"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
(Thomas Jefferson)


Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Grayson calls Republicans 'knuckle-dragging Neanderthals'

We have a new word to add to the Democrat vocabulary of what they call Republicans -- 'knuckle-dragging Neanderthals' added to racist, and members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. We are sure there are more. The Congressional Democrats continue to show a lack of class. Wonder if Grayson would have been elected without ACORN voter fraud? Grayson is working his way up the list of GOP targets for 2010 with his comments. Time for 'Neanderthal Republicans' to send Grayson to the Unemployment Line in 2010.

When is Pelosi going to ask that the House vote on the actions of Grayson on the floor of the House like she did Wilson? I wouldn't hold my breath!

Grayson calls Republicans 'knuckle-dragging Neanderthals'
CNN
9/30/09
staff

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Freshman Congressman Alan Grayson refused to back down Wednesday from controversial remarks he made on the House floor the night before saying the Republican health care plan calls for sick people to "die quickly."

In fact, Grayson — a Democrat who represents a central Florida swing district that includes Orlando — made another floor speech in which he apologized to the dead and their families for not acting sooner on health care reform, and then defended both speeches on CNN's "The Situation Room."

Excerpt: Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com

President and First Lady Travel 4,000 Miles -- on Separate Planes -- to Lobby for Olympics

In the article, the White House Military Office gives a much lower cost for the air portion of the trip then the United States Air Force who actually flies and maintains the planes. As someone who has been around the Air Force for years, we believe the Air Force has credibility.

Since a President has never lobbied in person for a city in the United States to get the Olympics in the past, may we be so bold as to ask why we are sending Obama and his wife on separate planes at US Taxpayer expense to lobby for Chicago. If Chicago wanted them to lobby for Chicago, then the City of Chicago and Mayor Daley should be picking up the tab not the US Taxpayer.

Another interesting detail is that over 50% of people in Chicago don't want the Olympics but City Government does. Tells us that US Taxpayers are about to see a huge waste of money spent in the City of Chicago that is known for graft and lining pockets of politicians.

Once again the US Taxpayer being fleeced by Obama and the Chicago machine. How many US Taxdollars are going to go to Chicago for the Olympics with Obama as President?

We recommend Rio de Janeiro get the Olympics and save the US Taxpayer money while cutting down on more millionaires in Chicago.

President and First Lady Travel 4,000 Miles -- on Separate Planes -- to Lobby for Olympics
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are both traveling to Copenhagen this week to promote Chicago's bid to host to the 2016 Olympic Games--and they will be making the 3,979-mile trip on separate airplanes.

The first lady left on Tuesday night, while the president will leave for Denmark on Thursday night.

Taxpayers will pick up the tab for both jets ferrying the president and first lady separately to Europe.

“Everything they do, whether it’s signing pieces of legislation or flying around the world, everything is costing the taxpayer,” David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste, told CNSNews.com. “The taxpayer is picking up the tab for everything.”

The White House announced on Monday that the president would be joining his wife on this European trip, despite indicating earlier this month that the first lady would head up the U.S. Olympic Committee delegation to Copenhagen while Obama remained in the United States to continue pushing for his health care reform plan.

(snip)

Using the CRS cost estimates and the inflation adjuster from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost for the one-way 7.5-hour trip from Washington, D.C. to Copenhagen on the first lady's plane would range from $29,532 (White House Military Office) to $107,717 (U.S. Air Force).

The cost for the president to fly Air Force One on the one-way 7.5-hour trip from Washington, D.C. to Copenhagen ranges from $343,448 (White House Military Office) to $567,089 (U.S. Air Force).

Excerpt: See CNS for Full Article

Secret Agent Editors

Must admit we have been chuckling at the NY Times trying to convince people why they were late to the news stories on ACORN and Jones. Their spinning is not working and now James Taranto nails the Times. The NY Times could only read part of a dispatch and missed the bottom part according to Taranto. We are not surprised at this liberal paper whose management would rather spin for organizations like ACORN then actually print the truth.

NY Times management seems perfectly content to allow ACORN to continue their voter fraud across the Country because it elects liberals. Has anyone looked into the fact that Congress might not be so lopsided without ACORN voter fraud? When ACORN voter fraud hits Oklahoma, you can bet it is everywhere in the Country.

When is there going to be a RICO investigation into ACORN on voter fraud, their shakedown of the mortgage industry and whatever else they are involved with including telling people how to cheat on their taxes?

Secret Agent Editors
The Obama
By JAMES TARANTO
(Editor's note: This is an abbreviated edition of Best of the Web Today. We're on assignment, returning Thursday.)

Clark Hoyt, "public editor" of the New York Times, has weighed in on his paper's coverage of the Acorn scandal--or rather its lack thereof. Right off the bat, he delivers a half-truth:

On Sept. 12, an Associated Press article inside The Times reported that the Census Bureau had severed its ties to Acorn, the community organizing group. Robert Groves, the census director, was quoted as saying that Acorn, one of thousands of unpaid organizations promoting the 2010 census, had become "a distraction."

What the article didn't say--but what followers of Fox News and conservative commentators already knew--was that a video sting had caught Acorn workers counseling a bogus prostitute and pimp on how to set up a brothel staffed by under-age girls, avoid detection and cheat on taxes.

It is true, as we noted Sept. 14, that the AP article as published in the Times didn't mention that Acorn had been caught in a sex-slavery sting. But that's because the paper cut the latter half of the original dispatch, which did mention it. And there were other AP dispatches on the evening of Sept. 11, such as this one, that led with the sting. Somehow the Times managed to miss those.

Excerpt: See Wall Street Journal for Full Article

PRUDEN: Reality bites Obama's 'West Wing'

We would really like an explanation on why so many people were snowed by Obama during the primary when he defeated Hillary (or did he really defeat her if you throw out ACORN voter fraud?). Then in the General Election when McCain was ahead, we get the manufactured economic crises by Treasury Secretary Paulson. We have yet to get an answer of why Pres Bush appointed a nominee recommended by Sen Schumer (D-NY) from Goldman Sachs for Treasury Secretary. Another question we have had since last fall is why Bush allowed Obama/Paulson run the meeting on the manufactured 'crises' when McCain is the one with experience.

When Obama was running, he started using as experience he was head of the campaign. We were not impressed then and a lot less impressed now. European allies from the past consider him weak on foreign policy, and we agree.

This Country in these dangerous times should have thought twice before voting for a man based on the media and color of his skin when he had little to no experience. From the day he set foot in the Senate, he couldn't even be bothered to hold hearings on his foreign policy subcommittee. He started running for President right away and his Senate duties went pretty much out to window. He could have learned a lot from the Foreign Relations assignment but he chose to go into campaign mode which he has never left.

Wesley Pruden has nailed Obama along with the fawning media and electorate who chose a man for what he read from his teleprompter instead of experience.

PRUDEN: Reality bites Obama's 'West Wing'

By
30 Sep 2009

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The White House is a risky place for on-the-job training, as Barack Obama and the rest of us are learning. But the president doesn't deserve all the blame for the installation of a handsome but unprepared matinee idol in the toughest job in the world. The adoring cult, the 53 percent of the giddily oblivious electorate that took a flyer on Election Day, deserves most of it.

Matinee idols only do what matinee idols do, look pretty and inveigle softly with practiced seductiveness. Trouble arrives when the matinee idol and his public confuse role with reality. Reality arrives with the surprise and impact of a lemon-cream pie in the face.

Nasty surprises abound across the real world. Iran completes a third round of testing of Shahab-3 and Sajjil medium-range missiles capable of hitting not only Israel, Eastern Europe and several Middle Eastern countries but, if all that were not sobering enough, several U.S military bases as well. Venezuela boasts that it's working with Russia and Iran in finding sources of uranium, the key ingredient of nuclear weapons technology. China says it will display new "upgraded missiles" in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Red China. India announces that it can now make nuclear weapons up to a strength of 200 kilotons, four times over the line that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty pledges signing nations not to cross.

This is the fine mess Barack Obama told us would never happen if Americans would elect him to soothe the fears of the frightened and bank the ambitions of evildoers of the world. Suddenly, the president has to deal with headaches, a thousand town halls, with hundreds of thousands of angry bigots, racists and Nazis of hysterical liberal imagination jeering his scheme to take over the health care of the nation, never prepared him for. He's got headaches no speechwriter can cure.

Excerpt: See Washington Times for Full Editorial

EDITORIAL: At the president's pleasure

We had planned to highlight one CZAR a day, but, frankly, this Czar Kevin Jennings defies any common sense. The Washington Times editorial on Jennings below is a must read. When you listen to the Jenning's audio, read his words, and find out his background, it is hard to figure out why this man is in this Administration except he is a radical which seems to be a prerequisite for some of the Czars. How Jennings can have anything to do with schools is beyond us. We are talking young, impressionable children not adults.

