http://www.humblelibertarian.com/…

1. Promising to “publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days… before the President signs it,” then breaking that promise over and over again.
2. Despite promising to keep lobbyists out of his administration, Obama has broken his word again and again (making 17 exceptions to this promise in his first two weeks).
3. Obama promised to eliminate income taxation for seniors making less than $50,000 a year. He has broken this promise despite numerous opportunities to keep it, including the economic stimulus package and his administration’s first budget proposal.
4. The President also boasted during his campaign that “During 2009 and 2010, existing businesses will receive a $3,000 refundable tax credit for each additional full-time employee hired,” and has failed to keep his word.
5. Obama made it part of his agenda to “allow withdrawals of 15% up to $10,000 from retirement accounts without penalty (although subject to the normal taxes). This would apply to withdrawals in 2008 (including retroactively) and 2009,” but didn’t include this measure in the stimulus package or his budget proposal.
6. Obama broke his promise to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
7. Obama did a shameless 180 degree turn on earmarks by sharply criticizing them (and bragging that he would pass legislation without a single one) and then signing a spending bill with literally thousands of them.

I’m completely OK with 7. Better the so call representitives waste the money than the executive branch. The collection, allocation and spending of the money in the first place is the actual problem.

This list isn’t bad. It stretches to get 100 things but much of it is reasonable.

Sorry, if the title misled you.  This is not the hot, gay, celebrity porn we were all hoping for.  It’s an interview where they discuss Obama, hypocrisy and the power of the executive branch.

Isn’t it more like Wall Street was slipped some PCP? Between the Federal Reserve, Congress and the executive branch we’ve got inflation, wars, deficit spending, subsidies, regulation, artificially low interest rates and other interventionist policy. All of which distort market reality and now we are in the comedown and it sucks a lot more then a hangover.

http://wnd.com/…

Two new directives signed by President Bush establish sweeping authority for federal executive departments and agencies to establish a coordinated “framework” to collect and retain biometric data on U.S. citizens identified as “known and suspected terrorists,” without requiring public or congressional disclosure of the procedures.

Although the directives run over 1,700 words in length, Congress is not mentioned once, nor is there any specification of how the coordinated “framework” will be disclosed to the public.

WND contacted the White House press office for comment but received no return call.

The directives also do not specify any procedures for citizens to challenge their inclusion in the biometric database or any resulting consequences, such as restricted travel or additional government surveillance.

How is it that something so large can be put into place without the say of Congress? Obviously while the executive branch is given funds by the legislative and not all ways in which the money will be spent can be tagged by them you would think something this intensive would get some nod from those who hold the purse and pass law. But no. As we have seen time and time again from Lincoln to G.W. Bush the executive branch thinks itself supreme and obviously above the law.

I suspect that this will be challenged right quick by the EFF and/or ACLU and if we’re lucky it’d be shot down.

http://blog.wired.com/…

Arlen Specter, the Republican leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday demanded an independent investigation into “Spygate.”

The announcement came three years after it was first disclosed President Bush had authorized a secret electronic eavesdropping program on Americans without warrants in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

But Specter wasn’t referring to that.

Instead, the Pennsylvania senator is demanding an inquiry into the New England Patriots’ secret videotaping of opposing NFL coaches’ signals on the sidelines — an affair sports writers have dubbed “Spygate.”

We are not making this up. Specter said such behavior, a violation of NFL rules, is damaging to the sport. Call it Specter’s own Patriot Act.

“It’s really an insult to the people who follow it,” Specter said. He added that the Patriots “owe the public a lot more candor and a lot more accountability.”

The league has fined the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick $750,000 each. The team’s video assistant has turned over to the NFL eight tapes of opposing coaches giving signals during games.

Apparently real-world warrantless spying isn’t as egregious as snooping on opposing NFL coaches.

Specter and other lawmakers initially talked tough when The New York Times disclosed Bush’s spying program in 2005. “There is no doubt that this is inappropriate,” Specter said at the time.

But Congress, including Specter, eventually passed the Protect America Act, which allowed government officials to eavesdrop in the United States on telephone conversations and  e-mails without warrants, if the target of the surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.

The law expired in February after lawmakers deadlocked on whether to grant immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for assisting Bush in carrying out the administration’s secret spying program before it was legal.
The Protect America Act’s expiration means surveillance must be authorized by a secret intelligence court if the wiretap is physically planted on U.S. soil.

Still, President Bush maintains that, as commander in chief, his administration has warrantless spying powers regardless of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Again, we’re not making up this story.

Or total fucking tool? This really is just disgusting. At least the whole baseball drug thing it was related to the whole war on drugs thing which many people still oppose. This is related to an extreme breach of the Constitution and public trust which the executive branch not only hid from the public and the other branches of government but blatantly lied about. This asshole is more concerned with a fucking sporting event then the American people or even his own person and family. How does he think the ex-New York governor got caught?

And yet this jackball will get reelected.