Smoky Mountains Sunrise
Showing posts with label Michelle Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michelle Obama. Show all posts

Thursday, December 5, 2013

America's Hoochie Mama

What is it about children's events that causes America's First "Lady" to dress like a ghetto ho?  Here she is yesterday at a children's White House Christmas (they wouldn't call it that, but we will) party:


and here's the hoochie mama at the Kids' Choice Awards:


One never expected class from this lot, but America should not expect to see its First "Lady" in outfits that get some women arrested for soliciting.  Maybe she needs another vacation -- or a man.




Saturday, October 26, 2013

Michelle Obama’s Princeton Classmate is Executive at Company that Built Obamacare Website

No Bid Contract Awarded to Campaign Donor


First Lady Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is a top executive at the company that earned the contract to build the failed Obamacare website.

Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of ’85, is senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million Obamacare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov. CGI Federal is the U.S. arm of a Canadian company.

Townes-Whitley and her Princeton classmate Michelle Obama are both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.

Read more at  The Daily Caller >>

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Detailing the Cost to Taxpayers for Michelle Obama’s Family Trip to Africa

Charges for the Aircraft and Crew Alone Amount to $424,142

"Lobster Isn't Cheap When You Fly It Around the World"
Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained mission expense records and passenger manifests from the United States Air Force related to the June 21-27, 2011, trip taken by First Lady Michelle Obama, her family and her staff to South Africa and Botswana. Judicial Watch obtained the documents pursuant to an August 19, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Air Force (No. 11-1496)). Judicial Watch is investigating the purpose and itinerary of the trip as well as a breakdown of the costs to taxpayers.
On June 28, 2011, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request seeking the mission taskings, transportation records, and passenger manifests for Michelle Obama’s Africa trip. Documents were only provided after Judicial Watch filed suit: 

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Moochelle Considering an Endless Vacation


Here's a dilemma to which we can all relate -- having to change seasonal wardrobes and repack for Hawaii when you've just returned from a grand tour of Europe, and then have  only hours for your lady's maid or valet to pack again for a weekend in Aspen or the yacht at the Vineyard.  Our always practical and thoughtful First Lady, Moochelle, has found a solution -- one long, extended, taxpayer-paid vacation.

From White House Dossier
With scandal swirling about the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama may be considering an extended exit from Washington this summer, fleeing for weeks to the Obamas’ traditional summer haven, Martha’s Vineyard.

According to the Boston Globe, “Michelle Obama and the children may be on the island for an extended period.” But the president would hardly be suffering by comparison. He may come up on weekends and then stay for two weeks at the end of the summer, the Globe reports.

The White House has not commented on the Obamas’ vacation plans.

The Obamas are said to be eying a house in Farm Neck on the Vineyard. If they land there, the president will have easy access to the lovely Farm Neck Golf Club and Cafe. Here’s the view from the tee on the third hole.


It appears Michelle may be skipping her usual spring excursion overseas, which in the past has included stops at a luxury resort in Spain and in South Africa. Instead, she’ll accompany her husband next month on an official trip to Africa.

But not to worry. She already spent two weeks in Hawaii this past winter and jetted out for some Apsen skiing in February.

The Obamas opted out of their annual trip to Martha’s Vineyard in 2012, likely because they were campaigning and because a luxury sojourn there would have conflicted with the campaign image Obama was trying to project as a fighter for the middle class.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Michelle Obama Finds A "Shovel Ready Job" Stuffing Her Mouth


Here she is, America, your First "Lady" and Dietician-in-Chief.  Shoveling faster than she can swallow and with elbows on the table, Moochelle couldn't manage an "oink, oink" for her luncheon partner, the Speaker of the House, just an eye-roll.  And you've got four more years of lectures coming from this swine!  But we're being unfair -- to pigs.


