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And to think, up to one week ago Obama was vehemently opposed to super PACs. Via The Hill: Four Obama administration cabinet members suggested an openness to appearing at pro-Obama super-PAC events. iWatch News at the Center for Public Integrity reports that spokesmen for Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Energy Secretary Steven Chu suggested that their bosses would be willing to raise money for the super-PACs. A week earlier, after previously criticizing the legal ability of super-PACs to raise unlimited amounts money for their candidates, President Obama signed off on some...

"Which of our Hispanic leaders would you consider to serve in your Cabinet?" A woman attending the last Republican debate in Florida asked this of the four Republican rivals. Oh, for crying out loud! Ethnic-based Cabinet appointees? Do we still need to go out and "seek" people of a certain color or religion to show "fairness and inclusion"? What about considering the best people possible -- isn't that the only appropriate answer to that question? But Republicans go all Democrat, all too often, in front of black and brown audiences. They say things to show how empathic they are, rather...

The big media story from last nights Republican Presidential Primary Debate on CNBC was Governor Perry's gaffe when he tried listing the departments of the federal government he would eliminate. Maybe lost in the sensationalism is the change in our national politics that this topic represents. The majority of the GOP contenders are talking like the elimination of entire departments is a foregone conclusion. It might be election year politics, but the idea is immensely popular among conservatives judging by the crowd reactions every time someone in any of the debates has suggested it. Now we all know that a...

Given the deeply flawed state of the Republican presidential field, the 2012 campaign is shaping up to be Barack Obama's race to lose. But with his approval ratings in the cellar and his economic recovery plans DOA, the President still faces an uphill battle to convince disaffected voters and alienated Democrats to get back on board his campaign. Clearly, Obama's current strategy isn't working. Both the West Wing and the campaign are plagued by internal divisions, driven by longtime staffers who have spent the last three years alienating the party base and knocking Obama off his message. There is still...

Politics: A week ago, as the secretary of labor greeted grim job data by hailing the economy's "turnaround," the Dow fell 100 points in seconds — a vivid sign America is wising up to this administration's incompetence. Only minutes after her department reported that payrolls had shed another 131,000 positions in July, there was Secretary Hilda Solis speaking brazenly of the "strong and immediate action" the White House had taken to save or create "more than 2.5 million American jobs." But as the market action showed, investors could see she didn't know what she was talking about. But then, Solis...

At least one of President Obama’s cabinet secretaries is concerned about the citizens of the USA. Yeah. He is working feverishly to accomplish his goal of automobile safety. We most certainly will owe this man a debt of gratitude and thanks for his unswerving and unselfish endeavor. US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has something to be happy about. “For all the carping I have to listen to over high gas prices I’m happy to be able to point to a silver lining,….Based on this latest study it looks like if we can get the price of gasoline up to...

What happens when someone with no executive experience takes over the toughest executive job in the world? Since we’ve not seen that situation in most of our lifetimes — even John Kennedy, the last President elected with no executive experience in government or the private sector, had some command experience in the Navy — we had little hard evidence to predict failure to manage the executive branch of the US government, but it was rather easy to presume that on-the-job training at that level would be problematic, to say the least. Today, the Washington Post reports that even Barack Obama’s...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy named former premier Alain Juppe as his new foreign minister yesterday, after Michele Alliot-Marie, tainted by her ties to the former Tunisian regime, resigned.

Aircraft, cargo ships and fishing boats are moving towards Libya to evacuate Chinese nationals living in the North African country. Tunisian, Turkish and other workers are fleeing the country as well. Tripoli – China will send a jet, ships and fishing vessels from nearby waters to evacuate some 33,000 Chinese nationals working in violence-torn Libya. The government has set up an emergency unit headed by Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to coordinate the repatriation of mainlanders, as well as people from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The State Council (cabinet) “decided to immediately deploy...

President, Vice President and other administration officials to tour country to highlight vision for the future. The White House sent News 2 the following press release on their plans... ___PRESS RELEASE BELOW___ President Obama, Vice President Biden, Members of the Cabinet Fan Out Across the Country, Highlight Vision for Winning the Future WASHINGTON – This week, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and members of the President’s Cabinet will travel across the country to highlight the President’s plan for winning the future and creating jobs by out-innovating, out-educating and out-building the rest of the world. In tonight’s State of the Union...

