The day’s top political news:
At the pump gas prices hit five year low
The price retreat from more than $4 a gallon was generated by Bush announcement of ending the federal ban on off shore drilling.
With the financial crisis adding to the momentum – the prices Americans pay at the pump have crashed.
Current prices hover around $1.50 a gallon (+/-) nationwide.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081226/D95AM4VG4.html
Hawaiian Island of Oahu loses all power!
Obama’s vacation interrupted by power failure throughout the island.
The outages, began hitting various parts of the island at about 6:30 p.m.
It’s not the first time Obama has been unable to see the light – and, -- based on what little we know of his background, not likely to be the last.
http://www.starbulletin.com/news/breaking/36774189.html
Illinois impeachment panel split regarding subpoenas for Obama and aides
The committee is looking into the Democratic governor’s alleged attempt to auction Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat.
Blagojevich’s attorney, Edward Genson, wants forcing to testify before the panel next week, Obama’s chief of staff appointee Rahm Emanuel and adviser Valerie Jarrett, both of whom were interviewed last week by federal prosecutors in a corruption probe of the governor’s office.
Republican members of the impeachment panel want Democratic Chairwoman Barbara Flynn Currie to grant Genson’s request to subpoena Emanuel, Jarrett and U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., a Chicago Democrat and aspirant to Obama’s former Senate post.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axZaypeCjNl4&refer=worldwide
Opinion:
Defining this web site and its evolving concept
This web site has a specific goal – communicating key issues of the day for those willing and able to make a difference.
It is an understatement to note we enter the new year with the nation facing a crisis and challenge. Financial chaos, collapsing business and industries, and a prospect of an administration led by a mysterious President-elect about whom little is actually known, and who lacks any training or experience in the duties a president must face and handle from moment to moment.
We have never seen Obama face and deal with a major crisis. We have seen him founder when unexpected campaign moments occur – such as his noting having campaigned in 57 states, and claiming FDR and Truman met with our enemies.
We have also witnessed Obama’s having no problem tossing any around him who threaten embarrassment or conflict. Thus did he jettison his spiritual mentor, numerous campaign staff leaders, and even his white grandmother who raised him.
Obama is not the only threat to our domestic tranquility.
America also steps into a new year with a Washington in total control of, and dominated by, extreme liberal political forces. The White House by Barack Obama, Congress by radical Nancy Pelosi, and the US Senate by the befuddled Harry Reid who can spin off into irresponsible and intemperate directions as demonstrated by his attack on Rush Limbaugh and his declaration of unilateral surrender in the global war on terror.
This web site hopes to make tracking political developments in the coming year as easy as possible for our allies.
We update the site daily – except for those rare occasions in which I am on the road, away from the computer, or during the inevitable moments when my computer lets me down and crashes.
The Website opens with a quick look at the top political news of the day – usally the top three stories, with brief descriptions and a live link to the entire news story for those who wish to pursue a particular story in more detail.
That is followed by a daily opinion piece such as the one you are reading. This is an article reflecting my view of the political landscape on that particular day. I try not to pull punches, speak out honestly, and provide viewpoints not likely to be found in the mainstream media. I intend to provide truth and fact regarding the nation’s politics.
That said, I am a committed conservative and a Republican to the extent Republicans reflect conservative ideals. I am also dedicated to doing what I can to keep the GOP consercvative.
The final section of the web site is an inventory of the top political blogs of the day. Beginning today, I am offering a brief menu of the bolgs in headline form, then follow that menu with a posting of the entire blog itself and live links.
In the end, I want to provide a site that busy people with keen political interest can visit, get a quick take on things that will be seen that day, then proceed to do what they are charged with doing in real life.
As always, I eagerly solicit any ideas or suggestions for improvement.
Buddy
Today’s top blogs:
Menu:
1.
Rezko attorney 'owns' Obama mansion
Lawyer at firm where Democrat worked receives tax bill
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
An attorney for convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko is listed as the owner and taxpayer for Barack Obama's Chicago mansion,
2.
MICHELLE OBAMA ON "COURT ORDERED INACTIVE STATUS"
Michelle Obama may no longer be a practicing attorney because of reasons her husband’s associates want to keep deeply covered – perhaps disciplinary problems on her part.
3.
