The latest one yesterday was from the chairman of...

• it occurs to me - rafael
  • The latest one yesterday was from the chairman of... - Indy Observer
    • Pardon me, but there was hardly - mae
      • EXACTLY! And now we have someone who wants to change all that... - sam
        • Last-worditis. - nm
          • stalker. nm - sam
            • Calling someone a stalker on a public forum is ridiculous! - Samonella
            • Is it OCD? Or just dementia? Only your - shrink knows for sure.

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But not before he solicited at least two teenagers via email/internet.  See articlee (be sure to read on and see what he says to them).

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 30, 2008; A01

Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went unarmed into his first meeting with the new commander in chief -- no aides, no PowerPoint presentation, no briefing books. Summoned nine days ago to President-elect Barack Obama's Chicago transition office, Mullen showed up with just a pad, a pen and a desire to take the measure of his incoming boss.

There was little talk of exiting Iraq or beefing up the U.S. force in Afghanistan; the one-on-one, 45-minute conversation ranged from the personal to the philosophical. Mullen came away with what he wanted: a view of the next president as a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead. After the meeting, the chairman "felt very good, very positive," according to Mullen spokesman Capt. John Kirby.

As Obama prepares to announce his national security team tomorrow, he faces a military that has long mistrusted Democrats and is particularly wary of a young, intellectual leader with no experience in uniform, who once called Iraq a "dumb" war. Military leaders have all heard his pledge to withdraw most combat forces from Iraq within 16 months -- sooner than commanders on the ground have recommended -- and his implied criticism of the Afghanistan war effort during the Bush administration.

But so far, Obama appears to be going out of his way to reassure them that he will do nothing rash and will seek their advice, even while making clear that he may not always take it. He has demonstrated an ability to speak the lingo, talk about "mission plans" and "tasking," and to differentiate between strategy and tactics, a distinction Republican nominee John McCain accused him of misunderstanding during the campaign.

Obama has been careful to separate his criticism of Bush policy from his praise of the military's valor and performance, while Michelle Obama's public expressions of concern for military families have gone over well. But most important, according to several senior officers and civilian Pentagon officials who would speak about their incoming leader only on the condition of anonymity, is the expectation of renewed respect for the chain of command and greater realism about U.S. military goals and capabilities, which many found lacking during the Bush years.

"Open and serious debate versus ideological certitude will be a great relief to the military leaders," said retired Maj. Gen. William L. Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations. Senior officers are aware that few in their ranks voiced misgivings over the Iraq war, but they counter that they were not encouraged to do so by the Bush White House or the Pentagon under Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"The joke was that when you leave a meeting, everybody is supposed to drink the Kool-Aid," Nash said. "In the Bush administration, you had to drink the Kool-Aid before you got to go to the meeting."

Obama's expected retention of Robert M. Gates as defense secretary and expected appointment of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser have been greeted with relief at the Pentagon.

Clinton is respected at the Pentagon and is considered a defense moderate, at times bordering on hawkish. Through her membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee -- sought early in her congressional career to add gravitas to her presidential aspirations -- she has developed close ties with senior military figures.

Some in the military are suspicious of "flagpole" officers such as Jones, whose assignments included Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, Marine commandant and other headquarters service, and who grew up in France and is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. But Jones also saw combat in Vietnam and served in Bosnia.

"His reputation is pretty good," one Pentagon official said. "He's savvy about Washington, worked the Hill," and at a lean 6-foot-4, the former Georgetown basketball player "looks great in a suit."

Although Jones occasionally and privately briefed candidate Obama on foreign policy matters -- on Afghanistan, in particular, as did current deputy NATO commander Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry -- he is not considered an intimate of the president-elect.

But as Obama's closest national security adviser, or at least the one who will spend the most time with him, Jones is expected to follow the pattern of two military predecessors in the job, Brent Scowcroft and Colin L. Powell, who injected order and discipline to a National Security Council full of strong personalities with independent power bases.

Although exit polls did not break out active-duty voters, it is virtually certain that McCain won the military vote.

In an October survey by the Military Times, nearly 70 percent of more than 4,000 officers and enlisted respondents said they favored McCain, while about 23 percent preferred Obama. Only African American service members gave Obama a majority.

In exit polls, those who said they had "ever served in the U.S. military" made up 15 percent of voters and broke 54 percent for McCain to 44 percent for Obama. "As a culture, we are more conservative and Republican," a senior officer said.

Obama has said he will meet with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs as well as the service chiefs during his first week in office. At the top of his agenda for that meeting will be what he has called the military's "new mission" of planning the 16-month withdrawal timeline for Iraq. Senior officers have publicly grumbled about the risk involved.

"Moving forward in a measured way, tied to conditions as they continue to evolve, over time, is important," Mullen said at a media briefing four days before his Nov. 21 meeting with Obama. "I'm certainly aware of what has been said" prior to the election, he said.

