Metal Reviews

The Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his predecessor, George W. Bush, as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.

Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on his first full day in office, he dispatched a much-publicized memo saying: "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA."

One of the exemptions allowed to deny Freedom of Information requests has been used by the Obama administration 70,779 times in its first year; the same exemption was used 47,395 times in Bush's final budget year.

An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies' handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, ruled against the Obama administration, Wednesday, finding that the Secret Service’s White House visitor logs are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. The non-partisan pro-transparency non-profit Judicial Watch had requested to see a complete list of who visited the White House between January 20, 2009 and August, 10, 2009.

“The proper course of action by the Secret Service is duly to process [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request, disclose all segregable, nonexempt records, and then assert specific FOIA exemptions for all records it seeks to withhold,” Howell wrote. The White House has posted selective portions of the White House visitor logs at their convenience.

President Obama had promised that his administration was committed “to be the most open and transparent ever.” But an Associated Press study found that the Obama administration is ducking FOIA requests at a greater rate than past administrations even though the number of requests is down.

The Obama administration has further circumvented their transparency promise by meeting lobbyists near, but not in the White House, thus avoiding the Secret Service logs entirely.

“This is a major victory for open government and an embarrassing defeat for the Obama administration,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This administration will now have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under law. It is refreshing to see the court remind this this administration that the rule of law applies to it.”

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/new-video-shows-philly-teen-attack-081711

What's with all the black on white violence?
Yet another (dated from May) instance of racial violence.
Seems like it is getting to be a regular occurence. Media is blacking it out, though as per usual.

At some point the open hand that whites have been extending to these useless animals is going to close into a fist.

I'm in that area of Philadelphia often, but have avoided it during the summer as this July was the hottest (heat=anger) of all time, and the flash mob violence has basically been constant. I really like some parts of the city, but lately have found myself repeatedly asked for money (which I don't have), and yelled at when I don't give any out.

The mayor of Philadelphia has recently harshly criticized his own race's parenting and lack of fathers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html?src=rechp

Really interesting study on Tea Party demographics. Basically, the most important link to Tea Party support is religious fervor.

They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

Ekins photographed about 250 signs, and more than half of those she saw reflected a "limited government ethos," she found - touching on such topics as the role of government, liberty, taxes, spending, deficit and concern about socialism. Examples ranged from the simple message "$top the $pending" scrawled in black-marker block letters to more elaborate drawings of bar charts, stop signs and one poster with the slogan "Socialism is Legal Theft" and a stick-figure socialist pointing a gun at the head of a taxpayer.

There were uglier messages, too - including "Obama Bin Lyin' - Impeach Now" and "Somewhere in Kenya a Village is Missing its Idiot." But Ekins's analysis showed that only about a quarter of all signs reflected direct anger with Obama. Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president's race or religion, and slightly more than 1 percent questioned his American citizenship

Ekins's conclusion is not that the racially charged messages are unimportant but that media coverage of tea party rallies over the past year have focused so heavily on the more controversial signs that it has contributed to the perception that such content dominates the tea party movement more than it actually does.

"Really this is an issue of salience," Ekins said. "Just because a couple of percentage points of signs have those messages doesn't mean the other people don't share those views, but it doesn't mean they do, either. But when 25 percent of the coverage is devoted to those signs, it suggests that this is the issue that 25 percent of people think is so important that they're going to put it on a sign, when it's actually only a couple of people."

Wow, surprise surprise... another hit piece on the TEA party.

What's funny about that article is how it doesn't mention that perhaps the media's constant hit job slander (bogus claims of racism, blaming this small upstart group for the econmic crisis, incredibly, etc.) has something to do with the tea party's unfavorable reception.
Indeed the article even attempts to perpetuate these blatantly fraudulent claims.



Really? I'd like to see some proof of these attitudes being widespread and prevalent within the TEA party. Because, it's pretty much been debunked.
I'm not really interested in the TP, but this non-stop, dishonest propganda is bullshit.

If you trust our media, I have some property for sale. Cheap.

Perfect example: the Ron Paul blackout, even though he was virtually tied with Bachmann in the polls after the Iowa GOP debate.
Where was he the following Sunday while every other candidate was granted air time, even though they didn't do so well?

The media is really not much more than an appendage of the DNC at this point. They know that Paul's message will resound with a helluva lot of people and if given equal time will ensure that the current Campaigner In Chief is a one termer. Can't have that, can we?

Pay attention. Unless you enjoy being lied to.

Well, first of all--that article isn't written by reporters, or "the media". It's a study written by professors of polisci and public policy at Notre Dame and Harvard.

"Racism" is a very slippery term, but I don't really think that "low regard"--or "racism", for that matter--signifies lower attitudes towards other races solely because they're of a different race. You can justify it with things like "black on white violence" or "illegal immigrant". I would say that you hold blacks in "low regard", and I don't think you'd disagree with me.

Regardless, I'm definitely not in disagreement with that assessment. It's a scientific study, number 1, and I also think that it's a fair claim.

I really have trouble believing that Ron Paul is being "blacked out" by the government/media because he is a threat to Obama's re-election. Not only is the evidence non-existent, aside from one weekend of TV?, but...yeah, there's no reason to believe that, that I know of.

Although I agree that you're not gonna get everything you need to know through mainstream media. It's dumb to think that they're not telling people what they want to hear, though--if there was a chance that a news outlet could make a profit by distributing in-demand news that others won't talk about, I don't think for a fucking second that they wouldn't do it.

