February 23, 2009

Everything is AMAZING, and nobody is happy...


I'm a bit of a Luddite (he said on his internet blog), so this hit a soft spot with me.

Obama tries to kill Bush e-mail retrieval

By PETE YOST

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.

Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush's eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama's Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration's bid to get the lawsuits dismissed.

During its first term, the Bush White House failed to install electronic record-keeping for e-mail when it switched to a new system, resulting in millions of messages that could not be found.

The Bush White House discovered the problem in 2005 and rejected a proposed solution.

Recently, the Bush White House said it had located 14 million e-mails that were misplaced and that the White House had restored hundreds of thousands of other e-mails from computer backup tapes.

The steps the White House took are inadequate, one of the two groups, the National Security Archive, told a federal judge in court papers filed Friday.

"We do not know how many more e-mails could be restored but have not been, because defendants have not looked," the National Security Archive said in the court papers.

"The new administration seems no more eager than the last" to deal with the issue, said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the other group that sued the EOP.

The Executive Office of the President includes the president's immediate staff and many White House offices and agencies.

Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government.

The Justice Department "apparently never got the message" from Obama, Blanton said.

The department defends the government when it is sued.

February 15, 2009

Obama's campaign promise to bomb Pakistan? Check!

Well this is cheerful... The New York Times reports that the US is firing missiles in Pakistan, keeping true to Obama's promise that we would "take action within Pakistan's borders, even without their permission."

"Missile attacks in Pakistan by remotely piloted aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency have generally been aimed at foreign Qaeda fighters and Taliban guerrillas from Afghanistan, who take shelter in Pakistan between raids into their country to fight American and NATO soldiers."

[...]

"During his visit, Mr. Holbrooke heard a litany of complaints about drone strikes, some of which have inadvertently killed civilians, making it harder for the country’s shaky government to win support for its own military operations against the Taliban."

[...]

"“As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” Ms. Feinstein said during a hearing. The drone attacks, especially in the last six months, have increased anti-American sentiment in Pakistan to very high levels, and Ms. Feinstein’s statement is likely to further inflame the protests over them. Her statement was prominently covered by the Pakistani press on Saturday."

[...]

"In 2008, the American drones carried out more than 30 missile attacks against Qaeda and Taliban targets in the tribal areas, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. Two missile attacks just days after Mr. Obama was inaugurated indicated that his administration, at least for now, planned to continue the policy of the Bush administration."

Way to go guys. You really learned from the Bush Administration how to win the hearts and minds of the people we bomb...

February 11, 2009

Congressman Explains Hijacking of the US Economy by the Federal Reserve & Treasury



“On Thursday Sept 15, 2008 at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 Billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two... Money was being removed electronically. The treasury tried to help with $150 Billion... But could not stem the tide...It was an electronic run on the banks...The treasury intervened but had they not closed down the accounts they estimated that by 2 PM that afternoon. Within 3 hours. $5.5 Trillion would have been withdrawn and collapsed and within 24 hours the world economy....

Somebody threw us in the middle of the Atlantic without a life raft and we're trying to figure out which shore is the closest to swim to...

Don't Let them get away with it!

Right now the Bush administration are slinking off into the night, and the Democratic party leadership hasn't been willing to hold them accountable for the past TWO YEARS.



It's time to tell Nancy Pelosi who's boss! The American People!





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February 2, 2009

Obama to continue with Bush's illegal kidnapping aka "Extreme Rendition"

The Chicago Tribune has the full article.


Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism—aside from Predator missile strikes—for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

The European Parliament condemned renditions as an "illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a subsidiary of Boeing Corp., which is accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

The decision underscores the fact that the battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is far from over and that even if the U.S. is shutting down the prisons, it is not done taking prisoners.

"Obviously you need to preserve some tools, you still have to go after the bad guys," said an Obama administration official

[...]

"One provision in one of Obama's orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."

Obama's decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human-rights groups. Leaders of such organizations said that reflects a sense, even among advocates, that the United States and other nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured."

In his executive order on lawful interrogations, Obama created a task force to re-examine renditions to make sure that they "do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture" or otherwise circumvent human-rights laws and treaties.


Well, it would seem the more things change, the more they stay the same...