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A New York Times headline yesterday read: “Obama’s Team Is Lacking Most of Its Top Players.” Yes, so much for the Greatest Transition in World History (a point expounded on in the introduction to Culture of Corruption, where I note that for all the hype about Obama’s brilliant, efficient, amazingly genius transition team, Obama failed to beat the pace of the Reagan White House, which had 73 officials confirmed by Day 100 compared to Obama’s 65 — and which avoided the bungles and baggage that Obama’s botched nominees brought with them.) The bottom line so far, the NYT now reports:...

Neal Boortz @ May 13, 2009 8:32 AM The Media Research Center did an analysis of the lamestream media's coverage of Obama's first 100 days. Guess what? Turns out that they have done a great job of sending tingles up their legs but a lousy job acting as watchdogs. MRC analysts looked at all 982 broadcast evening news stories about Obama and his administration from Inauguration Day (January 20) through April 29. Here are some of the interesting, though not surprising, things that they found: - Obama's first 100 days were defined by massive spending, aggressive intervention in the private...

 During his first 100 days as President, Barack Obama has pushed an audaciously liberal agenda which, if enacted, would have radical consequences for America for decades. With Democrats enjoying monopoly control of the House and Senate, the news media have a professional duty to scrutinize those policies, and give audiences both sides of the story — not just the perspective of a powerful Chief Executive. Unfortunately, a Media Research Center analysis of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage of President Obama’s first 100 days in office shows network reporters have failed as watchdogs. The networks have raised few doubts...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employers cut 539,000 jobs last month, the fewest since October, according to government data on Friday that signaled the economy's steep decline may be easing. The unemployment rate, however, soared to 8.9 percent, the highest since September 1983, from 8.5 percent in March and job losses in March and February were a combined 66,000 steeper than previously estimated, the Labor Department said. A big 72,000 jump in government payrolls tempered the overall job-loss figure. Private sector employment fell by 611,000 in April after a 693,000 job decline in March.

The American media has just released an avalanche of reports assessing President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office. Ignore it all. It doesn’t matter. The revealing part of his presidency hasn’t begun yet. At about this point in his presidency, George W. Bush had, with the help of his secretary of state, Colin Powell, just won the release of the crew of a U.S. spy plane from China, leading the world media elite to declare Bush a pragmatic president in foreign affairs, and Powell his most important advisor. As for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it was said that he...

I believe that today is something like day 104 and Barack Obama has had 320 news conferences. This guy loves to hear himself talk. But it is more than that. The president is doing one of two things. First, he is either getting things done, or second, he is telling you what he is going to get done. The 320 news conferences are to tell you what he is going to get done because he is getting nothing done. If we are not feeling good about the state of the economy maybe constantly hearing how he is going to make...

Barack Obama’s first 100 days just flu by, didn’t they? About the only thing to pass over the heads of Americans faster than the first three months of Obama’s first (and hopefully only) term was that Top-Secret, but apparently “routine” photo-op flight, where Air Force One, shadowed by F-16s, flew nearly nap-of-the-Earth and buzzed the tourists and office buildings in lower Manhattan. The only significance to Barack Obama’s first 100 days is that there are only 1,360 left, assuming he only serves one term. But since we have to live with Democrats and since Janet Napolitano and the Obama Administration...

Gallup Poll Daily tracking during President Obama's first 100 days in office finds broad support for him among Americans affiliated with most major U.S. religions. U.S..........

Much has been made of the comparison of Barrick Hussein Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and need for quick action in the first 100 days. Winning a popular election and enjoying heavy majorities in both houses of Congress, FDR declared a national bank holiday, took us off the gold standard and confiscated Americans gold coins, raised taxes on the rich, and began a series of anti-business measures. Obama has acted quickly too: He pushed through a partisan $800 billion plus “stimulus� package, devalued the dollar (de facto), and introduced legislation to raise taxes sharply on wealthy entrepreneurs and investors....

News organizations have done an admirable job of recapping the first 100 days of the Obama administration. But rarely do we stumble across a primary source like Barack Obama's own Facebook feed. Scroll down for the full story. Barack Obama joined the Washington, D.C. network. Barack Obama is taking the oath of office. Barack Obama is taking the oath of office. Barack Obama deleted the group I'm a Lobbyist AND I Work at the White House! Barack Obama deleted the group Guantanamo Bay Detainees 4EVA.   Khalid Sheikh Mohammed likes this. Reggie Love wrote on Beyonce Knowles' Wall.   Not...

WASHINGTON - After Barack Obama's first six weeks as president, the American public's attitudes about the two political parties couldn't be more different, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds. Despite the country's struggling economy and vocal opposition to some of his policies, President Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high. Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House. "What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey...

