>
Wise Words from a Stockbroker:
When asked about what to buy, this stockbroker said:
"If the current government is in office much longer,
canned goods, a generator, water and ammunition
are your best investment."
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An old and dear friend, fellow memo reader and client sent me this article from the Washington Post because of my previous comment about Jessica Parker's inane ad.
He e mailed: "In view of your Hollywood comment below, thought you might find this article on the front page of the Washington Post this morning.
Romney better hope the economy stays in the tank – in my opinion his only hope. Otherwise, too many voters in this country vote for personality and Romney doesn't have one. To your point, I don’t think the majority of the American electorate is known for their intellectual curiosity and comprehension when it comes to understanding how economics work.
Rumors are growing here in DC that the White House is putting together a massive jobs package proposal (aka bailout with public works projects, etc.) to send to the Hill later this summer to put the Republicans on the defensive. Assume you saw Gerald Seib’s column in today’s Journal suggesting the White House believes the Republicans are a better campaign target than Romney himself."
My response: "There is nothing wrong with politicians loving the company of stars. Obama is a star, even if he says so himself. Stars earn big bucks, pay taxes, are citizens, bring attention and many engage in worthwhile projects that are truly charitable - Bob Hope for us old timers.
Sometimes it is hard to avoid associating with them as in the case of Trump.
The problem is the message it might send at this time in our economic history and that is the focus of the article and my own comment.
As for Obama's association with Parker, mine is with the local Parker Filling Stations where gas is the cheapest. (See 1 below.)
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Close Gitmo so Obama can drone kill them later?
Yesterday, Sen. Chambliss, who serves on The Senate Intelligence Committee, commented about his visit to Afghanistan and the fact that we have lower level terrorists to interview because we are losing intelligence gathering from higher ups as Obama kills the opportunities. (See 2 below.)
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Statistics regarding why the U.S. is bankrupt suggest we spend over $300 billion of tax payer money just on various support programs for illegal aliens.
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Statistics regarding why the U.S. is bankrupt suggest we spend over $300 billion of tax payer money just on various support programs for illegal aliens.
Click on these sites to verify this figure:
http: // www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
However, the real budget buster is medicare and medicaid. Social Security is another cost not being funded at the proper level but adjustments can rectify this problem. GW tried and his own party would not even support him.
Saxby pointed out, the real cost issue is medicare and it has to be changed. Those above a certain age will be grandfathered. However, the politics surrounding any changes will be thrust in such a way as to use the 'scare the seniors' tactics.
It is the younger generation which will bear the brunt of whatever changes are ultimately legislated.
Those who attended the session with Saxby, understood his explanation. He pointed out some of Obama's changes were positive and he specifically mentioned allowing children to remain on their parents insurance til 26. Why? Because there generally was no serious health issues involved, any increase cost was modest and in view of the current economic situation it was sensible to do so.
Those attending, however, responded there is no justification for retaining many government functions and entire agencies.
If you track the empirical results of the Education and Energy Departments, alone, you find our education results have declined, costs have soared and the same is true for energy - we are still dependent upon foreign sources and department employment has escalated into the tens of thousands of salaried and pensioned bureaucrats.
The same for the EPA. It adds cost to the private sector, creates confusion and uncertainty with gobbledygook legislation and drafted rules and regulations and when measured against the benefits it is likely much of the department and its employees could be fired and we would be better off as a nation and better able to compete in world markets. Future pension benefits alone are staggering.
Will anything be done along the lines truly needed? In this writers opinion, the answer is a resounding no because once established the government never retreats and the political will is never unified and/or there to bring about the change needed. (Again I cite GW, and his touch the third rail effort regarding Social Security and the fact his own party was frightened by the consequences.) So, at best, the ship might be slowed but it will take a cathartic situation to bring sanity and the kind of needed change we are promised but which is never delivered.
The best we can hope for is some decent and meaningful tinkering. That is better than continuing along the destructive and dangerous path Obama has laid out for us .
The best we can hope for is some decent and meaningful tinkering. That is better than continuing along the destructive and dangerous path Obama has laid out for us .
If you add the unfunded liabilities we are not in debt by $17 trillion but well over $50 trillion and that is why, as Peter Schiff states, we are virtually bankrupt.
