Colin Powell Fires Back At Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney

Poor Colin. He just can't fathom that most of us understand that Conservatism is already inclusive. You just have to have the bravery to try it. He acts like Conservatives are all rich Daddy Warbucks, passing the homeless everyday with a sneer. As if every wealthy Conservative or Republican was born into money, instead of following Conservative principles to get where he or she is currently.

In short, it looks as if Colin has swallowed the Kool-Aid.

Being attracted to Barry Obama's charms and ethnicity is nothing new to us. We have seen people who are focused on race and personality all of our lives. Our entire culture is consumed with identification by race. Ironically, the self-appointed guardians of civil rights-the Left-simultaneously shriek about seeing a racist under every rock, while orchestrating a numbing society which forces job applications and government forms where you check to which ethnic group you belong.

And hides behind the Democrat Party shield, along with Robert Byrd, Fullbright, Gore, Wallace, and hundreds more segregationist Democrat politicians since before the Civil War. And while you Leftists smugly point and cry "racist" at Conservatives, we just continue quietly like we always have: giving more in charity than the Left, praising God for loving us despite our faults, looking past the State for answers to the deepest problems we confront.

Poor Colin calls himself a Conservative [I think], but he doesn't know what that means. Especially if he thinks that we need to "spread the wealth". It's not all about money, Colin. It's about a formula for life. And we've been talking about it, in articulate, passionate means since Buckley, Chambers, and Reagan.

Just because there are people who refuse to hear our message or get past those who bait disagreement and hostile attitudes-the mainstream media-doesn't meant that we should stop believing in our core Conservative tenets: self-reliance, delayed gratification, respect for authority/order, smaller government, preventing huge concentrations of power, adherence to originalist Constitutional principles, etc.

What you've been listening to, Colin, is the Left attempt to define us. And you've fallen for it, whether you can see it in yourself or not. Perhaps you need to do some more reading.

In the latest round of the increasingly heated intra-GOP feud, former Secretary of State Colin Powell Sunday defended his Republican credentials and fired back at radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney, saying the party had to expand beyond its conservative base.

“Rush will not get his wish and Mr. Cheney was misinformed – I am still a Republican,” Powell said in a much-anticipated interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” two weeks after Cheney suggested on the same show that the retired general had left the party by endorsing Barack Obama last fall.

Powell outlined his party bona fides, noting his votes for and services under a string of Republican presidents, and said it was not up to Cheney and Limbaugh – the radio host has kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism since Powell's cross-party endorsement last year – to determine who belonged in the GOP.

“Neither [Cheney] nor Rush Limbaugh are members of the membership committee of the Republican Party,” Powell said.

Powell suggested that there were a number of moderates in the party who shared his concerns but were hesitant to speak out “because if you are vocal you’re going to get your voice mail filled up and get lots of e-mails like I did.”

One such Republican did seem to take Powell's side of the fight today, as Former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge also joined in the criticism of Limbaugh Sunday.

“I think Rush articulates his point of view in ways that offend very many,” Ridge said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“It's a matter of language and a matter of how you use words. It does get the base all fired up and he's got a strong following. But personally, if he would listen to me and I doubt if he would, the notion is express yourselves but let's respect others opinions and let's not be divisive.”

Ridge also split with Cheney on the vice president's claim that Obama's policies were making Americans less safe. "I do not" agree with that, Ridge plainly told CNN's John King, adding, "Yeah, I disagree with Dick Cheney."

Powell also found a less likely ally in former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who said on "Meet the Press" that "I don't want to pick a fight with Dick Cheney, but the fact is, the Republican party has to be a broad party that appeals across the country," adding, "To be a national party, you have to have a big enough tent that you inevitably have fights inside the tent."

Pointing to President Ronald Reagan's at appealing to Democrats and independents as he carried 49 states in 1984, Gingrich – himself a potential 2012 contender for the party's presidential nomination – concluded, "I think Republicans are going to be very foolish if thy run around deciding that they're going to see how much they can purge us down to the smallest possible space."

