Note: You might want to start at the Barack
Obama Index Page, especially
if you arrived here by using a search engine.
Years of dumbing down the public schools have finally paid off for the Democratic Party. A
number of people who knew little or nothing about Barack Obama voted for him anyway, without
considering the adverse ramifications.
This is a collection of post-election commentary about the
impending Barack H. Obama presidency. Here's what we can expect
from President Obama and the Democrats in Congress in the first half of Mr. Obama's
first term:
The Liberal Laundry List
What
Motivates Obama: Leftist Turnout. Why is Barack Obama vilifying Fox News? Why does
Harry Reid push an immigration bill he knows can't pass? Why won't Chuck Schumer compromise on regulatory
reform, and why does he try to hang Goldman Sachs around the GOP? Why did Bill Clinton blame
conservatives who oppose big government for the Oklahoma City bombing? All share one motivation:
to increase their base's turnout in the off-year elections of 2010.
A New Direction. Obama
intends to punish productivity and reward laziness to the point that we become an egalitarian society (where
everyone has an equal amount of stuff) rather than a society of equal opportunity. You've seen ObamaCare.
Our country cannot survive this hideously expensive monstrosity. But there's more to come. Cap-and-Trade
is on the way. Unions will become more powerful. And then there's the Value Added Tax.
Obama's List. Obama is an
example of that peculiar American contribution to the long line of political deviancy: the romantic
leftist, a combination of undergrad Marxism, New Deal activism, Great Society idealism, and late '60s
dementia. In fulfillment of this role, he is going down the list of left-wing daydreams, wish-fulfillment
fantasies, and unfinished business, and doing his damnedest to see them made reality. No more than that,
and certainly no less.
Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up.
While President Barack Obama still faces stiff headwinds on a range of major legislation on his agenda, he
has been signing into law a slew of smaller initiatives that had gathered dust on the Democratic wish list
for years. Many of the bills had been blocked by Republicans who considered the measures unnecessary
expansions of government or too costly.
Obama and 'First Americans':
Our president is determined to fully implement President Clinton's Executive Order 13175 relating to
"Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments." Clinton's decree coincided
with the United Nations' adoption in 1997 of the Declaration of the "Rights of Indigenous Peoples." The
USA and Canada voted against adoption, and this may help explain why President Clinton waited until the very end of
his term to quietly issue the Executive Order.
From each group
that backed Obama, an agenda. The flipside of knitting together a winning coalition of techies,
anti-war activists, women, labor unions, young voters and the like is: (a) everybody thinks they were
most instrumental in sending Obama and more Democrats to Washington, and (b) they want Obama and the
Democrats to make their policy wish lists reality — first. Or, at least, right after a
stimulus bill is passed.
Wish lists
piling up for Obama. Labor unions want President-elect Barack Obama to move quickly on universal
healthcare and to make it easier for workers to organize. Latino advocacy groups want immigration reform.
Even the National Trust for Historic Preservation is urging Obama to seek full federal funding "to protect our
heritage." Interest groups are furiously drawing up wish lists for the incoming Obama administration,
many of them hoping to cash in on the investments they made — in volunteers, political support, and
campaign contributions — in Obama's commanding win.
Jimmy Carter's Race
Problem: When former president Jimmy Carter accuses the opponents of Barrack Obama's policy of nationalizing
broad aspects of our economy and spending us into bankruptcy of being "racists," perhaps he should look in the mirror.
In his 1982 book, Keeping Faith, Carter disingenuously said he "was not directly involved in the early struggles to
end racial discrimination." No kidding — in fact, he directly and unambiguously supported
segregation.
After Bush, will MoveOn live up to its name?
After more than a decade spent railing against the Republican machine, MoveOn wants to move on — even if it
means leaving some of its high-minded ideals behind. Last week, the group's members chose their top four
priorities for the organization, winnowed down from a top-10 list culled from 50,000 suggestions. ... What
they chose: universal health care; economic recovery and job creation; building a green economy; stopping
climate change; and end the war in Iraq.
A Nation Tottering Close To Political Idolatry.
[Scroll down] Even more frightening are a couple of administrative initiatives being bandied about by Obama's
supporters. One hopes to turn his vast army of volunteers and online minions into a "service" organization
existing apart from the government (can anyone say SA or SS). Another seeks to establish a position within
the White House that would basically amount to a secretary of art and culture that would establish an "artists
corps" at the beck and control of the government, no doubt to paint massive portraits of Obama himself on the
sides of public buildings before it's all over with.
