Most Transparent Ever???

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Health Care, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Constitution

Who cares about the U.S. Constitution, when Barack Obama’s vision for America is weighing in the balance?

Don’t count on the U.S. Congress to care.

In the aftermath of the Senate’s passage of an Obamacare bill, Attorney’s General from multiple states have begun to announce that they are launching investigations into the legality, and constitutionality of the Senate legislation. Chief among their concerns is the possibility that that the bill places Americans outside the state of Nebraska at a significant disadvantage, financially and otherwise, to residents of the state of Nebraska.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, along with the Attorneys General in the states of Washington, Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Alabama and North Dakota – have joined forces to consider, among other things, if the Obamacare bill in the U.S. Senate violates the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The 10th Amendment stipulates that powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by the constitution of the United States , are reserved to the states or the people.

As such, the 10th Amendment may pose constitutional challenges to the Obamacare bill itself. Does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to provide healthcare? More curiously, does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to mandate that people buy anything - including health insurance (the Senate version of the healthcare reform legislation stipulates both)?

Additionally, state Attorneys General should also be concerned about Obamacare for another reason: it could be in violation of the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Concerns over the Fourteenth Amendment appear to be present (this is based on what we know of the legislation, which, because of Pelosi and Reid’s secretiveness, is not a lot) in the portion of the Obamacare bill that grants special (and expensive) privileges to residents of the state of Nebraska. In the Senate’s Obamacare bill, the state of Nebraska is afforded special financial advantages from the federal government - to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year – for the funding of Medicaid. The reason this provision appears in a Senate healthcare bill, as many readers of this column are aware, is because the bill could not be passed without the vote of Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska .

Obamacare is strongly opposed by roughly two-thirds of American voters. And according to a survey published less than two weeks ago by the Tarrance Group polling firm, sixty-seven percent of Nebraskans oppose Obamacare, while ninety percent of Nebraskans are happy with the heatlhcare they currently receive and don’t want it to change.

Additionally, the Senate Obamacare bill is vague, at best, as to when and where it funds abortion procedures – and Nebraskans overwhelmingly find the aborting of unborn children to be abhorrent. And for all these reasons, Senator Ben Nelson had every reason to vote against the Obamacare bill.

So, given Senator Nelson’s incentives to oppose the Obamacare bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid crafted a special deal to incentivize Nelson to vote in favor of the bill. The “incentives” included special economic incentives for the state of Nebraska , incentivizes that people in the other 49 states don’t receive.

Using the law to single-out certain individuals, or certain groups of individuals, and impart to them either special privileges or penalties that don’t apply to other Americans, is, well – Un-American. And it may very well prove to be un-constitutional in court.

Residents in the other forty-nine states pay taxes according to the same federal taxation structure as do Americans in Nebraska. Furthermore, in as much as we are U.S. citizens, we are all deserving of the same “protections” under the law to which Nebraskans are subject.

But the Senate Obamacare bill sets aside Nebraskans, and makes a special privileged class of them. If this bill becomes law, Nebraskans will be entitled to subsidies from the federal government that those of us who belong in the category called “non-Nebraskans” are not.

This disregard for the U.S. Constitution and matters of “equal protection” do not begin and end with Senator Ben Nelson. Earlier this winter, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) was asked a simple question by reporter Nicholas Ballasy of CNSNews.Com: “What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate that individuals have to purchase health insurance?”

In response, Senator Landrieu (who, much like Senator Nelson of Nebraska did, essentially “sold” her vote in the Senate despite opposition to Obamacare in her home state of Louisiana) replied “we’re very lucky as members of the Senate to have constitutional lawyers on our staff, so I’ll let them answer that.”

Yes, of course – “the lawyers clean up all details” as American poet (and “classic rock” star) Don Henley once lamented about his country. The fact is, however, that Senator Landrieu couldn’t answer the question if she tried.

But just like the legal profession itself, our current President and Congress have little regard for the U.S. Constitution, and for the rights of the human individual. Just as it is with the practice of law, the process of “law making” revolves around “leverage” – what can one individual or group force another individual or group to do? What does it take to accomplish what we, the politicians, want to accomplish?