Half of Jennings position is to encourage a drug free environment in the schools when Jennings has admitted openly to drug abuse in the past. Where are his articles on the hazards of drugs? On bullying, he only seems to care about gay students and nothing else by his own writings.

In 1990, as a teacher in Massachusetts, he founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which now has over 40 chapters at schools nationwide. He has also published six books on gay rights and education, including one that describes his own experiences as a closeted gay student. (Source: http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147486992)


What names are Conservatives and Moderates going to be called today by Democrats and repeated by the Elite Media for opposing Jennings in this position? Bet some Democrats never thought they would be called members of the Right Wing Conspiracy (RWC) for daring to oppose Obama on issues or appointees. Thanks to Bill Clinton's remarks the other day, the RWC has been brought back to life. A better choice of words might be Common Sense Conspiracy because that is what we asking of this Administration and Congress -- use Common Sense which is severely lacking in the leftist community.

Where is the outrage from the MIA elite media? Crickets chirping once again.

EDITORIAL: At the president's pleasure

'Safe school czar' encouraged child sex with an older man

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
30 Sep 2009

A teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an "older man." At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is President Obama's "safe school czar." It's getting hard to keep track of all of this president's problematic appointments. Clearly, the process for vetting White House employees has broken down.

In this one case in which Mr. Jennings had a real chance to protect a young boy from a sexual predator, he not only failed to do what the law required but actually encouraged the relationship.

According to Mr. Jennings' own description in a new audiotape discovered by Fox News, the 15-year-old boy met the "older man" in a "bus station bathroom" and was taken to the older man's home that night. When some details about the case became public, Mr. Jennings threatened to sue another teacher who called his failure to report the statutory rape "unethical." Mr. Jennings' defenders asserted that there was no evidence that he was aware the student had sex with the older man.

However, the new audiotape contradicts this claim. In 2000, Mr. Jennings gave a talk to the Iowa chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, an advocacy group that promotes homosexuality in schools. On the tape, Mr. Jennings recollected that he told the student to make sure "to use a condom" when he was with the older man. That he actively encouraged the relationship is reinforced by Mr. Jennings' own description in his 1994 book, "One Teacher in 10." In that account, the teacher boasts how he allayed the student's concerns about the relationship to such a degree that the 15-year-old "left my office with a smile on his face that I would see every time I saw him on the campus for the next two years, until he graduated."

Mr. Jennings' denials about these events reveal a lack of remorse. He has not admitted that he made mistakes in this case, and he now refuses to answer any questions about the scandal. Don't forget, this is a presidential appointee we're talking about. Mr. Obama should make clear what his standards are for public servants serving at the pleasure of the president. Encouraging and covering up man-boy sexual activity are serious offenses. The White House should force Mr. Jennings to come clean.

Mr. Jennings has made extremely radical statements promoting homosexuality in schools and about his utter contempt for religion that render him unsuitable for a prestigious White House appointment. His job in the Obama administration is to ensure student safety, and this scandal directly calls into question his ability to perform that job. Mr. Jennings and Obama administration officials refuse to answer any questions about this newly discovered evidence. A lot of Americans want answers about this guy and how he was approved for a job in the White House.

Excerpt: See Washington Times for Full Editorial

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

BREITBART: Podesta spends Soros' money stupidly

Why are we not surprised that after the meeting with Obama in NYC, former President Bill Clinton comes out and calls Conservatives once again "Members of the Vast Ring Conservatives." Guess he still blames Conservatives for his lying to the grand jury. What is it with Dems that always have to blame Conservatives when they are caught in scandals? Now Podesta has been charged with making the ACORN scandal disappear. Not going to happen. It is going to continue to grow.

ACORN voter fraud was just announced in Oklahoma today that released info on computer records that show a tie in between the Dem candidate for Senate Andrew Rice and the local ACORN office in OKC. An interesting connection is the fact that two of George Soros consultants were members of the Rice team.

Does that mean in Oklahoma if you take out ACORN voter fraud that Obama would have received less then 34% of the votes in Oklahoma? It sure cannot mean any more counties going against Obama because every Oklahoma County went for McCain. Guess Oklahomans knew something the rest of the Country is just realizing -- Obama was not Presidential material because of lack of experience and ties with extreme leftist.

BREITBART: Podesta spends Soros' money stupidly

By Andrew Breitbart

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

A telling event occurred on Sept. 15, Day 6 of the drip, drip, drip ACORN video rollout. President Obama met for lunch with former President Bill Clinton at trendy Il Mulino in New York City.

For the second consecutive day, the New York Post featured the ACORN scandal on its cover - complete with James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles in their outrageous "pimp and ho" costumes.

Does anyone think the president and the former president were unaware that the city in which they were dining was mesmerized by the ACORN scandal - especially since ACORN had bragged that its employees had kicked Mr. O'Keefe and Ms. Giles out of their New York office?

The Sept. 15 edition of the New York Post explored the political angles and directed attention to the Brooklyn District Attorney's investigation into why an ACORN office in its jurisdiction helped instruct a prospective brothel owner how to hide his prostitution proceeds in a tin in his backyard.

No one in the morally superior media world has asked, why did Mr. Obama have lunch with Mr. Clinton that day? So let me take a guess, and it seems like an obvious answer. Mr. Obama, under siege by a video-a-day expose that was exposing the Democratic Party to an avalanche of consequences (ACORN defunded in the House and Senate, ACORN delinked from the census, etc.), needed advice from the last president to navigate through a major political scandal.

On this day, neither the president or the former president, nor the media knew how many more videos were coming.

The next day, Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, the Democratic Party's top fix-it guy with control over much of the left's well-funded vast attack machinery (think George Soros, the Tides Foundation, et al.), was among a small advisory group placed in charge of investigating the matter.

With the mainstream media continuing to ignore the evidence on the tapes, Mr. Podesta is now clearly in charge of feeding them information about his well-structured investigation into the investigators. The ACORN internal probe is a "war room" aimed at destroying the messengers and is not meant to clean up major corruption.

Since Mr. Podesta was appointed to investigate ACORN, the only thing investigated has been the investigators, Mr. O'Keefe, Ms. Giles and the publisher of the journalism behind it, yours truly.

Excerpt: See Washington Times for Full Article

Schumer, Gillibrand, and the Wall Street Payoffs

Thanks to Instapundit!

September 29, 2009
MOE LANE: Schumer, Gillibrand, and the Wall Street Payoffs. It’s protection money. But they aren’t “honest politicians,” as they don’t stay bought. So watch out. . . .

Obama Czars -- Critics Assail Obama's 'Safe Schools' Czar, Say He's Wrong Man for the Job (Kevin Jennings)

When we decided to research the people that Obama has appointed to be Czars we NEVER thought we would find something like this. After this article came out last week from Fox News, an audio has now surfaced. We have linked that audio below on Breitbart:

Uncovered Audio: Obama’s ‘Safe Schools Czar’ Encouraged Child Sex With Older Man

Sept. 28, 2009

"I looked at Brewster and said, 'You know, I hope you knew to use a condom.'" Washington Times: In this one case in which Mr. (Kevin) Jennings had a real chance to protect a young boy from a sexual predator, he not only failed to do what the law required but actually encouraged the relationship.
This man, Kevin Jennings, in this audio (click on link above) was appointed to be Obama's 'Safe School Czar?' Give us a break -- no way would Jennings have passed a security clearance to work in the White House which leads us to believe is the purpose behind the large number of CZARS in the Obama White House.

New School Safety Czar Promotes Gay/Lesbian Activity in Public Schools
theobamafile.com
09/28/09
Beckwith

At Obama's Pleasure

The Washington Times reports that a teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an "older man." At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is Obama's "Safe School Czar." It's getting hard to keep track of all of Obama's problematic appointments. Clearly, the process for vetting White House employees has broken down.

In this one case, in which Mr. Jennings had a real chance to protect a young boy from a sexual predator, he not only failed to do what the law required, but actually encouraged the relationship.

According to Mr. Jennings' own description in a new audiotape discovered by Fox News, the 15-year-old boy met the "older man" in a "bus station bathroom" and was taken to the older man's home that night. When some details about the case became public, Mr. Jennings threatened to sue another teacher who called his failure to report the statutory rape "unethical." Mr. Jennings' defenders asserted that there was no evidence that he was aware the student had sex with the older man.

