Obama Turning The Corner On The Gulf Oil Spill?

After all the rhetoric Obama and his cronies spewed last week, they apparently seem to think the crisis is over since their attention is no longer focused on the spill.

According to Michael D. Shear of the Washington Post:

Has the president turned the corner on the oil drilling crisis? This week's schedule for President Obama suggests that the White House believes he has. After dominating the conversation in Washington all last week, the environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico does not appear front and center on the White House calendar. Not that the West Wing can afford to take their eye off the ball, as chief of staff Rahm Emanuel acknowledged yesterday during a rare Sunday morning television appearance. "What's important is, are we capping the well?," he told ABC's Jake Tapper on the network's "This Week" program. "Are we capturing the oil? Are we containing the clean-up? Are we filing the claims? Are we also cleaning up the mess? That's what's important." But the administration is clearly expecting -- maybe hoping -- that the intense public attention on the spill fades a bit, starting with this week, giving them a chance to turn to other subjects.

Wait a minute! We are entering Summer vacation time and a large segment of America's vacation region is being threatened by a massive oil spill and the White House actually believes that our attention can be directed elsewhere? This is just another attempt by Obama to cover-up his own incompetence at handling the situation.

Here is what Obama has planned as a diversion:

For the rest of the week, Obama and his aides hope they can focus on Afghanistan, health insurance reform, relations with Russia (whose president arrives for a visit on Thursday) and the global economy. Obama departs Thursday for Canada for the G-20 gathering of the world's largest economies. Ahead of the meeting, the president warned the group last week that members must redouble their prior commitments or risk allowing the global economy to sink once again. Tuesday's meeting with state health care commissioners is another chance for Obama to remind the public of the benefits he predicts will come from the massive overhaul of the nation's health-care system. And Tuesday night's White House celebration of gay and lesbian pride month should be an upbeat event for Obama. That constituency -- which has been angry about the slow pace of some changes -- is likely to be happier at this year's version of the annual event, as Congress is on the verge of ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Yes! God forbid that the worst environmental disaster in the Gulf take any time away from pandering to the radical agenda of gays and lesbians! Clearly listening to the complaints of the gay community is more important than solving the problem that is putting thousands of people in the Gulf region out of work and destroying the livelihood of thousands more!

Whatever complaints the Dems had about the way George W. Bush handled Katrina, Obama has proven to be at least twice as bad.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Turning The Corner On The Gulf Oil Spill?
Michael D. Shear
Washington Post
June 21, 2010

Obama Wants Transparency? Not If It Exposes The White House Chief Of Staff, Rahm Emanuel!

One of Obama's campaign promises was that he would make the government "more transparent." Well, we are still waiting for that transparency to emerge. If anything, Obama and the Democrats have worked to make things more secretive. For example, the way the Republicans were excluded from meetings where the porkulus/spendulus package was written.

The broken promise of more transparency has even extended into the White House itself where Rahm Emanuel is Chief of Staff. While doing a background story on Rahm's activities at Freddie Mac, the Chicago Tribune tried to obtain meeting minutes and other information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But the Obama Administration just outright said "No."

From the Chicago Tribune:

The Obama administration rejected a Tribune request under the Freedom of Information Act to review Freddie Mac board minutes and correspondence during Emanuel’s time as a director. The documents, obtained by Falcon for his investigation, were “commercial information” exempt from disclosure, according to a lawyer for the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Why the secrecy? What is the Obama Administration afraid will be brought to light if that information were released? Perhaps that Rahm Emanuel had a bigger hand in causing the credit crisis than previously thought?

That little line about "commercial information" should only apply to private companies. Freddie and Fannie are not private anymore.

Again, what is the Obama Administration afraid of in releasing that information?

If this had been a Republican Administration denying this kind of information, the leftist leaning news networks would be all over it. But, since they won't cover this, it is up to us bloggers to ask these questions.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Rahm Emanuel's Profitable Stint At Mortgage Giant
Bob Secter and Andrew Zajac
Chicago Tribune
March 27, 2009

What Obama "Didn't Know" And Now His Appointees "Didn't Know" Either

Have you ever noticed how many things Barack Obama “didn’t know” about the people he associates with? There appears to be a very disturbing pattern emerging here.

Obama “didn’t know” that Jeremiah Wright preached racial hatred from the pulpit.

Obama “didn’t know” that Tony Rezko was a crooked real estate developer.

Obama “didn’t know” that Bill Ayers was a domestic terrorist.

And now, Obama “didn’t know” that Rahm Emanuel had more contact with Rod Blagojevich than was previously reported. Further, Obama's pick for Attorney General also "didn't know" about his own connection with Blagojevich.

These two stories both come from the Chicago Sun-Times. First, about Rahm Emanuel's contact with Blagojevich despite Obama's early claims that no such contact took place:

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was pushing for Obama's successor just days after the Nov. 4 election, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times. Emanuel privately urged Gov. Blagojevich's administration to appoint Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett, and the Sun-Times learned Tuesday that he also pressed that it be done by a certain deadline. Jarrett was initially interested in the U.S. Senate post before Obama tapped her to be a White House senior adviser, sources say. The disclosure comes days after Obama's camp downplayed Jarrett's interest in the post.