*** At G20 .....Obama lent credibility to buffoons and despots. What wisdom did he glean from Daniel Ortega' s hate-filled excoriations? Fidel Castro has already hurled back Obama's olive branch, slamming the door on freeing political prisoners. Rather than celebrate the political legacy that put him in the White House, he breaks the bonds of our political traditions. NAMES REDACTED Westwood, NJ *** .........."righties" made such a fuss over Pres Obama's "World Capitulation Tour".......not simply because he threw the US under the bus in a fit of self-flagellation. It's because he was utterly ineffective....we were treated to the spectacle of...

...Biden was in town for a Democratic National Committee fundraising reception at the River Oaks home of lawyer Neal Manne — who served as Specter’s chief of staff in Washington in the 1980s... The vice president said that, as a senator from Delaware, he was Specter’s best friend in the Senate for 33 years, and that he and Manne “have been trying to remind Arlen that he is really Democrat.” “I have been working on that in earnest for the past four years and double time for the past 100 days (as vice president),” Biden added. “It seems only appropriate,”...

At Sunday afternoon's White House press briefing on the administration's efforts to combat and control a potential swine flu outbreak, press secretary Robert Gibbs was joined by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, deputy national security adviser John Brennan, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acting director Dr. Richard Besser. Noticeably absent on stage was a fully confirmed federal health care official: There was no health and human services secretary (Kathleen Sebelius could be confirmed as early as tomorrow), no surgeon general (no new candidate has emerged since Dr. Sanjay Gupta dropped out) and no fully confirmed director of CDC...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new national poll suggests that President Obama is personally more popular than his policies. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, released Monday, also indicates that 63 percent of Americans approve of how Obama is handling his duties as president. One in three questioned in the poll disapprove. The survey, released two days before Obama marks 100 days in the White House, indicates that three in four Americans feel Obama has the personal qualities a president should have. But when asked whether Obama agrees with the respondent on the issues, that number drops to 57 percent. "Americans have...

The reason I don't watch MSNBC was confirmed this weekend. No less than three times did I flip onto the station for a brief minute when I noticed that they were analyzing, again, some poll that put Obama's popularity at 69%, which according to the graphic made him the most popular president in recent history. The answer for his defenders to any number of policy criticisms is to point to his popularity and to use that as proof that he is right and his opponents are out of touch. The president continues to be popular for two reasons primarily, his...

FAA says low-flying plane over Staten Island is 'pre-planned' flight to take photos by Staten Island Advance Monday April 27, 2009, 10:03 AM A plane, that appears to be a commercial jet tailed by fighter jets, is a "pre-planned" military flight taking photos of the Statue of Liberty, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Reports indicate it may be Air Force One. "It is pre-planned, pre-coordinated with everyone involved," said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. "It's a military flight over New York to take photos." Peters, who stressed it is not an emergency, said the flight is circling the Statue of...

“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...

President Obama’s first 100 days in office will come to a close. Obama's juggernaut candidacy swept many Christians into its wake. Some now appear to have "buyer's remorse." As David Gushee, an evangelical Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and a supporter of Obama recently wrote in the USA TODAY: "Mr. President, we need more than lip service. Centrist evangelicals like me embraced Barack Obama's campaign pledge to help bride the gaps of the culture wars. Instead, the president's short record on abortion-related issues is is familiar— and disappointing—rather than revolutionary.” Gushee is not alone. So, while politicos and...

It didn't take long for Barack Obama — for all his youth and inexperience — to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis. "I feel surprisingly comfortable in the job," the nation's 44th president said a mere two weeks after taking the helm. "The challenges are big," a sober Obama added, underscoring the foreign and domestic problems he inherited Jan. 20. "But one thing I'm absolutely convinced about is you want to be president when you've got big problems. If things are going too smoothly, then this is just another nice home...

For the first time since Barack Obama was elected president last November, more than half of U.S. voters (53%) say it is at least somewhat likely that the next occupant of the White House will be a Republican. Thirty-one percent (31%) say it is Very Likely. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it is not very or not at all likely, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twelve percent (12%) aren’t sure. This is not an expectation related to the 2012 election. It is a question about the President following Obama which could happen in either 2012 or 2016....

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is under fire for what critics see as a string of gaffes, with a small but vocal group of conservatives calling for her to step down. The outrage continues to build over a report from her department that warned of the danger of right-wing "extremists," and singled out returning war veterans as susceptible to recruitment. Napolitano expressed regret for the reference to veterans -- but she raised eyebrows again this week when she suggested that the Sept. 11 hijackers entered the United States through Canada, even though the 9/11 Commission determined they came to the...

Christina Bellatoni reports Zero's 100 day press conference next Wednesday at 8 PM.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Millions of people jobless. Billions of dollars in bailouts. Trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. And yet, for the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is on the right track. In a sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future in the first 100 days of his presidency, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction — compared with 44 percent who disagree. The "right direction" number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31...

