he wanted them to succeed.

The exchange came during a town hall event sponsored by the Spanish-language television network Univision at a Washington, D.C., school. An illegal alien student, who appeared via Skype, asked: “My question for the president is, why [is the government] saying that deportations have stopped or the detention of many students like me, why is it that we are still receiving deportation letters like this one?”

Obama answered, “We have redesigned our enforcement practices under the law to make sure that we’re focusing primarily on criminals, and so our deportation of criminals are up about 70 percent. Our deportation of non-criminals are down, and that’s because we want to focus our resources on those folks who are destructive to the community.

“And for a young person like that young woman that we just spoke to who’s going to school, doing all the right things, we want them to succeed," Obama said.


(Excerpt) Read more at www.cnsnews.com



________________________ ________________________ ______


since when does sucking up tax dollars and ommitting ID fraud constitute doing the right thing?   

[Fury]

Obama on Illegal Aliens to Illegal Alien: We Don’t Want to Deport Them; 'We Want Them To Succeed’
CNSNews ^



Obama on Illegal Aliens to Illegal Alien: We Don’t Want to Deport Them; 'We Want Them To Succeed’ Monday, March 28, 2011 By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) -- When questioned by an illegal alien student today who showed him a deportation letter, President Barack Obama said he did not want to deport illegal alien students like the one who questioned him, he wanted them to succeed.

The exchange came during a town hall event sponsored by the Spanish-language television network Univision at a Washington, D.C., school. An illegal alien student, who appeared via Skype, asked: “My question for the president is, why [is the government] saying that deportations have stopped or the detention of many students like me, why is it that we are still receiving deportation letters like this one?”

Obama answered, “We have redesigned our enforcement practices under the law to make sure that we’re focusing primarily on criminals, and so our deportation of criminals are up about 70 percent. Our deportation of non-criminals are down, and that’s because we want to focus our resources on those folks who are destructive to the community.

“And for a young person like that young woman that we just spoke to who’s going to school, doing all the right things, we want them to succeed," Obama said.


(Excerpt) Read more at www.cnsnews.com



________________________ ________________________ ______


since when does sucking up tax dollars and ommitting ID fraud constitute doing the right thing?   

Shocker: Obama Consulted SEIU Official Caught on Tape Stating Amnesty Meant to Ensure “Progressive” Rule

(Aaron Klein) — President Obama once boasted of consulting a radical on immigration issues who later admitted that granting citizenship to millions of illegal aliens would expand the “progressive” electorate and help ensure a “progressive” governing coalition for the long term.

A widely circulated video clip of Obama making a campaign stop at an event for the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, shows the then-candidate telling the nation’s second-largest union, “Your agenda has been my agenda in the Senate.”

While the video received play during the 2008 presidential election campaign, there is one section that may warrant renewed scrutiny in light of a separate, second video that recently surfaced involving the individual being referenced by Obama.

Obama boasts to the SEIU about how he consulted the group’s officials while he was in the Senate.

“Before immigration debates took place in Washington, I talked with Eliseo Media and SEIU members,” Obama said.

Medina is SEIU’s international executive vice-president.

In February 2010, WND posted video of Medina stating that a bill to document an estimated 12 million illegal aliens could help ensure “progressive” rule.

“We reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters,” stated Medina.

Medina was speaking at a June 2009 Washington conference for the liberal America’s Future Now!

Medina said that during the presidential election in November 2008, Latinos and immigrants “voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters that showed up.

“Can you imagine if we have, even the same ratio, two out of three? Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting? We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=279141

[Soul Crusher]

New Rules Would Label Millions of American Workers as Disabled
By Shannon Bream

Published March 28, 2011 | FoxNews.com

 

Millions of Americans may be disabled and not even know it, according to some legal experts.

That's because sweeping new regulations from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offer new guidelines on the issue of how to define "disability" under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The ADA, originally passed in 1990 and updated by Congress in 2008, originally defined disability as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity."

When a worker satisfies the definition, employers must provide reasonable accommodations. For years, employers and employees have clashed over who truly qualifies for the sometimes-costly modifications to workplace duties and schedules. Attorney Condon McGlothlen says the new regulations could have a profound impact on that debate.

"Before, perhaps 40 million people were covered by the ADA. That number will increase significantly," McGlothlen told Fox News. "Some people might even say that a majority of Americans are covered as disabled under the law."

EEOC Commissioner Chai Felblum said the agency worked hard to find compromise between the business and disability communities, and she's optimistic the new regulations provide the right balance. "These are workable guidelines that will help people with disabilities, and it will be workable for employers," Feldblum said.

Although the new regulations cannot classify any condition as a disability per se, there is a list of maladies that will be viewed that way "in virtually all cases." The list includes: autism, diabetes, epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Overall, lawyers for employers say the regulations shift the burden of proof in disability claims.

They say that employers will now have to show why a worker doesn't require special accommodations, rather than employees proving that the measures are merited.

"It's going to be very difficult for employers to argue in just about any case that an employee is exaggerating their disability or that the person isn't genuinely disabled," McGlothlen said.

While both sides acknowledge it is only a matter of time until a legal challenge to the regulations is filed, Feldblum believes they will provide courts with plenty of clarity. She's also urging employers to stop focusing on defining disability, and spend more time on accommodations.

"I am hopeful that employers will now move to the next question which is, 'How do we make sure our workplace is welcoming to people with a range of health conditions?'" she told Fox News.

Barring congressional intervention, the new regulations will take effect May 24.

 Print     Close URL

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/28/new-rules-label-millions-american-workers-disabled

[Soul Crusher]

Home > News > Government Federal > Emails: Insiders worried over political ‘meddling’
Emails: Insiders worried over political ‘meddling’
By The Associated Press
Posted: 10:24 am Mon, March 28, 2011

http://nydailyrecord.com/blog/2011/03/28/emails-insiders-worried-over-political-meddling






WASHINGTON, D.C. — Insiders at the Homeland Security Department warned for months that senior Obama administration appointees were improperly delaying the releases of government files on politically sensitive topics as sought by citizens, journalists and watchdog groups under the Freedom of Information Act, according to uncensored emails newly obtained by The Associated Press.

The highly unusual political vetting was described as “meddling,” “crazy” and “bananas!” It is the subject of a congressional hearing later this week and an ongoing inquiry by the department’s inspector general.

Concerns came even from the official put in charge of submitting files to the political staff of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for the secretive reviews. Chief Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan, who was appointed by Napolitano, complained in late 2009 that the vetting process was burdensome and said she wanted to change it.

Callahan is expected to be a central witness during an oversight hearing Thursday by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. In emails, she warned that the Homeland Security Department might be sued over delays the political reviews were causing, and she hinted that a reporter might find out about the political scrutiny.

“This level of attention is CRAZY,” Callahan wrote in December 2009 to her then-deputy, Catherine Papoi. Callahan said she hoped someone outside the Obama administration would discover details of the political reviews, possibly by asking for evidence of them under the Freedom of Information Act itself: “I really really want someone to FOIA this whole damn process,” Callahan wrote.

Less than one week after Callahan’s email, on Dec. 21, the AP formally requested the records about the controversial political vetting. The agency ultimately turned over more than 995 pages of emails last summer, after a seven-month fight, and the AP wrote about the program. But the emails were heavily censored under provisions in the Freedom of Information Act allowing the government to withhold passages that describe internal policy-making deliberations.

