The Transparency Chronicles

Remember this?

Um, yeah, about that touchstone thing? Forget it. Again.

The most recent proof that we have of Barack Obama's utter failure to remain open, transparent, and accountable to the American people is when a small group of protesters were...uh...removed from an area near the White House. Oh, and so were a group of reporters covering the protest. Hm. Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound very transparent, does it? The details:

Reporters ... were forced out of Lafayette Square by police. The scene, captured on video, is remarkable given the historical importance of the park as a protest spot across the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

President Obama, who boasts of the most transparent administration in history, is facing increasingly angry rhetoric on the issue. But the more important matter facing the administration today involves freedom of the press. Why would Secret Service officers, charged with protecting the White House, order credentialed journalists to leave the scene of a public protest?

The incident should raise red flags with Obama and the reporters who cover him. It’s unacceptable for journalists to be chased away from a public venue under the guise of preventing negative publicity for the White House.

Watch for yourself:

Well, maybe they had gotten out of hand and were posing a danger to bystanders. That would be a legitimate reason to kick 'em out, right? No dice...they were being quite restrained, it seems.

Now, here's where it gets really amusing: what were these people protesting? Obama's failure to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. That's right, these were left-wingers. Gay rights activists. His own base.

If that's how open and transparent he is with his own core constituency, is it any wonder he shows outright hostility mixed with arrogant condescension for his political opponents on the Right?

One last note on this. On the very same day that the cops were kicking out protesters and the press from a long-standing traditional protest area, here's Obama's press secretary:

You just can't make this stuff up! And even if you could, there's no need.

There's my two cents.

Chickens Coming Home To Roost

Cassy Fiano at Hot Air's Greenroom has the first half of the news:

Obamacare can't save this sinking ship. After completely ignoring the will of the American people, Democrats get to enjoy a new low: a disapproval rate of 72%. And guess what? It hasn't been that low since — you guessed it — 1994.

Tucked away inside a new Washington Post/ABC News poll is a key figure — 72 percent. That's the percentage of voters who disapprove of the job Congress is doing, and the number hasn't been that high since — you guessed it — the week before the 1994 election.

The Cornhuser Kickback and Gator-aid — two controversial provisions in the healthcare bill — are a couple of attractively named and accessible reasons why people don't like how Congress operates. And at no point in the last 16 years has that picture been so clear to voters.

Republicans are by no means immune to the dirty politics that permeate Washington. Democrats, though, have brought it to a whole new level. Pelosi promised Americans the most ethical Congress ever — and instead, we got corruption, cronyism, thuggery, bribery, and secrets. Obama promised Americans hope and change — and instead, we got Chicago style corrupt politics as usual. Ethics? Transparency? Yeah, right. It's no wonder that Americans are furious.

And then, Democrats hypothetically spat in the faces of their constituents, passing a takeover of the American health care system against our will.

Americans are furious, all right. And this November, the chickens are coming home to roost. You can't ignore the will of the American people and expect them to smile blandly and keep voting you into office. Represent the American people well, or you will be voted out. It's that simple.

Ace of Spades provides the second half:

Gallup: Obama's Approval Drops to Lowest Level Yet, 46%

With 48% disapproving.

And, as usual, this is with adults, not voters, and definitely not likely voters.

Obama is among those waiting eagerly to see what's in the health care bill. Maybe there's an extra 5% approval for him lurking around in those 2200 pages.

Clinton's Prediction... Of a ten point bounce for Obama upon passage of the socialist health care plan seems in error.

I love chicken, especially fried...

There's my two cents.

DemCare Closing In On Final Chapter

The biggest DemCare development in the past 48 hours is that of Eric Massa's explosion against the DemCare Democrats.  Here's a good summary:

Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY) gave us a glimpse into the inner workings of the House Democrat Caucus.  Massa voted against ObamaCare when it came up in the House last year.  He alleged on a New York radio station that he is being forced out of Congress because of his stance on ObamaCare.  Aside from the validity of the allegations against him, Massa gives us a glimpse into a fight within the Democrat Caucus on the political viability of the President's health care reform proposal.  Massa shows us that there are some Democrats pleading with Speaker Pelosi (D-Ca) to back away from ObamaCare. 

According to Politico:

Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) says the House ethics committee is investigating him for inappropriate comments he made to a male staffer on New Year's Eve — and that he's the victim of a power play by Democratic leaders who want him out of Congress because he's a "no" vote on health care reform.

If this is true and Democrat Leaders are forcing Massa out of Congress to help pass ObamaCare, this something that should be investigated by the House Ethics Committee.  When did Democrat Leadership know about the allegations against Massa?  Was the timing of the disclosure of the allegations part of a plan to help pass ObamaCare?  Massa claims that the Democrat Leadership will "stop at nothing" to get what they want.  More Politico:

And this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill.

Were they willing to force a member out of Congress to pass ObamaCare?  Much of this story came from a radio broadcast of Massa on WKPQ (TH to Brietbart.tv).  Massa claims that one pressure point that Dems used was to have union leaders threaten him to vote for ObamaCare or get no union money.  

I have had union leaders tell me point blank we are not going to contribute to your campaign unless you vote for this health care bill.  Is that or is that not a bribe?

I don't know.  It seems unethical.  The promise of campaign contributions for a vote for health care may be considered a quid pro quo bribe under current law.  A bigger question is whether this threat was made at the behest of Members of Congress or Obama Administration officials.  Massa alleges that Democrats have lost their way.  They railed against Republicans for using strong arm tactics to pass bills, like the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, yet now they are engaging in unethical behavior to pass health care reform.

The leadership of the Democratic party have become exactly what they said they were running against they have become exactly what we all ran against.

This anger and rage is coming from an elected member of the Democrat party.  This is a member that attended closed door meetings with leaders.  One of the points Massa made is that Democrats are ignoring Republican claims that the American people do not like ObamaCare and have repeatedly rejected it.

You can not effectively govern this country without the consent of governed.   The entire nation has said let's rewrite the health care bill.  Let's find what we can agree upon. No. No. No.  We are going to ram this down the throats of the American people.

