Obama’s Labor Department Is Serious About Ethics…Except When It Isn’t
by Don LoosOn January 8th, BigGovernment.com posted a blog that began, “Outrageously, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis and other DOL Obama appointees appear to have blatantly disregarded the President’s Executive Order #13490 – the Ethics Pledge.”
Somebody at the U.S. Department of Labor must be reading BigGovernment.com because just 11 days after the posting, the DOL ethics officer wrote a letter to The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix and provided copies of signed “EO 13490 ethics pledges.” (See related Foundation ongoing lawsuit against DOL for DOL’s failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act.) Each of these newly provided pledges matched the ethics order language (more on this in another post) unlike the self-administered waivers included in the publicly distributed pledges provided to ProPublica.org and referenced in the earlier blog.
In addition, the DOL ethics officer asserted that 51 people at the DOL have signed the ethics pledge and there has been only one (1) ethics waiver issued by DOL and that was for Naomi Walker. Her Job: Big Labor Liaison (an Associate Deputy Secretary position). Her past experience includes a stint as an AFL-CIO lobbyist among others. Walker’s ethics waiver is the subject of this blog.
Walker’s ethics waiver and its accompanying explanatory memo was approved “after consultation with the Counsel to the President” expose The President’s Ethics Executive Order for the joke that it is.
The ethics officer provides a four-page memo (probably written in a large part by the Counsel to the President) to justify the reasons that Walker must be provided an ethics waiver of Obama’s ethics executive order. My summary of the memo follows:
The Counsel to President Obama and the Department of Labor reached the conclusion that it would be impossible for Walker not to violate the Ethics Order because of her previous positions with the AFL-CIO; therefore, she must be granted an ethics waiver so that she can do the job for which she was appointed.
Wasn’t the reason for the ethics pledge to prevent appointing someone to a position where their previous employer could greatly benefit with them as a government insider?
Because of the circular logic of the waiver, it is important to note that the DOL ethics officer relied upon White House consultation. The reasons/excuses for providing the waiver as approved by the Counsel to the President are at complete odds with the Presidential Executive Order and President Obama’s claims that necessitated his Ethics Executive Order 13490.
President Obama claimed that he was creating “firm rules of the road,” yet this waiver clearly bypasses his proclaimed ethics rules:
The president then announced “firm rules of the road for my administration and all who serve in it … We need to close the revolving door that lets … them use their time in public service as a way to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people when they leave.
The Counsel to the President and the DOL ethics officer apparently do not believe this executive order created “firm rules of the road;” more like squishy rules of the road at best. Under the ethics rubric created by the DOL ethics waiver memo, appointing someone to a position where it would be impossible for them not to violate the Obama’s Ethic Executive Order is a legitimate reason to provide an ethics waiver.
This is what happens when Big Labor paybacks meet governmental reasoning, logic is thrown out the window.
The DOL ethics waiver and supporting reasoning clearly are not what President Obama promised during multiple campaign events and on his first full day as President as he grandiosely signed his Ethics Executive Order 13490.
The Administration’s actions speak louder than words. (And, yes there is already enough material for an “Obama Big Labor Department Ignores Ethics Pledge – Part III.”)
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52 Comments
I'm beginning to blatantly disregard this Presidency.
Wish I had a dime for every time there was a broken promise in Washington DC. I would buy everyone here their own private jet, with full staff of course. A summer home in the Mediterranean. A couple of vehicles to choose from. And all medical expenses for life. I'm pretty sure I would have some change left over, so we'll just put that toward the deficit, like normal people do…
I'm beginning to blatantly disregard this Presidency.
Wish I had a dime for every time there was a broken promise in Washington DC. I would buy everyone here their own private jet, with full staff of course. A summer home in the Mediterranean. A couple of vehicles to choose from. And all medical expenses for life. I'm pretty sure I would have some change left over, so we'll just put that toward the deficit, like normal people do…
Government and ethics should not be in the same paragraph, nor the same article for that matter.
To follow up on that logic – we could take very Progressive/Socialist loser and send them to Europe where they would not have to fundamentally transform sh*t with a lifetime pension and it would clean up our country completely and cost a helluva lot less than the Stimulus Bill, Helathscare and Cap and Tax. Hell, I would paty for Acorn to have its own Banana Republic.
You forget about the NEW RULES, ETHICS do not apply to ETHNICS. There is an 'over-ride' clause that excuses anyone from an ethnic background or those who purport themselves to be advocate for ethnics. You have to remember that when it comes to liberal progressives it is all about the NUANCES. Republican who see the world through principled lenses fail to appreciate that the libs can find exclusions to the rules whenever it suits them.
1st… Presidential Orders are Oscar Mayer Bologna!