The newly obtained versions of the same internal emails are not censored. Together with other confidential emails obtained by the AP for the first time, the files reflect deep unease about the reviews plus new concerns about whether Napolitano’s senior political advisers might have hidden embarrassing or sensitive emails that journalists and watchdog groups had requested.

After an admitted al-Qaida operative tried to blow up a commercial airliner flying to Detroit on Christmas 2009, the AP asked for emails sent among Napolitano; her chief of staff, Noah Kroloff; deputy chief of staff Amy Shlossman; and four others. But the number of printed pages that Kroloff and Shlossman turned over to the FOIA unit was much less than what a computer search indicated should have existed, according to emails.

“When (the chief information office) pulled off the emails for these individuals, the page count is much higher, indicating that Shlossman and Kroloff possibly did not retrieve all the responsive emails or opted not to produce all responsive emails,” Papoi wrote in May to Callahan. “I think we have an obligation to compare the hard copy emails to those pulled by the CIO from the individuals’ email accounts to determine why the discrepancy.”

Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said Monday that no emails were withheld by Napolitano’s office, and no one complained that emails weren’t turned over that should have been.

“At no point did anyone alert the office of the secretary or the office of the general counsel of concerns that responsive documents had not been submitted for review,” Kudwa said in a statement. “Had any concerns been raised, appropriate steps would have been taken.”

More recently, immigration rights advocates asked the Homeland Security Department for emails that political advisers exchanged with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement about a controversial enforcement program. Inside the government, the search turned up emails described as “embarrassing, crude exchanges.” But the political advisers never turned over their own embarrassing emails; these were revealed only when the recipients elsewhere in the department provided them.

“Apparently these embarrassing exchanges didn’t get turned over when the (political) front office conducted its search but they did when the ICE employees copied on these exchanges coughed up the responsive records,” the FOIA unit’s associate director, William Holzerland, wrote in January to Papoi.

Papoi responded, “They don’t like to abide by the law or be reminded that they are breaking it.”

Kudwa said Monday that the department’s FOIA unit had never asked Napolitano’s political advisers to search their own emails about the immigration enforcement program.

The congressional investigation into government transparency under President Barack Obama is among the earliest by Republicans since they won control of the House and targets one of the first pledges Obama made after he moved into the White House.

The Freedom of Information Act, the main tool forcing the government to be more transparent, is designed to be insulated from political considerations. Anyone who seeks information through the law is supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose confidential decision-making in certain areas. People can request government records without specifying why they want them and are not obligated to provide personal information about themselves other than their name and an address where the records should be sent.

But at the Homeland Security Department, since July 2009, career employees were ordered to provide political staffers with information about the people who asked for records — such as where they lived and whether they were private citizens or reporters — and about the organizations where they worked. If a member of Congress sought such documents, employees were told to specify Democrat or Republican. No one in government was allowed to discuss the political reviews with anyone whose information request was affected by them.

Papoi was replaced earlier this month by her new boss, Delores J. Barber, who took over Papoi’s title as deputy chief FOIA officer and moved into Papoi’s office. The Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, said that “appeared to be an act of retaliation,” after Issa identified Papoi as the employee who confidentially complained in March 2010 to the DHS inspector general about the political vetting of requests for government files.

The emails also raise doubts about whether the emails previously released to the AP were properly censored. “The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed or because of speculative or abstract fears,” Obama said shortly after he took office.

In a statement Sunday, Kudwa said, “Redaction decisions have always been made by FOIA professionals and career legal staff.”

The government censored Callahan’s email that described the “crazy” scrutiny by political advisers. It also censored another email by Holzerland, who told Callahan in September 2009 that the political reviews were “bananas!” Also censored were complaints by Papoi, the former deputy, that the political reviews were “meddling” and, together with “constant stonewalling” by the department’s top lawyers, causing delays in the agency’s open records department.

“I currently have 98 requests that are tagged by the front office for tracking and forwarding to the front office,” Papoi wrote in one previously censored passage. “I simply don’t have the time or staff to review all of those requests before we send them on. Quite honestly, we shouldn’t have to.”

The AP protested last year that the emails it received had been improperly censored, but the Homeland Security Department never responded to its formal appeal.

[Soul Crusher]

for Clunkers 2: The Return of Government Motors
← return to Water Cooler
Kerry Picket
Published on March 29, 2011

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/mar/29/cash-clunkers-2-dumped-capitol-hill




Ready for another cash for clunkers program? It looks like General Motors is attempting to replace it's own consumer incentives with tax payer money. The car company, bailed out of bankruptcy in 2009 by the American tax payer, appears to be turning the government into an automatic rebate provider.

The Obama administration and their friends on Capitol Hill are floating around a proposal to change the $7500 tax credit for green vehicles. This change can be found not only in President Barack Obama's budget but also a bill proposed by Senator Debbie Stabenow, Michigan Democrat.

Edmunds.com, a 45 year old trade magazine company that provides automotive information, posted a Department of Energy document listing the department's funding highlights. The proposed Obama Budget, changes the existing $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit “into a rebate that will be available to all consumers immediately at the point of sale.”

According to Senator Stabenow's website, her proposed legislation, known as the "Charging America Forward Act" (S.298), "will provide consumers with a rebate worth up to $7500 for plug-in electric vehicles at the time of purchase."

Essentially, if one were to buy a $41,000 Chevy Volt, the buyer gets a $7,500 coupon, so the final price is $33,500. In the end, the auto dealer assumes the risk of the government giving them this tax credit.

It is pretty convenient that Ms. Stabenow, who represents a state where GM is headquartered is pushing a bill that is also supported by Edison Electric Institute, whose president was loaned a Chevy Volt, Eaton Corp: the sole American producer of car recharge systems, and Battery Electric Vehicle Coalition, a lobbying group for the electric car industry.

In fact, Department of Energy's David Sandalow told Bloomberg News in February the insta-credit would operate the “same way the 2009 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program worked.”

The Detroit News reported Vice President Joe Biden said at an Indiana battery assembly plant, "You won’t have to wait,’ it would be like the cash-for-clunkers program.”

GM is likely the most excited about this instant credit plan. “General Motors supports the instant credit saying the bill “integrates all of the components necessary for successful acceleration of electric vehicles in the marketplace," The Detroit News reported.

Is the United States really prepared to deal with another tax payer paid for deal that will only benefit the now government owned GM? After all, did Cash for Clunkers part one really work out for the tax payers and auto dealers? Washington, D.C. based organization Americans for Tax Reform  didn't think so and wrote in late October of 2009:

The program began on July 24th with a budget of $1 billion and by July 30th they were out of money. Giving people “free” money to buy cars is definitely popular. Congress then allocated another $2 billion that lasted almost until the end of August. That’s right, $3 billion in under a month. The program didn’t help the economy or auto industry. Despite a bump in the 3rd quarter to GDP and auto sales, consumer spending dropped 0.5% in September and the vehicle output bump was artificial and unsustainable, meaning it will drop off considerably in the next quarter as the market stabilizes to its real level. As Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy pointed out today over at Reason, even the reported GDP bump is misleading, because is includes government spending. So if government spending increases it will increase the GDP, but that doesn’t mean any more was produced.

