Democrats saying 'no' to a Democrat President. Score one for party unity, I guess...

Um, the Democrats are still actually going to pass it in a couple of days. This vote was simply a non-binding "this is what we would like" vote... it's expected that they will still vote for it.

Is there a Democrat President? A Wyden Democrat, I guess.

it's expected that they will still vote for it.

Expected by whom?

Make that Democratic President... "Democrat Party" is a pejorative.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/house-dems-vote-no-confidence-in-obama-tax-plan.php?ref=fpblg

The vote itself does not scuttle the deal, which most Dems predict will pass with overwhelming support from House Republicans, and a small but significant amount of support from Dems.

I wonder how many wooden arrow manufacturers will be getting a little extra in their stockings before this passes.

It's cute when Nancy Pelosi pretends to stand up to the President based on her beliefs. She rolled over more times for President Bush than a trained seal at Marine World.

If you cannot stand up and fight for your beliefs nor have the courage to take the fight to the Right than maybe it is time to think about stepping down in 2012 and getting someone with a backbone to run. It is a scary thought that all we have to choose from is spineless Dems and the Lunatic Fringe.

Well, lots of PO'ed people. This got 6 million hits in 4 days:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=JVAhr4hZDJE&vq=medium#t=19

I changed from Republican to Democrat around the time of Terri Schiavo debacle. I realized then that today's Republican party is not willing to govern, make compromises, or do the right thing for the country. It's all about power for them. I voted for Obama not because he was a liberal, b/c he seemed willing to act like an adult amidst all the name-calling, backstabbing, and over-simplification of issues. As a Republican, I remember thinking how remarkable it was how Democrats seemed to kick their own when they're down. The series of posts about Obama and the comments just confirm this suspicion. Folks, you can have a pragmatist like Obama, or you can pipe-dream about a Kucinich or a Feingold and end up with a Palin or a Gingrich. Wouldn't you rather work with what we have? I understand being angry about it and frustrated, but how about taking some constructive action? It's so freaking easy to just be snarky and negative and cynical. This country isn't going to change overnight. You take the good with the bad. There are setbacks. There are frustrations. Instead of just giving ammunition to the political opponent (Oh he's Carter! Oh he's just like Bush I when he said no new taxes!), can we look at some of the good accomplished? Can we think about the odds stacked against this President, and give him a tiny bit of credit? I'm frustrated at his "inaction" with DADT, but it doesn't mean I'm going to just start calling him a homophobe and throw up my hands and say: "he's done! what a spineless idiot! blah blah blah!" OK, rant over.

Kevin: The video says it all.

This is not nickle and dime stuff, you know.

"the video says it all"..what was that fluff all about?

Does this mean you're all finally going to peel the Obama stickers off the bumpers of your dirty Priuses and Volvos?

This is purely symbolic: they'll find out how many Dems can vote yes and still achieve passage, then permit those from the weakest districts (in terms of re-election) "vote their conscience".

It's kind of like when Treasury Secretary Paulson said that Fannie and Freddie were well capitalized: because their regulator said so. Then he nationalized them 5 weeks later, and put their regulator in charge. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I thought the video blew.
Quoting Woodrow Wilson? The guy who gave us the Federal Reserve?
Quoting President Bush about freedom? That's like quoting Charlie Sheen on the rights of porn stars.
This video is a corny propaganda hit piece by people who stood by while Bush and Cheney wiped their butts with the Constitution, and sent our soldiers to die - not for freedom - but in an unnecessary war against Iraq for reasons they admit they got wrong.
To suggest this all came down because of President Obama is the kind of stupidity that makes Sarah Palin such a media darling.
Where were these people when the Bush administration started data-sweeping our emails and phone calls? Before 9/11 by the way? Ironically, the people who made this video are not very patriotic at all, because they drank the Kool-aid without studying what is really going on. They didn't even give the greatest country in history, the courtesy of a closer look.
They're standing at attention but they're not paying attention.
It's not about reality. It's a stampede of idiots. It's about marketing a manufactured villain while the true culprits bleed us dry. So go ahead on. Your corporate masters are proud of you.

Wow. That video, Lawrence, has got to be one of the stinkiest piles of feces I've ever subjected myself to. I'm not sure there was one truthful statement in the entire thing. I'm pretty proud of America, we've done lot's of great things in our brief time, but that video represents the self-grandeur delusion that is SO typical of conservatives.