However, the new audiotape (.mp3 format) contradicts this claim. In 2000, Mr. Jennings gave a talk to the Iowa chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) , an advocacy group that promotes homosexuality in schools. On the tape, Mr. Jennings recollected that he told the student to make sure "to use a condom" when he was with the older man. That he actively encouraged the relationship is reinforced by Mr. Jennings' own description in his 1994 book, .....

Excerpt: Read more at theobamafile.com
This article last week from Fox News on the 'Safe Schools' Czar, Kevin Jennings, has touched off a firestorm as more and more people have looked into his background. American taxpayers are paying this CZAR who would never pass a security clearance and/or get Senate confirmation well over $100,000 a year plus benefits and in addition giving him a staff of approximately ten people.

Would someone in the White House media please ask the White House Press Secretary Gibbs where Obama is getting the money to pay for all these CZARs and their staffs when agencies have been told to take a budget cut? Guess it is more important to have CZARs and cut Defense.
Critics Assail Obama's 'Safe Schools' Czar, Say He's Wrong Man for the Job

Critics say Kevin Jennings is too radical for the job of director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, citing what they say is his promotion of homosexuality in schools, his writings about his past drug abuse and his onetime contempt for religion.

By Maxim Lott

FOXNews.com

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

President Obama's "safe schools czar" is a former schoolteacher who has advocated promoting homosexuality in schools, written about his past drug abuse, expressed his contempt for religion and detailed an incident in which he did not report an underage student who told him he was having sex with older men.

Conservatives are up in arms about the appointment of Kevin Jennings, Obama's director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, saying he is too radical for the job.

Jennings was appointed to the position largely because of his longtime record of working to end bullying and discrimination in schools. In 1990, as a teacher in Massachusetts, he founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which now has over 40 chapters at schools nationwide. He has also published six books on gay rights and education, including one that describes his own experiences as a closeted gay student.

The OSDFS was created by the Bush administration in 2002. According to its Web site, one of its primary functions is to "provide financial assistance for drug and violence prevention activities and activities that promote the health and well being of students in elementary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education."

Jennings' critics say he fits only half the bill, if that.

"Jennings was obviously chosen for this job because of the safe schools aspect... defining 'safe schools' narrowly in terms of 'safe for homosexuality'," Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, told FOXNews.com.

"But at least half of the job involves creating drug-free schools, and we've not been offered any evidence about what qualifications Jennings has for promoting drug-free schools."

Jennings' detractors note that he made four references to his personal drug abuse in his 2007 autobiography, "Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir." On page 103, discussing his high school years in Hawaii in the early 1980s, Jennings wrote:

"I got stoned more often and went out to the beach at Bellows, overlooking Honolulu Harbor and the lights of the city, to drink with my buddies on Friday and Saturday nights, spending hours watching the planes take off and land at the airport, which is actually quite fascinating when you are drunk and stoned."

Sprigg said that quote is particularly unacceptable for someone who has been named to lead America's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.

"It would be nice to hear from Mr. Jennings ... that he regrets the drug use he engaged in when he was in school," Sprigg said. "But in this autobiography, which Mr. Jennings wrote only recently, he never expresses any regret about his youthful drug use."

Excerpt: See Fox News for Full Article



Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan

When we first heard this, we thought it was a joke but after reading The Wall Street Journal, we have discovered it is no joke. The OBAMA Department of Energy has been been working with this Fisker Automotive company to make sure every t was crossed and i dotted on the application. What a waste of time on the application because this was a done deal after all their campaign donations to Democrats. Wonder if they donated to ACORN as well? A government backed loan for $529M to build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for $89,000 a piece backed by Al Gore makes ZERO sense and is a waste of any American dollars.

How is this helping the American automobile industry and what are we doing guaranteeing a Government backed loan to build a car in Finland that cost $89,000?

Guess according to Democrats who call us racist for daring to disagree with Obama and Bill Clinton who has brought back the vast right win conspiracy mantra, we need to sit down, shut up and ignore the spending of our tax dollars that is out of control or the fact the Government backs a loan for an $89,000 car for Finland. Call us anything you want but we are not staying silent, and we are not going away. What does this tell you about the Democrats in control of the WH and Congress? They are for the elitist of the world.

This is nothing short of a boondoggle to get Al Gore money while the Government backs loans to build high price cars for the wealthy in Finland. At the same time this Administration led by Obama, Pelosi, Reid want Americans to do with less and intend to tax us in order to save to save energy.

Every day brings one more reason for this website to highlight the elitist leftist nature of this Administration and Congress. Where are members of the MIA media on this one? Wall Street Journal doesn't count because people like Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Soros count them conservative so their opinion carries no weight.

Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan
September 25, 2009
By JOSH MITCHELL and STEPHEN POWER
(See Corrections & Amplifications below.)

WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.


Fisker's Karma hybrid sports car, above, will initially cost about $89,000.


Fisker's Karma hybrid sports car, above, will initially cost about $89,000.
The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from companies that have had their bids for loans rejected, and criticism from groups that question why vehicles aimed at the wealthiest customers are getting loans subsidized by taxpayers.

"This is not for average Americans," said Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, an anti-tax group in Washington. "This is for people to put something in their driveway that is a conversation piece. It's status symbol thing."

DOE officials spent months working with Fisker on its application, touring its Irvine, Calif., and Pontiac, Mich., facilities and test-driving prototypes.

Matt Rogers, who oversees the department's loan programs as a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said Fisker was awarded the loan after a "detailed technical review" that concluded the company could eventually deliver a highly fuel-efficient hybrid car to a mass audience. Fisker said most of its DOE loan will be used to finance U.S. production of a $40,000 family sedan that has yet to be designed.

Excerpt: See Wall Street Journal for Full Article

Monday, September 28, 2009

Does Obama have time to lobby for Chicago’s Olympic bid?

What's the deal? Obama has only talked to our Afghanistan Commander, General McChyrstal one time in 70 days but he doesn't think twice about flying to Europe to push for Chicago for the Olympics. Chicago, the home of the polical corruption, is getting how much out of Obama for the Olympics that the US Taxpayer is going to be paying?

If Gates thinks healthcare is in better shape, he doesn't have a clue. What does Daley have on Obama that would make him make this trip costing US taxpayers $68,000 an hour to fly AF1 and then find out his wife is traveling separately and costing us even more money? A US President has never gotten involved before so why now? Could it be Obama doesn't want to be in the US when the new figures come out for unemployment?

This should not be an expense of the US Taxpayer but the City of Chicago if they want the Olympics. Would bet the US Taxpayer is going to be bailing out Chicago even more if they get the Olympics while Chicago awards patronage contracts.

Does Obama have time to lobby for Chicago’s Olympic bid?
Chicago is delighted that Obama will go to the 2016 Summer Olympics host-city selection vote in Copenhagen Oct. 2. But can healthcare reform manage without him – even for a day?
By Linda Feldmann

Washington

Two weeks ago, President Obama said he was too busy with healthcare reform to go to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 personally to pitch Chicago for the 2016 Summer Games.

First lady Michelle Obama would do just fine as head of the delegation.

On second thought….

Now Mr. Obama himself is going – flying out Thursday night, back on Friday – and the White House is on the defensive.

“I think the president believes healthcare is in better shape,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said at a Monday briefing. “I believe he felt strongly and personally that he should go and make the case for the United States.”

The press corps seemed a tad incredulous that healthcare was faring that much better than two weeks ago and returned to the topic repeatedly. Twenty-three times, to be exact. Mr. Gibbs insisted that Obama would have made the same move for any US city, and not just because it’s Chicago.

(Excerpt) Click for Full Article

Media Bias -- NY Times and East Coast Elite Media

When we started to look for information about the NY Times appointing a new editor since they had missed the ACORN and Jones stories, we discovered plenty of cover for the Times on the left including the Politico article that took shots at Glenn Beck. We ended up at Newsbusters once again -- when you want to find the truth about what is happening in journalism at the major print or broadcast outlets, you can always count on them to have the facts.

We would also like to point out that the NY Times and other east coast elite media missed or downplayed one of the biggest stories of the year -- the 9/12 march on DC. As you can see in the picture below, people turned out for as far as the eye could see so why did the elite media downplay the event and the number of people involved? Better yet why did Obama skip town that day?

Compare the 9/12 march where no trash was left to clean up with the anarchists in Pittsburg destroying property. You would think at least one major media outlet besides Fox News and the Washington Times would be interested.




Public Editor Admits NY Times Slow on ACORN -- Not First Conservative Media Story NYT's Ignored
By Clay Waters (Bio Archive)September 28, 2009 - 11:08 ET

New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt's latest column tackles the ACORN scandal -- or as Times readers know it: "What ACORN scandal?"

