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Jenbluenow
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 Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:59 am Post subject: I am sooo freaked out |
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My friend Christy sent me a link to a movie about radical muslims in America. These guys are absolutely nuts...
they want to take over our country. |
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Ekid
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| Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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Well what do you expect ? you are bombing the hell outta their country
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Abe
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| Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Ekid wrote: | | Well what do you expect ? you are bombing the hell outta their country |
Then why the hell aren't they living there?
Ironically, those soldiers were incredibly self-centered for fighting in WW2, which is the real reason why they were good. They did not make a sacrifice; they valued fighting for their for freedom more than being enslaved. Altruism is not good and it does not work. Why did Hitler start WW2? For the "good" of mankind; to create a perfect race. Why did the economy tank? Because of banks being forced to give out loans to the "needy" rejects(see CR act of 1977). F'n parasite.
Many want to blame Bush for the war in Iraq but he was just defending America's freedom from terrorists. dems-wmd-before-iraq
No what it means is that Bush was not alone and most of Obama's key advisors were just as much a part as Bush was in the war.
http://video.xanga.com/PastorBlastor/0854c856823/video.html?rewrite=true
This article shows Obama's lack of knowledge of history.
| Quote: | 'Obama’s Message to Muslims Called ‘Pathetic’
In his interview with a Saudi-owned TV channel on Tuesday, President Barack Obama referred to “an illusionary past” in the Muslim world that was in fact plagued by turmoil, a leading Middle Eastern expert declared.
Amir Taheri, in a New York Post column headlined “Pathetic Message,” said Obama “looked to the past rather than the future” when he told an Al-Arabiya interviewer he wanted a return to “the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago.”
But 30 years ago, Taheri noted, American diplomats were being held hostage in Iran, Soviet troops were seeking to annex Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein was preparing to invade Iran, Saudi Arabia was under siege by Muslim militants, and Syrian troops were preparing to invade Lebanon.
Iranian-born Taheri, whose books include “Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism,” wrote in the Post that “other features of this ‘golden age’” were “the seizure of power by mullahs in Tehran, the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the coming to power of communists in the Horn of Africa, the military coup in Turkey, the first Islamist terror attacks in Algeria, unprecedented waves of repression in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the imposition of military rule in Pakistan.”
Twenty years ago saw the U.S. arming the mujahedin in Afghanistan, Iraq gassing thousands of Kurds and preparing to invade Kuwait, Iranian mullahs arming Hezbollah units in Lebanon, Turkey launching all-out attacks on Kurdish secessionists, and the Libyan terror network killing American soldiers in Europe and blowing up U.S. jets.
Meanwhile Obama offered only “trite” remarks regarding the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and did not offer any support “to democratic forces facing crucial elections in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Algeria,” observed Taheri, who has written for more than two dozen publications around the world.
“Nor was there any nod toward reformers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.”
Obama sought to portray himself as a “bridge” between the U.S. and the Muslim world, according to Taheri, who added:
“Casting himself in the role of a ‘bridge’ and dreaming of a return to an illusionary past, Obama appeared unsure of his own identity and confused about the role that America should play in global politics.” |
1993 - The first World Trade Center bombing
1995 - Attempted crashing of plane on White House
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing
1996 - Khobar Towers bombing - Saudi Arabia
1998 - U.S. Embassy bombings Kenya/Tanzania
2000 - USS Cole Bombing - Yemen
| Quote: | How Bill Clinton Compromised America's National Security
by Buzz Patterson
An excerpt from “Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America's National Security.”
The White House Situation Room was buzzing. It was fall 1998 and the National Security Council (NSC) and the “intelligence community” were tracking the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the shadowy mastermind of terrorist attacks on American targets overseas. “They’ve successfully triangulated his location,” yelled a “Sit Room” watch stander. “We’ve got him.”
Beneath the West Wing of the White House, behind a vaulted steel door, the Sit Room staff sprang into action. The watch officer notified National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, “Sir, we’ve located bin Laden. We have a two-hour window to strike.”
Characteristic of the Clinton administration, the weapons of choice would be Tomahawk missiles. No clandestine “snatch” by our Special Operations Forces. No penetrating bombers or highspeed fighter aircraft flown by our Air Force and Navy forces. No risk of losing American lives.
Berger ambled down the stairwell and entered the Sit Room. He picked up the phone at one of the busy controller consoles and called the president. Amazingly, President Clinton was not available. Berger tried again and again. Bin Laden was within striking distance. The window of opportunity was closing fast. The plan of attack was set and the Tomahawk crews were ready. For about an hour Berger couldn’t get the commander in chief on the line. Though the president was always accompanied by military aides and the Secret Service, he was somehow unavailable. Berger stalked the Sit Room, anxious and impatient.
Finally, the president accepted Berger’s call. There was discussion, there were pauses—and no decision. The president wanted to talk with his secretaries of defense and state. He wanted to study the issue further. Berger was forced to wait. The clock was ticking. The president eventually called back. He was still indecisive. He wanted more discussion. Berger alternated between phone calls and watching the clock. The NSC watch officer was convinced we had the right target. The intelligence sources were conclusive. The president, however, wanted a guaranteed hit or nothing at all. This time, it was nothing at all. We didn’t pull the trigger. We “studied” the issue until it was too late—the window of opportunity closed. Al-Qaeda’s spiritual and organizational leader slipped through the noose.
This lost bin Laden hit typified the Clinton administration’s ambivalent, indecisive way of dealing with terrorism. Ideologically, the Clinton administration was committed to the idea that most terrorists were misunderstood, had legitimate grievances, and could be appeased, which is why such military action as the administration authorized was so halfhearted, and ineffective, and designed more for “show” than for honestly eliminating a threat.
When on February 26, 1993, Egyptian and Palestinian terrorists blew a hole six stories deep under the North Tower of the World Trade Center, President Clinton had been in office thirty-eight days. Eight months after President Clinton left office, al-Qaeda terrorists flew hijacked U.S. commercial airliners into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon. The towers came down, as the terrorists finished the job begun eight years earlier. From 1993 to 2001, Islamic terrorists attacked American targets ten separate times. If there’s anything beyond scandal that we should most remember about the Clinton years, this is it: They were the years that terrorists brought their war to the United States.
The Clinton administration never responded decisively, even when given the opportunity, as it was obliged to do, with its own “war against terrorism.” If we had a national interest in sending troops to Haiti and Rwanda, certainly the Clinton administration had an obligation in the name of our national security to deploy and use the military resources necessary to deal with al-Qaeda as its deadly presence became known and its declared war on America became public and costly. That it did not respond is a consequence for which the Clinton administration is, in my view, extremely culpable. By failing to answer the threat as it should have, the Clinton administration was guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty to the safety of our country, which the president was sworn to defend.
Compare this with the decisive reactions to fight terrorism under President Reagan. On October 8, 1985, a group of Palestinian terrorists seized the Italian luxury liner Achille Lauro off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. The terrorists were seeking the release of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. In the course of their hijacking, they would kill an American, sixty-nine-year-old Leon Klinghoffer.
The direction from the White House down to the Pentagon and on to the operational units was swift and clear. Within a few hours, I received a phone call at home, quickly packed for an unknown period of time and destination, and was flying a C-141 from Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, to pick up members of the First Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, as it was known then, or Delta Force.
We flew nonstop to Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily and set up operations for the potential interdiction and seizure of the ship. The rapidity and strength of executive decision-making found refuge in the heart of every airman and soldier involved. There was no question as to our intent or conviction.
The terrorists left the boat under safe haven provided by Egypt two days later and boarded an Egyptian airliner bound for the sanctity of Tunisia. On October 11, U. S. Navy F-14 jets intercepted the airliner and forced it to land at Sigonella. Members of the Delta Forced poured from a following C-141, surrounded the jet, and quickly took the terrorists into captivity. In all, three days from presidential directive to successful outcome.
In another instance, the La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin was bombed on April 5, 1986, killing one American soldier and wounding more than two hundred, of which at least sixty were fellow U.S. servicemen. Within hours, the U.S. pinpointed Libya as the perpetrator through intercepted telephone calls. Two days later, my crew and I got the call and began the long flight east. This time we were hauling the armaments, the missiles, and the rocket motors to be installed on U.S. fighters at bases in the United Kingdom. When we arrived, we were met by an already established twenty-four-hour base of operations. Again it was clear: Here was conviction and resolve. The plans were being laid out, and every airman knew the situation and embraced it.
On April 15, the U.S. launched air strikes at the heart of Libya. Eighteen U.S. Air Force F-111 aircraft launched from British attack sites in Tripoli, firing missiles at military barracks, headquarters, the Tripoli airport, and commando training bases. Fifteen U.S. Navy A-6 and A-7 attack jets hit military targets in Benghazi.
President Reagan addressed the nation. “Our evidence is direct, it is precise, and it is irrefutable. Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again. . . . He [Muammar Qaddafi] counted on America to be passive,” declared the president. “He counted wrong.”
Compare these successes with the legacy of the Clinton administration. The truck bomb that exploded beneath the World Trade Center in early 1993 killed six Americans and injured more than one thousand. Initially, the Clinton administration adopted the theory that it was a simple criminal act and handled the bombing as a law enforcement issue. President Clinton even warned Americans against “overreacting.” In an interview with MTV he described the attack as having been perpetrated by someone who “did something really stupid.” In no way did the administration see this terrorist attack as rivaling in importance its preferred issues of “it’s the economy, stupid,” socializing health care, and lifting the ban on homosexuals in the military.
Treating the bombing solely as a law enforcement issue created barriers preventing an effective resolution. Laws protecting grand jury secrecy neutralized the involvement of the intelligence agencies, in effect obstructing the identification and pursuit of a growing international terror network. Further complicating things, the administration’s law enforcement team was not yet in place, because of the ill-organized and scandal-ridden selection process of President Clinton’s cabinet.
Foreboding clues emerged throughout the World Trade Center investigation, pointing to a larger, more complex conspiracy. Testifying to the House International Relations Committee in April 1995, terrorism expert Steven Emerson stated that there was evidence “pointing to the involvement of Usama bin Laden, the ex-Afghan Saudi Mujahideen supporter now taking refuge in the Sudan.”
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who’d held three U.S. visas and was also on the State Department’s watch list for his involvement in the assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, was eventually convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment as the ringleader of the bombing. The same fate was handed down to five of his associates.