Obama's compromise is right on the money. Brilliant political move. He exposed the Rs as total hypocrites on fiscal responsibility before their majority was even sworn in!

Sullivan had it right - stimulus now, long-term budget/tax policy for the next two years. Letting the tax cuts expire now, for everybody, would have been the fiscally sound move, but it would have just fed the trolls.

It's a start, Bill. People hopefully are waking up.

I almost didn't post it, and to be fair, I turned off the audio and read it. I looked at the intent and not the details. I gagged at the audio and after about 5 seconds grabbed for the delete button, but instead, I turned off the audio.

So where does the buck stop so that the corner be turned? My pants are pulled as far as they can go and still the crap piles up. What I conclude is we are on our own but not alone.

So far as quoting Bush, some are still quoting Obama. TDR is still a hero. And so on.

"Democrat Party" is a pejorative.

Yes, and when I use that phrase, you can bring your smug little troll self on here and correct me.

But I didn't.

You all don’t get it. Obama won this one. He won it big time. He got Stimulus II and got the Republicans to sign off on it. Call it what you want, in the next two years there is going to be $950 billion to a Trillion dollars going into the economy. If the economy improves Obama gets the credit and gets reelected. If the economy doesn’t improve the Democrats blame the Republicans that supply side economics and trickle down don’t work and Obama gets reelected.

After that video, I am now officially frightened of the tea party.

Not that I don't agree with a lot of it. It's just all that strident religiosity and final God bless and all the home-made signs decrying socialism, and just the overall sense it gives of bitter anger...it just makes me feel like the tea party won't accomplish anything except maybe get some jerk back in office who will cut funding to birth control clinics in third world places (some where there is no clean water to wash up in after giving birth) on his first morning in office.

Although I agree that it's nice to see that ideas and conversations are flowing.

Gaye,
Nice to see you're not stuck on the Islamic-fear thing. I think it's scary that there are religious leaders here in America who are trying to make a certain list of Biblical conditions happen so we can bring on the End Times.
I think working to end human life on earth is bad form. Oh, and by the way, these religious leaders were meeting at the Bush White House once a week. Thankfully they didn't convince W that Jesus wanted him to push the button or we wouldn't be having this thread now.
Bush did say he had talked to a higher father before deciding to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, so once you've made that leap, the End Times is shovel ready.

Gaye, while I saw the obvious references to the Tea Party, and I know that such high flying words can be subverted, nevertheless, I think if it gets more people off their duffs and take a stand, we will all be better off. There are men in my extended family I never knew as they gave their life in WWII, and I feel that by doing nothing, I am letting them, and my children, and soon to be great grandchild, down.

And, just in case there may be some doubt, I am not a supporter of the Tea Party, and I am not particularly a supporter of either of the others as well.

And those religious leaders were mocked behind their backs, at least some of them, Bill.

Apologies for any tone problem in my earlier post.

Use of the noun "democrat" as an adjective is a fairly well-known pejorative -- at least so much so that NPR has banned its use:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2010/03/since_when_did_it_become_the_d.html

Son of Sam talked to "god" too.
All these religious nuts no matter which pagan diety they claim to worship make me very scared. And yes that includes the so called Christians.
Too many nuts and too many nukes in the world today.

Bill,

I'm glad I'm not stuck on the Islamic-fear
thing too. Just stuck on the gosh-didn't-appeasement-of-totalitarian-aggressive-ideology-pre-WWII-turn-out-to-be-a-bad-idea?-thing.

Gaye,
Appeasement of totalitarian aggressive ideology...you mean like the way we responded to the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive Strikes?

Use of the noun "democrat" as an adjective is a fairly well-known pejorative -- at least so much so that NPR has banned its use:

Well, then! NPR! Yikes!

What's the punishment?

Why don't we ask Juan Williams?

...you mean like the way we responded to the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive Strikes?

Geez, whatever would you use to rationalize and divert without Bush, Bush, Bush?

Nice to see Obama put fellow Democrats over the barrel that Republicans should be put over. You can't quit in the first inning and then say "this is the best deal possible" with any degree of credibility.

Well, then! NPR! Yikes! What's the punishment?

A copy of Strunk & White?

