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Changes at Change.gov: Return of the 'Agenda'
The Caucus —
... of the old Agenda pages. (Increasing transparency, by the way, is a key feature of Mr. Obama’s government reform agenda, according to the site’s “Ethics” page. ) The defanging of Change.gov was perhaps an early lesson for the Obama team that in their bid to be the most tech-forward presidential administration ever there is still room for caution. It’s also a reminder that the Web-savvy will be watching.
Group: Daschle Appointment Could Violate Rule
News —
Group: Daschle Appointment Could Violate Rule Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Dachle's (D-S.D.) reported selection as secretary of health and human services could violate one of the rules set out by President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said this afternoon. Daschle's work as a public policy advisor in the Washington, DC office of law firm Alston & Bird, the group says, "appears to flatly contradict" an ethics rule that prohibits political appointees in Obama's new administration from working on regulations and policy that could affect their previous employers of the past two ...
Senate Dems resolve to tighten belt in 2009
HorsesAss.Org —
Olympia – Senate Democratic leaders held a press conference today, joined by a few of their House colleagues, to announce their intention, as Josh mentioned earlier, to tighten the belt that holds up our state government’s proverbial pants.
Another way to describe the event would be to pose it as follows:
Q: How many times can a group of lawmakers use some variance of the phrase “belt-tightening” in a thirty minute press conference?
A: Considerably more than you would think.
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (D-Spokane), acting somewhat gubernatorial in her ...
Thoughts on the Stimulus Deal
Swampland —
Okay, so the deal is done and the votes are all but counted. We have ourselves a stimulus plan. And while Obama got what he wanted when he wanted (who secretly replaced the congressional Democratic leaders with people who get things done early??), he didn't get it in the way he wanted, as the ...
Democrats Abandon Transparency on Stimulus Vote
The Next Right —
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) confirmed this afternoon that Democrats will break their transparency pledge by bringing the stimulus bill to a vote tomorrow morning, giving lawmakers and the public significantly less time than the 48 hours promised.
The House is scheduled to meet at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow and is expected to proceed directly to consideration of the American Recovery and Reinvestment conference report. The conference report text will be filed this evening, giving members enough time to review the conference report before voting on it tomorrow afternoon. ...
Democrats Abandon Transparency for Stimulus Vote
The Next Right —
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) confirmed this afternoon that Democrats will break their transparency pledge by bringing the stimulus bill to a vote tomorrow morning, giving lawmakers and the public significantly less time than the 48 hours promised.
The House is scheduled to meet at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow and is expected to proceed directly to consideration of the American Recovery and Reinvestment conference report. The conference report text will be filed this evening, giving members enough time to review the conference report before voting on it tomorrow afternoon. ...
So Much For Legislative Transparency
The Corner on National Review Online —
Friday, February 13, 2009 [image] So Much For Legislative Transparency [ Mark Hemingway ] As Jim Manzi noted last night, the idea that anyone in the Senate will actually have a chance to read the final "stimulus" bill before voting today is a pipe dream. Well, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is now openly admitting that that no one voting on the bill will have read it , a problem made worse by a select group of Democrats secretly hammering through final changes. It stands to reason that perhaps the most basic obligation members of Congress have is to know what they are voting for. And this is doubly true on a ...
JUST WORDS? CHANGE.GOV PROMISES:
End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: As…
Instapundit —
JUST WORDS? CHANGE.GOV PROMISES:
End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: As president, Barack Obama will restore the American people’s trust in their government by making government more open and transparent. Obama will work to reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee mark-ups and conference committees, to be conducted in public. By making these practices public, the American people will be able to hold their leaders accountable for wasteful spending and lawmakers won’t be able to slip favors for lobbyists into ...
Obama throws transparency under the bus
RedState: Conservative News and Community —
With the so-called “stimulus” bill, President Obama has thrown the change he promised under the bus.
On his Change.gov website, Obama promised to “end the practice of writing legislation behind closed doors” - to “restore the American people’s trust in
their government by making government more open and transparent. Obama
will work to reform congressional rules to require all legislative
sessions, including committee mark-ups and conference committees, to be
conducted in public. By making these practices public, the American
people will be able to hold ...
SIBEL EDMONDS: Two Sides of the Same Coin: Heads-Heads
The BRAD BLOG —
Guest Editorial by Sibel Edmonds
"In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill...we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one." --- Plato
During the campaign, amid their state of elation, many ...
Transparency Groups Urge Obama To Involve Public In Executive Order Revisions
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed —
As President Obama prepares to modify the rules of executive power, 21 public advocacy groups and individuals are fighting to make sure he fulfills his promise to "restore the American people's trust in their government by making government more open and transparent."
In a letter written to General James L. Jones, Obama's National Security Advisor, the wide-reaching coalition requests that "the public be given an opportunity...to provide comment on the actual language of the proposed Executive Order revisions."
The main goal is to prevent abuse of executive power, said Steven Aftergood, ...
The Hypocrisy at the Heart of the Obama Administration:Flooding the Washington Swamp While Claiming to Drain itA Review of Michelle Malkin’s Culture of Corruption
GayPatriot —
In his successful bid for the White House, Barack Obama promised “throughout the campaign” (to borrow one of his expressions) to be a new kind of politician, more transparent than the then-incumbent. He would post each bill that lands on his desk online so that we the people would have “five days to look” at it before he signed it. And he assured us that he had “done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists“:
They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people ...