Thursday, June 7, 2012

Michelle Obama Plans Racist Book Signing

Moochelle overseeing unpaid White House field hands.
We've been instructed by the Obamunists that requiring a photo I.D. of voters is racist and a suppression of voters' rights.  However, it has been revealed by a White House blog that those wishing to obtain an autographed copy of Mrs. Obama's book, telling us how we should be eating, are required to do much more.

Mrs. Obama will visit a Washington, D.C. Barnes & Noble on June 12 to autograph copies of her book about the White House kitchen garden.  Beginning on Friday, June 8th, those wishing to attend the book signing must purchase a copy of the First Lady’s book at the location (for $19.20) and leave it at the store, according to an employee.

At the same time, customers must also submit their social security number and show an official photo ID (drivers license, passport) to a Secret Service agent; they will then be issued a wristband permitting them to attend the First Lady's event.  Book sales and wrist banding begin at 9:00 AM on June 8. 

For victims of this racist screening, we recommend the Food Channel and Paula Deen.



Saturday, February 18, 2012

Moochelle Follows Hawaii Vacation with an Aspen Vacation

"... as the government struggles to cut the deficit, the symbolism of a first lady jetting out to Aspen with a security entourage at taxpayers’ expense to ski would seem to send the wrong message about cutting back on spending."
By Keith Koffler

Michelle Obama has embarked on a skiing vacation with her daughters in Aspen, Colorado, according to the Aspen Daily News.


The first lady, who just returned last month from 17 days of relaxation in Hawaii, is skiing in Colorado on Presidents’ Day Weekend for the second year in a row. Last year she went to Vail.

Michelle’s decision to ski out West again instead of hitting slopes closer to Washington would seem an inopportune choice for a first lady who is helping her husband campaign on issues of “fairness.”

The Obama campaign has set itself up as the defender of the poor and the middle class against the “One Percent,” a theme which clashes with the image a first lady who is taking frequent and exclusive vacations.

Just last August, she sojourned on Martha’s Vineyard, and the month before she travelled to southern Africa for a trip that mixed official business with tourist outings like an African safari. In July 2010, she took an exorbitant excursion to the southern coast of Spain, flying out with friends and family on a large jet that often serves as Air Force 2 and then staying at a ritzy hotel.

What’s more, as the government struggles to cut the deficit, the symbolism of a first lady jetting out to Aspen with a security entourage at taxpayers’ expense to ski would seem to send the wrong message about cutting back on spending.

For her last two Hawaii vacations, Michelle left separately from her husband at extra cost to taxpayers in order to ensure she got the full vacation while the president was forced to remain in Washington a few extra days to finish work with Congress.

President Obama last summer called for “an attitude of shared sacrifice” to solve the nation’s deficit woes.

Michelle this weekend is reportedly staying at the Aspen home of a wealthy Obama backer from Chicago. She held a fundraiser at the same residence last July.


Monday, February 21, 2011

Exhausted Food Nanny Flees to Vail, Gorges on Short Ribs

Rush Limbaugh skewers Moochelle, now enjoying another taxpayer-paid vacation.



Can you spot the Nutritionist-at-Large?

Left to right – Princess Letizia of Spain, French first lady Carla Bruni, and taking a break from her vegetable patch, Michelle Obama.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Michelle Obama: A Thank You to My Fellow Americans

For only the second time in my adult life, I am not ashamed of my country. I want to thank the hard working American people for paying $242 thousand dollars plus additional expenses for my vacation in Spain . My daughter Sasha, several long-time family friends, my personal staff and various guests had a wonderful time. Honestly, you just haven't lived until you have stayed in a $2,500.00 per night suite at a 5-Star luxury hotel. We only booked 70 rooms for our friends, staff and family. Thank you also for the use of Air Force 2 and the 70 Secret Service personnel who tagged along to be sure we were safe and cared for at all times.