Kevin: . . You take the good with the bad. There are setbacks. . . . . can we look at some of the good accomplished?

http://my.firedoglake.com/hugh/2009/11/13/obama-scandals-list-passes-100/

This is not just the list, it has the details and reasons for being on the list. You might get a different perspective and/or understanding of why so many are upset.

Nothing wrong with the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. What the hell do we want to do with this mountain of military
might we continue to finance, if we don't put it to good use?

The problem with the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes is just that it wasn't used properly. We really needed to go after Saudi Arabia and Iran, in creative ways.

Yo, Abdullah, fire all your radical hater "we-need-to-kill-all-the-jews-and-the-americans" imams or we'll start droning them at Friday prayers, OK?
Any more "charity money" going to al-Qaeda from your Hajj picnic, we'll take over a few big oil fields, you got that?

Yo, Khatamei, you say ONE more thing about how listening to music will cause your young people to have molten lead poured in to their ears in a hellish afterlife, and we'll HACK your internet so that it can never come on without one of those sexy Middle Eastern songstresses singing in the background. We're going to compile a lot of cool Iranian string music and distribute millions of DVDs to your skies, you freaking neanderthal.

Just kidding, yes, I know, too radical for our time.

Well, then! NPR! Yikes! What's the punishment?

A copy of Strunk & White?

nyuk, nyuk, nyuk

I like it

!!!

Help me, (I suppose), I've gotten outside the narrative-myth bubble, into reality, and I can't get back. (-:

Points out of order ... er, I mean out of sequence:

Defining politics and political beliefs and convictions in terms of persons or personalities, (instead of principles, ideals), ain't defining nothing at all, self or otherwise.
Examples:
1) Who supports Obama because he's Obama, show of hands?
2) Who supports the principle of checks and balances on political power divided between three autonomous (or, equally constituted) branches of government, show of hands?

I sorta doubt anyone could hand-raise a 'yes' for both questions.
I sorta expect people who voted for Obama and people who voted for someone else, or people who call themselves (and think they are) 'Democrat' and people who call themselves (and think they are) 'Republican' could sincerely raise a 'yes' hand for the second question. It's about principle, and this one happens to be a fundamental principle in the founding of America. (Remember, America founded in 1787 was the first, the 'invention' of, representative (self-)government; everything else, everywhere, for thousands of years before then, had been 'royal' and 'hereditary' bloodline government -- except maybe the Iroquois Nation or something -- and it is really hard to give up that ingrained 'old school' ... in fact, the 'O' in GOP -- Grand 'Old' Party (1856) is meant to harken back to and NOT give up exactly that 'old school.')

A person's political beliefs are not set in a personality or figurehead. For example, I recently read (and believed it) Geo Washington was actually a sort of 'anti'-American dude; after the war he thought the colonies should go on being subjects and protected under the British Crown (and law) except with a little 'independence' in divvying up and parceling the land among themselves, (since he began as a surveyor, and he had no military mind sense, in fact he was conciliatory, a capitulator always making and 'handing over' concessions, a quitter ... kinda sounds like Obama).
And a person's political beliefs are not set by adopting the label of one Party or another. America(ns) didn't even have political Parties before 1832, when 'Democrats' was invented ... and, then, the only thing it stood for was the idea (really radical at the time) that ordinary (non property-owning) people could get together and make up a political Party if they chose to and decided to, (which kinda sounds like the Tea Party -- it doesn't really stand for much more than the idea that a bunch a people can call themselves the Tea Partiers if they like to and nobody can stop them from greeting each other with tea bags dangling on their spectacles ... but I'd expect most of 'them' believe, in principle, that checks and balances on political power divided between three branches is good government ... and likely, too, a principle of equal Justice under the Law).

My point is that people are arguing and snarking with each other here, (and in their own minds' internal 'narrative' dialogue, silently, my hunch is), about what Obama has (done) or what Obama doesn't have (done), what he is or isn't. And a lot of it sounds fairly ridiculous, (and I ridicule) because personality-politics mostly sounds ridiculous, because it doesn't really make any political statements (in principle or belief).

I just wanted to say "it's okay" to turn against Obama, criticize or assail him, as information about him gets revealed that we didn't know before. We can oppose him and still keep our political beliefs and principles -- opposing him and being sort of liberal is not a contradiction.

