February 2009
 

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"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal"

Barack Hussein Obama
 


 

 

 

 

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Note: This page begins with the events of February 1st, 2009.  It's organization is chronological.  Events are summarized and detailed descriptions can be seen on the "daily pages" -- click the "date link" in the "date" column.  Sources and links are on the daily pages.

Current entries are on the "Latest News" page.
Obama
And The
Market

 

 
2/01/09 1.  Iran says Obama's offer to talk shows that America's policy of "domination" has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday.

2.  There are currently 48 federal lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility to serve as President of the the United States.  Just how much is Obama paying to defend his ineligibility?

3.  A military defense attorney says a Guantanamo judge has rejected an Obama administration request to suspend the war-crimes trial of the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.

4.  Yes we can,'' the Obama campaign proclaimed.  "No you can't,'' says the Obama White House.
2/2/09 1.  Obama says his decision to close the Guantanamo prison "will make us safer" and ensure that the government is upholding legal guarantees under the U.S. justice system.

2.  For the last seven years, the Left has screeched hysterically over the CIA practice of rendition, in which agents turn detainees over to authorities in their home country for interrogation.

3.  Is Obama an insensitive lout who serves $100 per pound steaks to his elite guests and turns up the heat in the White House high enough to grow orchids while a million of his countrymen are without power and dozens are freezing to death?  If not, why not?

4.  Obama will have a face-to-face meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart and fellow socialist Hugo Chavez in April in Port of Spain, Trinidad.  The two leaders will be among three dozen heads of government and state at the three day Summit of the Americas.

5.  Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., the former federal judge who was impeached and convicted by a Democratic Congress for lying to beat a bribery rap,  has introduced to the House of Representatives a new bill, H.R. 645, calling for the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish no fewer than six national emergency centers for corralling civilians on military installations.

6.  During his campaign, Obama promised that lobbyists would not be welcome in his new Washington, his Washington of change and hope.  Now that he occupies the office?
2/03/09 1.  Obama was working with Arab intermediaries to establish an unofficial dialogue with Al Qaida long before the election, according to a report in the Feb. 4th edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com.

2.  It is now clearly apparent to any one willing to make an objective assessment of those chosen by Obama to comprise his cabinet that never before has there been a more immoral group of criminals nominated to such lofty posts in our history.

3.  Economists and pundits are beginning to sound alarms that the U.S. economy is perilously close to a "tipping point," where so many voters will be on the public payroll it will be politically impossible to reign in entitlement programs.

4.  StopTheACLU observes that liberals are certainly getting our money’s worth out of taxpayer-subsidized PBS affiliate KCET in Los Angeles.  Check out this completely over the top video to Chairman Zero.
2/04/09 1.  CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus, supported by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to pullout all US combat troops from Iraq within 18 months at an Oval Office meeting on January 21, sources have said.

2.  The Senate confirmed Eric H. Holder Jr. as Attorney General by a vote of 75 to 21 on Monday.  Last month, Holder labeled as "torture" the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding and vowed to make national security his top priority.  He also said that he would not conclusively rule out prosecution of Bush administration officials for their involvement in detainee questioning and warrantless surveillance operations.

3.  Michelle Obama set out Monday on a listening tour through the federal bureaucracy, stopping first at the US Department of Education (DOE) to thank employees for their service and rally them for the tough work ahead.
2/05/09 1.  Former Vice President Dick Cheney is blasting Obama's fledgling administration, arguing that its policies dealing with terrorism and international foes are naïve and dangerous, making it all the more likely that terrorists will succeed in their next attempt at killing Americans.

2.  ABC News has learned that Obama will order the Department of Defense's Military Commission to withdraw charges against terrorist suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who been identified as the former Persian Gulf Operations Chief for al Qaeda and the mastermind of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, that killed 17 American sailors and wounded nine.

3.  Obama plans to reduce US nuclear arsenal by 80%, keeping the promise he made in the video at the link.

4.  Obama was asked, in a television interview with CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," why he hasn't used the oft-repeated "war on terror" phrase coined by the Bush administration.  Obama said he believes the U.S. can win over moderate Muslims if he doesn't.

5.  Obama appears poised to break his campaign pledge to give the public five days to review a bill before he signs it.

6.  Obama found another way to look weak and inexperienced this week, this time on the trade war threatened by the administration’s stimulus package.  After pandering to unions by inserting a "Buy American" clause in the gigantic porkfest, Europe and Asia threatened trade sanctions on American companies competing for business in their markets.
2/06/09 1.  The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), part of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee, welcomed Obama's use of a quote from Islam's Prophet Muhammad in his remarks at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast.

