Dusting off the old playbook

When you lose the L.A. Times:

President Obama last week decided to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other accused Sept. 11 conspirators before a military commission in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rather than in a civilian court in the United States. It's the latest example of Obama, who was acidly critical of George W. Bush's policies in the war on terror, embracing those policies or acquiescing in their continuation. Explanations abound: an assertive Congress, a lack of public support, a seductive bureaucracy or a change in Obama's thinking from candidate to president. Each example tells a different story, but the end result is disappointing. And the responsibility ultimately lies with the president.

A while back, we had a series titled "WW( )D?" that chronicled, against all the conventional wisdom of what we were told, just how similar were the policy positions and governing styles of Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush.

We stopped because we just became exhausted by the repetition of it all. It seemed like we were doing one a week such was the numbing and dogged consistency in which Team O pursued the Bush presidential template.

Anyway, not having fully recovered from this stupor, we're not sure we will resurrect the series but to pick up the slack while we clear the cobwebs from our alleged mind, B-Daddy ticks off the laundry list of items that now make-up Bush 2.0.

WW()D?

Hey, do you remember when they told us that if we voted for McCain, it would just mean a continuation of policies designed to invade our privacy? Well, they were right.

The (Bush) administration is proposing to scale back a long-standing ban on tracking how people use government Internet sites with "cookies" and other technologies, raising alarms among privacy groups.

A two-week public comment period ended Monday on a proposal by the White House Office of Management and Budget to end a ban on federal Internet sites using such technologies and replace it with other privacy safeguards. The current prohibition, in place since 2000, can be waived if an agency head cites a "compelling need."

Supporters of a change say social networking and similar services, which often take advantage of the tracking technologies, have transformed how people communicate over the Internet, and (Bush’s) aides say those services can make government more transparent and increase public involvement.

We’d be a little less skeptical of this attempt at “transparency” if the knuckleheads in the (Bush) administration hadn’t solicited information from their followers regarding those who dare oppose the administrations policies with the use of a snitch site at whitehouse.gov. As it is, there’s no way we are buying into this.

WW()D?

and more Friday evening dumpage...

We go rafting up on the Lower Kern over the weekend and come home to find out that in addition to passing cap and trade late Friday (which included a 300 page un-read (un-readable?) amendment), the most ethical Congress ever found time to squeeze in a moment-of-silence tribute to an alleged child molester on the House floor during the debate on that same piece of, uhh, legislation.

Also, taken out with the trash right before the weekend was the fact that (President Bush) was, in seeking to avoid a battle with Congress over the closing of Club Gitmo, crafting language that would re-assert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinetely.

Recall that (President Bush) criticized the previous administration for its policies regarding the long-term detention of detainees and insisted that any detention program must include Congressional and judicial oversight.

With the flurry of activity that went down in D.C. going into the weekend, we're relieved to learn that despite all the flailing and posturing some things never change.

WW()D?

After early pledges by President Obama that he would moderate the Bush administration’s tough policy on immigration enforcement, his administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal-immigration crackdown that relies significantly on programs started by his predecessor.

This really shouldn’t come as any surprise because it was part of the Amnesty formula triangulated by the Bush administration. After the pummeling Congress took from their constituents three years ago and which is similar to the beating they are taking now with respect to health care, our governing elites in D.C. claimed they “got the message” on executing what was heretofore thought to be extra-Constitutional duties by, you know, enforcing the border.

This sovereign-state policy has been all the rage with the townies for years but had apparently fell out of favor with our dear leaders in recent times.

Anyway, the triangulation involved claiming they got the message, executing some high profile work-place raids and generally behaving like they actually were concerned with border security and then saying, “O.K. We did that whole enforcement thing you were screaming for – time for Amnesty. We held up our end of the bargain, now it’s time for you to do the same”.

How do we know it’s going down like this? Because Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security said so:

Ms. Napolitano and other administration officials argue that no-nonsense immigration enforcement is necessary to persuade American voters to accept legislation that would give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, a measure they say Mr. Obama still hopes to advance late this year or early next.

See? Enforce now. Amnesty later. For an administration that has been woefully lacking in transparency of any shape or form, we’re glad to see they have no compunction towards actually enforcing the law once they make a show of enforcing it for the time being.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

WW()D?

President (Bush) is coming under pressure from Democrats and civil liberties groups for failing to fill positions on an oversight panel formed in 2004 to make sure the government does not spy improperly on U.S. citizens.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was recommended initially by the bipartisan September 11 commission as an institutional voice for privacy inside the intelligence community. Its charter was to recommend ways to mitigate the effects of far-reaching surveillance technology that the federal government uses to track terrorists.

The panel was established in 2004 under the (Bush) administration as part of the executive office of the president. Its independence was unclear for several years. Congress responded by increasing the board's budget, expanding its powers and moving it outside the presidential executive office in 2007.