The Obama presidency begins to
emerge. Social revolution is what the true believers, Obama's core, were voting for. The middle class
was voting for some vague sense of security, but the core — the sandal-wearers, the ACORN staffers, the Jeremiah
Wright congregation, and every last student of Ayers and Dohrn over the past twenty years — are looking forward
to some unimaginable combination of Woodstock, the October Revolution, the Book of Revelation, and the Barnum & Bailey
Circus. A new world in which there are no Republicans, guns, Bibles, or Israelis, in which planning and
collectivization work, in which there is such a thing as cheap, effective, and universal health care, in which Al Queda
simply want to be good neighbors, in which their own varicose veins, incipient arthritis, and extra ten pounds around the
middle have simply gone away, and in which Jerry Garcia never died.
Obama Is No Closet Centrist. After
reviewing many of Obama's personnel decisions, it's clear that Obama intends to be anything but a centrist on
social issues. Many of Obama's social policy advisors are leading figures in the abortion industry and
heavy hitters of the homosexual lobby. White House Communications Director Ellen Moran is a former
executive director of Emily's List, the leading abortion-focused political action committee. And Dawn
Johnsen, former legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, recently was appointed to Obama's Justice
Department Review Team.
Promises, Promises.
According to the Washington Post, Barack Obama sent letters to workers at seven federal agencies, telling them
he would, among other things: scale back private contracting, allow paid family leave, impose tougher industry
regulation, add staff to the Social Security Administration, and expand bargaining rights to Transportation
Security Administration officers.
The Sector Formerly
Known as Private. We're beginning to get a sense of what the next four years will look like.
It won't be a conservative era, that's for sure. Nor will it, despite appearances to the contrary, be a
reprise of the Clinton era. ... Obama's liberalism will be different. The center of political gravity has
moved to the left since the 1990s. The president-elect does not share his recent predecessors' enthusiasm
for free trade. He also won't face a Republican Congress. Instead he'll be dealing with, and from
time to time confronting, a Democratic Congress eager to enact a kilometers-long liberal wish list.
Liberal
Groups Roll Out Their Wish Lists. Gays serving openly in the military. Voting rights for
more ex-convicts. Paid sick days and family leave for most workers. Those are part of a long wish
list that liberal advocacy groups hope will become reality as Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats take control.
The Worst Case
Scenario: Many items on [Obama's] wish list don't require the direct expenditure of government
money. A more-than-willing Congress will enable him to redeem his pledge to the trade unions to push
through legislation to eliminate the secret ballot in union-recognition elections. The Environmental
Protection Agency probably does not need new legislation to change the rules on carbon emissions so that Obama
can achieve his goal of making new coal-fired generation plants totally uneconomic. The Federal
Communications Commission can impose so-called "fairness" rules that make it more difficult for the largely
conservative talk radio stations to challenge his government's policies.
The Emerging
Threat to Conservative Talk Radio. Despite President-elect Obama's claim that he will not
seek a new "Fairness Doctrine" to silence conservative voices in the media, commentators are bracing for
a battle over their free speech rights under the First Amendment. Indeed, the battle is already
underway and the enemies of free speech have made it clear that their censorship campaign will initially
be based on claims that conservatives do not reflect "local" and "diverse" viewpoints. The
so-called Fairness Doctrine may come later.
The Obama Fairness Doctrine:
Just three days after the election, a Brookings Institution leader issued a memo to President-elect Barack
Obama asking him to restore the Fairness Doctrine. The Vice-president of Governance Studies at
Brookings, Darrell West argues that the Fairness Doctrine would help restore journalistic ethics and
fulfill the media's mission to educate the populace.
Will Obama Revive the
Fairness Doctrine? [Eric] Holder's evasive responses represent the first hint that the new Administration may
re-open what has been "settled doctrine" within the Department of Justice and in the courts for over two decades; namely,
that the old Fairness Doctrine is an unconstitutional restraint on free speech. Not to mention that the original
argument used to justify these restrictions — that the scarcity of media outlets required the government to intervene
in order to guarantee a "diversity" of political opinion — has long since been overwhelmed by the proliferation of
cable channels, web sites, blogs, and so on.
The Culture
War and Barack Obama. [Obama] says he personally opposes gay marriage, but I can't imagine him
working against it. He's also fine with abortion in cases where the health of the mother is an issue.
Of course, the health of the mother could be a panic attack or a headache. Based on his voting record in
the past, I expect Obama to be extremely liberal when social legislation is presented to him. I also
expect Ruth Bader Ginsburg to have a new best friend if a Supreme Court opening occurs.
Soros-influenced
groups make inroads in Obama Administration. You may say what you want about the man, but he
knows a good investment when he sees one. Washington works by access. How is this access
gained? By showing support during campaigns. This Soros has done for Barack Obama.
