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How Is Obama Doing On Open Government?
An anonymous reader writes "OMB Watch today published an in-depth analysis of the Obama administration's progress on a wide-ranging set of open government recommendations. Key findings of the report include strong and consistent leadership from the White House on government openness and meaningful utilization of e-government and Web 2.0 technologies. But there has been no high-level effort to improve electronic records management and preservation, and the implementation of improved Freedom of Information Act policies has lagged."
That's a trick question, right? Like asking if you've stopped beating your wife?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. " - Barack Obama, October 27, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr9ywEFRQkQ
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Then where's the openness when it comes to Bradley Manning?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Still waiting for them to be implemented... Hmmm
Meanwhile the beat goes on..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I'm not sure. Let me ask him whether or not the NSA ran a warrantless-wiretapping operation at AT&T, and whether or not the CIA ferried people to other countries for torture. Someone dedicated to openness would undoubtedly answer that question clearly and unambiguously, right?
Big on words, implementation "lagging"
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/barely-half-of-agencies-meeting-obamas-foia-request-goals-study-says/2011/03/11/ABImgsT_story.html
Though 49(of 90) agencies and departments complied with the study’s authors, 17 others — including the Transportation Department and U.S. Postal Service — provided no documents and two withheld information. Another 17 agencies — including the departments of Commerce, Energy, Justice and State — provided no final response, and four smaller agencies never acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request. The figures have improved significantly from last year, when just 13 of 90 agencies complied.
“At this rate, it’ll be the end of his term before the agencies do what Obama asked them to do on the first day,” said Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive.
There is no proof that he really did that until now! And, doesn't your constitution include something like "everyone is to be considered innocent until proven guilty"?
I strongly suggest him for the next Nobel prize for freedom, if he really did what he's accused of.
He would give WikiLeaks access to all government computers. Then they wouldn't be able to point fingers and scream about government not being open and cover-ups etc... As a plus, as soon as they reveal any dangerous information (ie. anything that truly endangers people), they would lose all popular support, and could be considered a clear and present danger, allowing the authorities to pursue them without restraint.
Gitmo is still open so that counts right?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
How Is Obama Doing On Open Government? - About like he's doing on all his other promises - bringing the troops home, closing Gitmo, etc. etc. Why we ever elected a hope-peddling amateur and expected any different I'll never know. Especially during such a precarious time in our nation's history. Maybe I'm wrong and Wall Street, Egypt, Japan and Lybia really do need their own 'community organizers' to solve their woes.
Obama did not realize even one of his important promises - Guantanamo still exists, health service is not better, not even the tax gifts to the super-rich from Bush were taken back, next to all the other things. That man is just a living disappointment, despite being the lesser of the possible evils.
"You do it over rule of law, rules of evidence, and principles..."
This is America. We exist only for the Citizens who are Corporations.
Everyone else is a serf.
If you don't like it, you shouldn't have elected a right-of-center President like Obama.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I guess that goes away when it is inconvenient huh?
As an outside observer sitting on the other side of the pond, I can't help but observe that Obama and his administration are doing a pathetic job keeping any promises. I keep hearing stuff like them dodging FOIA requests, making corporations people, letting corporations make unlimited 'donations' to politicians, extending the Patriot Act, allow unchecked wiretapping, insist on IP expansionism, label whistleblowers terrorists, let ICE run the country like the fucking Stasi, etc etc etc, all the while failing to withdraw any troops from anywhere or even close an effing torture facility in his back yard.
How far removed all that is from being "Open Government" I don't have a way of telling, but it's pretty damn far if you ask me. Seriously Americans, is this really a president and government that represents you and your interests? Bloody hell, you people.
all not true and covers stuff vs we will not pay your on own of the old plan.
Obama is ALMOST as bad as GW Bush on this... and that's really sad. I voted for him because I believed he would move us away from the corptocracy and BOY was I wrong.
So, what are all those tsars doing anyway?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
We're trying but we can't get any goddamn budget. Make up your minds, do you want forward progress or budget cuts?
The only change I want has to do with him and the presidency
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
FAIL.
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
My guess is that this OMB Watch report is from another time-line or dimension. It certainly isn't from this one. This administration would make any suppressive government proud of it's polices.
implementation of improved Freedom of Information Act policies has lagged
That's all we needed to know.
No kidding... look at how many people Goldman Sachs has in, or connected to, the WH...
The fact that Obama is pro-military adventurism does not make him right-of-center. All known Communist regimes are heavily militarized. He can be pro-military and a committed Communist. I am not saying that he is, btw. But I am underlining a glaring logic flaw in your argument.
Thank God Obama had time to give us his Final Four pics. I thought he might have been too busy to follow college basketball at this particular moment, what with our Middle East puppets dropping like flies and the world's 3rd largest economy being crippled by an earthquake. I was honestly VERY concerned that Obama wouldn't be able to find the time to give us his 4 teams. For a man that hates conservatism so much, he sure went conservative on those picks, though.
"You do it over rule of law, rules of evidence, and principles..."
This is America. We exist only for the Citizens who are Corporations.
