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Entries Tagged as 'Power Hungry'

President Obama’s ‘Rap Palate’: Why praise violent, misogynistic hip-hop stars? Not very Presidential

October 6th, 2010 · Accountability, Ethics, Obama's Scheme

by Thomas Chatterton Williams

What’s on President Obama’s iPod? A wide range, he told Rolling Stone magazine last week, from the jazz of John Coltrane to the ballads of Maria Callas. And more: “My rap palate has greatly improved,” Mr. Obama noted. “Jay-Z used to be sort of what predominated, but now I’ve got a little Nas and a little Lil Wayne and some other stuff, but I would not claim to be an expert.”

Expert or not, that’s the wrong message for the president to be sending black America.

Does Mr. Obama like Lil Wayne’s “Lil Duffle Bag Boy”? In that song, the rapper implores young black men to “go and get their money” through round-the-clock drug hustling. And with Lil Wayne, it’s not just an act: The rapper is currently serving a one-year term on Rikers Island after being caught in New York with drugs and guns stashed in his Louis Vuitton overnighter.

Lil Wayne is emblematic of a hip-hop culture that is ignorant, misogynistic, casually criminal and often violent. A self-described gangster, he is a modern-day minstrel who embodies the most virulent racist stereotypes that generations of blacks have fought to overcome. His music is a vigorous endorsement of the pathologies that still haunt and cripple far too many in the black underclass.

Thus President Obama has conveyed his taste for the rapper behind lyrics like:

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Kagan’s recusals take her out of action in half of the Supreme Court’s cases: A Waste of Tax Payer’s Money

October 4th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government, Government Control, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Supreme Court, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Robert Barnes – Monday, October 4, 2010; 3:05 AM

Elena Kagan begins hearing cases as the Supreme Court’s 112th justice Monday morning. But anyone who wants to see her in action needs to be sharp.

Kagan will hear the first case argued before the court, then slip quietly through the burgundy velvet curtains behind the bench. She’ll be out of the action in all three cases : Tuesday. Her chair will be empty when the court returns next Tuesday and she’ll put in a half-day the next day.

Kagan’s old job as solicitor general – the “10th justice” – is initially making it hard to do her new job as the ninth justice.

Kagan, 50, has recused herself from 25 of the 51 cases the court has accepted so far this term, all as a result of her 14-month tenure as solicitor general, the government’s chief legal representative in the Supreme Court and the nation’s lower appellate courts.

The recusals are one measure of how integral the “SG” is to the court’s workings. Much of the court’s caseload comes from challenges to federal statutes or government policies that the solicitor general must defend. The court also often asks for the government’s view on whether a case is ripe for review.

Kagan is recusing herself from cases in which she had a role in drafting a brief for the Supreme Court, or when she was actively involved in a case in the lower courts. She took herself out of such deliberations when President Obama nominated her last May, so the pace of her recusals should slow as the court over the next few months completes the work of filling the term’s docket.

But initially, Kagan’s absence will affect some important corporate and employment- discrimination cases, as well as a highly anticipated review of one of Arizona’s attempts to crack down on illegal immigrants.

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Military thwarted president seeking choice in Afghanistan

September 27th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Deception, Defense, Economy, Federal Spending, Foreign Policy, National Security, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Terrorism from Within, War on Terrorism

By Bob WoodwardWashington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 27, 2010; 12:34 AM

President Obama was on edge.

For two exhausting months, he had been asking military advisers to give him a range of options for the war in Afghanistan. Instead, he felt that they were steering him toward one outcome and thwarting his search for an exit plan. He would later tell his White House aides that military leaders were “really cooking this thing in the direction they wanted.”

He was looking for choices that would limit U.S. involvement and provide a way out. His top three military advisers were unrelenting advocates for 40,000 more troops and an expanded mission that seemed to have no clear end. When his national security team gathered in the White House Situation Room on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2009, for its eighth strategy review session, the president erupted.

“So what’s my option? You have given me one option,” Obama said, directly challenging the military leadership at the table, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command.

“We were going to meet here today to talk about three options,” Obama said sternly. “You agreed to go back and work those up.”

Mullen protested. “I think what we’ve tried to do here is present a range of options.”

Obama begged to differ. Two weren’t even close to feasible, they all had acknowledged; the other two were variations on the 40,000.

Silence descended on the room. Finally, Mullen said, “Well, yes, sir.”

Mullen later explained, “I didn’t see any other path.”

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Obama urges Congressional Black Caucus to drum up grass-roots support

September 22nd, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Greed, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US

Reference:

  • Maxine Waters, a 2nd Democrat from the Black Caucus, will go on trial for Ethics violations.
  • Despite 13 charges, Rep. Charles B. Rangel says he won’t resign:More Democrat Delusions

    • By Nia-Malika Henderson – Monday, September 20, 2010; 1:29 AM

    President Obama rallied a crowd of black lawmakers on Saturday night, telling them to “guard the change” his administration has begun and calling for a return to the kind of vigorous grass-roots organizing that drove the civil rights movement forward.