It seems as though the Obama camp's story changes every time the wind in the Inner Loop changes direction. But we can't be sure of what the truth is because Obama himself has obfuscated it so much, just like a typical politician. (So much for "change" or any kind of transparant investigation.)

And what about Attorney General designate Eric Holder and his relationship with Blagojevich? Turns out there was a big one, a relationship worth $300,000 to Holder.

Before Eric Holder was President-elect Barack Obama's choice to be attorney general, he was Gov. Blagojevich's pick to sort out a mess involving Illinois' long-dormant casino license. Blagojevich and Holder appeared together at a March 24, 2004, news conference to announce Holder's role as "special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board" -- a post that was to pay Holder and his Washington, D.C. law firm up to $300,000. Holder, however, omitted that event from his 47-page response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire made public this week -- an oversight he plans to correct after a Chicago Sun-Times inquiry, Obama's transition team indicated late Tuesday.

Maybe Holder "didn't know" that the relationship, especially the dollar amounts involved should have been reported? Or maybe, because of the Chicago-style politics being played, Holder arrogantly assumed that he was above the law and therefore had no need of disclosing anything?

These two stories may have nothing to do with Blagojevich trying to sell the vacated Illinois Senate seat, but it is very important that this infomation comes to light. Especially since the United States has approved of Obama's team transplanting its corrupt Chicago-style politics to Washington D.C.

Besides, remember the non-outing of Valerie Plame and how that led to a completely unrelated charge against Scooter Libby? Americans, especially Democrats, were okay with that. If they are fair and apply the same standard here, these same Americans, and especially the Democrats, will be okay with us learning everything we can about the corruption that will soon make its way from Illinois to D.C.

You can access both articles on-line here:

Rahm Emanuel Pressed For Jarrett Appointment To Senate
Natasha Korecki And Fran Spielman
Chicago Sun-Times
December 17, 2008

Holder Omitted Blagojevich Link From Questionnaire
Chris Fusco
Chicago Sun-Times
December 17, 2008

It might very well happen that the Obama Administration is going to be the most corrupt in history.

So, Who's Corrupt Now?

It isn't just pundits on the right who are asking this question and pointing out the obvious. Even the leftist-leaning MSNBC has now acknowledged that the Blagojevich scandal may have opened up some flood gates that cannot be easily closed.

In a "First thoughts" editorial, Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann look at some major points of the issue:

*** So who’s corrupt now? Since his election last month, Obama and his team have masterfully choreographed every cabinet announcement, press conference, and meeting for maximum effect -- until yesterday, that is. On a day when the agenda was a meeting with Al Gore on energy and climate change, all hell broke lose after Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) was arrested for allegedly offering Obama's Senate seat for some kind of payment in return. It didn't tell us anything new about Blagojevich (he had been straddling the ethical line for some time), or Illinois politics (Blago could become the state's fourth governor in 40 years to go to prison), or even Obama (who is in no way implicated in the government's report). But it does begin to advance a GOP argument that the Democrats -- who campaigned against a Republican "culture of corruption" -- are no longer so innocent themselves. Are the ethical and legal issues that have recently dogged some Democrats (William Jefferson, Tim Mahoney, Charlie Rangel) beginning to approach what we saw in the last few years from Republicans (Larry Craig, Duke Cunningham, Mark Foley, Bob Ney, Don Sherwood, Ted Stevens, etc.)? And while the term “culture of corruption” gets thrown around a lot, the fact is that a state possibly having four governors go to prison in 40 years is most definitely a culture of corruption. ... *** The impact on Obama: As for the scandal’s impact on Obama, no doubt that it will be embarrassing for him and his incoming administration, even though the president-elect isn’t implicated here (in fact, the affidavit makes it crystal clear that Obama and his team weren’t willing to play ball). We’re probably going to see a top Obama aide -- Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett? -- on tape with Blagojevich. And that shouldn’t be too surprising (after all, why wouldn’t you return your governor’s phone calls in this post-election period?) But Obama also didn’t help himself with his initial comment yesterday on the matter. Unlike other Illinois Democrats, he didn’t condemn Blagojevich’s actions, if true. Instead, he said he was “saddened and sobered” by the news, adding that it wasn’t appropriate to comment on the issue. But then he later did comment, saying, "I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening.” Yet that contradicted an interview last month by Obama adviser David Axelrod, who said that Obama had spoken with Blagojevich about the vacancy. Axelrod issued a statement last night saying that he was “mistaken” in that interview. Team Obama's initial response yesterday to the scandal seemed par for the course: During his two years on the campaign trail, Obama often swung and missed on his initial statement regarding a controversy -- Bitter-gate and Jeremiah Wright come immediately to mind -- before finding a better response 24 to 48 hours later. ... *** Why didn’t Dems do something earlier? Republicans have themselves a talking point they will constantly throw in Obama's face (and Rahm's and Axe's), simply because they are all Chicago pols. This means Obama will always have to look more transparent than usual and, well, less Chicago-y. The one criticism, by the way, that really could stick to the entire Illinois Democratic political establishment: passivity. It was a running joke for years that Blago had a corrupt side, so why didn't more Democrats step up. Sure, politics is politics, and sometimes you have stand by folks who you THINK are corrupt but you can't prove it since no one wants to sound like Joe McCarthy. Still, the passivity here is something that will likely tug at many Illinois Democrats. Could they have done something sooner?

