No Excuse Obama?

MarineReconDad — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:46:47 GMT

There is absolutely NO excuse for Obama to fly to Denver using up jet fuel for two Air Force planes and un-totaled money on security and ground transport. When America is in such financial economic straights! And, for what purpose? For some media event that could have been performed in Washington at the White House where it should have been! At minimal cost to the taxpayer!

He gives you a measly $13 a week tax "bone" and spends $100.000's of dollars in jet fuel alone!

He just doesn't get it! But what can you expect?

The MOST inexperienced President in history, at the MOST critical time in our history!

God Help Us All To Get To 2012! If we last that long!

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dave — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:20:35 GMT

I completely agree. I can't wait for the Obama supporters to get their 401 statements and see the drop, oh wait a minute most of his supporters do not have a 401k.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Lee — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:14:41 GMT

Forget the money spent and forget the abuse, it was all planned right to the palce where he signed the bill. You are right there is no excuse for going there and he will not give one. He picked a solar energy plant to showcase his renewable energy program but if you check further the plant was in trouble financial trouble to go further you will find that the plant is owned and operated by dreamers not business people. Everyone in the plant makes the same amount of money no matter what they do, no one is the leader (they have none) and they all take a 6 weeks vacation every year. Like our president they are not business people but they are idealist. This palnt will be his example and our money will keep it going, not thier business plan and place in the market place based on competition and ability to succeed as a start up company in a difficult arena. They will succed only with government help and taxpayer money the presidents perfect company, if he succeeds, losers and underachivers will be the winners and the America I knew as the greatest and the country I was raised to believe in and the reaponsibilty and work ethic given to me by my fore fathers will be a thing of the past. Yes there is no excuse but there will be more, so remember our elected officials work for us and the more we keep letting them know our position the quicker we will get out of the position our president is ready to lead us. You know the change and hope we were promised but not what has been given to us. Change in Washington is one thing but a distruction of the country is another.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:43:50 GMT

UN: IRAN HAS ENOUGH URANIUM FOR NUKE BOMB...

Iran hails military ties with Russia...

TAX YOU BY THE MILE...

CHICAGO MAYOR VOWS: 'THERE WILL BE A SURVEILLANCE CAMERA ON EVERY STREET CORNER IN CITY'...

CLINTON TO OBAMA: SHOW US THE HOPE!



TRADERS REVOLT: CNBC HOST CALLS FOR NEW 'TEA PARTY'; CHICAGO FLOOR MOCKS OBAMA PLAN...


CNBC POLL: Would You Join 'Chicago Tea Party?'


Obama Still Owes Chicago $1.74M For Victory Bash...

What recession? Members of Congress 'throwing lavish events'...

Vienna Waltzes Off Recession At Glitzy Opera Ball...

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:35:48 GMT

CITI SHARES CONTINUE PLUNGE...
Bank nationalization would pose hurdles for Obama...

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:29:22 GMT

You mean people are finally waking up?

White House Responds to CNBC 'Rant'...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Friday dismissed a cable television reporter's criticism of President Barack Obama's housing bailout plan as the ranting of an individual who "doesn't know what he's talking about."

In a report on CNBC on Thursday, Rick Santelli animatedly accused the Obama administration of "promoting bad behavior" with its $75 billion lifeline to millions of Americans on the brink of foreclosure.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs poked fun at Santelli by inviting him to come to the White House to read the details of Obama's plan. "I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee," Gibbs said. In a nod to Santelli's caffeinated style, Gibbs then wryly added: "Decaf."
Santelli took the critique in stride, saying Gibbs had hardly offered tough words.
"I think this is terrific that this has been opened up to national debate," Santelli said in an MSNBC interview shortly after Gibbs' daily briefing wrapped up. "I think it's wonderful he invited to me to the White House. I'm really not big on decaf, though. I think I'd prefer tea."
The episode underscores how closely the Obama White House, like others before it, monitors how media coverage may be shaping public opinion. In particular, the constant chatter of cable television news shows has at times gotten under the skin of White House aides, and they have made no effort to hide their displeasure.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:49:53 GMT

Obama’s Harvard Years: Questions Swirl

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman - NewsMax.com

How exactly did Barack Obama pay for his Harvard Law School education?
The way the Obama campaign has answered the question was simply hard work and student loans.

But new questions have been raised about Obama’s student loans and Obama’s ties to a radical Muslim activist who reportedly was raising money for Obama’s Harvard studies during the years 1988 to 1991.

