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Pakistani chutzpah By JPOST EDITORIAL 05/10/2011 22:13 Pakistan, like Israel, was created as a result of the disintegration of British colonialism, is, unlike Israel, turning out to be a failure Pakistan was created in 1947 as an Islamic state for the Muslims of India. But it is the Yiddish word chutzpah that best describes what seems to the country’s scandalous behavior. For those with a grasp of Pakistan’s history – in particular the self-defeating penchant by Pakistanis for blaming the country’s many failures on its perceived deviance from the most extreme, reactionary version of Islamic faith – it came as...

Years before Fannie Mae foundered amid a massive accounting scandal, President Obama's choice for national security adviser oversaw an office inside the mortgage giant that orchestrated a negative publicity blitz to fight attempts by Congress to increase government oversight, records show. Thomas E. Donilon, who won the job as national security adviser this month, worked as a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005 at a time the company's officials insisted finances were sound. He also earned more than $1.8 million in bonuses before the government took over the troubled company in the wake of an accounting scandal....

The National Security Advisor of the President of the United States is a really important job – for NATO and the West, not just for America. Whoever holds it has to ensure (among many other responsibilities) that the efforts of the the Pentagon and the State Department are coordinated towards a strategic end. Of all the posts in government, this one is supposed to be apolitical. Until last week, General Jim Jones, a retired marine with an extensive strategic resume, held the post for Obama. Now he has been replaced by a pure political hack: Thomas E Donilon. As my...

With the departure of General Jones from the White House, America is losing fine public servant and excellent military man. One of the few in Washington who eschewed the limelight, Jones did his job fairly competently and with a minimum of self promotion. Will we get that lucky with his replacement? The man picked to be President Obama's next national security advisor was sharply criticized by top officials in the administration, with the Secretary of Defense saying he would be a "disaster" in the job. According to the new book about the Obama administration's handling of Iraq and Afghanistan by...

The second person, a former housing industry executive intimately familiar with of Fannie Mae's operations, agreed that Donilon was at the head of an unceasing anti-regulatory campaign that the company waged throughout his tenure. The former housing executive said that on political issues, especially regulatory oversight, Donilon was the right-hand man to Fannie Mae chairman and CEO Franklin Raines.

The exodus of senior aides from the White House continued as Gen James Jones, Barack Obama’s head of National Security, resigned. His departure, which comes a week after Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, resigned, removes one of the few senior officials not belonging to the US president’s coterie of long-time advisers. Brought in originally for his vast experience and independent voice, it had been clear for some time that the former Nato supreme commander had failed to gel with the president’s inner circle. Gen Jones is being replaced by one of those close aides, his former deputy Thomas Donilon....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will name close aide Tom Donilon as his new national security adviser on Friday in a move that could have implications for the struggli

Change we can believe in? Last week, the Obama transition team announced that it had tapped veteran Beltway Democrat Thomas Donilon to help lead its review of operations at the State Department. As multiple news outlets quickly pointed out, until 2005 Donilon helped oversee the aggressive lobbying operation of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Now, ABCNews.com has fleshed out the picture a bit, reporting that Donilon oversaw what it describes as a "backdoor lobbying campaign ... to undermine the credibility of a probe into the firm's accounting irregularities." The details, which center on a campaign to discredit an agency charged...

Mr. Donilon began as a young political operative for President Jimmy Carter and later was chief of staff for Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration. He has long operated in the area between politics and national security. He coached Mr. Obama on foreign policy for his debates in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Gen. James Jones is resigning as President Obama's national security adviser. Tom Donilon, the deputy national security adviser, will replace him, a senior administration official tells POLITICO. Jones's resignation will take effect in two weeks. Obama will make an announcement in the Rose Garden at 1 p.m. Friday

The only names being seriously considered to replace Emanuel are three men who are already on Obama’s team, according to officials: Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon; Ron Klain, an aide to Vice President Joe Biden, and Obama senior adviser Pete Rouse, who might be called upon to temporarily replace Emanuel until a permanent replacement is found.

Bob Woodward's searing critique of the Democrats' war strategy comes as key advisers are leaving and voters lose patience with Barack Obama's promise to deliver 'hope and change'. Alex Spillius reports on an increasingly isolated President. When Barack Obama took office 20 months ago – and what a long 20 months it seems – there was a lot of talk about the great "Team of Rivals" he was appointing around him. Parallels were drawn with the cabinet of substantial talents and big personalities assembled by Abraham Lincoln to rebuild the nation after the civil war. Now, in a new book,...

Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama's chief of staff, is likely to leave the White House before the November congressional elections to run for mayor of Chicago, people familiar with the matter said. Emanuel, who would be running to replace Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, could depart by early October, after Congress leaves for recess to campaign for the midterm elections, the people said on condition of anonymity. One person close to Emanuel said a final decision hasn't been made. The timing of Emanuel's departure would allow him to devote full attention to the Chicago race while still giving the president...

Just a FOX NEWS ALERT right now. No story yet.

WASHINGTON - At a precarious moment in the war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama prepared to hear his top war commander explain biting published complaints about the commander in chief and his aides. Even before their showdown, the White House's rebuke of Gen. Stanley McChrystal suggested it would be hard for him to save his job. Ahead of his meeting with the president, McChrystal arrived at the Pentagon for meetings, including once scheduled with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. On his arrival, he denied to NBC News that he's offered his resignation. "Come on, you know better than that. No!"

The Obama administration is burnishing Barack Obama's image as intently focused on the plight of Haitians by pushing on the press a detailed-to-the-minute timeline of Obama's involvement with the response to the Haiti earthquake this week.This shameless promotion of Obama confirms what Rush Limbaugh said earlier this week--that Obama would use the earthquake for his political benefit.The release of the Haiti timeline is in stark contrast to the failure of the White House to similarly account for Obama's time in the aftermath of the Christmas Day terror attack on America while Obama was on vacation in Hawaii. Then, the administration...

It just gets more and more odd after my original report, with the latest coming from a German newspaper (translation courtesy of Google): Hit for the Zöllner: The contraband securities valued at 134 billion U.S. dollars are apparently real. Die italienische Finanzpolizei hatte zwei Japaner ertappt, die im doppelten Boden eines Koffers milliardenschwere Anleihen in die Schweiz schaffen wollten. The Italian financial police had two Japanese caught in the false bottom suitcase billion-dollar bonds in Switzerland wanted to create. Von dem Fund profitiert das hochverschuldete Italien. Note that this has received very little coverage in the so-called "mainstream US media"...

# Houston Chronicle: Alberto Gonzales # Fox News: Chace Crawford, Todd Palin, Matthew Modine, Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace. # National Music Publishers’ Assn.: Kara DioGuardi # Wall Street Journal: Jason Wu # BBC: Sir Howard Stringer, Kristi Yamaguchi, Ellen Burstyn, Phil Gordon # CNN: Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Val Kilmer, Kyra Sedgwick, Brad Cooper, Tyra Banks, Janet Napolitano # ABC News: David and Susan Axelrod; Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff; Peter Orszag, Director, Office of Management and Budget; Valerie Jarrett, senior presidential advisor; Jackie Norris, First Lady’s Chief of Staff;...

America Held Hostage- the Obama Files... With a hattip to Rush ( His idea during the Clinton plague upon America ) I am starting a file on “The One,” mostly starting from the election date. Older stuff- links, quotes, quips, and sometimes pointed graphics can be found by scrolling back from these two posts: -Hillary Clinton- archives, comments, and opposition research---Sarah Palin- links, from the beginning--There is some good material in those posts that raises a lot of uncomfortable questions that everyone ought to be asking, and probably will once the “new” wears off, and we are stuck with four...

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES HOLDS A HEARING ON TREASURY DEPARTMENT'S VIEWS ON THE REGULATION OF GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES SEPTEMBER 10, 2003And I now will recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Frank. FRANK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate hearing from the two Cabinet secretaries, but I just say at the outset that before we move on any legislation, I would hope we would have some additional hearings. And in particular, I think it's important that the variety of groups in our country who care about housing be invited, because that's my major focus here, as it's...

Goodfellow’s BedfellowsWho’s in Bed with the Washington PostBy Fedora Introduction I. A Radical Education: Boston University and Cambridge-Goddard II. Vietnam Roots: Indochina Resource Center A. Luce at International Voluntary Services B. Luce and Cornell’s Hanoi for Lunch Bunch C. Luce’s Tiger Cages and the Indochina Mobile Education Project D. Luce and Branfman: The COLIFAM Connection E. Luce, Branfman, Winter Soldier, and Project Air War F. The Indochina Resource Center: Branfman, Luce, and Goodfellow G. The IRC and the Indochina Peace Campaign: The Hayden-Fonda Link III. Post-Vietnam Transition: Campaign for a Democratic Foreign Policy and Coalition for a New Foreign and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employees at mortgage giant Fannie Mae manipulated accounting so that executives could collect millions in bonuses as senior management deceived investors and stonewalled regulators at a company whose prestigious image was phony, a federal agency charged Tuesday. The blistering report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the product of an extensive three-year investigation, was issued as the government-sponsored company struggles to emerge from an $11 billion accounting scandal. Earlier, a person familiar with the situation said that Fannie Mae was being fined between $300 million and $500 million for the alleged manipulation of accounting to...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mortgage giant Fannie Mae has used its regional partnership offices over the years primarily to lobby Congress instead of promoting affordable housing, the Department of Housing and Urban Development concluded after a yearlong review. HUD opened a formal inquiry into the political activities of Fannie Mae's regional offices in July 2004 following a Wall Street Journal story that said the company used its partnership offices to funnel money into key congressional districts. HUD, which refused to release its report to the public, said in a statement Monday that Fannie's congressional charter allows it to set up regional...