The Liberal
Dream Agenda. The liberal onslaught comes in four parts: government-run health care,
a cap-and-trade carbon tax, a vast array of personal and business tax increases, and government authority
to seize financial institutions in addition to banks. This is the liberal dream agenda. If
passed, it would do what conservatives fear most. It would make America more like Europe, with
growing nanny statism and more reliance on government, considerably less on individuals.
Obama's
liberal arrogance will be his undoing. The most remarkable, or certainly the least remarked on,
aspect of Barack Obama's first 100 days has been the infectious arrogance of his presidency. There's
no denying that this is liberalism's greatest opportunity for wish fulfillment since at least 1964. But
to listen to Democrats, the only check on their ambition is the limits of their imaginations.
Obama's next push is
amnesty. It is no surprise that, after passing health care "reform," President Obama plans to
move on to his next big domestic initiative: granting citizenship to more than 12 million illegal
immigrants. For decades, Beltway and business elites have championed a policy of open borders and
unlimited Third World immigration. Amnesty is simply its logical culmination: the triumph of
political and corporate interests over patriotism.
Pandering to homosexuals
This subsection has moved to a page of its own,
located here.
Executive orders -- where are the checks and balances?
The Change
You'll Get: Who says you can't have it all? The Democrats — the
Left — now have the White House, control of both houses of Congress, a majority of
governors' mansions, a majority of state legislatures, the entertainment media, the elite news
media, the unions, the educational establishment, the lion's share of the philanthropic community,
and increasing power over the courts.
Dealing with terrorists
Will Obama Let bin Laden's Driver Go Free?
He has been tried, convicted and sentenced. But when Salim Hamdan finishes his time at Guantanamo this
December, he may not immediately walk free. The Bush administration has made clear it believes it could
hold this Yemeni detainee past his sentence as an enemy combatant. The question now is what will
President Barack Obama do?
No We Can't.
Barack Obama's emphasis on diplomacy and internationalism will do nothing to prevent Iran from attaining
nuclear weapons. The mullahs in Tehran are not open to compromise, and cannot be made any more pliable
by the impositions of a stricter sanctions regime. Any attempts at diplomacy or institution of sanctions
are, from here on out, aimed at building an evidentiary case that every non-military option will have been
exhausted. Once that case can be made, Obama will either give the order to bomb Iran or let the
Khomeinist regime in Tehran assert complete regional hegemony. There will not be, nor has there
ever been, a third option.
The
Presidency Is Not An Entry-Level Position. Obama has four positions related to the war which, in
my view, disqualify him for the presidency. First, how can a serious candidate for President of the
United States have a long-standing goal to end the war rather than win it? Great presidents don't end
wars — they win them. The only way the American military can be defeated is when American
leaders forfeit the fight for them. And that's exactly what Obama has wanted to do for years.
No War on Terror
under Obama. Lost in the dramatic disaster unfolding on Wall Street and the brazen hypocrisy of the Hillary
Clinton nomination is President-elect Obama's double signal that the war on terror is now over. His appointment of
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security signals that the Department will once again focus on
southern border immigration issues rather than on fighting terrorism.
Many Homeland Security Programs Can Be
Ended Under Obama, ACLU Says. Many of the programs created under the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) after 9/11 can be dispensed with, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. And the incoming Obama
administration will make major renovations in the DHS that will strengthen privacy rights for individuals, civil
rights activists said at a conference on Wednesday.
Obama's Muslim Speech: Barack
Obama is toying with the idea of making a speech from an Islamic capital within his first 100 days in office.
The scuttlebutt is all about finding the right one. (The consensus is Cairo — which is a terrible idea. An
Obama speech there would be read as a shameful acceptance of Mubarak's oppressive rule.) But my question is:
what would he say?
What's in a Middle
Name? In an exclusive interview with the Chicago Tribune, Obama said he'll use his full name in
the [swearing-in] ceremony like every other president. I have no problem with that, as far as it goes.
But Obama went further. He's not using his middle name simply because it's his middle name, but as part
of a deliberate strategy to "reboot America's image" among the world's Muslims. He also plans to deliver
a major speech in an Islamic capital, possibly within the first 100 days of his presidency. Why,
you might ask, is all this necessary? Simple: because of President Bush's myriad sins against
Muslims since 9/11.
Global agenda? When candidate
Barack Obama declared himself a "citizen of the world" before thousands of cheering German socialists, and later pledged
to "rejoin the world community," those weren't just his usual platitudes about "change." Those words sounded the
trumpet for his specific and far-reaching globalist agenda. Mr. Obama plans to use his presidential power to get the
Democratic-majority Senate to ratify a series of treaties that would take us a long way toward global rule over our money,
our laws, our military, our courts, our customs, our trade, and even our use of energy.
