Quick! Somebody get Pat and Vanna on the phone, stat! The Obamaniacs desperately need to buy a clue!
Answer: Clueless in the White House.
Question: What is the constant state of the Obama administration, Alex?
Alex: You are correct. Pick again.
Though many of us have known all along that Barry and the Bus Drivers never had any idea what the hell they were doing, a quick perusal of the weekend news round-up proves that despite Obie’s delusion that he was actually, at least navigating his “historic” course to the Nobel Prize, if not driving his custom, tricked out, re-built, rented GM Fishbowl, and owed his current position to his own aptitude and the acumen of his pit crew, nothing could be further from the truth. No, a careful reading of the “tidbits” contained in David Plouffe!-There-He Goes!’s upcoming tell-nothing-cuz-he-don’t-know-shit “expose” of the behind the scenes machinations of the Axelrovians, Audacity To Win, proves that whoever is responsible for the front man status of the Spokesmodel-in-Chief, it ain’t none o’ these clowns.
According to CNN, reporting on excerpts of the book now running in Time Magazine, Obombo was seriously considering nominating Hillary Clinton as vice-president, unbeknownst to Double David, both of whom were absolutely horrified about the prospect, horrified, I tellya! and thus, majorly relieved when Obie came to the conclusion, all by his lonesome, mind you, that he was too shy about exposing his potentially shriveled-looking, at least one short huevos in a political threesome with Billary to ask his Dream Girl out. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems like the sheer number of people who, like me, just can’t seem to wrap their heads around this Obama/Peace Prize thing, is starting to get under the formerly esteemed Nobel folks’ skin and majorly piss them off. Duh. And, they’re surprised because…? The Associated Press is reporting that, in an “unprecedented move,” the jury what voted for to put the Pretendident in the company of greatness, is speaking out in justification of their mind-blowing decision. And, in the real spirit of their phony “unprecedented” honesty, let me be the first to go on record as saying, methinks the Nobel Publisher’s Clearinghouse Peace Prize jury is full of shit:
To those who say a Nobel is too much too soon in Obama’s young presidency, “We simply disagree … He got the prize for what he has done,” committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland told The Associated Press by telephone from Strasbourg, France, where he was attending meetings of the Council of Europe.
Jagland singled out Obama’s efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.
“All these things have contributed to — I wouldn’t say a safer world — but a world with less tension,” he said.
Oh, wipe my ass and call me “Whitney,” why doncha, huh? Gee whiz. First of all, Obama may have received “the prize” of prizes for his platitudinous Cairo speech, among tedious others, but that’s not why he was nominated for it. According to the Nobel folks’ website, the nomination had to come in February, after less than two months in office, about two months before his April-in-Prague call for nuclear weapons reduction, and almost exactly two months before his June Sermon on the Nile shoutout to the Muslim world. So, what, these Nobel guys are prescient, too? Or, did they get a timeline, or blueprint of his proposed agenda by carrier pigeon flown paper airplane the day after he and the Chief Justice channeled their inner Moe and Curly and flubbed, then dubbed his acceptance speech? Read the rest of this entry »
Bah!Rock Whoosayin’ YoMama’s pretendidentin’ style is the exact opposite of Follow the Leader. Rather than setting off on a bold course and expecting everybody to either walk by his side or follow along behind him, our Celebritician in Chief is far more apt to send everybody out in different directions and then try to follow all of them simultaneously. Then, he and the AxelRocket Science Crew would stand around with one finger of one hand up their butts, and a finger of the other up their nose, wishing they could scratch their heads ar the same time, while looking around lost and confused about how come they’re lost and confused, seriously clueless about where everybody went, and how they ended up right where they started, in the middle of nowhere, all alone.
Like the one kid in every crowd who’s so smart he’s stupid, people delight in inviting ObiWan to play and letting him be “It,” as long as he agrees to close his eyes and count to a million. Like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football, Everybody’s 3rd Cousin Clem never seems to tire of finding himself facing a tree at midnight, halfway through the count, hours after everyone else has not only gone home, but finished dinner and homework, gone to bed, and been deep in REM sleep for at least an hour, convinced that one of these days he’s gonna find everybody before daylight. Read the rest of this entry »
If you ask the wrong questions, you’re sure to get the wrong answers. Such is the case for pundits questioning Pretendident Barack Obama’s lack of a cohesive, comprehensive, and comprehensible approach to what is quickly degenerating into a bad parody of a failed burlesque review, the Health Care Insurance Reform Follies.
“Is He Weak?” asks WaPo’s Jim Hoagland of Bamboozlebub. Answer: Duh. “What Went Wrong?” on the road to meaningful health care reform, laments Salon’s Thomas Shaller. Answer: You and your tingly-legged shills and fluffers in the Mainstream and Outer Cheetosphere Media let David ORahmba con you into helping them con America into electing an inexperienced West Wing actor as president, that’s what, Tommy.
I’ve always found it interesting that there were organized Republicans For Obama before there was an official Obama for President. However, being born into the Chicago Machine of the Illinois Combine, I can really say that such a thing doesn’t really surprise me in the least.
Everybody of color in Chicago is born a Democrat; so are like, 95% of the white people. In fact, if you count the Republicans, you could say that everybody in Chicago is born Democratic. Everybody in Chicago is also born knowing that there are ways to get things done; things that have nothing to do with campaign promises, ethics, or who’s in charge. If you’re willing and able to pay, somebody knows somebody who will be available to play. Read the rest of this entry »
In an earlier series of posts about Dueling AstroTurfing, Parts I and II,Obaganda, GE/MSNBO/FOX News, etc., among others, I have examined the phenomenon of main- and minor-stream media spin, collusion, distortion and all the other neat little Sheeple Mind Control tricks in their their seemingly bottomless greasy little Felix the Cat goody bags, and their role in using them to advance various corporo-political agendas. And, while they never take a break, (this is American politics we’re talking here) the information dissemination forces of darkness, evil and insane profit, and their assorted nefarious blogospherian satellites, are at it again with a vengeance.
First up, after a week or so of speculation that Pretendident Baracko Bama deliberately, and disingenuously, amped up the volume on the country’s historic racial discord by shooting his mouth off at his snoozefest of an interminable press conference on health insurance reform about the “stupidity” of the Cambridge police in arresting his “good friend,” Professor Henry Louis (Skip) Gates for being Uppity While Black, in order to deflect attention from the “fact” that his “plan?” was tanking, seems that the Forces of Axelrovian Disinformation have thrown the wolves new meat. Sarah Palin. Ah, Sarah. Remember her? Well, obviously somebody does, and since the GOP’s Alaskan Answer had, for reasons known only to her, stopped chattering via Twitter and Facebook, somebody (wink, wink) decided to give her hungry fans and foes sumpin’ ta talk about. Read the rest of this entry »
Uh-oh. Seems like the Place Putters of the Patriarchy have run into a snag in their well-coordinated Chick March to Cleaverville. Their duly appointed, previously compliant mascot, First Lady of the Ebony Arms, Michelle Obama, has apparently realized she has a pair, and that hers are not only bigger than theirs, they’re up front, where they count.
Of course, such insubordination from the Symbol of Submission is sure to cause considerable consternation to the Weenie Warrior Brigade, who, by dispatching their allied footsoldiers to go on the offensive, toy guns a-blazing, launching a preemptive opening salvo, the generals of AstroTurfania have given away their position. Thus, the Times Online, UK screams the panicked headline:
Michelle Obama raises fears over Hillary Clinton-style debacle
…and features this picture:
Hahahahahahahaha…wooooooo! I’m dying here. What, you may ask, on God’s Green Earth could FLOTUS have possibly done to shrink the packages of so many that they would actually lob such loaded grenades directly at her, and, through Hillary, indirectly at women in general, from the sanctuary of their little laptop barricades? Had a sandwich-making cigar session with Mark Sanford and John Ensign in the Lincoln bedroom? I mean, pulling out the “Oh my God, she’s acting like…Hillary! Save us!!” card before they even hint at what Sleeveless Sue might have done, denotes a pretty high level of irrational fear and desperation from the Skid Mark Crew. And, maybe the Boyz in the Backroom are right to be so afraid, because Ms. Obama is making it patently clear that from here on out, she’s gonna be…involved!
And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
-Barack Obama, Cairo
While the media, mainstream, mid-stream, and off the deep end included, is still stuck in it’s traditional, preliminary “suck up to the Pretendident” mode in their coverage of his “suck up to Islam” speech, we’re still at least a couple of days, if not weeks, from anything approaching objective journalistic analysis. Since I never pretend to bother with such restrictive standards in the first place, being equally inordinately fond of my own opinion as the best (and, worst) of them, I figured I might as well jump into the fray with my pontifications on the ObaMessiah’s Sermon On The Nile.
Rather than start out with his shout out to the brotherhood, which of course could not have been a shout out to the brotherhood since Obrother is not a Muslim, but a committed, never verifiably baptized Christian who’s been to church maybe once since he kicked his pastor of nearly 20 years, (whom he had embraced after the Catholics and Jews he fronted for as a community organizer encouraged him to join some kind, any kind, of church, in order to better pimp the poor) to the curb in return for unearned delegates at the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting nearly a year ago, I’d like to start with the latest episode in the now characteristically Obambivalent assault on womanhood he likes to engage in. In any classic example of Obambivalence, the ObaMassah puts forth a seemingly even-handed nudge to the position he favors, cleverly disguised as a condemnation of it. Or vice versa. Read the rest of this entry »
Hellllllp meeeeee! Barack Obama is stalking me! Every day, every single flipping day, there he is, inserting himself, unwelcomed, into my consciousness like a hellish evil spirit rapist of the soul. Turning up time after time, and time again, like a bad rash, mugging for the camera while sanctimoniously pontificating, ad nauseum, about NOTHING! Absolutely nothing! Every single fucking day, sometimes two, three or even more times a day, on and on, and on some more, for what? Why? Why, dear Lord, is this man stalking me through my TV?
I’m beginning to think my television set is possessed. No kidding, it must be. No one else could be suffering the kind of incessant interruptions that I’m experiencing, or the sale of replacement TV’s alone would be enough by itself to correct our current economic woes and save or create gazillions of jobs in China. No matter which infotainment show masquerading as a legitimate news source, on whichever corporate disinformation channel I happen to be watching, sooner or later, what must be a computer-generated OBobblehead pops up and starts sputtering complete nonsense about totally-unrelated-to-anything stuff. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s up with the creepatoids employed in what passes for the journalism field nowadays, that they have their collective heads so far up the Creamy Chocolate Dream Date/Geek In A Spokesmodel’s Empty Suit’s ass that they couldn’t see the light of a sunny day after Lasik surgery with a Klieg light and a Guide Dog? Does David Axelrod slip them a nice piece of change from a Wall Street bankster-provided slush fund under the table on a regular basis to just run Favreau-penned fluff ‘n puff pieces under their byline? What? Maybe it’s just me, but when I see more than one, “The Pretendident’s Too Cool To Laugh At” piece online, I have to ask myself, “Self, what’s up with that shit?”
The way I see it, if today’s “late night comics” can’t find anything about Mush Mouth Swivel Head to poke fun at, then they’re either, a) lousy comics, b) getting some of that Axelrove slush fund dosh, c) blind, or d) lousy comics. I vote for a) and d). He’s a comedian’s dream. Are you kidding me? “57 states?” “Above my pay grade?” “My Muslim faith?” “Uh, ummm, ya know, uhh, I, I, uh’ve been very clear…uhhh, uh, uh, uh?” “Here’s some old movies that won’t work on your system, anyway, blind guy?” “Oh, King Abdullah! It’s an honor to smell your crotch?” “I bowl like a retard?” Read the rest of this entry »
As the PUMAsphere rightly, and righteously, continues to rail against those responsible for inflicting the festering wound of Obamanism upon the Democratic party, it might be useful to take a moment to examine exactly where the blame belongs. While there is no doubt that Joe Cannon at Cannonfire and John-South of Melrose at Liberal Rapture are absolutely correct that the Hopium-hooked of Huffcheetoville have caused irreparable harm to the party with their over-the-top, irrational, indefensible, threats, taunts, and vitriolic rants against anyone and anything daring to express anything approaching the appearance of the possibility of potential criticism of the Unworthy One, one must ask oneself, “who are these idiots, and who let them out?” The answer to that question is at once, obvious and, a little convoluted.
We all tend to point fingers at the people who gave these rabid mobs a platform from which to rant, but, that might not be quite fair. While the Arianna-heads and Kossacks of the blogosphere certainly must own up to their fair share of responsibility, the bulk of the blame lies in the laps of David Axelrove’s Astroturfing Army, who, in many instances, hijacked website comment sections freeper-like, with military-style precision, often in response to articles posted on even those sites that don’t fit the Obots’ email ordered acceptability standards. It’s not hard to imagine that this online campaign began with the employment of a relatively small number of paid Obots and their sock puppets, and morphed into the larger online force via the drafting and careful cultivation of inferiority complex-plagued basement dwellers into Axelrove’s email army via their vaunted big donor-hiding, “small donor” list.
For those uninitiated into the Holy Order of Obamites, (and thus not likely to disappear in the coming Obacalypse) and uninformed as to the ways of The One, who might be confused and believe that the above is a picture of the The Chosen with his butt in the air bowing (genuflecting) before Saudi King Abdullah, let me enlighten you. The Obamessiah can do no wrong, therefore, if you object to such a depiction, the problem obviously lies with you, and your lying eyes. I know this because the Simon Peter of Obasciples, (the followers of He Who Is Blameless, not to be confused with Obacicles, a hopium flavored, frozen ersatz fruit juice-on-a-stick treat) David of Astroturf, hath decreed it so, and sent forth Obacolytes to evangelize thusly:
“It wasn’t a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he’s taller than King Abdullah,” said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
So, it is spaketh, so shall it be. Only non-believers and infidels, such as Arabic newspaper columnists, would interpret the Obamessiah’s gesture incorrectly:
“Obama wished to demonstrate his respect and appreciation of the personality of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, who has made one of the most important calls in the modern era, namely the call for inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue to defuse the hatred, conflict and wars,” wrote the columnist, Muhammah Diyab.
On the day when the Superman of Spokesmodel-in-Chief’s Boy Wonder, Treasury Secretary, Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG,tc) was all over television promoting his plan to fundamentally change the American financial structure…
“But we’re going to emerge stronger from this. When we get through this, people are going to care less about what they make, more about what they do. What they achieve is what they make. And that will help make this country stronger.”
…by pumping even more cash into the banksters’ coffers than the 565 billion dollars already spent of the 700 billion allocated TARP funds, you’d think that money and Afghanistan were all that the Obamanians had to worry about.
Yet, with all that, and the other potential crises looming on the Obama horizon, like the auto industry collapse, no “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal forthcoming, and G20 to name another three, the upcoming April 7 date for indicting, or filing an extension to file charges against the Cabbage Patch Weeble, Rod Blagojevich, lurks menacingly in the background for the Pretendident. NBC Chicago says the indictment could come down sometime next week. While the Obministration might well be content to just let sleeping dogs lie, in about a week, one way or another, something’s gonna give. Read the rest of this entry »
Reading an Associated Press article with the headline “Americans Say Too Early To Judge Obama Performance“ it is clear that the particular brand of Obandini Davids Axelrod and Plouffe have been using to fertilize their Astroturf is working spectacularly. The statements of people interviewed read as if Obamatrons were regurgitating pre-programmed responses implanted into their memory banks in anticipation of just such an occasion, the sort that PUMA bloggers and their readers encounter from paid Obots on a daily basis. As we all know, sympathy for him from even those who didn’t support him enough to vote for him, followed by familiar, yet personalized, variations on the talking point themes of the day, is standard Obot procedure: Read the rest of this entry »
The whole “who put the “out” in the stimulus bill?” kerfluffle has had me flummoxed since it came to light. Why all the confusion? Either Christopher Dodd is a one-man crime spree, ( ‘cuz finagling with a bill after it’s been voted on should be a crime, if it isn’t) or he meddled with the wording during some crack in time before it was voted on, (in which case somebody should have noticed) or, he didn’t do nothing. I vote for the last one.
Chris Dodd was not on the House Senate committee that changed the language of the executive compensation amendment to the stimulus bill. I’ve posted the relevant portion of the February 8, 2009 version of the Senate bill here, and the final version here. The segment containing the February 11, 2009 cutoff date affecting AIG’s retention bonuses is not in the Senate version; however, the bill does contain the Wyden-Snowe amendment calling for a 35% tax, and a provision that executives be paid no more than the president of the United States. As near as I can tell, this is the bill that was voted on, and passed by the Senate, Tuesday, February 10, 2009. In fact, in Dodd’s mea culpa, he refers to the “Senate approved” language. Read the rest of this entry »
While there are many tangled webs to unravel in the current Obama Drama Bailout Brouhaha, one man seems to have had a pretty clear eye on the situation all along. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Clintonite once accused of demeaning Barack Obama with the use of the phrase “shuck and jive” in a sentence only marginally related to Sir Nose in the Air, has been yelling and screaming about the unfair Wall Street bonuses since at least October. And, everybody knew it.
During the primaries Hillary Clinton supporting Cuomo, during a radio interview, said:
“It’s not a TV crazed race. Frankly you can’t buy your way into it,” Cuomo said, according to Albany Times Union reporter Rick Karlin. He then added, “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”
I’ll be the first to admit that I did not come into this blogging business as the most politically astute or learned person on the planet. The idea that I might be is so far from the possibility of reality that the words I just typed hardly belong in the same sentence. I know that. However, watching my hopes for the election of a candidate I thought to be most qualified to “inherit” (I’m beginning to hate that word) the responsibility of guiding the county back on track be bashed, dashed, crashed and gleefully shattered to smithereens by disparate entities on the left and right, seemingly demented in their zeal, has given me an opportunity to learn and grow politically in a way unlikely to have been appreciated before, had it presented itself. And frankly, I’m sick of it.
All. Of. It.
Each news story, op-ed column, Google search, blog post and talking head garbage spew disguised as informed opinion has added another tidbit of information, often counter to the point the happy yakker thought he/she was making, to the tapestry of my understanding of our nation’s political reality. It’s enough to make you puke. Read the rest of this entry »
Wanna hear something strange? The President I love to hate, Alfred E. Urkelbama (What, me do that?) and I actually have a lot in common. We’re both nominally “black,” (though, I didn’t grow up in Hawaii, I don’t have a white parent, and I don’t try to mute or exploit my blackness at other black people’s expense for personal gain, but other than that…) and, like him, I don’t like labels. Okay, so that doesn’t exactly qualify as “a lot” in common, but it is more than I thought, and “a lot” more than I really want to admit. I really don’t like the guy, okay?
Other than a recent declaration that President Black Obama considered himself a “New Democrat,” assumedly aligning his political ideology with a faction of the same Democratic Leadership Council he once defiantly, uncategorically, denied, Oblahblah has consistently resisted being pigeon-holed. This is understandable, given his early primary and caucus appeals to Republicans to crossover and support, vote for, and donate to him. I mean, what do you call a guy who does that? “Opportunist” if you’re kind, “traitor” if you’re not?
I’m not.
It also makes sense that he would reject the label, “liberal,” even if his philosophy leaned that way, (which, I’m not hardly sure of) since Republicans have made that term synonymous with “rabid Democratic champion of the shiftless and unworthy.” Who, besides Jesus, would want to be thought of like that, huh?
What’s the difference between American International Group (AIG) and any other garden variety extortionist? Not much. In fact, your average “gimme $1,000, or I tell your wife about the weekend with the monkey,” slimeball could take a lesson from these guys. According to Bloomberg, not only is AIG resorting to “pony up, or else you’ll be sorry” threats to keep the government on the hook, they’re warning their marks to keep it on the downlow:
American International Group Inc. appealed for its fourth U.S. rescue by telling regulators the company’s collapse could cripple money-market funds, force European banks to raise capital, cause competing life insurers to fail and wipe out the taxpayers’ stake in the firm.
AIG needed immediate help from the Federal Reserve and Treasury to prevent a “catastrophic” collapse that would be worse for markets than the demise last year of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., according to a 21-page draft AIG presentation dated Feb. 26, labeled as “strictly confidential” and circulated among federal and state regulators.
For whatever reason, it seems our Too Too Yummy Presilicious is hellbent on being…difficultpetty somewhat of a jerk. Some of his recent moves are hard to understand. Like his announcement of Tim Kaine’s appointment as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, carefully scheduled to occur while outgoing Chairman Howdy Doody Dean was otherwise occupied thousands of miles away doing party business, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is being kept Elastic Man’s arm’s distance away from today’s Compromise on Health Care Summit. In fact, she’s being kept out of the debate, by everybody but the press, entirely.
This is by design of the Obacracy. No one associated with the Big Shot’s walk back from Universal Health Care is making any bones about it, either. Their flawed thinking is, the enduring stench from Clinton’s failed attempt at true health care reform is so permeative that nothing short of the stench of his new Health and Human Services Secretary’s failed attempts at health care reform can overcome it, and that’s only if Clinton is isolated in exile halfway around the world. Or something like that, according to David Axelrove, quoted in the New York Times:
“I think we’ve got her pretty well occupied,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, adding that the president and Mrs. Clinton had spoken about her experience with health care “only in the most general terms.”
The story for publication is that the Exalted One has learned from Clinton’s gross incompetence not to make the same egregious mistakes and doesn’t want her tainting the process of caving to insurance companies at the taxpayers’ expense. Or something like that:
In an interview, Mr. Emanuel described the White House effort, beginning with Thursday’s policy forum, as “the manifestation of a series of learned examples, learned lessons,” a litany of health policy do’s and don’ts. To begin with, the Clinton plan was drafted in secret and delivered to lawmakers as a fait accompli; Mr. Obama is articulating broad principles and leaving the details to Congress.
Since I don’t want health care reform, I want health care, I would appreciate Hillary Clinton’s hands-on input and influence based on hard won experience being a huge part of the mix. But, since Obama has been all over the place with his promises, depending upon who he’s talking to, one minute claiming to be a single payer proponent, the next, a “just keep what you got with a little something on the side,” insurance/drug industry suckophant, I can see where Clinton’s more committed participation might not be welcome. But, a less diplomatically challenged adult might have found a way to get that point across without slapping his potential ace-in-the-hole in the face in front of the world.
However, the White House’s tanned Beverly Hillbilly is obviously incapable of exhibiting even the barest semblance of decorum and grace, according to the British, via the snarky L.A. Times Top of the Ticket:
Some sensitive Brits, who recall that Brown dropped everything to provide that happy walking photo op during Obama’s European campaign swing last summer (see above), think that Obama, the son of a Kenyan whose homeland had a bloody colonial parting with Britain many years ago, meeting with Mexico’s president before his inauguration, traveling to Canada on his first foreign trip, having Japan’s prime minister over to the White House already, sending Hillary to Asia first, schmoozing with ex-PM Tony Blair at the National Prayer Breakfast, removing the Winston Churchill gift bust from the Oval Office and refusing to schedule a full-fledged side-by-side news conference with Brown that would look great on TV back home where Brown faces elections next year after the Brit was so effusive in his not-exactly-nonpartisan praise for Obama during the U.S. campaign is some kind of slight toward British leaders, who’ve been nothing but publicly stalwart toward the former American rebels for generations.
Maybe because his plans to ravage the Republican party by inflating Rush Limbaugh’s importance only to tear it down are working so well. And make no mistake, these are Barack Obama’s plans.
Anybody who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention to ObamAntics the past couple years knows that calling out the press is one of his favorite past times. He chided Don Imus and called for the schlock jock be fired for his “nappy headed ‘ho’s” characterization of the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. From ABC News, April, 2007:
“I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus,” Obama told ABC News, “but I would also say that there’s nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude.”
He reprimanded the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass in March of 2008, for not being properly deferential at any and all times, when Kass confronted The Never To Be Questioned One about his ties to ersatz realtor and convicted felon, Tony Rezko:
“I know that there are those, like John Kass, who would like me to decry Chicago politics more frequently.”
Just the corrupt parts, I said.
“I’ll leave that to his editorial commentary, but I think it’s fair to say that I have conducted myself in my public office with great care and high ethical standards,” he said.
Except for Rezko.
He kicked reporters off his campaign plane after their papers endorsed his rival, John McCain. From the Washington Post, October 2008:
The Washington Times, which has had a reporter traveling with Barack Obama’s campaign for nearly two years, has been kicked off his press plane.
“The decision came just three days after the editorial page endorsed John McCain,” Times editor in chief John Solomon said this morning. “I hope a candidate who says he wants to unite the country isn’t using a litmus test for who can cover him.”
What’s more, the Obama operation has ejected reporters for the New York Post and Dallas Morning News, which have also endorsed McCain. And room was suddenly made for two magazines that have not been traveling with the Democratic nominee, Essence and Ebony.
He even got downright pissy with the White House press corps 2 days after he was inaugurated, for daring to ask him a question amidst all the bootlicking he had come down to the press room to get:
“Ahh, see,” he said, “I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here.”
And while Politico and others have shown pretty conclusively that the current “Operation: Get Rush” campaign is coming straight from the West Wing via Rahm Emanuel playing field general to suckophants Paul Begala, James Carville and George Stephanopoulis, to lay the blame at the feet of Rahmbo is to miss the larger point.
Barack Obama himself launched the opening salvo in the Limbaugh-Obama war in January. From the New York Post:
President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.
“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.
The mainstream blogosphere, as opposed to the grassroots blogosphere, like the PUMAsphere, is slowly waking up to the fact that the country is being community organized through Astroturf by those promoting the “surprisinly liberal” guy who ran his campaign for the president as the person who was going to change Washington, politics and the country from the ground up. Duh. I keep wondering just what the heck these previously clueless KoolAid drunks, now slowly emerging from their self-induced haze, were thinking for the past two years. Were they freaking deaf, dumb and blind? The President Formerly Known As Barry has been spouting Alinsky and using his “get in your face“ tactics to promote his clear agenda all along. “Change the system” is pretty unambiguous. Why nobody thought to pin him down on exactly what that “change” entailed is beyond me.
But, now that Obrother has let the “he is who he is” cat out the bag, “moderates” and “centrists” are wailing and gnashing their teeth to powder, while walking around zombie-like, crying about how they’ve been tricked. Reading their bitching is just as funny as it would be if all of a sudden they noticed he was black. The funny thing is, not only have they not been tricked in the way they’re now complaining about, they’re completely unaware they’re being tricked into thinking they have been.
RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
edit
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Rules 3 and 12 of Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” are but the two most relevant to what’s happening right now with the Rush=Republican theme being pushed like a snowball deliberately kicked along down a mountainside, with predictably similar results. With the clarity hindsight affords, we can now see that at various other points in the Obama Drama that has enveloped our day-to-day existence since 2004, other Alinsky rules have been implemented successfully. In fact, “Astroturfing,” though not invented by David Axelrod, is almost synonymous with “community organizing,” since both involve exploiting poor, and otherwise innocent, people through trickery.