More important, an ancestral tree of terrorism was emerging. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a master bomb builder, was captured in Pakistan on February 7, 1995. He was implicated in the first World Trade Center bombing and accused of planting the bomb that exploded aboard a Filipino commercial airliner en route to Japan in 1995. He was arrested with files connecting him to al-Qaeda and financing through bin Laden’s brother-in-law. Most significant, he was suspected of developing plans to use commercial airliners as weapons, specifically to blow up the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, among other targets. Filipino intelligence sources had intercepted terrorist plans, which the terrorists had code-named Operation Bojinka, or “loud bang” in Serbo-Croatian. But this developing picture was not welcomed by the Clinton administration, which took a heavily lawyerly approach—as suited the backgrounds of most of the administration—toward these developments, rather than an approach more suitable to our national security.
The single event that would forever underscore Clinton’s foreign policy efforts occurred on October 3, 1993—the Black Hawk Down incident that pitted American forces against warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, the emerging power behind the guerrilla warfare being fought in and around Mogadishu. The Black Hawk Down military failure shaped and reinforced the president’s unfocused posturing involving military action abroad; his preferred means of operation was showing the flag while not incurring the risk or the cost of having to support actual combat. Clinton’s response four days after Mogadishu was to announce the withdrawal of American combat troops and most logistics units. He declared that the U.S. role in Somalia would end by March 31, 1994.
This was true, even when, in November 1996, bin Laden confessed in an interview with the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper to his role in the heavy losses suffered by U.S. troops in Somalia. “The only non-Somali group which fought the Americans are the Arab Mujahedeen who were in Afghanistan,” he said. “There were successful battles in which we inflicted heavy losses against the Americans. We used to hunt them in Mogadishu.”
On March 8, 1995, a seemingly minor news account provided additional clues. Two U.S. consulate workers were killed in Karachi, Pakistan. Their van, with diplomatic license plates, was sprayed with bullets from men armed with AK-47 assault rifles. Speculation pointed to retaliation for the arrest and extradition of Ramzi Yousef. Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto called it “part of a well-planned campaign of terrorism.” President Clinton called the attack a “cowardly act” and sent an FBI team to Pakistan to investigate. Again, the administration chose to treat the latest act of terrorism as a law enforcement issue.
By 1995, the administration was paying close attention to bin Laden. He was a millionaire, associated with known terrorist groups, and he had openly detailed his hostility toward the United States. At this point, bin Laden had yet to be tied to the attacks at the World Trade Center or in Mogadishu. The government of Sudan, in an effort to improve its diplomatic standing with America, offered to turn the terrorist-supporting bin Laden over to the Saudis, but the Saudis refused to accept him, and President Clinton felt that U.S. legal action against bin Laden was as yet unwarranted.
In November 1995, a bomb exploded near a U.S. military training center in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Seven people were killed, including five Americans, and forty were wounded. It was the deadliest such attack since the Beirut bombings of 1983.
President Clinton reacted angrily to the news. He promised that the United States would “devote an enormous effort” to bringing the attackers to justice. The FBI sent a team of agents to investigate, but the agents soon became bogged down in Saudi bureaucracy. The Saudis eventually arrested four militants but beheaded them before the FBI could interrogate them.
Seven months after the bombing in Riyadh, on June 25, 1996, a truck bomb exploded outside Khobar Towers, the U.S. Air Force barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Nineteen airmen lost their lives and 515 were wounded. “The explosion appears to be the work of terrorists, and if that is the case, like all Americans, I am outraged by it,” President Clinton declared. “We will pursue this. . . . America takes care of our own. The cowards who committed this murderous act must not go unpunished.”
One month into my White House job, on June 30, 1996, I traveled with President Clinton to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, to attend one of the memorial services held in a large aircraft hangar for twelve of the slain airmen. It was a hot, muggy Florida morning, and on the way to the service President Clinton seemed strangely detached. Maybe it was the jet-lagging flight back from Europe that he’d just had. To me, he just seemed unaffected and unmoved.
We wound our way through the crowded hangar normally used for aircraft maintenance but now festooned with stars and stripes bunting. Injured survivors from the blast had been flown in from the Gulf. They sat in wheelchairs or were laid on gurneys in front of the stage. President Clinton stepped to the podium. In the spotlight, he suddenly became engaged and driven.
He invoked the Bible in a way that touched me as a career Air Force officer and as a Christian. He said, “There is a passage in Isaiah in which God wonders, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Isaiah answers, ‘Here I am Lord; send me.’ These men we honor today said to America, ‘Send me.’” Clinton then declared, “We will not rest in our efforts to capture, prosecute, and punish those who committed this evil deed. . . . America must not, and America will not, be driven from the fight against terrorism.” I believed him.
But there was no immediate response. The FBI concluded that Iran was behind the attack; administration officials suppressed the report. In pursuit of secret diplomatic initiatives to restore ties with Iran that would ultimately fail, the United States turned the other cheek.
A full five years later, on June 21, 2001, a federal grand jury in Washington indicted thirteen Saudis and a Lebanese for taking part in the attack. None were turned over to the United States, and extradition still appears unlikely.
During the summer of the 1996 attacks, I myself learned firsthand that the administration knew that terrorists were plotting to use commercial airliners as weapons. The president received a Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, every morning. It was a document encased in a smart leather folder, and emblazoned with the presidential seal, that contained the president’s daily intelligence update from the NSC. A senior NSC representative normally delivered it to the president. On weekends, at Camp David, and on vacations, the military aide was responsible for delivering and retrieving the brief.
One late-summer Saturday morning, the president asked me to pick up a few days’ worth of PDBs that had accumulated in the Oval Office. He gave them to me with handwritten notes stuffed inside the folders and asked that I deliver them back to the NSC.
I opened the PDB to rearrange the notes and noticed the heading “Operation Bojinka.” I keyed on a reference to a plot to use commercial airliners as weapons and another plot to put bombs on U.S. airliners. Because I was a pilot, this naturally grabbed my attention. I can state for a fact that this information was circulated within the U.S. intelligence community, and that in late 1996 the president was aware of it.
Shortly thereafter, the president appointed Vice President Gore to chair the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. The commission’s report, released in spring 1998, laid out several recommendations to improve airport security, one of which included establishing a system for profiling passengers. But the FAA chose not to comply, because of inevitable fears that profiling on the basis of ethnicity and national origin would run into legal grounds that would violate civil liberties. Another recommendation from the report emphasized the need for interagency cooperation—specifically, the sharing of information among the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Federal Aviation Administration—on suspected terrorists. Tragically, the findings were never implemented by the agencies involved.
On August 7, 1998, truck bombs exploded at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Two hundred and twenty-four people were killed, twelve of them Americans. More than five thousand were injured. President Clinton responded, “We will use all the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice, no matter what or how long it takes. . . . We are determined to get answers and justice.”
It was crystal clear that these attacks were tied to bin Laden. On August 20, the president ordered a retaliatory strike. Five U.S. warships in the Arabian Sea fired sixty Tomahawk cruise missiles at four suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan known to be used by bin Laden and his senior staff. From the Red Sea, two Navy warships fired another twenty missiles at the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant, in Sudan, suspected of manufacturing chemical weapons.
The attack on bin Laden failed. He escaped the missiles and was able to enjoy his safety as a guest of Afghanistan’s Taliban government. The success of the attack on the pharmaceutical factory was less clear. Intelligence officials had provided evidence that the plant could have been used for the development of VX nerve gas. At best, the strikes were a message; at worst, they were ineffective and insignificant.
In the wake of the retaliatory strikes, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted, “I think it’s important for the American people to understand that we are involved in a long-term struggle. This is, unfortunately, the war of the future.” But it was obvious to me that the Clinton administration went right back to business as usual; there was no follow-up, let alone any “war on terror.”
Two years later, on October 12, 2000, the final act of terrorism during the Clinton presidency occurred. Seventeen American sailors were killed and thirty-nine wounded off the coast of Yemen when terrorists floated a bomb-laden boat to the edge of the USS Cole and detonated it. Clinton’s response was muted. He called the attack “a despicable and cowardly act” and added, “We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable.” As in the embassy bombings, investigators quickly linked responsibility to bin Laden and his network, yet nothing more substantial was done.
In his eight years in office, President Clinton’s military response to the terrorist threats was negligible and did nothing to seriously address the problem, instead following a de facto course of drift, which allowed the terrorist network to grow in size and strength. The problem within the administration was, again, a complete and total blindness to the proper use of the military. Terrorism was, as I’ve said, treated as a law enforcement issue, and in that context, as a budgetary issue, it was addressed.
President Clinton tripled the budget for counterterrorism and established a cross-agency counterterrorism center. Terrorism “was absolutely a top priority for the Clinton administration. Not a day went by that we did not focus on this, and it was high on the president’s list, too,” claimed former national security advisor Sandy Berger. Maybe, but President Clinton never began, much less finished, a war on terrorism, because he never thought in terms of prosecuting a military campaign against terrorism, and he underestimated the rapidly evolving threat until it was too late.
As ever with President Clinton, it was domestic politics that “wagged the dog.” He did not want a war against terrorism as a focal point in his new administration, so he downplayed the first World Trade Center bombing. Later, the focal points were reelection or scandal management. Never in my experience at the Clinton White House were national security and a systematic campaign against terrorism a Clinton administration priority. And as an officer, I was shocked, because I had assumed that there was not a higher responsibility or priority for the commander in chief than the security of the nation. President Clinton proved my assumption was completely wrong.
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Mr. Patterson is the best-selling author of "Dereliction of Duty" and "Reckless Disregard."
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16961 |
I believe that the fantastic group who lived off oil for trade called the UN claims that if you are fired on you can shoot back.
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Ekid
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| Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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April 1995 bombing and the subsequent trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.
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tycoon
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Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 273
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| Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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Man Abe I can't believe you can't see the Bush corruption....What does it take?
It's just a coincidence that BILLIONS of dollars was made (and continuing...) by kbr whose principal just happens to be the Vice President of the US the driving force behind the INFORMATION that lead to the war.. wmd, etc.
we have been ripped off to the tune of TRILLIONS when it's all added up. The Republicans have no responsibility?????
Do you really believe that? |
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Abe
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Location: Fair Play Every Day
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| Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 3:31 am Post subject: |
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| tycoon wrote: | Man Abe I can't believe you can't see the Bush corruption....What does it take?
