Clipmarks | Joe biden Clips

Report: 237 millionaires in Congress

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:04:07 GMT

clipped by: sahara
clipper's remarks: Senators’ estimated median reportable worth sunk to about $1.79 million from $2.27 million in 2007. The House’s median income was significantly lower and also sank, bottoming out at $622,254 from $724,258 in 2007.

But CRP’s analysis suggests that some lawmakers did well for themselves between 2007 and 2008, even as many Americans lost jobs and saw their savings and their home values plummet.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gained about $9.2 million. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) gained about $3 million, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) had an estimated $2.6 million gain, and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) gained about $2.8 million.

Some lawmakers have profited from investments in companies that have received federal bailouts; dozens of lawmakers are invested in Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.
Vice President Joe Biden has often tagged himself as an original blue collar man. The CRP backs him up, putting his net worth at just $27,000.

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Talk about bad timing.

As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.

Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body – compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.

CRP says California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, with a net worth estimated at about $251 million. Photo: AP

CRP says California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, with a net worth estimated at about $251 million. Next in line: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), worth about $244.7 million; Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), worth about $214.5 million; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), worth about $209.7 million

All told, at least seven lawmakers have net worths greater than $100 million, according to the Center’s 2008 figures.

Vatican summons world leaders to discuss Church's fears that politics is losing its religion

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:02:53 GMT

clipped by: nuttyriv3r

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

By Nick Pisa

04th November 2009

Catholic convert Tony Blair is among several world leaders being invited to attend a top level summit with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the role of the Church in politics.

The two-day summit will be held at the Vatican and will include other Catholic politicians from all over the world, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. vice president Joe Biden, former Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Church officials have been quietly working on the conference, which will be called 'Witnesses of Christ in the Political Community', for several months.

Items to be discussed include the family, right to life, Christian roots, education and bio-ethics.

He has met current Pope Benedict XVI and he has also set up The Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Two months ago he told the Communion and Liberation Committee in Rimini, Italy, that switching to Catholicism was like 'coming home' and is now 'where my heart is.'

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: angela merkel, joe biden, jose maria aznar, pope benedict xvi, revelation 17:1-2, silvio berlusconi, tony blair, vatican

Gibbs: Obama 'not watching returns'

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:20:23 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: He's probably playing basketball.

He can say what he wants but it was obvious to the political hounds that he was stumping for his guys. Now it's time to distance himself. Hypocrites, ALL!!!!

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Gibbs: Obama 'not watching returns'

Hours after urging reporters not to draw sweeping conclusions from Tuesday's gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told POLITICO President Barack Obama wasn't even keeping an eye on the results.

"He's not watching returns," Gibbs said.

The Obama administration and other top Democrats have consistently tried to play down the import of this week's contests, which Republicans have sought to portray as a referendum on the Democratic-led government in Washington.

, he and Vice President Joe Biden campaigned repeatedly for candidates in all three of the night's key races.

Obama stumped in New Jersey for incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine,

, Biden visited New York's 23rd congressional district to appear at an event for Democratic congressional candidate Bill Owens

Scary Barry..thin skinned president

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:25:18 GMT

clipped by: kareval

Clip Source: www.thepeoplescube.com

For Halloween: Scary Barry The Thin-Skinned President

Halloween Decoration:

Scary Barry The Thin-Skinned President. Criticize him and see what horrors await you. (Your children and grandchildren will be paying for this for generation to come).

TRICK OR TAX

SEE OUR OTHER PRODUCTS:

- Genghis Rahm
- Joe Biden "The Hair Plug Folfman"
- Nancy Pelosi "The Incredible Stretching Woman"

U.S. Official Resigns Over Afghanistan War Policy

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:42:33 GMT

clipped by: sahara
clipper's remarks: Hoh's letter caused a stir in the Obama administration, and he was hastened to meetings with senior U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington. They praised his record of service and begged him to stay, offering him new positions in both locations. Hoh initially accepted the Washington job, but changed his mind a week later.

Hoh said that his act of protest and decision to speak out were painful, even "nauseating" at times, but he was strongly motivated by the friends he had lost on the battlefield and the mental anguish he has experienced since returning home. "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right,' " he explained, adding that he "is not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love."