It's a point Powell made, even as reiterated his commitment to the GOP, stressing that the party had to broaden itself to stay relevant, framing his critique as the political version of a military after-action report following last year’s election.

“I think the Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and decide what kind of party are we,” Powell said. “Are we simply moving further to the right and by so doing opening up the right of center and the center to be taken over by independents and be taken over by Democrats.”

Powell – who held up the late Jack Kemp as a model for the party, a conservative who was inclusive – also had some choice words for his two critics.

Reiterating his support for closing down the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Powell said Cheney’s opposition was an affront to Obama’s predecessor as well.

“Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama’s policy, he’s disagreeing with President Bush’s policy,” Powell said.

And, citing Cheney’s suggestion in a speech last week that President Obama only wanted to close Guantanamo to make Europeans happy, Powell said, “No, we’re doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world, that we’re a nation of law.”

Lending credence to Democrats argument that moving the Gitmo detainees to American soil would not put the country in danger, Powell said he was “not terribly worried about one of these guys going to a super lock-up.”

As for Limbaugh – whose name Powell pronounced as “Lim-bow” – the former secretary of state said he was an “entertainer” but who had such influence over the party that officials had to live in fear of offending him.

He lamented that RNC Chairman Michael Steele had “to lay prostrate on the floor” apologizing to Limbaugh after criticizing him and that other GOP members of Congress had to be similarly repentant after taking on the radio host.

“Well, if he’s out there he should be subject to criticism, just as I’m subject to criticism,” Powell said.

Steele, who's giving on Tuesday what the RNC is touting as a major speech out his vision for the party, said in an interview this week with "Fox News," that "I want a party that speaks to people. The idea that we only narrowly speak to one segment of the population is boneheaded and it's not reflective of the history of this party," adding, "How is kicking Colin Powell out or kicking Dick Cheney out or Rush Limbaugh in going to feed a child who's hungry tonight?"

In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Karl Rove dismissed the dust-up between Cheney and Powell, since "neither one of those two are candidates," and deemed the fight "a false debate that Washington loves."

Asked if he agreed with Cheney's contention that Limbaugh was better for the Republican Party than Powell, Rove said: "Yes, if I had to pick between the two."(source)

Lawmakers Want Obama To Slow Down On GM, Chrysler

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers appealed to the Obama administration on Friday to slow down the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler, wary of shuttered car dealerships, job losses and the big unknown of a GM bankruptcy.
"We are asking President Obama to call 'time-out' on his automobile task force," said Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio.

Members of Congress urged the White House to re-examine its work to stabilize the U.S. auto industry, prompted by sweeping plans outlined last week by Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. to shutter hundreds of car dealerships.

They said a pending June 1 deadline for a GM bankruptcy created more uncertainty for the industry, and could lead to a rash of more job losses and dealership closings.

Thirty-six members of Congress, mostly Republican, told the White House they were troubled by the work of the auto industry task force appointed by the president earlier this year. The panel has worked with GM and Chrysler to try to restructure the companies.

"They represent various Wall Street interests who have long looked at exporting jobs out of this country," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who accused the task force of facilitating plans by GM to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S.

Five House members, including Kucinich, LaTourette and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., met with a representative of the Obama task force on Friday. "They're anxious to have additional meetings," said LaTourette spokeswoman Deborah Setliff.

The White House said it was focused on helping the companies become viable to preserve jobs and strengthen the auto industry.

"Saving the auto industry is an urgent priority for our nation and our workers. The task force has worked diligently and deliberatively throughout this process and we will continue to work with all stakeholders," said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

Chrysler LLC, which has received $5.8 billion in federal aid, disclosed in bankruptcy court last week its plans to close about a quarter of its 3,200 U.S. dealerships by June 9.

General Motors, which has received $19.4 billion in aid and could be forced into bankruptcy, has told about 1,100 of its dealers—about 20 percent—that their franchise agreements will not be renewed by late next year. GM said Friday it had borrowed an additional $4 billion from the government, bringing its total to $19.4 billion.

Chrysler plans to close eight manufacturing plants, part of its work to shed assets, debt and contracts and shift its good assets to Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA.

