Ten reports have gone missing. Under a federal law passed in 2008, President Barack Obama is required to nominate members of a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent office in the executive branch of the U.S. Government. Fusion Center administrators and information sharing specialists are required by law to take civil liberties [...]

When he ran for President in 2008, Barack Obama promised to restore our constitutional rights and the rule of law. He has not done so. In fact, by signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 into law today, Obama has expanded George W. Bush’s attacks on the Constitution.

The National Defense Authorization Act gives the federal government power to throw Americans into prison for as long as it likes, without criminal trial, and without criminal charge. President Obama has declared his support for this totalitarian provision. As a result, protests against Obama and the Democratic Party have erupted across America.

Representatives and senators will all offer conspicuous memorials of the relatively small number of deaths from terrorist attack, because those deaths fit nicely within their chosen political frame: The idea that Americans have to fear evil foreigners, and spend huge amounts of money on military machines to provide for defense.

To confront the much more dangerous threat from smog is less convenient to their political agendas. To reduce the threat of smog would, after all, require Americans to look at their own behaviors, and for powerful corporate donors to restrain their impulse to seize profit regardless of the consequences.

Why is the caucus refusing to confront Barack Obama’s anti-progressive agenda on these two issues? Is it because the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are Democrats, and Barack Obama is also a Democrat? The caucus appears to be using its Progressive Promise as a partisan tool to use when it benefits the Democratic Party, and to ignore when it becomes politically inconvenient.

Tom Carper intends to hold Obama Administration officials accountable for the President’s embrace of pro-smog policies. Carper will hold a hearing of the Clean Air Subcommittee about the decision to abandon anti-ozone regulations, at which Obama White House officials will be forced to testify.

With her weak statement on Obama’s capitulation to the American Petroleum Institute, Barbara Boxer took a step toward sacrificing environmental needs on the altar of partisan loyalty. If she is to retain the trust of American environmentalists, Senator Barbara Boxer needs to stop making excuses for Barack Obama, and denounce with clarity the Obama Administration’s abandonment of environmental responsibility and scientific integrity.

As J. Clifford notes at Irregular Times, in April of 2011 President Barack Obama wrote a draft of an executive order (which you can read here) requiring all corporations contracting with the federal government to publicly disclose expenditures they make to political campaigns. You might be wondering what the big deal is about this draft [...]

Representative Barbara Lee and the Out of Poverty Caucus sent a letter to Barack Obama yesterday, warning him not to go ahead with his plan to cut Medicaid and Medicare.

Senator Bernard Sanders is challenging Barack Obama not to cave in to the Republicans’ budget demands, as he has caved in to them so often in the past.