The Obama Defense Industry is busy. Excuses must be found. Scapegoats must be scaped. Blame must be assigned. The rush rush deployments of new Obama defenses by the Obama Defense Industry is due to the race Obama is now in – the race to the bottom. Obama is sinking in polls (47% disapprove in the latest poll, only 44% approve) faster than the stock market sinks. Which will reach bottom first?
As in last year’s campaigns, Obama lovers pose as “fair players” who will criticize Obama when criticism is due, but all the fake “criticisms” are another clever way to defend Obama. The defense ploy of the week is a return to “blamethe staff“.
“Blame the staff” has made a triumphant return because other defend Obama ploys have not worked.
The “he’s doing the best he can” ploy has not worked because of the inherent truthfulness of that statement. Obama is doing the best he can for his friends and himself, but for the American people Obama is doing nothing. Also, Americans understand that if this is the best Obama can do – boy oh boy are we all in trouble. The “he’s doing the best he can ploy” was abandoned.
The “he needs more time” ploy has collapsed under the weight of time. With every passing minute the ploy limps, weaker and weaker. The “he needs more time” ploy also demonstrates the truthfulness of what Hillary and Hillary supporters have said since early 2007 – Obama is not ready. Obama was not ready on Day 1, Obama was not ready on Day 2; Obama was not ready on Day 3; Obama was not ready on Day 365, ad infinitum. The “he needs more time” ploy was abandoned too.
So the Obama defense industry is back to “blame the staff”. The staff to be blamed this time is the Obama staff at the highest levels, what we prefer to think of as the lowest of the low, of Obamahood. Edward Luce was the first to publish a long article to exculpate Obama and “blame the staff” – Emanuel, Jarrett, Gibbs, and Axelrod. Steve Clemons then chimed in with his “blame the staff” article.
Both articles are gossipy at points (check out Jarrett’s lies about an emergency and having to rush to the White House only to be uncovered at Cafe Milano with the lounge lizards) but both articles are “blame the staff” excuses. The Problem is Obama. We are not saying that these people, Jarrett, Gibbs, Emanuel, Axelrod are anything but the bottom of the barrel, but they are not the ones that are ultimately the problem. Obama is the Problem.
We are not going to dwell or quote from those “blame the staff” articles. We want to look at a short lived, but new excuse that has been trotted out to defend show horse Obama. The new ploy is the “America is not governable” ploy. This new ploy will not work and that is why the Obama defense industry prefers the “blame the staff” ploy.
Why won’t the “America is not governable” ploy work? Because Jay Cost has done such a wonderful job of clobbering this dumb ox argument. Let’s indulge ourselves this Monday with a full examination of Jay Cost’s “America Is Not Ungovernable” article.
Recently, some analysts have suggested that the lack of major policy breakthroughs in the last year is due to the fact that America has become ungovernable. Ezra Klein argued that it was time to reform the filibuster because the government cannot function with it intact anymore. Tom Friedman suggested that America’s “political instability” was making people abroad nervous. And Michael Cohen of Newsweekblamed “obstructionist Republicans,” “spineless Democrats,” and an “incoherent public” for the problem.
Nonsense. America is not ungovernable. Her President has simply not been up to the job.
What joy Jay brings! He states the problem so clearly, almost as clearly as us. Jay says Obama “has simply not been up to the job”; we say “Obama is the problem”. It’s almost as if the celestial choirs have sung “Obama is not ready”, just like Hillary used to politely make clear.
Jay Cost looks to history for answers as to why America is indeed governable. There are structural safeguards built into the American system to prevent clods like Obama from devastating the republic beyond repair. The founding fathers and founding mothers were a wise group and they suspected that factions would be a problem always and that Hopium guzzling factions could be a true danger to the republic. So our founding mothers and fathers built in those Obama-proof safeguards:
Let’s acknowledge that governing the United States of America is an extremely difficult task. Intentionally so. When designing our system, the Founders were faced with a dilemma. How to empower a vigorous government without endangering liberty or true republicanism? On the one hand, George III’s government was effective at satisfying the will of the sovereign, but that will had become tyrannical. On the other hand, the Articles of Confederation acknowledged the rights of the states, but so much so that the federal government was incapable of solving basic problems.
The solution the country ultimately settled on had five important features: checks and balances so that the branches would police one another; a large republic so that majority sentiment was fleeting and not intensely felt; a Senate where the states would be equal; enumerated congressional powers to limit the scope of governmental authority; and the Bill of Rights to offer extra protection against the government.
The end result was a government that is powerful, but not infinitely so. Additionally, it is schizophrenic. It can do great things when it is of a single mind – but quite often it is not of one mind. So, to govern, our leaders need to build a broad consensus. When there is no such consensus, the most likely outcome is that the government will do nothing.
That is a history lesson the Hopium guzzlers need to learn. The very system is designed to prevent them from complete and total destruction of the republic. Yes, these Hopium guzzling thugs can cause damage, but the damage will be reparable. They will not win. The founders, mothers and fathers, continue to protect.
Jay Cost analyzes why Obama has been such a bust:
The President’s two major initiatives – cap-and-trade and health care – have failed because there was not a broad consensus to enact them. Our system is heavily biased against such proposals. That’s a good thing.
It’s not accurate to blame this on the Republicans. From Arlen Specter’s defection to Scott Brown’s swearing in, Democrats had total control over the policy-making process. The only recourse the Republicans had was the First Amendment. They used it well, but don’t let it be said that the President lacked access to it. Given Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit and his omnipresence on the national stage, his voice has been louder than anybody’s. If Mr. Obama has lost the public debate to the beleaguered rump that is the congressional GOP, he has nobody to blame but himself.
It’s not accurate to blame this on “spineless Democrats,” i.e. rank-and-file legislators who balked at the various solutions offered by Mr. Obama. Moderate Democrats might have defected because they were worried about their jobs – but the point of popular elections is to link the personal interests of legislators with the interests of their constituents. It often fails to work – but in a situation where “spineless Democrats” clearly voted with their districts, it seems to have been working pretty well. One might argue that they should have shown some leadership – voted for unpopular bills because they were good for the country. But ask those thirty to forty House Democratic defectors on the health care, cap-and-trade, and jobs bills whether they thought the bills were good for the country, and you’ll hear a different answer than the one Newsweek is quick to give.
It’s not accurate to blame this on the people. This country is most certainly divided, but not deeply so. Consider, for instance, the enormous goodwill that greeted Mr. Obama upon his inauguration. It is not tenable to suggest that there was no way to turn that into a broad consensus for policy solutions.
The responsibility for the government’s failure in the last year rests with President Obama. Two significant blunders stand out.
That’s right – Barack Obama Is The Problem.
Cost identifies as blunder 1, Obama’s installation of “Nancy Pelosi as de facto Prime Minister”. Cost is too polite to mention that perhaps that was the motivation if not the price Pelosi extracted from Obama in return for her behind the scenes trashing of Hillary and support of clearly unqualified and inexperienced Barack Obama – the Chicago flim flam man.
Cost identifies as blunder 2, well, let’s let Jay Cost describe blunder 2 with his sharp quill as it stabs at Obama:
The President’s second major failing has been his stubborn insistence on comprehensive reforms. Perhaps this is due to his inexperience in the federal lawmaking process, or his extraordinary vanity, or both. Still, this has been a grave mistake. If the truly great Henry Clay could not pass the Compromise of 1850 through the Congress in a single package, what made Barack Obama think he could sign comprehensive energy and health care reforms?
Obama promised he would not be like “polarizing” Hillary Clinton. Now Obama is stuck with his bipartisan mumbo-jumbo. Obama lovers want Obama to abandon what they now know is “mumbo-jumbo”. But Americans were promised “a uniter not a divider” and we will hold Obama to his boob promises. Jay Cost continues his analysis:
President Obama’s desire for comprehensive legislation seriously damaged the chances for bipartisanship, given his decision to let Nancy Pelosi and her allies write the bills. Republican “extremism” is an easy rhetorical foil - but when we’re talking about Mike Castle and Olympia Snowe voting against the President, it fails to explain the full story. Bipartisanship implies legislators with different world views working together. The larger a bill’s scope, the more likely it favors one worldview over another, and the less likely it will attract bipartisan support. With an extremely liberal Speaker and a supporting cast of left wing committee chairs running the process, comprehensive legislation was bound to favor heavily the liberal worldview. Even the most moderate of Republicans would always have trouble with that. In fact, thirty to forty House Democrats have defected on the President’s key items, meaning that the bipartisan position has been opposition to President Obama. This has made it difficult for a centrist public to support reforms. With very limited information on specifics, the public took unanimous Republican and substantial moderate Democratic opposition as cues about the merits of the bills. Public opposition is what ultimately ended the Democratic supermajority – in Massachusetts, of all places.
We wanted a fighter. Hillary Clinton says that she is not afraid to reach out for common ground, but that she will also fight to hold her ground. We could have had Hillary. But the Hopium guzzlers wanted the celestial choirs and an end to all the old battles – the fights Hillary supporters think are worth fighting for – the Hopium guzzlers sided with the establishment and got their man. Now the Hopium guzzlers must pay the price.
Both of these failures get back to the idea that this country can only be led effectively when there is a broad coalition supporting her leaders. That requires those leaders to have a breadth of vision that this President has so far lacked. He has allowed a very liberal Speaker to lead the House too far to the left, and he has demanded comprehensive reforms that were destined to alienate a significant portion of the country.
He has been narrow, not broad. He has been partial, not post-partisan. He has been ideological, not pragmatic. No number of “eloquent” speeches can alter these facts. This is why his major initiatives have failed, why his net job approval has dropped 50 points in 12 months, and why he is substantially weaker now than he was a year ago.
This strategy might have made sense if the country was really in the midst of a “liberal moment.” But it is not. While the President won a decisive victory in 2008, his congressional majority in both chambers depends entirely upon members whose constituents voted for John McCain. In fact, the President’s election 16 months ago was one of the most polarizing in recent history. This remains a divided country, which creates complications in a system such as ours. The President should have recognized this, and governed with a view to building a broad coalition. But he has not.
America is not ungovernable. Barack Obama has so far failed to govern it.
At the ironically named Gaylord resort in Nashville Tennessee, Sarah Palin on Saturday night addressed a portion of the Tea Party movement at their “convention”. Viewers saw a smart woman who has been under unfair attacks for well over a year now.
Sarah Palin has been attacked and her children and husband have been attacked. Andrew Sullivan questioned whether Sarah Palin was the mother of her Down Syndrome child, Trig. DailyKooks and LeftTalkers giggled at the ugly charge. The “creative clueless” went so far as to charge that Sarah Palin’s husband had incestuously fathered Trig with his own daughter. Sarah Palin has been denounced as a dope who does not know Alaska from Arugula. Every ugly class based argument of Sarah as some sort of hillbilly from Dogpatch has been marshaled against her. Last night Sarah Palin demonstrated she is sharper than Barack Obama.
