MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Wins“Quote of the Year”
Listening to Obama, “I felt this thrill going up my leg!”
ALEXANDRIA, VA. --- The Media Research Center today announced its Best Notable Quotables of 2008: The 21st Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews “won” the dubious honor of Quote of the Year for gushing over a Barack Obama speech back in February: “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often….And that is an objective assessment.”
Top runner-up for Quote of the Year went to Reuters for this ridiculous post-election headline: “Media bias largely unseen in U.S. presidential race.”
MRC President Brent Bozell: “Year after year, the liberal media outdo themselves in providing conservatives the sheer joy of laughing at their own words. The year of the Obama Paparazzi was no different, as they salivated over their savior and did everything in their power to crush conservatives. And we wonder why Americans don’t trust the media.”
This year’s winners were selected by a panel of 44 judges, consisting of radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and media observers. Judges this year include columnist Cal Thomas, radio host Neal Boortz, economist Walter Williams, American Spectator editor R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., and former National Review publisher William A. Rusher. To read all the award-winning quotes, along with audio and video clips of the broadcast quotes, please visit www.MRC.org.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MRC’s 2008 AWARDS:
The Obamagasm Award
"Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope." — Time’s Nancy Gibbs in the November 17 cover story.
Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin
"The fact of the matter is, the comparison between her [Sarah Palin] and Hillary Clinton is the comparison between an igloo and the Empire State Building!" — MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, October 14.
The Irrelevant Reverend Wright Award
"To see his [Jeremiah Wright’s] career completely destroyed by three 20-second soundbites, all of the work he has done, his entire legacy gone down the drain, has been absolutely devastating to me — to him, sorry....We are still a racist country." — Washington Post writer Sally Quinn on PBS’s Charlie Rose, April 30.
From Camelot to Obamalot Award
"Today, the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny....Obama is now an adopted son of Camelot. His candidacy blessed not just by the Lion of the Senate, patriarch of the clan, but by JFK’s daughter." — David Wright on ABC’s Nightline January 28.
The Crush Rush Award for Loathing Limbaugh
Author/humorist P.J. O’Rourke: "It’s the twilight of the radio loud-mouth, you know? I knew it from the moment the fat guy [Rush Limbaugh] refused to share his drugs...."
Host Bill Maher: "You mean the OxyContin that he was on?...Why couldn’t he have croaked from it instead of Heath Ledger?" — HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, February 8.
Politics of Meaninglessness Award for the Silliest Analysis
"Not doing it [fighting global warming] will be catastrophic. We’ll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years, and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals." — CNN founder Ted Turner on PBS’s Charlie Rose, April 1.
Madness of King George Award
"When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation; when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead; this advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up! Good night and good luck." — MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann in a "Special Comment" on Countdown, May 14.
Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity
"If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you ‘Pope.’ It’s like, if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re a deadbeat. But if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia." — Bill Maher on HBO’s Real Time, April 11.
Admitting the Obvious Award
“When NBC News first assigned me to the Barack Obama campaign, I must confess my knees quaked a bit....I wondered if I was up to the job. I wondered if I could do the campaign justice.”
— NBC reporter Lee Cowan in an article for NBC’s “The Peacock” advertising supplement, March 23-29.
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Showing posts with label President-Elect Obama. Show all posts
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Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Obama's Change message could effect the NASA Moon Mission
Getting into a shouting match with the HR rep is not exactly the best way to land a job. But according to the Orlando Sentinel, that's just what happened last week between NASA administrator Mike Griffin and Lori Garver, a member of Barack Obama's transition team who will help decide if Griffin keeps his post once the President-elect takes office. If the contretemps did occur, it could help doom not only the NASA chief's chances, but the space agency's ambitious plans to get Americans back to the moon.
The mere fact that the story is making the rounds reflects the very real friction between NASA and the transition team — which has sparked a groundswell of support among space agency employees to keep the boss. Within NASA, there is a real concern that while the Obama campaign rode the call for change to a thumping victory in November, change is precisely what the space agency does not need. (See photos of different countries' space programs here.)
The stagnant NASA of the past 20 years has been poised to become a very new NASA — thanks, in many respects, to the outgoing Bush Administration. In 2004, the President announced a new push to return astronauts to the moon and eventually get them to Mars. Many skeptics saw the hand of political whiz Karl Rove in that, suspecting that the whole idea was just a bag of election year goodies for space-happy states like Florida and Texas, as well as for voters nostalgic for the glory days of Apollo. But Bush, NASA and Congress did mean business, and eventually came up with a plan under which the space station would be completed and the shuttle would be retired by 2010. That would free up about $4 billion per year, which would be used to pay for a new generation of expendable boosters as well as a 21st century version of the Apollo orbiter and lunar lander for those rockets to carry. (Read about the space moon race here.)
"At the time, the shuttle had flown 290 people, and out of those 14 were dead — nearly one in 20," says Scott Horowitz, a four-time shuttle veteran who designed the Ares 1, one of the new boosters. "We needed something that was an order of magnitude safer."
NASA has moved with uncharacteristic nimbleness in the last five years and is already cutting metal on the new machines in the hope of having crews in Earth orbit by 2015 and on the moon by 2020. Schedules have slipped some — the original plan was to launch the orbital missions in 2014 — and costs have swollen, though so far not dramatically. (See the Top 50 space moments since Sputnik.)
"We've been moving in the right direction since the Columbia accident [in 2003]," says Chris Shank, NASA's chief of strategic communications. "The concern is that we'll lose that." Lately, that concern appears well-placed.
The Obama team picked Garver to run the NASA transition, in part because of her deep pedigree and long history at the space agency, which saw her climb to the rank of associate administrator. But Garver started as a PAO — NASA-speak for a public affairs officer — and never got involved in the nuts and bolts of building rockets. She is best known by most people as the person who in 2002 competed with boy-band singer Lance Bass for the chance to fly to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket. Neither of them ever left the ground.
Garver's lack of engineering cred is especially surprising in light of the eggheads with whom Obama has been surrounding himself — most recently, Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Chu, who has reportedly been tapped to be Secretary of Energy. Garver is also not thought to be much of a fan of Griffin — who is an engineer — nor to be sold on the plans for the new moon program. What she and others are said to be considering is to scrap the plans for the Ares 1 — which is designed exclusively to carry humans — and replace it with Atlas V and Delta IV boosters, which are currently used to launch satellites but could be redesigned, or "requalified," for humans. Griffin hates that idea, and firmly believes the Atlas and Delta are unsafe for people. One well-placed NASA source who asked not to be named reports that as much as Griffin wants to keep his job, he'll walk away from it if he's made to put his astronauts on top of those rockets.
NASA is right to be uneasy about just what Obama has planned for the agency since his position on space travel shifted — a lot — during the campaign. A year before the election he touted an $18 billion education program and explicitly targeted the new moon program as one he'd cut to pay for it. In January of 2008, he lined up much closer to the Bush moon plan — perhaps because Republicans were already on board and earning swing-state support as a result. Three months before the election, Obama fully endorsed the 2020 target for putting people on the moon. But that was a candidate talking and now he's president-elect, and his choice of Garver as his transition adviser may say more than his past campaign rhetoric.
The dust-up between Griffin and Garver is said to have occurred last week at a book launch party in Washington when, according to the Sentinel, a red-faced Griffin told Garver she was "not qualified" to make engineering decisions. Horowitz, who was not at the party but knows the NASA boss well, says he doubts that Griffin raised his voice.