In "Tuning In Too Late," Hoyt criticized the Times for its lack of coverage of the juicy ACORN imbroglio, an omission that has prodded the paper into creating a new semi-position. It's assigned an editor to monitor opinion media and catch stories like this earlier (apparently not a single television at Times headquarters is tuned to Fox News, where they could have caught it quite easily.)

Hoyt summarized the video sting in which ACORN workers at several branches across the country were captured giving advice on child sex trafficking and tax evasion to a gaudy pimp and a hot-pants prostitute (actually conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles). The tapes, whose gradual release were masterfully mediated by Andrew Brietbart at his new website BigGovernment.com, resulted in ACORN being cut off from federal funding and losing its ties to the Census Bureau and IRS. Yet the Times took little interest in the scandal and the consequences:

But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes -- closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser -- suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs.

Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.

This is quite misleading. The Times already monitors opinion media for story tips. It's just that they only monitor the left side of the blogosphere. Lachlan Markay provided some stark examples at NewsBusters on Sunday:

The Times consistently cites liberal blogs far more than ones on the right, undermining the claim that they missed these two stories because they don't monitor online media. A Nexis search reveals 477 combined mentions of five of the left's top blogs: Huffington Post, Think Progress, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, and Media Matters.

But a search for five of the right's top blogs, Hot Air, Pajamas Media, NewsBusters, RedState, and TownHall turns up only 18 combined mentions from the Times.

(Excerpt) See Newsbusters for Full Article

Times is even missing the story of ACORN corruption including voter fraud by concentrating on prostitution. Is it on purpose or are they that naive to believe the heads of ACORN? If they believe ACORN, then they are really out of touch which does not shock us.

Compare those numbers to get a clear picture of the bias at the NY Times: 477 combined mentions of five of the left's top blogs versus 18 combined mentions from the right's top blogs. If my math is correct that is 459 more times that the liberal blogs are quoted and yet the NY Times doesn't want us to think of them as being biased? Think a better question would be is to ask them when they were not biased in favor of liberals? That is the problem with today's liberal Democrats including their friends in media as they totally miss the fact they are out of touch with much of America. They live inside their little cacoon of liberals and think all Americans have to think like them.

The vast majority of America is center right and are getting upset at what we see is a move to the far left which leaves a lot of Democrats asking what happened to their Party. Do we see anything about that by the Elite Media. Not on your life -- they will continue to follow Obama, Reid, and Pelosi over the cliff and then wonder why they lost readers and/or viewers. Middle America is just some place to ignore as they have tagged us for years as flyover country.


Obama Finally Appoints IP Czar... Puts It In The Wrong Department

from the of-course dept

In a move that surprises no one, the Obama administration finally got around to officially nominating Victoria Espinel to be the IP Czar, a position that was created out of thin air a year ago in the ProIP Act, though the position went entirely unfilled until now. Hollywood lobbyists have been pushing the administration to appoint someone ever since the spring, and VP Joe Biden had to come out and calm Hollywood execs and lawyers by promising them the "right person" would be appointed (meaning: not someone who is interested in copyright reform). And yet... there was no appointment for so long. Why?

Well, a few weeks ago, it was explained that there was a fight over where to put the position and under what group Espinel's office would exist. The most obvious group was the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The problem? Most of the folks in OSTP actually seem to understand the problems of copyright law. They're fans of openness and understand things like Creative Commons.

Entertainment industry lobbyists started to freak out again, that even if they got someone on "their side," that placing them in OSTP would stifle them, as the rest of the group might (gasp!) actually push back on attempts to stretch copyright enforcement towards the maximalist position.

Instead, they wanted the position to be either its own office (entirely unlikely) or, in the Office of Management & Budget. Why OMB? No good reason. The position doesn't fit there at all... but putting it there keeps it away from those darn "copyleftists" in OSTP.

So where did the position end up? Yup... it's a part of OMB, just like Hollywood wanted. Lobbyists on all sides of the equation -- including consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, though, are saying that Espinel is a good appointee. I certainly hope so, though I disagree that the position should exist at all. Also, Espinel was formerly the IP boss for the US Trade Representative -- a group that has been known to push for more draconian IP laws, and to do so cloaked in secrecy.

So... I'm hoping to be surprised, but putting the office in OMB and having someone from USTR isn't encouraging. (Here at DfS, we second those comments)

Source: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090925/1549476326.shtml

NOTE: What do we know about the CZARS that Obama chooses who are not subject to Senate confirmation? Not much but in the days ahead, we will start spotlighing a CZAR a day. Since this is a new appointee, we will start with this IP Czar which has been covered by the posters at techdirt.com. Thanks to them for their research.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Commercial Club of Chicago

What is it about Chicago that makes you wonder about the honesty of some of the people involved not only in Chicago but in this Administration? Our thanks to Freeper thouworm for gathering this information.

COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO
” I see the members of the Commercial Club of Chicago holding a lot of titles in different organizations. I feel like they have woven themselves into our Government, businesses, Universities, Pharmaceutical Research, Manufacturers, banks “AIRPORTS”, etc., spreading though our country like cancer and until now, has gone pretty much unnoticed.”

Valerie B. Jarrett, Rahm I. Emanuel, William M. Daley (also a Trustee at the Northwestern University)

Henry S. Bienen is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago and president of Northwestern University.

Robert S. Murley is the Chairman of Investment Banking, Americas at Credit Suisse.—He is also Head of the Chicago office and Chairman of the Global Industrial and Services Group.—and a member of the Economic Club (STEVEN KOCH also member)—and the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich

Penny S. Pritzer -- Three other Pritzker’s are also members of the Commercial club of Chicago. J.B. Pritzker, Robert A. Pritzker and Thomas J. Pritzker.

Newton N. Minow - senior counsel

R. Eden Martin – counsel for Sidley Austin LLP is President of the Commercial Club of Chicago.Thomas A. Cole – chairman,Charles W. Douglas – partner,, Howard J. Trienens – partner——they are all listed as current relationship with Sidley Austin LLP and members of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

One past relationship, with Sidley Austin LLP is David D. Hiller– partner and member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

John W. Rogers Jr. is a personal friend of Michelle Obama. http://www.bettergov.org/bga_in_news_20080617_02.asp this article states Michelle, met Rogers at Princeton University and has known him for years. http://www.muckety.com/John-W-Rogers-Jr/4564.muckety Roger’s is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a director at Commonwealth Edison Company

The members of the Commercial Club of Chicago involved with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are http://www.muckety.com/Goldman-Sachs-Group-Inc/5000806.muckety John H. Bryan - director , Byron D. Trott - managing director (friend of Warren Buffett)

AIG, AKA American International Group, Inc. - receiving federal investment. In the 2008-2009 financial bailout Edward M. Liddy is chairman & CEO of AIG.
Edward M. Liddy is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, director of the Executives’ Club of Chicago, director of the Boeing Company, 3M Co. – director and Northwestern University – trustee. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – director
........................................

Wednesday, March 25, 2009NEW UPDATE - Commercial Club of Chicago - Research for bloggers -My best researcher has put lots of effort into this document. I hope all bloggers find it useful and it is public information so please feel free to copy it for your own blog.

Here is The http://www.muckety.com/Commercial-Club-of-Chicago/5003592.muckety

The members of the Commercial Club of Chicago to watch out for, that are currently sitting in the White House with Obama.

http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-update-commercial-club-of-chicago.html

This source has a weath of info; many, many more connections to make from this CLUB of almost 500 members. Most certainly they have an “inner cicle.”

To: thouworm

Add the name from Obama’s Chicago UN (a group of international thugs who have ties to banking, real estate and medicine in their native lands) and I wonder if we have inadvertently stumbled across the “International Ponzi scheme” reported on by the Indian News last month.

REZKO= Syria (Indicted banking/realestate)

Giannoulias= Broadway bank/State treasurer with BO’s help. “Before he promised to raise funds for Obama, Giannoulias bankrolled Michael “Jaws” Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution.

Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who racked up $420,000 through a series of suspicious real-estate deals

Nadhmi Auchi: Antoin Rezko’s money man and “close friend” is London based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi who is one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the corporate, banking, political and real estate world. It is Nadhmi Auchi who funded Antoin Rezko.”

Federal authorities have launched a probe into Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno’s push to get his pal and political supporter, Ronald Garcia, a piece of a multimillion-dollar hospital system billing contract, sources said.

The U.S. attorney’s office wants to know more about Moreno’s role in lobbying Georgia-based Med Assets Inc. to hire Garcia’s firm, Chicago Medical Equipment and Supply, as a minority subcontractor.”