The allegations first surfaced in late March, when former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton told a New York cable channel that a former business partner who was “raising money” for Obama had approached him in 1988 to help Obama get into Harvard Law School.

In the interview, Sutton says he first heard of Obama about twenty years ago from Khalid Al-Mansour, a Black Muslim and Black Nationalist who was a “mentor” to the founders of the Black Panther party at the time the party was founded in the early 1960s.

Sutton described al-Mansour as advisor to “one of the world’s richest men,” Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Prince Alwaleed catapulted to fame in the United States after the September 11 attacks, when New York mayor Rudy Guiliani refused his $10 million check to help rebuild Manhattan, because the Saudi prince hinted publicly that America’s pro-Israel policies were to blame for the attacks.

Sutton knew Al-Mansour well, since the two men had been business partners and served on several corporate boards together.
As Sutton remembered, Al-Mansour was raising money for Obama’s education and seeking recommendations for him to attend Harvard Law School.

“I was introduced to (Obama) by a friend who was raising money for him,” Sutton told NY1 city hall reporter Dominic Carter. “The friend’s name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas.”

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told Newsmax that Sutton’s account was “bogus” and a “fabrication that has been retracted” by a spokesman for the Sutton family.
He referred Newsmax to a pro-Obama blog published on Politico.com by reporter Ben Smith.

In a September 3 blog entry, Smith wrote that “a spokesman for Sutton’s family, Kevin Wardally” said that Sutton had been mistaken when he made those comments about Obama and Khalid Al-Mansour.

Smith suggested the retraction “put the [Obama/Al-Mansour] story to rest for good.”
Wardally told Smith that the “information Mr. Percy Sutton imported [sic] on March 25 in a NY1 News interview regarding his connection to Barack Obama is inaccurate. As best as our family and the Chairman’s closest friends can tell, Mr. Sutton, now 86 years of age, misspoke in describing certain details and events in that television interview.”

Asked which parts of Percy Sutton’s statements were a “fabrication,” LaBolt said “all of it. Al Mansour doesn’t know Obama. And Sutton’s spokesman retracted the story. The letter [to Harvard, which Percy Sutton says he wrote on behalf of Obama], the ‘payments for loans’ — all of it, not true,” he added.

Newsmax contacted the Sutton family and they categorically denied Wardally’s claims to Smith and the Politico.com. So there was no retraction of Sutton’s original interview, during which he revealed that Khalid Al-Mansour was “raising money” for Obama and had asked Sutton to write a letter of recommendation for Obama to help him get accepted at Harvard Law School.

Sutton’s personal assistant told Newsmax that neither Mr. Sutton or his family had ever heard of Kevin Wardally.

”Who is this person?” asked Sutton’s assistant, Karen Malone.
When told that he portrayed himself as a “spokesman” for the family, Malone told Newsmax, “Well, he’s not.”

According to a 2006 New York magazine profile, Wardally is part of a “New New Guard” in Harlem politics that has been challenging the “lions” of the old guard, Charles Rangel and Percy Sutton. That makes him an unlikely candidate to speak on behalf of Sutton.

Sutton maintains an office at the Manhattan headquarters of the firm he founded, Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. ICBC owns New York radio stations WBLS and WLIB.

Sutton’s son Pierre (“Pepe”) runs ICBC along with his daughter, Keisha Sutton-James. Malone told Newsmax that she had consulted with Sutton’s family members at the station and confirmed that no one knew Kevin Wardally or had authorized him to speak on behalf of the family.

For someone claiming to be a “spokesman” for the Sutton family, who was authorized to call Percy Sutton a liar, Wardally even got Percy Sutton’s age wrong.

Sutton is not 86, as Wardally said, but close to 88. He was born on Nov. 24, 1920.

Wardally responded to a several Newsmax phone messages and emails with a terse one-line comment, maintaining his statement that Percy Sutton “misspoke” in the television interview.

“I believe the statement speaks for itself and the Sutton Family and I have nothing further to say on the topic,” he wrote in an email.

Asked to explain why it was that no one at Inner City Broadcasting Corp. knew of him or accepted him as a family spokesman, Wardally responded later that he had been retained by a nephew of the elder Sutton, who “is in our office almost every week.”

Wardally works for Bill Lynch Associations, a Harlem political consulting firm. The nephew, Chuck Sutton, no longer works with the elder Sutton at Inner City Broadcasting, but for a high-tech start-up called Synematics.

“Percy Sutton doesn’t go out idly on television saying things he doesn’t mean,” a well-connected black entrepreneur who knows Sutton told Newsmax.