Clip Source: www.politicsdaily.com

Matthew Hoh, the senior U.S. civilian in Afghanistan's Zabul province, resigned in protest because he believes the American effort there is simply fueling the insurgency, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. Hoh, a former Marine Corps captain who also served in Iraq, wrote a four-page letter to the State Department's head of personnel in September, and his resignation became official last week.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote in the letter. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

Hoh will meet with Joe Biden's foreign policy adviser this week, and will advise a reduction in troops. He said he feels the U.S. "has an obligation for it not to be a bloodbath," but that Afghans are resistant to what they see as a military occupation.

Tags: war

The Flip Flop is back

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:07:09 GMT

clipped by: pkronfield
clipper's remarks: Same old Kerry. He was for the war before he was against it.

Kind of like our cowardly president votes "present" rather than take a stand.

Clip Source: politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned Monday against a narrowing of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, but also suggested a plan by the commanding U.S. general in the country is overly ambitious.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that a major U.S. troop pullout could trigger a civil war could between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

It could also destabilize neighboring Pakistan, he added.

Kerry rejected the idea of a small-scale counter-terror campaign advocated by Vice President Joe Biden, saying it was no substitute for the wider ongoing military campaign.

But he also would not endorse a major troop increase as proposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Kerry said McChrystal's request for 40,000 additional troops "reaches too far, too fast."

Tags: flip flop kerry, trojan horse obama

The Record is Clear' - Dick Cheney is Not Credible

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:56:40 GMT

clipped by: cptenaud
clipper's remarks: For certain, Cheney is not the only one pressing Obama to hurry his Afghanistan strategy. The Neo-Conservatives have taken to every media outlet that will have them; and, if they're not talking about Afghanistan, they're second guessing the president's diplomacy with Iran, Russia, etc...

For reasons I find incomprehensible, media outlets -- and not just Fox News, mind you -- treat them as if their credibility isn't completely lacking when it comes to matters of national security. That ship sailed months, if not years before Obama's election.

Consider the scathing rebuke of Cheney issued by Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), senior adviser for the National Security Network:

Clip Source: www.care2.com

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, following his acceptance of The Center for Security Policy's (no joke) "Keeper of the Flame" award, gave a speech that can only be described as a full on assault on the Obama administration's foreign policy.

Cheney said before an exceedingly friendly audience. "The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger."

Cheney said the Obama administration seems to be pulling back and blaming others for its own failure to implement the strategy it had embraced earlier in the year.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, when asked about Cheney's remarks, responded, "I think it's interesting that what the vice president is suggesting the president isn't acting on is what the previous administration didn't act on."

[Video]

Vice President Joe Biden was right on when he responded to questioning about Cheney's remarks. “I think what the administration is doing is exactly what we said it would do,

Tags: neocon, nutjob

Excuses Wearing Thin for Obama, Media Pals

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:27:30 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Yet just a few months ago, the Obama camp was singing a little different tune. It was under criticism for the $787 billion stimulus package it bulldozed through Congress on grounds that massive spending was needed to keep the unemployment rate from breaching 8 percent. When joblessness hit 9.5 percent in June, Vice President Joe Biden said, "We misread how bad the economy was."

They inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, or the economy turned out to be worse than they thought. Which is it? It can't be both -- unless your brain is completely addled by the Obama charisma.

That's the backdrop to the story of Rush Limbaugh getting booted from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams. He was smeared on CNN and MSNBC with false accusations of making two racist comments. He is an abrasive critic of Obama, so he must be racist...

Recently an MSNBC personality accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of lobbying for policies that amount to being "treasonous . . .

Clip Source: www.suntimes.com

President Obama inherited an economic mess from the Bush administration.

You say that's hardly news? But it's been the message sounded over and over by the White House. Top Obama adviser David Axelrod said on one of the Sunday news shows, "He walked in the door, we had the worst economy since the Great Depression." In San Francisco, Obama talked of being "busy with our mop." White House heavy hitter Rahm Emanuel used the worst-economy-since-the-Depression line on a public TV news show.

You'd think it's October 2008, the final month in the Obama presidential candidacy, rather than October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency. Yet the Obama White House is in full campaign mode -- maybe because it needs to mask the shortcomings of the Obama presidency.

Take, for example, all the talk of inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s crisis. That came in response to the news that the federal deficit hit $1.4 trillion.