It's just a coincidence that BILLIONS of dollars was made (and continuing...) by kbr whose principal just happens to be the Vice President of the US the driving force behind the INFORMATION that lead to the war.. wmd, etc.
we have been ripped off to the tune of TRILLIONS when it's all added up. The Republicans have no responsibility?????
Do you really believe that? |
| Quote: | Let me help you tycoon, try reading some of my in the open forum thread.
My apologue for the length but this is important.
CULTURE
"The more interviews Speaker Pelosi gives explaining how vital the STD industry is to restarting the U.S. economy, the more I find myself hearing 'syphilis' every time she says 'stimulus.' In late September, America was showing the first signs of 'primary stimulus' â?? a few billion lesions popping up on the rarely glimpsed naughty bits of the economy: the subprime mortgage racket, the leverage kings. Now, the condition has metastasized in a mere four months into the advanced stages of 'tertiary stimulus,' with trillions of hideous, ever more inflamed pustules sprouting in every nook and cranny as the central nervous system of the body politic crumbles into total insanity -- until it seems entirely normal for the second in line of presidential succession to be on TV gibbering away about how vital the federalization of condom distribution is to economic recovery. The rules in this new 'post-partisan' era are pretty simple: If the Democratic Party wants it, it's 'stimulus.' If the Republican Party opposes it, it's 'politics.'" --columnist Mark Steyn
GOVERNMENT
"The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the House of Representatives to pass a bill spending $820 billion -- or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate. Only 10 percent of the 'stimulus' [is] to be spent on 2009. Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ (or both) members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions or other Democrat-controlled unions. This bill is sent to Congress after President Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long. According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote. Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for the president to have read the whole thing. For the amount spent, we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000. We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000. There has been pork-barrel politics since there has been politics, but the scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before -- and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation. ... This is more than pork-barrel -- this is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day. Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible government is only a distant echo of our forgotten ancestors." --writer, actor, economist and lawyer Ben Stein
LIBERTY
"For those on the right who still cling to the fantasy that Obama is a bipartisan centrist, I refer you to his recent statement that FDR did not do enough by way of government spending to end the Depression ... and his government-expansion-on-steroids, non-stimulus pork bill. The inevitable explosion of federal debt this legislation would cause is reason enough to oppose it, even if it were likely to stimulate the economy. But even some liberals are disputing its potential to stimulate. The hastily crafted bill, with its corrupt funding of ACORN and other favors, is a disgracefully irresponsible effort to expand the public sector, diminish the private sector, empower the autocrats, and further divest us of our individual liberties -- all at the expense of present and future generations." --columnist David Limbaugh
THE GIPPER
"All of us should remember that the federal government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control. I do not intend to make wildly skyrocketing deficits and runaway government simple facts of life in this administration. As I've said, our ills have come upon us over several decades, and they will not go away in days or weeks or months. But I want the American people to know that we have begun." --Ronald Reagan
RE: THE LEFT
"Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying 'to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,' his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic. Is it 'new' to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn't just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to 'restore' the 'same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago.' Astonishing.
In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. The two Balkan interventions -- as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) -- were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing? And what of that happy U.S.-Muslim relationship that Obama imagines existed 'as recently as 20 or 30 years ago' that he has now come to restore?
Thirty years ago, 1979, saw the greatest U.S.-Muslim rupture in our 233-year history: Iran's radical Islamic revolution, the seizure of the U.S. Embassy, the 14 months of America held hostage. ... Every president has the right to portray himself as ushering in a new era of this or that.
Obama wants to pursue new ties with Muslim nations, drawing on his own identity and associations. Good. But when his self-inflation as redeemer of U.S.-Muslim relations leads him to suggest that pre-Obama America was disrespectful or insensitive or uncaring of Muslims, he is engaging not just in fiction but in gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead." --columnist Charles Krauthammer
POLITICAL FUTURES
"This was the lead in [Thursday] afternoon's Chicago Tribune story, following the conviction of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich: 'The Illinois Senate voted to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office Thursday, marking the first time in the state's long history of political corruption that a chief executive has been impeached and convicted.' The vote to oust Blagojevich, who is a Democrat, was very close ... 59-0. The thing which struck me about the Trib's lead was the phrase 'the state's long history of political corruption.' What a wonderful legacy to the Republic that its fifth most populous State have a 'long history of corruption.' And how absolutely marvelous that the very state which has that 'long history of corruption' happens to the be the home state of ... Oh, my. Can it be? Yes! President Barack Obama. The only person ever to have served in the Illinois State Senate to have emerged with his robes unsoiled; his hands unsullied; his soul pure. It is as if you cannot just say his name. Angels have to sing it: Baaaaarrrrraaaaack Ohhhhhbaaaaaahhhhma.
Well, we'll see. The thing about Blagojevich I have disliked the most is how hard it is to remember how to spell his name. Sort of like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Or Albuquerque. Gray Davis was recalled in California. Elliott Spitzer resigned in New York. And now Rod Blogzoiub;zytch has been convicted of impeachment in Illinois. While they certainly do not have the corner on corruption and bad behavior, it seems to me that Democratic Governors are in a slump." --political analyst Rich Galen
Tax Cheat Daschle Favors “Federal Reserve for Health”
AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | February 1, 2009
The scandal has given critics an opportunity to examine not only Daschle’s tax cheating but his dangerous policy proposals…
Before his tax cheating came to light, former Senator Tom Daschle was expected to sail through the Senate and be confirmed as Obama’s new Secretary of Health and Human Services and director of the White House Office of Health Reform.
But while President Obama was bashing greed on Wall Street, in terms of the big bonuses paid to executives, the details of the Daschle tax scandal were starting to emerge. The scandal not only threatens to derail Daschle but undermine Obama’s national socialist health care plan.
Wall Street operator and Democratic Party moneybags Leo Hindery, who hired and paid Daschle millions of dollars and gave him a limousine and chauffeur, wrote an article for the Huffington Post in 2008 saying that he was endorsing Obama for president because the candidate believes in every American “once again paying his or her fair share” of taxes. That didn’t happen in Daschle’s case.
The scandal has given critics an opportunity to examine not only Daschle’s tax cheating but his dangerous policy proposals, including the establishment of a Federal Reserve-like national health care board to supervise and influence the nation’s health care system. “I propose a Federal Health Board, modeled loosely on the Federal Reserve System,” Daschle says in his book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.
Seen in the light of the current economic and financial crisis, brought about in part because of the easy credit and monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, Daschle’s proposal is obviously not only dumb but dangerous.
[color=red]Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute reports that the Obama federal economic “stimulus” bill, which has passed the House, includes $400 million for the Daschle “health care rationing board,” as he describes it.
Media in the Tank for Daschle
Last November, in one of several laudatory articles about Obama preparing to pick Daschle, Karen Tumulty of Time said, “It’s hard to imagine a more useful ally for Obama to help lead his bid for health-care reform…” Citing a road trip she went on with Daschle in South Dakota to examine poverty conditions, she explained, “The former Senate Democratic leader has an understanding of the nation’s health-care problem that comes not just from Senate [/color]hearing rooms or staff briefings.”
But over the last two years, as noted by Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico.com, Daschle has made nearly $5.3 million, including more than $200,000 from the health care industry.
Daschle was introduced at his confirmation hearing on January 8 by former Republican Senator Bob Dole, who works with Daschle at the Alston & Bird law and lobbying firm. Dole spoke of Daschle’s “integrity.”
Politico.com now reports that Senate Republicans are waiting to see if Daschle’s tax problems “become a major media feeding frenzy” before deciding whether to support or oppose him for the position of Secretary of Health & Human Services. In other words, it’s not whether he is a tax cheat that is important. It’s whether the media accurately portray him as a tax cheat and question the propriety of having someone of questionable character planning a federal takeover of the health care system.
But if they put the heat on him now, it would constitute an admission that their previous favorable coverage of Daschle had been superficial and slanted. Another complicating factor is that Daschle patron Hindery is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia School of Journalism. Other members include Suzanne Malveaux of CNN, Jill Abramson of the New York Times, James Kelly of Time Inc., and Richard Smith of Newsweek.
Daschle’s preference for federally-dictated and controlled health care is not a secret. According to the website of the law and lobbying firm where Daschle works, Daschle favors “the concept of a national board to oversee the U.S. health system, similarly to the way the Federal Reserve regulates the financial sector.”
In his book, Daschle says this would “create a public framework for a largely private health-care delivery system” and “develop the standards and structure” for health care in America. He explains, “If an independent board created a single set of standards for all of these [federal health care] programs, it would exert tremendous influence on every other provider and payer, even in the private sector.”
This is nothing less than a socialized health care system, in which the federal government dictates policies and decides on the rationing of care and treatments.
Ironically, the same website also says that one of Daschle’s areas of expertise is “taxes.”
Dubious Reviews
A favorable review of Daschle’s book declared that “Daschle’s solution lies in the Federal Reserve Board, which has overseen the equally complicated financial system with great success.”
Great success? Such a review must be a complete embarrassment to Daschle and his collaborators in the current circumstances.
The review, which was on the website of the pro-Democratic and George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP), was published on February 19, 2008, before the role of the Federal Reserve in the continuing economic crisis came in for serious examination and scrutiny. The Fed is now being sued by news organizations because it has covered up the nature of trillions of dollars in bank loans and has acted as if it is unaccountable to Congress or the American people.
This prescription for a total federal government takeover of the health care system was described in a quotation on the book cover as an example of Daschle offering “fresh thinking.” The quote is from then-Senator and now President Barack Obama. Another favorable quote about the book comes from Senator Harry Reid.
Then-Senator Obama’s entire statement of praise for the concept of a federal health board is that “Sen. Daschle brings fresh thinking to this problem, and his Federal Reserve for Health concept holds great promise for bridging this intellectual chasm and, at long last, giving this nation the health care it deserves.”
Great promise? Does Obama still hold to this discredited idea? This seems to be as newsworthy and significant as Daschle’s tax cheating. However, in the wake of the disclosure that the multi-millionaire former Democratic Senate Leader cheated on his taxes, Obama has said he will stand behind his nominee.
“Democrats are seeking to prevent the controversy from growing into a full-fledged media firestorm that could seriously threaten Daschle’s nomination…” Politico reported.
Daschle, who served as a “senior fellow” at CAP, seemed confident of the future when he wrote his book, having dedicated it to his grandchildren, who “will soon benefit from a new, high-value, and universal health-care system.”