Ben LaBolt’s claim that “Al Mansour doesn’t know Obama” was contradicted by Al Mansour himself in an extended interview with Newsmax.

Comparing the revelation of his ties to Obama to the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Al Mansour said that he was determined to keep a low profile to avoid embarrassing Obama.

“In respect to Mr. Obama, I have told him, because so many people are running after him… I was determined that I was never going to be in that situation,” he told Newsmax.

Al Mansour said he was deliberately avoiding any contact with the candidate. “I’m not involved in any way in celebrity sweepstakes,” he said. “I wish him well, anything I can do if he lets me know, I’ll let him know what I think I can do or can’t. But I don’t collect autographs. I wish him the best, and hope he can win the election.”

He repeatedly declined to comment on the Percy Sutton allegations, either to confirm or to deny them.

“Any statement that I make would only further the activity which is not in the interest of Barack, not in the interest of Percy, not in the interest of anyone,” Al Mansour said.
Unanswered Questions

Sen. Obama has refused to instruct Harvard Law School to release any information about his time there as a student, or about his student loans.

Newsmax contacted the Dean of Students, the Director of Student Financial Services, the Registrar, and the Bursar of Harvard Law School. None would provide any specific information on Barack Obama’s time at Harvard, except for his dates of attendance (1988-1991) or his year of graduation, 1991.

A spokesman for the law school, Michael Armini, said it was Harvard policy not to divulge information on alumni without their approval.

“There are lots of reporters nosing around the library,” he acknowledged. So far, none had turned up any new information.

Law professors Lawrence Tribe and Charles Ogletree have both said publicly that they were “impressed” by Obama when he was a student.

Sources close to the Sutton family told Newsmax that Percy Sutton wrote a letter of recommendation for Obama to Ogletree at Khalid Al-Mansour’s request, but Ogletree declined to answer Newsmax questions about this.

Harvard Law School spokesman Michael Armini said that Harvard was “very generous” with financial aid, but only on the basis on need.

The Obama campaign told Newsmax that Obama self-financed his three years at Harvard Law School with loans, and did not receive any scholarship from Harvard Law school.

LaBolt denied that Obama received any financial assistance from Harvard or from outside parties. “No - he paid his way through by taking out loans,” he said in an email to Newsmax.
At the time, Harvard cost around $25,000 a year, or $75,000 for the three years that Obama attended. And as president of the Harvard Law Review, he received no stipend from the school, Harvard spokesman Mike Armini said.

“That is considered a volunteer position,” Armini said. “There is no salary or grant associated with it.”

So if the figures cited by the Obama campaign for the Senator’s student loans are accurate, that means that Obama came up with more than $32,000 over three years from sources other than loans to pay for tuition, room and board.

Where did he find the money? Did it come from friends of Khalid Al Mansour? And why would a radical Muslim activist with ties to the Saudi royal family be raising money for Barack Obama?

That’s the question the Obama campaign still won’t answer.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

MarineReconDad — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:26:42 GMT

Look back at my old posts. I listed at least ten people including Al-Mansour, Frank Davis and others way before the election. Names and ties to nefarious organizations. But, no one listened , and now we have the MOST inexperienced President in history, at our MOST critical time in history!

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:30:01 GMT

Good Morning MarineReconDad

I see that.

And your right, no one listened and now we may all be in BIG trouble because of that...

By the way.

Oh my goodness
Looks like Yedda™ restored my other account, due to the fact that I had asked them to, since i wanted to show everyone that I was not cancelled due to any wrongdoing on my part.
I won't make any posts with the old one though, so nobody gets confused.
I will only post with this one.
Please note the number of posts and thumbs so as not to be confused.
Thanks!
By the way, track back to the old one and see that I have restored it, by clicking here: In reply to Dawg's answer

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:41:01 GMT

BURNS: Obama weighs split Iraq advice

Robert Burns ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, February 22, 2009

President Obama faces split opinions within the military on whether to make the speedy withdrawal from Iraq he championed as a candidate.

The new president's top generals in Baghdad are pressing for an elongated timetable. Some influential senior advisers inside the Pentagon are more amenable to a quicker pullout. Mr. Obama has yet to decide the matter.