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President Obama did not let Rep. Jim Oberstar’s 35-years in Congress pass without comment – or without prompting rampant speculation about his future. An aide to the Iron Range DFLer, known as "Mr. Transportation" in Washington, said the president called at breakfast Wednesday morning as Oberstar was digesting the news of his first loss in 19 elections. It appeared to be part of a long round of calls to defeated Democratic lawmakers. Staffers who were gathered with Oberstar at the Duluth Holiday Inn heard Oberstar tell Obama, “Mr. President, I want you to know that while my service in Congress...

President Obama has signed a new book deal. It’s going to be about how he’s made TOUGH decisions in his first 100 days. The chapter on how he made those "tough" decisions will be called ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS. The chapter on how he and his Cabinet arrived at those "tough" decisions will be called PRESENT. Check out these other Useful Info Nation pages:

The weekend brought highly interesting developoments in the attempts at forming a new Dutch government ('cabinet', officially our 'goverment' equals 'cabinet + Sovereign'). After Labour leader Cohen rejected several options to make a cabinet with the christian-democrats, the CDA, the potential rightwing partners made a new attempt. As it stands, the VVD (resembling the U.S. Republicans, although they call themselves 'liberal' over here), the CDA, and the PVV, led by Geert Wilders, struck a new deal for the eventual real forming of a cabinet. CDA and VVD provisionally agreed to take place in a minority government, whilst Wilders announced that...

Check out its companion post Top 10 Things You MIGHT Hear In An Obama Cabinet Meeting Like last night I wanna see whatcha got, so comment with the things you think we wouldn't hear from that asylum. 10. That's a great idea! But I'm afraid it might be unconstitutional. ;-( 9. I don't know...even Kagan says Glenn Beck is dead sexy. 8. That's ok, I can conduct the meeting without the teleprompters. 7. Next item on the agenda to address is...Country music, not patriotic enough? 6. Oh look, news reporters....yay.... 5. Look at all these crises! (Sigh) vacation canceled......

A snifter clink to Michael Cembalest of JP Morgan for his study of Cabinet Secretaries: State; Commerce; Treasury; Agriculture; Interior; Labor; Transportation; Energy and Housing & Urban Development. It puts flesh on that which we all know: Barak “Chicago” Obama sees business as a cash cow to keep the corruption machine oiled. After all, how could Michelle have been paid north of 300k a year for a part time gig at a hospital without some help? And this was before she was proud to be an American!!!! Sinatra could have been singing “Chicago, Chicago, My Kind of Town,” to the...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's second choice for transportation security chief has withdrawn from consideration because of questions over his background as a defense contractor. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding took himself out of the running Friday night as head of the Transportation Security Administration, another setback for Obama after his first choice withdrew in January. Harding said the distractions caused by his work as a defense contractor would not be good for the administration or the Homeland Security Department. The TSA is part of that department. Harding has extensive intelligence experience that Obama hoped to tap in shoring...

“They won’t be so opposed to it once they see what’s in it.” That’s the rationalization House leaders gave skittish Democrats to get them to walk the plank on Obamacare Sunday night. But one of the first things millions of Americans will “see” is an effective 40 percent tax hike on the over-the-counter medicines – from an antihistamine such as Claritin for allergies, pain relief medicine such as Tylenol or Excedrin, Pedialyte to prevent their kids from becoming dehydrated when they are sick, and even prenatal vitamins if they are expecting another one. All of these items have two things...

As part of the pre-State of the Union publicity blitz, the Obama White House had its cabinet members sit down for quickie videos to tell you how they all “got to work” and “took bold steps to rescue the country from a potential second Great Depression; to rebuild the economy for the long-term — so businesses can thrive, the middle class can grow and all our families can be more secure; and to restore America’s leadership in the world, as we wrestle with the global challenges of the 21st Century.” I’m including a few of my favorites from corruptocrat Eric...

KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's parliament showed its teeth Saturday by rejecting the majority of President Hamid Karzai's nominees for cabinet posts, state television showed. Of 24 nominees, only seven were approved in a secret ballot by more than 200 parliamentarians, in a process that appears to have undermined the president's authority. "Of the 24 nominees introduced to parliament, seven have succeeded in getting your vote of confidence," parliamentary speaker Mohammad Yunus Qanoni said after counting finished. The seven ministerial nominees who won approval included those who had been approved by Karzai's supporters in the international community as competent and clean...

In recalling President Obama's cabinet appointments, you'll notice that very few have had any private sector or business experience. To find out if this was a "change" from prior administrations, Michael Cembalest, Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan Private Bank, did a study that examined the private sector experience of prior cabinet officials since 1900.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon's new government Wednesday endorsed Hezbollah's right to keep its weapons, the latest sign that the group has no intention of meeting a U.N. resolution calling for it to disarm. Lebanon's government is a shaky coalition of Western-backed factions and the militant group Hezbollah, which has virtual veto power over the government. The group is believed to have thousands of rockets and missiles hidden in basements and bunkers throughout Shiite Muslim areas of the tiny country.

A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report. It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all. When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15 percent and 19 percent of the population,...

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience RequiredBy Nick Schulz November 25, 2009, 8:19 am A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report. It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all. Rest of Article Here

Ibrahim Didi, right, the minister of fisheries and agriculture in the Maldives, signs a document calling on all countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions ahead of a major climate change conference in December. (Mohammed Seeneen/Associated Press) Cabinet ministers in the Maldives held an underwater meeting Saturday to draw attention to the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on earth. President Mohammed Nasheed and members of his cabinet wore scuba gear as they arrived for the meeting in a lagoon off the island of Girifushi. They sat at a table anchored to the sand on the floor of...

The Van Jones story isn't about another radical federal employee or even about President Obama's addiction to executive authority (he has appointed over 30 czars with whom he meets regularly, but he has held just one cabinet meeting since his inauguration). The Van Jones story is about our president: a man who fills the void in his emotional past with "authentic" black men who have no interior struggle for definition. President Obama has incessantly injected himself into racial matters that require no clarification (see Henry Louis Gates Jr.); he has turned every debate into a racial debate (see his 2008...

Since Congress passed President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February, administration officials have traveled to at least 66 events across the country to tout the massive spending program or hand out stimulus cash to grateful local officials. But a POLITICO examination of the travel reveals a distinctly political trend line: Top officials have hosted events predominantly in states that Obama won in 2008. What’s more, the examination revealed that Obama officials all but avoided Southern states that Obama lost. It is not unusual for a presidential administration to find ways to reward its supporters through federal largesse,...

Who would have thought that after almost a hundred days, it would be Hillary Clinton that would be one of Obama's least controversial advisors? Of course, a cabinet, once referred to by the mainstream as a supreme collection of professionals, has turned into nothing short of a motley crue of misfits, criminals, and incompetents. In fact, the last of problematic cabinet choices is so large that I know that I will forget many important missteps in Obama's cabinet.

And it’s not a twister, Auntie Em. Kathleen Sebelius left her job as governor of Kansas to take a Cabinet position as Secretary of Health and Human Services in Barack Obama’s administration, but she left unfinished business behind. The Kansas City Star reports that legislators want to know how a Sebelius-tied charity wound up with an increase in government funding — while they spent $400,000 building a horse ranch:

March 15) - Another conspiracy theory surrounding President Barack Obama is making the rounds, according to Politico.com The latest one contends that many top officials in Obama's administration are involved in a clandestine global cabal bent on creating a one-world government that supersedes the United States. For decades, conspiracy theorists have viewed the Bilderberg group, an international organization made up of political, financial, academic and military heavyweights that comes together annually to discuss world affairs, as similar to the Trilateral Commission or the Council on Foreign Relations -- two groups comprised of influential movers and shakers who, some say, control...

