● 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... ● U.S. reportedly gives billions to firms doing business with Iran... ● Key vacancies give Obama a chance to steer financial reform... ● Ethics clouds over Rangel and Paterson are the talk of political Harlem... ● Thin wall separates lobbyist contributions and earmarks... ● Democratic activists channel anger into Arkansas Senate race...
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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Treason'

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.”

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Obama wants to Overhaul Immigration System. What’s Next? The People?

March 9th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Immigration, Selling Out the US, Treason

Immigrant rights group slam Obama, Democrats for slow action with legalization bill

By N.C. Aizenman and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Leaders of nearly a dozen grass-roots immigrant rights groups excoriated President Obama and congressional Democrats on Monday, accusing them of moving too slowly to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants and citing a record number of deportations in 2009.

“Our community is angry. Our members feel betrayed,” said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “We never believed in our wildest dreams that President Obama would have a record like this.”

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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.

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In e-mails, lobbyists perceive ties between campaign cash, earmarks

March 6th, 2010 · Accountability, Congress, Corruption, Deception, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Money Lost, Obama's Scheme, Politics, Selling Out the US, Stimulus, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Treason

By Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 6, 2010

Lobbyists and corporate officials talked bluntly in e-mail exchanges about connections between making generous campaign donations and securing federal funds through members of an important House Appropriations subcommittee, according to not-yet-public documents reviewed by ethics investigators.

In summer 2007, for example, senior executives at a small McLean defense firm tried to figure out which of them would buy a ticket to a wine-tasting fundraiser for Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense. At the time, the company sought help from Moran’s office in securing contracts through special earmarks added to the defense bill.

In an e-mail exchange, one senior officer said he didn’t understand why he had to attend the fundraiser when he didn’t even drink wine.

“You don’t have to drink,” Innovative Concepts’ chief technology officer, Andrew Feldstein, shot back in an e-mail. “You just have to pay.”

“LOL,” responded the other officer.

The fundraiser was hosted by the PMA Group, a powerful lobbying firm whose unusual success in obtaining “earmarked” contracts from members of the military subcommittee was a key focus of a recent House ethics investigation.

Moran raked in $91,900 in campaign checks to his personal campaign and leadership PAC that day. He secured an $800,000 earmark for Innovative Concepts in the 2008 defense appropriations bill.

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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.

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Obama appointees to the Justice Department represented detainees earlier in their careers.

March 4th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Defense, Democrats, Ethics, Government, Government Control, Homeland Security, Immigration, National Security, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Terrorism from Within, Treason

Conservatives raise ruckus over Justice appointees’ prior work with detainees

By Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 4, 2010

Conservatives who are unhappy with the decision to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have trained their fire on an unusual target: political appointees in the Obama Justice Department who represented detainees earlier in their careers.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has been demanding for months the names of nine appointees who previously advocated for or represented detainees in their private law practices. Grassley has argued that the lawyers’ backgrounds could pose “conflicts of interest” and complained that the department had been “nonresponsive” to his requests.

The rhetoric reached new levels this week when Keep America Safe, a group affiliated with Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Richard B. Cheney, released a YouTube video that featured the headline “DOJ: Department of Jihad?” and asked, “Who are these government officials? . . . Whose values do they share?”

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Rashad Hussain, a Muslim and new U.S. envoy, is bridge between two worlds

March 1st, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Ethics, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Treason

By Scott Wilson – Monday, March 1, 2010

Rashad Hussain, President Obama’s new special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, was an avid high school debater in Plano, Tex., where he grew up.

His debate partner and best friend was a classmate named Josh Goldberg, meaning that at the end of many tournaments, the judge would announce “Goldberg-Hussain” as the cultural odd couple who had won the argument. “People got a kick out of it,” Hussain said in a recent interview. “We joked that one day we would have the solution to the peace process.” The two remain close friends.

In his new position, Hussain, who is both a Koran scholar and an ardent North Carolina Tar Heels basketball fan, will be responsible for helping to bridge another cultural divide — the one in U.S. relations with Muslims inside and outside the nation’s borders.

Since taking office, Obama has adopted an approach to broaden the ways in which the United States engages the Islamic world, moving from a policy focused mostly on counterterrorism to one that includes partnerships with Muslim countries and communities in education, health, science and commerce.

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In the Senate, a test for Democrats’ scaled-down jobs bill (Spending Bill Add-On)

February 22nd, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Greed, Money Lost, Selling Out the US, Stimulus, Tax Dollars, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Unemployment

By Ben Pershing Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 22, 2010

Democrats’ renewed focus on bolstering the economy faces a key test Monday, with the Senate expected to hold a procedural vote on what Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes will be the first of several job-creation bills.

The chamber will vote on whether to proceed with a $15 billion measure that includes a one-year Social Security tax break for companies hiring new employees who have been out of work for at least 60 days. The package also would reauthorize the Highway Trust Fund, allow companies to write off equipment purchases, and expand Build America Bonds, which help state and local governments fund infrastructure projects.

But the measure does not include a host of other provisions from an $85 billion bipartisan package negotiated by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). Reid’s decision to discard that bill in favor of a smaller version has cost him the public support of several Republicans, casting doubt on whether Democrats will garner the 60 votes necessary to proceed Monday.

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Obama Administration Protects and Negotiates with Terrorist

February 15th, 2010 · Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, National Security, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Treason

Christmas Day bomb suspect was read Miranda rights nine hours after arrest

By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 15, 2010

The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day was read his Miranda rights nine hours after his arrest, according to a detailed chronology released Sunday by senior administration officials.

The timing of events during the arrest, initial interrogation and medical treatment of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was made available after Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) made statements about the process that administration officials believe are misleading. “It makes no sense to get a guy off an airplane who just tried to blow up the airplane and read him his rights within 50 minutes,” Graham said in an interview on Fox News.

Graham is one of several Republicans who have cited the handling of Abdulmutallab as an example of what they see as the administration’s faulty response to a terrorist assault on a U.S. airliner. On Feb. 3, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the American people and Congress wanted to know “why an al-Qaeda-trained terrorist fresh from Yemen and caught in the act of an attempt to blow up an airliner was handed over to a lawyer after a 50-minute interview.”

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Obama will help select location of Khalid Sheik Mohammed terrorism trial

February 13th, 2010 · Deception, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Government Control, Homeland Security, National Security, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Treason, War on Terrorism

By Anne E. Kornblut and Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 12, 2010

President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials said Thursday, signaling a recognition that the administration had mishandled the process and triggered a political backlash.

Obama initially had asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to choose the site of the trial in an effort to maintain an independent Justice Department. But the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York.

Administration officials acknowledge that Holder and Obama advisers were unable to build political support for the trial. And Holder, in an interview Thursday, left open the possibility that Mohammed’s trial could be switched to a military commission, although he said that is not his personal and legal preference.

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