Now He Tells Us!
Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says he was instructed when he joined the administration not to “acknowledge” the existence of America’s drones program.
“When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was, you’re not even to acknowledge the drone program,” he said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes.” “You’re not even to discuss that it exists.”
Gibbs, who stressed that he was speaking only for himself, called that dynamic “crazy” and said that the lack of transparency surrounding the drones program “undermines” broader confidence in government.
“Here’s what’s inherently crazy about that proposition,” he said. “You’re being asked a question based on reporting of a program that exists. So you’re the official government spokesperson acting as if the entire program … pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. I think in many ways and I think what the president has seen — and I have not talked to him about this, I want to be careful. This is my opinion. But I think what the president has seen is our denial of the existence of the program when it’s obviously happening undermines people’s confidence overall in the decisions that their government makes.”
He called for lifting “the veil” on the issue.
“And in order to bolster that confidence and bolster the belief that we’re making those correct decisions on this policy, you do have to lift the veil some to both acknowledge that it exists, as [Obama’s] done, but also to do it in a way that provides better understanding,” Gibbs said.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/gibbs-i-was-told-dont-admit-drones-88025.html#ixzz2LvU4GLVW
Holla For A Dolla, States!
House releases state-by-state
breakdown of sequester’s effects
With the scorched earth maliciousness of eighth
grade
girls, White House concentrates on John Boehner's home state.
Affordable Healthcare? For Whom?!
CRONY NATION: Obama Ally Got $340 Million To Set Up Health Care Co-ops. But that’s just the beginning. And they forgot about the Wayback Machine:
A health insurance company headed by an old friend from President Obama’s days as a community organizer got a $340 million federal loan to establish Obamacare co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon despite having a chronic record of consumer and regulatory complaints.
The New York-based Freelancers Insurance Company has been rated the “worst” insurer for two straight years by state regulators, and data compiled by a national insurance association show an extremely high rate of consumer complaints.
The firm was founded in 2008 by Sara Horowitz, who worked with Obama before his career in elective politics to launch Demos, a left-wing, New York think tank funded in part by George Soros.
Before May 13, 2011, the Demos website described Horowitz and Obama as members of the founding group in 1999 that became “the core of Demos’ staff and Board of Trustees.”Sometime between that date and Nov. 6, 2011, the Obama reference was deleted, according to cached versions of the site stored by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.