White House – Page 8 – Infinite Unknown

White House delays release of budget update

July 20, 2009 by Infinite

Would you delay ‘GOOD NEWS’?

WASHINGTON — The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update — usually scheduled for mid-July — has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

Helen Thomas slams White House for lack of transparency

July 2, 2009 by Infinite

At the White House presser on Wednesday, several correspondents questioned the way the Oval Office selected questions from the public for today’s virtual town hall.

President Barack Obama answered pre-selected questions Wednesday afternoon about health care sent in from emails, Facebook and Twitter. CBS’ Chip Reid and columnist Helen Thomas thought this reflected a lack of transparency at the White House.

“It feels like the concept of a town hall, I think, is to have an open public forum. And this sounds like a very tightly controlled audience and list of questions. Why do it that way?” asked Reid.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs deflected the question, but that only raised the ire of Helen Thomas, UPI’s veteran correspondent who has long been at the top of the White House press corps totem pole.

“We have never had that in the White House,” Thomas said, referring to the degree that press events are pre-scripted in the Obama administration. “I’m amazed, I’m amazed at you people who called for openness and transparency…”

That’s when things got testy, and Gibbs looked very uncomfortable as Reid and Thomas took turns attacking his evasive answers.

“Calling reporters the night before, telling them they’re going to be called on – that’s shocking,” Thomas said, referring to an incident last week when Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney was given advance warning that he would be called on to ask a question on behalf of the Iranian public.

This video is from C-SPAN, broadcast July 1, 2009.

Barack Obama Hires Another Tax-Screwer-Upper

October 22, 2009June 21, 2009 by Infinite

“I was going to add up how many Obama appointees/employees have tax problems when it dawned on me that I could save time by counting the ones who don’t.” (Source: The Tax Lawyer’s Blog)

Obama’s Pick for State Department Post Failed to File Her 2005 & 2006 Tax Returns; She Blames Her Cardiologist Husband and the Post Office

Capricia Marshall in 1998.

The New York Times reports that President Obama’s choice as Chief of Protocol for the State Department, Capricia Penavic Marshall (J.D. 1990, Case Western), and her cardiologist husband, failed to file their 2005 and 2006 tax returns. She balmed the problem “on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant”:

Ms. Marshall, who was the social secretary in the Clinton White House, notified the Obama administration about the late filings before she was nominated on May 14. She has since provided written answers to questions about the matter from Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, which will hold a hearing on the appointment next Wednesday. The post requires Senate confirmation. …

Obama now resembles Bush

June 21, 2009June 21, 2009 by Infinite

In stark legal turnaround, Obama now resembles Bush

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.

In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama’s legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush’s: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.

“It’s putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it’s so at odds with Obama’s campaign commitment to more open government,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group.

Obama administration refuses to disclose “high hazard” coal dump locations

June 20, 2009 by Infinite

Administration turns down senator’s request to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain arsenic and metals

A rift has opened between the Obama administration and some of its closest allies – Democratic leaders and environmental organisations – over its refusal to publicly disclose the location of 44 coal ash dumps that have been officially designated as a “high hazard” to local populations.

The administration turned down a request from a powerful Democratic senator to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain a toxic soup of arsenic and heavy metals from coal-fired electricity plants, citing terrorism fears.

The refusal has put the Obama administration at odds with some of its strongest supporters over an emerging area of environmental concern in America.

Last Christmas, a retaining wall burst on a coal ash pond in Tennessee disgorging a billion gallons of waste and putting pressure on the authorities to bring in safety controls over the management of some 600 similar waste pools dotted across the country.

Some 44 of the most dangerous coal ash dumps are known to be located in populated areas in 26 separate locations. The high hazard designation means that a breach, like the one in Tennessee, could cause death and significant property damage if the sludge spills into surrounding neigbourhoods. But that is all the adminstration will disclose.

“Right now we have a blanket gag order,” Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who heads the Senate environment and public works committee told a press conference last week.

“We are losing what we cherish in America: the citizens’ right to know.”

Boxer, who has seen the list of sites, said she was only allowed to share the information with fellow senators – not their staff and not local authorities in the affected areas.

“There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff,” she said. “They’re putting ridiculous restrictions on me.”

