Author Topic: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken  (Read 218128 times)

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1575 on: July 17, 2012, 05:10:28 AM »
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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1576 on: July 17, 2012, 06:06:40 AM »
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Should-Have-Known File: Big-Time Obama Fundraiser in Mortgage Seizure Scheme
 Townhall.com ^ | July 17, 2012 | John Ransom


Posted on Tuesday, July 17, 2012 8:12:44 AM by Kaslin

Municipalities in California are considering a scheme whereby they seize home mortgages that are underwater through the process known as eminent domain, pay off investors at reduced rates, and allow new investors to refinance the underlying homes at current value.

“The eminent-domain gambit is being advocated by Steven Gluckstern,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “the chairman of Mortgage Resolution Partners, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that has been the guiding force behind three California municipalities that are considering the approach.” 

And like all schemes weird and wacky in this Occupy Anything country we have become, it’s the brainchild of someone with deep ties to the Obama administration.

Steven Gluckstern raised $120,900 for the Obama campaign in 2008 as a bundler, according to opensecrets.org, the web site that tracks political donations.

A bundler is someone who raises campaign cash from others on behalf of a campaign and then gets special treatment from the president if the candidate wins.

Gluckstern was also the founding chairman of the Democracy Alliance, a George Soros-sponsored liberal money machine matrix ;-), that meets secretly in luxury hotel rooms across the country and has dispersed reportedly $150 million in donations to liberal causes since 2005.

Like all true Obamtrepreneurs, Gluckstern has- gasp and surprise- opened a new company, Mortgage Resolution Partners (MRP) to “partner” with local government in this extra legal scheme to steal from some mortgage companies and give to other mortgage companies with the full sanction of the government.

And the only thing that MRP wants in return is a small “fee”- a “fee is very similar to the fee paid by the government to banks that modify mortgages under federal programs.”

Oh, so: It is only a fee that is very similar to other government-sponsored theft?

How nice of them.

Would any Obama bundler that isn’t trying to bilk the country with some private venture that steals from others please raise your hand now?

Thought so.

Gluckstern joins list of professional fundraisers who have sought to cash in on their ability to raise money for Obama that includes recent scandals such as Solyndra and Lightsquared.   

Gluckstern has told the Journal that he has “wound down” his political involvement in recent years, besides the $2,500 check he wrote recently to the Obama campaign. However, opensecrets.org actually shows two $2,500 donations this year to Obama from Steven Gluckstern, plus two $2,500 donations from Judith Gluckstern on the same dates, AND two donations from Sarah Gluckstern of $2,300 from previous election cycles. Gluckstern’s wife and daughter are named Judith and Sarah, respectively. 

I know in my family, when I’m trying to wind my political involvement with someone, I generally try to keep the combined contribution checks just a tad under $15,000.

That goes double if I think the “investment” in the candidate isn’t working out that great. 

To do more would just “look” bad when I’m meeting secretly in luxury hotels rooms with bags full of cash to disperse to liberal causes.

Did I tell you the Democracy Alliance distributed a reported $150 million in cash to liberal groups since 2005?

I did?

Good.

The Journal reports the White House is “skeptical” of the Gluckstern plan, which is probably a polite way fo telling Gluckstern that he has to come up with more cash. Once a bundler, after all. 

The White House could have said that they have grave constitutional concerns about government seizure of private property just because it seems like a cool idea that can generate a lot of fees.

They might have denounced it as incompatible with private property rights as protected under the Fifth Amendment.

But instead, they weakly mentioned that it as a “local” issue while saying they have “concerns.”

I’m wondering if there is any part of the constitution that Professor Obama has actually read. Or did he just color between the words?

And all this time I thought Obama wasn’t very business-friendly.

I guess the rest of us non-bundlers better get into the bundling business.Because under Obama, that business is booming.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1577 on: July 18, 2012, 01:53:30 PM »
Amonix: Another Obama-Subsidized Solar Company Fails
 Breitbart ^ | 7/18/12 | John Nolte


Posted on Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Here we go again.

Yet another example of the Obama White House's failed attempt to pick winners and losers and doing so by gambling with our our tax dollars, this time to the tune of $6 million in tax credits and $15.6 in grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy.

This company, Amonix, is only 14 months old.

How in the world did it qualify for that kind of tax dollar windfall without any kind of track record?

Oh:

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Gov. Brian Sandoval were among the political leaders who lauded the company when it announced it would start making solar cells in the Golden Triangle Industrial Park.

And naturally, Obama has his fingerprints all over it:

The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, heavily financed under an Obama administration energy initiative, has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility 14 months after it opened.

Officials at Amonix headquarters in Seal Beach, Calif., have not responded to repeated calls for comment this week. The company today began selling equipment, from automated tooling systems to robotic welding cells.


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

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1578 on: July 19, 2012, 10:55:35 AM »
Timothy Geithner Peppered TARP Inspector General Barofsky With F-Bombs: Book


Posted: 07/19/2012 11:49 am Updated: 07/19/2012 1:41 pm


"I never would have imagined that one day one of the most powerful government officials in the world would be dropping f-bombs on me."

That's Neil Barofsky's response to being on the receiving end of an epic tantrum by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the fall of 2009, after Barofsky dared to suggest that Geithner had perhaps not been the most transparent Treasury secretary in the entire history of the country.

Warning: Sailor talk ahoy!

"Neil, I have been the most fucking transparent secretary of the Treasury in this country's entire fucking history!" Geithner erupted, in an episode that had Barofsky wondering if Geithner was going to "throttle" him. At the time, Barofsky was the special inspector general in charge of oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

It's one of the juicier episodes in Barofsky's new book, "Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street." The book recounts Barofsky's front-row view of how the Bush and Obama administrations handled the bailouts of banks, auto makers and homeowners after the financial crisis. Few players come off looking great in the book, but Geithner and his Treasury Department are cast in a particularly bad light.

Congress created Barofsky's position of special inspector general to keep tabs on how TARP money would be spent. Though a Democrat who donated to President Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, Barofsky was appointed by President George W. Bush and had a cordial relationship with then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Barofsky hoped for even better things from the Obama administration.

Instead, Geithner's treatment of Barofsky ranged from disdain to thundering rage.

In the thundering-rage episode, Barofsky met with Geithner in the fall of 2009 to express his concern that the Treasury Department had made TARP unpopular by not being fully forthcoming about how TARP was being used, including not forcing banks disclose how they were spending TARP funds.

"I said that I thought our capacity as a nation to deal with what could be a continuing financial crisis was being undermined by a loss of faith in government," Barofsky writes. "Then I said that the current loss of government credibility could be traced to Treasury's mishandling of TARP."