Everyone else is a serf.
If you don't like it, you shouldn't have elected a right-of-center President like Obama.
Obama is only "right of center" if you are left of Marx!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Of course he's doing great on open government! I mean, he really put himself out there with his NCAA picks!!
What exactly has he done that can be considered as left?
You may consider the health care bill authoritarian, but even then it's at most fascist/corporatist, never leftist. A leftist government would never leave something like healthcare for private companies to run.
Dilbert RSS feed
Parent said nothing about military. He said "We exist only for the Citizens who are Corporations."
Corporatism is definitively not a "left policy."
Dilbert RSS feed
The political left right scale is a global measure. Centre right political parties in Canada, United Kingdom, France, Australia et al all support universal health care (they all also have political parties that are centre left). So by any definition the Democrats majority opposition to universal health care puts them just a little right of centre right. Forget all that Fox not-News and their Tea Party bullshit, it is nothing but bullshit.
As for Open Government according to Bradley Manning, they have imprisoned it, stripped it naked, asked it if is still alive every 5 minutes and, denied it a defence. All to preserve a plethora of public lies, literally thousands upon thousands of them. So how is open government doing, hmm, it is a can of air freshener over combined sewerage outlet and rubbish dump, still pretending it is something it is not.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The job titles are LONG and not easy to report so the PRESS started calling them tsars not the government. Some job titles are almost comical they are so long winded but it was the press who started doing this. I do now know when they started but given how slow they are today I can't see them ever going to the real titles...
Everyone who voted for Obama thinking he was going to do anything good is a fool, you all should have voted for Ron Paul.
The White House Staff and the staffs of the Oligarchs are working overtime.
Ignore them.
That Barak Hussain Obama shits in public view while searching for the succullent 2-yr old for sex in southeast DC is not a story.
-308
Anyone who went into 2008 thinking "things are going to be really different once we elect a new president!" was incredibly naive and a lot of us told the daydreamers exactly that. And guess what? The next president isn't going to make things really different, either. No matter who he or she is. And the one after that and the one after that and so on. On the occasions that things truly are different or something wonderful actually does occur, the president in office at the time is merely the beneficiary of fortunate coincidence. To be a viable presidential candidate, you must have already been vetted by the same aristocracy that has vetted all the ones before it and only once you have received their blessing (financially and otherwise) is your bid to make bullshit promises and pandering to the American public the next action.
Our Constitution also protects against unfounded and unwarranted search and siezure, which is trampled on more every day. It also guarantees the right of the state to determine its laws and future rather than the government (ie, not a Rome-as-the-center-of-it-all type government), which is trampled on further every day from attempts to tax services across state lines to the tens of thousands of FEDERAL laws and the recent health care laws.
Without anyone willing to defend it, the Constitution is just a charming piece of sheepskin with about as much value as toilet paper.
Then stand up and defend it! IIRC, your constitution allows you to do that, even using firearms for this purpose. I often have the same "toilet-paper-feeling" here in Germany, but I have to admit that I don't feel our constitution being trampled on so much as I would if I was a US citizen.
Being member #150 of the Pirate Party of Germany, I hope that we can change some things to the better in the future. But I am aware that this is more a dream than a realistic outlook.
Maybe Obama's Open Government should start with some documents of his own.
Leakiness -- people in government having the culture and technical ability to share with press and public, information their bosses wish kept from them -- is required for transparency. The temptation to secrecy, to avoid embarrassment, is very strong. Strengthening management's ability to prevent leaks, necessarily comes at the cost of long-term transparency. And this administration is taking Bush's singular efforts to leak-proof government... and pushing them even further.
The Obama administration - we talk wisdom... and then completely ignore it to pursue the least wise of the Bush-Cheney policies, with even greater nutty intensity than they did.
Health care bill establishes a mandate on every citizen by virtue of the fact that they are alive. Not because they engage in a certain activity. Not because they hold a certain view. Simple fact that they are alive makes them responsible for reporting to the government once a year which health care insurance they purchased. Soviet Union required every citizen to register where they lived. This, however, goes further. Whether you are employed or not, you will be required to file a form which will indicate where you live and which government-approved health plan you bought. It is unprecedented tracking of citizens on Orwellian scale.
You still have an excuse that McCain was worse.
This does not change the fact that you guys are stupid. You expect to make your "choice" by selecting a person once in four years, and then complain that all choices were bad. Of course, they are bad, they are given you by organizations that work against you! If you want to improve your political system, don't choose -- subvert either of two parties so it will actually do something that makes sense. For fuck sake, if you weren't a bunch of morons, you could join Republicans and sabotage them until all real Republicans leave -- and then turn their party into Social Democrats or whatever else that you think, makes sense. (Then I will join Democrats and turn them into Communists. Former Republicans can go to Tea Party, Libertarians and some probably even KKK).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Don't forget to shoot IRS people when they try to collect taxes, moron!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Fuck off america
The KKK was always mostly democrat. I live in the part of the US now where the KKK was the most powerful in the first half of the 20th century. They were always a "people's" type organization. Kind of like the Lions Club or the Freemasons. The blue-blood Republicans of the era wanted nothing to do with them. Belonging to the KKK in that era just meant you belonged to a civic club. One that hated blacks, all minorities and (most of all) the Roman Catholic Church (far more than they hated blacks, who were already 'down' and out of sight for the most part), but a 'civic group' nonetheless. KKK members controlled most branches of Government in Indiana during the 1930's. They were as mainstream as it gets. And populist. Like the Democrats.
