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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 'Disillusioned Government'

Progress in Afghan war called ‘uneven’: Congress and Administration paint a false picture.

November 24th, 2010 · Accountability, Afghanistan, Deception, Defense, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 24, 2010

A new Defense Department report on Afghanistan described progress in the war as “uneven” and painted a more sobering picture than public comments made recently by President Obama and U.S. military officials.

The report, mandated by Congress for delivery every six months, spoke of “modest gains in security, governance and development in operational priority areas.” But the advances cited appeared to be outweighed by what the report’s authors called “numerous challenges.”

The period covered by the assessment ended Sept. 30, and a defense official authorized to brief reporters on the condition of anonymity said there had been “a lot of encouraging signs over the past six to seven weeks.”

The report came as the Pentagon and other government departments and agencies have provided the White House with internal war assessments that will form the basis of a strategic review to be completed by mid-December. An interagency group is now collating the various “inputs” for consideration next week by the National Security Council’s deputies committee, a senior defense official said.

That committee will report overall findings to national security principals and Obama, who will determine whether to make any changes in the strategy he outlined a year ago. The strategy included deployment of an additional 30,000 troops, for a total U.S. force of about 100,000, and a tripling, to more than 1,000, of U.S. civilian officials.

“We’re looking at the path and pace of progress,” the senior official said. “How is the strategy being implemented? Where are we achieving the desired effects, and where we are not, why not? What adjustments can be made?”

As far as the Pentagon is concerned, the official said, “we are seeing the shift of momentum that we aimed for” against Taliban forces. “It’s not complete, and there are still challenges.” But “the concept is being proven in key areas.” Other officials have said they do not anticipate significant changes in the strategy.

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Fed lowers economic expectations for 2011

November 24th, 2010 · Deception, Dissention, Economy, Federal Spending, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars

By Neil Irwin Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 24, 2010; 12:40 AM

Unemployment is set to remain higher for longer than previously thought, according to new projections from the Federal Reserve that would mean more than 10 million Americans remain jobless through the 2012 elections – even as a separate report shows corporate profits reaching their highest levels ever.

Top Federal Reserve officials project that the unemployment rate, now 9.6 percent, will fall only to about 9 percent at the end of 2011 and about 8 percent when the next presidential election arrives, in late 2012. The central bankers had envisioned a more rapid decline in joblessness in their previous forecasts, prepared in June.

The sober economic forecast comes despite signs that the recovery is picking up slightly. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that gross domestic product rose at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the three months ending in September, not 2 percent as earlier estimated. And there have been solid readings in recent weeks on job creation, manufacturing and retail.

The apparent contradiction reflects the brutal math that faces a nation trying claw out of a deep recession: Moderate growth, which would be fine in normal times, will do little to bring down sky-high joblessness, a reality reflected in the Fed’s forecasts.

Even as conditions are likely to remain miserable for job seekers for years to come, an extraordinary bounce-back is underway in the nation’s corporate sector, with profits rebounding 28 percent over the past year to an all-time high in the third quarter.

Businesses’ spending on compensation for employees, by contrast, rose only 7.6 percent.

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Snowe, Collins back lawsuit challenging health-care law (The only Repulicans to Sign the HC Law)

November 22nd, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Healthcare, Non-Transparency

By Matt DeLong

The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald reports that both of Maine’s senators — Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — are signing on to a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health-care law.

The brief was initiated by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and boasts the signatures of 30 Senate Republicans. The lawsuit was brought by the attorneys general for several states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small-business trade organization.

At issue is a requirement that U.S. citizens purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 or face a fine — known as the “individual mandate.”

As the lone Republican on the Senate Finance Committee who voted to move the bill — which at the time included an individual mandate (though Snowe made clear then that she didn’t support that provision) — to the full Senate last year, Snowe was the only Republican senator who supported the bill at any stage. She did not vote for final passage of the bill in March. Snowe and Collins are widely viewed as two of a dwindling number of GOP moderates remaining in Congress.

Snowe is up for reelection in 2012, and Maine tea party groups have already pledged to mount a primary challenge. Snowe is no doubt taking the threat seriously, considering the Maine GOP adopted a tea party-backed platform this year and Paul LePage, a combative conservative candidate who promised to tell President Obama to “go to hell,” won the state’s gubernatorial race in November. Collins faces reelection in 2014.

UPDATE: In an interview last year with Karen Tumulty — then of TIME and now of The Post — Snowe voiced opposition to the individual mandate on affordability grounds, but didn’t say anything about the provision’s constitutionality.

