News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Dec. 13, 2013: Yes we are back on Air Force One again and again…
Barack Obama’s favorite place in the whole world.
For a portion of this episode but we’ll go to Washington too …
Just like President Obama does to freshen up.
Another historic part of the journey that is Obama’s America ..
This is Episode 150! And the Journey continues …
Let’s head out to Washington state and California with Barack as he did in late November 2013 yet again. Before we return once again back to the Hypocrisy Capital of America, Washington, DC… or as Bloomberg News referred to this latest West Coast trip “Magic Johnson, Tom Hanks Join Obama on Cash-Grabbing Trip.” Not that it was just them- there were plenty of other money stops too …
Let’s shift over to Business Week for the details …
“Gazing at an Alexander Calder mobile in the Seattle-area mansion of Jon Shirley, a former Microsoft executive and art collector, Barack Obama said he was eager to “roam around a bit and check stuff out.” But alone time wasn’t on the President’s itinerary that night. The millionaires who’d gathered at Shirley’s house for a Democratic fundraiser on Nov. 24 paid $16,200 apiece to see the leader of the free world up close.”
That was Obama’s second stop. First ….
“His motorcade wound its way to the Seattle home of Tom Campion, co-founder of clothing retailer Zumiez , where the president spent about an hour with 30 donors who’d paid as much as $32,400 to attend.”
No time to waste! MONEY awaits – gas up Air Force One …
“The next morning, Obama flew to San Francisco to appear at two parties in his honor. The more exclusive one was an early afternoon gathering of 30 people at Marc Benioff’s complex near the Presidio. Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com”
How much to meet Obama here? It was for another small group of just 30 we should assume the cost was $32,400, just as for the 30 guests the night before in Seattle unless The White House tells us otherwise .. no time to waste where to next ….
“It was off to the Beverly Hills home of Hall of Fame basketball player Magic Johnson and his wife, Cookie. Guests, including actor Samuel L. Jackson, paid as much as $15,000 to mingle with the President inside the house while people who’d written $2,500 checks had to content themselves with cocktails and finger food in a party tent on the lawn.”
Let’s keep moving time is money and lots of it …
“Nearby, 120 donors were finishing dinner at entertainment executive Haim Saban’s sprawling property, where Obama made his next appearance, in a heated tent festooned with pink roses. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson sat closest to the Presidential podium. During his introduction, Saban, an Israeli American who is a leading investor in Univision Communications, the No. 1 Spanish-language TV network in the U.S., casually mentioned that days earlier he and his wife had enjoyed an “intimate” dinner at the White House.” How much? probably the same.
You got Tom Hanks too!
We need more MONEY keep moving …
“Obama had one final stop. The next morning at the Hancock Park home of Marta Kauffman, a producer of the 1990s sitcom Friends, and composer Michael Skloff, who wrote the show’s theme song. The breakfast drew 30 donors who paid as much as $32,400 each.”
Then finally … “it was back to Air Force One for the long flight home to D.C.”
It is exhausting raising so much money so fast even if Obama is traveling in grand luxury and taxpayers are paying the bill for him and his huge entourage. THANK GOD … there is a luxurious bedroom on Air Force One so Obama could sleep heading back to DC unless he stayed up to count all the Loot??
Thank you Business Week for the details. So …
now we and Barack are back in Washington, DC. Thank God again.
What is going on here? Take a look at this ..
From The New York Times op-ed page. Are you ready?
“Obama’s Orwellian Image Control” by “Santiago Lyon, a long-time photojournalist, is vice president and director of photography at The Associated Press.”
That’s right … “Obama’s Orwellian Image Control” (except thank God again – NOT here in “Obama’s America” ).
Let’s see what this piece has to say …
“Manifestly undemocratic…. is the way Mr. Obama’s administration — in hypocritical defiance of the principles of openness and transparency he campaigned on — has systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access.”
“The White House-based press corps was prohibited from photographing Mr. Obama on his first day at work in January 2009. Instead, a set of carefully vetted images was released. Since then the press has been allowed to photograph him alone in the Oval Office only twice: in 2009 and in 2010, both times when he was speaking on the phone. Pictures of him at work with his staff in the Oval Office — activities to which previous administrations routinely granted access — have never been allowed.”
“These so-called private events include meetings with world leaders and other visitors of major public interest — just the sorts of activities photojournalists should, and used to, have access to.”
“In response to these restrictions, 38 of the nation’s largest and most respected media organizations (including The New York Times) delivered a letter to the White House last month protesting photojournalists’ diminished access.”
Take a look at this letter …
November 21, 2013
Jay Carney, Press Secretary, The White House
VIA HAND DELIVERY
Dear Mr. Carney:
“ We write to protest the limits on access currently barring photographers who cover the White House. We hope this letter will serve as the first step in removing these restrictions and, therefore, we also request a meeting with you to discuss this critical issue further.”