And if we are unwilling to face this economic reality and do something about it quickly then we are also morally bankrupt.
---More from Melanie Phillips on the Jewish Lefts and academics whose acts demonize and delegitimize Israel . (See 3 below.)
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Has Obama taken America for a ride? I believe he has and I also have argued the car is now in a ditch! (See 4 below.)
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Has Obama snookered Israel again with promises about ratcheting up pressure on Iran? (See 5 below.)
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Is 'Old Bill' finally getting his pound of flesh? Would not put it past him. Word is Clinton is really undercutting Obama. (See 6 below)
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Obama flies over Wisconsin and tweets like a bird.
Is he coming apart at the seams? Seems 'sew.!' (See 7 below.)
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One final point Saxby made which I forgot to post is that the Senate has reached a point of total dysfunction and gridlock because the only legislation being proposed is of the 'gotcha' type designed to embarrass and score voter points. He acknowledged he was missing a vote on a non controversial District Judge who would be approved. Everything else is basically in a stale mate circumstance.
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Dick
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1)GOP attacks celebrity support for Obama
By ,
President Obama dined last month with 150 guests at George Clooney’s California cottage. He exchanged quips in January with Spike Lee in the director’s New York City townhouse.
Last fall, Obama entertained megastar Lady Gaga, who was seated in the front row of a Silicon Valley fundraiser in six-inch heels and a towering blond bouffant.
Obama’s popularity with Hollywood glitterati is again on display as his campaign mobilizes its vast fundraising apparatus to amass cash in a campaign that is shaping up to be the most expensive in U.S. history.
If Obama was the candidate of cool in 2008, when celebrities such as musician Will.I.Amproduced viral campaign videos , he has even more aggressively employed star power to open pocketbooks, build buzz and, perhaps most notably, deploy celebrities to target specific constituencies.
Yet, Obama’s glamorous elbow-rubbing carries significant risks as he struggles to convince voters that he is focused single-mindedly on their economic concerns. And it is triggering attacks from his Republican rivals, who contend that the president is more interested in hobnobbing with Hollywood to help his campaign than he is in helping ordinary Americans.
On Monday, the Republican National Committee released a Web video called “Meanwhile,” which flashes unemployment numbers for various groups — women, Latinos, African Americans, youth — under clips from an Obama campaign video from last Friday of Vogue Editor Anna Wintour talking about hanging out with “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker and first lady Michelle Obama. The bustling sounds of New York City streets give way to crickets chirping at the end of the RNC version, along with the tag line: “Obama’s focused on keeping his job. But what about yours?”
Although Obama faced similar accusations in 2008, the charges are potentially more dangerous this time given that he is a sitting president responsible for managing the economy, rather than being just one of 100 senators. Yet the Obama campaign sees Hollywood as a powerful and necessary ally, able to both raise large amounts of money and also speak directly to important subgroups of voters who identify with the famous. On Monday, as his celebrity ties became an issue, Obama hosted rock star Jon Bon Jovi on Air Force One on the way to fundraisers in New York.
The fundraiser with Wintour and Parker, for example, is part of an effort to appeal to women; the reelection team next week is offering supporters a chance to win a raffle (entry fee $3) to attend the New York City event. In a fundraising e-mail to supporters Monday, Michelle Obama called Parker “a loving mom, an incredibly hard worker, and a great role model” and added: “She’s one of those people you can’t help but admire.”
The RNC response video mocked the timing of the Obama video’s release. The video “highlights how out of touch President Obama and his campaign are after releasing a glitzy fundraising video featuring Vogue chief Anna Wintour the same day as a dismal jobs report,” RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said, referring to a Labor Department reportthat showed the economy added just 69,000 jobs in May.
The Obama campaign struck back quickly, pointing out that Romney appeared last week with developer Donald Trump, host of the television show “The Apprentice.” Trump’s controversial comments questioning Obama’s birthplace overshadowed the event.
“It’s kind of humorous that they would take that tack,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior campaign adviser, said Monday. “When Mr. Trump went off the deep end again, [Romney] did not rebuke him because he said he needed to get 50.1 percent of the vote.”
Furthermore, Axelrod added, Romney has sought fundraising help other famous names, including musicians Kid Rock and Ted Nugent.
“I don’t think they have a whole lot of standing on this issue,” Axelrod said.