Daschle’s Associates
The co-authors of the Daschle book were Scott S. Greenburger, a former reporter for the Boston Globe now working for the Ricchetti lobbying firm, and Jeanne Lambrew, who also worked at CAP. Ricchetti’s clients include several in the health care field, while Lambrew has been chosen as Deputy Director of the Obama White House Office of Health Reform.
During the Obama-Biden Transition period, Daschle was head of the Health Care Policy Working Group and Lambrew was a member of the group. Other members of the group were Lauren Aronson, Jenny Backus, Jonathan Blum, Jennifer Cannistra, Mark Childress, David Cutler, Elizabeth Engel, Dora Hughes, Terrell McSweeny, and Rahul Rajkumar.
While some of these individuals are considered knowledgeable, the use of the Federal Reserve as a model for health care “reform” obviously raises doubts about the judgment of Daschle and his associates, and of Obama in picking him.
It is not too late for the Senate to do its job and debate whether America wants a federal takeover of the health care system. The American people can weigh in on this controversy by calling their Senators at 202-224-3121.
The late-breaking “tax problems,” which Daschle concealed from President Obama and forced him to pay $128,203 in additional tax and $11,964 in interest, will definitely not become a feeding frenzy for the stable of news personalities at GE’s media properties MSNBC, CNBC, and NBC News. That’s because a GE subsidiary, GE Healthcare, paid Daschle big bucks―a reported $12,000―for one speech.
GE Healthcare, one of several healthcare companies that paid Daschle tens of thousands of dollars to speak to their organizations, stands to profit if Daschle is confirmed and pursues Obama’s plan for more federal involvement in the health care field. Indeed, a part of the Obama plan, which is a specialty of GE Healthcare, is the electronic processing of medical records.
Cashing In
Since he left the Senate in 2004, after being defeated for re-election, Daschle has cashed in big time by making $83,333 per month and $1 million a year from InterMedia Advisors, the firm headed by Hindery. On August 26, 2008, Hindery was on CNBC making the case that the election of Democrats in November would be better for Wall Street than a victory by Republicans.
The Senate Finance Committee has released a report on Daschle finding that he has been “a limited partner in InterMedia Partners of Englewood, CO and Chairman of its Executive Advisory Board,” and “an independent consultant to InterMedia Advisors.”
The “tax problems” included Daschle using a limousine and chauffeur from the firm and not reporting the services on his income tax forms. This was a violation of the law. Daschle also took illegal charitable deductions and failed to report some consulting fees to the IRS.
As in the case of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was also caught cheating on his taxes, these are being described as honest or unintentional mistakes by the Obama Administration.
Hindery had been supporting John Edwards for president, the rich trial lawyer who campaigned against poverty and was later discovered to have been cheating on his cancer-stricken wife. Hindery had been Edwards’ senior economic adviser.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) records disclose tens of thousands of dollars of contributions from Hindery to the Democratic Party and its candidates. These include several Senate Democrats who will be voting on Daschle’s nomination, such as Democratic Leader Harry Reid.
During the time that Daschle was a national co-chair of Obama’s presidential campaign, he was “a special public policy advisor” and “a member of the Legislative and Public Policy Group” at the Alston & Bird law and lobbying firm, in addition to his work at InterMedia Advisors.
Money for What?
But what exactly did he do for InterMedia, which invests in media companies? The firm’s website lists him as chairman of the firm’s “Advisory Board” but doesn’t explain precisely what this function entails. The same question occurred to Ed Duffy of the Denver News Examiner. He wrote, “The question I have is, why is a multi-media investment firm paying a man with zero experience running a multi-media company $1 million per year to give them advice on a part-time basis? The obvious answer is they expect to take advantage of his political connections.”
Another member of the InterMedia board is Bernard L. Schwartz, the controversial figure whose firm, Loral, a satellite communications company, was accused of helping Communist China’s rocket program. Loral paid a $20 million fine in the case.
Schwartz describes himself as “a life-long supporter of the Democratic Party” who “devotes time and resources to the development of policy and strategy at various partisan and non-partisan advocacy organizations.” He has contributed to such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, and the New America Foundation.
While the tax cheating is getting some attention from the media, the $220,000 in speaking fees that Daschle collected from special interests in the health care field seems to be getting more coverage because of the fact, as noted by Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico.com, that many of these firms “stand to gain or lose millions of dollars from the work he would do once confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.” A front-page headline in the Washington Post, “Health Sector Enriched Daschle,” captures the obvious conflict of interest problem for the nominee.
One of those firms is GE Healthcare, but chances are you won’t hear much about it from GE’s media properties.
Indeed, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, host David Gregory referred to Daschle’s tax cheating as merely “a back tax issue,” saying that he had “to amend his tax returns.” Gregory made no mention of GE Healthcare’s financial interest in having Daschle confirmed.
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Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at cliff.kincaid@aim.org
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/tax-cheat-daschle-favors-federal-reserve-for-health/
President Obama Wants You to Join the Union
I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem, to me it's part of the solution.
-- President Barack Obama, January 30, 2009
The great union leader John L. Lewis, who headed the United Mine Workers from the '30s through the '50s and helped organize millions of workers into the CIO, used to declare in organizing drives: "President Roosevelt wants you to join the union." Roosevelt never said that in so many words, but FDR did strongly back the Wagner Act, giving workers the clear right to organize.
During World War II, Roosevelt's War Labor Board made clear that corporations seeking war contracts needed to have good labor relations. In practice, that meant unions; and it meant "pattern bargaining" in which workers for different companies in the same industry got the same wages, so that companies could not play workers off against each other.
Roosevelt's wartime contracting policies, the Wagner Act, and the militancy of the labor movement laid the groundwork for the golden age of American unions during the postwar boom. Not coincidentally, this was also the one period in the past century when the economy became more equal, and more secure for working people.
So, while Roosevelt's words never quite urged workers to join unions, his deeds spoke volumes. John L. Lewis was well within the bounds of poetic license.
On Friday, President Obama, a onetime organizer, had more words to say about unions, and they were the kind of explicit endorsement that we literally haven't heard from a president since FDR's day.
"We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests, because we know that you cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement," the President said. "When workers are prospering, they buy products that make businesses prosper. We can be competitive and lean and mean and still create a situation where workers are thriving in this country."
Wow!
And Obama offered deeds to match. This stunning declaration of support came at the White House announcement of a Task Force on Middle Class Working Families headed by Vice President Biden, with Jared Bernstein as its executive director. The idea was proposed last summer by Change to Win unions, who endorsed candidate Obama early in the primary season. He embraced the concept, and it was a commitment he kept. His remarks and actions were a dazzling example of the transformative power of a president to shift public opinion and the political center of gravity.
The task force, and the effusive and genuine embrace of the labor movement, came as a huge relief to union leaders, who have watched anxiously as nearly all the key economic posts went to centrist veterans of the Clinton administration, and the job of secretary of labor was not announced with the other senior economic officials. As it turned out, the appointment of Hilda Solis, a very pro-union member of Congress, was delayed because others had turned down the job first, but the delay sent an unfortunate signal.
Labor activists have also been worried about whether Obama will keep his pledge not just to sign the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) guaranteeing the right to join a union, but to work hard on its behalf with legislators, especially in the Senate. Since the election, the US Chamber of Commerce and allied anti-union business organizations have mounted a furious publicity and lobbying offensive with one message: Mr. President, you don't need this bruising fight right now.
But the Chamber's allies in the Republican House Caucus have beautifully undercut that logic. The Chamber's premise was that EFCA would be highly divisive, at a time then the new president was seeking unity. With the wall-to-wall Republican stonewalling on the Obama recovery package, that premise is up in smoke. And the Chamber's other allies, on Wall Street, have also done a service by inviting some salutary class warfare. Obama responded last week, calling Wall Street bonuses in the face of government bailouts "shameful," and seems to genuinely view the growth of unions as a necessary counterweight.
The task force itself will be a welcome counterweight to the outsized influence of Wall Street inside the Obama administration. Several weeks ago, Jared Bernstein, then a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote a joint op-ed piece for the New York Timeswith Robert Rubin pointing out where they agreed. One issue where they pointedly disagreed was on the Employee Free Choice Act, which Rubin explicitly refused to endorse. The Biden operation now looks to be the go-to place for progressives seeing access to Obama's priorities. The Task Force will serve as the White House center to review all proposals, legislative and administrative, for their impact on the effort to raise wages and rebuild a middle class.
Without Obama's strong personal engagement, EFCA will be anything but a legislative cakewalk. Democrats may have a working majority. But at least five business-oriented Democrats are not considered certain votes for EFCA, and Obama will need to let them know that the White House considers this bill a top priority.
Our last two Democrats went out of their way not to get close to organized labor. Jimmy Carter did not lift a finger when the last big push to put some teeth back in the Wagner Act's right to unionize went down to defeat by just two votes in the Senate in 1978.
On Friday, announcing the Task Force, Obama signed three executive orders. One will prevent federal contractors from discouraging their employees to join unions. Another will assure that workers keep their jobs when a contract changes hands. Down the road is an executive order to promote project agreements on construction contracts.
If Obama is serious, he can take a leaf from FDR's book, and use government's extensive contracting power to actively promote unions. Late in the Clinton administration, then Vice President Al Gore led an effort called the Responsible Contractor Initiative. The idea was to reward federal contractors who took the high road by providing good jobs and not standing in the way of unions.
It remains to be seen just how much real power Obama will give Vice President Biden. But the task force is a superb beginning. If government can just use its influence to make sure employers stay neutral, it will be a new day for the labor movement--and for American progressivism.
Robert Kuttner is Co-Editor of The American Prospect. His new book is "Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency."
Obama's First 100 Days
Obama's Cabinet
Joe Biden
I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem, to me it's part of the solution. -- President Barack Obama, January 30, 2009 The great union leade...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/pesident-obama-wants-you_b_162975.html
John McCain seems to be re-establishing himself as Obama's rival this week, criticizing the new president on multiple fronts.
During an appearance today on Fox News, McCain adamantly defended conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh when asked about an alleged statement by President Obama telling congressional Republicans that "you can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."
McCain described Limbaugh as a bastion of conservatism and free speech, and seemed to lament Obama's choice to jump down into the trenches. But, as Think Progress points out, this isn't a fair portrayal considering that Limbaugh's statements are on air and directed towards an audience of over 20 million listeners while Obama's alleged remark was "made in a private meeting with Republicans and then leaked to the press."