The local newspaper in Tennessee also ridiculed the decision.

“These waste sites may be environmental and health hazards. But they are unlikely terror targets,” said the Knox group of newspapers. “As the muckety-mucks in Washington know, the real danger of disclosure is from angry Americans. If citizens realise they are downstream from fragile mountains of gunk, they will demand action and accountability.”

Environmental groups see the gag order on the coal ash sites as a betrayal of Obama’s promise, during his speech to staff on his first day in the White House in January, of a new era of openness in government.

“For a long time now, there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” Obama said in the speech. “That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known.”

Obama’s Homeland Security Nominee Withdraws Amid Questions About Torture

June 6, 2009 by Infinite

Philip Mudd was nominated for an intelligence post. (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s nominee to lead intelligence efforts at the Department of Homeland Security withdrew Friday after it became clear that lawmakers would raise questions about his role in the Bush administration’s interrogation programs.

Philip Mudd, who has 24 years of intelligence experience, said in a letter to the White House that he worried that his nomination could become a “distraction” from President Obama’s agenda.

Mr. Mudd is now a deputy in Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterterrorism unit. Before that, he was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterterrorism Center. It was in the latter post that legislators believed Mr. Mudd became deeply involved with the government’s enhanced interrogation efforts, including the use of the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

A White House aide said the president was well aware of Mr. Mudd’s links with interrogation programs that the Obama administration has described as torture. Still, the aide said Mr. Obama had complete confidence that Mr. Mudd was the best person for the Homeland Security post.

President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee: “Second Amendment Rights Do Not Apply To The States”

May 28, 2009 by Infinite

Earlier this year, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee joined an opinion with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the states.

Sonia Sotomayor smiles as President Barack Obama announces her as his Supreme Court nominee at the White House.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor could walk into a firestorm on Capitol Hill over her stance on gun rights, with conservatives beginning to question some controversial positions she’s taken over the past several years on the Second Amendment.

Earlier this year, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee joined an opinion with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the states.

A 2004 opinion she joined also cited as precedent that “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”

Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, called Obama’s nomination a “declaration of war against America’s gun owners.”

Obama administration seeks indefinite detention for terror suspects

May 14, 2009 by Infinite

guantanamo

WASHINGTON (AFP) – As part of its plans to close Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration is considering holding some of the detainees indefinitely and without trial on US soil, US media reported Thursday.

President Barack Obama’s “administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on US soil — indefinitely and without trial — as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Don’t miss:
– President Obama Reverses Course on Releasing More Detainee Abuse Photographs
– Obama and the War Criminals
– Buying Brand Obama
– The AIPAC Spy Case
– Lawyers credit Obama team for dismissing AIPAC case
– Obama and habeas corpus — then and now

The proposal, which is part of the administration’s internal deliberations on how to deal with the prisoners ahead of a planned closure of the controversial US military prison next year, is being shared with some lawmakers, it added.

White House officials contacted by AFP had no immediate comment on the detainee deliberations.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who met with White House Counsel Greg Craig this week about the Guantanamo plans, told the Journal that the administration was namely seeking authority for indefinite detentions granted by a national security court.

“This is a difficult question. How do you hold someone in prison without a trial indefinitely?” asked Graham, who, along with former Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain, has pressed for reinstating the military commissions to try Guantanamo detainees.

US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8 trillion

May 12, 2009 by Infinite

US red ink to top $1.8 trillion, 4 times record; gov’t borrows 46 cents for every dollar spent

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government will have to borrow nearly 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year, exploding the record federal deficit past $1.8 trillion under new White House estimates.

Budget office figures released Monday would add $89 billion to the 2009 red ink — increasing it to more than four times last year’s all-time high as the government hands out billions more than expected for people who have lost jobs and takes in less tax revenue from people and companies making less money.

The unprecedented deficit figures flow from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout and the cost of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus bill — as well as a seemingly embedded structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.

As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion, the White House says. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps.

Top White House Aide Resigns Over Air Farce One Flyover

May 9, 2009 by Infinite

Photo of Air Force One released by White House.