2.  Obama promised that during his first 100 days in office, he would deliver a major address in a key Islamic capital aimed at improving America’s ties with the Muslim world.

3.  Before taking off yesterday on Air Force One for his first trip as president, Obama told reporters traveling with him that the plane is "spiffy" and showed off his new crew jacket with his name stitched on it.  "What do you think of this spiffy ride here?  It's not bad," he said to reporters sitting in the back on the plane.

4.  Obama has wasted no time in reversing a decision by the Bush White House that let gas and oil companies explore for new resources.  Keep this in mind the next time pump prices take off.
2/07/09 1.  Obama's latest political gambit is deeply troubling.  He is removing the Decennial Census from the Commerce Department and moving it to the White House.  Bear in mind that Obama has allocated one billion dollars in the porkulous package for the already automatically funded census taking.

2.  A copy of an email you sent to a constituent was forwarded to me.  Your message was in reply to this individual's concern that Barack Obama did not meet the "natural born citizen" requirements of the Constitution of the United States of America, Article II, Section 1.

3.  Shepard Fairey, the controversial street artist riding a roller coaster of publicity with his red, white, and blue posters of Obama, was arrested last night on his way to DJ an event kicking off his exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
2/08/09  
1.  Last October, while campaigning in Toledo, Barack Obama promised "a new ethic of responsibility."  The nation's economic troubles, he said, occurred partly because "everyone was living beyond their means," including politicians who "spent money they didn't have." 
2/09/09 1.  The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.

2.  From crisis to catastrophe.  Off a cliff.  Dark, darker, darkest.  Mortal danger of absolute collapse. Armageddon.

3.  Obama’s approval ratings began to plummet even prior to Tuesday’s admission that he "screwed up" over the failed nomination of former Sen. Tom Daschle to serve as his secretary of Health and Human Services.
2/10/09 1.  Obama's economic stimulus plan would place the Social Security Trust Fund into deficit for the first time ever next year, if the current economic stimulus package is passed by both Houses of Congress.

2.  During last year's epic election campaign, Hillary Clinton said that in the White House "there is no time for on-the-job training."  Joe Biden, too, remarked that the presidency was "not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."  Both were aiming barbs at their then primary opponent.  Clinton has since brought what she would refer to as her "lifetime of experience" to the role of Secretary of State, while Biden has traded 36 years in the Senate for the vice-presidency, and the rookie they derided sits in the Oval Office.

3.  Obama says he'll be looking for "openings" in the months ahead that could lead to face-to-face talks with Iran, saying his national security team is looking at areas where the United States can "directly engage" with Iran.

4.  Mr. Arbitrage observes how the news media has latched on to the story of Michael Phelps being photographed while allegedly smoking marijuana through a "water bong."

5.  April Winchell's blog brings "Obama Fries" to our attention.
2/11/09 1.  This video shows a Democrat Insider Saying "Obama Has Secret Plan to Fund a Patronage System."

2.  Obama is shelving a plan announced in the final days of the Bush presidency to open much of the U.S. coast to oil and gas drilling, including 130 million acres off California's shores from Mendocino to San Diego.

3.  Obama has decided on a new U.S. ambassador to Syria and is expected to lift sanctions against a nation charged with aiding Al Qaida in Iraq and secretly building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance.

4.  Two weeks ago, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, in a closed Security Council meeting, voiced support for the International Criminal Court (ICC).  She said it "looks to become an important and credible instrument for trying to hold accountable the senior leadership responsible for atrocities committed in the Congo, Uganda and Darfur."
2/12/09 1.  Economic stimulus legislation at the heart of President Barack Obama's recovery plan is on track for final votes in the House and Senate after a dizzying final round of bargaining that yielded agreement on tax cuts and spending totaling $789 billion.

2.  Obama clearly didn't do his homework before ordering the suspension of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects.  We have learned that even his own legal counsel admitted that Obama erred in discussing details about terrorism with families of victims last week, and that the administration was ignorant of a key point that terrorists exploit to their advantage.  In his rush to fulfill a campaign promise to his more fervid anti-war supporters, the president's legal oversights risk the disclosure of some highly classified information to terrorists.