"I think that's bulls---," he says. "I believe that anything he was asked he was very honest in answering because he's a systems engineer. And Lori Garver is not equipped to make technical judgments on the architecture of a space exploration system." The unnamed NASA source concedes that Griffin can be brutally honest and occasionally tactless, but insists that his shouting is simply improbable. The Obama transition office did not return an e-mail seeking comment from Garver.
For now, says the NASA source, both present and former astronauts as well as some NASA contractors are quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — lobbying for Griffin to stay. But the incoming administration is not saying anything so far. It was President John F. Kennedy who famously committed Americans to reaching the moon. Now it is Obama — who so often invokes the themes and style of JFK — who may decide if we go back.
By Jeffrey Kluger Times
The mere fact that the story is making the rounds reflects the very real friction between NASA and the transition team — which has sparked a groundswell of support among space agency employees to keep the boss. Within NASA, there is a real concern that while the Obama campaign rode the call for change to a thumping victory in November, change is precisely what the space agency does not need. (See photos of different countries' space programs here.)
The stagnant NASA of the past 20 years has been poised to become a very new NASA — thanks, in many respects, to the outgoing Bush Administration. In 2004, the President announced a new push to return astronauts to the moon and eventually get them to Mars. Many skeptics saw the hand of political whiz Karl Rove in that, suspecting that the whole idea was just a bag of election year goodies for space-happy states like Florida and Texas, as well as for voters nostalgic for the glory days of Apollo. But Bush, NASA and Congress did mean business, and eventually came up with a plan under which the space station would be completed and the shuttle would be retired by 2010. That would free up about $4 billion per year, which would be used to pay for a new generation of expendable boosters as well as a 21st century version of the Apollo orbiter and lunar lander for those rockets to carry. (Read about the space moon race here.)
"At the time, the shuttle had flown 290 people, and out of those 14 were dead — nearly one in 20," says Scott Horowitz, a four-time shuttle veteran who designed the Ares 1, one of the new boosters. "We needed something that was an order of magnitude safer."
NASA has moved with uncharacteristic nimbleness in the last five years and is already cutting metal on the new machines in the hope of having crews in Earth orbit by 2015 and on the moon by 2020. Schedules have slipped some — the original plan was to launch the orbital missions in 2014 — and costs have swollen, though so far not dramatically. (See the Top 50 space moments since Sputnik.)
"We've been moving in the right direction since the Columbia accident [in 2003]," says Chris Shank, NASA's chief of strategic communications. "The concern is that we'll lose that." Lately, that concern appears well-placed.
The Obama team picked Garver to run the NASA transition, in part because of her deep pedigree and long history at the space agency, which saw her climb to the rank of associate administrator. But Garver started as a PAO — NASA-speak for a public affairs officer — and never got involved in the nuts and bolts of building rockets. She is best known by most people as the person who in 2002 competed with boy-band singer Lance Bass for the chance to fly to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket. Neither of them ever left the ground.
Garver's lack of engineering cred is especially surprising in light of the eggheads with whom Obama has been surrounding himself — most recently, Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Chu, who has reportedly been tapped to be Secretary of Energy. Garver is also not thought to be much of a fan of Griffin — who is an engineer — nor to be sold on the plans for the new moon program. What she and others are said to be considering is to scrap the plans for the Ares 1 — which is designed exclusively to carry humans — and replace it with Atlas V and Delta IV boosters, which are currently used to launch satellites but could be redesigned, or "requalified," for humans. Griffin hates that idea, and firmly believes the Atlas and Delta are unsafe for people. One well-placed NASA source who asked not to be named reports that as much as Griffin wants to keep his job, he'll walk away from it if he's made to put his astronauts on top of those rockets.
NASA is right to be uneasy about just what Obama has planned for the agency since his position on space travel shifted — a lot — during the campaign. A year before the election he touted an $18 billion education program and explicitly targeted the new moon program as one he'd cut to pay for it. In January of 2008, he lined up much closer to the Bush moon plan — perhaps because Republicans were already on board and earning swing-state support as a result. Three months before the election, Obama fully endorsed the 2020 target for putting people on the moon. But that was a candidate talking and now he's president-elect, and his choice of Garver as his transition adviser may say more than his past campaign rhetoric.
The dust-up between Griffin and Garver is said to have occurred last week at a book launch party in Washington when, according to the Sentinel, a red-faced Griffin told Garver she was "not qualified" to make engineering decisions. Horowitz, who was not at the party but knows the NASA boss well, says he doubts that Griffin raised his voice.
"I think that's bulls---," he says. "I believe that anything he was asked he was very honest in answering because he's a systems engineer. And Lori Garver is not equipped to make technical judgments on the architecture of a space exploration system." The unnamed NASA source concedes that Griffin can be brutally honest and occasionally tactless, but insists that his shouting is simply improbable. The Obama transition office did not return an e-mail seeking comment from Garver.
For now, says the NASA source, both present and former astronauts as well as some NASA contractors are quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — lobbying for Griffin to stay. But the incoming administration is not saying anything so far. It was President John F. Kennedy who famously committed Americans to reaching the moon. Now it is Obama — who so often invokes the themes and style of JFK — who may decide if we go back.
By Jeffrey Kluger Times
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Obama future Pardons list already started
President-elect Obama hasn't even taking office yet, and already investigations from past and present are starting to take place with individuals associated with Obama. Remember these three names.
Tony Rezko
Illinois Gov. Blagojevich
Christopher G. Kelly
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder. Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field, according to a federal criminal complaint. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper's editorial board who had been critical of him fired.
He also allegedly discussed getting campaign funds for himself or possibly a post in the president's cabinet or an ambassadorship once he left the governor's office. He noted becoming a U.S. senator might remake his image for a possible presidential run in 2016, according to the affidavit. And he allegedly said a Senate seat would also provide him with corporate contacts if he needed a job and present an opportunity for his wife to work as a lobbyist.
"I want to make money," the affidavit quotes him as saying in one conversation.
The affidavit said Blagojevich expressed frustration at being "stuck" as governor and that he would have access to greater resources if he were indicted while in the U.S. Senate than while sitting as governor.
A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democratic governor was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat. Corruption in the Blagojevich administration has been the focus of a federal Operation Board Games involving an alleged $7 million scheme aimed at squeezing kickbacks out of companies seeking business from the state. Federal prosecutors have acknowledged they're also investigating "serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" under Blagojevich. The affidavit outlined a Nov. 10 call between Blagojevich, his wife, his chief of staff - John Harris, who also was arrested Tuesday - and a group of advisers in which Harris allegedly suggested working out an agreement with the Service Employees International Union.
Under the plan, Blagojevich would appoint a new senator who would be helpful to the president-elect and in turn get a job as head of Change to Win, a group formed by the union. The union would get an unspecified favor from Obama later.
One day later, according to the affidavit, Blagojevich allegedly told an associate he knew Obama wanted a specific Senate candidate but "they're not going to give me anything except appreciation." He finished the remark with an expletive.
Blagojevich also was charged with using his authority as governor in an attempt to squeeze out campaign contributions. Political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko who raised money for the campaigns of both Blagojevich and Obama is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of fraud and other charges. Blagojevich's chief fundraiser, Christopher G. Kelly, is due to stand trial early next year on charges of obstructing the Internal Revenue Service.