By Matt DeLong | November 22, 2010; 12:25 PM ET

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Government made $125 billion in improper payments last year

November 22nd, 2010 · Deception, Economy, Federal Spending, Government

By Ed O’Keefe Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 17, 2010; 7:57 PM

The federal government’s improper payments totaled about $125 billion in fiscal 2010 as unemployment insurance and Medicaid payments increased, officials said Tuesday. But agencies also recovered about $687 million mistakenly paid to delinquent government contractors and beneficiaries.

The government’s total improper payment amount climbed $15 billion from the previous year, according to statistics from the Office of Management and Budget. The payments included about 89,000 checks for $250 each sent to dead or incarcerated people as part of the economic stimulus program.

“This is an unfortunate result of the recession and of basic math: the more that is paid out, the more paid out in error even if the overall rate declines,” OMB Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients wrote Tuesday on his blog.

The overall payment error rate dropped to 5.49 percent in fiscal 2010, down from 5.65 percent the previous year. The drop means the government avoided making about $3.8 billion in improper payments, OMB said.

President Obama wants agencies to recoup at least $2 billion in improper payments by the end of fiscal 2012. In order to do so, he ordered the establishment of a government-wide “do not pay” database to stop payments made to dead or incarcerated people and debarred or suspended contracting firms. He also signed a law in July that penalizes agencies for failing to do so.

“We’re right on target – in fact, as we look at the numbers, we’re ahead of schedule,” OMB Controller Danny Werfel said Tuesday.

Eight of the 10 largest government programs that account for most of the government’s improper payments reported lower error rates last fiscal year, Werfel said. The Labor Department’s unemployment insurance program and the Social Security Administration’s old age survivor benefits program made more improper payments, he said.

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Terrorist Attack on US in NY Court:Al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ghailani acquitted of all but one charge of 285 counts

November 17th, 2010 · Democrats, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Terrorist Attack, Treason

Only in America will you find that TERRORIST have more Constitutional Rights that it’s Citizens.
This is an OBAMA-nation.

By TOM HAYS – The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 17, 2010; 6:49 PM

NEW YORK — The first Guantanamo detainee to face a civilian trial was acquitted Wednesday of all but one of the hundreds of charges he helped unleash death and destruction on two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 – an opening salvo in al-Qaida’s campaign to kill Americans.

A federal jury convicted Ahmed Ghailani of one count of conspiracy to destroy U.S. property and acquitted him on more than 280 other counts, including one murder count for each of the 224 people killed in the embassy bombings. The anonymous jurors deliberated over seven days.

Prosecutors said Ghailani faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison at sentencing on Jan. 25.

Ghailani, 36, rubbed his face, smiled and hugged his lawyers after the jury left the courtroom.

Prosecutors had branded Ghailani a cold-blooded terrorist. The defense portrayed him as a clueless errand boy, exploited by senior al-Qaida operatives and framed by evidence from contaminated crime scenes.

The trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse had been viewed as a possible test case for President Barack Obama administration’s aim of putting other terror detainees – including self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – on trial on U.S. soil.

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Petraeus warns Afghans about Karzai’s criticism of U.S. war strategy

November 15th, 2010 · Defense, War on Terrorism

By Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung  Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 15, 2010; 12:24 AM

KABUL – Gen. David H. Petraeus, the coalition military commander in Afghanistan, warned Afghan officials Sunday that President Hamid Karzai’s latest public criticism of U.S. strategy threatens to seriously undermine progress in the war and risks making Petraeus’s own position “untenable,” according to Afghan and U.S. officials.

Officials said Petraeus expressed “astonishment and disappointment” with Karzai’s call, in a Saturday interview with The Washington Post, to “reduce military operations” and end U.S. Special Operations raids in southern Afghanistan that coalition officials said have killed or captured hundreds of Taliban commanders in recent months.

In a meeting Sunday morning with Ashraf Ghani, who leads the Afghan government’s planning on transition, Petraeus made what several officials described as “hypothetical” references to an inability to continue U.S. operations in the face of Karzai’s remarks.

The night raids are at the heart of Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy and are key to his hopes of being able to show significant progress when the White House reviews the situation in Afghanistan next month.

Officials discounted early reports Sunday that Petraeus had threatened to resign. But “for [Karzai] to go this way, and at that particular stage, is really undermining [Petraeus's] endeavors,” one foreign diplomat in Kabul said. “Not only his personally, but the international community.” Several officials in Washington and Kabul requested anonymity in order to discus the issue.

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‘Soul-searching’ Obama aides: Democrats’ midterm election losses a wake-up call

November 14th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Dissention, Ethics, Government Control, Greed, Non-Transparency, Obama Exposed, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

"Soul Searching" or "Tee Time"?

By Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 14, 2010; 12:41 AM

After nearly two weeks of introspection, President Obama‘s top advisers have concluded that the “shellacking” Democrats took on Election Day was caused in large part by their own failure to live up to expectations set during the 2008 campaign, not merely the typical political cycles and poor messaging they pointed to at first.

While the president has been on a trip to Asia for the past 10 days, all but a few of his top aides stayed behind to figure out what went so wrong and what to do about it. Wearing casual clothes and with the White House to themselves, they determined that the situation they face is serious and will take significant adjustments to reverse.

The advisers are deeply concerned about winning back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19 points. To do so, they think he must forge partnerships with Republicans on key issues and make noticeable progress on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to change the ways of Washington.

Even more important, senior administration officials said, Obama will need to oversee tangible improvements in the economy. They cannot just keep arguing, as Democrats did during the recent campaign, that things would have been worse if not for administration policies.

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Obama’s deficit commission proposing to reduce the annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security.

November 10th, 2010 · Deception, Greed, Non-Transparency, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Social Security

By ANDREW TAYLOR – The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 10, 2010; 1:24 PM

WASHINGTON — Leaders of President Barack Obama‘s bipartisan deficit commission on Wednesday proposed reducing the annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security, part of a bold plan to control $1 trillion-plus budget deficits.

The proposal also would set a tough target for curbing the growth of Medicare and recommends looking at eliminating popular tax breaks, such as mortgage interest deduction.

As proposed, the plan by Chairman Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., doesn’t look like it can win support from 14 of the commission’s 18 members to force a debate in Congress. Bowles is a Democrat and was former President Bill Clinton‘s White House chief of staff.

Cuts to Social Security and Medicare are making some liberals on the panel recoil. And conservative Republicans are having difficulty with options on how to raise tax revenue. The plan also calls for cuts in farm subsidies, foreign aid and the Pentagon’s budget.

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New cigarette warnings unveiled: Government Control Gone TOO Far

November 10th, 2010 · Government Control, Terrorism from Within

By Rob Stein

Federal health officials on Wednesday announced plans to require cigarette packs and ads to carry bigger, much more prominent and graphic health warnings, including images of dead bodies, cancer patients and diseased lungs.

The Health and Human Services Department, which announced the new initiative, called the new warnings “the most significant change in more than 25 years” in cigarette packages and advertising. The warnings will cover half of a cigarette pack, the government said.

One warning, for example, is, “Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease.” It is shown with the picture of the feet of a dead body in a morgue. Another, “Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease,” shows a man apparently having a heart attack. A third, bearing the warning, “Smoking can kill you,” shows what appears to be the head a chest of a corpse. The chest is bisected by a large surgical scar.

The Food and Drug Administration said it is using its newly enhanced powers to regulate tobacco products to require the more prominent warning statements and color graphic images “depicting the negative health consequences of smoking.”

“Today marks an important milestone in protecting our children and the health of the American public,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

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House Democrats could have same leadership team despite 60-seat loss

November 8th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Dissention, Greed, Non-Transparency, Politics

Thank you America, may I have another?

By Paul Kane -Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 7, 2010; 8:05 PM

House Democratic leaders signaled a desire Sunday to avoid internal leadership battles in an effort to forge party unity, a move that would leave the same team in place that oversaw the worst political rout in 72 years.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) said that efforts are underway to avert an ideological leadership campaign that would pit House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.) against each other for the position of minority whip.

Hoyer, 71, has been considered the leadership’s bridge to conservative Democrats and Clyburn, 70, is the highest-ranking African American congressman ever. They spent the weekend making calls in an effort to secure enough votes for the No. 2 leadership post after the decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) to remain in power next year as minority leader.

“They’re both going to be at the table, I’m absolutely convinced, in terms of helping provide guidance,” Van Hollen, a Pelosi ally, said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that some accommodation will be made to keep Hoyer and Clyburn in leadership positions. “I’m confident that the members of the caucus recognize that both gentlemen bring an enormous amount to the job, and we will work it out.”

Soon to be out of power, House Democrats are trying to map out their future with one fewer spot among leaders because the hierarchy gives the majority an additional spot, based on who holds the speaker’s gavel. With Pelosi, 70, still unchallenged, moderates who survived Tuesday’s midterm elections desperately want to keep Hoyer’s voice inside a leadership group that is otherwise dominated by liberals. The more than 40 members of the Congressional Black Caucus do not want Clyburn ejected, either.

Pelosi’s leadership team faces what could be an equally problematic issue. Many rank-and-file Democrats are enraged about the loss of 60 or more seats. Some are also disenchanted with the leaders in their 70s who have served in the top three spots for the past five years, with Pelosi and Hoyer being Nos. 1 and 2 for the past eight years, according to interviews with lawmakers, top aides and outside advisers.

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