WASHINGTON — A top White House aide resigned today for his role in Air Force One’s $328,835 photo-op flyover above New York City that sparked panic and flashbacks to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His resignation was made public at the same time the photo of the flyover was released by the White House.

Louis Caldera said the controversy had made it impossible for him to effectively lead the White House Military Office. “Moreover, it has become a distraction in the important work you are doing as president,” Caldera said in his resignation letter to President Barack Obama.

Read Caldera’s Resignation (PDF)

White House Review Of Flyover (PDF)

The sight of the huge passenger jet and an F-16 fighter plane flying past the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan financial district sent panicked office workers streaming into the streets on April 27. Obama said it would not happen again.

Caldera’s office approved the photo-op, which cost $35,000 in fuel alone for the plane and two jet fighter escorts. The Air Force estimated the photo shoot cost taxpayers $328,835.

The Obama Deception

March 14, 2009March 14, 2009 by Infinite

1:51:21 – 12.03.2009
Source: Google Video

Rahm Emanuel’s Rent is Just Tip of Ethics Iceberg

February 19, 2009 by Infinite

News broke last week that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent-free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa De Lauro, D-Conn. — and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel’s previously undisclosed ethics problems.

One issue is the work Emanuel tossed the way of De Lauro’s husband. But the bigger one goes back to Emanuel’s days on the board of now-bankrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

Emanuel is a multimillionaire, but lived for the last five years for free in the tony Capitol Hill townhouse owned by De Lauro and her husband, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.

Obama’s second choice to run Commerce Dept. withdraws

February 12, 2009 by Infinite

WASHINGTON – Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire abruptly withdrew Thursday as the nominee to be commerce secretary, saying he had “irresolvable conflicts” with President Barack Obama over his economic stimulus plan and a concern over what many fellow Republicans believe is the politicization of the 2010 census.

The departure of Gregg is the latest setback to a White House that has struggled to fill several top positions and fulfill the president’s pledge to build a bipartisan administration. He is the third prospective Cabinet secretary – the second at the Commerce Department – to remove his name from consideration.

“I’m a fiscal conservative, as everybody knows, a fairly strong one,” Gregg, a Republican, told reporters at an afternoon news conference in the Capitol. “And it just became clear to me that it would be very difficult, day in and day out, to serve in this Cabinet or any Cabinet.”

“It was my mistake, obviously, to say yes,” he added.

Unpaid taxes return to haunt Obama cabinet

February 2, 2009 by Infinite

Tom Daschle: Nominated as Health Secretary despite $140,000 tax debt

The high ethical standards which Barack Obama set for his administration have hit a bump on the road, after revelations that his choice for Health Secretary, Thomas Daschle, waited nearly a month after being nominated before revealing to the President that he was a tax delinquent.

Mr Daschle, one of Mr Obama’s earliest backers, only paid the back taxes totalling $140,000 (£97,000) on 2 January and told the White House about it two days later. The money covered tax owed on additional income from consulting work, undertaken for a wealthy New York investor, as well as the exclusive use of a Cadillac limousine complete with driver.

The Senate finance committee meets today to discuss Mr Daschle’s nomination. He is the second of Mr Obama’s cabinet picks to have found themselves scrambling to smooth out their financial records. Tim Geithner’s confirmation as Treasury Secretary was delayed after it was discovered he had failed to pay $34,000 in taxes.

Obama promised that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House”, but here they are again

January 29, 2009 by Infinite

US President Barack Obama arrives to speak on his economic stimulus proposal from the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. The divided US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved an 819-billion-dollar stimulus package touted by Obama as a vital remedy to revive the ailing US economy. (AFP/Saul Loeb)

President Obama promised during his campaign that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House.”

Here are former lobbyists Obama has tapped for top jobs:

Eric Holder, attorney general nominee, was registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm.

Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year on behalf of the National Education Association.

William Lynn, deputy defense secretary nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for defense contractor Raytheon, where he was a top executive.

William Corr, deputy health and human services secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until last year for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a non-profit that pushes to limit tobacco use.

David Hayes, deputy interior secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until 2006 for clients, including the regional utility San Diego Gas & Electric.

Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for financial giant Goldman Sachs.

Ron Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was registered to lobby until 2005 for clients, including the Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone.

