Making Excuses for Obama

[Swamp Gas]

Making Excuses for Obama

www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13698

Making Excuses for Obama
The mythology of good intentions

by Justin Raimondo

Every time I write about Barack Obama I get a lot of letters, and the most typical goes something like this:

Dear Justin,

I read your column regularly, and generally agree with what you have to say, but I think you've got Barack Obama all wrong. Yes, I know, he went before AIPAC and kowtowed; he pledged to do "anything – and I mean anything" to stop Iran's nuclear program. He acts "tough" and says he's going to invade Pakistan; he gets in Russia's face. But that's all a show: you see, he has to do this stuff or else he won't get elected. Once he's safely in office, he'll do the right thing.

Sincerely,

John Q. Reader

This is an amalgam, but true to the spirit of the many pro-Obama missives I've received. They express a sentiment that is very widespread, so much so that it doesn't seem to matter, much, what Obama says he's going to do, because, in any case, his fans and supporters will simply insist on projecting their own hopes, desires, and views onto him. This, by the way, is a feature of most all successful populist insurgent candidates: they are blank slates merely waiting to be written on by anxious voters, who know only that they are sick of what is, and pine for what ought to be.

As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, in this instance – because we've certainly been through the mill these past eight years, and deserve some relief – I have to say that this attitude is profoundly irrational. After all, why shouldn't we take Obama at his word? If he says he's going to "curb Russian aggression" – you know, like one might curb one's rather-too-aggressive dog – and get up in Putin's face, is he lying? When he solemnly pledges to go after the Iranians if they insist on deterring Israel's nukes with an arsenal of their own, is he speaking in Pig-Latin?

The common assumption of these letter-writers is that Obama is just trying to "pass," so to speak, as a warmonger. Once he's in office, peace will break out all over. What evidence do we have for this? None whatsoever.

Now, it's true that the Obama campaign didn't really take off until he made known his antiwar views on the Iraq question, and a lot of his street cred is due to this early stance. He was against the war from the beginning – and made sure the voters of Iowa knew it. His chief rival, Hillary Clinton, took a rather more equivocal stance, and he beat her over the head with this relentlessly. This was encouraging, but hardly definitive.

At the time, I warned that Obama's refusal to take war with Iran "off the table" – as the Important People invariably put it – did not bode well, and, given his development over the course of the campaign it turned out I was – unfortunately – right. It isn't just a pedantic intellectual desire for consistency, or just to give me something to write about, that motivates me to criticize the inconsistencies of ostensibly "antiwar" politicians. Ideas have consequences, as the conservatives used to say, and if Obama makes it to the White House we're sure to experience some conceptual "blowback."

Obama lied – people died! How long before we see that slogan emblazoned on a placard at a rather sparsely-attended antiwar rally?

But of course he didn't lie, and isn't lying now. He's telling us he wants to confront Russia and Iran. He's telling us he wants to increase a military budget already larger than the total military expenditures of all other nations combined. He says he won't hesitate to invade Pakistan – and, presumably, any nation anywhere – if we have some reason to believe Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are in the vicinity. I think he's telling the truth – and I challenge the Obamaoids, especially the ones who claim to be sick of eight years of constant warfare, to prove otherwise. If Obama is indeed giving us the real story, and if he actually implements his foreign policy proposals, we are in a world of trouble.

Joe Biden rightly said that, within six months of his election, Obama would be "tested." This was generally taken to mean tested by America's enemies – al-Qaeda, the Iranians, possibly the Russkies – but I took it in quite a different way.

Yes, he will be tested, and has been repeatedly tested – by the War Party. So far, he's passed with flying colors. For evidence of this, just look at all that money he's raised from some of the biggest players in the game of Empire. The high-rollers aren't placing their bets on Obama for nothing. You don't spend $45 million on a single infomercial if you're financing your campaign with small contributions. I've written about Obama's bigtime Wall Street backers at length, here.

In any case, I hardly think Obama is going to abolish the very Empire that polices the world on behalf of his Wall Street backers. Nor did I ever expect him to, even when I was more favorably inclined to his candidacy. Back in those halcyon days, afflicted as I was by an irrational exuberance due to rising antiwar sentiment, I did expect he wouldn't get us into any fresh wars, even if he didn't quite wind up the ones we're already fighting.

I'm afraid, however, I was quite wrong, In this regard, an interesting bit of reporting appeared in last week's [Oct. 22] New York Times, where we learn:

"Mr. Obama, the candidate who has expressed far more willingness to sit down and negotiate with the Iranians, said in an e-mail message passed on by an aide that in any final deal he would not allow Iran to produce uranium on Iranian soil, the same hard-line view enunciated by the Bush administration."

The writer, David Sanger, goes on to point out that the stereotypes of warmonger and peacenik in this race are not only off, they are way off:

"Consider the delicate issue of Pakistan, where it is Mr. Obama who has been far more willing than Mr. McCain to threaten sending in American troops on ground raids. Mr. McCain, by contrast, argues that Pakistan must control its territory. ‘I don't think the American people today are ready to commit troops to Waziristan,' he said, months before Mr. Bush signed secret orders this summer authorizing ground raids in Pakistan, including the violent sanctuaries of North and South Waziristan."

