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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (75726)	12/4/2009 11:53:03 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Nice find. So far even Fox hasn't noted that point.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (75726)	12/4/2009 12:26:29 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Pelosi's outrageous attempt to hide congressional spending By: Mark Hemingway Commentary Staff Writer beltway-confidential 12/02/09 5:02 PM EST Remember when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, <<< "This leadership team will create the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history”? >>> Well, if a little noticed rule change by Pelosi is anything to go by, she lied -- big time. It's suddenly gotten much more difficult to determine how members of Congress are spending your tax dollars. What's more, Pelosi instituted this change while making a big public show of increasing transparency. Back in June, the Speaker's blog trumpeted a bold new initiative: <<< As part of Speaker Pelosi’s ongoing efforts to increase transparency and accountability in the House of Representatives, the Speaker’s office and the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) have been working on making the Statement of Disbursements - which documents all expenditures Congressional, Committee, Leadership, and administrative offices make - available online. >>> Earlier this week, Pelosi ostensibly made good on that promise rolling out a new government website to provide access to congressional disbursements. Except that in the process she radically obscured the information previously available to taxpayers: <<< Congressional administrators erased a vast array of details on the expenditures of House Members, making it impossible to determine what much of the money was actually spent on. As a result, while millions of Americans will for the first time be able to download and peruse the 3,400 pages detailing how Members spent their taxpayer-funded office accounts, they will no longer be able to see what items the Members purchased, which staffers were traveling on the taxpayer dime or where the Members are renting district offices. [SNIP] In the printed versions of the disclosure reports covering April through June, there are hundreds of references to computers, laptops, televisions, cameras, printers and all sorts of office equipment, frequently described down to the model number. In the new reports, all of those purchases are described simply as "comp hardware purch" or "equipment purchase." In the old books, hundreds of trips were listed with the destination and whether it was the Member or a staffer traveling. >>> The new guidelines also obscure what Congress is paying to rent their offices. For example: <<< So Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) has five district offices ranging in rent from $400 to $1,800 a month, but the new books no longer indicate what cities they are in. A reader would have to go to an old book to find out that the $1,800 rent is for an office in Rockwall, while the $504 expenditure is for an office in Sherman. >>> Asked to justify the new rules, the Chief Administrative Officer of the House responded: <<< “The process was updated. In order to bring a higher degree of consistency and accuracy to the SOD document, the online version is generated via a process that more strictly applies the use of standard government accounting codes, similar to those used by the Executive Branch.” >>> Except that's just a bunch of bureaucratic doublespeak, as the changes don't just apply to the information available on the web: <<< The new guidelines for accounting codes also apply to the print edition of the books. >>> However, an unnamed House leadership staffer basically confirms that the changes are because members of Congress are afraid of being criticized over expenditures: <<< The leadership staffer said that while reporters may want to pick out individual expenditures to poke fun at Members, the reports are intended — like any accounting system — to allow broad comparisons of spending trends among offices. >>> Are you kidding me? This is not just about accounting trends. The public has every right to know how every penny is being spent in a congressional office. This is hardly the first time Pelosi has broken her promise to be the "most honest, most ethical, most open" congress in history -- but it just might be the most outrageous and hypocritical example of her breaking that promise. washingtonexaminer.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (75726)	12/4/2009 12:51:27 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Sorta Kinda Maybe Almost Good News on the Economic Front By: Jim Geraghty The Campaign Spot This morning brings actual... kinda, sorta, almost good news on the economy: the unemployment rate is 10 percent, down from 10.2 percent last month; the number of unemployed actually grew, but by 11,000, which is a much smaller number than the usual six-figure numbers we've had this year and much of last. Perhaps we've hit bottom. However, if you hear any fool on the left contending that the Obama administration can be credited with turning the economy around, the BLS release gives us a lot of reasons to point out our economy has steadily deteriorated during this year: "Last month, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 293,000 to 5.9 million. The percentage of unemployed persons jobless for 27 weeks or more increased by 2.7 percentage points to 38.3 percent." Also note "construction employment declined by 27,000 over the month." Every month since the stimulus passed, employment in the construction field has dropped, confirming the president's admission that the "shovel ready" slogan of the stimulus package was bunk. campaignspot.nationalreview.com