Consent of the governed is an important concept and the Democrats have ignored the polls calling for Congress to start over and people of Massachusetts who sent Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) to the Capitol to kill ObamaCare.  Massa, a Democrat, was a voice in the caucus saying to rewrite the bill and listen to the American people. 

The American people have lost faith in this piece of legislation and if we pass this bill using reconciliation it will tear this country to pieces. It will rip this country asunder.  And I have made this argument over and over and over and over again with House Leadership. 

And the House leadership ignored him and others saying that reconciliation, the Health Care Nuclear Option, will destroy our nation politically.  The people will be very angry and our populace will become more polarized.

I have said we are supposed to be as democrats the party of unity.  We are supposed to be the party that builds consensus.  We are supposed be the part that governs equally without malice towards anyone.  We are supposed to be the ones that find the solutions. 

The promise — the covenant Democrat leadership had with the American people has been broken.  They have not been the party of unity, nor the party of consensus, nor the party that governs without malice, nor the ones that find solutions.  They have been the party of a faction that ignores broad based solutions in favor of using strong arm tactics to force through a left wing approach to health care reform.

But instead of actually trying finding the solutions and writing a piece of legislation that will get you a 90 percent solution with 70 percent agreement among the American people.  They are going to ram this bill down the throats of this country and it is going to rip this nation to pieces politically and it will be a generation for this nation to recover.

These are strong words from Congressman Massa, but, his words give us some evidence that elements of the Democrat party are pleading for ObamaCare to be shelved.  One may be skeptical of his claims of innocence, yet still give credence to his strong claims of unethical behavior on the part of Dem Leadership.  ObamaCare is taking on some water and the bill may yet stink because of the dangerous tactics Dems have used to railroad the bill through Congress against the will of the American people.

Whoa!  Talk about lighting a fire!  Apparently, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel verbally attacked him in the House shower room, so maybe that added a bit of extra tender to the fire.  Massa is clearly ticked off at being squeezed and forced out, but it seems to me that this is pretty typical of elected Dems - it's okay to lie, cheat, and destroy, as long as you're doing it to Republicans or the American people.  Touch them, however, and it's a horrendous injustice.  Regardless, it is certainly very interesting to see a Dem throw such a visible and vicious hissy fit in public.

But he's not wrong.

It appears as though Pelosi's short of the votes she needs, and is in danger of losing control of her troops.  It doesn't help for her to say mind-bogglingly stupid things like, "we have to pass the health care bill to find out what's in it."  Truth is stranger than farce sometimes.  But don't worry...more bribery and extortion are unfolding fast.  I'm sure we'll hear more in the next few days.

One of the main Democrat hold-outs, Bart Stupak, is now suddenly more 'optimistic' that a deal can be reached.  Er, well, depending on who you ask.  Regardless, if Stupak's pro-lifers fall in line (as at least one already has), that's the end of it.  I'd be more surprised if that didn't happen than if it did.  This is as I've always said - the only thing you can really count on an elected Democrat standing for is compromising on his 'principles' in the end.  Don't for a minute hold out real hope that these Dems will hold against the tremendous pressure Obama, Pelosi, and the unions are bringing to bear, at least not without getting even more pressure from constituents.  That's where this battle will be won or lost.

Here's what the House would have to swallow if they agreed to the Senate bill:

• Failure to address the drivers behind rising spending in health care. The Senate bill attempts to control costs by imposing heavy new federal regulations and punitive taxes on high-ticket medical expenditures such as medical devices, prescription drugs, and high-cost insurance plans. This top-down approach focuses on the symptoms, rather than the causes, of increasing health spending. Health insurance premiums, particularly in the individual market, will go up.
• An individual mandate with disastrous unintended consequences. To expand coverage, the bill includes guaranteed issue of coverage combined with an individual mandate. However, rather than encourage "young invincibles" to carry insurance, the mandate, which would be less expensive than insurance coverage, would create incentives for young and healthy adults to pay the penalty rather than buy and carry a costly health plan. This would destabilize the insurance market by reducing the spread of risk, leaving the elderly and sickly in insurance risk pools. Premiums would thus skyrocket—further discouraging healthy individuals from obtaining care.
• Stringent federal requirement push private insurers towards insolvency. The combination of an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans, a federally-defined minimum medical-loss ratio, and federally-defined required benefits could push private insurers to going out of business, should they be incapable of meeting all three requirements and simultaneously covering the cost of enrollees' care. Alternatively, it could mean that health insurers, "too big to fail", would become the next big industry recipients of taxpayer bailouts.
• A public option in disguise. The Senate bill requires the Office of Personnel Management to establish and manage health plans in the state exchanges to compete against private health plans. The bill expands the powers of this federal agency. This could lead to a de facto public option with federally defined premiums, benefits, etc: private insurance in name only. Of course, if the government sponsored health plans do not effectively compete against the other plans, it is likely that they will also be eligible for future federal bailouts at the taxpayers' expense.
• Government subsidies which penalize marriage. The structure of the subsidies offered by the Senate bill to purchase insurance are inequitable, offering more financial assistance to non-married couples than to a married couple with comparable income. This is bizarre social policy.
• Trillions in new federal spending, questionable savings. Congressional liberals claim that their health care proposals are deficit neutral. In fact, they are based on budgetary gimmicks and hidden costs. When these are accounted for, the real cost of the Senate bill skyrockets, further augmented by the implausibility of the many promised savings in the bill.
• A special Medicaid deal for Nebraska. The Senate bill would force all federal taxpayers to cover the extra cost of expanding Medicaid in Nebraska. It is worthy to note that the President's proposal would extend the taxpayer subsidies to all states, increasing the total cost of the bill.
• Expanding Medicaid on the states' budgets. Though the federal government would initially cover most of the cost of expanding Medicaid, states would eventually have to pick up a portion of the cost. This comes at a time when states are cutting spending in Medicaid and other areas to accrue savings and avoid increasing debt. In fact, we show that states could save significantly if they were to drop their Medicaid programs altogether, which could become an appealing option after adoption of the Senate bill.
• Encourages employment discrimination. The structure of the bill's employer mandate would discourage employers from hiring workers from low-income families and from offering insurance to all employees if a large portion of a firm's workforce consists of low-income workers.
• Disparate federal assistance for families of comparable income. The generous subsidies available to purchase insurance in the exchanges would be available to only a select few of the millions that fall within the eligible income bracket. This would result in thousands of dollars in additional federal assistance for some individuals and little to no assistance for others, regardless of equal income.
• Taxing families' health benefits. An excise tax on high-cost insurance plans is included in the Senate bill with the intention of lowering premiums. However, this tax on insurers would be passed down to the consumer, further raising premiums.
• Numerous new taxes—and not just for the wealthy. President Obama has promised not to introduce new taxes that would affect the middle-class, but the Senate bill would impose several new punitive taxes on to Americans of every financial background.

