Recent posts about U.S. government
Corporations Hide Flight Records From Public View
A federal district court ruled that the public interest journalism group ProPublica can obtain a list of corporate-owned airplanes whose flight information was blocked from public view. ProPublica first sought the list in 2008 under the Freedom of Information Act, after the CEOs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler flew to Washington, D.C. on corporate jets to ask Congress to bail out their companies. Those flights became known because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) provides real-time flight information that the public could see. But the bad publicity over the flights led General Motors to try and stop the public from tracking its planes in the future. A little-known law called the Block Aircraft Registration Request Program permits companies to ask that their corporate jets' flight information be blocked from public view. The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) filed a lawsuit to block ProPublica's request, saying hiding flight information is necessary to corporate executives' security, and prevent disclosure of business trips that could affect stock prices or reveal information about potential deals to a company's competition. But the judge ruled against those arguments, saying they are overly expansive and are outweighed by the public's right to access taxpayer-funded government records. She also pointed out that even if someone were to look up past flights, they couldn't determine who was on the flight or what the purpose of the flight was.
Cheney's Huge Blunder
Former VP Dick CheneyIn April, 2009, former vice president Dick Cheney called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to release classified memos he said demonstrated how well "harsh interrogation methods" -- torture -- worked to prevent terrorist attacks and save lives. But investigators with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) just released a report saying that the CIA memo Cheney cited as justifying U.S. torture contains "plainly inaccurate information" that undermines its conclusions.
It's the New, Improved Iraq War!
The Pentagon is formally rebranding the Iraq war by changing its name from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to the sunnier "Operation New Dawn," to reflect the reduced role the American military is supposed to have in that country over the next year. The new name is scheduled to go into effect in September, 2010.The more optimistic moniker comes after months of deadly bombings in Iraq, and after an aide to the governor of Iraq's Anbar province, Khari Abdul Hadi, expressed "resignation bordering on despair" about the latest bombings in the province, according to the New York Times. The re-naming of the war to "Operation New Dawn" happens during the same week that the U.S. military launched a major new assault in Afghanistan, and after the Obama administration unveiled a military budget of unprecedented proportions.
Congress Needs to Clip Goldman's Wings
The New York Times' front page exposé on the role that Goldman Sachs has played in the Greek tragedy unfolding in Europe right now raises a huge number of concerns both for the U.S. economy and the financial reform measures now in Congress.
To recap, Greece and a number of other European Union (EU) countries are dangerously in debt. EU rules say member countries cannot have budget deficits that exceed three percent of GDP. Greece's debt is closer to 12 percent. Other countries including Spain, Ireland, Italy and Portugal are also in trouble. These countries are "too big to fail." A default by any one of them would rock the global markets, putting an end to the hopeful signs of an EU recovery and potentially leading to a "double dip" recession here in the United States.
Greece and perhaps the other EU nations have been hiding the extent of the debt for years. This week, it was revealed that they have been able to do this with the aid of major U.S. players like Goldman Sachs. The German magazine Der Spiegel broke the story that Greece did a billion-dollar currency swap with Goldman Sachs in 2002 that did not show up on the nation's books as debt.
Take Action! Millions to Lose Unemployment Insurance
While President Obama is in Washington talking about putting a freeze on government spending, soon millions of American families will be out in the cold. In one month, one million Americans are slated to lose their unemployment insurance. Millions more will follow. According to Judy Conti, Federal Advocacy Coordinator at the National Employment Law Project, the expiration of this vital lifeline "would be a catastrophe for these families and their communities."
Why is unemployment insurance ending, and what can you do about it?
Time is Running Out for Big Ben
Opposition has been mounting to the reconfirmation of Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chairman. In recent days, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ) announced that they would vote no. If Bernanke does not get a vote this week, before the formal end of his first term, it would send shock waves through Wall Street.