Many of the arguments darted at Palin are familiar to Hillary Clinton supporters. Bill and Hillary Clinton too were portrayed by the “creative clueless” fingerbowl set of Washington D.C. and Big Media as Lil Abner types from Dogpatch Arkansas. The sexist and misogynistic arguments arrayed against Hillary Clinton have been recycled in even cruder form against Sarah Palin. We thought of Geraldine Ferraro and the Obama apologist Rachel Maddow and an interview on the Today Show:
Rachel Maddow was besotted with her golden calf Obama from her then perch at the defunct Hillary hating Air America. Geraldine Ferraro however had the historical knowledge which allowed her to see what doe-eyed lovestruck Maddow was too callow or too base to acknowledge. Now Republicans, will have to step up and take over from where Ferraro left off. Sexists and misogynists on the right will have to be confronted from the right as we confronted our fellow Democrats on the Left.
Jeri Thompson is an example of what will have to happen if Sarah Palin is not to be subjected to further sexist and misogynistic attacks:
Jeri Thompson blasted Fox News host Chris Wallace on the Fred Thompson show today, calling his joke that he hoped Sarah Palin would sit on his lap during an interview with him “inappropriate” and “insipid,” and demanding “action from Fox.
Thompson, the wife of the former senator and presidential candidate, told POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin that the remark, to Fox Business’s Don Imus, amounted to misogyny, and that she was tired of seeing it from “these dirty old men” on Fox, a network that she said ought to be respectful of conservative women.
Jeri Thompson must amend her remarks to include all women, like Hillary Clinton, in her campaign against sexism and misogyny.
“Sarah Palin is now part of the Fox family,” Thompson said on the show. “She deserves you all watching her back — and I do not mean it literally.”
Wallace, she said, “owes her an apology.”
“Not only is she a national figure – she deserves the respect that any other man would get in that situation,” Thompson said, saying that her inbox was full of complaints from conservative women over the segment, and that the Palin group Team Sarah, as well as the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, were dismayed by the segment.
“I hope that Fox does something about this, and they actually take this on, because it is not funny,” Thompson said.
The “creative clueless” of the Dimocratic Left we have taken on and denounced. It is good to hear conservatives take on conservatives on behalf of women and womens’ rights.
WALLACE: We’re going to be down in Nashville with her at the National Tea Party Convention, and I’m excited. First of all, I’m excited to finally meet and interview Sarah Palin. We’ve been chasing her like Captain Ahab and the great white whale for the last year and a half. [...]
IMUS: When you interview her, will she be sitting on your lap? (LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: One can only hope. (LAUGHTER)
In September, Wallace went on Mike Gallagher’s radio show and mentioned his upcoming interview with right-wing activist James O’Keefe and said that he wished he was also going to have his partner Hannah Giles — who played the prostitute in the ACORN scheme — on the show because “she’s pretty cute.”
The Democratic Left was complicit in the establishment attacks on Hillary Clinton which utilized sexism and misogyny. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin will have allies in Big Media in her fight against sexism and misogyny but the “dirty old men” even at Fox News cannot be relied on. The “dirty old men” of the Democratic Left includes lesbian Maddow and “Tingles” Matthewson MSNBC who employ the sexually charged “teabaggers” epithets, as well as the giggling boys on Big Blogs – who will throw every class based prejudice at Sarah Palin.
We cannot wait for the day when sexists and misogynist on the Democratic Left and the Republican Right, and even in the Tea Party movement, witness the great meeting when girl talk becomes Woman Power. That day is not far off.
The ideal situation, which will cause the sexists and misogynist to die or be killed, would be a Hillary Clinton versus Sarah Palin presidential battle in 2012. The sexists and misogynist will pleasure themselves with dreams of a “catfight” between two strong women. But for an America in desperate need of a philosophical battle, not an orgy of veiled and not so veiled sexual assaults such as Barack Obama waged in 2008, a Hillary Clinton versus Sarah Palin contest will illuminate. First Barack Obama must be forced off the political stage and back to the filth of Lake Michigan where he can extract new sums of money from the Chicago mob. On that first point Hillary Clinton supporters and Sarah Palin supporters can all agree – we have interests which coincide.
While we Hillary supporters prepare in Winter quarters, Sarah Palin supporters take heart from their choice for president.
Sarah Palin had some pointed advice to President Barack Obama on Saturday night: “Stop lecturing and start listening.”
In her keynote address to the inaugural national “tea party” convention, Palin declared that “America is ready for another revolution” and repeatedly assailed Obama before adoring activists, a seemingly natural constituency should she run for president.
“This movement is about the people,” the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee said as the crowd roared. “Government is supposed to be working for the people.”
Noting Democrats’ recent electoral losses just a year after Obama was elected on promises of hope and change, she asked: “How’s that hope-y, change-y stuff workin’ out for you?“
The “dirty old men” will return no doubt with their “teabaggery” condescension and Obama apologias on Monday all the way through to election night in November.
Organizers say they “absolutely do not support a third party.”
Well, that’s that. Any hopes that Democrats will preserve their large congressional majorities in 2010 through a wave of tea party candidates who splinter conservative votes should be dashed.
Sarah Palin praised the Tea Party movement last night. Ronald Reagan came in for cheers, as did her abused by the kooks, son Trig. Those of us who support Hillary Clinton will give Sarah Palin her due and reject and confront those from the Dimocratic Left who attack her on the basis of sexism and misogyny. We have seen enough of that in 2008.
The New York Times catches up to us today. We wrote a while ago that Chuck Schumer can be taken down with a 2×4 in November’s election. Chuck Schumer is due for some Clinton Karma.
It was Chuck Schumer who surreptitiously advised Obama to “take a 2×4 to Hillary”. In public Schumer pretended to be a Hillary supporter. In private Schumer was part of the establishment puppet-masters gifting the Democratic nomination to the stooge from Chicago.
It will require a woman to run against Chuck Schumer if he is to be defeated. A woman who can point out how Chuck played his anti-Hillary dirty game with a 2×4. It’s time for Chuck to be shucked aside.
We wrote that the New York Terror Trials are a good wedge issue against Schumer – Schumer ran away from the Terror Trials. What prompted the Old Gray Lady to belatedly echo Big Pink was watching Chuck Schumer run from the Terror Trials and this February 1, 2010 Marist College poll:
Senator Chuck Schumer’s once rock solid approval rating has taken a slide. For the first time in nearly nine years, Schumer’s approval rating has fallen below 50%. According to the latest Marist Poll in New York, 47% of registered voters statewide report Schumer is doing either an excellent or good job in office. 31% rate the job he is doing as fair, and 17% view him as performing poorly. This is Schumer’s lowest job approval rating since April 2001 when 49% of voters approved of the job he was doing.
The approval rating of New York’s senior senator has declined over the past couple of months. In Marist’s last survey on January 15th, 51% said Schumer was doing an above average job. In November, he received a thumbs-up from 54% of registered voters in New York, and just last September, his approval rating was 58%.
Schumer’s decline is most pronounced in New York City. 51% of New York City voters currently give Schumer high marks while 57% did the same two weeks ago, 64% in November, and 66% in September.
“Senator Schumer is not immune from the anti-incumbent sentiment among voters, but it would take a major effort to unseat him,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist Institute for Public Opinion.
It will take a major effort to unseat Chuck Schumer from his treachery perch. But it can be done. It is a job for a woman. Larry Kudlow will not be able to do it and he is the rumor of the week. It will take a woman to do this job.
The usually unavoidable-for-comment, if-it’s-Sunday-here-is-my-press-release senior senator from New York is being a little tetchy about going on the record.
Senator Charles E. Schumer has had a not-so-hot run recently. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg accused him of failing to deliver enough federal health care dollars for New York, and the city’s titans of finance at a recent closed-door meeting accused him of being insufficiently pro-Wall Street; one indignant fellow stood up and demanded his donation back.
Some Democrats whisper that he plays the too-aggressive kingmaker, shoving aside challengers to Kirsten E. Gillibrand, the appointed junior senator. And a recent Marist College poll suggested that Mr. Schumer’s favorability ratings had leaked helium, falling to 47 percent.
Is this fatal to the senator as he seeks his third term? That seems highly, deeply, profoundly unlikely, even according to those same pollsters and to senior state Republicans, who prefer to place Ms. Gillibrand in their cross hairs for the fall of 2010. But a harsh wind is howling for incumbents, and Mr. Schumer, who has been running for office since just about the day he left Harvard, does not like talk of any Democrat’s political mortality, particularly his own.
So he carefully measures out his verbs and nouns for a reporter, trying not to say what he knows: It’s been a rough year.
Chuck Schumer losing his U.S. Senate Perch of Treachery is “highly, deeply, profoundly unlikely” for sure. It is a near impossibility. It is as impossible to comprehend as a Republican sitting in Ted Kennedy’s double width senate chair.
A woman can beat Chuck Schumer. A woman who travels New York State, with a 2×4, and informs Democratic voters of Chuck’s double dealing can do the job. A woman who informs the voters of Chuck’s 2×4ing of Hillary will dispirit and alienate Democratic voters who admire and trust the wonderful Hillary Clinton, can do the job. A woman who carries a 2×4 against Chuck, informs Democratic New Yorkers of Chuck’s treacheries and inflames Democratic voters against Chuck, as well as summons forth Republican voters in New York State can do the job.
Chuck is nervous and knows we are right. Chuck fears the 2×4. Chuck talks tough and whistles as he enters the graveyard:
“There was another poll this same week that had much different numbers, so you can’t rely on polls,” he says, striving for a studiously bland manner.
In truth, even Lee M. Miringhoff, head of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, agrees it is not the end. He has sifted the poll numbers and divines mostly agita for Mr. Schumer.
“It’s not the usual fluctuations, but neither do I think it puts him in electoral jeopardy,” he said. “It’s more that it speaks to a lack of enthusiasm in his electoral base.”
Still, for a man who might be the next Senate majority leader, and who is credited with masterminding the strategy that oh so briefly put 60 Democrats in the Senate, to see bubbles of discontent in his own state is a strange business. His Web site features a map of New York with green thumbtacks on towns he has visited in the last year, a virtual forest of green from Ogdensburg to Niagara Falls to Utica. In New York City he has appeared at 10 City Council installations, 5 firehouses, 7 schools, and so on and on.
Chuck Schumer has all the strengths listed above. However, those strengths can be turned against him. When the same Democratic voters he has talked to in all those New York cities and towns discover Chuck Schumer’s treacheries, they will realize they have been had. All the voters he has met and all the visits he has met will turn against Chuck – it will be like when John Edwards’ voters discovered who that slimy lump of protoplasm really is.
The Tea Party brigades in New York and Democratic voters need to be informed of Chuck’s 2×4ing of Hillary Clinton. Voters also have to learn this (which thanks to Big Pink and the New York Times, they will):
Wall Street’s current disaffection is intriguing, as Mr. Schumer served for 30 years as Horatio at the bridge, guarding against too many incursions against the financial industry. He artfully sidetracked an effort to tax hedge funds and pushed for repeal of legislation that prohibited commercial banks from engaging in risky investments like trading stocks or mortgage-backed securities. And he helped craft a bank-friendly bailout. In return, he has taken in more money from the securities and finance industry over the course of his career than any Democrat other than Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
That history, not the latest Chuck distractions from that history, is the story that must be told. What Chuck Schumer says in public and what he does in private are two different things. Maybe that is why Chuck likes Barack so much. What they say and what they do are two different things. It’s time for both to go.
