Barack Obama -- March 17, 2009

March 17, 2009

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

event	description
AIG Gave Obama $101,332	Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are -- Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama. The A.I.G. Financial Products affiliate of A.I.G. gave out $136,928, the most of any AIG affiliate, in the 2008 cycle. I would note that A.I.G.’s financial products division is the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps and "misjudged" the risk. With the anger and rage that is being exhibited against A.I.G., perhaps the bonuses Obama received from A.I.G. explain Obama's A.I.G crocodile tears. Now that the Wall street Journal has revealed that A.I.G. paid bonuses of $1 million or more to 73 employees, it's time to ask if recipients of A.I.G. "bonuses," including President Obama, will give what now ought to be taxpayer money back?
Bailout Backlash	"This is not a Democrat thing or a Republican thing. It's a government thing."
Obama Cuts Weapons	The Russians and the Chinese have just both announced military buildups, and the Iranian nuclear threat was described as, "real" -- "dangerous." Venezuela offered an island off its Caribbean coast as a support base for strategic Russian bombers. Cuba could be used to base Russian aircraft, too. North Korea threatened war. Osama bin Laden called for a renewed jihad. What did Obama do? He ordered the Secretary of Defense to prepare for the most far-reaching reduction in the Pentagon's weapons portfolio since the end of the Cold War, according to aides. Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Robert M. Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the officials said. More cuts are planned for later this year, after a review that could lead to reductions in programs such as aircraft carriers and nuclear arms, the officials said. He's only doing what he promised he'd do (video). Sometimes, about some things, you can take this guy's word to the bank.
Cuts Pilot's Program Too	After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings. Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology. The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections. Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists can only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots have some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the strengthened cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on the burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the pilots at major American carriers have military backgrounds. Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts were the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find any independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm. Why does this move make sense? Only anti-gun extremists and terrorists are worried about armed pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to these tiny lobbies at the expense of public safety?
Obama's Plan to Charge Wounded Heroes	The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases. "It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it." The Commander, clearly angered as he emerged from the session said, "This reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate 'to care for him who shall have borne the battle' given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America's veterans!"
Open Letter To United States Attorney Jeffrey Taylor	Leo C. Donofrio, Esq. Read it here
Obama Receives Failing Grade From Economists	On average, they gave the president a grade of 59 out of 100, and although there was a broad range of marks, 42% of respondents rated Mr. Obama below 60. Mr. Geithner received an average grade of 51. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke scored better, with an average 71. The economists' negative ratings mark a turnaround in opinion. In December, before Obama took office, three-quarters of respondents said the incoming administration's economic team was better than the departing Bush team. However, Geithner's latest marks are lower than the average grade of 57 that former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson received in January. Meanwhile, the economists surveyed this month predict that the economy will shed another 2.8 million jobs over the next 12 months as the unemployment rate climbs to 9.3% by December, up from the 8.1% rate recorded in February. Economists also see nearly a one-in-six chance that the U.S. will fall into a depression, defined as a decline in per-person GDP or consumption by 10% or more.
Obama’s Newest Spiritual Advisor	Now that he no longer draws spiritual succor from Jeremiah Wright -- the America-hating, racist demagogue who served as his pastor and spiritual mentor for twenty years -- Obama has turned elsewhere for guidance in the task of carrying out his political duties while remaining true to his religious values. The most notable of his spiritual advisors today is his friend of many years, Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners organization. Says Wallis, "We’ve [he and Obama] been talking faith and politics for a long time." Who is Jim Wallis? According to The New York Times, Wallis "leans left on some issues" but overall is a "centrist, social justice" kind of guy. But a closer look at Wallis’s background reveals him to be nearly as radical, if better at disguising the fact, as Jeremiah Wright. As a teenager in the 1960s, Wallis joined the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. His participation in peace protests nearly resulted in his expulsion from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois. While at Trinity, Wallis founded an anti-capitalism magazine called the Post-American, which identified wealth redistribution and government-managed economies as the keys to achieving "social justice" -- a term that, as educator/journalist Barry Loberfeld has pointed out, is essentially "code for communism." In 1971, the 23-year-old Wallis and his Post-American colleagues changed the name of their publication to Sojourners, and in the mid-1970s they moved their base of operation from Chicago to Washington, DC. As one of its first acts, Sojourners formed a commune in the DC neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights, where members shared their finances and participated in various activist campaigns that centered on attacking U.S. foreign policy, denouncing American "imperialism," and extolling Marxist revolutionary movements in the Third World. Giving voice to Sojourners’ intense anti-Americanism, Jim Wallis called the U.S. "the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs." In parallel with his magazine’s stridently antiwar position during the Seventies, Wallis championed the cause of communism. Forgiving communism’s brutal standard-bearers in Vietnam and Cambodia the most abominable of atrocities. He was silent on the subject of the murderous rampages of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In fact, several Sojourners editorials attempted to exculpate the Khmer Rouge of the charges of genocide, instead shifting blame squarely onto the United States. Following the 1979 refugee crisis in Vietnam, Wallis lashed out at the desperate masses fleeing North Vietnam’s Communist forces by boat. These refugees, as Wallis saw it, had been "inoculated" by capitalist influences during the war and were absconding "to support their consumer habit in other lands." Actively embracing liberation theology, Wallis and Sojourners in the 1980s rallied to the cause of Communist regimes that had seized power in Latin America with the promise of bringing about the revolutionary restructuring of society. Particularly attractive for the ministry’s religious activists was the Communist Sandinista dictatorship that took power in Nicaragua in 1979. Wallis embarked on an editorial crusade in Sojourners to undercut public support for a confrontational U.S. foreign policy toward the spread of Communism there and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, he invited the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) -- the public relations arm of the El Salvadoran terrorist group the FMLN -- to take part in a number of initiatives with Sojourners. In 1995 Wallis founded Call to Renewal, a coalition of religious groups united in the purpose of advocating, in religious terms, for leftist economic agendas such as tax hikes and wealth redistribution to promote "social justice." To this day, Wallis remains fiercely opposed to capitalism and the free-market system. "Our systems have failed the poor and they have failed the earth," Wallis has said. "They have failed the creation." Immediately after Obama’s January 20th inauguration, a rejoicing Wallis told The Washington Times: "My prayers for decades have been answered in this minute. I'm proud of my country for the first time in a very long time." The country, meanwhile, may be properly concerned that the president has sought spiritual counsel from a figure as removed from the political mainstream as Jim Wallis. Doesn't Obama know any Americans?