Madoff – Democrat money man – major criminal fiasco
The mystery of Bernard Madoff will be storied a hundred years from now. As history's biggest financial criminal, he took a cheap ripoff that you can use at home—the Ponzi scheme—and turned it into a global empire worth some $50 billion.
4.
THE OBAMAS' MORPHING BIRTHDATES
Why do the birthdates keep changing?
Now, the details:
1.
OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
Rezko attorney 'owns' Obama mansion
Lawyer at firm where Democrat worked receives tax bill
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
An attorney for convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko is listed as the owner and taxpayer for Barack Obama's Chicago mansion, according to records obtained by WND.
William Miceli is a lawyer at the Chicago law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which also formerly employed Obama.
The controversy began when a website called News and Commentary for Thinking People published a 48-page document that lists Miceli as the owner of the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood.
Miner, Barnhill & Galland was Obama's employer when he did extensive legal work for Rezko, who awaits sentencing after he was convicted in June of fraud, money laundering and bribery-related counts.
Miceli, as a senior attorney at the firm, supervised Obama when the future president wrote letters on behalf of Rezko urging public authorities to award him new public properties to rehabilitate, notes the "Barack Book" website maintained by GOP.com.
WND asked for comment from Obama's transition team and the Democratic National Committee but did not receive a response.
(Investigative reporter Tim Novak at the Chicago Sun-Times has identified 15 building projects that Rezmar, Rezko's development company, redeveloped while it was represented by Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland during Obama's time at the firm.
The law firm changed its name when senior partner Allison Davis left to join Rezko in his schemes to take out loans on low-income housing projects. Several of the transactions remain under investigation, because the millions of dollars Rezko borrowed against the properties to make redevelopments are gone, while many of the properties remain boarded up and uninhabitable.
Following the Jan. 21 Democratic Party primary debate, Miceli told the Washington Post that he was Obama's supervisor at the law firm, in response to Sen. Hillary Clinton's charges Obama had worked for a Chicago slumlord, Rezko.
The Post said "Obama denied doing any legal work directly for Rezko or his companies," contending Obama had done only "about five hours worth of work" on a joint real estate development project involving Rezko and a Chicago church group.
Miceli told the Post Obama "was a very junior lawyer at the time, who was given responsibility for basic due diligence, document review."
Miceli said Obama "did what he was told by the firm," minimizing the importance of any work Obama admittedly did for the Rezko account.
WND confirmed the tax bill for the Obama home is mailed to Miceli, not to Obama or the Northern Trust account through which Obama has claimed the home was purchased.
Records from the Cook County Treasurer's Office give the PIN number for the Obama property as 20-11-115-037-0000 and list Miceli as the person who receives Obama's property tax invoice by mail.
Eric Herman, a spokesman for the Cook County assessor, confirmed to WND that the Treasurer's Office records were correct and that Miceli did receive the Obama property tax invoice by mail.
Miceli did not return a call WND placed to him at Miner, Barnhill & Galland.
Herman told WND a second PIN number, 20-11-115-036-0000, identified the vacant lot next to the Obama mansion that was purchased by Rita Rezko, Tony Rezko's wife.
Here, WND found conflicts between the tax records maintained by the Cook County Treasurer's Office and the deed information maintained by the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.
Rosslyn Whitlock, an Internet support specialist at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, confirmed to WND that the office has no information listed for the Obama home under the PIN number 20-11-115-037-0000, the number used by the Cook County Assessor's office for property tax purposes.
Records at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds list Rita Rezko as the holder of the warranty deed for the vacant lot at 5050 S. Greenwood adjoining the Obama mansion, under the PIN number 20-11-115-036-0000.
WND was able to locate warranty information at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds , which Herman at the County Assessor's office told WND was the "old PIN number" assigned to the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue, before the home was sold to Obama.
Neither spokesman could explain to WND the discrepancy in PIN numbers, nor why the Cook County Recorder of Deeds has no information filed under the new PIN number assigned to the property after the Obama purchase.
Records with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds under the PIN number 20-11-115-034-0000 indicate the mortgage is held by Northern Trust Company under trust number 10209, which Obama has indicated was the trust the Obama family used to purchase the home.
Meanwhile, WND has reported that since arresting Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has taken new interest in Rezko's involvement in the Obama mansion purchase.