GM and the United Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement Thursday on labor and health care concessions. Details have not yet emerged but GM had previously said it would close 16 factories, laying off 21,000 hourly workers.

While many auto plants are confined to Rust Belt states, the loss of car dealership jobs affect communities throughout the country. With an upcoming Memorial Day recess looming, members of Congress are expected to field questions about the job losses.

While GM has not made its list public, Chrysler has identified 789 dealerships in 49 states that are scheduled to be closed. Only Alaska was spared.

"These dealers deserve a little more than a pink slip in the mail," wrote Missouri Sens. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, and Kit Bond, a Republican.

The job losses have also brought vows of congressional oversight. Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, the ranking members on the Senate Commerce Committee, said they would hold hearings on the dealerships in early June.

Rockefeller's home state could lose 17 of its 24 Chrysler dealerships while 50 Chrysler dealerships in Texas are expected to go out of business.

"These companies cannot be allowed to take taxpayer funds for a bailout and then leave local dealers and their customers to fend for themselves with no real notice and no real help," Rockefeller said.(source)

Flip-Flops and Governance

By KARL ROVE

Barack Obama inherited a set of national-security policies that he rejected during the campaign but now embraces as president. This is a stunning and welcome about-face.

For example, President Obama kept George W. Bush's military tribunals for terror detainees after calling them an "enormous failure" and a "legal black hole." His campaign claimed last summer that "court systems . . . are capable of convicting terrorists." Upon entering office, he found out they aren't.

He insisted in an interview with NBC in 2007 that Congress mandate "consequences" for "a failure to meet various benchmarks and milestones" on aid to Iraq. Earlier this month he fought off legislatively mandated benchmarks in the $97 billion funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama agreed on April 23 to American Civil Liberties Union demands to release investigative photos of detainee abuse. Now's he reversed himself. Pentagon officials apparently convinced him that releasing the photos would increase the risk to U.S. troops and civilian personnel.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama excoriated Mr. Bush's counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, insisting it could not succeed. Earlier this year, facing increasing violence in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama rejected warnings of a "quagmire" and ordered more troops to that country. He isn't calling it a "surge" but that's what it is. He is applying in Afghanistan the counterinsurgency strategy Mr. Bush used in Iraq.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama promised to end the Iraq war by withdrawing all troops by March 2009. As president, he set a slower pace of drawdown. He has also said he will leave as many as 50,000 Americans troops there.

These reversals are both praiseworthy and evidence that, when it comes to national security, being briefed on terror threats as president is a lot different than placating MoveOn.org and Code Pink activists as a candidate. The realities of governing trump the realities of campaigning.

We are also seeing Mr. Obama reverse himself on the domestic front, but this time in a manner that will do more harm than good.

Mr. Obama campaigned on "responsible fiscal policies," arguing in a speech on the Senate floor in 2006 that the "rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy." In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, he pledged to "go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work." Even now, he says he'll "cut the deficit . . . by half by the end of his first term in office" and is "rooting out waste and abuse" in the budget.

However, Mr. Obama's fiscally conservative words are betrayed by his liberal actions. He offers an orgy of spending and a bacchanal of debt. His budget plans a 25% increase in the federal government's share of the GDP, a doubling of the national debt in five years, and a near tripling of it in 10 years.

On health care, Mr. Obama's election ads decried "government-run health care" as "extreme," saying it would lead to "higher costs." Now he is promoting a plan that would result in a de facto government-run health-care system. Even the Washington Post questions it, saying, "It is difficult to imagine . . . benefits from a government-run system."

Making adjustments in office is one thing. Constantly governing in direct opposition to what you said as a candidate is something else. Mr. Obama's flip-flops on national security have been wise; on the domestic front, they have been harmful.

In both cases, though, we have learned something about Mr. Obama. What animated him during the campaign is what historian Forrest McDonald once called "the projection of appealing images." All politicians want to project an appealing image. What Mr. McDonald warned against is focusing on this so much that an appealing image "becomes a self-sustaining end unto itself." Such an approach can work in a campaign, as Mr. Obama discovered. But it can also complicate life once elected, as he is finding out.