Tony Rezko
Illinois Gov. Blagojevich
Christopher G. Kelly
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder. Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field, according to a federal criminal complaint. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper's editorial board who had been critical of him fired.
He also allegedly discussed getting campaign funds for himself or possibly a post in the president's cabinet or an ambassadorship once he left the governor's office. He noted becoming a U.S. senator might remake his image for a possible presidential run in 2016, according to the affidavit. And he allegedly said a Senate seat would also provide him with corporate contacts if he needed a job and present an opportunity for his wife to work as a lobbyist.
"I want to make money," the affidavit quotes him as saying in one conversation.
The affidavit said Blagojevich expressed frustration at being "stuck" as governor and that he would have access to greater resources if he were indicted while in the U.S. Senate than while sitting as governor.
A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democratic governor was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat. Corruption in the Blagojevich administration has been the focus of a federal Operation Board Games involving an alleged $7 million scheme aimed at squeezing kickbacks out of companies seeking business from the state. Federal prosecutors have acknowledged they're also investigating "serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" under Blagojevich. The affidavit outlined a Nov. 10 call between Blagojevich, his wife, his chief of staff - John Harris, who also was arrested Tuesday - and a group of advisers in which Harris allegedly suggested working out an agreement with the Service Employees International Union.
Under the plan, Blagojevich would appoint a new senator who would be helpful to the president-elect and in turn get a job as head of Change to Win, a group formed by the union. The union would get an unspecified favor from Obama later.
One day later, according to the affidavit, Blagojevich allegedly told an associate he knew Obama wanted a specific Senate candidate but "they're not going to give me anything except appreciation." He finished the remark with an expletive.
Blagojevich also was charged with using his authority as governor in an attempt to squeeze out campaign contributions. Political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko who raised money for the campaigns of both Blagojevich and Obama is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of fraud and other charges. Blagojevich's chief fundraiser, Christopher G. Kelly, is due to stand trial early next year on charges of obstructing the Internal Revenue Service.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Pardon Is Back in Focus for the Justice Nominee
New York Times Story Eric H. Holder Jr. faced questions from a Congressional committee in 2001 about the efforts to secure a presidential pardon for the financier Marc Rich.
President Elect Obama new website
New website taking a look at the President Elect Obama has been launched from a Conservative View Point keeping on eye on the Change Message with regards to the Obama Administration and looking forword to the 2012 Election Count Down .
Thursday, November 20, 2008
A tiny country located in the Middle East has developed enough Uranium to Build one bomb
Iran has now produced roughly enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb, according to atomic experts analyzing the latest report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Statement during Obama Presidential campaign.
To date, Iran had enriched about 1,400 pounds of low-enriched uranium suitable for nuclear fuel, according to two confidential reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency that were obtained by The Associated Press.
Several experts told The Times the milestone was enough for a bomb, but Iran would have to further purify the uranium fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that experts in the West are unsure Iran has been able to achieve.
Khamenei said Iran and Israel were on a "collision course," a statement that could further increase tensions in a Middle East already fearful of a conflict between the two countries.
By Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi, Special to The Times
September 20, 2008
"Who are Israelis?" Khamenei told thousands of worshipers gathered for Friday prayers in downtown Tehran. "They are responsible for usurping houses, territory, farmlands and businesses. They are combatants at the disposal of Zionist operatives. A Muslim nation cannot remain indifferent vis-a-vis such people who are stooges at the service of the arch-foes of the Muslim world."
Khamenei said Iran and Israel were on a "collision course," a statement that could further increase tensions in a Middle East already fearful of a conflict between the two countries.
To date, Iran had enriched about 1,400 pounds of low-enriched uranium suitable for nuclear fuel, according to two confidential reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency that were obtained by The Associated Press.
Several experts told The Times the milestone was enough for a bomb, but Iran would have to further purify the uranium fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that experts in the West are unsure Iran has been able to achieve.
Khamenei said Iran and Israel were on a "collision course," a statement that could further increase tensions in a Middle East already fearful of a conflict between the two countries.
By Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi, Special to The Times
September 20, 2008
"Who are Israelis?" Khamenei told thousands of worshipers gathered for Friday prayers in downtown Tehran. "They are responsible for usurping houses, territory, farmlands and businesses. They are combatants at the disposal of Zionist operatives. A Muslim nation cannot remain indifferent vis-a-vis such people who are stooges at the service of the arch-foes of the Muslim world."
Khamenei said Iran and Israel were on a "collision course," a statement that could further increase tensions in a Middle East already fearful of a conflict between the two countries.
CNN,MSNBC helped voters in the Presidential Election make up there minds without the facts
Zogby Poll
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet.....
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Monday, November 10, 2008
Pres.-Elect Obama's Transition to the White House
As Inauguration Day quickly approaches, a daunting transition to-do list awaits the Obama administration.
Nearly 8,000 jobs waiting to be filled. Empty file drawers. Missing computer hard drives. Even furniture piled in the hallways.
The most powerful office in the world has less than three months to come into being, essentially from scratch.
"It is a very weird thing to walk into," said White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who helped President Bush build a new government eight years ago. "There are no papers, no books. You have computer equipment but there's nothing on there. You've got a telephone but you just sort of barely know what everybody else's phone number is."
Bush's White House started working nearly a year before Election Day to get the government in shape to be handed off. Aides to President-elect Obama also began planning before the voting, just in case their candidate won. But everything accelerates into overdrive now that the 77-day presidential transition clock has started ticking.
Everything on the daunting transition to-do list will certainly not be checked off by Jan. 20, when President-elect Obama walks through the door of the White House as President Obama. But much must be done, especially naming staff and officials.
Put aside that it's the first wartime presidential transition in 40 years and that the country is gripped by fierce economic troubles. Consider that only days after taking over the Oval office, Obama must present to Congress his first budget request for the entire government.
After 232 years, America can be quite quaint about the transfer of power from one administration to the next. Even when a different party is taking over, there are tried-and-true rituals to be indulged.
There's the White House meeting between the outgoing and incoming commander in chief, usually accompanied by a parallel confab between their spouses. This time it's taking place much sooner than is typical, Today will be less than a week after Election Day.
What White House spokesman Tony Fratto called "a very special meeting in our democracy" brings the new guy to the White House in a way he never has visited before. Obama will be treated to a tour of his new home and office with the eyes of someone about to move in, and with the man holding the secrets known by only the small club of presidents as his guide.
In other words, Obama will get to hear and see the good stuff: maybe the weapons cache hidden in the West Wing or classified communications capabilities or the instructions for summoning a cup of coffee. The president-elect gets to, in that hackneyed cliche of campaigns, actually measure the drapes.
Incidentally, one design item that might draw particular interest is the rug in the Oval Office.
Each new occupant gets to custom-design a new one. Bush frequently cites that duty as a) his first presidential decision and b) one that revealed something he believes central to his personal character and approach to leadership. As he likes to tell it, Bush delegated the rug-picking to his wife with orders to have it reflect optimism, so the cream-colored concoction that covers his floor resembles a sunburst.
Another transfer-of-power tradition is the remarkable chain of events prescribed for Inauguration Day. It could be called Moving Day on steroids.
The night before, the Bush White House staff will leave their offices for the last time, turning in badges and keys. They will be unable to get back into the White House unless for a crisis.
