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Will Obama keep his promises? Track 500 Obama promises.

 
 
Reply Fri 23 Jan, 2009 09:15 pm
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises

Quote:
PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.
 
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Reply Fri 23 Jan, 2009 11:33 pm
4 days....he just got moved in...5 is pretty good...
View Profile kuvasz
 
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Reply Sat 24 Jan, 2009 12:57 pm
quantity is not equal to quality, thus a promise to a man's children to get a dog should not be measured against a promise to reduce national unemployment.
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View Profile 4Him
 
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Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2009 07:26 pm
Dude, you are so right. 4 days and millions of unborn children, what could be better?
View Profile djjd62
 
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Reply Sun 25 Jan, 2009 07:29 pm
those millions of unborn children can be made into millions of stem cells
View Profile 4Him
 
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Reply Mon 26 Jan, 2009 07:21 pm
do you really think that abortion clinics save all of those children for stem cell?
You might want to look into exactly how they handle them after the procedure.
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Reply Sun 1 Feb, 2009 07:33 pm
Well, there's the first promise broken....

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/234/allow-five-days-of-public-comment-before-signing-b/
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Reply Mon 2 Feb, 2009 08:04 pm
And they really should move Promise 240 about Lobbyists in Obama's administration to "Broken" as well. They've already moved it from "Kept" to "Compromised" and I'm urging them to move to "broken" based on facts below:

Below is the current list (first two are takes from the original promise downgrading at the site):

William J. Lynn III, the appointee to be Deputy Secretary of Defense. Lynn was formerly a lobbyist for the giant defense contractor Raytheon.

William Corr, was tapped to be deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services. He previously lobbied for the nonprofit Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.



Source for four below is: http://www.blnz.com/news/2008/12/07/IMPACT_Donors_lobbyists_help_Obama_4171.html

Maria Echaveste, An Obama adviser on immigration issues, lobbied for the United Farm Workers this year to protect immigrant agricultural workers as the Bush administration sought to ease hiring of seasonal farm labor and Congress debated an immigration overhaul.

Bart Chilton, Obama's agricultural policy review, lobbied until last year as vice president of the National Farmers Union.

Keith Harper, working Indian issues for Obama, has worked as a lawyer for Native American tribes, and wrote in a 2006 article that the Interior Department's handling of Indian trust matters has been a "national disgrace." Obama initially assigned Harper to be his lead adviser on the department, but now Harper is advising the campaign more narrowly on Indian gaming. Harper was registered to lobby on sovereignty issues for a tribe as recently as this year but did not personally lobby, transition aides and a tribe official said.

Mark Gitenstein, A transition advisory board member (and leading contender for Office of Legal Policy, DoJ) was registered until August to lobby on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AT&T Inc. and financial firms such as Ernst & Young LLP and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.



Source for item below is: www.lngpollutes.org/downloads/24-nov-08_RACE%20letter%20to%20Obama%20transition%20FINAL.pdf

David J. Hayes (Deputy Secretary of the Interior) and Robert Sussman (Secretary to the EPA) are lawyers in the firm Latham & Watkins which has been outside counsel to Sempra Energy for many years. Latham & Watkins partner David Hayes was a lobbyist for Sempra Energy in 2006. Former Latham & Watkins partner (as of 2007) Robert Sussman was one of a handful of Latham & Watkins partners in the environment practice area in the Latham & Watkins Washington DC office, working under David Hayes, during his long tenure at the firm.

Mr. Hayes tenure as deputy secretary at Interior during the Clinton Administration is laudable. However, that was a long time ago. A Latham & Watkins attorney that was a Sempra lobbyist should not be serving in any official capacity with the Obama-Biden transition team, much less as the overall EPA, DOE, Interior, Agriculture Agency Review Team Lead. Mr. Hayes’ role as a Latham & Watkins attorney advocating for Sempra Energy makes him unsuitable for the function he has been assigned on the transition team.