[WATCH:] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meHRkjZanZs
On top of McCain's Limbaughphile position, he also criticized Obama today on what he describes as the new administration's unwillingness to negotiate with congressional Republicans over the stimulus bill. Via Reuters:
"A group of us Republican senators are working on coming up with an alternative package that I would hope would have some elements to it that Americans would support," said McCain, who lost the November 4 U.S. election to Obama, a Democrat.
"One, we have to have an alternative and two, we still hope that the administration -- although time is running out -- that the administration will sit down and do some serious negotiating, which they have not done," he said.
Rush Limbaugh responds to MoveOn.Org's New Radio Smear Campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCdoeynljb0
Rush Limbaugh: The media and the Green Bay Wisconsin Middle School Inauguration response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpiYhKiLK74
Rush Limbaugh: Barack Obama doesn't understand his own executive order!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o-e5ZTRAkA
NBC Rejected Super Bowl Pro-Life Obama Ad
The honeymoon may end sooner than Obama thinks.
A popular anti-abortion video asking what if President Barack Obama had been aborted was rejected by NBC-TV as an ad during Sunday's Super Bowl, according to The Washington Times.
The short film, called "Imagine Spot 1," has amassed more than 700,000 hits on YouTube since its Jan. 20 premiere on Black Entertainment Television. It was submitted earlier this week to NBC by Fidelis, a Chicago-based Catholic organization. Its subsidiary, CatholicVote.org, runs the 30-second spot on its Web site.
NBC originally responded with a proposal for a package including ads on NBC-owned or operated stations in the country's top 10 markets plus an additional four cities for a price tag of $1.5 million to $1.8 million, according to Brian Burch, president of Fidelis.
"We put out the call to our members and large pro-life benefactors who told us they would put up significant dollars to make this happen," Burch told the Times. "I was told the ad was approved and then there were a number of attorneys working on it. Then I was told they didn't want to run political or advocacy ads."
It wasn’t the only ad turned down. An ad from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that depicted women in suggestive sexual poses with vegetables also was turned down.
“There´s no doubt that PETA is an advocacy group," Mr. Burch said. "They were willing to air an ad by PETA if they would simply tone down the sexual suggestiveness. Our ad is far less provocative, and hardly controversial by comparison.”
"And back in 1998, when NBC last aired the Super Bowl, Bill Clinton had an ad about the president's initiative on race. That was political."
Five NBC spokespersons did not respond to repeated calls by The Washington Times seeking comment.
The ad opens with an ultrasound of a child in utero, set to violin music.
"The child's future is a broken home," the caption reads. "He will be abandoned by his father. His single mother will struggle to raise him."
As the music swells and an outline of a baby can clearly be seen, "Despite the hardships he will endure, this child will become," the voice-over says as a photo of Mr. Obama in front of a cheering crowd flashes on the screen, "the first African-American president."
As a final photo of the president appears, "Life. Imagine the Potential," the caption concludes.
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/pro_life_ad_rejected/2009/02/01/177380.html?s=al&promo_code=7943-1 |
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Yes all HYIPS are SCAMS. Click Here and watch this. http://www.bornagainamerican.org/ |
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skiptown
Curious
Joined: 09 Jan 2009
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Abe - Great post |
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Abe
Inquisitor
Joined: 12 Nov 2005
Posts: 6408
Location: Fair Play Every Day
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| Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:07 pm Post subject: OOOOPS ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST |
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Our new President is a real vetting machine another one bites the dust.
| Quote: | WASHINGTON — Nancy Killefer, who failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government, the White House said Tuesday.
Killefer was the second major Obama administration nominee to withdraw and the third to have tax problems complicate their nomination after President Barack Obama announced their selection.
"Nancy Killefer has decided to withdraw her nomination, and we accepted her withdrawal," Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday. The 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., was expected to explain her reasons for pulling out later in the day.
When her selection was announced by Obama on Jan. 7, The Associated Press disclosed that in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.
Since then, administration officials refused to answer questions about the tax error, which she resolved five months after the lien was filed. Obama's first choice for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, took his name out of consideration when his confirmation appeared headed toward complications because of a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors.
More recently, Timothy Geithner was confirmed as Treasury secretary despite belatedly paying $34,000 in income taxes, and Tom Daschle is still waiting to see if his late payment of more than $128,000 in income taxes will harm his nomination to be health and human services secretary.
On paper, Killefer brought impressive credentials to the two jobs Obama selected her for: deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, which requires Senate confirmation, and a new White House post, chief performance officer for the entire federal government, which does not require confirmation.
Killefer oversees McKinsey's management consulting for government clients. During 1997-2000 in the Clinton administration, Killefer was assistant Treasury secretary for management. As such she was the chief financial officer and chief operating officer for the Treasury and its 160,000 employees and led a modernization of its largest component, the Internal Revenue Service
But for nearly a month, the administration had refused to answer how its choice to make government workers more efficient and more responsive had bungled her household payroll taxes.
The AP reported that on March 7, 2005, the D.C. Department of Employment Services slapped a tax lien on her home in the tony Wesley Heights neighborhood. The local government alleged that just three years after she left the high-powered Treasury post she began to fail to pay unemployment compensation tax for a household employee. And she failed to make the required quarterly payments for a year and half, whereupon a lien for $946.69 was placed on her home.
That sum included $298 in unpaid taxes, $48.69 in interest and $600 in penalties. Killefer didn't get the lien extinguished for almost five months, not until July 29., 2005.
During that period, Killefer and her husband, an economics professor, had two nannies to help care for their teenage son and daughter, and she had a personal assistant to run her life when she was on the road, she told Harvard business students back then.
But ignoring payroll taxes on household help has sunk nominees before. Failure to pay Social Security taxes for a nanny and chauffeur kept corporate lawyer Zoe Baird from becoming President Bill Clinton's attorney general in 1993. Similar problems either blocked or bedeviled other nominees. Still others overcame them, like Shirley S. Chater, the university president who was confirmed to head the Social Security Administration under Clinton despite failing to pay Social Security taxes for a part-time baby sitter.
Bobby Tucker, chief of D.C.'s unemployment insurance tax division, said filing tax liens is "not a common practice" for his office. D.C. law authorizes such liens when an employer "neglects and refuses" to pay the levy that helps pay for unemployment benefits for those laid off or fired. Tucker said his auditors have discretion to use tax liens based on "the number of attempts to collect contributions owed, whether or not the employer responds to written attempts, phone calls and/or in-person visits" to collect the tax.
Tucker said, however, that his department's lawyers would not let him discuss the specifics of Killefer's case.
Since acknowledging Killefer's unemployment tax error on Jan. 7, Vietor has declined to amplify or answer followup questions. Vietor had said he couldn't respond because Killefer was still completing the Obama transition team's questionnaire for nominees.
Her nomination was never formally sent to Congress. And Killefer herself did not respond to message left for her. |
She should sue Obama for unfair employment practice.
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Yes all HYIPS are SCAMS. Click Here and watch this. http://www.bornagainamerican.org/ |
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tycoon
Inquisitor
Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Posts: 273
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| Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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You still didn't answer the question - let's keep on point - Mr. Bush and his family - long-term associates - have all PROFITED from a war whose justification was based on WRONG intelligence that was primarally sheparded by the Vice President of the US - Cheney - who COINCIDENTALLY was the CEO of THE company that received BILLIONS of dollars in NO BID contracts.
Seems pretty easy to understand.
Yes I know - it's all Clinton's fault. It's better to concentrate on the Democrats - whose entire investigation - if it was all true - would not even be a pimple on the amount of money the Republicans have STOLEN. |
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Abe
Inquisitor
Joined: 12 Nov 2005
Posts: 6408
Location: Fair Play Every Day
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| Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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| tycoon wrote: | You still didn't answer the question - let's keep on point - Mr. Bush and his family - long-term associates - have all PROFITED from a war whose justification was based on WRONG intelligence that was primarally sheparded by the Vice President of the US - Cheney - who COINCIDENTALLY was the CEO of THE company that received BILLIONS of dollars in NO BID contracts.
Seems pretty easy to understand.
Yes I know - it's all Clinton's fault. It's better to concentrate on the Democrats - whose entire investigation - if it was all true - would not even be a pimple on the amount of money the Republicans have STOLEN. |
That is because you haven't provided any proof of the allegations. But I have provide plenty of proof regarding Obama.
A trillion here and a trillion there... it adds up to some really really big numbers!
A trillion here and a trillion there... it adds up to some really really big numbers!
by Lee Hemen
January 27, 2009
Where is some of the new stimulus package going?
1. $4.19 billion to ACORN – According to House Minority Leader John Boehner’s website, the legislation makes ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) eligible for $4.19 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities.” You remember ACORN and their numerous recounts, their voter registration fraud, federal investigations, and extensive role in the collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial meltdown?
2. $200 million for the beautification of the National Mall, including $21 million for sod after millions of liberals trashed it.
3. Over $200 million for the abortion industry to expanded federal funding of contraceptives, “family planning” services, and abortions worldwide. Now we can kill the unborn everywhere at taxpayer expense.
4. $650 million for digital TV coupons after they postponed the digital change over for three more months because too many people are too stupid to go out and buy converter boxes on their own!
5. $136 billion for the creation of at least 32 new government programs – As Representative Boehner’s website explains, more than a third of the spending provisions would go towards growing the government—not the economy. Things like $15 billion to hook up rural areas with high speed Internet! What, cows need to Google now?
6. $600 million for new cars for the federal bureaucrats – You need to ride a bike or the bus but the government will have a garage-full of shiny new cars to take out on afternoon drives around the lush National Mall.
7. $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts – more art depicting crucifixes in urine or the Virgin Mary naked.
8. $6 billion for colleges and universities – so your child will be taught more socialism, hedonism, and atheism at a higher cost to you! You pay four times: Once when your child enrolls, again when he gets a Government loan, again when you pay State and local taxes, and finally again in these new progressive stimulus taxes! Aren't you lucky?
9. $300 billion to bail out state governments – like inept states like California and New York. Make way for Oregon and Washington to get on board as well because State-wide gambling is not paying the bills!
10. Increased spending on over 150 different federal programs – In their “targeted” plan, Democrats have embraced a shot-gun approach to funding such programs like Amtrak, which everyone rides!