The next day, as soon as Bush leaves the White House to go to the Capitol to watch Obama take the oath, and while Obama rides in the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and sits in the reviewing stands outside his new residence, an army of workers will box up and cart off the Bush-related contents of the building, personal and professional. Obama's, likewise, are brought in.
As mandated by federal law, the institutional memory of the place is wiped almost entirely clean. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires that all documents leave the White House with the outgoing president, except some in the National Security Council and the counsel's office.
That's not to say there aren't cheat sheets -- lots of them -- to help the new team.
Bookshelves in the office of White House deputy chief of staff Blake Gottesman are now covered with thick three-inch binders. Four of them, the thickest, spell out in detail the most daunting task of any incoming White House -- choosing 7,840 presidential appointees, and shepherding the 1,177 of those that need Senate confirmation through the Capitol Hill process.
Some estimate that 40,000 people will flood the new White House with resumes for those jobs in the first few weeks, and 75,000 in the first few months. A hint of how huge the task is: No administration has had confirmed more than about 25 Cabinet and sub-Cabinet personnel by April 1 or more than about 240 by its eighth month.
An additional dozen or so binders fill a separate long cabinet in Gottesman's office, coming from each part of the Executive Office of the President, such as the press shop and the congressional liaison group.
In addition, the NSC has prepared extensive briefing materials on every global hot spot imaginable, complete with contingency options for several possible emergency scenarios, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the preparations. Bolten also said that members of Obama's staff will be invited to attend at least one "tabletop exercise" at the White House, a regular simulation of an emergency such as a terrorist attack or disease outbreak.
Obama's team started receiving information about key issues even before Election Day. Those briefings -- and efforts such as establishing side-by-side workspace for Treasury Department's $700 billion financial rescue program -- now are ramping up more each day.
Bolten said this earlier and more intense transition activity is crucial because of the dire times. The goal is something akin to a relay race, where "we are carrying the baton but the next runner will be running before we actually hand them that baton."
Bush aides are also under orders to leave the place tidy, and not repeat the acts of minor vandalism that slightly marred the transition from President Clinton to Bush.
"We will vacuum, we will clean our desks, we will take the gum out from under the conference tables," Bolten joked.
Nearly 8,000 jobs waiting to be filled. Empty file drawers. Missing computer hard drives. Even furniture piled in the hallways.
The most powerful office in the world has less than three months to come into being, essentially from scratch.
"It is a very weird thing to walk into," said White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who helped President Bush build a new government eight years ago. "There are no papers, no books. You have computer equipment but there's nothing on there. You've got a telephone but you just sort of barely know what everybody else's phone number is."
Bush's White House started working nearly a year before Election Day to get the government in shape to be handed off. Aides to President-elect Obama also began planning before the voting, just in case their candidate won. But everything accelerates into overdrive now that the 77-day presidential transition clock has started ticking.
Everything on the daunting transition to-do list will certainly not be checked off by Jan. 20, when President-elect Obama walks through the door of the White House as President Obama. But much must be done, especially naming staff and officials.
Put aside that it's the first wartime presidential transition in 40 years and that the country is gripped by fierce economic troubles. Consider that only days after taking over the Oval office, Obama must present to Congress his first budget request for the entire government.
After 232 years, America can be quite quaint about the transfer of power from one administration to the next. Even when a different party is taking over, there are tried-and-true rituals to be indulged.
There's the White House meeting between the outgoing and incoming commander in chief, usually accompanied by a parallel confab between their spouses. This time it's taking place much sooner than is typical, Today will be less than a week after Election Day.
What White House spokesman Tony Fratto called "a very special meeting in our democracy" brings the new guy to the White House in a way he never has visited before. Obama will be treated to a tour of his new home and office with the eyes of someone about to move in, and with the man holding the secrets known by only the small club of presidents as his guide.
In other words, Obama will get to hear and see the good stuff: maybe the weapons cache hidden in the West Wing or classified communications capabilities or the instructions for summoning a cup of coffee. The president-elect gets to, in that hackneyed cliche of campaigns, actually measure the drapes.
Incidentally, one design item that might draw particular interest is the rug in the Oval Office.
Each new occupant gets to custom-design a new one. Bush frequently cites that duty as a) his first presidential decision and b) one that revealed something he believes central to his personal character and approach to leadership. As he likes to tell it, Bush delegated the rug-picking to his wife with orders to have it reflect optimism, so the cream-colored concoction that covers his floor resembles a sunburst.
Another transfer-of-power tradition is the remarkable chain of events prescribed for Inauguration Day. It could be called Moving Day on steroids.
The night before, the Bush White House staff will leave their offices for the last time, turning in badges and keys. They will be unable to get back into the White House unless for a crisis.
The next day, as soon as Bush leaves the White House to go to the Capitol to watch Obama take the oath, and while Obama rides in the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and sits in the reviewing stands outside his new residence, an army of workers will box up and cart off the Bush-related contents of the building, personal and professional. Obama's, likewise, are brought in.
As mandated by federal law, the institutional memory of the place is wiped almost entirely clean. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires that all documents leave the White House with the outgoing president, except some in the National Security Council and the counsel's office.
That's not to say there aren't cheat sheets -- lots of them -- to help the new team.
Bookshelves in the office of White House deputy chief of staff Blake Gottesman are now covered with thick three-inch binders. Four of them, the thickest, spell out in detail the most daunting task of any incoming White House -- choosing 7,840 presidential appointees, and shepherding the 1,177 of those that need Senate confirmation through the Capitol Hill process.
Some estimate that 40,000 people will flood the new White House with resumes for those jobs in the first few weeks, and 75,000 in the first few months. A hint of how huge the task is: No administration has had confirmed more than about 25 Cabinet and sub-Cabinet personnel by April 1 or more than about 240 by its eighth month.
An additional dozen or so binders fill a separate long cabinet in Gottesman's office, coming from each part of the Executive Office of the President, such as the press shop and the congressional liaison group.
In addition, the NSC has prepared extensive briefing materials on every global hot spot imaginable, complete with contingency options for several possible emergency scenarios, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the preparations. Bolten also said that members of Obama's staff will be invited to attend at least one "tabletop exercise" at the White House, a regular simulation of an emergency such as a terrorist attack or disease outbreak.
Obama's team started receiving information about key issues even before Election Day. Those briefings -- and efforts such as establishing side-by-side workspace for Treasury Department's $700 billion financial rescue program -- now are ramping up more each day.
Bolten said this earlier and more intense transition activity is crucial because of the dire times. The goal is something akin to a relay race, where "we are carrying the baton but the next runner will be running before we actually hand them that baton."
Bush aides are also under orders to leave the place tidy, and not repeat the acts of minor vandalism that slightly marred the transition from President Clinton to Bush.
"We will vacuum, we will clean our desks, we will take the gum out from under the conference tables," Bolten joked.
Obama's Heightened Security Turns Neighborhood Into Virtual Fortress
Secret Service has taken over once easy-going Chicago area where president-elect resides.
Reported By FoxNews
President-elect Barack Obama's Chicago neighborhood has become a very different place to live now that Secret Service agents have turned the once easy-going area into a virtual fortress to protect the next president, The Times of London reported.
Assassination fears surrounding Obama, codenamed "Renegade" by his security on the campaign trail, mean that he may become the most heavily guarded president in history. After months of shaking hands with strangers, the President-elect delivered his victory speech from behind bulletproof glass in Chicago's Grant Park.