Still, Romney’s drawing power among Hollywood’s elite pales in comparison to Obama’s. At a Beverly Hills fundraiser last week, Romney’s biggest-name guests were former “Happy Days” star Scott Baio and actor Jon Voight, who is also Angelina Jolie’s father.
Obama has drawn support from Hollywood’s biggest names and biggest bundlers, including moviemaking titans Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. The fundraiser last week at Clooney’s house — for which the campaign also held a raffle for ordinary supporters — included actors Tobey Maguire, Jack Black and Selma Hayek and singer Barbara Streisand. The campaign walked away with a whopping $15 million, its largest single-event total, including the raffle and $40,000-per-plate tickets for 150 guests.
In many cases, the Obama campaign has used celebrities to target specific constituencies. Eva Longoria, a campaign bundler who is a constant presence at Obama events, is popular among Hispanic women. Last month, Obama was introduced at a New York event by openly gay singer Ricky Martin, just days after the president expressed support for same-sex marriage.
Martin told the crowd that he admires “the courage he showed last week in affirming his belief in marriage equality. That is the kind of courage we expect from our president and that is why we support him.”
The attacks on Obama’s fascination with celebrities are not new. In 2008, Republican rival John McCain endorsed a video called“Celebrity” that mocked Obama’s popularity and included images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
“He’s the biggest celebrity in the world. But is he ready to lead?” the ad intoned.
That ad did little to damp Obama’s appeal, especially among young voters. John Weaver, a Republican strategist who had called the McCain video “childish,” said Monday that the RNC attack also would have little effect on voters.
“They’re trying to influence opinion leaders and journalists,” Weaver said. “But no voter cares about this issue, and it will not shape the opinion of any voters. What matters is whether the employment situation will improve.”
Yet for the Obama campaign, the need to recapture the enthusiasm of 2008 has grown more urgent with the economy still struggling. Heather Smith, president of the youth-oriented Rock the Vote, said there are 25 million unregistered voters under 30 years old, a far higher number than at the same time four years ago.
“All our polling shows an increased level of frustration with the pace of change, with the control of money and corporate interests in our political process,” she said, citing the Occupy Wall Street and tea party movements as offshoots of that frustration.
“The question for the president will be not whether he uses celebrity spokespeople, but how he uses them and what kind of message they convey,” Smith added. “People are worse off than they were four years ago. So it’s not just a straight to camera ‘go vote’ campaign. They need to leverage celebrities to actually talk about the issues.”
Obama’s celebrity surrogates have begun to help in that regard, a la Martin’s comments on same-sex marriage. But in many cases, the praise has been more effusive the other direction.
“We raised a lot of money because everybody loves George,” Obama told supporters at the Clooney event.
“They like me,” the president said. “They love him.”
Staff writers Amy Gardner and Nia-Malika Henderson contributed to this report.
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2)Strange ethics
By Charles Krauthammer
By Charles Krauthammer
A very strange story, that 6,000-word front-page New York Times piece on how, every Tuesday,Barack Obama shuffles “baseball cards” with the pictures and bios of suspected terrorists from around the world and chooses who shall die by drone strike. He even reserves for himself the decision of whether to proceed when the probability of killing family members or bystanders is significant.
The article could have been titled “Barack Obama: Drone Warrior.” Great detail on how Obama personally runs the assassination campaign. On-the-record quotes from the highest officials. This was no leak. This was a White House press release.
Why? To portray Obama as tough guy. And why now? Because in crisis after recent crisis, Obama has looked particularly weak: standing helplessly by as thousands are massacred in Syria; being played by Iran in nuclear negotiations, now reeling with the collapse of the latest round in Baghdad; being treated with contempt by Vladimir Putin, who blocks any action on Syria or Iran and adds personal insult by standing up Obama at the latter’s G-8 and NATO summits.
The Obama camp thought that any political problem with foreign policy would be cured by the Osama bin Laden operation. But the administration’s attempt to politically exploit the raid’s one-year anniversary backfired, earning ridicule and condemnation for its crude appropriation of the heroic acts of others.
A campaign ad had Bill Clinton praising Obama for the courage of ordering the raid because, had it failed and Americans been killed, “the downside would have been horrible for him. “ Outraged vets released a response ad, pointing out that it would have been considerably more horrible for the dead SEALs.
