Duke Coach to Obama: Worry About the Economy, Not NCAA Picks

Duke Coach to Obama: Worry About the Economy, Not NCAA Picks

Reacting to news Obama picked North Carolina to win the NCAA Championship, Mike Krzyzewski says, “the economy is something that [the president] should focus on, probably more than the brackets.”

 [2009-02-10]

did obama throw biden under the bus?, biden thrown under the bus?, biden, obama, politics

8246 visitors also liked this.

powered by Baynote

Barack Obama picked North Carolina to defeat Louisville for the NCAA championship, a relatively safe selection for a trailblazing president.

Obama spent part of Tuesday making his tournament picks for ESPN, which posted his completed bracket online Wednesday and showed the First Fan filling it out with Andy Katz on the noon edition of “Sportscenter.”

Of course, the president’s choice drew a reaction from the Tar Heels’ most intense rival.

“Somebody said that we’re not in President Obama’s Final Four, and as much as I respect what he’s doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said from the Blue Devils’ first-round site in Greensboro, N.C.

The president had top-seeded Pittsburgh join the No. 1-seeded Tar Heels and Cardinals in the Final Four, but chose second-seeded Memphis to beat Connecticut in the West Regional.

“I think Memphis has got a very athletic team,” Obama told Katz, an ESPN college basketball analyst. “I think they’ve got a good shot.”

Perhaps showing some indecision, Obama initially had the Panthers playing Louisville for the national title in the file posted online. Pitt was scratched out of the title game in favor of North Carolina, which in turn replaced Louisville in the “champion” box.

“Here’s what I like about Carolina: experience and balance,” Obama said.

Familiarity, too. Obama played a pickup game with Tyler Hansbrough and the Tar Heels while campaigning in North Carolina last April.

“Now, for all the Tar Heels who are watching, I picked you last year â€â€� you let me down,” Obama said. “This year, don’t embarrass me in front of the nation, all right? I’m counting on you. I still got those sneakers you guys gave me.”

Katz interviewed Obama last October for a story about the president’s brother-in-law, Oregon State basketball coach Craig Robinson. After the interview, Obama invited Katz to play in a pickup basketball game on Election Day in Chicago, and he did.

Katz extracted a promise from Obama that if elected, the new president would reveal his NCAA picks to ESPN when the pairings were announced in March.

“They stayed true to their word and didn’t hesitate to get it done,” Katz said.

Obama was brutally honest in assessing many of the teams, including Blake Griffin and second-seeded Oklahoma, which he has losing to Syracuse for a spot in the final eight.

“The problem with Oklahoma, they have the player of the year, but they play like, seven guys,” Obama said. “I think you start getting worn down.”

Among the other notable selections, Obama picked 10th-seeded Maryland to beat No. 7 seed California in the West Regional, fifth-seeded Florida State to make the round of 16, and No. 11 seed Virginia Commonwealth to beat UCLA.

Any chance the president slips away for a few minutes to see how his picks are doing when the tournament begins in earnest Thursday?

“I think the chances are pretty high,” he said

Calls Grow For Geithner To Resign Or Be Fired

March 18th, 2009 Posted By drillanwr.

FOX:

Florida Republican Rep. Connie Mack called for Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner to lose his job Wednesday, becoming the first Capitol Hill lawmakers to call for his ouster over AIG’s using tens of millions of taxpayer dollars for executive bonuses.

“Quite simply, the Timothy Geithner experience has been a disaster. The Treasury Department is in disarray. Taxpayer dollars are being wasted. America’s economy hangs in the balance. America needs and deserves a treasury secretary who can truly lead us forward,” Mack said in a written statement.

He called on Geithner, the former New York Federal Reserve chief, either to resign or be fired, and said President Obama should nominate a new secretary with “the experience and leadership skills America deserves.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama has “complete confidence” in Geithner, as lawmakers began to question why the Treasury Department didn’t do more to prevent American International Group from paying $165 million in bonuses even after receiving more than $170 billion in federal bailout money.

Though the administration claims Geithner found out about the bonuses only last Tuesday, Mack suggested he was more involved.

“Before Timothy Geithner became secretary of the Treasury, he was working hand-in-hand with AIG and other financial institutions to provide them hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money as one of the key architects of the financial sector bailout,” he said. “I’ve had serious concerns about Secretary Geithner from the moment he was nominated. In the months since, he has shown us time and again why he was the wrong choice for this critical post.”

Geithner faced criticism during his nomination over personal tax problems but ultimately won confirmation

Guilty as Hell, Free as a Bird (for now)

By James Simpson

Bill Ayers’ famous quip may come back to haunt him. There is no statute of limitations on murder charges.

On February 16, 1970, someone planted a bomb at San Francisco’s Park Police Station. It was placed in a window of the business office and timed to explode at shift change, when the maximum number of officers would be there, either finishing up or starting their work.

 

It was a powerful blast, throwing one officer in the station parking lot completely over his patrol car and sending shrapnel for over two city blocks. The bomb fortunately detonated a few minutes early so the destruction was less than it might have been. Still, nine were wounded, one — Officer Robert Fogarty — badly enough that he retired from the force on disability, and one, Sergeant Brian McDonnell, 45 year old married father of two, was killed.

 

On Thursday, March 12, 2009, Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival Inc. held a press conference at the National Press Club, launching the Campaign for Justice for Victims of Weather Underground Terrorism, to focus public attention on evidence that may finally bring the alleged perpetrators to justice: Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

 

He has a lot of support. In a letter to Mr. Kincaid’s group, the San Francisco’s Police Officer’s Association writes:

 

There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, members of the terrorist group ‘Weather Underground’, are largely responsible for the bombing of Park Police Station and other police stations throughout the United States during their ‘tour of terror’ in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

 

This case has been reopened and evidence is being gathered. Meetings have been held among local and state authorities, including current and former law enforcement officials, to obtain justice. That is why the “Campaign for Justice for Victims of Terrorism” held this press conference. They want to bring pressure on Obama’s Justice Department, now headed by former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, to release all of the evidence in their possession.

 

It’s true that some evidence in the past that could have been used against the Weather Underground was ruled inadmissible — because of the way it was collected, not because of its veracity. But there is much more that can and should be used. The belief is that it lies in the Justice Department or the FBI.

 

This is where a problem emerges. In addition to the outrageous pardons of fugitive criminal Marc Rich and 16 FALN terrorists, Holder provided key assistance to two Weather Underground members implicated in the Brinks Robbery murders, pardoning them quietly along with Rich — who of course got all the headlines.

 

Given the Attorney General’s apparent sympathy for terrorists, and Bill Ayers’ perceived status as President Obama’s friend and mentor, the Justice Department may be reluctant to provide all of the evidence in the Park Station bombing case unless they are forced to do so.

 

Under the Bush Administration, such a press conference would not have been necessary. After all, the federal authorities under Bush provided evidence and assistance that resulted in the 2007 arrests and indictments of members of the Black Liberation Army for the murder of another San Francisco policeman, John Young, in 1971. That case is now underway.