Neal Boortz put into perspective for me the other night when he related the following: If you took a stack of one thousand dollar bills (I know they no longer make them but let's just suppose we have them okay) and if you had a stack 4 inches high you would have a million dollars. If you had a stack 63 miles high (yes, 63 miles high) that would equal one trillion dollars. That is the cost of the last bailout and now Obama and the Democrats want another trillion (another 63 miles of stacked thousand dollar bills -- that's 126 miles of stacked one thousand dollar bills altogether) to spend. And they actually gripped that we were spending one billion a month on the war in Iraq! What a bunch of crooks! Now where do you think this money will come from? Big business? They supposedly need the bailout. The US Government? They only print or spend money they do not make money and the more money they print makes the little money you may have worth less. It will come from you and your children, grandchildren, great grand children, and great great grand children. Obama and the Democrats have enslaved us all to their brand of socialism.
The figures are boggling.
1 Thousand = 1,000
1 Million = 1,000,000
1 Billion = 1,000,000,000
1 Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000
Still perplexed? Here's some ways to begin wrapping your brain around them:
1) Read "How much is a Million?" by David Schwartz. (How about making this required reading for every American citizen, and make Phil Gram and everyone on Wall Street do a book report?)
2) Look here to see what a million dots looks like.
3) Use salt to get a "feel" for big numbers.
4) Or try counting them yourself, like these folks did.
Okay, got that? Now try to understand the concepts of "a billion" and "a trillion." Now, take a deep breath...
5) Look at this page. Shiver as you read the following:
If we wanted to pay down a billion dollars of the US debt, paying one dollar a second, it would take 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.
To pay off a trillion dollars of debt, at a dollar a second, would take about 32,000 years.
A tightly-packed stack of new $1,000 bills totaling $1 billion would be 63 miles high. In comparison, jet planes fly at 30,000 - 40,000 feet (5.7 - 7.7 miles high).
A trillion here and a trillion there... it adds up to some really really big numbers!
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This article is copyrighted © 2008 by Lee Hemen and if you reprint it, reproduce it, or want to use it in any way, you must do so in its entirety or get the written permission of its author.
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Obama’s Bill Hands ACORN $5.2 Billion Bailout
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 7:06 PM
By: David A. Patten Article Font Size
A rising chorus of GOP leaders are protesting that the blockbuster Democratic stimulus package would provide up to a whopping $5.2 billion for ACORN, the left-leaning nonprofit group under federal investigation for massive voter fraud.
Most of the money is secreted away under an item in the now $836 billion package titled “Neighborhood Stabilization Programs.”
Ordinarily, neighborhood stabilization funds are distributed to local governments. But revised language in the stimulus bill would make the funds available directly to non-profit entities such as ACORN, the low-income housing organization whose pro-Democrat voter-registration activities have been blasted by Republicans. ACORN is cited by some for tipping the scales in the Democrats' favor in November.
According to Fox news, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., could appear to be a “payoff” for community groups’ partisan political activities in the last election cycle.
“It is of great concern to me,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., tells Newsmax. “I think our government has stayed strong because we’ve had a two-party system, we have had robust debate, people have felt that it was one man-one vote. They are privileged and grateful that they have that ability to cast that vote. And when something is done to belittle or diminish that, it is of great concern to me.”
Regarding ACORN, Blackburn added, “Additional funds going to these organizations that have tried to skew that system, it causes me great concern and I believe that it causes many of my colleagues great concern.”
The three-term congressman stopped short of suggesting the “neighborhood stabilization” money is a power grab by Democrats seeking partisan political advantage. But radio talk giant Rush Limbaugh did not.
Limbaugh warned his listeners Tuesday: “I’ll tell you what’s going on here: We, ladies & gentlemen, we’re funding Obama and the Democrats’ army on the street. We are funding the forces of the Democrat party’s re-election.”
Blackburn echoed the concerns of Republican leaders who object that the bloated package lacks the short-term stimulus a cut in payroll or sales taxes would provide.
According to Matthew Vadum of the Capitol Research Center, the stimulus package now under consideration includes:
$1 billion stashed away in Community Development Block Grant money that ACORN often vies for successfully.
$10 million to develop or refurbish low-income housing, a specialty of ACORN’s.
$4.19 billion to stave off foreclosures via the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Vadum states the current version of the bill would allow nonprofits to compete with cities and states for $3.44 billion of the money. Some $750 million, however, would be exclusively reserved for nonprofits such as ACORN, which is actually an umbrella organization for over 100 progressive organizations.
Regarding the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, Vadum writes in American Spectator: “Although ACORN operatives usually get their hands on such funds only after they have first passed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or state and local governments, the new spending bill largely eliminates these dawdling middle men, making it easier to get Uncle Sam's largess directly into the hands of the same people who run ACORN's various vote fraud and extortion rackets. And the legislative package provides these funds without the usual prohibition on using government money for lobbying or political activities.”
The charges of partisan political payback appear to be resonating in part due to Obama’s longstanding association with partisan get-out-the-vote operations. He was endorsed by ACORN, and during the campaign paid an ACORN affiliate $832,600 to get-out-the-vote assistance. Early in his career, he led a voter drive for an ACORN-affiliated group called Project Vote.
It’s not the first time ACORN has been entangled in a bailout controversy. In September, House Republicans objected that the original $700 billion bailout package included $100 million for ACORN – a tiny fraction of the sums for ACORN now being considered in the stimulus package.
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Abe
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Fred Thompson's Interview with Pajamas TV
A Big, Bad Bank
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, January 28, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Financial Crisis: Talk is growing that we'll need to commit another huge pile of money to help rescue our troubled banking system. If so, and before we commit still more cash, we should look at what's worked in the past.
"The banking industry has plunged to its lowest point since the Great Depression."
"This is the most severe economic dislocation we've had since the 1930s. Few are immune."
"There is no question but this is the worst economic time since the Great Depression."
These are just a few of the comments we culled about the fiscal disaster from our nation's newspapers. Except these quotes didn't come from 2008 or 2009. They came from 1992.
For some, it may be hard to remember. But we had a banking crisis back in the late '80s and early '90s that was in most respects far worse than the one today. It led to the collapse, dissolution or bankruptcy of hundreds of banks and savings and loans.
The concern was the same as now — that ailing S&Ls and commercial banks would go under in such numbers that they would drag the whole economy with them.
But we didn't nationalize the banks. Nor did we just dump money into them. Instead, in 1989, the government created something called the Resolution Trust Corp. Over six years, it bought up bad bank assets, held onto them, repackaged them for sale and finally got rid of them. Weak and tottering S&Ls were closed.
All told, from 1989 to 1995, the RTC folded up 747 S&Ls and sold off a portfolio of assets having a current value of $660 billion.
And doggone if it didn't work. Bad banks closed, and those that survived were healthier for it. Bad assets came off their books, and they went back to doing what they were supposed to do: lending.
Total cost to the public: $231 billion in today's dollars.
Now we're pondering how to spend the second tranche of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that was passed last fall. We've spent hundreds of billions to bolster the balance sheets of some 250 U.S. banks.
How that money has been spent is not clear, however, and the banks seem as feeble today as they were in September.
In our opinion, the experience with the RTC is instructive. Sure, we'd rather the government stay out of the private sector. But if it's to be involved, as current politics seem to dictate, it's best to make sure that what it does won't destroy our economy. And it might even help.
President Obama is said to be mulling a plan to create one big "aggregator bank," dubbed the Bad Bank. It would essentially do the same thing as the RTC — buy bad bank assets to get them off the banks' books and, let's hope, get them to lend again.
During this crisis, banks have already posted losses of $500 billion, and the nonpartisan head of the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday he expects at least $450 billion more in red ink.
To "inject capital" into the banks, as some suggest, won't be enough.
It hasn't seemed to work too well so far. This may be a case where a Bad Bank is good.
Stamp Of Disapproval
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, January 28, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Economy: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks spending more on food stamps and unemployment insurance is more important than tax cuts and infrastructure. Has she ever gotten a job from a poor person?
In a recession with rising unemployment, a case can be made for spending more on food stamps and unemployment insurance. But it's not stimulus — and to put it in a so-called stimulus package that already spends precious little on real job-creating activities is absurd. Put it in a separate bill, and let it go through the regular legislative process.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will devote $20 billion to "provide nutrition assistance to modest-income families and to lift restrictions that limit the amount of time individuals can receive food stamps, according to a summary of the plan released last week by the House Appropriations Committee.
"(F)ood stamps and unemployment insurance, which affect the people in the states, are necessary at this time when funds are short and the economy is down, (and) actually have the most stimulative effect on the economy," Pelosi said in a telephone press conference on Tuesday. Only if you can buy an American-made SUV with them.
"Actually, these investments bring a bigger return than any tax cuts," she said, listing her stimulus priorities as: "food stamps first, unemployment insurance next, infrastructure after that, and it goes on from there."
This economy needs more employees, more employers and more investment — three things you can't buy with food stamps.
For a proposal that's supposed to jump-start the economy, the proposal only spends one-seventh of the money in the first year, and what it does spend on actual job-creating activities will take years to trickle down throughout the economy, perhaps even after the recession is over. It is likely this package will create more jobs in government than in the private sector.
Among the things we need to do is cut corporate tax rates. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation, for the 17th consecutive year our average combined federal and state tax rate on corporations is 50% higher than the average of our international competitors. American businesses pay the second-highest business taxes in the world — 35%.
The average European nation has tax rates on corporate income some 10 percentage points lower than ours. The OECD in a new study concludes that "corporate taxes are most harmful for growth" and that "investment is adversely affected by corporate taxation."
We also need to cut taxes on small businesses. Since the mid-1990s, the small-business sector has created 78.9% of the net new jobs in the United States, reports the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration. Some 59 million workers are employed in the small-business sector that takes the most risks and creates the most jobs.
Across-the-board cuts in capital gains taxes would also be a good idea. As President John F. Kennedy put it in 1963: "The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital . . . the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential growth in the economy." It stifles job creation.
Even President Bill Clinton recognized the benefits of cutting the capital gains tax. In 1997, he lowered the rate to 20% from 28%. By 1998, the first full year in which the lower capital gains rates were in effect, venture capital activity reached almost $28 billion, more than a threefold increase over 1995 levels, and by 1999, it had doubled yet again.