Mr. Obama's appealing campaign images turned out to have been fleeting. He ran hard to the left on national security to win the nomination, only to discover the campaign commitments he made were shallow and at odds with America's security interests.

Mr. Obama ran hard to the center on economic issues to win the general election. He has since discovered his campaign commitments were obstacles to ramming through the most ideologically liberal economic agenda since the Great Society.

Mr. Obama either had very little grasp of what governing would involve or, if he did, he used words meant to mislead the public. Neither option is particularly encouraging. America now has a president quite different from the person who advertised himself for the job last year. Over time, those things can catch up to a politician. (source)

1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds

Released detainee Said Ali al-Shihri is now an al-Qaida commander in Yemen.

Thanks to Barry's unnecessary inflammation of conditions during our fight against terrorism, we now have intelligence officers paralyzed with fear over helping our country fight these fanatics.

This is what happens when you're concerned first with impressing your leftist cowards who wouldn't put up a fight to save their families, instead of keeping our secrets safe so that our solidiers' next move won't be telegraphed straight to the enemy.

The blood on Barry's soft hands has only begun to stain him.

WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.

The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against the transfer or release of any more detainees as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail.

The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.”

Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.

At the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Obama ran into a different kind of resistance when he met with human rights advocates who told him they would oppose any plan that would hold terrorism suspects without charges.

The White House has said Mr. Obama will provide further details about his plans for Guantánamo detainees in a speech Thursday.

To relocate the 240 prisoners now at Guantánamo Bay, administration officials have said the plan will ultimately rely on some combination of sending some overseas for release, transferring others to the custody of foreign governments, and moving the rest to facilities in the United States, either for military or civilian trials or, in some cases, perhaps, to be held without charges.

But the prospect that detainees might be moved to American soil has run into strong opposition in Congress. To show its misgivings, the Senate voted on Wednesday, 90 to 6, to cut from a war-spending bill the $80 million requested by Mr. Obama to close the prison, and overwhelmingly approved a second amendment requiring that a threat assessment be prepared for each prisoner now at Guantánamo to address what might happen on release.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said Wednesday that moving detainees to American prisons would bring with it risks including “the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.”

But Michele A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, said of the detainees: “I think there will be some that need to end up in the United States.”

Pentagon officials said there had been no pressure from the Obama White House to suppress the report about the Guantánamo detainees who had been transferred abroad under the Bush administration. The officials said they believed that Defense Department employees, some of them holdovers from the Bush administration, were acting to protect their jobs.

The report is the subject of numerous Freedom of Information Act requests from news media organizations, and Mr. Whitman said he expected it to be released shortly. The report, a copy of which was made available to The New York Times, says the Pentagon believes that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism or militant activity, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent.

The report was made available by an official who said the delay in releasing it was creating unnecessary “conspiracy theories” about the holdup.

A Defense Department official said there was little will at the Pentagon to release the report because it had become politically radioactive under Mr. Obama.

“If we hold it, then everybody claims it’s political and you’re protecting the Obama administration,” said the official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “And if we let it go, then everybody says you’re undermining Obama.”

Previous assertions by the Pentagon that substantial numbers of former Guantánamo prisoners had returned to terrorism were sharply criticized by civil liberties and human rights groups who said the information was too vague to be credible and amounted to propaganda in favor of keeping the prison open. The Pentagon began making the assertions in 2007 but stopped earlier this year, shortly before Mr. Obama took office.

Among the 74 former prisoners that the report says are again engaged in terrorism, 29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report. The Pentagon has said that the remaining 45 could not be named because of national security and intelligence-gathering concerns.

In the report, the Pentagon confirmed that two former Guantánamo prisoners whose terrorist activities had been previously reported had indeed returned to the fight. They are Said Ali al-Shihri, a leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch suspected in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, last year, and Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, an Afghan Taliban commander, who also goes by the name Mullah Abdullah Zakir.