"Geithner got dramatic," Barofsky writes: "'Neil, you think I don't hear those criticisms? I hear them. And each one, they cut me,' he said, pausing and then making an emphatic cutting motion with one hand as he said 'like a knife.'"

After a Geithner subordinate in the room, Herb Allison, expresses personal offense at Barofsky's suggestion that Geithner has not been fully transparent, Barofsky responds:

"I am not suggesting that the secretary has failed in transparency, I am stating it. Mr. Secretary, you've failed to be sufficiently transparent, and that is one of the reasons why people are so angry. But you can still fix it."

And that's when the ticking time bomb that was Geithner erupted, says Barofsky:

"'No one has ever made the banks disclose the type of shit that I made them disclose after the stress tests. No one! And now you're saying that I haven't been fucking transparent?'"

Barofsky writes that he'd heard about Geithner's propensity for potty talk, but was still taken aback.

Barofsky writes that he responded to the meltdown with some mollifying words, but without backing down: "'Mr. Secretary, you've done some good things, to be sure,' I responded, and after a pause, I said slowly, 'but you could do so much more.'"

At that point in the meeting, Barofsky says, "Geithner looked as if he was going to get out of his chair and throttle me."

Cooler heads prevailed, and the meeting went on, but Geithner never really came fully off the boil, Barofsky writes:

"As we parried back and forth, Geithner repeatedly reached a pitch of anger, regaling me with detailed expletive-filled explanations that established my apparent idiocy. He would then calm himself down and give me a forced, almost demonic smile."

The meeting ended on a relatively cordial note, but that did not change Barofsky's assessment of the meeting: "It was the weirdest meeting of my life."

After the meeting was over, Barofsky and his deputy, Kevin Puvalowski, had a big laugh about it:

"'In all honesty, I think he was about to come out of his chair and beat the living shit out of you,' Kevin said. ... 'That was fantastic.'"

The Treasury Department was not immediately available for comment about the episode, or about the more-damning allegations of the book: that Geithner's Treasury Department repeatedly tried to undermine Barofsky's authority, ignoring his warnings about the risk of fraud in TARP programs and generally carrying water for the banking industry.

The Huffington Post is reading through the book and will file more posts about it shortly.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1579 on: July 20, 2012, 03:23:42 PM »


Strassel: Obama's Enemies List—Part II

First an Obama campaign website called out Romney donor Frank Vandersloot. Next the IRS moved to audit him—and so did the Labor Department.



By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

r
 


This column has already told the story of Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who last year contributed to a group supporting Mitt Romney. An Obama campaign website in April sent a message to those who'd donate to the president's opponent. It called out Mr. VanderSloot and seven other private donors by name and occupation and slurred them as having "less-than-reputable" records.

Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list. Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This bloodhound—a recent employee of Senate Democrats—worked for a for-hire opposition research firm.

Now Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted by the federal government. In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been "selected for examination" by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot's wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).

Mr. VanderSloot, who is 63 and has been working since his teens, says neither he nor his accountants recall his being subject to a federal tax audit before. He was once required to send documents on a line item inquiry into his charitable donations, which resulted in no changes to his taxes. But nothing more—that is until now, shortly after he wrote a big check to a Romney-supporting Super PAC.
 






Enlarge Image




Zhang Jun/Xinhua/ZUMAPRESS.com.
Two weeks after receiving the IRS letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers.

The H-2A program allows tens of thousands of temporary workers in the U.S.; Mr. VanderSloot employs precisely three. All are from Mexico and have worked on the VanderSloot ranch—which employs about 20 people—for five years. Two are brothers. Mr. VanderSloot has never been audited for this, though two years ago his workers' ranch homes were inspected. (The ranch was fined $8,400, mainly for too many "flies" and for "grease build-up" on the stove. God forbid a cattle ranch home has flies.)

This letter requests an array of documents to ascertain whether Mr. VanderSloot's "foreign workers are provided the full scope of protections" under the visa program: information on the hours they've worked each day and their rate of pay, an explanation of their deductions, copies of contracts. And on and on.
 
Perhaps all this is coincidence. Perhaps something in Mr. VanderSloot's finances or on his ranch raised a flag. Americans want to believe the federal government performs its duties without fear or favor.

Only in this case, Americans can have no such confidence. Did Mr. Obama pick up the phone and order the screws put to Mr. VanderSloot? Or—more likely—did a pro-Obama appointee or political hire or career staffer see that the boss had an issue with this donor, and decide to do the president an unasked-for election favor? Or did he or she simply think this was a duty, given that the president had declared Mr. VanderSloot and fellow donors "less than reputable"?

Mr. VanderSloot says he "expected the public beatings" from the left after the naming, but he "also wondered whether government agencies, anxious to please their boss, would take notice of the target he had apparently placed on me. Now that I'm being singled out for audits, I can't help but wonder whether there is a connection."
 
As for other Romney donors: "It is un-American and irresponsible for a president to target individual, law-abiding citizens for political retribution, and it is inconceivable that any U.S. agency would stoop to do the bidding for this campaign's silliness," says Louis Bacon, an investor and conservationist who also made the Obama list.

We don't know what happened, and that's the problem. Entrusted with extraordinary powers, Mr. Obama has the duty to protect and defend all Americans—regardless of political ideology. By having his campaign target a private citizen for his politics, the president forswore those obligations. He both undermined public faith in federal institutions and put his employees in an impossible situation.

Every thinking American must henceforth wonder if Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted for inquiry because of his political leanings. And every federal servant must wonder if his inquiries into an Obama enemy will bring suspicion or disgrace on the agency—even if the inquiry is legitimate.

As for Mr. VanderSloot, to what authority should he appeal if he believes this to be politically motivated—given the Justice Department on down is also controlled by the man who targeted him? (The White House did not return an email requesting comment.)

If this isn't a chilling glimpse of a society Americans reject, it is hard to know what is. It's why presidents are held to different rules, and should not keep lists. And it's why Mr. Obama has some explaining to do.

Write to kim@wsj.com.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1580 on: July 23, 2012, 03:50:04 AM »
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Obama Donor: Stimulus Was Like a Hooker in Prison
Townhall.com ^ | July 23, 2012 | John Ransom
Posted on July 23, 2012 8:24:52 AM EDT by Kaslin

Another green company backed by an Obama bundler just bit the dust.

After announcing earlier this year that the company would lay off 200 of its 300 employees, solar manufacturer Amonix Inc. closed its operation in North Las Vegas leaving taxpayers in the red by $20 million.

Editor's note: We've updated this piece with research from the RNC below, entitiled:  "The Big Payback: Where It All Began," which details the massive payoffs directed to Obama supporters using taxpayer dollars in the guise of "stimulus." 

“Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas,” reports the Las Vegas Sun, a liberal paper, last January, “the company’s contractor has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. Flextronics Industrial, the Singapore solar panel manufacturer that partnered with Amonix to staff the new $18 million, 214,000-square-foot plant, laid off about 200 of its 300-plus employees Tuesday.”

Now only 14 months after opening the facility, and seven months after massive layoffs, it has closed due to manufacturing over-capacity in the solar industry, along with quality control issues.

"I don't think they had a lot of training," said Rene Kenerly, a former material and supply manager at Amonix, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. "There were a lot of quality issues. A lot of stuff was coming back because it had some functionality issues."

Sounds like a picture perfect Obama program: Very expensive with "functionality issues."     

The man behind the company, Steve Westly, has received over $500 million in taxpayer-funded grants, loans and cash for a variety of companies- mostly in the in the green space after raising $86,000 for Obama as a bundler in 2008, according to the campaign cash website opensecrets.org.

So far this election cycle, Westly has donated $101,000 to various Democrat candidates and groups according to data compiled by opensecrets, including $60,000 to DNC Service Corp, also known by the less creepy name of the Democrat National Committee.

Earlier this week, I detailed plans by another Obama bundler, Steven Gluckstern, to help municipalities seize mortgage loans under eminent domain laws- that is, abuse eminent domain laws- in order to generate fees for his company, Mortgage Resolution Partners.

Westly’s list of interests backed by the Obama administration is much, much longer than the Gluckstern scheme however.

From the Center for Public Integrity:

“We believe that with the Obama administration, and other governments … committing hundreds of billions of dollars to clean tech, there has never been a better time to launch clean tech companies,” says his company website. “The Westly Group is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this surge of interest and growth.”

Uniquely positioned, indeed.

One of President Barack Obama’s most prolific fundraisers, Westly was among guests at January’s state dinner for the president of China. A month later, he dined with Obama again at an exclusive San Francisco Bay area gathering for prominent high tech CEOs, including the leaders of Facebook, Google and Apple.

In addition to the $20 million in loans and tax credits for the failed Amonix plant, Westly also is involved in other companies that have benefited from Obama-directed taxpayer help: Tesla Motors, CalStar Products, Solexel, Recycle Bank, EdenIQ and Amyris Biotechnologies.

Now I understand why the Democrats are so worried about Mitt’s tax returns: Mitt’s showing income not losses.

Obama's taxpayer rate of returns shows losses not income.

Occupy that.

Here’s my proposal: If it’s constitutional to tax people who don’t have healthcare, isn’t it constitutional to levy a tax on investors who benefit from federal green energy boondoggles?

If you are going to go after millionaires and billionaires, here’s a set of folks who are just crying for it.

Because if you want to know what happened to the all the stimulus jobs that were supposed to be created, now you know: They were sacrificed to stimulate the bundlers.

That’s all.


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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1581 on: July 24, 2012, 11:40:51 AM »
Obama Fundraises With Players in Solyndra Scandal






SAN FRANCISCO — At an exclusive re-election fundraiser tonight, President Obama hobnobbed with 60 of his wealthiest supporters, including two figures at the center of the Solyndra loan controversy.
 
Steve Westly, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, was one of the first to raise red flags about the administration’s support for a $500 million loan to Solyndra, the solar energy start-up that later went bankrupt.  He wrote directly to senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett in 2010 to raise concerns about the company’s viability ahead of the president’s high-profile visit that year.
 
Matt Rogers, a former senior adviser at the Department of Energy, played a key role in approving Solyndra’s loan as part of the stimulus plan.
 
Both men were spotted by White House print pool reporter Darren Samuelsohn of Politico at the Piedmont, Calif., home of Quinn Delaney and Wayne Jordan, who were hosting the $35,800-a-head event.
 
Samuelsohn noted that Westly was seen near the pool “juggling lemons, entertaining kids at the party.”
 
Republicans have seized on Obama’s ties to Westly and Rogers — and the Solyndra loan — as part of their case that the president engages in “crony capitalism.”
 
“The Obama Administration betrayed American taxpayers when it dumped hundreds of millions of public dollars into Solyndra while ignoring clear warnings about the company’s dire financial situation,” Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement.
 
“President Obama’s first term worked out well for his donors who got special access and taxpayer money for their failed ventures,” Williams said. “It hasn’t worked as well for the 23 million Americans struggling for work in the worst economic recovery our country has ever had.”
 
Before receiving a fast-tracked loan from the Obama administration in 2010, Solyndra had been singled out by both Republicans and Democrats as a promising venture potentially worthy of government investment. The company first applied for a Department of Energy grant under the George W. Bush administration.
 
Get more pure politics at ABC News.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com


SHOWS: World News

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/obama-fundraises-with-players-in-solyndra-scandal


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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1582 on: July 24, 2012, 12:48:54 PM »
AP Exclusive: Internal documents shows Obama deportation proposal could cost more than $585M
ALICIA A. CALDWELL  Associated Press
First Posted: July 24, 2012 - 2:09 pm
Last Updated: July 24, 2012 - 2:03 pm
 

 FILE - In this June 15, 2012 file photo, President Barack Obama talks about granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. The Obama administration's new plan to grant temporary work permits to many young, illegal immigrants who otherwise could be deported may cost the government more than $585 million and require hiring hundreds of new federal employees to process more than 1 million anticipated requests, according to internal Homeland Security Department plans obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)




WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's new plan to grant temporary work permits to many young, illegal immigrants who otherwise could be deported may cost more than $585 million and require hiring hundreds of new federal employees to process more than 1 million anticipated requests, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The Homeland Security Department plans, marked "not for distribution," describe steps that immigrants will need to take — including a $465 paperwork fee designed to offset the program's cost — and how the government will manage it. Illegal immigrants can request permission to stay in the country under the plan by filing a document, "Request for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," and simultaneously apply for a work permit starting Aug. 15.



Under the new program, which President Barack Obama announced last month, eligible immigrants must have arrived in the U.S. before their 16th birthday, are 30 or younger, have been living here at least five years, are in school or graduated or served in the military.
 They also must not have a criminal record or otherwise pose a safety threat. They can apply to stay in the country and be granted a work permit for two years, but they would not be granted citizenship.

The internal government plans obtained by the AP provide the first estimates of costs, how many immigrants were expected to participate and how long it might take for them. It was not immediately clear whether or under which circumstances any immigrants would not be required to pay the $465 paperwork fee. The plans said there would be no waivers, but Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress last week that the government would grant waivers "in very deserving cases." She said details were still being worked out.

"We anticipate that this will be a fee-driven process," Napolitano said.

A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, Peter Boogaard, said the plans obtained by the AP were "preliminary documents" and the process is still being worked out. Boogaard said processing immigrant applications under the program "will not use taxpayer dollars" because of the fees that will be collected.

