tagged w/ President Barack Obama
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When the Nobel Committee awarded its annual peace prize to President Barack Obama, it afforded him a golden opportunity seldom offered to American war presidents: the possibility of success. Should he decide to go the peacemaker route, Obama stands a chance of really accomplishing something significant. On the other hand, history suggests that the path of war is a surefire loser. As president after president has discovered, especially since World War II, the U.S. military simply can't seal the deal on winning a war.When the Nobel Committee awarded its annual peace prize to President Barack Obama, it... more
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The military can comply with a White House order to empty the detention center and clear all 221 war-on-terror captives off this remote base "with 10 days notice,'' the prison camps commander said Tuesday.
Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman said in an interview that his 2,100-member team of guards and other support staff can meet President Barack Obama's Jan. 22 closure deadline right through the eighth anniversary of the establishment of the controversial prison camps.
"If they say on Jan. 12, 'Move them out,' we can meet the deadline,'' he said, "given the proper amount of logistical support.''
He ticked off such requirements as enough airplanes to move them elsewhere and ferry runs across the bay that separates the prison camps from the Navy base landing strip where C-17 Globemaster aircraft shuttle the captives away.
More @ linkThe military can comply with a White House order to empty the detention center and... more
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A nod to human rights with renewed sanctions and condemnation of “genocide,” another to the regime with incentives for cooperation—the new Sudan policy is classic Obama. Eliza Griswold on whether the middle line will work.
After months of contentious deliberation over U.S. policy in Sudan, President Obama has announced his administration’s long-awaited position on the largest country in Africa. In a statement released on Monday, Obama said…well, not very much, really. Carefully calibrated not to further enrage the Khartoum regime or the human rights activists irate over the softening approach the Obama administration has appeared to be taking on Sudan, the president’s missive offered a nod to both.
The Obama administration calls Darfur a “genocide” while offering to engage with the regime that perpetrated it. Middle ground or no, that’s a difficult line for anyone—even Obama—to pursue.
In one breath, Obama called Darfur an unqualified “genocide” and announced the U.S. would renew the sanctions, called the “national emergency,” now in place against Sudan. In the next, he talked about engaging Khartoum and even mentioned “incentives” if the Sudanese government cooperates with the U.S. (In an interview with The Washington Post last month, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, retired Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, called such incentives “cookies” and “gold stars,” much to the chagrin of advocates who oppose such engagement.)
Beneath the din of these sound bites, however, the administration’s new policy does offer something more substantive and promising: a renewed commitment to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which north and south Sudan both signed. Lest we forget, before 300,000 people were killed in Darfur beginning in 2003, at least 2 million lost their lives in decades of civil war between north and south Sudan.
And without U.S. pressure, the north would never have signed the 2005 peace deal, which, for all its flaws, did indeed bring an end to much of the fighting between north and south—for the time being, at least. Over the past four years, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has largely been forgotten as the U.S. has turned its attention to the conflagration in Darfur. Now it’s time to return our attention to the whole of Sudan as the Khartoum-based cabal continues to wage attacks against its margins—west, east, south, and even north, in order to hold onto power.
The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum, claiming discrimination and neglect. U.N. officials say the war has claimed at least 300,000 lives from violence, disease and displacement.
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Obama Issues New Plan For Darfur
http://current.com/items/91223566_obama-issues-new-plan-for-darfur.htmA nod to human rights with renewed sanctions and condemnation of... more
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President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. is shifting its policy toward Sudan, offering the government incentives if it takes steps to improve the human suffering there and work toward internal peace.
But sanctions and pressure from the international community will follow if Sudan does not follow that path, Obama said.
The president said he will soon renew tough sanctions against the government of President Omar al-Bashir, whom the International Criminal Court has charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly masterminding deadly attacks throughout Sudan's Darfur region.
The U.N. says the conflict in Darfur has claimed at least 300,000 lives as a result of violence, disease and displacement since February 2003, when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum, claiming discrimination and neglect. Some 2.7 million fled their homes. At its peak in 2003-2005, the situation was called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Obama has labeled the conflict in Darfur as genocide.
