Expose Obama » Transparency

Documents Show Elena Kagan’s Conflict of Interest on ObamaCare

Ben — Wed, 18 May 2011 23:55:45 +0000

Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

Documents uncovered by a legal watchdog group prove Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was involved in the Obama administration’s legal defense of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “ObamaCare.”

Judicial Watch has released a number of administration communiqués that show Kagan, who was then Solicitor General, presided over the president’s response to lawsuits asserting the government health care bill is unconstitutional.

On January 8, 2010, Brian Hauck, Senior Counsel to Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, wrote to Kagan’s deputy, Neal Katyal, asking for the office’s assistance in “how to defend against the inevitable challenges to the health care proposals that are pending.” Three minutes later, Katyal replied, “Absolutely right on. Let’s crush them. I’ll speak with Elena and designate someone.” After Katyal volunteered, Kagan responded, “You should do it.”[1]

A few hours later, Katyal updated Hauck, writing, “Brian, Elena would definitely like OSG [the Office of Solicitor General] to be involved in this set of issues.” Katyal added,”I will handle this myself, along with an Assistant from my office, (Name Redacted – BJ), and we will bring Elena in as needed.”(Emphasis added.)

The Justice Department continues to withhold a series of e-mails that would disclose Kagan’s exact role in the negotiations. However, it has turned over the Vaughn index, which describes the items being stonewalled in general terms. These include….

No Time for Sideshows? Obama Holds First-Ever Transgender Conference

Ben — Tue, 03 May 2011 16:50:17 +0000

Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com

Last Wednesday, Barack Obama offered his long-form Certificate of Live Birth, saying, “We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do.” He added, “We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.” Two days later, he gave his idea of a dignified use of presidential time and resources as the Office of Public Engagement (OPE) headed by his closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, held the first-ever White House conference devoted exclusively to transgender concerns. Among the transgender activists present at the super-secret gathering was the president of an organization that is lobbying the government to pay for sex-change operations, allow open military service and top-secret security clearances for trannies, and develop “transgender-specific needle exchange programs” for those who abuse intravenous drugs. The activists state although this was the first time the federal government invited them to discuss their agenda, it will not be the last; the next steps are already planned. And the Obama administration is already churning out significant regulations catering to cross-dressers – and silencing their critics.

Transgender, Not Transparency

The nation’s leading homosexual newspaper, The Washington Blade, reported all that was known about the first-ever meeting last week – which was not much. Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, confirmed the meeting was scheduled to take place at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building but nothing else. Just like the recent National Action Network summit with Al Sharpton, a bevy of White House celebrities were set to attend, but the White House would not say who they are. Inouye told The Blade, “OPE routinely holds meetings with various stakeholders to discuss various policy issues. Friday’s meeting, like most OPE meetings, will be closed press and off the record.” Inouye would not even state which “transgender” activists would attend, instead telling reporters to search the White House visitor records once they are released. (A Congressional committee scheduled hearings this morning on the enormous gaps in White House visitor logs.)

Nancy Goldstein at The Daily Beast noted the meeting’s air-tight secrecy:

It would be easier to evaluate Friday’s meeting if the public had access to certain basic facts. Like which activists and leaders were invited, or which staffers actually attended. Or what was on the agenda. Or whether it was a “listening” meeting, where members of the administration simply gather to hear a group’s concerns, or an “action” meeting that lays out steps toward change. Or what anyone said, or decided. About anything.

Some transgender people are not happy about the development, saying this sort of access is insufficient. However, the Blade reported the identity of one activist present on Friday – and that person puts the radical nature of the meeting, and the White House, into perspective.

Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) told the Blade the White House had sent an invitation. According to the biography posted online “Mara,” who became a “woman” in 2000, is “a transgender-identified woman and a parent…She is a founding board member of the Stonewall Democracy Fund, and has served on the board of Directors of Common Roads, an LGBTQ Youth Group, and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition.”

Mara has had trouble overcoming the vicious discrimination – or gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Mara implored the LGBs to see themselves as one big family:

In addition to identifying as trans, I identify as a lesbian. There are a lot of gay men who later identify as transgender; there are a lot of lesbians who identify as transgender and vice versa. So the overlaps in our community are really big.

When not trying to change the minds of sexual minorities, Mara agitates to change the ancient teachings of the Christian faith. Mara initiated another first, the Transgender Religious Summit, from January 19-21, 2007, in Berkeley, California. One attendee summarized their goals and beliefs:

[W]e must overcome the theological barriers that traditional thinking erects. We do have a rich heritage in our past. People we now call TG existed in most aboriginal communities around the world. We were revered in many. It was only the influence of European explorers in enforcing their religious dogma that has buried aboriginal spiritual traditions. Our ‘two-spirited’ nature is indeed a gift from God. As such we need to use the Bible/Torah creatively to transform rejection into acceptance.

Now Mara has the ear of the president’s closest advisors.

Mara explained last week there would be no compromise nor separation from among NCTE’s issues at the OPE meeting. Mara told The Blade, “We’re going to say, ‘Here’s our agenda.’” That agenda is more extreme and offensive than most Americans could imagine.

Quotas, Set-Asides, and Security Clearances for Cross-Dressers

NCTE demands the Defense Department “allow transgender people to serve openly.” However, the government must….

Video: Ben Johnson, Why Obama’s Birth Certificate is an Issue

Ben — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 03:56:22 +0000

Click here to thank Crane Durham and the American Family Radio Network for inviting Ben on the air.