Fee waivers could dramatically affect the government's share of the cost. The plans said that, depending on how many applicants don't pay, the government could lose between $19 million and $121 million. Republican critics pounced on that.

"By lowering the fee or waiving it altogether for illegal immigrants, those who play by the rules will face delays and large backlogs as attention is diverted to illegal immigrants," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas. "American taxpayers should not be forced to bail out illegal immigrants and President Obama's fiscally irresponsible policies."

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimated it could receive more than 1 million applications during the first year of the program, or more than 3,000 per day. It would cost between $467 million and $585 million to process applications in the first two years of the program, with revenues from fees paid by immigrants estimated at $484 million, according to the plans. That means the cost to the government could range from a gain of $16 million to a loss of more than $101 million.

The government estimated that as many as 890,000 immigrants in the first year would be immediately eligible to avoid deportation. The remaining 151,000 immigrants would likely be rejected as ineligible.

The plans estimated that the Homeland Security Department could need to hire more than 1,400 full-time employees, as well as contractors, to process the applications. Salaries were included in the agency's estimates of total program costs.

Once immigrants submit their applications, it could take between two and 10 days for the Homeland Security Department to scan and file it. It could take up to four weeks longer to make an appointment for immigrants to submit their fingerprints and take photographs. A subsequent background check could take six more weeks, then three more months for the government to make its final decision before a work permit would be issued.

Napolitano said new information about the program should be made available by Aug. 1. She has said immigrants would generally not be detained by immigration authorities while their application is pending.

___

Alicia A. Caldwell can be reached on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/acaldwellap







Disgusting. 

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1583 on: July 25, 2012, 06:22:16 PM »
Jul 25, 4:38 PM EDT

Obama creating African-American education office

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is creating a new office to bolster education of African-American students.

The White House says the office will coordinate the work of communities and federal agencies to ensure that African-American youngsters are better prepared for high school, college and career.

Obama is announcing his election-year initiative Wednesday night in a speech to the civil rights group the National Urban League as he seeks to rally black voters. Aides say his executive order, to be signed Thursday, will set a goal of producing "a more effective continuum" of programs for African-American students.

© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.




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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1584 on: July 25, 2012, 07:04:23 PM »
1. Nope.

2. Sounds like Bullshit.

3. Nah... my shit works well.
;D.   You made my day w that post.


LOL!!!

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1585 on: July 26, 2012, 03:11:45 AM »
Danish MPs call Obama ‘assassin’ over drones use (Hussein's extended 'kill' list?)
The Nation ^ | 7/26/12
Posted on July 25, 2012 10:43:52 PM EDT by Libloather

Danish MPs call Obama ‘assassin’ over drones use
By: The Nation Monitoring | July 26, 2012

COPENHAGEN - Danish lawmakers are levelling unprecedented criticism at US President Barack Obama for his use of remote-controlled attack drones in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Rasmus Helveg Petersen, Radikale foreign policy spokesperson, told Politiken newspaper that Obama’s actions mirror those of the terrorists he professes to be fighting against. “It’s terrible,” said Petersen. “The United States has no right to carry out these types of executions of suspected political adversaries. It contravenes international law.”

Petersen added that executing political adversaries within another country’s borders was tantamount to terrorism. The comments came after Soren Pind, of the opposition party Venstre, in an interview with the magazine Ræson, likened the drone attacks to ‘assassination’. “I criticised George Bush for allowing torture during his presidency,” Pind told Politiken. “But what he is doing is much worse and violates the principles of the Western world.” Representatives from the far-left Enhedslisten joined in bashing the US president and said it would raise the issue with parliament’s foreign policy committee. The attack drone issue has arisen following the disclosure of Obama’s involvement in some 261 drone raids against suspected terrorists in Pakistan alone. During his eight years in office, President George W Bush approved a total of 45 drone attacks.

(Excerpt) Read more at nation.com.pk ...

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1586 on: July 26, 2012, 08:54:12 AM »
White House tailors minority health care pitch (brags about all the 'free stuff')
 politico ^ | 7/26/12 | REID J. EPSTEIN





President Barack Obama tends to skim lightly over the details of his health care law in speeches.

But his administration has a far more specific pitch to black and Hispanic audiences.

The message: Blacks and Hispanics, among whom uninsured rates are significantly higher than among whites, stand to benefit disproportionately under the health law, gaining access to free preventive care and other services that will help reduce existing health care disparities. The sustained outreach from the White House aims to make voters eligible for new benefits aware of them and how to get them.

Obama’s staff has invited groups of black journalists and publishers to the White House for health care briefings with senior officials and conducted traveling policy road shows in black and Hispanic neighborhoods across the country. On the day the Supreme Court upheld Obama’s health law, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett held an on-background conference call for black reporters.

Obama rarely emphasized specific benefits for blacks and Hispanics as he pushed his law through Congress, focusing instead on its benefits for the general populace. And the law itself includes only a smattering of programs designed to address racial disparities in health care — even though 22 percent of African Americans and 32 percent of Hispanics are uninsured, compared to 14 percent of whites, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data.

As his campaign leans heavily on repeating 2008’s historic margins and turnout from black voters, months of White House outreach on the Affordable Care Act could help rally African Americans in November. While the president polls far better among blacks and Hispanics than GOP challenger Mitt Romney, every vote matters in such a tight race.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said the appeals are key to boosting black turnout in swing states such as Florida and Ohio, and he’d like to see even more of them.

“It is a rallying call and it would help excite the African-American vote because this is something that African Americans truly care about,” Cummings said. “If there is one piece of legislation that I have voted for that I hear mentioned most is the Affordable Care Act. It is just amazing to me, you know, I think about my constituents, if they didn’t watch the news, would be shocked that there’s so much opposition to it.”

To general audiences and in televised speeches, Obama frames his signature policy achievement as a protection for the middle class against insurance companies that would otherwise bleed them dry. At the National Urban League in New Orleans Wednesday, he highlighted popular provisions in the controversial law — children staying on their parents’ health care plans until they turn 26, an end to insurers’ discrimination against sick people, lower prescription drug prices for senior citizens and “30 million Americans without health insurance” who “will finally know the security of affordable care.”

To black audiences, his aides also offer a more comprehensive focus on the law’s details and how they will reduce inequalities in care.

Jarrett ticked through Obama’s Affordable Care Act talking points during a regional African American Policy Forum at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

“Given the health disparities, it will disproportionately benefit the African-American community,” Jarrett said at the July 13 event, at which she was the featured speaker.

“So many folks in our community, and you know people who do this, use the emergency room as their primary care. That is not good. You need a primary care physician who you go to see on a regular basis who provides you with preventive care. So under the Affordable Care Act, the cost of that preventive care is free,” she said, according to a recording of the meeting.