The Pentagon has provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided.

“It’s part of a campaign to win the hearts and minds of history for Guantánamo,” said Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who has represented Guantánamo detainees and co-written three studies highly critical of the Pentagon’s previous recidivism reports. “They want to be able to claim there really were bad people there.”

Mr. Denbeaux acknowledged that some of the named detainees had engaged in verifiable terrorist acts since their release, but he said his research showed that their numbers were small.

“We’ve never said there weren’t some people who would return to the fight,” Mr. Denbeaux said. “It seems to be unavoidable. Nothing is perfect.”

Terrorism experts said a 14 percent recidivism rate was far lower than the rate for prisoners in the United States, which, they said, can run as high as 68 percent three years after release. They also said that while Americans might have a lower level of tolerance for recidivism among Guantánamo detainees, there was no evidence that any of those released had engaged in elaborate operations like the Sept. 11 attacks.

In addition to Mr. Shihri and Mr. Rasoul, at least three others among the 29 named have engaged in verifiable terrorist activity or have threatened terrorist acts. (source)

CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-GM Bankruptcy Plan Eyes Quick Sale To Gov't

You really have to have not only a dangerously large ego, but a dangerously large need for power in order to pull off this kind of a charade.

If you're like me, you can't handle too many minutes of Barry's reading or, worse yet, extemporaneous speaking. At the 7:00 minute mark of this above clip, you will see Barry try to fool the American people. He is acting as if his "leadership" has fostered this meeting of auto executives and union bosses.

How hard is it to "lead" when you can threaten the players with the long arm of the law to "come together"? How about threatening to fire an auto company ceo because you're the big, bad president of the United States Of America?

Anything's possible when you're a Marxist. As Saul Alinsky said, breaking the rules is justified for the ends of communism. Who has respect for something like a self-made corporation 100 years old? When you're a punk ass kid who's never had a real job in your 47 years, there's nothing respectable in getting up every day and going to a job for a living.

NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp's (GM.N) plan for a bankruptcy filing involves a quick sale of the company's healthy assets to a new company initially owned by the U.S. government, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

The source, who would not be named because he was not cleared to speak with the media, did not specify a purchase price. The new company is expected to honor the claims of secured lenders, possibly in full, according to the source.

The remaining assets of GM would stay in bankruptcy protection to satisfy other outstanding claims.

GM has about $6 billion in secured debt, including a secured revolving credit and bank debt.

The government's plans include giving stakes in the new company to GM's union and bondholders, although the ownership structure of the company is still being negotiated, said the source who is familiar with the company's plans.

In addition, the government would extend a credit line to the new company and forgive the bulk of the $15.4 billion in emergency loans that the U.S. has already provided to GM, the source said.

The government has given GM until June 1 to restructure its operations to lower its debt burden and employee costs.

If those talks failed, the company has said it would follow rival Chrysler LLC into bankruptcy.

Setting up a new company to buy the healthy assets is aimed at reassuring consumers who might not be willing to make a major purchase from a bankrupt company, fearing it would not honor warranties or provide service.

The board of the new company would be established with the tacit approval of the government. Fritz Henderson, who took the helm of GM earlier this year after the government pushed out Rick Wagoner, would likely head the new company, the source said.

GM could not be immediately reached for comment.

GM shares were up about 9 percent at $1.29. (Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)[source]

Barry In Charge: "Just Words"?

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons

Carson City - The Office of Governor Jim Gibbons was notified today that President Barack Obama has refused to meet with the Governor and key business leaders from Nevada. Governor Gibbons requested the meeting in a letter to President Obama so the President could address statements he made that were critical to Nevada and have caused economic damage to convention business and tourism business in the Silver State. Earlier this year, the President told an audience in Elkhart, Indiana, "You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime." That quote was seen by many as an insult to Las Vegas and as a message to companies across the Nation to stay away from Las Vegas for corporate meetings and conventions.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reports over 400 conventions and business meetings scheduled to take place in Las Vegas recently have cancelled. These cancelled events translate into 111,800 guests in Las Vegas and over 250,000 "room-nights". The cancelled conventions and meetings have cost the Las Vegas economy over $100-million, not including gaming revenue.

