Another Example of Bad Management

Guantanamo Case Files in Disarray

Via Washington Post

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration's focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.

Something to Think about while Ringing in the New Year

Did You Know?

The Accountablility Question...

1st Chicken Little the Sky is Falling!!!!
Government needs $700 Billion to Bailout Banks!

2nd Yes Dorothy there is Oversight in the Bailout
The Treasury Department, the architect of the plan, reportedly agreed to modifications to include strong congressional oversight.

3rd Oversight, There’s No Stinking Oversight
An Inconvenient Fact: Congress had not required the Treasury to follow the money!

4th Hey You Get Off of My Cloud
Despite the fact that Congress wrote more than one hundred pages about oversight in the bailout bill, they left a gaping hole.This "bailout" was just carte blanche to corporate greed-mongers and friends of Bush and Cheney who stuffed it in their pockets and helped nobody but themselves.

The Damage that Can Be Done

Coal Mining Debris Rule Is Approved

Yesterday, the White House approved "one of the most contentious" regulations officials are trying to push through in Bush's final weeks in office, making it "easier for coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys."

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson claimed that the new rule would "protect fish, wildlife and streams."

But a coalition of environmental groups said the rule would accelerate “the destruction of mountains, forests and streams throughout Appalachia.”

Edward C. Hopkins, a policy analyst at the

Sierra Club, said: “The E.P.A.’s own scientists have concluded that dumping mining waste into streams devastates downstream water quality. By signing off on this rule, the agency has abdicated its responsibility.”

Mr. Bush has boasted of his efforts to cooperate with President-elect

Barack Obama to ensure a smooth transition, but the administration is rushing to complete work on regulations to which Mr. Obama and his advisers object. The rules deal with air pollution, auto safety, abortion and workers’ exposure to toxic chemicals, among other issues.
READ MORE HERE

Another View

From Daily Kos

Makes sense to me

The Rude Pundit gets chill:

[L]et's just say this as Barack Obama introduces his national security team and people huff and puff about whether they're hawks or not progressive enough or problem children or disappointing or what the fuck ever: Ultimately, the cabinet does the bidding of the president. Sure, they offer ideas and guide the departments. But they are policy implementers. Nothing less and nothing more. You have to be willing to go along with the boss to do the job, or you don't take it. And it's all a political game. If we know anything at all about Barack Obama, it's that he's one crafty motherfucker in the realm of politics.

If you wanted to, say, change the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our strategic relationships around the globe, who's gonna do it without pissing people off? Secretary of Defense Dennis Kucinich? Fuck no. You get the guys and gals who were proponents of the war in at least some way or have cozy goddamn Capitol Hill relationships. If the great and glorious David Petraeus and the shiny Robert Gates are saying, "Bring the troops home," then you've defused your enemies. It ain't Clintonian triangulation, which involved embracing a watered-down version of your opponents' beliefs. It's just fuckin' smart. The same goes for economic policy and it will go for domestic.

Yeah, if Obama lets his hawks run the place and make him break his promises, then we can squawk. But for now, can we just take a breath and see how it all works
out?

Some Federal Workers Lose Bargaining Rights

President Bush issued an executive order on Monday that denies collective bargaining rights to about 8,600 federal employees who work in law enforcement, intelligence and other agencies responsible for national security.

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 gave bargaining rights to federal employees, but allowed the president to exclude groups of employees from coverage.

Mr. Bush’s order affects certain employees at the Energy Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Air Marshal Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Real Rivalry In the Team: The Cabinet vs. The Campaign Promises

By David Sirota

Just as an add-on to my column this week, I wanted to add two more macro thoughts about Obama's appointments, and progressive unrest about those appointments.

First, I think there's a psychological aspect to what bothers progressives about Obama's refusal to appoint movement progressives to key positions. The public opinion data overwhelmingly confirms that Obama won with a clear progressive mandate - to argue otherwise against cut-and-dry numbers is to mimic an ostrich shoving its head in the sand, or to mimic the Braindead Megaphone's insistence that this is a "center-right nation." Additionally, nobody argues that his victory wasn't the product of huge progressive grassroots support. So in light
of that, there's a perception that he's delivering the spoils of that victory to those who embody what the election rejected.

In that sense, there's a Rodney Dangerfield harrumph - we progressives get no respect. That's understandable, but we're going to have to keep our eye on the policy, understanding that personnel impacts policy, but isn't policy itself. And the policy is ultimately what defines true respect (and disrespect).

Second, the meaningless "pragmatic Team of Rivals" nonsense - and it truly is media-created nonsense - is clearly being used as a rationale to pack the incoming administration with Establishment figures.