With this gusher of risk capital, the economy averaged 4.2% real growth per year from 1997 to 2000. Employment during that period increased by 11.5 million jobs, and real wages grew by 6.5%. The rising tide lifted all our boats.
You can help a man buy a fish or you can help him buy a fishing boat. Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi can't grasp the difference and what is best for economic recovery.
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Abe
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| Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 12:22 am Post subject: |
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| tycoon wrote: | Man Abe I can't believe you can't see the Bush corruption....What does it take?
It's just a coincidence that BILLIONS of dollars was made (and continuing...) by kbr whose principal just happens to be the Vice President of the US the driving force behind the INFORMATION that lead to the war.. wmd, etc.
we have been ripped off to the tune of TRILLIONS when it's all added up. The Republicans have no responsibility?????
Do you really believe that? |
Oh BTW Tycoon, as I'm sure most people know, elected offical have no control of their investments since they are held in a trust.
If the goal is to stimulate the economy to alleviate the effects of the "deepening recession", then why does the plan contain the following?
TOP 28 FAST FACTS ABOUT THE HOUSE DEMOCRATS' TRILLION DOLLAR SPENDING PLAN
The $850 billion Phony Stimulus Plan slated for a House vote later this week will exceed more than $1.1 trillion when adding in the interest ($300 plus billion) between 2009-2019 to pay for it.
The Capitol Hill Democrats' plan includes funding for contraceptives, regardless of where anyone stands on taxpayer funded contraception, there is no question that it has NOTHING to do with the economy. (Since Monday this idiocy has been removed -- due to bi-partisan outcry!)
The Phony Stimulus Plan could open billions of taxpayer dollars to left-wing groups like the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN), which has been accused of voter fraud, is reportedly under federal investigation; and played a key role in the housing meltdown. (NOTE: we have discovered that ACORN will recieve over 4 billion dollars!)
Here are just a few of the programs and projects that have been included in the House Democrats' proposal:
$650 million for digital TV coupons;
$600 million for new cars for the federal government;
$6 billion for colleges/universities;
$50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts;
$44 million to repair the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters;
$200 million for the National Mall, including $21 million for sod!
The plan establishes at least 32 new government programs at a cost of over $136 billion. That means more than a third of this plan's spending provisions are dedicated to creating new government programs.
The plan provides spending in at least 150 different federal programs, ranging from Amtrak to the Transportation Security Administration. Is this the "targeted" plan Democratic leaders promised?
Even though the legislation contains at least 152 separate spending proposals, the authors of the plan can only say that 34 have any chance at keeping or growing jobs.
Just one in seven dollars of an $18.5 billion expenditure on "energy efficiency" and "renewable energy programs" would be spent within the next 18 months.
The total cost of this one piece of legislation is almost as much as the annual discretionary budget for the entire federal government.
House Democrats' plan will cost each and every household $6,700 in additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.
The plan provides enough spending – $825 billion – to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700. $825 billion is enough to give every person in Ohio $72,000.
$825 billion is enough to give every person living in poverty in the United States $22,000.
Although the House Democrats' proposal has been pitched as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, in actuality only $30 billion of the plan – or three percent – is for road and highway spending. A recent study from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that only 25 percent of infrastructure dollars can be spent in the first year, making the one year total less than $7 billion.
Much of the funding within the House Democrats' proposal will go to programs that already have large, unexpended balances. For example, the plan provides $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) – a program that already has $16 billion on hand. States also are sitting on some $9 billion in unused highway funds – funds that Congress is prepared to rescind later this year.
All board members of the "Accountability and Transparency Board" created by this legislation are appointees of the President; none will be appointed by Congress.
A scant 2.7 percent, or $22.3 billion of the overall package, is dedicated to small business tax relief.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the legislation increases by seven million the number of people who get a check back from the IRS that exceeds what they paid in payroll and income taxes.
The "Making Work Pay" tax credit at the center of the plan amounts to $1.37 a day, or about the price of a cup of coffee.
Almost one-third of the so-called "tax relief" in the House Democrats' plan is spending in disguise, meaning that true tax relief makes up only 24 percent of the total package – not the 40 percent that President Obama had requested.
$825 billion is just the beginning – many Capitol Hill Democrats want to spend even more taxpayer dollars on their "stimulus" plan. In fact, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey (D-WI), told Roll Call earlier this month, "I would not be surprised to see us go further on some of these programs down the line."
Get your head out of your butt and get real.
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Abe
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| Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 1:47 am Post subject: |
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http://johnboehner.house.gov/
Thank you Representative Cantor and thanks to all Republican House members who voted no on this outrageous Stimulus Bill( a complete fraud & a naked power grab & takeover of our private sector by the radical Democrats & President Obama).
I am once again, proud to call myself a supporter of the Republicans in the House.
Hopefully, the Republicans in the Senate will live up to the high standard you and your fellow Republican House members set.
http://republicanwhip.house.gov/Jobs/
Ironically, the very people who believe we can't do it without government are the ones who are paid for their 'public service.' Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy...they all get paid by US to tell US we can't do it without them. Its like they are our agents--we need them to hustle up work. In reality, they are pimps. I'm not standing on a corner for them.
This is great
www.conservativemusiconline.com
And make sure you don't miss this one either. http://wwsnforums.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=31033#31033
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Abe
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| Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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| tycoon wrote: | Man Abe I can't believe you can't see the Bush corruption....What does it take?
It's just a coincidence that BILLIONS of dollars was made (and continuing...) by kbr whose principal just happens to be the Vice President of the US the driving force behind the INFORMATION that lead to the war.. wmd, etc.
we have been ripped off to the tune of TRILLIONS when it's all added up. The Republicans have no responsibility?????
Do you really believe that? |
Here is what I believe Tycoon.
| Quote: | 
Cheney: Nuclear, Bio Attacks Likely If Obama Ends Bush Policies
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 12:42 PM
By: Dave Eberhart
Former Vice President :-( Cheney is blasting the fledgling administration of Barack Obama, arguing that its policies dealing with terrorism and international foes are naïve and dangerous, making it all the more likely that terrorists will succeed in their next attempt at killing Americans, according to a report in Politico.
Simply by closing Guantanamo Bay’s detention camp for terrorists, Cheney said, Obama inadvertently will aid enemies eager to make another attack on the United States. Another major attack on this country — perhaps even using biological or nuclear materials — is very likely in the next few years, Cheney said.
“I think there’s a high probability of such an attempt,” Cheney said. “Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”
Cheney opined that the inevitable attack will be “a 9/11-type event where the terrorists are armed with something much more dangerous than an airline ticket and a box cutter — a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind” that is set off in an American city.
In a wide-ranging interview with Politico, Cheney emphasized the usefulness of the interrogations at Gitmo while lambasting the policies emerging from the new administration.
“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an al-Qaida terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said.
Concentrating on the merits of Gitmo, Cheney described it as a first-class operation, noting that one of the painful lessons learned was the penchant for those detainees who were released to return to their terrorist roots.
He noted that 61 of the inmates who were released from Guantanamo during the Bush administration had “gone back into the business of being terrorists.” He also characterized the remaining 200 or so remaining detainees as “hard core” cases that were even more likely to be repeat offenders.
Releasing the prisoners or ramping up their due process would be unwise, Cheney charged.
“The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I’m not at all sure that that’s what the Obama administration believes,” he said.
Cheney defended the hard-line tactics of the Bush administration as responsible for the safety of the country after 9/11.
“If it hadn’t been for what we did — with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth — then we would have been attacked again,” he said. “Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S.”
Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/cheney_obama_policies/2009/02/04/178350.html?s=al&promo_code=7972-1 |
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Abe
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| Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 3:22 am Post subject: |
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| tycoon wrote: | Man Abe I can't believe you can't see the Bush corruption....What does it take?
It's just a coincidence that BILLIONS of dollars was made (and continuing...) by kbr whose principal just happens to be the Vice President of the US the driving force behind the INFORMATION that lead to the war.. wmd, etc.
we have been ripped off to the tune of TRILLIONS when it's all added up. The Republicans have no responsibility?????
Do you really believe that? |
Sure Tycoon, here you go.
| Quote: | Ethics Missteps Mar The Start Of Obama Rule
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Wednesday, February 04, 2009 4:20 PM PT
You never get a second chance to make a first post-inaugural impression. Less than three weeks into his first 100 days, Barack Obama has left an indelible mark on his nascent presidency: the mark of incompetence and hubris.
Despite the administration's much-touted wealth of bright minds and high bars, the transition has been a complete disaster.
In a double whammy on Tuesday, tax troubles and ethical clouds forced the withdrawal of not one but two high-profile Obama nominees.
These come on the heels of former Commerce Secretary-nominee Bill Richardson's withdrawal due to a pay-for-play probe in New Mexico and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's "tax goofs" involving his failure to pay $43,000 in federal self-employment taxes for four separate years — until, that is, he was nominated for the Treasury post.
Thorough vetting, it seems, is an inconvenient process — a pesky "distraction," if you will — in the Land of Hope and Change.
Health and Human Services Secretary-designee Tom Daschle finally bowed out after aggressive rehabilitative efforts failed. His chummy Senate pals on both sides of the aisle may have been willing to forgive his failure to pay longstanding back taxes owed on limo services, undisclosed consulting fees and dubious charitable donations worth an estimated $146,000, including interest and penalties. But the American people were not.
(Interesting postscript: He may have apologized and dropped out of the administration, but Daschle still owes Medicare taxes equal to 2.9% of the personal value of the car service he received from Democratic donor and crony Leo Hindery Jr.)
Just before the Daschle announcement came the withdrawal of Nancy Killefer. She was tapped to be President Obama's "chief performance officer," overseeing compliance, organizational effectiveness and waste management across every federal agency.
But the former Clinton Treasury official and head of the prestigious Washington office of the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. couldn't be bothered to manage her own household help effectively. She failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes and had an outstanding tax lien on her home. The lien was worth less than $1,000 — far less than the tax liability Geithner owed.
If I were a left-wing feminist, I'd be sorely tempted to whip out the gender card and give the Good Old Boys Club a few whacks. Killefer gets thrown under the bus, but Geithner gets to drive? No justice, no peace!
Now, compare President Bush's transition track record in 2001. Remember that the traditional 100-day period was shortened as a result of the election lawsuit.
Bush Gets High Marks
Wrote Paul Light of the left-leaning Brookings Institution at the time:
"Bush gets an A on the transition into office. He survived his truncated 40-day transition with only one major mistake — Linda Chavez, who withdrew her nomination for Labor Secretary after the flap over allowing an illegal immigrant to stay in her house.
