Obama: It's Money, Money, Money that they love.

Versus the evil Republicans who love money!

Former Dem. Congressman Kennedy Alleges 'Quid Pro Quo' for Access to White House

8:42 AM, Apr 15, 2012

By DANIEL HALPER

 

Alerts

Hide

Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you.

Send me alerts for:

Bill Kristol
Fred Barnes
Jay Cost

Your e-mail address:

Confirm e-mail address:

Please sign me up for The Weekly Standard weekly newsletter.

The Weekly Standard reserves the right to use your email for internal use only. Occasionally, we may send you special offers or communications from carefully selected advertisers we believe may be of benefit to our subscribers. Click the box to be included in these third party offers. We respect your privacy and will never rent or sell your email.

Please include me in third party offers.

Access to the Obama White House is in direct correlation to the amount of money donated to the president's reelection effort and the Democratic party, the New York Times reports today.
The Times reports: "those who donated the most to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party since he started running for president were far more likely to visit the White House than others. Among donors who gave $30,000 or less, about 20 percent visited the White House, according to a New York Times analysis that matched names in the visitor logs with donor records. But among those who donated $100,000 or more, the figure rises to about 75 percent. Approximately two-thirds of the president’s top fund-raisers in the 2008 campaign visited the White House at least once, some of them numerous times."
But the most explosive allegation in the news story comes from former Democratic congressman Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Ted Kenney, who calls what the Obama White House is doing "quid pro quo."

Patrick J. Kennedy, the former representative from Rhode Island, who donated $35,800 to an Obama re-election fund last fall while seeking administration support for a nonprofit venture, said contributions were simply a part of “how this business works.”
“If you want to call it ‘quid pro quo,’ fine,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to make sure I do my part.”
Mr. Kennedy visited the White House several times to win support for One Mind for Research, his initiative to help develop new treatments for brain disorders. While his family name and connections are clearly influential, he said, he knows White House officials are busy. And as a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said he was keenly aware of the political realities they face.
And Kennedy admits that folks in the White House are checking out the donor records:

“I know that they look at the reports,” he said, referring to records of campaign donations. “They’re my friends anyway, but it won’t hurt when I ask them for a favor if they don’t see me as a slouch.”

Literally translated, "quid pro quo" means "something for something." As in, if you want something from the Obama White House, then give something (e.g., cash).

obam,a 

Liberal Hypocrisy

Rush Limbaugh Isn’t the Only Media Misogynist

by Kirsten Powers

Mar 4, 2012 10:00 AM EST
Daily Beast

Rush Limbaugh apologized on Saturday for calling a Georgetown Law student a slut for testifying about contraception and starting a firestorm of outrage. Kirsten Powers says the liberals who led the charge need to start holding their own side accountable.

Did you know there is a war on women?

Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened.

Boycotts are reserved for people on the right like Rush Limbaugh, who finally apologized Saturday for calling a 30-year-old Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, a “slut” after she testified before congress about contraception. Limbaugh’s apology was likely extracted to stop the departure of any more advertisers, who were rightly under pressure from liberal groups outraged by the comments.

Let it be shouted from the rooftops that Rush Limbaugh should not have called Ms. Fluke a slut or, as he added later, a “prostitute” who should post her sex tapes. It’s unlikely that his apology will assuage the people on a warpath for his scalp, and after all, why should it? He spent days attacking a woman as a slut and prostitute and refused to relent. Now because he doesn’t want to lose advertisers, he apologizes. What’s in order is something more like groveling—and of course a phone call to Ms. Fluke—if you ask me.

But if Limbaugh’s actions demand a boycott—and they do—then what about the army of swine on the left?

During the 2008 election Ed Schultz said on his radio show that Sarah Palin set off a “bimbo alert.” He called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” (He later apologized.) He once even took to his blog to call yours truly a “bimbo” for the offense of quoting him accurately in a New York Post column.

Keith Olbermann has said that conservative commentator S.E. Cupp should have been aborted by her parents, apparently because he finds her having opinions offensive. He called Michelle Malkin a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick.” He found it newsworthy to discuss Carrie Prejean’s breasts on his MSNBC show. His solution for dealing with Hillary Clinton, who he thought should drop out of the presidential race, was to find “somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.” Olbermann now works for über-leftist and former Democratic vice president Al Gore at Current TV.

Left-wing darling Matt Taibbi wrote on his blog in 2009, “When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.” In a Rolling Stone article about Secretary of State Clinton, he referred to her “flabby arms.” When feminist writer Erica Jong criticized him for it, he responded by referring to Jong as an “800-year old sex novelist.” (Jong is almost 70, which apparently makes her an irrelevant human being.) In Taibbi’s profile of Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann he labeled her “batshit crazy.” (Oh, those “crazy” women with their hormones and all.)

Chris Matthews’s sickening misogyny was made famous in 2008, when he obsessively tore down Hillary Clinton for standing between Barack Obama and the presidency, something that Matthews could not abide. Over the years he has referred to the former first lady, senator and presidential candidate and current secretary of state as a “she-devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” and “Madame Defarge.” Matthews has also called Clinton “witchy,” “anti-male,” and “uppity” and once claimed she won her Senate seat only because her “husband messed around.” He asked a guest if “being surrounded by women” makes “a case for commander in chief—or does it make a case against it?” At some point Matthews was shamed into sort of half apologizing to Clinton, but then just picked up again with his sexist ramblings.