Air Force 2 only used 47,500 gallons of jet fuel for this trip and carbon emissions were a mere 1,031 tons of CO2. It costs only $11,500 per hour to operate Air Force 2 and each additional plane for the other members of our party group. These are only rough estimates, but they are close (who's counting?). That's quite a carbon footprint as my good friend Al Gore would say, so we must ask the American citizens to drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars and drive less too, so we can lessen our combined carbon footprint.

I know times are hard and millions of you are struggling to put food on the table and trying to make ends meet. I do appreciate your sacrifice and do hope you find work soon. I was really exhausted after Barack took our family on a luxury vacation in Maine a few weeks ago. I just had to get away for a few days. Will write more from Martha's Vineyard where we will spend our sixth vacation this year with more of our family and friends.

Cordially,

Michelle Obama

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Moochelle Says 'Let Them Eat Lobster'

Obamas Depleting U.S. Lobster Supply


From
White House Dossier
By Keith Koffler

So how much lobster are you having during these precarious economic times? What? You’ve had to cut back? No longer ordering it stuffed with crab meat, at least?

Well, if you happen to be the President of the United States or the First Lady, your lobster consumption is continuing at a robust pace.

Yes, the economy is still getting battered. And last night, so was President Obama’s lobster.

According to ABC’s Jake Tapper, the president savored some lobster tempura at the trendy State Road Restaurant in West Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard. Oh, just the thought of it. If he brings some back to the White House for me, I’ll write whatever he wants.

Monday night at The Sweet Life Cafe in Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard it was the lobster pasta appetizer for the president and a surf and turf entrée – the “surf” being a lobster tail – for Mrs. Obama.

And what would the vacation to Maine in July have been without a taste of everyone’s favorite crustacean. The president did it in a little less genteel fashion that time, heading over to something called Stewman’s Downtown restaurant where he was served the “Lobster Experience” dinner – just regular lobster, corn and slaw.

But the Obamas’ lobster experience is not confined to these shores. Michelle Obama was barely off the plane during her voyage early this month to the Spanish Riviera when, according to the Spanish press, she dived into a feast of sea bass tartare, strawberry gazpacho and sardines, and a main course of lobster with seaweed risotto.

Michelle enjoyed the repast so much that she was right back at it on August 14 during the Obamas’ two-day Panama City, Fla photo-op vacation. There, at the Firefly restaurant, it was more lobster for Michelle.

The Obamas were supposed to be showing support for the good people of the oil spill-stricken Gulf, eating their seafood and so forth. So the big question is, was it a Caribbean lobster or one shipped down from Maine?

And who knows what lobster delicacies the White House chef is whipping up for them in between vacations?

No wonder the Russians just started fueling the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr. When President Medvedev was here, Obama took him for burgers.



Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Obama Presidency Increasingly Resembles a Modern-Day Ancien Régime: Extravagant and Out of Touch with the American People


From The Telegraph
By Nile Gardiner


President Barack Obama (Photo: REUTERS)

President Barack Obama (Photo: REUTERS)

What the great French historian Alexis de Tocqueville would make of today’s Obama administration were he alive today is anyone’s guess. But I would wager that the author of L’Ancien Régime and Democracy in America would be less than impressed with the extravagance and arrogance on display among the White House elites that rule America as though they had been handed some divine right to govern with impunity.

It is the kind of impunity that has been highlighted on the world stage this week by Michelle Obama’s hugely costly trip to Spain, which has prompted a New York Post columnist Andrea Tantaros to dub the First Lady a contemporary Marie Antoinette. As The Telegraph reports, while the Obamas are covering their own vacation expenses such as accommodation, the trip may cost US taxpayers as much as $375,000 in terms of secret service security and flight costs on Air Force Two.

The timing of this lavish European vacation could not have come at a worse moment, when unemployment in America stands at 10 percent, and large numbers of Americans are fighting to survive financially in the wake of the global economic downturn. It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions.

While the liberal-dominated US mainstream media have largely ignored the story, it is all over the blogosphere and talk radio, and will undoubtedly add to the President’s free falling poll ratings. As much as the media establishment turn a blind eye to stories like this, which are major news in the international media, the American public is increasingly turning to alternative news sources, including the British press, which has a far less deferential approach towards the White House.