Here's the thing: As more of Obama's biography is discovered, (which he tries to keep quite secret), it appears that he is a creation of the CIA, kept in CIA indoctrination and training and sometimes de facto custody since he was about 2 years old: a veritable 'Manchurian candidate.' Standing right in front of our eyes. And yet inside he's a 'controlled' or 'handled' hardline Conservative authoritarian disciplinarian and possibly even totalitarian.

In seeminly significant parts, Obama believes 'principles' which are majorly opposite of what (words) he says; and it seems he believes 'principles' totally the same as what (deeds) he does. Quite a few people are noticing that 'reversal.'

Here is where I've been reading Obama biography material - Wayne Madsen Report .com, go look it over for yourself, (see only the headlines though, for now). Before I copy'n'paste (below) from behind the latest headline the lengthy installment, let me raise my third point, (reviewing 1. standing on personality or Party politics is awfully weak politics, and 2. Obama is a CIA-programmed 'character' or 'phenomenon,' and) next: 3. it doesn't much matter if you vote or not, or who for, because in most states, most voters only have Touch-the-TV voting (NO hard-copy, NO paper trail) and computer control is mostly rigged and programmed in advance who is going to 'win.' Where "mostly" means as much 'majority' as there needs to be so that, as stated, whether or not people vote, or who for, doesn't change the pre-set result. If it is decided in advance Obama wins re-election then he will, and if not then not. And your and my analyses here of what's going on, and your and my votes in Nov.2012, simply flat-out DO. NOT. COUNT. for nothing. Love him, hate him, argue left and right, up and down, back and forth. IT. DON'T. MATTER.

(Perhaps cousin jim from New Jersey may drop by and vouch for or dispute my version of outside-Oregon voting.)

See? I'm outside the narrative-myth bubble, somewhere in reality, and I can't really get into or feel fulfilled in the meaningless purposeless claims and counterclaims about Obama, or the Democratic Party, or the GOP, or voting in rigged elections.

Oregonians might disbelieve the situation is that bad, that corrupt, that hopeless. Because we have all paper ballots, all the time. (Four recounts are supposedly going on now, including a Dudley-Kitzhaber recount, and I expect all four tally the same (margins) as when the cards were run through the counting machines the first time. So let us see what happens. It seems like a fair test of the veracity of claims about Oregon's paper ballots.) The vote count is credible here but, even so, it's not enough to elect or block election of a presidential candidate. Go vote outside of Oregon and do the Touch-the-TV thing with one hand, and grip your hope-and-pray 'receipt' with the other hand, and it shouldn't take much reading and thinking about it before you realize your vote, as in 'ballot', does not actually exist. The main reading now is here: BradBlog.org (he's got a law degree, you can tell by the dot-org), and other links there.

Okay, done; reviewing: 3. Voting, public opinion, and what TV says doesn't matter anymore, regardless of who Obama is or what he does. Or who the next president is.

Those were my 3 points.

Now, consider the latest WMR installment about Obama's life. (None of this is about his birth certificate. There's no question he was born in Hawaii Aug. 4, 1961, as recorded. This is all about what happened to him after that, which is scarcely recorded and what little amount there is of substantiation is totally classified Top Secret, sealed, and publicly unknown.)

Many Congress-critters and WashDC-players subscribe to and read Wayne Madsen Report ('WMR') already. Media personnel, too. So they probably know the following, (you're the one who doesn't), and if you go to tell them all this ideals-shattering (mythic'narrative' bubble-popping) Big News about Obama, don't be surprised if they shrug and say, "so what?" and ignore you. See? They're elected and in office, in reality, and you're not.

Recognizing Obama as a CIA-molded 'Manchurian candidate' is somewhat of a jolt to an American's consciousness, also called a mindfeck, sorta. One aid (psychological prosthetic) for holding the recognition of SecretObama in mind, is to review the many incidents during the last two years you can recall when Obama executed some action that seemed totally out of character, ('perceived' character), and you have an empty answer for the question of his motive or meaning, you "don't know" to say: Why did he do that? or, What's going on, here, with him? Recognizing the SecretObama he is, in him, immediately answers ALL those questions with the (Occam's) economy of one single same answer in every case.

A second help to get a grip on the idea of EspionageObama, is to gather a sequence or fabric of facts about his life and build the backstory, the context of experiences in which his mindset (or 'political beliefs') was or plausibly was formed. Gathering facts is a difficult time-draining process. However, once the context is assembled in mind, then fast grasp occurs in sorting and understanding subsequent events and pronouncements around your president of the united states.