The IRS only collects taxes if you have a taxable income. They have no pretext to go door-to-door.
Really, you don't seem to know a fuck of a lot about America. For all your smugness.
In pretty much every civilised country except America, Obama would be considered right-wing. Republicans would be far right wing, and the Tea Party would be crazy far right wing.
Obama - along with the 'hang-em & flog-em' Republicans - really does like the inner working of government (i.e. the total incompetence) being exposed.
Without anyone willing to defend it, the Constitution is just a charming piece of sheepskin with about as much value as toilet paper.
The problem is, there's not much of it left worth defending. Considering it's usually used as a bludgeon to whack Americans over the head, we'd probably be just as well off to declare it null and void and start over. I suspect not a few of the signatories of the original document would sign on to that project happily, if they could see what uses it was being put to today.
Like the Queen of England, our Constitution is a figurehead which poses no threat to our current government.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Soviet Union required every citizen to register where they lived.
Yes, and I'm pretty sure they had lots of other things in common, but that doesn't mean it's a "left" policy.
In fact, if it was "left", you wouldn't need to report, as you wouldn't need to purchase any health insurance, that would be provided by the state itself and paid by taxes.
Dilbert RSS feed
The individual mandate was an idea originally put forward in 1993 by Republicans, lead by such stalwart communists as Bob Dole, Jesse Helms, and Trent Lott.
Eurocentric nonsense. If it is a global measure why are China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, and Vietnam not included in your list? All have greater population and some have larger economies, but don't let facts get in the way.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Ron Paul has too close of ties to White Supremacists and Nazi groups too be a viable candidate.
Thats exactly what the Christian Collation did to the Republican Party, they are taking it over and shifting it from Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan policies to Pat Robertson/Ron Paul policies.
The Tea Baggers aren't real Republicans, at least not historical Republicans from 1850-1996, Tea Baggers are fringe Christian Collation folks.
I'm a life long moderate Republican along the lines of Nixon/Reagan, I won't vote for a Tea Bagger or Ron Paul type.
The KKK aren't Republicans, you are correct, from the formation of the KKK till the Civil Rights movement, the KKK members and sympathizers were strict Southern Democrats.
Even David Duke was a Democrat until 1982
Northern Democrats were the ones who pushed Civil Rights and eventually took over the party, pushing some of the "Dixiecrats" into the Republican Party and others hung on to their seats as a Democrat.
And the original push for universal health care was Nixon in 1970 and 1972, the Ted Kennedy pushed the Democrats to refuse to deal with Nixon.
The US Constitution doesn't say anything about using firearms to defend the Constitution. It just says the citizens have the right to keep arms and the Federal Government can't take those arms away.
Nixon and Reagan were both to the "Left" of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
But Nixon would have hated being categorized with Reagan - he thought of him as a charade and a twerp.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
But don't take my word for, listen to the several dozen civic organizations that filed a protest, listen to Senator Whyden, whose excellent letter to USTR went unanswered. Listen to Canadian law professor Michael Geist. Listen to Knowledge Ecology, whose FOIA request the Obama Administration denied on "national security" grounds.
Knowledge Ecology ACTA News: http://keionline.org/taxonomy/term/95
Knowledge Ecology ACTA timeline: http://keionline.org/node/991
Michael Geist: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_tags&task=view&tag=acta&Itemid=408
Thanks.
Big F***ing surprise. See the response to Wikileaks, which is a governement clampdown on the net. See the KILL SWITCH for american internet providers which was passed by Congress at Obama's instruction. See the new measures in every corner which are the camel's nose, head, neck, hum, shoulders and soon to be ass inside the tent of the internet. You voted him in, now you deal with him.
I see, there are no objections to the rest of this :-)
Of course, when I mentioned KKK, I mean that modern Republicans will find it attractive -- despite the history of that organization. My whole point is that both ruling parties are under control of nuts, and the only way to improve things is to leave nothing but a shells out of them, and build something less idiotic inside.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
So which ones provide universal health and what is their position on the political scale. I gave an example, you gave nothing but a list, here is a longer one for you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states. You list would have had meaning if you stated their position on the political scale and whether or not they had universal health care but, it would seem when it comes to facts you need none at all.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I only need demonstrate that that the facts in evidence are not relevant or sufficient to draw a conclusion in order to refute the conclusion drawn by the previous poster. I do not have to provide an alternative conclusion. The previous poster had, I believe, either drawn a conclusion and cited countries which support it, or has a very limited view of the world. I made no claim that my list was inclusive, simply better than his and likely to support a different conclusion, if one could be drawn at all.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.