● Shelby Steele: The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin... ● Protecting You From The UN-Frendly Skies... Prohibited Items Found 3/2 to 3/8... ● Congressional earmarks sometimes used to fund projects near lawmakers' properties... ● Public Law List (112st Congress - 2012)... ● Congress's Phony Insider-Trading Reform... ● Obama denounces Senate vote to block Cordray at consumer watchdog agency... ● Walker signs 'castle doctrine' bill, other measures... ● Holder faces House Republicans over health-care law, ‘Fast and Furious’... ● Postal workers behaving badly!... ● The supercommittee failed because Democrats insisted on $1 trillion in new taxes...
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 'Stacking the Deck'

Holder faces House Republicans over health-care law, ‘Fast and Furious’

December 8th, 2011 · Accountability, Corruption, Deception, Ethics, Government Control, Healthcare, Money Matters, Non-Transparency, Obama Exposed, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Politics, Selling Out the US, Supreme Court, Tax Dollars, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Jerry Markon, Published: December 8

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. clashed with congressional Republicans on Thursday, defending the Justice Department in the face of criticism of its “Fast and Furious” gun-trafficking sting and its refusal to turn over documents on the health-care law adopted last year.

Under exhaustive questioning from the House Judiciary Committee, Holder reiterated that his department would not provide Congress with more information about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s health-care-related role when she was President Obama’s solicitor general. Republicans are seeking internal e-mails and other documents, arguing that Kagan might have to recuse herself from the court’s decision on the health-care law if she was involved in the legislation.

Attorney General Eric Holder says it’s inexcusable for the bureau to use a controversial tactic known as “gun-walking” in its effort to identify and prosecute major arms trafficking networks along the Southwest border. (Dec. 8)

Holder also was grilled over the Phoenix-based Fast and Furious operation, in which federal agents targeting drug cartels allowed guns to flow illegally onto U.S. streets and into Mexico. The operation led to a storm of criticism from Republicans, many of whom have urged Holder to resign.

The attorney general, who has resisted calls to step down, said the controversial Fast and Furious tactic known as “gun walking,’’ was “wholly unacceptable” and “must never happen again.” But he also condemned his accusers, saying the congressional investigation of the gun sting has been political and calling for cooperation in fighting firearms trafficking along the southwest border.

“Each of us have a duty to act, and to rise above partisan divisions and politically motivated ‘gotcha’ games,’’ Holder said. “The American people deserve better.’’

[View Complete Article →]

Tags:

No Comments

High court nominees’ cautious answers frustrate senators: Something to Hide

July 5th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Supreme Court

By Robert Barnes Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 4, 2010

It would be easy to come away from Elena Kagan‘s confirmation hearing with the impression that, in the minds of some senators, certain members of the Supreme Court might be — how to put this? — less than truthful.

Or, at least, dissemblers. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s 17-hour, 500-question grilling of the Supreme Court nominee was marked by repeated references from some senators to feeling burned by the three previous nominees: John G. Roberts Jr., Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor.

“You know, we’ve become skeptical,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told Kagan, because “it really isn’t going to matter what you said, because once you’re there, you’re there, and we have very little ability to change it.”

Coburn was criticizing Sotomayor at the time, saying her vote in a recent gun rights case was at odds with her testimony before the committee just a year ago. But he acknowledged his Democratic colleagues’ similar critiques of Roberts and Alito, who were nominated in 2005.

“You can understand the skepticism we might have, and especially in the fact that many on the other side of the aisle, the implication has been that the same thing by Alito and Roberts, that they weren’t straightforward, that, in fact, they didn’t keep their word on stare decisis,” Coburn said, referring to the principle of respecting the court’s precedents.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·····

No Comments

Civil rights organizations question nominee Elena Kagan’s record on race

June 28th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Supreme Court

By Amy GoldsteinWashington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 27, 2010

On the eve of Elena Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearings, her record on race in the Clinton White House and at Harvard Law School is producing discomfort among some leading civil rights organizations, leaving them struggling to decide whether they want her to join the Supreme Court.