Mutual Bank President and CEO Amrish Mahajan
Amrish was his boss. (Rezko loan was approved by) ...From other research the bank merged with several banks in the last few years, some of them out of state....(VERY close to BLANK-0 called him Uncle Amrish. Amrish Mahajan was a driving force behind his wife’s drug-screening company, now facing questions about how it kept its long-standing state contract despite troubles with taxes, licensing and years of alleged fraud

That’s just from the first fifty post only 500 more to go.

NOTE: DfS will keep you posted as more links are added that will tell the whole story about how our economy was bankrupted not only by the people in this Administration but by their friends as well. How ironic that the current President was part of a lawsuit that started the sub-prime mess we are in today but chooses to blame Republicans. Time for the American people to wake up to who they have elected to the Presidency and Congress who do not seem to have America's best interest in mind as they continue to make sure their friends are well funded at the expense of the American taxpayer.

Subprime Lending Crises including Barack Obama's Involvement in the 90's (Part 4 - Rahm Emmanuel -- fundraiser for Obama)

This is some of the background on Rahm Emmanuel now in the Obama White House gathered from around the Internet. Thanks to Free Republic for the links and information.

Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House

By Timothy P. CarneyExaminer ColumnistNov 21, 2008

Goldman Sachs always has clout in Washington, as evidenced by the firm’s alumni serving as Treasury secretaries under both Presidents Bush and Clinton. Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman can leverage its most valuable asset w/ White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Goldman Sachs is the giant of Wall Street, and more than any other investment bank, Goldman is surviving the current financial storm. Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had some particularly strong allies within government.

Emanuel is one such ally.

An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 1992. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser. At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny. (snip)

In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel has raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds.

Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.

Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout.

Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout? The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.

Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes.

And don’t be surprised Goldman soon sitting pretty once again.

SOURCE http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/******

******
"The Plan, Big Ideas for America" by Rahm Emanuel

Page 58 Citizen service: “Every citizen needs to understand and accept the essence of the American bargain: Each of us has to do his or her part. While the rights of citizenship are explicit in our constitution, the implicit responsibilities are every bit as crucial. All Americans between ages of 18-25 will be asked to serve their country by going through 3 months of basic training, civil defense preparation, and community service. The nation will enlist them for 3 months of civilian service. They’ll be asked to report for basic civil defense training in their state or community.” Obama:” We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded”.

“Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year”.

HR 1388 Serve America Act will call on citizens of all ages to serve”For more information on HR1388 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1388

==============================================

Dual citizen Rahm Emanuel surely got the top White House job as Obama’s COS based on his training on how to organize a “Civilian Security Force”
(Candidate Obama campaigned on installing a “Civilian Security Force” on US soil).

Dual citizen Rham Emanuel has been trained to organize a civilian security force as a volunteer for “Sar’el”——the three-week Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) training program to train civilians. Looking at ACORN’s activities, and the BILLIONS Obama has given them, ACORN is primed for (and is already acting as) a “Civilian Security Force.”

BACKSTORY---ONE RAHM VERSION Circa 1991 Rahm Emmanuel volunteered in a program for civilian service in the IDF, and worked on brake components for APC’s and tanks in an IDF motor pool. He is lacking part of a finger and for many years went around claiming that he’d lost it in actions against the enemy in a tank. Now if Rahm fought in the military of foreign government, that would negate his American citizenship (US citizens forfeit their citizenship when they serve in the military of a foreign government).

SECOND RAHM VERSION Rahm volunteered for “Sar’el”——a three-week Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) training program (like US boot camp) where civilians are trained to assist the Israeli military. Civilians like Rahm lived on an IDF military base to get the proper training. A civilian volunteer, Rahm assisted the IDF during the 1991 Gulf War, repairing truck brakes in one of Israel’s northern bases. Rahm's father was an Israeli who was part of the underground resistance movement under the British Mandate.

FRIGHTENING STATEMENT Obama has stated that Rahm tells him "everything he needs to know about Israel."

Rahm Emanuel today is a dual Israeli-American citizen. It is not clear whether a dual citizen is permitted to serve in a high level US govt job that makes policy decisions for Americans.

Yesterday I noted that Rahm Emanuel had said that Obama saw the AIG fiasco as a “big distraction” from efforts to fix the economy. Later in the day, Obama walked that back, asserting that the public was right to be “angry” about the whole mess and right to find it “consuming.”

Today, another senior Obama adviser, David Axelrod, is throwing in his lot with Rahm and the AIG-isn’t-a-huge-deal camp:

“People are not sitting around their kitchen tables thinking about AIG,” Axelrod said. “They are thinking about their own jobs.”

So are people upset about this, or aren’t they? Actually, people are thinking about the AIG disaster. Yesterday’s Gallup poll found that a big majority is very upset about it. Only 11% said they are “not particularly bothered” by it.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/economy/axelrod-people-dont-care-about-aig-mess/...................

NOTE BELOW:

Commonwealth Edison - Thomas Ayers, Investment Banking »Rahm Emanuel, Former Investment Banker,

November 7, 2008, Rahm Emanuel President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be his chief of staff

Rahm Emanuel, is already widely known in the halls of Washington for serving as an adviser to President Clinton, and most recently as a congressman from Illinois. But in between those two roles, Mr. Emanuel made millions of dollars on Wall Street as an investment banker with Wasserstein Perella, as the boutique firm was known at the time.

Despite having little experience or education in finance, Mr. Emanuel became a managing director at the firm’s Chicago office in 1999, helping to bring in business and seal deals.

According to a 2003 article in The Chicago Tribune, Mr. Emanuel was brought in by one of the firm’s founders, Bruce Wasserstein, who was one of President Clinton’s most active fund-raisers on Wall Street and is now the head of Lazard.

“Rahm did a great job for our firm,” Mr. Wasserstein told DealBook. “When Rahm worked with us at Wasserstein Perella, he showed a great ability to reconcile divergent interests for a constructive outcome.”

In his two-and-a-half-year stint as a banker, Mr. Emanuel — who once trained as a ballet dancer and was briefly a civilian volunteer on an Israeli military base — made $16.2 million, according to Congressional disclosures.

Mr. Emanuel worked on eight deals while at Wasserstein Perella, the two biggest of which involved politically connected utilities, The Tribune reported.

In one deal, he advised Commonwealth Edison, the power producer, in its $8.2 billion acquisition of Pennsylvania-based Peco Energy. In the other, he helped GTCR Golder Rauner, a Chicago-based venture capital and private equity firm, in its purchase of the SecurityLink home security unit from SBC Communications, now AT&T.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/rahm-emanuel-former-investment-banker/
******
RAHM WAS CLINTON ADVISOR, WALL STREET MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, A CONGRESSMAN, WHITE HOUSE COSAND (GASP) RAHM WAS NOT EVEN VOTED "MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED."

TIMELINE

1992 Emanuel's knowledge of the top donors in the country, and his rapport with potential donors within the Jewish community helped Clinton amass a then-unheard-of sum of $72 million which nailed his victory.

1993 Emanuel became a senior advisor to Clinton from 1993 to 1998. Emanuel was initially Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and then Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy. He was a leading strategist in the unsuccessful White House efforts to institute universal healthcare and many other Clinton initiatives.

1993 One of Rahm's proudest moments was an event that touched his political sensibilities and his personal ties to Israel: the 1993 Rose Garden signing ceremony after the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Emanuel directed the details of the ceremony, down to the choreography of the famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat."

1998 While official Washington was in the throes of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Rahm Emanuel, a senior political aide to Pres Bill Clinton, ventured out to an elegant restaurant in Dupont Circle for something of a job interview, The New York Times’s Michael Luo writes.John Simpson, who ran the Chicago office of the investment banking boutique Wasserstein Perella & Company, had flown to Washington to meet with Mr. Emanuel at the behest of Mr. Simpson’s boss, Bruce Wasserstein, a major Democratic donor and renowned Wall Street dealmaker who had gotten to know Mr. Emanuel. “I had this idea that this could work and that it had upside,” Mr. Wasserstein, now chairman and chief executive of Lazard, the investment bank, told The Times. “It worked out better than I could have hoped.” And better than Mr. Emanuel could have imagined as well.

Over the course of a three-hour-plus dinner, Mr. Simpson and Mr. Emanuel discussed how they might work together. Shortly afterward, Mr. Emanuel accepted an offer, nudging him down what has by now become a well-trodden gilded path out of politics and into the lucrative world of business.

1998 Rahm "The Perfect" resigned his position as an advisor to Bill Clinton, to become a Wall Street investment banker with Wasserstein Perella, (now Dresdner Kleinwort), where he worked until 2002.

