Obama’s lies and race-baiting are catching up to him. Since April 2007 we documented how Obama, via a whisper campaign, background leaks, and anonymous memoranda, smeared Bill and Hillary Clinton. Although what we wrote was the obvious truth, no one in Big Media, none of the Big Media personalities, was willing to go on the record on a broadcast television show to speak about the Obama dirty mud politics.
Yesterday Tucker Carlson finally broke down and confirmed that yes indeed, the duo he hates – Bill and Hillary Clinton were purposefully smeared by race-baiting Obama and his campaign operatives. Obama thugs continue to race-bait.
Here’s Tucker Carlson on Obama race-baiting and the smearing of Bill and Hillary Clinton:
Our transcript of Tucker Carlson’s remarks:
Tucker Carlson: “For Barack Obama to say that the media has taken the low road when many of his allies have accused his opponents of racism… and where was he when they did? When Clyburn of South Carolina accused opponents of racism… when Charlie Rangel did the same… when Governor Paterson of New York… you heard not a word from Barack Obama.
So, you know, it’s a little much for him to claim that the media is stoking this race talk.
[snip - discussion of Joe Wilson and the definition of "news".]
But let me just say, very clearly, it was the Obama campaign that first bought up the race question. It was the Obama people who smeared the Clintons as racists, Bill and Hillary Clinton. They made the case to reporters off-the-record, including me, that the Clintons were racists. They started this.
So for him to get up with a straight face and say the media is bringing this race issue up… No, it was your campaign that started this.
Greta Van Susteren: How did they bring it up?
Tucker Carlson: By this whisper campaign. That Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were somehow opposing Barack Obama because they did not like the fact he was black. And that various statements they made, remember Hillary Clinton famously said that of course it was Lyndon Johnson who signed the Civil Rights Act, you know. Martin Luther King might have advocated for it but it was the president who signed it.
Somehow that became a racist statement according to allies of Barack Obama. He didn’t tell them to be quiet then. He allowed that to happen. Allowed, I think, the slur against the Clintons to fester. That they were somehow animated by bigotry was outrageous. And he did nothing to clear the air.
So, I don’t know… I don’t want to be lectured by him, at this stage, as a member of the media, in a sanctimonious way. That somehow we’re perpetuating unhealthy race talk. That’s nonsense.”
Tim Russert attacked this website on his Meet The Press “news” show. As with the Imus scandal, Russert pretended not to know. Russert pretended that he did not know Imus for years traded on homophobia and racially charged statements and comedy routines.
On July 1, 2007 Tim Russert attacked this website. Russert pretended not to know that Obama was a dirt peddler. We were attacked for telling the truth. Russert quoted us by quoting attacks on us:
‘Senator Barack Obama (D- Rezko)’”—a man who gave money to Obama and Obama has returned it—“‘is busy lately lying about President Bill Clinton’” and “’attacking entire communities.’ … The Obama campaign is ‘still posing as innocents incapable of doing anything unsavory even as evidence mounts unsavory is their favorite dish.’”
We were right. “Unsavory” is the favorite Obama dish.
Russert quoted this website but did not admit we were right and Russert knew we were right because Russert and other Big Media distorters of the truth like Chuck Todd were recipients of the Obama smear campaign.
We wrote on June 15, 2007: Obama’s Dirty Mud Politics:
The Barack Obama campaign has been caught peddling dirt against Hillary and Bill Clinton. Obama is desperate to rescue his failing incompetent campaign so he is slinging mud.
No surprise, that is how Chicago Obama has always operated. Obama talks about running a clean campaign but he is a dirt peddler.
According to the New York Times and amplified in a Talking Points Memo post, Obama got caught in his usual anonymous mud-slinging:
“We’ve just obtained an email that shows that the Obama campaign yesterday circulated a negative, and ultimately false, story about Bill Clinton – that he allegedly made money giving a speech on September 11, 2006.”
There were also memos smearing East-Asians and Hillary as the Senator from Punjab.
We documented the race-baiting and the anonymous smears since April 2007. Now, finally, a Big Media mouthpiece confirms that Obama race-baited and Big Media knew it.
Obama was a race-baiter and profited from race-baiting.
Obama is still a race-baiter and seeks to profit from race-baiting while publicly denouncing race-baiting.
Obama is a race-baiter.
It is long past time for Big Media to admit that Obama is a race-baiter, not a victim of race-baiting.
Obama is a race-baiter.
exactly….I know I said I would not comment on BC’s RACIST remarks again, but knowing as above, personally experiencing it, why oh why would he say what he did KNOWING it would be twisted and used against him and the American people he has stood with?
The fact that the “headlines” as of this moment are not SHOUTING it says nothing. I am hearing it over and over on the radio, it will be repeated again and again and it will take a life of it’s own.
TheRealist Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
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google Clinton and Racist!
Repost from last thread:
Gonzotx, when did ‘we’ start listening to or believing the fringe media like CNN….mcnbc,nbc,new york times, cbs, abc, etc….and even Fox’s Hannity when it comes to the Clintons? Hannity has always spewed bias and hate toward the Clinton’s, especially Hillary hate. I have witnessed him do it just for the sake of doing it, even now that Hillary is NOT an elected official and neither Clinton is in office.
It reminds me of The Fraud ’sticking a knife’ to Hillary and twisting it, of having a scratch just so that he HAD to use his middle finger to scratch it, and brushing his shoulder to rid himself of HER [wrong woman, of course] and of using the song “I Have 99 Problems, but a B!tch ain’t one.” First reactions must be, it is not TRUE, it must be construed, and as always another hit job on the ones we love to love, Hill and Bill.
All of this is so sophomorish and only diminishes the messenger in mature eyes. It is baloney, sold by the smidgent so as to make more profit.This is amateur hour that only the inexperienced, unlearned, and inept will swallow hook, line, and sinker. We, Hillary supporters, are safe.
__________________________________________________________
As far as mass media is concerned, are there any loons left in the asylum. There are a few on one certain network and Lou Dobbs, paise the Lord and pass the biscuits.
I know that Bill Clintons words are being twisted. That being said, I’m not racist but the more I hear white people trying to tell me, a white person, that anyone who dares disagree with the Bambi administraiton is a racist .. well it tends to piss me off. This racist shit is going to hurt the democrats. White people elected Bambi and this shit is going to turn people off and against him and it’s because it’s such a lie that it is outrageous.
Keep calling us racist. Keep calling us bitter and clingy and whatever the else you want. We will remember and we will work even harder to see them all thrown out of office.
construed=misconstrued
Here is a little comic relief for Big Pinkers: my friend and I are in charge of refreshments for the Republican Club [and NO I am not a Republican -or a Dimocrat, but an INDEPENDENT!!] here at our complex. This club is quite large. I have taught them a lot about ACORN and that you do not have to agree with a good candidate on EVERY policy, Country before Party, etc., etc.
From an inspiration I got on this blog one of the refreshments will be a large sheet cake with:
LOL [replete with the O being the logo of the the Teleprompter Fraud]
…he’s not a real President
he just plays one on tv
The LOL will be very large. Do you think they will like it. Should be cake have PINK icing?
ADMIN…so glad you found that clip of Tucker Carlson…the infuriating aspect is that not only did MSM know the truth behind the curtains, MSM was instrumental is drumming the drums and pushing the false deceptions and lies and making the Clintons out to actually be the racists….the MSM did the dirty work and dumped their racist trash on the Clintons…
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sorry to disagree with you Gonzotx and Neetabug…after I left my comment on the last thread in regards to what Gonzotx said about Hannity and Bill, I was in my car and I heard what hannity was saying…A COMPLETE DISTORTION…for either of you to blame Bill, especially if you have not heard the words that actually came out of Bill’s mouth, is plain wrong…and frankly, an example of what ADMIN is describing above…I respect both of your opinions, however as The Realist commented this is getting a little too hyped…and unfair to Bill…not to mention that Hannity has never been fair to Bill Clinton…he just threw Bill’s name in with Carter, and by association tried to make Bill sound like he was in agreement when he was NOT!
I did actually hear Bill’s comments -out of his mouth – on the LKing show last night…i did not see the whole show…Larry King ASKED bill a direction question regarding Joe Wilson and Carter’s comments on racism…for goodness sakes, Bill Clinton is a former President and educated man…everyone dissects everything he says…what would you expect him to do? not answer the question? say no comment?
when asked by Larry King, Bill replied:
While some criticism targeting President Obama is racially motivated, the fight over health care isn’t, former President Clinton told CNN.
Former President Clinton says Democrats need to win the health care debate “on the merits.”
“I believe that some of the right-wing extremists which oppose President Obama are also racially prejudiced and would prefer not to have an African-American president,” Clinton told CNN’s Larry King in a wide-ranging interview that aired Monday evening.
“But I don’t believe that all the people who oppose him on health care — and all the conservatives — are racists. And I believe if he were white, every single person who opposes him now would be opposing him then.”
Clinton discussed a variety of issues facing the Obama administration — from health care to the war in Afghanistan — on the eve of the fifth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.
“While I have devoted my life to getting rid of racism, I think this [health care] is a fight that my president and our party — this is one we need to win on the merits,” Clinton said.
cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/21/bill.clinton.larry.king/index.html?eref=rss_latest#cnnSTCVideo
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I will say that when Larry asked that question and Bill began to answer I held my breath and thought to myself…’Bill don’t you dare go there’…and he did not, he gave an honest, reasonable answer…there are some racist kooks out there, but Bill was trying to make clear that those kooks are not what the health care reform debate and/or opposition is about…he was trying to keep the discussion on track rather than allow it to be sidetracked and distracted by the race card…
and as he said, the debate would be the same if the president were white – he was very definitive and clear…
Thanks Admin,
Well said.
I think it is grossly wrong to lump Hillary and Bill in with obama and his bots as racists. I don’t get that at all. I don’t see the evidence. I also don’t see why President Clinton can’t answer questions on racism, but this is just my humble opinion.
gonzotex, just google LarryKinglive and watch the 24 min video yourself and see that Bill DID NOT say that.
I am listening to Netanuyhu and he doesn’t let these newscasters get away with a thing. People should listen to him give Blitzer a hard time. He is NO pushover!! Bill should take lessons on how to handle all these hypothetically questions that get people in trouble and can be construed many ways.
LOL…confloyd,
Poor bambi just can’t get any respect. He sooo needed a postive this week and Bibi coming around would have been his ace in the hole.
I am so glad that Netanyahu refused to be manipulated/threatened.
Glenn Beck was great today, everyday he comes up in my opinion. He did go into the NEA story and named Valerie Jarrett. He has also uncovered a video that is being shown to our school age children that is prosocialism/marcism. Its a scary video and he linked that video directly to the Tides Foundation. In case if you don’t know the Tides Foundation is owned and ran by SOROS. So folks, theres the link that shows Soros is indoctrinating our children with his “Open Society” philiosophy!
JanH, I have always liked Netanyahu, even way back then when Sharon was the head of the govt. I guess Lipzi is a real liberal???
JanH, Did you notice that Netanyahu stopped short and would not commit that he actually trusted Obama! He skated all around that question, so the answer in my mind is NO!
I wouldn’t trust Obama either…lol… Trouble is, bambi’s head is so big he thinks everyone but himself is stupid.
Thank God Netanyahu won the israeli election and not that Tsipsi woman, she would have just caved into Obama and his ilk.
Thank God the israelis saw sense.
Did they have to widen the doors at the UN to get Obama’s fat ego Mt Everest sized head through the doors, i’m surprised they dont film him on wide screen now just to get his head in.
moononpluto, I am sure he had to have both of the double doors open to get his head in.
moon,
with meme by his side, it’s a sure thing they had to put in an extra door.
Why would anyone take anything Hannity says seriously, anyway? lol
President Clinton’s words speak for themselves.
For all you teachers who are Big Pinkers, what say you (in my finest O’Rielly voice) about the Bill Ayers/The Fraud connections on the Annenberg Challenge and those textbooks that indoctrinate being used in the classroom, the NEA [National Education Association] funding ACORN 1.3 million dollars, and the changes in the math and science curricula that is beginning in the nation (removing Algebra and replacing Biology with Industrial Science)? And that is not even to mention the fiction that are the history books yet….
Will there soon be a new alphabet soup containing the letters:
ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, SEIU, ACORN, NEA [ARTS], NEA [EDU], TIDES, SOROS, etc?
shorttermer,
All i can say is I’m thankful I’m out of the classroom. I can’t even imagine what it mus be like in urban schools, now. It was already bad when I left, in 2006, with black parents and even teachers accusing white teachers of racism for the most trivial slight. I learned what it was like walking on eggshells back then and I didn’t like it. It was insidious, toxic and a morale-killer. The biggest victims, though, were the kids.
This rewriting of the American past can only end in disaster, IMHO. Sooner or later whites are going to become so enraged by the extreme solidarity among 95% of AA’s who sided with BO that they’re going to mistrust everyone whose not white. On a professional level, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that formerly fair-minded people would begin to question who they should side with if the choice is between someone whose white or black. And BO is driving us farther apart than ever.
I heard on some radio show that in Tuscon Arizona the school district is implementing race-based punishment!
BTW,
Anyone else read Condi Rice’s statement about Afghanistan?
She said that if the US withdraws there will be another 911 style attack in the US.
Looks like Donofrio has got some new way of exposing the usurper. He and Ms.Tickly have got the state of Hawaii to admit that BO birthcertificate has been amended. So now they are suing to the what the amended portion shows. They say its not covered by the privacy act and is covered by the freedom of imformation act.
He was probably adopted by the Dunhams and he is covering it up or he finially figured out who his daddy is and had it amended so he could run for POTUS. THey could put anyone’s name in there as father, then what a paternity test. This isn’t going anywhere. I guess it keeps people giving money to the owner of the blog for the fight.
basil9, I do believe that, and he better get those boys some help over there PDQ or he will be in deep doo doo.
Seems like Vietnam all over again.
Basil9, Can you imagine working for the feds now and be white?? You would never get out of cultural sensitive classes to do any work, soon the feds and the state govt. employees will all be black. What another form of welfare I guess.
confloyd,
Got a link to the Donofrio story?
And no, I can’t imagine working for any public institution in this restrictive oppressive racial environment, especially if you’re white.
Its at the “we the people”. I found it clicking links from the Obama file, but I think you can go straight to this one. I can’t get to TexasDarlin anymore.
Juan is wrong to suggest that Obama and Pelosi do not want the race issue to be pushed in the context of health care. Lest we forget Pelosi is the one who called health care protestors Nazis, and Barack has always used Clyburn as his point man for launching the racist charge. It is not his campaign–it is Barack himelf as the pm 317 article and Professor Wiltenz is shown. The reason they want to “move on” now is because the opposition is hardening around it. In a trial they are certain matters which are beyond the scope of cross examination, but if the proponent of the witness opens the door then they are fair game. Big Media will protect Obama until its dying day, but in the court of public opinion he is a man who will play the race card when he is in a corner, do so through surrogates and then claim plausible deniability and try to rise above it. When the Mafia does it, it is called a protection racket. Come on Barack. The American People are not as stupid as you think they are.
here you go Basil9,
h t t p : // w tpo tus.wordpress. com
wbboei, as one poster said “his race card is maxed out”. LOL!!
What I meant to say is the opposition to health care is also hardening around the false charge of racism which barack and his confederates have been launching. Bill Clinton tried to separate the two, but with the way opponents have been vilified by barack and his confederates, the two issues are linked. Nice work barack. You really overplayed your hand this time.
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
“I believe that some of the right-wing extremists which oppose President Obama are also racially prejudiced and would prefer not to have an African-American president,” Clinton told CNN’s Larry King in an interview to air Monday evening.
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Doesn’t matter what he said before it or after, they are his words, not mine, not Hannity’s….
When the game changes to Spanish Black Jack, Barack will play the card again, only more carefully. He is a one trick pony. It is the way he has always done business. It is right out of the mean streets of Chicago.
My friend asked me what Baracks measurements were. My first response was how the hell should I know. My second response was ask Olympia Snow. My third response was 6-1, and 98 pounds. Then I checked and learned that he is a strapping 155 pounds. Arnold called him spindly. I guess he was right.
The problem with the Barack-Clyburn tactic is it leads to a situation where it is unsafe to have any conversations between people of different races. I hope he reconsiders this before he pursues the tactic again in the context of the immigration debate. If he does not then innocent conversations become show stoppers. That means Barack has to talk to his allies in the press like modo and ratboy todd.
measurements, well his head is as wide as the great wall of china, his streak of yellow is as wide as venezuela, his audacity knows no bounds, his phony smile is as fake as cheap bangkok market knock offs and his wife’s ass is humungous.
Thats as good a list as any of his measurements.
I meant to say minefields, rather than show stoppers. Just clean up your act Barack.
moon: I think we can take that as the final word on the subject.
yup wbboei, he has only bad things i can measure him by, i could have continued but i’d have been here all night.
FYI…check out the events at the Clinton Global Initiative this week:
Watch a Live Webcast of the Events Including the Sessions Below.
Wed 9 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Investing in Girls and Women
Wed 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Harnessing Innovation for Development
Thu 9 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Strengthening Infrastructure
Thu 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Building Human Capital
Thu 5 p.m. – 6:15 p.m. Special Session on Building a Better Future: A Progress Report on Making It Right in New Orleans featuring Brad Pitt
Fri 9 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Financing an Equitable Future
Fri 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Closing Plenary Session featuring President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
(S speaking – MARK FRIDAY DOWN AT 1-2:30 PM…we get our favorite two for one…love these two people)
Submit your questions at questions@CGI2009.org. Watch the sessions to see if yours is selected!
Follow the Fifth Annual Meeting on Twitter.
clintonglobalinitiative.org/ourmeetings/meeting_2009_annual_agenda.asp?Section=OurMeetings&PageTitle=Agenda&Agenda_2009=22
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/
Bill Clinton on Letterman…
I submitted a question, perhaps not in the right format..
I asked how are we supposed to get rid of the tainted DNC’ers who ignored the selection of BO over Hillary and the new candidates who are of the same mind at a primary run off or standing against a republican?
Mrs. Smith, Good for you, I doubt it will be answered!LOL!!
Scarborough has painted himself into a corner. In the course of criticizing Beck who is trouncing his network in the ratings department he offers this gem with a tone of authority. You cannot call the president a racist, you cannot say he hates white people etc. That is fine Joe. But what if it is true? Can you present the evidence or do you do what your network does routinely and censor it and vilify opponents. It seems to me the truth is what counts and the charge should rise or fall based on the credibility of the supporting evidence. That is the only way I know to establish accountability. If you believe this is verbotten Joe, then what do you say to Clyburn, Carter et. al. who level the same charge against millions of Americans. Are you prepared to say the same thing to them, or wont your network let you do so.
Admin:
If you could embed Jan’s clip of the partial interview with President Clinton… it would be great!
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/
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My question may be too difficult to answer..confloyd. Especially, where it is in conflict with the DNC’s agenda.
ANALYSIS-Obama seems to lay ground to retreat on settlements
Tue Sep 22, 2009
By Arshad Mohammed and Jeffrey Heller
NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama may be laying the groundwork to abandon his quest for an immediate Israeli settlement freeze and instead try to get Israel and the Palestinians directly into peace negotiations.
Obama emerged from talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Tuesday without the orchestrated set of steps that he had hoped would allow him to announce a resumption of peace negotiations, which have been on ice since December. Instead, he was reduced to stressing the urgency of ending the six-decade conflict and exhorting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to show “flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise.”
The outcome, analysts said, suggested the limitations of trying to secure confidence-building steps in advance and may presage a drive to go directly to full-blown negotiations even though neither side yet seems ready for them. “It’s clearly a lost cause,” Daniel Kurtzer, a retired U.S. diplomat who now teaches at Princeton University, said of Obama’s effort to get Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states to make reciprocal gestures before the resumption of talks.
Washington wanted Israel to halt all building of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, which it has occupied since the 1967 Middle East War. It also wanted the Palestinians to do more to prevent violence against Israelis and Arab nations to take steps toward normalizing relations with the Jewish state. None of these were in place as Obama met Netanyahu and Abbas first separately and then in a trilateral meeting, the highest-level talks between the two sides in nearly a year.
Both sides are at odds over a starting point for any future negotiations on core issues such as the borders and the future of Jerusalem and a Palestinian state. Abbas insists Netanyahu, head of a right-leaning government, pick up where his more centrist predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who proposed significant territorial compromises, left off after a year of unsuccessful negotiations.
FINESSING SETTLEMENTS?
Netanyahu says he is not obligated by the position of the previous government and has resisted freezing settlements.
“They are trying to finesse settlements now,” said Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “Having been unable to reach an agreement to freeze settlements in a meaningful way, they are going to leave it out there as a disagreement between us but not as a road block or an impediment to negotiations.”
Israeli officials appeared delighted that Obama said only that Israel should “restrain” its construction of settlements on occupied land in the West Bank rather than tougher demands from U.S. officials that it freeze such building entirely.
“Ask the Americans,” Netanyahu replied, when asked by reporters what Obama meant by restraint.
Middle East analysts also questioned whether Obama may now find himself in a familiar place for U.S. presidents — wanting a peace agreement more than the Israelis or the Palestinians.
However, while noting that Obama had by no means achieved what he might have hoped for, analysts said they did not think he would be blamed much for this.
“By engaging from day one, you can actually go through some months of impasse and then pivot to bigger issues as the administration now appears to be doing,” said Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation think tank in Washington.
‘BACK TO SQUARE ONE’
In just one sentence at the briefing, Netanyahu made clear his top priority. “The Iranian issue overshadows everything,” he said.
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as more of a threat to its existence than the Palestinians.
Abbas, he said, is more interested in reasserting control over the Gaza Strip, where the Islamist Hamas movement now holds sway. “Each side does not think that now is the time to make serious compromises,” Alterman said.
Elie Podeh, a professor in the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said “quite substantial progress” had been made toward a peace agreement during Olmert’s tenure.
“Netanyahu has his own agenda and it’s not a surprise he doesn’t want to continue from where Olmert stopped,” Podeh said. “It seems we are back to square one.”
reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSN22362490
JanH:
ANALYSIS-Obama seems to lay ground to retreat on settlements
Tue Sep 22, 2009
By Arshad Mohammed and Jeffrey Heller
NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama may be laying the groundwork to abandon his quest for an immediate Israeli settlement freeze and instead try to get Israel and the Palestinians directly into peace negotiations.
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Jan- after listening to BC on King’s show last night, we are back to sq 1 where the talks were 10 yrs ago.
I am not defending Beck when I say that. Rather, I am attacking the political correctness which is at the heart of the corruption and censorship and distortions we see in Big Media today. It is why people no longer listen to them.
“Jan- after listening to BC on King’s show last night, we are back to sq 1 where the talks were 10 yrs ago.”
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Exactly.
I was pretty surprised BC laid the fact bare last night where I was afraid the process was going to be too lengthy to play catch up… Well, then—
Netanyahu: Israel Will Never Make Peace With Hamas
In an interview with FOX News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Gaza can’t be part of a peace deal with Hamas in control.
FOXNews.com
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel would never make peace with Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, a stand that could undermine peace negotiations in the region. In an interview with FOX News, Netanyahu said Gaza can’t be part of a peace deal while Hamas in control.
“We can work with the Palestinian Authority headed by Abbas,” he said, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “We cannot accept Hamas as a negotiating partner.”
“I categorically say you can’t make peace with somebody who wants to destroy you, and Hamas wants to destroy us,” he said. “What would we negotiate with them about? The method of our destruction?”
After weeks of talks by his diplomatic team produced few apparent results, President Obama made a personal appeal to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to resume talks that have been on hold since Netanyahu took office in March. “I’m glad he called for this meeting,” Netanyahu said. “For five months, we’ve said, ‘Look, let’s just get on with it. Let’s meet without preconditions.’”
But Obama wants Netanyahu and Abbas to tackle the toughest issues before them. “Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations,” Obama said. “It is time to move forward.”
