White House website contradicts Bush administration claim that Office of Administration is not subject to FOIA requests
After learning that the Bush administration claimed that the Office of Administration wasn't subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, CREW did some research. Seems the White House website, which is an official voice of the Bush administration, states otherwise:
In fact, evidence that the Office of Administration is subject to FOIA requests is made here and here and here and here on the White House website and even once on the Department of Justice site here.
Melanie Sloan issued a statement about the Bush administration's claim about the Office of Administration:
The newly minted argument that the Office of Administration is not an agency is akin to the Vice President's declaration that he is not a part of the executive branch. One has to wonder if this is an effort by the White House to keep secret the details of how millions of White House email suddenly went missing.
The OA's disingenuous claim that it is not subject to the FOIA is contradicted by its own actions and statements. On the White House's own website, the OA is designated as one of the few components in the Executive Office of the President subject to the FOIA. The website also provides a link to the OA's FOIA regulations and identifies an OA FOIA officer.
Scroll past verbage garbage
for the most interesting comments at the bottom, starting with the Salt Lake Tribune article
To anon who's rightfully pissed at Americans
"You American's were all so proud when the Democrats took majority in the Senate and the Congress..."
Not I! I was hopeful, though, and that has gone to hell rapidly. Every day I pray to die, as I am old and infirm, not able to march any more. My country has become the most evil entity to ever exist and deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth. It's no consolation that I have been right about our warmongering deeds--they would bring us down--but, damn, it's wearisome to be told "love it or leave it" for decades on end. Too bad I never had the money to leave.
I'm so sorry, for all we have done, and for what I fear we are about to do. It looks like God is an SOB, siding with Bush.
God siding with Bush?
I feel the same way about the USA, except that it's very important to differentiate between the American people, who are basically decent, and their leadership. Yes, the US government has been an evil force from the moment it ordered the dropping of A-boms on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or even from the time it committed the first genocide in modern history by virtually exterminating the native American population and stealing its land.
But I disagree about God siding with Bush. On the contrary, the events in Iraq are the best proof that God had no hand in the Iraqi disaster. God, if there was one and if he were siding with Bush, would not have let him create the mess he did in Iraq. No, you can't blame the quagmire in Iraq on God, who by definition, is good.
Whatever...
You American's were all so proud when the Democrats took majority in the Senate and the Congress... I heard you people crow about how America would bounce back now that there was a real stabilizing force to conteract the Bush administration. On and freakin' on I heard American's tell me off because I kept speaking the truth... You're a nation of cowards and a nation lacking any depth, guts or sense...
When are you gonna realize that what Bush set in motion is now unstoppable. It disgusts me that Americans continue to sit on your over-fed, self indulgent asses and do nothing. To an American the idea of a protest means carrying a sign for an hour. Bollocks!!
I watched just recently as Yushenko supporters stood for weeks in the cold, wet and heat with flags waving. I saw them re-take their country in peceful demonstration. The problem with the cowardly American is that you're all scared to die for your country. You were scared during WWII and you haven't stopped running since.
America is a real tough nation... When it's sodomizing other nations less than half its size.
In closing, should America invade or bomb Iran, it wi forever affect me in that you will be declaring war on yet another nation of innocents. Are you as a nation prepared for the consequences? Are you prepared to go on vaction as a family and be attacked for no other reason thn the nation of your origin? It will happen, you know? This administration will ensure that millions of you will never be able to leave your soil for fear of being attacked. It's sad... Very sad. I used to admire my American brothers and sisters.
American's today hate those who aren't American. At least it sure seems that way. So, I guess those Brits and Germans and Aussies and Japanese and Mexican and South American and Central American----you get the drift.
"If American hate invades Iraq
the world will hate you back"
Please do something for yourselves before nuke from China or Russia does it for you. Grow up and start acting like human beings for once in you pathetic nationalistic existence. The world deserves it.
Whatever..
You should not critisize when you, yourself don't have the facts.
Maybe you need to go online there are plenty of protest by good patriotic americans who have been against this war from the very beginning and against this adminstration. You don't need a sign to protest to be heard, these are not the sixties, maybe you need to check out moveon.org.and few other places.I think you need a history lesson when you mention about World War II in a sentence you are damn lucky we were there. How dare you call Americans scared in world war II, alot of americans put there asses on the line to save yours and others. It is pretty sad that we have to police the whole world because you cannot take care of yourself. It was wrong to go into Iraq in the first place. I'am one who did not vote for this for this president because I knew he was a mistake.