There are also the unseen costs of this program. By encouraging people to junk older vehicles, they lowered the supply of cheap used cars. When you lower supply and keep demand stable, the price goes up. With fewer used cars on the market, the prices for remaining used cars increases. This will make it more difficult for younger drivers or low income drivers to buy cars to get to work or school. (A video by Congressman Ron Paul further explains how it hurts the poor here.) At least the wealthy got a handout to buy their brand new cars though right?

Unfortunately, when ideas turn bad, it does not preclude another similar bad idea to be proposed later on.

 

Ready for another cash for clunkers program? It looks like General Motors is attempting to replace it's own consumer incentives with tax payer money. The car company, bailed out of bankruptcy in 2009 by the American tax payer, appears to be turning the government into an automatic rebate provider.

The Obama administration and their friends on Capitol Hill are floating around a proposal to change the $7500 tax credit for green vehicles. This change can be found not only in President Barack Obama's budget but also a bill proposed by Senator Debbie Stabenow, Michigan Democrat.

Edmunds.com, a 45 year old trade magazine company that provides automotive information, posted a Department of Energy document listing the department's funding highlights. The proposed Obama Budget, changes the existing $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit “into a rebate that will be available to all consumers immediately at the point of sale.”

According to Senator Stabenow's website, her proposed legislation, known as the "Charging America Forward Act" (S.298), "will provide consumers with a rebate worth up to $7500 for plug-in electric vehicles at the time of purchase."

Essentially, if one were to buy a $41,000 Chevy Volt, the buyer gets a $7,500 coupon, so the final price is $33,500. In the end, the auto dealer assumes the risk of the government giving them this tax credit.

It is pretty convenient that Ms. Stabenow, who represents a state where GM is headquartered is pushing a bill that is also supported by Edison Electric Institute, whose president was loaned a Chevy Volt, Eaton Corp: the sole American producer of car recharge systems, and Battery Electric Vehicle Coalition, a lobbying group for the electric car industry.

In fact, Department of Energy's David Sandalow told Bloomberg News in February the insta-credit would operate the “same way the 2009 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program worked.”

The Detroit News reported Vice President Joe Biden said at an Indiana battery assembly plant, "You won’t have to wait,’ it would be like the cash-for-clunkers program.”

GM is likely the most excited about this instant credit plan. “General Motors supports the instant credit saying the bill “integrates all of the components necessary for successful acceleration of electric vehicles in the marketplace," The Detroit News reported.

Is the United States really prepared to deal with another tax payer paid for deal that will only benefit the now government owned GM? After all, did Cash for Clunkers part one really work out for the tax payers and auto dealers? Washington, D.C. based organization Americans for Tax Reform  didn't think so and wrote in late October of 2009:

The program began on July 24th with a budget of $1 billion and by July 30th they were out of money. Giving people “free” money to buy cars is definitely popular. Congress then allocated another $2 billion that lasted almost until the end of August. That’s right, $3 billion in under a month. The program didn’t help the economy or auto industry. Despite a bump in the 3rd quarter to GDP and auto sales, consumer spending dropped 0.5% in September and the vehicle output bump was artificial and unsustainable, meaning it will drop off considerably in the next quarter as the market stabilizes to its real level. As Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy pointed out today over at Reason, even the reported GDP bump is misleading, because is includes government spending. So if government spending increases it will increase the GDP, but that doesn’t mean any more was produced.

There are also the unseen costs of this program. By encouraging people to junk older vehicles, they lowered the supply of cheap used cars. When you lower supply and keep demand stable, the price goes up. With fewer used cars on the market, the prices for remaining used cars increases. This will make it more difficult for younger drivers or low income drivers to buy cars to get to work or school. (A video by Congressman Ron Paul further explains how it hurts the poor here.) At least the wealthy got a handout to buy their brand new cars though right?

Unfortunately, when ideas turn bad, it does not preclude another similar bad idea to be proposed later on.

[Soul Crusher]

Obama's High Food Price Policy Stealing Milk from Babies
American Thinker ^ | 3-29-11 | Jeffrey Folks



The price of corn has reached a record $7 a bushel. Other basic foodstuffs, including wheat, sugar, and soybeans are selling at or near record prices. Milk prices as well have risen to record levels, making it more difficult for families to purchase milk for their children. It is Obama, more than anyone, who is responsible for this state of affairs.

While food prices have always been volatile, today's high prices are not just the result of weather and other natural forces. They are the consequence of a sinister conspiracy on the part of the left to raise prices and force an ever larger number of Americans into dependency. As of early March, milk prices were setting new record highs, along with near record highs for corn, wheat, soybean, and other staples. Where is the President on this? He is out there promoting ethanol mandates that burn 40% of the U.S. corn crop, raising the price of everything from milk and meat to pop-tarts.

Obama claims to care deeply about the lives of ordinary working Americans, but he is the one responsible for rising food and energy prices. When Americans went to the store in February and found that their food costs had risen at an annualized rate of 7.2%, they had Obama to thank for it.

It is not just the President's policy of expanding ethanol subsidies. It is also a weak-dollar policy that forces Americans into competition on unequal terms with foreign buyers. On March 25 the USDA revealed transactions that strongly suggest the return of China to U.S. corn markets. As a result, corn future prices climbed 14%. That increase of 14% will affect what American consumers can expect to pay in the months ahead for basic foodstuffs. If the dollar weakens further against the Chinese yuan, as many expect (and against other currencies), American consumers may find themselves paying more than that for global commodities like food.

The President's solution to rising food prices is, of course, more government. With 25 million Americans unemployed, over 15 million Americans on Social Security disability (SSDI or SSI), and over 43 million Americans on food stamps, Obama's "solution" is to increase dependency even further. The President's 2012 budget proposal includes increases in funding for the government's food stamp and WIC programs, while it continues funding at record levels for a myriad of other food programs.

If Obama were truly concerned about food security, he would address the fundamental issues, not try to paper them over by paying out ever larger sums of borrowed money to an ever larger number of recipients. But the Democrats are never going to address the fundamental issues -- partly because of pressure from environmentalists, unions, and corn-state lobbyists and partly because they want more Americans to be dependent on government assistance.

Democrats actually seem pleased to find that 43 million Americans are dependent on food assistance and that the number has risen by almost 30% million since Obama took office. That level of dependency translates into a large block of reliable votes.

Once they become dependent on government food aid, welfare recipients constitute a lifetime constituency focused exclusively on maintenance and expansion of benefits. No wonder Democrats aren't interested in reducing the cost of food and other essentials. Or, for that matter, increasing the number of jobs within the private sector. Their interest lies in nudging more and more Americans onto the dole.

This is not the first time that a left-wing president has consolidated his power by expanding dependency. During the Great Depression, FDR's alphabet-soup of relief agencies enrolled millions in unproductive make-work projects, even as crops went unharvested and industrial plants lay idle. As Amity Shlaes has shown in The Forgotten Man, Roosevelt's socialist boondoggles prolonged the Depression by years.

What is happening today, however, is unique: this is the first time in American history when an administration is deliberately forcing food prices higher in order to increase dependency and extend government control over the economy.