The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum, claiming discrimination and neglect. U.N. officials say the war has claimed at least 300,000 lives from violence, disease and displacement.
More @ linkPresident Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. is shifting its policy toward Sudan,... more
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US Senator John Kerry said, in an interview to be aired Sunday, it was "irresponsible" to send more US troops to Afghanistan at this time, amid a deepening election crisis that has placed the Kabul government's legitimacy at stake.
The United States should not proceed with a new Afghanistan strategy committing a potentially major increase in US resources, including tens of thousands more troops, without first securing a clear partner in Kabul, Kerry told CNN.
Kerry is not promoting sending more troops now. That would be irresponsible, he said, when Afghanistan’s election is not yet finished.
“I don’t see how President Obama can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today without an adequate government in place or knowledge about what that government’s going to be,” he said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government has been plagued by uncertainty and a legitimacy crisis after allegations of widespread fraud in the August elections whose preliminary results put him on top, and ongoing charges of corruption.
Obama is nearing a decision on the way forward in Afghanistan, after weeks of deliberations with his top advisers, but also as public support wanes for the conflict.
The US contingent, set to reach 68,000 troops by the end of the year, is experiencing heavy casualties as it combats a Taliban that has regrouped and gained momentum. Related article: Obama's tensions with generals.
Among those options being considered are to follow a grim assessment by the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, and adopt a counter-insurgency strategy that requires at least 40,000 additional troops.US Senator John Kerry said, in an interview to be aired Sunday, it was... more
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Texas is not Obama country. In fact Barack Obama lost the Lone Star State to Republican John McCain by a not-even-close 55-43 margin.
But today the president makes his first trip to Texas since winning the White House, accepting the invitation of former President George H.W. Bush -- otherwise known as Bush 41 -- to join him at Texas A&M University to celebrate volunteerism.
And conservatives on the Aggie campus are planning to protest, a wide-ranging complaint about everything from Obama's healthcare plan to his recently announced Nobel Peace Prize. As one put it on meetup, "The opportunity to make sure Obama gets a very clear TEXAS-SIZED MESSAGE to stop the liberal assault on our country cannot be passed up."
Worried the protests might get out of hand, Bush 41 wrote an open letter to "the A&M Family," on Wednesday that began with “Howdy” and concluded, “I cannot wait for Obama to experience the open, decent and welcoming Aggie spirit for himself. This will be an important national moment, and a moment for Texas A&M to shine in the national spotlight as it always does. I hope and believe it will serve as a point of Aggie pride for many years to come.”
Does the first Bush have cause for worry? Well, you be the judge. Last fall the school's Young Conservatives held an anti-Obama event on campus, encouraging students to throw eggs at a picture of the presidential candidate and participate in a "socialist on a stick" Obama ring-toss.
More @ linkTexas is not Obama country. In fact Barack Obama lost the Lone Star State to... more
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On his 278th day in office President Barack Obama did something that his predecessor, President George W. Bush, didn't do in 2,921 days -- stepped into the heart of the 9th most liberal city in America.On his 278th day in office President Barack Obama did something that his predecessor,... more
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President Obama, speaking to a like-minded crowd in New Orleans, didn’t let them get away with booing Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.President Obama, speaking to a like-minded crowd in New Orleans, didn’t let them... more
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Police along with the Secret Service are investigating after a local country club discovered a symbol that represents eastern religious beliefs carved into the green.
Police believe the vandals meant to carve a swastika next to President Barack Obama's name on the 18th hole; however, the symbol was backwards and means hope and peace in some Eastern countries.
The vandals snuck in at night to carve their message, according to the owner of the country club.
"We don't know if they did it with some type of cleated shoe, or they had some type of tool and this time of year to have that happen, it's a problem it's much harder to fix now," said Lou Mincone, the assistant manager of the Lakeville Country Club.
The carving is about 10 feet by 10 feet.
The manager is trying to figure out the best way to get rid of it.