Interesting – not that it means McCain is the real peacenik, just that Obama is, potentially, even more reckless than Mad John. Don't let that calm demeanor fool you. President Obama is no hyperventilating arm-waving interventionist, for sure, but that's just a question of style. He'll no doubt cultivate his own signature brand: Zen interventionism, if you will.

What's unnerving, however, is that Obama's foreign policy views have gone largely unarticulated, except in the most general terms. He's a man of mystery, a characteristic that lets his supporters project their own views onto him, and yet this failure to be more forthcoming is what I find particularly ominous. As Sanger reports:

"Mr. McCain, now the Republican nominee, agreed to an interview during the primary campaign. Obama aides answered questions at length, but Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, citing the pressures of time in the campaign, declined requests dating to June to be interviewed in detail on how he would handle potential confrontations beyond Iraq that could face the next president."

During that interminable infomercial, a total of less than two minutes was devoted to the issue of war and peace. And those two minutes were filled with renewed vows to increase the military budget – with the added fillip of "curbing Russian aggression."

This should comfort all those "Obama-cons," alleged conservatives who are jumping on the bandwagon now that his election seems imminent – because we seem to be going back in time, back to the "good old days" of the cold war. In Obama World, the Russians are coming -- again! Soon we'll be hearing dire warnings that if we don't stop them in South Ossetia, before you know it they'll be in South Carolina. Hollywood – a bastion of Obama-mania – will do a remake of Red Dawn. Schoolchildren will be subjected to "duck and cover" sessions, and Fox News will do an updated revival of "I Led Three Lives."

Okay, enough with Obama, because it's not really about him, personally, or even politically. People need hope: they need to know that they aren't, ultimately, powerless, that they can make an impact on what we do as a nation -- that is, what the government does in our name. They not only like to believe it, they have to believe it, because to not believe it is to fall victim to despair. It is the democratic faith, which one devoutly hopes is not a pretty fiction.

Yet the electoral process is rigged, in this country: the system permits only two political parties. All others must overcome enormous obstacles to achieve ballot status. This give the War Party maximum elbow room to manipulate the political process behind the scenes, and allows them to exercise their dictatorship in a "democratic" fashion. The two-party monopoly gives the War Party a strategic advantage: it merely has to split itself in two, amoeba-like, so that both officially-recognized "major" parties" simply become the "right" and "left" wings of a single party – the War Party.

This limits the political options of the peace movement, and makes it harder to have an impact even at the primary level: the gigantism of the system, with its two monolithic party organizations, is biased against insurgents. It is also more amenable to the advantages of money, large sums of it, which Obama has had access to throughout this campaign.

Political action is fine, and necessary, but there are other, more important tasks for those who want to bring about a real change in American foreign policy – by which I mean a complete turnaround. Such ambition requires a longer view.

America has been an emerging empire for the past half century or so, and now that we're the semi-official world's policeman – the "hyperpower," as the French put it – a good many Americans are beginning to question the value and the morality of playing such a role. The Iraq war, however popular it appeared to be at first, is today as unpopular than the President who started it, he whose polls have hit historic lows. The next President will have to contend with a war-weary public, with very little patience for new interventions.

But – and I hate to tell you this, but somebody has to -- the politics of fear and deception have not been patented by the Republicans. Look for the Democrats to add their own ingredient to this bipartisan recipe for overseas disasters: the politics of guilt. White liberal guilt, to be sure. We'll be smack dab in the middle of Africa's feuding tribes faster than you can say "Samantha Power."

And that's the best case scenario. In the worst case, the Dennis Ross faction of Obama's emerging foreign policy movers and shakers will maneuver us into a confrontation with Iran, and relations with Russia will deteriorate to a new low as NATO escalates its eastward expansion. In any case, those who are working to effect a fundamental change in American foreign policy have a duty to take Obama at his word -- hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

[Swamp Gas]

When the Obama-ites come down from their drunken high, maybe they will see that things will not be much different. Pelosi is a Left Neocon, and you can paint her any way you want, but she, like Biden and Obama, are dedicated to their corporate sponsors. Obama’s statement about “main Street and Wall Street” is a blatant lie, since he voted for Wall Street on the Extortion Bill.

On the lies about Russia, this is what Joe “Zionist’ Biden has in store for all you “Anti-war” people.

finchannel.com/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23584&Itemid=55

So the question is this, when and if Obama pulls a Clinton, and backs extremely Right Slanting ideas, will everyone who voted for him, take him to task? Somehow I doubt it. Teflon anyone?

I can’t say for certain what Obama and his cabinet will do in the next 4 years, as much as his supporters can say what he will do. However, if his voting records in the last 6 months are any indication, we can expect a vicious foreign policy, more surveillance, and kissing the butts of Wall Street.

Is he any better than McCain? Of course, the Supreme Court appointments themselves will keep a left-right balance.

I would also have to say I am glad that finally African Americans got a fair shake after centuries of torture at the hands of many crazy white people.

[Swamp Gas]

12 Reasons to Watch Carefully to Obama as President of the United States

www.cherada.com/articulos/12-reasons-to-watch-carefully-to-obama-as-president-of-the-united-states


The Zionists and civilian militars control Obama's overall war politics regarding the Middle East. There won't be a chance for peace in Iran, Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq. Wall Street controls Obama's financial politics: There won't be any space to some progressive from Cambridge to introduce an alms for the families losing their house.