"I am disappointed at the hypocrisy shown by this Administration," Gibbons said, "President Obama is coming to Las Vegas later this month for a political fundraiser, but he will not help the struggling families in Las Vegas and Nevada who are out of work because of his reckless comments." Governor Gibbons noted, "President Obama is coming to Las Vegas to raise campaign cash for Senator Harry Reid, apparently our money is good enough for the President, but our tourism, jobs, and economic future are not." Gibbons added, "This is politics, pure and simple, President Obama stood for change, but all he has done is brought negative economic change to Nevada."

Governor Gibbons is calling upon Senator Reid to use any influence he might have to ask President Obama to encourage Americans to visit America during their summer vacations this year. "Sometimes Washington politicians forget that the people of Nevada are Americans," Governor Gibbons said, "This President needs to repair the damage he has done."(source)

The Obamas Were In Debt -- And Now So Are We

This is a great article. For me, it conjurs up 2 thoughts:

1) Barry is a reincarnation of the despotic Soviet commisars who secretly kept beautiful summer homes and other treasures while inflicting the socialist nightmare on the Russian masses that weren’t sent to the gulags or executed;

2) The smug self-righteous quality of all liberals who insist on YOUR kids being sent to public schools while they grace their own kids with private education. His sickening personality is on display here:

Richard Henry Lee

An examination of the Obama’s finances show that they were living off lines of credit along with their salaries until 2005, when the book royalties came through and Michelle received her astonishing 260% pay raise at the University of Chicago.

This reexamination of the Obama’s finances was triggered by a Chicago Tribune story on whether the Obama’s should refinance their home in Chicago. In addition, it is tax time with tea parties and that is another good reason to take another look.

As we first reported here last year, the Obamas received a better mortgage rate from Northern Trust than the market rate when they bought their mansion in the upscale Kenwood area of Chicago with the aid of now-convicted felon, Tony Rezko. The Tribune story asked mortgage experts if the Obama’s should refinance and the answer is “no”.

But the public record of their spending shows that they had to regularly take out lines of credit to pay their bills. As reported during the campaign, Michelle Obama complained in hard hit Ohio:
I know we’re spending — I added it up for the first time — we spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we’re spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements and so on and so forth,”

The Obamas were living beyond their means for several years according to an examination of their tax records and their mortgage documents.

In 2000, the first year that we have tax records, the Obamas had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $240,505 and yet reported only a paltry $38 in interest, which indicates either a small savings account or interest on a checking account. In 2002 they reported $33 in interest and no interest in 2001, 2002 and 2004. This means there was virtually no savings account for those years. They were spending their entire income, plus whatever they had from lines of credit. During the five year period from 2000 to 2004, their combined AGI was $1,217,482.

In 2005, the year the book royalties came in and Michelle received her remarkable raise (coincident with Obama’s swearing-in to the US Senate), they reported a total of $13,285 in interest along with an AGI of $1,665,106. This is also the year they bought their Hyde Park mansion.

Acording to Cook County property records, the Obama’s purchased a condo on South East View Park in Chicago in 1999. They took out a 30 year adjustable rate mortgage of $159,250 with an initial rate of 6.6% on April 6, 1999. One month later on May 7, 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750.

On September 25, 2002, they refinanced their condo with a $210,000 30 year mortgage. This means they took out at least $60,000 of equity from their home. But that was not enough. On May 3, 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 with a variable interest rate. Interest rates are not given for these mortgages, but they paid $14,395 in mortgage interest deductions in 2004. It is hard to estimate total debt outstanding since this deduction could include points. Mortgage interest deductions in 2003 were $12,241 by comparison.

In 2003, they reported almost $24,000 in child care expenses and in 2004, about $23,000. They also paid about $3400 in household employment taxes each year. They did receive a $700 child care credit each year.

Their AGI for these two years was $238,237 in 2003 and $207,647 in 2004. This drop in income was probably the reason for the refinanced mortgage.