Workers attempted to cover it temporarily with green spray paint; however, the symbol was carved too deep. They will now try to get turf from another area to fill in the message.Police along with the Secret Service are investigating after a local country club... more
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Leave it to Glenn Beck to take things too far. On his radio show Beck drew a rather over-the-top analogy between, of all things, Fox News and Jewish persecution during the Holocaust. The basis for this comparison was the White House's recent criticism of Fox News' reporting, in which it called the network "the communications arm of the Republican Party" and said that its reporting style is more opinion than straight news. Beck suggested that the campaign against Fox was only the beginning of a full on assault by the Obama administration against the press.
Beck then made a plea to other news organizations to not stand by and let this media genocide happen.
Casual comparisons to the Holocaust are probably never a good idea, but Beck hasn't been afraid to go there in the past -- i.e. Beck's claim that Al Gore was creating another "Hitler Youth".
Not much difference between this and 9/12 protesters comparing Obama to Hitler.Leave it to Glenn Beck to take things too far. On his radio show Beck drew a rather... more
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"The gay community should stop rewarding President Obama's pretty speeches—like his address this weekend to the Human Rights Campaign—and demand action on Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Meghan McCain writes"The gay community should stop rewarding President Obama's pretty... more
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The Obama administration's efforts to force the modifications of distressed mortgages, while laudable, is likely to fall far short because the foreclosure crisis has grown and threatens to dwarf government efforts to relieve it, a special congressional watchdog panel warned in a report released Friday.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, created to monitor how taxpayer bailout dollars are being spent, warned that the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, announced in February, seems sure to prove ineffective.
"Foreclosures continue every day as Treasury ramps up the program, with foreclosure starts outpacing new HAMP trial modifications at a rate of more than 2 to 1," the report said.
From July 2007 through the end of August, 1.8 million homes were lost to foreclosure and 5.2 million more foreclosures were started, the report said. The HAMP program seeks to prevent between 3 million and 4 million foreclosures; on Thursday, the Treasury Department announced that its initial goal of having 500,000 trial mortgage modifications started by Nov. 1 had been met.
The congressional panel wasn't critical of those efforts; it simply said that they'll be swamped by changes in the housing market. The economic crisis, with an unemployment rate of 9.8 percent and rising, is pushing many more prime mortgages, those given to the most creditworthy borrowers, into default.
On top of that, a new class of exotic mortgages called pay option adjustable-rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages are due to reset to higher variable rates. These exotic loans were usually given to richer borrowers on fancy homes worth far less today than the value of the underlying mortgages. These mortgages are often too high-priced to qualify for government modification program.
More info @ linkThe Obama administration's efforts to force the modifications of distressed... more
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President Obama said on Friday morning, after he was announced as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. “I am most surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel commission."
More @ linkPresident Obama said on Friday morning, after he was announced as the winner of the... more
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President Barack Obama on Friday won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for ``his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,'' the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.President Barack Obama on Friday won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for ``his... more
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With his visit to Denmark to pitch Chicago as the site for the 2016 summer Olympics, President Barack Obama has now visited more countries in his first year in office than any other president did.
His one-day trek last week to Denmark -- which failed to convince the International Olympic Committee to award the games to his hometown -- made it the 16th country Obama has visited since taking office on Jan. 20.
That pushed him into the top spot as the country's top globetrotting leader in his freshman year, passing the previous record holders: George H.W. Bush, who hit 15 countries in the year after he took office in 1989, and Gerald Ford, who also jetted off to 15 nations after taking office midway through 1974.
Those two were just ahead of Richard Nixon, who in 1969 became the first real globetrotting president when he went to a then-unheard of 14 countries in his first 12 months.
Obama will add more before his first year anniversary. He'll visit China, Japan, Singapore and South Korea next month.With his visit to Denmark to pitch Chicago as the site for the 2016 summer Olympics,... more
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Upscale British supermarket chain Waitrose said Monday it was pulling its advertisements from Fox News in the U.K. after customers complained about the cable news channel's Glenn Beck program.
The popular and controversial talk show host is already the target of a boycott campaign in the United States after he accused President Barack Obama of harboring "a deep-seated hatred for white people."