 

A process of evidence-gathering has been underway in the McDonnell case as well. But now that Obama and Holder are in power, that process could come to a screeching halt. That was the reason for the March 12 America’s Survival, Inc. news conference — to make sure that federal assistance doesn’t stop and that it accelerates. One hope is that FBI Director Robert Mueller, who is technically independent of Obama and Holder since his contract runs through 2011, can act on his own to obtain and make available all the evidence that is needed in this case.

 

Featured at the event were individuals with critical knowledge of both the bombing and the people involved. Larry Grathwohl, a former undercover FBI informant, is best remembered for his chilling 1980s testimony describing how Ayers told him that once the revolution succeeded they would have to murder 25 million Americans.

 

In his book, Bringing Down America – An FBI Informer with the Weathermen, Grathwohl describes a meeting where Ayers reveals Dohrn’s role in the bombing. It was in the context of a complaint that other Weathermen were slackers:

 

“Too many of you are relying on your leaders to do everything,” he said sternly. Then …he mentioned the park station bombing. “It was a success,” he said, “but it’s a shame when someone like Bernardine has to make all the plans, make the bomb, and then place it herself. She should have to do only the planning.”

 

This book repeated sworn testimony Grathwohl had provided before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1974. His testimony has been consistent for decades — Ayers told him that Dohrn planted the bomb, and Ayers had detailed knowledge of its make-up and where it was placed. Such knowledge could have come only from the bomber, or from someone who assisted in building the bomb.

 

In its 2007-2008 biennial report, the California Department of Justice confirmed the case is open and added that the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has been asked to analyze fingerprint evidence from the scene of the Park Station bombing.  Page 16 of the report reads:

 

In 2000, the SFPD reopened its investigation into the bombing of the Park Police Station and requested investigative assistance from the DOJ. The DOJ’s Bureau of Forensic Services was also assigned to identify a latent print collected from the original crime scene.

 

We don’t know at this point whose fingerprints those are. But we do know the FBI obtained the fingerprints of Ayers, his comrade Mark Rudd, and other Weather Underground members at a bomb factory in San Francisco (see final page of this PDF report).  

 

According to FBI sources, Grathwohl’s testimony was corroborated by another Weather Underground source, Karen Latimer, who apparently had second thoughts about her participation in the violent group’s activities and gave her story to the police. Unfortunately, Latimer died sometime later under questionable circumstances.

 

A bit earlier, in January of 1970, Grathwohl had listened as Ayers described to him plans for the bombing of two police stations in Detroit, Michigan. As he related to the FBI agents on the case:

 

Bill Ayers had debriefed me regarding every aspect of the plans we had developed before telling me I was being reassigned to Madison.  Bill’s two major requirements were that the bombs go off at the same time and that the greatest number of police officers would be killed or injured.  Both bombs were to contain fence staples or roofing nails to ensure this effect. Bill Ayers didn’t care if innocent people were also killed or injured. Bill had even gone so far as to tell us that the bomb at the 13th precinct should be placed on a window ledge. [As they later did at the park station bombing.]

 

Those bombs fortunately failed to detonate. Larry’s press conference statement can be viewed here.

 

Larry’s description of the bomb components, particularly the use of fence staples, got the attention of retired San Francisco police officer Jim Pera. Pera was one of the first on the scene the day of the bombing and described the scene:

 

The window to the business office and an interior window, where prisoners were processed for booking were blown out. The walls and furniture were pock marked by shrapnel. Barbed wire fence post staples, from the bomb, were scattered throughout the ground floor of the station. Blood was all over the floor, desks and walls and was heaviest where Sergeant Brian V. McDonnell  suffered mortal wounds to his neck, eyes, face and brain.

 

Pera also recovered a piece of evidence, a fence staple identical to the type described by Larry Grathwohl, as shown below.

He went on to relate:

 

The station looked like a scene one might expect to see in a war, with wounded officers, blood, shattered windows, damaged walls, floors and ceilings, but then — it was a war. It was indeed an urban war and it was being conducted by subversive and murderous groups, such as the Weather Underground, whose doctrine advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government, by any means, including murder and assassination, with the goal of replacing it with communism, and by their allies in the Black Liberation Army, whose primary purpose was to kill police officers and destroy our system of government as we know it.

Jim Pera was right on the money.  They were part of an international conspiracy. Cliff Kincaid, with the assistance of veteran Congressional investigator Herbert Romerstein, have done yeoman’s work in documenting the Weather Underground’s treasonous activities, including multiple trips made by Ayers and other Weathermen to Cuba and North Vietnam to meet with their communist handlers, some of them from the Cuban  intelligence service, the DGI, and even the Soviet KGB.  

Photo by Kevin Lamb

Ayers and Dohrn have not reformed at all since turning themselves in. In fact, Ayers in particular is now traveling often to the “new Cuba” — Venezuela.

As Kincaid relates, Ayers has visited Venezuela multiple times to give “education seminars” where he was hailed as:

 

… a former leader of a “revolutionary and anti-imperialist group” that “brought an armed struggle to the USA for more than 10 years from within the womb of the empire.” He returned to the U.S. after hailing “Presidente Chavez,” to resume his brainwashing activities at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

 

Not surprisingly, Ayers has described Chavez’s Venezuela in glowing terms. At the World Education Forum in Venezuela, he concluded his speech with the following gem:

 

…we, too, must build a project of radical imagination and fundamental change. Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education- a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation…. Viva Mission Sucre! Viva Presidente Chavez! Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

 

Ayers’ adopted son, Chesa Boudin (offspring of Weathermen Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, (the latter is still in prison) has worked extensively in Venezuela as “a foreign policy advisor to the Chavez government” – without registering as a foreign agent as required by the U.S. government — and is co-author of a propaganda book, The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions and 100 Answers. As the Amazon.com book review describes it, the authors: “demonstrate considerable sympathy for Chavez and his efforts, and are ultimately dedicated to revealing Chavez as a legitimately elected patriot bent on social justice…” 
 

Sure.

Chesa Boudin is seen as a key part of the emerging new “progressive” movement and the resurrected “new SDS (Students for a Democratic Society)” on college campuses. Meanwhile, Ayers and his cohorts have created the Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), referred to by former Weatherman Mark Rudd as “the SDS old people’s auxiliary.” See p. 20 of this report by Kincaid and Trevor Loudon.