WND also reported real estate credit analyst Kenneth Conner has filed a civil suit alleging he was wrongfully dismissed by Mutual Bank of Harvey for objecting to what he considered a fraudulent appraisal of the vacant lot. The appraisal was submitted by the Rezkos at an intentionally high figure, he claims, permitting them to borrow an additional $125,000 that amounted to a "political payoff" to Obama.
2.
MICHELLE OBAMA ON "COURT ORDERED INACTIVE STATUS"
First off, the biggest ass-kissing media refers to Michelle Obama as a 'distinguished attorney" despite the fact that Michelle Obama has been"inactive" since 1993. Click here: ARDC | Lawyer Search
Everyday another Obama skeleton comes careening out of the closet.
This ADRC is for discipline reasons...not for those volunteering to stop practicing. It is COURT ORDERED...not "Michelle Obama ordered." Their website is very clear about their function and why they step in. (see below)
If this was a Republican, the Democrooks would have her up on charges already.
Schmoo, an attorney, points out, "sounds more to me like she was drummed right out of the practice of law. I am just dying to know what she did... she ran to have a court ordered inactive status done...and then no malpractice report needed to be provided.
She wanted this to 'go away" fast and furious and the details not come out in depositions, courtroom documents, rulings for the client/plaintiffs...etc..
I would love to know what she did. I believe barack obummer himself was also disciplined--I know his law license is on "inactive" he lied about ever going by any other names when he applied for bar application. He also failed to state any prior drug use...(which he admitted in his books...and he had outstanding tickets that were never paid)."
Michelle Obama on court ordered inactive status with the Illinois State Attorney hat tip schmoopett
huh?
Michelle Obama is on COURT ORDERED INACTIVE STATUS--order said since she has been placed INACTIVE that "no malpractice record required."
WHAT DID SHE DO THAT in 1993 -- AFTER only 4 YEARS -- HER LICENSE to PRACTICE LAW WAS REVIEWED AND PUT ON INACTIVE by a DISCIPLINARY AGENCY?
What Is the ARDC? (this is NOT the Illinois Bar-where one can voluntarily be inactive) As our name implies, the ARDC is the agency of the Supreme Court of Illinois which registers attorneys and investigates complaints of misconduct filed against attorneys holding a license to practice law in Illinois.
Our principal purpose is to assist the Supreme Court to determine a lawyer's fitness to practice law in Illinois. If a complaint is made that an attorney, licensed to practice law in Illinois, has engaged in illegal, unethical or dishonest conduct, we will investigate and, if warranted, bring formal disciplinary charges. The Supreme Court of Illinois will then ultimately decide if a lawyer should be censured (publicly rebuked), suspended (having the law license to practice either taken away for a certain period of time or placed on a probationary period) or disbarred (having the law license taken away indefinitely).
We cannot impose fines, imprison, obtain monetary damages, enforce remedies between the lawyer and client, or seek civil or criminal relief against a lawyer as part of the disciplinary process. We can affect only the lawyer's ability to practice law in Illinois.
We are not funded by taxpayers' money. We are funded entirely by the annual registration fees paid by attorneys authorized to practice law in Illinois.
What Is a Request for an Investigation of an Attorney?
It is a request to us that we look into the conduct of an attorney who you believe has acted improperly. We will review your request to determine if an investigation is warranted. In most cases, we will initiate an investigation where the information you provide us suggests that the attorney engaged in illegal, dishonest or unethical conduct. Filing a request accusing an attorney of unethical conduct is a serious matter to the lawyer. We recommend that, whenever practical, you try to resolve any differences or disputes that do not concern claims of unethical conduct directly with the lawyer.
How Do I Request an Investigation of an Attorney?
By mailing to our office, either in Chicago or Springfield, a request that you want an attorney to be investigated by our office. Your request should be in writing. No special form is necessary. For your convenience, you may download a Request for Investigation form. Please return the Request by postal mail or hand-delivery. The ARDC does not accept an e-mail transmission of a Request for Investigation.
UPDATE: Scmoo the attorney adds:
as an attorney I am telling you that people can "choose" to not pay their registration fees or take their continuing education of the bar and therefore go on "suspension...or inactive status
that goes thru the CAL BAR--the California Bar association
UPDATE: What was little Michelle from the Southside of Chicago doing in 1993?