The excerpt (below) from WMR is a sample of gathered facts, connecting with and extending on previously published facts about Obama's biography ... his TV-drama series plotline, his backstory, the contextual fabric. It's a lot of reading, hard work. This is just a sample for the sake of Comment 'brevity.'

But a synopsis to this point of the developing storyline seems in order, to bring you up to speed, before you get into the next episode. Obama's father Barack Sr. was a Kenyan recruited there and transported under the aegis of a CIA 'front' organization, and under a 'scholarship' or 'stipend' or 'grant' paid to study at Univ. of Hawaii in 1960 to learn Russian language and culture. Also in the Russian Studies program at UofH then was Obama's mother Ann Dunham. She and B.Sr. met, married, and future-POTUS Obama was born, August 1961. (So it is noteworthy, if known, where Ann was during November 1960, 9 months before B.Jr. was born.) Anyway, a couple years later Barack Senior's grant money ended, and he was transported (at the behest and bidding of his CIAproxy sponsor) back to Kenya, and there for the many years to follow he occupied positions of political power in the Kenyan government bureaucracy working to dispel Russian involvements in Kenya and protract alignment of Kenya's wealth of mineral- and oil-resources with US purposes access, to 'bring' Kenya into a 'US sphere of influence.' Barack Senior's roles in the Kenyan government 1963-1995 was told in a previous episode. Meanwhile, back in 1963 Hawaii, mother Ann (with baby Barack) carried on college life as a newly-divorced single parent. And she met another student, Soetoro, from Indonesia, (also on a CIAproxy 'stipend'), and they married, but soon he was sent back to Indonesia, (where he worked in the government), and after a year or two Ann and baby moved to Indonesia and joined husband (step-father) Soetoro ... doing 'government' things.

There's another bunch of facts previously, (I read quickly and have only partial recall of specifics), about Ann's mother, (baby Barack's grandmother), who worked at a CIAproxy bank in Hawaii, where she handled money transfers through Hawaii to countries and CIAproxy organizations around the Pacific region, including to Indonesia and the Southeast Pacific where the Vietnam War was going on at the time. Or something like that; read for yourself and correct my version.

Plus, there is more told (citing documentation) about the mother's activities, the step-father's activities, the grandmother's activites, and others of the (CIAproxy) 'village' it took to raise the child POTUS Obama. Going on from 1961 to 1985, about. One detail that isn't told and still is a mystery is how it happened that the president's Social Security card number got issued in Connecticut to him.

While reading, it is helpful in mind to have a sense of the world in 1960. Mainly, very few persons studied Russian language and culture, or spent Ford Foundation grants on assignment in Indonesia or Jakarta or Pakistan or Afghanistan, and the very few (and the spying) were close concerns of CIA, USA, and proxies, because of the raging Cold War and myth'narrative' of the Russian part in it. The first human, Yuri Gagarin had not rode a rocket into space. There were no satellites in orbit, nevermind weather or surveillance satellites. (Nobody saw it coming when the Columbus Day storm, 1962, hit Oregon.) In 1960, Nixon was vice-president, campaigning against Kennedy for POTUS. Eisenhower had not yet coined the term 'military-industrial complex' although he knew the definition of it. Mao Tse-tung (later spelled 'Zedong') in Peking (later 'Beijing') was leading China. Stalin was leading Russian in the nearer past years then than Clinton's era is behind us now. The Bay of Pigs and Russian missiles in Cuba hadn't happened yet. Businesses didn't have computers, (governments did). Telephones didn't have Area Codes. Drugs, hippies and rock music hadn't been invented yet, and sex was barely a new novelty. (-: Geo H W Bush was a CIA agent stationed in Big Oil company 'fronts' such as Zapata Offshore Inc. The Top Priority - Secret CIA project was MK-ULTRA research to develop 'mind control' (to force captured enemy agents to tell secrets and enable friendly agents who got captured not to -- to veritably 'build' the fabled 'Manchurian candidate'), and MK-ULTRA primary research 'laboratories' were in operation situated in five universities, one of which was University of Hawaii campus and including its day care facility for infants of parent-students in the Russian Studies program. Before Christmas, 1960, Ann Dunham got pregnant and was an enrolled student.