Now that Barack Obama has won the presidency of the United States of America, it is imperative that all of us hold him accountable for any of the following political actions that he is verly likely to take that could be contrary to anything he has promised during his campaign and that will put at risk even more our freedoms, prosperity and the need of unity this country needs.



Presidential elections in the United States, have once again, brought a test fire to the integrity and behaviour of intellectuals in the US. It is a duty and intellectual responsibility of the public to tell the truth to the power, the latest statements from most of our most reknowed scholars with more prestige have failed miserably. Instead of unfold, unmask and denounce the reactionary home and international policies of the Democrat Candidate, Senator Barack Obama, they have preferred to support him, "in a critical way, by offering excuses such as "limited differences" could be taken as positive, and that "Obama is a minor evil" and "creates the possibility of a change".



What makes this arguments unsustainable is the fact that public statements of Obama, his main advisors in politics and the ones which probably configures his policies from the presidential seat have outlined openly a foreign policy highly bellicose and a home policy deeply reactionary, totally in line with Paulson-Bush-Wall Street. In regard to the main topics about war, peace, financial crisis and the savagery exercised over the salaried class in the United States, Obama promises to enlarge and intensify the policies most americans reject and repudiate.

12 Reasons to Reject Obama


1.- Expansion of Military Aggression Abroad


Obama promisses repeatedly and publicly intensify the US military intervention in Afghanistan, increasing the number of american soldiers, expanding their operations and participating in systematical trans bordering attacks. In other words, Obama is a major bellicist worst than Bush.

2.- Pakistan under menace under the scam of "War on Terror"


Obama has declared publicly that his regime will intensify the "war on terror" by the means of terrestrial and air attacks at large scale on Pakistan, thus involving all villages and cities considered favorable to afghan resistance.

3.- Obama opposes the withdrawal of american forces from Irak


He prefers the reallocation from combat zones to places for training and logistics, depending on the capabilities of the Iraqi army to defeat the armed resistance. Obama opposes to give a deadline for the withdrawal of american forces from Irak since they are essential to pursue his global policies in the Middle East which include military confrontations against Iran and Syria, and the south of Lebanon.

4.- Obama's unconditional support to Pro-Israeli Lobby


Obama has declare his full support to pro-Israeli lobby and bellicose, expansionist and colonialist policies from the Jewish State. He has promises to support Israeli military attacks, no matter the cost for the USA. His despicable servility to Israel was more clearly during his speech at the Annual AIPAC meeting held in Washington this year. His main advisers, with significant and ancient ties to the highest hierarchies of the Zionist factories of propaganda and with the presidents of the principal jewish-american organizations who wrote the speech and that make his policy for the Middle East.


5.- Obama's threat to attack Iran


In two occasions, just some weeks earlier to the election day, Joe Biden indicated with absolute clarity some "points of conflict" (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and North Korea), recalling that Obama will "respond with strength". Obama's High Ranked Advisors for the Middle East include well known Zionists like Dennis Ross, very close to the "Center for Bipartisan Policy", which published a report that outlines a detailed action program for a war against Iran. The proposal from Obama to negotiate with Iran is nothing more than an excuse to give an ultimatum to Iran: The surrender of Iran's sovereignty or a monumental military agression.

6.- Obama's full support for the Total Expulsion of Palestinians from Cisjordania


Besides the expansion of new settlements in Cisjordania, the main reason for the hostility there is in the Middle East, of war and the discredit of the American policy in that region. With dozens of people that set Israel as a priority between his main campaign managers, political advisers, speech writers and probably the candidates for a seat in the government, there is practically no hope to "influence from the inside" or to "apply popular pressure" with the end of changing the servility submission from Obama to the Sionist power. By supporting Obama, the "progressive intellectuals" are, in fact, allies from their Zionist mentors


7.- Obama's unquestioned support to Wall Street Bailout


Regarding to his national policy, Obama's key economic advisers have flawless credentials from Wall Street. He approved without questioning and immediately the bailout, with taxpayer money, proposed by the US Treasure Secretary Paulson, for $700 billion to the wealthiest investment banks of the United States. Obama has not questioned nor Paulson neither the Banks for the use of these federal funds destined to bailout and acquire other banks instead of issuing credits to manufacturers and families that have to pay for their house. Obama's support to Paulson and to the Wall Street bailout are equal to his greedy proposals to suspend all the foreclosures during three months, pending for the renegotiation of interests. Obama proposes to intensify the goverment fund transfers to wrongly managed financial institutions and capitalist corporations in bankruptcy with the goal to save a failed capitalism instead of seek the installation of new long term public investment programs at large scale that generate well paid jobs for the workers.

8.- His NO to Free market intervention in public assistance


Obama's economic team has openly embraced and practiced the "free market" ideology and opposed any importan injection of federal funds to the productive activity of public property and social services and thus face the failed private sector, corruption and general collapse.

9.- Obama's embraces failed private health plans


He supports the greedy insurance corporations, the conservative medical and hospital associations and the big pharma. He rejects publicly an universal national health program based on the successful federal program of Medicar to favor private sector plans oriented to maximum profits and subsidized by the government just to provide a inefficient, expensive and out of the reach of more than one third of american families.