Matthews has wondered aloud whether Sarah Palin is even “capable of thinking” and has called Bachmann a “balloon head” and said she was “lucky we still don’t have literacy tests out there.” Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, who is the former president of the Women’s Media Center, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in 2011 that Matthews
“is a bully, and his favorite target is women.” So why does he still have a show? What if his favorite target was Jews? Or African-Americans?

But the grand pooh-bah of media misogyny is without a doubt Bill Maher—who also happens to be a favorite of liberals—who has given $1 million to President Obama’s super PAC. Maher has called Palin a “dumb twat” and dropped the C-word in describing the former Alaska governor. He called Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann “boobs” and “two bimbos.” He said of the former vice-presidential candidate, “She is not a mean girl. She is a crazy girl with mean ideas.” He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job. Maher said of a woman who was harassed while breast-feeding at an Applebee’s, “Don't show me your tits!” as though a woman feeding her child is trying to flash Maher. (Here’s a way to solve his problem: don’t stare at a strangers’ breasts). Then, his coup de grâce: “And by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called Hooters!”

Liberals—you know, the people who say they “fight for women”—comprise Maher’s audience, and a parade of high-profile liberals make up his guest list. Yet have any of them confronted him? Nope. That was left to Ann Coulter, who actually called Maher a misogynist to his face, an opportunity that feminist icon Gloria Steinem failed to take when she appeared on his show in 2011.

This is not to suggest that liberals—or feminists—never complain about misogyny. Many feminist blogs now document attacks on women on the left and the right, including Jezebel, Shakesville, and the Women’s Media Center (which was cofounded by Steinem). But when it comes to high-profile campaigns to hold these men accountable—such as that waged against Limbaugh—the real fury seems reserved only for conservatives, while the men on the left get a wink and a nod as long as they are carrying water for the liberal cause.

After all, if Limbaugh’s outburst is part of the “war on women,” then what is the routine misogyny of liberal media men?

It’s time for some equal-opportunity accountability. Without it, the fight against media misogyny will continue to be perceived as a proxy war for the Democratic Party, not a fight for fair treatment of women in the public square.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Kirsten Powers is a columnist for The Daily Beast. She is also a contributor to USA Today and a Fox News political analyst. She served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1998 and has worked in New York state and city politics. Her writing has been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, The New York Observer, Salon.com, Elle magazine, and American Prospect online.

liberals

Election 2012

What is at stake is the very meaning of being an American.  What is at stake is the heart of America, the purpose of America.  What is at risk is losing the soul of America is we ....


Apparently if Pat Buchanan references Christianity in the above, he gets fired.  But when Obama says it, he is justaposing it against Republicans ... that unless he wins, the country and the future loses if Republicans win ....

Isn't he inclusive.  Making his re-election an issue of what is the essence of being an American or America. 

Obama 2012: 'Osama Bin Laden Will Never Again Walk the Face of This Earth. That’s What Change Is.'

 

Alerts

Hide

Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you.

Send me alerts for:

Bill Kristol
Fred Barnes
Jay Cost

Your e-mail address:

Confirm e-mail address:

Please sign me up for The Weekly Standard weekly newsletter.

The Weekly Standard reserves the right to use your email for internal use only. Occasionally, we may send you special offers or communications from carefully selected advertisers we believe may be of benefit to our subscribers. Click the box to be included in these third party offers. We respect your privacy and will never rent or sell your email.

Please include me in third party offers.

At a campaign event this evening at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., President Obama indicated that he had successfully brought about "change"--an ambiguous 2008 campaign promise--by killing terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. From the official White House transcript:

And change is keeping one of the first promises I made in 2008 -- ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home. (Applause.) The war is over and our troops are home. And instead, we refocused our efforts on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. And thanks to our brave men and women in uniform, al Qaeda is weaker than it’s ever been, and Osama bin Laden will never again walk the face of this Earth. That’s what change is. (Applause.)

The president also listed Obamacare as a change he was responsible for, though he failed to mention the unpopularity of his signature legislation.
And the president warned that Republicans threaten the "very core of what this country stands for."

The very core of what this country stands for is on the line -- the basic promise that no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, this is a place where you could make it if you try. The notion that we're all in this together, that we look out for one another -- that's at stake in this election. Don't take my word for it. Watch some of these debates that have been going on up in New Hampshire.

obama

Obama’s inoperable Constitution

By Robert Knight

The Washington Times
Friday, January 6, 2012

ASSOCIATED PRESS Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray has been nominated to head the new Consumer Protection Bureau. But Senate Republicans say he would have too much power. Democrats, for their part, complain of political games being played in the process.

Back in 1973, when the Nixon administration was under fire for Watergate, Press Secretary Ron Ziegler uttered an unforgettable response when caught in a lie during a news conference: "This is the operative statement. The other statements are now inoperable."

Well, the Obama administration just topped that by essentially declaring the U.S. Constitution "inoperable." President Obama did not use that term when making an illegal recess appointment of Richard Cordray to the new post of consumer czar on Wednesday, but he might as well have.

Mr. Cordray now heads the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will do its best to strangle any thought that business owners might have of getting out from under oppressive bureaucracy long enough to create any new jobs that aren't in the government.

Remember, these are the same folks who thought it was a great idea to let Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, bring the magic of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the financial sector with the awful Dodd-Frank law. But merit aside, the Cordray appointment was made outside constitutional bounds.