This is why it's going to be tough to muster the votes to pass the Senate version.  It will be far tougher to actually pursue and achieve any kind of reconciliation after that, not only because of the fury of the American people, but also because the Senate is just as strongly opposed to 'fixing' these things as the House is desperate to fix them.

It's quite a catch-22.

By the way, more and more businesses are coming out to publicly oppose DemCare.  That could be partly because more and more people -- 57% to be precise -- believe DemCare will cause severe damage to the economy.  Even more importantly, people are realizing that DemCare is the key gateway to socialized control of America.  That's not coming from any current day pundit, either...that's what Vladimir Lenin said decades ago while he was solidifying control of Communist Russia.  Interesting company that our current Democrat leaders have, don't you think?

And how about that transparency?  Obama has said a lot about transparency, but do his actions agree?  Once again, no:

President Obama is coming to St. Louis on Wednesday to push his "angry mob unpopular" nationalized health care bill. But, you won't get to see him.
HE'S LOCKING THE DOORS ON THE ST. LOUIS PUBLIC.

President Obama and Missouri Democrats including Senator Claire McCaskill, Governor Jay Nixon and Russ and Robin Carnahan want to ram their toxic health care bill down your throat but THEY DON'T HAVE THE GUTS TO FACE THE PUBLIC!

As we've said over and over.

Finally, perhaps equally as bad as DemCare actually becoming law is the precedent that the process of 'passing' DemCare will have set.  You see, it won't stop with DemCare:

Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted—programs that could never attract 60 votes.

One of these controversial measures rewrites the Higher Education Act to ban private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans as of this July. Congress has already passed laws in recent years discouraging private lenders from making loans without a federal guarantee. But most college financial-aid departments still want private companies to originate and service the guaranteed loans. That's because the alternative—a public option run by the Department of Education—has been distinguished by its Soviet-style customer service. The Democratic plan is to make this public option the only option mere

Hey, if it works for DemCare, and if it works for student loans...well, it'll work for just about anything.  Of course, if DemCare becomes law, I'm not sure how much anything else will matter, but I guess we'll find that out the hard way in time.

The liberalism creep is about to sludge itself off the ground and take to the air, and if that happens, more damage will be done to the fundamental fabric of this nation in one presidential term than in the past half century.

This one is for all the marbles.  The only chance of stopping DemCare from becoming law is to sufficiently influence Democrats in the House so that they will not pass the Senate version of DemCare.  See how yours stands here, then PICK. UP. THE. PHONE.  Nothing less than the future of America depends on it.

There's my two cents.

Ethi-what? Transparen-what?

Remember, this is the most ethical Congress in history.

No, really, they actually promised that. They didn't mean it:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insisted on Friday that she is running the most ethical and honest Congress in history. At the same time, however, she indicated she will not ask House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D.-N.Y.) to resign his chairmanship—at least for now. Democrook Charlie Rangel was found guilty of ethics violations yesterday. But, at least he wasn’t caught stashing $90,000 of cold hard cash in his freezer like crooked democrat William Jefferson who was recently sent to the slammer for 13 years.

Amazingly, she's still saying it:

And hey, how about this for transparency:

Things that are transparent: Saran Wrap, glass, water. Things that aren’t transparent: brick walls, mountains, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Or so it would seem, if you take a look at the CEQ’s response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request issued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in which the Chamber asked for the release of documents relating to agency records on global warming.

As the Chamber notes, “CEQ had identified 87 documents totaling 759 pages that were responsive to our request. HOWEVER, they could not release most of the documents because they ‘originated’ with another agency.”

So what did CEQ produce? An entirely blacked-out, redacted, Sharpie-markered e-mail, pictured above. (You can also take a look at a PDF of the document, courtesy of the Chamber.)

The Chamber says the response to their FOIA is astonishing, given President Barack Obama’s call for transparency beginning with day one in office:

On his very first full day in office, President Obama sent a memorandum to his executive agencies extolling the virtues of transparency and open government and directing them to facilitate public access to information. To further that directive, Obama issued a second memorandum encouraging agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” when responding to public requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA):

“The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. 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.

Here's the form itself:

The latest in a long, long line of examples of how transparent the Obama administration truly is.

There's my two cents.

Doubling Down On Stupid

The Obama administration is doubling down on stupid all over the place. Observe...

"Every economist says I created or saved 2 million jobs"

Jake Tapper is a little confused, and so am I. The White House supposedly abandoned the “saved or created” jobs metric because of its fantasy elements and prefers now to count jobs “funded” through Porkulus, an order that came from one of the chief economists in the White House, Peter Orszag. So why did Obama claim to a Nashua, New Hampshire audience on Tuesday that he had “saved or created” two million jobs?

“Now, if you hear some of the critics, they’ll say, well, the Recovery Act, I don’t know if that’s really worked, because we still have high unemployment,” the president said. “But what they fail to understand is that every economist, from the left and the right, has said, because of the Recovery Act, what we’ve started to see is at least a couple of million jobs that have either been created or would have been lost. The problem is, 7 million jobs were lost during the course of this recession.”

Every economist? A good rule of thumb to consider the truthfulness of any speaker is his use of the terms always, never, none, all, and every. Those terms usually provide a key for a lie or a gap in knowledge — and Tapper points out the truth:

At the end of November, Congressional Budget office Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote that because of the stimulus bill “in the third quarter of calendar year 2009, an additional 600,000 to 1.6 million people were employed in the United States..”

But clearly other economists are much more skeptical, including Dan Mitchell at the libertarian Cato Institute, and J.D. Foster at The Heritage Foundation.

