- I never cease to be amazed at the failure of the establishment
media to point out--let alone counter--the blatant contradictions flowing
from the mouth of President Obama, so enamored are they with promoting
the government's current agenda. Sure, his words are couched in their normal
smoothness, but the contradictions, following one after the other are obvious
to any thinking person. This week, he waxed eloquent and fervent about
his vow to see that American civil liberties are never compromised and
to hold government officials responsible for wrongdoing-even as his Justice
Department continues to uphold the egregious use of the State Secrets doctrine
to quash legal challenges to government spying. In this instance, Obama
was responding to the flood of Bush administration memos being released
showing official scorn and defiance for constitutional protections against
torture and warrantless spying on Americans. Yet, Obama finished with the
incredible statement "but, I'm more interested in moving forward."
This last phrase made a mockery of his feigned concern, and the media uttered
not a word of outrage or question.
-
- This was the same devious tactic used by President Bush
when he took office and refused to undo any of the damaging Executive Orders
of President Clinton or prosecute any violations of law saying, "We
need to move on." With the announcement that the CIA destroyed nearly
100 tapes of terror interrogations showing what amounts to torture, against
the explicit instructions of a judge, one wonders if even this egregious
violation of law and contempt of court will be punished. I can guarantee
it won't. This week I'll catalog all of the growing hypocrisy oozing from
these sham promoters of change.
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- Ryan Singel of wired.com tracks the warrantless spying
issue better than anyone I know. He writes, "It's no secret that lawyers
in the Bush Administration's Justice Department wrote dozens of memos approving
torture and domestic surveillance -- it's just that the Administration
kept most of them secret by claiming that national security would be compromised
if the public read legal analyses disavowing the Fourth Amendment and Geneva
Convention. Thankfully [?], Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder thinks
citizens can handle the truth [this is just a verbal ploy. Holder has no
intention of prosecuting anyone OR restoring civil rights lost in what
has become a de facto coup against the constitution]. Monday's release
of nine previously unseen Office of Legal Counsel memos revealed that Bush's
DoJ secretly told him the Constitution didn't matter any more.
-
- "There are now 61 known Bush Administration Office
of Legal Counsel [OLC] rulings related to domestic spying, torture, rendition
and detention, according to the ACLU's latest tally. Most [and the worst]
are still unpublished [which lets us know what Holder really thinks about
the public's right to know]. On Monday, we learned that for nearly seven
years the Bush Administration operated under the theory that the military
could be deployed domestically to interrogate, detain, raid and spy on
Americans, without having to heed the Bill of Rights protections."
-
- Next, let's consider Obama's continual claim that his
administration will "change the way Washington does business."
As The News Hour with Jim Lehrer put it, "President Obama opened a
new campaign today against government waste to go with his plan for massive
new spending on the economy...The president laid out plans to transform
the way federal contracts are awarded and save $40 billion a year [out
of Trillions--not much, even if true]. He said the existing system is rife
with abuse. [Obama's voice] 'We are spending money on things that we don't
need, and we are paying more than we need to pay, and that's completely
unacceptable.'"
-
- Really? Then why is Obama going along with the Democrat's
massive spending bill filled with mark ups and pork barrel projects? The
White House claims it is "last year's business," hoping to avoid
the blame, but that's not going to wash. Mary Fallin (R-OK) said, "President
Obama promised that he would go line by line in the budget and that he
would eliminate wasteful spending. And what we have seen is an omnibus
bill that has come forth with $410 billion of spending, with 9,000 earmarks
in it, that were airdropped in the middle of the night, where we didn't
even have time to even read that piece of legislation because it came through
so quickly."
-
- As the Charleston(WV) Evening Post said, "The U.S.
Senate is prepared to vote on a $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill
that was 1,124 pages long when it left the House last week. The bill is
accompanied by a 1,800-page 'joint explanatory statement.' It is doubtful
any senator has had time to read either, much less digest their contents.
But don't expect that to slow Congress' heedless approach to spending.
News reports indicate that the bill offers billions in pet projects, as
well as program duplications from the $787 billion stimulus bill. In short,
it's more of the same. And the Senate apparently is prepared to follow
the House lead to keep it that way.
-
- "Led by appropriations committee members, Republican
and Democrat, the Senate on Tuesday rejected an amendment by Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz., to wipe out earmarks in the bill and cut its total by
$32 billion, to the level appropriated in 2008. The vote was 63-32.The
omnibus bill contains roughly 8,500 earmarks ---- congressional set-asides
---- costing $7.7 billion. These come on top of bills enacted last year
with another $6.6 billion in earmarks. Taxpayers for Common Sense points
out that six of the top 10 senators ranked by the amount of earmarks in
the bill are Republicans. It's only fair to remember that while Democrats
are in the congressional majority for the current spending spree, when
Republicans were in the majority a few years ago, they weren't exactly
frugal, either."