Mona Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff, was registered to lobby for clients, including Angliss International in 2003.

Melody Barnes, domestic policy council director, lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Constitution Society and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Cecilia Munoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, was a lobbyist as recently as last year for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.

Patrick Gaspard, White House political affairs director, was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union.

Michael Strautmanis, chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations, lobbied for the American Association of Justice from 2001 until 2005.

Full article here: Obama finds room for lobbyists (Politico)

Bush reportedly rejected Israeli plea to raid Iran

January 11, 2009 by Infinite

President George W. Bush gives a thumbs up as he boards Air Force One, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush rejected a plea from Israel last year to help it raid Iran’s main nuclear complex, opting instead to authorize a new U.S. covert action aimed at sabotaging Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, The New York Times reported.

Israel’s request was for specialized bunker-busting bombs that it wanted for an attack that tentatively involved flying over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located, the Times reported Saturday in its online edition. The White House deflected requests for the bombs and flyover but said it would improve intelligence-sharing with Israel on covert U.S. efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.

The covert efforts, which began in early 2008, involved plans to penetrate Iran’s nuclear supply chain abroad and undermine electrical systems and other networks on which Iran relies, the Times said, citing interviews with current and former U.S. officials, outside experts and international nuclear inspectors who spoke on condition of anonymity. The covert program will be handed off to President-elect Barack Obama, who will deciding whether to continue it.

According to the Times, Bush decided against an overt attack based on input from top administration officials such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who believed that doing so would likely prove ineffective and could ignite a broader Middle East war.

Israel made the push for permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran following its anger over a U.S. intelligence assessment in late 2007 that concluded Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier. Israel sought to rebut the report, providing evidence to U.S. intelligence officials that they said indicated the Iranians were still working on a weapon.

Paul Craig Roberts: The American Puppet State

January 6, 2009 by Infinite

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.

This article is a must read.

President George W. Bush was in his stand-up comedian role when he declared that he wanted to be remembered as a fighter for human rights.

Seldom has a fighter for human rights amassed Bush’s death toll. According to Information Clearing House, Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in 1,297,997 dead Iraqis. Millions more have been wounded, and millions are displaced. Bush’s legions have taken out weddings, funerals, kid’s soccer games, hospitals, and mosques.

And that’s before we come to Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan “we don’t do body counts” declared a commander of Bush’s imperial legions. But the thousands of dead civilians and school children have rallied Afghans to the Taliban, whose lightly armed fighters have retaken most of the country from the Unipower.

The Taliban doesn’t have an air force, or cluster bombs, or drones, or “smart missiles,” or tanks, or satellite capability. The Taliban has Afghan resistance to occupation.

Bush was fighting for human rights in 2006 when he prevented for one month the civilized world from stopping Israel’s massive bombing of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and civilian neighborhoods. Israel had intended to clear Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon in order to steal that part of the country for its water resources. When the vaunted Israeli Army was defeated and put to rout by a few lightly armed Hezbollah guerrillas, Israeli rage took the Israeli defeat out on Lebanon’s civilian population–from the air, of course. The murder of Lebanon’s civilian population was enabled by the American weapons with which Israel is flooded.

Now Israel is bombing civilians in Israel’s Gaza Ghetto. Nothing has been spared. Not the hospitals, the university, or the children. Again, President Bush, to America’s everlasting shame, is blocking the civilized world’s attempt to force a halt to the Israeli aggression against the civilian population in Gaza.

If only Bush were merely a stand-up comedian. In truth, he is a puppet. A puppet of Zionist Israel.

Chicago to take over at the White House

January 3, 2009 by Infinite

Bush brought Texas to Washington, now Obama brings the Windy City

Barack Obama is back in Chicago after a 12-day holiday in Hawaii. But not for long. On Monday he begins his new life in Washington, temporarily housed in the Hay-Adams hotel until the White House becomes available on 20 January.

Even so, Chicago will never be too far away. Just as George Bush brought Texas to Washington and Bill Clinton brought Arkansas, so Obama too brings a blast of his home city.

The inner circle in the White House will be overwhelmingly Chicagoan. His two chief advisers, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, are both long-time associates from the city, and his White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is another.