Some economists say the whole notion of counting “saved or created” jobs is impossible. Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz told ProPublica that trying to count how many jobs have been saved or created is “a silly exercise.”

And in fact, in December the Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag issued a directive scrapping the whole “saved or created” construct.

Why is the “saved or created” meme “a silly exercise”? Economic policies will get judged on whether they promote growth in both production and jobs. On that metric, Obama flopped in his first year. Prior to the 2007 recession, the US started on the path of both production and job growth within 12 months of the start of the recession. Obama took office in the 13th month, three months after a financial collapse. Twelve months later, we’re still shedding jobs with no end in sight. That’s the real measure of economic policy, and so far, Obama’s failing.

Nominee holds for me, but not for thee

Yesterday, at his talk with Senate Democrats, Obama went after Republicans for putting holds on his nominees— a procedural right afforded all senators.

"I don't have a GSA administrator, even though I nominated somebody who was well qualified several months ago, and nobody can tell me that there's anything particularly wrong with her," Obama said. "They're blocking her because of some unrelated matter."

The Washington Post notes today that Obama himself joined in holds on three Bush administration nominees:

In 2005, a year after his election to the Senate, Obama placed a hold on Susan Bodine to lead the Environmental Protection Agency office that oversees Superfund and emergency cleanup programs because the agency had missed a deadline on new regulations for lead paint exposure.

In September 2006, Obama and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) blocked Robert L. Wilkie's nomination as a Defense Department assistant secretary over a long-delayed Pentagon report on Midwestern wind farms.

And Obama joined with other Democrats in October 2007 to block the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission. Von Spakovsky later withdrew; Wilkie and Bodine were eventually confirmed.

But a White House spokesperson said holds are way worse when Republicans do them, so there.

Backroom deals

John McCormack says that Democrats just can’t help themselves, but I don’t think that’s quite right. They’ve been helping themselves to heaping piles of pork dollars by cutting deals in backroom negotiations, for instance — and they want to keep right on helping themselves with our tax dollars. In fact, House Democrats want to double down on cutting deals in the dark:

The health care bill is in trouble, but a series of narrow deals — each designed to win over a wavering senator or key interest group — is alive and well, despite voter anger over the parochial horse-trading that marked the rush toward passage before Christmas.

With the exception of Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” which alienated independent voters and came to symbolize an out-of-touch Washington, none of the other narrow provisions that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid inserted into the bill appear to be in any kind of danger as Democrats try to figure out the way ahead.

Not only that, House liberals want to reopen the labor deal struck just days before Democrats lost their 60-vote majority — not to dial it back but to provide more generous protections from the tax on Cadillac insurance plans.

Ben Nelson’s Cornhusker Kickback will get stripped from the bill — mainly to protect Nelson from the wrath of his constituents, who got angry when Nelson reneged on a pledge to ensure that no federal dollars would subsidize abortions or abortion coverage. However, Mary Landrieu’s $300 million Louisiana Purchase will survive despite being three times as expensive as the Cornhusker Kickback. So will an exemption on Cadillac-plan taxes for Michigan, as will $500 million to Massachusetts for Medicaid reimbursements and $600 million to Vermont, for its “leadership” on cost control.

Basically, the Democrats have decided to embrace the entire notion of backroom deals and opacity in government despite the clear lesson from the Massachusetts special election. Democrats promised transparency, but delivered lobbyist-driven perks for unions instead. Now they’re talking out of both sides of their mouths, as Politico makes clear by using John Kerry as an example:

“It is very clear from the process that took place in the final days of the bill that Americans are disturbed about the process,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). “I believe it would be important for us to take out the egregious items.”

Does that mean he might forfeit the money for Massachusetts?

Not at all. Kerry argued the funding was completely legitimate because Massachusetts has already used significant state resources to extend benefits beyond what the current federal Medicaid rules require.

“I don’t think adjusting for Medicaid costs for states that have already done some things is inappropriate,” Kerry said. “I’m not for a single-state fix. I’m for every state in the country that has taken action, to have that reflected somehow, and that should be part of the fix.”

Kerry’s remark highlights an axiom of Washington: Every deal is egregious except your own.

In other words, Kerry was for transparency and fiscal responsibility at the same time he was against them. Just when you thought Kerry couldn’t possibly top his 2004 performance on vacillation, he manages a flip-flop with a double twist. This time, he has plenty of company in his own caucus, but Kerry at least should have learned a lesson from his own constituents when they elected a Republican, Scott Brown, to the Senate for the first time in 38 years.

The Democrats won’t learn this lesson until voters force a lot of them into retirement in the fall, which looks more and more certain with each attempt to cut deals with lobbyists and stretch rules to the point of breaking them to get their wildly unpopular statist bill passed.

There's much, much more. Basically, I think we've gotten to the point where anything Obama says is actually the opposite of what he's going to do. As a thought experiment, just try watching a speech of his sometime with the understanding that he'll do the opposite of what he's saying he'll do.

Mm-hmmm...

Anyway, here's Michael Ramirez's take on probably the most ridiculously stupid double-down:


And we've been over that many, many times before.

The point is that the American people aren't stupid. More pointedly, the American people don't take kindly to condescending snobs who lie to our face and treat us as if we're too stupid to figure out that they're lying to our face. If nothing else, that one thing would cause all sorts of headaches for Obama and the Dems in November. But, combined with the fact that they're doing it over policies that the American people DO NOT WANT, it's going to be a woodshed thumping.

And a well-deserved one, at that.

There's my two cents.

Transparency And Campaign Finance Reform

Hot Air has a great commentary on transparency and campaign finance reform:

In his State of the Union speech this week, Barack Obama bemoaned a Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations to spend their money on advertising in the final weeks of an election cycle and to spend as much money as they like doing so.  Obama declared that it would mean a deluge of money that would drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.  However, McCain-Feingold didn't do anything to prevent that kind of a deluge, and one case in particular demonstrates how the money flows more dishonestly and with less transparency in a campaign-finance regulatory scheme.  Lee Doren looks at the case of a new campaign effort called TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, and who's behind it:

It is paid for by the American Public Policy Committee. Well, according to opensecrets.org, the two donors for American Public Policy Committee this year are Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West.