“Community organizing” is the “art” of building a power base in order to promote the interests of the base, as the organizers see fit. In other words, “community organizing” is not designed to provide training to people who have already united in a common cause seeking the means to implement their agenda, “community organizers” most often must convince those they claim to want to help that their help is indeed needed. Alinky’s rules were for radicals; agitators, rabble rousers, not victims. In fact, a case can be made that Alinsky’s radical community organizers only seek to exploit, thereby further victimizing the people they profess to help. From Wikipedia:
Grassroots organizing builds community groups from scratch, developing new leadership where none existed and organizing the unorganized. It is a values based process where people are brought together to act in the interest of their communities and the common good. Networks of community organizations that employ this method and support local organizing groups include National People’s Action and ACORN.
“Door knocking” grassroots organizations like ACORN organize poor and working-class members recruiting members one by one in the community. Because they go door-to-door, they are able to reach beyond established organizations and the “churched” to bring together a wide range of less privileged people. ACORN, tends to stress the importance of constant action in order to maintain the commitment of a less rooted group of participants.
When Baracus Ceaser Obamacus incessantly cried, “Change!” from the rooftops via TelePrompTer in stump speech after stump speech written by the Cardboard Titty Groper at the behest of the Astroturfing PuppetMaster acting on behalf of the banksters bankrolling the hopium-fueled ObamaLove Train steamrolling into the White House, who knew he really meant restructuring the global financial landscape, huh?
The inventors of the soon-to-be patented (I’m sure) ObaSpeak have mastered the art of diversion through obfuscation that lesser politicians and wordsmiths have been practicing inartfully for millennia. Thus, bailouts are not bailouts, and “nationalization” is not quite, exactly “nationalization,” per se.
I guess when you’re determined to “redistribute the wealth” on the downlow, you have to figure out a way to freak people out without freaking them totally out. And, if you can come up with a way to trick them into thinking it’s their idea, so much the better. That’s probably why the number of women in high places in the administration will always continue to be limited by design, we invented the “oh,honey, how clever,” ploy and can see right though it. That’s why when it comes to the current global financial system restructuring going on right under the world’s nose, I sweetly call “bullshit, dear.”
I’m no economist, but I know screwing when I see it, even when I don’t know the people, or can’t identify the species of the animals involved. And, oh, baby, oh, there’s some serious money screwing going on.
Before the banksters got together and financed the junior senator from Illinois’ meteoric rise to the top of the political trash heap, the world’s financial landscape looked very different. Yet, in just a couple short years, the financial structure as we’ve known it has “collapsed,” almost in a curious tandem reverse/parallel tango with the seemingly unqualified and inexperienced young political phenom’s ascent. Funny, that.
Now that there are no more large investment banks, as far as I know, news reports last year trumpeted the conversion to commercial banks of Goldman Sachs’ and JP Morgan Chase’s status as that of the last two, and the government has played favorites with which struggling banks and financial institutions to prop up, we now enter the “not really nationalizing, except we own ‘em” phase of the Bwah Ha Ha Plan.
How do we know that this is a Democratic UniParty plot, and not just a cleanup of the Bush administration mess? Why, Harry Reid told us. Not exactly in those words, per se; that’s not the way of ObamaCanCratSpeak. From Politico:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he supports efforts of the federal government to dramatically expand its stake in Citigroup, but wants people to back off from the dramatic rhetoric.
“It’s not nationalization, it’s protecting the taxpayers’ interests,” Reid (D-Nev.) told MSNBC’s Morning Joe program on Monday.
“In the bailout, the TARP, that we made sure the American taxpayer had a way of getting paid back for their investments,” Reid said. “That’s what this is all about and it’s the right way to go.”
In other, normal American words, “yeah, we already own a lot of Wall Street, but, you’re getting a cut, eventually, so ixnay on the ationalization-nay, will ya?” He forgot to mention that the 8 – 13 dollar cut you’re currently slated to get, just might be in Ameros in the near future. Dollars will very soon be worthless, anyway, so kwitcherbitchin’. Remember, TARP is bipartisan.
The Politico piece goes on to claim that Republicans are upset about, shhhh, nationalization, shhhh, but, didn’t that cross-party blog pioneer/ObaFluffer, Huff ‘n’ Puff, among every other news outlet on the planet, report last week that Lindsay Graham made the Sunday news show rounds planting the “we politicians can do it better” seeds in the Astroturf bs? And, isn’t he just the cutest little Barney Frank alter ego across the aisle, hmmmmm?
Now even the Soros backedCenter for American Politics‘ hatchet blog, Think Progress, is trumpeting the “if not nationalization, what?” drumbeat. Even Republicans are beginning to see the futility of resistance. That the growing chorus of cacophony is reaching eardrum-splitting noise levels is probably just the inevitable response to the legitimate crisis of confidence currently devaluing the global economy, right? I mean, we gotta do something, don’t we?
Sure.
So while the Spokesmodel-in-Chief dons his most comfortable Professor Man costume and publicly breaks up his lackeys into study groups, the better to memorize their approved talking points asssigned them by the Astroturfing, bankster-employed, stage manager/prducer who had them written and distributed, those who chose to remain clueless can take comfort in the fact that worldwide screwing of this magnetude has never before been attempted, so is likely not happening now. It’s okay. The thrill of telling you, “I toldja so,” will be just as sweet as it will be for other, less tinfoil- friendly PUMAs when the shit fully hits the fan and splatters us all.
As I watched last week’s PBS special about the financial crisis, “Inside the Meltdown,” one of the many things I was struck by was the lengths to which the producers went to establish the consensus of opinion regarding Wall Street’s inordinate sensitivity and susceptibility to rumor, gossip, and innuendo. That such a vast, powerful, integral industry run by people presumed to be America’s “best and brightest” could allow decisions affecting the rise and fall of entire global conglomerates comprising the world’s economic foundation to be based on nothing more than “he said, she said” tales told out of school, or worse, possibly deliberately planted, malicious seeds of doubt, seems hard to fathom. Yet, the possibility of such an eventuality was demonstrated in great detail in the documentary, and, with just a modicum of imagination, one might easily consider that a few well timed “revelations,” true or not, might well take down an entire financial empire, if not industry. A little research might lead one to believe that such a thing is not only possible, it just might have happened.
In March of 2008, at the time Bear Stearns tanked and was sold to JP Morgan Chase at 2 dollars a share, only to have the price bumped up to ten dollars a share after the government intervened, even that price was only considered to be approximately ten percent of its market value. According to many sources, such intervention was rather suspect, for a lot of reasons, especially considering that the firm was not insolvent, though nobody would loan them money because of rumors that they were. In other words, it was not a lack capital that undid the company, but a lack of confidence. Vanity Fair encapsulated the cause of Bear Stearns’ death this way in the opening paragraph of its August ‘08 “autopsy:”
On Monday, March 10, the rumor started: Bear Stearns was having liquidity problems. In fact, the maverick investment bank had around $18 billion in cash reserves. But soon the speculation created its own reality, and the race was on to keep Bear’s crisis from ravaging Wall Street. With the blow-by-blow from insiders, Bryan Burrough follows the players-Bear’s stunned executives, trigger-happy reporters at CNBC, a nervous Fed, a shadowy group of short-sellers-in what some believe was the greatest financial scandal in history.
So, why did the corporation’s protestations to the contrary fall on industry-wide deaf ears? The company hadexperienced difficulties the previous year with 2 of its subprime mortgage hedge funds, High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund, and High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund, and was facing lawsuits from Barclays and other angry investors, as a result. Additionally, two of its former managers, Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, were eventually arrested in June of ‘08 for taking their own money out of the funds while propping them up with corporate bailout money and lying to investors about it. But, that was after the company died and was consumed.
According to CNN Money, Fortune, CFO Sam Molinaro asserted that by February, ‘08, Stearns’ troubles were behind them:
Bear had survived one liquidity challenge, in the summer of 2007, when two of its hedge funds cratered after the subprime mortgage collapse. The firm had labored to repair its balance sheet and improve its financing. “Our capital position is strong,” said Bear’s CFO, Sam Molinaro, at an investors’ conference in February. “Balance-sheet liquidity has continued to improve throughout the course of the year. We spent an awful lot of time trying to reduce our higher-risk asset categories.”
So, could Bear Stearns have weathered the storm? Then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s old company didn’t think so. On March 11, an email sent by Goldman Sach’s derivatives group to its hedge fund clients, saying they would no longer back them on Bear Stearns deals, was the nail in the company’s coffin.
While I am not prepared to suggest that there was a direct “cause and effect” relative to the currently discussed events, I do think it’s helpful to bear in mind that the financial “crisis” evolved against the backdrop of the presidential campaign. Would Bear have “collapsed” had the results of Super Tuesday been different? Who knows? It is something to think about, though.
On March 28, the Chicago Tribune and Reuters, among others reported that rumors that the company was claiming were “totally unfounded,” were swirling about Lehman Brothers, too. By August 25, on the day the Democratic National convention started, The Deal.com was reporting that the rumors had become a full-fledged storm amid suggestions of a hostile takeover by Korea Development Bank and intra-company planned coup against CEO Richard Fuld.
On September 15, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy after the government, presumably weary of going to bat for “failing” Wall Street companies, like Bear, having bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the week before, refused to intervene this time. Interestingly, one of Lehman’s holdings, Neuberger Berman, headed by then President, George W. Bush’s second cousin, George Herbert Walker IV, was exempted from the bankruptcy filing:
Neuberger Berman LLC and Lehman Brothers Asset Management will continue to conduct business as usual and will not be subject to the bankruptcy case of the parent company, and its portfolio management, research and operating functions remain intact. In addition, fully paid securities of customers of Neuberger Berman are segregated from the assets of Lehman Brothers and aren’t subject to the claims of Lehman Brothers Holdings’ creditors, Lehman said.
According to Wikipedia, and corroborated here, on September 13, Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG, tc,) then President of the New York Federal Reserve, now Secretary of the Treasury, convened a meeting about Lehman’s future that Lehman wasn’t invited to, after Lehman suffered substantial losses starting September 9:
An official from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said participants include Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox. The New York Fed official asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the talks.
Participants in today’s discussions at the offices of the New York Fed also include executives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. Representatives for Lehman Brothers were not present during the discussions.
Lehman claimed to be in negotiations for sale with Barclays and Bank of America, both of whom backed out. Bank of America bought Merill Lynch on September 14, instead. Barclays bought Lehman’s North American investment-banking and trading divisions along with its New York headquarters building, the next day, after Lehman was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
After the fact, in October, former CEO Richard Fuld said in prepared testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, that rumor-mongering was a big part of the problem that brought Lehman down. However, Fuld’s first contention was that the Federal Reserve’s refusal to allow Lehman an exemption to become a bank holding company, or commercial bank, was a body blow to the company. On September 22, a week after Lehman filed bankruptcy, The Fed allowed Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, “the last two major investment banks” to switch. According to the New York Times, this was a major big deal. The Washington Post reported at the time that the Fed had approved the conversion with “unusual haste.”
On September 27, the New York Times* reported that one of the members at the meeting that decided Lehman’s fate was Lloyd C. Blankfeld of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson’s old firm. At that meeting, the state of A.I.G., Goldman Sach’s largest trading partner, was discussed. As we know now, the government bailed out A.I.G., yet let Lehman die. Naked Capitalism asserts that the Goldman Sachs/Paulson relationship might have been more than a factor. In October, Bloomberg claimed that Lehman’s collapse was the fault of JP Morgan Chase, purchasers of Bear Stearns.
It bears remembering that in the midst of this Lehman Brothers/A.I.G./Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac financial upheaval, Barack Obama and John McCain were involved in a pitched battle for the presidency. It is also worth noting that Obama was reported at the time to have been in daily contact with Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary and former head of Goldman Sachs, one of Obama’s largest campaign donors. FYI, Paulson was raised in Barrington, Illinois, outside of Chicago, was also head of Goldman’s Midwestern Division, headquartered there. Worthy of equal or better note, Obama’s campaign economic team included William Daley, Mayor Richard Daley’s brother, and Midwest Chairman of JP Morgan Chase, as well as its CEO and New York Fed Board of Directors member, Jamie Dimon, who parlayed his turnaround of Bank One, after being dumped by his mentor, Sandy Weill of Citigroup, into the JP Morgan gig. Oh, gosh, did I forget to mention Bank One is in Chicago? My bad. One other noteworthy Obama advisor at that time was Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG, tc). I have done a series of posts chronicling Jamie Dimon’s involvement in the Obamenon, I humbly advise readers to check them out, here, here, here, and here,to name just a few posts, not so much for my opinions, but for the links to information they provide.
By November, when Obama secured the presidency, Paulson’s TARP had distributed about half of the allotted funds to “troubled” banks, more than half of it to the country’s largest, including Goldman and JP Morgan. According to reports, most of which came to light after Obama was inaugurated, the banksters were forced to accept the funds the Treasury was giving away, whether they wanted to or not, yet were later called on the carpet to explain how they spent them. At the hearing in the House, they, like their counterparts in the beleaguered auto industry, were castigated for frivolous financial excess, even though, not all of them requested government funds. As president, Obama had by that point, already railed against the ” shameful” bankers, and issued a “salary cap,” generally considered to be window dressing, since it only applied to those financial institutions receiving future government assistance from the second half of TARP, not the ones funded in the first bailout. TTTG, tc was said to have prevailed against other Obama administration advisers, namely David Axelrod, in the president’s ultimate soft bailout stance.
The TARP program, or Paulson Plan, is not universally loved by bankers, some say it’s a sneaky attempt at nationalization, or in the words of Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, “subsidization.” The Brookings Institute called for more Congressional oversight in December, calling the plan “frayed” and “rushed into law.” At any rate, the relatively ineffective, previous admonition is now a moot point, having been trumped by the new, stricter “salary cap” guidelines supposedly snuck into the president’s “stimulus plan” by Chris Dodd when nobody was looking.
The new rules require all banks recieving government assistence to be subject to the new, stricter salary cap rules. That means, even banks forced into the bailout program are now under government supervision. And, though Obama has made, “the discussion’s not over” noises, as Politico pointed out, it’s not credible that the administration was blindsided:
The tougher rules that passed in Congress were no last-minute surprise. Dodd talked them up in a February 5 press release, and in another released on Thursday, just hours before the bill was filed. The rules were debated in the Senate.
Okay, I know this is a long post, and to be honest, I’ve only scratched the surface of the mountains of information and questions that arise from it, here. But, for a series of rumors to be the catalyst for events that end up in the “nationalization” and/or “subsidization” of the nation’s banks, at the expense of the global economy, is a mindboggling thing to consider, even if it’s ultimately untrue, or unprovable, if it is.
As I’ve said before, it’s reminiscent of a John Grisham novel, The Appeal, to be exact, so maybe my skepticism is born of an overactive imagination. But all things considered, the more pertinent question is, what if it’s not?
*The New York Times printed a correction clarifying the dates and participants of 2 separate meetings re: Lehman/A.I.G.:
Because of an editing error, an article on Sunday about the financial problems of American International Group referred incorrectly to the timing and participants at meetings at the New York Federal Reserve between Saturday, Sept. 13, and Monday, Sept. 15. Although there were indeed meetings that weekend, there was also a separate meeting on Monday to discuss financial aid for A.I.G. Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, was the only Wall Street chief executive who attended the Monday meeting, not the only chief executive who attended weekend meetings. Also, Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, did not lead or attend the Monday meeting. (Both Mr. Blankfein and Mr. Paulson did attend the weekend meetings.)
During one late night/early morning informal discussion on The Confluence, the name Robert Wolf, and his influence on Barack Obama, came up. To be honest, I didn’t know Robert Wolf from the man in the moon, and still don’t. However, I have looked into the question of whether or not he might be “the guy” who’s responsible for foisting the fraud that is our current president onto our nation via our easily bedazzled and bamboozled breth-and sist-ren, and, have concluded, probably not. Though, he is a rather strong candidate, worthy of PUMA scrutiny and investigation.
Robert Wolf is the President and Chief Operating Officer of UBS Investment Bank, as well as Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of UBS Group for the Americas. That comes straight from the UBS website. The company is a global financial institution based in Switzerland, whose name (USB) comes from it’s original, pre-merger with Swiss Bank Corporation name, Union Bank of Switzerland. The AG is initialized form of a Swiss word basically meaning shareholder corporation. UBS AG, along with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley are among the financial groups who gave Googles of money to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, either through employee contributions, direct personal donations, contributions to PACs, and/or bundling. Wolf’s and UBS’ political contributions to date can be tracked here, here, and here.
On February 6, White House.gov posted a press release announcing President Black Obama’s newly established Economic Advisory Board, designed to brief the president as he makes up an economic strategy on the fly, then tries to sell it on the campaign trail and run it up the public opinion flagpole and Chris Matthews’ leg, as David Axelrod runs focus groups whose results he can doctor and leak to the press. The board will tell him what to do for two years, then he will revisit the question of extending their term of service and basically do whatever they tell him to do. (Okay, the press release doesn’t exactly say that, but, c’mon, we know what’s up.) Anyway, besides Paul Volcker, Penny (first Commerce Secretary name withdrawn) Pritzker, and Austan (NAFTAgate) Goolsbee, the most interesting name on the list was…(drumroll, please)…Robert Wolf (rim shot).
Obama met Wolf in December of 2005 at a George Soros-sponsored “meet the bundlers” matinee soiree, and, according to an April 16, 2007, New York Magazine article, it was man love at first sight. Conversation was had, numbers were exchanged and a relationship was born. To make a long story boring, seems both were a little miffed at the “old school” dominance of the stuck up, cocky Clinton Machine, so the ambitious Obama jumped aboard the put out, mega-rich, political playa wannabe’s train, and together, they formed a younger rainbow money posse and rode off into the sunset, creatively plotting to take over the world with their new, invigorating “hopey changeness.”
Except…
Since it was George Soros’ party, and Soros supported Obama, it seems likely to me that, if there was a big player to exploit, Soros put the “suck up to that guy” bug in Obie’s ear. Also, a Washingtom Post article dated 2 days later, had already identified Goldman Sachs as Obama’s biggest donor, a title I don’t think GS ever relinquished. At that time, WaPo listed Obie’s Big Givers as:
The figures reflect giving from the employees of Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, as well as Goldman and UBS. Goldman employees gave about 50 percent more to presidential hopefuls than the next-highest set of givers, at Citigroup.
Remember, this is April ‘07 we’re talking here, before a single primary/caucus vote was cast/stolen. It’s doubtful that Wolf was able to snooker so much financial support from his business rivals unless there’s been some major collusion going on for quite some time.
Which is possible…
According to Wikipedia, Wolf assumed his current position as Chief Operating Officer with UBS in January, 2007. After a company shakeup in October of 2007, due to a “writedown” caused by the “deteriorating conditions in the US sub prime residential mortgage market,” Wolf was named President, Investment Bank. May, 2008 saw more UBS writedowns and job losses.
In the midst of our world-wide economic crisis the story of the troubles UBS is currently facing is not getting quite the attention it deserves. One of the skeletons in Obama’s closet is that the banking conglomerate which employs one of the President of the United States’ financial advisers is currently under investigation for income tax evasion, which could have major implications for the entire banking industry and global reprecussions.
In February of last year, Reuters quoted a Wall Street Journal report that UBS was facing “subprime mortgage investigations:”
U.S. government prosecutors are investigating whether Swiss banking giant UBS misled investors by reporting inflated prices of mortgage-backed securities it held despite knowing those valuations had eroded, the Wall Street Journal said on Saturday.
According to a May 7, 2008 Bloomberg piece, the company was facing a tax probe:
UBS AG, the world’s biggest money manager for rich individuals, said the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether the Swiss bank helped clients evade American taxes.
One senior bank employee was “briefly detained” by U.S. authorities as a “material witness,” the firm said in an e- mailed statement. The Financial Times reported that the employee was Martin Liechti, the Zurich-based head of UBS’s international wealth management business for the Americas. Rohini Pragasam, a UBS spokeswoman in New York, declined to comment on the FT report. Liechti could not immediately be reached for comment.
In June, ex-UBS employee, Bradley Birkenfeld plead guilty to charges against him that had been filed in May, that he was “incetivized” by the company to help clients hide assets. By July, ABC was reporting that Senator Carl Levin was going after the company for helping US tax cheats hide taxable assets, and wanted the company shut down. In November, another UBS big shot, Raoul Weil, was indicted in Miami for doing the same thing for a lot more clients. In December, WSJ reported that the Feds had added Credit Suisse and HSBC to the probe list.
Now, in a series of rather confusing developments, USB has agreed to pay 780 million dollars in fines and open up its hallowed books to the government’s prying eyes. Despite the agreement however, Raoul Weil is still being sought separately, and still considered a fugitive, as he has been since January. It also seems that the Internal Revenue Service/Department of Justice has initiated a separate civil suit seeking enforcement of a “John Doe” summons that would require the company to reveal the names of up to 52,000 American customers. The official UBS statement can be found here.
While there is no shortage of Soros conspiracy theories, some of them, regarding Obama and the Soros-backed, John Podesta-led Center for American Progress, of which Tom Daschle was a Distinguished Fellow, have even been explored here, I don’t think Soros is “the guy” anymore than I think Wolf is. Unless Wolf has some secret plan to take down his own company from the inside, I can’t see how his Obama investment money has been well spent. I do think that, as was pointed out in the PBS special “Inside the Meltdown,” the whole credit crisis was rumor generated, so that it, and all the other social media, internet, financial, political, and other manipulation that so fortuitously worked to Obama’s advantage could have been implemented by one savvy guy with his ear to the ground, his finger on the nation’s pulse, and a brick-sized chip on his shoulder. I also believe there is such a guy, but his name ain’t George or Robert.
The biggest myth to come out of the 2008 presidential campaign, besides Barack Obama himself, is that his bright, clean, “articulateness” makes him an O-rator Extraordinaire. Nothing could be further from the truth. The man is so inept as a speaker that he has to take a TelePrompTer into the shower to read a Cardboard Titty Groper-written request in case he runs out of shampoo. When off TelePrompTer, he bumbles, stumbles, mumbles, “ums,” “ahhhs,” and “ya knows” his way through incomprehensible moot points to their largely illogical conclusions. Not only is he not even passable as a public speaker, he is a barely competent public reader. His squinty-eyed, nose-in-the-air, head-swiveling is enough to give a person watching whiplash. That such inadequate performances as are his stock-in-trade have become celebrated examples of oratorical superiority is more of a testament to the determined application of the “skill” of the pervasive, sycophantic, Axelrod-extorted, ego-stroked, so-called mainstream media and blogosphere, recruited by the President’s Puppeteer to do his bidding, than to the “talent” of the Spokesmodel-in-Chief. In other words, as a public speaker, Obama sucks.
Dean Barnett, writing for the Weekly Standard, got on to Obama’s “secret” lack of inherent verbal ability after witnessing the Teflon TelePrompTer Reader performing in Virginia, sans crutch, in February of last year:
Shorn of his Teleprompter, we saw a different Obama. His delivery was halting and unsure. He looked down at his obviously copious notes every few seconds throughout the speech. Unlike the typical Obama oration where the words flow with unparalleled fluidity, he stumbled over his phrasing repeatedly.
Being Teflon, Obama’s inept speechifying wasn’t enough to cause even the conservative Barnett to overly critique his performance based on his all too obvious lack of speaking skills, it was the fact that when off-script, Obama reveals much more of his true personality than friend or foe would be comfortable with:
What makes Obama’s Jefferson-Jackson speech especially relevant is where he went when he went off script. The unifying Obama who has impressed so many people during this campaign season vanished, replaced by just another angry liberal railing against George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Exxon Mobil, and other long standing Democratic piñatas. The pressing question that Obama’s decidedly uninspiring Jefferson-Jackson oratory raises is which Obama is the real Obama–the one who read beautifully crafted words from a Teleprompter after his victory in Iowa, or the tediously angry liberal who improvised in Virginia?
With his Biden-esque tendency to gaffe (it’s a verb) about his Muslim faith in all 57 states, Knucklehead Smiff’s Shari Lewis (yeah, I know) realized the extent of the risk involved with continuing to allow his Frankenstienian creation loose on the campaign trail TelePrompTer-less, so the Puppet Master took the unprecedented step of sending Marble Mouth’s best friend on the road with him. From CNN, September, 2008:
It appears Barack Obama’s teleprompter is hitting the campaign trail.
The Democratic presidential nominee has never tried to hide the fact he delivers speeches off the device, though normally he doesn’t use one at standard campaign rallies and town hall events.
But the Illinois senator used a teleprompter at both his Colorado events Monday — making for a particularly peculiar scene in Pueblo, where the prompter was set up in the middle of what is normally a rodeo ring.
Now, according to the American Spectator, the Obamessiah’s performance was so lacking in his first press conference as president since the training wheels came off, even with his trusty prop, that Papa Smurf’n'Astroturf has patenalisticly provided his pride and joy with a podium mounted ‘PrompTer, so he’ll never have to speak alone:
To that end, he says, the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. “It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it,” says the adviser.
The screen would indicate whom to call on, seat placement for journalists, pass along notes or points to hit, and so forth, says the adviser.
Using a screen is nothing new for Obama; almost nothing he said in supposedly unscripted townhall events during the presidential campaign was unscripted, down to many of the questions and the answers to those questions. Teleprompter screens at the events scrolled not only his opening remarks, but also statistics and information he could use to answer questions.
The folks at SGW Teleprompter Solutions give many examples of services they offer, but, so far, no in-podium mounts. I wonder how long it will take the Obamaster to get the hang of using his new toy, since he’s barely gotten the hang of using the old one in the five years he’s had to adapt to it. Yep, according to this Chicago Magazine June, 2007 behind-the-scenes profile of Obuhbuh’s 2004 rock ‘em, sock ‘em reading debut at the Democratic National Convention, that was the first time he’d used one:
Obama, who prefers speaking extemporaneously, had no experience working with a teleprompter or addressing a group this loud and lively. Michael Sheehan, a Washington speech coach who advised Obama, says the prime-time convention speeches are “unexpectedly hard for several reasons: The noise is overwhelming, and on top of it, you’re speaking to three audiences at a time: the live audience; the big JumboTron in the convention hall; and to the TV cameras. It’s a juggling act.”
Obama struggled early on to master the mechanics of this new speaking environment. First, he had to train himself to read the words off the teleprompter screens without having it look or sound as if he were reading. He also had to adjust his speaking style. “There’s this impulse with these big, live speeches to orate as if you’re on a podium in the town square,” says Axelrod. “When you’re giving these speeches, you’re speaking not just to the crowd but primarily to a TV audience, and the microphone does all the work for you, so you don’t need to bellow.”
Good thing Big Daddy Axelrove was there to hold the handlebars as he took his maiden ride around the national political block, huh? I guess when you’re the first black Charlie McCarthy in the White House, it must be a tremendous comfort to know that the Candice Bergen’s dad hand up your back is only a glance left, down, and to the right away.
Like a lot of folks, I’ve had fun skewering That One’s prompter dependence in the past, and look forward to many more happy blogging hours in the future. ‘Til then, the wheels on the bus…
Does the public find Spokesmodel-in-Chief, Black Obama, sexy? If you judge by the number of opinion pieces detailing soft-core porn, semi-erotic, reader submitted “dreams” about him, or music videos proclaiming “crushes” on him, you’d probably say “yes.” However, if you Google, “Barack Obama sexy” and carefully read the predictably high number of hits, only to discover that most of them are responses and commentary on the two examples given, you’d have to determine the answer is, “not so much.”
