Obama’s Team is So Transparent, They’re Opaque; Release of Mid-Year Budget Review Delayed
The release of the mid-year budget review from the White House has been delayed. It really comes as no surprise anymore that the Obama team meant “transparency for thee but not for me.”
As a democrat, it’s ok to harp about Republicans, scream, and whine when you feel as though they aren’t being transparent enough. Then campaign on empty slogans of hope and change, but once in office do nothing of the sort. As they say to the victor goes the spoils and in this scenario, the spoils include hypocrisy and a lack of information disseminated to the American public. Read more
More Transparency For Thee But Not For Me: Obama Bans Access to Visitor Lists and Keeps 44 Coal Ash Sites Secret
The hypocrisy continues…
The story of Obama banning access to White House visitor lists is still developing – the irony, however, is a judge ruled in 2007 that visitor lists are in fact public record.
The White House must release its visitor logs and cannot hide behind a shield of privilege, a federal judge ruled Monday. The Bush administration has resisted public disclosure while it fights a lawsuit over alleged political influence by conservative Christian leaders.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth concluded the information is part of the public record and is subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act as “agency records.”
And what does the Obama administration have to say about Transparency and Open Government on his White House website?
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Another transparency story, granted not as large, entails the Obama administration keeping secret 44 coal ash sites.
The Obama administration has decided to keep secret the locations of nearly four dozen coal ash storage sites that pose a threat to people living nearby.
The Environmental Protection Agency classified the 44 sites as potential hazards to communities while investigating storage of coal ash waste after a spill at a Tennessee power plant in December. The classification means the waste sites could cause death and significant property damage if an event such as a storm, a terrorist attack, or a structural failure caused them to spill.
Who would want to know if they were living close to hazardous waste – I know I wouldn’t care!/sarc.
Were the liberals not screaming about transparency and open government previously? Why the complacency all of the sudden? That’s a rhetorical question… 
Taxpayers Track the Stimulus Money (Obama and Congress Won’t – Not uhhh…ummm… Until October errr…?)
So just who’s tracking that $787 billion in taxpayer money that President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are doling out? You are. Or you’re supposed to be, anyway.
“We are, in essence, deputizing the entire American citizenry to help with the oversight of this program,” said Rep. Brad Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology’s subcommittee on investigations and oversight.
So, too, said Earl Devaney, the ex-cop who’s now chairman of the Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board, charged with tracking the torrent of cash now pouring out of federal coffers.
“I’m going to have millions of citizens to help me,” he said, comparing run-of-the-mill Americans to inspectors general, the high-ranking officials charged with ferreting out waste and abuse in federal agencies.
“I’m going to have a million little IGs running around,” the chairman said Tuesday after his testimony before the subcommittee.
The most appalling spectacle was the size of the meeting! Apparently oversight of taxpayer money is not a priority of the government. (Not that it ever was, but still!)
And perhaps that’s just as well, given the turnout of the panel tasked with keeping track of thousands of millions of dollars. Just three of the 10 members bothered to show up for the subcommittee’s second meeting, dramatically titled “Follow the Money Part II.”
While Mr. Miller and the panel’s top Republican were there, only Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, Pennsylvania Democrats, came to the hearing. Absent were Democratic Reps. Steven R. Rothman of New Jersey, Lincoln Davis of Tennessee, Charles A. Wilson of Ohio, Alan Grayson of Florida and Bart Gordon of Tennessee. Republican Rep. Ralph M. Hall of Texas also skipped the session, while Rep. Brian P. Bilbray of California dropped by for the final hour of the nearly three-hour hearing.
Still, to a sparse crowd, Mr. Miller got right to the point. “President Obama promised a level of transparency, through the Internet, Recovery.gov. … How do you intend to provide that level of transparency, to see how – who actually got the contract to pour asphalt?”
Interestingly enough, redstate.com had an article that spoke to this very point. There is a website that has been created to replicate what the government should have been doing at this point already. It’s called www.recovery.org and it tracks where the stimulus funds are going.
Does Congress really expect the American Idol audience to have an attention span that lasts longer than an hour and proactively research where stimulus funds are going? We would have a completely different result of the past election if anyone dared watch C-Span on a regular basis!
This is the change and hope we can believe in during this new administration. All that transparency that Obama talked about was a big, fat lie.
Quite frankly, this entire process of getting the recovery.gov website up and running to track the money will be stalled. It will be delayed until just the right time when the important funds that were issued as Democrat payoffs will be paid and won’t be found.
Secret List of Muslims Compiled for Obama Administration
CHICAGO — In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation’s most qualified — Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted — has been submitted to the White House.
The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names.
“It was mostly under the radar,” Williams said. “We thought it would put (the president) in a precarious position. We didn’t know how closely he wanted to appear to be working with the Muslim American community.”
Why is the Obama administration specifically looking for one religious group of applicants? Is this yet another affirmative action move? How is this not discriminatory against all other qualified candidates or those who are more qualified? Where is the transparency that Obama exclaimed would be so prevalent in his administration, since Bush was so secretive?
Should I be more concerned with the specific group he is trying to promote or the fact that he is only looking at those who went to ivy league schools? Frankly, I would just like some “intelligent” people from state or private schools (not considered ivy league) to be promoted because they probably have both wisdom (different than book smarts – gained through life experience) and common sense!