“So no more excuses for not going in for those checkups, whether it’s a mammogram, or prostate testing, or, we know that, for example, asthma is so prevalent in the black community among our children. You need to take your children in for those regular checkups and know that it’s going to be covered and you’re not out of pocket,” she added during the discussion, which was moderated by satellite radio host Joe Madison, known to his listeners as “The Black Eagle.”

Jarrett also cited the reluctance of Southern GOP governors to support the health law.

“If you don’t have insurance currently, we’re going to subsidize it through exchanges around the states. You may have been hearing recently that some of the Republican governors, particularly the Southern Republican governors, are talking about not expanding Medicare, which the Affordable Care Act provides for them to do,” she said, apparently referring to Medicaid. “We think that they should, but we’re also going to set up a federal exchange that allows people who don’t have health insurance to have it and have it in an affordable way.”

The White House declined to make Jarrett available for an interview.

“The health care law will help every American by reducing costs, ending the worst insurance company abuses and extending coverage to millions of Americans who have gone without insurance,” White House spokesman Nick Papas said. “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that administration officials discuss provisions of the law that will benefit the audiences they are addressing.”

But Florida GOP strategist Rick Wilson said Jarrett’s words show the health law is geared more toward eliminating racial disparities than helping the middle class.

“They sold the Affordable Care Act largely as, ‘We’re going to keep middle-class families from having catastrophic non-covered expenses and we’re going to help average, everyday Americans.’ She has a very specific race-based message, she’s playing to her audience at Morgan State,” Wilson said. “It plays to the race-driven mindset of a lot of these people in the Obama administration who look at the entitlement state as a way to address racial disparities.”

Chip Saltsman, who ran Mike Huckabee’s 2008 campaign, said the right will seize on Jarrett’s words as evidence that Obama’s health care reforms are not directed toward the middle class.

“Am I shocked that a senior adviser to the president would go to Baltimore and pander to a town hall to try and get votes for the president? No,” Saltsman said. “Neither will I be shocked that after hearing her remarks, a lot of conservatives are going to say, ‘I told you so.’”

Romney frequently attacks the health care law with a warning that some voters will be attracted to “free stuff” he says Obama has offered them.

“Your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this,” Romney told donors this month in Montana. “If they want more stuff from government, tell them to go vote for the other guy, more free stuff. But don’t forget, nothing is really free.”

Obama portrays his law as a matter of fairness.

“As Americans, we don’t expect handouts,” Obama said last week in Jacksonville, Fla. “But we expect hard work to pay off.”

In March, the administration invited the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which represents the black press, to separate White House briefings.

Surgeon General Regina Benjamin spoke and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took questions from the black journalists group, which was in Washington for its annual conference to address inequities in the U.S. health care system.

“They knew that we were addressing specifics in our conference of inequity, so they tailored their speeches to why African Americans stood to benefit more disproportionately or more profoundly than the general population,” said Cindy George, a Houston Chronicle reporter who chaired the NABJ’s D.C. health conference.

Tailoring a message to a particular audience is hardly unusual. And the administration is fine-tuning its health care message for other groups as well: Obama told a crowd of senior citizens in West Palm Beach, Fla., last week that his law would allow people who “had been unlucky and ended up getting laid off at the age of 55 or 57” to stay covered.

To reach Hispanic audiences, the White House in 2011 held “White House Hispanic Community Action Summits” in 21 cities. Officials discussed several initiatives, including how people newly eligible for health insurance can get it now and once more benefits become available in 2014. The campaign also has produced Spanish-language ads about the law.

A White House spokesman said the outreach to Hispanic constituents is more granular, targeting audiences that can benefit from the changes.

“We go through, here are the benefits, here’s how it works, here’s how you can get more information,” said Luis Miranda, the White House director of Hispanic media. “It’s about public health, we’re trying to inform people. We’re trying to do what good government does, which is to be accessible and responsive to constituents.”

Part of the motivation for the White House to be so explicit in its health care message to African Americans and Hispanics is that other efforts to relay the specific benefits of the law to a broader audience have failed, said Gordon Whitman, the policy director at the Pico National Network, an alliance of faith-based organizations.

Whitman said mainstream press coverage has emphasized the political battle more than what’s actually in the law, forcing the administration to offer more detail to groups that officials think will be receptive to its benefits.

“This is an area where it’s not what’s said, but what’s heard,” Whitman said. “I think the president and the White House have talked pretty consistently about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and what it means for people and probably more so since the Supreme Court decision. … But there have been a lot of filters that have made it difficult for people to hear it.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, who in June hosted one of four White House African American policy forums in his Mississippi district, said Obama hasn’t done enough to explain his health care reforms.

But he counseled the president to avoid delving into the Affordable Care Act’s details with audiences that aren’t pre-sold on the changes. Crowds that oppose the health care reform, Thompson said, will only be more turned off to Obama by hearing more about it.

“If the president decides to use it in those venues where he feels it’s advantageous, he’ll use it,” Thompson said. “But I wouldn’t seek reelection in an area that was against it. I would talk about whatever interest that that area had that we agreed to.”

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1587 on: July 26, 2012, 12:00:37 PM »
REVEALED: Corzine’s MF Global Was Client of Eric Holder’s Law Firm
by Wynton Hall

26 Jul 2012, 6:24 AM PDT189post a comment


via Breitbart



Those wondering why the Department of Justice has refused to go after Jon Corzine for the vaporization of $1.6 billion in MF Global client funds need look no further than the documents uncovered by the Government Accountability Institute that reveal that the now-defunct MF Global was a client of Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer’s former law firm, Covington & Burling.
 
There’s more.
 
Records also reveal that MF Global’s trustee for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy retained as its general bankruptcy counsel Morrison & Foerester--the very law firm from which Associate Attorney General Tony West came to DOJ.
 
And more.
 
As Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer explains in the Washington Times Thursday, the trustee overseeing MF Global’s bankruptcy is former FBI Director Louis Freeh. At Holder’s Senate confirmation hearing Freeh served as a character witness for Holder and revealed that Holder had previously worked for Freeh. “As general counsel,” Freeh said, “I could have engaged any lawyer in America to represent our bank. I chose Eric.”
 
Until now, the conventional wisdom for why Holder wouldn’t throw the book at Corzine was that Corzine is an Obama campaign bundler. Indeed, as Breitbart News reported, four of the top officials at the Department of Justice--Eric Holder, Thomas Perrelli, Karol Mason, and Tony West--were also big money bundlers for Obama.
 
But the newly understood crony connections reveal conflicts of interest that extend well beyond mere political support for a common candidate--they go to a tangle of prior business dealings that further underscore the need for a special prosecutor in the Corzine case.
 