Now, anyone who has spent any amount of time researching the Nations’ Neophyte President knows that for some reason, Google searches always return an incredibly high number of responses favorable to him. Go figure. But, as is often the case, these results can be misleading. If one examines those results carefully, it is possible to find some rather interesting information.
The question of Oboyhe’scute’s “sex appeal” arosearoused came up today from a reader comment on my last post from “Laree” who claimed she didn’t get the attraction after reading Michelle Malkin’s quote from a love-struck Obamite buried in a Peoria Star Journal article about the President’s visit to a Catepillar-sponsored event last Thursday:
“I see him like he’s my own son, and not in a funny way, either,” Dorothy Tisdale, a 73-year-old Peorian, said in reference to President Obama. She was the same woman who, after Obama’s motorcade passed her, said the experience was “better than having sex.”
Though older women, like Golden Girls’ Betty White, and the aging schoolgirls on The View seem to agree that Obutno is sexy, and Arianna Huffington is determined to publish any and every little thing that hints of Obama studliness, the recurring theme of his dubious “sexiness” bears investigation. The earliest example that comes to mind is the “I Got A Crush On Obama” You Tube (Google owned) video. Bear in mind that Google, one of Obama’s largest donors, whose CEO is an Obama advisor, announced its You Tube acquisition October 9, 2006. The Washington Post reported Obama announced his formation of a “presidential exploratory committee” January 17, 2007, with intentions to formally announce his candidacy on February 10 of that year. On May 27, 2007, the Washington Post told us that Howard Dean’s former “all around web guy,” Joe Rospars, ran a staff of 11 out of Barack Obama’s Chicago headquarters.
On Blue State Digital’s OFA website however, they claim that Rospars’ 2004 founded company was hired by the Obama campaign in 2006. But, Business Week says that the company, which has also worked for George Soros, was hired by Team Obama in February of 2007, nine days before Obie launched his campaign. At any rate, on March 5, 2007, the anti-Hillary Clinton, pro-Obama unauthorized, “Hillary 1984” You Tube video mysteriously debuted, accredited only to ParkRidge47, with “I Got A Crush On Obama” following shortly thereafter.
techPresident’s Micah Sifry investigated the mystery of the 1984 You Tube fueled “Barocket” launch, March 19, concluding, along with his blog readers, that the video had to have come from the Obama camp. Sifry, along with the San Francisco Chronicle, linked above, was ultimately proven correct after the Huffington Post outed ParkRidge47 as Phillip de Vellis, an employee of, you guessed it, Blue State Digital. de Vellis came clean in a subsequent HuffPo post, claiming that he made the video in his basement and uploaded it to You Tube without BSD’s knowledge or authorization. Sure. He was fired, and that, as they say, was that.
Except…
In late September, during the general election, an eerily similar event occurred regarding a Palin-bashing video. The Jawa Report exposed Winner and Associates’, Ethan Winner, employee and son of the public relations company founder and Axelrod associate, Charles Winner, as the producer of this video, now removed by You Tube, featuring a voice-over artist often employed by David Axelrod. After the evidence surfaced, Winner, a known Obama supporter, sent an email to the Jawa Report, claiming he made the video on his own, without knowledge or authorization of anybody in his dad’s company, and the distinctive voice-over artist, who had never worked for David Axelrod (how would he know?) was hired by him. Of course.
So, now we go back to “I Got A Crush On Obama,” the first of a series of videos that launched the ObamaLove campaign. Supposedly, yet another independent singer/songwriter/producer was so smitten with political lust that she and her partner hired an actress to lipsync her Obama anthem and post it on the internet for free, not long after the freshman Senator tossed his hat in the ring. Oh. Yeah.
The song was performed by Leah Kauffman, a 21-year-old undergraduate at Temple University in Philadelphia, who wrote the lyrics with a friend, 32-year-old advertising executive Ben Relles, and the music with her producer, Rick Friedrich.
An actress/model named Amber Lee Ettinger then lip-synched the song for the video, shot by filmmakers found on Craigslist two hours before Relles and Ettinger hit New York City one Friday in May to shoot the video on a DV camera.
“Not including the hours we spent working on it, it probably cost a couple thousand dollars,” said Relles, a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, who said he did it for fun, not money, but is also selling “Obamagirl” and “I Got a Crush on Obama” T-shirts.
The “Crush” crew’s Relles asserted that they invested their time and money into the project and posted it on their new You Tube page June 10, 2007, in response to a Hillary Clinton songwriting contest they found on her campaign website. Huh? Like me, but long before me, and without my knowledge until I researched this post, Gregory Chang of Stop Obama, came to the same “Crush crew must be Axelrod astroturf” conclusion I did, for pretty much the same reasons, only he got there in April of last year.
Back to Joe Rospars‘, Obama’s embedded Blue State Digital, Joe Trippi trained, web guru. Rospars’ the guy who commandeered Joe Anthony’s independent MySpace profile. This January 8, 2009, Boston Globe article gives a bit of insight into the incestuous relationship between Joe Trippi and all his computer-geek spawn, including Boston native Jascha Franklin-Hodge of Blue State, and the impact of the exploitation of their talents and techniques upon the Obama campaign and administration, as well as politics of the fuure in general.
While the Obama Machine has denied involvement with “I Got A Crush On Obama,” there’s no doubt they have exploited the viral video to promote his sex appeal to young, female voters. Given Joe Rospars’ involvement and tactics, it would be more of a stretch to believe that “Obama Girl” was a completely independent production than to suspect that Camp O had a hand in it somehow. After all, Blue State Digital says that’s the way you do it:
In many cases, there is an opportunity to use an attention-grabbing tactic (such as an innovative online application or a memorable video) to create an online buzz that has the potential to go viral, bringing people into your organization’s orbit much more quickly and organically than could be achieved via a conventional program. We’ll help you identify and take advantage of these opportunities, so that you can grow more quickly and put your new constituents to use in pursuit of your organizational goals.
On Blue State Digital created mybarackobama.com, now morphed into Organizing for America, you can find other Obama worshippers convinced that not only is he the hottest thing since fire, that heat can make you sexy too. Now, do you see where ObamaLove is better than sex nonsense came from?
Let’s face it, most PUMAs are sick to death of Barack Obama. We recoil from the sight and sound of him stumbling through ghost-written, TelePrompTer read speeches on our television screens, tens, that feel like thousands, of times a day, droning incessantly about something that only he can so successfully make seem like nothing. And vice-versa. However, where we once railed against the excessive exposure, shouting at our computers and TVs every time he, his name or likeness popped up in yet another puff or fluff piece of a sad excuse for a print “news” article or op-ed column, or tedious You Tube lecture, or “get your very own useless Obama trinket” commercial, we now just sigh.
We’re simply getting tired.
“Obama fatigue” was all the rage this summer after a Pew poll showed that Obaexposure had reached saturation point. Coincidently, about a month thereafter, the economy tanked, an event which diverted attention, and predictably, allowed the Obamachine to go into Obadrive with layers of Axelrod brand Astroturf and effectively counter all the prior negativity. To allow this sort of signature combat maneuver to continue to go undefended is just as dangerous now as it ever was because it allows crappily written pump ‘n’ prop him up pieces of “ain’t he just the greatest thing since Mickey D’s” drivel to sneak into the public consciousness unchecked, except for rightwing Republican kneejerk “everything he does sucks” often baseless, yet predictable partisan responses, which can be easily refuted. We PUMAs just cannot afford to be complacent without accepting at least some of the blame for his further chicanery and incompetence.
Frank Rich in the New York Times, and Pamela Gentry in the Huffington Post, both have “hush the Obama naysayers” pieces today touting the Nascent Neophyte’s “triumph” of getting the massive, unread “stimulus bill” through Congress that many economists claim won’t stimulate anything except the libidos of the crooks who porkified and passed it in the dark. Though Rich’s piece is interminably longer than Gentry’s, both give literary raspberries to those critical of both the bill and the stumblebum method of passage. According to these two, the mere fact that the bill was passed proves Obiteme is not only not incompetent, he’s shrewd, skillful and he’s smarter than everybody on the planet, to boot.
Of course, the fact that he still doesn’t have a Commerce or Health and Human Services Secretary, and his Treasury Secretary is a tax cheat nobody in the world has confidence in, is not mentioned by either opinionist. Nor is the fact that Oblahblah and Associates have mounted a “lowered expectations” media campaign relative to his victorious, historic, stimulus bill, while ducking legitimate questions they don’t like.
And, just what is the great accomplishment of which they crow, anyway? His attempt at bipartisanship was an utter failure, allowing Sen. John McCain, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and young Rep. Aaron Shock to access the airwaves all day Sunday trashing him and it, as John Boehner did on the floor of the House. In fact, the net effect of the reality of Obama’s support for the bill is that more Democrats voted against it (7 in the House) than Republicans voted for it (3 in the Senate).
The main reason such cheerleading must be countered is that if it is not, the Obama “brand” becomes further entrenched in the American psyche without challenge, which is as fraught with danger as allowing Peanut Corp. to continue selling its products without reporting the salmonella outbreak. If nobody raises a stink, people will keep right on buying Jiff because they like Mr. Peanut, regardless of the fact that he represents another company.
Kevin Price of BizPlusBlog, someone I know nothing about, underscores my point that the vast majority of Bicardi ‘n’ KoolAid drinkers know next to nothing about politics, and are those deliberately targeted by the Obama campaign, being overly susceptible to “branding.” Price argues that Obamacamp’s manipulation of the “gotta do someting, anything’s better than doing nothing, or we’re all gonna die” or, “the ship is sinking, hurry up and jump aboard!” theme was directed at these folks:
There are two basic views of government. One sees the best government doing as little as possible and being focused on protecting individuals from other individuals and our country from foreign adversaries. The opposite extreme is that government should play a pervasive role in every aspect of our lives and that it should be the primary driver of our economy and society. The vast majority who have an opinion fall some where in between. Far more than those with an actual opinion have no real view at all. Those people are my concern here.
This uniformed majority are the same people who are driving Barack Obama’s extremely high approval ratings. They don’t really know what they are doing, or what they believe, they are merely very sincere. They think some action is, at least, action. But the actions of this administration will take generations to pay off and they promise to make things far worse than better.
Here’s the rub, most PUMAs are not political science majors, either. We’re simply politically aware bullshit detectors. The danger we face is that, like most fertilizers, the odor of Obandini can become tolerable with enough constant exposure. That’s bad enough, but when the super slick fertilizer salesman touts the benefits of using his new chocolate flavored product on store bought vegetables, and even as an ice cream topping, some gullible folks can be persuaded to forget they’re swallowing bullshit whole. Unfortunately for the rest of us, there are so many more of them. And they’re more than willing to let the government promote the notion that fecalized fast food is nutritious and delicious while they sell it to us and our children by the pound.
We PUMAs just don’t have the luxury of Obama fatigue.
We all know David Axelrod, Puppet President Black Obama’s ventriloquist, knows how to plant Astroturf to create the illusion of grassroots support where there is none, as well as he knows how to cover it with bullshit to make it appear to grow. Could he have had a hand in the “Obie Does Oprah Queen for a Day Goes to Florida” heart tugging, tear jerking, shmaltz-a-thon we saw earlier this week?
Does a bear shit anywhere it wants to?
On Tuesday, February 10, the Obamessiah took his “Greatest Hits of the Stimulus Package” show on the road to Fort Myers, Florida, after a brief stop in Elkhart, Indiana the day before, where he pledged to get those good folks back to work building gas-guzzling recreational vehicles nobody can afford just as soon as those sticklers for fiscal responsibility on both sides of the aisle in Washington get tired enough of having their arms twisted and get used to the wool over their eyes enough to help him bamboozle the Republic in peace, or at least be quiet about it. In Florida, the Spokesmodel in Chief tried out his Monty Monte game show host chops, encouraging people to “come on down” and share their pain for a shot at the big wheel. Going “boy, girl, boy, girl” through the handpicked crowd of pre-screened contestants (bypassing the too obviously delusional love-struck looneys, one of whom was unfortunately caught on camera during the scripted, pain-sharing portion) Obamboozle finally alighted upon a “young lady” who’d been patiently trying to get his attention like, for-ev-er, almost as long as the hyped up enthusiastic meth-head McDonald’s worker “boy” chosen after her. The time, 12:57 Eastern.
In a stroke of happenstance too coincidental to be a coincidence, approximately 45 minutes later, Henrietta Hughes Had a Website, soon to be two, on her way to a total of five.* Not long thereafter Henrietta Had a Home.
It seems Henrietta has had other homes, in fact, there are those who say she still has a home in her 37 year old unemployed son Corey’s name. Due to a thyroid condition (Corey) and bouts with breast cancer, (Henrietta) the college educated mother and son have been unable to work, or afford $400 a month housing, being instead forced to live in their pick-up truck without a backseat, that no one has as yet seen and photographed.
Could this all be true? Sure, this is America, at a time when we face huge economic pitfalls as a nation that threaten to put us all in a communal poorhouse unless a strong leader with a steady hand takes the reins and leads us confidently and competently to financial security.
We’re doomed! Head for the hills! Run for your lives! Help! Help! Help!
(slapping self with cold water)
However, given what we know about the sneaky, underhanded way Axelrod and his ASK Public Strategies is paid to operate, the complete lack of scruples exhibited repeatedly by Team Obama, and the by now predictable modus operandi of the meticulously produced and stage-managed Obamadini Traveling Light and Magic Show, Henrietta Hughes is most likely a potted Astroturf plant.
And, for those who say, “poor woman, she has problems, how can you doubt her story?” I say, shut up, wake up, and stop being a KoolAid drinking, self-blindfolded, delusionazoid. Henrietta Hughes and her son could very well be just as bad off as they claim to be, or they could be system-gaming petty crooks, and still be tools of the Obamachine. You can exploit the truth just as easily as you can exploit a lie. The point is not, is her story true, the question is, how’d she just happen to find a way to the front of the line to tell it?
Where was her son?
Where was the truck?
Where’d she get the dress, and where’d she shower, do her hair and makeup and put it on?
It’s really nice that the spirit of bipartisan, post-racial American charity is so strong that a white Republican woman can give a home to black, presumably Democratic woman who couldn’t vote because her car doesn’t have an address, even though her son does, just because that black woman had the pluck and grit to stand in line for a chance to ask the President of the United States for help.
It’s nice, but I ain’t buyin’ it.
*The link in the Canada Free Press article to Henrietta Hughes.org links to Hemrietta Hughes.com, even if you type it into the address line yourself. Which could mean that there are only a total of four Henrietta Hughes websites, but it would still be curious. Also, the CFP piece does not list the other 3 sites by name, but does provide owner info at the end.
With the Senate Democrats desperately trying to give their Neophyte Naked Emperor cum Fearless Leader, Black Obama, at least the appearance of victory in pushing forth his “stimulus package,” (sounds dirty, doesn’t it?) a bill characterized by some as “bloated” and “pork-filled,” and by others as “disastrous,” though, designed to benefit the whole country, in truth, it is roughly equivalent to the recent TARP bill and auto bailout of a handful of bankers and executives, making it to my mind “suspicious,” the Petulant President has decided he likes campaigning much better than presidenting. So, he’s gathering up the old gang, putting the campaign machine in gear, and taking his assact on the road. He’s also taking to the airwaves, and bugging his supporters on his most awesomely awesome super-duper, unrivaled in history, double dog dope donor email list, to…get together…chat…watch a film… and, of course, talk about him and his big ol’ “stimulus package.” Can you say HeadOState? Sure, you can.
The only problem, well, one of a couple of problems, okay the only problem out of many I’m going to talk about, except maybe one or two others, is, nobody’s buying. The networks are bitching about having to preempt their popular, revenue-generating shows for yet more presidential pontification, his stump speech is stale, as we saw in his ubiquitous YouTube video of his “fired up and ready to pass a stimulus bill that’s ‘good enough’,” speech to House Democrats, and his warm, fuzzy, touchy-feely hugs ‘n house parties thingy is a big, fat, juicy bust. From McClatchy:
Few supporters are answering President Barack Obama’s call for nationwide house-party gatherings this weekend to build grass-roots support for his economic stimulus plan.
A McClatchy survey of sign-up rosters for a score of cities across the country revealed only 34 committed attendees in Tacoma, Wash. , as of midafternoon Friday; in Fort Worth, Texas , only 54, and in Sacramento, Calif. , just 78.
“Before the election, we would have had 500 to 800,” said Kim Mack , 46, a Sacramento city-facility manager who’s hosted house parties for political figures and causes since the mid-’90s.
Even in Washington , policy-wonk capital of the nation, only about 500 people had signed up.
But don’t feel bad, (I knew you wouldn’t) it’s obviously only the fickle, bitter, clingy, gun-owning, Bible-toting, ex-Clinton supporters and caucus-courted crossover Republicans who have abandoned him in his time of obvious need, (2 weeks into his presidency) they still love them some Oblackguy in San Francisco:
President Obama may be in danger of losing some support on the stimulus package, but, well, he’s always got the Bay Area. People here are ready to par-tay for the stimulus package.
As Comrade Marinucci told us the other day, The O is back in campaign mode, using his team’s online savvy to facilitate real-world face-to-face connections. So far, there are 66 house parties within 45 miles of San Francisco organized this weekend through Obama’s “Organizing for America” to discuss how to support the O on the stimulus package.
From the tone of the article, they seem to be quite fond of “stimulus packages” in general. Anyway, since you’re probably not going to make it to Elkhart, Indiana to watch him read the Greatest Stimulus Package Speech By A Sitting President Evfuckinger, and, you might not want to spend what little money you have left after the government splits the contents of the nation’s coffers 50-50 with the bankers/automobile industry and everybody else in the country but you, I have thoughtfully provided you with all the “make your own stimulus party” gear you could ever need in your whole entire freaking life.
First, get all the people in your house you can push around together in front of the computer, then go here to get your marching ordersinstructions helpful hints and tips. Then, watch the video below. It’s long, and, it’s Tim Kaine going on and on, so you’re gonna need a lot of beer, but, you’re gonna need that anyway, and will probably be pretty well on the way to full-on tanked by the time Timmy gets the intro out. Frankly, it’s the only way. Then, eat the chips and dip and other peanut butter-free snacks while you make your hostages family discuss the cinematique classique you just tried to watch so you can formulate the thoughts you want to put down on paper line and send to Obama Forever when you sober up. Try to have at least one prize on hand to award to the first person who can figure out the point of the day’s event, and you’re all set. They’ll thank you for it, one day.
And, the Davids Axelrod and Plouffe will be so proud.
You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about how and why Black Obama was shoved down America’s throats and all the attendant events surrounding the Obamenom of the Obamanationization of Omerica. I think of how he came out of nowhere with money grown on trees dripping out of his ass, beloved of all though none had yet met him, and I go, “Huh? What the fuck is up with that?” Then I marvel at how fortunate he is to appear black on the anniversary of so many noteworthy events in black history that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, like the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. There’s not much doubt that were it not for the monumentousness of the historic nature of a having a candidate who appears to be black run for president, that one might have come and gone without proper deference being paid. I mean, in normal, non-monumentally historically natured times, who the hell makes a big deal about a 45th anniversary? So, right there, you have a reason to be thankful that there is Obama.
Then, there’s the inescapable fact that without the awe-inspiring presence of the Inspirer of Awe, black Americans like me might have continued to go about our business blissfully unaware of our longing for our collective, unspoken need to validate ourselves be fulfilled by installing a man who appears to be black in the Oval Office. Without the Obamessiah deigning to play Joshua to Dr. King’s Moses, black Americans might still be inclined to lobby and petition the government for things previously denied, but now obviously guaranteed them, like, jobs, education opportunities, access to health care services and equal treatment under the law. Thank God we don’t have to worry about stuff like that anymore.
Yet, the most wondrous of things to behold is the sheer genius, nay intellectual artistry, employed by the architects and engineers of Obamania. A political campaign propelled by a new media source whose birth, growth and development mirrors the candidate, now president’s own, how lucky is that? A campaign designed by a man as notorious for his ability to create faux grassroots support on his clients’ behalf, creating the illusion that the poison they spew is desired by teeming hordes of consumers, as he is for getting black guys elected, meets a candidate who appears to be black and whose past, failed attempts at community organizing can be exploited as a dedication to grassroots organization, are you kidding me? Match made in Heaven my ass! This…is…Kismet!
And, in the ultimate stroke of genius, corporate sponsors desperate for up close and personal access to power to buttress their inflated sense of self importance can be recruited as co-conspirators in this win-win good-for-everybody exercise in democracy at work by encouraging them to subvert the campaign donor laws while contributing massive amounts of cash necessary to promote the wondrous goodness of He Who Would Come To Be Known As The One to the huddled masses yearning to be seen as tolerant of black people. By breaking up the obscene amounts of money being funneled into the campaign by corporate entities into individual employee donations, the campaign Astroturfer can not only grow the campaign donor list, he can inform the conveniently nascent alternative media sources of the wonders of perpetuating the small donor myth now afforded him by the swelled numbers of individual contributors. In addition, the black man manipulating Astroturfer now possesses an alternate, invaluable tool for indoctrinating the gullible, since the real campaign donation sources include individual mainstream media information disseminators among other purveyors of influence. Thus, at any time, thousands of media and other influential employees of institutions of higher learning, government, and finance, can be directly contacted at a moment’s notice and given information, talking points and marching orders straight from the Astroturfer’s mouth.
Direct access to the validation seeking black Americans and their fellow hopeless country-men and -women desperate for change via the Bullies of the Blogosphere and the Mainstream Media Maniacs by way of the White House in 1 easy step through the courtesy of Corporate America. Thousands of employees of Citigroup, JP Morgan, Pepsi, Time Warner, MTV, BET, Dreamworks, Microsoft, Stanford, Columbia, etc., along with the other “small donors” on the list, now get to hear straight from the Astroturfing man with the office next door to the president any time he feels like telling them something. Now we know why Obama 2.0 wants us all to have stimulus package house parties.
Combine that with daily talking point exchanges between the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel and two of CNN”s “Democratic strategists,” Paul Begala and James Carville, and you’ve got the country on information lockdown.
Gotta love that.
Now if I could just figure out who hired the Astroturfer in the first place…
Nope. Though some folks would have you believe that, President Black Obama’s closest aides were not subpoenaed; the Cabbage Patch Weeble, impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s records regarding any conversations, papers, etc., he had concerning the Dynamic Duo were, on December 8. The next day, Blags was arrested, according to the media for trying to sell the only clean politician in Illinois state’s history’s curiously vacated Senate seat, the one that home girl Valerie Jarrett didn’t want, anyway, no matter what newly appointed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said. Then, Pope President proclaimed Blagojevich guilty and his buddies not, and passed sentence that Hot Rod should save the state time and money and take the “Frankie Five Angels” option and kill himself, politically speaking, and resign. Blago said, “Fuck you, and the unicorn you rode in on, Bozo Bitch.” Blaggy probably took that position because, even though a lot of his troubles arise from his relationship with Antonin Rezko, the slumlord never helped himbuy a house or housing project.
Back to the subpoenas. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who first pronounced judgment on Blagojevich in the press conference announcing his arrest, by matter-of-factly stating that he had Blags arrested to stop a criminal from committing worse crimes, obviously didn’t have enough to indict the obviously guilty Cabbage Patch Weeble, because he didn’t. He issued a 78 page complaint, arrested the guy, let him go on paltry bail, then asked for a 90 day extension to make his case, even with all the subpoenas, wiretapped conversations and new witnesses. However, once St. Pat got the hot little Axelfuck/Slumlady docs in his hand, and listened to the tapes, he hauled Jarrett, her buddy Rahm Emanuel, and her boss, Mr. Clean in for questioning, even though His Holiness had by now, officially cleared himself and annointed his staff with holy water.
By this point, the Axelrove Astroturfing was in full swing, with the press not only convicting Blago, but aiding and abetting the Illinois Congress in trying to kick him out of office on any number of grounds, most notably his demonstrable madness, caused by his Bob Big Boy hair growing inward as thickly as it does outwardly. Cabbage Patch said, “Suck my nuts, you ninnies, I ain’t going nowhere,” and appointed Roland Burris to Obuhbuh’s curiously vacated Senate seat to prove it. Once the Astroturf Army picked their jaws up off the floor, they used them to flap incessantly that Blag’s “audacity” proved his insanity as surely as Obuyme’s proved his divinity. It was on.
Since then, Blagojevich has prevailed, primarily because the political machinations of the media-enabled U.S. show government had no legal authority that would trump a sitting governor, so, we now move to the next phase, where the media-enabled political machinations of the Illinois show government rule. While CPW (Cabbage Patch Weeble) mounts his own media blitz protesting his kangaroo court “hanging” (he couldn’t use “lynching“, he’s white) the pissed off pols in the Land of Lincoln gleefully admit that they have the power to remove him from office based on unproven allegations against him because they’re not a court of law, but a Clinton impeachment-inspired political process (kangaroo court.)
But lawmakers quickly defended the process of a Democratic legislature ousting a two-term Democratic governor, noting Blagojevich’s complaints were an attempt to confuse the public by injecting criminal trial rights into an impeachment process that is purely political.
All the while, the ‘Turfers “report” the “important” facts against CPW, like the fact that his protestations “prove” his desperation, implying guilt, even though, any fool could see that anyone similarly ostracized and castigated, guilty or innocent, would likely run screaming, “Hey, listen to my side, you sanctimonious pricks!” to anybody who would listen. It’s not like lynch mobs are always right:
While Illinois history provides little guide to a Senate trial and conviction of a governor, the last impeachment in the nation’s history—the 1988 conviction and removal of controversial Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham—illustrates some things that could happen.
Mecham unsuccessfully fought to delay his impeachment trial until after his federal trial on corruption charges. Though he was removed from office, the Arizona Senate failed to muster the votes necessary to give Mecham the political death penalty and Mecham, who was acquitted of the corruption counts, lost races for governor in 1990 and U.S. senator two years later.
*UPDATE: According to the Chicago Tribune, Blagojevich had some intriguing things to say in his 2-part NBC interview with Amy Robach. While most news outlets are focusing on Blago’s statements regarding his reflections upon Ghandi, Dr. King, and Mandela, it seems the transcript reveals he made other statements worthy of note:
Maintaining his innocence in his interview with NBC, portions of which were aired Sunday and others to be aired Monday, Blagojevich said that upon his Dec. 9 arrest at his Northwest Side home, “I thought about Mandela, Dr. King, Gandhi and trying to put some perspective in all of this.”
At the same time, Blagojevich said “some national figures like Harry Reid,” the U.S. Senate majority leader from Nevada, “are frankly covering their own backside” by asking him to step down because of their discussions with him over the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. Blagojevich is accused of trying to peddle the seat for an Obama administration post, a high-paying job or other favors.
“And for me to just quit because some cackling politicians want to get me out of the way because there’s a whole bunch of things they don’t want known about them and conversations they may have had with me ….. would be to disgrace my children when I know I’ve done nothing wrong,” Blagojevich said in a transcript of the interview.