Issa: Obama Punishes a Whistleblower

Ben — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:43:31 +0000

Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com

Congressman Darrell Issa has written a scathing five-page letter to the Department of Homeland Security stating it demoted an employee who blew the whistle on the department’s illegal stonewalling of Obama’s political foes. Issa, who is the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Janet Napolitano that the action had the appearance of “retaliation” and that “Obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime.”

Issa states that Catherine Papoi, who was DHS deputy unit chief in charge of the Freedom of Information Act, was passed over for a promotion and forced to vacate her office the day after she met with investigators.

Ironically, the Associated Press reported the story the same day Barack Obama was set to receive an award for government transparency to kick off “Sunshine Week.” Obama canceled the event.

Last March, Papoi went to the DHS Inspector General to complain of “hundreds” of cases of illegal stonewalling. The IG report has yet to be released a year later. She then turned to Issa.

Papoi said officials are “breaking the law by knowingly and intentionally delaying and obstructing the release of agency records.”

Video of the Day: Obama Meets Lobbyists Across the Street to Avoid Transparency

Ben — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:46:16 +0000

C-SPAN questions Haunt Obama

NewsEditor — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:02:28 +0000

By NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, Politico

Obama’s CSPAN lie is following him

President Barack Obama might just wish he had opened even one health care meeting to the C-SPAN cameras.

The issue is starting to follow him around.

Once again Tuesday, he faced a question about it, from a high school student in Nashua, N.H., who asked him to grade the White House’s transparency efforts, given the fact that all the health care discussions have been behind closed doors.

Obama said that after the House and Senate bills moved forward, “it is true that I then met with the leaders … to see what differences needed to be resolved. And that wasn’t on C-SPAN.”

“I made that commitment, and I probably should have put it on C-SPAN,” he said, but added that lawmakers might not have been as honest and candid if they were being televised.

During the presidential campaign, Obama had famously promised to open up health care negotiations to C-SPAN so that voters would know who was arguing for what. Instead, the backroom tussles over the bill happened well out of sight of the public, just as they always have in Washington.

Obama Delivers on His Transparency Promise: We’re Seeing Straight Through Him

NewsEditor — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:33:42 +0000

by Doug Giles, Townhall

The Real Obama is shining through

“Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.”

—Charles de Gaulle

I’m hearing nada from the likes of Matthews, Maddow and Olbermann regarding Obama lying to us with his many empty yet unctuous campaign promises to allow “we the plebes” a peek into the claymation of his health care crap via CSPAN.

Why the silence, sweeties? Oh, I remember why: You’re a spigot for the Obama chum slick. Silly me.

Now, you just know the aforementioned tres Chihuahuas of faux facts would have been on Bush like a condom full of PETN in Umar’s undies if Dubya would have parlayed that smack on the general populace and then failed to deliver in an oh-so-odious and obvious Obama-like way

However, when Obama lies to us all … I hear crickets … nuttin’ but crickets … from these deeply biased chicks on their severely unwatched propaganda programs.

Obama’s Closed Door meeting on openness

NewsEditor — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:11:46 +0000

Obama is running from his transparency promise

It’s hardly the image of transparency the Obama administration wants to project: A workshop on government openness is closed to the public.

The event Monday for federal employees is a fitting symbol of President Barack Obama’s uneven record so far on the Freedom of Information Act, a big part of keeping his campaign promise to make his administration the most transparent ever. As Obama’s first year in office ends, the government’s actions when the public and press seek information are not yet matching up with the president’s words.

"The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails," Obama told government offices on his first full day as president. "The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears."

Yet on some important issues, his administration produced information only after government watchdogs and reporters spent weeks or months pressing, in some cases suing.

One Question: Please, Sir, Can We Have Some More?

NewsEditor — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:19:00 +0000

By Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal

so much for the most “open and transparent administration”

President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will hold a press conference on Tuesday to field two questions, one from an American reporter, another from an Indian journalist – four if we’re lucky, according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Over eight days in four Asian countries, Obama took all of two questions from the U.S. reporters whose organizations spent tens of thousands of dollars to follow him across the globe. White House aides shrugged off the criticism, saying they were only abiding by the rules of the host countries. A “press conference” in Beijing entailed opening statements from Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, followed by no questions at all — zero.

Now the home turf is the White House and the trend continues. Customarily, press conferences with visiting heads of state have been truncated affairs, but they usually allowed three questions, maybe four, for each side.

$6.4 Billion Stimulus Goes to Phantom Districts

NewsEditor — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:22:00 +0000

By Bill McMorris, Franklin Center for Public Integrity

The Stimulus is so great it is saving jobs for people who don’t even exist

Just how big is the stimulus package? Well for one, it has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist.

According to data retrieved from recovery.gov, nearly $6.4 billion was used to “create or save” just under 30,000 jobs in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress–which, for the record, counts 435 members–in early 2009.

The site’s monitors, however, are not too savvy about America’s political or geographic landscape. More than $2 million was given to the 99th District of North Dakota, a state which has only one congressional district. In order to qualify for 99 districts, North Dakota would have to have a population of about 60 million people, almost 24 million more people than California.

The stimulus revived 8 recently retired congressional districts. Pennsylvania’s 21st District has received just under $2 million in funds. Mississippi’s 5th District and Oklahoma’s 6th received $1 million from the legislation, respectively. All three were eliminated by the 2000 census.