Tags: 0bamas alibis, economy, media pals

Excuses Wearing Thin For Obama

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:03:14 GMT

clipped by: bferman

Clip Source: www.suntimes.com

Have you heard the news? President Obama inherited an economic mess from the Bush administration.

Take, for example, all the talk of inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s crisis. That came in response to the news that the federal deficit hit $1.4 trillion.

Yet just a few months ago, the Obama camp was singing a little different tune. It was under criticism for the $787 billion stimulus package it bulldozed through Congress on grounds that massive spending was needed to keep the unemployment rate from breaching 8 percent. When joblessness hit 9.5 percent in June, Vice President Joe Biden said, "We misread how bad the economy was."

Tags: obama, politics

Joe Biden: the worrying rise of Barack Obama’s Mr Wrong

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:32:55 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead
clipper's remarks: The real difficulty with Mr Biden, however, is his judgment.

On all the big questions, he has been – to put it politely – on the wrong side of history.

The problem is that Mr Obama may now be listening to Mr Biden. Having supposedly already settled on an Afghan strategy in March, he is giving a very public impression of Hamlet as he wrings his hands and conducts endless White House debates – with details leaked to the press – about what to do.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Want to know how to deal with a momentous issue of war or grand strategy? You could do a lot worse than check out what Vice-President Joe Biden thinks – and plump for the opposite.

Mr Biden was chosen as Barack Obama's running mate last August because he was old, white and supposedly knew a lot about foreign policy.

What Mr Obama overlooked was that Mr Biden, who served as a senator for tiny Delaware for 36 years, had never run anything in his life, or taken decisions rather than talking about things, at legendary length.

Making fun of Joe Biden is a bipartisan affair. A quip about Biden being a windbag is guaranteed to bring a Democrat and Republican together in Washington.

Mr Obama himself even dabbled in it in February when he responded to a question about yet another Biden gaffe by saying, "I don't know what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly",

A miffed Mr Biden used his weekly lunch with the President to ask him not to "diss" him in public.

Tags: history, politics, idiots, global warming via political hot air

Hammer Wants An Anvil

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:41:22 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Fawning “Inconvenient Truth Teller” article inside paints him as a sort of goof savant … a bit like Chauncey Gardiner of “Being There,” he’s been in Washington DC his entire life, everyone likes him, and suddenly they think he’s a genius. The three-decade gaffe-and-reverse record requires some acrobatics, though. The Newsweek scribblers clearly like his go-lite, wack-a-mole strategy though they are big enough to admit at the end that people who actually know what they are talking about say it won’t work. It’s not exactly the Joe Biden embed that I wished out loud NYT’s Dexter Filkins would do as a counterbalance to his McChyrstal piece earlier this week,* but close.

[...] Some administration officials, led by Biden, appear to hope that American forces can rely more on counterterrorism operations"attacks by Predator drones and small elite units on terrorist hiding places"to hold Afghanistan together and defeat Al Qaeda. But critics call this “splitting the baby" and say . . .

Clip Source: www.julescrittenden.com

Paks, unintimidated by the past week’s attacks, have launched their assault on South Waziristan. NYT.

Meanwhile, still waiting to see whether Obama plans to wack the mole on his side of the board. The administration has denied a BBC report that Obama has told the Brits and the Afghans that he is planning to announce this week that he will meet the full McChrystal recommendation of 40,000-plus troops.

Mr Gibbs said the president had “not made a decision”.

He added: “I think that you can assume that the BBC will not be the first outlet for such a decision.”

“Obviously, the British people and those that serve there have borne an enormous price in casualties. Obviously, we’re thankful for a strengthening of the coalition,” Mr Gibbs said.

There when you need ‘em. Box up another set of classic DVDs. Welcome news all around, denials not withstanding. Maybe Obama saw this Newsweek cover:

Tags: afghanistan, general mcchrystal, obama, pakistan

Oversight Democrats Run Away From Countrywide Bribe Program Vote

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:26:45 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The committee's Democrats simply failed to appear. Republican staffers say they caught them on tape leaving by a back door at 2:35.