UPDATE II: John Kass of the Chicago Tribune has more here about the real reason for Blago’s lawyer, Ed Genson’s bailing out, among other things.
While everybody’s obsessing over The President of the Perpetual Press Conference’s Very Big Most Impressive First Day of sternly issuing orders for people to get around to doing stuff later right away, and do-overs, I’ve been watching developments concerning the sneaky Peetes that are flying under the radar to all our detriment, and one that’s flying crash bang into the radar, and the tower, and everything else in his way, like the big jet in “Airplane!” presumably just for the hell of it.
First, Barack the Magnificent (He Is) is getting journalistic high fives for announcing in one of his many press conference/availability/chance to be on camera and talk again, yay! thingies, that he, fer sher, was gonna tell those people to start looking right now into closing Guantanamo Bay sooner, rather than later because, they do bad stuff to good prisoners there and you can’t do bad stuff to good prisoners anywhere else ‘cuz waterboards are not portable, and besides if you could, and you did, you’d have to sell tickets and let us all watch. So, I guess now all they’ve gotta figure out is how to make it look like the people they’re holding because they feel like it are going to get a fair trial whenever they get to their new digs, ‘cuz that’s important to some people. We know they’re going to figure out what it is they should be most concerned with figuring out within a year, ‘cuz Obie said so on His Very Big Most Important First Day and he wasn’t smiling ear to ear, which is a long way for him.
Anyway, the TelePrompterReaderInChief also spouted proudly that the people who started working for him yesterday, would now get the salaries they had agreed to start with from now on. Again, the Propped Up President is getting major media style points for cutting the salaries of people who haven’t even started yet, which sends a “fart in the wind” belt-tightening message to Big Business, so, it must be as important as knowing that when he signs one of these executive order thingies we know he did it himself after talking to his lawyers.
Another thing he promised was that lobbyists can’t work for him as lobbyists, and people who work for him can’t lobby, which is the same thing, but different, and which I guess is a big deal for the few guys willing to give up their lucrative lobbying jobs to take a pay cut before they even start a crappy government job they never wanted anyway since Obie’s show order doesn’t stop lobbyists from…lobbying, and doesn’t say anything about the firms they work for, as far as I know, and, it’s limited to the executive branch, and they have to take another pay cut on Day One. But, like the pay cut thing, Barry’s Boyz knew it was coming which gave people who aren’t even lobbyists on his staff like David Axelrod, time to give up not being a lobbyist in advance. Whew!
But, while all this is going on, the more evil aspects of Obalization are going on right under our noses. Timothy Geithner, the Teflon Top Trainee’s staunchly defended choice for Secretary of the Treasury, and tax cheatWHOA! Did I just type that the President of the United States, though referred to derisively, seriously supports a tax cheat who only ‘fessed and paid up when he found out he was up for the job, for Secretary of the Fucking Treasury? Yup,uhdee-ud. ‘Cuz, he dee-ud. And the Finance Committee approved him after he blamed Turbo-fucking-Tax, and are now sending him to the fucking United States Senate for rubber stamp approval, and this makes sense? Obviously, the reason WeaselBoy has not backed down is he knows they can’t make him since he’s the only one who knows where the bailout money went ‘cuz he’s part of the reason one was needed. And, he’s not telling where the rest of the bailout money is going until they give him the fucking keys to the fucking vault. Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt. Since everybody is supposedly too busy basking in the afterglow of two, count ‘em, two administrations of the Official Oath of Office for the obscenely expensive price of one to pay any attention, the flufferMedia can obey orders and largely ignore it, or otherwise minimize it, too.
On another sour note, the Let ‘Em Eat Cake Crowd has been quietly preparing to stick it to the ever-increasing ranks of the poor for the benefit of the Pretender President’s vaunted “Middle Class.” (insert celestial Hallelujahs here) Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education and Shaun Donovan, HUD Secretary, can now go about the business of kicking under-performing kids out of inner city schools and tearing them down (the schools) while militarizing the wild, out of control kids without fathers so the test numbers look good once you get rid of the really stupid and bad ones, (the kids) and tearing down government subsidized housing and replacing it with mixed income housing with 33% available for about 5 % of the now homeless people you kicked out of the projects since gazillions of people live in the projects and only googobs of “mixed income housing” can go up at one time, respectively.
Who knows, maybe one day, one of those homeless militarized kids will become so good at surviving the warfare of the streets, or XBOX 360, that he, or she, will figure out a way to killzap all the bad guys humanely before you have to take them to GuantanamoPelican Green Bay or someplace and read ‘em Elizabeth Alexander poetry until they beg for waterboarding.
Like it’s been some big, huge secret up to now, the press is starting to admit just how much they’re being pimped by the perpetual campaign machine of the soon-to-be-inaugurated-get-it-over-with-already as the Very Most Historically Historic First Black President Ever, Barack (the Obamessiah) Obama. They’ve even coined a couple of words for the new phenomenon, “polebrity” and “celebritician.” Oh, yeah, we be big pimped.
Claiming that the Obamessiah tires of the adulation, (like anybody’s seen any evidence of that) the Telegraph, reporting from Washington, D.C., puts the onus for the “new” media management strategy on those anonymous information leakers, “Democratic strategists.” Guess these British guys never heard of David Axelrove and “Astro(turfrat)fucking:”
But Democratic strategists say his aides have seen an opportunity in the insatiable appetite of the public for information on the new first family.
They plan to use Mr Obama’s status as the world’s leading “Celebritician” or “Polebrity”, offering pictures of the Obama family and soft focus interviews with glossy magazines to maintain his popularity and help sell his political plans directly to middle America, starting with his plans for a trillion dollar stimulus plan to kickstart the economy.
Using his celebrity to appeal to the public over the heads of his opponents in Congress is just one way Mr Obama hopes to change politics in Washington. He is also planning to mobilise his vast network of supporters, and the database of 13 million email addresses he gathered during the campaign, to build pressure on Senators and Congressmen to push through his ambitious agenda.
Now the “news” that the president-elect got to be the president-elect by pimping the “news” media is being pimped by the president-elect in the “news” media. Gotta love it. The story goes on to tell us that after Obama’s Secret Service detail helped set up the Buff Barack Beefcake pictures in Hawaii, the jig was up, the cat was out the bag, the flimsy cover was blown:
After pictures of Mr Obama shirtless on a Hawaiian beach over Christmas made headlines around the world, paparazzi firms set up shop in Washington. They predict that a photograph of Mr Obama smoking (a habit he has vowed to quit) would fetch up to $100,000.
Gary Morgan, a British journalist who runs Los Angeles-based Splash News, one of the largest paparazzi agencies in the world, says Mr Obama’s Secret Service men assisted his photographers in getting pictures of the President-Elect on the beach.
He said: “Obama is the paparazzi president. The Secret Service was very cool with us. They knew what we wanted to do. They told us if we stuck to certain areas, we would be fine. They got to know who we were and it was very pleasurable working with them.”
Mr Morgan said Mr Obama has a “canny media team” who are “going to take full advantage of using people like us as well to get the message out.
Yeah, that “canny media team” has gotten him elected in every campaign he’s run since 2004. A scorched earth, “by any means necessary,” news manipulating, fake support manufacturing dream factory without scruples will do that for just about any “celebritician” willing to pimp any bitch lacking the self-esteem to resist giving him the profits from selling herself cheap. Why should the mainstream media tabloid paparazzi press be any different?
The American public isn’t, a fact the Axelfucking Obama campaign/transition/administration team is banking on and currently pushing in every former- and current-ly major news outlet from the Washington Post to You Tube. In fact, President You Tube is the feature photo in the Chris Cizilla’s WaPo article bending over for the Holy Black One:
President-elect Barack Obama announced the formation of a new group known as “Organizing for America” that aims to continue the grassroots advocacy that the former Illinois Senator began in his presidential campaign.
“As President, I will need the help of all Americans to meet the challenges that lie ahead,” Obama said in a video message e-mailed to supporters (and reporters) this morning. “That’s why I’m asking people like you who fought for change during the campaign to continue fighting for change in your communities.”
The new group will be the flagship of “Obama 2.0″ as many people have taken to calling the transformation of the political organization created during the 2008 campaign.
The new group will work within the Democratic National Committee — led by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine — to advance the Obama agenda. “President-elect Obama has laid the foundation to meet the great challenges facing our nation, but we can succeed only if we build grassroots support for the administration’s agenda,” said Kaine in a release announcing the formation of Organizing for America.
That WaPo would see no possible problem or conflict in this unholy alliance is not surprising, since Brother Love dropped by their pad to grease them up as they dropped to their conveniently padded knees before he sent them out to trick on his behalf. If you’re the priest doing the altar boy, you probably don’t see much wrong with the Scout leader picking him up for a long weekend. The New York Times, who didn’t get kissed by Big Daddy, has a round-up of slightly less favorable, but not really contentious, reports. You never know, IceBark Slim might decide to show them some love after all.
And don’t expect the full-court press pimping to lessen any time soon. In fact, I can almost guarantee it will soon intensify to unfathomable degree, with David Axelrove not only moving into the White House to sleep between his puppet and his mate, but giving up his day job to do it. According to Marc Ambinder:
First, David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, will give up an equity stake in his consulting firm, AKPD, Inc., (The K stands for John Kupper, the P stands for David Plouffe, the D stands for John Del Cecato.) Plouffe will be a senior adviser to the firm. And Larry Grisolano, a.k.a “Gris,” a long-time Democratic consultant and an early Obama aide, will join the firm as a partner. Grisolano managed the campaign’s targeting efforts and paid media expenditures; Del Cecato wrote, directed and produced many of its ads. I forget what Plouffe did, exactly, but his name sounds familiar.
Ha, ha, Marc. You know as well as I do who David Plouffe is. I believe his official title is “fluffer.”
Government of the people by popular demand. Tough decision facing the country? Take a poll, do a focus group, flip a coin, make a committee-written, TelePrompTer-read speech. That’s just the way things work today. What does the public want? What do the people need? Who cares? Decide what you’re going to give them, then send out your bright, buff spokesmodel with the pretty teeth to visit the press and sit on their laps and wiggle while he whispers your sweet nothings in their ears. He gets paid, the media gets laid and the people get screwed. We are a reality show, and we voted for the Survivor spokesmodel who “outwitted,” “outplayed,” and “outlasted”. Just the way the UniParty who hired him wants it.
Barack Obama seems determined to Obama-fy the Democratic party, a fact which seems to confound those on the left who seem surprised by it, and delight those on the right relieved that he seems to be committed to his campaign promises of it.
At his rallies, Obama tells a joke he’s been telling since before Iowa, about voters who whisper to them that they are Republicans but they support him.
“Thank you,” he whispers back. “Why are we whispering?”
How much of this irrational, illogical headlong, head-first smash through the looking glass is due to the media manipulation of the Astroturf King, David Axelrod is hard to say. We can be sure that just about anything we read in the mainstream media, especially the Chicago Tribune, besides John Kass, or see on cable, especially MSNBC, is Astroturf, and though it would be difficult to prove in a court of law, that Axelrod has undue influence in the blogosphere is beyond reasonable doubt. Whether he simply employs bloggers to infiltrate and sock-puppet websites resistant to the charms of his puppet president to death with straw man arguments and Xeroxed talking points; creates faux sites promoting the Obamessiah’s mythical messianic qualities; or pays off the Blogger Boyz whose biz depends on boastful, swaggering pretense to political prowess and power, Axelrod is a formidable string-pulling shadow force, combining the “best” of his patented Astrotufing techniques with Republican “ratfucking” to Astro- or Assle-fuck the internet into submission to his will. And there’s no reason to assume that his activities are limited to Democratic venues.
The result is unprecedented media manipulation, with entire news networks, venerable newspapers, and upstart Netroots, having myriad, and often conflicting agendas, working together to worship at the feet, suck at the teat, lick on the boots, and plant lips upon the ass of a man whose greatest talent is reading in public and smiling for the camera.
A spokesmodel.
As we head to the biggest, baddest, bashiest of inaugural bashes ever in the history of the known world, 5 x more expensive than the entire Democratic party has cash on hand, the least experienced, most ill-equipped and -prepared man to ever take the country’s reins embarks on a marketing and media blitz that puts Beyonce and J-Lo to shame. He makes no secret of his intentions, either, and nobody cares one whit. He’s a symbol, like Prince. But, unlike Prince, who claimed to be a symbol of slavery to a record company, Obama is a symbol of America’s celebration of it’s reluctant release of it’s slaves. Having released it’s symbolic grip on the symbolic throats, and it’s symbolic boots from the symbolic asses of it’s real African American citizens, Barack Obama represents all the “change” America could “hope” for in the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. How considerate of Dr. King to struggle and triumph over oppression before giving his life, so that we may all celebrate his birth the day before his dream’s heir takes his rightful official place as his successor.
In 1967, at Stanford University, Dr. King made a speech about the “other America,” a poorer, forgotten nation in stark contrast to the image of the privileged, preferred, yet limited reality, suffering in it’s shadow, comprised not only of blacks. From the Black Agenda Report:
Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America. Some are Mexican-Americans, some are Puerto Ricans, some are Indians, some happen to be from other groups. Millions of them are Appalachian whites. But probably the largest group in this other America in proportion to its size in the population is the American Negro.
Dr. King’s point in this speech seems to me to have been that though it’s relatively easy to slap a pretty BandAid on a festering wound, the result of doing so without properly treating it first can be devastating, if not deadly. Dr. King’s prescience has not gone unheeded, it has been exploited and corrupted. For, while our soon-to-be President Obama actively promotes a “one America” concept, it is not that of an America that incorporates Dr. King’s “other” America, but subsumes it by ignoring it’s existence. To celebrate Barack Obama’s election as though the wound has been healed is to celebrate illusion as accomplishment.
The man who smiles for the camera as he insists America is 90% of the way to racial equality while he opens the door to privatizing “entitlements” and advocates on behalf of a tax cheat, does so as the front person of a political party neither fish nor fowl. As he said during his 2004 Democratic National Convention coming out speech:
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
First he takes them to dinner, then, he drops by for a visit. Then, it’ll be time for his “bitches” to pay. In the midst of his pre-inauguration David Axelrod designed, Astroturf manure-spreading press push, President-elect Barack Obama made nice with the gushing, quivering, sycophantic pseudo-journalists of the Washington Post, who have already publicly admitted their unprofessional love. According to reports, legs were appropriately set a-tingling, considering their integrity-deficient kinship with their inordinately helpful brother in shlock. Anyway, the unseemly hoopla was duly recorded by the diligent WaPo “journalists,” like Chris Cizilla:
President-elect Barack Obama has arrived at the Washington Post for an interview with the editorial board and White House team — including The Fix!
After three and a half hours at his transition office, PEOTUS obama took another 6 minute ride through washington, arriving at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post.
Around 100 people–Post reporters perhaps?–awaited PEOTUS’s arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups.
Pool is holding in a van outside, while Mr obama does his washington post interview, and will exercise enormous restraint by ending report before saying what really thinks about this turn of events.
Helene Cooper
The New York Times
Calderone speculates that Cooper’s snarkiness is a result of the Times’ petulance at not yet getting a traditional pre-inaugural interview. WaPo’s David Nakamura also relates the euphoria attendant to the Obamessiah’s descent among the unworthy:
Staff writers, photographers, editors and employees from other departments lined the hallway after word spread that the President-elect would be walking through the newroom.
At about 3:15 p.m., Obama entered through a back hallway and began shaking hands, as professional newsmen and women reached over to shake his hand and take pictures. Obama was trailed by advisor David Axelrod, assistant Reggie Love, Post Chairman Donald Graham, Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Editor Marcus Brauchli.
Calderone further chronicles the resultant media hysteria, and the expressions of mock outrage issued by indignant WaPo staffers disputing the “cheering loonies” (my take) characterization…
“There’s no reason to think there were any reporters cheering,” said a Washington Post spokesperson, adding that there are “a lot of people who work in the Post building who don’t work in the Post newsroom.” Of course, those cheering could also have been bystanders gathered outside.
…but Ed Driscoll’s site provides a quote from the same WaPo broken link to a Howard Kurtz article Politico and the Post provided:
Camera phones flashed as Obama, trailed by Post Co. chief executive Donald Graham, began his stroll around the fifth-floor newsroom’s perimeter, shaking hands and greeting nearly 200 staffers.
Inside, as Obama finally came full circle around the warren of offices and cubicles, he declared: “All right, back to work!” And he had correctly analyzed the situation: All work in The Post newsroom had stopped.
Driscoll also left us a reminder of another example of Obama Porn (obscenely obsessive ObamaLove) from the primaries, featured in the following video. When will somebody tell this guy there’s more to being president than spokesmodeling? Then again, maybe there isn’t.
This video can be found on the Pepis “Refresh Everything” site, here. Pepsi, one of Obam’s largest sponsors, whose CEO, Indra Nooyi, was part of his finance committee, and whose already Obama-reminiscent logo has been redesigned to be even moreso, is launching a new ad campaign with an inaugural tie in. From CNSNews:
Pepsi is running a new advertising campaign that keys into the upcoming inauguration – one that features a re-designed corporate logo that mimics the distinctive Obama “O” campaign logo, and refers to the president-elect as “the man who is about to refresh our nation.”
Pepsi is also partnering with Spike Lee and Howard University to hold a “Refresh the World” symposium on Martin Luther King day, featuring, Lee, Sean Combs, Arianna Huffington, Queen Latifah, Michelle Rhee, Rev. Al Sharpton and Dr. Cornel West among others. From PRNewswire:
Pepsi is partnering with Spike Lee and Howard University for the “Refresh the World” Symposium to address issues ranging from the economy to Black America and more. Leading experts on education, economy, gender, hip hop and Black America will help mark the start of the new Presidency by raising their voices to “Refresh the World.”
Limited free tickets are available for D.C. area university students (e.g., Georgetown, GW, American, Gallaudet, Catholic), and on a first-come, first-serve basis at the Howard University box office.
Pepsi’s support of this event is part of its brand re-launch around the ideas of hope, positive change and active participation, through forums, out-of-home communications, television and digital communications. Please let us know if you would like additional details about the event.
Actually, Obama’s logo looks like a cross between Pepsi’s and AT&T’s, one of the companies Obama’s ventriloquist, David Axelrod “lobbies” for.
NOTE: There was a series of “Dear Mr. Obama” videos issued during the general election by weneedmccain, but I’m guessing they’re not related to the Pepsi ones.
If the story first reported by the National Review’s Byron York is true, that President-elect Obama’s choice for Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner, not only neglected to pay his taxes but was reimbursed for the taxes he didn’t pay, it seems hard to justify anybody’s continued support for his confirmation.
The IMF did not withhold state and federal income taxes or self-employment taxes — Social Security and Medicare — from its employees’ paychecks. But the IMF took great care to explain to those employees, in detail and frequently, what their tax responsibilities were. First, each employee was given the IMF Employee Tax Manual. Then, employees were given quarterly wage statements for the specific purpose of calculating taxes. Then, they were given year-end wage statements. And then, each IMF employee was required to file what was known as an Annual Tax Allowance Request. Geithner received all those documents.
The tax allowance has turned out to be a key part of the Geithner situation. This is how it worked. IMF employees were expected to pay their taxes out of their own money. But the IMF then gave them an extra allowance, known as a “gross-up,” to cover those tax payments. This was done in the Annual Tax Allowance Request, in which the employee filled out some basic information — marital status, dependent children, etc. — and the IMF then estimated the amount of taxes the employee would owe and gave the employee a corresponding allowance.
At the end of the tax allowance form were the words, “I hereby certify that all the information contained herein is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments from the Fund.” Geithner signed the form. He accepted the allowance payment. He didn’t pay the tax. For several years in a row.
Michelle Malkin has a follow-up which seems to corroborate York’s interpretation, and the story has also been picked up by AOL. A Wall Street Journal opinion piece questions the wisdom of allowing a man so incompetent with his own taxes to oversee everybody else’s. While some may dismiss these allegations as mere partisan griping, the questions, in my mind, seem fair. The New York Times‘ assertion that Geithner’s “skill” may trump concerns because if he were a bank he would be considered “too big to fail,” just sounds silly:
In better economic times, Mr. Geithner’s confirmation to be President-elect Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary might be in danger after the disclosure this week that he had paid more than $48,000 in delinquent taxes and interest. But with the economy so fragile, many senators are loath to rattle financial markets by rejecting someone with Mr. Geithner’s qualifications and international respect. By late Wednesday, Republicans as well as Democrats were predicting he would survive the controversy and be confirmed next week.
So, with the economy in the tank, what we really need is a tax cheat in charge of the government’s money? The 350 million bailout dollars Obama is fighting tooth and nail for should be turned over to this guy to spend? U.S. News and World Report’s Michael Barrone, who had dinner with the Obamessiah, (who promised to Astroturf Geithner through) seems to think so, even though he admits that he can understand why some Senators might be a little miffed:
If I were a senator, I’d be inclined to vote for the nomination of Timothy Geithner to be treasury secretary, for reasons suggested by Nina Easton. By all accounts, he’s very able and knowledgeable, and he’s already been part of the nation’s lead economic team as chairman of the New York Fed. And it’s very important to have a treasury secretary in place these days. But I have to say that his failure to pay self-employment tax is troubling and could certainly provide a reasonable basis for a senator to vote no. I have income from which no taxes are deducted and I make sure to pay my taxes on it (today, by the way, is the deadline for filing your quarterly returns). I can’t imagine what he was thinking when he didn’t pay.
CQ Politics claims that the Senate’s wussy response to charges, some of the sort that caused immediate outrage derailing other appointees in the past, is due to the overall wussiness of the current Congress and the Obama transition teams’ tap dancing ability. And, according to a David Brooks/Gail Collins New York Times article, the Astroturfing of the MSM to promote the president-elect’s Obamacanacracy philosophy is working way beyond anybody’s wildest expectations. From David Brooks:
As for me, My O-Meter is in the ascendant. I was very high on him about a year ago, then I soured a bit last summer, but now we’re peaking again. Not because he was thoughtful enough to have dinner with some of us right-leaners this week, but rather because his transition has surpassed all my expectations.
edit
It’s true, I did break bread with Obama. It was amazing. He was carried into the house by cherubs, Bruce Springsteen and Oprah Winfrey spread rose pedals on the carpet where he was about to walk and he very considerately asked me what vintage of wine I wanted my water turned into.
It’s not as clear that the last quote was as snarky as you would expect a right-winger’s comments to be, since Brooks basically waxes poetic about how impressed and comfortable he is with Obama. While Obama’s smartest pick, Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, rightfully sails through the confirmation process, and Tom Daschle’s appointment is quietly being held up in committee, look for the handiwork of Obama’s brain, political ventriloquist and Astro-gardener, David Asselfuck’s handiwork in smoothing the way for Geithner and Attorney General wannabe, Eric Holder, as well as in the media response to Obama’s stimulus plan and TARP request. Roland Burris will likely esacape any further Asslefuck media influence manipulation, now that he’s been sworn in, but the man who appointed him to the Senate, Rod Blagojevich, will continue to be Asslefucked into perdition.
There’s something charming about the gleefully delusional. Wide-eyed innocence can be a wonder to behold. But, the current spectacle of masses of supposedly sophisticated Americans delightedly slapping metaphorical “kick me” signs on their own backs as they happy-dance the jester’s jig to their place in line for the ramp that rolls them to their assigned place under the speeding Obabus to Hell, is an event unwitnessed and unrivaled since Aaron smelted all the gold and made a calf. Where’s the Hand of a vengeful God when you need it?
Now, the Wily Wizard of Words, David Asslefuck, and his favorite black man puppet, have both endeavored to stick their hands up the butts of the Merlins of the Main(and Minor)Stream Media and manipulate them into fertilizing their Astroturf (fake grassroots support) by spreading their “Geithner is Good” mantra to the maniacal minions. To hide the fact that smearing Astroturf with a different brand of fertilizer to cover the stench of the original layer won’t make it grow, Asslefuck and Co. have patented the Massengill “Dewy Fresh” scented ObaGrow.
Timothy Geithner, a man who cannot do his own taxes, has been tapped by the largely inept-when-left-to-their-own-devices Obanauts, to be Secretary of the Treasury, a body that oversees the Internal Revenue Service. He has also admitted to employing an illegal immigrant at the height of Lou Dobbs-esque “illegal aliens are killing the economy” mania. His only offered excuse being incompetence; he didn’t know; it was an “honest mistake,” and he paid up once the transition team brought it to his attention. From Politico:
Democratic and Republican senators say a full-court press by Barack Obama’s transition team is likely to keep ethical questions from sinking the nomination of Treasury Secretary-designee Timothy Geithner.
As Obama pressed senators on his economic recovery plan Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Geithner had failed to pay $42,000 in taxes and had employed a housekeeper whose work permit had expired.
But minutes after the news broke, the Obama transition team pushed back with talking points — distributed to Capitol Hill, K Street and congressional reporters — in which it portrayed the problems as simple mistakes or oversights.
No, the mistake was picking him as the guy to handle billions in bailouts and all the rest of America’s money to begin with. Hard to argue that a guy who can’t proof the work of H&R Block should be in charge of anything tax related. Never mind that similar charges have derailed other nominees, and they weren’t even in line for jobs handling the nation’s money. And, as far as Asslefraud’s current fake-assed “The Oba-Mess-iah needs this guy” media push is concerned, America’s most successfully mass-marketed president and his public relations oriented staff are just up to their old tricks, on familiar territory, trying to “manage” perceptions about yet another nerve grating “Blagojevich, Warren, Richardson, FISA, Lieberman, Rezko, above his pay grade” fiasco of the “No Drama Obama” illusion factory. Though the Magical Mystery PR Machine has a history of successfully “manging the media” and “massaging the message,” somebody should tell the poor man’s Jeff Dunham he needs a new act.
The Obamessiah’s bullshit ain’t nothin’ but chewed up Astroturf.
In other, non-related news of the delusional, Elizabeth, New Jersey funeral home owner and Obagroupie wannabe, Kim Nesbitt-Good, has a life-sized cardboard cut-out of the president-elect in the lobby of her establishment that people clamor to take pictures with.
Obama’s biggest fan is having a ball. There is a life-size cardboard cutout of Barack Obama in the foyer of the Nesbitt Funeral Home in Elizabeth.
The president-elect looks out at Madison Street through double-glass doors. People stop, ring the funeral home bell and ask to take pictures with the cardboard Barack. So do mourners and friends and family of the deceased, either before or after they’ve paid their respects.
What is it with Obafolks and cardboard? Lastly, the photo up top is the brand new official Obaportrait. It’s the first digital presidential portrait ev-er. I guess digital photographers don’t use make-up or PhotoShop, ‘cuz Obie needs a shave, a chin, and a haircut. Old-fashioned airbrushing has it’s place.
*UPDATE: FOX News, among others is reporting that Barack Obama has met with certain members of the press, off the record. Look for positive stories about the Geithner appointment from these sources in the near future.
Notable guests at Will’s home included the National Review’s Rich Lowry, columnist Charles Krauthammer, The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, U.S. News & World Report’s Michael Barone, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan and Paul Gigot, The New York Times’ David Brooks and columnist Larry Kudlow. Several of the guests are frequent FOX News guests and contributors.
