The Most "Transparency" And "Change" Money Can Buy

Now, I know that many of us - members of the "reality based community" - did not believe for one skinny second that Barack Obama was ever going to be transparent or bring real change to the White House. Frankly, it is ludicrous on its face to refer to someone as "transparent" who refused to allow any of his transcripts or medical records to see the light of day, or any of his papers, not even a date book, from his time as an IL Senator. Anyone who ever believed that he was going to have a more transparent government was just fooling themselves.

Naturally, Obama's Administration has continued the trend of Obama the Candidate. It has taken a major step back in that whole transparency thing, according to the AP. Even when he wins awards for being transparent, he has to do so in a closed ceremony - how much more hypocritical can one be?

Well, there is one bit of transparency that is now coming forth about Obama. And that is how he pays off his big campaign donors. Of course, it is not unusual for a president to give a plum position to a big contributor, but Obama has done so for about 200 - that is two hundred - of his supporters in government positions in just two years. By comparison, George W. Bush hired about 200 contributors over EIGHT years. Uh, yeah.

So much for that "change" in Washington from "special interests," huh? I know, I know, I am not surprised, either, but I didn't drink the Kool Aide and vote for the man who made this claim:

[snip] As a candidate, Obama spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests. Kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”

“We’re here today to take it back,” he said.[snip]

Ahahahahaha - I know, I know, it is hilarious. Or it would be if so many people hadn't bought this total BS.

And in direct contradiction to what the candidate said, here are some particulars of Obama the president's sycophants:

Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency.

Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two other company executives collected at least $150,000 more.

After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House, helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then, in mid-2009, Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile, Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states — though Gips said he had been “completely unaware” that the company had received the contracts.

[...]

• Overall, 184 of 556, or about one-third of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. But the percentages are much higher for the big-dollar bundlers. Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took “key administration posts,” as defined by the White House. More than half the 24 ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised $500,000.

• The big bundlers had broad access to the White House for meetings with top administration officials and glitzy social events. In all, campaign bundlers and their family members account for more than 3,000 White House meetings and visits. Half of them raised $200,000 or more.

• Some Obama bundlers have ties to companies that stand to gain financially from the president’s policy agenda, particularly in clean energy and telecommunications, and some already have done so. Level 3 Communications, for instance, snared $13.8 million in stimulus money.[snip]

The last one is particularly troublesome to me. I thought the nation generally frowned upon companies having inside tracks to getting our hard earned, tax paying dollars. I dunno about you, but for Level 3 to get that kind of cold, hard cash from the stimulus sounds like payback to me. (You know, the $3 Trillion stimulus that Obama thought was a joking matter the other day? When he flippantly, arrogantly, joked there weren't as many shovel ready jobs as they thought, that one? What a piece of work. It is not a laughing matter to most of us, President Obama.)

Oh, but wait - there is more:

[snip] The appointment of George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton illustrates how the administration has rewarded many top fundraisers.

Overton wrote in 2003 that the influence big donors wield in elections means that an “overwhelming majority of citizens are effectively excluded from an important stage of the political process.” Yet Overton bundled at least $500,000 for Obama. He was named to the Obama transition team and in February 2009 was appointed principal deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy. Overton visited the White House more than 80 times from January 2009 through the end of 2010 for events ranging from small meetings with high-level staffers to social and entertainment events, sometimes with his wife, records show. Overton resigned the $180,000-a-year job in July 2010. He declined to comment for this story.

Overton is one of seven campaign bundlers who took jobs at Justice, including Attorney General Eric Holder, who was a $50,000 bundler. Holder had been deputy attorney general in the administration of President Bill Clinton. [snip]

Just to be clear, here is the problem with "bundling" contributions:

[snip] Bundling is controversial because it permits campaigns to skirt individual contribution limits of $2,500 in federal elections. Bundlers pool donations from fundraising networks and, as a result, “play an enormous role in determining the success of political campaigns,” according to government watchdog Public Citizen. [snip]

Yes, that would be a bit of a problem. And it also helps explain how someone who has made such a mess of the DOJ got his position. Of course, I am referring to Eric Holder, who has been just a disaster in upholding federal law (the examples are too numerous to mention here, but the dismissal of the clear cut voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers case is the tip of the iceberg).

There is so much more to this story I cannot possibly recount it all here, so I urge you to read it all. It goes into more detail about those who got these positions, but I have to leave you with one more example:

[snip] In March 2009, Obama appointed $500,000 bundler and law school pal Julius Genachowski to chair the Federal Communications Commission, an independent agency. Two other bundlers at the FCC are chief of staff Edward Lazarus, a litigator and former federal prosecutor, and William T. Lake, a lawyer specializing in communications and e-commerce issues who serves as chief of the media bureau.

Genachowski had previously served as chief counsel to the FCC chairman in the 1990s, but his close ties to Obama have raised eyebrows. He has turned up so often at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. that in March, congressional Republicans demanded an accounting of whom he has met with and what was discussed. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

You know someone is spending a lot of time at the White House when US Representatives are demanding to know just what the hell they are doing there all of the time.

Ah, yes - the only thing transparent about Obama is how much "change" he is getting from his bundlers. I mean, members of his Administration. Heaven knows, they siphoned a whole boatload of it into his coffers. He is returning the favor with OUR change.

That is the kind of change I can do without. Copyright © 2011 by Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy