Showing posts with label Alex Pappas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alex Pappas. Show all posts

Sunday, October 14, 2012

hillbilly Versus The caliph خليفة Benedict Arnold the Coffee Waiter


Author Ed Klein: As Benghazi blame nears Hillary, Clintons grow furious

4:43 PM 10/12/2012
Alex Pappas
Political Reporter

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With tensions between President Obama and the Clintons at a new high, former President Bill Clinton is moving fast to develop a contingency plan for how his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should react if Obama attempts to tie the Benghazi fiasco around her neck, according to author Ed Klein.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Klein said sources close to the Clintons tell him that Bill Clinton has assembled an informal legal team to discuss how the Secretary of State should deal with the issue of being blamed for not preventing the Benghazi terrorist attack last month.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters during a press conference Friday that responsibility for the consulate in Libya fell on the State Department, not the White House.
If blame for the security failures falls to Hillary Clinton, Klein said, it’s possible that she would even consider resigning over the issue.
“Bill is working on a number of strategies about what Hillary ought to do. He’s even gone so far as to play with various doomsday scenarios including up to the idea that Hillary would consider resigning over the issue if the Obama team tries to use her as a scapegoat,” Klein told TheDC in an interview.
Klein — the best-selling author of the Amateur, a book on President Obama — elaborated on his reporting in an op-ed for The Daily Caller.
As of Friday afternoon, the White House, the State Department and the former president’s office did not return requests from The Daily Caller for comment on Klein’s reporting.
But as for the chance that Hillary Clinton would resign, Klein said in the interview: “At this moment, it appears unlikely that she’s going to do that. I mean that would be an extreme step for her to take.”
“Not only would it be hard to predict how it would play out as far as Hillary is concerned in the future, but it would certainly damage Obama’s chances for re-election if she resigned,” he said.
Klein said relations between the Clintons and President Obama have reached a new low, most recently with Obama ignoring Bill Clinton’s offer to help him and Vice President Joe Biden prepare for the debates with the Republican ticket.
“He had very clear ideas on how they should do that,” Klein told TheDC. “He never once got a response. And it absolutely sent him into orbit. He was furious that he would be treated this way, especially after what he did, in his view, at the Democratic convention in giving that nomination speech for Obama.”
Added Klein: “His fury turned to deep concern when the Benghazi business unfolded because he was deeply troubled by the appearance that the White House was going to throw Hillary under the bus, which in fact it appears it is doing.”
Klein said Bill Clinton’s informal legal team is made up of people he’s used in the past in legal situations. He asked them by phone to tell him how Hillary Clinton should handle this situation and what to do if she is subpoenaed to testify to the House Oversight Committee and provide them with memos regarding Benghazi.
The author said the situation is obviously complicated by Obama’s re-election, but also the possibility that Hillary would run in 2016.
“If she is left with this stain on her reputation, it could seriously damage her chances for election,” Klein told TheDC. “And this is what is really bothering Bill more than anything.”

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http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/12/author-ed-klein-as-benghazi-blame-nears-hillary-clintons-grow-furious/#ixzz29C1YSgSK

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=153593

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Thursday, September 27, 2012

Are they worth it? Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion on The caliph خليفة Benedict Arnold family last year



Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion on Obama family last year, perks questioned in new book

Published: 11:32 PM 09/26/2012

By Alex Pappas

FILE - In this June 27, 2012 file photo, President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrive at the Congressional picnic on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.
In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family.
Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in.
Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”
“The most concerning thing, I think, is the use of taxpayer funds to actually abet his re-election,” Gray, who worked in the Eisenhower administration and for other Republican presidents, said in an interview with TheDC on Wednesday.
“The press has been so slow in picking up on this extraordinary increase in the president’s expenses,” Gray told TheDC.
Specifically, Gray said taxpayer dollars are subsidizing Obama’s re-election effort when he uses Air Force One to jet across the country campaigning.