In a sign that he is open to negotiations on the more contentious issues, Netanyahu suggested Israel is ready to make gestures on a temporary freeze on West Bank settlements outside of Jerusalem. “But at the same time, we have to allow for the possibility of normal life for the people who are living in those communities, in those settlements,” he said. “There’s a quarter of a million people there,” he added. “They need kindergartens and schools. They need health clinics and I think what we’re trying to balance necessities of normal life with our intention and our desire to re-launch the peace process.”
Netanyahu said he believes the issue of settlements will come at the end of negotiations.
“But we certainly can’t decide that before we negotiate,” he said.
Despite Netanyahu’s public support for talks without precondition, some experts believe the Israeli leader’s not likely to concede much with Abbas still blocked from Gaza by Hamas’ rule.
“If you don’t have a Palestinian leadership that can deliver, it’s no time to be offering up one Israeli concession after another,” said Jon Alterman, a senior fellow and director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Netanyahu told FOX News he hopes he will have regular meetings with Abbas going forward.
“We’ve had them before,” he said. “We’ve talked quite a lot many years back — to admit our advancing age — but at least we’re seasoned hands and we know that we’re charged with a great responsibility by our people. And that responsibility is to produce peace for our peoples and our children.”
Abbas, meanwhile, isn’t eager for talks with an Israeli leader who believes a Palestinian state can have police but no army and no control of its own airspace.
U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell says the Israelis have made some concessions, easing travel restrictions that made it difficult for Palestinians to work and removing some illegal settlements. But Netanyahu has refused to stop settlement expansion, which is a Palestinian condition for resumed peace talks. “We are continuing our discussions on that issue and we’re trying to bring it to a point where we can re-launch the negotiations and we discussed it with both sides,” Mitchell said.
The president wants Mitchell to step up the pressure on both sides, with the goal of resuming talks next month. “Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon,” Obama said. “And more importantly, we must give those negotiations the opportunity to succeed.”
Those negotiations would decide whether and how Israelis and Palestinians share Jerusalem, which Israeli settlements would be dismantled to give Palestinians a contiguous West Bank and what to do about three generations of Palestinian refugees, now living in Jordan and Syria. But Alterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, feels Israel has more urgent concerns on which to focus than a peace agreement with Palestinians.
“The real threat to Israel doesn’t come from Palestinians. It comes from Iranians,” Alterman said. “And therefore the Israeli willingness to make really serious compromises to the Palestinians is lower because of a sense it is not necessary, it is not urgent.”
Senior administration officials say privately Obama was blunt in his talks with both leaders, telling Netanyahu they’re not starting from scratch and warning Abbas to stop waiting for a perfect solution. And though it’s early in the Obama administration, aides suggest he’s running out of patience with both sides.
foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/22/obama-lays-groundwork-peace-israel-palestinians/
awww…obama is running out of patience. Who the heck cares?
Netanyahu: Israel Will Never Make Peace With Hamas
In an interview with FOX News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Gaza can’t be part of a peace deal with Hamas in control.
—————————————
Well thats that then, Bambi’s summit just went down in flames.
“Senior administration officials say privately Obama was blunt in his talks with both leaders, telling Netanyahu they’re not starting from scratch and warning Abbas to stop waiting for a perfect solution. And though it’s early in the Obama administration, aides suggest he’s running out of patience with both sides.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Really? After 100s of years, he’s out patience in 6 mos?
obama is running out of patience………………how? he aint done jack shit yet and he’s this rattled already……………….amateur.
I love your commentaries, moon–
Well, Netanyahu has made it clear, take care of that Iranian issue, Bawark and then we can begin a real talk!! I think the ball is in his court now. He must get his brothers in Iran to settle down. hmmm, hmmmmm! I sure the idiot will be able to do that!
Yep, he might as well go shopping with Michelle in New York for the remainder of the week. CHristmas is coming and he can get all that shopping done early, LOL!!!
LOL…I love the comments on this site!
From BP
*******************
Hi!
I was on a conference call with Heritage.org and Americans for Prosperity and HR3200 is NOT dead.
Also they will be marking HR3200 and the Senate bill tomorrow and that one will probably be merged with Kennedy’s bill.
also BP
**************
Ruh-oh…. is al-queda now racists??
“Al Qaeda Releases New Video Predicting Obama’s Fall ”
freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2345968/posts
September 22, 2009
The Few. The Proud. The Ayers Audience at Purdue.
Matthew May
According to this snippet in the Chicago Tribune, fewer than 100 seats will be available to a specially selected group of faculty and students when William Ayers shows up at Purdue University Thursday night.
Interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Irwin Weiser, whose signature accompanies a form letter sent to those writing the university president regarding the appearance of Ayers on campus, said in that letter:
Ayers warrants an invitation to Purdue because “he is a distinguished professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois-Chicago.” The forum at which Ayers will speak “is funded by a private endowment. The Cummings-Perrucci lecture fund was created to bring in experts who focus on issues of race and gender. This event was not intended for the general public.”
In the form letter, Dean Weiser slapped the wrists of alumni writing to protest, and waxed poetic about the benefits the university would enjoy because of inviting just one of many in the diverse mosaic of public speakers lecturing at Purdue:
“I’m sorry if you think we should be selecting or censoring speakers based on their past. Purdue faculty and university groups are encouraged to organize lectures and talks because part of the educational experience at a university is to hear a variety of perspectives and discuss ideas, even if they are controversial.
“People who will be speaking at Purdue this semester include soldiers, scholars, television executives, businessmen and women, former government cabinet members and educators. They represent a wide spectrum of work and life experience, each with an individual perspective.
“Purdue faculty and students are expected to be critical consumers of all ideas, to take what is useful to them and make up their own minds. That applies no matter who the speaker is and is a central tenet for providing a world-class education.”
One question, Dean: How can Purdue students and faculty be “critical consumers of all ideas” if the vast majority of them out are barred from hearing whatever it is of import this terrorist thinks he has to say?
Matthew May welcomes comments at matthewtmay@yahoo.com
I know a professor at Purdue who will go bonkers over this. I intend to tell her about it.
Please embed Admin….from American Thinker
September 22, 2009
Axelrod nixed selling health insurance across state lines
Thomas Lifson
The Club for Growth highlights an interview of David Axelrod by Wolf Blitzer, in which the CNN correspondent presses Axelrod on why not allow health insurance to be sold across state lines. Axelrod fumbles badly, having just touted the need for competition. Making it up as he goes along, he at one point calls the change “symbolic,” which is outright absurd.
His inability to offer a good reason to oppose a common sense reform that does not cost any tax dollars, and would self-evidently increase competition (something he just praised) is pathetic. Congratulations to Wolf Blitzer for exposing the weakness of the ObamaCare case.
photobucket.com/albums/z100/generalissimodp/?action=view¤t=09-09axelrod-wolf.flv
“People who will be speaking at Purdue this semester include soldiers, scholars, television executives, businessmen and women, former government cabinet members and educators. They represent a wide spectrum of work and life experience, each with an individual perspective.
******************
He forgot to add American born terrorist and murderer
This is beyond monstrous…
Muammar Gaddafi’s tent finds home on Donald Trump’s estate
guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/23/muammar-gaddafi-tent-trump-estate
More on Gadaffi
timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6845459.ece
“He forgot to add American born terrorist and murderer”
—————————-
Yep.
I think what I said a minute ago is inaccurate. I do not care if Mr. Obama is a racist. It is the wrong issue to focus on–unless you happen to be in the business of saving souls. The issue is not state of mind. He is free to think whatever he wants to think about a “typical white person”. But when racist thoughts lead to racist actions, then I become concerned. For example, I believe it is a racist act to falsely accuse someone of racism to win a campaign. Mr. Obama has done that through his campaign a number of times. That is the issue, and neither Beck or Scarborough seem to pick up on it.
“Senior administration officials say privately Obama was blunt in his talks with both leaders, telling Netanyahu they’re not starting from scratch and warning Abbas to stop waiting for a perfect solution. And though it’s early in the Obama administration, aides suggest he’s running out of patience with both sides.”
———————————-
We have only their word for it. History has shown their word cannot be trusted. I think the truth is what Confloyd said. Bibi told Bambi how the cow ate the cabage. SFU about settlements, solve the Iranian problem, and then progress is possible.
So that is the hammer huh? Bambi is running out of patience. That can only mean that at some point his patience will be gone, unless things change. For this threat to work he must be clear and specific as to what he will do when and if the well runs dry. Or does he intend to leave that to everyones imagination. My surmise would be that he would assume the fetal position and count the minutes til he can leave office.
gonzotx Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Please embed Admin….from American Thinker
September 22, 2009
Axelrod nixed selling health insurance across state lines
Thomas Lifson
The Club for Growth highlights an interview of David Axelrod by Wolf Blitzer, in which the CNN correspondent presses Axelrod on why not allow health insurance to be sold across state lines. Axelrod fumbles badly, having just touted the need for competition. Making it up as he goes along, he at one point calls the change “symbolic,” which is outright absurd.
His inability to offer a good reason to oppose a common sense reform that does not cost any tax dollars, and would self-evidently increase competition (something he just praised) is pathetic. Congratulations to Wolf Blitzer for exposing the weakness of the ObamaCare case.
photobucket.com/albums/z100/generalissimodp/?action=view
***********************************************
here it is…UFB…these people are corrupt to the core…their plan sucks big time…thanks for posting gonzotx – ADMIN this clip of Axelrod is worth posting…
americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/axelrod_nixes_selling_health_i.html
this is truly amazing…so the O admin and Axelrod are against competition and letting
health insurance be sold across state lines…as, to quote O, car insurance is…
WTF is wrong with these people? first O, Axelrod and RE pull a Cheney and sell us out and wheel and deal with drug co behind closed doors and then pull a Bush and refuse to allow negotiations with drug co…one of our strongest negotiating tools…
Now, the O admin does not want to allow competition of insurance co across state lines…(because Axelrod says ‘it is too disrupting’ – I kid you not!
…SO…just what the hell are any of them, the O admin and dem congress, doing for us, the American people??? besides make us a captive audience and forcing us to fork over 12-20% of our yearly incomes to the insurance companies…whether we like it…want it …or not…
if anything like this passes, I see nothing but lawsuits all the way to the supreme court on the very constitutionality of the mandate…and, in addition, untold hardship on people that cannot afford a forced 12% hit on their income these days…that’s if they even have an income…
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another good article at American Spectator is the O car analogy to health care
americanthinker.com/2009/09/obamas_elusive_auto_insurance.html
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no wonder O is trying to create a bait and switch…what scoundrels…
…this is a monumental disaster in the making…
Will there be a guest room in the Obama mansion for Mohmar when he happens to be in Chicago, or does Uncle Tony have first dibbs on it when the jail doors spring open and the white dove regains his freedom.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574427041636360388.html
ACORN WHO?
By JOHN FUND
Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.
“Frankly, it’s not something I’ve followed closely,” Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn’t even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding. “This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to,” he said.
Mr. Obama added that an investigation of Acorn was appropriate after an amateur hidden-camera investigation had found Acorn offices willing to abet prostitution, but he carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group.
Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.
Mr. Obama’s success made him a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn’s Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn’s attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law’s loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names.
In 1996, Mr. Obama filled out a questionnaire listing key supporters for his campaign for the Illinois Senate. He put Acorn first (it was not an alphabetical list). In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama became the leading critic of Voter ID laws, whose overturn was a top Acorn priority. In 2007, in a speech to Acorn’s leaders prior to their political arm’s endorsement of his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was effusive: “I’ve been fighting alongside of Acorn on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”
But the Obama campaign didn’t appear eager to discuss the candidate’s ties to Acorn. Its press operation vividly denied Mr. Obama had been an Acorn trainer until the New York Times uncovered records demonstrating that he had been. The Obama campaign also gave Citizens Consulting, Inc., an Acorn subsidiary, $832,000 for get-out-the-vote activities in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as “staging, sound, lighting,” only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.
Given his longstanding ties with Acorn, President Obama’s protestations of ignorance or disinterest in the group’s latest scandal seem preposterous. Here’s hoping White House reporters will press the president to clarify just how much he really knows about Acorn and when he knew it.
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don’t hold your breath waiting for WH reporters…
In the form letter, Dean Weiser slapped the wrists of alumni writing to protest, and waxed poetic about the benefits the university would enjoy because of inviting just one of many in the diverse mosaic of public speakers lecturing at Purdue:
————————–
A misspelling I am sure. It should read Dean Weasel.
“Frankly, it’s not something I’ve followed closely,” Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn’t even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding.
——————————
The bullshit detector is sounding an alarm over these lies.
Hillary whipped Barack in 33 of 35 debates. Her campaign strategy was home grown, whereas Baracks was designed by professionals who had a spy in her campaign and access to the supercomputer and unlimited money and big media and the race card. As Bill says, Hillary was far and away the better candidate and would have been an excellent president at the very moment when millions of lives in this country depend on sound leadership at the top–which clearly we do not have.
“Frankly, it’s not something I’ve followed closely”
——————————
You know that’s probably true. Given his “present” votes, his inability to tell his party what he wants in his policies, his short-fused temper, frustration, and lack of patience, I say he’s a great candidate for bot short-term memory loss…or as those in the know call it: The Pinocchio Syndrome.
There seems to be silence about the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
The link is to a pdf file:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_Politics/NBC_WSJ_Poll_090922.pdf
Obama is still flat in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll to 51% approval, 41% disapproval. Congress is down to 22% approval, 66% disapproval.
I just read an article about how obama acted “tough” with Netanyahu and Abbas while the media was present and then once they were gone he relaxed.
Another false kodak moment.
JanH I think those are symptoms of a person headed toward a nervous breakdown.
wbboei Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
****************************
it is our country’s loss at such a crucial time in history that instead of the sound leadership of Hillary we are instead stuck with an imposter who plays a President on TV while reading from scripts written by others on his teleprompter…
me thinks many pundits, analysts, and politicians are secretly beginning to wonder to themselves ‘we’re screwed, we should have backed Hillary instead of this egotistical amateur’…some are even actually starting to say it out loud like beck…
Fineman commented on how many times O says ‘I’, Matthews sounds pissed because O seems to be seeking his ‘trophy’…they are only noticing now??? with three years left of this…
Why can’t we find a POTUS like Netanyahu, he kicked everyone of the interviewers in the ass today. He put them in their place quickly. I don’t even care if he’s a natural born citizen, the man is quick witted and tells it like it is. I liked him.
ADMIN says;
Obama is still flat in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll to 51% approval, 41% disapproval. Congress is down to 22% approval, 66% disapproval.
*************************************
just wait until the people actually understand what O and this congress is going to demand of them…just wait…a few good points made by James carpretta at NRO:
In particular, there are three key provisions in the Baucus plan that are on very shaky ground politically, so much so that it’s hard to see how they survive intact.
First, there’s the so-called “individual mandate.” This is the key provision of Obamacare. It turns out that the grand plan to finally bring civilized, “universal coverage” to America amounts to nothing more than a hefty, regressive tax on low and moderate wage working Americans. They must either buy government-approved health insurance — the cost of which is driven up by excessive government regulation — or they must pay a $3,800 per household tax to the IRS. Yesterday, Pres. Obama tried to argue that this kind of overt government coercion doesn’t amount to a tax. Good luck with that argument.
Second, there are the cuts in Medicare Advantage (MA) payment rates, which Democrats have targeted for nearly three years now. Pres. Obama keeps trying to sell these cuts as nothing more than reductions in profits for insurance companies, but senior citizens know better. Today, about 20 percent of the Medicare population is in MA plans (the private insurance option in Medicare), and most of them get coverage that goes well beyond what’s offered by traditional Medicare. If $120 billion is taken out of MA payment rates, as suggested by Sen. Baucus, there will be large cuts in benefits for many millions of seniors and many will also be forced out of their current MA plans. So much for the promise that Americans can “keep the insurance they have today.” In the coming weeks, the Medicare population is likely to turn even more decisively against Obamacare as they hear and learn more about these cuts.
Third, there’s the new tax on high-cost insurance plans. Here especially, the president has no one to blame but himself for the fix Democrats are in. Many conservatives actually favor reforming the tax treatment of health insurance to foster cost-conscious consumption in a competitive marketplace. But Pres. Obama won the election last November in part because he attacked his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, for endorsing a proposal to convert the job-based tax preference into individual tax credits. In scores of ads, the Obama-Biden campaign warned that the McCain plan would tax workplace health benefits “for the first time in history.” Now, the president and Sen. Baucus want to do exactly that — without admitting that’s what they are doing. It won’t work, though, as this story in the New York Times demonstrates, because it is obvious to all that the Baucus tax on insurers and employers will get passed on to workers and individual insurance enrollees, including many middle income households and union members.
****************************
all rightie now…not exactly what O promised during the primaries…the old bait and switch…and steal from your opponets after you attack them…
The White House and their allies in Congress could avoid the political fallout associated with these highly controversial provisions if they worked with Republicans on a sensible, measured, bipartisan bill that covered more people with voluntary enrollment in a reformed marketplace, not heavy-handed government coercion. But Democrats are bound and determined to try and pass something akin to the Great Society, despite clear signals from the public that they aren’t interested in any such thing. Much hangs in the balance.
S, you are right, Obama just wants to be in the history books, he needs to relax, he will be. He will be there as the lousiest, laziest, vainest, and incompetent POTUS ever to be selected in the United States.
It will be interesting to see how obama handles himself tomorrow.
Will he genuflect for the monsters of Iran and Libya?
Donald Trump need to be put on a fast plane to Libya! I guess he felt sorry for the murderer. I would of let him pitch his tent at Rykers.
NMF,
Well if he hasn’t had a breakdown yet, I’m sure meme will help him along the way.
Our friend Chris Hedges is back with a report from Pittsburgh which is the site the G-20 meeting later this week. He speaks with an organizer who is there from New York to protest. At the end of the article there is an interesting–and accurate assessment of good old Barack.
—————————————
GLOBALIZATION GOES BACKRUPT–By Chris Hedges
Our global economy, like our political system, has been hijacked by a tiny oligarchy, composed mostly of wealthy white men who serve corporations. They have pledged or raised a staggering $18 trillion, looted largely from state treasuries, to prop up banks and other financial institutions that engaged in suicidal acts of speculation and ruined the world economy. They have formulated trade deals so corporations can speculate across borders with currency, food and natural resources even as, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, 1.02 billion people on the planet struggle with hunger. Globalization has obliterated the ability of many poor countries to protect food staples such as corn, rice, beans and wheat with subsidies or taxes on imported staples. The abolishment of these protections has permitted the giant mechanized farms to wipe out tens of millions of small farmers—2 million in Mexico alone—bankrupting many and driving them off their land. Those who could once feed themselves can no longer find enough food, and the wealthiest governments use institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization like pit bulls to establish economic supremacy. There is little that most governments seem able to do to fight back. (snip)
But the game is up. The utopian dreams of globalization have been exposed as a sham. Force is all the elite have left. We are living through one of civilization’s great seismic reversals. The ideology of globalization, like all utopias that are sold as inevitable and irreversible, has become a farce. The power elite, perplexed and confused, cling to the disastrous principles of globalization and its outdated language to mask the political and economic vacuum before us. The absurd idea that the marketplace alone should determine economic and political constructs caused the crisis. It led the G-20 to sacrifice other areas of human importance—from working conditions, to taxation, to child labor, to hunger, to health and pollution—on the altar of free trade. It left the world’s poor worse off and the United States with the largest deficits in human history. Globalization has become an excuse to ignore the mess. It has left a mediocre elite desperately trying to save a system that cannot be saved and, more important, trying to save itself. “Speculation,” then-President Jacques Chirac of France once warned, “is the AIDS of our economies.” We have reached the terminal stage. (snip)
The best thing that happened to the Establishment is the election of a black president,” Holmes said. “It will contain people for a given period of time, but time is running out. Suppose something else happens? Suppose another straw breaks? What happens when there is a credit card crisis or a collapse in commercial real estate? The financial system is very, very fragile. The legs are being kicked out from underneath it.”
“Obama is in trouble,” Holmes went on. “The economic crisis is a structural crisis. The recovery is only a recovery for Wall Street. It can’t be sustained, and Obama will be blamed for it. He is doing everything Wall Street demands. But this will be a dead end. It is a prescription for disaster, not only for Obama but the Democratic Party. It is only groups like ours that provide hope. If labor unions will get off their ass and stop focusing on narrow legislation for their members, if they will go back to being social unions that embrace broad causes, we have a chance of effecting change. If this does not happen it will be a right-wing disaster.”
I think the Republican Candidate for President in 2012 will be Newt Gingrich. By then the country will be desperate for strong leadership, and he will be nominated.
From omnipotent to impotent in only eight months and ex lax poster boy howard fineman is reduced to counting the number of I’s.
—————————————————-
Obama The Impotent
The disappointment with Barack Obama is tangible – on climate change and financial reform Europe leads while the US lags
by Steven Hill
Much hope has been invested in Barack Obama’s ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talkshows on Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what is likely to be a difficult week.
Besides the ongoing battle over healthcare, this week sees two showdowns between Europe and the US that will reveal further slippage in American global leadership. The first showdown comes today at a UN special session on climate change in New York City; the second will come at the end of the week at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, where America and Europe will butt heads over financial system reforms designed to ensure that the AIGs of the world can never again cause an economic collapse.
Europe has been increasingly critical of America’s failures to live up to its global responsibilities. The US is not only the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases but is by far the largest per capita emitter of carbon and other pollutants. China comes close to the US in terms of total carbon emissions, but it has four times more people, who each belch far less individually. Europe, while having much the same high living standard, has an “ecological footprint” that is only half of America’s, since Europe has taken leadership in implementing renewable technologies and conservation practices.
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to reverse the Bush administration’s terrible ecological record. Yet so far the world has seen more symbolic gestures from the Obama administration than accomplishments. Its biggest achievement so far has been an example of disappointment. President Obama signed an executive order to increase US motor vehicle mileage standards – but only to a level that will push fuel efficiency by 2020 to a level that European and Japanese cars reached several years ago, and even China has already achieved.
Europe has announced donations of $2bn to $15bn a year for the next decade to help developing nations cope with climate warming, yet the Obama administration has not offered anything close to that amount. Europe also wants binding, near-term targets for developed nations, proposing a 20% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020, or 30% if everyone agrees. The Bush administration of course rejected such targets – but now it looks like the Obama administration is not willing to go any further. It has said such targets should be voluntary but verifiable.
With the US Senate is bogged down in the fight over reforming healthcare, American leaders have said that the senators might not move on climate legislation until 2010, well after the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. That drew a sharp response from John Bruton, head of the European Union delegation: “The United States is just one of the 190 countries coming to this conference,” Bruton said, “but the United States emits 25% of all the greenhouse gases that the conference is trying to reduce. I submit that asking an international conference to sit around looking out the window for months, while one chamber of the legislature of one country deals with its other business, is simply not a realistic political position.”
Even Europe’s conservative politicians, such as Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, are expressing impatience: “It’s rather crucial that the US can show a credible pathway,” Hedegaard said, pointing out that the US emits twice as much carbon dioxide per capita as Denmark, without gaining anything in improving its quality of life.
That’s the start of President Obama’s week. At the end of it, President Obama will appear at a meeting in Pittsburgh of the G20, a bloc of both developed and developing nations, representing 85% of the world’s economic output and most of its population. On the table will be what reforms to help avoiding a repetition of the financial panic and global economic collapse that is perceived as having originated on Wall Street. Despite immense, taxpayer-financed rescue packages needed to overcome the crisis, the financial sector in the US is rapidly returning to business as usual. Indeed, three US banks – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan – which received some $45bn of bailout aid, each paid billions of dollars more in bonuses in 2009 than they earned in 2008.