Streets around his mock-Georgian mansion in enclave by the University of Chicago have been closed. The main thoroughfare has been shut down because it passes his yard.
Visitors to the synagogue that faces his house must put their names on a list 24 hours before they attend so that their identities can be checked.
"I live one block away. I get carded to go on my block," said Adrienne Stone, 33, a U.S. Air Force veteran. "I have become accustomed to the Secret Service being everywhere. I don't get a lot of sleep. There are helicopters overhead. But he deserves this. We have lost too many leaders before their time," she said.
The United States has seen the assassination of four presidents -- Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Eight others have survived attempts on their lives.
Reported By FoxNews
Reported By FoxNews
President-elect Barack Obama's Chicago neighborhood has become a very different place to live now that Secret Service agents have turned the once easy-going area into a virtual fortress to protect the next president, The Times of London reported.
Assassination fears surrounding Obama, codenamed "Renegade" by his security on the campaign trail, mean that he may become the most heavily guarded president in history. After months of shaking hands with strangers, the President-elect delivered his victory speech from behind bulletproof glass in Chicago's Grant Park.
Streets around his mock-Georgian mansion in enclave by the University of Chicago have been closed. The main thoroughfare has been shut down because it passes his yard.
Visitors to the synagogue that faces his house must put their names on a list 24 hours before they attend so that their identities can be checked.
"I live one block away. I get carded to go on my block," said Adrienne Stone, 33, a U.S. Air Force veteran. "I have become accustomed to the Secret Service being everywhere. I don't get a lot of sleep. There are helicopters overhead. But he deserves this. We have lost too many leaders before their time," she said.
The United States has seen the assassination of four presidents -- Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Eight others have survived attempts on their lives.
Reported By FoxNews
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Obama said of President Bush's First meeting, the president's demeanor turned downright frightening
Obama's account of the meeting in his second memoir, "The Audacity of Hope.
President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama are probably hoping their meeting Monday goes better than their first get-together, which left a bad taste in the mouths of both men.
Four years ago, Obama and other newly elected members of the Senate were invited to the White House for a breakfast meeting with Bush, who pulled the young Chicagoan aside.
"Obama!" Bush exclaimed, according to Obama's account of the meeting in his second memoir, "The Audacity of Hope." "Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours -- that's one impressive lady."
The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, "who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president's hand."
Bush then offered some to Obama, who recalled: "Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt."
The president then led Obama off to one side of the room, where Bush said: "I hope you don't mind me giving you a piece of advice."
"Not at all, Mr. President," Obama told the commander-in-chief.
"You've got a bright future," Bush said presciently. "Very bright. But I've been in this town awhile and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you've been getting, people start gunnin' for ya. And it won't necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody'll be waiting for you to slip, know what I mean? So watch yourself."
Bush then noted that he and Obama had something in common.
"We both had to debate Alan Keyes," the president said. "That guy's a piece of work, isn't he?"
Obama laughed and even "put my arm around his shoulder as we talked," he recalled, although he added the gesture "might have made many of my friends, not to mention the Secret Service agents in the room, more than a little uneasy."
Despite this display of bonhomie, Obama said the president's demeanor turned downright frightening when he laid out his agenda to the freshly minted lawmakers.
"Suddenly it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a switch," Obama wrote. "The president's eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders' wisdom in designating a system to keep power in check."
When I quoted from this passage to Bush during an Oval Office interview, the president seemed irritated to learn he had been taken to task by the senator he once counseled.
I thought I was actually showing some kindness," Bush said indignantly. "And out of that he came with this belief?"
The president added with a bit of a scowl: "He doesn't know me very well."
President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama are probably hoping their meeting Monday goes better than their first get-together, which left a bad taste in the mouths of both men.
Four years ago, Obama and other newly elected members of the Senate were invited to the White House for a breakfast meeting with Bush, who pulled the young Chicagoan aside.
"Obama!" Bush exclaimed, according to Obama's account of the meeting in his second memoir, "The Audacity of Hope." "Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours -- that's one impressive lady."
The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, "who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president's hand."
Bush then offered some to Obama, who recalled: "Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt."
The president then led Obama off to one side of the room, where Bush said: "I hope you don't mind me giving you a piece of advice."
"Not at all, Mr. President," Obama told the commander-in-chief.
"You've got a bright future," Bush said presciently. "Very bright. But I've been in this town awhile and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you've been getting, people start gunnin' for ya. And it won't necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody'll be waiting for you to slip, know what I mean? So watch yourself."
Bush then noted that he and Obama had something in common.
"We both had to debate Alan Keyes," the president said. "That guy's a piece of work, isn't he?"
Obama laughed and even "put my arm around his shoulder as we talked," he recalled, although he added the gesture "might have made many of my friends, not to mention the Secret Service agents in the room, more than a little uneasy."
Despite this display of bonhomie, Obama said the president's demeanor turned downright frightening when he laid out his agenda to the freshly minted lawmakers.
"Suddenly it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a switch," Obama wrote. "The president's eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders' wisdom in designating a system to keep power in check."
When I quoted from this passage to Bush during an Oval Office interview, the president seemed irritated to learn he had been taken to task by the senator he once counseled.
I thought I was actually showing some kindness," Bush said indignantly. "And out of that he came with this belief?"
The president added with a bit of a scowl: "He doesn't know me very well."
Farrakhan Says Obama Presidency Will Bring 'New Beginning'
Americans can expect a "new beginning" when Barack Obama officially takes over the White House, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said on Sunday.
Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan says the U.S. can expect a "new beginning" under the leadership of President-elect Barack Obama.
The 75-year-old is scheduled to make a speech on that topic Sunday at Mosque Maryam, the Chicago-based movement's headquarters.
The address is called "America's New Beginning: President-elect Barack Obama."
Farrakhan has praised Obama and publicly supported his bid for the White House, which Obama's campaign quickly denounced.
In February, Farrakhan called Obama the "hope of the entire world" that the U.S. will change for the better at a Chicago Saviours' Day event.
foxNews Reported
Reported 10/13/08 by True Facts News Louis Farrakhan Calls Obama the Messiah
Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan says the U.S. can expect a "new beginning" under the leadership of President-elect Barack Obama.
The 75-year-old is scheduled to make a speech on that topic Sunday at Mosque Maryam, the Chicago-based movement's headquarters.
The address is called "America's New Beginning: President-elect Barack Obama."
Farrakhan has praised Obama and publicly supported his bid for the White House, which Obama's campaign quickly denounced.
In February, Farrakhan called Obama the "hope of the entire world" that the U.S. will change for the better at a Chicago Saviours' Day event.
foxNews Reported
Reported 10/13/08 by True Facts News Louis Farrakhan Calls Obama the Messiah
Friday, November 07, 2008
Ralph Nader Calls Obama an Uncle Tom
Ralph Nader told a TV reporter that President-elect Barack Obama has to choose between being "Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations," a remark he refused to apologize for later in a heated interview later with Fox News' Shepard Smith.
Ralph Nader is a washed up far left wing wack case, with no class what-so-ever, to disagree with ones views or polices is one thing. but to call the First black President of the U.S a Uncle Tom is another.
Ralph Nader is a washed up far left wing wack case, with no class what-so-ever, to disagree with ones views or polices is one thing. but to call the First black President of the U.S a Uncle Tom is another.