Meanwhile, in a related development, Kincaid reports that Rudd is planning to publish an autobiography, Underground; My Life with SDS and the Weathermen, that describes his activities in the group. In a pre-release copy of the book he admits complicity in the Fort Dix bomb plot:

 

“…A few nights before [the explosion], Terry [fellow Weatherman Terry Robbins] had told me what his group was planning. ‘We’re going to kill the pigs at a dance at Fort Dix,’ he said. It was to be an antipersonnel bomb made out of stolen dynamite with sixteen-penny nails for shrapnel. Noncommissioned officers and their wives and dates in New Jersey would pay for the American crimes in Vietnam… I assented to the Fort Dix plan when Terry told me about it. (Emphasis, mine.) I too wanted this country to have a taste of what it had been dishing out daily in Southeast Asia…”

 

The plot was never executed as the bomb exploded while under construction, killing Weathermen Terry Robbins, Diana Oughton and Ted Gold. This book is set to be published by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Kincaid hopes that public furor over the Weathermen’s reign of mass murder will force Murdock to cancel the book, as he ultimately did with O.J. Simpson’s proposed “If I did it” murder book and TV special.

 

Sergeant McDonnell left a widow to fend for herself and two children. Those children were damaged for life, robbed of critical fatherly love, guidance and support for the rest of their lives. How, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, does that make them “equal?” How does that make them “liberated?” How does that make this world a better place? How could you, raised with silver spoons in your spoiled little mouths, never having had to work or support a family without the help of “Daddy”, claim to be the administrators of “equality” or “justice?” How on earth do you arrogate to yourselves the role of God?

 

In his concluding remarks, Jim Pera offered an emotional challenge to the approximately fifty journalists assembled:

 

“Before giving these two despicable people a forum, in your newspapers and periodicals, perhaps you should do a little bit of research, on their past and present activities. You will find that under those calm facades and intellectual masks, that Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, are vicious, cowardly terrorists.

Give up your political correctness, overcome your liberal bias and do some honest research into the background of these two criminals, Ayers and Dohrn. Uncover their past and reveal them to the public. The American people deserve nothing less.”

 

I couldn’t have said it better, and I hope Billy Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn finally get what they have coming to them.

 

It’s up to you, Mr. President. You said you found the actions of the Weather Underground despicable. As Cliff Kincaid said at his press conference, “prove it.” Tell your Attorney General to provide the evidence to bring the killers of Sgt. McDonnell to justice.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/guilty_as_hell_free_as_a_bird_1.html at March 18, 2009 – 07:13:33 PM EDT

We Need Something Stronger than Steele

By Selwyn Duke

Most of us place politicians down at the level of used-car salesmen, personal injury lawyers and Hollywood actors.  In fact, they’re much like actors, only their acting is generally a bit better.  But we tend to miss the point about our leaders.  The problem with politicians is that they’re trying to please us.

Mind you, I don’t mean they’re trying to please those of us who read and render commentary. They don’t have to worry about us fringe types – we don’t really command many votes.  We’re like a pesky fly they can’t quite swat (although they’re trying to with measures such as the Fairness Doctrine).  My point is that if they were trying to please God, they would be godly men.  But as the great Alan Keyes has proven, that doesn’t tend to win elections.  So the successful ones try to please the masses, but this doesn’t make them massive men.  It makes them minor men.

A case in point is Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who recently proved his Lilliputian status in a now notorious GQ interview, one showing that the best way to get a politician to change positions is to change his audience.  And the problem wasn’t confined to just what has drawn him the most criticism: Abortion.  But let’s start with that.  Here is the portion of the interview dealing with it:

Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

You do?
Yeah. Absolutely.

That’s pretty clear, right?  Well, this is perhaps where Steele said to himself, “Oops!  Did I really say that?”  So, after opining that Roe v. Wade should be overturned for constitutional reasons, here is what transpired:

“Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
The states should make that choice. That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.”

Is this what you call a “save”?  Women have the choice to opt for abortion because they can vote along with the men in their states on the matter’s legality?  So now Steele can go to leftists and claim he has said that abortion is “absolutely” an “individual choice.”  He can talk to traditionalists and say that he has touted states’ right to settle the issue.  He’s pro-choice.  He’s pro-life.  He’s pro-states’ rights.  He’s pro-whatever you want him to be.  He’s for everything and against nothing.

Given how Steele has also stated that Republicans needed a hip-hop strategy, interviewer Lisa Depaulo also asked him about rap music.  And after saying he enjoyed P. Diddy quite a bit, he said,

“I guess I’m sorta old-school that way. Remember, I came of age with the DJ and all this other stuff, so I’m also loving Grandmaster Flash, and that’s not hip-hop, but… Um, you know, I like Chuck D. And I always thought Snoop Dogg was-he just reminded me of the fellas back home. So I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed him.”

But then Steele said he also liked “Bing Crosby, Sinatra, [and] Dean Martin.”  Hey, you wouldn’t want to offend any musically-inclined constituency.  And reiterating his old-school passions, he continued, “I’m a big Pack Rat.  I love the Pack Rats from the 1950s . . . .”  Depaulo corrected him and pointed out that the proper name was the “Rat Pack.”  He’s a great fan, though.

Now, since I guard my tongue, I’ll characterize hip-hop simply by saying it’s cultural trash.  Of course, if I were a hip-hop aficionado, I’d use a different word (I also wouldn’t know the term “aficionado”). I’ll also say that an affinity for hip-hop indicates greatly corrupted judgment and taste, and I’d like leaders who operate on a slightly higher cultural plane.  Then again, it’s also possible that Steele doesn’t really listen to the Pack Rats or the Rap Rodents and was just being a pandering possum.  Perhaps it’s like Hillary Clinton’s statement when running for the Senate in New York, “I’ve always been a Yankees fan.”  No, Hillary (and Steele), actually, you’ve always been a ceiling fan – you specialize in spin.

As for the GOP’s political fortunes, if your only concern is getting people in office with “R’s” after their names, slouching commensurately with the culture certainly helps.  But leave me out of it.  My primary concern is spreading Truth, not spreading R’s.  For if a political movement is to do any good at all, it must represent and extol virtue.  And, for such a movement to succeed, it has only one viable option: Address problems on a cultural level and raise people up morally so that they’ll be receptive to the message (this is why I’ve written so much about the culture).  Trying to present a package of virtue in a wrapping of vice won’t work.

Then Steele said, “And some call them [rappers] urban terrorists, which I think is an offensive term.”  Really?  I find it offensive that he thinks validly labeling cultural terrorists is offensive.  He went on to say,

“But you know, they miss the point of what hip-hop is. Hip-hop is about economic empowerment. You’re talking about a generation of men from, you know, P. Diddy to Russell Simmons and the like who have created empire from their talent.”

Uh, yes, so have the Mexican drug cartels.  So have Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner (note that pornography is among the most lucrative of rackets).  These are empires of sin, and it’s no secret that vice sells better than virtue.  But is this to be congratulated?  Does it profit a nation to gain the world but to lose its soul, Mr. Steele?

Following up on this topic of “minority outreach,” there was this exchange,

“Why do you think so few nonwhite Americans support the Republican Party right now?
Cause we have offered them nothing! And the impression we’ve created is that we don’t give a damn about them or we just outright don’t like them.”

Wrong.  The leftist media have given minorities this impression of the party of Lincoln and abolitionism while casting the party of George Wallace in a positive light.  Steele went on to say,

“I think the way we’ve talked about immigration, the way we’ve talked about some of the issues that are important to African-Americans, like affirmative action… I mean, you know, having an absolute holier-than-thou attitude about something that’s important to a particular community doesn’t engender confidence in your leadership by that community.”

So what is the strategy?  Are we supposed to say, “Look, we were wrong to be right, but here’s why we’re right”?  Are we supposed to embrace open-border policy and affirmative action?  Should we compromise our principles just a bit and offer them an affirmative fraction?

I’m also sick and tired of how conservatives have been cowed into being apologetic.  Who has this “holier-than-thou attitude,” Mr. Steele?  All I see are pandering Republicans such as you.

But this is another example of entertaining corruption.  Securing our borders is a matter of upholding the rule of law, maintaining cultural cohesiveness and public safety.  And opposing affirmative action stems from a desire to be fair and to avoid facilitating irresponsibility and mediocrity.  If people won’t accept this, the remedy is not to lower the principles but elevate the people and make them worthy of the principles.

Steele also played the race card in the interview, saying,

“There are people in this country right now who would look at Barack Obama and still refer to him as ‘boy.’ Period.”

Who would these people be, Mr. Steele?  When was the last time you actually experienced such a thing?  Now, if you mean that someone somewhere in this nation of 300 million people may be so inclined, perhaps, but insignificant fringes don’t warrant mention.  It has been estimated that we have about 100 active serial killers in the country, too, but it would be silly to speak of them as if they’re a political and cultural force.

The interview touched on education as well, and Steele made this comment,

“. . . there’s a black kid who just left a public-school system in which he’s using a ten-year-old book in a classroom that barely has lights, and he’s getting a poor education.”

Yes, he is getting a poor education, but it has nothing to do with lights or books.  It’s a function of a spirit of permissiveness, relativism and corruption that besets our whole culture, leaving schools and families bereft of Truth, love and discipline.

Steele is right about the problem of using a 10-year-old book, however.  Students would be better off using 60-year-old books.  Then they would be exposed to more Truth and less politically-correct social engineering.

If I were a standard commentator, I would now emphasize that Steele is a sub-standard politician.  But the truth is that he is quite standard.  He isn’t evil; he isn’t even Machiavellian.  He’s just an example of what political parties tend to produce: Men of our time.  But what we need are men of the timeless.  Only people who aren’t slaves of their age, and thus can penetrate the veneer of lies obscuring the Truth today, can transform the culture.

And “culture” is the word.  When I say “We Need Something Stronger than Steele,” the “we” doesn’t refer to Republicans, as salvation doesn’t lie in the political realm.  I don’t even mean conservatives.  I mean that we need spiritual and cultural revolutionaries.

As I’ve written before, unless we can take the cultural reins and stop the leftward drift, all is for naught, as the political just reflects the cultural.  And the liberals understand this.  They’ve altered the culture not through the Democrat Party as much as through academia, the media and entertainment.

But effecting such substantive change isn’t easy, and it explains why the chairman of the Republican Party would talk like a 1980s Democrat.  That is to say, politicians pander because it’s easier to change positions than hearts.

Contact Selwyn Duke

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/we_need_something_stronger_tha.html at March 18, 2009 – 12:42:20 PM EDT

The Knock on the Door A sitting President of the United States is “organizing a political organization loyal to him

The Knock on the Door

By Lona Manning

A sitting President of the United States is “organizing a political organization loyal to him, bound by a pledge, outside the government and existing party apparatus. The historical precedents are ominous.”

 

What is so ominous about an organization? Americans, Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed, “constantly form associations…. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society.”

Certainly, thousands of organizations seek to influence the political debate. There’s Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions or the left-wing People for the American Way, for instance.

 

Political parties are another example of an association, of course. Before, during and after political campaigns, the Democrats and Republicans promote their agendas. As legal entities, they have their own constitutions, their rules of business, their chairmen and officers. They have to be accountable to both the government and their members.

 

But there is a new organization on the political scene — “Organizing for America,” announced by President Barack Obama in late January but officially unfurled last weekend.

 

Obama describes OFA as a “grass-roots movement” but OFA is a “project” of the Democratic Natrional Committee.

 

As Politico reported, OFA will take the 10 million person database built up by the Obama campaign “to mobilize support for the president’s legislative agenda.”

A visit to the OFA website reveals that supporters are not simply asked to sign up, they are asked to take a pledge. A pledge to support — not the flag, not the constitution, not the country, not even the Democratic party, but Obama and his “bold plan.” OFA does not use the Democratic Party logo but the “O”-shaped logo of the Obama campaign in which the red white and blue of the flag are abstracted to soft pastel colors.

 

(Celebrities like Ashton Kuchner and Demi Moore did not wait until the official launch to “pledge to be of service” to Barack Obama, of course.)

You will not find any mention of OFA`s governing structure, their budget, their bylaws, or their officers at the OFA website. Donations to the website go to the DNC, but OFA is managed out of the White House. If you click on the comments button, you are taken to a link to the White House email.

 

Those who take the pledge are asked to “talk with people about the President’s plan” and to “ask them to sign their names to the pledge” in support of Obama’s policies.

 

So we have a Movement — this is their term, not mine — organized by, and loyal to, a sitting President. Pledge canvassers, armed with your name, will ask you to pledge loyalty to the President too. A president whose term has already become a permanent campaign, is signing up ground forces in a mass organization pledged to personal loyalty to their Leader.

 

Does anyone know of any historical precedents for this in the United States?

 

Did Mitch Stewart, youthful director of OFA, who asks Obama’s acolytes to organize “neighborhood by neighborhood”  study anything at school about Mao’s “Red Guards?

 

How about Fidel Castro’s “widespread system of neighborhood informers“?

Or Hugo Chavez’s use of “neighborhood committees“?

Did Stewart learn anything about democracy at all?

 

Do any of Obama’s pledged servants understand why a sitting president has no business creating and deploying his own supporters to help organize their neighbors? 

 

Keep in mind that these acolytes have renounced any thought of questioning the actual policies of the maximum leader. Whatever he says, they are for it. They have given their word.

 

And they are coming to have a talk with you.

 

As Thomas Lifson wrote, “This is not the way a democracy is supposed to operate.”

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/the_knock_on_the_door.html at March 18, 2009 – 12:30:54 PM EDT

Obama mulls making vets foot bill for service injuries

By David Goldstein

McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON – WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is considering making veterans use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat and service-related injuries. The plan would be an about-face on what veterans believe is a long-standing pledge to pay for health care costs that result from their military service.

But in a White House meeting Monday, veterans groups apparently failed to persuade President Obama to take the plan off the table.

“Veterans of all generations agree that this proposal is bad for the country and bad for veterans,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “If the president and the OMB [Office of Management and Budget] want to cut costs, they can start at AIG, not the VA.”

Under current policy, veterans are responsible for health care costs that are unrelated to their military service. Exceptions in some cases can be made for veterans who do not have private insurance or are 100 percent disabled.

The president spoke Monday at the Department of Veterans Affairs to commemorate its 20th anniversary and said he hopes to increase funding by $25 billion over the next five years. But he said nothing about the plan to bill private insurers for service-related medical care.

Few details about the plan have been available, and a VA spokesman did not provide additional information. But the reaction on Capitol Hill to the idea has been swift and harsh.

“Dead on arrival” is how Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington described the idea.

“ . . . when our troops are injured while serving our country, we should take care of those injuries completely,” Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, told a hearing last week.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki said at the same hearing that the plan was “a consideration.” He also acknowledged that the VA’s proposed budget for next year included it as a way to increase revenue. But he told the committee that “a final decision hasn’t been made yet.”

For veterans, that was little comfort.

Veterans claim that the costs of treating expensive war injuries could raise their insurance costs, as well as those for their employers. Some worried that it also could make it more difficult for disabled veterans to find work.

The leaders of several veterans groups had written Obama last month complaining about the new plan. “There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran’s personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide,” they wrote.

Many veterans had high expectations for Obama after years of battling the Bush administration over benefit cuts and medical concerns such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

But the VA’s decision to float a potential change in its policy of paying for service-related injuries could signal a quick end to the honeymoon.

“It’s a betrayal,” said Joe Violante, legislative director of Disabled American Veterans, which signed the letter to Obama. “My insurance company didn’t send me to Vietnam, my government did. The same holds true for men and women now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s the government’s responsibility.”

Meanwhile, a new poll by the independent Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found Obama’s approval rating falling to 59 percent from 64 percent in February. It also found the ranks of Americans who disapprove of his job performance rising, to 26 percent from 17 percent.

Pew found that 44 percent think that the president listens more to liberals than to moderates in his party, while 30 percent think he listens more to moderates. In January, 44 percent thought he listened more to moderates and 34 percent more to liberals.

Obama: destroying human life for the ‘greater good’

By Chris Banescu

On March 9^th President Obama’s executive order reversed the Bush administration’s long-standing restrictions on using federal funds for embryonic stem cells research and authorized the destruction of live human embryos in medical experimentation. The administration ignored the promising results from adult stem cell therapies.  It reopened a Pandora’s Box of bioethical concerns and raised vocal opposition from many Christian leaders, including 191 Catholic bishops.

 

Science is on the side of embryonic stem cell research, the president argued. Linking fetal stem cells experiments with “scientific integrity” in the order titled “Signing of Stem Cell Executive Order and Scientific Integrity”, Obama proclaimed:

 

“will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research.  We will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research.  And we will aim for America to lead the world in the discoveries it one day may yield.”

 

But is the grandiose promise and lofty language supported by the facts?

 

Adult vs. Embryonic Stem Cells

 

Stem cell research focuses on both adult (somatic) stem cells and embryonic stem cells.  Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells, found inside the tissues and organs of the body, that are capable of regenerating damaged tissue or self-renewing indefinitely.  Under the right conditions, these cells have the potential to transform themselves into any other cell type. 

 

Embryonic stem cells, as the name suggests, are derived from embryos.  This process requires the harvesting and destruction of live human embryos that have been fertilized in vitro and then destroyed at the blastocyst stage, about four to five days into development.

 

Experimentation using adult stem cells raises no moral issues since no embryo is destroyed. Embryonic stem cells research on the other hand, requires the creation and destruction of living embryos and is fraught with moral difficulty.  That’s why almost half of all Americans oppose it, many scientists and doctors have gone on the record to express their deep misgivings about the procedure, and why religious leaders condemn it.

 

Adult vs. Embryonic Stem Cells

The Catholic Church (1.1 billion members world-wide), the Baptist churches (38 million believers), and the Orthodox Church (225 million faithful) condemn all forms of embryonic stem cell research.

 

In June of 2008, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in a statement devoted exclusively to the issue of embryonic stem cell research, reiterated the Church’s long-standing belief that human life is a precious gift from God and deserves protection and the greatest respect.  The hierarchs condemned the direct killing of innocent “embryonic human beings” in the interest of research and opposed the use of taxpayer funds to support such policies.  The USCCB statement made it very clear that harvesting embryonic cells is a deliberate act that kills human life, a “gravely immoral act.” (US Conference of Catholic Bishops, On Embryonic Stem Cell Research)

In October 2001, the Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), in a statement titled “Embryonic Stem Cell Research in the Perspective of Orthodox Christianity”, also affirmed the sanctity of all human life, created in the image of God, which begins at the moment of conception.  The Orthodox bishops denounced any research based on the destruction of embryonic cells, regardless of its potential benefits. (OCA, Embryonic Stem Cell Research in the Perspective of Orthodox Christianity)   The Church’s position is clear that a live embryo is human life and not just a “clump of cells.”  Destroying them to extract stem cells for research purposes is “morally and ethically wrong in every instance.” (OCA, Orthodox Church & Stem Cell Research)  

 

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), also denounced Obama’s decision as a “sad day for the sanctity of all human life in America.”  Mr. Land labeled the president’s action “open season on unborn babies” for endorsing  the destruction of human life for the purpose of harvesting of cells and tissues in the interests of science.

 

From a moral standpoint, adult stem cells clearly provide the least controversial solution. But what about the science?  Which approach has shown the most promise and provided the better medical results? 

 

Adult Stem Cells Research: The Proven Medical Alternative

 

In 2007, the Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics compiled and published a paper showing the impressive success of adult stem cell therapies. Titled “Peer-Reviewed References List Showing Applications of Adult Stem Cells that Produce Therapeutic Benefit to Human Patients,”  The report documented over 70 treatments and 1,300 human clinical trials for adult stem cells research. 

 

As of April 2007, adult stem cells research had produced treatments for approximately 26 types of cancers, 19 auto-immune diseases, 2 cardiovascular and 1 ocular problems, 3 immunodeficiencies, 3 neural degenerative diseases and injuries, 10 anemias and other blood conditions, 4 wounds and injuries, 5 different metabolic disorders, 2 types of liver disease, and 1 bladder disease.  On the other hand, no embryonic stem cells research had made it past the animal testing phase.  

 

A summary score card of these findings (adult stem cells = 70, embryonic stem cells = 0) is available here. 

 

A brief overview of the available studies and articles published since April 2007, point to continuing successes and advances in the field. 