MSNBC, an outfit that tried everything in its power to hide vital information about Barack Obama during the campaign, is being forced into reporting the contradictions of people like David Axelrod. Even now they are trying to shield Obama and in this editorial made the claim that "the affidavit makes it crystal clear that Obama and his team weren’t willing to play ball." That's not entirely true. There were several references in the affidavit that suggest Obama aids were in some sort of negotiation with Blagojevich. Section 107 notes specifically that an option involving "Change to Win" would not have Obama's "fingerprints" all over it. If there were no involvement by the Obama team, why would anyone be worrying about "fingerprints" of Obama's involvement?

Those are the three major points so far. I am sure that as more information comes to light and we learn the names of people like "Advisor A" and so forth, that the major points will change or simply be magnified into larger issues.

But the part about "Obama will always have to look more transparent than usual and, well, less Chicago-y" is absolutely true. He is under a microscope now, moreso than ever.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

First Thoughts: So Who's Corrupt Now?
Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann
MSNBC.com
December 10, 2008

'Crony' Capitalism Is Root Cause Of Fannie And Freddie Troubles: Democrats At The Center Of It All

Terry Jones at the Investor's Business Daily has a nice, clean, concise and accurate description of what happneed at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and why we taxpayers are being cajoled into paying for it.

The truth is that depspite the shrill calls from Barack Obama, Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank that it is "all the Republicans fault," it has been the Democrats at the center of the maelstrom. It was the Democrats who, at least twelve times, derailed Republican efforts at reforming Freddie and Fannie and as we showed in a previous blog post, Barney Frank was one of those opposed that reform very ferociously.

So, why did the Dems opposed the reform of Freddie and Fannie? Money. That's it. That's the whole reason.

Here is the history in a nutshell:

It all started, innocently enough, in 1994 with President Clinton's rewrite of the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act. Ostensibly intended to help deserving minority families afford homes — a noble idea — it instead led to a reckless surge in mortgage lending that has pushed our financial system to the brink of chaos. ... Fannie and Freddie, the main vehicle for Clinton's multicultural housing policy, drove the explosion of the subprime housing market by buying up literally hundreds of billions of dollars in substandard loans — funding loans that ordinarily wouldn't have been made based on such time-honored notions as putting money down, having sufficient income, and maintaining a payment record indicating creditworthiness. With all the old rules out the window, Fannie and Freddie gobbled up the market. Using extraordinary leverage, they eventually controlled 90% of the secondary market mortgages. Their total portfolio of loans topped $5.4 trillion — half of all U.S. mortgage lending. They borrowed $1.5 trillion from U.S. capital markets with — wink, wink — an "implicit" government guarantee of the debts. This created the problem we are having today. As we noted a week ago, subprime lending surged from around $35 billion in 1994 to nearly $1 trillion last year — for total growth of 2,757% as of last year. No real market grows that fast for that long without being fixed.

And the part about money for the Dems? Read on:

Fannie and Freddie became huge contributors to Congress, spending millions to influence votes. As we've noted here before, the bulk of the money went to Democrats. ... Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie also became a kind of jobs program for out-of-work Democrats. Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, the CEOs under whom the worst excesses took place in the late 1990s to mid-2000s, were both high-placed Democratic operatives and advisers to presidential candidate Barack Obama. Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick also got taken care of by the Fannie-Freddie circle. So did top Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel, among others.

And yet, despite the fact that the Dems are in the middle of this whole fiasco, Obama, Dodd and Frank are insistent that it is a Republican problem. Unfortunately, their surrogates in the media are spreading this misleading (or outright false) message.

But, do you remember all those campaign ads by Barack Obama about how their were lobbyists on John McCain's staff? Well, Obama should change his campaign slogan of "Change we can believe in" to "Hypocrisy for our own cause." Here is how Obama deals with those lobbyists:

Over the span of his career, Obama ranks No. 2 in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie, taking over $125,000. Dodd, head of the Senate Banking panel, is tops at $165,000. Clinton, ranked 12th, has collected $75,000. ... It emerged that Clinton aide Raines, who took Fannie Mae's helm as CEO in 1999, took in nearly $100 million by the time he left in 2005. Others, including former Clinton Justice Department official Gorelick, took $75 million from the Fannie-Freddie piggy bank.

Today, Raines is a top advisor for the Obama campaign.

So, the next time somone accuses the Republicans of this Freddie and Fannie mess, ask the accuser what happened to all the money that the Dems made off of Freddie and Fannie and ask when was the last time the Dems tried to reform them.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

'Crony' Capitalism Is Root Cause Of Fannie And Freddie Troubles
Terry Jones
Investor's Business Daily
September 22, 2008