The best way judge a person is by the company he keeps. But President Obama is having trouble keeping any company at all. Recently his Cabinet nominees have been dropping like flies - Sanjay Gupta's withdrawal from the surgeon general slot on Thursday brought the number of botched high-level candidates to seven. "He's having a lot of trouble getting nominations pushed through," says Paul Light, professor of Public Service at NYU's Wagner School. "He's falling behind Bush and Clinton in his number of confirmed candidates in the first 100 days. He can't afford another one." Here, a rogue's gallery at...

What is with all of these people "withdrawing" from Obama's cabinet positions? Well, three possibilities. First, they know this is a sinking ship on the way to the murky depths of socialism. Second, they are crooked, and scared to be exposed in the vetting process. And third, both the first and second reason. Geithner's choice for deputy withdraws from consideration... Gupta withdraws from consideration for surgeon general... President faces tough question over Cabinet picks... Third Obama cabinet nominee withdraws name Reuters Republican Gregg withdraws from commerce post consideration - CNN.com Gupta Withdraws Name for Surgeon General More tax problems for...

With all his problems hanging onto cabinet appointments, and maintaining a consistent message from day to day, let alone with his actions, it's no wonder that only a month in the Democrats are "Hot N Cold". This production was prepared for the 2009 Buchanan County (MO) Lincoln Day Dinner held on Feb. 28, 2009.

Add former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to the list of Obama Cabinet picks with tax problems. The Senate Finance Committee says he underpaid by $9,975 in the last three years. Senate aides uncovered the shortfall during weeks of vetting, and Kirk – the administration’s designated point person on trade -- has promised to pay the Internal Revenue Service in full. The problems: Kirk deducted too much for season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks and too much for tax preparation fees, and failed to report as income speaking fees that he donated to his alma mater, Austin College. The full political...

On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden met with members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet to discuss the first steps necessary in getting money from the stimulus package to the aid of the American people. In President Obama’s speech on Tuesday evening, he addressed the arduous task facing the recovery team, but said that “nobody messes with Joe,” speaking of Vice President Biden, as a reason he had put Biden in charge of the recovery plan. Wednesday, Biden said that the stimulus package is meant to “drop-kick" the economy out of recession, and addressed the need for getting money distributed quickly....

Two of President Obama's Cabinet members authored a variety of earmarks in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill the House is poised to pass Wednesday to keep the government running through Oct. 1. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis were both House members when appropriators began to forge this legislation last year. However, a stalemate between President Bush and congressional Democrats forced the sides to punt the rest of the spending provisions until now. New transparency rules ordered up by Democrats two years ago require lawmakers requesting earmarks to write a letter expressly asking Congress to dedicate...

This was expected, but at the end of business earlier this evening, the Senate announced that Leon Panetta, an all-around respected official who has been in and out of government, was confirmed to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The nod of approval was granted by a voice vote at the end of a long day. But Mr. Panetta pretty much sailed through his hearings with the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier. Earlier in the nomination process, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, had seemed miffed that she wasn’t informed beforehand that Mr. Panetta, a longtime friend and...

Unable to post text from a Gannett newspaper. To summarize, Moveon.org is trying to derail Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen's consideration for Health and Human Services Secretary. They claim Bredesen gutted TennCare, the state insurance program for the uninsured. Bredesen did cut services in TennCare to keep it solvent. He's a democrat who leans more towards fiscal conservatism than your typical beltway Dem. He has repeatedly refused to get on the "we need an income tax" bandwagon and simply said we need to live within our means. Link to Story

WASHINGTON (AP) - Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was near the top of President Barack Obama's list of candidates to head the Health and Human Services Department, a senior administration official said Saturday.

Today it has been announced that Nancy Killefer, President Obama’s nominee for the first ever “Government Performance Czar”, has been withdrawn by the candidate because of tax and household employee difficulties and that Tom Daschle, nominee for the Health and Human Services has also withdrawn. Mr. Obama throughout his campaign was demanding that wealthier Americans should pay higher taxes and that more government accountability and transparency of elected officials would proceed with his election. His running mate, Joe Biden, famously proclaimed that it would be patriotic to pay taxes. Now three major nominees for the Cabinet have been exposed as...