His recent announcement that he is sending thousands more combat troops to Afghanistan implies a drawdown of at least two brigades from Iraq by summer. But that does not answer the question of whether Mr. Obama will stick to his stated goal of a 16-month pullout or opt for a slower, less risky approach.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander in Baghdad, favors a longer timetable for leaving Iraq. He sees 2009 as a pivotal year, with parliamentary elections set to be held in December; he doesn't want to lose more than two of the 14 combat brigades that are now in Iraq before the end of the year. And he believes the U.S. military will need to remain engaged in Iraq, to some degree, for years to come.

Gen. Odierno's boss at U.S. Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus, leans toward Gen. Odierno's view.

Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has steered clear of the debate over withdrawing from Iraq. But he sees his battlefield as an increasingly urgent priority, not just for additional combat troops but also for Iraq-focused surveillance aircraft and more civilian support.

There are now about 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, compared with 38,000 in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama has directed 17,000 more to head to Afghanistan, including Marines and soldiers who had been in line for Iraq duty.

At the Pentagon, a more mixed view prevails.

The uniformed service chiefs see Iraq as a strain on their troops and, more broadly, a drain on their resources. The Marines, in particular, are in the tough position of having a foothold in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a relatively small service, the Marines would prefer to concentrate more fully on Afghanistan, if only they could get out of Iraq.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/22/obama-weighs-split-iraq-advice/

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:47:25 GMT

MSNBC

Sky-high Wall Street payouts may fall to Earth

Analysts say financial sector's pay may sink even further, changing culture

NEW YORK - With the economy in the throes of a historic meltdown, financial workers everywhere fear layoffs. But even those who keep their jobs may face a far different future than they had imagined — one without the big payouts that have long made Wall Street a beacon for the ambitious and the acquisitive.

Those finance industry workers still standing after the brutal banking collapses of the past year had to contend with a major slash in bonus pay — with many losing as much as one-third of their total compensation. Then the Obama administration imposed a pay cap of $500,000 on certain senior executives whose companies received substantial bailout money.

Now, analysts anticipate pay will sink even further, and some question whether the shift could permanently downsize the high-flying culture of Wall Street.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29316650/

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:21:58 GMT

What excuse is there for the Liberals letting Islam seep into our society?

Gruesome killing unsettles Muslim community

Sunday, February 22, 2009

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The crime was so brutal, shocking and so resembled the worst public images about their religion that some U.S. Muslims thought the initial reports were a hoax.

The harsh reality of what happened in an affluent suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. - the beheading of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan and the arrest of her estranged husband - is another crucible for American Muslims.

Here was a couple that appeared to be the picture of assimilation and tolerance, co-founders of a television network that aspired to improve the image of Muslims in a post-9/11 world.

Now, as Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan faces second-degree-murder charges, American Muslim leaders are once again facing hard questions - about gender issues, about distinctions between cultural and religious practices, and about differing interpretations of Islamic texts regarding women.

"Muslims don't want to talk about this, for good reason," said Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, a Muslim author and activist. "There is so much negativity about Muslims, and it sort of perpetuates it ... . But we've got to shine a light on this issue so we can transform it."

In an open letter to American Muslim leaders, Imam Mohamed Hagmagid Ali, of Sterling, Va., vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, said, "Violence against women is real and cannot be ignored." He urged that imams and community leaders never second-guess a woman in danger, and said Muslims should not view abuse-related divorces as bringing shame to their families.

Muslim women's advocates consider the statement significant after years of indifference in a community that has seen only recent progress - for example, the opening of shelters for battered Muslim women in a few major cities.

"This is a horrible tragedy, but it gives us a window," said Ms. Abdul-Ghafur, editor of the anthology "Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak."

"The next time a woman comes to her imam and says, 'He hit me,' the reply might not be, 'Be patient, sister, is there something you did, sister? Is there something you can do?' The chances are greater the imam will say, 'This is unacceptable.' "

At least nine mosques, imams and Islamic organizations also agreed to denounce domestic violence this week at the behest of a coalition of Muslims that organized on Facebook after Mrs. Hassan's death.

At the South Bay Islamic Association in San Jose, Calif., Imam Tahir Anwar said he preached at Friday prayer services about keeping peace in the family and denounced physical and emotional domestic violence.

"I wouldn't say [the problem] is particular to the Muslim community, but to the immigrant community whether you're Muslim or otherwise," Mr. Anwar, whose parents are from India, said in an interview. "Women don't speak up about it. It's a taboo that all immigrant communities sort of face."

Asra Nomani, a Muslim journalist, author and activist from Morgantown, W.Va., challenged Muslims who say the killing has no link to Islamic teachings. While Islam does not sanction domestic violence or killing, a literal reading of a verse in the Koran taught in some mosques can lead to honor killings and murder, she said.