Since taking office, Mr. (Bush) has allowed the board to languish. He has not even spent the panel's allocation from the fiscal 2010 budget.

Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, New Jersey Republican, said the civil liberties board "had disappeared." He added, "We have now a massive capacity in this country to develop data on individuals, and the board should be the champion of seeing that collection capabilities do not intrude into privacy and civil liberties."

The (Bush) administration's inaction contradicts the White House's public message of being a civil liberties champion. In the first two days of the (Bush) administration, the White House outlawed enhanced interrogation that was not enumerated in the Army Field Manual and vowed to close the terrorist detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year, though it has not met its deadline.

Trust us. We're just as confused as you are.

WW()D?

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the (Bush) administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century," says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. "If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."

We audibly groaned when we read this news piece. Does this mean we’re going to have to do another one of those posts?

We enjoy doing them but we’re thinking that after a time, the novelty sort of wears off.

Please let us know what you think because we’re kind of 50/50 at this point. Part of us thinks it’s important to keep pointing out the hollow sophistry of Hope and Change for record keeping purposes but part of us also thinks that we’ve pretty well established how faithfully the Obama administration has cleaved to the Bush playbook. After all, with respect to this, isn’t the science settled?

Feel free to chime in. Thanks.

WW()D?

Hey, do you remember when they told us that a vote for John McCain would just be a continuation of the Bush era policies of giving out fat no-bid contracts to cronies for the express purpose of war-profiteering? Well, they were right.

Despite President Obama’s long history of criticizing the Bush administration for “sweetheart deals” with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide “rule of law stabilization services” in war-torn Afghanistan.

A synopsis of the contract published on the USAID Web site says Checchi & Company will “train the next generation of legal professionals” throughout the Afghan provinces and thereby “develop the capacity of Afghanistan’s justice system to be accessible, reliable, and fair.”

The legality of the arrangement as a “sole source,” or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator. “They cancelled the open bid on this when they came to power earlier this year,” a source familiar with the federal contracting process told Fox News.

“That’s kind of weird,” said another source, who has worked on “rule of law” issues in both Afghanistan and Iraq, about the no-bid contract to Checchi & Company. “There’s lots of companies and non-governmental organizations that do this sort of work.”

It’s a double-whammy: a no-bid contract… for lawyers.

Full disclosure: We aren’t expressly objectionable to no-bid contracts. During the Balkan crisis in the 90s, President Clinton re-upped Haliburton’s contract (yes, that Haliburton) without an open compete. Federal acquisition rules almost guarantee a long drawn-out process and switching horses in midstream for an outfit that was providing housing, food, transportation and other logistical support for our troops (and by all accounts was performing admirably) may not have been such a great idea.

Full disclosure II: Tough. Alinsky’s rules for radicals dictate that you hold the opposition to their own standards. Remember this guy?



H/T: Hot Air

Just a reminder...

... of what we're up against.

Here's Keith Ellison (D-MN) going all John Lennon at something called the Network of Spiritual Progressives conference this past June.


"And God willing, one day the border will become an irrelevancy."





"... equity, generosity and engagement in our relations with other nations."


Because it was that and gift baskets that defeated Nazi Germany and saved Europe back in WW II.


Keith Ellison is a silly man. Unfortunately, because he is part of the law-making body of this country, he is a silly and dangerous man.

For nearly two years there have been "extremists" protesting and demonstrating for fiscal discipline and recognition of constitutional checks on the power of government that have been called out by the media and even elected representatives of the government. How is it then, that this guy and his pie-in-sky lefty utopianism gets a pass?

As idiotic as he sounds, because of the position he holds, he cannot be ignored.

Again, with respect to comprehensive immigration reform, this is the face of the opposition of which we find very little common ground which to negotiate.

They talk of compassion for the millions of people "living in the shadows" when the end game is no borders at all and a pathway not to citizenship but rather a chaotic, grievance-based, anti-American, 3rd world socialism.

What Would Bush Do? Not this.

B-Daddy here. Dean has a series of posts on the theme of this administration's continuity with the policies of George W. Bush, most of them not to his liking, titled WW()D? He also notes Obama's proposed expansion of wire tap, going farther than Bush ever did. However, Obama lacks one thing that Bush had, restraint and class, when it came to dealing with his opponents in the press. Did you ever see Bush attack MSNBC, despite their relentless attacks on him? But here is Obama in Rolling Stone, after being asked if he thinks Fox News is "is a good institution for America and for democracy?":

Obama: “[Laughs] Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press. We’ve got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition – it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It’s a point of view that I disagree with. It’s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it’s been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it’s that Fox is very successful.”

Give me a break. Fox disagrees, so the President labels them "ultimately destructive?" Why can't he show some class. He loves to play the bully, with Massachusetts police officers, health insurers, and anyone who disagrees with him in general. His air of moral superiority offends, note his disdain for the fact that Fox is a successful economic enterprise. What enterprise has the President ever successfully run in his life?