2nd… Do as I say, not as I do… is that it? Lets do the right thing… unless of course the right thing isn't convenient, nor repays my buddies.
What a crock! Another item to add to the list of reasons NObama should be impeached and his administration sacked!
Another sham uncovered. It's never about what Obama says. The time for talk is over.
Only in government could there ever be such a thing as an "ethics waiver."
Only in government could there ever be such a thing as an "ethics waiver."
It takes a lawyer to come up with such insane concepts. Congressmen are provided with this document immediately after they take their oath of office.
Ethnics waver. StoryKeeper hit the nail on the head. This is EXACTLY what is wrong with everyday life in america. Prove me wrong!
Sorry, I couldn't stop laughing after I read the part about the President having an Executive Order regarding and "Ethics Pledge". ROFLAO….as if he has any idea what that would be.
No truth, no honesty, only lies and bullshot from this bunch of organized crooks..
Like Military Intelligence; Government Ethics is another contradiction in terms…..with this…administration..
"Are you sure Barry isn't a Hispanic"
Please Cowboy,…… did I ever say anything mean to you??????
Obama's administration is serious about ethics, except when it isn't.Which is 99.999% of the time.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Hanzo
Ethics???????? The only ethic they follow is 'THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS" Any guesses on what "THE CHOSEN ONE"s end is? The means is apparent now, promise all things to all people, get in, get the timer set and run for cover. When it all blows up blame it on Bush and welcome to the new Socialist Utopia The United Socialist States of America. Our motto "WE ARE SORRY, IT WAS ALL BUSH'S FAULT"
Isn't "ethics" based on a personal moral code? So, of course it has no place in the collective! When the First Principle is doing what is "best" for everyone (a completely nonsensical and impossible goal) there is no room for personal "ethos."
Political correctness is their personal moral code. Hence the problem in the first place.
Does it suprise anyone that a Democrat from the Daley political machine has an Ethics waiver??? Where do you think the Dems get the dead vote and the vote early and often themes from……
Hilda Solis once just California's nightmare now the rest of the counties nightmare. Love how Obama loves to appoint all the back benchers.
Obama loves to promote mediocrity.
Just think. Women and blacks couldn't even vote before 1912 because they didn't own property! Otherwise, this coming destruction could have happened a lot earlier! Aren't you just lucky, America?
Every time I think the corruption spigot is turned on full it gets another quarter turn.
Apparently this administration has taken on the age old question of "How low can you go" and sees no bottom in sight.
It is a bit desensitizing though isn't it?
I think a new icon painted on the sides of buildings as a form of civil disobediance might start popping up, not that I am promoting it.
That little icon on coke/vending machines that shows a guy getting crushed when the machine tips onto him, just add "OBAMA" on the side of the rectangled that represents the machine and there you go.
Good grief Don. Of course they are reading the BIGs. Obama's speech writers ran out of material months ago.
And its where staffers come to remember the truth. The lies have been told so often that even they forgot.
Why do we have a Department of Labor? Aren't labor negotiations between employer and employee or in the case of unions between union and employer. I don't see a place for government here.
anybody seen this one before?? saw it posted on another forum….
The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.” — Author Unknown
The Fresh Prince Of Bill Ayers will push this thing to a state of civil war and seize total power in the middle of the night, just like every other tin horn dictator that has ever used a gullible electorate to do so…
It's made up. There is no such thing, but that doesn't stop the Obama.
Ethics waiver.
WELCOME TO THE LAND OF THE SOVIETS WHERE LABOR IS FREE
Where global warming is evidenced by the coldness of the air.
Where we need to spend ourselves out of debt.
And it will all be televised on CSPAN.
Really citizen, really.
Obama and his little gang know their Marx
Oh wait, ethics are for any program or official that has not been connected to a union. Or a tax cheat, or… What the heck, waivers for everybody. Beer summit!
This is heavy politicking in full swing.
Now don't forget….This is the same guy whom everyone believes, when he says he was born in Hawaii, maybe he can write an executive order to validate that also!! Discovery granted by any number of Judges would solve a mystery, not of where Obama was born, but how many are involved in the cover-up!!! That's why they fight the revelations tooth and nail, there's a reason America has a 10% +/- approval rating of them, they are deceitful!!! End the fiasco, demand proof…..watch the RATS scatter!!!
The president then announced “firm rules of the road for my administration and all who serve in it … We need to close the revolving door that lets … them use their time in public service as a way to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people when they leave.
Firm rules of the road? more like the highway to hell!!!! The only thing that this president is firm about is destroying America. If the current president (osama) told me the sky was blue I would wonder why he told me, how much would it cost and what was in it for him? He hasn't even the slightest idea what ethics or morals are!!!!