At least 65 members of Congress have already signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate MF Global’s collapse and the loss of $1.6 billion in customer money. What’s more, even progressives have begun to wonder whether Holder’s Covington & Burling connection explains why the Department of Justice has not charged, prosecuted, or jailed a single Wall Street executive after the biggest financial collapse in American history.
 
As Richard Eskow of the Huffington Post recently wrote:
 

More and more Washington insiders are asking a question that was considered off-limits in the nation's capital just a few months ago: Who, exactly, is Attorney General Eric Holder representing? As scandal after scandal erupts on Wall Street, involving everything from global lending manipulation to cocaine and prostitution, more and more people are worrying about Holder's seeming inaction -- or worse -- in the face of mounting evidence.
 
This isn’t going away.
 
Both the left and the right are onto Holder’s Wall Street head fake. With the revelation of the new crony connections, the time for Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor in the Corzine/MF Global case is now.
 

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1588 on: July 26, 2012, 05:07:47 PM »
Executive Order -- White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans
White House ^ | July 26, 2012 | White House
Posted on July 26, 2012 7:36:34 PM EDT by eak3

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, to restore the country to its role as the global leader in education, to strengthen the Nation by improving educational outcomes for African Americans of all ages, and to help ensure that all African Americans receive an education that properly prepares them for college, productive careers, and satisfying lives, it is hereby ordered as follows:

(Excerpt) Read more at whitehouse.gov ...

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1589 on: July 27, 2012, 11:29:09 AM »
Disgraced Penn State President Hired by Obama Administration for Top Secret National Security Post



You just cant make this stuff up folks. Of course Spanier has been shilling and covering for the progressive secular left for years – LINK and was invested in the child sex abuse cover-up.
 
Political commentator Marie Garr said it best, “Guess they figure he can keep a secret……….GEEZ!”
 
Our take: What if Bush had done this?
 

Disgraced Penn State President Graham Spanier
 
Washington Post:
 

Graham Spanier might have been ousted from his post at the helm of Penn State over the sex-abuse scandal that engulfed the university, but it seems he’s found a backup employer: the American taxpayer.
 
Only a disgraced public figure would consider joining the much-maligned ranks of the federal workforce as a step up, reputation-wise. We can assume there were no openings for a used-car salesman.
 
Spanier was faulted in an internal Penn State report after the conviction on child-molestation charges of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The report said he, head coach Joe Paterno and others helped cover up Sandusky’s abuse.
 
His lawyer confirms to the Loop that Spanier is working on a part-time consulting basis for a “top-secret” agency on national security issues. But the gig is so hush-hush, he couldn’t even tell his attorneys the name of the agency. In April — months after his ouster as president but before the release of the internal report — he told the Patriot-News of central Pennsylvania that he was working on a “special project for the U.S. government relating [to] national security.”
 
But who’s he working for? The CIA? Homeland Security? Or maybe just a dull consulting firm with a government contract?
 
“I have no idea,”says his lawyer, Peter Vaira. “We know the work is in security and he’s prohibited from disclosing which agency or agencies he’s working for.”

http://politicalarena.org/2012/07/27/disgraced-penn-state-president-hired-by-obama-administration-for-top-secret-national-security-post


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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1590 on: July 28, 2012, 10:30:04 PM »
Obama gave tax money to campaign donors, then falsely claimed it was for "green energy"
wordpress.com ^
Posted on July 29, 2012 12:46:01 AM EDT by grundle

Number 25 on a very long list of Obama's misdeeds:

The Obama administration gave $535 million to Solyndra, claiming that it would create 4,000 new jobs. However, instead of creating those 4,000 new jobs, the company went bankrupt. It was later revealed that the company’s shareholders and executives had made substantial donations to Obama’s campaign, and that the company had also spent a large sum of money on lobbying. In April 2012, CBS News reported that Solyndra had left a substantial amount of toxic waste at its abandoned facility in Milpitas, California. After Obama gave Raser Technologies $33 million to build a power plant, the company declared bankruptcy, and owed $1.5 million in back taxes. After Obama gave Abound Solar, Inc. a $400 million loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories, the company halted production and laid off 180 employees. After Obama gave Beacon Power a $43 million loan guarantee to build green energy storage, the company filed for bankruptcy. After Obama approved $2.1 billion in loan guarantees for Solar Trust of America so it could build solar power plants, the company filed for bankruptcy. Although Obama stated that all of the green energy companies that received taxpayer money were chosen “based solely on their merits,” the truth is that 71% of these grants and loans went to Obama donors and fundraisers, who raised $457,834 for his campaign, and were later approved for grants and loans totaling more than $11 billion. By November 2011, the Energy Department’s inspector general had begun more than 100 criminal investigations related to Obama’s stimulus.

(Excerpt) Read more at danfromsquirrelhill.word press.com ...

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1592 on: July 31, 2012, 12:53:13 PM »
Inhofe: Obama Administration 'Doesn't Want All These Pink Slips Going Out 5 Days Before Election'

By Susan Jones

July 31, 2012

Subscribe to Susan Jones's posts


 


Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
 
(CNSNews.com) - President Obama is trying to prevent thousands of layoff notices from going out a few days before the November election, Sen. Jame Inhofe (R-Okla.) said on Tuesday.

Obama's Labor Department on Monday issued "guidance" to the states, telling them that a federal law requiring advance notice of mass layoffs does not apply to the layoffs that may occur in January as a result of automatic budget cuts known as "sequestration."

Inhofe, appearing on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, said President Obama, through his Labor Department, "is trying to intimidate businesses, companies, corporations -- not just defense contractors -- into not issuing the pink slips," which are required by federal law 60 days before mass layoffs or plant closings.

"(T)he president doesn't really want all these pink slips going out five days before the election," Inhofe said.

He noted that if the automatic budget cuts kick in on Jan. 2 -- as they will if Congress can't reach a deficit-reduction agreement -- layoff notices would have to go out no later than Nov. 2. The general election is on Nov. 6.

Under the WARN Act -- The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act -- companies with more than 100 employees must give 60 days' notice if there is to be a mass layoff during any 30-day period for 500 or more employees (or for 50-499 employees if they make up at least 33% of the employer's active workforce).

But in guidance issued on Monday, Assistant Labor Secretary Jane Oates said never mind about those pink slips:

"Questions have recently been raised as to whether the WARN Act requires Federal contractors...whose contracts may be terminated or reduced in the event of sequestration on January 2, 2013, to provide WARN Act notices 60 days before that date to their workers employed under government contracts funded from sequestrable accounts. The answer to this question is 'no.' In fact, to provide such notice would be inconsistent with the purpose of the WARN Act."

