Obama's Sixtieth Week in Office

The U.S. is destined to endure a new economic crisis that sticks taxpayers with the bill unless Congress tightens oversight of the financial industry, Obama said Saturday.

Market Drops on SEC Filing vs. Goldman Sachs

The SEC has filed civil charges against Goldman Sachs and its banker Fabrice Tourre for its role in structuring subprime mortgages, which it structured at the behest of hedge funders like John Paulson

The government has accused Goldman Sachs & Co. of defrauding investors by failing to disclose conflicts of interest in mortgage investments it sold as the housing market was faltering.

In his self-styled war against Wall Street, President Obama appears to have a powerful ally: Goldman Sachs.The nation's largest investment bank, famously cozy with top government officials in both parties, has tipped its hand to its shareholders, indicating that major financial "reform" proposals will help Goldman's bottom line."Given that much of the financial contagion was fueled by uncertainty about counterparties' balance sheets," Goldman Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and President Gary Cohn wrote in a letter at the beginning of the annual report, "we support measures that would require higher capital and liquidity levels, as well as the use of clearinghouses for standardized derivative transactions.

The List" for 4/16/2010

First Lady Says Mexico Still Safe for Travel

Obama said on Friday his administration would shift its focus to climate and energy legislation after finishing financial regulatory reform, which he said would take a few more weeks.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told officials from more than 32 Western Hemisphere nations on Thursday that the United States is looking to those nations to develop better energy policies and practices. “For our part, we believe the United States has a lot to learn,” Clinton said at the Energy and Climate Ministerial of the Americas in Washington.

Kenyan Parlament restores March 25, 2010 minutes declaring Obama born in Kenya

MSNBC space reporter: No NASA workers allowed at Obama's speech yesterday

Speaking at a dinner attended by the ambassadors of Israel and several Arab states, Mrs Clinton urged Israel to "refrain from unilateral statements and actions" that could undermine peace.

Obama is weighing the possibility of submitting a new American Middle East peace plan by this fall, senior Washington officials told the Washington Post

Obama Muslim outreach: At month's end, the U.S. government will play host to some 500 mainly Muslim business people for intensive seminars on entrepreneurship.

Another devastating consequence of the Obama administration's major government expansion: charity organizations will likely experience additional major decline in contributions. The new budget proposal would scale back charitable deductions for families making over $250,000

The United States reversed policy on Wednesday and said it would back launching talks on a treaty to regulate arms sales as long as the talks operated by consensus, a stance critics said gave every nation a veto.

The White House ripped CBS News for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions that possible supreme court nominee, Elena Kagan, is gay

Obama: "change beginning to take hold"

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Pentagon has "no interest in hiding anything" on last year's mass shooting at Fort Hood. Gates told reporters on Friday that the military will supply Congress with information so long as it doesn't impact the prosecution case.

Leaders of the Senate’s principal oversight committee are accusing the Obama administration of stonewalling an investigation they have been conducting into the background to the deadly shootings at the Ft. Hood military base last Nov. 5, for which Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan was arrested and charged

Michelle Obama: favors diversity on the nation's top court

Navy restores access to Fox news after hours offline

Members of the U.S. Navy were blocked Friday from gaining access to Fox News' Web site

Obama "amused" by massive protests against him

VIDEO: Obama talks of the Tea Partiers: "You'd think they'd be saying thank you"

Clinton: The U.S. won't impose peace deal on Israel

Obama's Sixty Fourth Week in Office

The List" for 4/15/2010

Obama Gaffes on Video

Obama is issuing a directive he says will make it easier for hospital patients, particularly gays and lesbians, to receive visitors and choose who will make medical decisions on their behalf. Obama is asking the Health and Human Services secretary to begin the process of putting in place federal rules to ensure that hospitals respect the rights of patients to designate visitors. The order covers hospitals receiving Medicare or Medicaid.

Gates Approves Tighter Gun Restrictions After Ft. Hood Shooting; Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed off on a new policy regulating how privately owned guns can be carried or stored on U.S. military installations.

President Obama said Thursday he’s amused by the anti-tax tea party protests that have been taking place around Tax Day. Obama told a fundraiser in Miami that he’s cut taxes, contrary to the claims of protesters. “You would think they’d be saying thank you,” he said.

Obama hit back at claims that the US had stalled in Afghanistan and vowed foreign forces would not be needed "in perpetuity", in a rare Australian TV interview

Taliban militants on Thursday claimed victory after the US military withdrew this week from a rebel-infested area in eastern Afghanistan that became known as the "Valley of Death".

Kenyan Parliament website scrubs November 2008 Minutes which confirm Obama as “son of this soil”

Obama predicted Thursday his new space exploration plan would lead Americans beyond the moon and to Mars within his lifetime. "I expect to be around to see it," he declared. --Obama sought to explain why he aborted President George W. Bush's return-to-the moon plan in favor of a complicated system of public-and-private flights that would go elsewhere in space, with details still to be worked out."We've been there before," Obama said of the nation's moon landings decades ago. "There's a lot more of space to explore."

