Russ Baker - Obama’s Only Friend Left?

Is it just me or does anyone else find it poignant how isolated the president is? Has very few friends, and fewer all the time?

Is it just me or is anyone else curious about the only real outsider in his shrinking circle of friends? Robert Wolf?

From ^[2] the New York Times article titled “Obama Gains Reputation as Distant in Washington”:

Mr. Obama, in general, does not go out of his way to play the glad-handing, ego-stroking presidential role. ….more often than not, he keeps Congress and official Washington at arm’s length, spending his down time with a small — and shrinking — inner circle of aides and old friends.

[snip]

…His social life runs toward evenings playing Taboo with old friends and their families, Wii video games with his wife and daughters or basketball with Robert Wolf, a banker and the rare new best friend Mr. Obama has acquired since entering politics…..

Read More:

http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/01/02/obama’s-only-friend-left/

Dr. Paul L. Williams - Isn't this a crock that should be corrected NOW!!

Written by Dr. Paul L. Williams

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

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.

Just think,  Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing China for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary from her husband's salary.

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Dave Lindorff - Better than Obama: Why the Establishment is Terrified of Ron Paul

By Dave Lindorff

http://www.nationofchange.org/better-obama-why-establishment-terrified-ron-paul-1325005208

It’s fascinating to watch the long knives coming out for Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, now that according to some mainstream polls he has become the front-running candidate in the Jan. 3 GOP caucus race in Iowa, and perhaps also in the first primary campaign in New Hampshire.

Remember, we’re talking about a guy who has been in Congress on and off for 12 terms, dating back to 1976. His views have been pretty consistent, and because he has run for president several times, also pretty well known. A practicing physician who claims to have helped in the births of over 4000 babies in his career, the 76-year-old Paul is a free-market advocate, an abortion opponent, an uncompromising defender of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, an opponent of government regulation, the Federal Reserve and the IRS, and of big government in general--especially big federal government.

What’s interesting is what he’s being attacked for: being a racist, being “anti-Israel” and being an isolationist.

The racist bit is funny. After all, if we’re honest, the whole political infrastructure of the US is riven with racism. Just check out the public schools in any urban area, where you’ll find most of the students are non-white, or check out the schools in rural parts of the southeast in areas where most of the students are black -- compare the condition of those schools and the class sizes to schools in the white neighborhoods. Check out the wildly different jobless figures for whites and for blacks. Check out the (very pale) complexion of the student bodies at just about any state university, check out the skin tones of the judges on the US Supreme Court, or for that matter, the whole federal bench. Check out the racial breakdown of the nation’s jails, and especially on the country’s many death rows, where you’ll find a wildly outsized percentage of people with black or brown skin waiting to be killed by the state.

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ACLU NEWS - President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - December 31, 2011

CONTACT: Mandy Simon, (202) 236-7031; media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON - President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act

(NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite

detention provision.  While President Obama issued a signing statement

saying he had "serious reservations" about the provisions, the statement

only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by

the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent

administrations.  The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version

of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final

bill.

"President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will

forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without

charge or trial into law," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director.

"The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or

geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to

militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.  The ACLU will

fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in

Congress, or internationally."

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention

authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in

military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be

used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of

American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and

illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA's

detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to

people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by

the laws of war.

"We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law

even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention

authority in court," said Romero. "Any hope that the Obama administration

would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on

terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of

government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet

to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president

also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because

no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future

president misusing the NDAA's detention authority."

The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects

out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to

testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations.  It also restricts

the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo

Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more

difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of

his first acts in office.

Glenn Greenwald - Vote Obama – If You Want a Centrist Republican for US President

December 27, 2011 by the Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/27/vote-obama-centrist-republican

Because Barack Obama has adopted so many core Republican beliefs, the US opposition race is a shambles.

by Glenn Greenwald

American presidential elections are increasingly indistinguishable from the reality TV competitions drowning the nation's airwaves. Both are vapid, personality-driven and painfully protracted affairs, with the winners crowned by virtue of their ability to appear slightly more tolerable than the cast of annoying rejects whom the public eliminates one by one. When, earlier this year, America's tawdriest (and one of its most-watched) reality TV show hosts, Donald Trump, inserted himself into the campaign circus as a threatened contestant, he fitted right in, immediately catapulting to the top of audience polls before announcing he would not join the show.

The Republican presidential primaries – shortly to determine who will be the finalist to face off, and likely lose, against Barack Obama next November – has been a particularly base spectacle. That the contest has devolved into an embarrassing clown show has many causes, beginning with the fact that GOP voters loathe Mitt Romney, their belief-free, anointed-by-Wall-Street frontrunner who clearly has the best chance of defeating the president.

In a desperate attempt to find someone less slithery and soulless (not to mention less Mormon), party members have lurched manically from one ludicrous candidate to the next, only to watch in horror as each wilted the moment they were subjected to scrutiny. Incessant pleas to the party's ostensibly more respectable conservatives to enter the race have been repeatedly rebuffed. Now, only Romney remains viable. Republican voters are thus slowly resigning themselves to marching behind a vacant, supremely malleable technocrat whom they plainly detest.

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Jason Leopold - Obama's "Twisted Version of American Exceptionalism" Laid Bare

Thursday 15 December 2011

by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/obamas-twisted-version-american-exceptionalism-laid-bare/1323961572

President Barack Obama would like the world to know that the US can do whatever it damn well pleases, thank you very much.

