The Obama Administration Thread

[Wryan]

Three out of four ain't bad. Though I'm mixed on the closing of Gitmo. Where are they going to go? US prisons?

Welcome to The Rock!

[MadMan]

Welcome to The Rock!

Hah. Hey man, the prison and its facilities are still there.....

[number8]

Three out of four ain't bad. Though I'm mixed on the closing of Gitmo. Where are they going to go? US prisons?

Why not? Life sentences in super max. See how terrorists fare against redneck inmates and gangbangers!

[Sycophant]

Three out of four ain't bad.

Which one don't you like?

Guys, I really do think Obama's off to a pretty good start here.

[Raiders]

Which one don't you like?

Has there not been enough time after all these years for evidence against Ali al-Marri to be obtained without having to have further delay? If not, then I would like to see an investigation into the previous administration's actions. I would also like to see a change in the law stating the president can detain a US citizen without charge for their natural-born life.

[Sycophant]

Ah, thought so. From what I've read, the though, Al-Marri thing is a complete reevaluation of his system and the procedure, as opposed to a simple delay. I think it's to make sure we don't fuck things up one way or the other. The language in the order does say it should be done "expeditiously."

[Benny Profane]

Has there not been enough time after all these years for evidence against Ali al-Marri to be obtained without having to have further delay? If not, then I would like to see an investigation into the previous administration's actions. I would also like to see a change in the law stating the president can detain a US citizen without charge for their natural-born life.

I don't know much about this guy, but what David7 posted above was that he's a legal resident, not a citizen, which changes things, obviously, though I agree nobody should be held for their whole life without some sort of hearing.

[ledfloyd]

link

i consider the fact that he's already pissing pelosi off a good sign.

[Milky Joe]

I agree, but...

Pelosi is also pushing for an investigation into the Bush administration's handling of the Justice Department, while Obama and his aides say there are other priorities besides focusing on the administration they are succeeding.

"I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of, for example, the Justice Department, go unreviewed," Pelosi said last weekend. "Past is prologue."

Before becoming president, Obama made it clear that investigating the Bush administration wasn't a priority.

Over in the Senate, Reid has taken a similar stance to Pelosi's. In an interview with The Hill earlier this month, the Democrat said, "I don't believe in the executive power trumping everything. ... I believe in our Constitution, three separate but equal branches of government."

...how is he pissing her off? she seems to be in the right here. what a clusterfuck.

[Sycophant]

Well, apparently the Al-Marri thing is a good thing for Al-Marri and the whole awful deal surrounding him. The ACLU just sent me an email celebrating Obama's actions (the ACLU hasn't sent me a happy email in a while). Amongst congratulations to Obama for the other three things, it said:

Delayed the trial of Ali al-Marri, an ACLU client whose case is at the center of the Supreme Court’s review of indefinite detention policies.

[megladon8]

I'm just glad we now have an American president who feels comfortable fisting his wife in public.


EDIT: For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Source: CNN

Barack Obama issued four executive orders Thursday undoing detention policies of George W. Bush:

• One requiring that the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay be closed within a year.
• A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. The order essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.
• A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.
• A fourth executive order delays the trial of Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident who has been contesting his detention for more than five years as an enemy combatant in a military brig without the government bringing any charges against him

It's almost as though he were trying to do what's right.

[number8]

Ha! Obama staff finds White House computers totally uncool:

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

"It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.

One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28787998/

[number8]

They really need to make a Mac/PC ad with Obama and Bush now.

[number8]

I want a Gigapan camera.

[Scar]

There'll always be black ops shit going on around the world. Now its back to the way its always been.

[shaun]

and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

That's pretty standard in any corporate environment with confidential or sensitive information. We don't allow our typical employees to access their Yahoo or GMail accounts, because let's face it, a lot of them are retarded and will click on any spam/virus laden email that comes in. It's a major security hole and puts the internal network at risk.

It's also makes any outbound flow of potentially confidential information harder to track.

[Mara]

That's pretty standard in any corporate environment with confidential or sensitive information. We don't allow our typical employees to access their Yahoo or GMail accounts, because let's face it, a lot of them are retarded and will click on any spam/virus laden email that comes in. It's a major security hole and puts the internal network at risk.

It's also makes any outbound flow of potentially confidential information harder to track.

There was a big... thing... a couple of years ago with this. I'm forgetting which scandal, but someone was trying to get a bunch of information from the White House under the Freedom of Information Act, and it turns out a boatload of official business was being conducted via personal e-mail, which they had trouble getting subpeonas for.

What was that about? Was that the CIA leak, too, or do I just have that on the brain today?

[number8]

That's pretty standard in any corporate environment with confidential or sensitive information. We don't allow our typical employees to access their Yahoo or GMail accounts, because let's face it, a lot of them are retarded and will click on any spam/virus laden email that comes in. It's a major security hole and puts the internal network at risk.

It's also makes any outbound flow of potentially confidential information harder to track.

Well, of course these are all pretty standard, but I think the point is that the Obama camp relied so much on popular social networking to connect with the general public during the campaign (say, they can upload a video address on the White House site, but they'd prefer uploading it to YouTube). I think in the next month or two Obama is going to allow his staff to overhaul the system. Bring in Macs and have specialists fit federal security measures so they can access Gmail and Facebook and all that without security risks.

[Mara]

Okay, I did some old-fashioned Googling. The scandal was the firing of the eight federal prosecuters back in 2007. It was suspected that outside e-mail servers were used to evade record-keeping requirements.

[shaun]

What was that about? Was that the CIA leak, too, or do I just have that on the brain today?

You're right, but it looks like the was tied to the US Attorney firing scandal. It also appears that allowing White House access to outside email accounts would be illegal per the Presidential Records Act.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041000832.html

"A top Democratic lawmaker says outside email accounts were used in an attempt to avoid scrutiny; the White House says their purpose was to avoid using government resources for political activities, although they were used to discuss the firing of U.S. attorneys."

[Mara]

It's actually a pretty fine line. From the article that Shaun linked:

"'At the end of the day, it looks like they were trying to avoid the records act . . . by operating official business off the official systems,' said John Podesta, who worked in the White House for the entire Clinton presidency, including a stint as chief of staff. . . .

"White House officials dispute the criticisms, saying the purpose of the RNC accounts has been to avoid running afoul of another federal law, the Hatch Act. It prohibits many federal officials from engaging in political activity on government time or with government resources."

Basically:

*If they are discussing official White House business, they are required by law to use the official White House e-mail.

*If they are discussing "political activity" (like, I assume, election campaigns) they are forbidden by law to use the official White House e-mail.

[DavidSeven]

I'm forgetting which scandal

A perfect encapsulation of the Bush era IMHO.

[Mara]

Perhaps someone would clarify something for me?

Obama to let states set auto emission rules.

In a nutshell:

Fourteen states will be able to mandate greater auto fuel efficiency than the federal government requires under a plan that President Obama will announce on Monday, a senior administration official said.

...

The waiver was denied under former President George W. Bush.

Now, I'm not asking for an argument over whether or not this would work. What I don't understand is why, in this instance, it appears that a Democrat is arguing for stronger states' rights and weaker Federal control, while a Republican opposed it. I've always assumed that one of the absolutely fundamental differences between the parties was the state v. federal issue. Am I wrong? Has that shifted?

[shaun]

I'm more surprised that Obama is for it than I am that Bush was against it. Bush really wasn't a conservative in the traditional small government, Barry Goldwater mold.