"It's sort of like the typical reaction to terrorism in the community, where people want to say, 'This had nothing to do with Islam,' " Ms. Nomani said. "Well, it doesn't have anything to do with your interpretation of Islam that teaches you can't kill innocent people. But terrorism, violence, honor killing - they are all part of ideological problems we have in the community we need to eradicate."

The passage about wives - chapter 4, verse 34 - reads, according to one popular translation: "As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them."

Mrs. Hassan was killed six days after her husband was served with divorce papers and a protective order. Mr. Hassan is a native of Pakistan, and acquaintances said he was not overtly religious. His attorney has said neither religion, nor culture played a role in what happened.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/22/gruesome-killing-in-ny-poses-another-test-for-us-m/

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:33:33 GMT

PAPER: Obama auto team drives imports; Task force has few new American cars...

ASHINGTON -- The vehicles owned by the Obama administration's auto team could reflect one reason why Detroit's Big Three automakers are in trouble: The list includes few new American cars.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090223/AUTO01/902230327

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:52:00 GMT

What will Obama's exuse be if we are hit by a nuke?

Blame Bush?

North Korea Has New Ballistic Missile

(AP) North Korea recently deployed a new type of medium-range ballistic missile capable of reaching northern Australia and the U.S. territory of Guam, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Monday.

The report comes amid speculation that the isolated regime also is preparing to test-fire another, longer-range missile capable of hitting Alaska.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/23/world/main4821162.shtml?source=RSSattr=World_4821162

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:08:08 GMT

CNN Waking Up from the Obama Lovefest?? « Obama who ?

RE: No Excuse Obama?

American Patriot — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:25:45 GMT

White House objects to 'rant' on housing

WASHINGTON - The White House on Friday dismissed a cable television reporter's criticism of President Barack Obama's housing bailout plan as the ranting of an individual who "doesn't know what he's talking about."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs poked fun at Santelli by inviting him to come to the White House to read the details of Obama's plan. "I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee," Gibbs said. In a nod to Santelli's caffeinated style, Gibbs then wryly added: "Decaf."

Santelli took the critique in stride, saying Gibbs had hardly offered tough words.

"I think this is terrific that this has been opened up to national debate," Santelli said in an MSNBC interview shortly after Gibbs' daily briefing wrapped up. "I think it's wonderful he invited to me to the White House. I'm really not big on decaf, though. I think I'd prefer tea."

The episode underscores how closely the Obama White House, like others before it, monitors how media coverage may be shaping public opinion. In particular, the constant chatter of cable television news shows has at times gotten under the skin of White House aides, and they have made no effort to hide their displeasure.

The goal of Obama's plan is to help millions of homeowners from being evicted and stabilize the flailing housing market. It aims to help struggling homeowners refinance and provides more money to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to encourage them to rework deeply troubled loans.

Internet sensation
In his report on CNBC, Santelli said responsible homeowners would end up subsidizing other people's bad behavior.

Video

White House fights back
Feb. 20: The Obama administration responded Friday to Thursday's cable rant on the housing rescue plan from CNBC's Rick Santelli. NBC's Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd reports.
Nightly News From the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, he turned to traders and said: "How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?" The traders booed that notion, and Santelli said: "President Obama, are you listening?"

Santelli's report has become something of an Internet sensation.

Gibbs countered that Obama's housing plan would help those who have acted responsibly but yet could lose their home.

"Here's what this plan won't do," Gibbs said. "It won't help somebody trying to flip a house. It won't bail out an investor looking to make a quick buck. It won't help speculators that were betting on a risky market. And it is not going to help a lender who knowingly made a bad loan."

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:43:48 GMT

Well it's about time...

First ACORN arrest...

Police in Baltimore today made what is believed to be the first arrest in a civil disobedience program aimed at supporting homeowners who refuse to vacate their foreclosed homes.
An activist with ACORN — the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now — faces criminal charges after breaking into a home in southeast Baltimore on Thursday to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the country.
"This is our house now," ACORN member Louis Beverly reportedly said after cutting a lock with bolt cutters at the home.
Beverly will be charged with fourth-degree burglary, according to Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police. Attempts to reach his attorney, Justin Brown, were not immediately successful.
Donna Hanks, who owned the home since 2001, lost it in September when she couldn't make her $1,995 mortgage payments. It was not immediately clear whether Hanks re-entered her home last week, but she was not expected to be arrested, Guglielmi said.
Other police departments contacted by FOXNews.com said arrests would be made if an individual is determined to be residing at a foreclosed home illegally.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:51:16 GMT

Markets fall to be as bad as 1997 levels...

