The List: Obama's Fifty Fourth Week in Office

Nachumlist.com ^ | 1/28/10 | Nachum

[Nachum]

 Obama's Fifty Third Week in Office

"The List" for 1/27/2010

VIDEO: Rahm Emanuel, "Look, we were involved in the legislation all the way through."

Hours before Obama's first State of the Union address, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has exposed as a bald-faced lie Barack Obama’s claim made just two days before saying that he had nothing to do with the deal to get the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) for the Senate’s healthcare bill before Christmas. Speaking to ABC News’ World News Tonight anchor Diane Sawyer, in an exclusive interview on Monday, Obama denied being involved in what has come to be known as the “Cornhusker Kickback”.  However in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric today, Emanuel flatly stated that he and the Obama administration were heavily involved in the Cornhusker Kickback as well as the other deals that provoked outrage from the public and helped Republican Scott Brown win the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is missing President Barack Obama's State of the Union address in order to attend a conference in London

VIDEO: David Axelrod says the President will seek repeal of "don't ask, don't tell.

The United States has set preliminary anti-dumping duties ranging from 90 to nearly 175 percent on about $30 million worth of electric blankets from China, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

House Democrats have headed off a wide-ranging request by Republicans for documents on private meetings  White House officials had last year with doctors and other medical providers as health care legislation was being prepared.

Michelle Obama invites 25 people to the State of the Union address

VIDEO: Obama makes speech in Ohio and mentions himself 132 times

Ecomomist Laffer: “Obama is a fine, very impressive person. He really is. Unfortunately, everything that he is doing in economics is exactly wrong.

Obama will give $8 billion in economic stimulus money to 13 U.S. rail corridors, mostly for high-speed passenger service

Bankers of the world unite against Obama and potential new world regulations in Davos

Ohio is spending $1 million of stimulus money on road signs to advertise the use of stimulus money for road projects.

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.  When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020.

Obama is to freeze salaries of senior White House officials and other top political appointees, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.

The total deficit for the first three months of the 2009 fiscal year to $485.2 billion. By comparison, the budget deficit for all of fiscal year 2008 was $455 billion

"The List" for 1/26/2010

White House lawyers are mulling the legality of proposed attempts to kill an American citizen, Anwar al Awlaki, who is believed to be part of the leadership of the al Qaeda group in Yemen behind a series of terror strikes, according to two people briefed by U.S. intelligence officials.  One of the people briefed said opportunities to "take out" Awlaki "may have been missed" because of the legal questions surrounding a lethal attack which would specifically target an American citizen.

VIDEO: Obama gave a "shout out" before his comments on the Fort Hood massacre

Michelle Obama's guests at the State of the Union Wednesday will include Fort Hood heroes Sgt. Kimberly Munley and Sgt. Mark Todd

Attorney General Holder's remarks directly contradict NYPD's Kelly on the NYC terror trials. Kelly said that the police were never consulted and Holder said they were under oath.  Video at site of Holder's testimony.

First lady Michelle Obama said Tuesday the president's 2011 budget will include a record $8.8 billion to support military families.

Obama donor gets sweetheart business deal as payback in Chicago

The $787 billion federal stimulus package passed by Congress last year is now expected to cost $862 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

VIDEO: President Obama uses two teleprompters to address the Middle Class Tax Force, which is made up of about two dozen people.

Obama uses teleprompter for a ten person meeting

VIDEO: 9/11 Commissioner: Obama doesn't have a firm grasp yet of the intelligence community

VIDEO: No less than four times during the presidential debates did President Obama actively campaign against an across the board spending freeze.

VIDEO: Mark Halperin on The Charlie Rose Show yesterday where he actually said that a "thin-skinned" President Barack Obama "increasingly says that "the Press is against me.""

For the fourth time in a row, the Treasury has sold off short-term billsbearing no yields at all.

The Senate rejected a plan backed by President Barack Obama to create a bipartisan task force to tackle the federal deficit this year despite glaring new figures showing the enormity of the red-ink threat.

Obama’s first two years in office will boast the two biggest annual federal budget deficits since World War II, when measured as a share of GDP, says the Congressional Budget Office.
 

White House Chief of Staff Rep. Rahm Emanuel dodges questions about a middle class tax cut.- While appearing on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” , Emanuel said that the president plans to push forward with his plans for middle class tax relief while remaining mum on Obama’s plans to raise taxes on upper-income Americans.

The special inspector general for the government's $ 700 billion Wall Street rescue plan is opening a pair of probes into the government's rescue of  American International Group Inc. (AIG), including efforts to slow public disclosure of all of the terms of the deal. Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky disclosed the existence of the investigations in testimony prepared for a Wednesday hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

VIDEO: Newsweeks's Evan Thomas: "The chance Obama missed -- he really had a chance -- a lot of people saying 'okay, you're gonna change government.' He was not fundamentally honest.

The latest congressional budget estimates due Tuesday predict a $1.35 trillion deficit for this year

"The List" for 1/25/2010

Obama supporters are flooding unsuspecting newspapers with pro-Obama letters purportedly from average citizens – with duplicate messages appearing in more than 70 publications across the nation.

