1.) Obama is very disappointed in you, United States Constitution — Are you satisfied, Constitution? Everything would be great right now if you would just let Obama do whatever he wants. But nooooo. Well, fine. Fine. Now see what you’re making him do. TheDC’s Nicholas Ballasy reports:
“President Barack Obama told an audience in Nevada on Monday that he will be regularly announcing ‘executive actions’ his administration will take to ‘heal the economy’ without the ‘dysfunctional’ Congress. ‘I’m here to say to all of you and to say to the people of Nevada and the people of Las Vegas, we can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will,’ Obama said. ‘I’ve told my administration to keep looking every single day for actions we can take without Congress, steps that can save consumers money, make government more efficient and responsive, and help heal the economy. And we’re going to be announcing these executive actions on a regular basis,’ the president said.”
And if there’s anybody who knows how to heal the economy, it’s Obama! He’d have healed it up already, too, if it weren’t for you meddling founding documents. Hey, remember when the left said George Bush was a dictator who tore up the Constitution? That’s because they can’t imagine anybody doing things any other way.
2.) Some information is freer than others — But at least the Obama administration is The Most Transparent One Ever, right? Welllllll… TheDC’s C.J. Ciaramella reports:
“A proposed revision to Freedom of Information Act rules would allow federal agencies to lie to citizens and reporters seeking certain records, telling them the records don’t exist. The Justice Department has proposed the change as part of a large revision of FOIA rules for federal agencies. Specifically, the rule would direct government agencies who are denying a request under an established FOIA exemption to ‘respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist,’ rather than citing the relevant exemption. The proposed rule has alarmed government transparency advocates across the political spectrum, who’ve called it ‘Orwellian’ and say it will ‘twist’ public access to government.”
So the DOJ is just formalizing Eric Holder’s modus operandi. It should be noted that on May 27, 2009, Obama released a memo about how great the FOIA is, and how he was going to make it even better by the power of his awesomeness: “While the Government must be able to prevent the public disclosure of information where such disclosure would compromise the privacy of American citizens, national security, or other legitimate interests, a democratic government accountable to the people must be as transparent as possible and must not withhold information for self-serving reasons or simply to avoid embarrassment.” How about that. Was he lying, or does he just not care anymore? There’s no reason it couldn’t be both.
3.) Wall Street lobbyist occupies Obama re-election campaign — Yeah, okay, but remember when Obama promised to ban all the lobbyists and stuff? You could take that one to the bank, if banks weren’t evil. TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports:
“President Barack Obama’s new senior campaign adviser is a longtime Wall Street lobbyist, and has the potential to damage the president’s aspirations to appeal to the protesters currently ‘occupying’ New York City’s Zuccotti Park. Obama’s new adviser, Broderick Johnson, has an extensive history of lobbying for big banks and corporations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2007, he lobbied for JP Morgan Chase and in 2008 Johnson lobbied for Bank of America and Fannie Mae. From 2008 through 2010, he lobbied for Comcast and in 2011 he lobbied for Microsoft… The Obama re-election campaign appears to have tried to hide or downplay Johnson’s lobbying history, as the original campaign press release announcing his hire completely ignored it.”
What could be more transparent than embarrassing facts you’ve rendered invisible?
4.) Ann Coulter realizes ‘Libya’ has ‘Lib’ in it — You might be glad Gadhafi is dead, no matter how you choose to spell his name. But don’t count on any backup from Ann Coulter. TheDC’s Jeff Poor reports:
“Ann Coulter is not applauding President Obama for the killing of Moammar Gadhafi. In a Monday appearance on ‘Good Day LA’ on Fox affiliate KTTV 11 in Los Angeles, Coulter told host Steve Edwards that she was willing to give Obama credit, but not for the Libyan intervention. ‘Sure, for some things, though I’m more for killing bin Laden,’ Coulter said. ‘I thought our intervention in Libya — I mean, there’s good feeling because he’s a bad guy so maybe I should wait two weeks to say this, but I thought it was kind of stupid because once we invaded Iraq, Gadhafi became George Bush’s bitch… And it’s not clear to me, seeing that mob around him that shoots him within five minutes, that what he is being replaced with is going to be better.”
And now everybody who said the U.S. invasion of Iraq was wrong, and that we can’t be the world’s policeman, will defend this one and pretend they’re being consistent.
5.) Another PR victory for the TSA — Does that stand for Transportation Security Administration or Totally Sexist A-holes? ABC News:
“Frequent travelers may be used to finding an official note from the Transportation Security Administration alerting them that their checked bags have been searched, but rarely does the TSA take the opportunity to get a little more — or a lot more — personal with travelers. But that’s what one blogger said a TSA officer did based on an unusual note she found in her luggage today. Jill Filipovic, a blogger at Feministe.us, tweeted a picture of the TSA notification on which, alongside the official form, someone had scrawled ‘GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL’ in big capital letters. ‘Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA,’ Filipovic tweeted. ‘Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag. Wow.’ Attempting to discreetly explain the ‘personal item’ to commenters on Feministe, Filipovic wrote it was ‘the most basic lady-thing you can imagine.'”
Hmm. Lipstick? Mascara? A compact? What could it possibly…. oh. Ohhhhhhh.
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Alec Baldwin’s Truther, er, Twitter feed — “Walter Isaacson’s bio of Steve Jobs looks excellent.”