Mr. Schumer, by this account, took umbrage at their umbrage. Do you, he asked, really think it’s better to be rhetorically pro-Wall Street or anti-Wall Street? Be realistic. Financial institutions did much wrong, he suggested, but cautioned against getting vindictive.
“Chuck has been a champion for our financial industry and for our state,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, the partnership’s president. “But it’s a quarrel in the family with unrealizable expectations of unconditional love.”
A few, including that fellow who rumbled about desertion, talked privately of funding a challenger to Mr. Schumer. As Mr. Schumer could become Senate majority leader, and therefore the third most powerful Democrat in the nation, such militancy struck others as daft. “What are you going to do for a new king?” asked one.
A woman can do the job.
On a sidenote, we wrote a while back that we arestillanalyzing what is going on in New York regarding the Kirsten Gillibrand senate race. We said that race reminds us of Borgia Italy. Here is a taste, from the New York Times article, of what we mean:
Some have seized on a passive-aggressive way of torturing the senior senator. They want to finance a Democratic primary challenge by Harold E. Ford Jr., whom they happen to admire, to Senator Gillibrand, whose patron is Mr. Schumer. Mayor Bloomberg, who was not pleased that Ms. Gillibrand edged out his choice, Caroline Kennedy, appears not unopposed to this turn, as his former pollster and campaign manager are advising Mr. Ford.
Chuck Schumer is as impossible to take down as a Kennedy in the North East. But a woman can do the job. Like Dodd, Richardson, Teddy, Dean, Reid, Daschle, Caroline, Corzine, Deval, and many others – Clinton Karma will come to traitor Chuck Schumer.
Speaking of Kennedys safe in New England, our commentor MoonOnPluto noted this article:
The Kennedy political dynasty is shaking in the aftershock of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s earth-shattering election, with a new poll showing U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy losing ground as he faces a well-financed GOP foe backed by Brown’s top strategists.
The WPRI-12 poll showed the Rhode Island Democrat with a 56 percent unfavorability rating in his district – a negative that grows to 62 percent statewide.
Only 35 percent of voters in Kennedy’s district said they would vote to re-elect him. Another 31 percent said they’d consider a different candidate and 28 percent said they would vote to replace him, according to the poll.
Patrick Kennedy followed in the limo behind the Chappaquiddick Chauffeur to endorse Barack Obama. Now Patrick is not feeling the luck of the Irish – Patrick is feeling Clinton Karma:
Republican John J. Loughlin II, a veteran state lawmaker, formally announced his campaign yesterday against Kennedy, saying the son of liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy is out of touch with Rhode Island voters as he seeks a ninth two-year term.
“We’ve got a congressman who’s not connecting with voters or the people. He’s pushing policies that are diametrically opposed with needs of people – to get the economy going and create jobs,” said Loughlin, of Tiverton. “We can’t afford it anymore.”
WPRI-12 pollster Joe Fleming said, “This is the best-financed challenger he’s faced since the first time he ran, and his favorability numbers are way down. “Congressman Kennedy could have a very competitive race.”
Clinton Karma’s gonna get you.
Loughlin, a 50-year-old National Guardsman, is hoping to ride the same wave that swept Brown to victory. He got a head start by hiring Eric Fehrnstrom and Peter Flaherty, two of Brown’s top consultants.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has already begun lining up behind Loughlin, who says he plans to spend at least $1 million in the race.
“Independents are running from the Democratic Party, and that benefits candidates across the northeast,” said Tory Mazzola, spokesman for the NRCC.
Other potential Kennedy challengers include Democratic State Rep. Jon D. Brien and even former Providence Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci.
Clinton Karma’s gonna get you… hit you right in the face – with a 2×4.
He confirms his ex-wife’s claim that he was using injectable steroids in 2005 but denies her claim that he confessed to repeated affairs and was abusive.
Yesterday, before the divorce records and everything else came out, ABC7’s Ben Bradley asked Cohen if what had surfaced to date was all of it. “Anything else?” Bradley asked…
“No, you know. Again, it was an unfortunate time,” said Cohen.
Oops.
He also admitted to ABC7 that his wife had an order of protection against him in 2005.
…And some more… Cohen’s wife reportedly said that she voted for him this week. She said that he was going through a “phase” back then and is fine now.
*** UPDATE – Cohen’s ex-wife speaks *** “He was a different person than he is now.” Watch it…
*** UPDATE 2 *** Oh, man. CBS2’s Mike Flannery’s report is a must-watch. Flannery’s lead-in…
“His own brother Larry had to sue him and got a judgment for 200 thousand bucks. Scott Cohen’s wife told me that prior to his marriage he did try to choke her. Now she’s back in court trying to get back child support that he didn’t pay while he was spending $3 million on his run for lt. governor.”
Oh, man. The end. The end.
Cohen claimed that the wounds on his prostitute ex-girlfriend’s throat were “self-inflicted.” But here’s more from Flannery…
“His wife says, by the way, contrary to his denials, that the things that she alleged occurred.”
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“Sin is rampant and rife – in Chicago!”
Consider the capacity for destruction by the inmates who run the current incarnation of the Democratic Party – the Obama Dimocratic Party. Consider how the unvetted Chicago flim-flam man, Barack Obama, has caused such harm to the party and its “brand” that the sane recoil in horror.
Now Chicago does it again. On Tuesday, the citizens of Chicago and the asylum of Illinois held their primary elections and they came up with another set of choices with which to amuse and afflict.
One of the candidates we have written about since 2007. Chicago and the asylum of Illinois nominated a candidate for Senate who most understand is a made member of what can easily be characterized as a “mob bank”.
But it’s as if the “situation comedy” Dimocratic Party has re-programmed yet again. Now the Dimocrats appear to abandon the “situation comedy” and adopt the Jerry Springer Show as the model institution.
Today, we discover that the lieutenant governor nominee of the Dimocratic Party of Illinois has a batch of unvetted “problems”. Chicago – you have done it yet again. The Jerry Springer Dimocrat nominated for Lieutenant Governor turns out to be a former pawnbroker arrested four years ago for “holding a knife to a former live-in girlfriend’s neck“.
Cohen’s Oct. 14, 2005, arrest came five months after his wife filed for divorce and convinced a judge to give her a temporary order of protection, records show. A status hearing in the divorce case took place Wednesday, hours after Cohen’s election-night triumph.
Cohen — who records show also had federal tax troubles that he says he has settled — denied in a written statement that he ever hurt the ex-girlfriend or his family.
In true Jerry Springer “top this” fashion, “the woman — who had just been found guilty of prostitution“…. “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry”… and, well let’s just ignore the “federal tax troubles”.
A batterer, potentially of his own wife, a knife wielding, prostitute threatening thug, an apparent misogynist, nominated to high office – in Chicago. Why are we not surprised?
What “crowd” could that possibly be? Clearly this is a wonderful new addition to the successful Obama Dimocratic Party:
Cohen, now 44, placed “a knife up to complainant’s neck causing minor scars,” according to the police report from his arrest. There also were “minor scars on her hand from her trying to defend herself against the arrestee swinging the knife at her.” Cohen also allegedly “pushed complainant’s head against [a] wall, causing a bump on the back of her head.”
Paramedics treated the now 29-year-old woman at Cohen’s Near North Side home. Police photographed her injuries, which they described as “mild abrasions from knife wound.”
“She never came to court and the charges were dismissed,” Cohen said. “I realized this relationship was not healthy for me. I ended it, and we parted amicably.”
Ah, the redemptive powers of Lake Michigan waters! The campaign flack (Phil Molfese) said of the candidate and the Chicago mindset:
“He’s been honest and up front from the beginning,” Molfese said of Cohen’s arrest. “It’s just that nobody cared.
“Nobody cared” in Chicago.
The Dimocratic governor, Pat Quinn, who was just nominated for a full term – he got the job due to the indictment of the former governor Blagojevich – is unfazed. “Vetting?” Who cares about vetting in Chicago?:
Quinn said it was not the job of the Democratic Party to vet Cohen, but rather the job of the voters.
The powerbrokers of Chicago did not vet the pawnbroker from Chicago – after all, he self-financed his campaign. Chicago did not bother to vet Barack Obama and his thugs, why bother with a lowly Lieutenant Governor?
Cohen is insisting it’s all lies, and that he didn’t know his live-in girlfriend was a hooker. She told him she worked as a “massage therapist,” the Pawnbroker’s spokesman said.
That explains everything.
Now Republicans will scour the state for the “massage therapist” who just may — based on Illinois’ recent history of governors not finishing their terms — end up as Illinois’ first lady.
Ignoring all the bad publicity in Chicago, the unvetted Chicago flim-flam man continues, as the old joke about the pathetic “celebrity” goes, to appear at the opening of an envelope. This after a publicity stunt speech urging Americans to turn off the TV because of the endless discussion of politics and the evils of the “echo chamber”.
And in Jerry Springer “top this” fashion Michelle Obama will lead a crusade against obesity without mentioning Oprah. The racist chicken will be ignored we presume.
We further presume the Rahm Emanuel war on what he terms “retards” is over as well, and that the party will still excuse use of the term “negro” too. Use of “negro” will be excused if it is a powerful Dimocrat using the word. But the Special Olympics, like the mayor of Law Vegas, will not accept yet another insincere apology.
Insincere apologies, ceaseless publicity stunts, mob banks, hookers, knife attacks, – welcome to Barack Obama’s new Dimocratic Party. 2010 is the Obama legacy year.
The slow learners need help to understand. American prosperity and the American economy are in danger. We are sure to be attacked, once again, as deficit hawks and worriers. But let the facts speak. Slow learners will kill us all.
Three articles from very recent days put into perspective the danger Americans face. The articles are not in alarmist news outlets nor from right-wing perspectives. The three articles do outline the dangers.
The federal budget deficit has long since graduated from nuisance to headache to pressing national concern. Now, however, it has become so large and persistent that it is time to start thinking of it as something else entirely: a national-security threat.
The budget plan released Monday by the Obama administration illustrates why this escalation is warranted. The numbers are mind-numbing: a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined—and that assumes Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s proposals to start bringing it down, and that the proposals work.
These numbers are often discussed as an economic and domestic problem. But it’s time to start thinking of the ramifications for America’s ability to continue playing its traditional global role.
American military power, American power itself is based on American prosperity. Slow learners will recite this truth by rote, but without understanding. Let’s understand and help out the slow learner in chief:
The U.S. government this year will borrow one of every three dollars it spends, with many of those funds coming from foreign countries. That weakens America’s standing and its freedom to act; strengthens China and other world powers including cash-rich oil producers; puts long-term defense spending at risk; undermines the power of the American system as a model for developing countries; and reduces the aura of power that has been a great intangible asset for presidents for more than a century.
“We’ve reached a point now where there’s an intimate link between our solvency and our national security,” says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior national-security adviser in both the first and second Bush presidencies. “What’s so discouraging is that our domestic politics don’t seem to be up to the challenge. And the whole world is watching.”
Seib bullet points the dangers of deficits for the slow learner:
• They make America vulnerable to foreign pressures.
The U.S. has about $7.5 trillion in accumulated debt held by the public, about half of that in the hands of investors abroad.