10.- Obama's defense of Big Farm companies


Also he favors the highly subsidized and profitable ethanol manufacturers. This program has increased food prices to millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people around the world.

11.- Obama also favors the hegemonic might in Latin American affairs


Obama supports the defense of the continuation of the criminal embargo to Cuba, the hostil confrontation with the populist President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and against other reformers in Latin America, his tricky policy to promote protectionism for America and the free market access in Latin America. His most important advisers on Latin American affairs propose cosmetic changes in the style and diplomacy, but implacable support to the US hegemony.

12.- Obama has no plan to end recession


He has not proposed any and nor his advisers of free market and his billionaire financial partisans any strategic comprehensive plan to get us out of a recession that deepens more and more. On the contrary, the series of fragmented measures presented by Obama is inconsistent with reality: Fiscal austerity is incompatible with the creation of new jobs; the Wall Street bailout divert necessary funds for public productive investment; and the prosecution of new wars undermines domestic recovery.

Conclusion


Intellectuals, who, in the name of "realism", support a politician that openly and publicly embraces new wars, millionaire bailouts with profit ends, health programs managed by the private sector, contradict his own demands as "responsible critics".

They what C. Wright Mills called "Realistic Nuts" surrending their responsibility as critic intellectuals. When seeming to support the "minor evil", they promote the "major evil": The continuation, during four more years, of great recession, colonial wars and popular alienation.

Even more, they allies of the big media outlets, of the mighty political parties and the legal system that has marginalized when not even openly excluded their alternative candidates, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, who they do truly speak clearly and oppose war, bailouts and propose the real public investment at large scale in the domestic economy, a universal health care program backed by one only fund, sustainable economic policies that protect our environment and redistributive policies of incomes in the long run at large scale.

What is fool and unacceptable is the argument that these intellectuals (who represent an insignificant grain in the Democrat donkey ass) that their "critic support" of Obama's political machine will open space where radica ideas fit. Zionists and civilian military control absoluterly the war policies of Barack Obama in the Middle East. There wil be no room for Peace in Iran, Palestine, Pakistan or Iraq. Wall Street controls his financial policies: There will be no room for any progressive from Cambridge to introduce a alms for families loosing their home.

If the multimillionaire association treasuries that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in each presidential campaign have not gotten any progressive legislation in the last 50 years, isn't that an illusion that our progressives "public intellectuals" imagine that they, in the splendid institutional isolation, can "exert pressure" on President Obama to dismiss to his advisers, supporters and the public defense of the military intensification in favor of peace with Iran and the promotion of social justice to all our workers and unemployees?

[Swamp Gas]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081111/ap_on_go_co/obama_lieberman

Obama wants Lieberman to stay with Senate Dems

By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer Andrew Miga, Associated Press Writer –

Sen. Joe Lieberman mum on future with Democrats Play Video AP – Sen. Joe Lieberman mum on future with Democrats

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. makes a statement on Capitol Hill in Washington, AP – Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. makes a statement on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008, …

WASHINGTON – President-elect Obama has told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid he's not interested in seeing Democrats oust Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman from their ranks over his endorsement of Republican John McCain.

Obama told Reid in a phone conversation last week that expelling Lieberman from the Democratic caucus would hurt the message of bipartisanship and unity that he wants for his new administration, a Senate Democratic aide said Tuesday. This aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential.

The caucus is the meeting of all Senate Democrats and at the beginning of each Congress it chooses the body's leaders. Lieberman, a longtime Democrat most recently re-elected as an independent, has continued to join the Democratic caucus.

In the last Congress his presence was essential to the Democrats' control of the Senate because he gave them a 51-49 edge over Republicans. But Democrats expanded their majority last Tuesday and no longer need Lieberman to control the chamber, though his vote still could be crucial in votes to end filibusters.

Obama says he won't get involved in the fight on Capitol Hill over whether Democrats should take away Lieberman's chairmanship of a key committee to punish him for backing his close friend McCain for president.

"We aren't going to referee decisions about who should or should not be a committee chair," Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in a statement Tuesday. "President-elect Obama looks forward to working with anyone to move the country forward. We'd be happy to have Sen. Lieberman caucus with the Democrats. We don't hold any grudges."

Lieberman angered many Democrats by criticizing Obama during the presidential race. Lieberman spoke at the Republican National Convention and accompanied McCain on the presidential campaign trail.

Lieberman has met with Reid, but there has been no word on whether Reid intends to try to oust Lieberman as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said the caucus should be "gracious in victory" toward Lieberman.

"Despite what Sen. Lieberman did in campaigning for Sen. McCain, speaking at the Republican convention, he has voted with the Democrats an overwhelming percentage of the time," Durbin said after a Veteran's Day event in Illinois.

Four Senate Democrats have been asked to review the situation and recommend possible actions against Lieberman, Durbin said. He would not identify the four.

Last week, Lieberman pledged to put partisan considerations aside and work with Obama. Lieberman, who was Democrat Al Gore's running mate in 2000, was re-elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 2006 as an independent after losing his state's Democratic primary. He remains a registered Democrat and aligns himself with Senate Democrats.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky spoke to Lieberman last week about the possibility of Lieberman's joining the GOP caucus.

