Michelle Obama Should have recieved more press

Samia · November 7, 2008

Here is a shock, I think it actually could have helped him even more. She really impressed me in the following article and I think more people would have possibly had a change of heart.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5101829.ece

My No 1 job as First Lady is to be First Mom

Helping working women and families is dear to the heart of the President-elect's wife. But so are sleepover strategies...

Michelle Obama

....... type="text/css"> div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited { color:#06c; } ........> A few weeks ago at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, I shared with the nation some of the many reasons why I believed my husband would be an extraordinary president. It was the biggest speech I'd ever given. When I was finished, I headed backstage with my daughters. They turned to me, breathless with excitement.

“Mom,” Malia, our ten-year-old, said. “We have something important to tell you. We need to have a sleepover!”

That snapped me out of speech mode, with the bright lights and applause, and back into the role I love: Mom. The next night, 15 giggling girls - my daughters, the Biden granddaughters, and friends - took over our hotel room.

Now that Barack has been elected president, it will be an honour to be First Lady. I will work daily on the issues closest to my heart: helping working women and families, particularly military families. But, as my girls reminded me in Denver, even as First Lady, my No 1 job is still to be Mom. At 7 and 10, our daughters are young. My first priority will be to ensure they stay grounded and healthy, with normal childhoods - including homework, chores, dance, and soccer.

........ type="text/javascript">.........> Our girls are the centre of Barack's and my world. They're the reason he ran for president - to make the world a better place for them and for all children. For us, and for millions of Americans, that's what this election has been about - making sure that America remains a country where everyone can fulfil their God-given potential.

Barack and I have travelled to every corner of the country, talking to people about their lives and dreams. Their stories have touched our hearts and strengthened our resolve. They've made us more certain than ever that, despite any differences we may have, there is so much that unites us as Americans. But times are tough. Parents are working harder than ever to raise their kids, pay bills, help out their parents and keep up with the rising cost of living. Caring for their families is their greatest joy - but it's harder to make ends meet.

We've talked to mothers whose salaries can't cover the cost of groceries - but if they take a second job, they can't afford childcare. More than 22 million working women don't have paid sick days. Millions of women are doing the same jobs as men but they're earning less.

It's even harder for military spouses. Their husbands and wives are away serving our nation for months at a time. So they have to be Mom and Dad. They're working, checking in on their in-laws, helping with homework, and doling out discipline - and every night, they're praying with all their hearts for their loved ones' safe return. These families aren't asking the Government to fix their problems. They're asking for it to understand what's happening to their families and to find ways to help.

As First Lady, I will continue these conversations with working women and military spouses, and I'll take their stories back to Washington to make sure that the people who run our country know how their policies touch their constituents' lives.

The struggles of America's families aren't new to Barack. He was raised by a single mom who put herself through school and built a career that she loved while still finding time to read to him each morning. So, he knows how heroic America's parents can be. That's why he is committed to restoring the middle class, cutting taxes for 95 per cent of all working Americans, establishing pay equity for women, and expanding family leave. He also knows that when our military goes to war, their families go with them. He's a strong advocate for predictable deployments and better healthcare - including mental health - for returning service people.

These issues are my passions. Now that the election is won, I'll keep working to find solutions that make a real difference in people's lives. With Barack serving as President, we will fill our home with talk of how to serve our nation's families better.

And occasionally, when our daughters insist, we'll host sleepovers, too.

suchandra · November 9, 2008

My No 1 job as First Lady is to be First Mom

According Mikhail Khazin who predicted 9/11 on 9/10, the present ongoing financial crisis will have no end. Obama is the sacrificial lamb to be blamed for the great collapse. And with him of course his wife Michelle.

AncientMariner · November 9, 2008

According Mikhail Khazin who predicted 9/11 on 9/10, the present ongoing financial crisis will have no end. Obama is the sacrificial lamb to be blamed for the great collapse. And with him of course his wife Michelle.

That is the sad thing about Obama, I actually feel sorry for the guy. He very well might have started off with good intentions getting into government and wanted to be able to take care of his family and all that. The problem is the people who are in control of the political system are so diabolical and have such diabolical plans that now he is caught in the machinery and there is basically no way out for him now but to keep selling his soul to these corporate military demons and do their bidding.

I saw his speech on Friday and he looked like a deer in the headlights. I think it is starting to dawn on him that this is no longer a big party now, the rhetoric is over and the decisions are going to be real and it is probably not so comfortable to be a puppet at this stage. He is more intelligent than Bush so there seems to be a higher chance that he has a conscience.