That ad also highlighted the many self-references Obama made in announcing the bin Laden raid: “I can report . . . I directed . . . I met repeatedly . . . I determined . . . at my direction . . . I, as commander in chief,” etc. ad nauseam. (Eisenhower’s announcement of the D-Day invasion made not a single mention of his role, whereas the alternate statement he’d prepared had the landing been repulsed was entirely about it being his failure.)
Obama only compounded the self-aggrandizement problem when he spoke a week later about the military “fighting on my behalf.”
The Osama-slayer card having been vastly overplayed, what to do? A new card: Obama, drone warrior, steely and solitary, delivering death with cool dispatch to the rest of the al-Qaeda depth chart.
So the peacemaker, Nobel laureate, nuclear disarmer, apologizer to the world for America having lost its moral way when it harshly interrogated the very people Obama now kills, has become — just in time for the 2012 campaign — Zeus the Avenger, smiting by lightning strike.
A rather strange ethics. You go around the world preening about how America has turned a new moral page by electing a president profoundly offended by George W. Bush’s belligerence and prisoner maltreatment, and now you’re ostentatiously telling the world that you personally play judge, jury and executioner to unseen combatants of your choosing and whatever innocents happen to be in their company.
This is not to argue against drone attacks. In principle, they are fully justified. No quarter need be given to terrorists who wear civilian clothes, hide among civilians and target civilians indiscriminately. But it is to question the moral amnesia of those whose delicate sensibilities were offended by the Bush methods that kept America safe for a decade — and who now embrace Obama’s campaign of assassination by remote control.
Moreover, there is an acute military problem. Dead terrorists can’t talk.
Drone attacks are cheap — which is good. But the path of least resistance has a cost. It yields no intelligence about terror networks or terror plans.
One capture could potentially make us safer than 10 killings. But because of the moral incoherence of Obama’s war on terror, there are practically no captures anymore. What would be the point? There’s nowhere for the CIA to interrogate. And what would they learn even if they did, Obama having decreed a new regime of kid-gloves, name-rank-and-serial-number interrogation?
This administration came out opposing military tribunals, wanting to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York, reading the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights and trying mightily (and unsuccessfully, there being — surprise! — no plausible alternative) to close Guantanamo. Yet alongside this exquisite delicacy about the rights of terrorists is the campaign to kill them in their beds.
You festoon your prisoners with rights — but you take no prisoners. The morality is perverse. Which is why the results are so mixed. We do kill terror operatives, an important part of the war on terror, but we gratuitously forfeit potentially life-saving intelligence.
But that will cost us later. For now, we are to bask in the moral seriousness and cool purpose of our drone warrior president.
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3)
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4)What Is Obama Hiding?
By Ed Lasky
There has been plenty of conjecture regarding Obama's biography. Clearly, he has a penchant for fiction and does not care to fact-check his own life. Nor does he care for others to fact-check or scrutinize what he has been doing as president. Has this been why he has been decimating the taxpayers' best friends in Washington: the inspectors general?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)Obama’s air-sea blockade plan for Iran delays Israeli strike. Hormuz at stake?
By Ed Lasky
There has been plenty of conjecture regarding Obama's biography. Clearly, he has a penchant for fiction and does not care to fact-check his own life. Nor does he care for others to fact-check or scrutinize what he has been doing as president. Has this been why he has been decimating the taxpayers' best friends in Washington: the inspectors general?
Inspectors general are investigative officials charged with monitoring government programs for waste, fraud, incompetency, corruption, and the like. They are the taxpayers' first line of defense against a rampaging, out-of-control, and corrupt government. Unlike many if not most government programs, inspector general programs have a sterling return on investment. For example, Daniel Levinson, inspector general of the Health and Human Services Department, has been an unheralded hero for taxpayers. Since he took his job a few years ago, his investigations have led to more charges for health care fraud than ever before, and his office has returned about $11 billion to the Medicare Trust Fund (see this glowing profile in Business Week). Even in Obama's Washington, that is serious money: those billions that will be available to care for our nation's seniors. Levinson certainly is as deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom as Bob Dylan.
Inspectors general are a natural enemy of, let's say, a politician who hails from Cook County and who likes to spend with abandon. This is particularly true when the beneficiaries of the spending are donors and supporters who can be paid back for their support with other people's money. Didn't Barack Obama define politics as a way to punish enemies and reward friends? Such is politics done the Chicago Way.