Here's what the official White House blog says about why the administration staged the Cordray coup:

"The Constitution gives the president the authority to make temporary recess appointments to fill vacant positions when the Senate is in recess. ... In an overt attempt to prevent the president from exercising his authority during this period, Republican senators insisted on using a gimmick called 'pro forma' sessions, which are sessions during which no Senate business is conducted and instead one or two senators simply gavel in and out of session in a matter of seconds."

What the White House regards as "gimmicks" are the letter of the law of the Constitution. Article I, Section 5, says "Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting."

Under Speaker John A. Boehner, the House has not granted the Senate adjournment. So, like it or not, Majority Leader Harry Reid's do-nothing Senate, which has not passed a budget in three years, is still in session. In 2007, Mr. Reid refused to adjourn the Senate in order to block President George W. Bush's recess appointments. Unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush abided by the Constitution and backed off.

Mr. Obama also loaded up the National Labor Relations Board with three recess appointees who won't threaten the conviviality of the current labor-union-packed board, whose hobby appears to be sticking needles into a voodoo doll shaped like South Carolina.

The NLRB not only issued orders halting South Carolina's voter-approved measure to preserve secret ballots in union elections, but tried to close a brand-new Boeing factory and move it to union-shackled Washington state. Just the other day, the Justice Department ordered South Carolina to halt enforcement of its photo-ID law, which discourages voter fraud.

You can almost see officials sitting around in the White House, exclaiming, "What will it take to provoke South Carolina into bombarding Fort Sumter again? Should we outlaw barbecue, golf, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and mint juleps?"

The Obama administration's lawlessness is becoming so obvious that nearly everyone outside the liberal mainstream media has caught on. Many Americans are appalled, but hard-core leftists are delighted. They regard the Constitution as a sham document that enables an oppressive, racist, sexist, homophobic society of the rich to oppress college students.

They give a pass to Hollywood moguls, of course, and they think it's great fun to misquote the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom while going about scrubbing the public square clean of America's Christian heritage.

You almost have to admire Mr. Obama's audacity, which he warned us about in his autobiographies. He openly trashed the U.S. Supreme Court last January during his State of the Union address, knowing the justices who were present could not respond to his bald-faced mischaracterization of their ruling striking down the odious McCain-Feingold muzzling of political speech.

He told us he wanted the United States to get along better with other nations and then sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton abroad to lecture them on their stubborn resistance to abortion, homosexuality and global-warming extremism.

He said he wanted to be a healer, bringing the races together. But he appointed an attorney general whose hobby, when not sharpening needles for South Carolina, seems to be stirring up racial animosity and trying to frame Texas gun dealers.

Mr. Obama's piece de resistance, though, was ramming the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, down America's throat while assuring us that we could keep our current health insurance. The lies, evasions, backroom deals and front-room bribes could fill a dozen books.

When Obamacare was being debated, the administration insisted that the individual mandate was not a tax. After more than half the states sued to halt this unconstitutional mess, Mr. Obama's lawyers told courts it was a tax after all. Apparently, the previous claim became "inoperable."

If the constitutional order is not restored and Obamacare is not struck down or repealed, enemies of the state, such as older people who refuse to go gently into the night, might routinely start hearing scarier things than lies, such as: "That patient is now inoperable."

obama

MSNBC’s Maddow Finds When She Leans Left, She Can't Be Right

By Dan Gainor

Published January 06, 2012

FoxNews.com

There’s a Latin phrase “In vino veritas,” meaning in wine there is truth. Someone should buy the folks at MSNBC a drink – or several.

The latest example of MSNBC failing at what the left once called “truthiness” came on Iowa Caucus night, Jan. 3. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, covering the caucus with a gang of fellow lefties, incorrectly told viewers that libertarian Gary Johnson was throwing his support to Ron Paul.

“The former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who never got much traction in his effort to run for the Republican nomination, recently dropped out of a run for the Republican nomination to seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president. We are hearing tonight that Gay Johnson has dropped his bid for the Libertarian nomination and instead will be endorsing Ron Paul,” she explained.

Wrong. According to Erik Wemple writing in The Washington Post, “Joe Hunter, the communications director for Gary Johnson 2012, notes, ‘Some enterprising individual concocted an e-mail, using a fake ‘Joseph Hunter’ gmail address, and issued a news release.’”

To her credit, Maddow quickly corrected the error.

Both CNN and Fox News never aired the false report.

Fellow MSNBC crank Lawrence O'Donnell did his best to minimize it, saying “that’ll happen.” He added smugly, “live television, ladies and gentlemen.”

Yes, live TV, only you don’t see liberals ranting and raving about on air inaccuracies when it’s their network. MSNBC leaches off the news operation of NBC and then piles far lefty commentators on top of it. These are not newsmen and women. These are Democratic political operatives disguised as TV hosts.

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik was equally unkind in his assessment: “I'm sorry, but that doesn't happen to journalists. No one at CNN reported the hoax, because they actually verify information before they put it on the air.

I can't wait for the next batch of ‘Lean Forward’ ads from MSNBC with Maddow talking about journalism -- a discipline she appears to have spent not one day formally studying or practicing prior to becoming a show host and election-night anchor on MSNBC.”

Zurawik was right. That’s exactly to be expected when you fill your network with people who aren’t journalists and don’t even turn to them to cover the news.

MSNBC’s “Lean Forward” strategy is lame code for “Lean Left” and the network always seems to make its errors that direction, too.