Here again, Europe is leading, while the Obama administration is dragging its feet. Europe has proposed far-reaching reforms designed to impose new rules on executive pay and bonuses, requiring that banks link pay to long-term rather than short-term performance, and that they “claw back” any bonuses received in the face of losses. Europe wants a financial police force that has powers to slash payments where investments prove to have failed, and to force boardrooms to control levels of speculation. Europe also wants to block the exercising of stock options for set periods and expose top bank directors to penalties, following huge payouts to failed bank chiefs.
The Obama administration’s approach has been much more tepid, to say the least. The US financial industry, as expected, is fighting these reforms, but what do we make of a recent quote by President Obama questioning the need for supporting Europe’s proposals. “Why is it,” he asked during a recent interview, “that we’re going to cap executive compensation for Wall Street bankers but not Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or [American] football players?”
Besides the fact that President Obama was wrong – the National Football League does have salary restrictions for its players – Silicon Valley businesses and NFL quarterbacks don’t cause an economic collapse when they screw up. It’s very sobering that, if David Letterman read that quote on his TV show and asked his audience: “Who made this clueless statement, former President Bush or President Obama?” we know what the response would be. Or would have been.
In response to American foot-dragging, European leader Jean-Claude Juncker said Europe should act on the bonus issue “whether the Americans are with us or not.” He said that a Europe-only charge “will take on such force over time that the Americans will not be able to sit on the sidelines.”
Many leaders and supporters are beginning to wonder what is causing this growing gap between the Barack Obama that many people saw on the campaign trail, and the Obama they see in the White House? Beyond Obama’s oratorical skills, which excited not only American voters but people all over the world, he is mostly untested as a politician. His previous experience was only a few years in the US Senate and a few years more as a state senator. A sinking feeling is arising among many that President Obama may not be up to the task, that he may not possess the artful skills needed to accomplish even his own goals.
But it must be recognised that it’s not just Obama’s shortcomings that are causing the problem. The very structure of the American political system is at the heart of these failures. For example, thwarting Obama on a regular basis is an unrepresentative senate where “minority rule” prevails and undermines what a majority of the country may want. With two senators elected per state, regardless of population, California with more than 35 million people has the same number of senators as Wyoming with just half a million residents. This constitutional arrangement greatly favours low population states, many of which tend to be conservative, producing what one political analyst has called “a weighted vote for small-town whites in pickup trucks with gun racks.”
In addition, the senate’s use of that arcane rule known as the “filibuster” means you need 60 out of 100 votes to stop unlimited debate on a bill and move to a vote. A mere 41 senators, representing as little as 20% of the nation’s population, can stymie the other 80%. Given a vastly unrepresentative senate wielding its anti-majoritarian filibuster, it is hardly surprising that minority rule in the senate consistently undermines majority rule, whether on healthcare, financial industry reform, environmental legislation and many other policies.
Pile on to that an uncompetitive, winner-take-all electoral system, marinated in money and special interest influence, and the sclerotic US political scene is deeply troubling. None of these anti-democratic structural features are going away any time soon. Unless Barack Obama is able to demonstrate a better level of political skill than he has shown so far, everyone needs to fasten their seatbelts. The world is about to enter a challenging phase where the US – the undisputed leader of the free world for the past 60 years – is going to rapidly cede its place at the head of the line.
It appears that the wheels may be coming off the world’s post-war leader, and not even Barack Obama can stop it happening.
Well, I think they have trotted out BC to prop up the usurper and his polices. Bill gave a coherent talk about why we must embrace each other worldwide. Obama gives speeches, people are sick of them. Bill gets on TV and you feel his is speaking to you personally and so does Hillary. Why in the world did the DNC do this at this terrible time for our democracy?? Bill is so intelligent and can put things in terms that the avg. citizen can understand. Obama uses big words sometimes that I imagine are hard for the avg. Joe to understand.
I will never forget Brazoid saying BC will do what we tell him to do, it kinda makes you wonder why she would say that if it weren’t true.
I also did notice BC’S hands shaking, he said it wasn’t Parkinson’s though that is being reported in the Enquirer.
just got through watching Bill Clinton on Letterman (the only reason I would turn that show on) and the first thing that hits me is how many times Bill says “we” …”we” can do this and “we” can do that…all about the “we” and the “us” so diametrically opposed to O and his ‘I’…”I’ this and “I” that…all O all the time…
…then of course one immediately notices the depth of Bill Clinton’s thinking…he thinks on a big picture screen…the full 360′ angle…from all sides…no teleprompter…none needed…all from his head and his heart…
…and then Bill praises Hillary to the heavens…what a duo…the dynamic duo!
…in comparison to the smallness and pettiness of MO and her sniping…with her would you want “them” down the hall from you…Ms “yes, you can” herself…or as she is quoted, the ‘bad ass wife’…and her teleprompter imposter who plays a President on tv…the not ready for prime time duo…
confloyd…bill is out all over tv because his global initiative is having its 5th annual meeting in NY this week…
Bill is his own man…
Joe Conason had a fairly good piece on Bill today:
How Bill Got his Mojo Back (he never lost it)
thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-22/bills-back-in-business/?cid=hp:blogunit1
Well into his post-presidency, he is among the most ambitious of statesmen and still influences nonprofit, corporate, and government behavior across the world. Presiding over a multibillion-dollar philanthropic enterprise, he is anything but irrelevant or constrained. He is not a liability, as his critics in the Washington punditocracy will forever insist. For an administration with imagination and guts, he could yet become an indispensable asset.
Hillary on the Newshour:
Transcript is Here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec09/clinton_09-21.html
China, not U.S., stars at climate summit
Obama’s policy speech follows criticism of U.S. being ‘big question mark’
————————————————————————
Hehe!!!!
The fraud got taken for a ride!!!!!!!
S, he is his own man, and he was magnificant tonight on the Letterman. He is so intelligent, no wonder the rethugs hate him. They don’t seem to have anyone like him that I have ever listened to.
BC has been in the news lately and so has Hillary, something that hasn’t been in the last 6 or 7 months. Maybe they know he needs all the help he can get.
I agree with you confloyd…I think we were having the same reaction to Bill…even Dick Armey had to admit that Bill was a great president andhis depth after reflecting on Bush and O…
I understand how many of the posters here feel when they see Bill and Hill saying or doing anything that is positive towards O, especially as JanH and JBStonesfan commented, the O’s have been so disrespectful and destructive towards the Clintons…I still will never, ever, forgive them for trying to turn a generation of young people against the Clintons and labeling them as racists and the past…makes me laugh, remember their ‘it’s time to turn the page’…yeah, right…now O has many of the Clinton people giving him advice, including Hillary…they wanted to just skip the Clinton Presidency in time and recognition…
the O’s are amateur hour…”on the job training” is being too kind…the imposter who plays a President on TV and reads scripts written by others on the teleprompter is more accurate…the word punk also comes to mind when i see him trying to be ’so cool’…
Reserve documentation, fall into four general areas:[6]
Conducting the nation’s monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
Supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation’s banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers.
Maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets.
Providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation’s payments system.
—————————————
Greenspan was a failure.
I think Carley Fioni will be Newt running mate.
A few days ago, I made a statement which I deeply regret. I said He promised the sun, the moon and the stars, and delivered nothing except a bucket of spit. That was a crude way to put it, and it failed to recognize the three (3) conspicuous successes He has achieved:
1. more unemployment
2. more registered republicans
3. more firearms sales
not necessarily in that order.
I rather suspect that the majority of the elites who selected Obama over Hillary are now worried about the very incompetence we see in him, and recognize that left to his own devices he will tank the country. If they do not see it that way, then the remaining elites are helping them see it as we speak. In that case, they may also be asking Bill Clinton to come to his rescue. I doubt they would do it for him alone.
Having had some personal experience in maritime salvage operations in my youth, I can attest to the fact that not every wreck is worth saving.
Great article, Admin!
Someone upthread mentioned a possible Newt/Fiorina GOP ticket for 2012. I think it’s possible. Michele Bachmann is another possibility for that ticket. IMO, Sarah Palin made a big mistake when she resigned as Governor of Alaska. Politically, she’s done unless she lands herself some highly visible, spectacular gig somewhere.
As for the Dem ticket in 2012– Obama is Lyndon Johnson version 2.0 and Hillary is 45!!!
Barack is the Toastmaster General of the Universe. That is where it starts, stops and ends.
If Obama flatlines after his Sunday round robin then the magic is gone. If he cannot move the needle anymore he will not run in 2012.
Yeah, unless he kills Bin Laden with his bare hands or pulls off some kind of economic miracle, 0 has nowhere to go but down.
S: I agree with your comments above. To me anymore it does not matter what big media does. They have no commitment to the truth, ergo they are not worth listening to. It is too late for them. We have to maneuver around them. Maybe my case is representative and maybe it is not. But prior to the primary, I watched them every Sunday and subscribed to the NYT. Today I ignore them entirely. I cannot believe anything they say.
OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
washingtontimes . com/news/2009/sep/23/worst-foreign-policy-ever/?feat=home_editorials
EDITORIAL: Worst foreign policy ever
Obama is tripping all over the world stage
Tomorrow, President Obama will chair a special nuclear-disarmament meeting by the United Nations Security Council. The White House bills this as a historic first, but it is typical of Mr. Obama’s emphasis on style over substance. He will appear before the body with the weakest foreign-policy record of any new U.S. president in recent memory. An around-the-world tour of international hot spots shows that for all the president’s lofty rhetoric, he can point to precious few accomplishments.
In the Middle East, Mr. Obama’s unprecedented obsequiousness in dealing with the Muslim world has generated no tangible returns. The leading Arab states repeatedly have declined to budge toward compromise to push the regional peace process forward, and they show no signs of normalizing relations with Israel. Palestinians refuse to talk to Israelis until they agree to a settlement freeze on the West Bank, and Israel has reportedly responded to Mr. Obama’s call for a freeze by saying it will go ahead and build 2,500 new housing units.
Nor has Mr. Obama’s outreach effort translated into a general sense of good will. A May 2009 University of Maryland survey of the Middle East showed that those with a very or somewhat favorable view of the United States increased only 3 percent between 2008 and 2009, from an anemic 15 percent to 18 percent.
In Afghanistan, the president has hit turbulence within his own party, and as the going gets tough, he seems ready to repudiate his “stronger and smarter” strategy after only six months. He is balking at supplying the troops necessary to stave off disaster, and the growing discussion in Washington is now how the administration can minimize the political damage of a defeat in Afghanistan.
North Korea has continued to be openly belligerent, testing a nuclear weapon and long-range missile, withdrawing from the 1953 armistice agreement with South Korea, and declaring it will weaponize its plutonium stocks. In response, the United States unilaterally conceded to long-standing North Korean demands for bilateral talks.
North Korea’s success has encouraged Iran to move forward with its own nuclear program. The Islamic regime has agreed to talks Mr. Obama requested, but the mullahs refuse to negotiate the nuclear issue. The United States finds itself to the left of the United Nations and France on the question of acknowledging that Iran even has a nuclear-weapons program, which is quite an achievement.
……………..read on.
wbboei, Newt/Carley, that would be a great team. I would vote for it, unless of coarse Hillary is running. I had a problem with Newt for a long time after what he did to the Clinton’s, but he has been humbled and had said he was wrong so since he did that I can live with him. I just don’t want this total Capitalism the rethugs are known for. I kinda like this Keynisan system of economics over anything else. According to Naomi Klein, somethings can be nationalized, and still have capitalism working, and also have safety nets. I am reading up on that and it looks good. BO wants total socialism and I am not for that.
Moononpluto, it appears the world is not ready for Soros puppet. Since most of the countries Mr. Soros has ruined he is not well liked on the national stage, perhaps this is the REAL problem. In some countries Soros can not even set his foot down on their soil. The Soviet’s are one of them. Maybe thats why some would not even shake Bo’s hand.
Good morning all: Our Hillary is bSecretary Clinton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon To Co-Host Food Security Event
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
September 22, 2009
——————————————————————————–
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will co-host a meeting of high-level international stakeholders to discuss key food security issues on Saturday, September 26 at 4:00 p.m. at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, New York.
At the July, 2009 G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, more than 25 countries and organizations agreed on principles for a comprehensive and coordinated approach to support country-led food security strategies, pledging $20 billion to that effort. The September 26 meeting will bring together stakeholders to broaden support for these principles and discuss how best to animate them to reduce hunger.
Secretary Clinton will deliver opening and closing remarks.
usy as usual so I will keep you informed of her schedule of truth and sanity appearances to counter
the Obama drive for power.
————————————–
Another stellar appearance for our Hillary.Bill is working his magic and it looks like they are again a team with the goal of saving our country from the force of evil at work in the OO.
-CLOSING PLENARY SESSION
Friday, September 25, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ★ Metropolitan Ballroom, 2nd Floor
The closing plenary will highlight progress achieved over the past five years, showcase the accomplishments of the 2009 Annual Meeting, and inspire attendees to continue their work via Commitments to Action in the year ahead with a keynote address from Hillary R. Clinton, United States Secretary of State, and closing remarks from President Clinton
—————————————–
Now let us get on with the Fox claim of fair and balanced manipulation of the daily news. Well Glenn Beck the new kid on the block is showing them
what fair and balanced means.F&F last night was the beginning of their slide
into the throes of exposure by the American people that love their country and see the big picture of Fringe Media shaping the news.Mr.O
and Hannity had the worst time last
nite trying get their guests to trash Beck and Hillary and Bill.Glenn made a great appearance with Katey Couric
last night and expressed his regrets that Hillary was denied her Presidency.
I believe he is holding the FOX numbers together and he must watch his back.The forces of evil are at work
at from O and H.
By ABM91 We are winning my fellow bloggers and true Patriots
ABM90, Am I understanding you right when you say that Glenn Beck was sorry that Hillary was denied her Presidency??
I also want to say that Hillary and Bill has handled the situation perfectly and did not get down in the mud with the thugs of Obama and acted like they did. It shows how much class they really have.
So for those of you who thing she did the wrong thing helping him, I have changed my mind. My mom always taught me to rise above the filth when you encounter it and don’t return the action by doing the very same thing they have done. Hillary is truly an outstanding individual and I believe by doing exactly what she has done, she rose of above the thugs and it will only help her plight if she decides to run again.
Perhaps Glen Beck realizes that alot of the protestors and followers of his show are exHill fans, if there is such a thing.
I just can’t watch Hannity, he is way out there on the right. Glenn seems to shut those far right people off rather quickly. I am happy he said something nice about Hillary.
Bank Of America refuses to fly their flag at half mast in honor of an fallen American soldier???? People are canceling their credit cards at an amazing speed. I think the Soros bunch owns alot of that bank. I guess they will soon see that Americans aren’t ready to sell their country down the river.
Unless obama pulls some amazing rabbits out of his hat, then his and his handlers hope that he would be the shining star at the U.N. will go down in flames.
He might as well go home and watch cartoons.
LOL…too funny…he doesn’t solve problems…he creates them…
Obama Says World Not Meeting Responsibilities in Tackling Problems
23 September 2009
U.S. President Barack Obama will tell the U.N. General Assembly that the United States cannot solve all the problems of the global community by itself.
Mr. Obama will tell leaders who “used to chastise America for acting alone in the world” it is time for a true “global response to global challenges,” including climate change, terrorism, endless conflicts and poverty.
The White House released excerpts of the president’s speech early Wednesday, hours before he makes his maiden address to the U.N. General Assembly as president.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is set to open the annual General Assembly session with a speech urging international cooperation on climate change, disarmament and poverty. A U.N. statement says Mr. Ban will single out climate change as humanity’s greatest challenge. He also is expected to call for 2010 to be the year when nations agree to get rid of nuclear weapons.
The South Korean diplomat convened a summit on climate change in New York Tuesday that was attended by some 90 world leaders, including Mr. Obama. Officials hope to make progress toward a global climate treaty that governments plan to finalize during a December meeting in Denmark.
voanews.com/english/2009-09-23-voa14.cfm
Gaddafi banned from pitching tent for UN assembly. Erection on land owned by Donald Trump angers New York town of Bedford, which orders immediate halt
Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 September 2009
The list of international laws that Muammar Gaddafi stands accused of breaching stretches from sponsoring terrorism to abusing human rights. But he may be about to get his comeuppance for an altogether more mundane transgression: pitching a tent in a no-camping zone.
Added to that, it appears the tent may have been pitched on an estate belonging to the tycoon Donald Trump, where residents include the US domestic diva Martha Stewart and the fashion designer Ralph Lauren.
The town of Bedford, about 45 miles north of Manhattan, has ordered work to stop on the erection of a large bedouin tent that the Libyan leader, due to address the UN general assembly today, uses while travelling abroad.
Libya’s oil wealth may have helped to rehabilitate Gaddafi’s image in the eyes of other world leaders but his international standing apparently cuts no ice with Bedford officials.
“There is no such thing as diplomatic immunity when it comes to complying with local laws and ordinances,” said Joel Sachs, an attorney for the town. “This is a private piece of property and they have to comply with the laws of this municipality.”
He said the tent was believed to violate “several codes and laws of the town of Bedford”. Sachs said an order to stop work was given to the property’s caretaker after it was apparent that the construction workers could not understand English.
The Trump Organisation said the entrepreneur, whose name is more often associated with skyscrapers than tents, had not rented land directly to Gaddafi. But it added that part of the estate “was leased on a short-term basis to Middle Eastern partners, who may or may not have a relationship to Mr Gaddafi. We are looking into the matter.”
A state department official, speaking anonymously, told the Associated Press that the property was obtained for the duration of this week’s UN general assembly and was likely to be used for entertaining. The official said no one would stay there overnight. Gaddafi wanted to erect a tent in New Jersey, where the Libyan embassy owns property, but the US government said he could not. A request to set up tent in Central Park was also turned down.
Gaddafi, who arrived in New York yesterday, is likely to face protests over Scotland’s recent release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which killed 270 people.
Nita Lowey, a US congresswoman, said Gaddafi had shown a lack of remorse for the bombing and was “unwelcome throughout the New York area”.
guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/23/gaddafi-tent-ban-bedford-newyork
here’s the link for the Couric/Beck clip about Hillary…not sure what he was trying to do to McCain and why!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHqCNOhiYNg&feature=player_embedded
confloyd: Beck said that he could not beleive that he would ever say these words,but Hillary was the best choice for the coumtry and that McCain would be worse than Obama.(or words to that effect).Beck was on thin ice at Fox but he has made their ratings sore.
He plugs the deficit created by mush-
mouth O’Reilly and that evil creature called Hannity.At Fox ,they realize that Bill and Hill are the favorites of world leaders and a growing admiration by the American People
on all sides.JUST LIKE THE OLD TIMES
that I remember.
BY ABM901 Happy Days are just around the corner,as the old and loved
song goes that we sang as the FDR
agenda brought back prosperity.
Woops; sore = soar sorry
From the NYT
” But as Democrats sharply criticized the deal with PhRMA as a giveaway to the drug industry, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the panel, interjected derisively. “You know who cut the deal,” he snapped at Mr. Schumer. Later, Mr. Grassley added: “If this is a bad deal, you ought to be embarrassed for your president. It didn’t come from anybody sitting on this side, this deal.”
Mr. Kerry tried to defend the Obama White House, suggesting that President Obama was not personally involved. But high-level White House officials, including a deputy chief of staff, participated in the negotiations.
And, as Mr. Grassley noted sarcastically, Mr. Obama has attended several news conferences with health industry groups, including the drug makers, to trumpet their support for his effort to overhaul the health system.”
He’s never personally involved, is he?
gonzotx Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
“I believe that some of the right-wing extremists which oppose President Obama are also racially prejudiced and would prefer not to have an African-American president,” Clinton told CNN’s Larry King in an interview to air Monday evening.
****************
Doesn’t matter what he said before it or after, they are his words, not mine, not Hannity’s….
========================
It does matter what Bill said before and after. The quote (if it is correct) is being sound-byted and even re-worded, so Bill didn’t make it quite bullet proof unfortunately. I hope he will come out with some short version of his whole thought that can’t be chopped and distorted so easily.
wbboei Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Scarborough has painted himself into a corner. In the course of criticizing Beck who is trouncing his network in the ratings department he offers this gem with a tone of authority. You cannot call the president a racist
==================
Just the former president, huh?
So I know that Canada plans to boycott Ahmadinejad’s U.N. speech. I hope the U.S. and other nations do the same.
Scarborough has painted himself into a corner. In the course of criticizing Beck who is trouncing his network in the ratings department he offers this gem with a tone of authority. You cannot call the president a racist
==================
Just the former president, huh?
————————-
Joe never objected to the racist attacks of Obama on Bill did they. Makes me wonder whether the assholes he works for have finally gotten to him. For a long time, he was the only honest voice on that malevolent channel, except for Buchannan who was an occasional guest. But I for one did not like what I heard. The inside joke at msnbc is that he is in love with Hillary which is a change of heart from the old days when he was a bitter partisan critic, like Richard Mellon Scaiffe. Perhaps he has decided it is too late with Obama and racists like Clyburn at the helm.
“If this is a bad deal, you ought to be embarrassed for your president. It didn’t come from anybody sitting on this side, this deal.”
—————————————-
Lights, camera, action, print! Everyone in the progressive community needs to see that quote. When the chips are down, he will cheat his wife, not his banker, fguratively speaking.
Unless obama pulls some amazing rabbits out of his hat, then his and his handlers hope that he would be the shining star at the U.N. will go down in flames.
————————
I am quite sure he is becoming the butt of their jokes. It will take a few months, but he has created an environment where everyone watches his every move, and when he has one of those embarrassing moments he is famous for the cameras will be there to catch it and it will be the gist of parlor conversation. When he goes down for the count, racist Clyburn and Waxworks Pelosi need to go with him for the good of our nation,
OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
washingtontimes . com/news/2009/sep/23/worst-foreign-policy-ever/?feat=home_editorials
EDITORIAL: Worst foreign policy ever
Obama is tripping all over the world stage
—————————————-
I hate to sound like a broken record, but this is the problem. There is no glory in re arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Especially when there is a lifeboat and safe harbor.
I thought what Bill said about opposition to Obama was absolutely correct. Remember, he also said that 100 percent of the people who oppose Obama on health care would still oppose him if he were white. And there are fringe right wingers who are racist, just as there would be people who would never have accepted a woman as president if Hillary had won.
On a lighter note, I loved Bill’s comment about MoDo in the Branch book, lol.
wbboei, Newt/Carley, that would be a great team.
———————————————
Confloyd: I think it is a likely choice given all that is happening. Newt is a policy wonk and a great speaker. He has become a practicing Catholic and with the possible exception of Dr. Krauthammer has launched the most effective sustained attack against The Fraud. The problem is he is close to Wall Street, and I was very disturbed with the position he took against mark to market which allowed the banks to maintain artificially high values on distressed assets. Arguably, that has postponed a day of reckoning and that is a problem. Let us hope Carley beats that embarrassing wreck Boxer. If ever someone lived up to their name etc. The best word to describe her is schmarmy–just like Harry Reid.
Birdgal, I think your the teacher, here in Tyler, Texas a high school teacher was fatally stabbed in the neck this morning. This is awful! There is a high concentration of AA’s in that school, although the race of the perpetrator was not given. What is this world coming to when teachers are killed at school.
I really like Carley, but of coarse we must make sure these republicans aren’t going to believe in unfetered capitalism. It doesn’t work, capitalist can’t and will not police themselves do to their greed.
Hey Folks,
The Clinton Global Initiative is broadcasting LIVE via podcast
if you want to listen in while reading: (started around 11 am)
go here first, down to the 5th paragraph, and click on “live webcast”
h….whatcounts.com/dm?id=0313DED33AF5A28B1BCAC2EDB7B8D5C30EDA3A7486A51C8F
(They are taking a newsbreak right now but will be back after a few more minutes.. )
Bill just signed up Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and a few other celebs to help him make the world a better place.
Correct me if I am wrong, if people think that Obama’s foreign policy is the worst ever, how will that reflect on Hillary???
Bill is going to town like Gang-Busters with the CGI-
I believe this is the first time in his and Hillary’s life they are without persecution from somewhere; the Republicans or the media…
I’ve always wondered what his presidency would have been like if he had been president without all the time wasted defending himself from lawsuits and threats of impeachment..