The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Marbella and the complete disregard for public opinion and concerns over excessive government spending is symbolic of a far wider problem with the Obama presidency – the overarching disdain for the principles of limited government, individual liberty and free enterprise that have built the United States over the course of nearly two and a half centuries into the most powerful and free nation on earth.

It is epitomised above all by the President’s relentless drive towards big government against the will of the American people, and the dramatic increases in government spending and borrowing, which threaten to leave the US hugely in debt for generations. It is also showcased by Barack Obama’s drive towards a socialised health care system, which, as I’ve noted before, is “a thinly disguised vanity project for a president who is committed to transforming the United States from the world’s most successful large-scale free enterprise economy, to a highly interventionist society with a massive role for centralized government.”

There is however a political revolution fast approaching Washington that is driven not by mob rule but by the power of ideas and principles, based upon the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. It is a distinctly conservative revolution that is sweeping America and is reflected in almost every poll ahead of this November’s mid-terms. It is based on a belief in individual liberty, limited government, and above all, political accountability from the ruling elites. The Obama administration’s mantra may well be “let them eat cake”, as it continues to gorge itself on taxpayers’ money, but it will be looking nervously over its shoulder as public unease mounts.


Sunday, August 8, 2010

Spain on $75,000 a Day, Courtesy of U.S. Taxpayers

Spain's King Juan Carlos, right, welcomes U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha, 9, on their arrival at the Marivent Palace, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Sunday, Aug. 8, 2010. The White House says first lady Michelle Obama is in Spain for a private trip with longtime family friends. (AP Photo/Manu Mielniezuk)

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha had lunch with Spain's king and queen on Sunday at the royal family's holiday retreat on the resort island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean.

Mrs. Obama and her daughter arrived at Marivent palace shortly before 1 p.m. and were greeted at the front door of the residence by King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and Princess Letizia.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Friday, August 6, 2010

Material Girl Michelle Obama is a Modern-Day Marie Antoinette on a Glitzy Spanish Vacation


“Qu'ils mangent de la brioche”


From The New York Daily News
By Andrea Tantaros

Sacrifice is something that many Americans are becoming all too familiar with during this economic downturn. It was a key theme in President Obama's inaugural address to the nation, and he's referenced it numerous times when lecturing the country on how to get back on its feet.

But while most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether - the Obamas don't seem to be heeding their own advice. While many of us are struggling, the First Lady is spending the next few days in a five-star hotel on the chic Costa del Sol in southern Spain with 40 of her "closest friends." According to CNN, the group is expected to occupy 60 to 70 rooms, more than a third of the lodgings at the 160-room resort. Not exactly what one would call cutting back in troubled times.

Reports are calling the lodgings of Obama's Spanish fiesta, the Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, "luxurious," "posh" and "a millionaires' playground." Estimated room rate per night? Up to a staggering $2,500. Method of transportation? Air Force Two.

To be clear, what the Obamas do with their money is one thing; what they do with ours is another. Transporting and housing the estimated 70 Secret Service agents who will flank the material girl will cost the taxpayers a pretty penny.

Perhaps it could be that the Obamas, who seem to fancy themselves more along the lines of international celebrities than actual leaders, espouse a different view of sacrifice. When Michelle Obama accompanied her husband to Copenhagen along with best buddy Oprah Winfrey, she billed the trip - an ultimately unsuccessful bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago - as follows: "As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the President to come for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home."

A quick jaunt to Denmark is a sacrifice? What portraits in courage!

The Obama modus operandi is becoming clear. From lavish trips to Spain to reportedly flying Bo, the President's Portuguese water dog, on a separate aircraft to vacation with them in Maine, to a date night in New York City that perhaps cost nearly $100,000, their idea of austerity is really just the lap of luxury, at least for ordinary folks.