In its guidance, the Labor Department also noted that "efforts are being made to avoid sequestration," making its occurrence "not necessarily foreseeable."

"You can't not comply with the law," Inhofe said on Tuesday. "Put yourself on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin. If they came out with a class-action suit of a thousand dollars per employee, that would be $120 million. You bet they're going to send out pink slips. And by the way, they don't have to wait until Nov. 2. They can send them out today if they want," Inhofe added.
 
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also criticized the Obama administration for the "obvious political aim" of its guidance on the WARN Act.

“At a time when our economy continues to suffer from staggeringly high unemployment, the Obama Administration today took away an important planning tool for Americans who may lose their jobs as a result of the failure of Congress and the White House to address the looming and entirely predictable threat of budget sequestration. Sequestration is currently the law of the land, and our nation's workers have a right to know how these sequestration cuts which begin in January may impact them," the senators said in a news release.

“This decision is especially disturbing in light of the fact that the Department of Labor previously stated in a Fact Sheet that ‘since it has no administrative or enforcement responsibility under’ the WARN Act, it ‘cannot provide specific advice or guidance with respect to individual situations.’ Today the Department did just that, issuing guidance to government contractors not to provide their employees advance notification of potential layoffs as a result of sequestration. This is a troubling turnaround that lays bare the obvious political aim of today’s announcement – avoiding mass layoff notices just days before the November 6th election.

McCain, Ayotte and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) this week are visiting communities in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia and New Hampshire that will be hardest hit by the steep, automatic cuts to the Defense budget.

"The Americans we have met today are asking Republicans and Democrats to do their jobs – to come together to find a solution that avoids this threat to our national security and economy. They are also asking for something that has been totally lacking in Washington – presidential leadership," they said.

Republicans say President Obama has refused to engage in the debate and will share responsibility for the potential loss of one million jobs if sequestration takes effect.

"The Senate Armed Services Committee has received letters from eight defense companies, all of which advise that they will have to lay off thousands – if not tens of thousands – of workers if sequestration occurs. These Americans deserve fair warning that politics in Washington is placing their jobs in jeopardy," McCain and Ayotte said.

Under the Budget Control Act of 2011, if Congress can't produce deficit-reduction legislation by the end of the year, automatic spending cuts will take effect in 2013, split 50-50 between domestic and defense spending.  That amounts to a $500-billion cut to the Defense budget over ten years.
 
In theory, the deep Defense cuts were supposed to be so unpalatable that Democrats and Republicans would come together to find other ways to reduce the deficit.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1593 on: August 01, 2012, 06:20:18 PM »
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White House officials caught out with lobbyists
Telegraph (UK) ^ | 8:07PM BST 01 Aug 2012 | By Raf Sanchez, Washington
Posted on August 1, 2012 9:00:36 PM EDT by DeaconBenjamin

Aides to President Barack Obama used personal email accounts to contact pharmaceutical companies and deliberately scheduled meetings in coffee shops away from the White House in order to skirt disclosure rules, according to a Congressional report on Wednesday.

Among the most damaging findings are emails from Jim Messina – the former White House deputy chief of staff who now manages the president's re-election campaign – to a drugs lobbyist in the days before Mr Obama's health care reforms passed Congress in 2010.

In an email from his personal account, Mr Messina promised "I will roll [Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi] for the 4 billion" needed to fund expansion of health care coverage. Mr Messina also promised the lobbyist he would deal with a reporter who had been questioning the White House's links with the pharmaceutical industry.

The report by the Republican-controlled oversight and investigations sub-committee also contained details of a proposed meeting between Jeffrey Smith, one of the president's science advisers, and an executive from a technology company.

Mr Smith suggested meeting at a Caribou Coffee near the White House, explaining that meeting in his office would mean "you'd appear on an official WH Visitor List which maybe not [what] you want at this stage".

Representative Cliff Sterns, the sub-committee chairman, said: "What we have learnt from our many investigations is that, time and again, the Obama administration's actions have failed to match the president's lofty rhetoric on transparency."

The sub-committee did not accuse the White House of breaking the law but rather of failing to live up to its own claim of being "the most open and transparent administration in history".

The White House declined to address the allegations directly, insisting that Mr Obama worked with "unprecedented openness in government".

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...







Obamabots? 

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1595 on: August 02, 2012, 11:09:35 AM »
Sen. Obama supported layoff warnings; now sees no need

Will affect contractors if budget cuts hit Jan. 2

http://www.washingtontimes.com/guy-layoff-warnings-07/print



President Obama's administration doesn't see the need for defense contractors to warn employees about possible layoffs from across-the-board budget cuts, but in 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama railed against employers for failing to notify workers who were in danger of losing their jobs.

"The least employers can do when they're anticipating layoffs is to let workers know they're going to be out of a job and a paycheck with enough time to plan for their future," Mr. Obama said in a news release on July 17, 2007, while campaigning for president.

The Obama administration said Monday in guidance from the Labor Department that federal contractors don't need to warn their employees that they could lose their jobs because of the looming budget cuts that are slated to begin Jan. 2. The agency said it would be "inappropriate" for employers to send such warnings because the $110 billion in cuts are still speculative. Defense programs would be the target of about half of the cuts.

The Labor Department's letter came after a Pentagon official said Defense Department contractors could be sending layoff notices days before the Nov. 6 presidential election. Some industry groups predict the budget cuts could cause as many as 1 million workers in the U.S. to lose their jobs. Lockheed Martin, for example, has told Congress it might be forced to lay off 10,000 of its 120,000 employees.

The White House is worried that thousands of those jobs would be lost in election battleground states such as Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers with 100 workers or more to give 60 days' notice of a plant closing or mass layoffs. And in 2007, then-Sen. Obama urged Congress to beef up the law, arguing that employers were ignoring it and the government wasn't enforcing it.

"For too long, employers have failed to notify workers that they're about to lose their jobs due to mass layoffs or plant closings even though notice is required by the WARN Act," Mr. Obama said in that news release on July 17, 2007.

That same month, Mr. Obama also said, "We must act at the federal level to close the loophole that allows employers to disregard the WARN Act without penalty. We must give the WARN Act teeth, to ensure that workers are not left in the lurch without a job or a paycheck."

That year, Senate Democrats led by Mr. Obama, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York proposed the Forewarn Act, which would have added to the regulations by requiring 90 days notice of layoffs and expanding the number of companies under federal jurisdiction. The legislation died.

The White House did not respond to a question about the apparent inconsistency between Mr. Obama's position five years ago and the administration's policy guidance this week.

The chairman of House Armed Services Committee said the new guidance was politically motivated.

"People will still get laid off because of the president's irresponsibility, but they won't have the notice to protect themselves and their families," said Rep. Howard "Buck" P. McKeon, California Republican.