U.S. Expected to Reverse Course
on United Nations. The United States' relationship with the United Nations faces a major change
under the next administration. Those advocating greater U.S. engagement with the world body are lining
up with advice for President-elect Barack Obama.
U.N. looks for better times when
Obama takes over. Standing in the line of those hoping for a better deal from U.S. President-elect
Barack Obama than they got from outgoing President George W. Bush is a body representing the entire world:
the United Nations. Despite public protestations of neutrality in the November 4 presidential election,
there has been thinly disguised glee at U.N. headquarters that Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain.
U.N.American
Agenda. Nobody is happier about the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United
States than the folks at the United Nations. ... The U.N. is an uncomplicated place. Every sick,
unsatiated tyrant, European has-been, or miserable wretch brainwashed about the Great Satan wants to take
America down — unless they are able to immigrate of course.
Former top U.S. officials urge
stronger ties to the United Nations. A wide array of former top U.S. officials have urged
President-elect Barack Obama to make the United Nations a close partner in confronting global threats and
environmental challenges. Former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher and
former Defence Secretaries Harold Brown and William Perry were among the signers of the statement.
Obama Nominees Signal Radical
Pro-U.N. Agenda. [Scroll down] [Ed] Rollins replied, in part: "I think that's one of the greatest compliments to him,
is that he's not afraid of smart, strong people around him." This is what passes for media scrutiny of Obama's foreign
policy picks. In fact, there is much to question. Two nominees in particular — Senator Hillary Clinton
and Susan Rice — were close associates of Brookings Institution president Strobe Talbott, an advocate of world
government who was named as a trusted contact of the Russian Intelligence service while he was in the Clinton Administration.
Arctic-Seabed
Oil Claims May Quicken Under New Senate. Democratic party gains in the U.S. Senate may speed
approval of a maritime treaty that allows signatories to stake claims to Arctic seabed containing oil and
gas deposits. With President-elect Barack Obama supporting ratification of the Law of the Sea and
Democrats unseating seven Republican senators in this month's elections, the U.S. moved a step closer to
joining 157 nations including Russia that have endorsed the treaty, political analysts including the
Century Foundation's Jeff Laurenti said.
If you don't know anything bad about the
United Nations, you should visit
this page.
Censoring conservative radio
Is
Obama's New FCC Transition Head Talk Radio's 'Executioner'? Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer
warns that Barack Obama is signaling his designs on conservative talk radio with the rumored appointment of
former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera as the head of his FCC transition team.
Liberal
Censorship and Its Roots: Democrats fully intend to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine, a
euphemistically named regulation aimed at shutting down conservative talk radio, which Sen. Chuck Schumer has
compared to pornography. Remember that conservatives have never advocated government action to suppress
or censor the liberal media monopoly, which has existed for decades and still dominates mainstream media
today. Their answer was the alternative media.
Broadcast
Blackout of Left's 'Fairness' Doctrine Push. Barack Obama's transition team has tapped former
FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, a longtime proponent of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," to head the team
looking for the man or woman who will soon give Democrats a 3-to-2 advantage on the Federal Communications
Commission. It's another troubling sign that Democrats are serious about trying to reinstate the
long-defunct FCC regulation, which can more aptly be described as the "Censorship Doctrine" because of
its chilling effect on free speech.
The
Unfairness Doctrine. Broadcasters should act before they're forced to react if Congress brings
the so-called Fairness Doctrine back from the dead. The Fairness Doctrine, which should be called
The Gag Rule, will effectively silence talk shows on broadcast stations and the millions of Americans who
tune in and talk about what was talked about.
If you don't know much about the
so-called Fairness Doctrine, you should visit
this page.
Beware of Congress's
Threat to Tax 401Ks. With the bear market red in the claw, with an equal opportunity bear market taking out
solid stocks right and left, with panicked investors feeling like every headline is an explosion, comes this impenetrable
stupidity: Some Democrats in Congress have held hearings that included discussions of new proposals to tax
401K money. Specifically, the idea would be to eliminate most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks
that 401(k) investors receive. Which means a nearly $80 billion tax hike.
Targeting Your 401(k). You
may have heard about Argentina's plan to nationalize private retirement accounts. Some Democrats on
Capitol Hill are inspired, and with their big election victory they may get the chance to test Peronist
ideas in America.
Killing 401(k)'s?
It's still more than two months before the Obama administration takes office, and we are already seeing signs
of just how the Democrats intend to govern. One proposal being floated by Congressional Democrats aims
to abolish the tax incentives for individual 401(k) retirement plans. With the recent financial meltdown
having hit a lot of people's funds heavily, those lawmakers think that the time would be ripe to end the
private system and fold it into an expansion of Social Security.