Will any more among the 535 elite Americans in Congress dare to raise any constitutional concerns about this? And how about the Attorneys General of the other 43 states? Does the Constitution matter any more?

By: Austin Hill - a Talk Show Host At Boise, Idaho's 580 KIDO Radio, and a frequent Guest Host on the Fox Newstalk Radio Network. He is the Author of "White House Confidential: Revised and Expanded Edition," And Co-Author of the forthcoming title "The Virtues Of Capitalism: A Moral Case For Free Markets" (Northfield/Moody Press, 2010).

Source: TownHall

Obama only names 110 White House visitors

Most guests still hidden; list includes Bill Gates, Oprah, Newt Gingrich

Update: White House Visitor List: Bill Ayers – George Soros – Jeremiah Wright – White House Claims They Are Not the Famous People We All Know… How many more lies are the America People going to accept?

I thought Obama barely knew Pentagon Bomber, Bill Ayers? Wasn’t he just “a guy in the neighborhood?”

The President now entertains radical Racists like Wright, and domestic terrorists that bombed our own Pentagon, in our nations Executive Manson.

How many more lies are the America People going to accept?

The White House on Friday released a small list of visitors to the White House since President Barack Obama took office in January.

No previous administration has released such a list, though the information out so far is incomplete. Only about 110 names —and 481 visits —out of the tens of thousands who have visited the Obama White House were made public. Like the Bush administration before it, Obama is arguing that any release is voluntary, not required by law, depsite two federal court rulings to the contrary.

Under the Obama White House's policy, most names of visitors from Inauguration Day in January through the end of September will never be released. The White House says it plans to release most of the names of visitors from October on, and that release is due near the end of the year. There are limitations there as well, including potential Supreme Court nominees, personal guests of the First Family, and certain security officials.

The names released Friday evening included Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, actor George Clooney, former Sen. Thomas Daschle, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and John Podesta, a former chief of staff under President Bill Clinton who headed Obama's transition.

Other familiar names on the list: Religious Right leader Gary Bauer, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, former Sen. Howard Dean, JP Morgan's James Dimon, Sen. Al Franken, former Vice President Al Gore, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, constitutional scholar Cass Sunstein, and actor Denzel Washington.

Msnbc.com has put the full list in a handy PDF file, and it's also available in an Excel file for those who like to sort.

The White House warns that many names that may appear familiar — and controversial —do not in fact refer to the most famous people to carry those names. Jeremiah Wright is on the list, but it's not the president's former pastor. Michael Jordan is not the basketball player. This Michael Moore is not a filmmaker. And William Ayers, who took a group tour of the White House, isn't the former radical from Chicago. The White House could have avoided some of that sort of confusion by providing more information on the visitors, such as an employer name and the city they hail from.

"This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information," a White House special counsel, Norm Eisen, wrote on the White House blog

If you spot a name on the list that bears investigating, please drop us a note.

Limited release
Despite the accompanying White House claim of "transparency like you've never seen before," the Obama White House continues to take the same legal position as the Bush White House, arguing that the records are not public records subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Only limited "voluntary releases" are being made to settle a lawsuit filed by an advocacy group, though a federal judge has twice ruled that all the visitor logs are public.

Yet there are severe limitations to the transparency:

Most of the visitors from Inauguration Day to September will never be released by the White House under this voluntary disclosure — unless the public can guess their names. The White House policy doesn't allow members of the public or press to ask for "everyone who visited health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle," or everyone who visited on May 4, or everyone from the American Medical Association. Only individual names can be checked.

What was released Friday were just about 110 names with 481 visits. Those names were among those requested by members of the public so far, for visits during the period from Inauguration Day through July. Members of the public who used the White House online form to check names did not receive a personal reply indicating whether or not the request was received, or whether the name appeared on the list.

A request for all records from the first months of the administration, filed by msnbc.com, remains open. The news organization requested the names of all visitors to the Obama White House beginning with Inauguration Day. That request is pending, and msnbc.com has filed an administrative appeal with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

Besides Gates, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt are also on the list. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC. One of NBC's parents is GE.) Amazing that they are finally publishing any accurate but negative information about Obama.

