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The growing problem for the Obama administration is that the public has finally caught on that the president's tough rhetoric and soaring oratory don't match reality. "Considering all options" and "wanting more information" essentially mean dithering and voting present on Afghanistan, even after announcing the adoption of a new bold strategy. "Saving jobs" means conjecturing about the effects of massive borrowing and enhancing your figures through the creation of fictitious congressional districts and bogus employment reporting. "Punishing KSM" means giving the liberal community a world platform for legal gymnastics designed to repudiate the past administration and demonstrate that community's "tolerance"...

Barack Obama left his 2.6 million fans on Twitter, the social networking website, bemused, disappointed and mildly irritated by admitting on Monday that he had never used the service himself. "Let me say that I have never used Twitter," he told students in Shanghai. "I noticed that young people are very busy with these electronics. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone." During his election campaign, Mr Obama portrayed himself as "connected" to the people through Twitter and his ever-present blackberry phone. Some of his more understanding fans asked if it was any real surprise...

Barack Obama is to reject all of the options outlined for increasing troop numbers in Afghanistan in favour of revised plans which include a clear exit strategy, it has been claimed. The report came from a senior administration official close to the high-level deliberations Mr Obama is holding with his war cabinet over the refocusing of the Afghan war effort. The President is said to have raised questions at a meeting on Wednesday that could alter both the size of any possible troop increase and the length of time they are in the country before they can hand over to...

The Obama Kool Aid may be wearing off, while Barack Obama Campaigned as a post partisan "moderate" for the first time since his election, Gallup is reporting that most Americans view the POTUS as governing from the left-wing. The number of American's who feel he has kept his promises fell 17 percentage points since April to 48% 54% of Americans believe his policies have been mostly liberal while 34% call them mostly moderate. There were also 7% of the public that need to get back on their meds, because they feel that Barack Obama's policies have been mostly conservative. This...

President Obama delivered an unprecedented message to the Human Rights Campaign Saturday night. Sounding more like a homosexual activist than a sitting president, Obama went well beyond his expected message of “I’m here with you” on the homosexual agenda. “My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians -- whether in the office or on the battlefield,” Obama told an estimated audience of 3,000. “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men...

WASHINGTON — Senate Finance Committee Democrats have rejected a GOP amendment that would have required a health overhaul bill to be available online for 72 hours before the committee votes. Republicans argued that transparency is an Obama administration goal. They also noted that their constituents are demanding that they read bills before voting. Democrats said it was a delay tactic that could have postponed a vote for weeks.

He never intended to beat the taliban.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is refusing to release government records on its "cash-for-clunkers" rebate program that would substantiate—or undercut—White House claims of the program's success, even as the president presses the Senate for a quick vote for $2 billion to boost car sales. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Sunday the government would release electronic records about the program, and President Barack Obama has pledged greater transparency for his administration. But the Transportation Department, which has collected details about 157,000 rebate requests, won't release sales data that dealers provided showing how much U.S. car manufacturers are benefiting from the...

Rather than holding their ground, the Obama administration has decided to revise the restriction that did not allow lobbyists to meet with government officials to discuss potential uses for the Federal stimulus money they have been allocated. Under the..

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a meeting with several members of the Catholic media Thursday, President Obama insisted that pro-life Catholics' fears over the new administration's abortion agenda was "not based on anything I've said or done." The president also said he embraces the so-called "seamless garment" moral theory of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, which he said he feels has been "buried under the abortion debate" in recent decades.The president called for the brief round-table meeting with Catholic media to discuss his upcoming meeting with Pope Benedict XVI July 10, but addressed the rift between...

The cap of an entertaining, wide-ranging press conference that included a spirited defense of the public health care option: A carefully-framed, detailed question from Obama on his smoking habit. "You just think it's neat to ask me about my smoking," he told the reporter, before conceding that he has "fallen off the wagon sometimes." "Am I a daily, a constant smoker? No," he said. "I don't do it in front of my kids. i don't do it in front of my family." Obama said he was "95% cured" and compared himself to a recovering alcoholic. "Once you've gone down this...

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised that once a bill was passed by Congress, the White House would post it online for five days before he signed it. The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. “When there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing,” Mr. Obama said as a candidate, telling voters he would make government more transparent...

In a move that puts a cloud over transparency, White House officials are blocking access to the lists of the names of visitors to the White House. The practice, carried over from the Bush administration, argues the public does not need to know who comes calling at the Executive Mansion, even for policy purposes. "We are deeply disappointed," said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington spokeswoman Anne Weismann, whose group is suing to get the records. "The president, who has committed his administration to transparency and accountability, now takes the position of the Bush administration that the public is...

