● Chief Justice John Roberts found State of the Union scene 'troubling'... ● Obama's plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism... ● House Ways and Means Chairman Levin says job creation will be top priority...Again?... ● Massa flirts with the right, but Beck isn't tickled... ● CBO Update... ● Massa under investigation for allegedly groping male staffers... ● From Greece, an economic cautionary tale for the U.S.... ● Obama wants to Overhaul Immigration System. What's Next? The People?... ● Are unemployment benefits no longer temporary?... ● Analysis finds uneasy mix in auto industry and regulation...
PositiveReform header image 4
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Non-Transparency'

Obama’s plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism

March 10th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Ethics, Greed, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

By Joel Achenbach Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Harrison Schmitt’s credentials as a space policy analyst include several days of walking on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronaut, who is also a former U.S. senator, is aghast at what President Obama is doing to the space program.

“It’s bad for the country,” Schmitt said. “This administration really does not believe in American exceptionalism.”

Schmitt’s harsh words are part of a furious blowback to the administration’s new strategy for NASA. The administration has decided to kill NASA’s Constellation program, crafted during the Bush administration with an ambitious goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020. Obama’s 2011 budget request would nix Constellation’s rocket and crew capsule, funnel billions of dollars to new spaceflight technologies, and outsource to commercial firms the task of ferrying astronauts to low-Earth orbit.

The new strategy, however, has been met with outrage from many in the aerospace community. The entire congressional delegation from Florida, Democrats and Republicans alike, has sent a letter of protest to the president. Doubters fill op-ed pages and space blogs.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ··

No Comments

House Ways and Means Chairman Levin says job creation will be top priority…Again?

March 10th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Government, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

House Ways and Means Chairman Levin says job creation will be top priority

By Lori Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 10, 2010

As he takes the reins of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Sander M. Levin is vowing to raise the profile of a once-powerful panel that, in recent years, has been overshadowed by the ethics troubles of its previous chairman, Rep. Charles B. Rangel.

In one of his first interviews as chairman, Levin (D-Mich.) said that job creation will be his top priority in the run-up to this fall’s congressional elections. But he said he also plans to wade aggressively into the debate over national tax policy and return his committee to its customary position at the center of the coming battle over tax reform.

“I don’t think [the Senate Finance Committee] should run the show. Charlie Rangel has struggled with this,” Levin said. “The task ahead makes it important that I actively chair this committee. On a really collegial basis, because I’ve always acted that way. But you can combine strength and collegiality.”

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·····

No Comments

From Greece, an economic cautionary tale for the U.S.

March 9th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Foreign Policy, Government, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Look into the face of George Papandreou, America, and see your future.

The Greek prime minister is in town this week as part of a world tour seeking help for his beleaguered homeland. Greece is broke, its government on the verge of default. As Papandreou landed in Washington, there were strikes in the streets of Athens over his tax increases, his wage cuts for government workers and his scaling back of retirement benefits.

As he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced the cameras Monday, she spoke of the weekend’s election in Iraq. “Greece is the birthplace of democracy, so anytime there’s a democratic election anywhere in the world, Greece should get a royalty, Prime Minister,” Clinton said.

“Would help our deficit, too,” Papandreou joked.

“Yeah,” Clinton agreed. “It’s a new way of plugging the hole.”

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·······

No Comments

U.S. reportedly gives billions to firms doing business with Iran

March 8th, 2010 · Defense, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, National Security, Non-Transparency, Politics

Monday, March 8, 2010

The U.S. government, while pushing for tougher sanctions against Tehran, has given $107 billion in the past 10 years to U.S. and foreign companies doing business in Iran, much of it in the energy sector, the New York Times reported in its Sunday editions.

Despite the threat of punishment for companies that seek U.S. federal contracts while dealing with Iran, the Times said successive administrations have struggled to exert authority over foreign companies and overseas units of U.S. firms.

Of the 74 companies the newspaper said it had identified as doing business with both the U.S. government and Iran, 49 still work with Iran and have no announced plans to leave.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ··

No Comments

Key vacancies give Obama a chance to steer financial reform

March 8th, 2010 · Congress, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Fraud Alert, Government Control, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Binyamin Appelbaum Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 8, 2010

President Obama has the chance during his first term to appoint leaders for each of the federal agencies that oversee banks, an important opportunity to reshape the government’s approach to regulation even as the White House struggles to push structural reforms through the Senate.

In his first such decision, Obama chose to keep Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, in part because administration officials concluded that Bernanke had demonstrated a commitment to increasing the Fed’s focus on regulation and consumer protection. The administration also appointed a second Fed governor, Daniel K. Tarullo, to lead an overhaul of the central bank’s approach to regulation.

A second opportunity comes in August, when John C. Dugan reaches the end of his term as comptroller of the currency, the chief regulator for most of the nation’s largest banks.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ············

No Comments

Obama & Democratic Leaders – Pass Bill Now, Fix Later. Abortion is Small Price to Pay.

March 6th, 2010 · Congress, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Healthcare Industry, Immigration, Insurance Industry, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within

Democratic leaders working to win over abortion opponents for health-care reform

By Alec MacGillis Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 5, 2010

As President Obama makes his final plea for a health-care overhaul, Democratic leaders in Congress are embarking on a delicate strategy to win over abortion opponents, a gambit that could determine whether the legislation becomes law.

The effort depends on convincing as many as a dozen antiabortion Democrats in the House that abortion language in the Senate bill is more stringent than initially portrayed. But Democratic leaders must be careful that they don’t drive away abortion rights supporters who are increasingly concerned that the measure would prove severely restrictive.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ··········

No Comments

Obama advisers (NOW) set to recommend military tribunals for alleged 9/11 plotters

March 6th, 2010 · Deception, Defense, Democrats, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, National Security, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Anne E. Kornblut and Peter Finn Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 5, 2010

President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·······

No Comments

Four Democratic senators aim to halt stimulus wind project

March 4th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Environment, Greed, Non-Transparency, Obama Exposed, Senate

By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 4, 2010

A group of Democratic senators called Wednesday for the government to halt a federal stimulus program aimed at building wind farms and other clean-energy projects, arguing that too much of the money spent so far has gone to create jobs overseas.

The Obama administration and wind-energy advocates strongly disputed the criticism by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and three other Democrats, saying that most of the jobs under the Energy Department program have been created in the United States, despite the dominance of foreign manufacturers in the green-technology sector.

The dispute marks a rare public split among Democrats over the $862 billion stimulus package, which the Obama administration and party leaders have defended as crucial to saving jobs and easing the recession’s impact. Republicans have spent the past year attacking the package as a wasteful boondoggle.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·····

No Comments

Obama administration plans to close International Labor Comparisons office

March 3rd, 2010 · Accountability, Corruption, Deception, Ethics, Government Control, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Politics, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Unemployment

By Alec MacGillis Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Like a scorekeeper for the world, a tiny unit within the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks globalization’s winners and losers, and the results are not always pretty for the United States. Manufacturing jobs here, for example, have fallen faster since 1979 than in Canada, Germany or Japan. Compensation for those jobs dropped here in 2008 but jumped in South Korea and Australia.

Soon, however, Americans may be spared the demoralization in these numbers: The White House wants to shutter the unit that produces them.

President Obama’s budget would eliminate the International Labor Comparisons office and transfer its 16 economists to expand the bureau’s work tracking inflation and occupational trends. The White House says the cut, estimated to save $2 million, is one of many difficult decisions the president was forced to make to control spending.

“This budget had to make some tough choices and prioritize the nation’s most pressing needs during a challenging economic and fiscal climate,” said Office of Management and Budget spokesman Tom Gavin. But the proposed cut has triggered an outcry from an eclectic group of academics, business leaders and union officials — a reminder that, in the sprawl of the federal government, some seemingly obscure offices have built a loyal following around their discrete missions.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ········

No Comments

White House social secretary Desiree Rogers resigns

March 1st, 2010 · Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme

By Michael D. Shear and Jason Horowitz Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 27, 2010; 2:00 PM

White House social secretary Desirée Rogers, a friend of President Obama’s from Chicago, is leaving her job to return to the private sector, the White House announced Friday.

Rogers’s tenure as the top party and events planner for the administration was marred by the Salahi gate-crashing incident, in which a Virginia couple managed to enter the White House grounds during Obama’s first state dinner in November.

Although a senior administration official said the incident proved decisive for her tenure, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the decision to leave was her own.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·

No Comments