Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (309758)	6/13/2009 2:21:10 PM
From: LindyBill	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793782

How can we have a chance in hell of changing Iran when Obama acts like Jimmy Carter? I am beginning to believe he is a worse anti-Semite than Carter. All those years of listening to Wright and company. Is Obama really this clueless about Iran? President Obama came out yesterday to trumpet the elections in Iran as an expression of the people's voice. Hillary Clinton is on the same page. "We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran," Obama said at the White House, as Iranians packed polling stations to choose between keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms. Ahmadinejad's main rival is reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who served as prime minister in the 1980s and has become the surprise hero of a powerful youth-driven movement in the fiery, monthlong campaign. "We think there's the possibility of change," Obama told reporters, answering an impromptu question about the significance of the elections. "Ultimately the election is for the Iranians to decide," he said. "But ... you're seeing people looking at new possibilities. And whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there's been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways." The State Department was also speaking optimistically about Iran's election. "It's a very positive sign that the people of Iran want their voices and their votes to be heard and counted," said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Like many inside and outside Iran we are going to wait and see what the results are." Don't they know how elections are run in Iran? It's not a democracy where people who want public office decide to run, debate the issues, and then the people decide. Nope, the Guardian Council under the control of Ayatollah Khamanei went through the list of those vying for the job of president and only allowed those candidates acceptable to their revolutionary principles to run for the job. Thus, for the past two elections to the Majlis (the Iranian parliament) the Revolutionary Guards -- who are controlled directly by Mr. Khamanei -- have carefully vetted all the candidates to ensure only those with the right revolutionary credentials are allowed to stand. Now the regime, in the form of the Guardian Council, which is charged with upholding the tenets of Khomeini's revolution, has employed the same tactic ahead of the presidential election: Of the original 475 applicants only four candidates have survived the cull. All of them have revolutionary credentials beyond reproach. It's not a democracy when the Supreme Leader gets to pick the candidates and picks 4 out of 475. Not quite the vigorous debate with the people making the ultimate decision that the Obama administration wants to pretend took place. Con Coughlin author of Khomeini's Ghost: The Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Militant Islam calls this a Potemkim election. Well, such a pretense only succeeds if others are unwilling to shout out, to mix metaphors, that the emperor has no clothes. Apparently, the Obama administration is willing to be deceived all for the purpose of pretending that Obama's outreach to the Islamic world and Iran has had some impact on the elections being held in Iran and the desire for a vigorous debate about the future of the country. There may well be such an intense desire, but this election isn't an example of such a debate taking place. Betsy's Page (13 June 2009) betsyspage.blogspot.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (309758)	6/15/2009 8:38:42 AM
From: Tom Clarke	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793782

mezmerized by his supposed greatness It's just a matter of time before True Believers who are honest with themselves realize that Obama's "soaring rhetoric" is anything but. This line went largely unnoticed. "The reckless fiscal policies of the past have left us in a very deep hole," Obama said last week. "And digging our way out of it will take time, patience and some tough choices." washingtonpost.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (309758)	6/21/2009 3:14:41 AM
From: KLP	2 Recommendations Respond to of 793782

Obama Closes Doors on Openness Michael Isikoff NEWSWEEK [KLP Note: Has anyone else noticed that Newsweek this week seems much more center to Repub than in a long, looooong time....? From the magazine issue dated Jun 29, 2009 newsweek.com As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies." The hard line appears to be no accident. After Obama's much-publicized Jan. 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests. This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno. But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies "if practicable" for cases involving "pending litigation." Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other "lawyerly hedges" means the Holder memo is now "astonishingly weaker" than the Reno policy. (The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.) Administration officials say the Holder memo was drafted by senior Justice lawyers in consultation with Craig's office. The separate standard for "pending" lawsuits was inserted because of the "burden" it would impose on officials to go "backward" and reprocess hundreds of old cases, says Melanie Ann Pustay, who now heads the FOIA office. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt says Obama "has backed up his promise" with actions including the broadcast of White House meetings on the Web. (Others cite the release of the so-called torture memos.) As for the visitor logs, LaBolt says the policy is now "under review." URL: newsweek.com