Barack Obama -- March 7, 2009

March 7, 2009

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From $1 trillion in debt
to $4 trillion in debt
in six weeks

event	description
Pursuing the Alinsky Revolution	"Change" the favorite word of Saul Alinsky in "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals" became the loaded, and thinly veiled mantra of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. What Obama meant by "change" went unspoken, but is clearly understood in the context of Obama’s training in the principles of Saul Alinsky, and on the pages of "Rules for Radicals." Change means dividing America into Haves, and Have-Nots, and setting them against each other. "The organizer must rub raw the resentments of the people of the community," which Obama and his close associates including ACORN have accomplished widely. Have-Nots can never become Haves, without change -- which also means revolution, according to Alinsky. The Have-Nots must be taught to "hate the establishment of the Haves." In Alinsky revolution, every crisis is an opportunity; creating and intensifying crisis is the modus operandi. In this school of Alinsky Obama matriculated, distinguished himself, and became the elite professor. Make no mistake; Obama’s true profession is the revolution of change as defined by Alinsky which is class warfare in the streets of Chicago and now the United States; a polar opposite of constitutional law, and any legitimate function of government. "Every crisis is an opportunity" -- Obama's in over his head and what does he do, fall back on Alinsky's rules. Obama on Saturday challenged his country to see its hard times as a chance to "discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis." "That is what we can do and must do today. And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do," Obama said in his weekly radio and video address, taped a day earlier at the White House. "Yes, this is a moment of challenge for our country," Obama said. "But we've experienced great trials before. And with every test, each generation has found the capacity to not only endure, but to prosper -- to discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis."
Socialismo!	Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the "only" way out of the global recession. "Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States," Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar. The controversial Venezuelan leader, who taunted the United States as a source of capitalistic evil under former president George W Bush, added that the United States needs a leader who can take it to a "higher" destiny and bring it out of "the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world." Chavez said that people are calling Obama a "socialist" for the measures of state intervention he is taking to counter the crisis, so it would not be too far-fetched to suggest that he might join the project of "21st century socialism" that the Venezuelan leader is heading. "Nothing is impossible. Who would have thought in the 1980s that the Soviet Union would disappear? No one," he said. "That murderous, genocidal empire has to end, and some day there has to come a leader ... who interprets the best of a people who also include human beings who suffer, endure, weep and laugh," the outspoken Chavez said. Developing...
Iran Nuclear Crisis	The economic downturn may have given the Obama White House its first major crisis, but the fast-looming Iran nuclear crisis is about to give him his second. It was some of the Administration's highest ranking officials, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen and the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that put the exclamation marks on the issue on March 1. Mullen when asked on CNN whether Iran "might now have enough fissile material to make a bomb" he answered: "We think they do, quite frankly." He went on to add, "Iran having a nuclear weapon, I believe, for a long time, is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world." Secretary Robert Gates, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," while acknowledging the Iranian problem said of Iran, "They're not close to a stockpile, they're not close to a weapon at this point and so there is some time." What he was not pressed about is the duration of this time. It may be running out fast. Even before his inauguration on January 20, President Obama, trying to show his differentiation from single-minded, "cowboy" George W. Bush, has been expansive on the philosophy of new international co-operation, multi-lateral working with previously considered rogue countries, even promising new talks without pre-conditions with Iran. But, as regards the latter, Obama has been conspicuously short on specifics. Meanwhile, in what can only described as a suicide wish and one that can only be possible in that part of the world, Teheran continues to flaunt the fact it is closing fast on its nuclear goals, whatever they may be.
Invitation To Iran	Hot Air blog reports that In accordance with Obama’s pledge to offer an outstretched hand to America’s enemies, Hillary Clinton invited Iran to take part in a regional conference on Afghanistan. Fittingly, Al-Jazeera broke the news last night: Clinton suggested the meeting at a gathering of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday. She said the conference involving "all the stakeholders and interested parties" should take place by the end of the month. Clinton emphasised that all of Afghanistan’s neighbours would be asked to attend the conference. "If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran would be invited as a neighbour of Afghanistan," Clinton told a news conference in Brussels. In Brussels for a NATO session leading up to the April summit, Clinton said the proposed conference on Afghanistan would be sponsored by the United Nations and attended by a wide range of countries. "We hope that this meeting could provide an opportunity to reach a common set of principles, perhaps embodied in a chairman's statement, on a common way forward," she said, according to a prepared text released by her staff.
Obama Beefs Up PA Army	The Obama administration has made plans to strengthen the emerging Palestinian Authority army that is currently being trained at an American-built base in Jordan. U.S. Middle East envoy George C. Mitchell has asked Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, who has been overseeing the training, to remain at his post for two more years. Dayton was due to end his three-year term at the end of 2009. In addition, U.S. President Barack Obama intends to add a budget of as much as $55 million for training the force at the base, according to the Reuters news agency. The current budget is $75 million, and such an increase would almost double American military assistance to the PA. The United States has provided uniforms and other military equipment, as well as military personnel to train the PA recruits. According to The Jordan Times, arms are supplied solely by Arab states. However, the new armed force is not referred to by the U.S. or the PA as an army, which is prohibited under the Oslo Accords. American and Fatah officials are hoping the "*special force*" will fight terror and keep the rival Hamas faction at bay. The Hamas terrorist militia completely overwhelmed the rival Fatah loyalists in Gaza in June, 2007, surprising American military personnel who already had begun training the Fatah forces. Remember this? Obama likes these armed forces that are prohibited under this accord or that accord. On July 2nd, 2008, Obama spoke in Colorado Springs and hit themes of national service, foreign policy, and national security. In that vein, Obama proposed a rather extraordinary idea -- that the US should spend as much money on a special civilian national security force as it does on the military. (video) "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives 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."