3.  Obama never goes before the press without having a list of pre-approved journalists upon whom he'll call during a press conference.
2/13/09 1.  Bob Unruh reports that a high-powered team of Los Angeles attorneys representing Obama in his effort to keep his birth certificate, college records and passport documents concealed from the public has suggested there should be "monetary sanctions" against a lawyer whose clients have brought a complaint alleging Obama doesn't qualify for the Oval Office under the Constitution's demand for a "natural born" citizen in that post.

2.  House Republicans called Obama's Census grab unconstitutional, a political power grab and threatened legal action against the White House for its decision to extend its jurisdiction to the Census Bureau and demanded that Obama respond positively to a letter they sent on Wednesday urging him to reverse the action.

3.  Obama is close to creating an Office of Urban Policy to allocate funds to urban areas for a range of initiatives, including job training and the creation of new jobs.

4.  Amid the furor over controversies regarding Cabinet-nominee tax problems and the seismic battle over a nearly trillion-dollar economic rescue bill, Obama made a little-noticed appointment that is now generating intrigue.
2/14/09 1.  This report would probably seem preposterous if it weren't for the fact that Team Obama already waived sanctions on Syria and is considering opening travel to Cuba.

2. Obama has selected Seattle's police chief to be the nation's next drug czar, an administration official said Thursday.

3.  Ben Raderstorf, president of the Student Worker Club, the 12-member group of students that proposed changing the name of Boulder High School to Barack Obama High School, said the group is backing off the plan.

4.  Can't get enough of Barack Obama?  How about an Obama license plate?
2/15/09 1.  Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form.  He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression.  First, he did so to win votes in the November election.  He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.
2/16/09 1.  Ronald Reagan started it, Bill Clinton finished it and last week Obama was accused of engineering its destruction.  One of the few undisputed triumphs of American government of the past 20 years -- the sweeping welfare reform program that sent millions of dole claimants back to work – has been plunged into jeopardy by billions of dollars in state handouts included in the president’s controversial economic stimulus package.

2.  While Obama has denounced many of the policies of the Bush administration, he will not change litigation tactics in defending lawsuits challenging those policies.

3.  Obama will soon issue an executive order lifting an eight-year ban embryonic stem cell research imposed by his predecessor, President George W Bush, according to a senior adviser.

4.  The Communist Party USA sends congratulations on an extraordinary history making election to Obama and the Democratic Party.
2/17/09 1.  A little-publicized Department of Defense Directive (Number 1404.10) establishes a "DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce" and rescinds a prior directive dealing with the emergency use of civilian personnel.

2.  If he has his way, Obama will dramatically change the nuclear weapons policy of the U.S. -- leaving behind Cold War doctrine and looking to a model of a minimal nuclear arsenal -- just ominous enough to do the job of deterrence.

3.  Alan Keyes, a 2008 presidential candidate who now is a plaintiff in one of the many lawsuits seeking to verify whether Barack Obama qualifies under the U.S. Constitution's requirements to occupy the Oval Office, says the tactics adopted by lawyers for the president confirm there is an issue for the courts to investigate.

4.  I was recently engaged in an exchange of emails with my buddy Fred Nerks from Oz that prompted me to revisit FactCheck.org, where the Annenberg-funded website has published a web page entitled, "The truth about Obama's birth certificate."  The information on FactCheck's page is 100% bovine excrement.

5.  A San Francisco novelty store is featuring a large display window of "Saint Obama" candles.  The candles feature Obama's head atop the body of St. Martin de Porres, a Peruvian-born Dominican friar, who became one of the first black saints in the Americas upon his canonization in 1962.
2/18/09 1.  The American Sentinel blog observes that the next time you hear a Democratic talking head spouting the usual blame on Bush regarding the current economic crisis, remember that the stock market crash started once Wall Street realized Obama could actually be elected.

2.  It is completely out of control in Washington DC. We have a bunch of bumbling idiots in charge of the treasury, and the country's future, who don't understand that you can't borrow money to pay off your debt -- but that is exactly what Obama is doing by signing his so-called, "stimulus bill."

3.  Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise "excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence".

4.  The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the oldest and largest broadcasting company in Great Britain just recorded an interview with Dr. Orly Taitz about the  Obama ineligibility cases.  It will be transmitted prime time in their Russian edition tomorrow, 7-8 PM, Moscow time (4-5 PM, London time).  They feel it is the case of the Century and were amazed, as to why U. S. media doesn't report it.
2/19/09 1.  "The government is promoting bad behavior... do we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages...  This is America!  How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage?  Obama are you listening?  How about we all stop paying our mortgage!  It's a moral hazard..."

