African Press International Invaded By Aliens!

No shit!  I am not freaking kidding!  Okay, maybe I am, but not by much.  I’ve pretty much given up on the API soap opera; like all sudsers, they get tedious and predictable after awhile, then they inevitably “jump the shark.”  But, checking in on the API website today, I find that they have not only “jumped” the shark, they have played hopscotch on it’s back before grabbing a fin and hanging on for a flight.  First, seems that yesterday,(or maybe tomorrow or the day after, who knows Nowegian time?) Chief Editor Korir, (who has been exposed as a fraud many times by Mountain Sage) wrote his API “family” an open letter promising to “reach the mountaintop” and “overcome” the “evil doers” who “sabotoged the airing of the (mythical Michelle Obama) tape.”  I have no flipping idea what this means, but hey, no matter, because today, (or tomorrow, or whenever the 15th of November is in Norway) an “imposter,” pretending to be Korir, “took over” the site in order to give API a “bad name.”  So now, (or, later, or whenever Korir came up with this scheme, Norway time) the site has been “closed” so that it can be “cleared.”  (The original post claiming Michelle Obama had called API saying that her husband was adopted, but still eligible to be president, has been already “cleared.”)

Now, I don’t know about you, but I say, props must be given for Olympic-grade execution of “shark jumping.”  Korir might be a hoaxter and scammer, but he has definitely raised pointless posturing to a fine art.

Bravo, Chief, bravissimo.

If Richardson’s In The Mix, I Want Hillary Out

Just when speculation surrounding Barack Obama’s possibly imminent appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was reaching a fever pitch, AP had to throw Bill Richardson’s name in the mix.  This pisses me off for two reasons.  One, if this is some sort of lottery approach to filling the job, it’s an insult and a slap in the face to Senator Clinton.  Why float her name if the decision is up in the air?  Two, Bill Richardson?  Are you kidding me?  Considering Richardson’s Judas-like abandonment of his “dear friends and mentors,” Bill and Hillary Clinton, to make him the other one of two being considered for the job is beyond insulting, it’s a slap in the face with a dirty jock strap.  What the hell is Obama thinking?  Just when you’re ready to give him the slightest benefit of the doubt, he and/or his faithful servants do something monumentally stupid like interview Hillary Clinton’s arch-enemy for the job she’s perfect for (if she deigns to do it) and frankly, that he needs her to do.

President-elect Barack Obama has interviewed primary election rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson for secretary of state, according to Democratic officials who revealed his secret meetings with both as he weighed the decision on folding former foes into his new administration.

Obama met with Richardson late Friday afternoon, a day after conferring one-on-one with Clinton at his Chicago office, said several Democratic officials. He plans to meet there Monday with his Republican opponent, John McCain, but advisers to both of the general election rivals say they don’t expect Obama to consider McCain for an administration job.

Gee whiz Obie, grow a pair and make a decision just because it’s the right thing to do.  President by Popularity is impossible to pull off, and a recipe for disaster to boot.

And Hillary, brush him off.

Or better yet, tell him to blow.

Obama Spreads It Around

Recession, what recession?  Some people just don’t need a bailout.  President-Elect-Of-The-Universe, Barack Obama, is spreading the wealth around, according to the New York Daily News.  It seems that the Obama treasure chest is so flush with cash after raising umpty-gazillion dollars for his campaign, that staffers are getting all kinds of goodies in return for services rendered:

Long-suffering political footsoldiers who toiled tirelessly, at least since September, to put Obama in the White House recently learned they will be getting extra paychecks worth a month’s salary, the Daily News has learned.

Hmmm, they worked a couple of months and are getting an extra full month’s salary.  That’s “long-suffering?  Better update my Funk and Wagnall’s.  Anyway, Camp Obie has so much dough leftover, the perks don’t stop at cold, hard cash:

In addition to the cold cash, staffers also have the option of keeping their campaign-issued computers and BlackBerrys – but must pay income tax on the hardware if they do.

Positively “Oprah-esque,” that Obie.  But, don’t get it twisted, there’s a limit to the King of All Media’s generosity.  Oh, sure, campaign staffers get un-earned ducats and booty, but the DeaNC only gets a plea for help from Obama to his loyal donors who make the gift-giving possible.  Guess they couldn’t just give those leftover t-shirts away.  Wouldn’t want to over-extend himself, money-wise, to the all guys and girls who helped him get elected, just the ones who answer to him directly.

In other, totally non-related “news”  the Huffington Post is claiming that Obama formally offered Hillary Clinton the job of Secretary of State during the meeting he requested with her in Chicago yesterday.  Supposedly, she played coquette:

President-elect Barack Obama offered Sen. Hillary Clinton the position of Secretary of State during their meeting Thursday in Chicago, according to two senior Democratic officials. She requested time to consider the offer, the officials said.