AncientMariner · November 9, 2008

According Mikhail Khazin who predicted 9/11 on 9/10, the present ongoing financial crisis will have no end. Obama is the sacrificial lamb to be blamed for the great collapse. And with him of course his wife Michelle.

Obama: return to elite status quo

Larry Chin

Online Journal

November 8, 2008

The election triumph of Barack Obama and the return of power to the Democrats was a cause for a split second of relief, but not elation.

What the world learned is that it will not be subjected to a McCain-Palin presidency, which certainly would have ushered in horrors, violence, and insanity that likely would have dwarfed those of Bush-Cheney.

But the arrival of Obama as the new imperial figurehead of the Anglo-American empire is not a victory of, or for, the people. It will not signify a dramatic upheaval, in any way, and by no means is any sort of revolution at hand.

Nor is Obama’s ascendancy about “you.” It is about “them.”

This election was a necessary rotation of management, scripted at the highest levels of the Anglo-American elite.

The shifting of the deck chairs

The empire — bloated, sickened, and on the verge of systemic collapse from eight years of sucking on its own Bush-Cheney poisons — is retrenching for its own survival.

Eight years of Bush-Cheney delivered unprecedented power, control and trillions in loot. But in the end, the bottom-line results proved insufficient. Bush-Cheney did not make good on their promise to conquer the Middle East, secure all of the energy, and maintain American primacy. Their hubris and reckless arrogance has proven to be too big an international public relations nightmare to cover up.

Although the Republicans did steal millions of votes, as predicted and tracked by Bradblog, Black Box Voting, and Greg Palast. It became clear, as election night unfolded, that Obama would be permitted a win, encoded on Republican voting technology, and beamed across a corporate media that had already begun to favor Obama and the Democrats months earlier.

The “change” that a Barack Obama presidency will bring to America and the world will be one of style, not substance: a return to the centrist corporate globalism of the Clinton and Carter eras, complete with regurgitated Democratic Party elites from those administrations, and new neoliberal politicians touting similar ideologies.

Obama’s coming wars

As noted by Mike Ruppert and other seasoned observers, Obama is no savior, but the momentary pause offered by the imperial shift at the top has some value. It buys humanity some time. Time to prepare to face the worsening decline that Obama himself will oversee.

The velvet gloves will be slipped back over the iron fists, but the fists will still be wielded aggressively. Within months, the global conquest that Bush-Cheney started will resume under the vastly more convincing and adored Obama, who has consistently stated his intention to intensify the war in Afghanistan, and “kill ‘terrorists’” across the Middle East.

Many expect Obama to prove “how tough he is” immediately upon entering the White House, for political reasons.

Obama is also perfectly positioned to introduce wars justified by popular humanitarian pretexts, such as in Darfur and other energy-rich geography in Africa.

As written in the biting and definitive indictment of the Obama foreign policy promise by Michel Chossudovsky, The Democrats endorse the “Global War on Terrorism”: Obama “goes after” Osama, there will be no change of direction under Obama:

“9/11 constitutes for Obama the main justification for waging a humanitarian war in the Middle East and Central Asia. In this regard, his position does not differ from that of the Bush administration.

“Withdraw from Iraq, but remain in Afghanistan. Confront Iran, challenge Russia . . . Apart from the rhetoric of ‘bringing the troops home’ from war torn Iraq, which may or may not be carried out, what distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans?

“A more articulate, knowledgeable and charismatic president?

“A more dignified and diplomatic approach to US foreign policy?

“An opportunity to the US ruling elite to ‘present a different face to the world that could revive illusions to its democratic pretensions, not only internationally but within the United States as well.’ . . .

“A spurious and counterfeit ‘humanitarian’ approach to Empire, which serves to mask the truth and gain popular support.

“A less reckless Commander in Chief, who has an understanding of geopolitics and is capable of taking foreign policy decisions. A more carefully thought out military agenda than that experienced during the Bush administration? But no substantive shift in direction.

“A means to quelling mounting dissent and opposition to the ruling corporate establishment by providing the illusion that the Democrats constitute a Real Alternative.

“A means to sustaining the illusion that African-Americans can move up the social ladder in America and that their fundamental rights are being upheld.

“A means to undermining real progressive movements by further embedding civil society organizations, trade unions and grass roots organizations, not to mention “Leftist” intellectuals into the realm of the Democratic Party.

“A distraction from the extensive war crimes committed under successive US administrations.

“A ‘human face’ to war and globalization?”