There is hardship ahead even for those not dependent on government aid. Despite our nation's vast agricultural resources, Americans are not immune to the kinds of food shortages that have existed throughout human history and that continue to exist in developing countries today. It takes only a short time for a nation to slip from abundance into impoverishment.

Most Americans do not think of Romania as a resource-rich nation, but a century ago Romania, with its productive agricultural sector, was among the richest countries in Europe. At that time no one could have imagined the suffering that lay ahead as the country descended into 80 years of war and communist rule. The abundant harvests that had once fed Romania's people were commandeered by the government and shipped abroad to bankroll the extravagant lifestyle of the rulers and to fund the state security apparatus necessary to defend it. This and fundamental mismanagement resulted in decades of hunger for the Romanian people.

For America the combination of corn ethanol mandates and a weak-dollar policy is, in effect, a "Romania-style" seizure of the nation's food supply. The left is intent on gaining control of America's natural resources -- its agricultural and energy sectors, in particular -- and for exactly the same reason they were seized in communist states such as Romania. The control of food and energy is the means by which the left hopes to gain permanent power over the American people.

America is approaching a future in which food will be expensive and in short supply. The combination of an ever expanding corn ethanol program and the demands of a tighter global market will make food less affordable and less available. What may not be so obvious is that the American left, led by Obama and Democrats in Congress, actually want food prices to rise, just as they want energy prices to rise, so as to create further dependency. If they did not, they would take simple measures to lower prices: eliminate ethanol mandates, eliminate protective tariffs, strengthen the dollar, and allow the free market to govern prices. But none of this will happen with the left in charge because high prices and shortages serve the interest of a party intent on centralized control of the economy.

This disaster can only be averted by the defeat of Obama and of the Democrat-controlled Senate in 2012, and by the removal of leftists from government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Agriculture. Above all, the nation must return to a free-market economy in which prices for food and all else are determined by supply and demand, not by the ambitions of leftists in Washington.

[Soul Crusher]

Former Organizing for America staffer interfered with FOIA requests Department Homeland Security
DailyCaller ^ | March 30, 2011 | Mike Riggs



New emails and testimony from Department of Homeland Security FOIA officer Catherine Papoi reveal that a former Obama campaign staffer repeatedly asked Papoi and her team to redact portions of “politically sensitive” documents, as well as portions of documents that were already publicly available.

Papoi, who came under fire at DHS for complaining that “sensitive” FOIA requests were being vetted by political employees, testified on March 3 that Willard “Clint” Carte, a DHS attorney with the title of “confidential assistant,” attempted to block a FOIA request for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s calendar in which Napolitano’s secretary had referred to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “Senator Clinton.” According to Papoi’s testimony, Carte asked that Clinton’s title be changed on the calendar in order to spare the department “embarrassment.”

...But Carte, a graduate of West Virginia University Law School, isn’t just an attorney. According to a campaign database maintained by George Washington University, Carte served as the new media director for Obama For America, Obama’s general election campaign group in West Virginia. Carte also appears as an administrator of several groups hosted on Organizing for America’s website, including “West Virginians for Obama,” “Marshall University Students for Barack Obama,” “In Support of Change,” and others.

Papoi’s testimony and emails revealed a second conflict with Carte.

According to emails obtained by The Daily Caller, Carte wanted to redact information from a FOIA request filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch.


...Papoi claims that she was demoted within DHS for raising concerns about the FOIA process.


(Excerpt) Read more at www.dailycaller.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Not a secret anymore
Shh! Obama gets anti-secrecy award
By ABBY PHILLIP | 03/30/11 4:17 PM Updated: 03/31/11 10:17 AM

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0311/not_a_secret_anymore_a00ccd98-0d9e-4822-8936-168f3a51b959.html




The president accepted a transparency award in a closed, undisclosed meeting. AP Photo

Close President Obama finally and quietly accepted his “transparency” award from the open government community this week — in a closed, undisclosed meeting at the White House on Monday.

The secret presentation happened almost two weeks after the White House inexplicably postponed the ceremony, which was expected to be open to the press pool.

This time, Obama met quietly in the Oval Office with Gary Bass of OMB Watch, Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive, Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Patrice McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org, without disclosing the meeting on his public schedule or letting photographers or print reporters into the room.

“Our understanding going into the meeting was that it would have a pool photographer and a print reporter, and it turned out to be a private meeting,” Bass told POLITICO. “He was so on point, so on target in the conversation with us, it is baffling why he would not want that message to be more broadly heard by reporters and the public interest community and the public generally.”

Just hours before the White House put off the original event, White House press secretary Jay Carney was defiant in his defense of Obama’s transparency record against criticism that it might have been premature.

“This president has demonstrated a commitment to transparency and openness that is greater than any administration has shown in the past, and he’s been committed to that since he ran for President and he’s taken a significant number of measures to demonstrate that,” Carney said in a testy exchange with Fox News reporter Wendell Goler on March 16.

The transparency advocates who presented the award to Obama say that the recognition is important, because despite the work left to be done, Obama has done a lot to change the government’s posture toward openness issues.

But others believed the positive reinforcement was more than a little unnecessary.

“I don’t feel moved today to say ‘thank you, Mr. President,’” said Steve Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. But he said he understands the award to be “aspirational,” in recognition of Obama’s potential to do more on the transparency front.

“And in that sense, one could say it resembles the award at the Nobel Peace Prize,” Aftergood said. “It’s not because Obama brought peace to anyone but because people hoped he would be a force for good in the world, and maybe that’s the way to understand this award.”

Watch below: President Obama talks transparency - July '09

[Soul Crusher]

U.S. Gives Obama Donor $500 Mil For “Green” Projects
Judicial Watch ^ | March 31, 2011





One of President Obama’s top fundraisers has been rewarded with more than half a billion dollars in stimulus money for “green” projects and a coveted adviser position at the federal agency that regulates his highly profitable business ventures.


It’s the very cycle of money, influence and access that Obama vowed to break when he came to Washington, according to the investigative journalism group that broke the story this week. Not only has the president’s money man benefited from the astounding sums of cash the administration has dedicated to “clean energy” startups, he also has extraordinary access to the White House and serves as an adviser to the cabinet official (Energy Secretary Steven Chu) who regulates his industry.


The prolific Democratic fundraiser, Steve Westly, worked in the Jimmy Carter Administration and was once a public official in California where he currently operates a lucrative “green” business (Westly Group) that’s boomed in just a few years. The Westly Group has raked in more than half a billion dollars in loans, grants or stimulus money from the Department of Energy which is doling out around $35 billion to politically-connected businesses that help reduce pollution.


A frequent White House visitor Westly is also a member of a government advisory board on energy policy, which means he actually “advises” Energy Secretary Chu, the administration official in charge of distributing the agency’s green startup cash. The money is supposed to help clean technology firms expand in order to meet Obama’s goal of lowering dependence on foreign oil.


More than 90% of the companies that apply for the federal dollars are rejected, yet Westly has easily secured the public funding for three of his firms. The government aid is important because it lends companies credibility and helps attract investors. Other Obama donors have also received big chunks of federal dollars for their clean energy endeavors, including another California billionaire who serves on the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and an Oklahoma oil magnet who bundled tens of thousands of dollars for his 2008 campaign.