The last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, clashed with the chiefs during his first sit-down with them when they opposed his campaign pledge to end the ban on gays in the military. The chiefs, some of whom held the commander in chief in thinly veiled contempt as a supposed Vietnam draft dodger, won the battle, and Clinton spent much of his two terms seen as an adversary.

But Mullen came away from the Chicago talk reassured that Obama will engage in a discussion with them, balancing risks and "asking tough questions . . . but not in a combative, finger-pointing way," one official said.

The president-elect's invitation to Mullen, whom Obama previously had met only in passing on Capitol Hill and whose first two-year term as chairman does not expire until the end of September, was seen as an attempt to establish a relationship and avoid early conflict. While some Pentagon officials believe an Iraq withdrawal order could become Obama's equivalent of the Clinton controversy over gays, several senior Defense Department sources said that Gates, Mullen and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the military's Central Command, are untroubled by the 16-month plan and feel it can be accomplished with a month or two of wiggle room.

These sources noted that Obama himself has said he would not be "careless" about withdrawal and would retain a "residual" force of unspecified size to fight terrorists and protect U.S. diplomats and civilians. The officer most concerned about untimely withdrawal, sources said, is the Iraq commander, Gen. Ray Odierno.

Even as the Iraq war continues, defense officials are far more worried about Afghanistan, where they see policy drift and an unfocused mission. With strategy reviews now being completed at the White House and by the chairman's office, an internal Pentagon debate is well underway over whether goals should be lowered.

Although Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has requested four more U.S. combat brigades, some Pentagon strategists believe a smaller presence of Special Forces and trainers for Afghan forces -- and more attention to Pakistan -- is advisable.

Bush's ideological objective of a modern Afghan democracy, several officials said, is unattainable with current U.S. resources, and there is optimism that Obama will have a more realistic view.

A number of senior officers also look with favor on Obama's call for talks with Iran over Iraq and Afghanistan, separating those issues from U.S. demands over Tehran's nuclear program.

One of the biggest long-term military issues on Obama's plate will be the defense budget, currently topping 4.3 percent of gross domestic product once war expenditures are included.

Obama has said he will increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, finding savings in the Iraq drawdown and in new scrutiny of spending, including on contractors, weapons programs and missile defense.

"They know the money is coming down," a Pentagon official said of the uniformed services, and many welcome increased discipline.

But it's neither the military's nature nor its role to volunteer the cuts, the official said. "It's for Congress and the administration to say 'Stop it.' "

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta and research Editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

SP sinking . . . losing her "oh look at the shiny new object" diversionary value.  Obama on the upswing . . . and these were before the latest financial fiasco which McCain and Gramm had a hand in by deregulating financial institutions.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/17/obamas-lead-falls-two-points-in-new-cnn-poll-of-polls/

WASHINGTON - The White House is suddenly facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in leaking the identity of a female CIA officer. President Bush, at an Oval Office photo opportunity Tuesday, was asked directly whether he would fire Rove -- in keeping with a pledge in June, 2004, to dismiss any leakers in the case. The president did not respond. For the second day, White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to answer questions about Rove.

_______________

This article says that the White House may have misled the public.  And, they apparently pledged to fire anyone who had leaked this information.  This has become interesting, hope it doesn't fade right away from the public view.

Two videos surfaced showing P support for bridge to nowhere.  Alaska did receive the money.  She did not stop supporting bridge until Congress cancelled the allocation.  Alaska KEPT the money.  One project it paid for a road to the place where the bridge would have been. 

Her chef she claimed to have fired was simply reassigned other duties and still kept cooking for the kids.

the joint editorial decrying the mismanagement of Fannie/Freddie and how they were going to go to Washing to fight influence of lobbyists?  Rick Davis, McCain campaign advisor was a lobbyist for Fannie/Freddie.

McCain squad & cohorts in Alaska tried to have the democrat removed from the bipartisan group investigating troopergate but failed.  They are still working to hid the truth up there. 

Nat'l Guard leader in Alaska said that SP played no part in Nat'l Guard.  He later came out and said P DID have experience in military command.  Coincidentally, he was then promoted to a higher grade in the Nat'l Guard.  Hmm . . . funny how that happens . . .

Put some lipstick on them facts, folks.

Just one of the many places for good info.  And to think, it's "okay" to not only imply but state that incest occurs in the Palin home?  Seriously, when is enough enough?  As a conservative, I skewer the turds in the bunch on a regular basis.  Those RINOs don't work for me any more than the Barney Franks, Chris Dodds, etc. work for anyone else but themselves!

  http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/2008/nq20080922.asp

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/09/1525564.aspx

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/16609/

Matt Cooper pretty much spelled it out.  You might not like it, though, because it still holds your boys accountable for their actions.  So by all means, read at your own risk.

MSNBC.com

Transcript for July 17
Matt Cooper, John Podesta, Ken Mehlman, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein

NBC News

Updated: 1:57 p.m. ET July 17, 2005

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Seymour_Hersh__U.S._involved_in_0813.html

I found it very interesting, and you're right, he's yet to get it wrong.