This is just a glimpse into the presidency we would have had if Hillary had been elected… a bitter-sweet tome to say the least!
I forgot to add…They are taking questions via e-mail as we type… and will be choosing questions later on LIVE during the broadcast, if you are interested.. As I mentioned the other day, I submitted mine last week. It may be too contentious a question for what seems to be a very positive event.
confloyd Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Correct me if I am wrong, if people think that Obama’s foreign policy is the worst ever, how will that reflect on Hillary???
————————–
I was curious about that as well. To be honest I’m not sure. The media will definitely imply that it is her advice he is taking. I don’t think it will fly with the mainstream public though. She prefaces every speech with the statement that he is in charge.
My first thought was that she needed to run for the hills ASAP but I think she is in a tough place right now.
Ghaddafi is rambling on and on
A hit piece from American Thinker
September 22, 2009
How low will Hillary go?
americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/how_low_will_hillary_go.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/23/obama-world-dont-expect-america-fix/
A sad day for Israel, and worse for America imo.
A prerecorded video of Bill explaining what his CGI is all about- is on now-
His Global Initiative seems to have garnered so much excitement, they are trying to get the next speaker to the podium, the excitement he has generated about what he is doing is electric and palpable.
Just listening to Ghaddafi, how can anyone discuss anything with this person, he is totally crazy. THis is what we have to deal with trying to discuss peace.
The fact that obama didn’t push to ban this monster from even entering the U.S. ever again, says it all. He bends over backwards for evil.
Obama should have realized that when there was no room at the inns for this evil. The American have most certainly told him he is not welcome here.
I see another big movement of Americanism beginning here in American with the advent of our anti-American POTUS!
Confloyd, that is terrible about the teacher being stabbed. I’m an RN, not a teacher.
an=a
sorry, confloyd-
until I went to the msnbc page I didn’t realize there was a live broadcast of Ghaddafi going on at the UN.. at the same time. Most likely for the benefit of his follows in our country having his words and thoughts available to them… yetch-
Gaddafi apparently calling Obama his son!! That will get the Birth Certificate people going! LOL!!
Well maybe its basil thats the teacher, its just awful. He was 50 years old and bet he has a family. Lots of AA parents outside the school shouting!
confloyd- if thats the case, Obama is burning down his presidency all by his-self!
Yes, I’m the ex-teacher, I’m ashamed to say.
At least I taught music which is a non-indocritinary art – so far.
What are the parennt shouting?
basil,
Teacher Stabbed To Death At Texas High School Wednesday
A stabbing at a Texas high school claimed the life of a teacher Wednesday and a juvenile was taken into custody, police said.
A stabbing Wednesday morning at John Tyler High School in Tyler left a teacher dead, Tyler police said.
Police spokesman Officer Don Martin confirmed a male teacher was dead and a juvenile was in custody after Wednesday morning’s attack.
Further details were not immediately released.
Martin said the stabbing was reported around 9 a.m. Wednesday and that Tyler police were assisting school police.
Martin referred questions to Angela Jenkins, a spokeswoman for John Tyler High School.
Jenkins did not immediately return messages left by The Associated Press
kbtx.com/state/headlines/60690392.html
There is a picture of the teacher on the link below. May he rest in peace.
tylerpaper.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090923/NEWS08/909239995/0/FRONTPAGE
They apparently put the school on lockdown and the parents are outside shouting wanting to know where their children were? It really doesn’t help when they do that. The school officials have enough to deal with as a teacher was killed by a student.
JanH-We luv Hillary, but Obama , much like in the election, used her position as SOS to ruin her….she was athe senator from NY who had a large Jewish backing, and the first thing he makes her do is renounce settlements!!!! He used her as his henchwoman and Hillary had no choice…..Obama is fixated on settlements while the rest of the world is in chaos, and sadly, Hillary is his lead foreign poilcy face. She must resign and run for Gov of NYC before any further damage is done imo…..
jbstonesfan, I agree, she needs to get out NOW!
jbstonesfan & confloyd,
Add me to the list. I’m finally agreeing that she needs to get out. I just think it is going to take some expert manuevering on her part not to come out of this badly.
OK- I’m the last holdout then… No one knows better than she does what is at stake if she leaves.. NOW-
I won’t presume to think, advise or pressure Hillary on what she should do because I am not privy to what is going on behind the scenes… all I feel comfortable with at this time is wishing she stays safe and not take her security for granted..
On a bright note, I may attend that nolimits conference in Wash with Hillary as guest speaker if I can work out my trial schedule….it is a bit pricey, but should be a great time.
have been in and out today and haven’t listened to much of the UN circus but from what I’ve read BO has been trashing the US yet again and announcing his disdain for israel.
How embarrassing this is and how outrageous that khaddafi, Chavez, Ahmadinijad are held up as admirable while our long time allies such as israel are insulted.
I really wish my virtual voodoo doll would hurry up and work.
He is an absolute disgrace.
BTW – I heard khaddafi spoke for an hour and a half! He gets the prize for long winded bullsh!T. He called BO his son! By the time he finished speaking half the chamber was empty. LOL
sniff…I’m sorry Mrs. Smith. I so wanted her to succeed as SOS, but I can see obama throwing her under the bus soon. I don’t necessarily want her to run for governor of NY though. And I would love to be proven wrong.
jbstonesfan,
Lucky you! If you do go, I hope you will give us the scoop.
Thanks, jan.
Among the many reasons I’m grateful to my illness is getting me out of the public school system.
Sick as this sounds, I prefered being ill to working there!
Besides the out-of-control demoralizing reverse-racism the violence is out-of-control.
During my last few years, while I was working with kids aged 5 – 10, I was punched in the eye, causing eye abrasions. knocked down a couple of steps landing on my back causing me to be out of work for weeks, and threatened by a couple of teenagers on bicycle with baseball bats while walking to my car on the school parkiog lot after work. And that was all in a K-5 elementary school.
Well maybe he is Khaddafi’s son, at this point we just don’t know who is the daddy.
Oh JEEEEEEZZZZZ!
Is this true????
I heard Khadaffy not only called BO his son, but he also said BO is from Africa?
Anyone else hear that?
OMG, Basil9 my grandson goes to an all black school. My daughter says he too young and nothing bad happens in kindergarten. THe news media and the office of POTUS is stoking the racial fires.
basil yes I heard that!
Fox is playing that over and over.
Was Obama there when Gadaffi said that? Did they show his facial expression?
JanH Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
sniff…I’m sorry Mrs. Smith. I so wanted her to succeed as SOS, but I can see obama throwing her under the bus soon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JanH- I harbor no ill feeling towards anyone who feels Hillary should go- This is a typical human reaction called the “fight or flight” response when things get hairy. The majority always choose the safe response of flight. However, our champion is a “fighter” and she knows better than anyone else Obama is burning the WH and his presidency down to the ground in demonstrating his allegiance is not to America.
FWIW- It’s only a matter of time before people act in unison to throw Obama out of the WH and only those who are there and have remained standing will be in a position to take over when he is no longer in charge. IMO, of course-
basil9, apparently the ambulance was called in again to the hospital one hour later, someone either had a stroke or heartattack. I bet the whole faculty is devastated! THeyll be lucky to have any teachers come back to work after this.
There had to be lots of blood since the teacher was stabbed in the neck.
of course gaddaffi calls that zero his son….
It takes a supporter of terror and terrorism to know another one!!!!!!
Yep there you have it…BLACK and WHITE!!!
Well lets face it, he could be his son,
1 : Obama’s mother did put it about a bit.
2 : We have no idea who his father is.
3 : He won’t show us his BC.
Until he does, everything is fair game.
confloyd,
Your daughter is wrong.
I’ve seen plenty of violence in kindergarten.
Mrs. Smith,
I’m an HRC fan but I don’t think she fought as hard as she could to claim the nomination she won.
I thought she should have fought beyond the convention, she should have put up more of a fight after the RNC, she shouldn’t have caved to the pressure. I still admire her immensely and I know she was between a rock and a hard place but I wish she had stood on prinicpal. That’s how important I think it was. I hate to say it but I think her moment has passed. It pains me to say it but that’s what I think. What a shame. it’s our great loss.
basil9, Sometimes I also think her time has passed, it would be nice to believe otherwise. This administation is going down fast and the rethugs will pin its failures to her easily. They are already starting to.
basil,
I think Hillary was thinking of party first. I also think her hands were tied. I was happy that she went as far as she did, but I think the corruption behind the scenes stopped her in her tracks.jmo
Mrs. Smith,
I pray that they will kick obama out soon.
I dont know how many of you watched BC on Letterman last night, but when Bill mentioned how proud he was of his wife, the crowd cheered very loudly.
I’m glad Hillary was a no show…
Qaddafi Lauds Obama, Then Launches Into Rambling Attack on U.N.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, declaring that “we’d be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever,” launched into a rambling assault against the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, at one point complaining to world leaders gathered to hear him speak that he was tired and jet lagged.
Sometimes speaking in phrases mocking New York City’s security efforts during the 64th gathering of the U.N. General Assembly, Qaddafi swung between calling the Security Council a “Terror Council,” to demanding that European nations pay $7.7 trillion in compensation and apologize for colonizing Africa, at one point adding, “African nations have the right to go anyplace to get the $7.7 trillion stolen from it.”
Qaddafi spoke after President Barack Obama’s first speech to the General Assembly.
Referencing Obama as “my son,” Qaddafi said: “We are happy that a young African Kenyan was voted for and made president. Obama is a glimpse in the dark for the next four years, but I’m afraid we may go back to squar one. “Can the U.S. guarantee after Obama that they’ll be a government? We’re happy and content if he can stay forever.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice left the chamber before Qaddafi took the podium and left a low-level note taker to listen.
Holding a copy of the United Nations Charter, Qaddafi said the U.N. was founded by the super powers and that now “small countries could be crushed by the super powers.” At one point, he motioned to rip up the small blue Charter booklet, but instead he paused and seemed to lose his place as world leaders and their representatives sat in stunned silence.
He then continued to rail against the “inequality” of U.N. member states, often repeating himself while quoting from a section of the Charter that calls for equality of nations. He noted that five nations hold veto power on the Security Council and can block actions contrary to their interests: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. He later called for an African seat on the Security Council. Waving his hands and often turning to look at United Nation’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the new General Assembly President H.E. Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki — who also serves as Libya’s minister of African affairs — Qaddafi defiantly declared, “Nobody cares about the Security Council.”
He added, “this place was founded by terrorists.”
As he fumbled through hand-written notes, he mixed his attacks with rambling references to: the Kennedy and King assassinations; the U.S. Civil War; the Korean War; the Suez War; Saddam Hussein’s hanging; former dictator Manuel Noriega; jet lag; and, a defense of the Taliban and Somali pirates.
foxnews.com/story/0,2933,554327,00.html?test=latestnews
Referencing Obama as “my son,” Qaddafi said: “We are happy that a young African Kenyan was voted for and made president.
This is probably the closest we’ve come to BO’s origins.
How in the world any American can condone allowing Khadaffi into the country is beyond me.
And i will never be able to wrap my arms arund how in the world BO ended up at the shamwow POTUS.
This UN monstrosity can’t be playing well in the heartland.
Meanwhile, FBI are searching for another couple dozen suspects in the latest terror plot.
meanwhile Massachusetts overturns a law prohibiting Romey from appointing a Senator to fill kerry’s seat to allow Patrick TO fill the Kennedy seat.
HYPOCRITES!
And for those who think BO is all about mememememememe, here’s the proof.I
Instead of adoring his own image, Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so this year, not including this week’s big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 “me”s.) And that just includes 34 weekly addresses and his seven major speeches. Count the hundreds of other public speeches and he’d be off the charts.
Phil Kerpen
September 23, 2009
A Secret White House Power Grab Is In Full Swing
It’s one thing for President Obama to surround himself with the advisers he’d like to have, but it’s another to bestow on them sweeping powers to broker secret negotiations and push forward vast new regulations that could cost American families thousands of dollars.
Cap-and-trade energy tax legislation appears stalled, at least for now, in the U.S. Senate. But that doesn’t mean the cap-and-trade energy tax isn’t imminent. Senate Environment Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer hasn’t even introduced the bill yet; new Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln has declared the House bill dead on arrival; and there are several other cross-cutting controversies that divide Democrats on the bill. The Obama administration is unfazed. They are moving full steam ahead with an even more costly regulatory scheme in the name of global warming—shoehorning the regulation of greenhouse gases into the 1970 Clean Air Act, a bill passed before anyone had ever thought of global warming and that couldn’t be less suited to the task.
Driving the push for this massive power grab and circumvention of the elected branches is a key White House official who avoided Senate confirmation by being installed not as EPA director, but instead as White House Climate Czar: Carol Browner.
Long before the Supreme Court ruled in a highly questionable 2007 case, Massachusetts v. EPA, that the EPA has the legal authority to justify its proposed 18,000 pages of greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act, Browner (then EPA director under President Bill Clinton) had her general counsel, Jonathan Cannon, prepare a now-infamous memorandum arguing—for the first time—that the EPA possessed such a power. At the time it was dismissed as a wild-eyed overreach that Congress would never allow. Now it’s happening, and Browner is right at the center of it.
Mary Nichols, the chair of the California Air Resources Board, has confirmed that Browner was the lead White House negotiator in establishing new automobile emissions standards, which for the first time rely on EPA’s presumed authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the 1970 Clean Air Act. Nichols told The New York Times that Browner quietly orchestrated private discussions from the White House with auto industry officials. “We put nothing in writing, ever,” Nichols said.
Left unchecked, Browner will move beyond automobiles to EPA’s entire staggering 18,000-page blueprint for regulating the U.S. economy. It will eventually regulate everything that moves (light-duty trucks, heavy-duty trucks, buses, motorcycles, planes, trains, ships, boats, tractors, mining equipment, RVs, lawn mowers, fork lifts, and just about every other piece of equipment that has a motor) and lots of things that don’t (any building over 100,000 square feet could be pulled in, along with smaller carbon dioxide emitters, like restaurants, schools, and hospitals that have commercial kitchens with gas burners).
It’s bad enough that the EPA is moving ahead with plans to pursue expensive global warming regulations instead of leaving the complex issue to Congress, the branch of government constitutionally tasked with making laws. It’s made much worse by the fact that the effort is being led not by Lisa Jackson, the duly confirmed and therefore accountable administrator of the EPA, but by Carol Browner, the unaccountable, unconfirmed White House Climate Czar.
Browner was made a czar so that her powers could be more sweeping than they would be in any single official appointment—witness her cross-agency role in the secret automobile emissions regulations—and to avoid the scrutiny of Senate confirmation, which would have been difficult for Browner. Since leaving the Clinton administration she has moved further left, even becoming one of the 14 members of the “Socialist International Commission for a Sustainable World Society” on whose Web site she was listed as a member as recently as January 5, the day she was named White House Climate Czar. This Commission pursues a clearly socialist agenda of centralized control under a regime of “global governance” that would enforce extreme environmental political correctness on a global basis. It’s far outside the political mainstream and would have presented serious problems for centrist Democrats facing a confirmation vote.
It’s one thing for President Obama to surround himself with the advisers he’d like to have, but it’s another to bestow on them sweeping powers to broker secret negotiations and push forward vast new regulations that could cost American families thousands of dollars. Fortunately, we’ll be able to see this week where members of the U.S. Senate stand on allowing Carol Browner to direct taxpayer dollars and pursue vast new regulatory power grabs. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana has introduced an amendment (SA 2440) to the Department of the Interior appropriations bill that prohibits any federal funding for Browner’s policy directives. Any senator who votes against it is voting to support not just Carol Browner, but also her vast regulatory power grab and the president’s system of unaccountable czars.
Mr. Kerpen is director of policy for Americans for Prosperity. He can be contacted through PhilKerpen.com.
foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/23/phil-kerpen-browner-secret-white-house-power-grab/
Obama bastardized his way to the White House through his Caucus workers- College kids and HS students
The signs are turning our way:
Tough political realities quiet youth ‘Obamamania’
h… w… yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_youth_hangover
By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer Martha Irvine, Ap National Writer – Tue Sep 22, 2009
CHICAGO – Young Americans showed their collective power when they helped vote President Obama into office. Inspired by his message of “change,” they knocked on doors, spread flyers, voted for him by a 2-1 margin, and partied like rock-the-vote stars when he won.
Since the election, though, that fervor has died down — noticeably. And while young people remain the president’s most loyal supporters in opinion polls, a lot of people are wondering why that age group isn’t doing more to build upon their newfound reputation as political influencers.
“It’s one thing to get excited about a presidential candidate. It’s another thing to become a responsible citizen,” says Jennifer Donahue, political director for the New Hampshire Institute Of Politics. She and other political analysts thinks they have yet to prove themselves.
Professors and students themselves also are noticing the quiet on college campuses, which were hotbeds for “Obamamania” during the campaign.
“They’re supportive, but in a bystander kind of way,” says Laura Katz Olson, a political science professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
Erin Carroll, a 19-year-old sophomore at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, blames the lack of engagement on her generation’s short attention span. They want change — right now, she says — and haven’t gotten it.
“I feel like everybody walks around with their cell phone and their laptops. We feel like we need everything immediately. So that’s what we’ve become accustomed to,” Carroll says. “We’re the ‘me-me-me’ generation.”
It’s not just on college campuses.
Russ Marshalek, a 27-year-old professional in Astoria, N.Y., observes his 20-something peers sitting back and letting the president do the work for them. “Rather than allow him to speak FOR us, we need to be inspired BY him, and volunteer in our communities, speak our minds, write, read, think, act,” says Marshalek, a social media director who works with small businesses.
Such is the fate of Generation Y, as they’re known, both praised for their willingness to volunteer but also maligned as the “entitlement generation” — eager to help but unsure how to deal with tumultuous times that are a first for many of them.
On top of that, many of their parents are baby boomers who witnessed, and participated in, the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests that followed John F. Kennedy’s death. That’s a lot to live up to.
But to be fair, says political scientist Mike Wagner says, it’s tough for young people — or any American, for that matter — to know how to get involved in issues with solutions that aren’t always so clear-cut.
Volunteering for a candidate? Fairly easy to do. Helping solve some of the toughest issues to face our nation, from health care reform to a deep-seated financial crisis? Not so much.
“These aren’t easy issues for young people. It’s not ‘Should we go to war in Iraq?’ or ‘Should gay marriage be legalized?’” says Wagner, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska.
He sees a lot of young people getting lost in the details, or bored by them. Or like a lot of us, they’re more focused on their own worries, such as getting a job or paying off mountains of student loans.
Some say the president also could be doing more to engage this demographic that was so key to his early success.
“I think young people do have clout, and I think it’s a mistake if he doesn’t use them,” says Mary Ellen Balchunis, a political science professor at LaSalle University, who counts Carroll among her students. Balchunis witnessed the fervor on campus during the campaign — the “dorm storming,” when students persuaded their peers to go to rallies and eventually to the polls. She also recalls how students danced in the streets with nearby neighborhood residents after Obama won.
Certainly, health care was on their priority list then, and remains so. An AP-GfK poll conducted earlier this month found that two-thirds of 18- to 29-year-olds rated such reform as “very” or “extremely” important. So far, though, the proposed health care overhauls have failed win the support of a good number of them. Only about half of them said they approved of the way the president was handling health care and only 38 percent said they supported health care plans being discussed in Congress.
Balchunis thinks the president could boost youth support on these and other issues — and get them influencing their parents, as they did in the election — if he mobilized and spoke directly to them, the way he did during the campaign. He could for instance, make use of the well-organized student groups that campaigned for him to push the issues of the day.
If he doesn’t, Balchunis thinks that also could have negative ramifications for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, because those young voters will lose interest and won’t bother to show up at the polls. That’s what happened, she says, after her own young generation was initially excited about Bill Clinton when he was first elected president in 1992. Then, just two years later, Democrats lost control of Congress.
Khadaffi is a reverse RAAAACCCCCISSTTTTTTTT!
(paraphrasing)
The Black African kenyan is running America now instead of whites.
Can you guarantee Obama can stay the president of America?
No time to explain, just look:
h no w
digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-him-help-us-by-digby-couple-of.html
basil9-
you are entitled to your opinion on Hillary’s failure to fight hard enough for the Dem Nomination. That is your story. However, we who followed the events, the deaths and the thuggery to the electors as they unfolded know better. I’ve posted extensively on this topic, using the search feature should provide my responses.
This is a second posting of this article.. the original is in moderation for some reason:
I’ll remove the link to the story and see if it gets posted:
Obama bastardized his way to the White House through his Caucus workers- College kids and HS students
The signs are turning our way:
Tough political realities quiet youth ‘Obamamania’
By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer Martha Irvine, Ap National Writer – Tue Sep 22, 2009
CHICAGO – Young Americans showed their collective power when they helped vote President Obama into office. Inspired by his message of “change,” they knocked on doors, spread flyers, voted for him by a 2-1 margin, and partied like rock-the-vote stars when he won.
Since the election, though, that fervor has died down — noticeably. And while young people remain the president’s most loyal supporters in opinion polls, a lot of people are wondering why that age group isn’t doing more to build upon their newfound reputation as political influencers.
“It’s one thing to get excited about a presidential candidate. It’s another thing to become a responsible citizen,” says Jennifer Donahue, political director for the New Hampshire Institute Of Politics. She and other political analysts thinks they have yet to prove themselves.
Professors and students themselves also are noticing the quiet on college campuses, which were hotbeds for “Obamamania” during the campaign.
“They’re supportive, but in a bystander kind of way,” says Laura Katz Olson, a political science professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
Erin Carroll, a 19-year-old sophomore at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, blames the lack of engagement on her generation’s short attention span. They want change — right now, she says — and haven’t gotten it.
“I feel like everybody walks around with their cell phone and their laptops. We feel like we need everything immediately. So that’s what we’ve become accustomed to,” Carroll says. “We’re the ‘me-me-me’ generation.”
It’s not just on college campuses.
Russ Marshalek, a 27-year-old professional in Astoria, N.Y., observes his 20-something peers sitting back and letting the president do the work for them. “Rather than allow him to speak FOR us, we need to be inspired BY him, and volunteer in our communities, speak our minds, write, read, think, act,” says Marshalek, a social media director who works with small businesses.
Such is the fate of Generation Y, as they’re known, both praised for their willingness to volunteer but also maligned as the “entitlement generation” — eager to help but unsure how to deal with tumultuous times that are a first for many of them.
On top of that, many of their parents are baby boomers who witnessed, and participated in, the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests that followed John F. Kennedy’s death. That’s a lot to live up to.
But to be fair, says political scientist Mike Wagner says, it’s tough for young people — or any American, for that matter — to know how to get involved in issues with solutions that aren’t always so clear-cut.
Volunteering for a candidate? Fairly easy to do. Helping solve some of the toughest issues to face our nation, from health care reform to a deep-seated financial crisis? Not so much.
“These aren’t easy issues for young people. It’s not ‘Should we go to war in Iraq?’ or ‘Should gay marriage be legalized?’” says Wagner, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska.
He sees a lot of young people getting lost in the details, or bored by them. Or like a lot of us, they’re more focused on their own worries, such as getting a job or paying off mountains of student loans.
Some say the president also could be doing more to engage this demographic that was so key to his early success.
“I think young people do have clout, and I think it’s a mistake if he doesn’t use them,” says Mary Ellen Balchunis, a political science professor at LaSalle University, who counts Carroll among her students. Balchunis witnessed the fervor on campus during the campaign — the “dorm storming,” when students persuaded their peers to go to rallies and eventually to the polls. She also recalls how students danced in the streets with nearby neighborhood residents after Obama won.
Certainly, health care was on their priority list then, and remains so. An AP-GfK poll conducted earlier this month found that two-thirds of 18- to 29-year-olds rated such reform as “very” or “extremely” important. So far, though, the proposed health care overhauls have failed win the support of a good number of them. Only about half of them said they approved of the way the president was handling health care and only 38 percent said they supported health care plans being discussed in Congress.