However, according to opensecrets.org, the 2nd largest contributor in 2008 to Patriot Majority was SEIU and other top Unions around America.  I imagine the diversion of Union money gets much deeper than this.

Under McCain-Feingold, unions had the same limitations as other corporations did on spending money.  They found a new channel, hiding two layers below the public effort of TTPIO by using a front group called Patriot Majority, which provided all of the declared funding for APPC.  Take a look at the list of top donors for PM in the 2008 cycle:

Out of $8.2 million total in contributions from the top 15 donors, $7.4 million explicitly came from unions.  The two largest contributors in the 2008 cycle were AFSCME and SEIU, which are heavily allied with Democrats and the Obama administration.  The two unions represent government workers at the state and federal levels, and in fact in combination provide almost all representation of public-sector employees.

Moreover, nothing on the website itself shows that it got most of its funding from Big Labor — and unions fell into the same spending restrictions in McCain-Feingold as corporations.  But the website's front page targets three Republican candidates for electoral office, a big no-no under McCain-Feingold and its speech restrictions, although they couch it in terms of "tell [them] to reject the dangerous ideas of the Tea Party."

Does this look like we've chased money out of the process?  Or does it look more like we've made influence harder to spot by allowing the creation of front groups and shady channels for cash?  It's exactly this kind of big-special-interest manipulation that has given rise to the Tea Party movement — and why Big Labor is so ardently trying to kill it off.

I still like my take on campaign finance rules, but as with most things, the true key is real and legitimate transparency.  Unfortunately, we've got far too little transparency on anything political in America right now.

I think we can all agree that the current system just isn't working, and anyone who says otherwise is, well, running for office.  Go figure.

There's my two cents.

Video Burst

Several good videos worth watching (h/t Melekiop):

This is very similar to Rush Limbaugh's two universes schtick.

Hm. Now that's transparency! I wonder why the multimillion dollar web site the Obama administration put up couldn't handle this...?


(***language warning***)

Yep. Really, really smart people.

I wonder if they're going to be smart enough to figure out that he's failed on everything he promised to give them on a silver platter. Let's guess.

There's my two cents.

Here's Your Promised Transparency

Seems pretty indicative of the first year, if you ask me:

Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times’ Top of the Ticket blog has assigned himself to the Joe Biden beat, and that’s a lonely job. Not too many reporters follow Biden’s daily schedule, and there’s a reason for that, one apparent from today’s announced schedule. What do all of these items have in common?

In the morning, the President and the Vice President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing and the Economic Daily Briefing in the Oval Office. These briefings are closed press.

At 11:30 AM, the Vice President will meet with Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to discuss the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This meeting is closed press.

Afterwards, the President and the Vice President will have lunch in the Private Dining Room. This lunch is closed press.

Most people would understand that for the luncheon and the PDB, but Obama rather famously put Biden as the man in charge of ARRA, which we call Porkulus, by claiming that “no one messes with Joe.” Despite that, no one has seen much of Joe since he declared that the US was in a depression back in October.

Of course, he does have one item today open to the press … well, sort of:

At 1:00 PM, the Vice President will meet with Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi in the Roosevelt Room. There will be a pool spray at the bottom of this meeting; gather time is 1:45 PM in the Brady Briefing Room.

What the hell is a “pool spray,” you may be asking? Andrew explains:

The “pool spray” mentioned has nothing to do with aquatics. It’s a coded message to media that a few select members will be allowed in to take pictures briefly — possibly for only a few seconds — as Biden and his guest pretend to continue their previously private conversation as if the meeting was open.

It’s a photo op, only just for a few photojournalists, and only as long as they don’t actually attempt to engage Biden in conversation. Well, that’s certainly open and accessible, isn’t it? But for the full Someone Left the Irony On Department treatment, we have to go to the final item on Biden’s schedule (emphases mine):

Then, at 2:15 PM, the Vice President will meet with Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. This meeting is closed press.

Not only has the White House put a complete muzzle on Biden — an understandable impulse for anyone who’s responsible for what comes out of his mouth — they’ve now closed their meetings with the man they put in charge of Porkulus transparency. A month ago, the White House held a workshop on transparency, which they also closed to the press. Apparently, the workshop succeeded!

Transparency and accountability — now off limits to the press. That’s either the hallmark of this administration, an admission that Obama botched his VP pick, or a little of both.

Or a lot of both. You pick.

There's my two cents.

The DemCare Scam Continues

Here's the latest on DemCare...

The ping-pong ensues:

When the House or Senate passes a measure, it is sent to the other chamber for further consideration. If the second chamber passes the measure with one or more amendments, it is then sent back to the originating chamber. In modern practice, the second chamber typically substitutes its version of a measure as a single amendment to the measure as passed by the first chamber. The first chamber then may accept the amendment or propose its own further amendment. In this way, the measure may be messaged back and forth between the House and Senate in the hope that both houses will eventually agree to the same version of a measure.

Here's what RedState thinks will happen next:

Now this bill goes to the House where the House has the option of passing this bill intact, then sending it to the President. They may choose to pass the bill, then work on a technical corrections bill to take another run at the pubic option, reform the tax provisions and further modify the abortion provisions. More likely, the House takes up the Senate bill and inserts a complete substitute including measures they think can pass the Senate with a 60 vote majority. Remember, unless if they somehow use a Reconciliation strategy, they need 60 votes to pass this measure again in the Senate. Then the Senate can either pass the new bill or continue the Ping Pong process until one chamber can pass the bill intact. Bottom line is that this process will cut out any significant participation by the public, the press and all federally elected Republicans. So much for transparency and broadcasting the negotiations on C-Span.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi ducked out of the closed door DemCare meetings long enough to proclaim that there's never been a more open process. No seriously, she did, and she even cited the thousands of angry town halls over the summer as proof of how 'open' the debate has been. Hot Air points out this rather obvious point:

Is it DCCC tool Chris Van Hollen playing revisionist historian by touting the townhalls as proof of how much Democrats love debate even though (a) Obama initially wanted ObamaCare passed in July precisely so that he could short-circuit public outrage before it built momentum and (b) the Dems spent the rest of the summer demonizing the hell out of people who actually showed up to the townhalls? Or is it Pelosi having the gall to dismiss The One’s C-SPAN campaign promise with a blithe, chuckling, “There are a number of things he was for during the campaign!” Don’t blink or you’ll miss it, but it’s there. The Democratic Speaker of the House, laughing out loud — at a press conference — at what a shameless liar Bambi had to be to get elected.