Looking at the past three years of Barack Obama's presidency, there appears to have been a plan all along to blunt the effectiveness of inspectors general. This has been done by a variety of ways: by trying to force through Congress new and richly funded programs akin to "slush funds" without providing for the oversight that comes from the inspector general program; by stonewalling and attacking Darrell Issa, who as chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee (the two words "reform" and "oversight" are anathema to Barack Obama) has called for expanding the power of inspectors general; brutal public personal attacks on various inspectors general that are meant to drive them from office and chill the investigative efforts of others; and by deliberately failing to fill vacancies in the ranks of inspectors general -- a dereliction of duty on the part of Barack Obama that earned the president a stinging rebuke in a recent Washington Post editorial ("Where are the inspectors general?").
When Democrats were in control of Congress, President Obama was on a rampage: pushing through various programs that have gone down the memory hole because they have been judged failures and have become unpopular. Foremost among these have been the stimulus boondoggle and ObamaCare.
Another program Obama attempted to get passed was a $30-billion small business lending program, shielded from being subject to oversight by inspectors general. The inspector general who would have overseen the spending noted that this would leave the program "vulnerable to potential fraud." Republicans, led by Darrell Issa, were outraged. Small business lending programs have been a big loser for the federal government over the years, and the potential for this program to dole out dollars under a friends and family program was self-evident. This program never made it, but the agenda was clear.
Few congressmen have been as diligent in defending the taxpayer and ensuring the integrity and efficiency of the federal government as has been Congressman Issa. He has bedeviled President Obama's administration by launching hearings on a wide variety of government operations --foremost among them are his investigations involving Attorney General Eric Holder's Department of Justice and the scandalous Fast and Furious program.
But that is just one high-profile investigation he has launched. Issa has been looking into spending under the stimulus program, uncovering waste and fraud. Once he assumed the chairmanship after GOP victories in 2010, Issa called for expanding the power of inspectors general by granting them expanded subpoena powers. He has been leading the criticism by House Republicans of Barack Obama's failure to staff inspector general posts. He most assuredly has earned a place on Barack Obama's enemies list.
Since Issa has been a thorn in Obama's side, the Democrats have not only stonewalled his inquiries, but also maneuvered to have Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) win the election as the ranking minority member on his committee -- a result that surprised other Democrats, as the spot normally would have gone to Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). Political pros realized what had happened. There was a belief that Cummings would be far more effective in blocking Issa's investigations into the Obama White House than Maloney would. Cummings has been running interference for Barack Obama.
But those have not been the only attempts to derail Issa. He has been subject to fierce attacks in the media in liberal outlets such as The New Yorker and the New York Times -- obvious attempts to intimidate him into silence.
However, Darrell Issa is unlikely to fold; he has a safe seat and is one of the wealthiest members of Congress (he was a very successful entrepreneur). He can brush these politically motivated attacks away. This is not true, however, when the administration tries to bully inspectors general or outright fires them for doing their jobs all too well.
When one inspector general, Gerald Walpin, found that a political ally and basketball-playing friend of Barack Obama's, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, was abusing federal funds meant for a charity for political and personal uses, the White House shifted into its favorite mode: attack.
Not only was Walpin fired, but when he tried to alert the media to the scandal, various figures from the administration attacked him in the most personally destructive way -- all but publicly accusing him of mental illness.
Walpin has company.
Obama's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) threatened an inspector general for daring to tell Congress that the OMB was trying to slash his budget, crimping his ability to monitor spending and other actions by the OMB.
There are more victims of this type of fragging by the Obama administration toward career officials dedicated to watching out for the taxpayers.
Neil Barosfky (a lifelong Democrat, incidentally) was the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. He discovered serious flaws behind the administration's claims. He thrashed the Treasury for relying on self-reporting by recipients of TARP money. He wrote that the bailout was falling short of many of its goals, like preserving home ownership and stimulating the economy. He also reported that the Treasury had switched accounting methods in order to promote the view that taxpayers would profit from the AIG bailout. One analyst depicted the Treasury's new accounting method as "Enron-style" accounting.