President Obama continues to nominate persons of ill-repute to his Cabinet and Sub-Cabinet, including a pornography defender and a woman who covered up for her tax cheat husband by lying about the financial obligations to Congress. The lack of ethics of this budding administration is astounding — kind of like a 21st Century version of Roman Emperor Caligula. An orgy of spending, lying, strange sex. David Ogden is nominated to be the second person in command in the U.S. office of the Attorney General. According to a number of reports, as an attorney in private practice, Ogden filed court briefs:...

Remember that 9 page information sheet all the Obama nominees had to fill out before they would be considered for a job? The press made a huge deal about the new, ethical tone Obama was bringing to Washington. The One was not going to be blindsided like Clinton with a Zoe Baird problem. And it specifically asked about tax problems. This is turning into a farce. First we had Geithner, then Daschle, then Nancy Killefer, and now Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis also has a tax problem. More . . .

Using Joe Biden's definition of patriotism, Barack Obama's appointees have to be considered the most unpatriotic group ever appointed: Of course, Obama would probably say that he's trying to make America more patriotic by appointing people to his cabinet who cheat on their taxes. You see, he knew that they would have to pay their back taxes before they would be approved, if they were even approved at all. It's all part of his master plan to rehabilitate tax cheats, one cabinet appointee at a time.

Back in 1986, when Tom Daschle was a member of the House, President Reagan nominated a man named Richard Lyng to be Agriculture Secretary. Daschle didn't like the nomination. Why? Lyng, Daschle said, was "a limousine-lounging corporate executive" who didn't know anything about agriculture. (Lyng, who had bipartisan support, actually knew quite a bit about agriculture and was confirmed.) I found Daschle's quote in a Nexis search and haven't seen it anywhere else on the Web, so here in an excerpt from an AP story on January 30, 1986: "He is bringing with him a solid agriculture background and years...

President Barack Obama is taking far-reaching steps to centralize decision-making inside the White House, surrounding himself with influential counselors, overseas envoys and policy "czars" that shift power from traditional Cabinet posts. Not even a week has passed since he was sworn in, but already Obama is moving to create perhaps the most powerful staff in modern history – a sort of West Wing on steroids that places no less than a half-dozen of his top initiatives into the hands of advisers outside the Cabinet.... Pulling power close is something all recent presidents have done – and on the campaign trail,...

Chertoff, Gonzales, Abrams Have Baggage President George W. Bush has appointed three more officials with unsavory baggage from previous government roles. Let's hope they have learned something from their past misdeeds. One of the nominees -- Michael Chertoff -- is expected to be confirmed shortly as secretary of the Homeland Security Department, replacing Tom Ridge. Chertoff headed the Justice Department's criminal division in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. White House legal counsel Alberto R. Gonzales -- the replacement for John Ashcroft as attorney general -- did not get the usual pass accorded Cabinet appointees. The Senate vote on his...

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade but declared "I have paid what I owed." He apologized to Congress. As to his failure to pay payroll taxes from 2001 to 2004 while he worked for the International Monetary Fund, Geithner said: "These were careless mistakes. They were avoidable mistakes." "But they were unintentional," he said.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In an early expected victory for President Barack Obama, the U.S. Senate approved seven high-ranking administration officials Tuesday afternoon.

I feel like going back to bed today. I'm really not in the mood for 48 hours of non-stop Obama media frenzy. Nonetheless, the fight must go on and there is some reason for optimism. At least John McCain's deleterious and destructive efforts are confined to the Senate for the duration of his career. Yes, Sen. John McCain (RINO-AZ) is doing what he does best. Once again he's clearing the path for the Democrat party while undercutting conservative dissent. Buried in a typical NY Times Obama-worship piece is a tidbit that demonstrates, once again, why it is that McCain and...

Meet Cass Sunstein. He's a noted animal rights activist. He's dead set against hunting and sees the keeping of pets as a form of slavery. He's been a strong advocate for the concept that animals can sue humans, he's adored by the likes of PETA, he's a Harvard Law School professor and he's about to be America's new Regulatory Czar.