Obama seeks to reassure NASA backers that space exploration is 'not an afterthought'

Spain has agreed to resettle four more Guantanamo Bay prison inmates, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday, in addition to a detainee from the Palestinian Territories transferred to Spain earlier this year.

The Internal Revenue Service won't audit you to make sure you have purchased health insurance under provisions of the new health-care law--but it may withhold your tax refund if you can't demonstrate that you are insured, an IRS official said Thursday.

Attorney General Eric Holder failed to comply with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights's deadline to report whether the DOJ will allow its employees to testify in the commission's investigation of the DOJ's extraordinary decision to drop its prosecution of Black Panther Party members who menaced voters at the polls on Election Day 2008.

The U.S. Army says a surgeon who has publicly refused to follow any further orders until he sees documentation that Barack Obama is eligible to be president is being "reassigned" at Walter Reed Army Hospital after he refused to deploy to Afghanistan as scheduled.

Obama to bankers, "“My administration,is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

Letter by AIPAC to Hillary Clinton, link to signatories

On Tuesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, pro-Israel lobbying group, publicized letters to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, signed by 76 senators and 333 House members, that implored the administration to defuse tensions.

The List" for 4/14/2010

The chairman of the FCC, Julius Genechowski, told a Congressional panel on Wednesday that a recent court ruling that the agency lacked authority to regulate the Internet should not prevent it from carrying out its plan to broadly expand the country’s high-speed Internet service.

World Jewish Congress Calls Out Obama- “Appeasement Does Not Work!” -Full Page Ad

VIDEO: Japan TV airs clip of Obama's bow to Chinese leader. Calls Obama "Biggest Loser"

Obama has told French President Nicolas Sarkozy that he is determined to keep the pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to renew peace talks and implement confidence-building measures. Obama made his comments despite potential political damage at home ahead of the mid-term congressional elections in November

A day after three former astronauts derided President Obama’s space policy, the White House is firing back. In an email sent Wednesday afternoon from the White House press office, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin applauded the president’s “boldness” and changes to NASA’s human spaceflight missions

Former New York Gov. George Pataki announced Wednesday the creation of a national organization working to repeal Obamacare

Obama administration says support of Israel to be 'balanced against other interests

White House: Stimulus showered Billions on taxpayers- Last winter's economic stimulus bill has put billions of dollars into taxpayers' pockets and the economy this spring, the White House plans to say in a report out today from the Council of Economic Advisers. The report, coming a day before the April 15 tax deadline, says the law has delivered more than $200 billion in tax relief and other direct benefits, mostly to middle- and lower-income families. More than $70 billion was paid in the past three months.

The Obama administration doesn't know yet where it's going to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is developing an action plan that will focus on reducing health disparities between minority and white populations

Republican congressional leaders are criticizing President Barack Obama for bulldozing them on financial regulatory legislation. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) exited a White House meeting on the issue Wednesday and charged that the White House had ordered Democratic senators to pull out of bipartisan talks on an issue where Democrats believe they have the advantage. “They wanted to jam us,” said McConnell, whose message to Obama was allow negotiators back to the table.

Attorney General Eric Holder says the U.S. would like to capture and interrogate Osama bin Laden, but he still expects the al-Qaida leader won't be taken alive.

Obama said Wednesday that Democrats' efforts to regulate Wall Street will not result in new public bailouts of banks, as Republicans have charged. Obama also said he wants greater federal oversight of derivatives—investment products that contributed to the nation's financial meltdown

Obama and Congressional Democrats have enacted into law gross tax increases totaling more than $670 billion, or more than $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the United States

The Obama administration's embattled mortgage aid plan is coming under fresh criticism from a government watchdog who says the program is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars simply to delay -- rather than prevent -- foreclosures. In the last year, the Treasury Department's $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has been blasted by Democrats, Republicans and watchdogs alike. Despite a flurry of recent changes to the program, the Congressional Oversight Panel, chaired by Harvard Prof Elizabeth Warren, outlines a slew of criticisms in a new report to be released today.

Obama will outline a revamped space policy on Thursday that will use $6 billion in new funding over five years to create 2,500 new jobs in Florida with the ultimate goal of going to Mars.

Obama revises plans for NASA. He brings back "space capsule" program, considers a few more space shuttle flights and saving 25,000 NASA jobs after cutting 75,000. Thinks about going to Mars, but not to the moon.

NASA announced that it signed a contract with the Russian space agency to shuttle US astronauts to the orbiting International Space Station.

The List" for 4/13/2010

Chinese President Hu Jintao rebuffed Obama's call to re-value China's currency, telling President Obama that any tinkering with the yuan will be done by Beijing in accord with domestic interests

Obama snubs leader from Georgia at Nuclear summit

The first man to walk on the moon blasted President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel NASA’s back-to-the-moon program on Tuesday, saying that the move is “devastating” to America’s space effort.

VIDEO: Obama: "Whether We Like It or Not, We Remain a Dominant Military Superpower"

Obama's disregard for media reaches new heights at nuclear summit, The only part of the summit, other than a post-meeting news conference, that was visible to the public was Obama's eight-minute opening statement, which ended with the words: "I'm going to ask that we take a few moments to allow the press to exit before our first session."