An Obama transition aide said the president-elect plans to attend “similar gatherings” in the months ahead.
Indeed, Obama met with a group of liberal columnists and commentators Wednesday morning, Politico.com reported. They included The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
I am a PUMA today for the exact same reason I went looking to become something that didn’t yet exist on May 31, 2008; I object to the manner in which Barack Obama became my president. And nothing I’ve seen before or since has mitigated that essential truth in the slightest, in fact, the more I see of the way he operates, the more upset I get. Barack Obama offends my sense of fair play. From what I’ve been able to determine through my research of him, he has pushed the against “da roolz” envelope in every contested election he’s won. Though he cannot be accused of outright cheating, he has built his entire pseudo-impressive career out of finding obscure loopholes to screw to his orgasm, thereby raping the process to his pleasure and advantage.
As has been extensively chronicled, in 1996, Obama won his first election to the Illinois Senate by contesting the voting petition signatures gathered for all of his challengers, getting them all disqualified, and running unopposed. Before he could complete his second term of office, after winning re-election in 1998 over African American Republican Yesse Yehudah (whose name later emerged in Obama bribery allegations) he mounted a disastrous 2000 campaign for sitting Congressman Bobby Rush’s seat, who beat the pants off him like he was a red-headed stepchild, by playing his “my black card on the table trumps the Uppity Magic Negro card up your sleeve.” It worked, and Obama never let that happen again.
Every Senate district elects its members to serve two four-year terms and one two-year term per decade.
…and Obama’s predilection for reticence, the details regarding his Illinois Senate runs are rather sketchy. However, considering that his opponent in 1998, Yehuda, won approx. 10% of the vote, and that in 2002 he ran unopposed, its safe to assume that, for some reason, Obama’s re-elections were basically a rubber-stamp formality. Curiously, Wikipedia mentions that Obama was re-elected to the Illinois senate in 2002, presumably in November, yet numerous sources report that he had already begun preparing for a run at the U.S. Senate by June of that year. From the Boston Globe:
In mid-2002, Obama began to focus on the upcoming US Senate race. The incumbent, Republican Peter Fitzgerald, seemed beatable, and it was not clear Carol Moseley Braun, who had held the seat before Fitzgerald, would try to reclaim it. Obama and his wife made a deal: This would be, as his wife puts it now, “the last hurrah.”
Democratic State Senator and University Law School Senior Lecturer Barack Obama has begun assessing his chances in the 2004 US senate race. Obama has commissioned a statewide poll by the Colorado firm Harstad Strategic Research, and he has filed for federal permission to begin fundraising. Obama will have to win the democratic primary in order to face incumbent Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald in ‘04.
Note the article from 2002 refers to Obama as a “Senior Lecturer” not “professor,” as he has claimed to be; a claim which was backed up, but “nuanced” (their word, not mine) by Fact Check.org via the University of Chicago. Another example of Obama’s fondness for “nuance”regards his now, much bally-hooed, then, largely ignored, unfilmed, 2002 Iraq war speech:
“My objections to the war in Iraq were not simply a speech,” Obama said. “I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign. I was one of the most vocal opponents of the war.” (Obama delivered the speech in October 2002; he did not officially declare his candidacy for the U.S. Senate until January).
Even in this era of YouTube and camera phones, a recording of Obama’s speech is all but impossible to find. The Obama campaign has gone so far as to re-create portions of the speech for a television ad, with the candidate re-reading the text, with audience sound effects.
So, according to the above article from NPR, this cornerstone and centerpiece of Obama’s presidential campaign was actually an insignificant speech delivered to about 1,000 people by a little known guy running unopposed for the state Senate, at somebody else’s (Jesse Jackson) rally. Even Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, has admitted as much. Quoted in the New York Times Caucus blog lamenting the lack of recorded Iraq war speech material:
“I would kill for that,” he was quoted as saying. “No one realized at the time that it would be a historic thing.”
Similar “nuance” marks the man’s entire biography, yet he has somehow managed to create the illusion of transparency. When David Axelrod joined (became) Obama’s team in 2004, the elements of Obama’s new, “I am, too, black enough, but not too black, just short of under-handed envelope pushing” political philosophy began to successfully knit themselves together. On his AKP&D Message and Media website, “the Axe” takes his full share of credit:
In 2004, Axelrod helped State Senator Barack Obama score a landslide win in his U.S. Senate campaign, developing a message and media strategy that enabled Obama to defeat six opponents in the Democratic primary with an astounding 53% of the vote. He is currently serving as media advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.
Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate as the second African American to do so from Illinois, amid scandal. In fact, from the scandal surrounding Congressman Mel Reynolds in his first state Senate bid, to his predecessor Carol Mosely Braun’s legal troubles, to the fortuitous (for him) scandal and gossip swirling around two of his opponents in his U.S. Senate race that caused them to drop out, to the current Blagojevich brouhaha, somebody in Illinois is always getting into trouble for something that often ultimately benefits Obama, that he’s miraculously never really otherwise affected by.
The divorce records of Obama’s leading primary opponent in 2004, Blair Hull, as well as those of his Republican opponent Jack Ryan were not-so-mysteriously leaked to the Chicago Tribune, (given David Axelrod’s previous association with the newspaper) sinking their chances. Obama/Axelrod could then employ their newly developed “blacker than thou” techniques against last minute, carpetbagging replacement Republican candidate, Alan Keyes, sweeping to victory.
In the presidential primaries, Camp Obama again pushed “da roolz” envelope to their advantage. From the exploitation of delegate appropriation in the caucuses, to the active solicitation of “anybody but Hillary” Republican and Independent temporary crossover voting, to the deliberate, yet unnecessary, removal of his name in the Michigan primary, something he was forbidden to do in Florida, Obama consistently pimped the process. With the complicity of the DNC, the mainstream media and the faux progressive blogosphere, who rewarded, celebrated, and championed his every questionable move, he barely squeaked by enough to be ceremoniously handed the nomination, “fair and square.” Those of us in his party who questioned his experience, qualifications, and tactics were belittled, bullied, and ridiculed when we couldn’t be ignored, as the Obama campaign and the DNC turned their heads and allowed his minions in the media and blogosphere to engage in misogynistic race baiting on his behalf. None of which dampened our outrage in the slightest, in fact, as most any fool besides these would expect, the opposite is true.
Wickedly delightful, completely non-politically correct author Christopher Moore has brilliantly analyzed and explained the concept of “Beta Male” in much of his work. While I recommend you read his books for yourself, and cannot presume to speak for him, the basic point, as I perceive it, is that the world is populated by far more Beta Males than Alpha, yet they tend to fade into the background of life because they’re…well…Beta. Moore hilariously champions their cause. Yet, as a female, I have a couple of observations about the concept of my own. One, Alpha Male is not all it’s cracked up to be. Basically, it just means “first guy through the door.” While a man’s looks, wealth, education, whatever, might contribute to his cockiness, the bottom line is, it’s the cocksure confidence he exhibits that women and Beta Males respond to, often to their detriment. Because, there’s no guarantee that the Alpha Male is the smartest, or best qualified guy in any group, he’s just compelled to go first. This is not always a good thing for him, or the group, after all, the first bull off the cliff in a buffalo jump was probably an Alpha Male, too.
Secondly, not all Alpha Males are created equal. Primarily because, not all male tribal affiliations, teams, clubs, cliques, squads, etc., are. True, there are Alpha Males in Alpha Male societies, but even Beta, Gamma, Delta, Theta and Omega groups have Alpha Males, too. And while those lesser Alphas might not fare well in clubs higher up on the food chain, in their little domains, they rock.
Barack Obama is not an Alpha Male, even in a Tau society. He is an actor, adept at adopting the persona of an Alpha, (when he stays on script) but even then, only as top dog of a Gamma society, at best. Therefore, his campaign, comprised of refugees from Revenge of the Nerds, had to be equally adept at crafting a message designed to dumb down the masses, get them to accept and embrace their Gamma society identity, so that they could then embrace their Gamma society Alpha Male leader. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” conjures images of clueless hordes standing around idly, with their fingers in their noses and their thumbs up their asses, waiting for somebody smart to come along and tell them where to go and what to do. Barack Obama is that somebody, for those people.
I don’t want a nerdy fake-Alpha Male president of a Gamma society. America is better than that. I don’t want a president who gleefully resorts to racially guilt tripping a largely innocent society into voting for him so that they might avoid the undeserved lash of the stigma of racism, while the minority of the majority who are real racists, escape unscathed. I want a level playing field. I want the best man to not only have a shot, I want him to win, even if the best man is a woman. I don’t care if state houses and government buildings have to add stalls to the ladies’ rooms to accommodate an arbitrarily mandated quota any more than I want any old black guy to be appointed or elected just because he’s black. If the best government of the people ends up being comprised of an unusually large percentage of third world immigrants, Munchkins, and Buddhist transvestites, so be it. I want to work for a world where those things don’t matter, not live in a country where we agree to pretend they don’t against any and all evidence to the contrary.
I don’t want to have to be political about being political, to activate and agitate society for my right to participate in it. Why should I still be burning my bra and raising my fist, even in this era of “historic accomplishment?” Why should I co-sign the tactics of a group of “win at all costs, by any means necessary” rulebook waving, loophole screwing, process rapists, hellbent on blackmailing the country into validating their Beta Male in a Gamma society twerpitude? What’s wonderful enough to celebrate about the election of a black Alpha Male of a society that has to tacitly agree to Gamma-fy itself in order to elect him? Especially when there was an imminently qualified, female Alpha Male in the race, one who actually had to fight her way out of the shadows of a bona fide Alpha?
I thought leveling the playing field, championing the cause of the little guy, real dedication to fair play, and social responsibility in a color blind, gender neutral country was what being a Democrat was all about.
I found out through this election that I was wrong.
That’s why I am no longer affiliated with any political party.
Whoever thought maneuvering Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich into a position that allowed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to officially criminalize machine politics-as-usual for political advantage has got to be the biggest neophyte yahoo rube to come down the pike since…Barack Obama. Let’s review. Barack Obama, the only African American in the Senate for two years, mysteriously generates enough money and clout to mount a successful run for the presidency out of a political environment so corrupt that “Lincoln would roll over in his grave,” how? By being an all-around, all-American, above-board, swell, good guy, of course. Sure.
Surrounded by his personal band of proselytizing disciples; Rahmbo the Emanuel, Valerie Magdalene, King David of the Astroturf, Antonin of Houses, and Jon, the Groper of Graven Images, to name a few, the Obamessiah scampered above the sewer waters of Illinois corruption as if they were a North Side private gymnasium treadmill. As a fisher of men, He was often unfortunately touched, but not tainted by, the activities of the unworthy among those He assembled and attempted to make pure, as has been dutifully chronicled by the mainstream media Keepers of the Holy Book of the Obamessiah. However, Barack remains the Reformer, bathed in the Light.
Clean, bright and articulate by resume, the recent machinations by the Combine Machine of the Obacrats are threatening to reveal enough cracks in the Obamirror of Righteousness to expose His Holy Stupid-as-a-Stumpness in a nationally broadcast Naivete Scene. Did it never occur to the No Drama Obama crew that manipulating a fellow player not of their clique into a corner carried risks?
When one of their number, Antonin of Houses, stumbled and fell by the wayside, the Obasciples simply stepped gingerly, single-file around him, leaving him where he lay, disavowing him three times as they boarded the Obabus he rolled under when they continued confidently on their preordained journey to the Promised Land. The Obamessiah did not lay hands upon him, nor did He absolve him of his sin; He simply denied knowledge of him as He brushed His Holy shoulders and allowed Himself to be driven on. This was a Holy boo-boo.
For Antonin of Houses had special knowledge of Valerie Magdalene and the Obamessiah, and Antonin was pisseth.
Fast forward to the twenty-first century post-election ensconcement of the Obamessiah as President-In-Training Wheels. Having written and disseminated his own Holy backstory to the Chroniclers, and having consumed their regurgitated praise to his overfill, the Obamesiah, drunk with his own Obamessiah-ness by proxy, allowed Himself to believe He, Jr. Father, Knew Best. Thus began the chess match, whereby playing unopposed, the Obamessiah cleverly checkmated Himownself.
Seeing a way to eliminate his only real threat to absolute power in His own backyard, Barack of Hyde Park decided to continue to attempt to appear to levitate above the machinations of His betrayed Obasciple of the Houses, and the locust-and-honey-eating way clearer, the crude Rod the Blagojevich, while shining His Holy Light upon their common evangelical activities, forgetting He too, was bathed in His Own Light. Thus, He Screweth Himself.
Okay, enough of the Obamessiah allegory; it’s not only making me nauseous, I’m not nearly as good at it as John, South of Melrose over on Liberal Rapture or Gerald Baker; plus I need to be free to call bullshit without all this pseudo-Christian baggage. So, let’s get back to brass tacks, shall we?
The fact remains that Obama screwed the pooch when he tried to play innocent while pointing the finger at Blagojevich. Everybody in Illinois knew Blags was under investigation, he even hinted at the worst kept secret in politics the day before he was arrested. Everybody also knew that even with Rezko’s making like a canary, Fitzgerald didn’t have enough to indict. He still doesn’t. But when the president-elect bats his exaggeratedly wide-open eyes and tilts his head in your direction when somebody else calls you a crook, people sit up and take notice.
Obama and company knew that if they dangled the vacant Senate seat plum just right while they dropped unsubtle hints that Fitzgerald was sure to pick up, the investigation against Blags was sure to intensify. However, methinks they underestimated the existing intensity of the ongoing investigation. Thinking that the tentacles would subsequently stretch out in all directions, they never considered that they already did, that it wasn’t just one Blagojevich phone that was tapped, and that more of their pre-cleanup involvement was already caught on tape.
Now, the smartest president in the room and his gang have been interviewed in a pay-to-play scam and have proclaimed their innocence, just like Blagojevich, just like Bill Richardson. Though Blago has been arrested, before his alleged crime could criminally implicate anybody else, he hasn’t been indicted, he was released on a paltry bond, and he remains free to exercise his duties as governor. And, now that he has done just that, the Obacrats, who for their own nefarious reasons, swept Obama to power, are desperate to get Blags to nullify himself, since they know they have no legal, or moral, authority to do so. They also know now that Blagojevich knows it, too; by making the appointment, the Obacrats are not only rendered impotent, they’ve handcuffed and prevented themselves from exercising any power they might once have wielded. For, even if they impeach Blago, or he now resigns, there’s nothing that would make Roland Burris’ appointment to the Senate retroactively invalid. From Politico:
The Democrats’ preferred solution to the Burris problem is for the Illinois Legislature to impeach Blagojevich, paving the way for Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn to take his place and appoint someone other than Burris to Obama’s vacant seat. But even that could create a legal headache, legal observers say, since the Burris appointment would still be pending.
“Even if Blagojevich is impeached, that doesn’t undo all the actions he has taken as governor,” said Andrew Raucci, a former chief justice for the Illinois Court of Claims and now a Chicago-based attorney.
Democrats say that if Burris hasn’t been seated by the time Quinn takes over, he could name someone else to the seat by rescinding Burris’ certification papers.
Burris was having none of it. At a news conference at Chicago’s Midway Airport, the former Illinois attorney general testily said to reporters, “Why don’t you all understand that what has been done here is legal? I am the junior senator from Illinois, and I wish my colleagues in the press would recognize that. All the drama — I guess it keeps you all in a job.”
And, to make bad matters worse, not only is Burris adamant that he is the junior senator from Illinois no matter what ticky-tack maneuvers the Obacrats try to pull, the criminalization of day to day political manipulation makes every satellite in the Oba-universe vulnerable. Just ask Bill Richardson.
Big ol’ scary Roland Burris says he’s the Senator from Illinois so make way. The Obamacrats say the idea of Burris sullying the sanctity of the Senate is so terrifying, they’ll do whatever they have to do to keep him out and keep the country safe. “Hide the women and children, go to the root cellar, get under the desks, run for your lives, for God’s sake, hide!”
Oh please. For the Democrats in the Senate to say they’ll block the doors to prevent Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s appointed replacement for Barack Obama (the not scary black guy)’s Senate seat, Burris (the scary black guy) from taking office, just because they’re miffed, is just plain silly and pretty durned funny. So, too, is Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush (a formerly scary black guy)’s insistence on being…well, Bobby Rush, and warning people against “lynching and hanging” just because they want to bar entrance to the hallowed halls of the Senate by the scary black guy just like George Wallace wanted to keep scary black kids out of school. But, never you mind, the fun doesn’t stop there, no sireee, Bobbo! Being scary on command can be a hoot. I mean, like The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates pointed out, quoting KristenMcQueary, it’s not like Bobby Rush never endorsed a white person over a black one:
He went so far as to compare Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who in 1963 stood in the doorway of a University of Alabama school building to block two black students from entering. Reid and Senate Democrats pledged to refuse any appointee sent by Blagojevich, even Burris, who would be the chamber’s only black member.
Rush’s lecture, however, seems quite two-faced considering he chaired Blair Hull’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign.
Hull is white.
If sending a black senator to Washington is so important now, why didn’t Rush support a black candidate four years ago? Not only was Obama on the Democratic ballot, but Joyce Washington, a black woman and health care executive, was as well.
Never mind that Rush endorsed Obama for president over his good white friends, the Clintons, or that Rush crushed Obama when Obie made an ill-advised bid for Bobby’s Congressional seat, or that Obama’s hit man David Axelrod took Hull down hard on his way to the Senate, it’s a black thing, only summa y’all unnerstan’. But, hey, let the good times roll on.
And, lest you think Senate Majority Leader Reid doesn’t like black people, not just because of the Wallace-esque door-blocking thing, but also because he tried to block Blagojevich from appointing any other black men, too, pish tosh, put those thoughts aside. I’m sure he knows there haven’t been a whole lot of black people in the Senate; as Earl Ofari Hutchinson reminds us, it’s always been a “good old boy’s club” and, by golly, everybody just likes it that way! Nothing personal, move along. And those black folks agitating on Roland Burris’ behalf? Misguided malcontents, the whole lot of ‘em. So what if there are no black Senators, y’all got a black president, how dare you play the race card?
Oh, the delicious irony. Now it can be revealed just how racially manipulative the Obamacrats have been. Just because Barack Obama received overwhelming support from black voters, easily deceived sycophants and other fools could be convinced that all black people love and support him alike. Ha, ha. What those sycophantic fools choose to ignore is that the illusion of monolithic support is easy to attain if you keep the relevant questions narrow. In other words, if you ask 1,000 black people how they feel about, oh, health care, you’d probably get answers as varied as if you asked a similar number of white, Asian, short, or stupid people the same thing. But if you ask them if they’d rather have a black Democratic president or a white Republican one on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, you’d probably be horrified if anybody picked the white guy.
Duh.
Oh, but now, the vilified, but shrewd Blagojevich has flipped the script. By appointing Burris, and deliberately, in his familiar, yet inimitable “in your face” style, calling bullshit, Blago has forced the Obamacrats to paint themselves into a corner of hell in much the same way they manipulated him into the role of the face of Illinois corruption, hoping to deflect attention from their own systemic culplability. And, since there’s no easy way out for either side, the yuckfest continues.
The Senate Democrats have no leg to stand on, and will have to abandon their saber rattling bluff. Blagojevich is most likely guilty as hell, but, under our legal system that doesn’t count, especially since he hasn’t even been indicted for anything, merely arrested pending formal charges. While that may be enough for the Illinois branch of the Obamacrats to achieve the desired results in their now accelerated, year long, Blagoenemy Madigan Clan led impeachment attempt, it’s hard to see how that would invalidate the Burris appointment. Would a conviction subsequent to the appointment legally nullify it?
Add the Al Franken coup attempt to the drama and you’ve got Oscar worthy high camp comedy. Shouting “we won!” while trying to squeak Franken through the Burris-blocked Senate doors could prove to be a tad embarrassing. I mean, how can you certify Franken, when he hasn’t even really won, and not certify the legally appointed Burris, without looking like a bunch of modern day racist bigots using token black people, like the president-elect and Illinois Secretary of State, to do your quota-maintaining bidding?
Ya can’t.
Advantage Blago/Burris/Rush.
And, once we get the answers to the “why did U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald step in and arrest Blagojevich to prevent a ‘crime-spree,’ when he could have caught at least two high-profile, guilty as hell people redhanded,” and “who are all these new ‘multiple witnesses‘ and what are they and the people on the ‘thousands of intercepted converations‘ saying that’s intersting enough to make Fitzy file a motion seeking an extension,” it might be game, set, match.
Thus reads the true job description of astroturfing Democratic strategist/ventriloquist David Axelrod and his peevish puppet/dummy/Teflon TelePrompTer reading actor who plays president-elect on TV, Barack Obama. Regarding the unpopular choice of anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation, Axelbama simply reiterates their oft repeated “reach out to enemies you disagree with…blah, blah, blah” disingenuous load of hooey disguised as placating mantra for those easily distracted by gaudy headlines over fine print. Anyone with half a brain can see through such nonsense, while most of us are forced to work with people we dislike, primarily because we disagree with everything they stand for, at one time or another, most of us have the good sense not to invite them to our house parties. Nor do we seek such people out to collaborate with on pet projects; in fact, we will often bribe co-workers to switch places with us if such situations are assigned.
Top Obama adviser David Axelrod strongly defended the selection of evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the opening prayer at the inauguration, telling moderator David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the nation needs to get beyond “shaking our fists” across a political divide.
The selection of Warren, a Californian whose “The Purpose Driven Life” has sold 20 million copies, prompted a fierce backlash from some of Obama’s liberal supporters — especially gay activists, who were miffed at Warren’s support for the Golden State proposition outlawing same-sex marriage, which passed in November.
“You have a conservative evangelical pastor who’s coming to participate in the inauguration of a progressive president,” Axelrod said from Chicago. “This is a healthy thing and a good thing for our country. We have to find ways to work together on the things on which we do agree, even when we profoundly disagree on other things.”
First of all, what does Warren working with Obama in this situation accomplish? What does the country gain? It’s hard to see where such an imposition of the President-in-Training Wheels’ will nets him much more of an advantage than drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. Flexing one’s muscles simply for the sake of having teenage girls admire them is juvenile behavior beneath the dignity of the office the Obamessiah deigns to lower Himself to. Unless of course, the whole point is to establish just who’s in charge, which begs the question, just who’s in doubt about that?
It’s obvious that the curiously-funded, political science lab-created Axelsteinian entity selected by the nebulous powers-that-be to front the shadow cabal that actually seems hellbent on running the country into the ground thinks, along with his masters, that Joe and Jane Public are stupid as tree stumps. There’s evidence to support their opinion. First of all, USA Today says that America’s new Leader in the Light is the most admired man in the country. Despite the fact that he accomplished nothing of note as a state or US Senator, it seems that being elected because he wasn’t a Clinton or a Republican, as well as having the good fortune to be black in today’s Madison Avenue defined post-racial America, as designated by the Hope Pope, is enough to inspire awe and respect in 32% of those of our fellow citizens willing to be polled about such nonsense during the holidays. Hillary Clinton was dubbed “Most Admired Woman” for the umpteenth time, beating out Sarah, Oprah, Condi, Michelle and all the other American women famous enough for being famous that we know them by their first names.
However, the strongest evidence that the Obamessiah and His Disciples in and of the media are primarily committed to tending their sheeple flock is the realization that they believe that touting such fluff is sufficient to distract attention from the fact that their Teflon TelePrompTer Reader and two of his acolytes have been questioned at length in an investigation of “pay-to-play” corruption in his home state. In the federal building with lawyers present and everything. In their defense they cry, “we investigated ourselves and found ourselves innocent and the US Attorney says we’re not a target, anyway, and we told the governor all we were offering him in return for doing what we wanted was appreciation, but we didn’t know he wanted anything in the first place, and besides, that same US Attorney stopped the illegal enterprise before anybody besides the bad guy we want you to hate could be implicated, like us, but, since it’s Christmas we know you’re not really paying attention, and, oh, by the way, have you seen our guy’s pecs?
And, on top of all that, Rahm’s not even in the country right now, he’s in Africa, ‘cuz, well, he really, really wanted to go, and the Great Hype Hope is in Hawaii, spending googobs of somebody’s money while he rests up for the Greatest Inauguration Ever in a Recession, and nobody talks to Valerie Jarret besides her lawyer, so you couldn’t ask any of them any questions even if you were up on things. And don’t even worry about why the New York Times mentioned VJ staffer Michael Strautmanis in connection with the investigation and nobody else has, it’s probably not important.”
That would be the headline for any other president-elect at any other time in our history, since it accurately reflects the facts of a pretty sensational story. However, since we’re talking about an extraordinary Teflon TelePrompTer Messiah, elected/anointed/selected to lead us to the Promised Land of Peace and Prosperity at this unique point in history, the bulk of the headlines referring to Barack Obama’s “internal investigation report” into his own and his staff’s involvement in the Rod Blagojevich “Got A Hot Senate Seat, Gotta Move It” scandal read more like, “Jesus’ Little Brother Absolves Himself And All Who Love Him.” Hey, it’s Christmas.
On Dec. 11, Obama called for an internal investigation and said he and his staff were definitely, for sure not involved, no how, no way:
The president-elect said he was “as appalled and disappointed as anybody” by the allegations. He said that neither he nor his transition team have been a part of the continuing federal investigation, using language that was very specific but left several questions unanswered.
“I have not been contacted by any federal officials and we have not been interviewed by them,” Obama said.
On Dec. 15, we were told, hey, we’ve got a report, but the US Attorney wants us to hold off on releasing it, and since we’re such transparent good guys, of course we’re gonna comply:”
President-elect Barack Obama said Monday that his transition office was delaying release of a report on contacts with the Blagojevich administration until next week because the U.S. attorney’s office in Illinois asked for more time to conduct interviews about the controversial Senate vacancy.
I guess they just forgot to mention that the interviews the US Attorney wanted to conduct were with the president-elect and two key members of his inner circle. Their bad. On Dec. 18, 19, and 20th, Obama, Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett were questioned by authorities with their lawyers present:
Those with knowledge of the federal investigation have said that Emanuel is not a target in the case. There also is no indication that Jarrett ever was a target, a transition official said. Like Obama, both were accompanied by lawyers for their interviews with the prosecutor’s staff, Gibbs said.
We also now know that Jarrett talked to SEIU official Tom Balanoff about appointing Blagojevich Secretary of Health and Human Services, but that it had nothing to do with Jarrett or Obama’s Senate seat:
Obama’s report details a conversation about the appointment between Jarrett and Tom Balanoff, head of the Illinois chapter of the Service Employees International Union, in which Balanoff told her that Blagojevich had “raised with him” the idea of being appointed Health and Human Services secretary.
Balanoff informed Jarrett he had told Blagojevich it wouldn’t happen, and Jarrett agreed, discounting the notion as “ridiculous,” the report states.
However, there was never any suggestion in the conversation that Blagojevich was linking the Senate appointment to the possible Cabinet posting, the report states.
Ha, ha, ho, ho, and a good time was had by all. Another curious thing, at least to me, is that the interviews were held on consecutive days, with Emanuel’s being last. Emanuel, who had long been suspected of having had multiple contacts with the Illinois governor re: the Senate seat, seems to have needed to have his memory jogged by authorities:
During Emanuel’s interview Saturday, federal authorities played for him a taped recording of at least one conversation he had with Blagojevich’s office, according to a transition official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss information not included in the report.
