Promise: "the ‘most transparent’ administration in history"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2015 5:16 pmIran Treaty : Transparent.
Health care: Transparent
FTT Agreement : Transparent
Immigration "deals": Transparent
Arms for Islamics : Transparent
Treaties with dictators: Transparent
Benghazi: Transparent
Agendas against Israel : Transparent
TPP Agreement : Transparent
IRS persecution of organizations: Transparent
"Fiats with UN : Transparent
Orchestrated regime attacks against private citizens : Transparent
Feel free to throw in as many as you wish. I think many of you have more examples of this regimes transparency.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Has Obama delivered the ‘most transparent’ administration in history?
By Jason Ross Arnold March 16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mon ... n-history/
President Obama speaks at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on Feb. 13. (Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
A signature promise of President Obama was to run the “most transparent” administration in U.S. history. His pledge to create an “unprecedented level of openness” still stands proudly at the top of the White House’s open government Web page. But critics of the president have pointed out how the administration has not upheld this standard.
This week is Sunshine Week, which provides a perfect opportunity to evaluate the Obama administration’s record. Taken together, this record suggests progress toward transparency, but it arguably falls short of what Obama promised.
The administration’s record does reflect some commitment to transparency. It revoked President George W. Bush’s pro-secrecy changes to the Presidential Records Act. It introduced the Open Government Directive, which pushed agencies to proactively publish data and develop public feedback mechanisms. It began the Open Government Partnership, which promotes and institutionalizes open government norms.
The president also steered the government back toward the Clinton-era “maximum responsible disclosure” standard for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, after the Bush administration had pushed in the other direction. In particular, Obama established a “presumption of disclosure” rule in an attempt to uphold the letter and spirit of FOIA.
Obama revived Clinton’s unprecedented declassification review programs, which Bush gutted in 2003. He also pushed the often resistant, but not quite autonomous, agencies to think twice before classifying information. Of course, there were exceptions, such as the administration’s odd insistence on classifying self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s interest in vacuum cleaner design. But this episode aside, classification rates have decreased to record lows, as the graph below shows:
..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Republicans Give Obama Victory Plus New, 'Secret' Powers
Posted on May 23, 2015 by Tad Cronn Filed under Congress, Corruption, Foreign Policy, Government, Government Regulation
http://godfatherpolitics.com/22574/repu ... et-powers/
I can say in all honesty I never expected to see a betrayal of the public by Congress as blatant as the one perpetrated in the passage of Obamacare when Nancy Pelosi said, "We have to pass the bill, so you can see what is in it."
Silly me.
In one of those exceedingly rare occasions, Democrats were doing something right -- in this case by proposing the Trade Transparency Act to make President Obama's Trans Pacific Partnership available for review by Congress and the public for at least 60 days before moving to the floor for a vote.
But the transparency act apparently was blocked by Republican Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Finance Committee.
Without the transparency act, the secret trade legislation can be reviewed by members of Congress only if they go into a guarded, sealed room without any staff or any way to take notes on what's in the act.
They also can't speak to anyone without high-level security clearance about what they've read.
Hatch, in justifying his opposition to government transparency on what is reportedly the most complex trade deal in history, said, "If senators are concerned about the level of transparency on trade agreements, they should support the current legislation."
Hatch admitted he doesn't know what's in the Trans Pacific Partnership bill.
And he's the "primary author." ...
Huh?
So in other words, we don't know what we're proposing or what we've created -- but vote for it if you want to read it. ...
Which the Senate did, voting 62-28 to end debate, handing Obama a significant win.
In a downright perverse pairing, a majority of Republican senators are teaming up with Obama to support the TPP bill, which would give the president authority to fast-track trade deals with foreign nations and ram them through Congress without any amendments.
Opposition to this expansion of dictatorial powers for the president has come mostly from Democrats.
This is the part of the ride where you go through the corkscrew and have no clue which way is up.
I think the Republican leadership has proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that there truly is no reason to expect any improvement will come to this country by voting Republican.
On a certain, very cynical level, that's been clear for some time, though it's not one of those things a lot of Americans would like to admit. You never really want to believe that there's no hope.