When the trip is deemed political, it’s customary for the president to pay the equivalent of a first class commercial ticket for certain passengers. But Gray says that hardly covers the taxpayer cost of flying the president and his staffers around on Air Force One.
“When the United States’ billion-dollar air armada is being used politically, is it fair to taxpayers that we only be reimbursed by the president’s campaign committee for the value of one first-class commercial ticket for each passenger who is deemed aboard ‘for political purposes?’” Gray asks in the book.
“And is that bargain-price advantage fair to those opposing an incumbent president?”
In the book, Gray admits Americans want their president to be safe and comfortable but argues the system should be reformed to stop the amount of unquestioned perks given to the president.
“There is no mechanism for anyone’s objection if a president were to pay his chief of staff $5,000,000 a year,” he told TheDC. “And nothing but a president’s conscience can dissuade him from buying his own reelection with use of some public money.”
Aside from a salary, the president gets a $50,000 a year expense account, a $100,000 travel account, $19,000 entertainment budget and an additional million for “unanticipated needs,” he notes.
Here is a sample of other pricey taxpayer funded perks exclusively reserved for the president:
The president can to appoint high-paid staffers without Senate confirmation: Obama has 469 senior staffers and 226 are paid more than $100,000 a year, according to the book. Seventy-seven are paid as much as $172,000 per year. He also has appointed 43 “czars.”
The president can vacation for free at Camp David: Gray writes that each round trip made to Camp David costs the taxpayers $25,350. It’s also estimated that the combined transportation and personnel costs for a Camp David visit are $295,000 per night.
The president has a full-time movie projectionist in the White House theater: Projectionists sleep at the White House and are there 24 hours a day in case anyone needs to see a movie. “Compared to the 450 times President Carter used the movie theater in his four years in the White House, the average American citizen, according to industry statistics, goes out to see a movie slightly less than five times a year,” Gray writes.
The president’s family’s gets certain travel and security expenses paid while vacationing: “First Lady Michelle Obama drew flack from the media and irate citizens when it was disclosed that, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, she spent 42 days on vacation — within the span of one year.”
The president’s dog gets its own high-paid staffer: “Bo made the news when he and his handler were flown to join the president on vacation in Maine,” Gray wrote about the Obama family dog. “It has been reported that the first family’s dog handler was paid $102,000, last year.”



http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/26/taxpayers-spent-1-4-billion-on-obama-family-last-year-perks-questioned-in-new-book/
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Group sues Secret Service for cost of Malia Obama’s spring break trip to Mexico



Published: 10:43 AM 09/25/2012
AP Photo
A watchdog group with a history of exposing the taxpayer costs of President Obama’s vacations is now suing the Secret Service for records detailing how much it cost the agency to protect first daughter Malia Obama when she traveled to Mexico for spring break earlier this year.
It’s a trip that the White House has famously tried to keep out of the news.
The group Judicial Watch announced on Tuesday that it has filed the lawsuit, known as Judicial Watch v. U.S. Secret Service, for the records. The agency has so far, according to the group, not responded to a Freedom of Information Act request made on March 29.
The White House has gone out of its way to stop news outlets from reporting on the trip. When Malia Obama went on the Mexico vacation in March, the White House reportedly forced a number of news organizations to remove their stories online reporting on the trip.
“From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest,” Kristina Schake, a spokeswoman for first lady Michelle Obama, said at the time. “We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.”
According to the group’s request, it wants, “Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the expenditure of U.S. Government funds to provide security and/or any other services for Malia Obama and any companions during her March 2012 visit to Mexico.”
Judicial Watch says the Secret Service received their original request for records on April 6. By law, according to the group, the Secret Service should have replied by May 4, but did not.
“I have little doubt that this stonewall is because of the embarrassment of the security costs for the Spring Break trip of the Obamas’ daughter,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a written statement.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/25/group-sues-secret-service-for-cost-of-malia-obamas-spring-break-trip-to-mexico/


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Friday, September 14, 2012

Liberal super PAC: Calling Republicans racist more effective than criticizing policy



Published: 1:08 AM 09/14/2012
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FILE - in this Feb. 8, 2011 file photo, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa listens at the National Press Club in Washington. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
A top official at a liberal super PAC with the goal of eradicating tea partiers from Congress is telling activists that it’s more effective to label Republicans as racists than criticize their policies.
According to an audio recording obtained by The Daily Caller, Matthew “Mudcat” Arnold, the national campaign manager of the liberal CREDO super PAC, told a gathering of supporters in Aurora, Colo., on Sept. 8 that they’ve realized “policy did not move voters.”
He used Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King as an example.
“When we said that Steve King … is pro-life and believes in cutting Social Security and voted for the Ryan budget, no one cared,” Arnold said. “When we said Steve King’s a racist, Steve King believes that immigrants ought to be put in electric fences, people moved.”
“When you talk about the substance of a man’s character, people respond,” Arnold continued. “Believe it or not, that is not something politicians knew.”
CREDO super PAC, which did not immediately return a request for comment from The Daily Caller on Thursday, bills itself as a “political committee working to defeat ten of the most odious tea party members of Congress.”
Arnold made the comments while discussing the organization’s campaign against Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman. The event at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse was billed as a gathering for “CREDO members and local activists to discuss our campaign to defeat Mike Coffman.”
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Democratic candidate Joe Miklosi is challenging Coffman. Republicans reacted to Arnold’s comments by pouncing on Miklosi.
“The irony of this is that Miklosi repeatedly tries to paint Coffman as a radical, but he’s got a far, far left-wing group of crazies supporting him and helping his campaign,” said a Republican strategist familiar with the campaign. “Miklosi is masquerading as a moderate, but you can tell a lot about somebody by the company they keep.”
The super PAC’s strategy of trying to smear Republicans is evident with the nicknames they’ve given to the 10 members they are targeting this year: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is “Queen of Crazy,” Florida Rep. Allen West is “Beyond Crazy,” Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh is “America’s Most Offensive Congressman,” and Iowa Rep. Steve King is “Paranoid Bigot.”
“We want to stop people who have hijacked our community, who have hijacked the national platform and who are advocating policies and saying things in public that embarrass us,” Arnold said.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/14/liberal-super-pac-calling-republicans-racist-more-effective-than-criticizing-policy/