As soon as Rahm’s interview was concluded, he went to Africa. No word on where David Axelrod went, but a trip to a creative writing class might be in order. Davey’s storytelling skills need a bit of brushing up:
Obama’s report also addresses confusion over earlier statements by David Axelrod, a top adviser who had said at one point that Obama discussed the Senate appointment with Blagojevich. Axelrod had discussed potential recommendations for the Senate appointment with Obama and Emanuel, and “was under the impression” that it would be Obama who would offer those to Blagojevich.
“He later learned that it was Mr. Emanuel who conveyed those names,” the report states.
Davey’s not the only one deficient in “once upon a time” skills; Greg Craig, the “investigator” who put the report together probably bores little kids to sleep, too:
Obama’s report states that none of Blagojevich’s aides reached out to the president-elect’s staff. The report only notes that Obama friend Eric Whitaker was approached by one of Blagojevich’s top aides to learn “who, if anyone, had the authority to speak for the president-elect” about the Senate appointment.
Obama told Whitaker that “no one was authorized to speak for him” and that “he had no interest in dictating the result of the selection process,” according to the report.
So, they didn’t reach out to staff, people just happened to bump into each other in the hall, or pick up silent phones only to find representatives from Blago’s office on the other end, or powerful psychic connections were made between highly receptive simpatico telepaths on both sides, or, just maybe, all the “reaching out” came from the Obamessiah side. Politico has an accounting of some other inconsistencies and curiosities associated with Oblagoma-gate, but one thing we’re not ever likely to figure out is why the New York Times mentioned Jarrett staffer Michael Strautmanis as a name likey to be dropped into this mess when it wasn’t. But, it’s a comfort to know that the president-elect absolved himself before and after he was hauled in front of the authorities. In fact, it’s nice to be reminded of that other heartwarming tale of righeous indignation spurring justice seeking, “The Ballad of Candidate Number 5,” who was also not only questioned by Fitz’s boys, but alerted to the governor’s impending arrest; only in his case, it was on other occasions that he exercised his civic duty to report unethical behavior. Makes my heart cockles all warm and fuzzy.
And, who wouldn’t want their cockles toasty on Christmas Eve?
Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor accused of trying to sell the Senate seat president-elect Barack Obama curiously vacated in record time, is “dying to talk,” according to Politico:
Gov. Rod Blagojevich spoke with reporters for several minutes before taking a jog in snowy Chicago, telling them to “hang loose” to hear his side of the story.
“I can’t wait to begin to tell my side of story, to address you guys and most important, the people of Illinois,” Blagojevich said. “That’s who I am dying to talk to.”
Also, according to Politico, Obama himself is “frustrated” that he can’t talk:
President-elect Barack Obama said he’s anxious to “correct immediately” some media reports on transition team contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but would hold off until next week as promised to federal authorities.
“It’s a little bit frustrating,” Obama said Wednesday at a Chicago news conference. “There’s been a lot of speculation in the press that I would love to correct immediately. We are abiding by the request of the U.S. attorney’s office, but it’s not going to be that long. By next week, you guys will have the answers to all your questions.”
In the same article, Obama’s ventriloquist, David (Astroturf King) Axelrod, railed against being “hamstrung” by the Fed’s request to zip it where the internal investigation report is concerned:
“Nobody is more eager than we are to be able to release that,” Axelrod, a senior Obama adviser, said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And when you see it, it will corroborate what the president-elect has said, which is that he never spoke with the governor or any of his aides about this, and that there were no inappropriate discussions between members of his staff and the governor’s office in this matter.”
So, a couple of things jump out at me. One, who says bribery and collusion, etc. are crimes that can only be committed among friends? How close do you have to be to buy and sell anything? I’ve never bought a car from a guy I had breakfast with the morning after. Just saying. Two, while Axelrove is vouching for everybody on Obie’s staff, (does that include Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Rahm Emanuel’s conversations with Team Baggo before Nov. 6, when he was officially announced as Chief of Staff? Just asking.) who’s gonna vouch for Davey? He has a long history with the Chicago Tribune…
At the age of 27, Axelrod became the City Hall Bureau Chief and a political columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He worked at the Tribune for eight years, covering national, state and local politics.
On Tuesday, when the news of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s arrest broke, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declared that it was “a sad day for Illinois government” and that Blagojevich had “taken us to a truly new low.” But, was it really? From the New York Times transcript of the press conference, Fitgerald said:
Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree. We acted to stop that crime spree.
The most appalling conduct Governor Blagojevich engaged in, according to the complaint filed today or unsealed today, is that he attempted to sell a Senate seat, the Senate seat he had the sole right to under Illinois to appoint to replace President-elect Obama.
Attempting to sell a Senate seat, an attempt that was thwarted by Fitzgerald, by the way, constitutes a “crime spree” that would make “Lincoln turn over in his grave?” Fitzgerald’s justification makes no sense at all. If Blago had indeed appointed someone to Obama’s seat in a “pay for play” scheme, Fitz would have netted 2 big fish dead to rights, since the payee/selectee would be guilty as sin, too. Nope, there’s more to this story than meets the eye.
What we also know is that some of these schemes went pretty far and some did not go far at all. But they had discussions about what they would do, who they would approach and how they would phrase it.
And we need to do the investigation, now that the investigation is overt, to find out from other people what happened, what they were told, how explicitly, what they understood, and what happened.
“I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever,” Fitzgerald said. “We make no allegations that he’s aware of anything, and that’s as simply as I can put it. . . .
“There’s no reference in the complaint to any conversations involving the president-elect or indicating that the president-elect was aware of it. And that’s all I can say.”
Note he said “complaint,” not “investigation.” And, that’s all I can say.
Barack Obama has never made any bones about the fact that he is a product of the rough and tumble “Chicago Way.” And, while many have seen evidence of that fact and commented on it, most mischaracterize Obama’s particular, and peculiar, adaptation of the old school tactics he’s picked up along the way. Far from being above the muck and mire being raked and wallowed in by most Windy City blowhards, Obama relishes in his ability to play dirty and come up clean.
In the primaries, he gamed the caucuses, always within “da rules,” he pushed the envelope like a boxer who hits his opponent over the head with a folding chair and then demands that the referee show him where it says in the rule book that such a thing is not allowed. Since no one ever entertained the thought that a boxer would do such a thing, chances are, there is no rule and the match would go to the chair wielder. While boxing purists would forever decry such a manipulation of the dignity of the game, for the chair bopper, a win’s a win. For his opponent, a trip to the hospital and the enduring humiliation of not having foreseen the possibility of a chair meeting his skull that would be heaped upon him by those disappointed purists looking for someone to blame, would likely be enough to end his career. This is the way Obama does business.
Like most big cities, in many ways, Chicago operates like a small town. Considering the fact that the Obama Transition team offices in the John C. Kluczynski Federal Office Building, 230 South Dearborn St., Suite 3900 (39th floor) are located in the same plaza as the U. S. attorney’s in the Everett McKinley Dirksen Federal Courthouse, 219 South Dearborn, it’s not too far-fetched to think that gossip might swirl. Besides, the “news” that Blagojevich was “under investigation” was common knowledge, since just about every article mentioning the man in the last three years included the phrase. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume that Camp O, along with everybody else in Chicago remotely “in the know,” might have heard rumors of a wiretap being issued against Blago. The governor himself seemed very aware of the fact, even in taped conversations.
On Nov. 3, Blago began to make plans for utilizing the power he believed he would soon wield with Obama’s election and subsequent need to vacate his Senate seat. On Nov. 5, the two men met to discuss the situation. From all indications, Obama made his preference for Valerie Jarrett known, and in true Don Corleone style, indicated he would “appreciate” it. Clueless Blago did not fully “appreciate” the implications of the offer, and most likely, made it known that “appreciation” was not enough. It is also likely that “this was the moment” Obama decided to take him down.
On Nov. 10 – 12, Blago had discussions about what he wanted; in return for appointing Jarrett, Blago wanted an SEIU “Change to Win” position as National Director. On the 12th, Jarrett removed herself rom contention, which caught Blago off-guard:
Still, Jarrett’s announcement came as a surprise to sources close to Blagojevich, who said that representatives for Obama had floated her name on a regular basis.
On Nov. 13, Obama announced he was resigning his Senate seat, making the “juicy plum” Blago held even “juicier.” It also left Blgo on his own, twisting in the wind, digging his own grave. Well aware of the workings of the “Chicago Way” and Blago’s greed, Obama had to know how Blagojevich would react. He also knew that without cover, Blago would soon neutralize himself. After all, if Blago had taken Obie up on his offer, nothing would have happened, Blago would simply still be “under investigation,” and none would be the wiser. However, once Obama is no longer “in the picture” and the seat is “up for grabs” to the highest bidder, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Blago’s self-interests would become paramount and the force of nature that is Patrick Fitzgerald would naturally take it’s course from that point on.
Thus, Obama could sit back and let things develop predictably, all to his advantage, without lifting a finger. There was no need for Rahm Emanuel to “drop a dime” on anybody. And if, as an Obama emissary, he had done such a thing, there would be no need for denials of any sort, Obama would come out smelling like a rose as the “reformer” he claims to be. The fact that he and Axelrod back off such claims is more telling than anything else; that simply was not ever their motivation. Getting rid of Blagojevich and clearing the way for Obama’s real choice was the plan.
Hardball with clean hands. The Chicago Way – Obama-Style.
Maybe Camp No Drama Obama should get their stories straight. From the AP:
President-electBarack Obama says he is saddened by allegations that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to trade favors for Obama’s Senate seat — and says he had no contact with the governor or his office on the matter.
With the recent news that former Obama “monster-calling-the-kettle-monster,” Samantha Power, has re-upped (now that a suitable amount of time has passed since her “resignation“) as one of 14 members of the Agency Review “team-within-a-team” for the State Department transition, another “where are they now?” question comes to mind. Where’s Patti Solis Doyle? Given that the two women (Doyle and Power) have both been hostile to Hillary Clinton, putting Power in a position to influence Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State is as much a slap in the face as was Solis-Doyle’s June addition to Team O, ostensibly as chief of staff to the then “as yet to be named” vice-president. Now that Jo(k)e Biden has “as yet been named,” and elected vice-president, and has appointed Ronald Klain as his chief of staff, where’s Doyle? And what was the purpose of hiring her for any position in the first place?
Solis-Doyle, was allowed to step down (shitcanned) as Clinton campaign manager in February, and was replaced by Maggie Williams, who served as chief of staff to First Lady Clinton, and had recently joined the team. It was said at the time that Doyle’s “resignation” was primarily due to “family considerations,” not hurt feelings because of the addition of Williams to the staff, or Doyle’s soap opera watching incompetence in the face of a string of caucus losses which derailed Clinton’s air of “inevitability.” However, make no mistake, she was canned. So, why would Obama reward such incompetence with an obviously meaningless, mythical job? Was it really just the big “eff yew and your veep hopes” many Clinton supporters took it to be? On Nov. 10, AP’s Beth Fouhy reported that Obama had offered Solis-Doyle a cabinet related position she was supposed to be mulling:
Democratic officials say President-elect Obama’s transition aides have approached Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former campaign manager about taking a senior White House post.
These officials say Patti Solis Doyle is considering taking the job, although she worries about the effect it would have on her two young children. She was contacted about possibly becoming Cabinet secretary, a job that involves coordinating the efforts of the White House and cabinet-level agencies.
That’s the last word I could find on Solis Doyle’s whereabouts. But it makes you wonder, was Obama merely paying a political debt to an ally’s family member, as MSNBC reported he said in June?
“Patti Solis Doyle I think is a terrific experienced campaign hand. She’s from Chicago. Her brother and I organized on the southeast side of Chicago when I first moved to Chicago as a community organizer, so I’ve known the family for a very long time. I think that she will bring not only a set of skills that we’re gonna need as we put our ticket together but shes going to be a terrific adviser and offer insight and judgment that will help us.”
It should be noted that due to Doyle’s longtime association with Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, as well as her Chicago family connections, her name was being bandied about by the Obama camp in mid-May, according to Politico:
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former campaign manager and confidante, Patti Solis Doyle, and Sen. Barack Obama’s top adviser have informally discussed the former Clintonite’s going to work for the Obama campaign in the general election.
So, was Obama just clueless or cunning? Or, both? Was Solis-Doyle a mole planted in Camp Clinton by Obama/Axelrod? Or is she just a walking screwup-waiting-to-happen, turning everything she touches to crap? That prospect makes knowing where she might pop up pretty relevant. Then again, maybe Obama is just a lying manipulator, releasing Axelrod-inspired, Astroturf press releases designed to play the public. A strong case could be made along those lines since “hiring” Solis Doyle put a female with a Hispanic surname on his roster, and Power always believed she would end up in his cabinet. Speaking at Columbia University in March, Power said:
And, to the delight of many in the crowd, she even hinted that she could be part of that hypothetical cabinet. “Because of the kind of campaign that Senator Obama has run,” Power said, “it seemed appropriate for someone of my Irish temper to step aside, at least for a while. We will see what happens there.”
Considering that with her views on Israel, Power is considered worthy of State Department related rehire by The Most Awesomest President-elect Ev-er, and that Solis Doyle was given a job to nowhere for unfathomable reasons, it kinda makes Barack Obama’s “judgment to lead” a wee bit suspect, doncha think? And it makes the prospect of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State seem like a deliberately laid rug about to be yanked just for the Camp Obama fun of it.
It was January 1999, President Clinton’s impeachment trial was just beginning in the Senate and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the foundation’s fund-raiser in Chicago. Despite all the fuss back in Washington, Clinton kept the appointment. She spent hours that day in the epilepsy ward at Rush Presbyterian hospital, visiting children hooked up to machines by electrodes so that doctors might diagram their seizure activity and decide which portion of the brain to remove. At the hospital, a local reporter pressed her about the trial in Washington, asked her about that woman. At the organization’s reception at the Drake Hotel that evening, Clinton stood backstage looking over her remarks, figuring out where to insert anecdotes about the kids. “She couldn’t stop talking about what she had seen,” Susan Axelrod recalled. Later, at Hillary Clinton’s behest, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. Susan Axelrod told me it was “one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy.” And this is how politics works: David Axelrod is now dedicated to derailing this woman’s career.
Below is a portion of the event, featuring master of ceremonies, Paul Begala, introducing now President-elect, then, Senator Barack Obama, roasting Rahm Emanuel.
Former political director to Bill Clinton, demoted to “closet-sized office” occupying policy adviser by Hillary, and advocate of mandatory Civilian Defense training, Emanuel, known as “Rahmbo” is, as you can see, well-known for his abrasive nature, which was highlighted in a Saturday Night Live skit this weekend that did not make the West Coast cut.
I guess West Wing-lite President-elect Barack Obantos is so uncomfortable making decisions that the idea of sitting back and letting Chris Matthews’ frat brothers in the media who want to help him be a success ‘cuz it’s their jobs, do it for him, is just fine. After handing out a couple of plum gigs to his ace boon cronies Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, and naming a “transition team” straight out of the library of past Harvard year books, the soon-to-be-Waffler-In-Chief was tapped out. Since even he knows he’s got to name somebody to something sooner or later, he, or most likely David Axelrod, since Obie never thinks anything Axelturf doesn’t think first, dispatched a couple of the professional “unnamed sources” they keep on the payroll to metaphorically stick their fingers in the wind to see which way which trial balloons would float.
That’s what it looks like with the “Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State” rumors. Whether Camp O put Clinton’s name out as a serious contender, or for appearances sake in an effort to avoid a replay of the “not even vetted for veep” uproar, or, if, as I believe, the job really is hers for the taking, it’s also pretty clear that final approval comes not from the O Team or the Senate, but from the public, via the media. That’s why, in this American Idol-inspired public vetting process, AP has been running, and continuously updating, a story about Bill Clinton being a potential threat to a possible Hillary appointment:
Former President Bill Clinton’s globe-trotting business deals and fundraising for his foundation sometimes put his activities abroad at odds with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and could cause complications if President-electBarack Obama picks her to be secretary of state.
It’s doubtful that the current Senate-elect would reject any Democrat for anything for any reason. And if Joe (Gird Your Loins) Biden’s plagiarizing, racially insensitive, gaffe-prone ass can be a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world, which is soon to be occupied by the least experienced candidate for president in the world, Peewee Herman should be able to qualify any other job available. Therefore, I’m willing to bet Obama did indeed offer Clinton the job Friday, and she, as reported, said, “maybe.” Thus, the AP assist on a semi-plausible “out” in case “maybe” becomes “I’ll pass.”
That’s my prediction; when all is said and done, the Obama administration will look like the VIP section of Comiskey Park . The selection of Rahm (Take Your Knitting And Shove It) Emanuel is the first step in that South Side headed direction. Other names to look for, in my opinion, will be Valerie Jarrett, William Daley, and Jamie Dimon, to name a few. AP reports Obama will be meeting with his finance committee Friday, Dimon and Daley, both of JP Morgan Chase, are on it, as well as Chicagoan Penny Pritzger.
Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden were to meet Friday with 17 members of their transition economic advisory board. Members include former presidential Cabinet officials and executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc., Google Inc. and the Hyatt hotel company. Investor Warren Buffett was participating by telephone.
In a July 28, CBS News article, Obama’s finance team was partially named thusly:
The list of attendees was long and impressive: Warren Buffett participated by phone; former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, former SEC Chairman under President Bush, William Donaldson; Chairman of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi; Former Treasury Secretary under Bush, Paul O’Neill; Former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich; Google CEO, Eric Schmidt; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, among others.
Dimon’s name has been floated as possible Secretary of Treasury, Google it, the stories are numerous. Jarrett has already been named to Obama’s transition team according to the Telegraph:
In one of his first appointments, Mr Obama named Valerie Jarrett – an African American businesswoman, senior advisor and close family friend – as one of the leaders of his White House transition team.
Transition team appointee John Podesta is also a Chicagoan, while Pete Rouse, the other team member named by the New York Times, is linked to Obama through Harvard Law. I expect that most of Obama’s administration will be made up of Harvard and Stanford alumni and/or Chicagoans. Pay no attention to the media insistence on Clinton links, they’re coincidental. Also look for the names David Axelrod, David Plouffe and Austan Goolsbee to be prominent in the coming days. One prominent Obama supporter with University of Chicago ties, Lawrence Lessig, just might not make the cut. It’s a very telling toss-up on that one. At any rate, the Hyde Park-ization of the Democratic party will soon be extensive and dramatic, unless I’m wrong. In that case, Obama’s cabinet will be entirely different. But I don’t think so. Like the move of DeaNC headquarters in June, “Washington to Chicago” is likely the “change” Obama has always been talking about.
As a PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) survivor of Camp Barack Obama’s brand of slash-and-burn campaign tactics, I think it only fair to give dispirited Republican and Independent voters a heads up. Snap out of it! You’re being played, big time. The inflated polls, the mainstream media predictions of a blowout, the pervasive blogosphere contention that “President Obama” is a done deal the whole world wants, are all examples of Team Obama’s business-as-usual tactics designed to discourage you from exercising your voting power. I mean, if he’s as good as elected already, might as well stay home, right?
Over at Riverdaughter’s place, the Confluence, they call what’s happening a haka, named after the Maori war dance designed to intimidate opponents and discourage them from fighting. I call it “astrofucking,” a practice perfected by David Axelrod, combining his successful shadow p.r. technique of manufacturing fake grassroots support, with old-fashioned Republican Segretti/Rove dirty tricks, i.e. “ratfucking.” Given the success of “astrofucking” in the primaries (with a lot of help from the DeaNC) I implore those Republicans and Independents interested in actually winning this thing, to vote. No matter what you hear; no matter what “authority” says otherwise.
Now, just as the PUMA position of actively promoting the Republican ticket is unusual, so too is the largely ignored-by-the-media reality that some Republicans don’t really want to win. Whoever wins the White House is going to inherit a shitload of trouble; in one of his rare moments of clarity, even Joe (What The Hell Am I Talking About?) Biden admitted that much. It’s even plausible to me that the active participation of Bill and Hillary Clinton as campaign surrogates, is the result of the post-primary realization of this reality and the implications relative to Obama and the DeaNC. So, a lot of Republicans, understandably, are willing to sit back and let the Democrats take the blame for the massive screw-up on the way. Personally, I think that’s a bad idea if you care about your country and really believe your party has a better way of doing things.
This is an unusual election year for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is, this is not Barack Obama’s race to lose. From what we experienced in the primaries, PUMAs know that this election is up for grabs, no matter who says what. If you, like us, resent having your elections rigged from on high, if you believe that the voters should decide who becomes president, not the media, blogger bullies, or big money, backroom, corporate wheeler-dealers, the solution is simple.
Vote.
Like your life depended on it.
Take it from PUMAs, you can still win, as long as you don’t buy the hype.
Barack Obama is, by his own admission, the most clueless man the American public has been acquainted with since Hogan’s Heroes’ Sgt. Schultz never saw contraband being smuggled in and out of Nazi Germany through a tunnel under a POW camp on that old TV show. Obama “didn’t know” William Ayers was a terrorist, he “didn’t know” Tony Rezko was indictable, he “didn’t know” Rev. Jeremiah Wright preached sermons not exactly embraceable by most American Christians. He “knew nuttink!” Now, according to his campaign surrogates, he “didn’t know” his aunt was living illegally in the United States, but as far as he’s concerned, she can just crawl right under the bus with the rest of ‘em. From Politico:
Barack Obama did not know a relative was living in the United States illegally for the past nearly four years prior to today’s Associated Press report, “but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed,” the campaign said Saturday in a statement.
The Democratic nominee last heard from Zeituni Onyango, who attended his swearing-in ceremony to the U.S. Senate in 2005 and is a half-sister of Obama’s late father, two years ago, when she called to say she was in Boston, the campaign said. Campaign officials said they did not assist her in getting a tourist visa and had not known that she was living in America.
Obama, who also has a tendency to point fingers like a little boy caught arm-deep in the cookie jar insisting upon blaming his imaginary friend, also says “the Republicans did it!” Since Obama never says anything Axelrod didn’t say first, we can treat any statements from either as interchangeable:
“The American people are pretty sensible,” said Obama chief strategist David Axelrod, “and I think they are pretty suspicious of things that are dumped in the marketplace 72 hours before a campaign, so I am not concerned about that.”
Asked whether he was suggesting there were political motives from a Republican administration, Axelrod said: “I am not saying anything at this point.”
Seems like a strange reaction from a group who “benefited” from leaks about “Joe the Plumber” traced back to Obama supporter, Helen Jones-Kelley, who according to the Las Vegas Examiner, now seems to be lying and pointing fingers herself:
The Ohio employee who ran a child support check on Joe the Plumber says a supervisor told her the man contacted the social services agency about his case.
Niekamp told The Columbus Dispatch she is unfamiliar with any policy in which the records of the newly famous are checked.
That sounds like Camp O, alright. First, deny, then blame somebody, anybody, else. If that doesn’t work, just stop talking about it, like Obama surrogate Robert Gibbs is now trying to do about “Auntie-gate:”
Senior strategist Robert Gibbs shut down any line of questioning Thursday when news broke about Obama’s relative, telling reporters, “I’m not going to get into it.”
“I do know him because I taught at the University of Chicago,” Obama said. “And he is Palestinian. And I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy.
“To pluck out one person who I know and who I’ve had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I’m not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take,” Obama said. “So, we gotta be careful about guilt by association.”
If you said William Ayers, you blew it. He’s a terrorist, not a Palestinian. According to ABC News’ Jake Tapper, Obama was explaining his relationship with Rashid Khalidi at a May 22 appearance before a group of Jewish voters in Florida. This is what Obama said about Ayers in the ABC Philadelphia debate as reported by Media Matters:
George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about. This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense, George.
Ben Smith of Politico reported in February that it was David Axelrod who said this about Obama/Ayers:
“Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school,” he said. “They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”
Seems Ben had raised the Ayers question in an article a few days before. Good excuses are hard to come by, might as well recycle ‘em.
Note: the Tapper piece explores a McCain/Khalidi connection which Camp Johnny Mac doesn’t seem to deny, they just claim it’s beside the point.
Asked to respond to this seeming contradiction, McCain-Palin spokesman Michael Goldfarb writes, “It’s long been clear that Obama and Khalidi have a close relationship — that they were frequent dinner companions. It is another in a series of questionable associations, but it is not the focus of our request that the LA Times release this tape. It’s clear from the Times story that the evening featured speeches that were anti-Semitic in tone and anti-Israel in nature. As our initial statement said, ‘This campaign wants to know how Barack Obama responded to that hate-speech, whether he was mingling with Ayers, who he once described as ‘just a guy in my neighborhood,’ and anything else that might be of interest to voters now deciding who to support in this election.’”
Oh, man, I’m finding myself in the Twilight Zone so often nowadays that I’m starting to like it here. This latest Leary-like trip is thanks to the Denver Post:
Colorado Springs police say a deer head found in the parking lot of a Barack Obama campaign office is “a very disturbing event” that is being investigated as a threat.
Police Lt. David Whitlock said the deer’s antlers were cut off to make the head resemble a donkey, the Democratic Party’s emblem.
Police say campaign volunteers found the head Saturday night.
Tom Kise, a spokesman for Republican John McCain, says the incident is “despicable” and compared it to hate speech. Police say they have no suspects.
C’mon, first a bear, now a deer mutilated to look like a donkey? Hello? Anybody out there? Then TPM graciously points the way down the Yellow Brick Road to Kookooville with this gem:
Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.
Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being “dangerously weak on crime,” “coddling criminals,” and for voting against “protecting children from danger.”
Puh-leeze. We’re supposed to believe that dedicated McCain supporters, who have been subjected to one-sided media abuse, in addition to the fanatical Obama canvassers, blogger bullies and paid posters spewing filth + talking points on every website with the gall to actually try to hold their unqualified, lying candidate to some semblance of some sort of competency standards, were so freaked out by these rather bland “attacks” that they walked out en masse? I’m not buying it.
I’m not buying that “assassins” planning to dress up in white tuxedos and top hats and drive really fast at Barack Obama while shooting at him, after shooting 88 black people and decapitating 14 others without getting caught at oh, say, 2, 3 murders at the most, are credible, either. Gimme a fucking break.
Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, King of Astroturfing,” has incorporated Republican “ratfucking” principles into his Felix the Cat bag-o’-tricks and “astrofucked” his candidate through the primaries and almost to the White House. “Astroturfing” is the “art” of building fake grassroots support in order to bullshit the gullible into thinking there’s real grassroots support, and “ratfucking” is just what it sounds like. All of the incidents cited above sound like “astrofucking” at it’s best, which is the same as at it’s worst.
A commentor over at HillBuzz, calling herself “Sarah P,” claims to be a paid “astrofucker,” though the descriptive appellation is mine. Sarah P’s allegations however, leave no doubt that the name fits:
Ok, I want to clear my conscious a little. Hopefully you could make a blog post to help some fellow clinton supporters out.
I work for a campaign and can’t wait for this week to be over.