And, just in case your memory on his C-SPAN promise is foggy:

Moving on...

Heritage explains that DemCare is not as advertised:

Yes, both the House and Senate would provide essentially free health insurance, through the Medicaid program, to many millions of low-income people. But, even so, enrollment in Medicaid is a far cry from getting good care when it’s needed. For starters, about 40 percent of the nation’s physicians don’t see Medicaid patients because the payment rates are too low, which also means certain hospitals have very low rates of Medicaid admissions. The truth is that current Medicaid enrollees already have trouble getting access to high-quality care when they need it because the network of providers willing and able to see them is constrained and over-burdened. The House and Senate bills would add 15 million or more people to this program’s rolls without any guarantee whatsoever that there will be doctors and hospitals that can see them.

Ironically, the very Democrats who most frequently tout “universality” as the goal are also the ones who ensure it will never actually come about by insisting that America’s lower-income families enroll in government-run insurance — with no other options.

Beyond the Medicaid expansion, Obamacare is really an obligation, not a right. Every citizen would be required to sign up with a government-approved health-insurance plan or pay a tax penalty for going without coverage.

Meanwhile, despite all of the talk of painlessly slowing the pace of rising costs with more efficient care, the Democrats’ bills would cut costs mainly by imposing arbitrary rate reductions in the Medicare program — pushing it more and more toward the Medicaid model.

And gosh-darnit, wouldn't you know it? More and more doctors and medical institutions are refusing to accept Medicare because it is a rip-off that hammers the medical provider and shafts the patient...now even the Mayo clinic has dropped it. But yes, by all means, let's go ahead and force Medicare on everyone. Brilliant idea.

Not only is DemCare a pack of destructive lies, but it's unconstitutional:

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), dated December 30, 2009, the Attorneys General of 13 States have objected to the so-called Nebraska Compromise that reportedly won the crucial support of Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) for the Senate health care takeover bill. The deal is said to involve an agreement that the Federal Government’s taxpayers will assume indefinitely the full share of the costs that Nebraska will incur as the result of the expansion of Medicaid that is one of the Act’s effects. The result is not only preferential treatment for Nebraska but it also hurts the rest of us because the other States will have to make up the difference.

Heritage delves into exactly why DemCare is unconstitutional; if you find yourself needing an explanation, hit the link. The bottom line is that it is inherently un-American for Congress to force all citizens to purchase any good or service, especially when only some citizens will foot the bill for it.

Isn't it amazing how the simplest questions can often illustrate immensely complex issues?

Why, indeed?

There's my two cents.

Today In Screw-The-American-People-Land DemCare

You aren't seeing the 'negotiations' taking place on DemCare because they're still being kept hidden (emphasis mine):

Speaking at a town hall meeting on August 21, 2008, in Chester, Virginia, then-candidate Barack Obama promised the American people: "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies … what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents … And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process." The participants around Obama's fictional big table may have changed depending on where he was speaking, but throughout his campaign the essential promise was always there: "negotiations televised on C-SPAN."

Of course, Obama already broke this promise to the American people months ago. According to PoliFact, the backroom deals Obama cut with drug companies and hospitals last July already violated this pledge. But those were just preliminary negotiations. Surely when it came time for the final health care bill passage in Congress, Obama and his allies would welcome some transparency into the process? No such luck.

Politico is reporting that President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will meet at the White House today (joined by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) via conference call) to set the parameters for reconciling the House and Senate versions of health care legislation. However, instead of proceeding with the usual public and open conference committee process, the White House is going to take a very active role in secret behind-closed-door meetings between the House and Senate. The Sunlight Foundation explains the implications for the American people: "Both House and Senate rules require that all conference committee meetings be open to the public unless a majority of conferees votes in open session to close the meetings. Senate rules require all conference committee reports be publicly available for at least 48 hours prior to a final vote. Without conference, there is no mechanism to provide for openness in the final discussions regarding the health care bill."

And there is plenty of reason the American people should demand transparency in the final stages of the legislative process. We previously identified Six Key Differences between the House and Senate bills, all of which deserve their own public debate. But one issue in particular is in desperate need of the disinfectant powers of sunlight: Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-NE) deal exempting Nebraska from the costs of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion.

Last week, after a group of 13 state attorneys general promised to file suit against Obamacare should the Nelson deal become law, Nelson called South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster to "call off the dogs." According to McMaster's office, Nelson said the deal was not his idea, was simply a "marker" placed in the bill, and that the issue would be fixed by extending the same Medicaid exemption to all states. Will the budget-busting Medicaid problem get "fixed" for all states? If so, how? The American people deserve to know.

There is more than one reason the American people have turned solidly against President Obama's health plan. Americans believe Obama's plan will increase their health care costs, decrease the quality of their health care, raise their taxes, and increase the deficit. And as former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has admitted, Obamacare is not real health care reform. No wonder President Obama wants as little public input as possible.

DemCare is the primary reason behind Obama's continuing decline in the polls, as well as the current ugly rating for Congress (emphasis mine):

Voters feel more strongly than ever that Congress is performing poorly and that most of its members are in it for themselves.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters now say Congress is doing a poor job. That's the highest negative finding since Rasmussen Reports began surveying on the question in November 2006.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 12% of voters believe Congress is doing a good or excellent job, the lowest total since the first of February last year.

Yep, secret partisan closed-door meetings about a fundamental overhaul of the American society and economy will do that.

Interestingly, now even C-SPAN is clamoring for Obama to fulfill his campaign promise:

In a letter to congressional leadership dated December 30, 2009, C-SPAN wrote:

As your respective chambers work to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate health care bills, C-SPAN requests that you open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media coverage.