By: David Freddoso
Commentary Staff Writer
10/15/09

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: www.washingtonexaminer.com

Faced with a promised vote to subpoena documents on Countrywide Financial's "Friends of Angelo" program, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee fled a scheduled 2 p.m. markup today.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the Ranking Republican on the Oversight Committee, had promised to call for a vote at today's markup on whether to subpoena documents involved in the program that gave sweetheart mortgages to at least four Democratic government officials, including two senators. According to the Wall Street Journal, the program might have also benefitted the chairman of House Oversight, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y.

Even if it had been ruled out of Order, Issa's motion would have received a vote.

Tags: barack obama, countrywide vip loan program, darrell issa-oversight committee, democrats, friends of angelo mozilo, hit the road jack, joe biden, ray charles

Afghanistan war doesn't make U.S. safer

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:02:14 GMT

clipped by: jasonkelly
clipper's remarks: America hasn't fought a worthwhile war in six decades. Military industrial complex, indeed!

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

In Rethink Afghanistan, Robert Greenwald's powerful look at the war (and a film Joe Biden should see right away), Robert Baer, a former CIA field operative says, "The notion that we're in Afghanistan to make our country safer is just complete bullshit... what it's doing is causing us greater danger, no question about it. Because the more we fight in Afghanistan, the more the conflict is pushed across the border into Pakistan, the more we destabilize Pakistan, the more likely it is that a fundamentalist government will take over the army -- and we'll have Al-Qaeda like groups with nuclear weapons."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein offered up a few rationales for why Obama should rubber stamp Gen. McChrystal's wishes. First, she said, "there has to be a process of finding out, which of these people can we work with and which can we not." Really? Seven years in and we still haven't checked that one off our to-do list?

Tags: politics, war, afghanistan

Obama Quietly Deploying 13,000 More US troops to Afghanistan

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:19:49 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: In addition to the deployments under way, McChrystal has also requested an extra 40,000 troops he says are necessary to prevent the country falling into the hands of the Taliban.

The Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai, today expressed support for McChrystal's request. "I'm fully behind him for what he's seeking in this report," Karzai told ABC's Good Morning America.

As part of the internal debate, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, who is cautiously supporting McChrystal, is due to meet later today the vice-president Joe Biden, who is opposed to the troop increase and favours a shift in priority to tracking down al-Qaida in Pakistan.

A decision on McChrystal's troop request appears to have been postponed for a few weeks. Any extra troops will come as a result of a parallel reduction in the number of US troops in Iraq.

A US military planner told the Army Times: "We've increased forces in Afghanistan before we've reduced forces in Iraq in a meaningful way.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

A US counter-intelligence Marine and his translator meet with local villagers in Kirta, Afghanistan Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Move is separate from Nato commander General Stanley McChrystal's request to increase troop levels

The extra 13,000 is part of a gradual shift in priority since Obama became president away from Iraq to Afghanistan.

The White House and the Pentagon both announced earlier this year that the number of US troops in Afghanistan was to be raised by 21,000, bringing the total at present to 62,000, with the aim of 68,000 by the end of the year.

But the Washington Post, based on conversations with Pentagon officials, said that on top of those an extra 13,000 "enablers" are also being deployed. They are mainly engineers, medical staff, intelligence officers and military police. About 3,000 of them are specialists in explosives, being sent to try to combat the growing fatality rate from roadside bombs.

Tags: 0bama, 13000 more u.s.troops, afpak, general mcchrystal, hamid karzai, taliban takeover

Obama: Taleban can be involved in Afghanistan future

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:08:57 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: I can't decide if I'm surprised or in a coma.

Sending only enough troops to keep al-Qaeda at bay places those already there in increased danger. No wonder the moral has taken a huge dip over the last months. No leadership = demoralization. And this guy is a 'Commander-in-Chief'?

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

Barack Obama: Taleban can be involved in Afghanistan future

President Obama is prepared to accept some Taleban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and is unlikely to favour a large influx of new American troops being demanded by his ground commander, a senior official said last night.

Mr Obama appears to have been swayed in recent days by arguments from some advisers, led by Vice-President Joe Biden, that the Taleban do not pose a direct threat to the US and that there should be greater focus on tackling al-Qaeda inside Pakistan.

Bowing to the reality that the fundamentalist movement is too ingrained in national culture, the Administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taleban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said.

Mr Obama, the official said, is now inclined to send only as many more troops to Afghanistan as are needed to keep al-Qaeda at bay.