Secret Jesus Codes on U.S. Military Weapons
ABC News revealed that Trijicon, the company that provides high-powered rifle sights to the U.S. military, inscribes the sights with coded references to biblical texts about Jesus Christ. The company inscribes the codes immediately after the model number, in the same font and type size. For example, "2COR4:6" points to Second Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6 of the New Testament, which reads, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Another code, "JN8:12," refers to John chapter 8, verse 12, which reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Trijicon confirms that it intentionally adds biblical codes to gun sights it sells to the U.S. military, which in turn uses the guns in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though members of the U.S military are strictly prohibited from proselytizing. Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, a former Air Force officer who represents the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group that advocates for separation of church and state in the U.S. military, says the practice violates the Constitution. "This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country," Weinstein said. "It's literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we're fighting ... it allows the Mujahadeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles ..." In 2005, Trijicon won a $660 million, long-term contract to supply the scopes to the Marine Corps. Spokespeople for the Army and the Marine Corps denied knowing about the biblical markings, even though numerous discussions have appeared about them in Internet talk forums and on YouTube since 2006.
Where's the Outrage Over Obama's Health Care Propagandist, Jonathan Gruber?
US News and World Report blogger Peter Roff is comparing the Obama Administration's payments to Jonathan Gruber to the the pundit payola scandal of the Bush Administration paying Armstrong Williams.
In January 2005, USA Today revealed that a U.S. Department of Education contract paid Williams to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation on his TV show and to ask other African American journalists to do likewise. Democrats and media activists were appropriately outraged at such blatant and hidden government propaganda. A January 7, 2010, report by Marcy Wheeler on her Firedoglake blog exposed the similar failure of the Obama Administration and influential MIT economist Jonathan Gruber to fully and consistently reveal Gruber's role in receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars as a paid consultant to the Obama Administration, while promoting Obama's health care legislation.
Roff, a long-time Republican activist and right wing pundit, notes that in the William's payola scandal "senior Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to President George W. Bush expressing their outrage. In one of those letters, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Henry Waxman, George Miller, David Obey, and Elijah Cummings denounced the payments made to Williams under a government contract as 'illegal covert propaganda' intended to influence the American electorate."
What a difference partisanship makes now that Obama is president. In the Gruber scandal prominent liberals including New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have attacked the messenger, Marcy Wheeler and Firedoglake, rather than criticizing the lack of disclosure and the money changing hands, and digging further into the relationship between Obama and his paid health care advocate Jonathan Gruber.
Krugman Bites Watchdog for Exposing Jonathan Gruber's Government Funding
Marcy Wheeler at the very independent liberal blog Firedoglake has exposed that Jonathan Gruber, an MIT academic and very influential promoter of Obama's health reform proposals, has not been properly disclosing the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has received in government health care policy grants. The New York Times promptly responded by correcting an earlier opinion column they ran by Gruber, noting "had editors been aware of Professor Gruber’s government ties, the Op-Ed page would have insisted on disclosure or not published his article." Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake, says that "When Obama wanted to tax middle class health care plans, Gruber defends the tax. When Obama wants to force people to buy private insurance, Gruber defends individual mandate. When Obama does not want the public option, Gruber says a public option is not important. ... It is simply not right for the White House to cite Gruber's analysis to illustrate the benefits of the bill they support without disclosing that Gruber is on the government payroll." She is calling on the Obama Administration to "come clean on its payoffs to Jonathan Gruber and any other undisclosed paid promoters." But the New York Times' star columnist Paul Krugman is snarling at the watchdogs at Firedoglake and asking them "do you really want to become just like the right-wingers with their endless supply of fake scandals?" Fake scandal? Maybe Krugman needs to pay more attention to his own paper's corrections. The PBS Newshour is now describing Gruber as "a paid consultant to the Obama administration." Hamsher has analyzed how the White House used Gruber's work to spin support for its positions.
Bernanke: Wrong Speech, Wrong Nominee
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, gave a speech this week that made headlines and raised eyebrows: “Lax Oversight Caused the Crisis, Bernanke Says.” Finally, many thought, the Fed Chairman would fess up to his role in the crisis! Alas, 98 percent of the speech is dedicated to justifying what the Fed did right over the last decade, and the “lax oversight” apparently had more to do with other agencies charged with regulating mortgages and underwriting practices, not his own.