    In a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama warned that Republicans want to “turn back the clock” and said: “I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, and your workplaces, to your churches, and barbershops and beauty shops. Tell them we have more work to do.”

    While many Democratic lawmakers facing election are keeping their distance from Obama, polls show that the president enjoys a 91 percent favorability rating among African-Americans, and the Democratic National Committee is eager to tap into that enthusiasm to stave off major losses in November.

    With the GOP hoping to regain power on Capitol Hill, Obama made a direct appeal to this crucial voting block.

    “It’s not going to be easy,” he told the black-tie crowd at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “I said back on the campaign that change would be hard. It wasn’t just a matter of me getting elected, and suddenly, our problems all go away. It was a matter of all of us getting involved, all of us staying committed, all of us sticking with our plan for a better future until it was complete. That’s how we’ve always moved forward in this country.”

    Ticking off his administration’s achievements, including the health care and financial regulatory overhauls, Obama linked his achievements to the long struggle for civil rights.

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    Obama envisions no major changes in Afghan strategy despite disapproval rate

    September 20th, 2010 · Deception, Defense, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Foreign Policy, Government Control, Homeland Security, National Security, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Treason, War on Terrorism

    By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer
    Saturday, September 18, 2010; 3:48 AM

    Despite discouraging news from Afghanistan and growing doubts in Congress and among the American public, the Obama administration has concluded that its war strategy is sound and that a December review, once seen as a pivotal moment, is unlikely to yield any major changes.

    This resolve arises amid a flurry of reports from outside experts and former officials who are convinced that the administration’s path in Afghanistan is unsustainable and its objectives are unclear. Lawmakers from both parties are insisting that they be given a bigger say in assessing the war’s trajectory.

    The White House calculus is that the strategy retains enough public and political support to weather any near-term objections. Officials do not expect real pressure for progress and a more precise definition of goals to build until next year, with the approach of a July deadline President Obama has set for decisions on troop withdrawals and the beginning of the 2012 electoral season.

    “The fundamentals are in the place where they should be,” a senior administration official said. Any adjustments will be akin to “moving the rabbit ears around a little bit to get better reception,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be changing the channel come December.”

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    Karzai seeks to limit role of U.S. corruption investigators like Obama and Ft. Hood

    September 9th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Foreign Policy, Government Control, Homeland Security, National Security, Selling Out the US, Treason, War on Terrorism

    By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Staff Writer
    Thursday, September 9, 2010; 12:05 AM

    Afghan President Hamid Karzai intends to impose rules restricting international involvement in anti-corruption investigations, a move that U.S. officials fear will hobble efforts to address the endemic graft that threatens support for his administration in Afghanistan and the United States.

    Karzai wants to circumscribe the role of American and other foreign law enforcement specialists in two key anti-corruption organizations in the Interior Ministry by not allowing them to have direct involvement in investigations.

    “The management will be Afghan, and the decision-makers will be Afghan, and the investigators will be Afghan,” Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Karzai’s chief of staff, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Foreign advisers, most of whom work for the U.S. Justice Department, will be limited to “training and coaching, but not decision-making,” he said.

    Concern about Karzai’s willingness to root out corruption has emerged as a flashpoint in the U.S.-Afghan relationship, with American officials arguing that he has not done enough to demand accountability and Karzai maintaining that the problem has been fueled by the influx of billions of dollars in foreign assistance.

    The planned changes have alarmed U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington and prompted efforts to try to persuade Karzai and his advisers to soften the restrictions.

    “What he’s proposing would effectively neuter these two bodies,” said a U.S. official involved in Afghanistan policy.

    Daudzai said Karzai also plans to prevent the U.S. government from influencing the selection and augmenting the salaries of the Afghan investigators and prosecutors who serve in the two groups.

    In June, U.S. officials involved in anti-corruption investigations told The Washington Post that senior officials in Karzai’s government had derailed investigations of politically connected Afghans. “Above a certain level, people are being very well-protected,” one senior U.S. official told The Post.

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    Summer of Economic Discontent

    September 2nd, 2010 · Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Dissention, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Foreign Policy, Government, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Social Security, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

    The administration’s ‘summer of recovery’ has fizzled in almost every way imaginable. The growth rate is less than half what it was at this stage after the 1974-75 and 1981-82 recessions.

    By Michael Boskin

    The Obama administration’s “summer of recovery” has morphed into a summer of economic discontent amid anxiety over the weakening economy. The greater than 4% growth and less than 8% unemployment envisioned by the president’s economic team are nowhere to be seen. Almost everything that is supposed to be up—the economic growth rate, the stock market, bond yields—is down. And almost everything that is supposed to be down—unemployment-insurance claims, new mortgage delinquencies—is up.