Aside from the fact that each American next year will chip in more than $800 just to pay interest on this debt, that situation means America’s government is dependent on the largesse of foreign creditors and subject to the whims of international financial markets. A foreign government, through the actions of its central bank, could put pressure on the U.S. in a way its military never could. [snip]
• Chinese power is growing as a result.
A lot of the deficit is being financed by China, which is selling the U.S. many billions of dollars of manufactured goods, then lending the accumulated dollars back to the U.S. The IOUs are stacking up in Beijing.
So far this has been a mutually beneficial arrangement, but it is slowly increasing Chinese leverage over American consumers and the American government. At some point, the U.S. may have to bend its policies before either an implicit or explicit Chinese threat to stop the merry-go-round. [snip]
• Long-term national-security budgets are put at risk.
This year, thanks in some measure to continuing high costs from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. will spend a once-unthinkable $688 billion on defense. (Before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, by contrast, the figure was closer to $300 billion.)
Staggering as the defense outlays are, the deficit is twice as large. [snip]
These national-security budgets have been largely sacrosanct in the era of terrorism. But unless the deficit arc changes, at some point they will come under pressure for cuts.
• The American model is being undermined before the rest of the world.
This is the great intangible impact of yawning budget deficits. The image of an invincible America had two large effects over the last century or so. First, it made other countries listen when Washington talked. And second, it often—not always, of course, but often—made other peoples and leaders yearn to be like America.
Seib hopes for a commission to lead us away from the economic threats but what Americans require is leadership.
In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.
The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country’s entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was restored and war spending abated.
But the second number, buried deeper in the budget’s projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.
For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country’s influence around the world eroded.
The dangers are very real to all but the slow learner. The not very bright Barack Obama is a slow learner in everything except how to advance himself and play Joe Cool to the former high school geeks who now work at Big Media. But even some at Big Media now speak out on the danger of Obama’s policies:
Or, as Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, used to ask before he entered government a year ago, “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?”
The Chinese leadership, which is lending much of the money to finance the American government’s spending, and which asked pointed questions about Mr. Obama’s budget when members visited Washington last summer, says it thinks the long-term answer to Mr. Summers’s question is self-evident. The Europeans will also tell you that this is a big worry about the next decade.
Obama, we have noted for years, recites words by rote for which he has no understanding. Obama told West Point cadets at one of his publicity stunts, “Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power.” “It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry.” Words, but no understanding. Words but willful disregard of their meaning. Slow learner. During the campaign Obama would steal Hillary Clinton’s language and position but he has never attained Hillary’s understanding of the meaning of her words. Obama is not ready on Day 1 or even Day 1 plus a year. Slow learner.
His prescription is that the problem has to be made worse, with intense deficit spending to lower the unemployment rate, before the deficits can come down. [snip]
But with this budget, Mr. Obama now owns this deficit.
President Barack Obama’s new $3.83 trillion budget is a chickens-come-home-to-roost moment for Democrats who skipped past the deficit to tackle health care last year and now risk paying a heavy price in November.
The great White House political gamble was to act quickly — before the deficits hit home — and institute major changes which proponents say will serve the long-term fiscal health of the country. Instead, a year of wrangling and refusal to consider more incremental steps have brought Obama and Congress to this juncture, where waves of red ink threaten to swamp their boat and drown reform altogether.
Early last year we stated that the Obama plan was to deceive the nation with gimmicks, pass scam after scam to help Dimocrats with the 2010 elections – all before the numbers emerged and sensible people could see the numbers. It has taken Politico this long to write what has been obvious all along. In all scams the goal is to stay a few minutes ahead of the police. For Obama, the police are banging on the door.
“They are sending a toy firetruck to combat a five-alarm fire,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
The timing could not be harder for Democrats, who must complete passage of the $1.9 trillion debt ceiling increase this week.
Old party fissures are reopening. In the Senate last week, fiscal moderates, many of them junior senators, joined Republicans in backing what would be tougher spending limits than the president’s budget proposes. At the same time, the president’s increased war funding for Afghanistan has reopened the “guns vs. butter” divisions in his party.
To show discipline, the White House is betting heavily on the symbolism of a three-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending accounts totaling about $447 billion annually. [snip]
Just a year ago, the president’s 2010 defense budget requested $130 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and only $50 billion in 2011. The new budget ramps up 2010 spending to $163 billion and, for 2011, requests $159 billion in overseas contingency funds for the military.
This reverses the drop in war-related spending seen in fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30 and was a transition year of sorts between the two administrations. When compared to the peak war spending of the Bush years, Obama is only about 10 percent below Bush’s annual average of $176 billion in fiscal years 2007 and 2008 — the time of the Iraq war surge.
Core defense spending is also feeling the strain, and the president’s $549 billion request reflects less than 2 percent real growth over inflation.
At a time when Obama is emphasizing job creation, this sets up what could be bitter election-year fights with Democrats about plans to halt C-17 and Humvee production important to employment in California and Indiana — two battleground states in the fall.
Obama’s greatest risk is that his “freeze” becomes only a symbol — more cute than cutting.
In designing its cap, the administration has a built-in cushion because about $6 billion in 2010 census spending won’t have to be repeated in 2011. It also took advantage of a scorekeeping convention allowing it to claim a $4.5 billion “savings” within the Justice Department by capping expenditures from the Crime Victims Fund.
In the case of Education, Pell Grants for low-income college students are treated as a mandatory cost outside the cap. And while NASA’s budget makes some high-profile changes — canceling the always-doubtful Constellation program — the agency’s budget still goes up by about $275 million.
All this can seem too clever against the great constant of a deficit that threatens to set new records, topping $1.55 trillion in 2010.
The $5.08 trillion in red ink over the next five years is $1.32 trillion, or 35 percent more than the White House predicted 12 months ago — worse even than current projections by the Congressional Budget Office.
Revenues continue to lag, even after Obama’s budget claims credit for about $120 billion in unrealized receipts from health care reform. In fact, two-thirds of the deficit deterioration can be traced directly back to lower revenues and the high cost of the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An entire year has been wasted, added to the eight years of George W. Bush.
‘The president should have a tougher plan to address our fiscal crisis,” Gregg said, “because this budget will solve nothing.”
Americans are slow learners. Eight years of Bush, incurious and inexperienced, was not enough. Dimocrats and Big Media forced through self-interested and inexperienced Obama, and Americans forgot the lessons eight years taught.
To stop the threats to American National Security, a leader is needed. Her voice must be heard. Her experience must be put to work to save the nation and indeed, the world.
“Do you have any idea who you’re stealing from?” screams the bank official. “You and your friends are dead.”
Later a bank robber asks another bank robber as they try to penetrate the vault: “They wired this thing with 5,000 volts. What kind of bank does that?” The answer is: “A mob bank.”
First robber: “Every guy gets his share, five shares. Five shares is plenty.”
Second robber: “Six shares. Don’t forget the guy who planned the job.”
First robber: “He thinks he can sit it out and still take a slice.”
Second robber: “I know.”
First robber: “That’s why they call him ‘The Joker’.”
* * * * *
When the makers of the election year 2008 film, The Dark Knight, wanted the fecund smell of stockyard slaughter, the delirious stench of centuries old corruption, they thought: Chicago.
The multi-headed Hydra which is the Obama Chicago Culture Of Corruption is growing another head in Washington, D.C. and a special prosecutor is needed in Washington while Patrick Fitzgerald stabs at the Hydra in Chicago.
Today, the Chicago Hydra is up for election. Expect a head to be cut, and ten more heads to grow.
Widespread voter anger and unrest are confronting the Illinois political establishment as the state hurtles toward its first-in-the-nation primaries Tuesday.
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, under fierce attack for his plan to boost income taxes and for his handling of a prison release program, finds himself in a dead heat against surging state Comptroller Dan Hynes.
State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic front-runner in the race for President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat, has seen his lead in polls narrow in recent days as he has taken criticism from former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman and Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson about his oversight of a family-owned bank and his handling of the Bright Start college savings program.
At the local level, Todd Stroger, the powerful Democratic president of the Cook County Board, who has come under fire for his hiring practices and his support for a sales tax increase, has fallen significantly behind his primary challengers in new polling.
Clean air from Massachusetts is sweeping through the windy city.
“Democrats are starting to realize that every single Democrat in the country is vulnerable now. It’s a very angry electorate, a very volatile electorate,” said Jerry Morrison, political director of the state Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Quinn and Giannoulias.
“It’s been brewing for some time,” said Illinois House Republican Leader Tom Cross. “I think it’s as intense here as it’s been [in Massachusetts].” [snip]
“The anger is palpable. People are frustrated — and they don’t know who to take it out on,” said Eric Adelstein, an Illinois-based Democratic strategist. “[People are] just very cynical — and right now the job approvals are low for everybody.”
The issue is not anger or frustration. The issue is corruption. Chicago corruption. Obama style sweet talk Chicago corruption.
Obama, for his part, has maintained a comfortable distance from Tuesday’s primaries, making no endorsements in any of the races up for grabs. Even so, he has become an issue in the competitive three-way GOP gubernatorial race between McKenna, state Sen. Kirk Dillard and former state Attorney General Jim Ryan.
Last week, McKenna launched a new campaign ad blasting Dillard for appearing in a 2008 presidential campaign ad praising Obama, the former Illinois state senator, as a bipartisan figure — a move designed to weaken Dillard’s standing among conservative voters in the downstate region.
“In a Republican primary, if you’re in an ad supporting Barack Obama for president, that’s something that’s very, very unpopular with the base. Even if you’re in Illinois, that’s very unpopular,” explained Brian Nick, a GOP adman working for McKenna. “To be able to show that one of the front-runners endorsed Obama for president is a strong message to get out.”
The Chicago bank owned by the family of U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias reported a fourth-quarter loss that increases the amount of new capital it needs to raise to about $76 million.
Broadway Bank, which last week entered into a consent order with federal and state banking regulators requiring it to raise capital, reported a net loss for 2009 of $75 million. Its capital levels as of Dec. 31 were below the minimums demanded by banking regulators.
As of the end of the third quarter, Broadway’s financials suggested the family needed to raise about $50 million to save the bank.
With $188 million in loans at least 90 days past due, more than 20% of the $1.15-billion-asset bank’s loans now are seriously delinquent, according to the bank’s end-of-year financial report with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Banker Giannoulias wants a slice. It’s his turn at the Obama seat. The throne of Corruption.
Only in Chicago, the Gotham of corruption does a thief call out a thief, a mobster rob a mob bank.
The Bank’s worsened condition arrives on the eve of the primary, in which Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is vying with former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman and Cheryle Jackson, on leave from her job as head of the Chicago Urban League, for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat held previously by Barack Obama.
Ms. Jackson last week called on Mr. Giannoulias to drop out of the race after news of Broadway Bank’s regulatory order; Mr. Hoffman said it rendered Mr. Giannoulias unelectable in the fall.
Mr. Hoffman has criticized the $70 million in dividends the family took from the bank in 2007 and 2008 as the real estate crisis was emerging. The family has said a substantial percentage of that went to pay income and estate taxes.
Before the November election Alexi Giannoulias will face the feds takeover of the alleged bank.
The deep capital deficiency and the regulatory order increase the odds that Broadway, which is 100% owned by the Giannoulias family, will be seized by federal regulators before the general election in November.