Obama will not only maintain the bipartisan Washington consensus “war on terrorism” deception, he will improve upon it. As a pacifying force, he will perpetuate the cover-up, and retrieve the “squandered opportunity” presented by the false-flag operation of 9/11: a world united behind imperial war.

March of the elites

The true nature of Obama’s administration will be evident the moment Obama introduces members of his transition team and cabinet.

Legions of corrupt elites — legendary war criminals, think tank assets and intelligence/security advisors — guided the campaigns of Obama, Clinton and the Republican candidates.

Which of these same figures will now run Obama’s CIA, his Department of Homeland Security (which he will not dismantle), his National Security Council and his Defense Department?

What Wall Street elites and former investment bank CEOs will be tapped to oversee the Treasury? Who will be the ambassador to the United Nations?

Which Republicans will Obama “reach across the aisle” to bring in? How many “Bushies”?

How many members of the conservative Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) will be given free reign?

How many members of the Council on Foreign Relations, how many Bilderbergers, will run the show?

They’re still here

Lost in the election noise, and clouded by Obama euphoria, is the fact that Bush and Cheney have nearly two months left in power. More than ample time to commit some final atrocities and crimes.

As tracked by Mike Ruppert, Catherine Austin Fitts and others, trillions of dollars are being systematically sucked, and suckered, out of the financial system. The global financial meltdown, along with other forms of destruction and cover-up, is the Bush-Cheney machine’s scorched-earth farewell.

And it is not over yet. Will any bombs go off before Obama takes office? Who will George W. Bush pardon on his way out?

A call for sobriety and vigilance

The style shift from Bush-Cheney neofascism to “classic” neoliberalism under Obama may feel like “change.” It is not.

The reality of the continuing global crisis — and Obama’s role as its latest figurehead — demands even more astute opposition, even more aggressive demands for justice, and a redoubled effort to end war and imperial criminality.

Those who opposed Bush-Cheney must now refuse to drink the Obama Kool-Aid, and face the new challenge of battling a retrenched empire, a newly pacified population, and a naïve, hopeful and easily manipulated population that will be lost in even thicker denial; one that believes that “the bad guys are gone,” the worst is over, and that its salvation has been delivered.

AncientMariner · November 9, 2008

March of the elites

The true nature of Obama’s administration will be evident the moment Obama introduces members of his transition team and cabinet.

Legions of corrupt elites — legendary war criminals, think tank assets and intelligence/security advisors — guided the campaigns of Obama, Clinton and the Republican candidates.

Which of these same figures will now run Obama’s CIA, his Department of Homeland Security (which he will not dismantle), his National Security Council and his Defense Department?

What Wall Street elites and former investment bank CEOs will be tapped to oversee the Treasury? Who will be the ambassador to the United Nations?

Which Republicans will Obama “reach across the aisle” to bring in? How many “Bushies”?

How many members of the conservative Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) will be given free reign?

How many members of the Council on Foreign Relations, how many Bilderbergers, will run the show?

Obama’s Change Leaves By The Back Door

Tom Eley

Countercurrents

November 7, 2008

Three days after Barack Obama’s election victory, the initial moves by the president-elect to prepare his administration already show that his policies will be determined not by popular expectations, but by the domestic and foreign policy interests of the American financial and corporate elite.

Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are well aware that these policies—further measures to secure the social interests and personal wealth of the financial aristocracy at public expense and the continued use of military violence in the Middle East and Central Asia—clash with the will of the electorate, which sought to reverse these policies by sweeping the Republicans out of power. That is why the Democrats are seeking to dampen expectations of a serious change of course.

The personnel of Obama’s transition team and his first major appointment stand in obvious contradiction to his campaign rhetoric about "change,new politics," and "building a movement from the ground up." The individuals selected are all fixtures of the political establishment, with close ties to powerful corporate and financial interests.

Obama’s transition team, which will assist in assembling his cabinet, is headed by John Podesta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and one of Washington’s most successful corporate lobbyists. Co-chairing the transition team are Valerie Jarrett, a long-time Obama advisor, Chicago real estate executive and influential figure within the Chicago Democratic Party machine, and Pete Rouse, a Washington insider and Obama’s senate chief of staff. (See: "A closer look at Obama’s transition team").

Obama’s first appointee is Rahm Emanuel, who will serve as his chief of staff. The Illinois Congressman is a leading member of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council. While running for Congress in 2002, he supported Bush’s bill to authorize military force against Iraq. A former investment banker, he has close ties to financial interests and is one of the biggest recipients of campaign cash from banks and investment firms.