[Swamp Gas]

www.realjewnews.com/?p=319

[Swamp Gas]

Good Analysis of Obama

www.rense.com/icke1.htm

[Swamp Gas]

www.heyokamagazine.com/heyoka_magazine.21.ralphnader.htm

Ralph Nader
Counterpunch
November 22, 2008

While the liberal intelligentsia was swooning over Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, I counseled “prepare to be disappointed.” His record as a Illinois state and U.S. Senator, together with the many progressive and long overdue courses of action he opposed during his campaign, rendered such a prediction unfortunate but obvious.


The signs are amassing that Barack Obama put a political con job over on the American people. He is now daily buying into the entrenched military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned Americans about in his farewell address.


Now this same intelligentsia is beginning to howl over Obama’s transition team and early choices to run his Administration. Having defeated Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, he now is busily installing Bill Clinton’s old guard. Thirty one out of forty seven people that he has named so far for transition or appointments have ties to the Clinton Administration, according to Politico. One Clintonite is quoted in the Washington Post as saying – “This isn’t lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time.”

Obama’s “foreign policy team is now dominated by the Hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990,” writes Jeremy Scahill. Obama’s transition team reviewing intelligence agencies and recommending appointments is headed by John Brennan and Jami Miscik, who worked under George Tenet when the CIA was involved in politicizing intelligence for, among other officials, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s erroneous address before the United Nations calling for war against Iraq.

Mr. Brennan, as a government official, supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition to torturing countries. National Public Radio reported that Obama’s reversal when he voted for the revised FISA this year relied on John Brennan’s advise.

For more detail on these two advisers and others recruited by Obama from the dark old days, see Democracy Now, November 17, 2008 and Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet, Nov. 20, 2008 “This is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama’s White House.”

The top choice as White House chief of staff is Rahm Emanuel—the ultimate hard-nosed corporate Democrat, military-foreign policy hawk and Clinton White House promoter of corporate globalization, as in NAFTA and the World Trade Organization.

Now, recall Obama’s words during the bucolic “hope and change” campaign months: “The American people…understand the real gamble is having the same old folks doing things over and over and over again and somehow expecting a different result.” Thunderous applause followed these remarks.

“This is more ‘Groundhog Day’ then a fresh start,” asserted Peter Wehner, a former Bush adviser who is now at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The signs are amassing that Barack Obama put a political con job over on the American people. He is now daily buying into the entrenched military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned Americans about in his farewell address.

With Robert Rubin on his side during his first photo opportunity after the election, he signaled to Wall Street that his vote for the $750 billion bailout of those speculators and crooks was no fluke (Rubin was Clinton’s financial deregulation architect in 1999 as Secretary of the Treasury before he became one of the hugely paid co-directors tanking Citigroup.)

Obama’s apologists say that his picks show he wants to get things done, so he wants people who know their way around Washington. Moreover, they say, the change comes only from the president who sets the priorities and the courses of action, not from his subordinates. This explanation assumes that a president’s appointments are not mirror images of the boss’s expected directions but only functionaries to carry out the Obama changes.

If you are inclined to believe this improbable scenario, perhaps you may wish to review Obama’s record compiled by Matt Gonzalez at Counterpunch.

[KNOWTHIS]

The old miserable bag of bones Larry Kudlow from CNBC who was Bush's greatest cheerleader was bragging about Obama's economic team. He said that he didn't agree with their spending plan and taxes but just loved that they were a bunch of free traders (traitors). It's never a good sign for a Democrat when you have earned the approval of Larry Kudlow.

[Swamp Gas]

Kudlow is an idiot.

firedoglake.com/2008/09/19/why-larry-kudlow-is-full-of-crap-let-me-count-the-ways/



www.chartingstocks.net/2008/11/obama-cabinet-picks-a-whos-who-of-establishment-insiders/


Obama Cabinet Picks: A Who’s Who of Establishment Insiders

Posted by chartingstocks1

Nov 24
Timothy F. Geithner

Obama Cabinet Position: Treasury Secretary
Political Party: Democrat
Career: Ford Foundation, Kissinger and Associates (Major Lobbying Firm), IMF, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Under Secretary of Treasury under Larry Summers and Robert Rubin.
Member: Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission
Notable Events: In 2007, he brokered the sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan using taxpayer money.
Spouse: Carole M Sonnenfeld, Lobbyist
Larry Summers

Obama Cabinet Position: White House’s National Economic Council
Political Party: Democrat
Career: Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, World Bank, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Robert Rubin (Clinton Administration). Harvard University, D. E. Shaw & Co (New York-based hedge fund)
Member: Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission
Notable Events:
World Bank Pollution Memo in which Summers argued that developed countries ought to export more pollution to developing countries because these countries would incur the lowest cost from the pollution.
Summers’ opposition at Harvard: March 15, 2005, members of Harvard’s Faculty passed 218–185 a motion of “lack of confidence” in the leadership of Summers
Rahm Emanuel