Friday, January 29, 2010

Saul Alinsky and the Rise of Amorality in American Politics


From New English Review
By D. L. Adams

Saul Alinsky and his "community organizing" methods and philosophy have had a profound influence on the politics of the United States. Recent history would suggest that this influence is just short of catastrophic.

Alinsky's book, "Rules for Radicals," published in 1971 still has enormous effects on our country today. Hillary Clinton wrote her Wellesley College thesis on Alinsky, interviewing him personally for her research. After her graduation Alinsky offered her a job with his organization, which she refused to pursue other opportunities. President Obama worked for Alinsky organizations and taught seminars in Alinsky tactics and methodology during his "community organizing" period in Chicago. Michelle Obama echoed Alinsky’s words in her speech at the Democratic Convention.

Monday, October 26, 2009

First Lady Now Requires 26 Servants

Recession, Depression, What Michelle Worry?

From Canada Free Press
By Dr. Paul L. Williams


“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it” -- Albert Einstein

“In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service, “

-- Michelle Obama

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn’t perform any official duties. But this hasn’t deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession. Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary.

How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Miz Michele are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q. Public:

  1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (CHIEF OF STAFF)
  2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
  3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND WHITE HOUSE SOCIAL SECRETARY)
  4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
  5. Winter, Melissa E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
  6. $90,000 - Medina, David S. (DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
  7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (DIRECTOR AND PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)
  8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND ADVANCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)
  9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
  10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)
  11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)
  12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND EVENTS COORDINATOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)
  13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADVANCE AND TRIP DIRECTOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)
  14. Lewis, Dana M. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT AND PERSONAL AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)
  15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)
  16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR SCHEDULING AND TRAVELING AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)
  17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)
  18. Tubman, Samantha (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,SOCIAL OFFICE)
  19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
  20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (STAFF ASSISTANT TO THE SOCIAL SECRETARY)
  21. Bookey, Natalie (STAFF ASSISTANT)
  22. Jackson, Deilia A. (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Obama Campaign Attempts $3 Million Bribe to Suppress Michelle Obama Tape



From
African Press International

Six hours after the release of information by API on the planned broadcast by Fox News Network of the Michelle Obama tape, in accordance with an agreement that has been reached between API and Fox News Network, API was contacted by Obama’s Campaign Manager.

Those who are close to the democratic presidential candidate must be desperate to win the elections no matter what, otherwise they would not have taken such bold step to contact API with an offer of a bribe in order to stop the airing of the tape.

Obama’s campaign manager contacted API by telephone and email offering 3 million US dollars followed with a request to API to cancel the deal with Fox News Network.

Ten days ago API received the first request to accept 2 million US dollars by Mr Ed Hale, President of Plains Radio, Texas - USA, in an effort to suppress the information from reaching the public before the coming US Presidential elections.

API has now taken a decision to contact the American Embassy in Oslo, Norway as soon as possible in order to report the matter and hand over the evidence for investigative purposes.

API’s Canadian lawyer is expected to fly to Oslo shortly in order to assist in the legal matters that arise from the bribery attempt.

API’s Chief editor is expected to travel to New York, together with the Canadian lawyer, where he will appear live in one of the shows that will air the Michelle Obama tape.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Michelle's Boot Camps For Radicals

Election '08: Democrats' reintroduction of militant Michelle Obama in Denver was supposed to show her softer side. But it only highlighted a radical part of her resume: Public Allies.

Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Obama plans to use the nonprofit group, which he features on his campaign Web site, as the model for a national service corps. He calls his Orwellian program, "Universal Voluntary Public Service."

Big Brother had nothing on the Obamas. They plan to herd American youth into government-funded reeducation camps where they'll be brainwashed into thinking America is a racist, oppressive place in need of "social change."

The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn't seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year "community leadership" positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They'll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats.

In exchange, they'll get a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care. They also get a post-service education award of $4,725 that can be used to pay off past student loans or fund future education.