Obama must keep his top fundraisers happy because he will need their services—and cash—in 2012. Westly is one of about 50 “bundlers” who raised more than half a million dollars for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Undoubtedly, Westly is expected to step up to the plate in 2012 so Uncle Sam will likely continue filling his coffers with cash for innovative “green” projects.

[Soul Crusher]

Barack Obama: Losing $84 billion big success
← return to Water Cooler

Kerry Picket
Published on March 31, 2011



http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/mar/31/barack-obama-losing-84-billion-big-success





Obama has some 'splaining to do about taxpayers' profitable "investment" in General Motors. It turns out the president is imagining things.

Though Democrats tout the auto bailout as a success, recent reports illustrate the taxpayer cost of the GM auto bailout was substantially larger than the Obama administration and a Congressional Oversight report has owned up to.

"American taxpayers are now positioned to recover more than my administration invested in GM,” President Obama said, according to a piece in USA Today last November. Steven Rattner, former head of the Treasury's auto task force agreed, telling CNN in November: “Recent progress at GM gives reason for optimism that it may be possible for taxpayers to get every penny back.”

In fact, Investor's Business Daily reported that even the White House’s Director of the National Economic Council remarked that the Treasury Department Department had a good chance in "recovering most, if not all, of its investment in" GM.

However, a March 16 Congressional Oversight report, tells a different story. It estimates taxpayers will be out of $25 billion. Additionally, the report points out that “full repayment will not be possible unless the government is able to sell its remaining shares at a far higher price.”

That's only the beginning. Both the White House and the Congressional Oversight report omit the fact that during its bankruptcy, GM got a $45 billion tax break, courtesy of the American people.

GM is driving “away from its U.S.-government-financed restructuring with a final gift in its trunk: a tax break that could be worth as much as $45 billion,” reported The Wall Street Journal last November.

Over one year after  the promises President Obama and his administration made about the auto bailout, a February piece on AutoBlog also confirms that GM will also get a $14 billion dollar domestic tax break:

GM will be able to skip its tax tab due to years of massive losses. Companies are typically forgiven a portion of future taxes due to their past losses, but that benefit is typically stripped after an organization goes through bankruptcy.
However, the Obama administration and its allies presently continue to celebrate the success of the auto bailout, regardless of the facts.  "I don’t think there’s any doubt that this was a success," said (H/T Detroit News) acting assistant secretary at the Treasury Department Tim Massad, who oversees the TARP program at Treasury, to a House panel on Wednesday.

In Obama's world, success mean taxpayers only lost as much as $84 billion.

[Soul Crusher]

Former Organizing for America staffer interfered with FOIA requests at Department of Homeland
The Daily Caller ^ | 3/30/11 | Mike Riggs

New emails and testimony from Department of Homeland Security FOIA officer Catherine Papoi reveal that a former Obama campaign staffer repeatedly asked Papoi and her team to redact portions of “politically sensitive” documents, as well as portions of documents that were already publicly available.

Papoi, who came under fire at DHS for complaining that “sensitive” FOIA requests were being vetted by political employees, testified on March 3 that Willard “Clint” Carte, a DHS attorney with the title of “confidential assistant,” attempted to block a FOIA request for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s calendar in which Napolitano’s secretary had referred to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “Senator Clinton.” According to Papoi’s testimony, Carte asked that Clinton’s title be changed on the calendar in order to spare the department “embarrassment.”

“The front office wanted that changed before the response went out the door and we were pushing back saying that once you cast your net and retrieve a record, you can’t alter a record because of mere embarrassment,” Papoi said in her testimony.

According to Papoi, FOIA officers are told they can only “cast their net” one time. “Once you have retrieved the records, they lose…the living nature where they are evolving, and the statute requires that you retrieve the records and then process them,” she testified. “DOJ has also opined that you don’t cast your net twice, you cast once. You retrieve the records and you process them. So [the front office, where Carte worked] also suggested making the changes and then recasting our net, and it was explained that also was unacceptable.”


(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Investigations Find ‘Unprecedented’ Political Review of FOIA Requests by Homeland Security Department
Friday, April 01, 2011
By Fred Lucas
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/investigations-find-unprecedented-politi-0





Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)

Washington (CNSNews.com) – A political review of open records requests smacks of “Nixonian” tactics by the Department of Homeland Security, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Thursday.

Two investigations found that Freedom of Information Act requests sent to the DHS were reviewed by Obama administration political appointees.

“Through the course of an eight-month investigation, the committee has learned that political staff under the DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano have corrupted the agency’s FOIA compliance procedures, exerted unlawful political pressure, on FOIA compliance officers, and undermined the federal government’s accountability to the American people,” Issa said.

“These events have nurtured a fragile – and at times hostile – work environment that does not serve to fulfill the department’s primary mission to secure the nation from the many threats we face,” he added.

The department’s Office of Inspector General found that many records requests were filtered through Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s office.

However, DHS general counsel attacked the House oversight report as biased, pointing out that the IG report never alleged direct wrongdoing.

“My initial reaction was one of concern because as you indicate these are very serious allegations,” DHS General Counsel Ivan Fong told the committee. “I take very seriously, as I should, any allegation of wrongdoing by my staff. On further examination, my concern frankly turned into indignation because I believe the report paints an unfair and irresponsible portrait of some people and events. The report reads more like an advocacy piece rather than a sober, substantive, dispassionate investigative report.”

The investigations found that information requesters were identified by party affiliation in some cases. During the hearing, Mary Ellen Callahan, chief FOIA officer and chief privacy officer for DHS, could not answer why.

Callahan said this is only the case with members of Congress.

“According to our weekly report, we are supposed to indicate who is a Democrat and who is a Republican,” Callahan told the committee. “I think that is how members of Congress are addressed. I don’t know why, but career staff added that in 2006.”

The House report found that by the end of 2009, “copies of all significant FOIA requests were required to be forwarded to the Secretary's political staff for review. The career staff in the FOIA Office was not permitted to release responses to these requests without approval from political staff.”

The House investigation further found “original versions of documents that were heavily redacted before being released to the Associated Press show the Office of General Counsel relied on exception (b)(5) – normally meant to protect pre-decisional records – to prevent the release of embarrassing records.”

The report also said that the secretary’s office stopped using e-mail in the second quarter of 2010, and instead contacted their career staff by phone.

The report from DHS Acting Inspector General Charles Edwards did not allege corruption, but did say the department must make changes.

“We also determined that the Office of the Secretary has had unprecedented involvement in the Freedom of Information Act process beginning in 2009,” the IG report said. “For several hundred requests deemed significant, components were required to provide for headquarters review all materials they intended to release.”

After DHS issued a report in 2009 about “right wing extremist groups,” the secretary’s office communicated its concern to the DHS FOIA office, according to the IG report. The secretary’s office asked, “Have we actually turned over any documents at this point?” and later asked the FOIA office for a list of all 33 organizations that requested the right wing extremist report.

The IG report also says, “Potentially embarrassing wording was redacted in other cases as well. In November 2009, a senior DHS official suggested limitations on the release of particular requests that a component was processing.”

Rep. Gerald Connelly (D-Va.) insisted that there was nothing wrong with the secretary’s office reviewing FOIA requests.