“I’ll think about it?”  Is that like, “Don’t hold your breath?”  I guess all that sniping about “sniper fire” and “drinking tea” is not enough to keep Obama from issuing his own emergency “3:00 a.m. phone call.”  When little boys playing dress-up actually get elected and realize they can’t just play president on TV, calling Mommy for help is the most natural thing in the world.

Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood

As we all know, Barack and Michelle Obama live in the neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago, Hyde Park.  So  does Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan (who thinks Obama is the Messiah,) Tony Rezko (when he’s not in jail,) Jesse Jackson, and on Obama’s block, James and Barbara Bowman, Valerie Jarrett’s parents, in the home in which they raised their family after returning to this country from London.  Ms. Jarrett herself now lives just a few blocks away.

Why is this important?  Well, there’s an old saying, “tell me who you are by the company you keep.”  And while our new president-elect and King of All Media certainly “keeps company” with lots of people who don’t live in and around Hyde Park, and conversely, is not likely to spend time with most of the denizens of the area, given that it’s an oasis of wealthy academia surrounded by, shall we say, less well funded, much less intellectually curious people, some of those Hyde Park dwellers who are in Obama’s inner circle have often proven problematic in the past, and likely, will continue to do so.

Take for example, “unrepentant terrorist,” (say it with me) William Ayers.  Obama has continuously tried to distance himself from the radical professor with the now famous “just a guy in my neighborhood” line, even though, from all indications, the two are quite close.  During the campaign, Ayers obediently kept his mouth shut and did not contradict Obama’s characterization of their relationship.  After the election, however, Ayers has crawled out of hiding, and yet, in his attempts to corroborate his “neighbor’s” assertions, has let a little too much truth slip out.  Or, so says the Chicago Tribune.  In a new afterword to the re-issue of his book, “Fugitive Days, which he will promote on “Good Morning America” Friday, Ayers writes:

“[W]e had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign.”

Uh-oh.  “Family friends?”  Ooops?  Or is Ayers just an egomaniac incapable of keeping quiet about anything?

Then, there’s Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s extremely close adviser and very close personal friend to the Obama family.  Jarrett, who has been rumored to be a potential replacement for Obama in the Senate, though she says she’s not interested, has more plausibly been said to be in line for a cabinet appointment, possibly in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or Department of Transportation.  With her background, with the Chicago Transit Authority, and as CEO of Habitat Company, which develops “mixed income housing,” such specualtion is not surprising.  But it’s the Habitat association that could do her in.  Habitat’s goal of eliminating public housing projects by developing privately owned housing projects for government assisted and other low-income families, hasn’t proven to be an overwhelming success.  With the involvement of folks like Allison Davis and Tony Rezco and questions surrounding Obama’s assistace in acquiring subsidies for the developers, Jarrett’s background just might not be much of an asset.  And now, Judicial Watch is sniffing around.  From Standard Newswire:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents linking Valerie Jarrett, an advisor to Barack Obama and the co-chairman of the President-Elect’s transition team, to a series of real estate scandals, including several housing projects operated by convicted felon and Obama fundraiser/friend Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the Illinois Secretary of State, Valerie Jarrett served as a board member for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago housing projects operated by real estate developers and Obama financial backers Rezko and Allison Davis. (Davis is also Obama’s former boss.) Jarrett was a member of the Board of Directors for the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation along with several Davis and Rezko associates, as well as the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, an organization that worked with Rezko and Davis.

(According to press reports, housing projects operated by Davis and Rezko have been substandard and beset with code violations. The Chicago Sun Times reported that one Rezko-managed housing project was “riddled with problems — including squalid living conditions…lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.”)

As Chief Executive Officer of the Habitat Company Jarrett also managed a controversial housing project located in Obama’s former state senate district called Grove Parc Plaza. According to the Boston Globe the housing complex was considered “uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage…In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale – a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.” Ms. Jarrett refused to comment to the Globe on the conditions of the complex.

“Like Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett is a product of the corrupt Chicago political machine. And it is no stretch to say that she was a slumlord,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We have real concerns about Jarrett’s ethics. Washington already has plenty of corruption. We don’t need to import more of it from Chicago.”

Characterized as “the other side of Barack Obama’s brain” by CBS News, Jarrett first met the Obamas seventeen years ago when she offered Michelle Obama a job. While speculation has arisen that Jarrett could take Obama’s place in the U.S. Senate, the New York Times reported that it is more likely she will become a senior White House adviser, thus continuing her long record of being an important influence and mentor to Barack and Michelle Obama.

Visit www.judicialwatch.org to access the Valerie Jarrett documents.

So, while Mr. Obama awaits his coronation inauguration, which is supposedly going to be witnessed by a million people live, (yeah, right, they said the same thing about the election night Grant Park celebration, turned out to be about 100,000) it might well be safe to bet that getting out of his old neighborhood can’t come fast enough.