I was doing it for a job. I was not a fan of any candidate but over time grew to love HRC.
The internal campaign idea is to twist, distort, humiliate and finally dispirit you.
We pay people and organize people to go to all the online sites and “play the part of a clinton or mccain supporter who just switched our support for obama”
We do this to stifle your motivation and to destroy your confidence.
We did this the whole primary and it worked.
Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.
This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.
Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.
People makes posts to the effect that the world has “gone mad”
Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.
We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn’t control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.
see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become “sheeple”
The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.
Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and “fair and balanced” and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.
This is why nothing sticks.
The operation is massive, the goal is to paint a picture that is that of a winner, regardless of the results.
There is no true inauguration draft or true grant park construction going on. There will be a party, but we are boasting beyond the truth to make it seem like the election is wrapped up.
Our goal is to continue to make you lose your moral. We worked hard at persuasion and paying off and timing and playing the right political numbers to get key republican endorsements to make it seem even more like it was over and the world was coming to an end for you all.
There is a huge staff of people working around the clock, watching every site, blogs, etc. We flood these sites. We have had a goal to overwhelm.
The truth is here. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
I am saying this because I know HRC was better for the country, and now realize this. I was too late by the time I connected to her. To me Barack was just a cool young dude that seemed like a star. I didn’t know him or his policies, but now I understand more than I care to and I realize his interests are more for him, and the DNC and all working like puppets with dean. I always thought a president wanted the better good for the country. The end result I see is everyone dependent on the government, this means more and more people voting for the DNC. This means the future is forever altered. I don’t see this as america, so I am now supporting John Mccain.
Sarah Palin is a huge threat, and our campaign has feared her like you can’t imagine. If it seems unfair how she has been treated, well its because she has had a team working round the clock to make her look like a fool.
this is a big conspiracy and I am so shocked that its not realized.
We released a little blurb the other day that the Obama campaign was already working on reelection and now putting our efforts towards 2012. This was to make it seem like it was above us to continue caring about 2008. Trust me, its a lie. David is very smart, but its a sticky ugly not very truthful kind of intelligence.
Its not over yet, but I think the machine is working. And its a hill to climb.
I will be quitting my post on nov 5th and my vote will be for John Mccain. Fortunately, my position has been a marketing position and I don’t feel I had any part of anything I would feel guilty for. But I look forward to getting out of this as the negativity and environment upsets me.
I wish you all well, and goodluck.
PS my name is not really sarah. but I am a female and I understand your plight.
Whether “Sarah P” is real or not, what she describes has been observed by everyone paying attention since the primaries began. Way back, before a single vote was cast, an internet search of “Hillary Clinton” netted hundreds of mostly negative hits, while “John McCain” pretty much took you to his website. But “Barack Obama” got back oodles and oodles of Obamalove spewing forth from one’s computer screen, threatening to drown an unwary information seeker in it’s ooey-gooey goodness. One could not help but be impressed that a relatively unknown junior Senator with only one major speech/sermon (okay, maybe two if you count his announcement speech) to his credit could generate such an outpouring of affection from so many cyberlovers. Clicking on one g-spot disguised as keyboard key after another, the sheer magnitude of magnificence one experienced by learning of his already unprecedented fundraising power and compelling charisma, took one’s breath away. Remember Obama Girl? Add a few rock star rallies, some celebrity-filled, creepy love chants, a bunch of fainting chicks, throw in a couple dozen “impartial analysts,” a little race-baiting, and who could not love the guy?
Me.
I thought it was bullshit then, and I think it’s bullshit now.
Old bullshit might stop stinking, but it’s still not something you want to keep around the White House.
In this article dated December 11, 2006, Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe waxed poetic about the awesomeness of The Newly Chosen One. Filled with quotes attesting to the wonderfulness of the The One Who Voted Present, it’s a wonder how she wrote it with all the stars in her eyes. Or, were those dollar signs?
Barack Obama , a national political newcomer with an uncomplicated message of hope and promise, won standing ovations from enthusiastic crowds yesterday as he tested the New Hampshire landscape for support for a 2008 Democratic presidential run.
edit
And while the 45-year-old freshman senator offered no detailed solutions — “this is not a 10-point plan to solve every problem,” he said of his new book, “The Audacity of Hope,” at an earlier appearance in Portsmouth — the New Hampshire crowds cheered for what many see as the freshest face in Democratic politics.
“We had scheduled the Rolling Stones to perform here today,” Governor John Lynch of New Hampshire quipped at the Manchester rally, welcoming Obama in the senator’s maiden visit to the Granite State as a potential candidate. “But we canceled it when we realized Barack Obama would sell more tickets.”
So little has changed in the Obama coverage that one must wonder if the above referenced article was really written by Ms. Milligan or did David Axelrod have her sign a campaign memo and submit it under her byline? The over-fawning Obama coverage was skewered at the time by NewsBusters, who offered up this gem:
Despite the fact that Barack Obama hasn’t really done anything of substance, he will continue to receive overwhelmingly reverential coverage in the media. Of course, such uncritical reporting leaves itself wide open for satire. In response to a suggestion in a recent edition of the DUmmie FUnnies that the lyrics of I Don’t Know How To Love Him from the musical, Jesus Christ Superstar be updated for Barack Obama Superstar, Charles Henrickson, a Lutheran pastor in St. Louis, MO came up with these brilliant parody lyrics titled, I Don’t Know Why I Love Him:
I don’t know why I love him,
My Barack, my Obama;
I’ve been charmed, yes really charmed,
By his trim physique, so slim and sleek–
I’m awed by his mystique.
I don’t know why he’s running,
I don’t see any substance;
No real plan, flash in the pan,
And I’ve heard such empty words before
That when I close my eyes
He’s just a bore.
But I like his face,
And I like his voice;
Makes my heartbeat race!
Makes me feel all moist!
I never thought I’d come to this:
Obama is my choice.
Don’t you think it’s rather shallow
I should vote for this fellow?
I’m the one who’s always been
So pure, so pissed, so feminist;
I don’t need men, oh no–
He scares me so.
But I like his face,
And I like his voice;
Makes my heartbeat race!
Makes me feel all moist!
I never thought I’d come to this:
Obama is my choice.
Yet, like in a romance novel,
I’m in love with a male model;
I’ve got to look! He signed my book!
My heart runs wild! I’ll bear his child!
I want the world to know:
He’s my “Big O”!
Obama, go!
I love you so!
Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.
On February 5, Kathleen Geier felt the need to state the obvious in a TPM piece entitled, “Barack Obama Is Not Jesus,”
That said, I’m getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama’s supporters.
On listservs I’m on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young cynics, even – are gushing about Barack, raving about his “game-changing” politics, about his “power to inspire,” about how they wept while viewing the now-famous Dipdive video, and on and on.
edit
Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of “coming to Obama” in the same way born-again Christians talk about “coming to Jesus.”
The “Dipdive video” is a reference to “Yes, We Can,” one of will.i.am’s creepy hymns to Obama. Jake Tapper wrote this about the Obanomenon on Feb. 7, in an article chronicling all the other creeped out commenters at the time:
Inspiration is nice. But some folks seem to be getting out of hand.
It’s as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, “Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat.”
Website, after website has made note of the deliberate “Making of the Messiah” Obama campaign, yet noting it has done nothing to derail it. Who can forget this quote by Spike Lee on the inevitability of Obama’s election:
“When that happens, it will change everything. … You’ll have to measure time by `Before Obama’ and `After Obama,’” Lee said during the panel. “It’s an exciting time to be alive now.”
Louis Farrakhan called Obama, “the Messiah” in a Founder’s Day speech, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The Washington Posts trips over itself writing such glowing articles about the Unaccomplished One that it’s a wonder that none of the writers have had to take medical leave from being blinded by the Light. And, of course, we all threw up a little in our mouths when we watched this video of innocent children singing the praises of He Who Is Rewarded For No Reason. Those of us whose jaws dropped open at the sight of such a thing almost choked on our own vomit.
Now, here’s a charming little hymn from Beliefnet:
Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for You.Here’s the updated version from the video:
“Love prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy tried and true. With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.”
My primary reason for not supporting Hillary Clinton right now is two-fold. One, she’s not running for anything at the moment, and, two, she’s stumping for Barack Obama.
I decided very early on in the primary season that I did not like Barack Obama, at all, and have always felt that he would make a lousy president. I agreed when Joe Biden said so, and, unlike FootMouth Joe, I have seen no reason to change my mind. In fact, as the election process plays itself out, my resolve not to vote for Obama, under any imaginable, or unimaginable, circumstances, grows ever stronger.
My initial reaction to the Oily One was, “eh.” The only thing he inspired in me, once he appeared on my radar, was mild curiosity, at best. If that. I’ve never heard him say anything that gave me confidence, let alone hope, and his canned, generic, ghost-written speeches, read from a TelePrompTer, nose-in-air, drone on interminably, and have grown from the mild annoyance associated with sharing living space with a housefly, to the full-out rage and frustration of living with that same pest for over a year.
Lacking any accomplishment of note, surrogates tout his “policies,” yet his inability to articulate them in off-the-cuff situations only serves to highlight his inadequacy. Incessant media drumbeats attesting to his wonderfulness, coupled with nonstop ads intruding every avenue of modern day entertainment and intellectual pursuit, ratchet up the annoyance factor to intolerable levels. Especially since they’re all lies.
Hey, HuffPo, Who’re You Callin’ Conservative?
As evidence of the “it must fit the narrative” media mindset, I offer up my own experience. On Sunday, upon hearing of Colin Powell’s “officializing” his “help a brother out, hook a brother up,” Obama endorsement, I immediately posted my opinion on my blog. Imagine my surprise when I noticed a dramatic traffic uptick on my small little site, linking here from Huffington Post. Peeking into the situation, since I’m reluctant to expose myself too fully to the rancor against all those not pledging allegiance to He Who Must Not Be Examined, I found that my site was included as an illustration of conservative racism in a post by Sam Stein.
There were, down the conservative line, other voices who gave credence to the race-over-politics theory. A prominent Republican attorney in Maine, Dan Billings, accused Powell of racism, stating: “If Obama was a white man, Powell would not have made the endorsement.”
I’m the “other voices.” Obviously, Mr. Stein didn’t bother to read my post, had he, he might have noticed the PUMA/Just Say No Deal tags I use to label each one. Heaven forbid he read my “About” page which features a short paragraph identifying me as a black woman so fed up with the faux nominating process employed by the Democratic party to coronate their “selectee,” that I now have no affiliation to any political party. As far as being a “George Will/Rush Limbaugh” conservative is concerned, had HuffPo not included me in their post, I probably would not have known what either man thought. The only thing I can see that we have in common is…well…we all walk on two legs, and at least two of us still have hair on our heads. This sort of “racism to prove racism” narrative of the Obama campaign and their mainstream media/blogger boyz enablers is one of the main reasons I could never vote for him. Having experienced it for over a year, as a Hillary Clinton supporter, not only can I attest to the ugliness, I lament the coming to fruition of the fears I’ve had since first becoming aware of the Obama practice of pouring gasoline on smoldering racial fires and encouraging his pre-pubescent-minded bullies of the blogosphere to climb on chairs and point gleeful fingers at the flames.
Which brings me to Hillary Clinton. That she stumps for Obama distresses me, though she obviously has her own reasons for doing so. Given what she experienced at the hands of the Obama thugs, what those reasons might be, boggles the mind. Since I haven’t seen or heard about the whereabouts of Chelsea lately, I’m of the mind that David Axelrod has her locked away in a secure location, only to be released once her parents have done his bidding to his satisfaction. Whatever, that’s Hillary’s business, not mine.
So, since Hillary Clinton is not running for anything, and she, for her own reasons, sees the benefit of supporting Barack Obama, a man I will never vote for, I cannot support her. At this time. If she were to run for national office again, I’d probably be the first one aboard the bandwagon.
That “Party Unity My Ass” thing still works for me just fine, though.
Go to just about any news site and you’ll probably see this headline:
“Voters Souring On McCain, Obama Stays Steady”
You will then read an AP Yahoo News story, identical to thousands of other stories carried on thousands of other outlets, with the last line:
AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.
The info in this story will tell the woeful tale of the latest McCain poll misfortunes. However, this one story, essentially Xeroxed around the country, and, probably the world, bears closer inspection. The poll in question, conducted by Knowledge Networks, literally reflects the opinions of the same people who gave us the “White People Hate Obama” headlines last month, as well as “Dog Owners Like McCain Better” and “Football Fans Would Rather Watch The Super Bowl With Barack.” I’m paraphrasing, but not by much.
You see, Knowledge Networks, the company that conducted the polls, just might be David Axelrod’s personal astroturf machine. I have no proof of that, but given the firm’s history, and the polling results they’ve released this cycle, it doesn’t take a tinfoil hat and Twilight Zone music to go there. Founded in 1998 by 2 Stanford University professors, Norman H. Nie and Douglas Rivers, the Menlo Park, California-based company’s founders could plausibly boast but a scant few degrees of separation from both Axelrod and Obama, if they were so inclined.
One of the nation’s leading figures in survey research, quantitative social science and political science, Dr. Nie co-founded and is Chairman of SPSS (NASDAQ: SPSS), the leading vendor of statistical and survey software to the market research industry. For twenty-five years, Dr. Nie was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a Senior Study Director at the National Opinion Research Center. Currently he is also Chairman of Knowledge Networks, a Professor (Research) of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Institute for Quantitative Studies in the Social Sciences. He received his B.A. from Washington University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Douglas Rivers is co-founder and CEO of Knowledge Networks, and a leading authority on the application of statistical methods to social science. He has been a faculty member at Harvard, Caltech, UCLA and, most recently, Stanford, where he is a Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute. He is a Director of Preview Systems (NASDAQ: PRVW), a leading provider of digital rights management solutions. Dr. Rivers holds a B.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Hmmm…Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago…where have I heard those names before? Could these 2 guys be among those oh, so generous Stanford donors Obama has? Or would their donations (if any) be listed elsewhere? Nope. Anyway, about AP- Yahoo News/Knowledge Networks poll methods:
The AP-Yahoo! News Poll is a unique study that will track the moods and opinions of a group of more than 2,700 people throughout the presidential election campaign. The study involves an extensive national survey of 2,714 people who will be re-contacted several times during the next year to see how their attitudes and opinions change over time. The survey is being conducted by Knowledge Networks of Menlo Park, Calif., under the direction and supervision of AP’s polling unit.
The survey is conducted online with a sample drawn from a panel of respondents Knowledge Networks recruited via random sampling of landline telephone households with listed and unlisted numbers. The company provides Web access to panel recruits who don’t already have it. With a probability basis and coverage of people who otherwise couldn’t access the Internet, the Knowledge Networks online surveys are nationally representative.
Of couse, KN goes into a lot more mumbo-jumbo sounding detail to explain why their sample is statiscally accurate, but…
For this series of polls for AP, The Knowledge Network number of people polled has fluctuated, for reasons which are unclear. For this latest poll, the number sampled was 841 out of the original 2,714.
So, basically, KN gave some people some computers, then polled those same people over and over again, then told whichever guy showed up from AP what they found, who then wrote one story about each survey and passed it around. The country. And the world.
And, lest you think I just make stuff up, this is a list of recent AP-Yahoo News/Knowledge Network Polls from the KN press release website:
10/17/08
Voters souring on McCain, Obama stays steady – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
10/08/08
Undecided voters not satisfied with both candidates – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
09/23/08
Obama struggling to win over Clinton voters – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
09/22/08
Poll shows gap between blacks and whites over racial discrimination – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
09/20/08
Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
09/19/08
People prefer Obama over McCain as teacher – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
09/19/08
Obama tops McCain as football-watching buddy – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
07/18/08
Poll: McCain’s backers less fired up than Obama’s – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
07/08/08
Poll: Pet owners prefer McCain over Obama – The Associated Press | Yahoo! News Poll
Even John Grisham would have a hard time selling the events of the 2008 Democratic election as a novel, but if anybody could, it would probably be him. Lord knows, he’d have a lot to work with. Think about it, a political thriller about an African American candidate coming up out of nowhere, with the mega-buck backing of unknown benefactors hidden by the illusion of unprecedented internet support, to secure the nomination even though he was resoundingly rejected by more than half of his party. Wow! Add the element of a shady Chicago cabal of disparate entities hellbent on remaking the American government and moving the seat of power from Washington D.C. to their home city, through the restructuring of the banking industry, bringing down the global economy in the process. Exploiting a rift in the party, a coup of sorts could be executed, resulting in the overthrow of the party’s ruling family with help from the candidate vanquished early in the last election. Throw in a little organized crime, a few ‘60’s radicals, some local machine politics and the greed and corruption of a major political party, and you’ve got a best-seller on your hands. Wrap the whole thing around a civil court case, and let Mr. Grisham loose. The fictional consequences would present no real-life repercussions and it would be a whole lot more entertaining than what we’re experiencing now.
Who might the cast of characters in this fictional drama be?
Barack Obama – Charismatic, up-and-coming, Harvard educated, junior senator from Illinois; this character would overwhelmingly appeal to the under-represented black community, who could then easily be manipulated into supporting “one of their own.” Hiding a radical socialist agenda under a glib persona, he would be slickly packaged and sold as a messianic redeemer of the underclasses. Coupled with the support of the far-left academic intellectual community, the appearance of a “base” could be built, allowing the candidate to be skillfully marketed, through the use of the internet. Preaching a “non-partisan” platform, unlimited corporate funding could then be funneled to the candidate’s campaign under the guise of massive small donor, across-the-board, grassroots support.
Michelle Obama – First Lady wannabe wife of the candidate, more radical than even her husband, this politically ambitious mother of two, often mistaken as the power-behind-the-throne, relishes the opportunity to further her extremist ideas that her husband’s candidacy presents, though less successful at masking them than he. Fashioning herself a modern-day Jacqueline Kennedy, she would become as well known for her more than occasional public lapses into radicalism as for her sense of style.
David Axelrod – Well-known political kingmaker, the reigning “king of Astroturfing” as he is known, this PR man extraordinaire would spectacularly succeed in his effort to “make a president” out of whole cloth. Known for shaping public opinion by creating the illusion of grassroot support (astroturfing) for his public- and private-sector clients through his two separate firms, Axelrod would plot the course of the candidate’s campaign, writing his TelePrompTer-read speeches, designing campaign strategy exploiting loopholes in existing party rules, and creating a Beatlemania-like atmosphere through the use of artfully stage-managed public appearances. Staying primarily in the background, Axelrod would only appear publicly to explain what Obama really meant (WORM) in order to extinguish one of numerous fires inevitably resulting from trying to pull off the daunting prospect of deluding the country and the world.
William Ayers – unrepentant ’60’s radical bomber turned respected university professor, the combination terrorist/academic/fat cat provides a bridge to the candidates multiple bases of support. Hiding his unreleased radicalism in plain sight, this son of privilege and original architect of the grand scheme to overthrow the government provides entree into the right circles for his hand-picked Manchurian candidate. He also ghost-writes the candidate’s bestselling first memoir which later serves as the basis for the candidate’s legitimacy.
Bernadine/Bernadette Dorhn – even more radical wife of subversive Ayers, this frustrated still mad bomber serves as marriage broker for the candidate by introducing him to her law firm protege before re-entering academia.
Jamie Dimon – CEO JP Morgan Chase, member of candidate’s finance committee, said to be on the short list for Treasury Secretary in candidate’s administration, Dimon turns public humiliation for being unceremoniously dumped by his mentor at Citigroup into a triumph of revenge by heading up Chicago’s BankOne through a merger with JPM after a sixteen month layoff to plot and sulk. The resulting pissing contest between the two firms leads to Dimon’s apparent victory in the market restructuring game.
This motley crew of characters, plotting to move the government’s base of operations to Chicago, could consolidate their political and financial power once Wall Street and the global market has been destroyed, and their candidate has been elected. Though I’m not at all knowledgeable about economics, maybe a Dow Jones/Chicago Mercantile Exchange power shift might be an interesting plot twist.
Where’s the outrage about the William Ayers/Barack Obama association? Not from concerned voters, from William Ayers? Shouldn’t a guy who’s having his name dragged through the mud scream in protest? You’d expect a truly reformed, former radical to tell anybody who would listen, “Hey, can it with the terrorist stuff!” I’m a respected academic; a professor of education, for Chrissakes, with a wife and grown kids! Leamme alone, willya? So, I know the guy, so what?”
But that’s not the kind of response we get from Ayers or Obama. Ayers refuses to discuss it at all, and Obama avoids the issue as much as possible. When Obama’s forced to respond, he says something stupid, like “He’s an English professor who lives in my neighborhood.” Just the fact that they both work at the same university puts them in a little more proximity than that. And neither of them are English professors, by the way.
Obama’s surrogates are even stupider. In response to questions about Obama and Ayers’ supposed “first meeting” at a political coming out party in Ayers and his wife, Bernadette Dohrn’s home in 1995, David Axelrod actually tried to pass this bit of whimsy off as truth:
“When he went he certainly didn’t know the history,” chief Obama strategist David Axelrod told CNN – arguing for the first time since the story surfaced early this year that Obama was unaware of Ayers’ past.
Hello?
Exactly when was that first meeting anyway, Dave? I guess when you’ve “astroturfed” half the country into believing a guy whose profession is running for a different office every few years is ready to be president, you start to believe people will buy your bullshit as milk chocolate if you say so. This is not the first time Axelrod has said something in Martian to explain Obama/Ayers. In February, he told Politico’s Ben Smith:
“Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school,” he said. “They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”
When it was pointed out that Ayers kids are damned near Obama’s age, their campaign tried to sell Ben this:
There’s been a bit of confusion about Axelrod’s line on the kids, who — as the Guardian’s Daniel Nasaw noted — aren’t the same age. Obama’s kids went go the the University of Chicago Lab Schools, where Ayers kids, who are much older, had gone. However, Bernardine Dohrn is still active at the school, and an Obama aide said that was the connection.
So, in cleaning up the “kids in school” cow pie, Camp O admits to a previously unreported Obama family/ Ayers family connection.
Then he got a call from Jerry Kellman, an organizer working on Chicago’s far South Side for a community group based in the churches of the region, an expanse of white, black and Latino blue-collar neighborhoods that were reeling from the steel-mill closings. Kellman was looking for an organizer for the new Developing Communities Project (DCP), which would focus on black city neighborhoods.
William Ayers, associate professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago; co-director of the Small Schools Workshop; co-director of the Chicago Forum for School Change—an affiliate of the Coalition of Essential Schools;[20] chairman of the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools (ABCs) coalition;[21][22] former Chicago assistant deputy mayor for education (1989–1990);[22] brother of John Ayers, executive director (1994–2004) of Leadership for Quality Education (an affiliate of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago) and former associate director (1987–1994) of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago; son of Thomas Ayers, former president (1964–1980), chairman and CEO (1973–1980) of Commonwealth Edison and former vice president (1980) of the Chicago School Board (my emphasis)
So, while it’s obvious these two guys go way back, if it’s innocent, why not just ‘fess up and be done with it? But, hey, the same could be said about Obama’s official birth certificate, or baptismal records, or college transcripts, or medical reports; we haven’t seen any of those things, either. Makes you wonder, what’s the big deal? Why do people have to go to court to get access to documents you’d think the “transcendent candidate for hope and change and transparent governing” would be only too happy to lay his cards on the table about? Only, Obama doesn’t just keep his cards close to the vest, he’s stuck half the deck up his sleeve to the elbow.
Now you’ve got this Barackaphile Robert Gibbs guy, mocking what the Obama boyz call “guilt-by-association smears,” ranting at Sean Hannity about Obama basher, Andy Martin, making the claim that since Hannity has interviewed Martin, who has been accused of anti-Semtism, that makes Hannity an anti-Semite, too. The fact that unlike Obama and Ayers, Hannity probably doesn’t even know where Martin lives, let alone visit the man, escapes these geniuses.
Obviously the press has received it’s official Camp O “what we’re supposed to tell them to think” memo about last night’s debate, since article, after article, struggles to find new and clever ways to make their tediously predictable, “she was great, but…” spin seem tolerably credible. Espousing David Axelrod’s astroturf seed, these happy yappers are running off at the keyboard in gleeful abandon of reality.
Truth is, she smoked him. No matter how many stories are written about what the squiggly lines on the rigged little meters mean, or what all the drunks in the bar the writer was in, said, when it comes to perception, Palin won hands down.
As I said all along, my mind is not changed one iota about who I’m going to vote for. “None of the above” is still my personal choice, so far. But looking at the debate, it’s easy to separate the wheat from the chaff, or to be more descriptive, manure from the bull shit.
Joe Biden, and those who love him, are touting his superior foreign policy credentials as proof he “won.” But it was not a foreign policy debate. In fact, there’s no real reason to expect a vice-president to be overly-knowledgeable about…much of anything, really. Besides, every time Biden opens his mouth, one is reminded of his tendency to insert foot, or say someone else’s words, or flat-out lie. So, even if he “wins,” he loses, because the legacy of his own big, mouth-juicy foot will always follow him around, just to trip him up and make him fall flat on his Pinocchio nose. Every time.
Palin, on the other hand, came across as everything Barack Obama claims to be; a wide-eyed, innocent, Washington outsider, hell-bent on reform. More importantly, she projected small town all-America to…all America. She was mom and apple pie standing on a stage taking up for the little people, just because, gee whiz, it’s the right thing to do. The fact that stats and facts didn’t roll off her tongue worked in her favor; she was a female Jimmy Stewart, and while she may not have been around as long as her debate opponent, she sure knows moose patties when she sees ‘em, and gosh darnit, knows how to turn ‘em into fertilizer, too.
So, the Camp O team can spin themselves dizzy laying fake grassroots seed from here to Alaska with their, “she did okay, but…” stories. Hockey and soccer moms shopping in Wal-Marts for tube socks for Joe Sixpack all across the land just found themselves a shero.
And yeah, there’s an element of racism in the fact that Sarah Palin is so appealing to some voters simply because she’s an All-American White Woman, but so what? If Barack Obama hadn’t tried to win the presidency by race-baiting and girl-bashing, it wouldn’t make any difference at all. She probably wouldn’t even be in the race.
Well, we all just watched a debate that will change absolutely nobody’s mind, and I, for one, am glad it’s over. Listen, my mind’s made up; I hate Joe Biden and I don’t hate Sarah Palin. I hate Joe Biden because he’s Barack Obama’s running mate. I don’t care about Sarah Palin because she’s John McCain’s running mate. I hate Barack Obama because he’s a creepy, curiously funded, incompetent, inexperienced joke of a candidate who wants to change America in fundamental ways. I don’t like John McCain because he’s a Republican.
Nothing I saw or heard tonight changed my mind one bit.
All that’s left is to sit back and watch the spinmeisters lay Axelrod’s astroturf.