Socialized medicine
Obamacare is discussed on these pages:
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
Packing the courts with liberal judges
Behind the blindfold. The most
distinctive characteristic of our president's legal thinking is the extent to which it reflects the leftist
orthodoxy of the law schools in which he spent his formative years, including the assumption that the American
legal tradition has been little more than a mechanism of oppression and white privilege. In reading his
speeches and comments over time, it is clear that he views the law not as a neutral set of rules to be presided
over in umpire-like fashion by impartial judges, but as a form of historical affirmative action designed to
right the wrongs of the past. As such, his conception of jurisprudence begins and ends with the idea
of the courts as agents of social change.
Obama's change
will find its way to U.S. courthouses. Experts say President-elect Obama could appoint as many
as three Supreme Court justices in the next few years, as many as any president in two decades. And with
a newly solid Democratic majority in the Senate ready to confirm his nominations, Obama could also name scores
of new judges to the lower courts ... .
Top
10 Things to Expect From Obama Court: (# 10.) Expanding and perpetuating the use of
racial preferences … (# 6.) Banning the death penalty … (# 4.) Creating new
constitutional rights to massive government welfare and medical care programs…
Questions for Obama: Voting against the confirmation of Chief
Justice John Roberts, [Obama] said: Deciding "truly difficult cases" should involve "one's deepest values, one's core
concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." Is that not
essentially how Chief Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case?
Obama's Constitution:
Obama, if elected, would certainly aim to fill the Supreme Court — and the lower federal courts — with
liberal judicial activists. Although Obama has served in the Senate for barely three years, he has
already established a record on judicial nominations and constitutional law that comports with his 2007
ranking by the National Journal as the most liberal of all 100 senators.
Obama's Judges and the Senate: After
years of obstruction by Senate Democrats, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered President-elect Obama a roadmap for
ending the political war over judicial nominations. What Mr. Obama does in his early days in office will reveal
a lot about the next four years. The key, Mr. McConnell explained, is for the new President to govern as he
campaigned — with an eye toward moderation.
Welcome to Obama's America:
the USSA. The fringe groups on the left such as the ACLU and ACORN will now have legitimate standing
with a government ready to dismantle our free enterprise system. Sound far-fetched? Not my words but from
the mouth of Barack Obama, "there is a legal rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts."
This basically changes the courts from arbiters of the law into super-legislators.
Democrats Look for Ways to Undo Late
Bush Administration Rules. Democrats are hoping to roll back a series of regulations issued
late in the Bush administration that weaken environmental protections and other restrictions. Potential
targets include regulations allowing concealed weapons in some national parks and forbidding medical
facilities that get federal money from discriminating against doctors and nurses who refuse, on religious
grounds, to assist with abortions.
The Geithner Exception: [Scroll down]
The just-issued Conyers report on "Reining in the Imperial Presidency" calls on the new Obama administration to "begin an
independent criminal review (my emphasis) of activities of the outgoing administration, such as enhanced interrogation,
extraordinary rendition, and domestic warrantless surveillance." As prelude, the House last February voted contempt of
Congress against Bush White House officials Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers and referred them for prosecution.
Pelosi
Open to Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is receptive to
the idea of prosecuting some Bush administration officials, while letting others who are accused of misdeeds
leave office without prosecution, she told Chris Wallace in an interview on "FOX News Sunday." "I think
you look at each item and see what is a violation of the law and do we even have a right to ignore it," the
California Democrat said.
Obama's Tax
Trap. President-elect Barack Obama may be about to make a big mistake: raising taxes in the middle of a
recession. That's what his top political aide, David Axelrod, hinted Sunday: The Bush tax cuts are "something
that we plainly can't afford, moving forward," Axelrod said. "Whether it expires, or whether we repeal it a little
bit early, we'll determine later. But it's going to go."
The Nancy, Harry and Office of the President-elect
Show. The Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Hussein Obama triumvirate will be doing as much as
possible to distract and demoralize the millions of Americans disenfranchised by last week's Election.
They've waited so long to come out with their show of control. Tonight [11/13/2008] there's a developing
story on Drudge that the Democrats are prepared to move forward with an investigation of the Bush Administration.
Obama reviewing
drilling, stem cells. US president-elect Barack Obama's transition chief has said the Democrat
is reviewing President George W. Bush's executive orders and could change them once he takes office.
Oil drilling and stem cell research were among the areas Senator Obama was examining, as the Bush administration
implements a series of last-minute orders during its final weeks in power, John Podesta told ABC today.
Obama
Positioned to Quickly Reverse Bush Actions. Transition advisers to President-elect Barack
Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be
swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive
rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts
working with the transition team.