Sources close to Obama have leaked names on the list of candidates for the position of treasury secretary—no doubt as a means of reassuring Wall Street. Included are former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former Clinton treasury secretary and current Citigroup executive Robert Rubin, another former Clinton treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, and Timothy Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve Bank president.

All of these individuals played leading roles in the deregulation of the banks and investment houses that facilitated the super-profits and massive CEO compensation packages of the 1990s and first half of the current decade, and contributed to the financial collapse that is now plunging the US and the rest of the world into the deepest recession since the 1930s.

Geithner has played a central role in the government bailout of Wall Street banks and other major firms, such as insurance conglomerate AIG and the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As Federal Reserve chief under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Volcker was responsible for the high interest rate "shock therapy" which decimated American industry in the early 1980s and led to the impoverishment of entire regions.

There is much speculation that Obama will ask current Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on in the same capacity, at least on an interim basis. Gates recently gave a speech expanding the doctrine of "pre-emptive war" to include the use of first-strike nuclear attacks.

Other names broached for the positions of defense secretary and secretary of state include former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell, outgoing Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Anthony Lake, who as Clinton’s national security advisor played a key role in organizing the US-NATO war against Yugoslavia.

Obama’s actions since Election Day have been calculated to signal to the ruling elite his readiness to defend their interests and not be swayed by the will of the electorate. To underscore his intention to seek a consensus with the defeated and discredited Republican minority, he will meet on Monday with Bush. The traditional White House meeting between a president-elect and the outgoing president normally takes place much later in the transition period between administrations.

To demonstrate that his first priority is shoring up the major banks, Obama’s first post-Election Day meeting will be held today with his top economic policy advisers. The meeting will include Volcker, Rubin and Summers, along with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former Clinton labor and commerce secretaries Robert Reich and William Daley, Clinton economic advisor Laura Tyson, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, XEROX CEO Anne Mulcahy, Residence by Hyatt CEO Penny Pritzker, former Bush administration Securities and Exchange Commissioner William Donaldson, and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.

Meanwhile, a series of statements by leading Democratic figures have emphasized their intention to pursue a "centrist" policy—by which they mean a conventional, i.e., right-wing, policy.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, spelled this out in no uncertain terms on Wednesday, advising Obama that he must "bring people together to reach consensus" on issues like the economy and the war. "A new president must govern from the middle," she said.

Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, said, "He’s got to lower some expectations, indicate the limits he’s confronting."

A basic premise of the talk about lowering expectations and delaying making good on campaign promises for health care reform, middle class tax cuts and other social measures is the claim that massive increases in the budget deficit preclude such outlays. Of course, the worsening budget crisis is the direct result of the allocation of more than $2 trillion in taxpayer money to bail out the banks, with the auto companies and other industries lining up for similar government handouts.

No Democratic leader has explained why there are unlimited taxpayer funds available for the banks, but no money to address the increasingly desperate economic situation facing the working class, including millions of home foreclosures, soaring utility shut-offs, collapsing retirement accounts and mounting layoffs.

The media has joined in the effort to dampen expectations. Newsweek warns, "Obama Won’t Meet Everybody’s Expectations." The San Francisco Chronicle explains, "Surely, President-Elect Barack Obama must prepare his supporters for the difficult circumstances that he, and this country," must undergo.

Yesterday’s New York Times published an article, "Obama Aides Tamp Down Expectations," describing Obama’s efforts to "temper hopes that he would be able to solve the nation’s problems.The economic crisis" the Times notes, "will certainly complicate Mr. Obama’s more ambitious domestic efforts."

On the same day, under the headline "Next Administration Shows Signs It will Seek Middle Ground with Business on Thorny Issues," the Wall Street Journal reassured the moneyed elite that in an Obama administration, "a bill that would make it easier for unions to organize workers, efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and a slew of contemplated taxes will likely take a back seat." The article continued, "Several of Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin—are moderates and reassuring figures to the business community."

Obama’s first moves as president-elect have underscored some basic political facts. First, there is a fundamental contradiction between the hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of people who voted for him out of anger and disgust with the Bush administration and the Republicans, and the class character of the Democratic Party and the social and economic interests it defends.

Second, these moves underscore the cynical and fundamentally anti-democratic character of the electoral process itself, in which promises are made by candidates who know full well that, once in office, their polices will be determined not by election promises but by the demands of the ruling elite and the exigencies of American imperialism.

A closer look at Obama’s transition team

By Joe Kishore

Barack Obama’s transition team is a collection of Washington insiders, former Clinton administration officials, corporate and banking executives, and individuals with roots in the Chicago Democratic Party political machine.