Their reservations have introduced the first substantive division among liberals in what has otherwise been a low-key partisan debate over Kagan’s merits to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. The uncertainty among some on the left is particularly striking, given that she was nominated by the nation’s first black president.

Decades after the height of the civil rights movement, questions involving race and ethnicity persist as a recurrent theme before the Supreme Court, and attitudes on those issues remain a significant prism through which nominees are evaluated by those on the left and the right.

The National Bar Association, the main organization of black lawyers, has refrained from endorsing Kagan, giving her a lukewarm rating. The group’s president, Mavis T. Thompson, said it “had some qualms” about Kagan’s statements on crack-cocaine sentencing and what it regards as her inadequate emphasis while dean at Harvard Law School on diversifying the school along racial and ethnic lines. Others have expressed reservations about Kagan’s views on affirmative action, racial profiling and immigration.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ········

No Comments

Obama appointed Customs Commissioner neglected to file forms on household employees

May 15th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Immigration, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

By Ed O’Keefe Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 14, 2010

Customs and Border Protection CommissionerAlan D. Bersin said Thursday he didn’t know he’s required by law to file paperwork verifying that his household employees were authorized to work in the United States.

Bersin told senators that he and his wife tracked the immigration status of a nanny, house cleaners and babysitters “on a piece of paper that was on file in our home.”

“No employee ineligible to work in the United States has ever worked in our household,” Bersin said. “No employee who has worked in our household has not had taxes paid for.”

According to a memo by the Senate Finance Committee, Bersin has employed 10 household employees since 1993 and failed to complete I-9 forms for all of them. The I-9 form is issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which shares immigration enforcement responsibilities with CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

President Obamanominated Bersin in September and issued a recess appointment for him and 14 other nominees in March. Obama said all of the nominees would remain in the Senate for confirmation.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·······

No Comments

Supreme Court nominee Kagan: No Judcial Experience and perhaps an Obama “rubber stamp”

May 12th, 2010 · Congress, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Fraud Alert, Government Control, Non-Transparency, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Politics, Selling Out the US, Supreme Court

Senators query Supreme Court nominee Kagan

By Perry Bacon Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 12, 2010; 4:40 PM

Senate Republicans pressed Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan Wednesday on her lack of judicial experience and her support for a policy that once banned military recruiters from some college campuses in her first appearance on Capitol Hill since her nomination earlier this week.

Following in the tradition of past Supreme Court nominees, Kagan visited the offices of key senators for private meetings lasting about 30 minutes each. Kagan, the U.S. solicitor general, said almost nothing publicly, ignoring questions shouted at her by reporters as she walked through the halls of Congress with four White House officials in tow.

Most of the five members she has met with so far — three Democrats and two Republicans — have said little in detail about their sessions. But Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, which will hold Kagan’s nomination hearings, said he aired GOP concerns about her lack of judicial experience.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ····

No Comments

Health-care overhaul: 33 States file Law Suits. For ObamaCare, Elena Kagan could be Key

May 12th, 2010 · Accountability, Congress, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Government Control, Greed, Healthcare, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Stimulus, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Efforts to block a key provision of the new health-care overhaul law are underway in 33 states, as a growing roster of mostly Republican officials have mounted legal and legislative challenges to an eventual requirement that virtually all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty tax.

This Friday, seven more states will formally join a lawsuit originally filed by Florida and 12 other states in late March.

The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Florida, contends that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to mandate an individual’s participation in an insurance plan, and that it has infringed on states’ rights by requiring them to extend coverage to more low-income residents without fully funding the additional cost.

Many constitutional scholars have said the suit has slim chances. But activists say they view the lawsuit as the first of what they hope will be a slew of challenges mounted by state governments, legislatures and individuals, ultimately narrowing the law’s scope and possibly unraveling it altogether.