The made-for-TV teleprompter-thick drama continues:

THE OBAMA FILES:
Aug.2010 series Part I
Part II
Part III
The Story of Obama: All in the Company - Part IV.
~ More evidence surfaces on Obama's and his family's deep CIA links.
WayneMadsenReport .com (WMR) Exclusive Content.
The Story of Obama: Part V

Sept. 8-9, 2010 - The USAID-CIA consortium in which Obama was raised.
Oct. 7, '10 - Obama-CIA chicanery in Suriname?
Oct. 19, '10 - Obama's mother in Ghana
Nov. 13-14, '10 - Obama's grandfather's CIA furniture store front
Nov. 17-18,'10 - Obama's sealed college transcripts

NEW: Obama's employer's ties to his mother's CIA bosses.

December 7-8, 2010 -- SPECIAL REPORT. Link between Obama's CIA front employer and mother's Asian work revealed

WMR has uncovered CIA-archival documents that point to a link between Barack Obama's post-Columbia University CIA front employer, Business International Corporation (BIC), and his mother's two employers, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Asian Development Bank. WMR has also discovered CIA files that point to the use of field anthropologists abroad, working under foundation cover, by the CIA. Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham/Obama/Soetoro/Sutoro worked as a field anthropologist in Indonesia under the cover of the Ford Foundation.

BIC and the Ford Foundation maintained a close relationship through the BIC's running of the Business International Roundtable. Papers maintained at the John F. Kennedy Library provide a linkage between David E. Bell, the Director of the Bureau of the Budget from 1961 to 1962 and administrator of the USAID from 1963 to 1966, and the Ford Foundation, where Bell served as executive vice president from 1966 to 1981, and Business International, where Bell participated in one of their Business International Roundtables on December 17, 1965, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. The Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Foundation helped fund the CIA's Airlift Africa project that saw it used to bring Barack H. Obama, Sr. to the University of Hawaii in 1960, as well as over two hundred other African students to other American universities, as part of the CIA's program to counter the Soviet Union's efforts to provide scholarships to African college students in newly-independent African nations at the People's Friendship University in Moscow (later Patrice Lumumba University).

BIC also attempted to infiltrate members of Students for Democratic Society (SDS) at Columbia University in the 1960s by offering them money from Rockefeller family coffers. BIC, which ran Business International Roundtables, was cited in its attempts to infiltrate SDS and other leftist groups.

BIC, which helped propel Obama into international affairs and, later, a profession in politics, was a key to the co-option of leftist groups by Rockefeller and other corporate interests. The following video describes how BIC attempted to infiltrate SDS and other leftist groups beginning after 28 minutes.

In a book titled "The Strawberry Statement," James Kunen described Business International, as related by an unnamed 1968 SDS conference attendee, as leading an effort to finance SDS demonstrations in Chicago in the late 1960s. BIC is described in the book as "the left wing of the ruling class."

Obama was inserted into the south side of Chicago at the same time the CIA, FBI, and other U.S. intelligence agencies were focused on the foreign connections of the El Rukn gang, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panthers. Obama's membership in a leftist organization at Occidental College in Los Angeles appears to have been a continuation of the infiltration efforts by BIC and its major funder, the CIA. WMR previously reported that Obama was a key asset to the penetration of radical black organizations in south Chicago in the mid-1980s. Of particular interest to the CIA after Obama's graduation from Columbia, was the connections of the El Rukns and Nation of Islam to the Muammar Qaddafi government in Libya, in addition to foreign connections of the Hispanic gang, the Latin Kings, also active in Chicago.

In 1986, BIC was sold to The Economist Group in London and merged with the Economist Intelligence Unit. [BIC had maintained "Business International UK Ltd.," which, according to an internal CIA memorandum, subscribed to all the CIA's unclassified publications]. However, the BIC International Roundtables appear to continue under various academic and foundation auspices, including at Obama's former guest law lecturing employer, the University of Chicago. In addition, the BIC International Roundtables appear to be a continuation of the Roundtables first organized by Africa's greatest colonialist plunderers, Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes's business roundtables of the wealthiest elites eventually morphed into the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR0. In fact, Obama, the first African-American president of the United States, is a direct product of BIC and its Roundtables, originally founded by Africa's most infamous looter and pillager of diamonds, gold, and other natural resources and promoter of white minority rule and colonialism, Rhodes.