Mediocrity would be a step up for this fool.
You will find your answer under 'entitlement mentality' aka: social justice.
The Founders thought of this. Hence, the 2nd Amendment.
This fraud wouldn't know ethics if it jumped up and bit him in the arse.
What is the office of the president elect?
You're cutting him a little slack aren't you?
where did you come from?
yea beer
Just wait until this turkey of a president uses the 'presidential pardon'. Prepare to be ill.
Ah, yes, "the office of the president-elect."
What a fragile little boy-king Barry is.
[...] Nor does it appear that Mr. Wood discusses union corruption, union violence, mafia involvement, union political influence, unionized companies closing, teachers unions protecting bad teachers, nor does Mr. Wood teach his [...]
I agree. Well written and great thoughts. It certainly is all about nuances!
[...] Nor does it appear that Mr. Wood discusses union corruption, union violence, mafia involvement, union political influence, unionized companies closing, teachers unions protecting bad teachers, nor does Mr. Wood teach his [...]
[...] » Obama’s Labor Department Is Serious About Ethics…Except When It Isn’t R… [...]
I am sick of the progressive determination to deny me my Freedom of Religion and to tyrannically Erase separation of church and state.
The Entire progressive platform is based solely on their own sanctimonious religious beliefs. They spout their progressive religion about what everyone "Should" do, "morally" but that is a religion, not a political platform
Did America vote to abolish Freedom of Religion? Did America vote to abolish Separation of church and state?
No, yet Progressives demand that everyone in America pay TRIBUTE to their religion… via 'stimulus'
super-debt, cap and trade super-tax, health care takeover with super-tax, etc. etc. Progressivism seeks to become the State Political Religion of the USA and already Demands every American citizen to bow down and cough up to the Progressive State Political Religion. Well I'm not having it.
They are entitled to their Progressive Religion, and they're stuck with their political priests telling them what to think, what to say, what to do, and how many millions they have to Pay their political priests to obtain their Political Priest's forgiveness. And that mighty price tag doesn't seem to be going anywhere down in the future.
They are free to practice their religious moral system, – as long as its legal. As American citizens, they have that right. Every Progressive can decide to give any percentage of their income to anyone they claim to want to 'help' with absolute freedom in America.
Mmmm the silence is deafening.
But their Progressive Religious Morality is not incumbent upon me, my legally protected freedom, my income or my government, and that includes even if they take office. We have separation of church and state. No politician can demand American citizens to bankroll their religious convictions, no matter how 'green'.
Sorry, that's illegal.
I am an American citizen. Their Religion is not my Religion. And we have separation of Church and state. This destruction of the separation of church and state must be stopped. I Believe we will rise to the higher ground and reclaim our Liberty. May God bless America.
Whooooa…. Vic may be a mole… I heard they were going to invade, but whoa… he may be so right…
I speak as an American woman. "Giving" women, or anyone, the right to vote, for 5 minutes a year, and then making every one of them a tax-slave forced to feed the parasites of government corruption for the rest of their life, isnt my idea of Freedom!
I might propose the "Change" from property ownership as qualification for the right to vote, to universal voting rights as the very lynchpin in the festering dream of the progressive movement to dismember the American freedom machine. I'd be very interested in the vested-interests that swung that switch.
Seems to me that was sold on ballyhooed malarky about 'we'd never enter a war again,cause no woman would ever vote to send her son into battle… ah yes… 'peace in our time' how'd that turn out for ya? In 2 years WW1.
Remember friends before 1912, 1000's of white American men also could not vote.
Why!? Because if you want a vote in governance decisions, government projects, you must at least be willing to put Your money where your mouth is. That was a good safe-guard. If you had property, you were deemed flush enough to foot the bill and pay the taxes for your government plans. No Pay, No Play!
To their advantage any white male Americans before 1912 who did not have their own home were not forced to shell out to provide for the upkeep or projects of their government. Sounds Good to me. All the advantages of citizenship and none of the costs.
Recently because of the information Act, Britain's Labor Party admitted to implementing massive immigration policies specifically to change the voting numbers to their favor. Unfortunately not enough people in their country always voted Labor, so the Labor Party insidiously decided to import millions of immigrants into England in order to "fix" the elections 'legally' and cement their power,.(And incidentally keep their own hands in the tax-till.)
Sound like progressive clamor to give illegal aliens the vote?
Pre 1912 American voting laws safe-guarded the entire population, men, and women of all colors, from criminal corruption on a massive national scale. Because to restrict the voting population to only those who are propertied; citizens who are financially self-reliant enough to own their own home (and therefore pay taxes) created a voting population that would Vote freely for what they wanted to Pay for with their own taxes.