Obama also wants the whole, wide world to get this through its thick skull: only rogue governments that implement a policy of rendition, torture, indefinite detention and extrajudicial assassination are guilty of human rights abuses and should be held accountable.

That's the clear-cut message Obama articulated [3] late last Friday when he issued a proclamation commemorating the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"All people should live free from the threat of extrajudicial killing, torture, oppression and discrimination, regardless of gender, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or physical or mental disability," Obama's proclamation states.

Apparently, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president doesn't believe the extrajudicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen the administration asserted was a top leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who was assassinated last summer by a drone strike Obama personally authorized, without being afforded the right to due process as guaranteed by the Constitution; or the indefinite detention of detainees at Guantanamo, especially those who have already been cleared for release; or the administration's refusal to allow prisoners detained and tortured by the US government [4] in Afghanistan to challenge their detention, rises to the level of human rights abuses as outlined in his stunningly hypocritical proclamation.

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Stephen Lendman - Obama Approves Draconian Police State Law

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-Approves-Draconian-P-by-Stephen-Lendman-111216-863.html

December 16, 2011 By Stephen Lendman Obama supports draconian FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provisions. Justification given is national security and war on terror hokum. Obama Approves Draconian Police State Law - by Stephen Lendman On December 16, Obama's signature will head America closer to full-blown tyranny. Obama supports draconian FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provisions. Justification given is national security and war on terror hokum. Henceforth, anyone anywhere, including US citizens, may be indefinitely held without charge or trial, based solely on suspicions, spurious allegations or none at all. No reasonable proof is needed, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Henceforth, indefinite detentions can follow mere membership (past or present) or support for suspect organizations.  Presidents now have unchecked dictatorial powers to arrest, interrogate and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat. Constitutional, statute and international laws won't apply. Martial law will replace them if so ordered.

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Steven Rosenfeld - Obama Reverses Himself: Administration Won't Veto 'Global Battlefield' Indefinite Detentions Measure

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet

Posted on December 14, 2011, Printed on December 15, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153450/obama_reverses_himself%3A_administration_won%27t_veto_%27global_battlefield%27_indefinite_detentions_measure

The Obama administration Tuesday reversed itself and said it would not veto a major 2012 defense bill that expands the American military’s authority to arrest suspected terrorists anywhere in the world—including Americans on U.S. soil—and hold them indefinitely without charge or the right to a civilian trial.

“We have concluded that the [defense bill’s] language does not challenge or constrain the President’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the American people,” Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a written statement. “The President’s senior advisers will not recommend a veto.”

Only two weeks ago Carney told reporters that Obama stood by his veto threat. The reversal by the White House will now subject the president to an unprecedented lobbying campaign by retired generals, intelligence officers, and myriad civil rights organizations to reject the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

“If President Obama signs this bill, it will damage both his legacy and American’s reputation for upholding the rule of law,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The last time Congress passed indefinite detention legislation was during the McCarthy era and President Truman had the courage to veto that bill. We hope that the president will consider the long view of history before codifying indefinite detention without charge or trial.”

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John MacArthur - President Obama Richly Deserves to Be Dumped

Published on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 by The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)

by John R. MacArthur

http://www.providencejournal.com/

As evidence of a failed Obama presidency accumulates, criticism of his administration is mounting from liberal Democrats who have too much moral authority to be ignored.

Most prominent among these critics is veteran journalist Bill Moyers, whose October address to a Public Citizen gathering puts the lie to our barely Democratic president’s populist pantomime, acted out last week in a Kansas speech decrying the plight of “innocent, hardworking Americans.” In his talk, Moyers quoted an authentic Kansas populist, Mary Eizabeth Lease, who in 1890 declared, “Wall Street owns the country.. . .Money rules.. . .The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”

A former aide to Lyndon Johnson who knows politics from the inside, Moyers then delivered the coup de grace: “[Lease] should see us now. John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup, and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it. Barack Obama criticizes bankers as fat cats, then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.”

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Stephen Lendman - Orwell and Beyond, Legislating Tyranny in America

By Stephen Lendman

Global Research, December 14, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28205

Obama won't prosecute CIA torturers, Wall Street crooks, other corporate criminals, lawless war profiteers, or other venal high-level civilian or government officials.

Instead, expect him to sign into law (or at least tacitly approve) indefinite military detentions of US citizens allegedly associated with terrorist groups, with or without corroborating evidence.

Post-9/11, US freedoms and other democratic values dramatically eroded. Enactment of police state provisions in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act comes closer to ending them entirely.

On December 5, the ACLU headlined, "Indefinite Detention, Endless Worldwide War and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)," saying:

Enactment of this measure will authorize "the military to pick up and imprison people, including US citizens, without charging them or putting them on trial."

Secretly with no hearings, both Houses are rushing to complete a "joint version" before leaving for Christmas break. "Fundamental American values and freedoms are on the line." Given the stakes, they're perilously hanging by a thread.

On December 13, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urged Obama to veto NDAA in its present form. Otherwise, he'll "be responsible for signing into law one of the greatest expansions of executive power in our nation's history, allowing the government to lock up citizens and non-citizens without the right to fair trials."

Indefinite detentions violate core democratic freedoms, including fundamental Bill of Rights ones already gravely eroded.

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