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation — the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul "The Red" Alinsky.

"Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities," Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for "justice" and "equality" in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. "I get to practice being an activist," and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent.

Public Allies promotes "diversity and inclusion," a program paper says. More than 70% of its recruits are "people of color." When they're not protesting, they're staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare.

Public Allies brags that more than 80% of graduates have continued working in nonprofit or government jobs. It's training the "next generation of nonprofit leaders" — future "social entrepreneurs."

The Obamas discourage work in the private sector. "Don't go into corporate America," Michelle has exhorted youth. "Work for the community. Be social workers." Shun the "money culture," Barack added. "Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

"If you commit to serving your community," he pledged in his Denver acceptance speech, "we will make sure you can afford a college education." So, go through government to go to college, and then go back into government.

Many of today's youth find the pitch attractive. "I may spend the rest of my life trying to create social movement," said Brian Coovert of the Cincinnati chapter. "There is always going to be work to do. Until we have a perfect country, I'll have a job."

Not all the recruits appreciate the PC indoctrination. "It was too touchy-feely," said Nelly Nieblas, 29, of the 2005 Los Angeles class. "It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."

One of those -isms is "heterosexism," which a Public Allies training seminar in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."

The government now funds about half of Public Allies' expenses through Clinton's AmeriCorps. Obama wants to fully fund it and expand it into a national program that some see costing $500 billion. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military, he said.

The gall of it: The Obamas want to create a boot camp for radicals who hate the military — and stick American taxpayers with the bill.



Monday, February 25, 2008

OBAMA'S WOMEN REVEAL HIS SECRET


From the Asia Times Online

By Spengler

"Cherchez la femme," advised Alexander Dumas in: "When you want to uncover an unspecified secret, look for the woman." In the case of Barack Obama, we have two: his late mother, the went-native anthropologist Ann Dunham, and his rancorous wife Michelle. Obama's women reveal his secret: he hates America.

We know less about Senator Obama than about any prospective president in American history. His uplifting rhetoric is empty, as Hillary Clinton helplessly protests. His career bears no trace of his own character, not an article for the Harvard Law Review he edited, or a single piece of legislation. He appears to be an empty vessel filled with the wishful thinking of those around him. But there is a real Barack Obama. No man - least of all one abandoned in infancy by his father - can conceal the imprint of an impassioned mother, or the influence of a brilliant wife.

America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world's 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair. Some of those who listen to this cry become anthropologists, the curators of soon-to-be extinct cultures; anthropologists who really identify with their subjects marry them. Obama's mother, the University of Hawaii anthropologist Ann Dunham, did so twice.

Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother's revenge against the America she despised.

Ann Dunham died in 1995, and her character emerges piecemeal from the historical record, to which I will return below. But Michelle Obama is a living witness. Her February 18 comment that she felt proud of her country for the first time caused a minor scandal, and was hastily qualified. But she meant it, and more. The video footage of her remarks shows eyes hooded with rage as she declares:
For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.
The desperation, frustration and disappointment visible on Michelle Obama's face are not new to the candidate's wife; as Steve Sailer, Rod Dreher and other commentators have noted, they were the theme of her undergraduate thesis, on the subject of "blackness" at Princeton University. No matter what the good intentions of Princeton, which founded her fortunes as a well-paid corporate lawyer, she wrote, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong."

Never undererestimate the influence of a wife who bitch-slaps her husband in public. Early in Obama's campaign, Michelle Obama could not restrain herself from belittling the senator. "I have some difficulty reconciling the two images I have of Barack Obama. There's Barack Obama the phenomenon. He's an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner. Pretty amazing, right? And then there's the Barack Obama that lives with me in my house, and that guy's a little less impressive," she told a fundraiser in February 2007.

"For some reason this guy still can't manage to put the butter up when he makes toast, secure the bread so that it doesn't get stale, and his five-year-old is still better at making the bed than he is." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reported at the time, "She added that the TV version of Barack Obama sounded really interesting and that she'd like to meet him sometime." Her handlers have convinced her to be more tactful since then.