But more than that, Obama brings with him the baggage of Chicago’s political culture – the roughest in the US. The small-scale bribes that older Chicagoans remember from visits to City Hall are a thing of the past but the sharp suits, naked ambition and political trading are much the same. So too is the large-scale corruption that has seen 50 elected officials from Illinois jailed over the past 30 years.

Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash: Non-Profit Demands Full Federal Investigation

December 20, 2008 by Infinite

To: STATE EDITORS

Contact: Ilene Proctor PR, +1-310-858-6643

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush’s 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution (“VR”), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell’s activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how he can tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [him] under the bus.”

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell’s life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR’s attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell’s not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

On October 31, Mr. Connell appeared before a federal judge in Ohio after being subpoenaed in a federal lawsuit investigating the rigging of the 2004 election under the direction of Karl Rove. The judge ordered Mr. Connell to testify under oath at a deposition on November 3rd, the day before the presidential election. Velvet Revolution received confidential information that the White House was extremely concerned about Mr. Connell talking about his illegal work for the White House and two Bush/Cheney 04 attorneys were dispatched to represent him.

One of my sources died in a plane crash last night…

December 20, 2008December 20, 2008 by Infinite

UPDATED BELOW (1, 2, and 3)

I don’t usually reveal sources, but I think this is incredibly important. Michael Connell died in a plane crash last night. He was a key witness in the Ohio election fraud case that I have been reporting on. More importantly, however, he had information that he was ready to share.

You see, Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted the infamous GWB43.com accounts that Karl Rove and others used. When asked by Congress to provide these emails, the White House said that they were destroyed. But in reality, what Connell is alleged to have done is move these files to other servers after having allegedly scrubbed the files from all “known” Karl Rove accounts.

In addition, I have reason to believe that the alternate accounts were used to communicate with US Attorneys involved in political prosecutions, like that of Don Siegelman. This is what I have been working on to prove for over a year. In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him. Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.

He has flown his private plane for years without incident. I know he was going to DC last night, but I don’t know why. He apparently (did not) ran out of gas, something I find hard to believe. (See Update 3 below). I am not saying that this was a hit nor am I resigned to this being simply an accident either. I am no expert on aviation and cannot provide an opinion on the matter. What I am saying, however, is that given the context, this event needs to be examined carefully. If you want to understand the context more broadly, I suggest you read this article I did a while back about the break-ins and arson cases that Siegelman and others have experienced.

Keith Olbermann refers to Bush 9/11 ‘lies’ as ‘Insult the Dead-gate’

December 20, 2008 by Infinite

As the departing Bush administration frantically attempts to shore up its place in history, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann stands ready to kick the props out from under it again. A renewed claim that “no one could have anticipated” the attacks of 9/11 attracted his scorn in particular on Thursday’s Countdown.

“This is a White House talking point still, even though your average three-year-old could disprove it using an etch-a-sketch.” Olbermann sneered on Thursday, over the heading, “Insult the Dead-gate.”

Olbermann’s specific target was White House press spokesman Tony Fratto, who responded to a Fox News interviewer’s suggestion on Wednesday that before 9/11, “nobody was thinking that there’d be terrorists flying 767s into buildings” by agreeing, “No one could have anticipated that kind of attack — or very few people.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t true,” Olbermann remarked, with open contempt dripping from his words, “and out of respect for the people who died that day you damn well better stop saying it.”

Olbermann then ran through a list of pre-9/11 warnings of potential al Qaeda hijackings, noting, “A president’s daily brief as far back as December 1998 said bin Laden was ‘preparing to hijack US aircraft in hopes of trading hostages for jailed radicals.’ … The August 6, 2001 brief, of course, told President Bush — if he read it — that there were ‘patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings.'”

Olbermann did not mention either the use of airplanes as weapons by the Japanese kamikaze suicide pilots during World War II or the abortive al Qaeda plot of the 1990’s known as Project Bojinka, which would have involved both blowing up airliners and crashing a plane into CIA headquarters in Virginia and which may have been the inspiration for 9/11.

“That Mr. Fratto’s employers might not have been expected to know the exact hour of these attacks,” concluded Olbermann, “does not give him or anybody else the right to perpetuate the lie that 9/11 was impossible to conceive. Clearly, many inside this nation’s government anticipated it. It was Mr. Bush and his gang who chose to ignore them.”