Mr. Sussman is equally unsuitable for his role on the transition team for similar reasons. Mr. Sussman’s tenure as assistant administrator at EPA during the Clinton Administration is to be commended. However, his long tenure as a partner at Latham & Watkins following his time in the Clinton Administration, a period when the Bush Administration was dismantling environmental and energy facility siting protections while Latham & Watkins aggressively advocated for such changes on behalf of clients like Sempra, makes him an inappropriate choice to have a substantive hand in the selection of appointees to the EPA in the Obama Administration.

We do not feel that either Mr. Hayes or Mr. Sussman can be honest brokers in the selection of Obama Administration political appointees. We respectfully request that these gentlemen be replaced as Obama-Biden Transition Team leads. High level political appointees to EPA, Interior, DOE, and Agriculture will naturally feel beholden to a degree to Mr. Hayes if he has a key role in advancing their appointments. High level political appointees to EPA will feel beholden to Mr. Sussman. This is not a time to have advocates of the status quo, at best, directing the evaluation and selection of candidates for key agency positions.


Lanny Breuer – Assistant AG for DoJ’s Criminal Division; Also lobbyist for Yahoo! Last few years. Remember the recent Yahoo-Google antitrust case of last year?

There are at least 3 other recent Lobbyists being considered strongly, but not yet nominated...or otherwise earning money from the Obama administration.
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Reply Mon 23 Mar, 2009 11:59 am
Well, Politifact reports another Obama campaign promise broken....this one on lobbyists and special interests working in the White House.

this makes 3 broken, 3 stalled, 6 compromised, and 19 kept...not too bad, but this one just ruled broken was one of Obama's hallmarks on the campaign trail and thus is sure to sting...and be fodder for justified repub attacks.


Quote:


Former lobbyist in the White House? It's okay if they say it's okay.
Updated: Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | By Angie Drobnic Holan

Of the 513 promises we're tracking, this one has become the most controversial. It is the cornerstone of President Obama's campaign theme about limiting the influence of special interests.

During the campaign, Obama said many times that lobbyists would not run his White House, and the campaign delighted in tweaking rival John McCain for the former lobbyists who worked on McCain's campaign.

Obama's ethics proposals specifically spelled out that former lobbyists would not be allowed to "work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years." On his first full day in office, Obama signed an executive order to that effect.

But the order has a loophole — a "waiver" clause that allows former lobbyists to serve. That waiver clause has been used at least three times, and in some cases, the administration allows former lobbyists to serve without a waiver.

After examining the administration's actions for the past two months, we have concluded that Obama has broken this promise.

The waiver process in the executive order is certainly official-looking. But the waivers are granted by the Obama administration itself, and are little more than the administration saying a former lobbyist is okay. For a candidate who pledged to conduct business out in the open, there is little transparency about when a waiver is required. Even good-government advocates we spoke with who praised Obama's overall policy found the waiver process to be unclear.

By itself, the nomination of former Raytheon lobbyist William J. Lynn to be deputy defense secretary provides sufficient evidence for us to rate this a broken promise. Lynn's waiver requires that he not participate "personally and substantially" in any matter in which Raytheon is a party for one year, which directly contradicts Obama's campaign pledge and executive order to make ex-lobbyists wait two years.

But there's more than just Lynn. The administration's handling of other former lobbyists provides further evidence that the promise has been broken:

* In some cases, the White House apparently has decided that former lobbyists don't need waivers at all. If the former lobbyists simply recuse themselves from discussions concerning whatever interest it is for which they used to lobby, then that suffices.

* Recusals appear to have even less documentation than waivers. We have yet to see a recusal "order," despite having asked the White House for them. We know there are at least two recusals; there may be more. We're not sure how recusals specifically differ from waivers because the White House has said little about the policy.

* The White House is not prompt about releasing the waivers. For two nominees who didn't require Senate approval, waivers were released weeks after they were signed and after the people took their positions. These two waivers were also substantially less detailed than the waiver issued for Lynn.

<<<snip>>>
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