At least the voting citizens would not be gullible "victim mentality dupes" for any carpetbagging con artist wanting to get his hands in the government till.
The Only voting rule that needed change in 1912 was: include ALL property owning citizens; women, blacks, etc. as voters. Then we really wouldn't be in the distorted debt, corruption, taxation-slave crisis we're in today.
Its those very 20th century progressive socialist con-artist promises, made to the gullible unpropertied, that led our entire American citizenry, those very blacks, women, etc. like lambs to the progressive's taxation-slave slaughterhouse. The very taxation-slave slaughterhouse that we must now free our entire people from.
And that includes all those 'disenfranchised' women and blacks, brother.
The corrupt progressive socialist machine will enslave them ALL regardless of race creed or color, brother… That's the progressive corruption of the American dream.
Don't give me your sob-sister crocodile tears for the poor diverse "underclasses" progressives divided up, labeled and chose to cut off from the American dream. It's sob sister progressivism that has put them all in this prison, its sob sister progressivism that took away their liberty and threw away the key, laughing all the way to the bank.
The founding fathers set up a liberty machine. and it even included you. Say you are an American citizen, you are protected with justice by all the laws of our land. If you are a propertied citizen, then you have the right to participate in governing our land because you will be paying with your own taxes for those decisions.
The American dream of United we stand, divided we fall is that America is an all inclusive meritocracy,
and every citizen is invited, regardless of race, class or religion to participate.
Vic may be a mole… I, but whoa… he may be so right…
I speak as an American woman. "Giving" women, or anyone, the right to vote, for 5 minutes a year, and then making every one of them a tax-slave forced to feed the parasites of government corruption for the rest of their life, isnt my idea of Freedom!
I might propose the "Change" from property ownership as qualification for the right to vote, to universal voting rights as the very lynchpin in the festering dream of the progressive movement to dismember the American freedom machine. I'd be very interested in the vested-interests that swung that switch.
Seems to me that was sold on ballyhooed malarky about 'we'd never enter a war again,cause no woman would ever vote to send her son into battle… ah yes… 'peace in our time' how'd that turn out for ya? In 2 years WW1.
Remember friends before 1912, 1000's of white American men also could not vote.
Why!? Because if you want a vote in governance decisions, government projects, you must at least be willing to put Your money where your mouth is. That was a good safe-guard. If you had property, you were deemed flush enough to foot the bill and pay the taxes for your government plans. No Pay, No Play!
To their advantage any white male Americans before 1912 who did not have their own home were not forced to shell out to provide for the upkeep or projects of their government. Sounds Good to me. All the advantages of citizenship and none of the costs.
Recently because of the information Act, Britain's Labor Party admitted to implementing massive immigration policies specifically to change the voting numbers to their favor. Unfortunately not enough people in their country always voted Labor, so the Labor Party insidiously decided to import millions of immigrants into England in order to "fix" the elections 'legally' and cement their power,.(And incidentally keep their own hands in the tax-till.)
Sound like progressive clamor to give illegal aliens the vote?
Pre 1912 American voting laws safe-guarded the entire population, men, and women of all colors, from criminal corruption on a massive national scale. Because to restrict the voting population to only those who are propertied; citizens who are financially self-reliant enough to own their own home (and therefore pay taxes) created a voting population that would Vote freely for what they wanted to Pay for with their own taxes.
At least the voting citizens would not be gullible "victim mentality dupes" for any carpetbagging con artist wanting to get his hands in the government till.
The Only voting rule that needed change in 1912 was: include ALL property owning citizens; women, blacks, etc. as voters. Then we really wouldn't be in the distorted debt, corruption, taxation-slave crisis we're in today.
Its those very 20th century progressive socialist con-artist promises, made to the gullible unpropertied, that led our entire American citizenry, those very blacks, women, etc. like lambs to the progressive's taxation-slave slaughterhouse. The very taxation-slave slaughterhouse that we must now free our entire people from.
And that includes all those 'disenfranchised' women and blacks, brother.
The corrupt progressive socialist machine will enslave them ALL regardless of race creed or color, brother… That's the progressive corruption of the American dream.
Don't give me your sob-sister crocodile tears for the poor diverse "underclasses" progressives divided up, labeled and chose to cut off from the American dream. It's sob sister progressivism that has put them all in this prison, its sob sister progressivism that took away their liberty and threw away the key, laughing all the way to the bank.
The founding fathers set up a liberty machine. and it even included you. Say you are an American citizen, you are protected with justice by all the laws of our land. If you are a propertied citizen, then you have the right to participate in governing our land because you will be paying with your own taxes for those decisions.
The American dream of United we stand, divided we fall is that America is an all inclusive meritocracy,
and every citizen is invited, regardless of race, class or religion to participate.
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