Patrick Gaspard, political director of the White House is still on the SEIU payroll. He made $37,191 from SEIU chapter 1199 in the 2009.

Obamacare socks middle class with $3.9 billion tax increase

Justice Department Appeals ACORN Ruling

Experts warn there won't be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under Obamacare

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said it would reject any moves by the Obama administration to set its own timeline and benchmarks for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, potentially establishing a new fault line between the U.S. and Israel.

Obama Attends Non-Existent Soccer Game

The List" for 4/12/2010

Obamacare costs more: Insurance premiums will rise under the new health-care legislation because people will opt for more expensive procedures, Aetna CEO and Chairman Ron Williams told CNBC.

NYT: ObamaCare may have accidentally stripped Congress of health coverage

Real personal income for Americans - excluding government payouts such as Social Security - has fallen by 3.2 percent since President Obama took office in January 2009, according to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Obama bows to the Chinese communist leader

Obama Supported Filibuster of Alito

The Obama administration's top science and technology official, ... White House Science 'Czar' Tells Students: U.S. Can't Expect to Be Number One in ... “We can't expect to be number one in everything indefinitely.

Obamacare fallout: The Congressional Budget Office, which provides Congress with official cost estimates for legislation, predicts a net long-term decline in employer-provided insurance as more people buy coverage from insurance exchanges.

Obamacare cancels new hospitals: More than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the country that were in the development stage will be canceled, said Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA).

Renovation companies nationwide are preparing for a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate beginning April 22 and local experts say homeowners should be prepared to see a higher bill because of it. According to the EPA’s new Renovation Repair and Paint rule, beginning on April 22 builders performing renovation, repair and painting projects that disturb lead-based paint in homes, child care facilities and schools built before 1978 must be EPA certified and must follow specific work practices to prevent lead contamination. This will increase the cost of remodeling a home that was built before 1978

The FBI destroyed a file on Barack Obama's grandfather, the man who selected Communist Frank Marshall Davis to be the future president's mentor during his growing-up years in Hawaii. "The FBI confirms that a file was maintained on Obama's grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham," states Cliff Kincaid, the journalist who runs the public policy group, America's Survival, Inc. (ASI). "This is a troubling development in the effort to understand the Marxism that drives Obama's policies as president today." In correspondence with Kincaid, available at www.usasurvival.org, the FBI says the file was destroyed in 1997. The FBI made the admission after Kincaid complied with a request to verify the identity of Dunham and the fact that he was deceased.

Obama cap and trade bill would allow for warrantless search and seizure

Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett: Although neither elected, nor confirmed, nor even vetted, and without previous Washington experience, Jarrett has been installed as senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental and public engagement. She also was given the recently created Office of Urban Affairs, even though we have a cabinet member who is Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Now it appears she is involved in our nation’s foreign policy.

VIDEO: Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin says Obama deficit reduction numbers way off

Heroes of the Apollo 13 Moon mission have called on the public to help to save America’s manned spaceflight programme as President Obama prepares to defend his plans to scrap it.

The List" for 4/11/2010

Kenya Parliament (National Assembly, James Orengo) admits that President Barack Obama born in Kenya.

While Obama blocks weapons sales to Israel while arming the surrounding Arab states with billions in new sophisticated weapons; example- Israel’s request for six AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters was blocked by the Obama Administration in June — the same time the Egyptian sale was approved,” the JINSA report stated.

Obama is marking Holocost Remembrance Day with a statement honoring the memory of "those who endured the horrors" of the Nazi atrocities of WWII , but it isn't important enough to mention on the the whitehouse.gov website

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag is arguing that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) underestimates the savings from President Barack Obama's healthcare bill.

Even as Obama met Sunday with a succession of global leaders to discuss better control of nuclear materials, his administration highlighted a seemingly dissimilar message: The U.S. nuclear arsenal remains as strong as ever.

The Obama administration backs somewhat from it's no-nukes stance- Obama's revised the nuclear policy says that the United States will not use nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical or biological attack from a non-nuclear country. Clinton - "If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off."

Attorney General Eric Holder has intervened in a federal conspiracy and murder trial to order prosecutors not to seek the death penalty for three El Salvadoran men who are illegal aliens. The three robbed and shot Claros Luna on July 29, 2009, in Alexandria, Va., according to police. The crime occurred just a few miles from the Justice Department as Luna transported a prostitute from Maryland to Virginia,

French President Nicolas Sarkozy as stating that President Barack Obama is “a dangerous[ly] aliéné”, which translates into his, Obama, being a “mad lunatic”, or in the American vernacular, “insane”. According to this report, Sarkozy was “appalled” at Obama’s “vision” of what the World should be under his “guidance” and “amazed” at the American Presidents unwillingness to listen to either “reason” or “logic”. Sarkozy’s meeting where these impressions of Obama were formed took place nearly a fortnight ago at the White House in Washington D.C., and upon his leaving he “scolded” Obama and the US for not listening closely enough to what the rest of the