 

[Adult] Stem cell breakthrough gives new hope to sufferers of muscle-wasting diseases – Mar. 9, 2009

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/uons-scb030509.php

 

[Adult] Stem Cell Breakthrough Could Solve Ethical Dilemmas – Mar. 2, 2009

 

Adult Stem Cell Research Reverses Effects of Parkinson’s Disease in Human Trial – Feb. 16, 2009

 

[Adult] Stem Cells Reset Immune System in Multiple Sclerosis Patients – Jan. 29, 2009

 

Adult Stem Cell Breakthrough: First Tissue-engineered Trachea Successfully Transplanted – Nov. 18, 2008

 

The suitability of adult stem cells for potential cures and the many medical successes have attracted significant financial support from private companies, universities, and venture capitalists.  The same cannot be said about embryonic stem cells experimentation.  This is due to the lack of any medical evidence where a malady has been healed using embryonic stem cells, the difficult ethical and moral issues raised, and the tendency of these treatments to produce tumors as a side effect, including the recent discovery of brain and spinal cord tumors in a young man in Israel undergoing fetal stem cell therapy.

 

The lack of private capital is the reason embryonic stem cell advocates are beating down the doors of government.  In his criticism of California’s Proposition 71 (which authorized $3 billion of state funds to support embryonic experimentation), social ethicist Wesley J. Smith explained:

 

Think about it.  If this were really likely to bring about cures any time soon, you would have to beat venture capitalists away with a stick.  But the money to pay for cloning and embryonic stem cell research is not flowing from the private sector, so they want the public to pay for the research with borrowed money that is not accountable to the legislature.

 

Obama’s support of embryonic stem cell research is ideologically driven. The facts don’t support his promises or claims of scientific integrity.  By lifting the federal ban he endorses highly speculative and unproven experimentation, using taxpayer dollars to fund it.  His words ring with pseudo-religious fervor.

 

Even Nicholas Wade, writing in the New York Times, hinted that Obama’s adamant endorsement of embryonic stem cells experimentation is misguided.  In a March 10, 2009 article titled “Rethink Stem Cells? Science Already Has” the NYT questioned the need for embryonic research when better advances have been made using adult cells that can be “reprogrammed to an embryonic state with surprising ease”.  According to Dr. Kriegstein the advances made by biologist Shinya Yamanaka from Japan in reprogramming these cells, may “eventually eclipse the embryonic stem cell lines for therapeutic as well as diagnostics applications.”

 

In a surprising twist from the left-leaning paper, it also admitted that:

 

Despite an F.D.A.-approved safety test of embryonic stem cells in spinal cord injury that the Geron Corporation began in January, many scientists believe that putting stem-cell-derived tissues into patients lies a long way off. Embryonic stem cells have their drawbacks. They cause tumors, and the adult cells derived from them may be rejected by the patient’s immune system. Furthermore, whatever disease process caused the patients’ tissue cells to die is likely to kill introduced cells as well. All these problems may be solvable, but so far none have been solved.”

 

Coming on the heels of the promise last month to overturn the “conscience clause” that prevents pro-life hospitals and doctors from being forced to perform abortions, Obama’s lifting of the ban on federal funds for embryonic stem cell research is a troubling sign. Protecting life in its earliest stages and ignoring those who seek to protect it, takes a back seat to the designs of social utilitarians in this new administration.  We’ve heard the promises before, some from leaders we would rather forget.

Chris Banescu is an attorney, entrepreneur, and university professor.  He blogs at chrisbanescu.com/blog.

Barack Obama’s Newest Spiritual Advisor

Barack Obama’s Newest Spiritual Advisor

By DiscoverTheNetworks.org
FrontPageMagazine.com | 3/17/2009

 

 

 

Now that he no longer draws spiritual succor from Jeremiah Wright—the America-hating, racist demagogue who served as his pastor and spiritual mentor for twenty years—Barack Obama has turned elsewhere for guidance in the task of carrying out his political duties while remaining true to his religious values.

 

The most notable of his spiritual advisors today is his friend of many years, Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners organization. Says Wallis, “We’ve [he and Obama] been talking faith and politics for a long time.”

Who is Jim Wallis? According to The New York Times, Wallis “leans left on some issues” but overall is a “centrist, social justice” kind of guy. But a closer look at Wallis’s background reveals him to be nearly as radical, if better at disguising the fact, as Jeremiah Wright.

As a teenager in the 1960s, Wallis joined the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. His participation in peace protests nearly resulted in his expulsion from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, a Christian seminary where he was then enrolled. While at Trinity, Wallis founded an anti-capitalism magazine called the Post-American, which identified wealth redistribution and government-managed economies as the keys to achieving “social justice”—a term that, as educator/journalist Barry Loberfeld has pointed out, is essentially “code for communism.”

In 1971, the 23-year-old Wallis and his Post-American colleagues changed the name of their publication to Sojourners, and in the mid-1970s they moved their base of operation from Chicago to Washington, DC, where Wallis has served as Sojourners’ editor (and leader of the eponymous organization) ever since.

Advocating America’s transformation into a socialist nation, Sojourners’ “statement of faith” exhorted people to “refuse to accept [capitalist] structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class.” According to Sojourners, “gospel faith transforms our economics, gives us the power to share our bread and resources, welcomes all to the table of God’s provision, and provides a vision for social revolution.”

As one of its first acts, Sojourners formed a commune in the Washington, DC neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights, where members shared their finances and participated in various activist campaigns that centered on attacking U.S. foreign policy, denouncing American “imperialism,” and extolling Marxist revolutionary movements in the Third World.

Giving voice to Sojourners’ intense anti-Americanism, Jim Wallis called the U.S. “the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.”

In parallel with his magazine’s stridently antiwar position during the Seventies, Wallis championed the cause of communism. Forgiving communism’s brutal standard-bearers in Vietnam and Cambodia the most abominable of atrocities, Wallis was, by contrast, unsparing in his execration of American military efforts. He demanded greater levels of “social justice” in the allegedly oppressive U.S., but was silent on the subject of the murderous rampages of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In fact, several Sojourners editorials attempted to exculpate the Khmer Rouge of the charges of genocide, instead shifting blame squarely onto the United States.

Following the 1979 refugee crisis in Vietnam, Wallis lashed out at the desperate masses fleeing North Vietnam’s Communist forces by boat. These refugees, as Wallis saw it, had been “inoculated” by capitalist influences during the war and were absconding “to support their consumer habit in other lands.” Wallis then admonished critics against pointing to the boat people to “discredit” the righteousness of Vietnam’s newly victorious Communist regime.

Wallis blamed America alone for the political tensions of the Cold War era. “At each step in the Cold War,” he wrote in November 1982, “the U.S. was presented with a choice between very different but equally plausible interpretations of Soviet intentions, each of which would have led to very different responses. At every turn, U.S. policy-makers have chosen to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts.”

Actively embracing liberation theology, Wallis and Sojourners in the 1980s rallied to the cause of Communist regimes that had seized power in Latin America with the promise of bringing about the revolutionary restructuring of society. Particularly attractive for the ministry’s religious activists was the Communist Sandinista dictatorship that took power in Nicaragua in 1979. Wallis embarked on an editorial crusade in Sojourners to undercut public support for a confrontational U.S. foreign policy toward the spread of Communism there and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, he invited the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) —the public relations arm of the El Salvadoran terrorist group the FMLN—to take part in a number of initiatives with Sojourners.