Obama's ' freeze" would shave no more than $15 billion off next year's budget - barely denting a deficit projected to exceed $1 trillion for the third year in a row

Facing voter anger over mounting budget deficits, President Obama will ask Congress to freeze spending for some domestic programs for three years beginning in 2011, administration officials said Monday. Separately, Obama unveiled plans to help a middle class "under assault" pay its bills, save for retirement and care for kids and aging parents. The spending freeze would apply to a relatively small portion of the federal budget, affecting a $477 billion pot of money available for domestic agencies whose budgets are approved by Congress each year. Some of those agencies could get increases, others would have to face cuts; such programs got an almost 10 percent increase this year. The federal budget total was $3.5 trillion.

Tesla Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday finalized a landmark $465 million loan agreement that will allow the electric car maker to build a power train manufacturing plant in Palo Alto.

White House press secretary Gibbs and talk show host, Ed Shultz, cuss at each other

Tim Geithner: "The economy is healing. It's growing. It's more broad based."

VIDEO: Obama " created about 2 million jobs so far.... 7 million jobs lost"

VIDEO: President Obama invokes the word "infectious" when talking about Magic Johnson.

Declaring America's middle class is "under assault," President Obama unveiled plans that won't create jobs.   Obama: they could "re-establish some of the security that's slipped away."

The Treasury Department has been scrambling to figure out what to say about the new proposals unveiled by Barack Obama last week limiting the size and scope of banks.  The Treasury Department has been fielding questions from bankers and journalists about the new regulations—but so far has not been able or willing to provide much information

Three detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been moved to Slovakia, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday, the latest transfers as the Obama administration tries to close the facility.

How David Axelrod's recent astroturf campaign works

VIDEO: From a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, MI on October 2, 2008: "I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all. The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton and the like will be over when I'm in the White House."

The Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a prominent Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids- The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan. 

 Obama is offering new initiatives meant to help people pay bills and save for retirement. Obama was ready to announce the new steps Monday in a partial preview of his State of the Union address. The proposals to be unveiled by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House include a doubling of the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000; a $1.6 billion increase in federal funding for child care programs and a program to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of income above "a basic living allowance." His initiatives also include expanding tax credits to match retirement savings and increasing aid for families taking care of elderly relatives. That program would also require all employers to provide the option of a workplace-based retirement savings plan.

PICTURE: Obama uses a teleprompter in a speech at an elementary school

"The List" for 1/24/2010

The White House is not disputing a report that FBI agents questioned accused Northwest Airlines bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for just 50 minutes before deciding to grant him the right to remain silent and provide him with a court-appointed lawyer -- a decision that led Abdulmutallab to stop talking and provide no more information.

Obama formally endorsed legislation Saturday creating an independent commission with the power to force Congress to vote on major deficit reduction steps this year, but.....after the November elections

Photos:  Obama puts his feet up on the desk in the Oval office, tossing football inside the Oval Office, tossing football in the room outside the Oval Office, eating inside the Oval Office

NYPD Commissioner Kelly on decision to have terror trials in NYC: 'We were not consulted"

White House advisers appearing on the Sunday talk shows gave three different estimates of how many jobs could be credited to President Obama’s Recovery Act. - Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

VIDEO of Meet the Press moderator David Gregory today confronting Obama Adviser Valerie Jarrett about her claim that Obama has "turned the economy around."

Obama issues a special statement celebrating the 37th birthday of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade abortion decision.

Rahm Emmanual made over 18 million in banking business in 1998

The White House rejected criticism Sunday that President Barack Obama has not delivered on his promise of "change" during his first year in office.   White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said the president has brought about "enormous change."

Following his early morning meeting with US envoy George Mitchell, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that during their discussions, "new and interesting ideas" were raised for the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Same day as meeting with US envoy Mitchell, Netanyahu speech: The settlements blocs of Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion are an indisputable part of Israel

Chevron activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Givir, who also serve as parliamentary aides to MK (Ichud HaLeumi) Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, have sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Rom Emanuel suggesting he celebrate his son’s bar mitzvah elsewhere, not at the Kosel as reports indicate he plans to do.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defends the decision to read the underwear bomber his rights- “The Department of Justice made the right decision, as did those FBI agents,”

"The List" for 1/23/2010

Obama gave 158 interviews and 411 speeches in his first year.

More than 900 car dealers nationwide have signed up to appeal decisions by General Motors Co. or Chrysler Group LLC to revoke their franchise agreements and shut them down

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan. The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees.

The Justice Department has announced the release from Gitmo of a terrorist who conspired to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in the 2000 Millennium plot.  Hassan Zumiri, who was part of an al-Qaeda affiliated terror cell in Montreal, has been repatriated to his native Algeria — a country so rife with terrorists that it was recently placed on the list of 14 countries whose travelers warrant enhanced screening at airports.

Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the U.S. government would appeal a court decision that dismissed charges against five Blackwater employees stemming from a fatal shooting in Baghdad in 2007.

Obama launched an attack on the Supreme Court, saying a ruling on corporate donations to political campaigns this week "strikes at democracy itself."