I hope, if somehow RP does end up as the candidate, they smooth him up a bit. He's always come over a bit all-over-the-place to me in debates, and Obama could be a danger. Remember, America, Kennedy beat Nixon because of sweat.

He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.

He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.

He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

It's high time the voters in this country look past superficialities and use their damned brains.

Oh, absolutely. But you and I both know that that's not how politics work, here, there, or anywhere, as much as we wish t'were different.

Section 8 rental subsidies have long been one of the most controversial federal social programs. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Obama administration is making a troubled program worse.

In the 1990s, the feds were embarrassed by skyrocketing crime rates in public housing -- up to 10 times the national average, according to HUD studies and many newspaper reports. The government's response was to hand out vouchers to residents of the projects (authorized under Section 8 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974), dispersing them to safer and more upscale locales.

Section 8's budget soared to $19 billion this year from $7 billion in 1994. HUD now picks up the rent for more than two million households nationwide; tenants pay 30% of their income toward rent and utilities while the feds pay the rest. Section 8 recipients receive monthly rental subsidies of up to $2,851 in the Stamford-Norwalk, Conn., area, $2,764 in Honolulu and $2,582 in Columbia, Md.

But the dispersal of public housing residents to quieter neighborhoods has failed to weed out the criminal element that made life miserable for most residents of the projects. "Homicide was simply moved to a new location, not eliminated," concluded University of Louisville criminologist Geetha Suresh in a 2009 article in Homicide Studies. In Louisville, Memphis, and other cities, violent crime skyrocketed in neighborhoods where Section 8 recipients resettled.

After a four-year investigation, the Indianapolis Housing Authority (IHA) in 2006 linked 80% of criminal homicides in Marion County, Ind., to individuals fraudulently obtaining federal assistance "in either the public housing program or the Section 8 program administered by the agency." The IHA released an update last month citing recent crackdowns on a "nationwide criminal motorcycle gang operating out of a Section 8 home." It also noted one "attorney who allegedly operated a law practice from a Section 8 home for eight years, providing shelter to unauthorized occupants who were linked to 10 homicides, 431 police calls and 394 criminal arrests during that time period."

Dubuque, Iowa, is struggling with an influx of Section 8 recipients from Chicago housing projects. Section 8 concentrations account for 11 of 13 local violent crime hot spots, according to a study by the Northern Illinois University Center for Governmental Studies. Though Section 8 residents account for only 5% of the local population, a 2010 report released by the city government found that more than 20% of arrestees resided at Section 8 addresses.

Dubuque's city government responded by trimming the size of the local Section 8 program. HUD retaliated by launching a "civil rights compliance review" of the program (final results pending).

HUD seems far more enthusiastic about cracking down on localities than on troublesome Section 8 recipients who make life miserable for the rest of the community. And because Section 8 recipients in some areas are mostly black or Latino, almost any enforcement effort can be denounced as discriminatory.

HUD launched an investigation of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority in 2009 after an Ohio attorney accused the authority of racially discriminatory Section 8 policies such as "eviction for offenses such as loud music." In June of this year, the authority signed a conciliation agreement with HUD, pledging to cease penalizing Section 8 recipients for nuisance offenses. Policing tenant behavior was the job of police and landlords but "an ineffective use of resources" by the housing authority that "could lead to inappropriate program terminations," HUD spokeswoman Laura Feldman told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

After the city of Antioch, Calif., formed a Community Action Team to assist the Contra Costa County Housing Authority in curbing violence and other problems in subsidized housing, the Bay Area Legal Aid sued the local police department in 2008, claiming it was guilty of racial discrimination because of an allegedly "concerted and unlawful campaign to seek evidence which could lead to the termination of participants' Section 8 voucher benefits." (The case is ongoing.)

Nevertheless, middle-class blacks are the program's least inhibited critics. Sheldon Carter of Antelope Valley, Calif., testified at a recent public hearing on local Section 8 controversies: "This is not a racial issue. It is a color issue. The color is green and it's my dollars." Shirlee Bolds told Iowa's Dubuque Telegraph Herald in 2009: "I moved away from the city to get away from all this crap. Dubuque's getting rough. I think it's turning into a little Chicago, like they're bringing the street rep here."

Remarkably, HUD seems bent on creating a new civil right -- the right to raise hell in subsidized housing in nice neighborhoods. Earlier this year, the agency decreed that Section 8 tenants (as well as other renters) who are evicted because of domestic violence incidents may sue for discrimination under the Fair Housing Act because women are "the overwhelming majority of domestic violence victims." In essence, this gives troublesome tenants a federal trump card to play against landlords who seek to preserve the peace and protect other renters.

In June, HUD encouraged local housing agencies to permit ex-convicts (except for the most extreme sex offenders or individuals caught manufacturing methamphetamine "on the premises of federally assisted housing") to move in with relatives in Section 8 or public housing after exiting prison. The Virginian-Pilot condemned the new policy last week, noting that "it's unwise to allow people with a history of violence into public housing developments designed for the elderly and disabled residents."

The Obama administration is now launching a pilot program giving local housing authorities wide discretion to pay higher rent subsidies to allow Section 8 beneficiaries to move into even more affluent zip codes. Hasn't this program helped wreck enough neighborhoods?

It's high time the voters in this country look past superficialities and use their damned brains.