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret. Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But...

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said ahead of a meeting at the White House Thursday that Obama and Republicans ... ... on Capitol Hill have gotten off on the wrong foot. "The first 100 days have not been the best days for bipartisanship," Cantor said during an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We've got some very serious issues, and I do think now that we can come together," he said. "We can do better." Cantor added that he wants to tell the president later today that "we want to work with you."

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama paid tribute Thursday to the memory of Jews murdered in the Holocaust and said it is the duty of the living all over the world to make certain there will be no more atrocities. Speaking at a Holocaust Days of Remembrance ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, Obama warned against what he called the dangers of silence. Every day, he said, people should fight the impulse to turn away when scenes of horror unfold across the world. He called for people to embrace a "habit of empathy." "We know," the president said, "that evil has...

Rove: Obama on 'confession tour' @ 11:29 am by Jeremy P. Jacobs Karl Rove slammed President Obama on Thursday for apologies for the "sins of America and his predecessors." In his column in the Wall Street Journal, President George W. Bush's former senior advisor said Obama's remarks on his recent trips abroad portray condescension toward those who held the office before him. "There is something ungracious in Mr. Obama criticizing his predecessors, including most recently John F. Kennedy," Rove wrote. "('I'm grateful that President [Daniel] Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old,'...

Like so many politicians I have known, the man we elected president wants to be loved. He wants to be loved passionately and daily by the 69 million who voted for him and even some of the 60 million who voted for John McCain. He wants to be loved by the Democrats on the Hill and even the Republicans who have still not given him any love. He wants to be loved by the Europeans who have made a career out of badmouthing U.S. presidents and their policies. The real example of searching for love in all the wrong places...

Jeb Babbin reports that "White House lawyers are refusing to accept the findings of an inter-agency committee that the Uighur Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay are too dangerous to release inside the U.S." After President Obama promised to close Gitmo, the White House ordered an inter-agency review of the status of all the detainees. Apparently, it believed that many of those held would be quickly determined releasable. If so, this belief was perhaps naive, considering that a large percentage of the detainees, presumably the comparatively "innocuous" ones, had already been released (some of whom promptly returned to their terrorist...

BAGHDAD - The suspected leader of an al-Qaida-linked militant network was captured Thursday by Iraqi military forces.Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has been a key target for U.S. and Iraqi forces for years as the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni militant factions that is believed dominated by al-Qaida in Iraq.

For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future. Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington. Nobody knows how long...

In the midst of conservative criticism that President Barack Obama, at the summit in Trinidad over the weekend, joked around with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and was uncritical of a 50-minute anti-American screed from Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, ABC decided to defend Obama's foreign-policy mettle -- with his only failure coming where he has followed Bush's policy. Martha Raddatz began by trying to undermine the pictures of a jovial Obama with Chavez: "Today, cell phone video images emerged of a stern and serious President Obama during a brief encounter with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The image counters the cordial hand shake with...

President Barack Obama walks with former President Bill Clinton after he planted a tree while participating in a national service project at Kenilworth Aquatic Garden in Washington, Tuesday, April 21, 2009. At rear is Vice President Joe Biden President Barack Obama, who had finished planting his tree, walks over to watch first lady Michelle Obama plant a tree with volunteers as they participate in a national service project at Kenilworth Aquatic Garden in Washington, Tuesday, April 21, 2009. President Barack Obama watches as former President Bill Clinton plants a tree as they participate in a national service project at Kenilworth...

Guess what – there was no terrorist attack on 9/11. There may have been an “attack,” but there were no “terrorists.” If we had “terrorists,” then we would require a “Global War on Terror,” but we don’t because the Obama administration has changed the language. We now have an “Overseas Contingency Operation.” You can almost imagine Winston Lewis, slaving at his post in the “Ministry of Truth” to redact all mentions of the Global War on Terror. Of course, the term “Global War on Terror” left something to be desired since it was really a Global War on Radical Islam....

David Keller was found dead in his home Tuesday morning in an apparent suicide. Keller, 41, has served as the acting chief financial officer (CFO) for Freddie Mac since September. Kellerman reportedly hanged himself in the basement of his Reston, Va. home. The Fairfax County Police Department said there are no signs of foul play. Keller took over as CFO when Anthony “Buddy” Piszel resigned in the wake of the government takeover. The news comes on the heals of Freddie Mac CEO David Moffett's resignation last month. The government-controlled Freddie Mac owns or guarantees about...

Law enforcement sources said they found David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, hanging in the basement of his Reston, Va., home, dead from an apparent suicide early this morning. Virginia police say they found David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, hanging in the basement of his Reston home, dead from an apparent suicide early this morning. (ABC News)The death was "an active investigation" and there were "no signs of foul play," Fairfax County police officer Sabrina Ruck said. Local police said they were called to Kellermann's home at 4:48am. Kellermann,...