The Obama-Biden Transition Project is led by three co-chairmen. They are John Podesta, former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Valerie Jarrett, a long-time Obama adviser, Chicago real estate executive and influential figure in the Chicago Democratic Party; and Pete Rouse, Obama’s Senate chief of staff.

John Podesta

Podesta, chief of staff for Clinton from 1998 to 2001, will serve as the Transition Project’s leader. Podesta is a long-time Washington insider, where he served, beginning in the early 1980s, as legal counsel for a number of congressional committees. As is the custom in Washington, Podesta made use of his political influence to establish a lucrative Washington lobbying firm, the Podesta Group.

Podesta authored a recent book entitled The Power of Progress: How America’s Progressives Can (Once Again) Save Our Economy, Our Climate, and Our Country. The lobbying firm of this "progressive" includes among its top clients the oil giant BP, defense industry corporations Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, biotech firms Genentech and Amgen, Swiss pharmaceuticals corporation Novartis Interational AG, and Wal-Mart.

Podesta has the dubious distinction of having been ranked the third most powerful lobbyist in Washington DC by the Washingtonian. According to the newspaper, BP, whose "pipeline problems and refinery fires have created regulatory and public relations issues," has turned to Podesta, who "has quietly been guiding BP through congressional hearings."

For Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, Podesta has been busy "trying to sell Congress and the Pentagon on another version of their Stryker troop transport vehicle."

Podesta is president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank. The center was set up with substantial funding from billionaire investor and Obama adviser Warren Buffet.

Valerie Jarrett

Jarrett began her political career in 1987 under then-Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. She became deputy chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daley and later served as Chicago’s commissioner of the Department of Planning and chair of the Chicago Transit Board.

Jarrett has also held leading positions on the Chicago Stock Exchange (member of the board from 2000 to 2007 and chairman from 2004 to 2007), the University of Chicago Medical Center (chairman of the board of trustees), the University of Chicago (vice chairman of the board of trustees) and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (board of trustees).

Jarrett is the CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate development firm in Chicago. She has been a top executive at the company since 1995, becoming CEO in 2007. Habitat has worked closely with the Chicago city administration to oversee public housing, receiving millions in local and federal subsidies.

A Boston Globe article from June 27, 2008 ("Grim Proving Ground for Obama’s Housing Policy," by Binyamin Appelbaum) describes the state of one 504-unit public housing complex, Grove Parc Plaza, located in Obama’s former state Senate district.

"About 99 units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale—a score so bad the buildings now face demolition."

"Grove Parc has become a symbol," the newspaper noted, "for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing—an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing."

The Globe reports "thousands of apartments" throughout Chicago, overseen by Habitat, that are characterized by similar disrepair. The Habitat Company "managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems."

There is some talk that Jarrett will be named housing secretary in the Obama administration.

Pete Rouse

Pete Rouse is an interesting case, whose political trajectory says much about the Obama campaign. Rouse was the chief of staff to Tom Daschle, the former Democratic leader in the Senate. Rouse was known as the "101st senator" in Washington circles due to the power he commanded, particularly when Daschle was the majority leader. He has worked on Capitol Hill for over 30 years.

After Daschle lost his seat in 2004, Rouse decided to take a position as chief of staff for Obama, then just beginning his first term in the Senate. The fact that an individual with Rouse’s history and political ties decided to throw in his lot with a freshman senator with little political power or influence indicates that Obama was being groomed at an early stage by sections of the Democratic Party establishment, including Daschle, for bigger things.

Rouse has been a strong advocate of bipartisanship and "reaching across the aisle" to work with Republicans.

Also included on the Transition Project are:

* Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for eight years in the Clinton administration. After 2001, Browner took a position at the Albright Group, a firm headed by former Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that advises businesses on policy.

* William Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Daley was special counsel to President Clinton on trade (helping pass the North American Free Trade Agreement) and Clinton’s secretary of commerce from 1997 to 1998. After leaving government, Daley took a position as president of SBC Communications and later served as Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase and Bank One. He serves on the boards of directors of airline manufacturer and defense contractor Boeing and drug giant Merck.

* Michael Froman is president and CEO of CitiInsurance, a branch of banking giant Citigroup. During the 1990s, Froman served in the US Department of Treasury as deputy assistant secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East, and later as chief of staff.

* Federico Peña was secretary of transportation (1993 to 1997) and secretary of energy (1997 to 1998) under Clinton. After leaving government, he took a post in Vestar Capital Partners, an investment firm.