Obama campaign workers angry over unpaid
Obama campaign workers angry over unpaid wages and the use of spreading the wealth when not getting all their money.
Indianapolis - Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd.
The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.
"I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!" yelled one former campaign worker.
A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and said people signed up to work three-hour shifts at a time. Three hours of canvassing got workers a $30 pre-paid Visa card.
The workers showed up to get their cards Wednesday morning at 10:00 am.
The large gathering of around 375 people prompted police to call in extra officers and set up temporary barricades. The barricades helped keep the crowd from spilling out onto Meridian Street. Police say the several hundred people in line were for the most part orderly.
"Still that's not right. I'm disappointed. I'm glad for the president, but I'm disappointed in this system," said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker.
"It should have been $480. It's $230," said Imani Sankofa.
"They gave us $10 an hour. So we added it. I added up all the hours so it was supposed to be at least $120. All I get is $90," said Charles Martin.
"I worked nine hours a day for 4 days and got paid half of what I should have earned," said Randall Waldon.
Some people weren't satisfied with filling out a claim form for money they felt was still due to them.
"They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don't know. We'll see what happens," said Antron Grose.
"Talking about they'll mail it to us. I ain't worried about that, man. They're not going to mail nothin'," said Martin.
Indianapolis - Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd.
The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.
"I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!" yelled one former campaign worker.
A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and said people signed up to work three-hour shifts at a time. Three hours of canvassing got workers a $30 pre-paid Visa card.
The workers showed up to get their cards Wednesday morning at 10:00 am.
The large gathering of around 375 people prompted police to call in extra officers and set up temporary barricades. The barricades helped keep the crowd from spilling out onto Meridian Street. Police say the several hundred people in line were for the most part orderly.
"Still that's not right. I'm disappointed. I'm glad for the president, but I'm disappointed in this system," said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker.
"It should have been $480. It's $230," said Imani Sankofa.
"They gave us $10 an hour. So we added it. I added up all the hours so it was supposed to be at least $120. All I get is $90," said Charles Martin.
"I worked nine hours a day for 4 days and got paid half of what I should have earned," said Randall Waldon.
Some people weren't satisfied with filling out a claim form for money they felt was still due to them.
"They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don't know. We'll see what happens," said Antron Grose.
"Talking about they'll mail it to us. I ain't worried about that, man. They're not going to mail nothin'," said Martin.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Obama Bought White House for $650 Million
Reported By News Max
By: Jim Meyers
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign smashed all previous fundraising records, raking in more than an astounding $650 million from some 3 million donors and giving him a huge advantage over rival John McCain.
But questions abound regarding the legality of many of the donations that helped propel him to victory.
And one question is: Did Obama “buy” the election?
Obama’s fundraising haul was more than twice the amount Democrat John Kerry raised in 2004, and more than twice what George Bush and Al Gore combined brought in during the 2000 presidential campaign.
“Nobody could have imagined numbers like this or participation like this,” veteran fundraiser Alan Solomont told Bloomberg.com.
Obama’s fundraising effort was in high gear from the very start, bringing in $24.8 million for the primary during the first three months of 2007, compared to $19.1 million for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
By the end of 2007, Obama had raised $102 million. He won the Iowa primary on Jan. 3, 2008, and raised another $36 million that month.
Almost half of Obama’s money came from people donating $200 or less, compared with 34 percent for McCain, Bloomberg reported.
Obama on two occasions promised to work with McCain on an agreement to accept public financing. McCain did accept public financing, limiting his ability to raise private donations, but in June Obama reneged on his vows, enabling him to raise unlimited amounts from donors.
The press by and large did not hold Obama accountable for the broken promises. But McCain sharply criticized him, saying: “Twice he looked the American people in the eye and said he would sit down with me before he abandoned public financing. He didn’t mean a word of it. When it was in his interest to break his promise, he tossed it aside like it didn’t mean a thing.”
Obama’s fundraising “revolutionized the way presidential campaigns are financed and may kill the Watergate-era system of providing public money for the general election,” Bloomberg observed.
Free to raise unlimited funds, Obama’s campaign brought in at least $200 million in September and October, more than doubling the amount available to McCain.
Obama’s huge edge in finances enabled him to devote nearly three times as much as McCain to advertising, with the Democrat spending $21.5 million to McCain’s $7.5 million from Oct. 21 to Oct. 28 as Election Day neared.
On the day before the election, Obama ran 3,410 ads in seven competitive states, while McCain ran only 1,900.
Obama also far outspent McCain on staff salaries, helping him to open field offices and fund a get-out-the-vote effort.
But an investigation by Newsmax correspondent Kenneth R. Timmerman has uncovered numerous examples of questionable donations, including those originating from foreign sources in apparent violation of laws forbidding candidates from accepting foreign money.
On Sept. 29, Timmerman first disclosed that more than half of the $426.9 million Obama had raised at that point came from small donors whose names the Obama campaign would not disclose — making it impossible to verify that donors were not surpassing the $2,300 an individual can contribute to a candidate for the general election.
The Federal Election Commission cited a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Tex. A Newsmax analysis of the master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, totaling $17,375.
Similarly, a donor identified as “Pro, Doodad” gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations. The donor listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.” Some of Doodad Pro’s donations were refunded by the campaign, but as of Sept. 20 more than $11,000 had not been returned.
Timmerman disclosed that the FEC compiled a database of potentially questionable overseas donations totaling $3.38 million. The funds came from such places as Abu Dhabi, Beijing, and Ethiopia.
In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a speech in which he claimed foreign nationals were contributing to Obama’s campaign.
Timmerman also reported that donors from the Gaza Strip had contributed $33,000 to the Obama campaign through the purchase of Obama T-shirts they had shipped to Gaza.
Timmerman published a new report on Oct. 8, disclosing that an investigation of Obama’s campaign finance reports turned up more than 2,000 cases in which individuals made donations far above the legal limit of $2,300 per election.
For example, in August the campaign filed a report listing a single donation from a Debra Myers in “Rancho Palos Verde, Calif.,” for $28,500, and a $28,500 contribution from a donor identified as Woodrow Myers Jr.
The Obama campaign said it had refunded both donations on Sept. 30, the day after Newsmax published Timmerman’s first report.
Timmerman followed up with a new report on Oct. 19, disclosing that more than 37,000 Obama donations appeared to be conversions of foreign currency, totaling as much as $63 million.
The red flag was the odd amounts donated by a number of suspected foreign donors. One contributor gave $188.67, $1,542.06, $876.09, $388.67, $282.20, $195.66, and $118.15.
“They are obviously converting from local currency to U.S. dollars,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center.
On Oct. 21, Timmerman revealed that the Obama campaign had accepted contributions from donors identifying themselves as King Kong, Daffy Duck, and Bart Simpson — without any apparent effort by the campaign to screen them out as suspect donors.
An individual using the name “O.J. Simpson” donated to the campaign on Oct. 14, giving his occupation as “convict.” The campaign sent O.J. a thank-you note.
Other donors with clearly fictitious names include “Dertey Poiiuy,” “Mong Kong,” “Fornari USA,” and “jkbkj Hbkjb.”
Timmerman reported on Oct. 29: “A Newsmax investigation of Obama/Biden campaign contributors, undertaken in conjunction with a private investigative firm headed by a former CIA operations officer, has identified 118 donors who appear to lack U.S. citizenship.