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Dec. 18, 2008.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Rahm Emanuel’s Rise to Power

December 14, 2008 by Infinite

Rahm Emanuel (Brian Kersey-Pool/Getty Images)

Since Rahm Emanuel was appointed the next White House chief of staff last month, we’ve been retracing his previous life as an investment banker, which earned him more than $18 million in less than three years.

Today the New York Times sheds new light on Emanuel’s Wall Street days — and how they helped send him to Congress.

In late 1998, Emanuel left the Clinton White House to work for Wasserstein Perella, a now defunct investment bank run by Bruce Wasserstein, a major Democratic donor.

“I had this idea that this could work and that it had upside,” Wasserstein told the Times. “It worked out better than I could have hoped.”

Indeed, as we previously noted, Emanuel used his political connections to broker major deals while at the firm. (One deal was a $16 billion merger that created Exelon Corp., now one of the nation’s largest electric utilities. Another involved SBC Communications, the telecommunications company run by William Daley, Clinton’s commerce secretary and the brother of Chicago’s mayor.)

After leaving the bank in 2001 to run for Congress, Emanuel benefited from the sale of Wasserstein Perella, which gave him an unusually large payout. Russ Gerson, global head of financial markets for A.T. Kearney Executive Search, told the Chicago Tribune in 2003 that Emanuel’s compensation would put him “in the top 3 to 5 percent” of investment bankers at that time.

The cash proved helpful when Emanuel found himself in a tough fight for a seat in Congress. He contributed $450,000 out of his own pocket to the primary campaign, and his leading rival accused him of trying to buy his seat, the Times reports.

The financial industry also heavily financed Emanuel’s campaign. From the Times:

Obama announces Clinton, Gates for Cabinet

December 1, 2008December 1, 2008 by Infinite

More change!
___________________________________________________________________________

President-elect Barack Obama stands with Secretary of State-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., right, and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, left, at a news conference about his new cabinet appointments, in Chicago, Monday, Dec. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

CHICAGO (AP) – President-elect Barack Obama named former campaign rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as his secretary of statae on Monday, and announced Robert Gates would remain as defense secretary, making President Bush’s Pentagon chief his own in the drive to wind down the U.S. role in Iraq.

Secret service steps up inauguration security

November 23, 2008 by Infinite

As many as 4 million people are expected to attend Obama’s inauguration at the Mall.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Law enforcement officials bracing for the largest crowds in inaugural history are preparing far-reaching security – thousands of video cameras, sharpshooters, air patrols – to safeguard President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in.

People attending the ceremony and parade on Jan. 20 can expect to be searched by machines, security personnel or both. Precautions will range from the routine – magnetometers like those used at airports – to countersnipers trained to hit a target the size of a teacup saucer from 1,000 yards away. Plus undercover officers, bomb sniffing dogs and air patrols.

The Secret Service – the agency coordinating the security – also has assigned trained officials to identify and prevent cyber security risks. And, as it does at every inauguration, the service has mapped out escape routes for the 44th president.

In addition Washington’s 5,265 surveillance cameras, spread around the city, are expected to be fed into a multi-agency command center.

Obama’s choice draws anti-Arab taunt

November 8, 2008 by Infinite

Obama’s choice of White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel

In strikingly racist remarks, the father of Rahm Emanuel has said Israel will benefit from Obama’s choice of White House chief of staff.

“Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House,” Benjamin Emanuel, father of Rahm Emanuel, told the Israeli Ma’ariv daily.

In a Thursday statement, US president-elect Barack Obama announced that Rahm Emanuel had accepted his offer to serve as the next White House chief of staff, the highest-ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States.

News of Benjamin Emanuel’s comments came as Israeli newspapers rejoiced over Obama’s choice of the Illinois Congressman to become ‘the second-most powerful man in Washington’.

According to the Israeli Ha’aretz paper, Benjamin Emanuel ‘is a Jerusalem-born pediatrician who was a member of the Irgun (Etzel or IZL), a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948.’

Rahm Emanuel, who is named after a Zionist combatant, also served for the Israeli military during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.