When Clinton was in office.

BACK TO 1997...

State sends $1 food stamp checks to 250,000...

Obama pledges to slash deficit - after increase...

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:42:02 GMT

Obama’s Failing Leadership - HUMAN EVENTS

President Obama has invited Republican leaders to the White House today for an “economic summit.” But it won’t be a “summit” at all: Obama plans to lay out his ideas for huge tax increases, massive reductions in defense spending -- including in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan -- and won’t seek Republican input to change his agenda.

Obama’s leadership failed its first two important tests, and is about to fail again. Last October, then running mate Joe Biden prophesied that Obama would be tested by a foreign crisis quickly. Biden told a Seattle audience that they’d need to stick with him and Obama because their decisions wouldn’t seem correct initially. He begged for time.

But the economic crisis challenged Obama’s leadership before our foreign enemies could. Obama has failed twice and there is little reason to believe his leadership will improve. His political character isn’t built on leadership skills. In the first two tests he hasn’t demonstrated it.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:02:43 GMT

Finding the Pork in the Obama Stimulus Bill - US News and World Report

From CBS:

Republican Sen. John McCain was on CBS' The Early Show this morning, where he expressed reservations about President Obama's economic stimulus bill now being debated in Congress.

"There's too much spending, too much unnecessary spending, not the right kind of tax cuts and no end game," McCain said. "In other words, after the economy recovers, we should be on a path to a balanced budget. We're laying the biggest deficit on future generations of Americans in history."

The former Republican presidential candidate added that he "appreciates" the outreach Mr. Obama has made to Republicans, but "we're a long way away."

"I appreciate the fact that the president came over and spoke to Republicans on both sides of the Capitol, but now it's time to sit down and negotiate," he said. "Now's the time to sit down and take into consideration the ideas that we have -- particularly on things like tax cuts. We should have payroll tax cuts. We should be having… incentives for people to stay in their homes. There's a lot of other proposals we have. We think we need to eliminate a lot of the wasteful pork barrel spending that's been put in and have a real, meaningful stimulus package. We realize they need the package. We need the package, America needs the package, but we're not there yet."

In the interview, McCain was also asked about the new controversy involving former Sen. Tom Daschle's nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Daschle will be grilled today over his initial failure to pay back taxes.

"I'd like to see what he has to say and how this all happened," McCain said. "It's a bit mystifying how all this could happen, but I'd like to examine the details of it before making up our mind. But this isn't exactly the ethics and lobbying reform that the president announced a short time ago."

Click here to read more on the Daschle controversy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/02/02/politics/politicalhotsheet

RE: No Excuse Obama?

American Patriot — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:59:13 GMT

Obama Taketh Away

P erhaps there is nothing in President Obama’s budget that better illustrates his priorities than his proposal to cap deductions on money donated to charity. “Don’t worry about giving,” this proposal seems to say. “That’s what the government is for.”

Taking, too. Obama’s budget increases taxes by $1.3 trillion. On the giving side, it increases discretionary spending by 12 percent and makes a $634 billion down payment on a national health-care system. Obama leaves the details of the system to Democrats in Congress, but he is specific about how to pay for it. He proposes to fund it in part by capping the value of itemized deductions for taxpayers in the top income-tax bracket, while simultaneously raising their tax rates. The message is clear: Turn more of your money over to us, and we’ll give it away for you.

Not all of Obama’s tax increases would come from higher rates. His budget would also impose a tax on energy in the form of a cap-and-trade program. The problems with this plan are numerous. Obama expects to fund some $100 billion in spending with proceeds from cap-and-trade. But, as Kevin Drum pointed out in Mother Jones , those numbers don’t add up unless 100 percent of commercial carbon-dioxide emissions are covered — about 50 percent is a more likely scenario, meaning that carbon-permit prices would have to approach $30 a ton for Obama to fund his spending priorities. Those permits are currently trading at $13 a ton on the European exchange. It’s worth keeping in mind that Obama’s cap-and-trade revenue projections are based on predicting fluctuations in the prices of complex financial instruments that are, not to put too fine a point on it, at present imaginary , and whose value derives entirely from a federal regulation that is subject to change with every shift in the political winds.

At its best, a cap-and-trade system is a burdensome tax on the production and consumption of energy, meaning that it will punish every working family sweating high utility bills and shackle the manufacturing sector of the economy, which Obama promised to bolster. A first step toward creating good manufacturing jobs in the United States would be to forgo a tax on manufacturing.