Steven Rattner, head of the U.S. government's auto task force, is part of a probe into an alleged kickback scheme at New York's state pension fund.

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives to make remarks on a proposed high-speed rail system in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, April 16, 2009. President Obama outlined his plan for developing "long overdue" high-speed rail on Thursday that would rival air travel, create jobs and help curb the U.S. transportation system's appetite for oil. U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to audience members after delivering remarks on a proposed high-speed rail system in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, April 16, 2009. Vice President Joe Biden reacts to the audience after making remarks, with President Barack Obama, on expanding...

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...

Maybe he just doesn't know that there are people who disagree with his massive tax and spend agenda. That would explain a lot. Perhaps the network media's near silence on the "tea party" phenomenon has kept President Obama from realizing that hundreds of tax day protests will happen today? "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties and will hold his own event today," ABC's Dan Harris said on "Good Morning America" on April 15. Harris's story was the first ABC News report specifically about the tea parties since Rick Santelli's of CNBC's famous rant calling...

Amidst all of the American flags and presidential seals, there was something missing when President Barack Obama gave an economic speech at Georgetown University this week -- Jesus. The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus' name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com. The gold "IHS" monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day, CNSNews.com reported. The Washington Times' Belief Blog asked the university about the presidential request: Julie Bataille from the university's press office...

Secretary Janet Napolitano is about to appear live on FOX to discuss her department's recent warning on right-wing extremists.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was briefed before the release of a controversial intelligence assessment and that she stands by the report sent to law enforcement that lists veterans as a terrorist risk to the U.S. and defines "rightwing extremism" as including groups opposed to abortion and immigration. The outcry resulted in a demand from the head of the American Legion to meet with Ms. Napolitano, a request the DHS chief said she would honor next week when she returns to Washington from her current tour of the U.S.-Mexican border. "The document on right-wing extremism sent last week...

Release Date: April 15, 2009 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 The primary mission of this department is to prevent terrorist attacks on our nation. The document on right-wing extremism sent last week by this department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is one in an ongoing series of assessments to provide situational awareness to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on the phenomenon and trends of violent radicalization in the United States. I was briefed on the general topic, which is one that struck a nerve as someone personally involved in the Timothy McVeigh prosecution....

In December 1773, Bostonians held a Tea Party in Boston Harbor to protest excessive British taxes. "No taxation without representation" was their message. On Wednesday, April 15, Americans will hold rallies across the country to protest onerous taxes. Organizers have a motto for their Tea Day - "taxed enough already." Big problem: There is a world of difference between 1773 and 2009. Two hundred-plus years ago, Americans risked life and limb protesting a distant and oligarchic system of government that did not represent the good people of Massachusetts. In 2009, the federal government is dysfunctional because, if anything, Washington is...

MOMBASA, Kenya – Somali pirates captured four ships and took more than 60 crew members hostage in a brazen hijacking spree, while the American captain freed from their grip planned to reunite with his crew and fly home Wednesday to the United States. Capt. Richard Phillips and his 19-man crew will reunite in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Wednesday and fly from there to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on a chartered flight, according to the shipping company Maersk... ... Pirates have vowed to retaliate for those deaths and two others slain by French forces in a separate...

Sept. 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Courageous Captain Rescued by Navy Seals View SlideshowCaptain Richard Phillips, who has been held by Somali pirates since Wednesday in a small life boat off of Africa, has been freed. After this weekend, April 12 might become International Keelhaul A Pirate Day. With a rescue of captured Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama -- and killing the Somali pirates holding him hostage -- the US Navy created a feel-good Easter story. Even more significantly in a political sense, President Barack Obama suddenly makes himself look rather different on the national...

I have written quite a bit about polarization in the early Obama presidency. Each time I do, I receive a few emails similar to this one: [Y]ou maintain that Obama's governing style has been highly partisan. That's simplistic: it takes two to tango and the Republicans have valued total opposition over reasonable compromise. I don't care if Obama rolled the Republicans in the public perception game or not: they're playing in the big leagues and they've been there a long time. They should know how to win that game. This is a version of a general argument - "The Republicans...

Now, this has occurred before with Bill Clinton, and it quite possibly could have been the same with Bush - the issue is how the MSM spins this and how it will report one way if you are affiliated with one party versus the other way when you have the “scarlet” R next to your name. From Flopping Aces: “Cheered wildly by U.S. troops,” begins Jennifer Democratic Operative Loven’s AP report on Obama’s surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday. Quite a contrast to the silent treatment Marines gave Obama at his Camp LeJeune speech in late February. Just how did...