"Frustration" and "disappointment" have dogged Michelle Obama these past 20 years, despite her US$300,000 a year salary and corporate board memberships. It is hard for the descendants of slaves not to resent America. They were not voluntary immigrants but kidnap victims, subjected to a century of second-class citizenship even after the Civil War ended slavery. Blackness is not the issue; General Colin Powell, whose parents chose to immigrate to America from the West Indies, saw America just as other immigrants do, as a land of opportunity. Obama's choice of wife is a failsafe indicator of his own sentiments. Spouses do not necessarily share their likes, but they must have their hatreds in common. Obama imbibed this hatred with his mother's milk.

Michelle Obama speaks with greater warmth of her mother-in-law than of her husband. "She was kind of a dreamer, his mother," Michelle Obama was quoted in the January 25 Boston Globe. "She wanted the world to be open to her and her children. And as a result of her naivete, sometimes they lived on food stamps, because sometimes dreams don't pay the rent. But as a result of her naivete, Barack got to see the world like most of us don't in this country." How strong the ideological motivation must be of a mother to raise her children on the thin fair of government assistance in pursuit of a political agenda.

"Naivete" is a euphemism for Ann Dunham's motivation. Friends describe her as a "fellow traveler", that is, a communist sympathizer, from her youth, according to a March 27, 2007, Chicago Tribune report. Many Americans harbor leftist views, but not many marry into them, twice. Ann Dunham met and married the Kenyan economics student Barack Obama, Sr, at the University of Hawaii in 1960, and in 1967 married the Indonesian student Lolo Soetero. It is unclear why Soetero's student visa was revoked in 1967 - the fact but not the cause are noted in press accounts. But it is probable that the change in government in Indonesia in 1967, in which the leftist leader Sukarno was deposed, was the motivation.

Soetero had been sponsored as a graduate student by one of the most radical of all Third World governments. Sukarno had founded the so-called Non-Aligned Movement as an anti-colonialist turn at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Before deposing him in 1967, Indonesia's military slaughtered 500,000 communists (or unfortunates who were mistaken for communists). When Ann Dunham chose to follow Lolo Soetero to Indonesia in 1967, she brought the six-year-old Barack into the kitchen of anti-colonialist outrage, immediate following one of the worst episodes of civil violence in post-war history.

Dunham's experience in Indonesia provided the material for a doctoral dissertation celebrating the hardiness of local cultures against the encroaching metropolis. It was entitled, "Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving against all odds". In this respect Dunham remained within the mainstream of her discipline. Anthropology broke into popular awareness with Margaret Mead's long-discredited Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which offered a falsified ideal of sexual liberation in the South Pacific as an alternative to the supposedly repressive West. Mead's work was one of the founding documents of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and anthropology faculties stood at the left-wing fringe of American universities.

In the Global South, anthropologists went into the field and took matters a step further. Peru's brutal Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerilla movement was the brainchild of the anthropologist Efrain Morote Best, who headed the University of San Cristobal of Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru, between 1962 and 1968. Dunham's radicalism was more vicarious; she ended her career as an employee of international organizations.

Barack Obama received at least some instruction in the Islamic faith of his father and went with him to the mosque, but the importance of this experience is vastly overstated by conservative commentators who seek to portray Obama as a Muslim of sorts. Radical anti-Americanism, rather than Islam, was the reigning faith in the Dunham household. In the Muslim world of the 1960s, nationalism rather than radical Islam was the ideology of choice among the enraged. Radical Islam did not emerge as a major political force until the nationalism of a Gamal Abdel Nasser or a Sukarno failed.

Barack Obama is a clever fellow who imbibed hatred of America with his mother's milk, but worked his way up the elite ladder of education and career. He shares the resentment of Muslims against the encroachment of American culture, although not their religion. He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.