"Bush also deserves an A-plus for the timely assembly of his White House team. Building around Vice President :-( Cheney, the Bush White House is an MBA's dream: efficient, predictable, well controlled, on time, under budget."
During Tuesday's press briefing, glib White House spokesman Robert Gibbs did his best to bat down a rising chorus of questions about his boss's judgment — not only on the nomination "glitches," but also on an ever-growing list of exemptions to Obama's no-lobbyists pledge.
Echoing Bill Clinton's "most ethical administration ever" and Nancy Pelosi's "most ethical House ever" mantras, Gibbs defensively asserted: "The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set."
Then how, pray tell, did all the president's tax cheats make it past the front door? And where is Vice President Joe Biden to wag his finger at their lack of patriotism? Team Obama embraced these damaged candidates despite advanced knowledge of their lapses.
Killefer's tax lien was four years old. Questions about Daschle's judgment have lingered for years. Ask GOP Sen. John Thune, who defeated Daschle the Dodger in 2004 after news broke of his bogus property-tax homestead exemption claim on his $1.9 million D.C. mansion — which he listed as his primary residence despite voting in South Dakota and claiming it as his primary residence in order to run for re-election.
The buck stops at the desk of Barack Obama. A little of that humility and personal responsibility he spoke so much about during his inaugural address is now in order.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=318642801600531
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc |
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Ekid
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| Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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Tax cheating .I am sure its not one sided.
Its more symptomatic of the indifference of elected officials to actually do what they were elected to do which is ..govern.
Like the Golden parachutes given to Company officials while the stock price crashed.
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Abe
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| Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Obama Tied to Millions in Budget Earmarks
Friday, February 27, 2009 5:04 PM
By: David Eberhart and David A. Patten
Actually it was closest to 9,000 earmarks but what's a few billion here and there.
President Obama and top members of his administration appear to be sponsoring hundreds of millions of dollars of earmarks in the 2009 budget that Obama is trying to push through Congress, http://www.CQPolitics.com reports.
In the congressional report that accompanies the budget legislation, Obama is listed as a sponsor of a $7.7 million earmark for “Tribally Controlled Post secondary Vocational Institutions.” Obama’s co-sponsors on that earmark include Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
President Obama pledged to fight the addition of pork-barrel earmarks to legislation during the presidential campaign. Last April, for example, Obama released a statement stating: "We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress' seniority, rather than the merit of the project."
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden, Clinton, and three other Cabinet secretaries who served in Congress last year are listed as sponsors or co-sponsors of hundreds of millions of dollars of earmarks attached to the spending bill.
The House approved the $410 billion omnibus budget measure Wednesday, sending it on to the Senate.
According to CQPolitics.com, Senate staffers say Obama’s name will be removed as a sponsor. It is not clear if Obama will insist that his cabinet officers withdraw their earmark requests, however.
Other earmarks traced back to members of the Obama administration:
Vice President Joe Biden, who asked for $94.9 million in set-asides before assuming his new office. He is a co-sponsor of those expenditure requests.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was the lone sponsor on $5.4 million of earmarks in the budget bill. Including the earmarks he supported as a secondary sponsor, he’s linked to $227.4 million of earmarks.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asked for $31.2 million in earmarks, including $380,000 to replace vehicles that assist disabled persons in LaHood’s hometown of Peoria, Ill., the Web site says.
Emanuel, the former congressman from Illinois, is currently sponsoring $3.9 million in earmarks on an individual basis.
Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, a former member of Congress representing California, is linked to $38.4 million worth of earmarks, although she was the lone sponsor for only $814,000 of that total.
Clinton sponsored just under $109 million in earmarks, although many of those were sponsored in concert with other senators.
On Wednesday, Gibbs evaded directly answering a question about whether Obama would prompt his Cabinet secretaries to withdraw their earmark requests.
“The president has discussed and worked with Congress to pass some reform of this process that now ensure that people like you that are interested can go into a piece of legislation and see the names of those sponsors,” Gibbs said.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
I suggest we start taking this as a serious fraud on the American people and once again become one country.
http://www.bornagainamerican.org/index.html
Putting the fox in
charge of the henhouse
When you massively overextend a credit system, the only thing you can really do is let the overextended fail.
Jim Rogers points out that simply shoveling money at incompetent banks and companies not only does nothing, it prolongs the pain.
If money is going to be spent, it should be spent to shore up the social safety net and help the unemployed until the economy can rebuild itself.
But that's not what Bush and now Obama are doing.
They're putting the very people who created the problem is charge of solving it and those people are solving it the only way they know how...giving more money to their friends.
Japan still hasn't recovered from its bubble collapse that started in 1990. Nineteen years and counting.
Right now, the US is heading down the same path.
The long slump
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/573.html |
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Yes all HYIPS are SCAMS. Click Here and watch this. http://www.bornagainamerican.org/ |
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Abe
Inquisitor
Joined: 12 Nov 2005
Posts: 6408
Location: Fair Play Every Day
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| Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:24 am Post subject: Hail the Investment-Adviser-in-Chief? |
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Hail the Investment-Adviser-in-Chief?
Baltimore, MD March 4, 2009
Dear TFN Reader,
TFNeNews reader Nathan L. writes in response to yesterday's message about "The most powerful company in the world"...
"I'm very interested in signing up for this service but I have a couple of questions first.
"First: I'm very new to options but I have been reading up on them and following Mr. Snyder's articles and beta trades with great interest. My online broker has only approved me for Level 2 options trading. Will I be able to take advantage of the options strategies that are shown with the TFN Strategic Trader subscription or will I not be able to participate in some.
"Second: The strategy that you mention about the genes says that I would need to sign up by May 15th to take advantage of the strategy. However, if I sign up now with the quarterly subscription then I'll be losing out on the weeks between now and May 15th. Will there be other strategies along the way or is the May 15th strategy the first one?
"(Having followed Mr. Snyder's articles I seriously doubt that he will not have more strategies!)"
Andy Snyder responds:
"You ask very good questions. My goal with TFN Strategic Trader is to maximize profit potential in the simplest and easiest way possible. The vast majority of my recommendations will fall into the Level 1 category (puts, calls, and covered calls). Occasionally, I will recommend a more succinct strategy that will fall into Level 2 (chiefly, covered puts or long calls). Never will you need an account more sophisticated than Level 2. We will not enter any spread strategies or naked selling.
"As for your second question, the service offers a new recommendation every week. The May 15 date is when I expect to lock in maximum gains. If you wait until that date, you may not be able to reap the largest rewards. Thanks to this week's bear raid, my recommended strategy is poised to increase in value over the next month."
What is the discussion about? Please follow this link...
And TFNeNews reader Pierre G. writes: "For years I subscribed to your Taipan newsletter and I became a VIP member for most of the existing newsletters plus I suppose thenew coming ones. Now you switch places and we are supposed to start all over again???"
Pierre, where have you been? The Taipan Group and I parted ways back in November of 2007. We began building TodaysFinancialNews.com back then and haven't looked back. I'm sure you remember Andy Snyder from his Volume Spike Trader and BreakAway Investor days!
We'd sure like to have you on board in our by now not-quite-so-new venture!
*** A day of good news: The Commander-in-Chief has become Investment-Adviser-in-Chief as well.
"Profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it," the President told his adoring public.
A daring prognostication, especially for someone who cashed out his 401(k)s years ago.
Now, if his predecessor had voiced such assessment, using the same terms, this gem would've been a keeper for the Big Book of Bushisms. Since standards are different (double even, some claim!) and finance isn't really the bailywick of the Adulatory Corps sitting in at White House press conferences, it went unnoticed.
Which is a pity, because it would give our media something other to investigate than Michelle Obama's exercise regimen for her upper arms (CNN), or what soft drink the White House prefers. (Is it Coke? Is it Pepsi? Let the investigative machine at Time magazine razzle-dazzle you!)
You might wonder, for example, what a "profit-and-earnings ratio" is. Is it Obamaese for P/E ratio? Or is it "profits," then nothing for a while and then "earnings ratios"?
It would be nice to hear where exactly the Anointed One is seeing either: Banks, insurers, car manufacturers, retailers are posting record losses, not profits. Las Vegas casinos and their tillers were empty even before Obama nixed taxpayer-paid stimulus via corporate travel. Small airplane makers in Whichita are laying off workers by the thousands since Congress branded travel by Lears jet un-American if undertaken by private entities. Newspapers are shutting down. Real estate brokers are applying for teaching positions. States and communities are deep in the red.
So what "profit-and-earnings ratios" are we looking at? Really, the only industry logging respectable sales growth since last November are gun manufacturers, who saw order books grow by just shy of 50%.
And not because Americans are all a-giggle over their realistic expectations of Obama.
Let's assume, for charity's sake, that he really means P/E ratios.
Sure, they went down... something value investors are eager to see in a stock during boom times. In many cases, stock prices went down even faster than earnings. But in many cases, P/E ratios disappeared altogether from your favorite online stock rosters.
You see, once there are no earnings, the formula becomes useless for all pracical purposes: Even in the Obama New Math, you cannot divide by zero. And the stock of a company with no earnings is a pure speculation on its future success.
Is that what he means?
But for a company to be successful in the future, people have to buy its services and products. I've been watching colleagues bringing in bag lunches rather than go to Subway or Kerrigan Kitikul's Thairish... I read newspaper articles how people should stop spending on books and videos by using their (out-of-funding) library more... I even see the White House Fairy Godmother Oprah advertise a show whose theme is "Spend Nothing".
Now let's assume thatpeople magically start spending again. Even under Obama, profits still are what's left of revenues after deducting costs. Costs like higher taxes. Healthcare co-pays. Social Security contributions. Minimum wages. Carbon taxes. Each and every line item on the cost side is scheduled to soar under the new budget.
Again... what profits is he talking about?
Given the timing, I'm almost convinced he could only refer to Andy Snyder's top options play! Please follow this link...
Quote of the Day:
"It is not our immediate task to ‘introduce’ socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.”
—Vladimir I. Lenin: The April Theses: A Blueprint for Revolution (1917)
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Yes all HYIPS are SCAMS. Click Here and watch this. http://www.bornagainamerican.org/ |
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Abe
Inquisitor
Joined: 12 Nov 2005
Posts: 6408
Location: Fair Play Every Day
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