On June 14, 1976, Senator John Durkin (D-NH) said there was little the Senate could do to reduce the ability of "the Business Roundtable or the Chamber of Commerce . . . to attempt to influence votes, either through sheer force of logic or sheer force." On June 19, 1975, Representative Wright Patman (D-TX) railed on the House floor that "in 1973 and 1974 -- when the previous audit bill was up -- the Federal Reserve and its Chairman entered into some highly questionable lobbying tactics, ending up with the involvement of the big banks and the big business combines incluidng the fat cat Business Roundtable." Obama's current subservience to Wall Street and the Federal Reserve can be seen through the lens of his employment with BIC, a virtual mouthpiece for what Patman described as the "fat cats."

BIC was used by the State Department as a diversion for a delegation of General Accounting Office (GAO) representatives who visited Hong Kong in August 1974 looking for information on possibilities for U.S.-Chinese trade after Richard Nixon had opened China up to the United States. A formerly Confidential cable from the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong to the State Department, with copies to the U.S. Liaison Office in Peking and U.S. embassy in Tokyo, dated August 21, 1974, bragged about the consulate's success in diverting the GAO's interest from consulate files on "PRC economic affairs (general), foreign trade and trade promotion, (which includes our files on the Canton Trade Fair)" even though the GAO team told the consulate it was "not supposed to do that." The consulate's problem appeared to be that some of the files were classified. In order to stymie the GAO group, the consulate directed them to conversations with "companies, third country representatives (identified as UK, Canadian, Australian, and West German trade officials in Hong Kong), Far Eastern Economic Review, and Business International staffs." The GAO delegation was particularly interested in potential oil and mining deals with China.

It is apparent that the consulate and BIC wanted to keep what they knew about Chinese trade under wraps, even from Congress. A few weeks after the GAO team was in Hong Kong, a new head of the U.S. Liaison Office in Peking replaced Ambassador David Bruce. His name was George H. W. Bush.

BIC was also used by the State Department and CIA to keep tabs on U.S. firms on the Arab boycott blacklist for investing in or trading with Israel. A Congressional Record insertion in 1965 stated, "Business International reported in January 1964 that there were 164 U.S. firms on the Arab blacklist, adding that, "many American businessmen who have wanted to trade or invest in Israel have been deterred by Arab threats."

BIC also enjoyed a cozy relationship with USAID in 1982, the year before Barack Obama graduated from Columbia and joined BIC's staff in New York. Obama's mother had been a long time employee of USAID, an agency with historical links to the CIA.

On June 8, 1962, in a hearing on "U.S. Policies and Programs in Southeast Asia" held by the Senate Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs and chaired by Senator S. I. Hayakawa (R-CA), Elise R. W. duPont, the Assistant Administrator for Private Enterprise for USAID, testified that her agency was "working with Business International to develop country specific information on laws, regulations, and policies in developing countries that affect investment." DuPont specifically stated that USAID was using the information from BIC to conduct "bureau reconnaissance missions" in Indonesia and Thailand and this included support for "a venture capital firm and a leasing firm in Indonesia." BIC, along with a CIA-connected firm called InterMatrix, also conducted country risk analyses for the CIA.

Obama's first employer acted as a bridge between the U.S. intelligence world, with USAID and other government fronts as cover, and the print media. On May 4, 1967, Acting Secretary of Commerce Alexander B. Trowbridge told the East-West Trade Conference at Bowling Green State University that U.S. trade missions to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were facilitated by "TIME, Inc. and Business International." Trowbridge said the use of "trade publications," such as those for whom Obama worked after graduating from Columbia, "stimulated" the exchange of information between East and West.

BIC's relationship with the U.S.governments sensitive trade channels with the East Bloc continued through 1979. A "Cuban Chronology," dated April 1979 and issued by the CIA's National Foreign Assessment Center, states that from November 20 to 25, 1977, BIC sponsored "meetings in Havana of representatives of 50 US firms and their contact points in the Cuban government." WMR has learned from a reliable source that Obama's grandfather, Stanley Dunham, had traveled to Cuba in 1960 on CIA business with Obama's mother, Ann Dunham. It has also been strongly rumored by informed sources with connections to the Cuban government that Barack H. Obama, Sr. was not the father of Barack Obama, Jr. but that his actual father was an Afro-Cuban who Ann Dunham met during the 1960 trip with her father.

