Obama Makes “Environmental Justice” a Defense and Homeland Security Issue

Judicial Watch

Though it is unrelated to their mission, the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Housing are among the federal agencies that will focus on helping minorities get green under an Obama administration plan that aims to bring “environmental justice” to poor and underserved communities nationwide.

The effort was launched by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last fall and the agency has doled out millions of dollars in “environmental justice grants” to dozens of left-wing groups, including some dedicated to helping illegal immigrants. Earlier this year the administration dedicated an additional $7 million to study how pollution, stress and social factors affect “poor and underserved communities”…

As if it weren’t bad enough that millions of dollars have already gone to this initiative, the president is further wasting valuable taxpayer resources by forcing other federal agencies, most with unrelated duties, to participate. Besides the previously mentioned, the Department of Education, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Transportation, Justice, Health and Labor have all been forced to develop “environmental justice strategies to protect the health of people living in communities overburdened by population.”

This week the agencies signed an official Memorandum of Understanding on Environmental Justice outlining some of their new duties. Under the agreement the agencies will make environmental justice part of their mission and they will provide the public with annual progress reports on their efforts. In a written statement, the Obama Administration proclaims that it’s the latest effort to address the inequities that may be present in some communities.

Obama’s EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, has promised to bring minorities environmental justice since getting appointed, saying that all too often they live in the shadows of our society’s worst pollution and, as a result, face disproportionate health impacts and greater obstacles to economic growth.

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Fed Funding for La Raza Skyrockets After Obama Hires Its VP

Judicial Watch

A Judicial Watch investigation reveals that federal funding for a Mexican La Raza group that for years has raked in millions of taxpayer dollars has skyrocketed since one of its top officials got a job in the Obama White House.

The influential and politically-connected National Council of La Raza (NCLR) has long benefited from Uncle Sam’s largess but the group has made a killing since Obama hired its senior vice president, Cecilia Muñoz, in 2009 to be his director of intergovernmental affairs.

Ignored by the mainstream media, Judicial Watch covered the appointment because the president issued a special “ethics waiver” to bring Muñoz aboard since it violated his own lobbyist ban. At the pro illegal immigration NCLR, Muñoz supervised all legislative and advocacy activities on the state and local levels and she was heavily involved in the congressional immigration battles that took place in the George W. Bush Administration.

She also brought in a steady flow of government cash that’s allowed the Washington D.C.-based group to expand nationwide and promote its leftist, open-borders agenda via a network of community organizations dedicated to serving Latinos. Among them are a variety of local groups that provide social services, housing counseling and farm worker assistance as well as publicly-funded charter schools that promote radical Chicano curriculums. Judicial Watch published a special report on this a few years ago.

This week a JW probe has uncovered details of the alarming increase in federal funding that these NCLR groups have received since Muñoz joined the Obama administration. In fact, the government cash more than doubled the year Muñoz joined the White House, from $4.1 million to $11 million.

Not surprisingly, a big chunk of the money (60 percent) came from the Department of Labor, which is headed by a former California congresswoman, Hilda Solis, with close ties to the La Raza movement….

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The Media’s “Experts” Always Err in Obama’s Favor

Kevin “Coach” Collins, FloydReports.com

In 1954 a genius with a sharp eye for talent advised a young Elvis Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, Son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Everyday we are bombarded with news of shocked “experts” having to once again admit they were wrong. In most cases this hapless bunch of Charlie Browns isn’t any more expert than the man who dismissed Presley. So we don’t lose sight of their embarrassing claptrap, here are a few “expert” predictions we have been insulted with recently.

In spite of “expert” sentiment to the contrary, America’s manufacturing sector has slowed “more than expected” and in fact has fallen to September 2009 levels. The geniuses at the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) didn’t just miss this one their expectation was barely in the same area code. The ISM expected its growth index would fall 2.7, not the actual 6.9 points it tumbled.

The 38,000 new private sector jobs added in May provide another example of surprised “experts” having to stammer out an explanation of how they could be so wrong.

In May private sector companies in the U.S. added fewer workers than forecast by….

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Biden to Union Thugs: You Keep “Barbarians from the Gate”

Chicago Style $300 Billion Payoff Secures Obamacare Debate

Obamacare took another step toward passage this weekend with a party line vote to allow debate in the US Senate. It takes 60 votes to start debate and the 60 Democrats under the maniacal leadership of Harry Reid accomplished the task.

But the weekend should serve notice to the naïve amongst us that the Chicago style corruption of politics has captured Washington DC with the election of Barrack Hussein Obama. The corruption of the process was in full display as Reid brokered a deal in public to send 300 billion dollars of your tax money to Louisiana in exchange for the vote of Senator Mary Landrieu. Even the Washington Post was ashamed of the open corruption.

Mary Landrieu and Reid discuss Chicago style pay-off

Post political reporter Dana Milbank wrote about the details in Sunday’s edition of the paper saying:

“Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.
On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix."

It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping — the bill survived Saturday’s procedural test without a single vote to spare — and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics. If that wasn’t enough of a Tennessee Williams story line, the debate even had, playing the lead role, a Southerner named Blanche with a flair for the dramatic.”

If you are not sick to your stomach about the level of open chicanery in DC and if this doesn’t concern you, then you are hopeless.

If the open corruption in the US Senate isn’t enough we learned from the National Right to Work that Hilda Solis and the other trade unionists running the Labor Department are thumbing their noses at the supposedly open government rules of boss Obama.

In a report at BigGovernment.com,  Don Loos writes:

On Friday, 20 November 2009, The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation (Foundation) decided enough was enough and filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court demanding that they compel the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to comply with the Foundation’s April 6th Freedom of information Act (FOIA) request.
The Foundation’s FOIA requested:

Records from communications and recorded events where specified Obama appointees and Big Labor official were present.

Lists of lawsuits involving the Department of Labor and Deborah Greenfield within the past eight years.

List of any gifts received by Solis in the past 5 years from Big Labor or its officials
Specifically provide in detail (a) notes, (b) agreements, (c) communications, and (d) agendas related to the regulations related to the labor union and officer disclosure rules

Copies of phone logs

Copies of any notes or documents related to any enforcement of any labor laws and any outside groups such as labor unions, American Rights at Work, or ACORN
Obama’s Labor Department Ignores His Transparency Guidance

Remember January 21, 2009, when President Barack Obama proclaimed the new era of more open and transparent government began? This U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy memorandum is a good reminder:

On his first full day in office, January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The President directed that FOIA “should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”

Moreover, the President instructed agencies that information should not be withheld merely because “public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

Agencies were directed to respond to requests “promptly and in a spirit of cooperation.”

So in different ways this weekend the corruption of our national leaders was on display. Corruption in the legislative branch, and corruption in the administrative branch is easy for all to see.

We can be thankful the Founding Fathers of our great nation gave the tool of impeachment to make corrections. Our impeachment is strong and vibrant. If you haven’t signed the petition or shared it with your friends maybe this weekend will motivate you.

Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/ygz4wfe