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. 

The White House said Monday it was delaying the release of the annual midsummer US budget update, but refuted suggestions it was trying to put distance between its own optimistic predictions and the sour state of today’s economy.

“Because of the unique circumstances of a transition year, we are — like President George W. Bush in 2001 — releasing the Mid-Session Review a few weeks later than as is usual in non-transition years,” said Kenneth Baer, communications director for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

When all else fails, as this administration has demonstrated, play the victim and take no responsibility for your actions.  The greatest leadership characteristic is finger pointing…/sarc.

Funny, I thought that Obama was going to stop using old Bush policies and was going to create “change we could believe in?”  Seems like those old Bush policies are convenient when he needs to get away with something, such as bad budget numbers/forecasts from his office.

The White House has run so far over budget in only the first half of the year, that they would prefer this report was covered up and never released.

The report is traditionally published in mid-July. This year’s version is expected to include massive deficit projections as the administration of President Barack Obama stewards a costly overhaul of the US healthcare system.

The CBO is projecting a $1.9T budget deficit, but that’s not exactly accurate.  The accurate approximation is a $4T deficit – which is unprecedented in this nation’s history.

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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…

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As GE Stocks continue to hover at historic lows, GE announced that it is launching a new medical development program called ‘Healthymagination’ at a cost of about 6 billion dollars.   One of the main objectives of the program is to assist the Obama Administration’s goal of digitizing everyone’s medical records for instant access.

In their announcement, GE said it will draw upon its divisions to include GE Capitol and NBC Universal, both of which are losing entities in the GE brand name.

Now in order to counteract these losses GE has received money and guarantees from the government :

GE Chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jeffry Immelt, not only secured FDIC debt coverage on up to $139.0 billion in bonds outstanding as of Sept. 30, that mature by June 30, GE also tapped the Federal Reserves commercial paper funding facility for almost $5.0 billion in late October. GE became a bank holding company in order to qualify for TARP funds. Shares of GE Stock fell about 4.5% for the week ending 8 May 09.

Tom Daschel, the Health and Human Services nominee who withdrew because of tax trouble, is serving on the GE Healthymagination advisory board. As you may recall, this was Barack Obama’s first choice for the HHS post. So where is the conflict of interest alarms? Why was Vice President Cheney run up and down flag poles for being on the board of Halliburton prior to becoming VP?  Where are the alarmists who screamed bloody murder about President Bush and Exxon? Tom Daschle has Mr Obama’s ear, and this venture represents a huge steak in his health care initiative. It once again proves beyond a reasonable doubt that transparency among administration officials is as clear as Mississippi River water.

GE Capitol in 2008 experienced 7.2 billion in credit losses alone. Combine that with the unprofitable entities of NBC (MSNBC, and CNBC) and you begin to get the picture that GE is not very healthy under Mr. Immelt. In what was once a healthy company with share prices hovering around $50.00, the company now stands to lose its credit rating of AAA and Investment rating from stable to risky.

NBC Studios, MSNBC, CNBC, are currently all rating losers. So why does GE not shed the fat?  Because they stood in line behind the Obama Campaign, and thus are not being treated like Chrysler and GM?  No change at the top for GE (which in Chrysler’s Case, was for pure political expediency) and no forfeiture of unprofitable divisions? As it stands, NBC Studios will develop, produce and air, segments related to this initiative and MSNBC will air a new health related program for Healthymagination. Why are there no salary cap instructions for NBC talking heads like Brockaw, Matthews, or Olbermann? Oh, yeah, they were the only ones who got tingly feelings up and down their legs at the mere mention of Mr Obama.

But again the question is, where does all this money come from, and can GE, who has lost share value and siphoning money to GE Capital, afford 6 Billion dollars?   We have to wonder about the potential huge ethical questions here as Barack Obama owes NBC for all of their unwaivering support, and GE’s push into Mr Obamas healthcare initiatives.  How much of the bill is the taxpayer going to be responsible for?

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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.

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The Denver Post reports:

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!

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