Obama Cabinet Position: White House Chief of Staff
Political Party: Democrat
Career: Israeli Army, Wasserstein Perella (Investment Bank), Board of Directors of Freddie Mac, US Congress.
Member: Israeli Lobby: Rahm is an influential member of AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee), which is the right wing Israel lobbying group.
Notable Events: Supports The War in Iraq and The Patriot Act.
Rahm’s father: Benjamin, was a member of the Irgun, the terrorist organization that coined a new word as they blew up hotels, train stations, and other buildings in Palestine in the 1930s and 40s. They took credit for the King David Hotel bombing.
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Obama Cabinet Position: Secretary of State
Political Party: Democrat
Career: Rose Law Firm (Legal/Lobbyist). Board of Directors TCBY, Walmart, & Lafarge
Member: Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission
Spouse: Bill Clinton
Voting Record: Voted FOR the invasion of Iraq. Voted FOR the Patriot Act.
Tom Daschle

Obama Cabinet Position: Health and Human Services
Political Party: Democrat.
Career: Former US Senator from South Dakota
Member: Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission
Lobbyist: Senior Policy Advisor with K Street Lobbying firm Alston & Bird.
Clients: CVS Caremark, National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth
Spouse: Linda Hall, Lobbyist
Voting Record: Voted FOR the invasion of Iraq. Voted FOR the Patriot Act.
Eric Holder

Obama Cabinet Position: US Attorney General
Political Party: Democrat
Previous Office: US Deputy Attorney General (Clinton), Federal Judge in DC appointed by Reagan.
Member: Council on Foreign Relations
Attorney/Lobbyist: Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C which is a major legal and lobbying firm.
Clients: Merck, National Football League, Chiquita Brands. The firm also served as “corporate affairs consultants” to Philip Morris.
Spouse: Sharon Malone, MD

[Swamp Gas]

Obama has ZERO antiwar people in this foreign policy and military-industrial wet dream team.

!!!CHANGE!!….er continual…..

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3540167/Barack-Obama-says-US-will-maintain-strongest-military-on-planet-as-Clinton-confirmed-top-diplomat.html

www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13838

The War Party’s decisive influence in the Obama administration is going to be rolled out on Monday, so that even the most craven Obama-bots on the Left will be left wondering who and what they voted for. Hillary the hawk at State, Bush’s warlord Robert Gates at Defense, and Gen. Jim Jones – who wants to station U.S. troops in the occupied territories under the rubric of NATO! – as national security adviser to the president. Yes, antiwar voters took a chance on Obama, reasoning that anything would be better than four more years of Bushian belligerence, yet now they discover to their chagrin that the dice are loaded.

Oh lest we not forget, who loves the economic/extortion team but KKKKarl Rove

online.wsj.com/ article/ SB122783239069463007.html

[Swamp Gas]

www.theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/The_New_Gods_Of_Finance_Will_Crush_The_Middle_Class


The New Gods Of Finance Will Crush The Middle Class

Posted: January 10 2009


will America ever return to her greater glory. or wallow in madness and mayhem, lust for power and profit knows no bounds, breaking down the nation state, TARP funds will cover the super wealthy, but we wont know where the money will really go, Fed continues to hoard their reserves while extorting taxpayer money under threats of orchestrated market crashes

The world used to hang on our every word, until our leadership went mad with power, and started to use our hard-earned money to corrupt our country and engage in empire-building, making our own rules, dressed in our jewels, as we went along. The world has fallen and longs for our leadership again, but will have none of it until we get back to being the old America.

The question now is, will we return to liberty and freedom, or stay joined to the jealous whore of evil and empire, of blood-lust and bondage and of megalomaniacal madness and mayhem, or will we lift up our hearts, make a new start and lead ourselves out of the hell where we are now headed courtesy of the Illuminati. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on that question.

We are now on the same path taken by the Roman Empire as it declined into a perverse, deviant, indolent, corrupt and bloodthirsty caricature of its former glory, a glory that was eclipsed by our beloved America of yesteryear, that has now been in a breathtaking decline for many decades thanks to the utterly despicable actions taken by our corrupt politicians and captains of industry who care only about themselves. We have a cabal of several thousand filthy-rich miscreants spoiling what could have been healthy, plentiful, productive and meaningful lives for billions of people around the globe. But no, these Shylocks have to have it all. Their lust for money and power is unquenchable, as these servants of Satan weave their web of fraud and deceit to entrap their fellow men in a plan to destroy, impoverish and enslave them. Murder and blood-lust is a way of life for them, and has been for many centuries, as the parents of millions of fallen soldiers and the relatives of millions of victims of pogroms, and genocides like the Holocaust, can well attest. Nothing gets in the way of these loathsome pieces of fecal detritus when it comes to accumulating power and profits. Not war, not murder, not criminality of any kind or nature.

Instead of entertaining themselves with gladiators tearing each other to shreds, our leadership of reprobates and sociopaths, our shadow government of Puppet Masters who elect and command our politicians in what has become our two-party/one-agenda system of government, a system which makes a mockery out of what is supposed to be a republican form of government based on democratic principles, entertain themselves by deceitfully and malevolently bullying, bankrupting and beggaring other nations and even their own fellow citizens. They are behind all wars and genocides, as their lust and longing for power, profits and population control know no bounds.