As White House watchers mull possible replacements for Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon appears to be on the short list. Donilon was part of the Obama transition team and served in the Clinton and Carter administrations. But one listing on his resume could cause President Obama and his vetting team a headache. Donilon was also Executive Vice President for Law and Policy at Fannie Mae (2000-2005) during investigations into accounting irregularities at the mortgage giant and was accused of overseeing a lobbying campaign against those investigations in a scathing government report.

Donilon's résumé: Policy, law and Fannie Mae By: Josh Gerstein and Abby Phillip October 8, 2010 08:17 PM EDT To many in the foreign policy community, Tom Donilon’s selection Friday as national security adviser to President Barack Obama was a deserving reward for a consummate professional, a corporate lawyer who worked his way up through the foreign policy ranks over the years and is credited with holding the National Security Council together during the uncertain leadership of James Jones. But one part of Donilon’s résumé that went unmentioned in the Rose Garden Friday — the six years he spent as...

The news is coming so thick and fast these days one can hardly keep up with it, let alone comment intelligently. But we should at least note that Marine General Jim Jones resigned as President Obama's National Security Adviser today, and will be replaced by political operative Tom Donilon. It is hard to remember now, but shortly after his election, Obama's selection of Gen. Jones as national security adviser, along with a handful of similar appointments, caused us and other observers who are ( even more knowledgeable) to hail what seemed to be a reassuringly moderate trend in Obama's nascent...

Thomas Donilon, named by Barack Obama as an adviser to his transition team, oversaw lobbyist efforts to undermine OFHEO’s regulatory efforts over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. ABC News reports on Donilon’s history and his participation in painting a much rosier picture than reality provided for Fannie Mae’s board. The Obama rebuttal will sound familiar to those who recall Jim Johnson’s involvement with Obama’s campaign: One of Obama’s top transition team members, Thomas Donilon, oversaw an aggressive, backdoor lobbying campaign by mortgage giant Fannie Mae to undermine the credibility of a probe into the firm’s accounting irregularities, according to a...

Donilon, who contributed $4,600 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in March 2007 (and gave the maximum $2,300 to Obama for the general election in July), has a long resume in Democratic politics. He headed the Clinton-Gore transition effort and Clinton’s 1992 debate prep. He also served as an aide to Sen. Joe Biden in his failed 1988 presidential bid. More recently, he served as Fannie Mae’s executive vice president for law and policy from 1999 until 2005, giving him control of Fannie Mae’s legal, regulatory and public policy activities and government and industry relations. Donilon was one of several executives...

For a long time, Donilon lived his life from presidential campaign to campaign. The Democratic operative worked on his first Democratic National Convention at 24, and he’s been helping elect candidates ever since. He has worked for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Joseph R. Biden.

Nothing further yet. Just a one line headline from AP.

A transition adviser to President-elect Barack Obama earned millions of dollars overseeing an office that led a lobbying effort to prevent increased oversight of mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the company at the heart of the ongoing turmoil in the nation's financial markets, public records show. The unpaid adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, held several senior positions at Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005, including vice president of law and policy, at a time when the company's officers and lobbyists were insisting that now-troubled Fannie's finances were sound. In a 2006 report, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) said Fannie...

*snip* The Obama transition team released the names of 13 people on Wednesday who will direct a top-to-bottom review of federal agencies and another six who will lead teams that will review Treasury, State and Defense department policy, budget and personnel issues. *snip* It includes four former lobbyists, three top campaign fund-raisers and two former employees of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, with some overlap among them. Four people in the group have ties to the consultant McKinsey & Co. and two have experience leading high-tech start-ups. Mr. Obama's transition advisers include Tom Donilon, a top lobbyist for Fannie Mae,...