US President Barack Obama has changed his mind and will now attempt to block the publication of photographs showing the abuse of prisoners by US soldiers. The US government had previously said it would not fight a court ruling ordering the release of the pictures. Mr Obama now believes the release of the photos would make the job of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan more difficult, White House officials said. The pictures were due to be released by 28 May, according to the court ruling.

Obama reverses on releasing photos As Democrats appear to be feeling the limits of national security politics, President Obama has reversed course and will object to the court-ordered release of photos depicting the abuse of detainees. An official explains, on background: Last week, the President met with his legal team and told them that he did not feel comfortable with the release of the DOD photos because he believes their release would endanger our troops, and because he believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court. At the end of...

This may be the smartest thing President Obama has done since entering office. This may be the only smart thing he done since entering office. I wonder how it feels to actually support the troops for a change? Jake Tapper reports: President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge's order, and had changed his mind. The president "believes their release would endanger our troops,"...

President Blasted McCain on This Issue, but Experts Say It Could Help Pay for Reform During last year's campaign, Barack Obama poured millions of dollars into television ads attacking John McCain for wanting to tax employer-provided health care benefits. But now that Congress is beginning to consider ways to fix the health care system, a concept once pilloried by Obama is being placed on the agenda by a key member of the president's own party. Under current law, any money spent on employer-provided health plans is excluded entirely from employee's taxable income. "That tax provision should be on the table,...

President Barack Obama, who was one of the Bush administration’s sharpest critics concerning the military tribunals used to prosecute detainees at the Guantanamo detention facility, may be backing away from his election promise to abolish them. Last week, a story in the New York Times reported that the Obama administration is now likely to retain the military commission system, but in a modified form. According to the Times, the announcement regarding this stunning about-face could come as early as next week. “The more they look at it,” one official told The Times, “the more commissions don’t look as bad as...

Remember when candidate Obama said, “Lobbyists won’t find a job in my White House”? Apparently, he doesn’t. And really, no one who opposed his presidency to begin with is surprised. Even AP and the NY Times is noticing the lobbyists in Washington. And this piece is from the Washington Times:Obama’s lobbyists Their ranks grow in the new administration Thursday, May 7, 2009 During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama declared that, “lobbyists won’t find a job in my White House.” Now President Obama takes a different view of lobbyists.The Senate is expected soon to approve anti-tobacco lobbyist William Corr for the...

New York, New York – April 29th, 2009 - The National Leadership Team of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition (http://www.nationwideteapartycoalition.com) today accepted President Obama`s invitation "to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.” The invitation was extended by the President at a Town Hall Meeting held in Arnold, Missouri today (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21870.html). Michael Patrick Leahy, a member of the National Leadership Team of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, said " We want to broaden the scope to address the President`s...

“If you got health insurance, then you can keep it . . . and we won’t do anything about that,” at least that was what President Obama promised during the campaign last year. Well, add that to a very long list of broken campaign promises, including: cutting government spending, reducing the deficit, and “no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.” Just as bad, on Friday it was revealed that Obama and the Democrats have no problem pushing through Senate votes on these radical health care changes that strip away normal procedural protections...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's Democratic allies in Congress have agreed to let his signature $400 tax cut for most workers expire after next year but are moving to give him a better chance at passing his health care bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday that most issues have been resolved in trying to combine different House and Senate approaches into one budget bill. That measure will set the rules on how Congress considers Obama's agenda for the rest of the year.

President Obama marked Tax Day with a speech touting his tax policies. He made several claims about how his policies will improve the economy, most of which don’t hold up under close scrutiny. Here are a few of the more egregious examples: * President Obama claimed the tax cuts in the mis-labeled “stimulus” bill are the most progressive in history. This is true because the so-called stimulus created the Making Work Pay Credit and expanded the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. All these credits are refundable, so they send checks to tax filers who pay no...

President Barack Obama's gift of a dog to his two daughters has angered animal welfare activists who argued that he broke a promise to adopt a dog from a shelter. Bo, the six-month-old black and white Portuguese water dog who was a gift from Senator Edward Kennedy, was due to have his official unveiling at the White House last night. Though he was given up by his first owners, the puppy spent no time in a rescue shelter and instead was treated to a month with the senator's dog trainer before being handed over to the White House. Dr Jana...

President Obama talking tough to a group of voters in Miami before the election, yet President Obama must have forgotten this speech. Is there any evidence of a tough policy towards Cuba? Any?

WASHINGTON -- Words count, as President Barack Obama once said. Words spoken truthfully count even more. The president's triumphal eight-day six-country overseas tour, ending with his emotional visit to U.S. troops in Iraq, will go down in history as an opportunity for us to collect Obama's words and save them in our computers so we can match them with the administration's future actions. It's refreshing to hear words of optimism, courage and determination aimed at solving long-standing problems and threats. As the president said in Turkey, "If we don't reach high, then we don't make progress." So let's firmly assign...