McCain:  This is not a bipartisan agreement. This is three Members of the Senate--none on the House side--who have joined Democrats for a partisan agreement. It is unfortunate that has happened because we are now committing an act of generational theft. We are robbing future generations of Americans of their hard-earned dollars because we are laying on them a debt of incredible proportions. We have already amassed over a $10 trillion debt. Apparently, we will pass this legislation, which is another, when you count the interest, about $1.1 trillion dollars.

   The House is about to take up a $400 billion Omnibus appropriations bill. It has been put off until tomorrow, probably wisely. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Geithner, is going to recommend somewhere around $ 1/2 trillion to $1 trillion for another TARP package. So we are talking about trillions of dollars.

   This morning, one of my colleagues, the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, said: ``Why quibble over $200 million?''

   I am not sure the American people would agree.

   What has been the result of this compromise? Ten out of hundreds eliminated items: $34 million to renovate the Commerce Department; $100 million for government-wide supercomputers; $14 million for cyber security; $55 million for historic preservation; $20 million for Bureau of Indian Affairs; $5.8 billion for prevention wellness programs, $870 million for pandemic flu; $16 million for school improvement programs, construction; $3.5 billion for higher education facilities; $2.25 billion for a neighborhood stabilization program. Ten have been eliminated from the hundreds which totals $12.6 billion of the $140 billion being touted as having been cut from the more than $900 billion bill. What we have done is, we have eliminated 10 items, reduced others, which will probably be restored, reaching basically the same level, a ``compromise'' of about $827 billion which is a little more than that passed by the House of Representatives. The total is over a trillion dollars.

   Both the distinguished majority leader and the Senator from Montana have emphasized the need for speed, that we have to act quickly, right away. We will, I am sure, because a seminal moment was when the two or three Republican Senators announced they would vote for this package. So it is a matter of time.

   Last week, the overseer of TARP I announced there had been $76 billion wasted in paying for assets over their actual value. We acted in speed, with haste, and it cost the taxpayers $76 billion.

   Again, this is an unusual circumstance we are in. These circumstances we all appreciate. We appreciate the fact that millions of Americans are without a job, without health insurance, without the ability to educate themselves and their children, and without the ability to stay in their homes. We need to act. We need to act responsibly.

   It is being said that every economist says we need to adopt this package. That is not true. I even hear one of my advisers during the campaign, Marty Feldstein's name, being mentioned as being for this package.  

The Washington Post op-ed is entitled ``An $800 Billion Mistake.'' Martin Feldstein and many other economists believe this is an $800 billion mistake.  

   On the spending side, the stimulus package is full of well-intended items that, unfortunately, are not likely to do much for employment. Computerizing the medical records of every American over the next 5 years is desirable, but it is not a cost-effective way to create jobs. Has anyone gone through the long list of proposed appropriations and asked how many jobs each would create per dollar of increased national debt?

   Well, since Mr. Feldstein wrote that column, the Congressional Budget Office did, indeed, go through the list. They found out it would increase between now and the bill then, which has been changed somewhat but basically will end up over a trillion dollars, it says it would increase employment at that point in time by 1.3 million to 3.9 million jobs. At $885 billion, 1.3 million jobs would work out to $680,769 per job. And at 3.9 million jobs, the cost would be $226,923 per job.

   Several of my colleagues have celebrated the reduced cost of the compromise from $885 billion to $827 billion. So let's do the math for that amount. It is only $636,154 per job for 1.3 million jobs, and $212,000 for 3.9 million jobs created. If you add the cost of interest to the total for the compromise, we have $1.175 trillion.

   There are numerous policy changes which have nothing to do with jobs in this bill. This legislation was delivered to our office at 11 o'clock on Saturday night. My staff has been hard at work scrubbing this bill, 778 pages, I believe, for the changes. One of them that is very interesting, which has been added, is a new, far-reaching policy with respect to unemployment compensation. Specifically, the title is Unemployment Compensation Moderation. It would allow a person to collect unemployment insurance for leaving his or her job to take care of an immediate family member's illness, any illness or disability as defined by the Secretary of Labor. This was originally sponsored legislation in the 110th Congress and did not succeed. Each State would need to amend their unemployment insurance in order to receive $7 billion in funds.

   Again, that may be a laudable goal to fundamentally change unemployment compensation. What in the world is it doing on what is supposed to be an economic stimulus package?

 This is neither bipartisan nor is it a compromise. It is generational theft, because we rejected a proposal on this side to establish a trigger that when our economy improves, we would be on a path to a balanced budget and reducing spending. These spending programs will remain with no way of paying for them. What are we doing to future generations of Americans? We need a stimulus package. We need to create jobs. We certainly don't need to lay a multitrillion dollar debt on future generations of Americans, once our economy has improved.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00061