1999 Just like that (snaps fingers)----in 1999, Rahm became managing director at their Chicago office. According to Congressional disclosures, Emanuel made $16.2 million in his 2 1/2 year stint as a Wasserstein Perella banker AND he probably paid all his taxes.

Amazingly, Rahm "The Perfect" became a multi-millioniare overnight----and he wasn't even voted "Most Likely To Succeed."

At Wasserstein Perella, Rahm worked on eight deals, including the acquisition by Commonwealth Edison of Peco Energy and the purchase by GTCR Golder Rauner of the SecurityLink home security unit from SBC.

2002 Rahm "The Perfect" then ran for Congress (successfully, OF COURSE). Luckily (/snic) members of the securities and investment industry became Rahm's biggest backers, donating more than $1.5M up to 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

2006 Rahm also leaned heavily upon the financial industry as 2006 Dem Congressional Campaign Committee Chair. Financial industry donors contributed more than $5.8M to the Dem committee (behind only retirees).

Remember, the point of Obama bringing Rahm in was so that "tolerant and compassionate bi-partisan Rahm" could work constructively w/ Congress to pass an ambitious agenda.......Here's tolerant Rahm expressing his feelings for America on inauguration day.

Note below: Rahm Emmanual, Board of Freddie Mac; Todd Williams, Goldman Sachs & Fannie Mae; Steve Koch, Credit Suisse; Henry Paulson, Treasury, Goldman Sachs

WHY THE DEMOCRATS HAVEN’T BEEN MORE HELPFUL IN THE FISCAL CRISIS

The Democrats seem slightly befuddled how to react to the current fiscal crisis. One reason is that they helped to cause it. Starting with the Clinton administration, there was a conscious effort by Democrats to cozy up to Wall Street and to this day Barack Obama is being advised by those with deep involvement in the policies and practices that led to the current disaster. You can’t well complain about Bush’s Treasury Secretary having been with Goldman Sachs, when Clinton’s was as well and now the guy has Obama’s ear. And during the period liberals have largely looked the other way as the economic principles of the New Deal, Fair Deal and Great Society were steadily unraveled.

The Prowler, American Spectator - When President George W. Bush nominated Henry Paulson to serve as Treasury Secretary, Republicans raised a red flag that Paulson, who, along with his wife, has strong ties to the Democrat party, would not be an honest broker with Republicans.That seems to have been borne out, with sources inside of Treasury reporting that Paulson briefed Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign advisers on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout plan before offering such a briefing to the McCain campaign.

In fact, the McCain campaign had sought a similar briefing several days ago as word spread that a bailout plan was to be unveiled and had been turned down by Paulson’s senior staff.

The next question is: Why was the Obama campaign so keen on getting advanced word about the bailout?

“They have a huge problem with the mortgage and housing market story, and everyone is missing it,” says a Republican political media consultant with ties to the Obama campaign due to the bipartisan nature of the firm he does work with.

“You look at Obama’s economic advisers, the guys he has counted on from day one and who have raised him a ton — and I mean a ton — of money: Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both of them are waist to neck deep in the mortgage debacle.”

Both Raines and Johnson have served as CEO of Fannie Mae, with Raines taking over from Johnson. Both are key political and economic advisers to Obama.

“How can Obama go out with a straight face and say it was Republicans who made this mess, when it is his key advisers who ran the agencies that made the big mess what it is?” says a Democrat House member who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. “It’s his people who are responsible for what may well be the single largest government bailout in history. And every single one of them made millions off the collapse that are lining Obama’s campaign coffers. . .It isn’t just Fannie Mae where Obama has a problem. Another close political adviser, in fact the one man responsible for rallying support for Obama early on among Congressional Democrats, is Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who served on the Board of Directors for Freddie Mac after leaving the Clinton White House. . .

Emanuel claimed to be neutral in the primary race between the wife of his old boss and his longtime Chicago acquaintance, Obama. But the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, who would be first in line for the vacated Senate seat of Obama should he win the presidency, quickly dumped Clinton when it was clear Obama had a head of steam for the nomination. . .

Both Raines and Johnson have served as CEO of Fannie Mae, with Raines taking over from Johnson. Both are key political and economic advisers to Obama.
Protein Wisdom - [In a] May 6th speech, [Obama] said that we “need a government that stands up for families who are being tricked out of their homes by Wall Street predators.” What Obama failed to mention was that by the end of March 2008, he had taken $1,180,103 from people and groups associated with the top ten issuers of subprime loans. . . Indeed, Swiss banking giant UBS, which has written off more debt from the subprime crisis than any other bank, has contributed $363,257 not included in that total. . .

Obama failed to mention that his fundraising bundlers include: Louis Susman, Michael Froman and J. Michael Schell of Citigroup; Steve Koch of Credit Suisse; Bruce Hayman, David Heller, Eric Schwartz, and Todd Williams of Goldman Sachs; Mark Gilbert, Christine Forester, John Rhea, Nadja Fidelia, and Theodore Janulis of Lehman; and Robert Wolf of UBS Americas. These folks raised an additional $1,800,000
for Obama. . .

http://prorev.com/2008/09/why-democrats-havent-been-more-helpful.html

******

Since July 2007, Goldman Sachs has spent around $100 million hedging against the risk of default in its AIG derivatives, said Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag. But in soothing concerns over its exposure to AIG, Goldman officials opened another can of worms namely, why the firm was made whole on its bets...

Something else going on concerning Goldman-Sachs in July 2007 :

JUNE 2007 : (40 LETTERS THREATENING GOLDMAN SACHS ARE MAILED TO MEDIA OUTLETS AROUND THE COUNTRY --See 2008 OCTOBER SUPRISE MORTGAGE / FINANCIAL CRISIS, HANK PAULSON? ) ------“Exclusive: Teens behind terror ‘hoax,’ sez new letter” BY JOHN MARZULLI, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Monday, August 6th 2007, 4:00 AM, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/08/06/2007-08-06_teens_behind_terror_hoax_sez_new_letter.html

JULY 2007 : (4-PAGE LETTER PURPORTEDLY FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE 40 THREAT LETTERS AGAINST GOLDMAN SACHS IS SENT TO A DAILY NEWS REPORTER; IT CLAIMS EARLIER 40 LETTERS WERE A HOAX BY 3 "MISGUIDED" TEENAGERS,--See 2008 OCTOBER SUPRISE MORTGAGE / FINANCIAL CRISIS, HANK PAULSON? ) The four-page letter, hand-printed in red ink on lined paper just like the original batch of 40 letters mailed to media outlets around the country in June, was sent to a Daily News reporter ...------“Exclusive: Teens behind terror ‘hoax,’ sez new letter” BY JOHN MARZULLI, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Monday, August 6th 2007, 4:00 AM, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/08/06/2007-08-06_teens_behind_terror_hoax_sez_new_letter.html

AUGUST 5, 2007 : (NEW GOLDMAN SACHS LETTER CLAIMING EARLIER 40 LETTERS WERE A HOAX BY 3 "MISGUIDED" TEENAGERS--See 2008 OCTOBER SUPRISE MORTGAGE / FINANCIAL CRISIS, HANK PAULSON?)

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “A new letter purportedly written by the author of terrorist threats against Goldman Sachs claims the whole thing was a hoax “conceived by three misguided teenagers.”The four-page letter, hand-printed in red ink on lined paper just like the original batch of 40 letters mailed to media outlets around the country in June, was sent to a Daily News reporter last month and immediately turned over to federal investigators.An FBI spokesman said yesterday that the new letter is still undergoing analysis at the agency’s lab in Quantico, Va., but it appeared to contain similarities to the original threats.“The investigators believe the latest letter may have been written by the same person, but they’re not convinced the underlying story in the letter is the truth,” said spokesman James Margolin. The story revealed in the latest missive is nearly as bizarre as the warning sent out in the original letters.”-------

“Exclusive: Teens behind terror ‘hoax,’ sez new letter” BY JOHN MARZULLI, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Monday, August 6th 2007, 4:00 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/08/06/2007-08-06_teens_behind_terror_hoax_sez_new_letter.html

Subprime Lending Crises including Barack Obama's Involvement in the 90's (Part 3 - AIG, Goldman-Sachs)

Now fast forward to 2007-08-09, when (1) Goldman Sachs bets its portfolio of Liar Loans against the short-traders then-coordinating the Obama campaign from within the Bush Treasury Dept, (2) sabotages the McCain campaign from within the Bush Treasury Dept, (3) hoodwinks George Bush into signing the TARP, (4) receives tens of billions of dollars stolen from the American taxpayer, (5) that they launder through AIG, (6) emerges from the collapse of the markets as the dominant force in NYSE program trading, and, (7) transforms $tens of billions of dollars [stolen from the American taxpayer] into record bonus payouts in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

GOLDMAN BIG DEFENDS $12.9B PAID BY AIG By KAJA WHITEHOUSE, NY POST, March 21, 2009

Despite catching flack for having accepted $12.9 billion in taxpayer funds as payment for bets it made with beleaguered insurance giant American International Group, officials at Goldman Sachs were unapologetic, saying the payday was strictly business and aboveboard.