C-SPAN noted that it is willing to commit resources to cover all negotiations and that, to date, it has televised hundreds of hours of committee hearings for public access. More importantly, the network called on the President and congressional leadership to live up to their commitment to transparency:

President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation's editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation's health care system. Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.

Even the mainstream media are picking up on this salient point. From an ABC News report:

The C-SPAN television network is calling on congressional leaders to open health care talks to cameras — something President Barack Obama promised as a candidate.

Instead the most critical negotiations on Obama's health plan have taken place behind closed doors, as Republicans repeatedly point out…

Obama pledged during a presidential debate in January 2008 that he would be "bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are."

It's high time he kept his pledge.

He won't.  He can't afford for any more exposure to this abomination than what already has been given.  They'll spring a new giant-sized bill (will this one be over 2,500 pages? 3,000?) at what they feel is the most opportune time to shove it through both houses of Congress again, and try to get it signed into law without giving the American people any chance to look at it or understand it.  I guarantee you no one outside of these private meetings will have any idea what's involved.

One other interesting aspect to consider: Massachusetts state Senator Scott Brown.  This Republican is within striking distance of the Democrat assumed-winner of Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate, Martha Coakley.  Out-financed and out-known, Brown is nevertheless closing well with some creative advertising and by harnessing the blogosphere in what could be a very interesting special election later this month.  It's a long shot, but if Brown should happen to pull it out, that would effectively break the 60-vote threshold that is holding together the Dems' precarious coalition of DemCare support.  If you live in Massachusetts, you need to check this out, and go vote.  If you don't live there, you can still send money to Brown's campaign as they enter the last couple of critical weeks before the election takes place. 

Boy, would it not be earth-shattering for Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat to be the back-breaker of DemCare?  Delicious...

There's my two cents.

Transparency Schmansparency, Part 2,107

Even the AP has this one nailed, from the headline on down:

PROMISES, PROMISES: A closed meeting on openness

WASHINGTON — 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.

Uh...ya' think??  But hey, even a blind squirrel gets a nut occasionally, and that's apparently what happened with the AP here.  Good for them.  More:

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

Those include what cars people were buying using the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program (it turned out the most frequent trades involved pickups for pickups with only slightly better gas mileage); how many times airplanes have collided with birds (a lot); whether lobbyists and donors meet with the Obama White House (they do); rules about the interrogation of terror suspects (the FBI and CIA disagreed over what was permitted); and who was speaking in private with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (he has close relationships with a cadre of Wall Street executives whose multibillion-dollar companies survived the economic crisis with his help).

The administration has refused to turn over important records. Obama signed a law that let the Pentagon refuse to release photographs showing U.S. troops abusing detainees, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates then did so. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has refused to release details about the CIA's "black site" rendition program. The Federal Aviation Administration wouldn't turn over letters and e-mails among FAA officials about reporters' efforts to learn more about planes that crash into birds.

Just last week, a State Department deputy assistant secretary, Llewellyn Hedgbeth, said at a public conference that "as much as we want to promote transparency," her agency will work just as hard to protect classified materials or information that would put the United States in a bad light.

Yeah, I get that, I really do.  Some things shouldn't be made public, and I'm okay with not knowing anything about the CIA's black site program or the financial tracking program that successfully froze many terrorists' assets before the New York Times 'leaked' it and gave the terrorists a heads up.  But, when I think about things that should be kept secret, I'm talking about things like national security, war plans, and intelligence considerations...not how much money was spent on a wasteful domestic car-junking subsidy program.  More:

People who routinely request government records said they don't see much progress on Obama's transparency pledge.

"It's either smoke and mirrors or it was done for the media," said Jeff Stachewicz, founder of Washington-based FOIA Group Inc., which files hundreds of requests every month across the government on behalf of companies, law firms and news organizations. "This administration, when it wants something done, there are no excuses. You just don't see a big movement toward transparency."

The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, said it filed 45 requests for records since Obama became president, and that agencies such as NASA and the Energy Department have been mostly cooperative in the spirit of Obama's promises. But the FBI and Justice Department? Not so much, said Nate Cardozo, working for the foundation on a project to expose new government surveillance technologies.

The article goes on with more examples.  The bottom line is that the Obama administration has broken yet another campaign promise (are there any he hasn't broken yet??), and has proven to be even worse at transparency than the Bush administration was, especially on smaller things that are politically damaging but ultimately not critical to keep under wraps, and thus shouldn't be withheld from the public.

While it's certainly a major concern, are we really surprised that this is the behavior of the Czar-Appointer-In-Chief?

There's my two cents.

Corrupt Congress Funds Study Explaining How To Avoid Constituents To Boost Approval Ratings

This isn't at all surprising, but it is terribly distressing for anyone who values truth, transparency, and accountability in government:

This Friday, the tax payer funded Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is hosting a briefing for Members of Congress and their staff on their new study: Online Town Hall Meetings: Exploring Democracy in the 21st Century. The CMF study consisted of 21 townhall meetings where Members of Congress and CMF provided a moderator: "spoke via voice over IP, and constituents asked questions and made comments by typing them. Only off-topic, redundant, unintelligible, or offensive questions were screened, and only questions asked by people who had not yet asked a question were prioritized."

CMF does not say what qualifies as offensive, but if this summer is any indication that definition would include anything that the Congressman did not want to talk about. In other words, this report urges Congressmen not to actually interact with their constituents, but to avoid them altogether by holding safe townhalls they can completely control. And what did CMF find where the results of these Potemkin townhalls?

The online town halls increased constituents' approval of the Member. Every Member involved experienced an increase in approval by the constituents who participated. The average net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) jumped from +29 before the session to +47 after. There were also similar increases in trust and perceptions of personal qualities – such as whether they were compassionate, hardworking, accessible, etc. – of the Member.

The lesson: avoid your constituents' inconvenient questions and your approval ratings will rise. And this is a taxpayer funded study. Here is the grant from the National Science Foundation.

Congress is actually using your tax dollars to pay social scientists to find ways they can avoid actually talking to their constituents while improving their chances of reelection.

Words fail.

Just remember this when the next election comes around.

There's my two cents.