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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Droplets Force El Presidente – Regretfully – To Move From His 8.5 Million Seat EnormoDrome to a 20 thousand seat arena







‘Best weather of the entire week’: Local meteorologist puzzled by Obama speech move

Published: 11:21 AM 09/05/2012
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The chief meteorologist at a Charlotte television station is questioning the decision by Democrats to move President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention to a smaller venue because of the weather.
“Thursday night will likely be the best weather of the entire week,” Brad Panovich of WCNC-NBC TV wrote on Twitter in reference to when Obama’s speech was planned to take place at the outside Bank of America stadium, which can accommodate 70,000 people.
The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday announced that the weather is forcing them to relocate Obama’s speech to the Time Warner Cable Arena, which is inside and holds a far fewer 22,000 people.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday morning after the news broke, Panovich said there’s only a 20 to 30 percent chance of rain or storms and argued that “if you are going to move inside for this small risk you could have done that days ago.”
Said Panovich: “My main point is if you were going to move inside for the small [weather] threat Thursday [,you] could have made that decision a week ago.”
“It’s a simple question.. if you had a #Panthers game, Concert or Soccer match with a 20% chance of storms would you cancel 24hrs prior?” he asked.
Republicans reacted to the news asking whether the change is really because the Democrats are worried about filling enough seats in the outdoor venue for the video cameras.
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“Problems filling the seats?” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski told reporters in a Wednesday email.
Democrats said they’re moving the event for safety reasons.
“We have been monitoring weather forecasts closely and several reports predict thunderstorms in the area, therefore we have decided to move Thursday’s proceedings to Time Warner Cable Arena to ensure the safety and security of our delegates and convention guests,” said convention CEO Steve Kerrigan.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/05/best-weather-of-the-entire-week-local-meteorologist-puzzled-by-obama-speech-move/#ixzz25cUx6KKk

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=148347
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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Justice ... for ... democrats? My kinda justice


Former Alabama governor laying groundwork for Obama pardon at DNC

Published: 11:58 PM 09/03/2012
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Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (Photo: AP)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, headed to federal prison next week to serve a 69-month sentence on federal corruption charges, told The Daily Caller that he’s at the Democratic National Convention to lay the groundwork for what he hopes will be a future pardon from President Barack Obama.
“I am going to try to get a commutation of sentence and eventually a pardon,” Siegelman told TheDC in a Monday interview inside the convention center.
Siegelman says he isn’t lobbying for Obama to take action before he returns to prison to complete his sentence, or even before the November election. But he’s hoping to make contact with the sort of people that can eventually help him.
“Those people will be able to act in my stead with the president when the time is right,” the former governor said, “and that is after the election and not now.”
“The purpose of this trip is primarily just to talk to those people who have an understanding about this case and who also may have some bearing on the outcome of the pardon or the outcome of a commutation,” Siegelman said, declining to name specifically who he is meeting with.
In 2006, Siegelman was convicted on federal corruption charges that stemmed from the allegation that he gave former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy a seat on a hospital regulatory board in exchange for $500,000 in donations for a pro-lottery campaign he was organizing.
Siegelman says he wasn’t intentionally committing a crime at the time. “If I had known I was coming close to the line where a campaign contribution becomes a bribe and a crime, I would have stopped,” Siegelman said at his resentencing hearing in August.
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Siegelman was granted permission by U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller to travel to Charlotte for the convention.
He’s set to return to prison by Sept. 11 in Oakdale, La., where he previously was incarcerated for 9 months before being released while appealing his conviction.
Despite his protests, prosecutors maintain that Siegelman still broke the law by appointing Scrushy to the board after the CEO made the campaign contributions.
“We are here to hold him accountable for what he did and what he did was to corrupt the office to which he had been elected,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin said at the August hearing.
Sitting at a roundtable inside the convention center Monday, Siegelman proclaimed his innocence as son, Joseph, and daughter, Dana — both along for the trip this week — looked on.
“This case represents an important turning point in American democracy,” Siegelman said, “because it has set a new legal standard that for convicting people of bribery where there is no evidence of an expressed agreement whatsoever.”

http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/03/former-alabama-governor-laying-groundwork-for-obama-pardon-at-dnc/
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