“Journalists are routinely being denied the right to photograph or videotape the President while he is performing his official duties. As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the Executive Branch of government.”
“To be clear, we are talking about Presidential activities of a fundamentally public nature. To be equally clear, we are not talking about open access to the residence or to areas restricted, for example, for national security purposes.”
That is just part of it but it is extraordinary and signed by …
ABC News Agence France-Presse American Society of News Editors American Society of Media Photographers Associated Press Associated Press Media Editors Associated Press Photo Managers Association of Alternative Newsmedia Association of Opinion Journalists Bloomberg News CBS News CNN Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Fox News Channel Gannett Co., Inc. Getty Images Lee Enterprises, Incorporated The McClatchy Company McClatchy-Tribune Information Services National Press Club National Press Photographers Association NBC News New England First Amendment Coalition News Media Coalition Newspaper Association of America The New York Times Company Online News Association Professional Photographers of America Radio Television Digital News Association Regional Reporters Association The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Reuters Society of Professional Journalists Tribune Company The Washington Post White House Correspondents’ Association White House News Photographers Association Yahoo! Inc.
The ORWELLIAN President Barack Obama!
Finally for this week’s lesson is Obama just hiring John Podesta.
Some of you don’t know who John Podesta is?
Let’s turn to The Washington Post …
“John Podesta, who served as President Clinton’s chief of staff, is the consummate Washington insider whose efforts to influence policy over the years includes starting a liberal think tank and political action group and helping form his brother Tony’s lobbying powerhouse.”
Don’t forget John Podesta’s brother Tony. We’ll get to him in a moment.
As for John Podesta, President Obama just hired him to be his “right hand man” as The Post describes it and his “chief strategist.”
And then this from The Washington Post article …
“But in many respects, Mr. Podesta still resembles the type of lobbying-connected insider that Mr. Obama claimed during his first run for president would be restrained from access to the White House. Mr. Podesta’s brother, Tony, runs a prominent D.C. lobbying firm. The two brothers founded the Podesta Group in 1987, but a representative said John Podesta hasn’t been associated with the firm since 1993, when he left to work in the Clinton White House.”
“Still John Podesta remains close to his brother, so much so that a recent Federal Election Commission donation record mistakenly listed him as a vice president of his brother’s firm.”
“Tony Podesta’s firm has experienced a business boom since Mr. Obama took office. According to information from the Center for Responsive Politics, the firm’s income went from more than $10 million in 2007 to almost $30 million by 2010. This year, revenue is estimated to be around $20 million.”
“The Podesta Group is retained by some top business and industries that have a lot to gain from favorable government policy, including BP PLC, Wal-Mart, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.”
“The Obama administration has been skirting the thin line between advising and lobbying, despite the president’s promise to keep lobbyists out of the White House.”
“I’m in this race to tell the lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over,” Mr. Obama said at a 2007 campaign event in Nevada. “They will not work in my White House.”
“Upon taking office, Mr. Obama signed an executive order forbidding lobbyists from working in the executive branch and restructuring revolving-door and gift policies. It took watchdogs less than three months to cry foul.
The fact-checking website Politifact.com said the administration has made extensive use of waivers allowing former lobbyists to serve.”
“The waivers are granted by the Obama administration itself, and are little more than the administration saying a former lobbyist is OK,” the website said. “For a candidate who pledged to conduct business out in the open, there is little transparency about when a waiver is required.”
O yea John Podesta just The Man we need in The White House!
As an aside to make a point another “clean” Democratic office holder the “renowned” (sic) New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo was just in DC for a brief trip and made a quick stop at John Podesta’s brother’s lobbying firm right in the office – no need to make it look more “noble” in some restaurant or hotel ballroom … Podesta’s corporate clients were packed into the office to give Cuomo his share of the Loot to take back with him.
Back to our real subject President Barack Obama.
So what have we re-learned yet again this 150th episode …
Barack Obama the Change Master we elected as President who: 1) was going to put an end to the control of money in politics has become the best ever at shaking down the Money Tree, who 2) was going to operate a transparent Presidency and not manipulate us as the article in the NY Times tell us is instead a manipulator of Orwellian proportions, and who 3) was absolutely going to end the outrageous role of lobbyists in The White House has had as robust a relationship with the DC lobby community as has any President as clearly evidenced by his relationship to the Podesta Brothers.
Have you gotten the message yet …
This is NOT our President or our government it remains as much as ever The White House and the government of the Elites who control both.
What is OUR role the rest of us ….
We are the Suckers who have to pay the bills and make them rich and more powerful as the majority of Americans grower poorer and more powerless.
Time to wake up America before there is nothing to wake up for.
Will it be the same crap in 2016?
It sure will if Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton for President, or her male equivalent the likes of Andrew Cuomo.
That’s it for episode 150. Till next week and more of Obama’s America.
About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