Transparency Schmansparency

When it came to divulging basic information, it was Richard Nixon's administration that became infamous for the phrase, and practice, of "modified, limited hangout." Now the Obama administration has abandoned all but the "limited" part. The candidate whose most identifiable promise was to provide open and transparent government instead is leading an administration rife with secrecy, stonewalling and prevarication.

The administration repeatedly has stiff-armed Congress, the media, outside organizations and even a prestigious independent government commission. It has raised "none of your business" from an adolescent rejoinder to a public policy - to keep the public in the dark.

Before examining examples of this alarming trend, let's remember what newly inaugurated President Obama said in a big press conference on Jan. 21, his first full day in office. His words and tone could not have been more clear:

"The way to hold government accountable is to make it transparent so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made [and] how they're being made. ... Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known. ... The mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should always use it."

That's how Quin Hillyer's recent article at the Washington Times begins.  He points out that this was a great idea, but it was spoken by a man who typically kept campaign promises only until he broke them.  Some other specific examples of the lack of transparency in the Obama adminstration:

Consider the president's unfathomable decision to support the radical leftist, anti-American, would-be dictator Manuel Zelaya when all the lawful authorities in Honduras removed him from office for subverting the clear text of the Honduran constitution. Even the American Law Library of Congress concluded that the Honduran Legislature and courts acted lawfully, yet the Obama administration actually has imposed sanctions on the Honduran people, who long have been our allies.

Since July 8, 16 senators have been asking the State Department to explain the legal rationale for its stance. They received no substantive response. When Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, and three House members traveled to Honduras, U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens urged them to read a memo by State Department counsel Harold Koh explaining the administration's analysis. On Oct. 6, the senator's staff specifically requested that memo from the department. No response.

And...

The same evasive tactic was used when the Justice Department under the ethically challenged Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. decided to drop an already-won case against members of the New Black Panther Party for blatant voter intimidation at a Philadelphia polling place. Respected Republican Reps. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia and Lamar Smith of Texas requested explanations. So did The Washington Times. The Justice Department first said the decision was made by "career prosecutors" without political appointees weighing in. That was untrue. As for the further requests for information from Mr. Wolf and Mr. Smith - no dice.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, with statutory authority to examine such issues, also requested an explanation. Sorry, Charlie. Ignoring the law giving oversight rights to the commission, the Justice Department basically told the commission to take a hike.

And...

...when the White House fired Gerald Walpin, the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, without proper notice or explanation, Iowa Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley demanded documents. Mr. Grassley long has been praised widely for his efforts to protect whistleblowers and IGs. Yet the administration continues to jilt him as well.

And the hits just keep on comin'...

The administration has refused to honor a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Chicago Tribune for Freddie Mac board minutes from when White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was a director. It has ignored multiple FOIA requests for White House visitor logs, including one from its pet network, MSNBC. It denied an FOIA request for documents on a treaty on intellectual property rights. It refused an FOIA request for documents related to the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout. And as far back as June, Newsweek featured a headline saying "Obama Closes Doors on Openness" because of loopholes making its disclosure guarantees "astonishingly weaker" than those under President Clinton.

Infamously, the administration also tried to punish the Humana insurance company for the sin of communicating with its own customers. It told an Arizona sheriff he couldn't tell the press about his roundup of illegal immigrants. It has declined to cooperate with bipartisan congressional requests for hearings with its policy "czars." And of course, it is participating in closed-door negotiations on health care despite Mr. Obama's famous pledge to work out the details in front of TV cameras.

The bottom line here is that, despite promising repeatedly to bring transparency and accountability to Washington, Barack Obama has brought precisely the opposite.  Why, you may ask?  Well, this could be one part of the answer:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday that it had no choice but to instruct American International Group last November to reimburse the full amount of what it owed to big banks on derivatives contracts, a move that ended months of effort by the insurance giant to negotiate lower payments.

Fed officials offered the explanation in a rare response to a media report after Bloomberg News said that the New York Fed, led at the time by then-President Timothy F. Geithner, directed AIG to make the payments after it received a massive government bailout. The officials said AIG lost its leverage in demanding a better deal once the company had been saved from bankruptcy.

Lawmakers and financial analysts critical of the payouts say it amounted to a back-door bailout for big banks. AIG, the recipient of a $180 billion federal rescue package, ended up paying $14 billion to Goldman Sachs over months and $8.5 billion to Deutsche Bank, among others. Before the New York Fed intervened, AIG had been trying to persuade the firms to take discounts.

The precise cost to taxpayers of these decisions is difficult to determine. Bloomberg, quoting an industry source, reported Tuesday that AIG was aiming to pay just 40 percent of the $32.5 billion it owed to the banks. Using those figures, the report concluded that the government needlessly overpaid $13 billion.

Basically, the federal government was using taxpayer funds to inject money into its favorite (failing) institutions without any transparency or oversight.  Hot Air summarizes on the confirmation:

This isn't exactly shocking, of course.  It had been clear that the AIG bailout had been used in just this manner almost from the very beginning.  It does, though, put a much different spin on the actions and rhetoric used by the administration and Democrats in Congress this year.  They have used AIG as their poster child for Wall Street run amuck, made national issues of its compensation to executives, and played class warfare on its bailout with very little reservation.  Not only did they use AIG as a political tool for their populist bombast, now it's clear that they used AIG as a money-laundering service to bolster other financial institutions with as little transparency as possible.

One of the key firms involved here is Goldman Sachs.  Several top Obama advisers are former GS employees.  When all of this started to melt down last fall, do you remember the only major firm that didn't get a bailout?  Lehman Brothers.  It folded completely, and is now gone.  I'm sure you'll be shocked to know that Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs were fierce competitors.  Hmmm...

And yet, amazingly (cough, cough), while many other huge firms were/are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, GS is reaping record profits and positioning themselves for a gigantic boost from carbon credit trading in the future.  If you're wondering where that might sound familiar, it's probably because of Obama's cap-n-trade policy that is soon to be debated in Congress, which would not only 'necessarily skyrocket' energy prices on American families, but it would also set up a national system of trading...carbon credits!

Move along...there is nothing to see here...move along...there is n...WAIT, THERE'S SOMETHING REALLY SHINY AND HOPE-N-CHANGEY OVER THERE!!!

Transparency schmansparency.

There's my two cents.