As I wrote in an earlier column ("Obama's Ongoing War on Inspectors General"):
What happened? I think we know the script by now. The administration heaped personal abuse on Barofsky. Jen Psaki, who goes back to the Obama campaign, serves as the deputy communications director at the White House. And communicate she did.On her blog, she attacked Barofsky:Some people don't like movies with happy endings[.] ... How else to explain this week's report by Sigtarp? Rather than focusing on the growing evidence we've seen in recent months that TARP will be far less costly than anyone expected, Sigtarp instead sought to generate a false controversy over AIG to try and grab a few, cheap headlines.The name calling and vilification continue for seven more paragraphs.Here, we have Obama's modus operandi regarding inspectors generals -- the taxpayers' best friends and the unsung heroes in government.
Barack Obama holds grudges and vendettas. He personalizes politics and does not like to be shown to be anything other than a superstar.
Barack Obama advised in 2008 that when others bring a knife to a fight, he brings a gun. He may have broken promises too numerous to count, but this implied threat has endured. He and his minions do not care how many people they harm in their goal to hide their actions from the people. This is especially so when these people are charged with being the watchdogs for taxpayers.
As the inspector general ranks have been depleted, there has been no movement by the White House to replace them. This is an unprecedented dereliction of duty by Barack Obama. Since he has grown the budget to astronomical levels, monitoring to prevent abuse, fraud, and incompetency is needed as never before.
And this is precisely the reason why Obama has stalled in replacing these crucial actors. He does not like to be scrutinized or graded; it may offend his sensibilities and ego, as well as his political future. This is a president who gave himself a solid B+ and declared himself one of the greatest presidents of all time.
What is Obama afraid to disclose to voters and taxpayers? What has he been hiding? What could embarrass him? We have plenty of examples that already have been uncovered by the IGs.
There's an inspector general's report that the number of green jobs generated by Obama's green schemes has been a figment of his and his campaign-spinners' imagination; that the drilling moratorium in the Gulf that has been subject to much scandal (the experts behind the report that was used to justify the ban denied that they had called for such a halt) was engineered at the last minute at the behest of Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar; one IG has found that the Obama team and GM have been conspiring to create a rosy image (cooking the books) behind the purported success of the auto bailout, according to the IG reviewing the bailout; and the inspector general monitoring the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on green energy programs found that the money was directed to projects linked to big Obama and Democrat donors -- the inspector general said that they were steered to friends and family. Solyndra is just one example.
Inspectors general have lately been focusing a great deal of attention on Obama's spending on green energy projects. They will be busy.
Marc Thiessen recently wrote a superb column, titled "Forget Bain -- Obama's public equity record is the real scandal," which reviewed the disastrous waste of taxpayer money for which Obama and his team bear responsibility.
Thiessen writes:
Amazingly, Obama has declared that all the projects received funding "based solely on their merits." But as Hoover Institution scholar Peter Schweizer reported in his book, "Throw Them All Out," fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department's grants and loans went to "individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama's National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party." Collectively, these Obama cronies raised $457,834 for his campaign, and they were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 billion. Obama said this week it's not the president's job "to make a lot of money for investors." Well, he sure seems to have made a lot of (taxpayer) money for investors in his political machine".
All that cronyism and corruption is catching up with the administration. According to Politico, "The Energy Department's inspector general has launched more than 100 criminal investigations" related to the department's green-energy programs.
There are surely many other examples of taxpayer abuse waiting to be plumbed, and hopefully Mitt Romney, if not the media, will enlighten voters. Romney's campaign does see potential, as shown by this commercial featuring Solyndra -- empty and bankrupt, a massive failure that will cost taxpayers a lot of money -- as a symbol for all that is wrong about Barack Obama and his agenda.
Barack Obama does not want anyone overseeing his actions as president. He does not want the incompetency and waste to see the light of day. He does not want fraud to be exposed. He does not want his ties to donors and their projects to be public knowledge.
He does not want the American people to realize they have been taken for a ride.
IRGC Chief Gen. Ali Jafari on Abu Musa island
These are the new sanctions hanging over Iran as reported by our sources
1. On July 1, the Europeans will activate the embargo that left pending on Iranian oil exports and banks.
2. In the fall, the US administration will bring out its most potent economic weapon: an embargo on aircraft and sea vessels visiting Iranian ports. Any national airline or international aircraft touching down in Iran will be barred from US and West European airports. The same rule will apply to private and government-owned vessels, including oil tankers. Calling in at an Iranian port will automatically exclude them from entry to a US or European harbor.