In August, Maddow had to apologize to Rush Limbaugh for incorrectly calling him a birther, citing a year-old radio comment. But Maddow didn’t like to appear wrong, so she responded to her own error by claiming Limbaugh is a racist. (Yes, you read that correctly.) “And if you are worried about overall thesis that Rush Limbaugh is not giving up on trying to use the president’s race against him, this day and age, don’t worry about that thesis. Our error in misdating that tape does not undermine our thesis, as well proven by Mr. Limbaugh on his radio show just this week alone.”

And the otherwise affable Maddow is far from the worst problem on the network.

Host Chris Matthews could pile his crazy personal attacks against the right (He called Gingrich “Mephistopheles.”) on top of his leg-thrilling adoration of Obama and the stack would loom over 30 Rock.

In fact, the quality of the network seems to have actually gone down since the departure of Keith Olbermann and that’s hard to imagine.

But all of that’s OK when it’s the liberal network. Few journalists will target MSNBC because they are in sync with what goes on there. These same journalists claim to hail accuracy or subscribe to what the Society of Professional Journalists calls for, telling them to “test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.”

In fact, journalists complain loud and long when such errors are done by the right kind of people. When it’s left and wrong, it’s still all right.

leftist

Unprecedented Power Grab

While Bush was president, how many such appointments did he make?

Did the Democrats say anything about recess appointments during that time?  Yes.

What did they say?  He was abusing his power.  He was ruling by fiat.  He was acting like a dictator.

So .... why are they so quiet when Obama is the one abusing the power?


Unprecedented “Recess” Appointment Contradicts Obama Justice Department     

Posted by Brendan Buck on January 04, 2012

President Obama today made an unprecedented “recess” appointment even though the Senate is not in recess – “a sharp departure from a long-standing precedent that has limited the President to recess appointments only when the Senate is in a recess of 10 days or longer,” according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).It turns out that the action not only contradicts long-standing practice, but also the view of the administration itself. In 2010, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained to the Supreme Court the Obama administration’s view that recess appointments are only permissible when Congress is in recess for more than three days. Here’s the exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And the recess appointment power doesn't work why?
MR. KATYAL: The -- the recess appointment power can work in -- in a recess. I think our office has opined the recess has to be longer than 3 days. And -- and so, it is potentially available to avert the future crisis that -- that could -- that could take place with respect to the board. If there are no other questions –
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

obama 

But I thought, the Left was supposed to want to save us, protect us from the Right, who were busy usurping our rights and violating our liberties and taking away our freedoms.





Calif. Governor Veto Allows Warrantless Cellphone Searches



By David Kravets
October 10, 2011

California Gov. Jerry Brown is vetoing legislation requiring police to obtain a court warrant to search the mobile phones of suspects at the time of any arrest.

The Sunday veto means that when police arrest anybody in the Golden State, they may search that person’s mobile phone — which in the digital age likely means the contents of persons’ e-mail, call records, text messages, photos, banking activity, cloud-storage services, and even where the phone has traveled.

Police across the country are given wide latitude to search persons incident to an arrest based on the premise of officer safety. Now the nation’s states are beginning to grapple with the warrantless searches of mobile phones done at the time of an arrest.

Brown’s veto message abdicated responsibility for protecting the rights of Californians and ignored calls from civil liberties groups and this publication to sign the bill — saying only that the issue is too complicated for him to make a decision about. He cites a recent California Supreme Court decision upholding the warrantless searches of people incident to an arrest. In his brief message, he also doesn’t say whether it’s a good idea or not.

Instead, he says the state Supreme Court’s decision is good enough, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court let stand last week.

“The courts are better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific issues relating to constitutional search-and-seizure protections,” the governor wrote.

Because of that January ruling from the state’s high court, the California Legislature passed legislation to undo it — meaning Brown is taking the side of the Supreme Court’s seven justices instead of the state Legislature. The Assembly approved the bill 70-0 and the state Senate, 32-4.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), was flummoxed by Brown’s action. “It was a curious veto message suggesting that the courts could resolve this more effectively than the state Legislature,” he said in a telephone interview.

Under California statehouse rules, neither Leno nor any other lawmaker may introduce the legislation for at least a year.

Orin Kerr, one of the nation’s leading Fourth Amendment experts, said Brown should have backed the state’s Legislature. “I think Governor Brown has it exactly backwards. It is very difficult for courts to decide Fourth Amendment cases involving developing technologies like cellphones,” he said.

In 2007, there were 332,000 felony arrests in California alone — a third of which did not result in conviction.

Brown’s veto also shores up support with police unions and the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a police union that opposed the legislation and recently donated $38,900 to Brown’s campaign coffers. “Restricting the authority of a peace officer to search an arrestee unduly restricts their ability to apply the law, fight crime, discover evidence valuable to an investigation and protect the citizens of California,” the association said in a message.

That support would be key if Brown decides to seek a second term.

In the last year alone, at least seven police unions donated more than $12,900 each to Brown. Those unions, including the California Association of Highway Patrolmen and the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, had given Brown more than $160,000 in combined contributions.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the left

1/2 a billion dollar loan to a company that touted by Obama as examplary, the future in energy production

The lights seem to have gone out for the company touted by Obama as the future, and their management stafff are being investigated by the law enforcement arm of the government for possible illegal activity in the dark while the lights are off.  Either way, Obama looks like he kissed a frog with the lights off - not only a foolish source to invest in, but ... now it appears warnings were given and the White House ignored those warnings.