Racial quotas and reparations for slavery
The
Prez-Elect's Quota Challenge. Racial preferences are, after all, extremely unpopular with most
Americans. Voters in blue states like California, Washington and Michigan have banned them in referenda
over the last decade or so. Voters in red-state Nebraska just did the same thing, by a thumping 58-42
percent margin. (A similar measure in purplish Colorado may pass as well; the votes are still being
tallied.)
Obama:
Tilting at Racial Windmills. Though neither the media nor the McCain campaign dared to challenge
any of Obama's presumably sacrosanct pronouncements about racism in the justice system, the fact remains that
every one of those pronouncements was an unadulterated falsehood. Long ago, the injustices which Obama
references certainly existed, particularly in the South. But it hardly seems appropriate for a
supposedly forward-looking President — who founded his entire campaign on a platform
of "change" — to continue fighting yesteryear's battles again and again.
Obama's Stealth
Reparations. While he was an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama told a Chicago radio show host that
he sought "major redistributive change" for the benefit of fellow blacks. He was speaking in the context of the
civil rights movement, and how it had fallen short of "economic justice." Although John McCain and other
Republicans are afraid to say it, his remarks can only be interpreted to mean one thing: economic
reparations for slavery.
Obama and the Drive for Slavery
Reparations. Barack Obama is the most radical candidate ever to stand at the precipice of acquiring his
party's presidential nomination and the American presidency. It is apparent that he is a member of an international
socialist movement which hopes to use the United Nations as a vehicle to shake down U.S. taxpayers for trillions of dollars
in slavery reparations. One group, the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission, is demanding an
astronomical $777 trillion.
Meet Obama's
Reparations Model. While some question the impact of preaching from the pulpit of Trinity
United Church of Christ on Senator Obama's thinking, the influence of one of Trinity's most recommended
authors on Obama is clear. Three of Randall Robinson's books are available for purchase on Trinity's
website. One, entitled "The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks," is particularly important to
understanding Obama's notion of reparations. So who is Randall Robinson?
Does Obama Favor Slavery
"Reparations?" Barrack Obama's pastor not only spews anti-American rhetoric from the pulpit
but favors shaking down U.S. taxpayers for "reparations" for slavery. The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright
was the keynote speaker at the 2007 annual conference of N'COBRA, which stands for the National Coalition of
Blacks for Reparations in America.
New Public Works Projects Must Employ American Workers.
The plan calls for still greater deficit spending in the hopes of jump-starting our sputtering economy and providing
jobs for millions of unemployed Americans. If we are going to spend billions, perhaps even trillions, of borrowed
dollars to create public works jobs, an absolute prerequisite must be an insurance policy that the beneficiaries of the
program are U.S. workers.
You're Not Serious? There
is no longer any need to play the class warfare card or gin up the liberal base. But we are in a recession,
unemployment is at a fourteen-year high, and the Fed can't find enough ways to shovel liquidity into the private
sector. And Obama still wants to hike taxes?
Obama's
Math Doesn't Add Up. Even economists who agree with Barack Obama that we need another stimulus are
questioning his exuberant predictions that his spending plan will produce or save 3.7 million jobs.
Obama's
Conflicting Goals. President-elect Barack Obama's enormous stimulus package would be scary
enough without learning the details. To inject the same staggering amount of government-created or
borrowed money into the economy as has already been spent or set aside for the government bailout when
there's no proof it will jump-start our economy and no thought given to how we're going to recoup this money
is madness. But when you hear some of the uses he has for this money, it is way beyond madness.
Californians in Control. The Obama transition team
continues to talk to House and Senate Democratic leaders about trying to move a big ($850 billion?) economic stimulus
package soon after the new Congress is sworn in. Every special interest in the country is trying to stake a claim to
a share of the cash, including promoters of "green jobs" and those that claim that transforming the energy economy to rely
on much more costly forms of renewable energy would somehow stimulate the economy.
The 10 Dopiest Business and Economy Leaders of 2008:
[#9] Barack Obama. If there is one piece of policy advice that economists agree on, it is this:
You don't raise taxes during an economic downturn. Doing so would be right out of the Great Depression
playbook. Yet even as the economy obviously weakened in the latter half of the year, Obama stuck to his
campaign pledge to reverse the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts on income and capital gains for wealthier Americans.
Economic Stimulus Amounts to Central Planning. That
there will be a huge "stimulus" package in the early days of the Obama administration is a certainty. Nearly everyone
thinks the government must do something drastic to, using President-elect Obama's word, "jolt" the economy into recovery.