While Obama’s tax increases will almost certainly become law, his spending cuts will almost certainly not. This is particularly true in the case of agriculture. Obama says he will save $10 billion by capping payments to wealthy farmers and billions more by scrapping other costly and inefficient farm programs. But these savings will never materialize. Rep. Collin C. Peterson, the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, told the Washington Times , “we just finished the [latest five-year] farm bill last year, and I don’t think we’ ll open it up.” If Obama really wanted to reform farm subsidies, he could have taken a stand when it mattered. Instead, he went complaisantly along with the subsidizers and voted for the farm bill last year.

For his other proposed cuts to take effect, Obama will have to make credible threats to veto appropriations bills that increase spending where he has called for decreases. If Obama is able to pull this off, we will be among the first to congratulate him. But neither party has an outstanding record of controlling spending when it controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and judging by the bloated bulk of the stimulus bill, we are not optimistic that the Obama-era Democrats will fare much better than their predecessors. In fact, as the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl pointed out , Obama’s spending increases are larger than the new revenues from his tax hikes. His deficit-reduction plan is to hope that the economy improves.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

American Patriot — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:06:00 GMT

Obama the Rhetorical Magician

G eorge H. W. Bush made a “read my lips” no-new-taxes pledge in his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention in August 1988, and broke it two years later. That seemed a fast turnaround, but President Barack Obama has outpaced him by making, and then signaling his intention to break, a no-new-taxes pledge all in the same address.

“If your family earns less than $250,000 a year,” Obama said in his speech to a joint session of Congress, “you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”

Unless, that is, your family pays a utility bill. Earlier from the same podium, Obama exhorted Congress to send him “legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution.” This cap-and-trade program would increase the cost of energy for everyone, regardless of income. It is a broad-based (if indirect) tax increase of the sort the casual listener would have thought Obama ruled out in categorical language.

Obama’s just-released budget outline proposes using revenues raised by cap-and-trade to fund his “Making Work Pay” tax credits that were part of the stimulus bill. Of those credits, Obama said, “The recovery plan provides a tax cut — that’s right, a tax cut — for 95 percent of working families.” This was a central Obama pledge during the campaign, although he never mentioned he’d fund it with a countervailing tax increase on working families and everyone else.

If you follow the money — out one pocket, in the other — Obama’s campaign promise is exposed as a fraud. Obama counts on no one noticing, in a vindication of the French writer Frederic Bastiat’s definition of politics as “the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”

Obama is a talented, but a wily and dishonest, salesman. Nineteenth-century pol Martin Van Buren earned the sobriquet “the little magician” for his skillful manipulation of New York’s political machine. Obama is the rhetorical magician, depending — as all magicians do — on deft sleight of hand.

In his speech, Obama didn’t want his listeners to think he’s a big-government heir to Lyndon Johnson, so he talked of slashing waste. He said his team had begun going “line by line” through the budget, and “we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.”

In common parlance, “savings” is taken to mean . . . well, savings. But half of this $2 trillion is accounted for by Obama’s planned tax increases on the rich — in other words, he has identified revenue, not savings. Much of the rest is arrived at by assuming the Iraq War would cost $170 billion a year for the duration, even though Obama has long planned a drawdown. Obama portrays himself as ruthlessly paring back government when he is simply raising taxes and leaving Iraq.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:15:37 GMT

So you call yourself an American, 'American', but yet you don't seem to have America's best interest in mind, with your flip flopping on the issues. Others are taking notice of you too.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

American Patriot — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:22:37 GMT

Hey dawg Who the hell are you Mr Yedda these threads are open to all . You just post on all pf them over & over . if you don't loke my posts don;t read them .I don't read yours

Inside Obama’s Acorn

W hat if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does Barack Obama.

This is a story we’ve largely missed. While Obama’s Acorn connection has not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal “motor-voter” bill. In fact, Obama’s Acorn connection is far more extensive. In the few stories where Obama’s role as an Acorn “leadership trainer” is noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama’s ties to Acorn.

An Anti-Capitalism Agenda
To understand the nature and extent of Acorn’s radicalism, an excellent place to begin is Sol Stern’s 2003 City Journal article, “ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities .” (For a shorter but helpful piece, try Steven Malanga’s “Acorn Squash .”)