Solyndra loan deal: Warnings about legality came from within Obama administration



By Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig
October 7, 2011

Energy Department officials were warned that their plan to help a failing solar company by restructuring its $535 million federal loan could violate the law and should be cleared with the Justice Department, according to newly obtained e-mails from within the Obama administration.

The e-mails show that Energy Department officials moved ahead anyway with a new deal that would repay company investors before taxpayers if the company defaulted. The e-mails, which were reviewed by The Washington Post, show for the first time concerns within the administration about the legality of the Energy Department’s extraordinary efforts to help Solyndra, the California solar company that went bankrupt Aug. 31.

The FBI raided Solyndra last month, shortly after it closed its doors.

The records provided Friday by a government source also show that an Energy Department stimulus adviser, Steve Spinner, pushed for Solyndra’s loan despite having recused himself because his wife’s law firm did work for the company. Spinner, who left the agency in September 2010, did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

The documents offer new evidence of wide disagreement between officials at the Energy Department and officials at the Treasury Department and Office of Management and Budget, where questions were raised about the carefulness of the loan vetting process used to select Solyndra and the special help it was given as its finances deteriorated. Energy Department officials continued to make loan payments to the company even after it had defaulted on the terms of its loan.

The Solyndra controversy has escalated with each new release of documents to a Republican-led House energy subcommittee investigating the matter. President Obama defended the Energy Department in a news conference Thursday, saying its decisions were made by career professionals. Also Thursday, the head of the embattled loan program announced that he would step down, although Energy Department officials said he was not doing so because of the Solyndra matter.

As Republican committee leaders moved to get more information about warnings from Treasury and the OMB, an Energy spokesman, Damien LaVera, said agency officials had listened to Treasury’s advice to consult the Justice Department on the loan restructuring but felt it was appropriate to move forward.

“Ultimately, DOE’s determination that the restructuring was legal was made by career lawyers in the loan program based on a careful analysis of the statute,” he said.

The e-mails show that Mary Miller, an assistant Treasury secretary, wrote to Jeffrey D. Zients, deputy OMB director, expressing concern. She said that the deal could violate federal law because it put investors’ interests ahead of taxpayers’ and that she had advised that it should be reviewed by the Justice Department.

“To our knowledge that never happened,” Miller wrote in a Aug. 17, 2011, memo to the OMB.

In February, the restructuring was approved by Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Company executives said they needed a quick cash infusion to save the company, and private investors agreed to contribute $75 million if loan repayment terms were modified.

Solyndra ran out of money anyway and sought bankruptcy court protection, leaving 1,100 employees out of work. The loan refinancing now makes it likely that taxpayers will have to make up most of the loss, the e-mails show. The Treasury Department’s general counsel had concluded that the renegotiated loan violated the law because it allowed private investors to be first in line for repayment in case of a default.

Those private investors include investment funds linked to George Kaiser, a Tulsa billionaire and Obama fundraiser. Kaiser has said he had no involvement in the loan.

The correspondence also suggests that, at the most senior levels at the White House and down through its ranks, the Obama administration wanted to use the Solyndra loan to highlight progress under the stimulus act.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been investigating the loan, issued a statement Friday saying the correspondence showed a “disturbingly close relationship between President Obama’s West Wing inner circle, campaign donors, and wealthy investors.”

“After 8 months of stonewalling by this Administration, today we finally learn one of the reasons why they fought our investigation every step of the way,” the statement said.

One participant in the Solyndra effort, according to the e-mails, was Spinner. He pressed for OMB officials to speed up review of the Solyndra loan, writing at one point: “Any word from OMB? I have the OVP [Office of the Vice President] and WH [White House] breathing down my neck on this.”

Spinner came from Silicon Valley to serve as a senior adviser on the loan program, and his wife was a lawyer with Wilson Sonsini, the law firm representing Solyndra in its application. Despite an ethics agreement under which he said he would recuse himself from Solyndra’s loan application, correspondence shows that Spinner defended the company, worked to get the president or vice president to visit its factory, and pushed for a final decision on approving the company’s loan.

“How [expletive] hard is this?” Spinner wrote to a career staffer on Aug. 28, 2009, asking for answers about final approval from an OMB official. “What is he waiting for? Will we have it by the end of the day?”

In an Aug. 19, 2009, e-mail, an aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asked Spinner if he could discuss any concerns among the investment community about Solyndra.

Spinner dismissed the idea that Solyndra had financial problems.

“I haven’t heard anything negative on my side,” he said.

A day after a discussion about possible problems at Solyndra, Spinner forwarded to the chief of staff’s aide a list of Solyndra’s main investors and attached a published profile of Kaiser.

Spinner is now a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank.

A senior administration official declined to comment Friday when asked if Spinner violated his recusal agreement.

LaVera, the Energy Department spokesman, said Spinner “was authorized to oversee and monitor the progress of applications, ensure that the program met its deadlines and milestones, and coordinate possible public announcements,” because his wife gave up payments related to loan project clients. “He was not allowed to make decisions on the terms or conditions of any particular loan guarantee or decide whether or not a particular transaction was approved,” LaVera said. “This arrangement was reviewed and approved by the department’s career ethics officer.”

The e-mails also added more evidence that venture capitalists had access to senior White House decision makers.