“The agency leadership simply wanted to know more about it. This actually represents laudable agency coordination, and a notable deconstruction of the usual bureaucratic stovepipes. If we assume FOIA requests can serve as a proxy for public interest in certain issues on which an agency is working, then agency knowledge about those requests means that the agency can be more responsive to the public it serves,” he said.

The DHS has taken unprecedented measures, John Verdi, director of open government for the watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“We are not aware of any other program that has singled out FOIA requests based on politically sensitive content or the identity of the requestor,” Verdi told the committee. “Political review delays the release of records and raises the specter of wrongful performance.”

He further said that “federal law simply does not allow agencies to select” what requests to respond to based on political considerations.

Edwards, the inspector general, said his office had not determined that DHS has done anything illegal. But, he stressed much improvement needs to be made.

Callahan said the department has decreased its backlog of records under the Obama administration. “Two years ago, the department faced a backlog of more than 74,000 FOIA requests,” Callahan told the committee. “Under this administration, we have reduced the backlog by 84 percent, or more than 63,000 requests.”

However, Republicans on the committee pointed out that it was the Bush administration that hired a private contractor for $7.6 million to help relieve the department’s FOIA backlog. Further, the approximately 30,000 FOIA requests were shifted to the State Department.

[Soul Crusher]

"Climate Change Adaptation Plan" For All Govt. Agencies (Outrageous)
Judicial Watch ^ | April 1, 2011



All federal agencies and private companies that deal with the U.S. government must identify their vulnerabilities to the impacts of global warming and develop a climate change adaptation plan, as per an executive order quietly signed by President Obama.


The order was actually penned in the fall of 2009 but the president’s Climate Change Adaptation Task Force had to properly investigate the matter and come up with recommendations. Now that the task force has developed a detailed plan on climate proofing the government, yet another Obama advisory committee, the Council on Environmental Quality, has issued instructions on implementation.


Under the plan, every government agency must integrate climate change adaptation into their planning, operations, policies and programs. That means they must appoint a “climate change adaptation specialist,” participate in climate adaptation workshops and educate every employee throughout the year. All agencies must identify and analyze “climate vulnerabilities” by spring of 2012 and execute an adaptation plan by the fall of 2012.


The training will also be required at all private businesses that contract with the government, including those that provide any sort of maintenance or logistics. In all, tens of thousands of public employees will be required to participate in Obama’s “green” plan, which will also require federal agencies to create greenhouse gas emissions reduction plans, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, reduce waste and support sustainable communities. No word on what all this will costs U.S. taxpayers.


The president asserts that setting these sorts of “sustainability goals” for federal agencies demonstrates his commitment to lead by example. It will ultimately have a huge impact on the nation as a whole. After all, Obama points out, the federal government occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services. Americans are sure to follow its lead, according to the commander-in-chief.

[Soul Crusher]

How is this "outrageous"?

think about it

[Soul Crusher]

New York electric bills to soar 12%
NY Post ^ | April 1, 2011 | BILL SANDERSON




New Yorkers are about to get zapped on their electric bills.

Starting May 28, households in the five boroughs will be socked with rate increases of up to 12 percent to run appli ances -- after the feds de cided that power companies needed an extra $500 million a year, The Post has learned.

And that's on top of another 4 percent state-OK'd Con Ed rate hike that kicks in today.

A typical apartment resident's electric bill of $74 -- based on 250 kilowatt hours of power each month -- will go up to $86, or $12 more than last July.

About $8 of that boost will come from the feds' decision.

Businesses will be hit even harder. A small firm that paid $406 last July will shell out $477 this July -- a 17.5 percent boost.

About $59 of that comes courtesy of the feds.

Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer are furious over the shocking ruling -- and are urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider.

"The economic impact of this order on the residents and businesses of New York City would be severe," Bloomberg complained to the commission.

He said the "excessive increases" to power bills resulting from FERC's decision will cause "severe hardship."

Schumer told The Post: "New Yorkers shouldn't be forced to pay exorbitant electric rates because some faraway regulator decided not to look at all the evidence."

City officials say the feds granted the increase on the incorrect belief that power companies...

--snip--

In effect, the feds are letting generating companies get reimbursed "for costs they are not even paying," said Con Ed official Richard Miller said.

His company will take the blame from consumers but not make an extra penny, he said. That's because it doesn't generate power; it only transmits it...


(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Soul Crusher]

.Presidential limousine, security vehicles exempt from fed 'green' vehicle policy
David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau



Washington — The U.S. Secret Service said today that some federal vehicles for law enforcement and security purposes will be exempt from President Barack Obama's directive that all federal vehicles purchased starting 2015 be advanced technology models.

Secret Service spokesman Robert Novy said the directive wouldn't apply to vehicles used for some law enforcement or security reasons by various federal agencies.
 
"Certain specialized vehicles including those with law enforcement and security specifications are not subject to this directive," Novy said.

That would include the GM-built Cadillac presidential limousine and other vehicles in the motorcade. It also expected to include many law enforcement vehicles.

Obama announced the plan this week to "green" the federal fleet.

"I'm directing our departments and our agencies to make sure 100 percent of the vehicles they buy are fuel-efficient or clean energy cars and trucks by 2015.Not 50 percent, not 75 percent — 100 percent of our vehicles," Obama said today at an appearance in Landover, Md., at UPS facility to urge private companies to green their vehicle fleets.

Obama noted that the federal government has more than 600,000 vehicles — the largest fleet in the United States — and has doubled the number of hybrids in its fleet over the last year — though they still account for less than 5 percent of government vehicles.

"That means we've got a lot of purchasing power.So what we're doing is we're using it to boost clean energy technologies," Obama said.

The White House says the advanced technology vehicles that the government will buy in 2015 include hybrids, electric vehicles and alternative fueled vehicles. Among those are "flex fuel" vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol or gasoline — something that costs automakers less than $100. Many full-size SUVs are flex-fuel models, and automakers get credits toward meeting fuel efficiency standards to build them even if drivers never use the higher blend of ethanol.

As a candidate for president in 2008, then Sen. Barack Obama unveiled an enegy strategy that called for boosting electric vehicles in the federal fleet.

"Within one year of becoming President, the entire White House fleet will be converted to plug -ins as security permits; and half of all cars purchased by the federal government will be plug-in hybrids or all electric by 2012," the fact sheet said.

The White House hasn't converted any vehicles yet. The government plans to buy 100 plug-in electric vehicles this year; it's not clear what federal agencies will use them.

No written guidance to federal departments has been issued about what types of models they can purchase or what agencies are exempt. It's not clear if it would apply to all military vehicles either.

This won't be the first time a president has exempted some vehicles from vehicle rules. In 2007, President George W. Bush issued an executive order calling for 2 percent annual reductions in gasoline usage among most federal vehicles. The order included language allowing agency heads to exempt intelligence and "law enforcement, protective, emergency response, or military tactical vehicle fleets."

Last year, Obama said he had asked the Secret Service if he could ride in a hybrid vehicle — he was rejected.

"Now, the reason is not because Secret Service are bad guys. It's because the cars that I'm in are like tanks. I mean, they, as you might imagine, they're a little bit of extra stuff on it. They're a little reinforced.So they weigh twice or three times what an ordinary car weighs. So they just couldn't get the performance, in terms of acceleration, using a hybrid engine," Obama said.