By Bill Dedman - Investigative reporter - msnbc.com – contact at: Bill.Dedman@msnbc.com

Obama Team: Yes to Interrogation Memos, No to 'Flyover' Pictures

Amazing… Flyover photos that scared New Yorkers and cost the American taxpayer $328,000+ are classified now, but Interrogation Memos that could harm our troops, hamper future terrorist interrogation, and thereby could endanger all Americans are declassified and released…  As quoted in the New York Times, “The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.”  HMMMM…???  M~

Barack Obama and his team in Washington sure have a strange way of promoting full disclosure, openness, and transparency in government. Give them an opportunity to trash the previous administration and those who worked for our national security, and they are all for it. But, ask them to come forward with pictures and a full explanation of a so-called public relations assignment, and they clam up.

In a pathetic display of both arrogance and indifference to America's safety and peace of mind, we see in two events everything we need to know about Obama. Just look at how differently he and his team handled the release of CIA interrogation memos and how they are handling the non-release of photos taken during their flyover photo op in New York City.

As many of you know, Obama decided last month to release previously classified memos which detail the interrogation techniques used in questioning terrorists. (Yes, I still use the word "terrorist" at GOPUSA.) The release of these memos was stunning in that it serves absolutely no useful purpose other than to make America less safe and to allow Obama to continue his message that America is bad.

I discussed the memos at length in my post Mr. Obama... How far would you go to save an American life?, and I came to one conclusion: It was strongly believed that certain high-ranking terrorists knew of another large-scale terror plot against the United States. Traditional interrogation methods were unsuccessful against these three terrorists, so they (and only they) were subjected to waterboarding. The result was that they produced information on a plot to fly at least one airliner into a building in Los Angeles. This plot, known as the Second Wave, would have certainly resulted in the loss of hundreds or thousands of American lives.

However, Obama apparently feels differently. He could have stated his case and his opinions without releasing the memos, but instead of just making a point, he'd rather see American security jeopardized and the careers and private lives of those involved suffer.

As noted in an AP story running on GOPUSA, although the attorneys responsible for approving the interrogation techniques used to obtain the information on the Second Wave will not face criminal charges, they will likely face professional sanctions.

Officials conducting the internal Justice Department inquiry into the lawyers who wrote those memos have recommended referring two of the three lawyers ... to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was not authorized to discuss the inquiry.

The person noted that the investigative report was still in draft form and subject to revisions. Attorney General Eric Holder also may make his own determination about what steps to take once the report has been finalized.

Now, let's contrast these actions with the Obama team's handling of the idiotic and suspicious "flyover" that was approved in which the 747 used as Air Force One and a few F-16s flew ridiculously close to buildings in Manhattan... causing a panic. Under the pretense of a "photo op," the aircraft flew close enough to send a chilling reminder to people of the events of September 11, 2001.

In case you missed the video: 

YouTube - Air Force One Flyin Low Over New York Caused Panic HD

Apparently, the photo-op cost the American taxpayers $328,835. The administration was looking for a good pic of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background. However, as FOXNews.com reports, the general public was not warned in advance, even though it is obvious that this could cause a panic.

Now, the White House is saying it will not release the photos taken during the flyover. When asked about the photos during Tuesday's White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs, first tried to joke about it, saying, "I've watched CNN -- I didn’t notice a lack of archival material from that flight."

When pressed about the photos taken from inside the aircraft, Gibbs responding by adding, "I don't know where those are." The White House spends over $300k on photos, and not only will they not release them to the public, but they don't know where the photos are? What is going on here?

In the New York Post story referenced by FOXNews.com, an Obama aide told the paper, "We have no plans to release them." The report added: "The photos have not technically been 'classified,' a White House aide said, but they are being kept from public view."

So, this is the way the Obama administration works: Release secret interrogation memos but withhold wasteful taxpayer-funded promotional pictures. Can someone please explain that one to me?

Source:  The Loft – Posted by Bobby Eberle – May 6, 2009

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power –  by Ask Marion