The RedEye gang discusses.

Gay Rights Activists Chagrined at Obama Administration Foot-Dragging on Overturning Don't Ask/Don't Tell March 30, 2009 7:57 AM Gay and lesbian rights advocates expressed chagrin Sunday at the lack of urgency President Obama seems to be giving his campaign promise to overturn the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces. Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged on Fox News Sunday that funds have been allocated for the 2010 budget to enforce the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy. "It continues to be the law," Gates said, "and any change in the policy would require a change in the law....

I've been away for awhile and I'm looking for all the best FR research on Obama. Who can help?

http://www.butasforme.com/2009/03/17/obamas-stimulus-bill-explicitly-grants-aig-the-legal-right-to-hand-out-bonuses/From page H1412 of the Final Stimulus Bill, ``SEC. 111. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: "(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a writte employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary." This amendment provides an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009, which exempts the very AIG bonuses Obama is condemning every single chance he gets. The amendment is in the final...

While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law.

The White House Tuesday evening disclosed that almost three weeks ago the Obama administration granted ethics wavers for two additional officials who had previously worked as lobbyists. On February 20 the administration signed waivers for Jocelyn Frye, former general counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, and Cecilia Muñoz, the former senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, allowing them to work on issues for which they lobbied. These two are in addition to deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist whose waiver was granted two days after President Obama announced on...

Boehner: Democrats Should Post Half-Trillion Dollar Omnibus Spending Bill Online Immediately Washington, Feb 19 - House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today issued the following statement on plans by Democratic leaders to schedule a vote as soon as next week on the half-trillion dollar “omnibus” spending bill to complete the FY 2009 appropriations process: “If Democratic leaders plan to schedule a vote on the half-trillion dollar omnibus spending bill next week, they should post the legislation online immediately so the American people have adequate time to read the measure and understand what is in it. My colleagues in the Republican leadership...

President Obama seems to have imbibed just a bit too much of his Kampaign Kool-Aid. When he promised a new era of cooperation and consensus building in Washington, he actually believed it. By the way, didn’t we all? Just as at age six or seven you know in your head that Santa isn’t going to come tumbling down the chimney but you still listen for the reindeer on the roof, weren’t we all holding our breath those first few days? The early cabinet appointments seemed reasonable, his visit to Congress encouraging. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through partisan rule...

President-elect Barack Obama is no quitter. That is, he still sneaks a smoke from time to time, despite his pledge to conquer his nicotine addiction. He admitted on NBC's "Meet The Press" yesterday to having "fallen off the wagon" - and left himself some wiggle room to take a puff after he moves into the White House next month. Obama said he gave up the habit when he began his presidential run, but bummed the occasional cigarette on the campaign trail. When asked by moderator Tom Brokaw whether he'd finally quit, Obama replied, "You know, I have, but what I...

...Obama reported raising $104 million in more than five weeks immediately before and after Election Day. It was his second biggest fundraising period and a fitting coda to a successful presidential bid that shattered fundraising records. ...Obama exceeded the combined finances of the two major parties' nominees four years ago. George W. Bush and John Kerry pulled in a total of $653 million in the 2004 primary and general election campaigns, including federal public financing money. Obama's prowess at attracting money, one of the many characteristics that defined his campaign, could well spell the end of a 30-year experiment in...

WASHINGTON - In the last month of the presidential campaign, it was one of Barack Obama and Joe Biden's strongest attack lines: John McCain, they warned, would "tax your healthcare benefits for the first time ever." But now, some Congressional Democrats in charge of health reform are talking about doing just that. They would not go as far as McCain, who wanted to end the tax exclusion entirely for employer-sponsored insurance, which excludes money spent by employees and their employers on health benefits from income and payroll taxes. But some key Democrats are talking about limiting the benefit for workers,...

It is still okay to discriminate against one group of Americans. This discrimination is not only legal, it is encouraged. You see members of this oppressed minority huddled outside in rain and snow, forbidden to seek refuge. No one feels sorry for them. And yet we may have just elected one of these pariahs as president. Smoking is a disgusting habit that can kill you and those around you. Barack Obama claims to have quit, but the evidence is ambiguous. And the media's lack of interest in this question supports the charge that Obama is enjoying a honeymoon with the...

The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne asks Obama advisers whether his appointments herald a shift to the center and is told that the answer is No: Obama's selection of a team of highly skilled pragmatists has already been described as a move to the political center, but Obama advisers and longtime acquaintances say that this is a misreading of the incoming president and his approach. They describe it as combining a practicality about means with an overriding concern about the corrosive effects of growing economic inequalities... Washington often divides the Democratic policy world between progressives and pragmatists. With Obama, as yesterday's...