2.  There are two groups of homeowners that are being looked at by Obama's stimulus plan.  The first group is made up of people who cannot afford their mortgages and have fallen behind on their monthly payments.  The price of this is $75 billion.  Many of the people here in group one took out loans they were never, ever going to be able to afford.

3.  Protesters made their voices heard in chants and signs Wednesday outside Dobson High School.  They held their signs up high: "Don't tread on me," "Spend all you want, I'll pick up the tab," "I'll keep my freedom! You keep the change!"  "Free fertility drugs now."  And "B.O. smells and so does Socialism."

4.  Obama's policy of direct diplomacy with Iran may buy Tehran enough time to produce nuclear weapons, Shabtai Shavit, former chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, warned in an exclusive WND interview today.

5.  In his first weeks in office, Obama shut down his predecessor’s system for reviewing regulations, realigned and expanded two key White House policymaking bodies and extended economic sanctions against parties to the conflict in the African nation of Cote D’Ivoire.

6.  Already we are seeing the Socialist, Marxist cogs in the change wheel manipulating away our freedoms and money.  Obama and Congress have wasted no time from the executive orders to the manipulative speeches and attachments on the "stimulus bill" that insult and betray the American people.

7.  White House officials say President Barack Obama will name pro-abortion Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who has been criticized for refusing to limit late-term abortions, as the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department.

8.  In precedent-setting action, Obama moved his director of political affairs, a highly partisan post, from the Old Executive Office Building into the West Wing.  Political operative Patrick Gaspard was given White House access not experienced by his predecessors.  Obama official Shauna Daly, a non-lawyer and career opposition researcher described as a "partisan dirt-digger," was assigned to the White House counsel office.  The move signals not only a new low in partisan activities, but suggests the office assignment may be intended to hide Daly's political activities under the guise of the counsel's attorney-client privileges.
2/20/09 1.  The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.

2.  Michelle Malkin reports that Obama's old friends at the ACORN are launching a new campaign of their own: the "Home Savers" campaign.  What a coinky-dinky, huh?  As with most of the bully tactics of the radical left-wing group, it ain't gonna be pretty.  They are the shock troops on the streets doing the dirty work while the Community Organizer-in-Chief keeps his delicate hands clean.

3.  Americans named Obama as their No. 1 hero, followed by Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King, in a new Harris poll.

4.  An Oklahoma City police officer pulled over a man last week and confiscated a bumper sticker he had on his vehicle.  The bumper sticker read "Abort Obama, not the unborn."
2/21/09 1.  Obama's Plan All Along Was to Repealed Clinton's 96 Welfare Reform.

2.  Following publicized reports that the Army National Guard was planning a military training exercise on the streets of a rural Iowa town, the commanding officers have called off the mock "invasion."

3.  In sheer size, the economic measures announced by Obama to address "a crisis unlike we've ever known" are remarkable, rivaling and dwarf the New Deal programs that Franklin D. Roosevelt famously created to battle the Great Depression.
2/22/09 1.  Rick Santelli & Kudlow respond. "Worse than Nixon Attacks on Dan Rather" and "The worst press relations we've seen in our lifetime."

2.  Obama has ordered defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government.

3.  Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

4.  FReeper Kristinn warns us that Obama will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases in his FY 2010 federal budget to be presented this week.
2/23/09 1.  Obama is working to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, but even his own advisors know the chance of success is slim.  So they also have been working on Plan B: What do we do if (when) Iran gets the bomb?

2.  Fifty-five percent (55%) of American adults say the federal government would be rewarding bad behavior by providing mortgage subsidies to financially troubled homeowners.  Among investors, 65% hold that view.

3.  Mike Huckabee says Obama’s early job performance is cause for alarm, and warns his penchant for talking down the economy is the worst possible direction he could take.

4.  Despite the fact that federal, state and local governments are reeling from a fiscal crisis, Obama is sticking to plans to help an estimated 12 million illegal aliens gain citizenship.

5.  In the past four weeks, every single one of Obama’s foreign policy initiatives has appeased and strengthened the enemies of both Israel and the west, whose fates are umbilically linked.  The driving motif of Obama’s foreign policy has been "engagement" with the Muslim world.  Ostensibly offering the hand of friendship if that world unclenches its own fist, he is actually offering up not just the west’s hand but its entire body to be kicked into submission.  And I use that last word advisedly.
2/24/09 1.  A U.S. Army officer, on active duty in Iraq, has called President Obama an "impostor" in a statement in which he affirmed plans to join in, as plaintiff, a challenge to Obama's eligibility to be commander in chief.