He has one thing right though.
As citizens we are ultimately responsible for the actions of our government.
Speak for Yourself
I utterly and emphatically repudiate all this administration stands for and all it has done. The blame belongs on those who participated with gwb in his crimes, but most of all on Bush himself. May he answer for what he has done.
To paraphrase
No government in recorded history has ever stood against a people where the majority were willing to actively oppose it. If we have the means to stop this insanity and allow the government to continue to carry or atrocities, large and small, we share the responsibility.
You're forgetting ...
that this is Bushworld -- where up is down, black is white, and day is night.
Yeah, but...
...that was before we changed the website. Now it doesn't say any such thing.
Tommorrow, it will never have said any such thing.
Friday, anybody who claims it DID ever say any such thing is clearly anti-American, a tin-foil-hat conspiracy nut, and in league with the terrorists.
It never happened....
You have hit the bullseye. I just saw the guy from NIST tell a reporter that there was no molten metal under the WTC buildings, and no one ever said that there was. GOD DAMN IT the Emperor is naked. Open your eyes America.
Robert Gehrke Salt Lake
Robert Gehrke
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:08/22/2007 07:23:18 AM MDT
Robert Murray insists that his company did not change the mining plan at Crandall Canyon after purchasing a joint interest in the mine last August.
But documents obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune clearly contradict Murray's assertion, and show that Murray's company sought and received approval from federal regulators to make a significant, and, experts say, risky change to the mining strategy.
Records of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) show that, after Murray acquired a 50 percent ownership in the mine on Aug. 9, 2006, his company repeatedly petitioned the agency to allow coal to be extracted from the north and south barriers - thick walls of coal that run on both sides of the main tunnels and help hold up the mine.
That stands in stark contrast to statements Murray made Monday asserting that his company's mine plan, and that of the previous owner, were one and the same.
"Some have incorrectly reported that after I bought the mine I changed the mining plan. That is not correct," Murray said. He said the mining plan was developed by its previous owners, Andalex Resources, in conjunction with the Colorado mining engineering consultant Agapito Associates and approved by MSHA.
Documents on file with the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining show Andalex had previously decided not to mine those barriers, determining it posed a risk to worker safety.
"Although maximum recovery is an important design criteria, other considerations must be looked at in the final analysis in the extraction of coal. These factors consider the insurance of protection of personnel and the environment," the company wrote in April 2005. "Solid coal barriers will be left to protect main entries from mined out panels and to guarantee stability of the main entries for the life of the mine."
In the Crandall Canyon mine, sprawling sections to the north and south of the main tunnel had been longwalled, where coal was cut out leaving behind nothing but rubble and no roof support. That creates pressures on the main tunnel that the barriers are designed to help manage.
It was those barriers that Murray's company sought to mine when it asked MSHA to approve a change to the mine plan on Nov. 11, 2006. MSHA officials spent just seven business days reviewing the request before approving the mining in the north barrier.
Corruptionslaughter.
All the ingredients are here: the rock-fisted mine owner who was a big Republican donor, the 325 safety violations cited since 2004, the unsafe mining practices that killed eight men, the feeble attempts to whitewash, the documentation and evidence which will nail the bastards bang-dead if justice is done.
There is also the former head of the MSHA, now Vice-President of Wheeling Jesuit University of West Virginia, David McAteer, who was quoted as saying that the 325 violations were not "an unusual number". One wonders if industrial safety or mining is taught at Wheeling Jesuit.
Under the law, can one be an accessory to manslaughter?
I can not believe that the
I can not believe that the New York Times had been scooped by the Salt Lake Tribune three times in as many weeks.
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Whitehouse FOIA
Bush and Cheney are finding out just how much God does not like anything they are doing. That is why every time the republican rubber stampers and this corrupt whitehouse turn around there is more evidence of the criminal activities they are involved with. God would never stand with a liar like Bush, and Cheney has never claimed to be much of a christian. When your whole plan for governing is to feed corporations greed and to destroy the agencies of the federal government with incompetent but loyal bushies, you have nothing but the results of your evil.