That something is deficit spending on "infrastructure." But it's not as simple as it sounds. A big debate is
shaping up over whether the program should concentrate on big, transformative projects or boring bridge repairs and
pothole filling.
Bridges to Everywhere. President-elect
Obama's transition team is promising that its $700 billion, or $850 billion, or $1 trillion, or whatever it
now is "stimulus" won't include pork-barrel spending. They must not have talked to the nation's mayors, who recently
responded to Mr. Obama's request to compile their priority list of "shovel-ready" projects. By all accounts, the
$73 billion wish list may be the largest collection of parochial spending projects in American history.
Paving Projects Won't Boost
Economy. President-elect Obama has announced plans for a new stimulus package containing
$500 billion to $700 billion worth of public works projects. ... America's governors already are
scrambling to compose lists of "shovel-ready" projects so no bridge or highway is left behind.
Obama's Secretary of Earmarks. Barack
Obama wasn't kidding about the audacity of hope. In tapping Republican Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood to head the
Transportation Department last week, he got more Beltway hosannas for bipartisanship. At the same time he managed to
choose one of the biggest spenders in Congress, of either party, and just the fellow to push $850 billion in "stimulus"
out the door. As a long-time and stalwart Member of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. LaHood facilitated the
incontinent spending that helped Republicans lose their majority in 2006.
You
can bet on it: Obama will raise your taxes. Economists left and right have long argued that
there is no way Obama can pay for a national health care makeover and a host of other expensive initiatives without
breaking his campaign pledge not to raise taxes for anyone making less than $250,000. The wealthy are already
paying a grossly disproportionate percentage of federal income taxes, and increasing taxes on them won't raise enough
money to meet Obama's needs.
Role of
Federal Tech Czar to Be Defined by Obama. The most talked-about tech job in government is one
that never before existed. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama said he would appoint the nation's first
chief technology officer who would, according to his Web site, help federal agencies use technology "to make
government work better." But he's given no specifics about the job, leaving the tech community to
speculate about the role and who might fill it.
Obama may name auto
czar. President-elect Barack Obama has raised the idea of appointing a so-called "auto czar" to
oversee emergency federal aid to automakers, exact tough corporate reforms and ensure taxpayers earn a return
on any investment in the auto industry.
Obama's Czars:
Suddenly a rash of czars is in prospect for the Obama Administration. The title "czar" in the executive
branch has some history. The "drug czar" title appeared during the Reagan administration. The term
has always seemed a little strange to me, but that's probably because the word has a negative connotation in
my opinion; an all-powerful, micro-managing type of connotation. What's more, after spending a little time
participating in the "war on drugs", it seemed that the czar's effort was futile and cost a lot of money.
Obama Promises on Job
Creation -- Including 600,000 New Government Employees. In his radio address today,
President-elect Obama uses some new language when discussing what he wants the stimulus package to achieve in
terms of jobs. First off, he has a name for the package -- the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan."
Read more about the heavy-handed
government goons we already have.
Weakening the military
Obama to re-instate the Draft. Americans
won't volunteer their lives in defense of Marxism. People in the military now, will not re-up. They didn't
sign up to defend Marxism. They signed up to defend freedom. The nation just voted against freedom.
Barack Obama:
It is no longer important to kill Osama bin Laden. Barack Obama last night suggested that
removing Osama bin Laden from the battlefiell (sic) was no longer essential and that America's security goals
could be achieved by merely keeping al-Qaeda "on the run".
Obama to end military's ban on homesexuals,
spokesman says. President Obama will end the 15-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy that has
prevented homosexual and bisexual men and women from serving openly within the U.S. military, a spokesman for
the president-elect said.
Challenges loom as Obama seeks space weapons
ban. President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift
in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.
Dealing with Cuba
Is Obama planning adios for U.S. Cuban
Embargo? The U.S. president-elect is touted as President of the World and in global opinion,
some 98.9 percent of the world opposes the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba as documented in United Nations
statistics. Before Obama even came into power, the European Union had agreed to lift its diplomatic
sanctions against Cuba. At the same time, Venezuela was working with Cuba to lay undersea Internet
cable to bring more Cuban citizens onto the Information Highway.
Obama poised
to change Cuba policy? With the inauguration last week of Barack Obama, many Cuban-Americans are anticipating
a change in policy toward their homeland that reflects both the new president's campaign promises and shifting views and
demographics among a once-solid Republican political bloc.
U.S.
turns off Havana news ticker that angered Cuba. The United States has turned off a news ticker at its
diplomatic mission in Havana that long had irritated the Cuban government, the U.S. State Department said on Monday, in
another sign of efforts to improve relations with Cuba. The five-foot-high (1.5-meter) news ticker ran across
25 windows on the outside of the fifth floor of the U.S. diplomatic mission's building on Havana's busy seaside
Malecon drive.