In 2005, their AGI jumped to $1,217,482 due to the aforementioned book deal and Michelle’s pay raise. At this time, the Obama’s purchased their mansion for $1,650,000 and obtained a $1,320,000 mortgage from Northern Trust. But once again, six months later, they took out a $250,000 line of credit also from Northern Trust.


It is apparent from these numbers that the Obama’s were living beyond their means. They had to borrow again and again to make ends meet. And now President Obama is spending our nation's treasury at a profligate rate, far beyond previous presidents. But maybe Obama has a plan: perhaps he will write another best-selling book and donate the proceeds to the US to get us out of debt. One possible title might be: "The Decline and Fall of the American Republic". (source)

Obama Revives Terror Tribunals, Dismaying Liberals

One only has to read between the lines to see that Barry will say one thing while doing another. My guess: he will hold tribunals for a select few of these combatants at Gitmo, but, being the Harvard-trained lawyer he is, he will stack the court in a sure-fire way that will render any “justice” meaningless.

His preoccupation with the military courts being “properly structured and administered”, lest they perform as “sloppy”, shows this little boy’s disdain for military discipline and lack of lawyerly wiggle room to free guilty defendants.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Friday he would reform and restart the military tribunals he once reviled for Guantanamo Bay detainees, jeopardizing his timetable for closing the prison by January and dismaying many supporters who suggested he was going back on campaign promises.

Now, after the detainees are given stronger legal protections — a ban on evidence obtained under cruel duress, for example — the trials of 13 defendants in nine cases will be restarted no sooner than September. Five of the 13 are charged with helping orchestrate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The rest of the 241 Guantanamo detainees will either be released, transferred to other countries, tried in civilian U.S. federal courts or, potentially, held indefinitely as prisoners of war with full Geneva Conventions rights.

"This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values," Obama said, announcing his decision to renew the tribunals in a three-paragraph White House statement. The administration said he was not embracing the Bush-era system because it would be so significantly changed.

However, his action was almost instantly denounced by a host of liberal-leaning groups that championed his presidential campaign last year.

"In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law," said Amnesty International executive director Larry Cox.

"There is no such thing as 'due process light,'" said American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony D. Romero.

"As a constitutional lawyer, Obama must know that he can put lipstick on this pig — but it will always be a pig," said Zachary Katznelson, legal director of Reprieve, a London-based legal action charity that represents 33 Guantanamo detainees.

Obama's announcement was greeted more warmly on Capitol Hill, where he will need broad support to quickly push through tribunal changes. The White House hopes to do so before mid-September, when a new 120-day freeze the president put on the cases Friday runs out.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, D-Mich., called the changes "essential in order to address the serious deficiencies in existing procedures." Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said the announcement was an "encouraging development."

"By taking this action, President Obama has reinforced that we are at war, and that the laws of war should apply to these prisoners," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

The tribunal system was established after the military began taking detainees from the battlefields of Afghanistan in late 2001. But the process immediately and repeatedly was challenged by human rights and legal organizations for denying defendants rights they would be granted in most other courts.

As a senator, Obama voted for one version of the tribunal law that gave detainees additional rights, but then voted against the more limited 2006 legislation that ultimately became law. Friday's changes restore some of those rights, including:

_Restrictions on hearsay evidence that can be used in court against the detainees.

_A ban on all evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This would include statements given from detainees who were subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, although a U.S. official said no evidence of that kind had been allowed anyway.

_Giving detainees greater leeway in choosing their own military counsel.

_Protecting detainees who refuse to testify from legal sanctions or other court prejudices.

The latest delay, however, means Obama could face an uncomfortable choice as the clock runs out on his self-imposed January 2010 deadline to close Guantanamo.

His administration will have only four months to finish the nine trials before then, or risk moving the cases to the United States if they are still under way. If that happens, the detainees would be given even greater legal rights than they have at Guantanamo — and more than Obama wants to give.

Asking Congress to change the 2006 commissions law could create longer delays. Lawmakers, leery that the detainees could be brought to the U.S., already have held up funding for closing the prison until the White House outlines details of how it would happen.