Okay, I’m cruising the internet, like I like to do in the morning, visiting my favorite news and “screw Obama” sites (they used to be “pro-Hillary” sites, but she’s an Obot now) and I come across a funny song on The Mountain Sage. They got the song from a Time Magazine story about Obama and McCain’s now-famous, failed bi-partisan attempt turned Senate pissing contest, that lead to school-boy-like nasty-note exchanges, which was written up in today’s Washington Post, and blogged about at the time by Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynne Sweet. Seems Obama channeled his inner Shecky at the 2006 Gridiron Dinner, complete with a song-and -dance routine. (A real one, not the usual hemming, hawing, shucking, jiving, bamboozling, hoodwinking thing he always does.) Man, oh, man, where was this guy last night? I mean, sure, he and McCain, while not really saying squat of any significance about the financial meltdown, managed to lessen it’s global impact considerably, as evidenced by the complete lack of the same kind of urgency that plagued the media for the last few days in today’s reporting, but this…this could have been a game changer.
Sweet reports that Barack’s zingers were penned by none other than that astroturfing funnyman, David Axelrod, which makes me wonder if, when off-TelePrompTer, does David resort to sticking his hand up Obama’s ass shirt while he talks for him and makes his lips move? Anyway, I just feel compelled to share the wit and wisdom of Barack Obama as he shared his Bob Hope-esque dinner show talents that night, in it’s entirety. I’m sure that after experiencing it, you, like me, will be even more determined to end this man’s presidential hopes so he can get out on the boards where he belongs. Also, be sure to visit Lynne’s Place for even more good times and hilarity from the other clownsjokersentertainers speakers that evening. But, now, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, heeeeere’s Obie!
Thank you very much:
It’s great to be at the Gridiron dinner. Wow, What an extravaganza! Men in tails. Women in gowns. An orchestra playing, as folks reminisce about the good old days. Kind of like dinner at the Kerrys.
Nice to see you Mr. President and Mrs. Bush. I think it takes a great spirit for the President, who we all know is an early riser, to sit here until midnight and hear himself lampooned, when he could be back at the White House enjoying a quiet, peaceful night, watching TV and approving secret wiretaps.
I don’t see the Secretary of State is here tonight. You know, the President promised a muscular foreign policy. And anyone who’s seen the Condi Rice workout tapes knows he means business.
The truth is, I’m terrified to be here. Not because you’re such a tough audience, but because they’re serving drinks, I’m standing about 30 yards from the Vice President, and…Mr. Vice President this is too easy!
Mr. Vice President, I know you came here expecting to be a target, which, it turns out, may prove easier for you than shooting at one. But I do want to thank you: for years, we Democrats have succeeded in doing little more than shooting ourselves in the foot. You’ve taught us a valuable lesson: aim higher.
There’s probably only one person more sick of these jokes than you… and that’s your wife. It’s an honor to share this stage with Lynne Cheney — a great personage in her own right. Scholar. Author. A few years ago she wrote a book called, “Telling the Truth,�? or as they call it in the Vice President’s office, “Telling the Truth-24 hours later.�?
The Vice President and I do have one thing in common, we both married up. I want to acknowledge my wife, Michelle, who is here tonight. This is a true story: a friend sent me a clip about a new study by a psychologist at the University of Scotland, who says sex before a public speaking engagement actually enhances your oratorical powers. I showed this clip to Michelle, before we arrived here tonight. She looked it over, handed it back and said, “Do the best you can!�?
This appearance is really the capstone of an incredible 18 months. I’ve been very blessed. Keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention. The cover of Newsweek. My book made the best-seller list. I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape. And I’ve had the chance to speak not once but twice before the Gridiron Club. Really what else is there to do? Well, I guess…. I could pass a law, or something…
About that book, some folks thought it was a little presumptuous to write an autobiography at the age of 33, but people seemed to like it. So now I’m working on volume two-the Senate Months.
My Remarkable Journey from 99th in Seniority to 98th.
(With an introduction by Nelson Mandela.)
Believe me, when you’re the last guy to ask questions at every committee hearing, you have plenty of time to collect your thoughts. Especially when Joe Biden’s on the committee.
I’ll tell you, that Grammy was a big surprise. I thought, for sure, Jack Abramoff would win for his rendition of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.�?
As I said, it’s great to be here speaking opposite Lynne Cheney. As you may know, Mrs. Cheney was a late substitution for Senator John McCain. And speaking of Senator McCain.
This whole ethics thing has been an adventure. I was really excited when they asked me to be the lead Democratic spokesman. But I don’t know. Turns out, it’s a little like being given the Kryptonite concession at a Superman convention. I mean, how did I know it was a freshman hazing? It gets a little depressing. So as I sometimes do when I get a little down, I wrote a song. Maestro?
(To the tune of “If I Only Had a Brain�?)
I’m aspiring to greatness, but somehow I feel weightless
A freshman’s sad refrain
I could be a great uniter, making ethics rules much tighter
If I only had McCain
I could bring us all together, no storm we couldn’t weather,
We’d feel each other’s pain
Red and blue wouldn’t matter, party differences would shatter
If I only had McCain
Oh why is it so hard, for honest men of good will to agree,
If we ever found a way to strike a deal, would we survive… politically?
When a wide-eyed young idealist, confronts a seasoned realist
There’s bound to be some strain
With the game barely started, I’d be feeling less downhearted
If I only had McCain
Still I hope for the better, though I may rewrite my letter
Cause I gotta have McCain
Needless to say, my Grammy was in the spoken word category!
I should say that I really do get along well with Senator McCain. But as you know, not everyone in politics does. Because of his superstar status, his virtuous image, the kind of hero worship treatment he gets from all of you, some of my colleagues call John a prima donna. Me? I call him a role model. (Think of it as affirmative action. Why should the white guys be the only ones who are overhyped?)
By the way, before I forget, raise your hand if Karl Rove didn’t tell you about Valerie Plame?
You know, The Gridiron Club is an aging institution with a long, proud history, known today primarily for providing a forum for jokes. To some, that may sound like the Democratic Party.
You hear this constant refrain from our critics that Democrats don’t stand for anything. That’s really unfair. We DO stand for anything.
Some folks say the answer for the Democratic Party is to stop being so calculating, and start standing up for principle. In fact, Harry Reid’s appointed a task force to study this option.
But really, they say our party doesn’t have ideas? We have ideas.
Take John Edwards. He’s leading a new war on poverty… from his Chapel Hill estate. And he’s educating us. I had no idea there was so much poverty in New Hampshire!
Speaking of New Hampshire, a lot of speculation that that 2008 campaign could come down to Senator McCain and Hillary Clinton. The thing I don’t think people realize is how much John and Hillary have in common: They’re both very smart. Both very hardworking. And they’re both hated by the Republicans!
A lot of folks want to be President, but, I mean, wow, it really has been a rough period for you, Mr. President. I missed the Oscars, so when I picked up the paper the next morning and saw “Crash�? in the headlines, I just assumed it was another Bush poll story.
And how about that ports deal? I feel for you, sir. It’s tough getting trapped in a storm, when no one comes up to help!
And then there’s the flap about global warming. You know, the Bush Administration’s been a little skeptical about the whole concept of global warming. It’s actually not the warming part they question. It’s the globe.
The President was so excited about Tom Friedman’s book, The World is Flat. As soon as he saw the title, he said, “You see, I was right!�?
But when people say the administration is hostile to science, that’s really a bad rap. Just last week they asked for a hundred million dollars for the NIH to fund new research into leech therapy.
I was told that this dinner is off-the record… no taping or recording of this event, unless, of course, secretly authorized by the President.
I completely trust the President with that authority, by the way. But just out of an abundance of caution, and not implying anything, I’ve asked my staff to conduct all phone conversations in the Kenyan dialect of Luo.
Truth is, this domestic spying has all kinds of useful applications for Homeland Security. And I have a suggestion, in this regard, Mr. President: You can spy on the Weatherchannel, and find out when big storms are coming.
You all watch the winter Olympics? Mrs. Bush was there, representing our country, and that was great. I’m sure a lot of us in politics were following that figure skating, because we can identify with performers who spin wildly and sometimes fall on their butts.
And the curling. Wasn’t that something? I hear Andy Stern from the SEIU loved the curling so much he’s trying to organize the sweepers.
I also enjoyed that biathlon, where they ski and shoot at the same time. Probably not your sport, Mr. Vice President.
Hey, it’s been great fun to be a part of this tonight. But before I go, I want to say a few words about the work you do.
For a democracy to succeed and flourish, people must have full and free access to information about what’s going on in their world and, yes, in their government.
The framers of the Constitution understood that, which is why the very first amendment deals with the indispensable freedoms of speech and press. Those rights, those freedoms, the access to information citizens absolutely require in a democratic society are no less important today.
Pursuing that information is not always easy. Sometimes you meet resistance from powerful institutions that would sooner operate in secrecy. And sometimes, as in Iraq, you literally risk your lives to keep the American people informed.
Tonight, even as we laugh together, I want to thank you for that important and often courageous work and extend my prayers to those journalists and their families who have made and continue to make great sacrifices to fulfill this essential mission.
And most of all, I want to thank you for all the generous advance coverage you’ve given me in anticipation of a successful career. When I actually do something, we’ll let you know.
And that’s kinda the point, isn’t it? Like many bloggers, I’ve noticed the dramatic upswing in racially oriented reporting in the media regarding national attitudes and their potential affect on the Obama campaign. Like those same bloggers, I wondered why. Why all of a sudden are there so many polls, analyses and opinion pieces documenting and dissecting our common, or uncommon biases? Is something coming down the pike so devastating about Barack Obama, or some aspect of his candidacy, that it needs to have our attention diverted in advance?
Probably not.
What lead me to this conclusion was a confluence of recent events; the rash of polls, the accusations of David Axelrod-style “astroturfing” against Sarah Palin, which were borne out, and a number of opinion pieces, one in the Chicago Sun-Times, by race reporter Mary Mitchell, in particular. Now, I have no idea whether “race reporter” is part of Ms. Mitchell’s official employment designation, but since everything I’ve read that she’s written deals with the subject, I figured that must be her job. Besides, you can tell from the picture that accompanies every post that she’s black, so, it must be at least sort of a big deal to her. Anyway, it was after reading her take on the AP-Yahoo News poll when it all came together in my mind.
Now, we all know that “astroturfing” is the “art” of building fake grassroots support and that the acknowledged master is David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s campaign manager. And, as today’s AP-Yahoo News poll about the effect of disaffected Clinton supporters on Obama’s candidacy shows, many of those polled are skeptical of Obama’s competence. Many of them also happen to be white women. Barack Obama is a black man. Therefore, white women who supported Hillary Clinton are disproportionately unlikely to vote for the black man.
Get where I’m going with this?
Coming on the heels of the earlier AP-Yahoo News poll (or maybe the same poll with different data analysis) saying that racism among Democrats could cost Obama the election, the racial implications are magnified. Now add today’s ABC News/USA Today/Columbia University poll showing that black people think having a black president is a very good thing, and it becomes clear that the intention is to make the election a referendum on race, not a contest between candidates. Because when resumes are objectively compared, Obama loses. Period. Do not pass “Go.” Do not collect squat. Clinton supporters have always known that, it is the basis for our continued outrage and rejection of the Democratic ticket. The “vote for him because he’s black and if you don’t you’re a racist” drumbeat is meant to be heard by all audiences and filtered through each individual’s and group’s particular lens. (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a mixed metaphor, but I like ‘em, so sue me, or suck it up). Basically, Axelrod and crew gets to re-seed the oh-so-successful, combination “white guilt and black pride” astroturf planted early in the primaries and watch it grow. Obama performs badly in the debates? So what, he’s still black. He attacks black people’s lifestyles, values and behavior? Hey, it’s better than a white man. He flip-flops on every hint of a campaign promise he’s ever offered from a TelePrompTer? Yeah, but aren’t you proud to be an American?
The actual analysis of the various polls is irrelevant, they say what you would expect them to say. Same is true of anything Ms. Mitchell writes. Even when she says something relatively unexpected, like she did today, that Obama is not really black or white, it still comes down to a “yeah,…and?” kind of thing. Because, while we as Americans still have a lot of racial hang-ups, our lives are not usually motivated, or even largely affected by them. But that’s not the point. The point is we’re being bamboozled, hoodwinked and astroturfed by an “internet community organizer” (Axelrod) who believes he is so good of an illusionist that he can sell us that by pissing in our faces, the astroturf will think it’s rain, and grow flowers.
Okay, I admit it, I was wrong. Earlier today, in a post called “Astroturfing or Ratfucking” I put forth the theory that accusations of wrongdoing by agents aligned with the Obama campaign were being manufactured by the other side. My reasoning was simple, no one would be stupid or inept enough to bungle a simple operation so badly. I was wrong.
The Jawa Report claimed that an anti-Palin ad was produced by a firm associated with David Axelrod, Obama’s “Astroturfer in Chief.” “Astroturfing” is the art of using phony grassroots support to give the impression of real grassroots support, or, the Obama campaign in a nutshell. How could any organization ratfuck the country as well as Axelrod and friends have with the Obama presidential run, then turn around and make such a Bush League play?
Anyway, turns out the Jawa Report was right. The video producer, Ethan Winner of Winner & Associates, sent them an e-mail admitting culpability. The full text is available at the highlighted link, but here’s the gist:
The following is in response to questions I have received regarding the post on the Jawa Report website.
I produced and posted on the Internet the video entitled “Sarah Palin: A Heartbeat Away.”
The idea for the video was mine. No one paid me to produce it. The only out-of-pocket cost will be the fee for the voice-over narrator, which I will pay personally when I receive an invoice. Contrary to the allegation in the Jawa Report, the voice-over artist has never done any work for the Obama campaign. I retained her through a talent agency based solely on the quality of her voice.
Neither the Obama campaign nor any independent political action committee has had a connection with the making and/or posting of this video. Just like the thousands of Americans who have posted videos on the Internet regarding the current Presidential campaign, I produced this video as an expression of my right to free speech, which is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Sorry, Obama supporters, your guy’s team is even more pitiful than I gave them credit for. See what I get for trying to be objective? That’s it, from now on, no matter what, your guy sucks.
In common usage, “astroturfing” is Democratic “ratfucking,” which is a term usually attributed to GOP tactics.
Karl Rove is said to be the reigning king of ratfucking. From Salon, August 13, 2007:
Donald Segretti, ringmaster for the Committee to Reelect the President of a gang of dirty tricksters engaged in what he called “ratfucking,” recruited Rove.
His alter-ego, David Axelrod, is today’s master of astroturfing through his company, ASK Public Strategies, which shares office space with his primary firm, AKP&D Message and Media, from which he astroturfs the campaign of Barack Obama. According to a March 14, 2008 article in Business Week:
On behalf of ComEd and Comcast, the firm helped set up front organizations that were listed as sponsors of public-issue ads. Industry insiders call such practices “Astroturfing,” a reference to manufacturing grassroots support.
The reason I bring all this up is that the blogosphere is abuzz today with speculation that Camp Obama is behind a supposedly “grassroots” You Tube smear of Sarah Palin. These allegations stem from a post on the website, The Jawa Report, which claims:
Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.
The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.
David Axelrod is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.
The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.
Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.
Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.
The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.
This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod’s firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as “astroturfing.”
The “professional PR firm” in question is Winner & Associates, the “employee” said to be responsible for uploading, then yanking, the video is “eswinner” or Ethan S. Winner, son of company president Charles N. Winner and Leslie Song Winner. Winner & Associates is a large PR group affiliated with an even bigger international PR group, Publicis Groupe, and sounds a lot like Axelrod’s ASK, though the Jawa Report links “eswinner” to Axelrod through a common voice-over artist used by the producers of the Palin smear video and Axelrod’s AKP&D firm.
The Jawa article goes to great lengths to “prove” it’s case, and I’m okay with it, to a point. Even if all the connections pan out, one question remains. Why would the “master of astroturfing” job out a smear campaign to a “major PR firm” stupid enough to leave it’s fingerprints all over it?
Doesn’t make sense to me.
On the flip side, there’s another “grassroots” entity making You Tube ads critical of one of the presidential candidates. This one, “weneedmccain” has a series of anti-Obama ads up and it’s producer is just as cryptic. Like the Palin video, these are professional quality ads, the voice-over artist sounds like an actor, not an “average guy” in his basement. Yet when techPresident’s Micah L. Sifry went looking into “weneedmccain”’s identity, he concluded that “Michael Brown” was indeed just a really committed Republican private citizen with seemingly unlimited access to sophisticated digital recording equipment and the resources to use them at will. Yeah, right. Who is techPresident? How and why did he get onto this story? How did he debunk it within hours of reporting it? Why?
Seems to me, one aspect of “ratfucking,” which has been around longer than “astroturfing,” btw, might be to set up a compelling scenario of wrongdoing by the other guy and then yell, “fire.” I’m just not so sure in this instance that the guys doing the yelling aren’t on the same team as the guys with the matches and gasoline on their breath.
Quick! Somebody get Pat and Vanna on the phone, stat! The Obamaniacs desperately need to buy a clue!
It seems like the sheer number of people who, like me, just can’t seem to wrap their heads around this Obama/Peace Prize thing, is starting to get under the formerly esteemed Nobel folks’ skin and majorly piss them off. Duh. And, they’re surprised because…? The 
Bah!Rock Whoosayin’ YoMama’s pretendidentin’ style is the exact opposite of Follow the Leader. Rather than setting off on a bold course and expecting everybody to either walk by his side or follow along behind him, our Celebritician in Chief is far more apt to send everybody out in different directions and then try to follow all of them simultaneously. Then, he and the AxelRocket Science Crew would stand around with one finger of one hand up their butts, and a finger of the other up their nose, wishing they could scratch their heads ar the same time, while looking around lost and confused about how come they’re lost and confused, seriously clueless about where everybody went, and how they ended up right where they started, in the middle of nowhere, all alone.
eyes and count to a million. Like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football, Everybody’s 3rd Cousin Clem never seems to tire of finding himself facing a tree at midnight, halfway through the count, hours after everyone else has not only gone home, but finished dinner and homework, gone to bed, and been deep in REM sleep for at least an hour, convinced that one of these days he’s gonna find everybody before daylight. 
If you ask the wrong questions, you’re sure to get the wrong answers. Such is the case for pundits questioning Pretendident Barack Obama’s lack of a cohesive, comprehensive, and comprehensible approach to what is quickly degenerating into a bad parody of a failed burlesque review, the Health 
In an earlier series of posts about Dueling 
Uh-oh. Seems like the Place Putters of the Patriarchy have run into a snag in their well-coordinated Chick March to Cleaverville. Their duly appointed, previously compliant mascot, First Lady of the Ebony Arms, Michelle Obama, has apparently realized she has a pair, and that hers are not only bigger than theirs, they’re up front, where they count.
And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
Hellllllp meeeeee! Barack Obama is stalking me! Every day, every single flipping day, there he is, inserting himself, unwelcomed, into my consciousness like a hellish evil spirit rapist of the soul. Turning up time after time, and time again, like a bad rash, mugging for the camera while sanctimoniously pontificating, ad nauseum, about NOTHING! Absolutely nothing! Every single fucking day, sometimes two, three or even more times a day, on and on, and on some more, for what? Why? Why, dear Lord, is this man stalking me through my TV?
What’s up with the creepatoids employed in what passes for the journalism field nowadays, that they have their collective heads so far up the Creamy Chocolate Dream Date/Geek In A Spokesmodel’s Empty Suit’s ass that they couldn’t see the light of a sunny day after Lasik surgery with a Klieg light and a Guide Dog? Does David Axelrod slip them a nice piece of change from a Wall Street bankster-provided slush fund under the table on a regular basis to just run Favreau-penned fluff ‘n puff pieces under their byline? What? Maybe it’s just me, but when I see more than one, “The Pretendident’s Too Cool To Laugh At” piece online, I have to ask myself, “Self, what’s up with that shit?”
As the PUMAsphere rightly, and righteously, continues to rail against those responsible for inflicting the festering wound of Obamanism upon the Democratic party, it might be useful to take a moment to examine exactly where the blame belongs. While there is no doubt that Joe Cannon at 
For those uninitiated into the Holy Order of Obamites, (and thus not likely to disappear in the coming Obacalypse) and uninformed as to the ways of The One, who might be confused and believe that the above is a picture of the The Chosen with his butt in the air bowing (genuflecting) before Saudi King Abdullah, let me enlighten you. The Obamessiah can do no wrong, therefore, if you object to such a depiction, the problem obviously lies with you, and your lying eyes. I know this because the Simon Peter of Obasciples, (the followers of He Who Is Blameless, not to be confused with Obacicles, a hopium flavored, frozen ersatz fruit juice-on-a-stick treat) David of Astroturf, hath decreed it so, and sent forth Obacolytes to 
On the day when the Superman of Spokesmodel-in-Chief’s Boy Wonder, Treasury Secretary, Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG,tc) was all over television promoting his plan to 
Reading an Associated Press article with the headline “
The whole “
While there are many tangled webs to unravel in the current 
I’ll be the first to admit that I did not come into this blogging business as the most politically astute or learned person on the planet. The idea that I might be is so far from the possibility of reality that the words I just typed hardly belong in the same sentence. I know that. However, watching my hopes for the election of a candidate I thought to be most qualified to “inherit” (I’m beginning to hate that word) the responsibility of guiding the county back on track be bashed, dashed, crashed and gleefully shattered to smithereens by disparate entities on the left and right, seemingly demented in their zeal, has given me an opportunity to learn and grow politically in a way unlikely to have been appreciated before, had it presented itself. And frankly, I’m sick of it.
Wanna hear something strange? The President I love to hate, Alfred E. Urkelbama (What, me do that?) and I actually have a lot in common. We’re both nominally “black,” (though, I didn’t grow up in Hawaii, I don’t have a white parent, and I don’t try to mute or exploit my blackness at other black people’s expense for personal gain, but other than that…) and, like him, I don’t like labels. Okay, so that doesn’t exactly qualify as “a lot” in common, but it is more than I thought, and “a lot” more than I really want to admit. I really don’t like the guy, okay?
What’s the difference between American International Group (AIG) and any other garden variety extortionist? Not much. In fact, your average “gimme $1,000, or I tell your wife about the weekend with the monkey,” slimeball could take a lesson from these guys. According to 
For whatever reason, it seems our Too Too Yummy Presilicious is hellbent on being…
Why is Barack Obama 
The 
When Baracus Ceaser Obamacus incessantly cried, “Change!” from the rooftops via TelePrompTer in stump speech after stump speech written by the Cardboard Titty Groper at the behest of the Astroturfing PuppetMaster acting on behalf of the banksters bankrolling the hopium-fueled ObamaLove Train steamrolling into the White House, who knew he really meant restructuring the global financial landscape, huh?
As I watched last week’s PBS special about the financial crisis, “
During one late night/early morning informal discussion on 
The biggest myth to come out of the 2008 presidential campaign, besides Barack Obama himself, is that his bright, clean, “articulateness” makes him an O-rator Extraordinaire. Nothing could be further from the truth. The man is so inept as a speaker that he has to take a 
Does the public find Spokesmodel-in-Chief, Black Obama, sexy? If you judge by the number of opinion pieces detailing soft-core porn, semi-erotic, reader submitted “
Let’s face it, most PUMAs are sick to death of Barack Obama. We recoil from the sight and sound of him stumbling through ghost-written, TelePrompTer read speeches on our television screens, tens, that feel like thousands, of times a day, droning incessantly about something that only he can so successfully make seem like nothing. And vice-versa. However, where we once railed against the excessive exposure, shouting at our computers and TVs every time he, his name or likeness popped up in yet another puff or fluff piece of a sad excuse for a print “news” article or op-ed column, or tedious You Tube lecture, or “get your very own useless Obama trinket” commercial, we now just sigh.
With the Senate Democrats 
You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about how and why Black Obama was shoved down America’s throats and all the attendant events surrounding the Obamenom of the Obamanationization of Omerica. I think of how he came out of nowhere with money grown on trees dripping out of his ass, beloved of all though none had yet met him, and I go, “Huh? What the fuck is up with that?” Then I marvel at how fortunate he is to appear black on the anniversary of so many noteworthy events in black history that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, like the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. There’s not much doubt that were it not for the monumentousness of the historic nature of a having a candidate who appears to be black run for president, that one might have come and gone without proper deference being paid. I mean, in normal, non-monumentally historically natured times, who the hell makes a big deal about a 45th anniversary? So, right there, you have a reason to be thankful that there is Obama.
Nope. Though 
While everybody’s obsessing over The President of the Perpetual Press Conference’s Very Big Most Impressive First Day of sternly issuing orders for people to get around to doing stuff later right away, and 
Like it’s been some big, huge secret up to now, the press is starting to admit just how much they’re being 
Government of the people by popular demand. Tough decision facing the country? Take a poll, do a focus group, flip a coin, make a committee-written, TelePrompTer-read speech. That’s just the way things work today. What does the public want? What do the people need? Who cares? Decide what you’re going to give them, then send out your bright, buff spokesmodel with the pretty teeth to visit the press and sit on their laps and wiggle while he whispers your sweet nothings in their ears. He gets paid, the media gets laid and the people get screwed. We are a reality show, and we voted for the Survivor spokesmodel who “outwitted,” “outplayed,” and “outlasted”. Just the way the UniParty who hired him wants it.
First he takes them to 
If the story first reported by the 
There’s something charming about the gleefully delusional. Wide-eyed innocence can be a wonder to behold. But, the current spectacle of masses of supposedly sophisticated Americans delightedly slapping metaphorical “kick me” signs on their own backs as they happy-dance the jester’s jig to their place in line for the ramp that rolls them to their assigned place under the speeding Obabus to Hell, is an event unwitnessed and unrivaled since 
I am a PUMA today for the exact same reason I went looking to become something that didn’t yet exist on May 31, 2008; I object to the manner in which Barack Obama became my president. And nothing I’ve seen before or since has mitigated that essential truth in the slightest, in fact, the more I see of the way he operates, the more upset I get. Barack Obama offends my sense of fair play. From what I’ve been able to determine through my research of him, he has pushed the against “
Whoever thought maneuvering Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich into a position that allowed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to officially criminalize machine politics-as-usual for political advantage has got to be the biggest neophyte yahoo rube to come down the pike since…Barack Obama. Let’s review. Barack Obama, the only African American in the Senate for two years, mysteriously generates enough money and clout to mount a successful run for the presidency out of a political environment so corrupt that “Lincoln would roll over in his grave,” how? By being an all-around, all-American, above-board, swell, good guy, of course. Sure.
Big ol’ scary Roland Burris says he’s the Senator from Illinois so make way. The Obamacrats say the idea of Burris sullying the sanctity of the Senate is so terrifying, they’ll do whatever they have to do to keep him out and keep the country safe. “Hide the women and children, go to the root cellar, get under the desks, run for your lives, for God’s sake, hide!”
Thus reads the true job description of 
It’s obvious that the curiously-funded, political science lab-created 
That would be the headline for any other president-elect at any other time in our history, since it accurately reflects the facts of a pretty sensational story. However, since we’re talking about an extraordinary Teflon TelePrompTer Messiah, elected/anointed/selected to lead us to the Promised Land of Peace and Prosperity at this unique point in history, the bulk of the headlines referring to Barack Obama’s “
Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor accused of trying to sell the Senate seat president-elect Barack Obama 
On Tuesday, when the news of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s arrest broke, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declared that it was “a sad day for Illinois government” and that Blagojevich had “taken us to a truly new low.” But, was it really? From the 
“If they 
With the recent news that former Obama “