Obama's
Cuba Policy: Speak Softly, Carry No Stick. I had hoped that Obama might use his popularity with
the international left to demythologize the dictatorship in Cuba and rally the world to the cause of freedom
for that country's citizens. Turning off the electronic news ticker billboard is just the latest sign
that Obama has no such intentions.
Trying everything until something works
'No'
to Obama's experimental government. On Sunday night [11/15/2008], President-elect Barack Obama
told CBS' "60 Minutes" that Franklin D. Roosevelt would be a model of sorts for him. "What you see
in FDR that I hope my team can emulate is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence,
and a willingness to try things. And experiment in order to get people working again." This is a
problematic standard. What do you want in a surgeon? One who "gets it right" or who projects "a
sense of confidence?" Ditto accountants, defense lawyers, mechanics and bomb-disposal technicians:
Cocky and self-assured, or gets it right?
This subsection has moved to a page of its own,
located here.
Operation Gun Runner / Operation Fast and Furious
This subsection has moved to a page of its own,
located here.
Goldman Sachs and the Obama Administration
After
Obsessing Over Enron, Media Mostly Ignore Obama-Goldman Sachs Connections. President Obama has
extensive ties to Goldman Sachs. Yet even given record-breaking financial contributions and sketchy
relationships between Goldman executives and Obama officials at the highest level, the mainstream media will
not afford Obama the same scrutiny it gave to George W. Bush during the collapse of Enron.
Is
Goldman Obama's Enron? No, it's worse. President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped
during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. ... But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation
adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up to Obama's
$1,007,370.85 (inflation adjusted) from Goldman-affiliated executives and employees. That's also not taking
into account how much Goldman contributed to Obama cabinet member Hillary Clinton ($415,595.63 inflation adjusted),
which was itself almost three times as much as Bush received as well.
White
House Denies Meddling in Goldman Sachs Fraud Case. The White House on Monday [4/19/2010] strongly
denied any involvement in the timing of the high-profile fraud case against Goldman Sachs, after Republicans
suggested Democrats were exploiting the charges to build the case for their financial regulatory overhaul.
Gangster
Government and Goldman Sachs. In the case of the Securities and Exchanges Commission complaint
against Wall Street's top investment bank, Goldman Sachs, it's hard not to wonder if this isn't a classic case
of Gangster Government in action. There is a truly remarkable confluence of factors that indicate that
the whole thing stinks to high heaven.
All
the president's Goldman Sachs men. While President Obama assails the culture of greed and recklessness
practiced by the men of Goldman Sachs, his administration is infested with them. The White House can no
more disown Government Sachs than Da Boss-in-chief can disown Chicago politics. Obama is headed to Wall
Street on Thursday to demand "financial regulatory reform" — just as the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission has filed civil suit against Goldman Sachs for mortgage-related fraud.
A series of coincidences pointing to a possible
conspiracy between the White House and the SEC. SEC
suit against Goldman Sachs provokes political firestorm. Allegations the White House may have
colluded with the Securities and Exchange Commission began unraveling soon after they were made in a bizarre
sideshow to the financial overhaul saga. Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican and ranking member of
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was winning few co-signers for his probe of whether the
SEC's lawsuit against Goldman Sachs was politically timed to help President Obama.
Time
for the Government to Start Playing Fair. Fraud charges were filed against Goldman Sachs on
Friday and the Obama administration is portraying the announcement as an attempt to bring greedy and corrupt
Wall Street under control. Yet, the timing of the case looks like more than coincidence with the Senate
about to start debating President Obama's plan for financial regulation and with the president himself set to
kick off his tour to push the bill on Thursday [4/22/2010]. The charges of fraud look more like the
government changing the rules of the game than actual fraud occurring.
Miscellaneous warning forecasts
issued prior to Obama's inauguration
Poverty
threatens entire generation, says Obama. The president-elect, Barack Obama, has warned that the
United States is sliding into the deepest economic crisis since World War II and urged Congress to pass a
stimulus package quickly or risk an entire generation of Americans losing any hope of prosperity.
The Editor says...
What's this? Suddenly, he's "no hope" Obama. And he hasn't even been sworn in.
Obama Watch: As the most
liberal Senator and first African-American prepares to ascend to the presidency on January 20th, we believe
that we are about to witness many events previously unimagined in America. Some of these events have
already begun to unfold in the ongoing economic crisis. With all of the "change" that the Obama
presidency promises to offer, it's incumbent upon conservatives to keep a close watch on what transpires,
separate from the fawning and adoring drive-by media's predictably biased coverage.