David Prend, whose firm Rockport Capital was also a Solyndra investor, wrote a March 2009 e-mail to the White House two weeks before Solyndra won conditional commitment on its loan. Prend thanked Greg Nelson, a White House clean-technology aide, for meeting with him.

“It was great to meet you with [then-White House climate czar] Carol Browner last week,” he wrote. “I look forward to working with you to get the message out and to effect real change in the Energy Industry. I will follow up shortly on 2 of the companies we discussed,” mentioning Solyndra as one.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

War is ...

According to Mr. Obama, when Americans die.

Otherwise, war is not war, it is a conflict.


-  Libya isn’t war because it doesn’t “involve the presence of US ground troops, US casualties, or a serious threat thereof.”


Amazing from a man who was all over Bush for 'torture' and American values.

Who are the men on the ground n Libya directing those missiles that strike at or near Kaddafi ?   They are not simply missiles flying from ships without guidance.  Nor are the missiles off aircraft sent randomly into hit whatever they see.  Someone is on the ground using technology to direct the attacks!  Now, maybe they are not 'US ground troops' but they are American and there is a possibility they are captured and or killed.

So is it war?


Not to Obama.  War is not war unless he says it is, but torture is torture whenever he says it is, unless he is still doing it in which case it isn't torture.

I love liberal hypocrisy.  Conservatives may well be hypocrites but they do not take such a long and tangled route to reach a conclusion that is logically unsupportable. 











obama

Nancy Pelosi: 2006 and 2011. Politics as Usual

Here’s Nancy Pelosi from a press conference on September 7, 2006:


[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done . . . is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.


And here’s Nancy Pelosi May 2, 2011:

The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaida. . . . I salute President Obama, his national security team, Director Panetta, our men and women in the intelligence community and military, and other nations who supported this effort for their leadership in achieving this major accomplishment. . . . [T]he death of Osama bin Laden is historic. . . .

















losercrats

Obama: Depends Upon the Meaning of the Word 'Is'

We did hear a little about these nasty things called SIGNING STATEMENTS back in 2008 when Democrats attacked Bush senselessly over his use of signing statements -

According to Wikipedia, which I am not a fan of - A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued by the President of the United States upon the signing of a bill into law.

Wikipedia continues with an explanation of the controversy surrounding SIGNING STATEMENTS during "the administration of President George W. Bush, there was a controversy over the President's use of signing statements, which critics charged was unusually extensive and modified the meaning of statutes."

The esteemed American Bar Association stated in 2006, that the use of signing statements to modify the meaning of duly enacted laws serves to "undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers".

Mr. Obama made much of this, as did liberals nearly everyday during the last two years of the Bush administration when Democrats took control of Congress.

During the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama informed the American people that he had taught Constitutional law for ten years and he knew the law and Signing Statements were NOT Constitutional.
In Obama's own words -  "That's not part of his power, but this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he goes along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress."

In 2011, the White House Press Secretary told the American people that President Obama was never against signing statements, just when President Bush "abused" them.  The understanding of abuse would be subjective - when Obama said it was abuse or when Liberals said it was abuse, BUT what Obama said was not about abuse of power so much as the fact it was UNCONSTITUTIONAL and as such was an abuse of power.

The Press Secrertary continued - Obama's "concern was with what he saw as an abuse of the signing statement by the previous administration. So that the positions he took in signing statements on the budget bill entirely consistent with that position, you need to retain the right to, as president, to be able to issue those signing statements, but obviously they should not be abused."

Just another of the MANY ways Obama redefines the meaning of the word 'is' yet when Bush made it clear he was for or against something, he was attacked both on the merit of the cause and the method of delivery.  Sometimes more on the method of delivery. 

Makes perfect sense to me.













obama

One of the Most Dishonest Speeches in the Last 40 Years

The Presidential Divider




Obama's toxic speech and even worse plan for deficits and debt


Wall Street Journal
April 14, 2011


Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.

The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.

Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," he said, supposedly pitting "children with autism or Down's syndrome" against "every millionaire and billionaire in our society." The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.

Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which "starts," he said, "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.

The great political challenge of the moment is how to update the 20th-century entitlement state so that it is affordable. With incremental change, Mr. Ryan is trying maintain a social safety net and the economic growth necessary to finance it. Mr. Obama presented what some might call the false choice of merely preserving the government we have with no realistic plan for doing so, aside from proposing $4 trillion in phantom deficit reduction over a gimmicky 12-year budget window that makes that reduction seem larger than it would be over the normal 10-year window.

Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare's gargantuan liabilities is that it is "just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse." His own plan is to double down on the program's price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out "unnecessary spending." Is that the same as "waste and abuse"?

Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won't harm seniors' care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.

Mr. Obama really went off on Mr. Ryan's plan to increase health-care competition and give consumers more control, barely stopping short of calling it murderous. It's hardly beyond criticism or debate, but the Ryan plan is neither Big Rock Candy Mountain nor some radical departure from American norms.

Mr. Obama came out for further cuts in the defense budget, but where? His plan is to ask Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen "to find additional savings," whatever those might be, after a "fundamental review." These mystery cuts would follow two separate, recent rounds of deep cuts that were supposed to stave off further Pentagon triage amid several wars and escalating national security threats.

Mr. Obama rallied the left with a summons for major tax increases on "the rich." Every U.S. fiscal trouble, he claimed, flows from the Bush tax cuts "for the wealthiest 2%," conveniently passing over what he euphemistically called his own "series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs." Apparently he means the $814 billion stimulus that failed and a new multitrillion-dollar entitlement in ObamaCare that harmed job creation.

Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the "cost" of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets—and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year.

Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending. So that's three significant tax increases—via higher top brackets, the tax hikes in ObamaCare and fewer tax deductions.

Lastly, Mr. Obama came out for a debt "failsafe," which will require the White House and Congress to hash out a deal if by 2014 projected debt is not declining as a share of the economy. But under his plan any deal must exclude Social Security, Medicare or low-income programs. So that means more tax increases or else "making government smarter, leaner and more effective." Which, now that he mentioned it, sounds a lot like cutting "waste and abuse."

Mr. Obama ludicrously claimed that Mr. Ryan favors "a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history." Nothing is likelier to bring that future about than the President's political indifference in the midst of a fiscal crisis.














obama

Reid is a Fear Monger and a Liar

Liar Liar Liar.

If you think back, please do, to the weeks prior to Obama launching his ill-fated healthcare fiasco.  A health panel for women / cancer, and I forget the specifics although more than likely included in this blog file, recommended women cut back on the frequency of the screenings they receive.  The problem with this, as the dolts on the commission didn't seem to understand, is that if women cut back, the in-between time will be when the cancer will grow and by the time of their visit, it will already be at a stage requiring major medical costs and an increased risk to the woman's life. 

The commission stated that since the incidence of cancer in women was so low, it was not worth the cost to do the testing so often.  Duh.  The reason it was so low you dolts is because THEY GET TESTED SO OFTEN. 

This was in anticipation of the Obama plan which would call for reasonable testing ... which is an odd way of suggesting cut back on the frequency, which is what Obama's health care plan would do, because the cost to the government of women getting tested so often would be tens of millions of dollars each time.

And given these facts, we hear Harry Reid say ...





Reid says Republicans want shutdown to close clinics


11:23am EDT

WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) - Ratcheting up the rhetoric, U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid on Friday said Republicans want to shut down the government because they want to deny funding to women's health clinics.

"Republicans want to shut down the government because they think there's nothing more important than keeping women from getting cancer screenings. This is indefensible and everyone should be outraged," Reid said on the Senate floor.



so disingenuous




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
democrats l;ie

But they did it respectfully so that makes it ok.

They are juvenile delinquents.  The police should arrerst them as they tresspass onto his property (and tresspass includes the dumping of trash).  And the penalty should be ... work a weekend in DC cleaning up trash.





Facebook event: Let's dump trash at Boehner's pad


By: CNN's Ed Hornick
April 7, 2011


Washington (CNN) - If the federal government shuts down come Friday, House Speaker John Boehner may be in for quite a mess at his Washington, D.C. residence if some Facebook users have their way.

A Facebook event, entitled "If Boehner shuts down the government I am taking my trash to his house," has popped up and is gaining steam as the shutdown showdown ramps up on Capitol Hill. If the federal government shuts down, one of the District's services that will stop is trash pickup.

"Speaker John Boehner is ready to shut down the government, including District of Columbia city services like trash collection," it says on the page. "Well, if he won't allow us to use OUR TAX DOLLARS to pick it up, maybe we should just BRING IT TO HIM."

As of 2:30 p.m. EST there are 1,476 attending; 126 are listed as maybe; 156 aren't showing up; and 4,652 are still making up their minds (much like Congress, apparently).

The trash-a-thon is scheduled for Saturday and apparently will last through June 30.

Organizers of the event - Jonah Goodman and Nolan Treadway - write on the page that even if the government shutdown doesn't occur, they will "move forward with this event, we'll provide details on location(s) and we'll make sure it's done in a sanitary and respectful way. Please don't list any personal addresses for members of Congress on this page."

Goodman is listed in the Democratic National Committee network. Treadway is the political and logistics director for the liberal group Netroots Nation.

House Speaker Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel did not comment to CNN on the group. But he said that "The Speaker has made clear that he wants to cut spending and keep the government open. The House will pass yet another bill to that this afternoon. If the government does shut down, these folks should focus their ire on the Democrats who are actively rooting for a government shutdown, hoping for partisan gain."

Reaction on the page is, like Washington, all over the place.

Amy Lysander: "Do you plan on trashing the yards of the Democrats who are actually causing a shutdown? The House passed a bill to keep the government open. Two of them, actually. The Senate hasn't. Where's Harry Reid's house?"

Diane C. Russell: "Dems controlled Congress completely for 11 months after Obama submitted FY 2011 budget, but FAILED to do their duty and REFUSED to pass any appropriations, either before or after the beginning of the fiscal year."

Brian Devine: "I'll bring some styrofoam from the Hill caf."

Darrin Morgan: "Darn! I just cleaned out my garage. Oh, well. I have some rotten fruit I can throw at the Weeper of the House."





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
dumbshits

China: Force is never the answer (unless we are the ones using force)

Hu is so right.  History has shown that force ... is very often the answer Mr. Hu.  That point aside, China operates on the same premise - force is necessary to hold on to what it has.  If you didn't use force Mr. Hu, you would be in prison, China would not be raping Africa nor South America, China would not be instigating Middle East problems, and China would be democratic.  And Mr. Hu, when you are in a quiet place, alone, thinking about how things could be different - you know I am right.




China's Hu tells Sarkozy dialogue way out of Libya crisis



Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:35am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao told visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday that the crisis in Libya can be solved only through dialogue, not force.