Then some dipstick politicians come along and prove just how naive you are.
Health care: Transparent
FTT Agreement : Transparent
Immigration "deals": Transparent
Arms for Islamics : Transparent
Treaties with dictators: Transparent
Benghazi: Transparent
Agendas against Israel : Transparent
TPP Agreement : Transparent
IRS persecution of organizations: Transparent
"Fiats with UN : Transparent
Orchestrated regime attacks against private citizens : Transparent
Feel free to throw in as many as you wish. I think many of you have more examples of this regimes transparency.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Has Obama delivered the ‘most transparent’ administration in history?
By Jason Ross Arnold March 16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mon ... n-history/
President Obama speaks at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on Feb. 13. (Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
A signature promise of President Obama was to run the “most transparent” administration in U.S. history. His pledge to create an “unprecedented level of openness” still stands proudly at the top of the White House’s open government Web page. But critics of the president have pointed out how the administration has not upheld this standard.
This week is Sunshine Week, which provides a perfect opportunity to evaluate the Obama administration’s record. Taken together, this record suggests progress toward transparency, but it arguably falls short of what Obama promised.
The administration’s record does reflect some commitment to transparency. It revoked President George W. Bush’s pro-secrecy changes to the Presidential Records Act. It introduced the Open Government Directive, which pushed agencies to proactively publish data and develop public feedback mechanisms. It began the Open Government Partnership, which promotes and institutionalizes open government norms.
The president also steered the government back toward the Clinton-era “maximum responsible disclosure” standard for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, after the Bush administration had pushed in the other direction. In particular, Obama established a “presumption of disclosure” rule in an attempt to uphold the letter and spirit of FOIA.
Obama revived Clinton’s unprecedented declassification review programs, which Bush gutted in 2003. He also pushed the often resistant, but not quite autonomous, agencies to think twice before classifying information. Of course, there were exceptions, such as the administration’s odd insistence on classifying self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s interest in vacuum cleaner design. But this episode aside, classification rates have decreased to record lows, as the graph below shows:
..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Republicans Give Obama Victory Plus New, 'Secret' Powers
Posted on May 23, 2015 by Tad Cronn Filed under Congress, Corruption, Foreign Policy, Government, Government Regulation
http://godfatherpolitics.com/22574/repu ... et-powers/
I can say in all honesty I never expected to see a betrayal of the public by Congress as blatant as the one perpetrated in the passage of Obamacare when Nancy Pelosi said, "We have to pass the bill, so you can see what is in it."
Silly me.
In one of those exceedingly rare occasions, Democrats were doing something right -- in this case by proposing the Trade Transparency Act to make President Obama's Trans Pacific Partnership available for review by Congress and the public for at least 60 days before moving to the floor for a vote.
But the transparency act apparently was blocked by Republican Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Finance Committee.
Without the transparency act, the secret trade legislation can be reviewed by members of Congress only if they go into a guarded, sealed room without any staff or any way to take notes on what's in the act.
They also can't speak to anyone without high-level security clearance about what they've read.
Hatch, in justifying his opposition to government transparency on what is reportedly the most complex trade deal in history, said, "If senators are concerned about the level of transparency on trade agreements, they should support the current legislation."
Hatch admitted he doesn't know what's in the Trans Pacific Partnership bill.
And he's the "primary author." ...
Huh?
So in other words, we don't know what we're proposing or what we've created -- but vote for it if you want to read it. ...
Which the Senate did, voting 62-28 to end debate, handing Obama a significant win.
In a downright perverse pairing, a majority of Republican senators are teaming up with Obama to support the TPP bill, which would give the president authority to fast-track trade deals with foreign nations and ram them through Congress without any amendments.
Opposition to this expansion of dictatorial powers for the president has come mostly from Democrats.
This is the part of the ride where you go through the corkscrew and have no clue which way is up.
I think the Republican leadership has proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that there truly is no reason to expect any improvement will come to this country by voting Republican.
On a certain, very cynical level, that's been clear for some time, though it's not one of those things a lot of Americans would like to admit. You never really want to believe that there's no hope.
Then some dipstick politicians come along and prove just how naive you are.