Balchunis thinks the president could boost youth support on these and other issues — and get them influencing their parents, as they did in the election — if he mobilized and spoke directly to them, the way he did during the campaign. He could for instance, make use of the well-organized student groups that campaigned for him to push the issues of the day.
If he doesn’t, Balchunis thinks that also could have negative ramifications for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, because those young voters will lose interest and won’t bother to show up at the polls. That’s what happened, she says, after her own young generation was initially excited about Bill Clinton when he was first elected president in 1992. Then, just two years later, Democrats lost control of Congress.
Yes, I’ve read all your responses, Mrs. Smith, and I understand your POV.
Wow- three postings in a row of a great uplifting article giving us inspiration has been caught in the spam filter…
basil9 Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Thanks, basil-
Mrs. Smith, You’re not alone. I trust Hillary to make the right choice for herself and the country, and I’m glad she’s SoS. That means there’s at least one competent person in this administration.
confloyd, I also saw Bill on Letterman. I love it when he talks about Hillary.
Thanks, Paula-
Although, I’m not complaining if I were alone standing with and for whatever Hillary thinks is best for her and us. I appreciate you stepping out and standing up for what you believe as well.
In other news:
The White Castle is crumbling around Obama’s ears.. I wonder if he notices the white dust accumulating on his shoulder pads…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TIME mag’s interview with Nader. A few of the Qs relating to Obama:
What do you think about the current fight over health-care reform?
Well, it’s going down heavily. Obama’s not going to get a public option. By the time the thousand-page monstrosity of complexity and ambiguity gets to his desk, it’s going to be a shred of what the majority of doctors, nurses and the people in this country want — which is full Medicare for all.
What’s your take on President Obama thus far?
Weak. Waffling, wavering, ambiguous and overwhelmingly concessionary.
admin Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
JanH, the quote you posted from Carl McCall is key. Andrew Cuomo will have zero cover to run against Paterson as long as Carl McCall supports Paterson.
Obama wants to get rid of Paterson because of the losses that will be assured if Paterson heads the NY ticket. Schumer is desperate and wants Paterson out before November of this year.
But Obama and Schumer are irrelevant. The one that counts is McCall. McCall is not favorably disposed towards Cuomo.
If McCall decides to visit African-American churches and neighborhoods and reminds that community of how Cuomo ran against him years ago, Cuomo will lose the African-American vote.
In a general election, Giuliani will defeat Cuomo – ignore the current polls which show the reverse.
The quote you posted “We’ve all got to get behind David Paterson” from McCall must have sent shivers through Andrew Cuomo’s spine. Cuomo dare not challenge Paterson, even with Obama’s backing, while Carl McCall says “no”.
&&&&&
I believe Cuomo does not want to get caught overtly putting the knife in Paterson’s back. No need. Cuomo is waiting for Paterson to self-implode, and letting others (Obama) do the piling on and back-knifing for him. He can then stand forward once the opposition has been forced out, his hands unsullied.
It really seems as if every single foreign relations campaign idea of obama’s is going up in smoke. Now comes word that India and China are foiling his plans for petrol sanctions against Iran. His Middle East powerplay has fizzled into nothing. North Korea is laughing. Afghanistan is a mess. His missile switch is being criticized left and right. And now he’s Gadaffi’s son.
What next?
JanH-
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Phil Kerpen
September 23, 2009
I just got to read the article you posted upthread-
Obama is in full throttle. I hope Fox News make a big story out of it and promotes it widely.
I intend on sending your article in a mass mailing.
Wow- unbelievable!
“Driving the push for this massive power grab and circumvention of the elected branches is a key White House official who avoided Senate confirmation by being installed not as EPA director, but instead as White House Climate Czar: Carol Browner.”
Mrs. Smith,
I just want you to know that you are my hero here. Your steadfast belief in Hillary is so impressive. I do want her to shine as SOS and I was steadfast as well for the longest time. It is just recently with all the messes obama is getting her into, that I worry for her survival. I really hope I am wrong though and that she surprises all of us.
gaddaffi is a racist in the likes of his son BO!!!!!
Nader cost us the election in 2000 ..he has also een a Clinton bashewr..can’t stand him anymore.
Here’s another thing that I heard Ghadaffi said, was that he wanted to know who killed Kennedy. He said that Oswald killed Kennedy and Ruby an Israeli killed Oswald. He said we need to have the papers opened up and let the world see who it was. I guess he personally thinks it was Israel that killed Kennedy.
Joe Kennedy was an antisemitic, but I don’t think JFK was. That crazy dictator was sure implying it was the Jews that did it. This guy needs to on some Geodyane or Haldol for his ravings. He is definitely psychotic.
Yes sure. As soon as Ghadaffi opens up about his murderous past, we’ll get right on it.
Nader is a joke! He needs to retire!! I believe in term limits! He needs to STFU! We could have had Gore and a continuance of the Clinton policies if that joker had spoiled it.
wbboei Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Hillary whipped Barack in 33 of 35 debates.
&&&&&&&&&
And in the other two of 35, she only “beat him handily”. He proved he is lost without a teleprompter, that he doesn’t understand issues.
The debates also nakedly revealed how hard mainstream media whores (and even those like Lehrer who you’d think would be fair, but weren’t) were working to make Obama “look presidential”.
Russert might say things like, “Obama really seemed to hold his own tonight. That fact that he didn’t completely melt into a pile of steaming caca showed he has what it takes. As for Hillary, going around explaining everything with complete authority shows how dependent she is on that whole “competency” thing. Another good night from the freshman senator, who is seeking to make history”.
…and I hope Russert is “where he deserves to be”.
100% correct rgb44hrc
I just took my husband who now only has medicare and his doctor’s office bill was 17.00. That was cheaper than what I was paying for the doctor’s office bill with my insurance. I can’t understand why we can’t have medicare for all, of coarse, since BO is only out to break the US and not help it, we won’t get it.
I agree about Russert, I wonder if he and Teddy are roomies?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, called on Barack Obama to treat him as a friend as he struck a conciliatory tone ahead of his speech to the UN general assembly.
Alex Spillius in New York
Published 23 Sep 2009
He said his country wanted broad international dialogue and expected “free and open” discussion of nuclear issues at a meeting next week in Geneva with six world powers, including Britain. He called for a new approach to relations, saying: “Mr Obama is not the first president here who believes Iran is a threat, but historically, whoever made friends with Iran saw a lot of opportunities.”
Washington has agreed for the first time to join the European-led talks, fulfilling an Obama campaign pledge to engage adversaries but taking the risk of giving Iran an opportunity to grandstand at talks that yield nothing.
Mr Ahmadinejad claimed the greatest responsibility for reducing the nuclear threat lay with established powers. “We believe that nuclear weapons are the source of threats and instability. So global will is required to achieve full nuclear disarmament,” he said.
But Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, ruled any discussion of nuclear weapons. “Iranian people respect dialogue, but we are not willing to hold negotiations on our rights,” Mr Mottaki told his Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN, according to an official from Japan. Mr Ahmadinejad also refused to take any blame for the deaths of protesters after his disputed re-election in June. They who died were “not at fault,” he said, but insisted that responsibility lies with Iranian opposition politicians and with “European and American politicians” who fuelled the violence.
“We believe what they did was very wrong,” he said. Mr Ahmadinejad did not repeat his denials of the Holocaust in his interview with the Associated Press, saying he was not interested in debating historical details. Mr Ahmadinejad also promised to ask the judiciary to expedite the case of three American hikers held for two months after wandering into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan two months ago and to “basically look at the case with maximum leniency”.
telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6223647/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-asks-Barack-Obama-to-treat-him-as-a-friend.html
OMG, Glenn Beck is taking down Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend. SHe has mega connections to SOROS, WTF. Hell no wonder the Clintons were F(*Cked from the beginning.
Glenn is hot tonight, anybody not watching now SHOULD BE!! He is going after the TIdes Foundation/SOROS!!!
He also says he will be finished with Acorn by next Tuesday!!! I hope he finishes the POTUS by Wednesday!!!
Wbb- sent Beck the link I found with all the Soros information. I hope his researchers did better this time checking out evertone’s info.
I believe wbb said he also sent your info on Larazza- confloyd-
Thanks, Jan.. I’m not a hero by any means.. our girl, Hillary is though,,,
Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck both would have voted for Hillary over John McCain. Beck is wrong about McCain being worse than Obama but we understand he says that from the perspective of right wing/Republican politics.
Barney Frank has recently embarrassed himself repeatedly regarding his confused statements on ACORN. He tried to clarify today with a statement. Excerpt:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0909/Frank_turns_against_ACORN.html
Barney Frank is a worm. He should be kicked out of his congressional seat post haste. Between his looking the other way when questioned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saying everything is fine and this latest statement:
“I have previously communicated to ACORN my dissatisfaction with their lax supervision of employees and volunteers. The fact that people who were improperly registered to vote did not actually cast ballots in no way excuses the organization’s failure to exercise better control in this way.”
All double-talk- an appeasement gesture to those poking him with a stick to say something positive about ACORN.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Paterson’s wife hints that BO might have a problem with black governors.
Plays the race card against him
ROTFLMFAO!
www dot nypost dot com/p/news/local/wife_gov_stunned_at_request_not_5IbePehHnsEkH4eWBh61GI
Admin:
Do you know the date when the Beck video made?
Also, I have one very good article stuck in Spamdom. I tried posting it several times and the Spam Gods decided they wanted it for themselves
Basil9, of coarse he has a problem with black governors, he not black, he’s Arab.
Glenn Beck tonight says that the Rethugs are pist at him for saying Hillary would have been a better President and that McCain would have been worse than Obama.
The Hillaryhaters are seething. He gave a wonderful show tonight, I hope everyone watches somehow.
The little Racist threw Israel to the dogs today. According to Bolton and Beck, Obama is changing America’s foreign policy with Israel.
Mrs. Smith, we fought the spam filter and won. The article you posted was freed a while back.
As to the Beck video, it is of very recent vintage. Couric interviewed Beck yesterday or the day before.
All this talk about taking down Acorn, Soros has already moved that organization to another because he has layers upon layers of these types of foundations and the Tides Foundation is the money laundry unit.
I personally think there is more going on behind the scenes that no one knows about!
Tides Foundation is the money laundry unit.
**************************
Kind of comical in it’s own way
laundry= Tide
*************************
By the way, I had to listen to talk radio use Bill Clinton’s words against him and lump him in with Carter today, as i suspected they would…. He knew better and he did it anyway…
confloyd Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
OMG, Glenn Beck is taking down Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend.
*********************
Didn’t she back Hillary, or am I confused?
re: Hillary staying or going as SOS…we have discussed this before, I want to affirm that Hillary needs to remain where she is…first of all, she knows what she is doing, she has a front seat to not only what is going on but what is being planned…perhaps I am being selfish, but Hillary is our safeguard…because she does not need a lot of ego massaging and big headlines it may appear that she is being marginalized…but I do not think this is the case…we need her on the international stage…
I strongly trust that if O were to box her into a definitive compromising position or one that she could not in good faith support, then Hillary would make the serious choice to resign…things get floated and are in the air…I do not believe she is compromised yet…she is our eyes and our ears at the front lines…we need her there…if for no other reason then her sound good sense and judgement and her profound mature common sense…
I understand and respect there are policies by O that could change all that, however as things stand now…and as Hillary is so adroit at prefacing…she works for him now…they may have differences but these are HIS policies…for now, that is her cover…there is probably so much more than any of us know anything about…and for me, that is all the more reason for her to be right there on the front lines…she is stronger to us and to our country standing where she is…
if there was something that really needed to be exposed and stopped…she is right there as our witness…without her there anything can happen and we have no one on our side…
…and fwiw and imho…I think she loves this job and has no intentions of going anywhere…however she does look tired…she is probably working her heart out…no stone unturned…from a big picture perspective…she is in the best of all worlds at THIS time…she will know where all the skeletons are…
Cantor: Pelosi ‘in another world’
By: Glenn Thrush
September 23, 2009
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor thinks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “is in another world” if she believes raucous anti-health-reform demonstrations could lead to violence — and he says he hasn’t personally witnessed racist comments during a summer of passionate town hall demonstrations.
The Virginia Republican, speaking to POLITICO on a day when President Barack Obama was meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York, expressed a dim view of the White House’s Middle East policy, saying Obama doesn’t seem to be a “true friend” of the Jewish state.
Cantor, who hasn’t met with senior administration officials for months, also criticized Obama for failing to coordinate Afghanistan policy with congressional Republicans, who he believes are key to overcoming Democratic opposition to troop buildups.
The House GOP’s No. 2 man — labeled “Dr. No” by Democrats for opposing the stimulus package and other Obama initiatives — expressed frustration with Pelosi’s suggestion last week that the vitriol injected into the health reform debate could end in violence akin to the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone in the 1970s. “I think she’s living in another world — I really do,” Cantor said of the California Democrat. “I’m not condoning any of the things that, you know, the media may catch in terms of messages on the signs and what have you. But I have not run into any violence. I have not run into crowds running over people. We should want spirited debate, although civil, … and I’ve not been anywhere over the last several months where I would even think such a situation where violence is in the offing exists.”
Cantor shook his head from side to side and pointed to the flat-screen TV in his office on the third floor of the Capitol when asked if he personally heard any racist remarks about Obama during several public meetings he held in the Richmond area in the past two months — which included a health care forum he held with Rep. Bobby Scott, an African-American Democrat from Virginia. “I’ve certainly seen it on the television screens — but I have not personally run into it,” he said. “Certainly, if I did, I would be as turned off as you would be — it’s abhorrent and it has no role in this discussion. … That’s why when Jimmy Carter stepped out and said this about the president’s race, … my comment was, ‘That’s abhorrent, that’s living in another world, another time.’”
Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly didn’t respond to Cantor directly but referred to the speaker’s emotional remarks from last Thursday. “Our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe,” Pelosi said. “But I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause.”
One senior Democratic aide was more blunt, asking, “What about hanging [Maryland Democratic Rep. Frank] Kratovil in effigy, death threats against members or the signs at the tea party rally on Sept. 12 saying, ‘Bury Obamacare With Kennedy’?”
Cantor criticized Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) when he shouted, “You lie!” during Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month, but then he helped to lead opposition to a Democrat-sponsored resolution chiding Wilson. He faced criticism for his own behavior during Obama’s speech, too; although he didn’t interrupt the proceedings with any shouted accusations, he was seen scanning his BlackBerry as the president spoke.
The only Jewish Republican in Congress and one of Israel’s staunchest defenders on the Hill, Cantor said he was heartened by Tuesday’s meeting between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
But he continued to express his opposition to Obama’s “disproportionate focus” on halting the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank instead of adopting a policy geared toward eliminating the “existential threat” posed to Israel by Iran’s nuclear program. “If you look at the policy that this White House has followed, it certainly does not seem as if we are dealing with a true friend” of Israel, Cantor said.
Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to respond to Cantor’s comments but said that securing a lasting two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians was “how you can be a true friend to Israel.”
Cantor and Obama have found common ground on one area — Afghanistan — with Cantor saying he will lead the House minority in supporting requests for additional troops to fight the Taliban if the White House and military leaders make the request. But even there, Cantor expressed frustration, saying no one on the White House power grid — from Obama to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel — has contacted leadership to coordinate a bipartisan Afghanistan strategy. “It has been since May that the Republican leadership has been invited to the White House [to confer] with their team, with national security experts, domestic policy experts,” he said.
Asked if he has a good working relationship with Emanuel, the former House member who now serves as Obama’s point man there, Cantor laughed and said, “I thought I did, yeah,” adding: “They have my e-mail, my numbers, all of it.”
A White House aide put the onus back on Cantor, saying that it’s Emanuel’s policy “to personally return member calls immediately when possible but always within a matter of hours.”
dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=E42B556C-18FE-70B2-A8A33AC4F1683117
This is one of the best descriptions, explanations and analysis of BO’s elitism I have read.
It’s based on obsrvations of BO’s life-experience as an academician
From Hansen
For many in the academic community who have not worked with their hands, run businesses, or ventured far off campus, Middle America is an exotic place inhabited by aborigines who bowl, don’t eat arugula, and need to be reminded to inflate their tires. They are an emotional lot, of some value on campus for their ability to “fix” broken things like pipes and windows, but otherwise wisely ignored. Professor Chu, Obama’s energy secretary, summed up the sense of academic disdain that permeates this administration with his recent sniffing about the childish polloi: “The American people . . . just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act.” Earlier, remember, Dr. Chu had scoffed from his perch that California farms were environmentally unsound and would soon disappear altogether, “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.”
TIME mag’s interview with Nader. A few of the Qs relating to Obama:
What do you think about the current fight over health-care reform?
Well, it’s going down heavily. Obama’s not going to get a public option. By the time the thousand-page monstrosity of complexity and ambiguity gets to his desk, it’s going to be a shred of what the majority of doctors, nurses and the people in this country want — which is full Medicare for all.
******************************
He is so right however. And quite frankly Gore Fu*ked up. Nader had every right to run, Gore and that imbecile campaign manager lost it, DonnaIcan’tdancewho said she wouldquitif the supersdecidedtheprecidencyandlied
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice left the chamber before Qaddafi took the podium and left a low-level note taker to listen
*****************************
and they called the note taker obama…
Earlier, remember, Dr. Chu had scoffed from his perch that California farms were environmentally unsound and would soon disappear altogether, “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.”
*****************************
He’s right, they have cut off the water to the farmers, i smell a revolution coming, and it will be middle America taking to the streets this time…
He was probably adopted by the Dunhams and he is covering it up or he finially figured out who his daddy is and had it amended so he could run for POTUS.
**********************
Well we know who his daddy is now don’t we!
So Hillary was there to listen to the Fraud diss America? She should have walked out…
OK,
What gives with Khadaffi’s ugly mug?
WTF is wrong with him? His mouth is so wide it looks like it wraps around his head.
Has he always looked this monstrous?
Why do they want to end agriculture in CA??
gonzo,
Agreed about Baradzilla and Goro.
What gives with Khadaffi’s ugly mug?
WTF is wrong with him? His mouth is so wide it looks like it wraps around his head.
Has he always looked this monstrous?
………………………………………………….
Maybe one too many visits to Donatella Versace’s plastic surgeon, he’s getting that Joyce Wildstein look.
birdgal,
Don’t know but it seems there are 36,000 out of work in the valley where the delta smelt is being protected and farmers aren’t allowed water.
i’m as much a conservationist as the next person but when it impacts people like this – i dunno. And I’m a vegetarian so you know I’m all for protecting animals but this is going too far. (imho)
Oh my God! The Headlines on AOL are totally twisted. They say he criticized American critics and challenged them and people are falling for it in their polls and saying “great speech” fools all!
“and they called the note taker obama…”
———————-
LMAO!
MOP,
OMG!
I googled her and those pics do look like she and khaddafi share the same plastic surgeon.
Ewwwwwww…….
On another note, I am listening to ahmadinijad’s translator and I’m wondering what is wrong with her voice.
wbboei, I will try to call you tonight, if your reading this. I guess your phone went dead.
Ahmadinijad is saying the SAME THINGS BO SAID earlier!
‘One nation can’t impose on another, the time has come to an end for those who established democracy because they have violated their principals’
– didn’t BO say the same thing?
SURPRISE!!!!! FORM BP
***********************
Author of the new book on Obama confirm Bill Ayer’s helped Zero write his book:
wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=110784
Andersen, in “Barack and Michelle: Portrait of a Marriage,” writes that Obama was faced with a deadline with Time Books to submit his manuscript after already having canceled a contract with Simon & Schuster. Confronted with the threat of a second failure, his wife, Michelle, suggested he seek the help of “his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”
Obama had taped interviews with relatives to flesh out his family history, and those “oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers,” writes Andersen.
The author quotes a neighbor in the Hyde Park area of Chicago where Obama and Ayers lived, who says of the two, “Everyone knew they were friends and that they worked on various projects together.”
“It was no secret. Why would it be? People liked them both,” the neighbor said, according to Andersen.
Birdgal, the reason they want to end farming in Ca. is because the corporatist want to make Brazil the new breadbasket of the world, so they can get their piece of the money. It has been in the works for years. We are sitting ducks, soon there will be NO work in America, NONE! I am sure Obama wants to get the HB1 visas opened wide for nurses, doctors, teachers and allied medical professions to come here and lower the wage dramatically and take our jobs.
gonzotx, Bill has never cared what they said about him on talk radio. Right wingers will always twist and misconstrue anything he says because that’s their MO.
As for Nader, I have no time for him either. But I do agree Gore ran a bad campaign with lame-ass advisers like Shrum and Brazile.
OBAMAS SONG TO HIS REAL DADDY
Oh, my pa-pa, to me he was so wonderful
Mo-mar Ka-da-a-fee , to me he was so good
No one could be, so ruthless and maniacal
Oh my pa-pa, he always understood.
Gone are the days when he would take out innocents
And with a smile he’d change my tears to laughter
O my pa-pa, so funny and maniacal
Always the clown so funny in his way
Mo-mar-ka-da-a-fee, to me he was so wonderful
So glad he’s at the UN assembly today
confloyd,
hmmmmmmmmm…..that brazil thing sounds plausible.
What’s HB1?
IF YOU GO T THE SITE YOU CAN SEE WHERE THE PROTESTS ARE LOCATED
wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=110672
SOMETHING IN THE AIR
Rallies catch fire against Obama’s ‘Minion Media’
‘Operation: Can You Hear Us Now?’ exploding 1 week after WND report
——————————————————————————–
Posted: September 22, 2009
8:21 pm Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
American citizens outraged by President Obama and the actions of Congress have set their sights on a new target – the so-called mainstream media – with tea-party protests now set to boil in front of more than 30 press offices across the U.S.
Following a WND report on the growing popularity of “Operation: Can You Hear Us Now?” taxpayers are making plans to bring their protests to the front doors of major media outlets.
Nearly 2,000 fans have flocked to a new Facebook page for the event. The following are some locations for protests being planned for Oct. 17
# admin Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Mrs. Smith, we fought the spam filter and won. The article you posted was freed a while back.
As to the Beck video, it is of very recent vintage. Couric interviewed Beck yesterday or the day before.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ah, thanks- sweet music on Beck… I thought the article I posted relevant because it’s the first I’ve read where the youngens that worked so hard getting him the nom pushing people around in the caucus states are (guffaw) DISILLUSIONED!
I say, Welcome to the game of LIFE kids-
~~~~~~~~~~
As far as Nader is concerned… I don’t care who they are or who they were and what they thought before- If they are getting face time speaking out against the fraud… they get a tipothehat from me.
Paula Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Well I care because it is so wrong on so many levels and gives credence to the Fraud…it was wrong period
obama says the U.S. doesn’t want to go it alone anymore. He wants other countries to help solve the world’s problems.
Well…
I would love for Great Britain and/or Australia to take over the Middle East negotiations, be successful at last, and laugh in bambi’s face with it.
The public needs to understand that ACORN is a front organization for the new Democratic Party. It is not something which exists separate and apart from the Party. It is simply the ground game of the party. The suggestion by Mr. Frank that sting operations as he calls them should yield to proper investigations by bona fide officials in the Justice Department assumes that an organization can be bona fide when it his headed up by Eric Holder. To some that is a bridge too far. It might have been believable prior to the Walprin matter, whereas now it is nothing but a fantasy.
Beck gets better every day.O,Reilly and Hannity have been exposed as a couple of boring and totally biased meat heads and a disgrace to news coverage that they say is fair and balanced.Well Beck has tipped the scale to honest and fair.He is the only person on the fringe Media that I can watch and feel comfortable.
By ABM91 THe Hillary performance as SoS is truly the best ever in our
history.
If I worked for
If I worked for mainstream media I would be afraid to look myself in the mirror in the morning when I shaved. The razor might slip.