"History has repeatedly proved that the use of force is not an answer to problems," Hu told Sarkozy in Beijing, according to Chinese state television news.

"Dialogue and other peaceful means are the ultimate solution to problems," said Hu in their talks about Libya.

China abstained from the United Nations Security Council vote that authorized a no-fly zone in Libya and military action against the forces of Muammar Gaddafi. But since then Beijing has accused Western countries of overreaching in their campaign against Gaddafi.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
china

Lies my Reopresentative told me: Dems and Reps - we will cut the budget (is it meaningful for you yet)

Deficit for Fiscal 2007 Slides.

By topeditor
October 5, 2007, 6:32 PM ET.



It’s all in the surge – the revenue surge, that is.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Friday that the U.S. federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2007, which ended Sunday, was about $161 billion, or 1.2% of gross domestic product. That’s down from the $248 billion shortfall recorded in fiscal 2006, which translated into 1.9% of GDP. The Treasury Department will report the official tally later this month.

Much of the improvement in the nation’s fiscal outlook in the last year has come from continued rapid growth in federal revenue. CBO estimates that 18.8% of GDP in fiscal 2007, up from 18.4% 2006 and 16.3% in 2004 and 18.4% in 2000. Outlays came to an estimated 20% of GDP, about equal to the average over the previous five years.

While annual federal spending grew 2.8% in fiscal 2007 over fiscal 2006, year to year, revenue grew 6.7%. Individual income-tax receipts are estimated to be 11.3% higher than last year, and corporate income tax receipts are estimated to be 5% higher. Revenue growth has cooled substantially from the 11.8% fiscal year-to-year increase from 2005 to 2006. Spending growth also slowed.

Federal expenditures were up in fiscal 2006 due to Gulf-coast hurricane recovery efforts. They were driven down in fiscal 2007 by legislation enacted in 2006 cutting student loan subsidies and auctioning off a portion of the broadcast spectrum, proceeds from which are recorded as negative expenditures not as revenues.

“While somewhat lower than estimates issued at the beginning of the year, the 2007 deficit announced today by the Congressional Budget Office is no cause for celebration,” said House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D., S.C.)

CBO has estimated that if the U.S. maintains a military presence in Iraq and if Congress doesn’t allow the tax cuts enacted in President George W. Bush’s first term to expire, then recent improvements in the deficit will be reversed, pushing it up to to roughly $300 billion by 2012.



*****************************************


And as bad as that was, and we were told everyday by Democrats how bad it was ....


... it just got worse.



******************************************


U.S. sets $223B deficit record


Dwarfs Hill’s cutting goals




By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
11:46 a.m., Monday, March 7, 2011


The federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February, a $223 billion shortfall that put a sharp point on the current fight on Capitol Hill about how deeply to cut this year's spending.

That one-month figure, which came in a preliminary report from the Congressional Budget Office, dwarfs even the most robust cuts being talked about on the Hill, and underscores just how much work lawmakers have to do to get the government's finances in balance again.

The Senate plans to vote Tuesday on competing proposals to cut spending, but Democrats have rejected GOP-backed cuts of more than $50 billion, and Republicans have ruled out Democrats' cuts of less than $10 billion, meaning neither plan will draw the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and pass.

"We've all done the math and we all know how these votes will turn out: Neither proposal will pass, which means neither will reach the president's desk as written. We'll go back to square one and back to the negotiating table," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

The two sides are facing a March 18 deadline, which is when the current stopgap funding bill expires. Without a new spending agreement by then, the government would shut down.

The House two weeks ago passed a bill that would cut $57 billion more from 2010 spending levels, including major reductions in a number of domestic programs.

Over the weekend, a top Senate Democrat said his party can accept no more than $6 billion in domestic cuts, and pointed to the proposal his colleagues introduced Friday that trims from several areas.

But a new set of numbers from the CBO indicates that Senate Democrats' proposal actually totals only $4.7 billion when measured as reductions compared with the previous year's spending.

So far, budget negotiations have not produced much visible progress.

President Obama designated Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his point man in the conversations, and Mr. Biden convened a meeting with congressional leaders last Thursday at the Capitol. But Mr. Biden is traveling in Europe this week on a long-planned trip to meet with foreign leaders

Was it a secret meeting?  Off the record, off the books, in quiet and dark places, or one that was actually transparent?


White House press secretary Jay Carney hinted that Mr. Biden could still participate by phone, but declined to say whether anyone else was taking the lead in the talks in his absence.

"I'm not going to specify, simply to say that a variety of staff members, senior staff members, have been in conversations with folks on the Hill about this," the spokesman said.

Republicans argue that Congress needs to tackle not only short-term spending, but long-term growth in the costs of Social Security and Medicare as well.

"Something must be done, and now is the time to do it. Republicans are ready and willing. Where is the president?" said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. "Suddenly, at the moment when we can actually do something about all this, he's silent."

According to the CBO, the government has notched a $642 billion deficit for the first five months of fiscal 2011, which is slightly less than last year's pace. Income tax revenues are rising faster than spending, which accounts for the marginally improved picture.

But interest on the debt continues to grow, reaching $101 billion through the end of February — a 12.5 percent increase over 2010.

The nonpartisan CBO's February deficit number is preliminary. The Treasury Department will issue the final number later this week.

February is traditionally a bad month for federal finances. The previous two records were $220.9 billion, posted exactly a year ago, and $193.9 billion in February 2009.















 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
deficit