A formerly classified CIA "East Europe Branch Notes," report, dated February 4, 1974, states "A three-day roundtable conference between Business International and East German officials concerned with the promotion of trade opened in East Berlin on February 4. Orville Freeman, President of Business International, heads the foreign participants, comprising presidents, vice presidents, and board members of important US and West European enterprises. GDR Premier Sindermann told the group further steps toward detente have a favorable effect on the expansion of foreign economic activities. He also said that East Germany plans to expand substantially its economic relations with non-socialist cluntries. The remainder of the report from East Germany's roundtable with BIC is redacted.

BIC, along with the CIA, also participated in private conclaves sponsored by an entity called the "Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions," operating from Post Office Box 4068 in Santa Barbara, California and funded by a non-profit corporation called "The Fund for the Republic," which were held periodically on top of Eucalyptus Hill, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in Santa Barbara. A fellow of the Center was Edward Engberg, the Managing Editor for Business International who was also a former assistant editor for Fortune magazine. Other center fellows and consultants included Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court William O. Douglas; former President of the University of California Clark Kerr; former President of the University of Chicago Robert M. Hutchins (also the President of the center); and Isidor Rabi, Professor of Physics at Columbia University; Stanley Sheinbaum, former consultant to the government of South Vietnam; John R. Seeley, Chairman of the Sociology Department at Brandeis University; and Harvey Wheeler, co-author of the book "Fail Safe."

CIA files contain a 1967 letter to the editor of the Daily Emerald from three anthropology professors at the University of Oregon supporting a decision of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) condemning the "intelligence meddling" of the CIA and Defense Department in anthropological field work. 1967 was the same year that Ann Dunham was performing such anthropological "field work" for USAID, a front for the CIA, in Java, Indonesia. The AAA's Professor Ralph Beals [from UCLA] report stated that the Pentagon and CIA "repeatedly interfered with anthropological work abroad, and have clearly jeopardized our chances, as anthropologists, to do meaningful foreign research."

And in what is the clearest evidence yet that Ann Dunham was working for the CIA in Indonesia and elsewhere, the Beals Report stated: "several anthropologists, especially younger ones who had difficulty in securing research funds, were approached by 'obscure' foundations or were offered support from such organizations only to discover later that they were expected to provide intelligence information to the CIA." The report added, "agents of the CIA have posed as anthropologists, much to the detriment of the anthropological research programs."

In Ann Dunham/Soetoro's case, her foundation "sugar daddy" was the Ford Foundation and USAID. Her boss at Ford was none other than Peter Geithner, the father of President Obama's current Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner.

The interested reader can find additional material related to studying How do we (I or you or LIARS Larson) know what we think? at (copy'n'paste) URLs:

www.PublicEye.org/right_wing_populism/populism.html
What is Right-Wing Populism?, by Political Research Associates

OnlineJournal.com/artman/publish/article_6485.shtml
Manipulation of social consciousness through mass media, By Saida Arifkhanova

OnlineJournal.com/artman/publish/article_6671.shtml
America: Y ur peeps b so dum?,
By Joe Bageant

www.YouTube.com/watch?v=56zcUcjpzsY&feature=player_embedded
US media 'fluff' focus blamed for numbing nation, RT (Russian TV) News

PreventDisease.com/news/10//081010_everything_is_a_lie.shtml
Everything Is A Lie: The Deliberate Intent To Deceive People Is At An All Time High, Marco Torres

IAmTheWitness.com/doc/The%20$5%20Trillion%20Cold%20War%20Hoax%20-%20Eustace%20Mullins.pdf
The $5 Trillion Cold War Hoax, by Eustace Mullins (.pdf)

www.CommonDreams.org/view/2010/10/18
A World Made by War, by Tom Engelhardt

www.ASPOusa.org/index.php/2010/11/peak-oil-and-four-principles-of-pr-by-kurt-cobb/
Peak oil and four principles of P.R., By Kurt Cobb

... and, (finally, dear reader), How we get the words we think with? btw, what is your political position on 'public theft'?, (in olden days called 'tax breaks'), today defined here:

www.CommonDreams.org/view/2010/12/10-0
Untellable Truths, by George Lakoff