Although most U.S. companies who have dropped Beck's program still continue to advertise on other segments of Fox News, Waitrose spokesman James Armstrong said the company was pulling out of the channel as a whole.
Beck's show is broadcast on Murdoch's 'Sky News' channel. Sky reaches about 9 million homes in the U.K. and Ireland. Fox News offered no immediate comment on the Waitrose announcement. In the past, the channel has said it has not been affected by the boycott.Upscale British supermarket chain Waitrose said Monday it was pulling its... more
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Now this just simply could not be made up in that Frankenstein laboratory where the cuckoos on the right wing cook up their witches brew of batshit crazy allegations to levy against Barack Obama. There are scores upon scores of issues where Obama should be rightly taken to task for continuing Bush-era “war on terror” policies, preemptively immunizing torturers, refusing to fight for Single Payer health care, hiring a team of hawks and neoliberal crooks to manage foreign policy and the economy, among many many others. At the same time, there are racist astroturf loons that appear to have recently landed on earth from planet Fiction and are navigating their way through the country, speaking in tongues, led by snakeoil salesmen like Glenn Beck.
But the headline in today’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by former senior White House advisor Karl Rove is in a category all its own: “Obama Can’t Outsource Afghanistan.” The article is ostensibly about how Obama is delegating decision making on everything from Afghanistan to the CIA/torture investigation to others:
Mr. Obama’s hands-off approach to the war seems to fit his governing style. Over the past year, he outsourced writing the stimulus package to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, washed his hands of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to reinvestigate CIA interrogators, and hasn’t offered a detailed health-care plan.
Um, excuse me Karl, how about outsourcing an entire war to politically connected war companies? Remember those eight years? While Rove may be using the term “outsource” in a general way, let’s remember this fact: never, ever in US history have more government and military activities been outsourced to private corporations than they were the day Bush and Rove left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Obama moved in. For Rove—or any Bush-era official—to have the audacity to blast anyone for outsourcing anything is like a bigger-scale version of Republican Senator David Vitter lecturing the losers exiting Scores “gentlemen’s club” about the moral evils of prostitution.
The real article that should come below a headline “Obama Can’t Outsource Afghanistan” would never be written by Rove. Such an article would denounce the actual scandal of Obama’s continuation of the Bush-Cheney-Rove policy of radically outsourcing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to corporate criminals like Armor Group, DynCorp, Blackwater, KBR, Triple Canopy, Lockheed Martin and many, many others.
By Jeremy ScahillNow this just simply could not be made up in that Frankenstein laboratory where the... more
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A story about monkeys on the loose in Washington has U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, taking heat.
The crowd laughed and applauded. Mr. Blunt elaborated a little on the changes he's seen.A story about monkeys on the loose in Washington has U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt,... more
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Speaking in Hong Kong to Asian investors, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin used the occasion to attack President Obama.
Former US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin said the US government was wasting taxpayers’ money and could aggravate poverty, said delegates at her first speech outside North America on Wednesday.
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Some of those who attended praised her forthright views on government social and economic intervention and others walked out early in disgust.
“She was brilliant,” said a European delegate, on condition of anonymity.
“She said America was spending a lot of money and it was a temporary solution. Normal people are having to pay more and more but things don’t get better. The rich will leave the country and the poor will get poorer.”
Two US delegates left early, with one saying “it was awful, we couldn’t stand it any longer”. He declined to be identified.
“Bashing America on foreign soil” has been a meme of the right which has attacked Democrats whenever an ill word was spoken overseas, so I wonder if that same principle will apply to Sarah Palin.
According to delegates, she said US President Barack Obama’s administration worsened an already difficult situation when earlier this month he slapped duties on Chinese tire imports blamed for costing American jobs.
They said she praised the economic policies of former US President Ronald Reagan and criticised the current administration for intervening too much during the recent financial crisis.
More info @ http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hbMdQhA0mPTJUFqXQvpNTiC_gJuQSpeaking in Hong Kong to Asian investors, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin used the... more
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