“This is going to be a long, protracted war of attrition and we haven’t even seen the first wave of regulations yet,” said Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Goldwater Institute — an Arizona-based group that is advising state officials.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ··········

No Comments

For Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, a history of pragmatism over partisanship

May 11th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Government Control, Non-Transparency, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Politics, Selling Out the US, Supreme Court

By Amy Goldstein, Carol D. Leonnig and Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Just after Election Day the fall of her senior year at Princeton, Elena Kagan published an opinion piece in the campus newspaper recounting how she had wept and gotten drunk on vodka at a campaign gathering for a liberal Brooklyn congresswoman who had unexpectedly lost a race for the Senate.

Ronald Reagan was heading to the White House, and Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman — a champion for women’s causes for whom Kagan had toiled 14-hour days as a campaign press assistant — was leaving Capitol Hill. Kagan, then 20 and imbued with the liberal principles on which she had been raised, said she was flirting with despair that “there was no longer any place for the ideals we held. . . . I wonder how all this could possibly have happened and where on earth I’ll be able to get a job next year.”

Her piece for the Daily Princetonian on Holtzman’s 1980 defeat was a rare moment, then and since, in which Kagan publicly described her emotions and politics in such strikingly personal tones. In the elite spheres of academia and government in which she has learned and worked, Kagan, 50, has more typically exhibited an analytical style, a knack for forging consensus, a pragmatism rather than a passion for her own ideas.

Her life experiences and intellectual style leave open the question of whether President Obama‘s choice for the Supreme Court would, if confirmed by the Senate, prove the counterweight liberals seek to the overt conservatism of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ······

No Comments

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?”

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ·······

No Comments

White House, Democratic lawmakers cut deal on deficit commission.

January 20th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Politics, Selling Out the US, Stimulus, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Treasury

1 Year & 12.4 trillion to late

By Lori Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Faced with growing alarm over the nation’s soaring debt, the White House and congressional Democrats tentatively agreed Tuesday to create an independent budget commission and to put its recommendations for fiscal solvency to a vote in Congress by the end of this year.

Under the agreement, President Obama would issue an executive order to create an 18-member panel that would be granted broad authority to propose changes in the tax code and in the massive federal entitlement programs — including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — that threaten to drive the nation’s debt to levels not seen since World War II.

The accord comes a week before Obama is scheduled to deliver his first State of the Union address to a nation increasingly concerned about his stewardship of the economy and the federal budget. After a year in which he advocated spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a huge economic stimulus package and a far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system, Obama has pledged to redouble his effort to rein in record budget deficits even as he has come under withering Republican attack.

The commission would deliver its recommendations after this fall’s congressional elections, postponing potentially painful decisions about the nation’s fiscal future until after Democrats face the voters. But if the commission approves a deficit-reduction plan, Congress would have to act on it quickly under the agreement, forged late Tuesday in a meeting with Vice President Biden, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag, and Democratic lawmakers led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.).

‘This is essential’

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ········

No Comments

Embattled TSA nominee Southers withdraws: Too Much Heat over Ethics.

January 20th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme

By Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Ed O’Keefe Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 20, 2010; 10:59 AM

The Obama administration’s choice to lead the struggling Transportation Security Administration withdrew his name from consideration Wednesday, just weeks after revelations that he had provided misleading information to Congress prompted several Republicans to suggest his nomination would not move forward without a fight.

Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and homeland security specialist, was presented as a leader who would improve the TSA’s sprawling operations and improve passenger screening to prevent such attacks as the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner.

But GOP opposition to Southers escalated rapidly after The Washington Post reported that Southers had given Congress and the White House misleading information about incidents two decades ago in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database to obtain information about his estranged wife’s new boyfriend, possibly in violation of privacy laws.

In a statement released by the White House, Southers blamed congressional critics motivated by “political ideology” for the troubles that overshadowed his nomination.

[View Complete Article →]

Tags: ····

No Comments