This sanction would clamp down an air and naval siege on the Islamic Republic without a shot being fired.
Word of the US plan prompted a deliberately provocative visit by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari Thursday, May 31 to his forces stationed on the disputed three islands commanding the Strait of Hormuz, Abu Musa, Little Tunb and Big Tumb.
The islands are claimed by the United Arab Emirates. A previous visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on April 11 stirred up a major outcry in the Gulf region.
In Washington, Jafari’s visit it was taken as Tehran’s reminder of its repeated threat to close the Hormuz Straits in the event of a blockade to the transit of a large part of the world’s oil.
3. President Obama promised Prime Minister Netanyahu to deal personally with India and Indonesia, the most flagrant violators of anti-Iran sanctions who make their financial networks available for helping Tehran evade restrictions on its international business activities.
Washington, according to sources, made sure its sanctions plan was leaked to Tehran through diplomatic and intelligence back channels as a means of twisting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s arm into instructing his negotiators at the Moscow talks on June 16 to start showing flexibility on the world powers’ demands to discontinue uranium enrichment up to 20 percent and stop blocking international nuclear agency inspectors’ access to sites suspected of engaging in nuclear weapons development.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton no doubt had Israel’s latest concession to the Obama administration in mind, Sunday, June 3, when she brushed aside as “nothing new” questions about Khamenei’s threat to respond to an Israeli attack with “thunderous response.” She explained, “We look forward to what the Iranians actually bring to the table in Moscow. We want to see a diplomatic resolution. We now have an opportunity to achieve it, and we hope it is an opportunity that’s not lost, for everyone’s sake.”
Tehran has now been made aware that if that opportunity is indeed lost, there may be some pretty heavy music to face in the form of an international air and sea embargo.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6) Bill Clinton out of control on 2012
By ROGER SIMON
Bill Clinton has to be the smartest guy in the room even when he’s not in the room.
Clinton is not on Barack Obama’s campaign staff, is not a trusted adviser, does not set Obama’s strategy.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77037.html#ixzz1wwezYkUb
But Bill Clinton is pretty good at sabotaging Obama’s strategy.
He did so last week when he went on television and said Mitt Romney had a “sterling” record while running Bain Capital.
The Obama message is exactly the opposite. The Obama campaign had just run a TV ad claiming that working Americans had been harmed by Bain Capital and included one man saying Bain had been a “vampire” that “sucked the blood out of us.”
Whether you liked or hated the ad (I liked it), it attacked Romney on his strongest point: He is a good businessman who knows how to create jobs and, therefore, will be a good president.
But Bill Clinton did not like that ad.
“I think he had a good business career,” Clinton said of Romney and added that “a man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold.”
Obama does not need Clinton undercutting him. The two are not close, but they are not supposed to be enemies. They have golfed together, they attend fundraisers together, their staffs talk and, oh, yeah, Clinton’s wife is Obama’s secretary of state.
There are two things going on here. First, Clinton has always been cozier with Wall Street than Obama. In January 1999, I was at a very odd event for then-President Clinton on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center.
Richard Grasso, then-chairman of New York Stock Exchange, stood up and said, “In my little corner of southern Manhattan, the Dow Jones industrial average during the course of President Clinton’s tenure tripled. We have the lowest unemployment in 30 years, and 16 million jobs have been created!”
The crowd, which included a number of financial titans, cheered. This was a year after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and months after Clinton had been impeached, but Wall Street did not care. Bill Clinton had been good for The Street, and The Street liked him.
“I’m not sure I know what to say,” Clinton said in his best “aw shucks” style. “That’s the sort of thing they say for your funeral. I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Times were good, Clinton got the credit and, today, he still has a lot of friends in business and high finance and these friends help fund his philanthropic endeavors.
Barack Obama has fewer friends in high finance. He inherited an economy devastated by a derivative bubble and a housing bubble and ravished by the unbridled greed of some Wall Street firms, which took taxpayer bailouts with one hand and gave themselves huge bonuses with the other.
So the two men have different views of how “sterling” The Street operates.