President-elect Barack Obama Washington DC, Nov 23, 2008 / 07:48 pm (CNA).- Citing what they call America’s “promise of equality,” the Obama administration plans to push for homosexual rights by including protections of sexual orientation, “gender identity” and “gender expression” as civil rights. His office proposes expanding hate crimes statues and the adoption rights of homosexuals while supporting full civil unions for “LGBT couples” to give them “legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples.”The proposals are announced under the Civil Rights section of their agenda presented at Change.gov, the web site of the Obama campaign’s self-described...

It appears that the Obama's backtrack on lobbyists in our new politics will not be the last. Hot Air is keeping track, and I'll be sure to keep all of you posted as well with my own observations. So what's the big beef now? Remember back when Obama could afford to say things without any consequences and he said this:

Robert Malley, a top Middle East advisor that US President-elect Barack Obama promised months ago would play no role in his administration due to ties to Hamas, has reportedly been sent out on the next administration's first diplomatic mission. According to a report in Middle East Newsline, Obama dispatched Malley to Egypt and Syria late last week with a message that the he intends to mend and bolster relations with both nations, and to give greater weight to their concerns regarding regional conflicts than did President George W. Bush. During the Democratic Party primaries, Obama was lashed by critics for...

By popular demand, the list of expired Obama statements... Consumers should be aware that promises, pledged, and soul-healing rhetoric are only effective for a limited time; upon expiration they become "just words." IRAQ STATEMENT: “Based on the conversations we’ve had internally as well as external reports, we believe that you can get one to two brigades out a month. At that pace, the forces would be out in approximately 16 months from the time that we began. That would be the time frame that I would be setting up,” Obama to the New York Times, November 1, 2007 EXPIRATION DATE:...

CNN) -- Barack Obama's campaign released a television ad Monday that calls for a windfall profits tax and accuses John McCain of being in the pocket of big oil.

Ahead of an upcoming visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, US presidential candidate Barack Obama reiterated on Sunday that he never intended to support Israel’s position that Jerusalem remain its eternal, undivided capital. Obama said in an interview with CNN that he had used “poor phrasing” in a speech last month that most took to be an unprecedented vote of support by a US presidential candidate for Israel’s refusal to surrender half of its biblical capital to the Palestinian Arabs.

Will Obama Debate John McCain Without Preconditions? July 7, 2008 The world of Presidential candidate Barack Obama must be a strange and fascinating place. You get to be the "post-racial" guy while dealing the race card from the bottom of the deck like an old time poker cheat. Along with this political slight of hand, your solution to solving the fuel crisis involves punishing the people who actually produce the gas while raising taxes on the people who buy gas. When it comes to gas, Mr. Obama is having a sort of political dyslexia. On the campaign trail he said...

There is already a widespread consensus that Barack Obama will say whatever he has to say to get elected. His own pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said that he understood why Obama had to distance himself from him to avoid unfavorable attention. Obama also put on an American flag pin (perhaps for the first time) along with an Israel flag pin to talk to AIPAC, but he would probably wear a Palestinian flag pin if he spoke to the International Solidarity Movement. We also recall Yassir Arafat’s technique of saying in English what he wanted the West to believe while using Arabic...

Stung by criticism, Senator Obama veers away with hard rudder from his statement he’d meet with Ahmadinejad: Hedging his much-discussed offer to meet personally with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — now the encounter would be with “the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing, if and only if, it can advance the interests of the United States� — Mr. Obama fully embraced the Bush administration’s view that “the danger from Iran is grave.� He said “we will use all elements of American power to pressure Iran,� and he pledged, “I will do everything in my power to...

One day into his "presumptive nominee" status, and Barack Obama is already showing how incredibly relevant and dangerous his inexperience will be should he be elected. Trying to outdo John McCain during an AIPAC speech, Barack said that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel. American foreign policy on this matter has long been that the two parties should settle the dispute themselves. Ed Morrisey at Hot Air explains: The US has no official position on the status of Jerusalem other than to insist that the two parties work it out between themselves. It is considered one of the...

Is Barack Obama the quintessential politician who will say anything depending on the group he is in front of? Obama won widespread applause from the Jewish community and Israeli citizens after he became the first president since 1967 to make public his opinion that Jerusalem should remain the “undivided” capital of Israel. The remarks were clearly made to pander to the AIPAC membership, the nations LARGEST JEWISH LOBBY. Obama’s statement is that it immediately drew widespread criticism ... ...the Obama campaign made an attempt to get in front of the story yesterday. According to the Jerusalem Post “a campaign adviser...