The presidential limousine is assembled by General Motor Co. at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. In January 2009, GM delivered a new limousine for White House use — the 2009 Cadillac presidential limousine - which replaced the 2006 Cadillac DTS presidential limousine.

The vehicle has heavy armor that is reportedly at least 5 inches thick . The limousine also has run-flat tires, bulletproof glass and a completely sealed interior to ward off a chemical attack, among many other high-tech security features.It also has significant electronic communications equipment.

The limousine weighs more than 10,000 pounds and is built off a medium-duty trick platform. The government won't disclose its fuel efficiency.

This isn't the first time law enforcement has been exempted from a vehicle policy by the Obama administration.

Obama signed an October 2009 executive order banning texting behind the wheel by all federal employees. But he said agency heads may exempt "certain employees, devices, or vehicles in their respective agencies that are engaged in or used for protective, law enforcement, or national security responsibilities or on the basis of other emergency conditions."

dshepardson@detnews.com

(202) 662-8735



From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110401/AUTO01/104010447/Presidential-limousine--security-vehicles-exempt-from-fed-‘green’-vehicle-policy#ixzz1IMpzhbXX

[Soul Crusher]

List of health reform waivers keeps growing (1,168 waivers)
The Hill ^ | April 2, 2011 | Jason Millman



The number of waivers the Obama administration has awarded for a provision of the year-old healthcare reform law grew by 128 in March.

With the new waivers, that means 1,168 businesses, insurers, unions and other organizations have received one-year exemptions from a healthcare reform provision requiring at least $750,000 in annual benefits.


(Excerpt) Read more at WWW.thehill.com ...

[blacken700]

.Presidential limousine, security vehicles exempt from fed 'green' vehicle policy
David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau



Washington — The U.S. Secret Service said today that some federal vehicles for law enforcement and security purposes will be exempt from President Barack Obama's directive that all federal vehicles purchased starting 2015 be advanced technology models.

Secret Service spokesman Robert Novy said the directive wouldn't apply to vehicles used for some law enforcement or security reasons by various federal agencies.
 
"Certain specialized vehicles including those with law enforcement and security specifications are not subject to this directive," Novy said.

That would include the GM-built Cadillac presidential limousine and other vehicles in the motorcade. It also expected to include many law enforcement vehicles.

Obama announced the plan this week to "green" the federal fleet.

"I'm directing our departments and our agencies to make sure 100 percent of the vehicles they buy are fuel-efficient or clean energy cars and trucks by 2015.Not 50 percent, not 75 percent — 100 percent of our vehicles," Obama said today at an appearance in Landover, Md., at UPS facility to urge private companies to green their vehicle fleets.

Obama noted that the federal government has more than 600,000 vehicles — the largest fleet in the United States — and has doubled the number of hybrids in its fleet over the last year — though they still account for less than 5 percent of government vehicles.

"That means we've got a lot of purchasing power.So what we're doing is we're using it to boost clean energy technologies," Obama said.

The White House says the advanced technology vehicles that the government will buy in 2015 include hybrids, electric vehicles and alternative fueled vehicles. Among those are "flex fuel" vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol or gasoline — something that costs automakers less than $100. Many full-size SUVs are flex-fuel models, and automakers get credits toward meeting fuel efficiency standards to build them even if drivers never use the higher blend of ethanol.

As a candidate for president in 2008, then Sen. Barack Obama unveiled an enegy strategy that called for boosting electric vehicles in the federal fleet.

"Within one year of becoming President, the entire White House fleet will be converted to plug -ins as security permits; and half of all cars purchased by the federal government will be plug-in hybrids or all electric by 2012," the fact sheet said.

The White House hasn't converted any vehicles yet. The government plans to buy 100 plug-in electric vehicles this year; it's not clear what federal agencies will use them.

No written guidance to federal departments has been issued about what types of models they can purchase or what agencies are exempt. It's not clear if it would apply to all military vehicles either.

This won't be the first time a president has exempted some vehicles from vehicle rules. In 2007, President George W. Bush issued an executive order calling for 2 percent annual reductions in gasoline usage among most federal vehicles. The order included language allowing agency heads to exempt intelligence and "law enforcement, protective, emergency response, or military tactical vehicle fleets."

Last year, Obama said he had asked the Secret Service if he could ride in a hybrid vehicle — he was rejected.

"Now, the reason is not because Secret Service are bad guys. It's because the cars that I'm in are like tanks. I mean, they, as you might imagine, they're a little bit of extra stuff on it. They're a little reinforced.So they weigh twice or three times what an ordinary car weighs. So they just couldn't get the performance, in terms of acceleration, using a hybrid engine," Obama said.

The presidential limousine is assembled by General Motor Co. at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. In January 2009, GM delivered a new limousine for White House use — the 2009 Cadillac presidential limousine - which replaced the 2006 Cadillac DTS presidential limousine.

The vehicle has heavy armor that is reportedly at least 5 inches thick . The limousine also has run-flat tires, bulletproof glass and a completely sealed interior to ward off a chemical attack, among many other high-tech security features.It also has significant electronic communications equipment.

The limousine weighs more than 10,000 pounds and is built off a medium-duty trick platform. The government won't disclose its fuel efficiency.

This isn't the first time law enforcement has been exempted from a vehicle policy by the Obama administration.

Obama signed an October 2009 executive order banning texting behind the wheel by all federal employees. But he said agency heads may exempt "certain employees, devices, or vehicles in their respective agencies that are engaged in or used for protective, law enforcement, or national security responsibilities or on the basis of other emergency conditions."

dshepardson@detnews.com

(202) 662-8735



From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110401/AUTO01/104010447/Presidential-limousine--security-vehicles-exempt-from-fed-‘green’-vehicle-policy#ixzz1IMpzhbXX

your point

[Soul Crusher]

If his goofy green nonsense is good enough for me, its good enough for him.   


Is he better than you or I?   

[Soul Crusher]

Half of Latest Crop of Obamacare Waivers Are to Unions
Human Events ^ | 04/03/2011 | Jim Hoft


The Obama Administration has now granted over 1,000 health care waivers. Half of the latest 129 waivers went to unions.

Jamie Durpree at the AJC reported:

The Obama Administration has rolled out another 129 waivers to one provision of the new health reform law, with almost half of those new exemptions going to various union groups. The extra waivers bring the total to 1,168...

...The waivers now cover almost three million Americans, but the feds argue that is "less than 2 percent of all Americans who have private health insurance.

Almost half of the new round of waivers were given to union health benefit programs, a fact that is sure spur new complaints from health law critics in the Congress, who see these waivers as evidence that the Obama health plan is flawed.

Karl Rove previously reported that a disproportionate number of waivers, nearly one-third, were being granted to union workers even though unionized workers make up only 7% of the private work force.

The Washington based GOP think tank known as Crossroads GPS filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in D.C. District Court against the Department of Health and Human Services. The group is seeking documents to better understand how HHS makes decisions to grant waivers to the new health care law.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Soul Crusher]

Obama’s energetic war on the young - Naive college kids don’t realize that big-government...
Washington Times ^ | April 1, 2011 | Robert Knight


________________________ ________________________ ______-


Naive college kids don’t realize that big-government servitude awaits

President Obama needs to reinvent reality, so where does he go? A college campus. And why not? With gas doubling in price toward $4 a gallon, what better place to talk energy than to backpacking cyclists at trendy, urban Georgetown University? It's a far friendlier crowd than, say, one composed of truckers, commuters or laid-off workers.