-
- It is sad to have to quote from big spending Republicans
like Senator John McCain, who suddenly turn from being blind cheerleaders
of Republican spending under Bush to attackers of Democratic spending under
Obama. It's all the same system of buying votes back home. Predictably,
the White House says the president is "not completely happy with the
bill and earmarks" but will sign it anyway because the need for continued
government funding is so critical. Yes, there is always an excuse.
-
- Then there is the continuing bailout, which Obama is
backing 100%. The taxpayers are now on the hook for a whopping $9.7 Trillion
in ongoing bailout programs and there is absolutely no evidence it has
done any good, nor any end in sight. Last week, the insurance giant AIG,
liable for paying out the growing default of the world's derivatives came
back for another handout of $31B. This week, GM is again threatening bankruptcy
if it doesn't get more bailout money. Others of the big banks are going
to announce the same next week.
-
- This was all predicted by various experts, including
the WAB--that the bailouts wouldn't work and that they would set up a pattern
of reward for fiscal delinquency, pouring good money after bad. But that
hasn't yet forced Congress to say, "enough!" The fear mongering
about "the consequences for failure to act are too great" still
paralyze rational and courageous thinking--except for Ron Paul (R-Tx) the
nation's perennial Quixote, tilting at the monstrous Fed Reserve windmills.
-
- Paul has made an all too embarrassing call to Congress
to fulfill their constitutional mandate to take back control of the nation's
currency from the Federal Reserve. They are still trying to ignore him.
So too is the Federal Reserve trying to ignore the demands of "openness
and accountability" promised by Obama and his Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner relative to government operations and the bailout in particular.
-
- As Mark Pittman wrote for Bloomberg Financial News, "Bloomberg
sued Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requesting
details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs... The Fed refused yesterday
to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it
would cast 'a stigma' on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency
credit from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting
as collateral [Indeed, it would if the public knew what insiders were the
recipients and how the money was pocketed rather than used to boost lending]...
Most documents relevant to the Bloomberg suit are at the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York, which the Fed contends isn't subject to FOIA law [because
it's "private" not government, which is sadly true--another reason
to End the Fed]. The Board of Governors has 231 pages of documents, which
it is denying access to [using the excuse that they are "trade secrets"
I'll bet they are!].
-
- "'I would assume that information would be shared
by the Fed and the New York Fed,' said U.S. Representative Scott Garrett,
a New Jersey Republican. 'At some point, the demand for transparency is
paramount to any demand that they have for secrecy.'" Don't count
on it.
-
- Even Ben Bernanke is so embarrassed by the bailouts that
he now (falsely) claims he was against them. Bloomberg continues: "The
stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government's
commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to
pay off more than 90 percent of the nation's home mortgages." Instead,
we've poured $9.7T down a rat hole and still have all the toxic debt on
the books to show for it.
-
- "The financial rescue pledges, amounting to almost
two-thirds of the value of everything produced in the U.S. last year, are
intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized
up about 18 months ago. The promises are composed of about $1 trillion
in stimulus packages, around $3 trillion in lending and spending and $5.7
trillion in agreements to provide aid. $8 trillion is in lending programs
and guarantees, under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients' names have not been
disclosed. 'We've seen money go out the back door of this government unlike
any time in the history of our country,' Senator Byron Dorgan, a North
Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. 'Nobody knows what went
out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much
from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?'" Obviously, the money
isn't going where Congress thinks it is going, or the Fed wouldn't be afraid
of releasing the data.
-
- "The government is already backing $301 billion
of Citigroup Inc. securities and another $118 billion from Bank of America.
The government hasn't yet paid out on any of the guarantees [That's because
AIG is paying out on the derivatives that cover some of these, and the
government is paying AIG additional billions to do this].The Fed said Friday
that it is delaying the start of a $200 billion program called the Term
Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, to revive the market for
securities based on consumer loans such as credit-card, auto and student
borrowings. Most of the spending programs are run out of the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York, where Geithner served as president." Obviously,
Geithner is involved in these decisions and knows the country would be
outraged if the Fed disclosed who's getting what.
-
- End Excerpt
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- World Affairs Brief - Commentary and Insights on
a Troubled World.
-
- Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution
permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief
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- http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
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- World Affairs Brief, 290 West 580 South, Orem, Ut 84058,
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