Ellie Light sure gets around.  In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.

Angry with the Obama administration's position on arch-rival India, Pakistan's Army has rejected a US request to launch a new offensive against the Taliban in the northern tribal belt.

"The List" for 1/22/2010

Obama called for new rules that he said would prevent a bank from becoming too big to fail, but Republicans said such legislation would only further harm the economy.  Obama’s proposal would prevent a financial institution – which would include banks and insurance companies – from owning, investing in, or sponsoring a hedge fund or a private equity fund that is not related to serving customers.

Obama,.Gates: the Taliban must participate in elections, not oppose education and not assassinate local officials.

All charges have been withdrawn in the military commissions against the five suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks being held at Guantanamo Bay. The charges were dropped "without prejudice," according to the Defense Department -- a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open, if necessary, to bring charges again in military commissions.

Obama's plan to curb proprietary trading will cost Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group AG, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG about US$13 billion in revenue next year, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts.

Obama administration defends letting Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan, and terror supporter Adam Habib of South Africa into the U.S.-  Even though both remains on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of organizations sanctioned for their links to terrorism. The Obama State Dept. cites "Muslim Outreach"

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released December's state-by-state unemployment data. It isn't pretty. Even though the national rate was unchanged last month, most states saw their unemployment rates worsen. 43 states and the District of Columbia saw their unemployment rates increase from November to December, many significantly. This is a major change-in-direction from November, when 36 states saw their unemployment rates decline.

VIDEO: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at NUSEUM Single Internet Cyber Freedom. "We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.....this freedom is no longer defined by whether citizens can go into the town square and criticize their government without fear of retribution....blogs have created new targets for censorship....we must also work against those who use the internet as tools of disruption and fear."

The Obama administration attempt to overhaul the banking industry is the most far-reaching over-haul of Wall Street and the banking industry since 1930. The reforms could force the restructuring of some of the biggest names in US finance, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

United States envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell arrived in the region this week in efforts to further press the Jewish state into relinquishing territory to the American-backed Palestinian Authority. According to PA sources quoted by the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, Mitchell is unveiling a five-point plan that will force local parties back to the negotiating table and press Israel to retreat back to the Armistice Line that existed between the Jewish state and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan between the years 1949 and 1967.

The nation's mayors delivered a clear message to President Obama: His economic stimulus program isn't creating enough jobs. "What we said ... was that the method they used for disbursing the first stimulus dollars was wrong," said new Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, one of more than 200 mayors who met with the president and other administration officials at the White House. "That approach just did not work."

NBC News has filed a formal complaint with the White House press office over the distribution of presidential interviews, specifically that several of the most recent broadcast TV interviews have gone to ABC News -- NBC is reportedly claiming that Greorge Stephanopoulos' friendship with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuelhas helped land the interviews.

"The List" for 1/21/2010

Under growing criticism from Capitol Hill, the Justice Department on Thursday defended its decision to interrogate and arrest the suspected Christmas Day bomber as a criminal rather than an enemy combatant, saying it got actionable intelligence from him and would continue to do so even as he faces a trial.

Obama administration officials were flabbergasted Wednesday when Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair testified that an alleged Qaeda operative who tried to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day should have been questioned by a special interrogation unit that doesn't exist, rather than the FBI.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu today dismissed accusations of fraud in climate science generated by the release last year of hacked e-mails between researchers, saying e-mails showed "warts and bumps" in the scientific process.

All seven Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder seeking to learn who made the decision to treat Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day terrorist bomber, as a criminal suspect rather than an enemy combatant.

The US Supreme Court Thursday lifted curbs on corporations spending millions of dollars to back election candidates.   President Barack Obama sharply condemned the 5-4 ruling as a huge victory for "big oil" Wall Street and health insurance firms which want to block his reform plans, but most Republicans praised it as a victory for free speech.

One year after President Obama took office, the administration’s top international religious freedom post remains empty- “President Obama has not yet named an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom,” a State Department press officer confirmed by phone late Wednesday. She referred further queries to the White House, where attempts to get comment were unsuccessful.

VIDEO: Powerful and wealthy Mort Zuckerman attacks Obama: "He's done everything wrong"

Financial shares pulled the stock market lower Thursday as President Barack Obama proposed rules that would limit the types of trading banks can do with their money.

Obama's new bank regulations were leaked to insider traders on Wall Street before the announcement

The White House National Security Council recently directed U.S. spy agencies to lower the priority placed on intelligence collection for China, amid opposition to the policy change from senior intelligence leaders who feared it would hamper efforts to obtain secrets about Beijing's military and its cyber-attacks.

A surprising jump in first-time claims for unemployment benefits is a painful reminder that jobs remain scarce six months into the economic recovery.  The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose last week by 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 482,000. Wall Street economists expected a small drop,

Getting the Israelis and Palestinians to agree to negotiate, or even to agree to the framework in which negotiations will take place, "is just really hard," US President Barack Obama said in an interview with Time magazine published Thursday, as the president was completing his first year in office

[Nachum]

The list, for the past week. For those who are keeping track.

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[ColdOne]

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[Nachum]

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