Second, there is the little matter of the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton was the early favorite, but she lost to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton helped her lose.
He made one of the biggest strategic mistakes of her entire campaign: He insisted she seriously compete in South Carolina. Hillary’s staff wanted to spend its time and resources elsewhere, judging that South Carolina, with its large black electorate, was unwinnable.
But Bill felt that with his Southern roots and proven appeal to black voters, Hillary could beat Obama there. And Bill campaigned all-out. At Dartmouth College in Hannover, N.H., an angry, finger-wagging Bill had called Obama’s campaign a “fairy tale.” Jim Clyburn, a highly respected black congressman from South Carolina, felt insulted and publicly told Bill to “chill a little bit” and “tone it down.”
But Bill wouldn’t listen. And at a primary day rally in Columbia, S.C., he pooh-poohed Obama’s impending win by saying: “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88,” meaning, in other words, that Obama’s South Carolina victory would be as insignificant for him as it was for Jackson
This was widely viewed as racially insensitive. Jake Tapper of ABC News referred to it as “race-baiting.”
Obama would crush Hillary Clinton in South Carolina by 28.9 percentage points, the first blowout of the primary campaign. African-Americans made up 55 percent of the voters, and 80 percent of them voted for Obama. “There was a recoil of people to Clinton tactics,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, told me.
A top Hillary staffer told me: “It was so dramatic a loss for us and so dramatic a win for him that it gave permission for Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy and [then-Arizona Gov.] Janet Napolitano to say with a clear conscience, ‘We are going for him.’”
Moreover, the South Carolina victory made it very difficult for superdelegates to go with Hillary without looking as if they wanted to deny a black man the nomination.
So why would Bill be angry at Obama for Bill’s mistake? Because we never blame ourselves for our mistakes, we blame those who profit from them.
At a fundraiser with Obama in New York Monday night, Clinton said that Obama deserved a second term because “the alternative would be, in my opinion, calamitous for our country and the world.” But that’s the thing about Clinton. When you invite him, you never know if the Good Bill or the Bad Bill will show up.
Some think Bill is trying to undermine Obama’s campaign today because he wants to boost Hillary in 2016. I don’t see that. If Obama loses this time, the Democratic nominee will face an incumbent Mitt Romney in 2016. If Obama wins this time, the nominee will run for an open seat. It’s not certain which would be tougher to win.
Bill Clinton is a genuine political genius. But only when it comes to his own campaigns.
“As the campaign kicked off, there was a conscious effort to not have Bill out there,” Hillary’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, told me. “We used him strategically to raise money.”
The Obama campaign wants to use Bill the same way. Raise money, tone it down and chill out.
Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist
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By Sabrina Siddiqui
In the final hours before the Wisconsin recall, President Barack Obama reiterated his support for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Democratic challenger to Republican Gov. Scott Walker, over Twitter.
"It's Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I'm standing by Tom Barrett. He'd make an outstanding governor. -bo," Obama said in a tweet Monday evening.
The underwhelming show of solidarity follows weeks of speculation around why the president, who has been traveling around the country for a host of fundraisers as part of his reelection bid, did not stop in Wisconsin to campaign for Barrett.
Just last week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney mistakenly told reporters in the daily press briefing that Obama had not endorsed Barrett, when in fact he did on May 8. Carney later corrected his comments in a tweet after the Obama campaign issued a statement confirming the president's previous endorsement.
On Monday, Carney tried to downplay Obama's absence from Wisconsin amid the historic recall when pressed by reporters on the subject. "The president absolutely stands by Tom Barrett and hopes he prevails," Carney said. "The fact is the president has made clear all along his opposition to those who would take away workers' rights, to actions that would take away or diminish workers' rights, and he's also made clear his support for Tom Barrett."
At his final rally in Kenosha, Wis., on Monday, a reporter asked Barrett about Carney's statement that Obama is supporting Barrett.
"I didn't know that" he said that, said Barrett. "But it feels great. It feels good. I'm glad to have" the president's support.
But as voters headed to the polls, Walker seized on the issue in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. “It’s kind of confusing, I think, to voters here, because they wonder why won’t you come in?" he said. "Two years ago, the same person I’m running against now was my opponent back then and [Obama] came in and campaigned for the mayor at that point. I think it’s a sign there’s real concern.
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