What gives with Khadaffi’s ugly mug?
————————————
Moon: please, be reasonable. Mohmar may be butt ugly, but compared to Pelosi he looks like Helen of Troy–the face that could launch a thousand ships.
Other than here, very few websites are discussing the new NBC/Walls Street Journal poll. Brent Budowsky circulated a memo to top Dimocrats today:
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/national-party-news/59937-ominous-news-for-democrats
# ABM90 Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Beck gets better every day.O,Reilly and Hannity have been exposed as a couple of boring and totally biased meat heads and a disgrace to news coverage that they say is fair and balanced.Well Beck has tipped the scale to honest and fair.He is the only person on the fringe Media that I can watch and feel comfortable.
By ABM91 THe Hillary performance as SoS is truly the best ever in our
history.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, if we can provide him with solid info and links.. nice to know he’ll hurl the snowballs and uncover the trash and squalor taking up valuable space and time sitting in our WH- Everyone keep digging for more on Soros… Lets drive the insane mastermind nuts shutting down his foundations one after another!
afaik- Hillary and Rice walked out when Gaddafi took the podium…That was grand!
It might have been grand, but Gaddafi and his Iranian buddy should never have been allowed into the U.S.A. in the first place.
from BP
********************88888
So how come Obama is confused? Hillary’s plan back in March 08. Could somebody please pass it along to his royal nut case.
———————————————
Clinton’s Plan for Afghanistan
Published March 6, 2008
Author: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made this statement on Afghanistan on March 6, 2008.
Today Hillary Clinton announced her plans to address the forgotten front line in Afghanistan as she met with a group of respected retired admirals, generals, and other senior officials to discuss current foreign policy and national security challenges.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban have largely recovered from the blows inflicted after 9/11. Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan have now merged into one of the most dangerous regions of the world, and one of the most strategically important to the United States. Today, Hillary pledged to make Afghanistan her highest security priority after Iraq, and outlined her agenda for winning the war in Afghanistan. As President she will:
■Increase International Support to Afghanistan.Rebuilding Afghanistan requires establishing basic security. But getting Afghan security forces up to the level where they can defend their country, defeat the militants, and resist domination by the insurgency will take time. Therefore, an increase in international forces supporting the Afghan people’s fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda is required. As President, Hillary will ask our NATO allies and other nations to play a larger role, and she will press for elimination of national caveats — restrictions placed by individual NATO governments on the use of their forces in Afghanistan. National caveats weaken our NATO effort and create resentments within the Alliance. She will encourage countries unable to contribute more forces instead to increase assistance to Afghanistan. As President, she will be prepared to send additional American troops to Afghanistan as part of a stronger, larger NATO effort. She will consult the field commanders and our Allies in deciding how many troops are required.
■Work with Afghan Government to Improve Security Forces – both Police and Army. While the training of the Afghan National Army (ANA) has made progress, the same cannot be said of the police, who are equally important for long-term national security. Yet the Bush Administration has neglected the police and did not understand their importance early enough, or adequately fund them. They subcontracted the work to outside groups. As President, Hillary will seek adequate funds for a significant upgrading of the ANA and the National Police. Hillary will ask NATO and other international partners to take a larger responsibility for training and equipping the ANA. She will make it a priority that the Afghans receive modern weapons and airlift capabilities to win their war, not hand me downs left over from the Cold War. She will make greater use of Afghan forces in US-NATO operations, as the Afghan government seeks.
■Revitalize International Support for Reconstruction. Hillary will convert the first international donors conference after taking office to a summit-level meeting. This meeting will help to revitalize and recommit flagging international support for Afghanistan’s long-term reconstruction and the Afghanistan Compact, and to ensure that donors meet their pledges. Hillary will encourage greater support of donors from the EU, Russia, China, India, and Japan, as well as the Gulf States.
■Redesign the Counternarcotics Program. More than 90% of the world’s opium and heroin comes from Afghanistan. The drug economy in Afghanistan supports the Taliban, ruthless warlords and drug lords, and corrupt government officials. Forced crop destruction often drives poor farmers into the arms of the Taliban. The Bush administration’s program, in effect, is a recruiting tool for our enemy. As President, Hillary will redesign the program. She will target enforcement against drug lords, labs, and corrupt officials, not farmers. Using the inspirational agricultural programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal as a model, she will propose to the international community and the Congress a multi-year program to develop Afghanistan’s agricultural sector to provide alternative livelihoods. This is the best way to undermine the terrible nexus of drug lords, corrupt officials, and Taliban who are now strangling the legitimate side of Afghanistan’s economy. This would mean an integrated approach to agricultural development that employs all resources from seeds to fertilizer, irrigation to electrification to roads, and markets to education.
■Appoint a Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Providing security to Afghanistan cannot be accomplished without greater security on the Afghan-Pakistan border and greater stability within Pakistan. As President, Hillary will appoint a special envoy to work with Afghanistan and Pakistan and NATO to develop a regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This strategy would include the provision of needed security aid and expertise to Pakistan as we worked with that country as a full partner in addressing extremist threats. Military aid would be accountable. The envoy would also attempt to engage Iran to prevent drug smuggling and support the Afghan government. This would give the United States an opportunity to engage Iran positively in an area in which we share common interests.
■Support Afghan Government’s Capacity for Self-Governance. While the outside world will have to continue to help Afghanistan, in the end it is the Afghan government and people who will have to succeed. The government needs to reach out to the people in a tangible way to gain respect and support, including providing essential services like water, roads, transportation, education, opportunities for employment, and security. Women must be given the right to make progress. A major investment in infrastructure will need to be made. As President, Hillary will encourage the international coalition to provide the infusion of trained administrators, builders, designers, educators, and rule of law specialists to jumpstart this initiative. She will support greater funding and coordination for Provincial Reconstruction Teams to address local needs based on local priorities. The government needs to have the respect of the people by providing them with things that will improve their lives. We must help them — but ultimately they must do it for themselves.
Hillary’s plan to win the war in Afghanistan builds on and complements her strategy to address the challenge posed by Pakistan. The elements of her plan include:
■Ending President Bush’s one-dimensional Pakistan policy. The recent Pakistan elections are a key step toward the return of democracy for Pakistan and the establishment of a civilian-led government. The Pakistan elections should send a signal to the United States about U.S. policy toward that country. For the past seven years the Bush administration has pursued a one-dimensional policy toward Pakistan, focusing its high level attention overwhelmingly on President Musharraf to the exclusion of other important political actors in Pakistan and its civil society. It is time for this to change.
■Increasing non-military assistance to Pakistan. This aid should be targeted at strengthening democratic institutions, building civil society, and improving economic and educational opportunities. A stable and democratic Pakistan will be a stronger security partner for the United States in the years ahead.
■Support improved relations between India and Pakistan. Promoting a stable relationship between India and Pakistan which will further contribute to Afghanistan’s long-term stability.
basil9 Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
confloyd,
Your daughter is wrong.
I’ve seen plenty of violence in kindergarten.
Mrs. Smith,
I’m an HRC fan but I don’t think she fought as hard as she could to claim the nomination she won.
I thought she should have fought beyond the convention, she should have put up more of a fight after the RNC, she shouldn’t have caved to the pressure. I still admire her immensely and I know she was between a rock and a hard place but I wish she had stood on prinicpal. That’s how important I think it was. I hate to say it but I think her moment has passed. It pains me to say it but that’s what I think. What a shame. it’s our great loss.
&&&&&&&&&&
Basil9, I agree with you on everything you said above.
gonzotx Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
SURPRISE!!!!! FORM BP
***********************
Author of the new book on Obama confirm Bill Ayer’s helped Zero write his book:
********************
COMMENTS BELOW FROM bp
******************************
They’ve been writing article after article about this on American Thinker for the past year. They made all these comparisons of their writing style.
I can’t believe the media doesn’t think this is a big problem. Obama didn’t write his book like he’s always claimed and a fucking terrorist wrote his book.
Where is the outrage?
I don’t understand. His books were bestsellers. Wouldn’t people that bought the book be upset????
Yep. The blame continues…poor bambi…Hillary is picking on him…
———————–
Clintonista Dee Dee: Obama Looks ‘Indecisive, Pushed Around’ On Afghanistan
By Mark Finkelstein
September 23, 2009
Has the Dem infighting for 2012 begun? Is Hillary exploiting Pres. Obama’s waffling over Afghanistan to launch an offensive against her ostensible boss?
The question arises after former senior Clinton aide Dee Dee Myers described PBO as looking “indecisive” and “pushed around” in his handling of Afghanistan, and Hillary herself laid down a heavy marker, describing in graphic terms the dangers of an al Qaeda resurgence were the Taliban permitted to succeed.
continued here…
newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2009/09/23/clintonista-dee-dee-obama-looks-indecisive-pushed-around-afghanist
Moon: please, be reasonable. Mohmar may be butt ugly, but compared to Pelosi he looks like Helen of Troy–the face that could launch a thousand ships.
…………………………….
more like the face that launched a thousand mirrors…………..straight down onto the floor.
September 23, 2009
Categories: White House
White House will block U.N. action against Israel
A White House official told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the U.S. will use its veto in the U.N. Security Council, if necessary, to block the international body from acting on a report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, according to two people on the call.
The National Security Council’s Dan Shapiro said President Obama assured the Israeli Prime Minister yesterday of the U.S stand on the Goldstone Report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has been a source of major concern for the Israelis. Shapiro said the U.S. agrees with the Israeli view that the report is one-sided, and would block a referral to the International Criminal Court.
The U.S. pledge comes as the Israeli side was already declaring victory in avoiding a total freeze on settlements, and it’s likely to further alienate Palestinian leaders whom the U.S. is simultaneously trying to lure to the negotiating table.
politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/White_House_will_block_UN_action_against_Israel.html
Afgghanistan may well be Hillary’s out and or Obama forcing her out. Maybe this was her strategy as this will make her strong on defense and help her get more republicans for 2012.
Barack at the UN: Was this Obama’s most naïve speech ever?
By Nile Gardiner
September 23rd, 2009
It’s always a bad sign when a US president gets several rounds of heavy applause at the UN General Assembly, as Barack Obama did this morning in New York. Needless to say, the loudest cheers from the gathering of world leaders came when he condemned the actions of a close US ally, Israel, in continuing to build settlements in the West Bank. You can always rely on attacks on the Israelis to generate the biggest roars of approval at any meeting of the United Nations, and Obama dutifully obliged.
The Assembly also mightily cheered Obama’s boast that the United States no longer condones “torture” (as if it ever did), a blatantly political swipe at the interrogation techniques of the previous government, which most Americans happen to back. The president’s decision to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council, a basket case of an organization that includes some of the world’s worst tyrannies, was also greeted warmly.
Needless to say, when the president briefly brought up the need for greater international cooperation over Afghanistan, or spoke about the threat posed by al-Qaeda – or “violent extremists” as he calls them – there was stony silence.
Overall this was a staggeringly naïve speech by President Obama, with Woodstock-style utterances like “I will not waver in my pursuit of peace” or “the interests of peoples and nations are shared.” All that was missing was a conga of hippies dancing through the aisles with a rousing rendition of “Kumbaya”.
The big catchphrase of the morning was “new era of engagement”, with Obama outlining the four big international pillars of his presidency: ridding the world of nuclear weapons, the pursuit of peace, preserving the planet, and supporting “a global economy that advances opportunity for all people”.
There was only brief mention in the president’s speech of the Iranian or North Korean nuclear threat, and no attempt to outline what measures would be taken against Tehran and Pyongyang if they continued to defy the UN Security Council. Obama said not a word about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s continuing threats to wipe Israel off the map, or the aspirations of the Iranian people for free and fair elections.
In fact human rights issues were strikingly downplayed in Obama’s address, which is not surprising since they are rarely on the radar screen of this administration. Nor did the words liberty or freedom feature prominently. This was a speech designed to appease opinion in a world body in which full democracies make up only a minority of its members.
Was this though Obama’s most naïve speech ever? It is a very strong candidate, but I think there is intense competition for that accolade. The president’s speeches in Cairo, Strasbourg and Prague would all vie for that title. Still, his address today will go down in history as one of the weakest major addresses by a US president on foreign policy in a generation, by a leader who seems embarrassed, even ashamed, by the power and greatness of his own country.
This was an exceedingly dull, poor speech that overwhelmingly failed to advance US interests on the world stage, or project American values and principles onto the rest of the globe. As Barack Obama will eventually discover, soft power will only get you so far when you have to confront and defeat brutal enemies that seek America’s destruction.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100011129/barack-at-the-un-was-this-obama%E2%80%99s-most-naive-speech-ever/
Naive indeed!!!!
as they say, more sustanance in a bag of potato chips, something of which bambi couldnt beat his way out of..
Imagine if they were chanting “George W. Bush”. The outrage from Big Media and PINOs would be everywhere. Hilter Youth comes to mind. We’re sure Commissar Silton approves.
Admin,
I couldn’t get through that. How disgusting. Do the parents condone this brainwashing? That teacher should be fired and disciplined.
admin Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
**********************************
I agree, fire this teacher! When and where was this video made?
…it is always ironic when former ‘friends’ turned traitors can be made to eat crow, as for example that infamous traitor Robert Reich…remember him, another one who turned on the very people who gave him so many opportunities…here he is turning on Hillary during the primaries: oh, the irony from the hypocrites…notice not a peep now that their ‘boy’ has adapted Hillary’s mandate but without the affordability…
this is what they were saying during the primaries against Hillary:
liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2465 (here)
and here…
outsidethebeltway.com/archives/health_insurance_mandates/
snip…
There are a variety of views as to whose plan would really insure more people. Robert Reich has argued that more people would wind up being covered under Obama’s plan than Clinton’s.
[...] Reich during the primaries:
Using mandates to achieve universal coverage seems like quite a cop out to me. Regardless of whether the plan is good or the plan stinks, universal coverage is achieved because the government forces you to join up. In contrast Obama takes on the challenge of offering a plan so good that virtually everyone will want to participate to receive health coverage. There is also a clear philosophical difference here in that Obama isn’t obsessed with having every single person sign up. In contrast, a self-proclaimed government junkie like Hillary Clinton just can not live with the fact that somewhere, someone decides they do not want her help. Clinton will help them whether they want her to or not.
I know Clinton supporters will scream that I’m using right wing frames here, but again I must point out that freedom and choice should be considered virtues, not right wing frames. Liberty is what liberalism is ultimately all about, which explains whey Clinton prefers to label herself a progressive and not a liberal.
Some on the far left claim that Democrats lose when these alleged right wing frames about freedom are employed. They got it all wrong. Democrats lose when they concede traditional liberal values such as liberty to the right. If an election is framed so that one side is allowed to be defined as the party of freedom, that party will win virtually every time. Democrats have lost so many elections not because of using right wing frames, but because of conceding values such as freedom to conservatives, even though conservatives talk about freedom without really supporting it.
***********************************************
ah, you just can’t make this stuff up…
admin Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
****************************************
that video of the kids is sick…like a throwback to saddam hussein…pictures everywhere of him, kids chanting to him, on tv, every channel all the time…
confloyd alert…that clip should go to you know who…
S,
He still sucks big time.
S, thanks for those quotes. Reich should be forced to read those words at every public appearance he makes.
In the video, the teacher was teaching the kids a Barack Obama song. Usually kids learn a song like that for a performance. Wonder who will be present at the “show”? Some parents are in for a big shock if they are going to be at the play, show, concert. Imagine if you went to your child’s little performance and that song popped up?
Basil, weren’t you a former music teacher? So what do you think? Whew! The teacher has a long way to go with this song. It just sounded like a bunch of noise.
Basil9, the teacher that died today in Tyler, texas was a special education teacher/ musician. He loved his profession and helping kids that needed help. The school district has just cut back on security.
# JanH Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
It might have been grand, but Gaddafi and his Iranian buddy should never have been allowed into the U.S.A. in the first place.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hillary’s and Rice’s walkout when Gaddafi rose to speak made a huge statement that didn’t go unnoticed by heads of state.. In fact, from what I understand, the two dictators were speaking to a mostly empty room as others rose and walked out in disgust for the same reasons…And I agree, they should never have been allowed here in the first place much less speaking at the UN.
It was little consolation Gaddafi was throw out of NJ and off of Trump’s estate in Bedford, NY. Plans were made under assumed names when reservations and land deals were made.
The talklefters are not happy with Rahm. Apparently he is pressuring those dems who want a Public Option, and not this water down plan of Baucas. Rahm is cussing and ranting/raving.
The commentators are quiet dismayed with their little messiah.
Reich is a dwarf– physically, mentally and emotionally.
Rahm Emanuel is on Charlie Rose right now making excuses for Obama’s inability for accomplishing anything since he’s been in office. Same ole, same ole- Worst economy since the great depression, two unresolved wars…all inherited…
Rahm seems to forget Obama vowed he was ready to fix the economy and bring the troops home from Iraq- So far, NADA..
confloyd Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:12 pm
———————————————————————–
Whenever I read about the Health Insurance Reform, I am so disappointed and angry. It is a piece of cr*p. The only beneficiaries are the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The middle class is screwed.
Emanuel = The Devil’s Advocate, Henchman & Apologist
Surely the world at large and our allies in particular see the pattern here even though Big Media refuses to acknowledge it. Obama gets his highest marks from America’s enemies–Chavez, Castro, Adminijad, Kadahi, etc. and his lowest marks from key allies like Israel.
I’ve never heard him speak in an interview before; he isn’t a very intelligent individual or skilled in solutions for furthering the Peace process in the ME. All the words coming from him are regurgitated pap from Obama’s speeches. He’s basically saying nothing we haven’t heard before from the celebrity president in his hundreds of appearances on tv.
He made a Freudian slip when Rose asked him what the president thinks of BiBi. At first he said, “I’m not gonna tell you”… then caught himself and said, the proposal he left with BiBi is something he has to face when he arrives home with his people. (I don’t know what that means but thats what he said)
mrs.smith, that doesn’t sound at all good for Israel. This is terrible. I haven’t heard from Jan H or JBstonesfan on what Obama said today. I would like to get their feelings on this.
This from the Jerusalum Post???
What’s this?
Talkbacks for this article: 29
Article’s topics: Binyamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama, UN General Assembly
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu praised US President Barack Obama’s UN address Wednesday, which backed Israel’s right to live securely, stressed its legitimacy as a “Jewish state,” and urged the Palestinians to relaunch negotiations without preconditions.
Obama addresses the 64th session of the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters on Wednesday.
Photo: AP
SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World The speech was “good and positive” for Israel and for moving the peace process forward, the prime minister told The Jerusalem Post.
“He said what we have been saying for months, that we need to restart negotiations without preconditions,” Netanyahu said, a few hours after Obama’s address at the UN General Assembly.
Netanyahu also said it was important that “Obama spoke clearly in his speech about Israel as a Jewish state. The lack of recognition of that fact is the root of the problem.”
Obama, in his first UN speech to the General Assembly, also addressed the threat posed by Iran and North Korea, railed against al-Qaida and terrorism and called for greater action from the world community.
He especially challenged the international community to make good on its talk of wanting to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians, in an address that spent considerably more time on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than on many other global issues.
“All of us, not just the Israelis and the Palestinians but all of us, must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we only lend it lip service,” Obama said. “To break the old patterns – to break the cycle of insecurity and despair – all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private.”
He also implicitly chided the world organization for having devoted considerably more time and attention to chronicling alleged Israeli misdeeds.
“Nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks over a constructive willingness to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, and its right to exist in peace and security,” he said to some applause.
The applause was slightly louder, however, when he also said that “the United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.”
He stressed that “The time has come to relaunch negotiations – without preconditions. The goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security – a Jewish state of Israel, with true security for all Israelis, and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.”
Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Oren also noted the importance of Obama’s reference to Israel as a “Jewish state,” recognition Israel is insisting upon as part of any final-status deal with the Palestinians.
Israel was gratified to hear the president’s “reiteration of the US commitment to Israel’s security, and for his reiteration of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state,” Oren said.
He said Israel was also pleased that the president supported a multilateral track to bring about peace between Israel and all its neighbors, and not just a bilateral track.
Netanyahu told reporters that he “listened very carefully to President Obama’s call to the Arab countries to come out publicly and support moving regional peace forward, and the appreciation he articulated for the easing of restrictions in Judea and Samaria that the government has carried out in the last few months to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian population and upgrade their economy.”
Netanyahu said Obama’s comments were the product of the intensive talks that had taken place between the US and Israel, Israel’s “transparent policies,” and the “good will of both sides.”
Obama also, however, continued to emphasize that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” at the same time that he called on the Palestinians to end incitement against Israel.
Regarding whether Obama’s characterization of the settlements was significant, Netanyahu told the Post that what was important was that Obama made clear that the issue should not hold up the talks.
Oren downplayed the issue, telling the Post that this has been Washington’s policy since the days of president Jimmy Carter, who took it one step further and – for a brief period – called the settlements “illegal.”
Asked if he agreed with the characterization of Obama as not being a friend of Israel, Netanyahu told the Post that during his Cairo speech earlier this year, Obama had stood up and said that the relationship between Israel and the US was “an unshakeable bond.”
“I think these are important things that need to be appreciated, precisely from this president,” he said.
Israel also listened carefully to the speech for Obama’s statements on Iran’s nuclear threat, as the UN Security Council is the international forum in which sanctions have previously been passed and through which Jerusalem would like to see greater pressure applied.
In his speech, Obama singled out Iran and North Korea for a rebuke on their pursuit of nuclear weapons, stressing that he prefers diplomacy but that “they must be held accountable” if they spurn international demands.
“The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced,” Obama declared, referring to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “We must insist that the future does not belong to fear.”
Obama emphasized his preference for diplomacy, saying, “I’ve said before and I will repeat, I am committed to diplomacy that opens a path to greater prosperity and more secure peace for both nations if they live up to their obligations.”
But he also said, “In their actions to date, the governments of North Korea and Iran threaten to take us down this dangerous slope.”
He continued, “If the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards; if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of their own people; if they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East – then they must be held accountable.”
Obama began his priority list by stressing the need to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
“We must never allow a single nuclear device to fall into the hands of a violent
I just get that out of the speech that I heard, maybe there is some backroom dealing!!
JanH Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Barack at the UN: Was this Obama’s most naïve speech ever?
By Nile Gardiner
September 23rd, 2009
It’s always a bad sign when a US president gets several rounds of heavy applause at the UN General Assembly, as Barack Obama did this morning in New York
&&&&&&&&&
He is so addicted to being liked by others that he’ll do anything for that cheap high.
That’s not leadership.
It’s narcissism.
It’s insecurity.
Mrs. Smith Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
OK- I’m the last holdout then… No one knows better than she does what is at stake if she leaves.. NOW-
I won’t presume to think, advise or pressure Hillary on what she should do because I am not privy to what is going on behind the scenes… all I feel comfortable with at this time is wishing she stays safe and not take her security for granted..
======================
I agree with you. It’s nice to think of Hillary safe back home in NY as Governor, her own woman, no longer Obama’s ’secretary’, and in her own house with Bill and Chelsea near by. It’s nice to think of her having that fallback to an independent base.
But she’s doing good work where she is as SOS, she did take the job. As long as she wants it, I’ll support her there. Doing great and lasting work for the women of the world.
If I were her, I wouldn’t quit in protest. I’d do my own thing and stand up against bad policies and make them FIRE me.
wbboei Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 am
If Obama flatlines after his Sunday round robin then the magic is gone. If he cannot move the needle anymore he will not run in 2012.
========================
But will his real employers LET him retire?
turndownobama Says:
I agree with you. It’s nice to think of Hillary safe back home in NY as Governor, her own woman, no longer Obama’s ’secretary’, and in her own house with Bill and Chelsea near by. It’s nice to think of her having that fallback to an independent base.
But she’s doing good work where she is as SOS, she did take the job. As long as she wants it, I’ll support her there. Doing great and lasting work for the women of the world.
If I were her, I wouldn’t quit in protest. I’d do my own thing and stand up against bad policies and make them FIRE me.