There is nothing mysterious about Obama's methods. "A demagogue tries to sound as stupid as his audience so that they will think they are as clever as he is," wrote Karl Krauss. Americans are the world's biggest suckers, and laugh at this weakness in their popular culture. Listening to Obama speak, Sinclair Lewis' cynical tent-revivalist Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or, even better, Tyrone Power's portrayal of a carnival mentalist in the 1947 film noire Nightmare Alley. The latter is available for instant viewing at Netflix, and highly recommended as an antidote to having felt uplifted by an Obama speech.

America has the great misfortune to have encountered Obama at the peak of his powers at its worst moment of vulnerability in a generation. With malice of forethought, he has sought out their sore point.

Since the Ronald Reagan boom began in 1984, the year the American stock market doubled, Americans have enjoyed a quarter-century of rising wealth. Even the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2000 did not interrupt the upward trajectory of household assets, as the housing price boom eclipsed the effect of equity market weakness. America's success made it a magnet for the world's savings, and Americans came to believe that they were riding a boom that would last forever, as I wrote recently [1].

Americans regard upward mobility as a God-given right. America had a double founding, as David Hackett Fischer showed in his 1989 study, Albion's Seed . Two kinds of immigrants founded America: religious dissidents seeking a new Promised Land, and economic opportunists looking to get rich quick. Both elements still are present, but the course of the past quarter-century has made wealth-creation the sine qua non of American life. Now for the first time in a generation Americans have become poorer, and many of them have become much poorer due to the collapse of home prices. Unlike the Reagan years, when cutting the top tax rate from a punitive 70% to a more tolerable 40% was sufficient to start an economic boom, no lever of economic policy is available to fix the problem. Americans have no choice but to work harder, retire later, save more and retrench.

This reversal has provoked a national mood of existential crisis. In Europe, economic downturns do not inspire this kind of soul-searching, for Europeans, richer are poorer, remain what they always have been. But Americans are what they make of themselves, and the slim makings of 2008 shake their sense of identity. Americans have no institutionalized culture to fall back on. Their national religion has consisted of waves of enthusiasm - "Great Awakenings" – every second generation or so, followed by an interim of apathy. In times of stress they have a baleful susceptibility to hucksters and conmen.

Be afraid - be very afraid. America is at a low point in its fortunes, and feeling sorry for itself. When Barack utters the word "hope", they instead hear, "handout". A cynic might translate the national motto, E pluribus unum, as "something for nothing". Now that the stock market and the housing market have failed to give Americans something for nothing, they want something for nothing from the government. The trouble is that he who gets something for nothing will earn every penny of it, twice over.

The George W Bush administration has squandered a great strategic advantage in a sorry lampoon of nation-building in the Muslim world, and has made enemies out of countries that might have been friendly rivals, notably Russia. Americans question the premise of America's standing as a global superpower, and of the promise of upward mobility and wealth-creation. If elected, Barack Obama will do his utmost to destroy the dual premises of America's standing. It might take the country another generation to recover.

"Evil will oft evil mars", J R R Tolkien wrote. It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama. As he recalled in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama idealized the Kenyan economist who had married and dumped his mother, and was saddened to learn that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr, was a sullen, drunken polygamist. The elder Obama became a senior official of the government of Kenya after earning a PhD at Harvard. He was an abusive drunk and philanderer whose temper soured his career.

The senior Obama died in a 1982 car crash. Kenyan government officials in those days normally spent their nights drinking themselves stupid at the Pan-Afrique Hotel. Two or three of them would be found with their Mercedes wrapped around a palm tree every morning. During the 1970s I came to know a number of them, mostly British-educated hollow men dying inside of their own hypocrisy and corruption.

Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals - and nothing can be more terrible for the system. Even those who despise America for its blunders of the past few years should ask themselves whether the world will be a safer place if America retreats into a self-pitying shell.

Note1. Obama bin lottery Asia Times Online, January 29, 2008.