Besides, the last time Mr. Obama spoke at Georgetown, on April 14, 2009, college officials complied with a White House request to cover up pesky Christian symbols behind the presidential podium. Georgetown is a very friendly place for the O Force...

--snip--

Unemployment was 25.7 in February for teenagers and 15.7 percent for those 20 to 24 years old, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recent college grads are despairing of landing anything above the fast-food counter, where they face stiff competition from millions of recent immigrants...

--snip--

"We've got to discover cleaner, renewable sources of energy that also produce less carbon pollution, which is threatening our climate. And we've got to do it quickly."

And then he issued the "don't ask what your car can do for you, but what you can do for your car" pitch, warning students that they had better buy the kind of vehicle Washington wants them to buy.

What he didn't say was that it's tough to buy any kind of car if you don't have a job.


(Excerpt) Read more at www.washingtontimes.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Three Million and Counting Exempted from ObamaCare ($750K annual coverage exemption)
Commentary ^ | 04.03.2011 | Abe Greenwald


Sure, ObamaCare is great for you. So great that the president is now offering 3 million members of his base ObamaClemency:


The Obama Administration has rolled out another 129 waivers to one provision of the new health reform law, with almost half of those new exemptions going to various union groups. The extra waivers bring the total to 1,168....The waivers now cover almost three million Americans, but the feds argue that is "less than 2 percent of all Americans who have private health insurance."

The waiver gets you out of "a portion of the law that in 2011 requires an annual benefit limit of no less than $750,000." Sure beats a PBA card.

The left loves to perseverate on the threat to democracy posed by the top one percent of the country's earners. Wonder if they'll have any complaints about the two percent of Americans the president has officially exempted from obeying the law of the land.

We are deep in banana- republic territory here. The head of state forces an eccentric law onto his subjects and then lets his closest supporters get out of it so that they alone may continue to prosper. To call this more of the "same old" cynical Washington back-scratch machine is to underestimate the extent of the damage taking place before our eyes.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Soul Crusher]

Congrats Tim Wu! But Please Don’t Toss "The Regulatory Switch"
Tech Liberation ^ | February 8th, 2011 | Adam Thierer

________________________ ________________________ ______________________


Tim’s ideas on tech policy trouble me deeply. I’ll ignore the fact that he gave birth to the term “net neutrality” and that he chaired the radical regulatory activist group, Free Press. Instead, I just want to remind folks of one very troubling recommendation for the information sector that he articulated in his new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. While his book was preoccupied with corporate power and the ability of media and communications companies to posses a supposed “master switch” over speech or culture, I’m more worried about the “regulatory switch” that Tim has said the government should toss.


Tim has suggested that a so-called “Separations Principle” govern our modern information economy. “A Separations Principle would mean the creation of a salutary distance between each of the major functions or layers in the information economy,” he says. “It would mean that those who develop information, those who control the network infrastructure on which it travels, and those who control the tools or venues of access must be kept apart from one another.” Tim calls this a “constitutional approach” because he models it on the separations of power found in the U.S. Constitution.


I critiqued this concept in Part 6 of my ridiculously long multi-part review of his new book, and I discuss it further in a new Reason magazine article, which is due out shortly. As I note in my Reason essay, Tim’s blueprint for “reforming” technology policy represents an audacious industrial policy for the Internet and America’s information sectors. In concrete regulatory terms—and despite Tim’s insistence to the contrary, his approach most assuredly would require regulation—the Separations Principle would segregate information providers into three buckets: creators, distributors, and hardware makers. Presumably these would become three of the new “titles” (or regulatory sections) of a forthcoming Information Economy Separations Act.


While conceptually neat, these classifications don’t conform to our highly dynamic digital economy, whose parameters can change wildly within the scope of just a few years. For example, Google cut its teeth in the search and online advertising markets, but it now markets phones and computers. Verizon, once just a crusty wireline telephone company, now sells pay TV services and a variety of wireless devices. AOL reinvented itself as media company after its brief reign as the king of dial-up Internet access. Would firms that already possess integrated operations and investments (for instance, Microsoft or Apple) be forced to divest control of them to comply with the Separations Principle? If so, wouldn’t that hinder technological development?

[Soul Crusher]

Obama's plan to buy more public land draws GOP fire
Miami Herald ^ | 4/3/2011 | ROB HOTAKAINEN


WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says he's constantly telling his two daughters to turn off the TV, stop using Skype and go outside. He wants to get more American kids off the couch and out the door, reconnecting with the world and its natural beauty.

And he wants to make it easier for them to use parks and public lands, saying that too many Americans "can go days without stepping on a single blade of grass."

Toward that end, the president wants Congress to double spending - to $900 million next year - on a conservation fund that's used to buy more property for the federal government. Currently, the government owns 635 million acres, or roughly three out of every 10 acres, with the largest chunk in Alaska.

But with the nation deep in debt and facing a long backlog of projects on its public lands, many Republicans are lining up against Obama's plan, leaving its fate uncertain.

[Snip]

The president's proposal has ignited a fight over the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which, since its beginning more than 45 years ago, has been used to buy more than 4.5 million acres at a cost of $6.1 billion.

Backers of the fund say it's important for Congress to keep pumping money into it as the nation loses roughly 3 million acres to development each year...

[Snip]

Obama is proud of his record on public lands. In his first months in office, he signed legislation that designated 2 million acres of wilderness, including more than 1,000 miles of wild scenic rivers and three national parks. He wants the impact of his new plan to be felt nationwide. It calls for creating "a new generation of safe, clean, accessible great urban parks and community green spaces."


(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

March 29, 2011
Tim Wu: The Man Who is Destroying the Tech Industry
Joshua Lipana


Tim Wu, the coiner of the term "network neutrality", and a senior adviser to the FTC, has an interesting solution to solve the non-existent problems plaguing the tech industry. As The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

"In the class at MIT, Wu floats some hypothetical ways you could fight abuse... "something like term limits for monopolists. In theory, the government could say, 'Well, this company has clearly shown it's corrupt. ... So let's just nationalize their source code.'"


The monopolists, Mr. Wu is referring to, are the productive dynamos like Google, Facebook and Apple.


Apple in particular has earned Mr. Wu's ire. Wu, in a New York Times interview, says that he "fears" Apple. Why? Because of Steve Job's "vision" and because of its "undeniable appeal."


Partly because of Apple and its founder's much earned rise in the tech industry, Wu says that he seeks to "reinvigorate the role of a public counterforce to private power." This means stricter antitrust enforcement, and more controls on America's freest and most dynamic industry.


Apple, and companies like it, is not forcing anyone to buy its product. The relationship Apple has with its customers is one of mutual exchange to mutual benefit. Tim Wu wishes to harass Apple, not because it's done anything wrong, but precisely because it has done good. It is being targeted because of its productivity.


If we want to keep seeing the constant and magnificent innovation in the tech industry, we must condemn and stop this statist encroachment on the tech industry. And praise with moral certitude the heroic nature of entrepreneurs and businessmen in the tech industry.






Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/tim_wu_the_man_who_is_destroyi.html at April 04, 2011 - 12:14:42 PM CDT