The Defense Department faces a reduction of $492 billion over 10 years, with $55 billion in cuts due in January, unless the Obama administration and Congress can agree on an alternative. Domestic programs also would be reduced by $492 billion over the next decade. The automatic cuts are to take effect because of the failure of the bipartisan congressional supercommittee to find a way to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Wednesday he's prepared to cancel part of Congress' vacation this month and call the House back into session if Senate Democrats agree to work on the looming defense spending cuts.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, Mr. Boehner said Republicans were reluctant last year to include defense spending cuts in the deal that allowed Mr. Obama to raise the debt ceiling. He said the Democrats are now blocking Republicans' efforts to head off the cuts.

"Translation: We're putting this right at your doorstep. You own it. If Harry Reid, [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama want to own a small business tax hike and a devastating cut to our national defense, they are now set up perfectly to do so," Mr. Boehner told House Republicans, according to text his office released.

© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1596 on: August 02, 2012, 01:15:21 PM »

Waxman criticizes White House on transparency

 By Sterling C. Beard - 08/02/12 01:35 PM ET






The Obama administration has come under fire from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) amid accusations that the White House failed to live up to its own ethical standards.

"The Presidential Records Act was enacted to ensure that White House records are preserved for history and are owned by the American people," Waxman said. "Everyone who is covered by the law should follow it, regardless of which party controls the White House."

Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a report two days ago that detailed members of the Obama White House using personal email accounts to conduct official business with representatives of the pharmaceutical industry. The report also listed occasions where the same officials met outside of the White House, apparently at a Caribou Coffee, ensuring the meetings would not be recorded in official visitor logs. One official named in the report is Jim Messina, a former deputy chief of staff, now the Obama campaign manager.


Many Democrats and interest groups that had been critical of the Bush administration’s transparency were unwilling to comment. Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) office did not respond to a request for comment according to The Huffington Post, nor did Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The Republican National Committee circulated the Huffington Post piece to reporters.

Waxman had demanded that Bush administration aides preserve emails when it was discovered during an investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys that as many as 22 million Bush administration emails may have been deleted.

The Romney campaign took advantage of the situation, echoing an Obama attack on Mitt Romney’s taxes that implied the candidate might have committed a crime.

"This appears to be a violation of the law, which requires that all official communications be preserved," Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstom said on a conference call with reporters Thursday.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1597 on: August 03, 2012, 09:57:56 AM »
BOMBSHELL: Obama chief of staff Daley briefed on Solyndra concerns six months before bankruptcy
 Hot Air ^ | August 3, 2012 | Ed Morrissey


Posted on Friday, August 03, 2012 9:54:46 AM by


The Solyndra scandal took a big step up the ladder today, as ABC News uncovers new evidence that shows fears over a collapse reached all the way into the West Wing. An OMB analyst tried to raise red flags on the Obama administration’s attempt to rescue the now-bankrupt green-tech firm, before the Department of Energy rejected her advice and restructured the loans in March 2011, which illegally subordinated taxpayers in case of default. An e-mail from Kelly Colyar in August 2011 reminded recipients that she had predicted that very scenario — and that White House chief of staff had been briefed on her warning in February, before the restructuring:

Buried in the treasure trove of White House emails related to Solyndra released Thursday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee is one suggesting that concerns about Solyndra’s viability were shared all the way up to then-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley a full six months before the company went bust. …

As Solyndra began sinking for good last August, Colyar sent an email summarizing the events leading to a near total taxpayers loss of the $535 loan.

“You may recall that DOE announced in March that they had restructured the Solyndra loan,” Colyar writes. “Prior to this restructuring, OMB staff expressed reservations about the prospects of the company and DOE’s proposal.”

And here’s the key line: “The issue was discussed with the NEC and the Chief of Staff.”

Oh, my. Until now, the closest this has come to Barack Obama himself was yesterday’s revelation that Rahm Emanuel — Daley’s predecessor — came up with the brilliant idea to tie his boss personally to Solyndra.

..When Solyndra imploded, Emanuel’s advice ended up backfiring on Obama and leaving him open to charges of crony capitalism.


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

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1598 on: August 04, 2012, 05:06:30 AM »
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Five dozen lawmakers protest ‘untenable’ oil field regulations
The Hill ^ | August 3, 2012 | Pete Kasperowicz
Posted on August 4, 2012 7:58:19 AM EDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

A bipartisan group of House members has called on the Department of Transportation to reverse regulatory guidance issued in June that limits the ability of supply trucks to service oil and gas fields.

Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.) and 60 other members of the House argued in a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the guidance will harm not just the oil and gas industry, but related industries that contribute to job growth. They also argue that the guidance reversed 50 years of established practice with little warning to the industry.

"Such a change significantly restricts the operations of individuals and businesses engaged in hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking' operations, thereby increasing their costs and restricting their ability to provide good-paying jobs to American citizens and low-cost energy to U.S. consumers," they wrote in a letter released Friday.

At issue is regulatory guidance that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) released in June. For the first time in decades, the FMCSA said that some supply vehicles would not benefit from a policy that allows drivers of commercial vehicles to stay on duty beyond the 11-hour limit that the government imposes for safety reasons.

It is often necessary for drivers servicing oil and gas fields to stay on duty beyond 11 hours because these fields can be in remote areas accessible only by unpaved roads. In addition, once these trucks get to the oil or gas field, they are often forced to wait to load or unload, based on the activity going on at the site.

Under the FMCSA's regulatory guidance, only drivers of trucks related directly to oil and gas operations will still benefit from the ability to stay on duty for extended periods of time. But other drivers, such as those driving trucks supplying general supplies, or moving sand and water to and from the site, will be capped at 11 hours a day.

The House letter argued that this new guidance would create two classes of drivers that would make it much harder for the oil and gas site to coordinate its operations. It also warned that the change would require more drivers and more trucks, which would increase cost and produce more vehicle traffic.

"Considering the substandard condition of this infrastructure, we believe this increased traffic to be an untenable outcome of this Guidance," they wrote.

A House aide said members are pressing the FMCSA to reassess its guidance, and at the very least go through formal rulemaking process rather than make this change through a guidance document. An official process would also allow industry input into the decision.

"Changes of such magnitude must be made only after the industry has had proper time to review this change and submit comments to FMCSA," they wrote.

The aide said that while the FMCSA guidance took effect in early June, officials have since extended the comment period and are holding "listening sessions" across the country, which could be a sign that the FMCSA is open to adjusting the guidance.

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Re: Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken
« Reply #1599 on: August 05, 2012, 07:58:54 AM »
http://www.naturalnews.com/036689_NSA_whistleblowers_spying.html



Just wow. 

And you far leftists attacked cheney and bush?   LMFAo!!!!