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Michelle Malkin: Down on Browner - Regression we can’t afford.
National Review Online ^ | December 12, 2008 | Michelle Malkin

Posted on 12/13/2008 5:48:21 PM PST by neverdem








Down on Browner
Regression we can’t afford.

By Michelle Malkin

Yet another Clintonite has been wheeled out of the political morgue to serve in the Obama administration. Carol Browner, a neon-green radical who headed the Environmental Protection Agency from 1993-2000, is widely rumored to be the president-elect’s choice for “energy czar.” But an ethical cloud still hangs over Browner’s EPA legacy. It doesn’t take a team of Ivy League lawyers to figure out that this is one more headache the Hope and Change crew doesn’t need.

In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, let me dust off the cobwebs and help out all the smarty-pants vetters on the Obama team with a little background on Browner’s stained past:

On her last day in office, nearly eight years ago, Browner oversaw the destruction of agency computer files in brazen violation of a federal judge’s order requiring the agency to preserve its records. This from a public official who bragged about her tenure: “One of the things I’m the proudest of at EPA is the work we’ve done to expand the public’s right to know.”

Asked to explain her track-covering actions, the savvy career lawyer played dumb. Figuratively batting her eyelashes, Browner claimed she had no clue about a court injunction signed by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on the same day she commanded an underling to wipe her hard drives clean. Golly gee willikers, how could that have slipped by?

According to testimony in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against EPA by Landmark Legal Foundation, a Virginia-based conservative legal watchdog group, Browner commanded a computer technician on Jan. 19, 2001: “I would like my files deleted. I want you to delete my files.”

Not coincidentally, Landmark Legal Foundation had been pressing Browner to fully and publicly disclose the names of any special interest groups that may have influenced her wave of last-minute regulatory actions. Two days before she told her technician to purge all her records, EPA had gone to court to file a motion opposing the federal court injunction protecting those government documents.

Plausible deniability? Not bloody likely.

Incredibly, Browner asserted that there was no work-related material on her work computer. She explained she was merely cleaning the hard drive of computer games she had downloaded for her son, and that she wanted to expunge the hard drive as a “courtesy” to the incoming Bush administration. How thoughtful.

Later, her agency admitted that three other top EPA officials had their computers erased despite the federal court order and ongoing FOIA case — the record is silent on whether Browner’s son was playing games on their desktops, too. A further belated admission revealed that the agency had failed to search Browner’s office for public documents as required by Landmark’s public disclosure lawsuit.

Not only were the top officials’ hard drives cleared and reformatted, but e-mail backup tapes were erased and reused in violation of records preservation practices.

After a two-year legal battle, Lamberth finally held the EPA in contempt of court for the systemic file destruction — actions Lamberth lambasted as “contumacious conduct” (obstinate resistance to authority). The agency was also forced to pay all of Landmark Legal Foundation’s court-related fees. As is typical in Washington, Browner weaseled out of any serious repercussions. Lamberth inexplicably decided that slapping the agency as a whole with contempt — rather than any individual — would deter future cover-ups.

Is this a gamble the Obama administration wants to take? Browner has crossed the line and violated public trust before in her capacity as eco-chief. Early in her first term as EPA head, a congressional subcommittee caught her using taxpayer funds to create and send out illegal lobbying material to over 100 grassroots environmental lobbying organizations. She exploited her office to orchestrate a political campaign by left-wing groups, who turned around and attacked Republican lawmakers for supporting regulatory reform.

These are the very same groups — anti-business, anti-sound-science, pro-eco-hysteria — that Browner would be working arm in arm with as Obama’s “energy czar.” This is regression we can’t afford.

Michelle Malkin is author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild.

© 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: agenda; bho2008; bhoepa; browner; carolbrowner; coverups; documents; energyczar; epa; evidencetampering; files; malkin; obama; obamatransitionfile; secrecy; si; socialistintl

1 posted on 12/13/2008 5:48:22 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem
Why does Makin politely refer to these criminals as "Clintonites"?

Shouldn't she use the real term "Clintonistas"?

2 posted on 12/13/2008 5:55:31 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

Or Clintonoids.