Obama could roll back the January 2010 deadline, which he imposed on his second day in office. That could throw in doubt his campaign promise to shut down the prison and, at the least, highlight his struggle to reverse Bush-era national security policies that damaged America's image worldwide and stoked recruitment among insurgents.

Clive Stafford Smith, who represents several current and former detainees, was surprised that the Obama administration plans to restart the trials at Guantanamo instead of elsewhere. "There is zero chance that the military commissions could be over by January, so that cannot possibly be the plan," he said.

Navy Lt. Richard Federico, who represents two Guantanamo detainees charged before the military commissions, including alleged 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al Shibh, also doubted cases could be completed by January. Litigation over the legality of the new rules "will certainly incur additional delay," Federico told The Associated Press.
(source)

Nancy Pelosi: "Dangerous", Says Newt

Nancy Pelosi: "Save Me From My Own Stupidity"

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bluntly accused the CIA on Thursday of misleading her and other lawmakers about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration, escalating a controversy grown to include both political parties, the spy agency and the White House.

"It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress," responded CIA spokesman George Little, although he refused to answer directly when asked whether Pelosi's accusation was accurate.

But the House's top Democrat, speaking at a news conference in the Capitol, was unequivocal about a CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

"We were told that waterboarding was not being used," the speaker said. "That's the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were." She suggested the CIA release the briefing material.

Pelosi also vehemently disputed Republican charges that she was complicit in the use of waterboarding, and she suggested the GOP was trying to shift the focus of public attention away from the Bush administration's use of techniques that she and President Barack Obama have described as torture.

Coincidentally, Pelosi spoke as the CIA rejected former Vice President Dick Cheney's request to release secret memos judging whether waterboarding and other harsh techniques had succeeded in securing valuable intelligence information.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the request was turned down because the documents are the subject of pending litigation, which makes them not subject to declassification.

Pelosi has been the target of a campaign orchestrated in recent days by the House Republican leadership, which is eager to undercut her statements as well as stick Democrats with partial responsibility for the use of waterboarding — a kind of simulated drowning — in the Bush administration.

GOP officials secured the release of an unclassified chart by the CIA that describes a total of 40 briefings for lawmakers over a period of several years. Pelosi's name appears once, as having attended a session on Sept. 4, 2002, when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Former Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who at the time was the chairman of the committee and later became CIA director, also was present.

The notation says the briefing was on "enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah ... and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed."

Little, responding to Pelosi for the CIA, said the chart "is true to the language in the agency's records." But he did not say whether the information was accurate.

Instead, he pointed to a recent letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta to lawmakers saying it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate.

The CIA has said it could allow congressional staff to review the notes made by briefers who spoke with lawmakers.

The chart specifically notes a discussion of waterboarding in 13 briefings between February 2003 and March 2009, most attended by Democrats as well as Republicans. Two Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, have challenged the accuracy of some of the CIA's chart.

Pelosi's decision to respond to her critics was something of a surprise, since most polls show Obama and his policies are popular, and Republicans have exhibited virtually nonstop political disarray in the six months since last fall's elections.

Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has expressed opposition, as have congressional Republicans.

Pelosi was unusually harsh in describing the CIA.

"They mislead us all the time," she said. Asked whether the agency had lied, Pelosi said yes.

Pelosi contended that Democrats did what they could to stop the use of waterboarding. The senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who received the 2003 briefing on the practice, sent the CIA a formal letter of protest, she said. That was a reference to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.

But Pelosi said her focus at the time was on winning control of Congress from the Republicans so her party could change course.

"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job — the Congress part," Pelosi said.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, said during the day that Democrats "want to have it both ways" on waterboarding by claiming they did not oppose it even though they criticize it.

Boehner also asked Obama in a recent White House meeting to release the CIA memos that describe the information gained through the use of waterboarding.

Cheney says the documents show that the tactics prevented terrorist attacks and saved lives.

In an embarrassment for the administration, the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a recent memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. He later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques — the same position Obama has taken. (source)