“Some of these ‘red flag’ donors work for foreign governments; others have made public statements declaring that they are citizens of Cameroun, Nigeria, Pakistan, Canada, and other countries.”
Frederick W. Rustmann Jr., the former CIA operations officer, told Newsmax: “Hillary and McCain demanded proof of citizenship of all their donors. Obama did not, so he benefitted by receiving an enormous amount of money from foreign donors who wanted to influence the U.S. election process.”
The conservative Heritage Foundation has taken the first step in what could be an in-depth investigation of Obama’s fundraising efforts, demanding that the FEC audit the Obama campaign.
The foundation issued a release on Tuesday declaring: “No doubt there is great ‘cause’ to be concerned about Obama’s fundraising effort.”
The foundation also pointed to a test by the independent National Journal to determine the veracity of allegations that the Democrat’s online fundraising system literally was designed to facilitate fraud.
By: Jim Meyers
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign smashed all previous fundraising records, raking in more than an astounding $650 million from some 3 million donors and giving him a huge advantage over rival John McCain.
But questions abound regarding the legality of many of the donations that helped propel him to victory.
And one question is: Did Obama “buy” the election?
Obama’s fundraising haul was more than twice the amount Democrat John Kerry raised in 2004, and more than twice what George Bush and Al Gore combined brought in during the 2000 presidential campaign.
“Nobody could have imagined numbers like this or participation like this,” veteran fundraiser Alan Solomont told Bloomberg.com.
Obama’s fundraising effort was in high gear from the very start, bringing in $24.8 million for the primary during the first three months of 2007, compared to $19.1 million for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
By the end of 2007, Obama had raised $102 million. He won the Iowa primary on Jan. 3, 2008, and raised another $36 million that month.
Almost half of Obama’s money came from people donating $200 or less, compared with 34 percent for McCain, Bloomberg reported.
Obama on two occasions promised to work with McCain on an agreement to accept public financing. McCain did accept public financing, limiting his ability to raise private donations, but in June Obama reneged on his vows, enabling him to raise unlimited amounts from donors.
The press by and large did not hold Obama accountable for the broken promises. But McCain sharply criticized him, saying: “Twice he looked the American people in the eye and said he would sit down with me before he abandoned public financing. He didn’t mean a word of it. When it was in his interest to break his promise, he tossed it aside like it didn’t mean a thing.”
Obama’s fundraising “revolutionized the way presidential campaigns are financed and may kill the Watergate-era system of providing public money for the general election,” Bloomberg observed.
Free to raise unlimited funds, Obama’s campaign brought in at least $200 million in September and October, more than doubling the amount available to McCain.
Obama’s huge edge in finances enabled him to devote nearly three times as much as McCain to advertising, with the Democrat spending $21.5 million to McCain’s $7.5 million from Oct. 21 to Oct. 28 as Election Day neared.
On the day before the election, Obama ran 3,410 ads in seven competitive states, while McCain ran only 1,900.
Obama also far outspent McCain on staff salaries, helping him to open field offices and fund a get-out-the-vote effort.
But an investigation by Newsmax correspondent Kenneth R. Timmerman has uncovered numerous examples of questionable donations, including those originating from foreign sources in apparent violation of laws forbidding candidates from accepting foreign money.
On Sept. 29, Timmerman first disclosed that more than half of the $426.9 million Obama had raised at that point came from small donors whose names the Obama campaign would not disclose — making it impossible to verify that donors were not surpassing the $2,300 an individual can contribute to a candidate for the general election.
The Federal Election Commission cited a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Tex. A Newsmax analysis of the master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, totaling $17,375.
Similarly, a donor identified as “Pro, Doodad” gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations. The donor listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.” Some of Doodad Pro’s donations were refunded by the campaign, but as of Sept. 20 more than $11,000 had not been returned.
Timmerman disclosed that the FEC compiled a database of potentially questionable overseas donations totaling $3.38 million. The funds came from such places as Abu Dhabi, Beijing, and Ethiopia.
In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a speech in which he claimed foreign nationals were contributing to Obama’s campaign.
Timmerman also reported that donors from the Gaza Strip had contributed $33,000 to the Obama campaign through the purchase of Obama T-shirts they had shipped to Gaza.
Timmerman published a new report on Oct. 8, disclosing that an investigation of Obama’s campaign finance reports turned up more than 2,000 cases in which individuals made donations far above the legal limit of $2,300 per election.
For example, in August the campaign filed a report listing a single donation from a Debra Myers in “Rancho Palos Verde, Calif.,” for $28,500, and a $28,500 contribution from a donor identified as Woodrow Myers Jr.
The Obama campaign said it had refunded both donations on Sept. 30, the day after Newsmax published Timmerman’s first report.
Timmerman followed up with a new report on Oct. 19, disclosing that more than 37,000 Obama donations appeared to be conversions of foreign currency, totaling as much as $63 million.
The red flag was the odd amounts donated by a number of suspected foreign donors. One contributor gave $188.67, $1,542.06, $876.09, $388.67, $282.20, $195.66, and $118.15.
“They are obviously converting from local currency to U.S. dollars,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center.
On Oct. 21, Timmerman revealed that the Obama campaign had accepted contributions from donors identifying themselves as King Kong, Daffy Duck, and Bart Simpson — without any apparent effort by the campaign to screen them out as suspect donors.
An individual using the name “O.J. Simpson” donated to the campaign on Oct. 14, giving his occupation as “convict.” The campaign sent O.J. a thank-you note.
Other donors with clearly fictitious names include “Dertey Poiiuy,” “Mong Kong,” “Fornari USA,” and “jkbkj Hbkjb.”
Timmerman reported on Oct. 29: “A Newsmax investigation of Obama/Biden campaign contributors, undertaken in conjunction with a private investigative firm headed by a former CIA operations officer, has identified 118 donors who appear to lack U.S. citizenship.
“Some of these ‘red flag’ donors work for foreign governments; others have made public statements declaring that they are citizens of Cameroun, Nigeria, Pakistan, Canada, and other countries.”
Frederick W. Rustmann Jr., the former CIA operations officer, told Newsmax: “Hillary and McCain demanded proof of citizenship of all their donors. Obama did not, so he benefitted by receiving an enormous amount of money from foreign donors who wanted to influence the U.S. election process.”
The conservative Heritage Foundation has taken the first step in what could be an in-depth investigation of Obama’s fundraising efforts, demanding that the FEC audit the Obama campaign.
The foundation issued a release on Tuesday declaring: “No doubt there is great ‘cause’ to be concerned about Obama’s fundraising effort.”
The foundation also pointed to a test by the independent National Journal to determine the veracity of allegations that the Democrat’s online fundraising system literally was designed to facilitate fraud.
Obama's WhiteHouse Dog,Your Pick
Obama is looking for a dog as he makes his way to Pennsylvania Ave, please choose one then tell us why that dog would make a great pet for Obama, then leave your comment at the end of this article.