That banker with a human face, is the likely choice of Dimocrats to inherit the throne of Obama corruption. But no one is sure what will happen. The voters are unhappy and pesky. We doubt the corruption will be uprooted. At best corruption will be re-routed.
Tuesday’s crowded ballot will test Gov. Pat Quinn’s popularity within his own party a year after he took over the reins from disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich, as well as pare down the field for the surprisingly up-for-grabs U.S. Senate seat formerly held by President Barack Obama.
Mix in the shadow of corruption that hangs over the state and an unemployment rate above the national average and even the political professionals aren’t sure what to expect. [snip]
While this down-ballot contest isn’t registering on the radar inside the Beltway, the four-way Democratic primary for president of the board in the state’s most populous county could tip the turnout scales. With three African-Americans among the four candidates and with first-term incumbent Todd Stroger on the ropes, some political observers predict a boost from black voters trekking to the polls for the favorite, Chicago City Council member Toni Preckwinkle, and Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown.
If black voters turn out in force, that would bode well for Quinn, because he launched a blistering attack during the past weekend designed to motivate those voters. Quinn accused his opponent, state Comptroller Dan Hynes, of ignoring the dumping of human remains at a historic black cemetery, an attack that came in response to a Hynes television ad featuring 1980s footage of Harold Washington, the city’s first African-American mayor, calling Quinn “a totally and completely undisciplined individual.”
Pity the denizens of Chicago street scams and scoundrels in the shadow of Obama. Who would you choose between these two:
The Republicans at least have a candidate who can bring in the hero of Gdansk.
“In the fractured GOP primary for governor, conservative grass-roots populists are organizing for Adam Andrzejewski, who scored the unique endorsement Friday of former Polish President Lech Walesa — an especially meaningful endorsement in Chicago, which has a sizable Polish population.
Andrzejewski, who registered 7 percent in a Jan. 22 Chicago Tribune poll, presents himself as a “private citizen” running against “five insiders.””
The Blagojevich trial will begin in June. Blagojevich will be in the dock, but Chicago Corruption will be the defendant. Again. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is working much too slowly and in too limited a manner.
You’d be concerned too if all your pals, the ones who know where the dead bodies are buried, will soon need jobs. Imagine Todd Stroger unemployed and in need of a job. The Todd Stroger we have written about so often (HERE, HERE, and HERE). In The Senator From Rezko, Part II, we quoted a bit of Obama history:
“There was little controversy earlier this year when Sen. Barack Obama endorsed Mayor Richard Daley over two black opponents for a sixth term, lending his star power to an inevitable rout.”
“But Obama’s record of local endorsements — one measure of how he has used his nascent political clout — has drawn criticism from those who say it reflects his deference to Chicago’s established political order and runs counter to his public calls for clean government.”
“In the 2006 Democratic primary, for example, Obama endorsed first-time candidate Alexi Giannoulias for state treasurer despite reports about loans Giannoulias’ family-owned Broadway Bank made to crime figures. Records show Giannoulias and his family had given more than $10,000 to Obama’s campaign, which banked at Broadway.” [snip]
“Obama supported the re-election of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration is embroiled in corruption probes.”
“And during the race for Cook County Board president, Obama predictably endorsed Todd Stroger over a Republican. But he was criticized for calling Stroger “a good progressive” despite allegations of job-rigging to favor members of Stroger’s 8th Ward organization.”
The long history of Stroger’s corruptions (let’s not forget daddy Stroger’s problems) have been appropriately called “serial dishonesty” and a “web of lies”. Just the type of character Obama likes.
“That serial dishonesty invited still more public distrust after Todd Stroger took office. Many citizens watched him cut health workers — but not enough of the patronage hacks in his administration — while larding the county payroll with even more of his friends and family members.
It’s too soon to say with certainty that Todd Stroger will go down as an amateurish one-termer. But his choice of secrecy over candor reminds voters that … it’s all about him, not them.”
“Amateurish one-termer” and “it’s all about him, not them.” sounds like Obama. Birds of a feather, roost with chickens together.
“CHICAGO – Orlando Jones, the godson of former Cook County Board President John Stroger and an insider in county politics, has been found dead on a Michigan beach from what authorities say is a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The Cook County political insider was found Wednesday night, just as a corruption inquiry targeting him was heating up.
Police found the body of Orlando Jones on a beach in Union Pier, Mich. As CBS 2’s Rafael Romo reports, Jones had close ties to the Stroger family. [snip]
Jones rose to the level of chief of staff for former president John Stroger, who was his godfather. [snip]
Jones left his position in county government to create a lobbying firm in association with Tony Rezko, who has been indicted on fraud charges.
Recent reports from Las Vegas also claim that he was the target of a federal investigation stemming from a hospital deal that he negotiated.
How could anyone be suspicious of Obama with friends like these? Each one of them is a reliable character witness for Barack Obama. What a character Obama is!
“In the last 48 hours a growing majority of the people I have talked to; almost all of whom are regular primary election votrs, are throwing up their hands in disgust with both parties and are planning on staying home.
People have become disillusioned by their government, and disheartened by the pre-election polls, which continue to suggest a level of ongoing insanity within both parties.
This leads them to believe that they have no voice, and that their vote does not matter in the intramural contests because the game is rigged by entrenched partisan leadership interests, that won’t support no one that nobody sent.
The voters are angry and upset allright, but the sense that I am getting from Demcrats and Republicans alike is that the one thing that they are yearning for most, is a credible; independent third party option, for every office, at every level of government. They are looking for an alternative, and in the absence of that option are choosing “none of the above” by simply staying home.”
As David Yepsen says, “People are unhappy with the way things are.”
“Never ending ethics scandals and the near insolvency of the state government burst the bubble of any post Obama euphoria months ago. On Saturday, Chicagoans awoke to these stories: a suburban mayor sentenced for bribery; a Chicago alderman taking a bribery plea deal, and a former alderman learning he may face prison time for a real estate kickback scheme.
Illinois Democrats are splintered and frazzled in the wake of the impeachment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who will be tried this summer on federal public corruption charges for, among other items, trying to auction off Obama’s seat. “They’re scared,” Yepsen said.”
Ya think????
We’ve been writing for years that Obama and his wife appear entangled in a complex, yet simple, real estate kickback scheme with a bunch of hospital chicanery tossed in.
The scam of the day is Barack Obama’s 3.834 Trillion Dollar Budget for 2011. We’ll discuss that scam on a later day. Today we will focus on Alexi Giannoulias and Elizabeth Edwards.
First, Saint Elizabeth. Elizabeth Edwards attacked Hillary and asserted her marriage was happier than Hillary’s. Bankruptcy lawyer Elizabeth Edwards participated in the John Edwards Bankruptcy vote scam of “I was wrong”. You might not know about that bankruptcy vote scam which we wrote about on June 7, 2007 in The Long Good-bye. Here are a few excerpts of what we wrote:
Now, let’s ignore the singular accomplishment of John Edwards in the Senate, his co-sponsorship, not mere voting for, the Iraq resolution…. About that vote John Edwards said “I was wrong.”
“Like a lot of Democrats, I voted for a bankruptcy reform bill before. I can’t say it more simply than this: I was wrong.”
John Edwards did not need to learn anything, not a single solitary thing about “bankruptcy on the campaign trail” to know the horror of a Bankruptcy Bill he voted for. All John Edwards had to do was consult his Bankruptcy lawyer wife. It’s time they had another talk, about the bankruptcy of his campaign.
Two “I was wrong”s, don’t make a right. Elizabeth Edwards is now exposed as a scam artist. As bad as John Edwards is, Elizabeth is just as rotten.
Bankruptcy lawyer scam artist Elizabeth Edwards has a great deal to answer for. Indeed, Elizabeth and her husband are a cancer on the body politic.
This dynamic duo of dung, like Barack Obama and his mob, are shameless. We won’t get into the poisonous acts of the duo and their fake public pretenses about not knowing whom to endorse after their wretched campaign of lies was rejected by the voters. There is simply too much filth about this duo and their selfishness and rants against their own campaign workers and the ceaseless vulgarity of their cupidity.
We will not explore the fecal details of John and Elizabeth Edwards. Today, we want to focus on how scam artists like this disgusting duo are relentless and know how to work a scam.
Very recently, a Left Talker Polanski loving defense lawyer, the one who chortled about the arrest of Sarah Palin’s daughter’s baby’s father’s mother, and used that distant arrest as somehow something Sarah Palin was culpable for; the same Left Talker defense lawyer, who celebrated what she thought was sure to be a massive divorce and then indictment on corruption charges for theft of construction materials by Sarah Palin when Sarah Palin resigned as governor; that low-life, reality show watching Left Talker defense lawyer bemoaned the publicity given to accusations against Elizabeth Edwards.
The Left Talker is incensed because the truth emerges about the cancerous scum called John and Elizabeth Edwards.
The Left Talker in her hapless defense (pity her clients), opened up new doors in the cancerous scam which are John and Elizabeth Edwards. The reality show addict Left Talker clued us in on something we did not know: the day Elizabeth called the police – on John.
Here is the story no Americans read about when it occurred – October 10, 2008! “How To Work A Scam” – Elizabeth Edwards style. Here’s the story:
The Orange County sheriff’s office released today a copy of a report alleging a “domestic between spouses and larceny of wallet” on Oct. 10, 2008, at the home of John and Elizabeth Edwards.
In the report, Elizabeth Edwards describes how John Edwards came to the home to eat dinner with his children after a sports event, Mark Johnson reports. She told him they were dining with the babysitter, and he had no business being there, according to the report.
Moments later, John Edwards challenged his wife’s comment and said the house was his, as well. Then Elizabeth Edwards said she saw her husband take her lime green wallet, which contained $320, credit cards and a Motorola Razr phone. John Edwards went down to “the barn,” an adjoining structure that includes a full-size basketball court, for several minutes before beginning to leave, according to the report.
“As Mr. Edwards was leaving, he was asked to give the wallet back,” the report said, “and he advised that he did not have it.”
The report ends by giving Edwards – a former U.S. Senator, former presidential candidate and former Democratic vice presidential nominee – a new title: “suspect.”
UPDATE FOR THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS: The report had been kept secret since it was filed more than a year ago at the request of Elizabeth Edwards, the sheriff said. He cited a state statute that allows incident reports to be kept confidential temporarily in cases where the documents’ release could endanger the victims physical or mental well-being.
Students of scams take note – this police incident took place on October 10, 2008.Why did Elizabeth Edwards want to keep this police report secret? Easy answer – she had a book to sell, another scam to ply.
Scam artist Elizabeth Edwards had a book to sell. The book’s title was “Resilience”. Elizabeth Edwards is a resilient scam artist. Elizabeth went on Oprah, Elizabeth did many interviews – never once did she mention her marriage was over and her whole existence at that point was a scam. That is what scam artists do. Other than at Big Pink no one will dare call Elizabeth Edwards what she is – a cancerous resilient scam artist.
All during 2009, Elizabeth Edwards scored plaudits from the gullible. The L.A. Times book review commiserated in her misery:
That affair was, Elizabeth Edwards writes, a gut-wrenching addition to a life marked by tragedies sudden and inevitable, from the 1996 car-crash death of Wade, her oldest child, to the slow physical disintegration of her beloved parents; her discovery at a young age that her mother believed her father had had an affair, and — finally — the cancer that she has been battling since 2004 and that she expects will kill her.