Steadfast advocates of the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s, Sojourners activists maintained that a U.S. nuclear buildup was “an intolerable evil” irreconcilably at odds with Christian teaching, and that “[t]he Reagan Administration remains the chief obstacle to the first step in stopping the arms race.” While assailing Reagan’s defense buildup, Sojourners downplayed the threat posed by the Soviet Union, chastising U.S. policy-makers for their tendency “to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts.”

In 1995 Wallis founded Call to Renewal, a coalition of religious groups united in the purpose of advocating, in religious terms, for leftist economic agendas such as tax hikes and wealth redistribution to promote “social justice.”

To this day, Wallis remains fiercely opposed to capitalism and the free-market system. “Our systems have failed the poor and they have failed the earth,” Wallis has said. “They have failed the creation.”

Wallis continues to lament “all the bad stuff in America—the poverty, the racism, the human rights violations, and always the wars … the arrogance, self-righteousness, materialism, and ignorance [about] the rest of the world, the habitual ignoring of the ones that God says we can’t [ignore], the ones Jesus calls the least of these.”

More than a mere religious leader, Wallis, a registered Democrat, is also an adroit political operative, publicly portraying himself as a politically neutral religious figure whose overriding allegiance is to God. Always with the disclaimer that neither major political party can claim authoritatively to represent the values of religious faith, Wallis nevertheless contends that Republican policies tend to be immoral and godless. For example, he and his ministry reviled welfare reform as a “mean-spirited Republican agenda” characterized by “hatred toward the poor.”

At the same time, Wallis actively works to promote Democratic causes. According to a March 10, 2007 Los Angeles Times report, Wallis has recently sought to re-brand traditional slogans of the religious right, like “pro-life,” to refer to such leftist agendas as working with AIDS victims in Africa or helping illegal immigrants in America achieve legal status so they can continue to live with their U.S.-born children.

But Wallis’s most passionate advocacy concerns Barack Obama. Wallis likens the new president to the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah, someone who “carefully surveyed the broken walls of the temple, called the people together to start the rebuilding and to ‘commit themselves to the common good.’” The activist preacher further gushes that the Bush administration’s allegedly unenlightened national-security strategy will “now be replaced by the wisdom of the prophet Micah—that our security depends upon other people’s security,” thereby setting the stage for America’s “new relationship to the world.”

Immediately after Obama’s January 20^th inauguration, a rejoicing Wallis told The Washington Times: “My prayers for decades have been answered in this minute.” Subsequently echoing Michelle Obama’s infamous 2008 declaration, Wallis reported that Obama’s electoral victory had enabled him to feel “proud of my country for the first time in a very long time.” The country, meanwhile, may be properly concerned that the president has sought spiritual counsel from a figure as removed from the political mainstream as Jim Wallis.

---

Anger Over Firm Depletes Obama’s Political Capital

Anger Over Firm Depletes Obama’s Political Capital

By Michael D. Shear and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 17, 2009; A01

 

President Obama’s apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.

Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to executives at the company, demanding answers from the president and swamping yesterday’s rollout of his efforts to spark lending to small businesses.

The populist anger at the executives who ran their firms into the ground is increasingly blowing back on Obama, whom aides yesterday described as having little recourse in the face of legal contracts that guaranteed those bonuses.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, peppered with questions about why the president had not done more to block the bonuses at a company that has received $170 billion in taxpayer funds, struggled for an answer yesterday afternoon. He explained that government lawyers are “looking through contracts to see what can be done to wrest these bonuses from their recipients.”

Obama himself sought to channel the public’s sense of disbelief yesterday. “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” he said, declaring the bonuses an “outrage” that violate “fundamental values.”

White House aides grasped for actions that could soothe sentiment on Main Street and in the halls of Congress, where the fate of the new president’s sweeping agendas on health care, climate change and education will be decided. They suggested that the government will use its latest pledged installment of $30 billion for the ailing company to recover the millions in bonuses paid Friday.

But the damage control did not seem to satisfy incredulous lawmakers in both parties, who said the image of financial executives taking huge bonuses from a taxpayer-funded rescue puts the president in a politically impossible position.

“I warned them this would be met with an unprecedented level of outrage,” Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the chairman of the banking committee and part of a group of senators who pressed Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to stop the bonuses, said yesterday.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said the bonus issue added to his belief that there will be almost no Republican support for any expansion of a bank-bailout program that passed Congress last fall with broad bipartisan support.

“What is the government’s exit strategy from this sweeping involvement in private business?” he asked in a statement, adding that “taxpayers are not receiving an adequate accounting from either the Treasury or the management of the companies that received taxpayer funds. Unfortunately, we have not yet seen such a plan.”

The rhetoric grew so heated yesterday that Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) suggested in a radio interview that AIG executives ought to “follow the Japanese model . . . resign, or go commit suicide.” An aide later explained he does not actually want executives to kill themselves.

More than 80 House Democrats signed a letter demanding that the money used to pay the bonuses be recouped from AIG. New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced that he will subpoena the Manhattan-based company, seeking data documenting who received the bonuses and the justification for them.

“You could argue that if taxpayers hadn’t bailed out AIG, the contracts wouldn’t be worth the paper they were signed on,” Cuomo said.

The Obama administration was already facing a skeptical public and members of Congress critical of the huge sums of money the government has allocated to shoring up the devastated financial system.

News of the latest AIG bonuses only compounded the political problems that the huge expenditures pose for the president. The administration has tried to manage the public anger by expressing empathy with the outrage over the large outlays to financial firms, while explaining that they are necessary to stabilize the economy.

Earlier this month, the administration added to the bailout money needed to keep AIG functioning, saying failure of the company would be disastrous for the larger economy. And the administration is all but certain to return to Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars more to aid the financial system.

But the bonus issue, in particular, is hounding Obama as he pursues his larger goals, in part because of the president’s own repeated declarations of outrage — offered again yesterday — aimed especially at the firms that are feeding at the public trough.

In February, Obama announced tough new restrictions on executive compensation that promised an end to massive salaries for executives of failing companies. Similar rules were eventually written into legislation and hailed as evidence that executive compensation would be checked.

But reports about the latest AIG bonuses quickly undermined whatever political capital Obama has earned with his past efforts.

Over the weekend, White House officials expressed outrage at the bonuses paid out by AIG but said there was nothing they could do to stop them. After news of the bonuses dominated news coverage for two days, the administration took a newly aggressive stance.

Asked why the administration is attempting to claw back the bonuses now but did not do more to block the payments earlier this month when it was authorizing the latest $30 billion in new loans to the struggling insurer, Gibbs was unresponsive.

“The administration is taking the steps today to go back and see what can be done,” he said.

Staff writers Michael A. Fletcher and Scott Wilson contributed to this report.

“Give Us The Money Back, AIG”

March 16th, 2009 Posted By drillanwr.

