White House Visitor Logs Not So Transparent
Forced by a legal settlement to disclose White House visitors, the Obama Administration has reluctantly revealed a smidgen of the high-dollar fundraisers, lobbyists and celebrities who have visited the executive mansion and disputed the identities of various controversial figures.
Never the less, the administration is shamelessly touting the publication of its selective visitor list as “transparency like you’ve never seen before” even though it includes only 110 names out of the hundreds of thousands who have been to the White House since Obama moved in. The list includes executives of bailed-out banks, Washington’s biggest Democratic lobbyists, renowned civil rights leaders, famous athletes, Hollywood stars and major donors.
Mayor Owes $239,000 In Taxes
A prominent big-city mayor who served nearly three decades in the U.S. House and headed its powerful Armed Services Committee owes nearly a quarter of a million dollars in back income taxes even though his annual salary and congressional pension amount to almost $300,000.
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums failed to pay income taxes for at least three years and owes Uncle Sam $239,000, according to a local news report that reminds the flashy veteran politician that being a tax delinquent violates his civic duty as both a public official and a citizen.
His annual salary for being mayor of California’s eighth-largest city is $184,000 and his congressional pension is more than $100,000 a year.
Tax-eaters and Bureaucratic Paper-polluters
Unemployed for more than a year, [Delinda Epstein] now lives in a tiny apartment ... Desperate to pay the rent, Epstein decided to post an ad on Craigslist offering to do small chores, run errands, and perform other odd jobs in exchange for a negotiated fee.
[S]she received a call from a man identifying himself as “Richie,” who wanted to be picked up at the airport and shuttled over to Rhodes Ranch ... Epstein drove to the airport, picked up the man, and negotiated a $30 fee.
Immediately thereafter, a badge-wielding goon rapped on her windshield and announced that he and “Richie” were undercover officers with the Transportation Authority (TA). Epstein was slapped with a $3,800 fine for offering “unlicensed transportation services.”
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office (BSO), along with bureaucratic paper-polluters and armed donut-maulers state-wide, has been running a “sting” targeting unlicensed, out-of-work construction contractors offering to perform construction and repair work. Such transactions are referred to as “economic crimes.”
Senate Defense Shrouded in Mystery
Citizens Against Government Waste today released its preliminary analysis of the Senate version of the fiscal year 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act.
There are 809 projects worth $9.3 billion, including:
$6,570,269,000 added anonymously for 16 projects. This figure equates to 71 percent of the dollar amount included for earmarks in the bill. According to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 ... senators are required to add their name to each earmark. However, they continue to violate this law by adding anonymous earmarks to fund projects often big-ticket items at the expense of taxpayers.
$2,500,000,000 added anonymously for ten additional C-17 aircraft ... $1,737,733,000 added anonymously for production of an additional DDG-51 destroyer ... “to be built in Pascagoula, Miss., home to Republican Sen. Thad Cochran" ...