Every imaginable illicit enterprise is their oyster, and woe be to any who might try to muscle in on their territory. Their henchmen are everywhere. In our various levels of government, which have become devil's dens full of pernicious traitors as well as self-absorbed narcissists and perverts, especially at the federal level, in our unbelievably corrupt business corporations whose boards are packed with pathological liars and con-artists, in our courts, whose bought-and-paid-for judges act like federal and state legislative bodies in their assiduity to promote the evil agenda of their Illuminist handlers, in our fane-stream media, which are now run by perverts and their talking heads who wouldn't know the truth about anything if it bit them in the nose much less have the nerve to report about it, in our higher education and university systems which brainwash our children with Illuminist propaganda and disinformation, and in our tax exempt foundations which are little more than bristling hotbeds of seditious Orwellian idiots.

They take great pride in their evil, nefarious work of destroying the current world system of nation-states, so that in the ensuing chaos they can create a corporatist, fascist police state where they get to play "lords of the universe" while we, their serfs and slave laborers, live in abject poverty and bondage, catering to their every whim. Or so they hope. Fortunately for us, God is making other plans, and His plans are the only ones that will prevail in the end as the Illuminist scum receive their final comeuppance.

These Illuminist slime-balls and pond scum now own the system, and they do as they please. This will continue until you stop them. Will it take the exercise of our collective political will to stop them, or will it take bloodshed? We believe it will be some combination of the two, but mostly the latter. All systems are broken and corrupted. There is no accountability to the people at any level anymore. They already have plans to disarm you, and to have the Secret Service squirrel them away into rat-holes and safe-houses until the violence they know is coming blows over, or so they hope. These plans are in writing and were delivered to Congress in a joint closed session held in the spring of 2008, the second such session in our nation's history, during which session they discussed and predicted the September breakdown in our financial system that has led to a stock market meltdown which rivals that of the Great Depression.
As glaring evidence of the lack of accountability, your so-called elected representatives totally ignored your almost unanimous demands that the banksters not be bailed out, and now half of the TARP funds have been spent and we can't even get an accounting of what was done with the proceeds. The excuses given are always national security and trade secrets, which is the same tired mantra they hide behind whenever they trample on our Constitutional rights via illegal surveillance and wiretapping, or claim ignorance about the whereabouts of the two to three trillion that is missing from the defense budget, or cover up the false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that were used as an excuse to oust Saddam Hussein, rob Iraq of its oil and initiate plans for a military takeover of the Middle East, with Iran next on the agenda. Etc., etc., etc.

As this TARP fraud transpired, the Federal Reserve shelled out over $9 trillion in liquidity to their cronies, thus rapidly debasing our currency with total impunity, and the Fed may even be floating unauthorized Treasury bonds to absorb toxic waste and to fund bailouts. The Fed's Board of Governors are now the gods of high finance, deciding which companies will survive and which will get vaporized. (Hint: Survivors are Illuminist owned or controlled companies).

The Fed's member banks continue to hoard their reserves to destroy the small businesses that compete with Illuminist transnational conglomerates, while they use taxpayer largesse, extorted via threats of martial law and PPT-orchestrated stock market crashes, to buy out the competition which has been weakened by the hoarding of loan money. Dividends were paid to stockholders of insolvent companies, which have no business doling out nonexistent profits. These miscreants even had the unmitigated gall to use bailout money to fund the payment of salaries and bonuses to executives who have intentionally burned their once-profitable companies to the ground to pave the way for the consolidation, amalgamation and nationalization of the finance, insurance and auto industries that will form the core of the planned corporatist, fascist police state that now exists in fact, if not yet in name. The corruption is ongoing, pervasive and arrogant, and is nothing less than disgusting. This state of affairs is going to get much worse unless you stop them -- one way, or the other.

You will certainly not get a new start from Fascist Commie Comrade Obama and the new CCCP (Clintonite Cabinet of Con-artists and Parasites) that is composed of the same slugs who set up the economic scenario that has ruined our country -- intentionally -- to pave the way for a one world police state. When Caligula leaves the White House, he will be replaced by Nero who will play his Keynesian FDR fiddle while Rome burns to the ground and we are hyperinflated into oblivion. No, he won't tax the poor. Then what, we ask, is inflation if not a stealth tax? He has told us we must spend, spend, spend immediately to avoid any further meltdown of the system. We have news for you Obama: the system has already burned down. Throwing money down these rat-holes will ignite inflation, which is the worst kind of tax on the poor. The rich will get their loopholes while the poor shell out twenty-dollar bills for a loaf of bread. Has this man read any history, or is he just another ignorant baboon like the one leaving the White House? The use of multi-billion dollar bailouts to address multi-trillion dollar problems is like trying to bail out the Titanic with a shot glass. What else do you call over a million jobs lost over two months and the worst unemployment rates in six decades? Some of these idiots have yet to even acknowledge that we are in recession! That must be because, hey, our economy is strong and resilient (Caligula), and the housing crisis and credit-crunch will moderate over time (Buck-Busting Ben), as we continue to support a strong dollar policy (Hanky-Panky) while the Fed cuts to zero interest and spikes the money supply with $9 trillion dollars. Who can possibly believe a single word that issues forth from the mouths of these pathological liars and ignorant baboons who are, God help us, in charge of our political, foreign and economic affairs? And people wonder why we have a crisis of confidence?