Indeed,the "rivalry" isn't between the "team" of appointees (most of them come from the same team - ie. the center-right team of permanent Washington). The "rivalry" is between the positions/ideology of the appointees and the positions/ideology Obama explicitly campaigned on.

It's certainly possible that Obama will not be affected at all by the voices he puts around him, and that - as I wrote earlier - he is banking on getting center-right Establishment figures to carry center-left Establishment-challenging policy. We should withhold final judgment until we see the policies come January 2009 and beyond. We don't know that this conservatives-carrying-progressive-legislation strategy is his goal, but we can certainly hope, and we can additionally hope that he didn't appoint center-right Establishment figures to carry a center-right Establishment agenda.

That said, I think those who say that the latter isn't possible and that the only rationale thing to do is simply trust Obama's "buck stops here" promise yesterday are being willfully stupid and dishonest - both to themselves and to those they are arguing with.

The truth is, we all want Obama to do well - but there's nothing disloyal, silly or uniformed about looking at his appointments and asking why many of them seem to individually represent positions and ideologies at odds with the positions and ideologies he campaigned on.

It’s no accident that the conservative noise machine from Karl Rove on down is praising Obama's appointments, and effectively creating that
rightward pull. If there isn't similar progressive pressure now, don't be
surprised if the debate - and thus the policy - starts slowly creeping
right.

READ MORE

HERE

Who Chose Sarah Palin

Via Talk To Action

Last week, while the media focused almost obsessively on the DNC's spectacle in Denver, the country's most influential conservatives met quietly at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis to get to know Sarah Palin. The assembled were members of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.

CNP members have included Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich. At a secret 2000 meeting of the CNP, George W. Bush promised to nominate only pro-life judges; in 2004, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told the group, "The destiny of the nation is on the shoulders of the conservative movement." This year, thanks to Sarah Palin's selection, the movement may have finally aligned itself behind the campaign of John McCain.

~snip~

The members of the Council for National Policy are the hidden hand behind McCain's Palin pick. With her selection, the Republican nominee is suddenly -- and unexpectedly -- assured of the support of a movement that once opposed his candidacy with all its might. Case in point: while Dobson once said he could "never" vote for McCain, he issued a statement last week hailing Palin as an "outstanding" choice. If Dobson's enthusiasm for Palin is any indication, he may soon emerge from his bunker in Colorado Springs to endorse McCain, providing the Republican nominee with the grassroots support of the Christian right's single most influential figure.

Read More>>> HERE

Who's the Real Celebrity?

McCain's latest campaign line: Barack Obama “is the biggest celebrity in the world.”
At fundraiser last week, McCain even declared, “He is a celebrity and I am not.”

But the truth is, up until this presidential contest, McCain has been one of America’s biggest celebrity-politicians.

If You Haven't Figured it Out.....

WAR SUCKS!!!

Russia Targets Georgia's Capital In Expanded Bombing Blitz

Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad

An ad for The Paris Hilton Presidential Campaign. Paid for by Funny Or Die.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

McDumb As Bush

Can we afford another president who thinks it's smart to be dumb?

Is it 'Satire' or just 'Incendiary'

MESSAGE to the NEW YORKER:

If it is satire and you want to be fair, then do the same for McCain.

New Yorker Magazine’s 'Satire' Cover

Barack Obama's campaign lashed out Sunday at the editors of The New Yorker magazine for a cartoon cover that depicts the Democratic candidate and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists.

The magazine's editor described the cartoon, called "The Politics of Fear," as satire. The Obama campaign called it "tasteless and offensive."

The McCain campaign joined in piling on The New Yorker. "We completely agree with the Obama campaign that it's tasteless and offensive," said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds.

When asked by a reporter about the cartoon Obama, shrugging incredulously, replied: “I have no response to that.”

Cover of July 21 issue of The New Yorker depicts Barack and Michelle Obama in extremist roles.

READ MORE>>>HERE

Are they going to Steal 2008?

From Greg Palast and Ted Rall:

For Larger Version Click HERE

It Makes Sense...

The US government continues to deny the need to reduce global warming; reinstate habeas corpus; end the war in Iraq and respect the 4th Amendment of the Constitution etc, etc…

So why would anyone be shocked to find out that the US Environmental Agency has lowered the value of a human life.

It sounds like a spot of gallows humour, but the numbers are no joke: the US environmental protection agency (EPA) has lowered the value of a human life by nearly $1m under George Bush's administration.

The EPA's estimate of the "value of a statistical life" was $6.9m as of this May - down from $7.8m five years ago - according to an Associated Press study released today […]

The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation - such as the tighter restrictions on pollution that the EPA refused to impose today, effectively postponing any action on climate change until after Bush leaves office.

READ MORE>>>HERE