Despite initial media accounts of “Resilience” (”After I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up”), and the much-talked about Oprah interview Thursday, Edwards’ battle with cancer and Wade’s death dominate the new book, even more so than her 2006 memoir, “Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength From Friends and Strangers.” “Resilience,” in fact, can be viewed as a coda to “Saving Graces” — a meditation on her life after learning about her husband’s affair and the resurgence of her cancer.
Rubbish, all of it. Elizabeth Edwards traded on her cancer and her son’s death and all the miseries of her life. All throughout 2009 Elizabeth Edwards sold books and remained silent on the police report which only in 2010 has seen the light of day.
Jane Podesta, in an article which was attacked, proved not to be among the Edwards gullible:
Edwards can’t have it both ways — insisting that she won’t sit back as the passive political wife and disappear, while cashing in on her family’s personal crisis. Where were the fawning political handlers who once surrounded this couple, when she agreed to head off to promote this book? And what happened to the old Elizabeth Edwards who wasn’t afraid to answer any question hurled at her on the campaign trail?
Watching Elizabeth Edwards in freefall — pandering to chirpy Oprah and CNN’s reptilian Larry King — has been especially painful for me as a reporter who covered her closely for years. I interviewed Elizabeth Edwards shortly after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and in those days she waxed poetic, quoting Emily Dickenson: “Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul.” Edwards added,” I’ve thought about that a lot lately. It’s just a part of our nature to hope.” [snip]
Flash forward nearly five years and we find Elizabeth making the rounds promoting a shallow book that only briefly touches on her husband’s humiliating affair. From the voyeuristic TV interviews exploiting Edwards, viewers might imagine the book is a riveting look inside a troubled marriage. Turns out this is largely a rewrite of her earlier memoir — Saving Graces — but this time she mentions her poor mother’s fear that her Navy pilot father had an affair at the Willard Hotel — something that haunted Elizabeth throughout her life. She relives the awful tragedy of losing her oldest son, Wade, a wound that never healed.
* * * * *
“How To Work A Scam”. Elizabeth Edwards shows us that scam artists want to keep one step ahead of the law and love secrecy. One year’s delay of the truth is a gold mine for scam artists.
Alexi Giannoulias knows these lessons well. Here is Alexi Giannoulias’ latest scam straight out of the Obama and Elizabeth playbook.
Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias (D) held a press conference to discuss his family’s banking problems, but his refusal to answer a question whether he held responsibility for the bank’s struggles led to a tough AP story today: [snip
Giannoulias looks like he’s playing the political equivalent of the prevent defense in football – he’s led in the Democratic primary throughout the race because of his money, support from leading Democratic officials, and is hoping to hold onto that narrowing lead over David Hoffman with the primary just several days away.
Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias refused to provide details Thursday about whether his decisions contributed to his family bank’s financial problems, saying five days before the election that those questions can wait for another time.
“If I’m fortunate enough to make it out of the primary, we can have that conversation,” the Chicago Democrat told reporters.
Giannoulias, like Obama, like John and Elizabeth Edwards wants to answer questions, later. Later is too late. Giannoulias is ducking questions so he will say he is not ducking questions.
In a follow-up interview with The Associated Press, Giannoulias denied he was ducking questions.
He said that because he no longer works for the bank, he doesn’t have detailed information about its financial problems and what caused them. He also said he will have no role in family decisions about how to address the bank’s problems.
The Giannoulias family owns Broadway Bank, and he was a senior loan officer there before becoming Illinois treasurer three years ago.
Now the bank is in trouble. It has promised state and federal regulators that it will raise new capital, sell troubled assets and improve management. The bank must raise $50 million or more within 90 days.
When Giannoulias wins the Democratic Primary all the questions about Obama and Rezko and “Jaws” and the Broadway Bank will still not be asked. But maybe, they might:
But his rivals in the Democratic primary say Broadway is in trouble because of bad loans and putting too much money into a vulnerable real estate market. They argue Giannoulias, as a loan officer, bears some of the responsibility and is now trying to avoid blame.
“The reason that this Broadway Bank story and revelation is of such significance now is because it goes to the heart of matters of job performance and character,” Senate candidate David Hoffman said at a news conference.
“Job performance and character” sounds to us like Barack Obama in Chicago who also did not want questions asked. If asked Obama would not answer. That chicken is now getting plucked:
Giannoulias denies his loan decisions contributed to the bank’s problems, calling it a silly political attack. But he wouldn’t discuss the issue in detail or provide any documents to support his position.
The Giannoulias family has taken $86 million in dividends and other financial benefits from the bank in recent years. Giannoulias said most of that was done to pay taxes and settle estate matters after his father’s death.
But he again declined to provide details or to say whether his family will put money back into the bank.
“How To Work A Scam?” Ask Elizabeth Edwards, Alexi Giannoulias, and the master scam artist – Barack Obama.
In a way this is a follow-up, a Part II, to our “Mulligan Man” article from January 22, 2009. After a major piece of boobery, Obama usually tries for a “mulligan” (a do-over in golf terms). This past week the major acts of boobery came by the bushel and Obama wanted a mulligan on them all.
The Kooks and Nutroots and Obama enablers in print and cable are in a swoon because Obama spoke to the Republicans on Friday. “Glory Be!” they shout. But we’ll explain the boobery of the Friday Mulligan today. We’ll also explain the boobery of the terror trials. And we will explain the failure of the State of the Union publicity stunt.
* * * * *
Let’s start with the boobery publicity stunt which was the State of the Union speech, on Wednesday. Why was that publicity stunt such a failure? This question can be disposed of quickly:
During his State-of-the-Union address Wednesday night, President Obama spoke about a deficit of trust between the American people and political leaders. New Rasmussen Reports polling on the president’s speech shows just how deep that trust deficit has become.
The president in the speech declared that his administration has cut taxes for 95% of Americans. He even chided Republicans for not applauding on that point. However, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that taxes have been cut for 95% of Americans. Most (53%) say it has not happened, and 26% are not sure. Other polling shows that nearly half the nation’s voters expect their own taxes to go up during the Obama years.
The president also asserted that “after two years of recession, the economy is growing again.” Just 35% of voters believe that statement is true, while 50% say it is false.
Obama claimed that steps taken by his team are responsible for putting two million people to work “who would otherwise be unemployed.” Just 27% of voters say that statement is true. Fifty-one percent (51%) say it’s false. [snip]
Regarding another initiative detailed in the speech on Wednesday night, just nine percent (9%) of voters believe the president’s proposed freeze on discretionary spending will have a big impact on the deficit.
In short, Obama promised he would bring trust – but now the distrust has spread and infects all elected officials. Very short:
Obama simply cannot be trusted. Obama cannot be trusted on any issue. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.
A tactic that would have seemed far-fetched a year ago, when the new president was sworn in with a 67 percent job approval rating, is now emerging as a key component of the GOP strategy: Tie Democratic opponents to Obama and make them answer for some of the unpopular policies associated with the chief executive.
* * * * *
Let’s discuss the Friday boobery which is so hailed on the Big Blogs. Obama knows he bumbled in front of 48 million people on Wednesday. So on a slow Friday dump day he chose to take a chance and visit triumphant Republicans. Big Blogs Boys that enabled Obama whooped and hollered about how great Obama was – that is always their first instinct before they realize they have been punked, again. Here is what the garbage scow, Maureen Dowd, wrote about Fabulous Friday:
The Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz picked up on the president’s line in the State of the Union about “a deficit of trust.”
“We didn’t create this mess, but we are here to help clean it up,” the freshman member said, before ticking off a litany of things that have soured many Americans on the president who came in trailing fairy dust.
“When you stood up before the American people multiple times and said you would broadcast the health care debates on C-Span, you didn’t,” he said.
And another good one: “You said you weren’t going to allow lobbyists in the senior-most positions within your administration, and yet you did.”
And another: “You said you’d go line by line through the health care bill. And there were six of us, including Dr. Phil Roe, who sent you a letter and said we would like to take you up on that offer. … We never got a call.”
And this rousing finale: “And when you said in the House of Representatives that you were going to tackle earmarks and in fact you didn’t want to have any earmarks in any of your bills, I jumped out of my seat and applauded you.”
What normal Americans and real Democrats, like those at Big Pink saw, and what the happy Kooks and Nutroots saw, differ greatly. The Kooks and the Nutroots have allies at Politico (Politicoo-coo). The Politicoo-coos want more speeches, more speeches, as if that would help boob Obama:
What his advisers are trying to do — first with the State of the Union and more dramatically with Friday’s event — is make clear that he wants to work with Republicans and that the minority party deserves blame, too.
By that measure, Friday’s event was a home run. It also showed Obama’s determination to ditch a Rose Garden strategy that pinned him down, month after month, in fruitless White House wrangling over heath care.
Expect more of Friday’s Obama, his aides say, with the president out on the road, liberated from messy legislative process, taking scores of questions from friends and foes.
Expect monthly meetings with Republican leaders.
Expect a campaign.
“Expect a campaign” applaud the Politicoo-coos. Isn’t that the problem? Americans complain because Obama has talked too much and done nothing for them so Politicoo-coos think the answer is more publicity stunts. The Hopium deliveries must arrive daily at Politico headquarters.
On Wednesday, Big Media, the DailyKooks and Nutroots saw their god, the rest of us saw a boob. A boob that cannot be trusted.
How shall we put it politely? Perhaps this:
Obama simply cannot be trusted. Obama cannot be trusted on any issue. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.
* * * * *
What about the terror trials? What happened there? For a full answer to that question read our recent article Terror Trial – Chuck Schumer with a 2×4. In that article we explain the danger to Schumer in particular and Democrats in general. For the lazy here is a video which explains the politics:
But what specifically happened in New York with the terror trials? One word: Lobbyists. You remember those lobbyists that Obama denounced in 2008, 2009 and last Wednesday? It was the Lobbyists that finally persuaded pal Obama.From the New York Times:
The Obama administration on Friday gave up on its plan to try the Sept. 11 plotters in Lower Manhattan, bowing to almost unanimous pressure from New York officials and business leaders to move the terrorism trial elsewhere.
“I think I can acknowledge the obvious,” an administration official said. “We’re considering other options.”
The reversal on whether to try the alleged 9/11 terrorists blocks from the former World Trade Center site seemed to come suddenly this week, after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg abandoned his strong support for the plan and said the cost and disruption would be too great.
But behind the brave face that many New Yorkers had put on for weeks, resistance had been gathering steam.
The gathering steam was not the angry populace. No, it was powerful business interests that spend millions on lobbyists. Ordinary New Yorkers protested in the streets against the trials, but the rich and the powerful had access and willing ears in the White House:
After a dinner in New York on Dec. 14, Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, pulled aside David Axelrod, President Obama’s closest adviser, to convey an urgent plea: move the 9/11 trial out of Manhattan.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had laid out his plans for the trial: “blanketing a swath of Lower Manhattan with police checkpoints, vehicle searches, rooftop snipers and canine patrols.”