If all the current debacles that are taking place -- in yo' face -- are not enough to convince you to buy gold, silver and their related shares, then may we be the first to welcome you to the Royal Order of Ignorant Baboons, with Caligula presiding as Grand Pooh-Bah and Baboon-in-Chief.

[Swamp Gas]

news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=29225492

Obama's Justice Dept. defending Bush secrets

The Associated Press
4:21 PM EST February 16, 2009

Despite President Barack Obama's vow to open government more than ever, the Justice Department is defending Bush administration decisions to keep secret many documents about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists.

In half a dozen lawsuits, Justice lawyers have opposed formal motions or spurned out-of-court offers to delay court action until the new administration rewrites Freedom of Information Act guidelines and decides whether the new rules might allow the public to see more.

In only one case has the Justice Department agreed to suspend a FOIA lawsuit until the disputed documents can be re-evaluated under the yet-to-be-written guidelines. That case involves negotiations on an anti-counterfeiting treaty, not the more controversial, secret anti-terrorism tactics that spawned the other lawsuits as well as Obama's promises of greater openness.

"The signs in the last few days are not entirely encouraging," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed several lawsuits seeking the Bush administration's legal rationales for warrantless domestic wiretapping and for its treatment of terrorism detainees.

The documents sought in these lawsuits "are in many cases the documents that the public most needs to see," Jaffer said. "It makes no sense to say that these documents are somehow exempt from President Obama's directives."

Groups that advocate open government, civil liberties and privacy were overjoyed that Obama on his first day in office reversed the FOIA policy imposed by Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft. The Bush Justice Department said it would use any legitimate legal basis to defend withholding records from the public. Obama pledged "an unprecedented level of openness in government" and ordered new FOIA guidelines written with a "presumption in favor of disclosure."

But Justice's actions in courts since then have cast doubt on how far the new administration will go.

Justice: FBI did enough
In a FOIA case seeking access to the rules governing the FBI's Investigative Data Warehouse - a computer database containing searchable documents about Americans and foreigners - Justice lawyers told a district court here Thursday, "It is not clear that the new guidelines, once issued, will be retrospective to FOIA requests that the agency already has finished processing."

They asked the court to rule instead that the FBI has done enough. The bureau has reviewed 878 pages, withheld 76 and released some portions of 802.

To withhold some material, the FBI cited discretionary FOIA exemptions and ones that require balancing privacy and public interests. David Sobel, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that advocates civil liberties in cyberspace and brought the lawsuit, said those decisions might come out differently under the new guidelines.

The issue isn't retroactivity, Sobel said. "The issue is whether the new administration is going to devote legal resources to fighting old battles now that the president has announced a fundamental change in the government's approach to FOIA."

Other lawsuits in which Justice's civil division has expressed opposition to delays until the administration writes its FOIA guidelines and uses them to review Bush decisions:

* One seeking documents about the Automated Targeting System used by Customs officers to screen all travelers leaving or entering the country.
* A case seeking records of lobbying by telecommunications companies to get legal immunity for cooperating in warrantless domestic wiretapping.
* A case seeking Justice's legal opinions justifying that wiretapping. One of the plaintiff attorneys, Meredith Fuchs, of the National Security Archive, a private group that publishes formerly classified government documents, said, "I'm somewhat surprised they did not take the opportunity to look at these again, but maybe it's because the administration doesn't have all its top Justice appointees in office yet."
* Three cases seeking Justice legal opinions about detention and interrogation of terrorism detainees. Civil division attorney Caroline Wolverton wrote the ACLU's Jaffer that Justice would proceed "consistent with the principles" in Obama's FOIA order "and also with due regard for the legitimate confidentiality interests of the executive branch and the national security interests of the United States."

Jaffer called that "a nonresponse response."

Two cases may be reviewed
So far, Justice has expressed willingness to review Bush decisions in two cases, only one because of FOIA changes.

Only in Sobel's lawsuit for anti-counterfeiting treaty documents has Justice joined a plaintiff to obtain a court delay to give the administration time to write FOIA guidelines and use them to "review its determinations on the documents at issue."

But that case is unusual because Justice is represented by its Office of Information and Privacy, not by the civil division that handles all the other FOIA lawsuits. The information and privacy office provides governmentwide guidance on how to obey the FOIA. Attorneys in these cases worry that the information and privacy office doesn't have the clout of the much larger civil division and may not control administration policy.

The civil division has sought a delay to review one case - involving three 2005 Justice legal memos on the definition of "cruel and unusual" interrogation tactics. But its request didn't mention the new FOIA policy. Instead it said Obama's Jan. 22 executive order on detention and interrogation might alter the government position.

Even if the new administration reviews Bush decisions, that's no guarantee the outcome will change.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a review of every court case in which the Bush administration used a different legal tool to preserve secrecy: the state secrets privilege it invoked a record number of times to have lawsuits thrown out. On the same day, however, civil division attorney Douglas Letter cited the state secrets privilege in asking a federal appeals court to uphold dismissal of a lawsuit accusing a Boeing Co. subsidiary of illegally helping the CIA fly suspected terrorists to allied foreign nations where they would be tortured.

Three times Letter assured the judges his position had been approved by Obama administration officials.

"This is not change," said ACLU executive director Anthony Romero. "President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged" on his promise to end "abuse of state secrets."