Archie-----Barracuda----Buster -----Daisy --------Elwood-------Grover----- Gus
Princess ------Rascal --------Reggie---------Xino--------Tiger--------Fran
Which Best Fits The Obama Family
Archie-----Barracuda----Buster -----Daisy --------Elwood-------Grover----- Gus
Princess ------Rascal --------Reggie---------Xino--------Tiger--------Fran
Which Best Fits The Obama Family
January’s 2009 Agenda for Democrats starts with the Elimination of your 401K
Powerful House Democrats in July 2008 were eyeing new proposals to overhaul the nation's $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute. Under the plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government. The employee would be limited to max 5% investment of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would offer a lousy 3 percent return a year, adjusted for inflation. The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated. With the majority in the House and Senate in control by the Democrats, this program will be on Priority Fast Track.
Well it appears the democrats are following in the same steps as the cash-strapped Argentina (socialist system )who just did it in the name of protecting workers' retirement accounts.
This plan was originally proposed by Theresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, and presented to Miller and McDermott last july 2008 at a House hearing.
Obama did promised to solve this problem by making "rich people" pay more into Social Security while reducing their benefits, transforming a retirement plan into a wealth transfer plan.
In one move, the hated private market would be deprived of the capital that makes "capitalism" possible, and the government would have the money to fund the massive expansion of government programs, subsidies and tax "cuts" promised by Barack Obama.
Well it appears the democrats are following in the same steps as the cash-strapped Argentina (socialist system )who just did it in the name of protecting workers' retirement accounts.
This plan was originally proposed by Theresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, and presented to Miller and McDermott last july 2008 at a House hearing.
Obama did promised to solve this problem by making "rich people" pay more into Social Security while reducing their benefits, transforming a retirement plan into a wealth transfer plan.
In one move, the hated private market would be deprived of the capital that makes "capitalism" possible, and the government would have the money to fund the massive expansion of government programs, subsidies and tax "cuts" promised by Barack Obama.
U.S. Stocks Tumbles 486 Points after a Historic Presidential Election of Barack Obama
The stock market posted its biggest plunge following a Presidential Election, with euphoria vanishing into a cloud of negativity. its worst post-election plunge on record. In the aftermath of an election there is often a bounce in terms of confidence. Those that supported the winner are in a good mood and most of the public greets the new leadership with a mix of hope. These voters are now back to their normal duties as consumers and workers and now they want some justification for feeling positive. But this year has been different. There was no incumbent running this time and thus no authority figure pulling out all the stops. Both the candidates attacked the policies of the past and essentially neutralized the messages from the White House while Congress spent most of its energy distancing itself from the very actions it was being forced to take.
The Jimmy Carter Presidency tried "tough love" and tried to tell people just how bad things were. He became noted for his downbeat assessments and calls for people to sacrifice. His successor was Ronald Reagan who approached his Presidency as one in which he needed to inspire and motivate. The US population tends to respond better to the inspirational message.
President-Elect Obama needs to act fast, and with a message that starts to reverse the negative attitudes without sugar coating anything. The two most important actions the President-elect Obama could take would be to choose the economic team that will manage the economy and start making remarks that serve to rally the consumer that is fearful and paralyzed by a there future.
The Jimmy Carter Presidency tried "tough love" and tried to tell people just how bad things were. He became noted for his downbeat assessments and calls for people to sacrifice. His successor was Ronald Reagan who approached his Presidency as one in which he needed to inspire and motivate. The US population tends to respond better to the inspirational message.
President-Elect Obama needs to act fast, and with a message that starts to reverse the negative attitudes without sugar coating anything. The two most important actions the President-elect Obama could take would be to choose the economic team that will manage the economy and start making remarks that serve to rally the consumer that is fearful and paralyzed by a there future.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Historic Obama Election Nov 4, 2008
Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States, this historic election made U.S History. The first African American, a 47-year-old man from the state of Illinois. His 52.1% majority has given him a mandate for his change message, although we as Americans are still unsure what this will mean in regards to foreign policy or economic policy. When President Bill Clinton ran and won he too promised tax cuts for the middle class but once he took office the first thing he did was cut the capital gains tax, and not give the tax cuts that were promised during the primary. President-Elect Obama will need to get an eye opener once he takes office in January 2009. Obama will be the new Teflon President because certain segments of the Media, and our population will give him a pass on everything does. Barack Obama's Senior Advisers have already drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency amid at concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harboring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.
Like this supporter below
The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of "hope" and "change" are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy. His own Senior adviser has already stated that the first few weeks of the transition, and immediately after the election, is critical, "so there's not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair." The Senior aide stated "The first hundred days is going to be important, but it's probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference," he said. He (Obama) has also been reminding crowds in recent days how "hard" it will be to achieve his goals, and that it will take time.Obama with one eye looking at his re-election bid 2012, and the other eye on the Senate and House mid-term elections in 2010, will have too lead from the center to keep his Democratic liberal Senate and House in check, as to not upset the apple cart with Voters. But that will be hard with the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
As for The Republican Party's role,they will rebuild in the shadow of the frustrations of the Obama presidency, so Republicans must go down to their grass roots, get in touch with their base and rebuild an opportunity to win national elections.
Election Night Transcript of Speech Barack Obama Nov. 4th 2008
BARACK OBAMA: Hello, Chicago.
(APPLAUSE)
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
(APPLAUSE)
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.
(APPLAUSE)
A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.
I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.
(APPLAUSE)
I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton...
(APPLAUSE)
... and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.
(APPLAUSE)
And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years...
(APPLAUSE)
... the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady...
(APPLAUSE)
... Michelle Obama.
(APPLAUSE)
Sasha and Malia...
(APPLAUSE)
... I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us...
(LAUGHTER)
... to the new White House.
(APPLAUSE)
And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother's watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.
To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you've given me. I am grateful to them.
(APPLAUSE)
And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe...
(APPLAUSE)
... the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
To my chief strategist David Axelrod...
(APPLAUSE)
... who's been a partner with me every step of the way. To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics...
(APPLAUSE)
... you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done. But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.
I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.
It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy...
(APPLAUSE)
... who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.
It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.
This is your victory.
(APPLAUSE)
And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.
You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.
There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education.
There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.
I promise you, we as a people will get there.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!
OBAMA: There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.
This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.
It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.
Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
(APPLAUSE)
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.
(APPLAUSE)
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
(APPLAUSE)
To those -- to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.
(APPLAUSE)
That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
(APPLAUSE)
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.
And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.
Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see?
What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.
This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
(APPLAUSE)
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.
(APPLAUSE)
A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.
I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.
(APPLAUSE)
I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton...
(APPLAUSE)
... and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.
(APPLAUSE)
And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years...
(APPLAUSE)
... the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady...
(APPLAUSE)
... Michelle Obama.
(APPLAUSE)
Sasha and Malia...
(APPLAUSE)
... I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us...
(LAUGHTER)
... to the new White House.
(APPLAUSE)
And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother's watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.
To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you've given me. I am grateful to them.
(APPLAUSE)
And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe...
(APPLAUSE)
... the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
To my chief strategist David Axelrod...
(APPLAUSE)
... who's been a partner with me every step of the way. To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics...
(APPLAUSE)
... you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done. But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.
I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.
It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy...
(APPLAUSE)
... who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.
It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.
This is your victory.
(APPLAUSE)
And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.
You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.
There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education.
There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.
The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.
I promise you, we as a people will get there.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!
OBAMA: There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.
This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.
It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.
Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
(APPLAUSE)
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.
(APPLAUSE)
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
(APPLAUSE)
To those -- to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.
(APPLAUSE)
That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
(APPLAUSE)
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.
And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.
Yes we can.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
OBAMA: America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see?
What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.
This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
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