Mayor Bloomberg finally realized his support for the five accused September 11 plotters was foolish and the cost exorbitant. Mayor Bloomberg pulled his support. Perhaps this was a clever trap to hurt Senator Schumer who supported holding the trials in Manhattan. But Chuck Schumer, via the miracle of google alerts or regular readership saw the peril to himself. Chuck cut the cord, “It is obvious that they can’t have the trials in New York,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, New York’s Democratic senior senator.
Citizen protests did not dissuade Obama. Lobbyists however had his ear and devotion.
The story of how prominent New York officials seemed to have so quickly moved from a kind of “bring it on” bravado to an “anywhere but here” involves many factors, including a new anxiety about terrorism after the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day.
Ultimately, it appears, New York officials could not tolerate ceding much of the city to a set of trials that could last for years.
“The administration is in a tricky political and legal position,” Julie Menin, a lawyer who is chairwoman of the 50-member Community Board 1 that represents Lower Manhattan, including the federal courthouse and ground zero, said of President Obama and his Justice Department. “But it means shutting down our financial district. It could cost $1 billion. It’s absolutely crazy.”
Citizen protests did not matter. Families of the dead did not matter. Public uproars were not heard. Lobbyists’ whispers were heard loudly:
The breakdown of support for the trials in New York might have actually been assisted by the way New York officials were first notified by the Obama administration.
Mr. Holder called Mr. Bloomberg and Gov. David A. Paterson only a few hours before his public announcement on Nov. 13; and Mr. Kelly got a similar call that morning from Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, whose office had been picked to prosecute the cases.
But by the time those calls were made, the decision had already been reported in the news media, which was how Mr. Bloomberg learned about it, according to mayoral aides.
One senior Bloomberg official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to antagonize the White House, said: “When Holder was making the decision he didn’t call Ray Kelly and say, ‘What do you think?’ He didn’t call the mayor and say, ‘What would your position be?’ They didn’t reach out until it got out there.”
Obama and his thugs ignored elected officials and did not bother to consider the people of New York. The lobbyists are another matter. Obama listens to Lobbyists:
Soon, though, New York real estate executives were raising concerns with the Obama administration, according to Mr. Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York.
Mr. Spinola said he had received calls and e-mail messages from the board’s members. Residential real estate brokers were “going berserk,” as he put it, worried that they would no longer be able to sell apartments downtown.
Commercial brokers feared they would not be able to lease office space.
On Nov. 20, the Friday before Thanksgiving, the real estate executive William C. Rudin held a meeting at his office to talk about issues with Jim Messina, a deputy White House chief of staff, according to Mr. Spinola.
The meeting was not on the topic of the trials, but the executives pressed their case anyway.
Mr. Spinola said that he told Mr. Messina, “I hope that the White House was going to put a ton of money into it.”
A turning point came when Mr. Kelly spoke before a large business crowd at a New York Police Foundation breakfast on Jan. 13.
After addressing the year’s highlights in crime reduction, he turned to the 9/11 trials, offering a presentation that was direct and graphic.
“Whatever the merits of holding the trial in Lower Manhattan,” he said, “it will certainly raise the level of threat.” He said that “securing this area and the entire city for the duration of this event promises to be an extremely demanding undertaking.”
He offered a detailed account of his department’s security plan, with inner and outer perimeters, unannounced vehicle checkpoints, countersniper teams on rooftops, and hazardous-materials and bomb squad personnel ready to respond. And he cited the hundreds of millions it would cost to protect the city.
“The entire audience issued a collective gasp when it became clear that this was an event that could go on for years,” said one guest, Kathryn S. Wylde, president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City.
The unhappiness grew. During the Real Estate Board of New York’s annual gala, held on Jan. 21, Mr. Bloomberg dropped by, and Bloomberg officials said they got “an earful on that” from real estate executives, all of whom were angry about the plan.
A week later, his public opinion had changed, and so, it seems, had the ultimate destination of the trials.
New York politicians know when they need office space for campaigns they get reduced rates from these real estate moguls. In years past, when office space was needed, “Call Lew” (Lewis Rudin) was the reply. Now it is “Call Bill”.
Lobbyists and those Obama needs for his self advancement always have access to Obama’s Jumbo ears. Ordinary citizens, Obama does not hear.
Obama’s terror trials in Manhattan will not happen. Terror trials will go to where the lobbyists do not live.
Obama boobed up this past week. The latest polls indicate Obama helped himself with those whose help he does not particularly need. Independents, however, are sick of the boobery. Independents now, Just Say NO.
Obama will be given endless mulligans from the gullible. The wise have had enough.
Put on your toxin resistant black rubber gloves and your waist high mud boots. We’ll quote today from websites deep into Obama love. If you thought the Massachusetts senate election was a disaster, we have one word, one name: Chicago.
Banking Past Haunts Obama Friend Who Wants His Old Senate Seat
“Bankers don’t need another vote in the United States Senate — they’ve got plenty,” Obama said Jan. 17 in Boston, signaling a broader strategy to tie Republicans to Wall Street greed.
In the (Illinois) race to fill Obama’s old Senate seat, the banker in question is a Democrat, Alexi Giannoulias, a presidential friend whose family’s bank once held deposits for an Obama campaign committee…
Giannoulias, 33, a former senior loan officer and bank vice president, now serves as treasurer of Illinois…Giannoulias said he now owns 3.6 percent of the bank…
The $1.2 billion community bank, founded in 1979, has been part of Giannoulias’s public profile since he won election in 2006 because it made loans to a bookmaker as well as convicted Illinois influence peddler Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
Here at Big Pink we wrote about Obama’s Mob back in 2007.The mob chickens are coming home. We wrote about Alexi Giannoulias and Michael “Jaws” Giorango in 2007, but few in Big Media listened. Now, even the Obama lovers see the connections and they are worried.
CHICAGO — If the Massachusetts special election was a kick in the shins for President Barack Obama, the political turmoil in Illinois, his home state, is a pain in the neck that never seems to go away.
His former Senate seat, already stained by an ethics scandal, is a major takeover target for Republicans. So is the governor’s office.
Going into Tuesday’s Illinois primary, the first of the 2010 campaign season, Democrats are in disarray, with no political heavyweights in their lineup for the Senate seat that Obama gave up for the White House.
Losing it would be a bigger personal embarrassment for the president than Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts, which took away the late Edward M. Kennedy’s Senate seat.
The front-runner for the Democratic Senate nomination in Illinois, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, describes Obama as his mentor. He is only 33 and hasn’t served a full term in office, and his only previous experience was working for a family bank now in financial trouble.
“Massachusetts was more of a referendum on Obama. In Illinois, it’s going to be a referendum on Democratic incompetence,” said Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.
In Massachusetts, Brown made his opposition to Obama policies, particularly health care overhaul, a centerpiece of his campaign. Obama had little choice but appear there two days before the special election on behalf of Brown’s Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Since then, Illinois Republicans have mentioned the Massachusetts upset at every opportunity.
“I believe Illinois is ready for a Scott Brown experience,” Adam Andrzejewski, one of six contenders for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, said in a recent debate.
A Polish politician who spearheaded the movement that led to the fall of communism in Poland is taking a stand in Illinois politics.
Lech Walesa, the former polish president, is endorsing Polish-American Adam Andrzejewski in the Republican race for governor.
Walesa an iconic figure of Poland’s rise from communism but today Lech Walesa is hoping to give Adam Andrzejewski a lift in the race for governor. he two men joined together for an event at the Union League Club of Chicago.
Why is Walesa doing this?
“I have good political nose,” told ABC7 through an interpreter.
Walesa says his endorsement is about more than merely sharing Polish heritage. He believes the Hinsdale businessman would bring a new honest approach to Illinois government.
“Because he has no baggage. He is open. He can put things in order. Clean house,” said Walesa.
The former Polish president is well aware of the stain of corruption in Illinois politics. He joked, tongue-in-cheek, that he won’t need to visit his chosen candidate in prison.
“He doesn’t depend on anyone and this is his greatness,” said Walesa.
“We’re gonna defend the taxpayers of Illinois. We’re gonna bring good governance to Springfield. This is a new era of governance that we can work on together,” said Andrzejewski.
In Massachusetts the Kennedy clan thought they were the Polish communist regime which oppressed the people. Walesa is not afraid that his candidate is the underdog:
Andrzejewski doesn’t seem to mind the underdog status and neither does Lech Walesa.
“Nobody gave us a chance to win over the communists. Nobody. And we proved them wrong,” said Walesa.
The story broke on January 26th, the day after both PPP and Rasmussen completed their polls on the campaign. As such, any polls showing Giannoulias performing better in the general election than his two main rivals, David Hoffman and Cheryle Jackson, are now out of date.
Being caught in a banking scandal is always bad. Being caught in one during this political environment is practically a death sentence to a campaign. If Giannoulias were to win the primary, Democrats would be extremely hard pressed to keep the seat in November. Even worse, having a prominent Senate candidate–the Democratic nominee for President Obama’s old seat–personally involved in a banking scandal like this could hurt Democratic chances in many other elections, too.
The bark of the dogs is clear and loud:
However, if Illinois Democrats either ignore this scandal, or give Giannoulias some sort of sympathy vote for being targeted, this Senate seat is probably gone. Many others will become endangered, too.
These barking fools have been so wrong, for so long, most recently in the Massachusetts race that ordinarily they can be ignored. But we have been writing about Chicago Corruption since 2007 and every day we have been proven correct.
Illinois’ U.S. Senate Democratic primary is coming up in less than a week, and it poses a potentially enormous problem for the Democratic Party, in Illinois and therefore nationally. That “therefore” is important: Because President Obama is from Illinois, and because Republicans have invested so much time and resources trying to nationalize the concept of the corrupt “Chicago politician,” whoever ends up the Democratic nominee for Obama’s old seat will likely be made by the GOP into a face of the Democratic Party as a whole.
That’s why the candidacy of Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is so problematic. Holding a slight lead in the polls against other Democratic challengers, he has become a poster child for everything that is wrong with the American economy – everything that the Republican Party’s right-wing populism desperately needs to find traction.
Sirota is so worried about the politics, but not a word about the Obama Chicago Culture of Corruption. Sirota blames Republicans for the fight against Corruption. Corruption, Corruption, Corruption – Chicago.
Sirota and the Hillary haters are worried about the loss of a senate seat. The worry is political, not a cleansing of Obama Chicago Corruption. Sirota writes, “Bloomberg News shows just how mortally dangerous to the Democratic Party Giannoulias would be if he wins the nomination“.
Real Democrats, not the Obamination Dimocratic Party care about cleansing the system of Obama Chicago Corruption. Independents too, not just Republicans want to cleanse the system of Obama Chicago Corruption:
As these stories make clear, if Giannoulias is the winner, we can expect to hear for the next year about how the Democratic Party is so corrupt it is now promoting a scandal-plagued banker to fill Obama’s old Senate seat. While Giannoulias leads likely Republican nominee Mark Kirk in one early poll, you better believe those polls will change in a general-election battle that focuses in on this banking theme.
Thus, if Giannoulias, it would be a clear disaster. He is literally the walking personification of all that the public clearly despises right now – an Establishment politician closely connected to the industry that has destroyed the economy.