    Sometimes a weak early recovery gathers strength after a year or so, as in 2003 when the second round of the Bush tax cuts helped double growth to 3.8% from 1.9%. But there are serious headwinds to stronger growth: household deleveraging, unresolved toxic assets, and most government economic policies headed in the wrong direction. While the base case outlook is still slow recovery, a double-dip recession or a Japanese-style lost decade is more plausible than a few months ago. This explains why Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke felt compelled last week to reiterate that the Fed will use more of its (in my view, weak) ammunition should the economy falter further.

    How bad is it? In the data for the last few weeks and months, real personal disposable income was flat; core capital goods orders, a precursor of business capital spending, declined 8%; new home sales fell 12.4%, existing sales 27%, despite record low mortgage rates; single-family housing starts declined 4.2%; building permits, foreshadowing future construction, fell 1.2%; initial jobless claims spiked to over 500,000, leading forecasters to expect at best meager short-term private-sector job growth; the Kansas City, Philadelphia and New York Fed manufacturing indexes fell; and the trade deficit increased, as exports fell and imports rose.

    These weak backward-looking data were accompanied by big downdrafts in forward-looking financial markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq over 6% in August—partly retraced yesterday—and the 10-year U.S. bond yield, at 2.47%, was back to its lows of March 2009. Real GDP growth slowed from 3.7% in the first quarter to just 1.6% last quarter.

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    Obama administration appeals stem cell funding decision despite US Law

    September 1st, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US

    The Obama administration on Tuesday formally challenged a court order barring the federal government from funding human embryonic stem cell research.

    The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to suspend a temporary injunction he issued last week blocking the funding and filed a notice of plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Lamberth, ruling in a lawsuit filed by two researchers working on alternatives to the cells, said the funding violated a federal rule that prohibits federal tax money from being used for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.

    “The government is seeking a stay of the court’s injunction to prevent the irreparable harm and financial harm that could occur if these lifesaving research projects are forced to abruptly shut down,” Justice Department spokesperson Tracy Schmaler said in a statement. “The great potential for significant additional medical breakthroughs is at risk if this research is halted pending the appeals process.”

    Lamberth’s injunction “causes irrevocable harm to the millions of extremely sick or injured people who stand to benefit from continuing research, as well as taxpayers who have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this research through public funding of projcts which will not be forced to shut down,” she said.

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    Obama and the Democrat’s Social Security Bait and Switch

    August 31st, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Social Security, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

    Associated Press

    ‘Harry, am I making this up?’ Yes, Mr. President, you are.

    Democrats are trying to keep control of Congress by scaring the wig off grandma with a phantom GOP plot against Social Security. That is not news. Social Security scare tactics have been regular campaign themes since FDR. President Obama’s unique contribution is to do this even as he’s begging Republicans to help him reduce the deficit and reform entitlement spending.

    On the one hand, Mr. Obama has charged his deficit commission with crafting a bipartisan plan to restrain entitlements. “Everything’s on the table. That’s how this thing’s going to work,” he said when he created the commission in February. “We now have to, in a gradual way, reduce spending, particularly on those big ticket items” like Social Security, he later added in Racine, Wisconsin. “That’s going to be our project for the next couple years.”

    Yet even as Mr. Obama beseeches Republicans, he and his political allies are playing the Social Security card for all it’s worth in this campaign season. This has all the earmarks of a political bait and switch designed to ambush Republicans if they’re gullible enough to believe his bipartisan pleas.

    Mr. Obama personally teed up the campaign theme earlier this month when he celebrated Social Security’s 75th anniversary by claiming that “privatizing Social Security” is “a key part” of the Republican “legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall.” He went on to say that this plan, which does not in fact exist, is “wrong for America” and “I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stop those who would gamble your Social Security on Wall Street. Because you shouldn’t be worried that a sudden downturn in the stock market will put all you’ve worked so hard for—all you’ve earned—at risk.”

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    With their Jobs on the line, Dems want to fix the economy. Too little too late.

    August 25th, 2010 · Accountability, Auto Industry, Banking Industry, Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Reform, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Treasury, Unemployment

    As midterms loom, Democrats work to shore up faltering recovery

    By Lori Montgomery – Wednesday, August 25, 2010

    A rapidly weakening economy threatens to undermine President Obama’s assertion that he has set the nation on a path to prosperity and, with barely two months until congressional midterm elections, Democrats find themselves with few options for reviving the faltering recovery.

    The latest sign that the economy is losing steam: Home sales fell 27 percent in July, the steepest one-month drop since figures were first compiled in 1968, according to a report released Tuesday. Analysts had expected sales to decline following the expiration of a federal tax credit for homebuyers this spring, but the drop was nearly twice as large as forecast.

    The housing report punctuated a wave of bad news that has been building all summer. The number of jobless claims has risen in each of the past four weeks and last week hit its highest point in nine months. Private-sector job creation is trending well below the level needed to keep up with population growth. Retail sales have also been disappointing.

    Economists generally do not expect a dip back into recession, although many say the risk has grown with each new piece of disheartening data.

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