Sol Stern explains that Acorn is the key modern successor of the radical 1960’s “New Left,” with a “1960’s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism” to match. Acorn, says Stern, grew out of “one of the New Left’s silliest and most destructive groups, the National Welfare Rights Organization.” In the 1960’s, NWRO launched a campaign of sit-ins and disruptions at welfare offices. The goal was to remove eligibility restrictions, and thus effectively flood welfare rolls with so many clients that the system would burst. The theory, explains Stern, was that an impossibly overburdened welfare system would force “a radical reconstruction of America’s unjust capitalist economy.” Instead of a socialist utopia, however, we got the culture of dependency and family breakdown that ate away at America’s inner cities — until welfare reform began to turn the tide.

While Acorn holds to NWRO’s radical economic framework and its confrontational 1960’s-style tactics, the targets and strategy have changed. Acorn prefers to fly under the national radar, organizing locally in liberal urban areas — where, Stern observes, local legislators and reporters are often “slow to grasp how radical Acorn’s positions really are.” Acorn’s new goals are municipal “living wage” laws targeting “big-box” stores like Wal-Mart, rolling back welfare reform, and regulating banks — efforts styled as combating “predatory lending.” Unfortunately, instead of helping workers, Acorn’s living-wage campaigns drive businesses out of the very neighborhoods where jobs are needed most. Acorn’s opposition to welfare reform only threatens to worsen the self-reinforcing cycle of urban poverty and family breakdown. Perhaps most mischievously, says Stern, Acorn uses banking regulations to pressure financial institutions into massive “donations” that it uses to finance supposedly non-partisan voter turn-out drives.

According to Stern, Acorn’s radical agenda sometimes shifts toward “undisguised authoritarian socialism.” Fully aware of its living-wage campaign’s tendency to drive businesses out of cities, Acorn hopes to force companies that want to move to obtain “exit visas.” “How much longer before Acorn calls for exit visas for wealthy or middle-class individuals before they can leave a city?” asks Stern, adding, “This is the road to serfdom indeed.”

In Your Face
Acorn’s tactics are famously “in your face.” Just think of Code Pink’s well-known operations (threatening to occupy congressional offices, interrupting the testimony of General David Petraeus) and you’ll get the idea. Acorn protesters have disrupted Federal Reserve hearings, but mostly deploy their aggressive tactics locally. Chicago is home to one of its strongest chapters, and Acorn has burst into a closed city council meeting there. Acorn protestors in Baltimore disrupted a bankers’ dinner and sent four busloads of profanity-screaming protestors against the mayor’s home, terrifying his wife and kids. Even a Baltimore city council member who generally supports Acorn said their intimidation tactics had crossed the line.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Tigersabertooth — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:30:30 GMT

What a pair of dumb Repulicans typical in fighting no wonder you lost you election.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:58:40 GMT

YOU are following me...
You've even followed me into the music thread i tried to get going, but once again people just want to come in and mess it up.
And as far as your flip flopping, is your post in the below link not pro Obama?
Last answer posted 10 hours ago by American

Others are on to you too...

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:59:59 GMT

And YOU are the other one that came into the music thread i tried to get going only to try and mess it up.

You and 'American' are buddies so don't even try it sport.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Tigersabertooth — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:29:49 GMT

What do you call 10 Dawgs standing ear to ear?
A wind tunnel.

RE: No Excuse Obama?

Dawg — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:45:25 GMT

Obama wants to raise a white flag in iraq...

And he knows what has happened there in the past...

The News We Kept To Ourselves - New York Times

Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard -- awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.

For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.

Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.

We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).

Still, I felt I had a moral obligation to warn Jordan's monarch, and I did so the next day. King Hussein dismissed the threat as a madman's rant. A few months later Uday lured the brothers-in-law back to Baghdad; they were soon killed.

I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us.

Last December, when I told Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that we intended to send reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, he warned me they would ''suffer the severest possible consequences.'' CNN went ahead, and in March, Kurdish officials presented us with evidence that they had thwarted an armed attack on our quarters in Erbil. This included videotaped confessions of two men identifying themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents who said their bosses in Baghdad told them the hotel actually housed C.I.A. and Israeli agents. The Kurds offered to let us interview the suspects on camera, but we refused, for fear of endangering our staff in Baghdad.

Then there were the events that were not unreported but that nonetheless still haunt me. A 31-year-old Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for ''crimes,'' one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months, forcing her father to watch. In January 1991, on the eve of the American-led offensive, they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing her body parts was left on the doorstep of her family's home.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E7DC173BF932A25757C0A9659C8B63