==================================
Whooo-hoooo! I wonder if Hillary really would make 0 fire her?
I’m glad to see so many posters here supporting Hillary as SOS.
Couple comments at NQ which you might enjoy:
Comment by papa smurf | 2009-09-24 00:48:21
Obama is a habitual liar. Instead of remembering his lies or confessing to them, he just makes up new ones to cover up the old ones. Those who voted him in office are complicit in the crimes he will have committed as he ‘changes his mind’ on policies that were originally designed to protect Americans. Because of the Obamacratic Party Apparatus that still supports his agenda, we are all at risk. Not only is this one of the most reckless administrations in American history, it is also one of the most powerfully entrenched in that it claims a majority of members in Congress who will claim in the future that ‘they were only taking orders.’ The problem is going to come when things really start falling apart because of the obvious ‘Hamlet syndrome’ that hampers his better judgment, and keeps him from making decisions in a timely manner. The present dilemma in his waffling on sending troops to Afghanistan is another case in point. Add that to the health care nightmare he has created and quite a few Americans are going to be stressed out from the Existential Prince’s delayed decisions, that are, as we all know, not decisions at all.
Reply to this comment
Comment by helenk | 2009-09-24 00:55:48
http://www.puma08.com/2009/09/23/red-chinese-flag-is-flown-in-washington-dc-right-next-to-the-white-house/
I want this anti-American piece of sh-t impeached now.
I want the traitorous bastards that selected him voted out of congress in the next election. Every congress person who backed him has to pay with their jobs
My father fought in what they call the CBI theater during the second world war. They had more trouble with the chinese warlords attacking American convoys than with the Japanese.
WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS
PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE
If Obama flatlines after his Sunday round robin then the magic is gone. If he cannot move the needle anymore he will not run in 2012.
========================
But will his real employers LET him retire?
———————————
If the tool no longer works, they will see to it that he retires. Whether he likes it or not.
Joan Walsh who is in the tank for Obama made some claim that his Sunday tour had some effect on his numbers. Her bona fides are such that I would not take her word for it.
I think we need to wait a week and see where it is. If the pollsters are dealing off the top of the deck it will be a dead cat bounce. As the song says, the thrill is gone.
I doubt that any of us know what Hillary’s motives and intentions are. It is hard for me at least to read. I think it is a mistake for her to remain where she is because I believe the foreign policy we are pursuing is highly problematic, and if she stays she will be tied to it. That said, I am also mindful of the charges that would be leveled against her if she leaves. My guess is that her target audience right now is foreign governments and the elites who run our country. If I were advising her I would caution her to keep her cards close to the chest, and be especially cautions with Big Media. They are the implacable enemies of the truth, of Hillary and of the American People..
from the rbo, Conyers and Franks want to see if Acorn’s rights have been violated???
Your right wbboei, if we are going to get them out, it needs to be SOON, go Glenn, go!!
Thanks, rgb,
Southern born, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the clip. Today’s my 7 hour TX day and I don’t need pre-TX nausea! (BTW -all, 2/3 of the way through! YAY!)
But what I always loved about music, especially instrumental music, is how honest it is and how completely apolitical it is, just aspiring for beautiful sound. The thought of those kids being force fed a diet of obamanomics which they then have to regurgitate before adults – like I said, that’s why i couldn’t watch it. It makes me nauseous.
confloyd,
Conyers and Franks are too cowardly to go after the real culprits and instead take on a couple of kids. Hey, Conyers – what’s the quid-pro-quo with your wife’s indictment with this?
!#@#$!@!!
Barf Alert!
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all [do? doth??] say “hooray!”
Hooray Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first Black American to lead this great na-TION!
Hooray, Mr. President something-something-some
A-something-something-something-some economy is number one again!
Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And the same for all Americans [in?] the great Red White and Blue!
So something Mr. President we all just something-some,
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray a-something-something-some!
Hip, hip hooray! (3x)
WOW!
John Barchelor and McCotter nail it on BO’s forign policy.
Appeasement Alley
Thaddeus McCotter aims dead-eyed at the Obama administration’s repetitive and predictable appeasements of the Devils — the usurper Ahmadinejad, bully Chavez, tyrant Kim and opportunist Medvedev — in this crisp and direct video commentary on the American foreign policy turbulence.
The enemy is bolder. The Taliban is cocky. Al Qaeda is strangely silent. The Tehran Twelvers are unstable as they make war on the people of Iran. All this of appeasement alley is known.
What is not yet known is how the Obama administration, having appeased the aggressors, means to extricate itself from Afghanistan, Iraq and the Gulf without triggering a wave of coups. It may be true that the American war material in the Gulf is so great that it would require years to get the vehicles, stores and weapons out. It may be true that the Baghdad government, the Kabul government, the Islamabad government would collapse into civil war if we departed abruptly. It may be true that our allies in Europe would refuse to agree to our swift withdrawal. It may be true that there is no alternative to American battle space mastery.
However none of these obstacles can stop the Obama administration from dreaming of bugging out. POTUS speaks like a man who thinks that wishes are facts and the enemy will fall silent while we tip-toe for the exits. POTUS speaks as if he has not imagined the answer to the question that will come for the 2010 and 2012 elections, “Who lost Afghanistan?” The politics of defeat are not rational. When the abyss opens in AfPakia, more than the Hindu Kush will fall in like a dead thing.
Here are the 11 who walked out of Ahmadinijad’s speech.
The eleven, according to a European source: Argentina, Australia, Britain, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand … and the United States
confloyd Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:53 pm
——————————–
obama is still playing games and trying to box Israel into a corner. Netanyahu is simply giving himself enough rope to hang himself. I’m sure there are a lot of backroom games going on here, but the bottom line is that Bibi, Abbas, and bambi all have to appease their supporters at the same time. Bambi desperately needs a win so he is acting tough…lol…not possible. Abbas needs to appease his terrorist clan. Bibi truly believes he is doing what is right but at the same time his party and coalition are trying to push the agenda.
Bottom line is Netanyahu is right, and not just because I am Jewish. There should be no “preconditions” for peace talks. There never should have been the precurser for “settlement” stagnancy. It’s never been brought up before in any previous negotiations to this extent. Israel has history on it’s side and the defensible space argument. All of Jerusalem should belong to them. Not just because it was their holy city before the others by rights, but for security reasons.
If the Palestians want a land grab that they are not entitled to but have been brainwashed into believing is their right, then the land grab should come equally from all the lands bordering Israel, including Israel. Boosting Gaza’s economy should come from all the Arab countries and not just Israel.
War crimes should not focus just on Israel but on other groups. The U.N. et al should not be allowed to be hijacked by terrorist regimes whose only purpose is to sanction Israel, isolate Israel, and destroy Israel.
These are just a few of my rambling thoughts.
——————
Basil,
Canada didn’t walk out. They didn’t show up in the first place. Prime Minister simply boycotted the whole day in protest.
Posted on September 24, 2009 4:53 AM
Book analyzes Clinton’s campaign
By Ricky Morales
Though Barack Obama is famous for being the first black president, Nichola Gutgold knows Hillary Clinton made strides for women in the 2008 presidential election.
“This was the first time a female candidate was not seen as a woman,” said Gutgold, associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley. “She transcended gender in this race.”
In her recent book, Almost Madam President: Why Hillary “Won” in 2008, Gutgold examines the obstacles Clinton faced and overcame throughout the campaign. Gutgold said Clinton’s bid for the presidency was “wildly instructive” for women seeking to enter politics worldwide.
“I would like to think of what is gained instead of lost,” Gutgold said. “Even though Hillary didn’t win the presidency, I think, ‘What did this election give us?’ ”
In the past, Gutgold has published books regarding women’s rhetorical strategies, including Paving the Way for Madam President. Her newest book was going to be an additional chapter in that book, but Hillary’s candidacy was such a departure from those of other elections, it became a project of its own, she said.
Kenneth Thigpen, director of academic affairs at Penn State Lehigh Valley, said the book is a “dynamite publication.” “We’re thrilled that this book is out there … it really deserves national scrutiny,” Thigpen said. To his knowledge, no other book written has examined Clinton as “a winner.”
Stephanie Derstine, 52, an adult student at Penn State Lehigh Valley, studied communication under Gutgold and she said she always went the extra mile in her examination of different rhetoricians. “She digs deeper into the background of people,” Derstine said. “She really wants her words to have meaning. She doesn’t want to just have words on the paper.”
Gutgold said she wrote the book to add to the body of literature concerning women in public speaking, a genre she thinks needs to become more robust.
“I hope people read the book and feel like they’re taking a trip down memory lane,” Gutgold said.
collegian.psu.edu/archive/2009/09/24/book_analyzes_clintons_campaig.aspx
Good Day everyone. I have never felt like the UN was worth much, as they had very little if any clout. I view it as a place you can go and make the speeches that mean nothing.
However, if you are bucking for President of the UN, and you need somewhere to go fast, and it should LOOK like a move up, that place is it.
Good Morning Everyone! I wonder if Obama is finished with all his BS at the UN?? It will be interesting to see what Netanyahu will say and I think that is today.
I don’t know how we got such a corrupt govt. other than it has been in the works for quiet sometime. Its a pity that this wonderful nation is being subjected to this
I was over at the Canada Free Press this a.m. and I was struck by one of the headings, “without America there would be NO freedom”. Here we are being taken over from within, and we are not even sure who/what is doing it and what this nation will be when its complete.
Read this article from Drudge. It says the dollar is dying. Why? In fairness, one cannot discount the borrow and spend policies or Bush, nor the fundamentally unsound adoption of unregulated capitalism which reached its grand climeractic on his watch.
Nevertheless the situation was still salvageable at the beginning of this year. The tipping point was not Bush but Obama. Obama’s rash wreckless spending policies and pathetic non leadership sent a message to other countries that we would not restrain spending.
Not surprisingly, their response was as follows:
Dearest Barack–
If you are hell bent on driving your own country into unsustainable debt and destroying its standard of living, then we cannot stop you from doing that. But we will not stay invested in your dollar and thereby export your inflation to the world.
Very truly yours,
The World
PS: do not invite your friends Fidel, Hugo, Momar, Daniel, Adminijad, Kim et. al. to our house for dinner.
This article speaks to some of those issues:
————————————————
HSBC bids farewell to dollar supremacy
The sun is setting on the US dollar as the ultra-loose monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve forces China and the vibrant economies of the emerging world to forge a new global currency order, according to a new report by HSBC.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 7:14PM BST 20 Sep 2009
Comments 68 | Comment on this article
All change: the dollar is losing ground as the world’s reserve currency Photo: Bloomberg News
“The dollar looks awfully like sterling after the First World War,” said David Bloom, the bank’s currency chief.
“The whole picture of risk-reward for emerging market currencies has changed. It is not so much that they have risen to our standards, it is that we have fallen to theirs. It used to be that sovereign risk was mainly an emerging market issue but the events of the last year have shown that this is no longer the case. Look at the UK – debt is racing up to 100pc of GDP,” he said
Crucially, China and rising Asia have reached the point where they can no longer keep holding down their currencies to boost exports because this is causing mayhem to their own economies, stoking asset bubbles. Asia’s “mercantilist mindset” of recent decades is about to be broken by the spectre of an inflation spiral.
The policy headache was already becoming clear in the final phase of the global credit boom but the financial crisis temporarily masked the effect. The pressures will return with a vengeance as these countries roar back to life, leaving the US and other laggards of the old world far behind.
A monetary policy of near zero rates – further juiced by quantitative easing – is completely incompatible with circumstances in most of Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Divorce is inevitable. The US is expected to hold rates near zero through 2010 to tackle its own crisis.
What is occurring is an epochal loss in the relative wealth and economic power of the old G10 bloc of rich countries compared to rising regions of the world. The euro, yen, sterling, Swiss franc and other mature currencies will be relegated along with the dollar in this great process of rebalancing, but the Greenback will bear the brunt.
The Fed’s super-loose policy is turning the dollar into the key funding currency for the next phase of the global “carry trade”, taking over the role of Japan during its period of emergency stimulus.
Mr Bloom said regional currencies would emerge as the anchor for their smaller trading partners, with China, Brazil, or South Africa substituting the role of the US. Australia is already linking its fortunes to China through commodity ties.
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and ask yourself whether the tipping point for the abandonment of the dollar was not the wreckless spending policies of Mr. Obama. In addition, his claim to global leadership is a bad joke. Granted this process has been a long time coming, and Bush was not help. But Mr. Obama is the cause in fact for tanking the dollar. In my view, he is the one personally responsible for tanking the American standard of living. This was the WRONG time for a president to pursue such policies. In fact, it is madness. T
———————————————————
Book analyzes Clinton’s campaign
collegian.psu.edu/archive/2009/09/24/book_analyzes_clintons_campaig.aspx
The thrust of the above article is what the fed is doing or not doing. But the fed is responding to our debt problem. That problem is driven by the loss of confidence in the dollar. That loss of confidence is driven by a widely held skeptism about the stimulus program, cap and trade. universal health care, quadrupling the deficits, and a widely held lack of confidence in Mr. Obama which is sweeping across the world.
24/09/2009
Netanyahu: No peace until Palestinians accept Israel as Jewish state
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Haaretz on Wednesday that he would not agree to a Palestinian demand that Israel accept the 1967 borders as a condition for renewing peace negotiations. Netanyahu also gave a condition of his own, saying Thursday that he would never drop his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “I told Abu Mazen [Abbas] I believe peace hinges first on his readiness to stand before his people and say, ‘We…are committed to recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people’,” Netanyahu said.
“I will not drop this subject and other important issues under any final peace agreement,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu said that U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday was “positive” because “he also said something we had been seeking for six months, that we have to meet and begin the diplomatic process without preconditions.” Obama had spoken “clearly about Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” said Netanyahu. “I believe that disagreement about this is the root of the conflict.”
Netanyahu also pointed out that Obama had made reference to Israeli efforts to improve the Palestinian economy by lifting roadblocks. Obama speech on Wednesday was one of many from world leaders, and the American president focused a portion of his talk on efforts toward Middle East Peace. “The goal is clear,” Obama told the General Assembly, “two states living side by side in peace and security – a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.”
Referring to Obama’s statement Netanyahu said, “The things he said about the occupation are not new. He also said them in Cairo, and in fact that is the formula adopted by the road map and it does not say we have to go back to the 1967 borders. “This is the formula adopted by governments before the one I head, which did not agree to go back to the 1967 borders. We certainly would [also] not agree to that. In the matter of the settlements he also said nothing new. These disagreements should not prevent the beginning of the process which, among other things if it is successful, will also decide this issue.”
Netanyahu said Obama, like other American presidents, reflected the deep basic friendship between the American and the Israeli people, and that “he stood in Cairo before the whole Muslim world and said this relationship would never be severed.” Netanyahu added he believed the obligation of the United States to Israel’s security was total. When asked about claims that Tuesday’s three-way summit with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Obama would become an excuse for foot-dragging, Netanyahu responded, “not on our part.”
Netanyahu told Channel 2 that Obama’s speech to the the UN regarding negotiations without preconditions and the two state solution was “an important blessing.” “The president said let’s come and resume the peace process without preconditions. As you know I have been saying that for nearly six months. I was happy,” Netanyahu said.
However, Israelis and Palestinians said Wednesday that their envoys would meet with U.S. officials but not with each other, cementing the impression that the summit had produced little results. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said there would be no follow-up session with the Israelis because the two sides hadn’t bridged the divides that have prevented them from resuming talks. “It’s not happening because we agreed to continue dealing with the Americans until we reach the agreement that will enable us to relaunch the negotiations,” Erekat said.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel would dispatch envoys to meet with U.S. officials in Washington, but there were no plans now to meet again with the Palestinians. He said, however, that it was Israel’s “sincere hope that we will see the restart of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.”
The Palestinians refuse to restart talks until Israel freezes settlement construction. They also want talks to restart where they left off before breaking down earlier this year, something Netanyahu has refused.
‘Obama assured commitment to stopping Iran nukes
Netanyahu told several U.S. network television stations late Wednesday that Obama had also assured him he was committed to stopping Iran’s nuclear program. In those interviews, Netanyahu also reiterated that Israel was unwilling to freeze “life” in West Bank settlements. Answering to whether he knew how long it was before Iran could produce a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu told ABC interviewer Charlie Gibson that he didn’t “want to discuss whether we need another week or another month.” “The crucial question is, what’s the goal? And the president assured me time and again that the goal is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. And I think that’s the right goal,” the premier said.
The prime minister added that he saw Iran as “the major sponsor of world terrorism. Now, imagine what terrorism could be if the terrorists had a patron that gave them a nuclear umbrella, or worse, if that patron actually gave them nuclear weapons. ” “That’s a nightmare scenario, and we all have to ensure that it doesn’t happen,” Netanyahu told ABC.
Netanyahu also reiterated comments he made recently about what he considered as the instability of the current regime in Tehran, saying he thought “this regime is a lot weaker than people think, and I think the civilized countries are a lot stronger than they tend to think about themselves.” “This regime tyrannizes its own people, guns them down when they peacefully protest for freedom,” the prime minister added.
“There are so many reasons, endless reasons why this should not be allowed to happen. And it’s time the international community acted in unison to make sure that it doesn’t happen,” Netanyahu said.
In an interview to Fox News, Netanyahu commented on the possibility of unilateral action against Iran, saying “any country has and reserves the right for self defense and Israel is no exception but I think the specter of Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons and possibly giving it to terrorists or giving them [is] sufficiently troublesome for the international community to get its act together and act to stop this from happening.” Answering to the question whether he was convinced Iran wanted a nuclear weapon, the premier asserted: “Yes I am.”
Netanyahu: Won’t freeze ‘life’ in settlements
On the subject of renewing peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu asserted to NBC interview Matt Lauer that he was “willing to make gestures to help the peace process.” When asked how big a gesture Israel intends to make, the premier said: “We’ll get there very soon, I suppose.” “But I’ll tell you one thing I’m not willing to do. I can’t freeze life,” Netanyahu added, referring to a possible West Bank settlement freeze, insisted on by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “There are a quarter of a million people there, in these communities which are called ’settlements’, although really most of them are bedroom suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem”.
Echoing the same sentiment, the prime minister said he was looking “to reconcile two things. One is to start the peace process again, something that I’m glad – I hope that we started today.” “And, second, to enable normal life to continue. There are a quarter of a million people living in these communities. You know, they need kindergartens. They need schools. They need health clinics.” Netanyahu said “They’re living. I’m committed not to build new settlements. I am committed not to expropriate additional land for existing settlements. But people have to live. You can’t freeze life.”
Stressing what he felt as the shared Palestinian responsibility for stalled peace talks, Netanyahu told ABC that “Anytime Israel met an Arab leader who has genuinely committed to peace, such as Anwar Sadat, we made peace,” adding that the government who achieved peace with Egypt “was a Likud government under Menachem Begin. “When Yitzhak Rabin, the Labor prime minister, met the late King Hussein, who wanted peace, we made peace,” the premier said, adding that peace could be made “if the Palestinian leadership says we want peace, we recognize Israel as the Jewish state, the nation state of the Jewish people, just as we’re asked to recognize the Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people.”
The prime minister concluded by saying that Israel wanted “a real peace. You know, we don’t want a peace where we hand over territory which becomes a base for Iran’s proxy so they can fire thousands of rockets on us,” adding that Israel was “one of the tiniest countries in the world.”
“Now, if you’re the size of Monaco or the size of Luxembourg, that by itself doesn’t pose a security problem. But if your neighbors also say, ‘We’re going to destroy you or throw you into the sea and fire thousands of rockets at you,’ that does pose a security problem. So, Israel wants both recognition and security from its neighbors, and this will be the task of the negotiations in the coming months,” Netanyahu added.
haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116650.html
Jan–I read the overview and it looks like a puff piece. What history needs to understand is who and how they took the nomination away from her and why she sat still for it. This was not a case of assendency or an inept campaign which is how partisans on both sides will be inclined to play it. I could argue just as easily that this was a setback for the cause of womens rights because all sexism prevailed and was accepted by women in power who provided a fifth column. Some like Wolfe have tried to argue that it was the brilliance of the Obama campaign, but if all the facts were on the table we would see that was just another false canard. I want to know who was behind this and what their agenda was. I think it was the hard left and Soros. That is the real story here.
wbboei,
Agreed. What history needs is for you yourself and a few others from this site to write a book about what really happened. I would love to see that happen.
Netanyahu: No peace until Palestinians accept Israel as Jewish state
————————————————————–
If Mr. Obama is serious about achieving peace in the middle east, then this is where he should be directing his efforts. Toward his Muslim brothers for a change. He must face that issue sooner or later. It had might as well be now. Most likely, Abbass has given that commitment, but is too weak to deliver and knows Hamas will use it against him.
Obamas hubrus on the Middle East has collapsed. He is no longer insisting on pre conditions and he has accepted the fact that Israel be recognized as a Jewish State. In short, Bibi won that round.
In this case, Mr. Obamas retreat from principle was a good thing, because the principle he was espousing was wrong, and one sided.
However, the next time someone else pushes back on some other issue which he purports to stand firmly on and he collapses the result may be disaster.
I suspect he will be easier on our enemies than on our friends, consistent with the teachings of Jerimiah Wright.
Also, he needs to stop brainwashing children.
wbboei,
Bibi has been emphasizing the need for recognition from the very beginning. It is mainstream media and obama’s group who have been pushing the settlement issue.
wbboei
With a collapse like that, you have to wonder if he is undermining that wonderful new relationship he is trying to forge with our foes.
wbboei Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 3:18 am
If Obama flatlines after his Sunday round robin then the magic is gone. If he cannot move the needle anymore he will not run in 2012.
========================
But will his real employers LET him retire?
———————————
If the tool no longer works, they will see to it that he retires. Whether he likes it or not.
=======================
===================
I’m afraid they’d want a replacement just as bad or worse (if possible).
One name that gets far too little credit for the destruction of the traditional democratic party is Felix Rohatyn. Who? Felix Rohatyn. He is an investment banker, the one who saved new york city, the one who argued that the democractic party needed to abandon roosevelt and forge close ties with call street, executor of ted keddy’s will, close supporter of the wicked witch of the west, professor at middlebury college, believer in soros principles, mentor to dean. friend of George Schultz etc. He operates mostly behind the scenes. You never see him or hear about him, but he is definitely one of those dark movers behind the scenes who should be dragged into the light of day and held accountable for what is happening to our country.
forge close ties with Wall Street
exectutor of Ted Kennedy’s will,
I’m afraid they’d want a replacement just as bad or worse (if possible).
—————————————
Not likely. Obama is sui generis. And the public will never again swallow someone like him hook line and sinker.
Bibi has been emphasizing the need for recognition from the very beginning. It is mainstream media and obama’s group who have been pushing the settlement issue.
—————————
Correct.
In the closing days of the campaign the wicked witch of the west was running around the House telling everyone to support Obama not because he was black (her earlier argument) but because he would bring exhorbitant sums of money into the democratic party. Thirty pieces of silver with 2000 years of compound interest.
wbboei Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I’m afraid they’d want a replacement just as bad or worse (if possible).
—————————————
Not likely. Obama is sui generis. And the public will never again swallow someone like him hook line and sinker.
===================
I meant, they’d want another tool who would continue his corporatist policies. Not Hillary or any Clintonista.
wbboei Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
In the closing days of the campaign the wicked witch of the west was running around the House telling everyone to support Obama not because he was black (her earlier argument) but because he would bring exhorbitant sums of money into the democratic party. Thirty pieces of silver with 2000 years of compound interest.
======================
And he didn’t even deliver the 30 pieces, iirc.
And he didn’t even deliver the 30 pieces, iirc.
————————————
Correct. As folk hero Joe Wilson so aptly put it: Barack LIED/
When he speechifies he lies, when he gives interviews he lies, when he takes a breath and says something anything his lies, and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies. Etc.
