Bump bump bum go the tires on the bus.

[gsvol]

and another one bites the dust.

President Barry H. S. Obama's pick for the No. 2 post at the Environmental Protection Agency abruptly removed himself from consideration Wednesday, saying the controversy surrounding a foundation he once belonged to would distract from the agency's work.



Jon Cannon once served on the now-defunct organization's board of directors.

The EPA's inspector general concluded in 2007 that the foundation mismanaged $25 million in EPA grants that it had received to help identify environmental risks on farms and to assist states and tribes in complying with water pollution laws. The report found that the foundation could not properly account for the money it had been granted.

[volinbham]

the smoothest transition ever in the history of the universe continues...

[gsvol]

As the band plays on!

(Tip, you just gotta read the second page of the link.)

[gsvol]

Originally Posted by volinbham

the smoothest transition ever in the history of the universe continues...

What Is It with Democrats and Taxes?

Apparently Murphy isn’t even meeting up to the standard set by Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle: at least they had the sense to pay their back taxes before they stepped into the national spotlight.

Obama’s job approval slipping to ‘50-50’

Lobbyists Are First Winners in Obama’s Clean-Technology Push

At first glance, SmartSpark Energy Systems looks like a lot of technology startups. It raised $6 million in venture capital, employs 24 people and doesn’t make any money.

What sets the company apart: It has two teams of lobbyists.

Another organization, called Cleantech and Green Business for Obama,...........................raised $1.6 million for the president’s campaign last year.

Iranian lobbyists, several of them former government officials, have been granted access to the Obama administration.

"A complex network of individuals and organizations with ties to the clerical regime in Teheran is pressing forward in seeming synchrony to influence the new U.S. administration's policy towards the Islamic republic of Iran,"

Today, the report said, key figures in such U.S. think tanks as the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute for Science and International Security and the Woodrow Wilson Center have become supporters of a diplomatic approach toward a nuclear Iran.

Obama began talks with the Iranian lobby during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The report, based on open sources, said Obama met a leading pro-Iranian lobbyist, Hassam Qazwini, head of the Islamic Center of America, in May 2008. Since then, Obama has been appointing or preparing to name such leading pro-Iranian speakers such as Richard Haas, Vali Nasr, Dennis Ross to senior positions in the administration. Ross has been selected to be Obama's special envoy to Iran.

Charles Freeman, appointed chairman of the National Intelligence Council, was identified as a key member of the Iranian lobby. Others cited by the report were U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Susan Rice, a predecessor, Thomas Pickering, [Ret.] Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering, former National Security Council official Gary Sick, former Rep. Robert Ney and Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat.

Ney, convicted of accepting bribes in 2006, was directed by his then-aide Trita Parsi, who later became a key pro-Iranian lobbyist and president of the National Iranian-American Council. The report identified Parsi, a Swedish-Iranian, as a leading organizer in winning support for a U.S. rapproachment with Iran from prominent Americans, many of whom with access to Obama.