"We don't think we did anything wrong," Goldman's Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said in a conference call with reporters. "We had commercial terms. It is our responsibility to our shareholders to make sure that we are protecting ourselves. That's why we enter into these contracts."

Goldman set up the call to "clarify certain misperceptions in the press" around the bank's vulnerability to an AIG collapse. The Wall Street bank was largely successful in soothing those concerns, as Viniar explained how, despite a $20 billion derivative exposure to AIG as early as September, Goldman had set things up so that it could walk away largely unscathed had AIG gone bust.

Since July 2007, Goldman Sachs has spent around $100 million hedging against the risk of default in its AIG derivatives, said Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag. But in soothing concerns over its exposure to AIG, Goldman officials opened another can of worms namely, why the firm was made whole on its bets, given AIG's troubled financial health and given that Goldman was so well-protected against default.

AIG has come under fire amid revelations that $90 billion of the government funds it received were funneled to its trading counterparties, whose contracts were largely bought out at face value. Goldman was the largest single beneficiary of the funds.

"I think the question is why did the Treasury not demand that Goldman Sachs and AIG negotiate down the collateral agreements on CDS?" said James Kaufman, a former Wall Street banker with Lazard Freres, referring to derivatives known as credit-default swaps. "If we had taken a discount, then we would have taken a loss to Goldman Sachs, and, frankly, as I'm sure you know, we also have taxpayer money at Goldman Sachs," Viniar said. Goldman got $10 billion as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Viniar also downplayed the notion that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein had the ear of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who was Blankfein's predecessor at Goldman.

Even before AIG became a government-owned enterprise, Goldman had already persuaded the company to pay it $7.5 billion in cash collateral as a result of the waning value of the assets tied to its derivative contracts.

After AIG was bailed out, Goldman received another $2.5 billion in cash collateral, plus $5.6 billion in payments made to unwind its contracts with AIG. Goldman said its remaining derivative exposure to AIG sits at around $7 billion, to which it's received $4.4 billion in collateral.

SOURCE: http://www.nypost.com/seven/03212009/business/goldman_big_defends_12_9b_paid_by_aig_160547.htm

Subprime Lending Crises including Barack Obama's Involvement in the 90's (Part 2 - MERS, Kansas Supreme Court Ruling)

WAKING UP TO DISCOVER THE MORTGAGE MARKET WAS A GIANT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE!
Matt Taibbi; Global Research.ca
9-22-09 Mike Taibbi

A landmark ruling in a recent Kansas Supreme Court case may have given millions of distressed homeowners the legal wedge they need to avoid foreclosure. In Landmark National Bank v. Kesler, 2009 Kan. LEXIS 834, the Kansas Supreme Court held that a nominee company called MERS has no right or standing to bring an action for foreclosure. MERS is an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, a private company that registers mortgages electronically and tracks changes in ownership. The significance of the holding is that if MERS has no standing to foreclose, then nobody has standing to foreclose – on 60 million mortgages. That is the number of American mortgages currently reported to be held by MERS.

Over half of all new U.S. residential mortgage loans are registered with MERS and recorded in its name. Holdings of the Kansas Supreme Court are not binding on the rest of the country, but they are dicta of which other courts take note; and the reasoning behind the decision is sound.
via Landmark Decision: Massive Relief for Homeowners and Trouble for the Banks. [link below]

This is a potentially gigantic story. It seems that a court has ruled that about half of the mortgage market has been run as a criminal enterprise for years, which would invalidate any potential forelosure proceedings for about, oh, 60 million mortgages. The court ruled that the electronic transfer system used by the private company MERS — a clearing system for mortgages, similar to a depository, that is used for about half the mortgage market — is fundamentally unreliable, and any mortgage sold and/or transferred through MERS can’t be foreclosed upon, at least not in Kansas.

Coincidentally I’d been working on something related to this all day yesterday. All over the country, lawyers are contesting foreclosures because of similar chain-of-custody issues. I have some material about this coming out in my next Rolling Stone story, so I can’t get into this too much, but suffice to say the lenders and the banks were extremely sloppy about their paperwork (at best — there is a fraud angle as well) and jammed up the system with missing and/or mismarked mortgage notes. Since a sale isn’t legal unless there’s full transfer of the physical note, a lot of the sales of mortgage-backed securities were not entirely legal, since the actual notes were often not transferred.

Nothing like waking up in the morning and finding out a whole sector of the economy is completely screwed. Are these good times or what?

Although this particular case pertains to MERS, non-MERS mortgages were often even worse. Anyway I have more on this coming next week. Thanks again to Eric at MonkeyBusiness for the heads-up.

Must Read: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15324
*****
The Potential Impact of 60 Million Fatally Flawed Mortgages

The banks arranging these mortgage-backed securities have typically served as trustees for the investors. When the trustees could not present timely written proof of ownership entitling them to foreclose, they would in the past file “lost-note affidavits” with the court; and judges usually let these foreclosures proceed without objection.

But in October 2007, an intrepid federal judge in Cleveland put a halt to the practice. U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Boyko ruled that Deutsche Bank had not filed the proper paperwork to establish its right to foreclose on fourteen homes it was suing to repossess as trustee. Judges in many other states then came out with similar rulings.

Following the Boyko decision, in December 2007 attorney Sean Olender suggested in an article in The San Francisco Chronicle that the real reason for the bailout schemes being proposed by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was not to keep strapped borrowers in their homes so much as to stave off a spate of lawsuits against the banks. Olender wrote:

“The sole goal of the [bailout schemes] is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value – right now almost 10 times their market worth. The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process.

“. . . The catastrophic consequences of bond investors forcing originators to buy back loans at face value are beyond the current media discussion. The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail, resulting in massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, and even FDIC . . . .

“What would be prudent and logical is for the banks that sold this toxic waste to buy it back and for a lot of people to go to prison. If they knew about the fraud, they should have to buy the bonds back.”

Needless to say, however, the banks did not buy back their toxic waste, and no bank officials went to jail. As Olender predicted, in the fall of 2008, massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie were pushed through by Henry Paulson, whose former firm Goldman Sachs was an active player in creating CDOs when he was at its helm as CEO.

Paulson also hastily engineered the $85 billion bailout of insurer American International Group (AIG), a major counterparty to Goldmans’ massive holdings of CDOs. The insolvency of AIG was a huge crisis for Goldman, a principal beneficiary of the AIG bailout.

In a December 2007 New York Times article titled “The Long and Short of It at Goldman Sachs,” Ben Stein wrote:

“For decades now, . . . I have been receiving letters [warning] me about the dangers of a secret government running the world . . . . [T]he closest I have recently seen to such a world-running body would have to be a certain large investment bank, whose alums are routinely Treasury secretaries, high advisers to presidents, and occasionally a governor or United States senator.”
The pirates seem to have captured the ship, and until now there has been no one to stop them. But 60 million mortgages with fatal defects in title could give aggrieved homeowners and securities holders the crowbar they need to exert some serious leverage on Congress – serious enough perhaps even to pry the legislature loose from the powerful banking lobbies that now hold it in thrall.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15324

Here’s a link to the Court’s decision: http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Opinions/opinions/supct/2009/20090828/98489.htm .

Subprime Lending Crises including Barack Obama's Involvement in the 90's (Part 1)

Today we are going to focus on the banking and mortgage crises that has driven the US to the brink of economic ruin. Just how much was Obama involved in contributing to this crises starting in the mid 90's when he represented clients who could not afford to buy a house but were eventually able to buy because they claimed it was because of race they couldn't get loans? This led to the sub-prime mortgage mess we see today. How can you loan money to anyone that cannot afford to pay it back and do absolutely no checking on their income for them to qualify. No wonder the economic crises is getting worse not better as more of these loans go into foreclosure.

A lot of mismanagement has been involved including outright greed and fraud. Who is going to straighten out the mess when the President was part of the group that help create the mess and the Democrat heads of Congress contributed. Why didn't Republicans yell louder to be heard when they figured out what a mess the banking industry had become especially with subprime mortgages on the books? Why did Pres Bush take the advice of Democrat Senator Schumer to hire Paulson as Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs. The old adage is to follow the money and in this case a lot of the investigation leads right to Goldman Sachs.