With him as the nominee, Democrats could lose yet another senate seat, and more broadly, they could lose any national high ground they need to reclaim. At a time when the Democratic Party desperately needs to reclaim the populist economic mantle and prevent Republicans from being able to mount their own right-wing populist campaign, Giannoulias would become the face of a Democratic Party that has already become increasingly synonymous in voters minds with the most hated aspects of the financial industry.
Sirota and the Nothing Left, DailyKooks crowd have destroyed the Democratic Party and even these Leninist “vanguard of the proletariat” “creative class” clueless clowns know the Dimocratic Party will be destroyed just as they destroyed the Democratic Party:
I’m not endorsing any of the other candidates, and I have absolutely no personal stake in the outcome of this primary election, other than hoping it doesn’t destroy the Democratic Party I’ve worked with and for over the last decade. Maybe that party I once worked with and for is already totally destroyed – I have a sneaking suspicion that it is. But maybe not. That’s precisely why I write this: To point out that if this particular candidate becomes the new face of the Democratic Party, the “maybe not part” could easily disappear.
The front-runner for the Democratic Senate nomination in Illinois, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, describes Obama as his mentor. He is only 33 and hasn’t served a full term in office, and his only previous experience was working for a family bank now in financial trouble. [snip]
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is in danger of losing in the primary because of his association with disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was expelled from office.
Quinn twice ran as lieutenant governor on the same ticket as Blagojevich. He has also taken heat for proposing a tax increase to clean up the state’s financial mess and for working with Obama to move terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to an Illinois prison. His effort to cut costs by letting some nonviolent inmates out of prison turned out to include releasing violent offenders — some of whom have been accused of serious new crimes.
Obama is Poison. Obama is Poison, even in Illinois:
In Massachusetts, Brown made his opposition to Obama policies, particularly health care overhaul, a centerpiece of his campaign. Obama had little choice but appear there two days before the special election on behalf of Brown’s Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Since then, Illinois Republicans have mentioned the Massachusetts upset at every opportunity.
“I believe Illinois is ready for a Scott Brown experience,” Adam Andrzejewski, one of six contenders for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, said in a recent debate.
Republicans would love for Obama to go to Illinois to campaign for his mob. Republicans repeatedly send out the message that Obama can help his Dimocrats in Illinois. But Republicans know that Obama is poison.
Recently I spent a lot of time with some relatives and old friends, so when the president’s happy or frowning visage came on the tube I could gauge the gut-level reactions.
My family and friends run the gamut of the political spectrum, so they form my own little focus group. The moderates and conservatives are both Republican and Democrat, and most of them actually voted for Obama, convinced by the candidate’s soaring rhetoric and his elderly opponent John McCain’s creaky appearance that the first black president in American history should be given a chance. Yet when Obama’s face came on the tube, every one of them reacted negatively.
Some shook their heads, kind of smirking. Others were more visceral in their grimaces and body language. [snip]
Interestingly, when I pointed out that the Congressional Republicans seem dead set on opposing anything Obama does, most of them agreed. But they were interested in results, not excuses. And the man they had voted for to solve the nation’s problems was bogged down in the swamp of Washington DC. “We elected him to figure this out,” said one. “He hasn’t figured out anything, and the country is going downhill.”
Oh yes, “the country is going downhill”. Even liberals who shamed themselves into voting for the African-American to prove they were so enlightened, ignored the content of base character and instead voted for the color of skin – are now disgusted:
The reaction of the liberals in the family was even more surprising. Most of them were even more visceral in their disgust with Obama than the conservatives. Having been ecstatic when Obama was voted in, having felt themselves part of a historical wave that had elected what they thought was a transformative figure like Franklin Roosevelt, now they were deeply suspicious.
“I can’t believe a word he says,” said one. “He completely duped us. On the campaign trail he showed us one face, and now as president another.”
Liberal and real Democrats who were duped into joining the Obamination we call the Dimocratic Party are awake:
Despite all of Obama’s soaring oratory about pulling together as a nation to solve deep economic, health care and global warming crises, they all felt Obama is not delivering. Whether his inabilities are related to personal shortcomings or the defects of America’s antiquated political system, they were not much interested. All they were interested in was results. And a year into his presidency, Obama was failing to produce much of those.
So when seeing Obama on their TV screens, nearly every one of them shook their heads, grimaced, snorted or chuckled, and then quickly changed the channel. I don’t recall George W. Bush reaching this point in his presidency until near the end of his first term. If that’s a bellwether, then Obama is in trouble. His post-election mandate is gone, his 60 votes in the Senate are gone, and what’s left is the tough slog ahead of modest accomplishments. Unfortunately, the country needs much more than that. Fasten your seatbelts, we are in for a long ride.
Last night Barack Obama waterboarded the nation with another baroque flood of words. We immediately thought of the abused citizens of Indonesia who want to rid themselves of the very recently (only a month) placed statue of the “One” (termer). Those Indonesians sound very like Americans:
Members of the “Take Down the Barack Obama Statue in Menteng Park” group on Facebook say Obama has done nothing for Indonesia.
“Barack Obama has yet to make a significant contribution to the Indonesian nation. We could say Obama only ate and s (expletive) in Menteng.
People of Menteng, we Americans sympathize. To us Barack Obama has only poo’ed on the American nation too.
* * * * *
Last night Obama delivered a degenerate campaign speech. Consider the idiot Gay-Americans who voted for Obama and continue to give the boob and his Dimocrats money. When it is to squeeze money from Gay-Americans Obama employs direct, declarative language: “I will end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’.”
Last night however, Gay-Americans got this campaign promise kinda, sorta: “This year I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”
That was it. Gay-Americans who foolishly trust Obama to actually repeal the law they hate, better get to parsing Obama’s words. Obama is not going to do anything you Gay fools. Obama, one year in, will possibly “work” with Congress/military to, in a thousand years, repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law. “Work” to Obama means the speech he gave last night. His efforts are already over. Keep giving him money you fools.
Gay people who trust Obama are fools deserving of all the misery he delivers. Straight people who trust Obama are fools deserving of all the misery he delivers. Ditto, black people, ditto white people, ditto all colors of people and all mixtures of people. All genders, all ages, all religions, all political affiliations, all geographies – you are fools deserving of all the misery delivered to you by Obama if you trust Obama.
Obama simply cannot be trusted. Obama cannot be trusted on any issue. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.
All Obama promises last night – none of them are going to get done. All that lobbyist talk? Right after the flood of Obama flowery words – private briefings for lobbyists. If you believe Obama will actually accomplish something (health scam, employment, tax and trade, immigration, financial reform, education initiatives, student loans, schools, ice cream delivery….) then you are a fool.
All the Obama campaign promises of retreating oceans and breakout of world peace hives are now shown to be all talk. After all the campaign promises of transformation and realignment and a thousand year reich and celestial choirs and rose petal scented rain, now Obama says “I never suggested that change would be easy….”; ‘I never promised you a rose garden, change will be hard hard work y’all.’
The Associated Press and others today published “fact checks” on Obama’s speechifying. AP mocks the toothless gimmick which is the supposed bipartisan deficit commission as well as Obama’s claims in regard to the “freeze” in spending, the health scam, the lobbyist scam, employment scams, transparency scams, arms control foolishness, and terrorist bumbling.
The facts are against Obama. After last night’s spending freeze TALK, today, every single Dimocratic senator voted to raise the debt limit to $14.3 trillion.
Yesterday a much more important event occurred than Obama’s word flood. No, we are not talking about Hillary Clinton presidential talk or her appearance on the premiere of Tavis Smiley’s new show. We are talking about Steve Jobs and the iPad.
Steve Jobs (wanna bet Barack Obama would love to have that as his name?), the technology god to many, yesterday introduced a new product called the iPad.
Whatever the merits of the new gizmo, there is no doubt that Steve Jobs has actually accomplished a great many worthwhile works in his life. The new iPad will create jobs, “jobs” as in employment, not just a name, not just a word. Income will be generated. Tech geeks and others will be happy. The oceans won’t recede, but many of our techno geek friends will be happy with their new toy.
Steve Jobs does not just talk. Steve Jobs creates gizmos and jobs.
Barack Obama talks. Barack Obama does not create gizmos or jobs. Barack Obama only talks. and talks. and talks.
There is another thing that Obama does though. Obama did that last night. It’s what he did in Menteng.
Obama yesterday introduced the iPoo on the State of the Union.
Born into slavery as one of the youngest of thirteen children of James and Elizabeth in Ulster County, New York, in 1797, Sojourner Truth’s given name was Isabella Baumfree. As almost all of her brothers and sisters had been sold to other slave owners, some of her earliest memories were of her parents’ stories of the cruel loss of their other children. [snip]
In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth – her name for a traveling preacher, one who speaks the truth – and left New York. She traveled throughout New England, where she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, and Frederick Douglass. Her life story, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, written with the help of friend Olive Gilbert, was published in 1850.
While traveling and speaking in states across the country, Sojourner Truth met many women abolitionists and noticed that although women could be part of the leadership in the abolitionist movement, they could neither vote nor hold public office. It was this realization that led Sojourner to become an outspoken supporter of women’s rights.
In 1851, she addressed the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, delivering her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” The applause she received that day has been described as “deafening.” From that time on, she became known as a leading advocate for the rights of women. She became one of the nineteenth century’s most eloquent voices for the cause of anti-slavery and women’s rights.
Because we want to share our ideas and experiences, our common goals, and nonpartisan solutions to the challenges that we face - and there are no limits to what we can achieve when we do.
And because we want to keep working for a better future for every child, from every family – a world in which no limits is not just our goal, but a reality!
NoLimits.org will "keep you up to date with news about issues on which Hillary took a lead and we know you care so much about," group President Ann Lewis said in an e-mail to as many as 2 million people culled from the Clinton campaign database.
Because No Limits is a registered nonprofit, "it cannot do anything political. It has to be nonpartisan," said Lewis, a longtime senior adviser to Clinton.
In Clinton's job as secretary of state for President Obama, her political dealings are highly restricted.
For example, she shut down her political action committee.
Some, like Democratic consultant and former Bill Clinton aide Chris Lehane, dismiss talk that the group could be a springboard for Clinton to try again for the White House in, say, 2016.
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Lehane said. "I think this is just [a] group of folks who developed relationships in an intense [electoral] environment and want to stay together."
But the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato countered: "Whenever a group like this says it's not a political organization, you just know it is."
"Maybe [this] is Hillary's answer to Obama's new 'change' group that controls his golden mailing list. Maybe it's a way for Secretary of State Clinton to mobilize backing for her objectives at the State Department," he said. "And maybe [it's] a standby committee of supporters in case Hillary decides to get back into elective politics."
Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf said NoLimits.org is "one way to make sure that she - and/or the former President - still have political leverage."
Hillary World-Wide January 26, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton Meets Afghan Women Lawyers. Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton met today at the State Department with fourteen prominent Afghan women judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. These jurists were in Washington to participate in a training program arranged by the Department’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan. Secretary Clinton told them: "Your American friends greatly admire your bravery and courage. It is your work in the tough environment of Afghanistan for women lawyers that will bring real reform and the rule of law to the Afghan people. As President Obama made clear yesterday in his first foreign policy announcement, we are committed to supporting your efforts to bring security and stability to your country."