Anybody else recall certain republican Congress members insisting after the first bank bailout that there was no monitoring or watch-dogging going on as to how those who received the bailout money was spending it?

BTW, AIG had these bonuses pre-planned before the bailout … Congress, if they were “smart” would have looked into that and insisted before handing over money that the bank either cease or cutback any and all bonuses. But, as usual, it’s all political theater of indignation with these ass clowns.

CBS:

White House May Want AIG Money Back
Administration Investigates Ways To Retrieve Some Of The Millions AIG Used For Bonuses

The Obama administration is looking for ways to recoup at least some of the $165 million American International Group, Inc. paid out in bonuses over the weekend, despite accepting billions in government aid to stay afloat, reports CBS News correspondent Peter Maer.

The White House continues to negotiate with AIG to bring any payments in line with the government’s priorities, an administration official told CBS News.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak Monday morning on AIG while rolling out his plan to help small businesses. He’s expected to voice anger over the bonuses and could elaborate on administration efforts to recover some of the money, reports Maer.

The administration official said that the bonuses “long been known about inside and outside AIG. But we didn’t want to accept them.”

The White House is seeking what are described as “mechanisms” to recover money spent on bonuses, but the company insists some of the bonuses are part of legally binding contracts signed before the government’s bailout.

The administration is concerned that public reaction to the bonuses could affect the president’s overall economic agenda, reports Maer.

“It is unacceptable for Wall Street firms receiving government assistance to hand out million dollar bonuses, while hard-working Americans bear the burden of this economic crisis,” the official told CBS News.

Meanwhile, AIG disclosed Sunday that it used more than $90 billion in federal aid to pay out foreign and domestic banks, some of whom had received their own multibillion-dollar U.S. government bailouts.

Some of the biggest recipients of the AIG money were Goldman Sachs at $12.9 billion, and three European banks – France’s Societe Generale at $11.9 billion, Germany’s Deutsche Bank at $11.8 billion, and Britain’s Barclays PLC at $8.5 billion. Merrill Lynch, which also is undergoing federal scrutiny of its bonus plans, received $6.8 billion as of Dec. 31.

Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House National Economic Council, said on CBS’ Face The Nation on Sunday that the AIG bonuses were “outrageous… The whole situation at AIG is outrageous. What taxpayers are being forced to do is outrageous.”

The company, now about 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, has received roughly $170 billion from the government, which feared that its collapse could cause widespread damage to banks and consumers around the globe.

In an exclusive interview aired Sunday on 60 Minutes, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke with unusual candor of the frustration he felt in bailing out AIG.

“Of all the events and all of the things we’ve done in the last 18 months, the single one that makes me the angriest, that gives me the most angst, is the intervention with AIG,” Bernanke told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.

“Here was a company that made all kinds of unconscionable bets. Then, when those bets went wrong, we had a situation where the failure of that company would have brought down the financial system,” Bernanke said.

“It makes me angry. I slammed the phone more than a few times on discussing AIG. I understand why the American people are angry. It’s absolutely unfair that taxpayer dollars are going to prop up a company that made these terrible bets, that was operating out of the sight of regulators, but which we have no choice but to stabilize, or else risk enormous impact, not just in the financial system, but on the whole U.S. economy,” he told Pelley.

The $90 billion chunk of the bailout money went to banks to cover AIG’s losses on complex mortgage investments, as well as for collateral needed for other transactions.

Other banks receiving between $1 billion and $3 billion from AIG’s securities lending unit include Citigroup Inc., Switzerland’s UBS AG and Morgan Stanley.

Municipalities in certain states, including California, Virginia and Hawaii, received a total of $12.1 billion under guaranteed investment agreements.

FOX:

Lawmakers Target AIG Over Executive Bonuses
Rep. Barney Frank says American International Group is “rewarding incompetence” by paying out millions in bonuses.

Key lawmakers are calling for the government to crack down on American International Group after learning the bailed-out insurance giant is going ahead with plans to pay $165 million dollars in bonuses to its executives.

Though AIG Chairman Edward Liddy claims his hands are contractually tied, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said Monday he’s not convinced.

“I want to look at it very carefully,” said the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. “These people may have a right to their bonuses — they don’t have a right to their jobs forever.”

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, Frank noted that federal government “is the 80 percent owner” of the company and has some leverage.

“Maybe it’s time to fire some people,” he said, adding that the bonuses were “rewarding incompetence.”

“Forget about the legal matter here for a second,” Frank said. “These bonuses are going to people who screwed this thing up enormously, who made terrible decisions.”

A subcommittee for Frank’s panel plans to call Liddy to testify during a hearing on Wednesday.

Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., chairman of the subcommittee, said in a statement that lawmakers would investigate the bonuses at the hearing.

“We cannot allow individuals who acted irresponsibly to reap undue benefits,” he said.

The $165 million was payable to executives by Sunday and was part of a larger total payout reportedly valued at $450 million. The company has benefited from more than $170 billion in a federal rescue.

AIG reported this month that it had lost $61.7 billion for the fourth quarter of last year, the largest corporate loss in history. The bulk of the payments at issue cover AIG Financial Products, the unit of the company that sold credit default swaps, the risky contracts that caused massive losses for the insurer.

It also was revealed over the weekend that American International Group Inc. used more than $90 billion in federal aid to pay out foreign and domestic banks, some of whom had received their own multibillion-dollar U.S. government bailouts.

Some of the biggest recipients of the AIG money were Goldman Sachs at $12.9 billion, and three European banks — France’s Societe Generale at $11.9 billion, Germany’s Deutsche Bank at $11.8 billion, and Britain’s Barclays PLC at $8.5 billion. Merrill Lynch, which also is undergoing federal scrutiny of its bonus plans, received $6.8 billion as of Dec. 31.

The money went to banks to cover their losses on complex mortgage investments, as well as for collateral needed for other transactions.

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” Monday, Sen. Richard Shelby said Congress must do everything it can to make sure the government money going to AIG is handled appropriately.

“We ought to explore everything that we can through the government to make sure that this money is not wasted,” the Alabama Republican said. “These people brought this on themselves. Now you’re rewarding failure. A lot of these people should be fired, not awarded bonuses. This is horrible. It’s outrageous.”

AIG has agreed to Obama administration requests to restrain future payments. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed the president’s case with Liddy last week.

“He stepped in and berated them, got them to reduce the bonuses following every legal means he has to do this,” said Austan Goolsbee, staff director of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, told “FOX News Sunday.”

Lawrence Summers, a leading Obama economic adviser, said Sunday that Geithner had used all his power, “both legal and moral, to reduce the level of these bonus payments.”

In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did not address the bonuses but expressed his frustration with the AIG intervention.

“It makes me angry. I slammed the phone more than a few times on discussing AIG,” Bernanke said. “It’s — it’s just absolutely — I understand why the American people are angry.”

In a letter to Geithner dated Saturday, Liddy said outside lawyers had informed the company that AIG had contractual obligations to make the bonus payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so.