3 posted on 12/13/2008 5:58:01 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: neverdem

Change , Change we can choke on then have three day’s of runs ... Yeah Change we can believe in ....


4 posted on 12/13/2008 5:59:58 PM PST by Deetes (God Bless the Troops)
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To: Cicero
Or pond scum.

Lamh Foistenach Abu!
5 posted on 12/13/2008 6:00:45 PM PST by ConorMacNessa (HM/2 USN, 3/5 Marines, RVN 1969. St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle!)
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To: Cicero
The "Clintonoids" are the mind-numbed, robot-like, knee-jerk Leftwingtards who sniff the Hildabeast on her rounds.

The Clintonistas are the ones who act on behalf of Her Thigness and her male counterpart.

We get much deeper into this doo-doo and folks will think I am reduced to calling these people names.

6 posted on 12/13/2008 6:05:55 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

Children of the Devil.


7 posted on 12/13/2008 6:12:16 PM PST by Tolkien (Grace is the Essence of the Gospel; Gratitude is the Essence of Ethics.)
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To: neverdem

If it’s possible for the Republican Senators to stop anyone, Browner would be my pick. Even over Hillary! She is a ‘make the data fit the intent’ type person. It is how she got the second-hand smoke disinformation passed by changing long held standards in statistics to barely get the numbers to a point that justified the ‘press release’. She’s a ‘I-know-what’s-best-for-you, thug’ and will take that attitude and unethical methods to the global warming issue. For all those self righteous non-smokers, you ain’t seen nothing yet! if she gets in.

When they first came for the _____ , I didn’t speak up... fill in the blanks...


8 posted on 12/13/2008 6:12:34 PM PST by Kent C
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To: Kent C
Browner is the sort of Democrat bureaucrat we need more of. She's a known quantity ~ a data thief ~ someone who rejects court orders at will.

NOTHING coming out of her shop, from top to bottom, will or can be believed by anyone ~ not industry, not evironmentalists, not even environmentalist whackos or the federal judges who facilitate their damage.

In today's world the best way to STOP government from hurting you is to HURT government first by inflicting the top brackets with idiocy.

9 posted on 12/13/2008 6:22:25 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: neverdem
Listen to Devvy Kidd read "The Great Communitarian Hoax" as it will help you understand what's going on in politics today.
10 posted on 12/13/2008 7:16:06 PM PST by HighlyOpinionated (Cultural conditions, not gun laws, are the most important factors in a nation's crime rate.)
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To: muawiyah

“NOTHING coming out of her shop, from top to bottom, will or can be believed by anyone ~ not industry, not evironmentalists, not even environmentalist whackos or the federal judges who facilitate their damage.”

That way overstates the sense of any of the above. History tells us differently.

“In today’s world the best way to STOP government from hurting you is to HURT government first by inflicting the top brackets with idiocy.”

That hasn’t stopped them so far!


11 posted on 12/13/2008 8:14:10 PM PST by Kent C
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To: neverdem

This is the “change” the upon which the 53% voted.
Bye,bye car companies. Those union thugs cut their own throats. $400M to Obama.

I never thought this country would unravel this fast.


12 posted on 12/14/2008 1:43:37 AM PST by ChiMark
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To: Kent C

Some people will believe anything. Can’t be helped.


13 posted on 12/14/2008 7:34:22 AM PST by muawiyah
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Here’s some interesting information on Carol Browner:

She’s on the Socialist International’s “Commission for a sustainable world society.’

http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=1845&&ModuleID=34

Here’s some of that that commission stands for:

(1) To design and put forward proposals for democratic forms of global goverance as the foundation for building a peaceful and sustainable world society overall;

(2) To map out the ways in which social imbalances and economic inequality can be redressed through new forms of governance;

A principal task of new global governance must be to ensure that the benefits of global economic growth and the opportunities for economic development are distributed fairly
Too many people in different regions of the world are being left behind, exacerbating social divisions, cultural differences and inequality within and among nations.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/12/133110.php


14 posted on 01/01/2009 4:43:29 PM PST by Buzz Lightyear
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