The theory of the people advising Obama on the piece in the middle east part of his bankrupt foreign policy was that if he could get Israel to budge on the settlement issue then they could give abbas a preliminary victory which would help him marginalize the Hamas faction. This is the kind of Cloud cookoo land nonsense you get from assholes like Power whose misguided theories have the smell of the lamp to them. Power herself hates Israel/
almost as much as she hates Hillary–monster power
Kennedy US Senate successor named
The governor of Massachusetts has named Paul Kirk as a temporary replacement to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Edward Kennedy. Mr Kirk, 71, is a former Democratic Party chairman and worked for Sen Kennedy for eight years.
The move means that Democrats in the US Senate have regained the majority needed to push through President Obama’s healthcare reform agenda. They fell one seat short through the death of Sen Kennedy.
The Massachusetts state senate voted on Wednesday to allow the state governor to appoint a temporary replacement senator. Without the change, Sen Kennedy’s seat would have stayed vacant until January.
The rule change was one of Edward Kennedy’s last wishes.
‘Highest honour’
The late senator feared that if his fellow Democrats did not have a full complement of senators, passing a healthcare reform bill would be more difficult. Mr Kennedy campaigned throughout his career for universal healthcare, and did not want his death to jeopardise prospects for reform. His widow Vicki Kennedy and son Edward Kennedy Jr had urged Governor Deval Patrick to choose Paul Kirk.
“He (Sen Kennedy) often said that representing the people of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States was the highest honour that he could possible imagine, and it is certainly nothing that I imagined, but it will be my highest honour, as well,” said Mr Kirk.
He is expected to be sworn in on Friday and will serve until 19 January.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8273651.stm
wbboei Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
—————————-
Yes. It is the kind of backroom deal that throws the good guy under the bus with fatal results.
The question I am not clear on is the whether the dollars loss of preeminence will undermine the forces of globalization.
White House brands Gordon Brown snub claim ‘absurd’Senior US official denies there has been any snub to the British PM after Barack Obama turned down five requests from Downing Street to hold a bilateral meeting
September 24, 2009
The White House today attempted to shore up Gordon Brown’s global image after it emerged that the US president, Barack Obama, turned down no fewer than five requests from Downing Street to hold a bilateral meeting at the United Nations in New York or at the G20 summit starting in Pittsburgh today. A senior White House official actively denied there had been any snub to the British prime minister, describing the claim as “absurd”.
The issue threatened to overshadow today’s events as Brown was forced to insisted that Britain’s “special relationship” with the States remained strong. Brown said: “I talked to President Obama. I talked to him before I came to the meetings here. I talked to him at the meetings. “I had a long talk with him after Monday’s meeting. We are meeting today; we are chairing two meetings. “The special relationship is strong and strengthening. And it’s strengthening because there is a common purpose.” He added: “We are dealing with exactly the same challenges, and we see things in very similar ways. “We are about to make quite big changes to the way the international community operates to deal with these problems, and that is America and Britain working more closely together than ever.”
Brown lurched from being hailed as a global statesman to intense embarrassment last night, after it emerged that the prime minister was reduced to grabbing a 15-minute chat with the US president in the UN’s kitchens. The move came after the president turned down no fewer than five requests from Downing Street to hold a bilateral meeting at the United Nations in New York or at the G20 in Pittsburgh.
The prime minister, eager to portray himself as a leading player on the international stage in America this week, was also forced to play down suggestions from inside his own party that he might step down early, either due to ill health or deteriorating eyesight.
There have been tensions between the White House and No 10 for weeks over Brown’s handling of the Scottish government’s decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Brown’s efforts to secure a prestigious primetime slot for his keynote speech at the general assembly in New York were also thwarted when the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, delivered a 100-minute speech to the UN, massively running over Brown’s 15-minute slot. Brown had not only been seeking a bilateral meeting with Obama, but feelers were also sent out to hold a joint press conference, an event that would have boosted Brown’s efforts to offer himself as a linchpin of international diplomacy. Government sources said that Britain even changed its policy on swine flu immunisation in Africa to match that of the Obama administration last week in an attempt to rebuild relations.
No 10 denied there had been any hint of a snub, saying Obama and Brown had plenty of chances to talk as they sat next to one another at the summits. They insisted they were working closely on issues such as future economic regulation, bankers’ bonuses, nuclear non-proliferation and climate change. Brown himself insisted: “I do say that the special relationship is strong, it continues to strengthen.”
But Obama has held bilateral meetings in New York with the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and the new Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama.
News of the five spurned approaches compounded a miserable day for Brown at home yesterday which saw a parliamentary aide resign over the prime minister’s refusal to sack Lady Scotland, the attorney general, after she was fined £5,000 for employing an illegal immigrant, as well as a withering attack by the former home secretary Charles Clarke. Stephen Hesford, the Labour MP for Wirral West, told Brown in a resignation letter: “In my view, the facts of the case do not matter. It is the principle which counts, particularly at a time when the public’s trust of Whitehall is uncertain to say the least. We have to be seen to be accountable.”
Brown was also savaged by Clarke, who told the London Evening Standard that in his view Brown’s leadership risked letting “the whole Labour ship crash on to the rocks of May 2010 [the expected date of the general election] and sink for a very long time”. He said he hoped rumours that Brown would quit would come true. “I think his own dignity ought to look to that kind of solution.”
In two interviews, Brown was forced for the first time to field questions about his health. “My sight is not at all deteriorating,” he told NBC. Asked on BBC Radio 5 Live whether he might quit for health reasons, the prime minister replied: “I am healthy and I am very fit. I run a lot to keep fit and I will continue to keep fit. “I keep going. I have got a job to do. I have got work to do. We have got to meet this challenge.”
In his own speech to the UN, Obama promised an end to the unilateralism marked by the previous Bush administration, an approach that saw the US and Britain working in tandem. In remarks that suggest Obama will focus on broadening American alliances across the globe, he said: “The time has come for the world to move in a new direction … A new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Last week, the White House had unusually briefed that Obama had told Brown in a phone conversation that he disapproved of the release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds, something No 10 had not highlighted. Megrahi was released on the basis that he had three months to live, and then received a hero’s welcome as he returned to Tripoli.
guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/24/gordon-brown-usa
It is fascinating to watch these Ted Kennedy disciples pretend that they and he are something they never were: honorable people. Who gives a damn what that Teds last wish was. Besides I do not believe it. Knowing Ted as we do, I rather suspect it was something caral for the old gipper. William Kennedy Smith could shed some light on that subject.
Brown is soon to be toast.
100% correct Jan…let them prosecute Muslim war crimes in all over the world and leave Israel alone as she simply defends herse;f from these barbarians. Obama is a making a joke out of our country and humiliating our true allies to appease his Muslim breathren.
“He (Sen Kennedy) often said that representing the people of Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States was the highest honour that he could possible imagine . . .
———————————–
Yea? Tell it to the family who lost a daughter. They were Massachusetts citizens. Where was the honor in that? Lion of the senate. Or perhaps the jackal with seniority.
White House brands Gordon Brown snub claim ‘absurd’Senior US official denies there has been any snub to the British PM after Barack Obama turned down five requests from Downing Street to hold a bilateral meeting
—————————-
Marginalizing Britain? Oh, that’s right, they are an ally.
Instead of improving U.S. relationships with other countries, obama is alienating it’s allies and rewarding it’s enemies.
“humiliating our true allies to appease his Muslim breathren.”
—————————–
It doesn’t get any clearer than that.
There is another way to look at this. If this administration is simply a shill for big business–which the weight of the evidence suggests, then Britain may be a strategic ally in one sense, but they are an economic competitor to general electric, goldman sacks and oil interests in this country. If that is how they are viewed then this business dominated administration may be seeking to decouple the relationship at least in certain areas. I suspect the welfare of his corporate masters has far more to do with what Obama does, than any sense of patriotism or least of all the welfare of the American People. He through them under the bus right after the innaugeration. They served their purpose which was to elect him and now they are just in the way at best. At worst they are the cash cow and guarantor of the improvident promises he makes and the mindless policies he pursues. Stop counting the number of times he says “I” Howard Fineman. You and your ilk in the press put him there.
For example, I have been told by an Iranian friend that Britain has played Washington like a harp on Iran. We get no oil from them today whereas Britain does. They line up with us in the beginning with a tough stand, and then make secret deals with Iran behind out back. They do not want us doing business with Iran. Russia has similar motivations. Those interests are threatened by a possible Israeli attack. Therefore, these economic competitors have reason to consider economic sanctions. It has nothing to do with what the vainglorious messiah says. It has everything to do with protection of their strategic interests. If they did not have reason to fear an Israeli attack against Tehran over the nuclear power issue they would stand pat on a winning hand. But if we get sanctions, and those sanctions produce a softening in the Iranian position then mindless idiots and propagandists will line up and say Barack did it when in fact he did not, and damned near blew a winning hand. He is a bumbling fool.
As a matter of fact, this release of the terrorist thing is yet another example of what my Iranian friend is talking about. Cut a behind the scenes deal with the dictator for oil. But when it comes to the bait and switch tactic they are pikers compared to barack. His duplicity is peerless.
I caught the first part of Netanhayu’s speech in the treatment chair and it was very powerful.
He came equipped with props including the original drawings of the Buchenwald concentration camp and a signed copy of the German policy to wipe out the jewish population.
I would like to see the whole thing.
Thank you basil,
I look forward to watching it later.
More information…and a picture that says everything…
SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
Netanyahu Blasts Ahmadinejad at U.N.
By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS
Associated Press
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu holds up Nazi documents during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a blistering attack on the floor of the United Nations Thursday on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying the hearing granted the Iranian president the night before amounted to a “disgrace of the U.N. charter.”
Mr. Netanyahu dramatically held up copies of minutes of the meeting of Nazi officials in 1942 where plans were made for the extermination of the Jews, as well as constructions plans of Nazi concentration camps. “Are these protocols lies?” he asked, waving them in his hand. “Are the successive German governments that have kept these documents for posterity all liars?”
He opened his remarks by saying that the greatest threat to the U.N. effort to prevent a repetition of the carnage of the World War II is the “assault on truth.”
“Yesterday the president of Iran stood at this very podium and spewed his anti-Semitic rants,” he said. “Just a few days earlier he claimed that the Holocaust was a lie.” He then described how he had obtained the documents he held up before the assembly.
“Nearly one-third of all Jews at the time perished in the Holocaust,” he said. “Nearly every family was affected, including my own.” Mr. Netanyahu continued about Mr. Ahmadinejad, “Perhaps some of you think this man and his odious regime only threaten the Jews. Well, if you think that you are wrong, dead wrong. “What starts as attacks on Jews always ends up engulfing others … this regime embodies the extremes of Islamic fundamentalism.”
He concluded his remarks by quoting Winston Churchill, and his warnings about mounting threats in the run-up to World War II.
“The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront these forces or just accommodate them,” he said.
online.wsj.com/article/SB125381222942238247.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
And Fox’s review is even more thorough. Bravo Netanyahu!
Netanyahu Condemns U.N. for Allowing Ahmadinejad to Deliver Address
foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/24/netanyahu-condemns-allowing-ahmadinejad-deliver-address/
An excellent rebuttal to Mr. Obama I would say.
wbboei, I am going to check out this Rohatyn, the first search gave me information that says Felix backed Ross Perot and by doing that he lost out in the Clinton adminstration. So this tells me he is a Clinton hater.
Just on Fox, Hillary and Biden are differing on Afnamistan, somebody on FOx says that Hillary is right, she believes we need to take the Taliban. We all know that the dictators want to save the Taliban. We will see if the Muslim POTUS will stand with his brothers.
confloyd,
Hillary and Biden have held differing views on this for a while. I read a while back that she was in favor of sending in more troops and more funding to get the job back (not popular with the dims) and he wants to pull back.
back = done
Comic Relief.
This guy illustrates what I think are BO’s two personalities, one for AA’s and one for everyone else.
VERY FUNNY.
A news reporter goes off script and reverts to character during a story when a wasp or mosquito flies into his mouth.
www dot youtube dot com/watch?v=BUS6nKpddec&feature=player_embedded
Here you go Wbboei, this is from Rense, but it is definitely what I have been saying where the country is headed. Larouche hate, HATES this Rohatyn guy. He has some pretty awful partners, most are republicans. As I have been saying that Obama is a Rethug hoax, he is in bed with the Pinochet types. They have Hillary where they want her, out of the financial area of the govt. and they are using her ability to maintain the good will of the countries she has visited. WE ARE SO SCREWED!
Rudman Running Obama
Barak Obama Fronts Wall Street’s Infrastructure
Swindle – What Change Really Means
By Bruce Marshall
2-17-8
Do not be fooled! Barak Obama’s call for National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank (NIRB) does not signal the return of the Democratic Party to the values of FDR and a revival of the Constitutional prerogative to ‘promote the general welfare’, but would rather provide more welfare for Wall Street and worse. Obama’s plan is nothing more than the direct means of instituting the Rohatyn-Rudman National Investment Corporation (NIC) plan called for in 2005, which in essence is a revival of Mussolini’s methods of corporatist control of the state in a politically correct post modern fashion..
When Senator Obama states that his National Investment Reinvestment Bank will magically turn $60 billion into trillions of dollars as he did in his Feb 13th Jamesville, WI speech, one can easily realize that the only way that this can happen is through the perverse magic of Wall Street. What would happen is that bonds floated by the NIRB will be bought on the open market, to then be speculated upon, securitized as derivatives, traded and ultimately used as collateral on the newly built infrastructure. What we will see is the emergence of an infrastructure bubble to replace the mortgage bubble, propped up by initial government expenditures towards infrastructure. This is just the start as Obama will fund the feel good ‘carbon credit’ swap to be the next blast of hot air to make Wall Street giddy. This is a key insight to a true understanding of what is going on. Bailout the financial powers with a clever plan that will raise money to then buy up hard assets, in other words the remaining wealth of our nation, as the meltdown crisis of over a quadrillion in derivatives losses grows and grows..
Besides artificially propping up the markets, Obama’s NIRB, as an initiation of the Rohatyn/Rudman infrastructure investment model, opens the door to the privatization of public assets. International predators and asset-strippers want to buy up public highways and impose cutthroat tolls, as they are already doing in many states. Then they run the turnpikes into the ground as cash cows while they mercilessly bilk the users. Privatization is a key goal of the Anglo-American financiers behind this scheme. Both the NIC and NIRB rely on the new darling of the markets, PPPs, known as public private partnerships. PPPs are the means by which market forces will dictate, and that is the word, the implementation of these projects. The argument is that the PPP will keep costs down, but in reality only because the private corporations, now controlling the public sector, will own the assets of what is being constructed. The PPP model is none other than the model implemented by Mussolini in his fascist corporate state. The creation of NIRB funds hark back to Hjalmar Schact’s ‘MEFO’ bills that created the speculative bubble of money so that the National Socialists could rearm Germany and fight World War II..
Since 9/11 America has certainly turned into a top-down police state, but true post-modern fascism requires a popular movement to usher it into power. Bush has created a dictatorship out of the Presidency, now the next step towards fascism is being marketed to exploit the desire for change. The depressed national mood, due to the war and economic recession/depression has compromised sane reasoning and courageous opposition needed now more than ever. This has created the conditions for a newcomer to magically appear with a message of hope, using the mantra ‘Change’, wrapped in a swooning fever that has infected the young and left liberal excuse machines, such as ‘Move On’ who were never serious about stopping Bush/ Cheney and the war.
Since he passed his audition at the Democratic convention in 2004, Senator Obama has been taken over by George Soros and other hedge fund millionaires to launch a campaign out of nowhere, based on nothing but rhetoric and Wall Street millions. As darling of the rich elitist Kennedy/Kerry/Dean wing of the Democratic Party, Obama’s pseudo-Camelot will deliver Wall Street and the Anglo-American financiers the goods while disguised in a patina of racial teflon and faux populism from the upper crust. For substance ask, where is the bill in the Senate by Kennedy/Kerry/Obama calling for a freeze on all foreclosures? Where’s their filibuster against the war? Where is a real minimumn wage in the form of a living wage? Where is impeachment of Bush-Cheney? Why did Senator Obama move against raising heating oil assistance to the poor in the recent spending bill?
The answer to this last question, besides Rohatyn, is Obama’s top economics controller, Austan Goolsbee, a sinister Skull & Bones, Friedmanite Chicago School free trade/free market economist who has delivered the real answer to the question of the difference between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton. Goolsbee stated on CNBC that Obama is more market friendly more in the pocket of Wall Street. This is precisely the establishment’s secret fear of Hillary Clinton that she might act as her heroine Eleanor Roosevelt, to implement a post modern New Deal that would oppose austerity measures against programs that help the poor. That she would fund essential public services, like hospitals and schools, and provide universal health care available to all. The greatest fear is that she might act like FDR to now start regulating the markets starting with a 1% Tobin tax which could eliminate the income tax burden for everyone earning less than $125,000 year with plenty of money to fund the basic social programs of a civilized and truly decent society.
Now Obama, with economic advisers such as David Cutler, who believes that rising health care prices are good for the economy, and Jeffrey Liebman, who wants to partially privatize social security, you see that Obama’s MBAs will be quite good at implementing the vision of the Democratic godfather Felix Rohatyn (ex-Lazard Freres) and Republican Warren Rudman, an proponent of savage austerity and the wrecking of entitlements.. Their obsession with balanced budgets, privatization, and asset stripping will be given new cover as the United States is dissolved into one great corporatist PPP.
Yes, we do need infrastructure, but the reason we have an infrastructure crisis is because people like Rudman and Rohatyn have influenced thinking against infrastructure projects because it would get in the way of their balanced budget mania and plans to loot the economy. Now they have a new solution and salesman. Watch out!
Remember it was Rudman who was a key figure in the conservative revolution around Gingrich. The nefarious interest of Rohatyn is even more sinister considering that this is the fellow who was part of the international team supporting fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet, where Rohatyn’s social security privatization scheme was first tried. Soon a limited revised version of social security privatization will be introduced by Obama when an alarm is pulled by Wall Street during a Obama Presidency. In the 1970’s Rohatyn became the actual dictator of New York City under Big Mac (the 1975 Municipal Assistance Corporation), trumping the city government, as a financial czar who cared more about the city’s bond rating than lives, cutting essential services, including many inner-city hospitals in a mad example of a PPP. Rohatyn, who is also recognized as the money bags behind the pro-Obama Democratic Leadership Council, is also a big proponent of military privatization which is another step towards feudal fascism. No wonder the Democrats have not stopped the war; it is good for their business arrangements too.
While Senator Obama says that he will stop the war and use that money to initially finance the NIRB and his green initiatives, this will do nothing to stop the speculative forces that are causing the present hyperinflationary bubble. Will Obama stand up to the speculators whose gambling is responsible for up to 40% of the price of every gallon of gasoline? Not likely.
Sure the NIRB will create some low-wage jobs, but the PPP arrangement will make certain that organized labor does not get assertive about living wages and benefits, all the while private companies welcome a work force of illegal immigrants who will do much of the work for virtual slave wages as is already the case.
So, what is to be done? First, we need a real debate towards electing a President and Congress who will confront the crisis, the real issues surrounding the present meltdown of the derivatives bubble and what that means for the entire economy. The sub-prime mortgage collapse is the tip of the iceberg. If Obama prevails, Americans will find that like the SS Titanic, the USA does not carry enough life boats that are not already owned by the bankers. Congress must come to reassert its constitutionally mandated sovereignty, by taking steps to federalize the Federal Reserve, regulate the markets, save the essential banking interests of the people, and then create the money with which to create honest investment into our nation’s infrastructure to thus promote the general welfare of all
THE title to the above article is Soros, Rudman and Rohatyn running Obama.
wbboei, I am going to check out this Rohatyn, the first search gave me information that says Felix backed Ross Perot and by doing that he lost out in the Clinton adminstration.
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That is a surprise. It does not square with my understanding of the man. It came from LRs number one man, who is very accurate and a master researcher. But R is an uber capitalist, and matchmaker with Wall Street, then why would he support a Wall Street basher like Perot. Perot was a bush hater–we know that for a fact. And he did not like Clinton. But it gives me pause.
The best way to test our understanding is to find out who Rohatyn supported in 2004. If it was anyone but Kerry then my theory is wrong. See if you can find that out.
I now see your post. Then my theory is correct.
I think that R’s support for Perot may have been an effort to break the back of the traditional democratic party, and thereby open the door for this big business hard left coaliton centering around Kennedy to take over the party. Creative destruction. R is a traitor.
Here’s another Wbboei, I found a site called Mukety.com, I can’t get to it. It supposed to show the links between Rohatyn/soros/rudman.
You did see what that last article said about Hillary, did you not?? I am not sure about Perot, but will look.
Here’s another interesting article, most have been scrubbed very well!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Muckety White House Connections and the Slippery Slope to P3 Corporatism
Muckety.com is a website that allows searches and displays of relationships between entities such as persons, organizations, government agencies, etc. Click here for an example of a search for Timothy Geithner’s relationship to Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Hedge Funds, for example. To do advanced searches, simply use the word “and” between multiple entities. If you search for Rohatyn and Soros and Obama, though, beware that the number of connections will literally black out the entire page so you have to be a little more selective if you want to “follow the money”.
It’s a family affair. Rohatyn is involved with House Speaker Pelosi as not only a financial backer and economic advisor, and Soros with Obama as a major contributor, and both Rohatyn and Soros are successful investors who are equally qualified to participate in Public Private Partnership relationships with the Obama administration. The following is an excerpt from today’s Institutional Investor:
Nick Rohatyn’s very connected hedge fund
Onetime wunderkind Nick Rohatyn, who made his name building J.P. Morgan’s emerging-markets business, is assembling a hedge fund backed by a group of business and banking luminaries. The biggest star of all: his daddy.
Rohatyn’s new money management firm, Rohatyn Group, has begun raising money for a hedge fund specializing in emerging-markets investments. New hedge funds are a dime a dozen, but Rohatyn Group has assembled a glittering global advisory board that seems likely to attract attention and money.
The list is topped by Felix Rohatyn, famed Lazard Frères investment banker and former U.S. ambassador to Paris.
Daddy Rohatyn made news with his partner Warren Rudman in this Washington Post article titled It’s Time to Rebuild America – A Plan for Spending More — and Wisely — on Our Decaying Infrastructure from on December 13, 2005:
The shortfall in investment is aggravated by the fact that most infrastructure money is given out by formulas that do not force all projects to be evaluated on consistent or rational terms. The solution to both issues could begin with a national investment corporation (NIC) that would be the window through which states and groups of states and localities would request financing or grants for all infrastructure projects requiring federal participation. It could, over time, replace the existing dedicated trust funds, as well as address new missions for America’s public infrastructure programs, including renovation of public school buildings.
The NIC could use its financial power to bring about improvements in policy. Funds for new highways, airports or water projects would not be granted unless modern technology, appropriate user fees and other non-structural solutions had been brought to bear. Capital grants to individual school districts would be contingent on adopting management and human resource practices that would improve school performance.
The NIC should have the authority to issue bonds with maturities of up to 50 years to finance infrastructure projects. The bonds would be guaranteed by the federal government. [emphasis mine]
It all sounds pretty good, unless we look back into Rohatyn’s past and reputation as described on Democratic Underground last year:
“Democrat” moneybags Rohatyn was the leading backer of Gen. Augosto Pinochet’s bloody fascist coup in Chile in the 1970s, along with “Republican” fixer George Schultz. Jesse Jackson, Sr. for years has pushed Rohatyn’s and Schultz’s “economic infrastructure” policies which call for private financial interests buying up and controlling public infrastructure, and for drastic austerity against public budgets as a whole–it’s all modeled on Pinochet’s economics, and on Mussolini’s Italian “corporatist” fascism earlier.
What do we mean by Mussolini’s Italian “corporatist” fascism? It almost sounds antithetical, since fascism is statism and corporatism is corporate control, but Mussolini himself said the two ultimately went together like peanut butter and chocolate in an essay he wrote in 1935 titled Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions:
The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction giv