How is Goldman Sachs involved with this White House? That question and more will be answered as you read about this economic disaster that is likely to get worse in the months ahead. Our thanks to the Free Republic investigators who wanted to find the truth and have provided the links!

As Subprime Lending Crisis Unfolded, Watchdog Fed Didn't Bother Barking Washington Post
Binyamin Appelbaum
Sunday, September 27, 2009

When the CRA was created during the Carter administration, the administration also funded with tax dollars numerous “community groups” that have helped the Fed, the Comptroller of the Currency, and other federal regulatory agencies to enforce the act. Under the CRA, if a bank wants to make virtually any change in its business operations — merging, opening up a new branch, getting into a new line of business — it must first prove to regulators that it has made “enough” loans to the government’s preferred borrowers.

The (partially) tax-funded “community groups” like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) can file petitions with regulators that stop the bank’s activities in their tracks, perhaps defeating them altogether. The banks routinely buy off ACORN and other “community groups” by giving them millions of dollars as well as promising to make even more dubious loans.

http://mises.org/story/2963
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2084666/posts
...........

To move from the abstract to the concrete, we can look to, for example, a Sept. 20, 2004 press release, “Citigroup and ACORN Sign Groundbreaking Agreement to Expand Access to Financial Services in Communities Around the Country”. There Citibank touted that it and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) agreed to collaborate on several initiatives, including:

-- Form an affordable mortgage-lending program between Citigroup and ACORN Housing Corp. (AHC) to develop a specialized mortgage product for all AHC’s homeownership centers, and make mortgages available to immigrants who have previously been shut out of credit markets.
***
— Focus on community development lending to increase affordable housing in areas where the Citibank Community Development and ACORN footprints coincide.
— Provide borrowers with access to the best combination of loan product, price, service, and attributes.
— Establish a net-benefit test for real estate secured loans.

We now call real estate secured loans issued in compliance with these programs, “Subprime.”

Barack Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with ACORN. Acorn’s Madeleine Talbot first drew Mr. Obama into his alliance with ACORN. Toni Foulkes, a Chicago Acorn leader, has described that it specifically sought out Mr. Obama’s representation in a case it filed seeking to force the State of Illinois to comply with motor voter requirements.

So, the “Community Reinvestment Act” seeks input from “Community Organizers” like ACORN in rating financial institutions on their compliance is issuing subprime loans.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2076874/posts
..............

Obama was a key player behind the mortgage crisis

In a 1995 case known as Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank, Obama and his fellow attorneys charged that Citibank was making too few loans to black applicants and won the case. As one commentator noted in May 2008, legal “successes” such as this were probably responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2007 AND 2008. That is, banks were not loaning to blacks whose credit was poor. When the law forced them to lend money anyway, the inevitable collapse occurred.”

Obama was a key player in the lawsuit that started the government on a course of forcing lenders to give more loans to those who had poor credit. Lending companies were forced to come up with imaginative ways of fulfilling the quotas that were required. Sub-prime lending was born as a result. The mortgage crises was forecast by many who were able to look beyond the quota. Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank

http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/detail.php?id=10112&search=source%7Cgeneral;caseCat%7CFH;orderby%7CcaseName;

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2091975/postshttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2349231/posts?page=14

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Barack Obama: President Pantywaist restores the satellite states to their former owner

Wonder what this British reporter would say now after the Obama appeasement/apology speech at the United Nations with his attack on Israel while using words to make our enemies applaud. Obama tries to talk tough to Iran and their leaders laugh. How come the British papers understand while a lot of media going MIA on Obama and have since he decide to run? Obama was showed up by the French President on Iran this week. When is the last time a French President showed up the US President? Dangerous times we live with a President who cannot make a decision on foreign policy and chooses enemies over allies.

Barack Obama: President Pantywaist restores the satellite states to their former owner
Gerald Warner
18 September 2009

Barack Obama’s chances of re-election in three and a half years’ time may be evaporating at unprecedented speed, but his presidential ambitions could still be realised in another direction. He would be a shoo-in to win the next Russian presidential election, so high is his popularity now running in the land of the bear and the knout. Obama has done more to restore Russia’s hegemonial potential in Eastern and Central Europe than even Vladimir Putin.

His latest achievement has been to restore the former satellite states to dependency on Moscow, by wimping out of the missile defence shield plan. This follows on his surrender last July when he voluntarily sacrificed around a third of America’s nuclear capability for no perceptible benefit beyond a grim smile from Putin. If there is one thing that fans the fires of aggression it is appeasement.

Despite propaganda to the contrary, 58 per cent of Poles were in favour of the missile shield. But small nations must assess the political will of larger powers. Thanks to President Pantywaist’s supine policies, the former satellite states can see that they are fast returning to their former status. The American umbrella cannot be relied upon on a rainy day. They have been here before. Poles remember how a leftist US president sold them out to Russia at Tehran and Yalta. The former Czechoslovakia was betrayed twice: in 1938 and 1945.

If the word is out that America is in retreat, it will soon find it has no friends. The satellites will pragmatically accept their restored subordination, without openly acknowledging it, and co-operate with their dangerous neighbour, ushering in a new generation of Finlandisation.

Bringing unstable states like Georgia into Nato would be a liability, not a defence. The crazy notion of a US-Nato-Russian combined defence policy has all the staying power of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Ronald Reagan, assisted by Margaret Thatcher, implemented the sensible principle that Russia, from the time of Peter the Great, respects only strength and steely political will. A pushover in the Oval Office is the best news Russian expansionists have heard since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Barack Obama is selling out America and, by extension, the entire West. This is a catastrophe for America and the wider world.

SOURCE: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100010499/barack-obama-president-pantywaist-restores-the-satellite-states-to-their-former-owner/

Cooking the Polls?

What a shock? NOT! How many other polling companies use bad methodology like polling 45% Dem and 19% Republican? This whole industry is suspect with the fact they tend not to poll in Middle America, but want us to believe it is a poll across the Country. We doubt that a lot of polling companies could withstand an audit of how they poll, but this company seems worse then most.

Source:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/26/0021250/Math-Indicates-Pollster-Is-Forging-Results?from=rss

An anonymous reader writes "Nate Silver suggests the political pollster Strategic Vision is 'cooking the books. And whoever is doing so is doing a pretty sloppy job.' Silver crunched five years worth of their polling data, and found their reported results followed a suspicious pattern which traditionally suggests fraud. The five-year distribution of the numbers 'is not random. It's not close to random.' The polling firm had already been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research for failing to disclose their methodology, though the firm argues they did comply with the organization's request. Their response to Silver's accusation? 'We have a call in to our attorney on this and fully intend to take action that will vindicate us.'"

What country does this president live in?

By COL. DONALD J. MYERS

A Mind of My Own

Published: September 25, 2009

I have lived long enough, listened to enough presidents and spent enough time in formal education along with extensive reading of various topics to be wary of misinformation and lies.

This week our president has again attacked our country before an international audience at the United Nations. If you listened, you would think this particular president was the first in untold years to be concerned about people. He sounded more like a world king rather than the president of the United States. He again accused us of acting unilaterally rather than encouraging friends to assist us. He talked about ordering the closing of Gitmo and stopping torture of prisoners. You would assume that it was national policy to torture before this president came into office.

The president spoke about the coming destruction of the world unless something was done about global warming, and he stated that this country would do its utmost to reduce this threat, and he talked about what had been done during the past nine months.

Too bad he is not as concerned about our national security since he has drastically reduced our missile defense. Our Polish friends are especially upset since they thought we would provide missile defense for them until the president canceled it.

The Iranians are snubbing their nose at us and the world, and they intend to continue their quest for nuclear weapons. Venezuela has stated it will provide gasoline to Iran, since Iran has almost no refinery capability. Russia is planning to provide missile defense weapons. Iran is supplying weapons to our enemies in Afghanistan and has been doing the same in Iraq for years.

Our response is to talk with the leaders of Iran and possibly implement sanctions. Gee, I wonder if Venezuela and Russia will comply? In another part of the world, North Korea continues to improve its nuclear capabilities and missile technology in open defiance.

I doubt if much American history was covered when the president went to school in Indonesia, and the same applied when he went to school in the new state of Hawaii. In his own words, he sought out rebels as he grew older and then Marxists as instructors in college.

Source: http://www2.hernandotoday.com/content/2009/sep/25/what-country-does-president-live/columnists/

COMMENTS: Very well stated by Colonel Myers! America needs to wake up to the person they elected to the White House and the Obama agenda.