2.  The list of commissioned and non-commissioned military personnel who are challenging Obama's eligibility continues to grow.  Here's the latest.

3.  In addition to the $750 million in US foreign aid the Palestinians received the last 6 years, Obama plans to send an additional $900 million to Gaza for construction, U.S. officials said on Monday.

4.  While everyone is talking about the pork laden stimulus that Obama and many Democrats in Congress are pushing, Obama very quietly signed a pro union executive order on Friday.  It ordered the use of union labor for federal construction projects.

5.  Though he began his presidency with the second highest approval rating in the Gallup Poll's history of tracking the statistic, Obama's numbers have dropped back to merely average.

6.  "ACORN and Obama: Together Again" was posted on On 2/20/09, below.  It described how Obama's friends and associates in ACORN planned to illegally seize foreclosed properties and contained a video showing ACORN members breaking into a home.
2/25/09 1.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano avoids the terms "terrorism" or "9/11" in remarks prepared for her first congressional testimony since taking office, signaling a sharp change in tone from her predecessors.

2.  Anyone who thought the recession and financial market turmoil would moderate Obama's policy ambitions discovered the opposite last night.  Far from suggesting limits on Congress or federal spending, he made clear in his first address to the country that he believes in government power as the answer to our current difficulties, and he intends to use it.

3.  Obama has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government.

4.  Since it was revealed over the last few days that Chas Freeman is apparently slated to head the Obama administration's National Intelligence Council, much evidence has been presented linking him to pro-Islamist, anti-Israel sentiments.

5.  A Major General Enlists to be a plaintiff in the legal action to be filed by Orly Taitz, Esq.

6.  We the People of the United States of America" are entitled to know the legal qualifications of the President and Commander in Chief.

7.  Another U.S. soldier on active duty in Iraq is joining a challenge to President Obama's eligibility to be commander-in-chief.
2/26/09 1.  Obama's budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.

2.  Ultimately, all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence.  The instant, global, 24/7 communications of today make them ever more so.  Obama, in his pursuit of liberal big-government spending, has totally neglected his role in reversing global panic.  To the contrary, his every remark and the constant preoccupation of his Cabinet is to heighten the sense of crisis and to escalate the predictions of doom if we do not do as they tell us and raise spending now and taxes later.

3.  Sources point to Obama's vigorous black racial advocacy as a possible starting point to the domino affect that lead to the housing crises we are now facing.  Check the provided links and judge for yourself.

4.  I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know.  In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama.

5.  Barack Obama's cousin, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Laico Regency hotel, Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday -- February 25th, 2009.

6.  Does the Obama White House have too many "czars?"  No less an authority than Sen. Robert Byrd thinks so, and the West Virginia Democrat has told the president as much.

7.  Obama's first budget is seeking $634 billion over 10 years to radically change America’s healthcare system.  But that’s likely to double to more than $1 trillion, administration officials concede, as Democrats seek to create a massive socialized medical bureaucracy.
2/27/09 1.  A carnival float depicting a flying Obama with Europe being dragged along is seen during the traditional carnival parade in Duesseldorf, Germany, on Monday, Feb. 23, 2009.  Rose-Monday-Parades in the carnival strongholds of Duesseldorf, Mainz and Cologne are watched by hundreds of thousands of revelers and mark the highlights of Germany's carnival season.

2.  The Tennessee Republican Party proudly introduces its newest bumper sticker, designed to help you protest the bailout-mad Congress’s headlong rush into fiscal madness.

3.  Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it.  On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."
2/28/09 1.  The time for partisan bickering just ended.  This is as serious as a heart attack.  Obama is going to spend so much money, which he intends to get from China via the sale of government backed bonds, that the Chinese apparently don't think he'll be able to make good on them.

2.  For more than 30 years, federal law has allowed doctors and nurses to decline to provide abortion services as a matter of conscience, a protection that is not subject to rulemaking.

3.  The DOW Jones average closed at $8,281.22 on January 19, 2009, the night before the Obama Nation became an historic reality.  A little more than a month later, the DOW continues its free-fall approaching the $7000 mark and nobody knows where the bottom is.  But so far, Obamanomics have cost Americans trillions in new debt and 14% of their savings, in just a month.

4.  As a candidate, Obama said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana.  Now, he will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.

©  Copyright  Beckwith  2009
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