The TelePrompter	Obama doesn’t go anywhere without his TelePrompter. The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks. Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House’s stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks. Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual -- not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small. "It’s just something presidents haven’t done," said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House since December 1975. "It’s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is on the teleprompter." Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference. The president’s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. " Kathy," Obama said, turning the podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the television cameras rolled. Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he's been saying for months -- whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union. Don't you wonder who's behind the curtain?
Dismissed	On March 5th, the New York Times, published an AP piece, entitled, "Challenge to Obama Is Dismissed." A federal judge threw out a lawsuit questioning President Obama’s citizenship, criticizing the case as a waste of the court’s time. Obama has been dogged by rumors, spread on the Internet, that he is ineligible to be president because he is not a "natural born citizen" as the Constitution requires. In response last summer, his campaign posted his Hawaiian birth certificate on its Web site. But the lawsuit argued that the certificate was a fake and that Obama was actually born in his father’s homeland, Kenya. The judge, James Robertson of Federal District Court, said the case could have ended up in books "that seek to prove that the law is foolish or that America has too many lawyers with not enough to do." What can one say about the clearly impartial jurist, but the statement, "his campaign posted his Hawaiian birth certificate on its Web site," contains two lies. Obama's birth certificate has never been "posted" or otherwise released. What has been posted is a "Certification of Live Birth," and that document has itself challenges. Most of these cases are asking for the release of Obama's "vault-copy" birth certificate. Obama, in turn has spent over a million dollars on lawyers to prevent the release of his bona fides. His attorneys have argued that revealing these documents raises a "legitimate privacy concern" and the above mentioned risk that "particularly serious embarrassment will result from turning over the requested documentation." The source of that embarrassment was not specified. The document wasn't released on the Obama Campaign website -- "its website." It was released via the Daily Kos -- a strange choice, and shortly thereafter on FactCheck.org, whose presentation is criticized in these pages. In the last couple of days, there have been articles attempting to marginalize "Birthers" on AOL and Poltico -- and all of them had to misrepresent the known facts to make their case. And who's behind the burst of birther blogs.
Michelle?	Bob Parks asks, "Is Michelle Running The Show?" Set aside all the nasty stereotypes of overbearing, angry black women. Michelle Obama has been praised on her elegance and charm, blah, blah. However, observers across the pond who didn’t receive the media batch of Obama-flavored Kool-Aid are looking at the First Lady with a more cautious eye. On US radio’s Garrison show today, I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama’s double insult -- first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown. "Tough one." What was the guy thinking? In researching my new book, "Welcome to Obamaland," I discovered that Obama’s judgment is pretty dreadful -- but this? My favourite theory so far -- suggested by presenter Greg Garrison -- was that it was a move calculated to please his Lady Macbeth. At the moment in Britain, we’re still in the "Doesn’t she look fabulous in a designer frock," stage of understanding of Michelle Obama. Gradually, though, we’ll begin to realise that she is every bit the terrifying executive’s wife that Hillary Clinton was. Or, shudder, Cherie Blair.
Party Hardy	An organization that serves as a watchdog on the U.S. government for American taxpayers has launched a campaign to uncover exactly how much tax money is being spent on parties at the Obama White House. Obama has shown a penchant for lavish galas, such as the huge assembly orchestrated in Denver when he accepted his party's nomination for president -- an outdoor gathering for some 75,000 featuring a stage with Greek columns. He also held a multimillion-dollar victory celebration in Chicago, and his fancy inauguration cost an estimated $170 million, according to ABC News. Now, Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, told WND today he's seeking information about the partying in the White House since the Obamas moved in. Freedom Watch is seeking information from the federal government on who had input into bailout legislation and whether they got anything in return. Klayman said the reports of the partying at the White House, "with the likes of Steve Wonder and other high priced entertainment stars," will be the focus of document requests being submitted to the General Services Administration. The requests will seek to determine how much taxpayer money is being used. "Barack and Michelle Obama have been throwing taxpayer funded parties nearly every night with their 'friends' and supporters, with Michelle Obama even exhorting them not to 'break' White House property," Klayman's announcement said. "This party atmosphere sends the wrong message to the American people. As the Obama-Clinton crowd party on, the American people are suffering greatly," Klayman said. "It was right to criticize corporate execs for using taxpayer bailout money on bonuses and corporate junkets. In the face of this criticism, it is an outrage for Barack and Michelle Obama to party on, as Rome burns. It's like throwing a party at a funeral," he said. According to a report by the news and commentary website Politico, many of the parties have been just that -- parties, not political and government meetings. "Using one of the world’s most famous private residences as bait, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are unleashing a bipartisan charm offensive and exploiting every square inch of their new home to make friends and influence rivals. The social calendar suggests a return to the days of Camelot," the report said. "Since moving into their new digs, the first couple has hosted a half-dozen gatherings -- from bipartisan cocktail receptions to a public open house to the more intimate Super Bowl party ... ending many of their days past midnight," the report said. "Most recently … the Obamas opened the White House doors to House caucus leaders from the moderate Blue Dog Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus. White House aides say the couple hopes to make the Wednesday cocktail parties a tradition." The report quoted White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers saying the Obamas want to "replicate the same kind of environment they had in Chicago." "If there was a party or an event [in Chicago], they were there," the report quoted "a friend" saying.