1993: Public Allies Chicago with 30 Allies is launched by founding Executive Director Michelle Obama. President Clinton names Public Allies a model for national service. First Lady Hilary Clinton hosts Rose Garden reception for Public Allies at the White House.
Say what? Michelle and Hillary go back that far?
Shmoo finds more:
In 1992 Michelle Obama left her job at Sidley Austin to launch a career in public service, serving as an assistant to Mayor Daley and then as the assistant commissioner of planning and development for the City of Chicago.
(ask yourself how did a 2-3 year attorney...just wound up being Mayor Daleys "assistant" just like that...and what did she do as an "assistant" what does that even mean when you are a harvard trained attorney?)
Too close for comfort. Coincidental?
Bernardine Dohrn, Bill ayers wife was at Sidley Austin--- a law firm in Chicago from From 1984 to 1988. Dohrn was employed by the law firm Sidley Austin although her criminal record has prevented her from being admitted to either the New York or Illinois bar. (source: wikipedia)
3.
Madoff as Metaphor
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
The mystery of Bernard Madoff will be storied a hundred years from now. As history's biggest financial criminal, he took a cheap ripoff that you can use at home—the Ponzi scheme—and turned it into a global empire worth some $50 billion.
One ingredient was financial intelligence. Madoff had buckets of it. Early in his career, he was the real deal, an actual innovator. He combined this with an amazing lack of conscience, for his scam was rooted most fundamentally in lying and stealing. The difference between him and all who came before was his grand scale, the grandest scale imaginable.
There is a saying in the world of Austrian economics about the business cycle. The puzzle is not to explain business failures. Those are part of the normal course of life, and the sign of a healthy economy. The puzzle is to explain the "cluster of errors" that appears at the beginning of a recession. How could so many have been so wrong about so much at the same time? The business cycle is a system-wide failure, not merely the mistaken judgment of a few.
So it is with Modoff's scheme. The mystery isn't how one person was able to fool a few. The scheme in which yesterday's "investors" are paid off with the money of today's victims is known in all places and probably all times—and it always goes belly up to the originator's complete disgrace. It is a classic example of how moral laws are self-enforcing in the world of economics.
The critical difference this time is that Madoff ran his scheme during an economic boom, a time when people's normal sense of incredulity is put on the shelf. This is part of the grave cultural distortion introduced by funny money. Money is the most widely demanded good in society, and the Fed is making new quantities of it not as a reflection of new real wealth, but purely as an administrative decree.
There is a sense in which funny money literally drives everyone crazy, leading to what is sometimes called the "madness of crowds." Guido Hulsmann explains it all in his remarkably timely and revealing new book: The Ethics of Money Production. With artificial stimulation from the credit machine, multitudes are willing to believe in something that cannot possibly be true. In Madoff's case, it was that he could, even in falling markets, earn 15-20% a year without risk.
Why not? Most everyone believed in some version of the myth. We believed that house prices would go up and up despite the reality that houses are physical things that deteriorate from the instant they are finished, just like cars or computers or anything else. Why did we believe this about houses? Again, you have to look to the fraudulent money system to see why.
And we believed that we could all become millionaires by putting our money in the stocks of companies that weren't actually earning money or paying dividends, companies whose wealth was entirely based on infusions of cash from the stock market which in turn were based on the belief that others would buy the stocks and so on. In other words, we believed that something out of nothing was possible, and anyone who didn't believe it was a chump. It’s exactly what people believed during the other great inflations of history.
What's more, we believed that buying these stocks constituted not consumption, but savings for the future. In fact, people routinely attacked official savings data on grounds that they did not include what people were “saving” in terms of their stock market accounts. In a similar way, people were measuring our national wealth not in terms of accumulated capital, but rather through consumption data, as if granite kitchen counters in bigger houses were a measure of wealth instead of the opposite: the depletion of wealth.
The left is big on attacking the salaries of investment bankers, and they were indeed outlandish. But these too represented not a unique problem, but more evidence of inflationary finance. In a bubble economy, the money chases what is most fashionable, and financial services qualified. So the salaries were market. What was wildly distorted was the market itself.
Now let's talk about government finance during these years.
The market tried to correct itself from 1999-2001, yes those Clinton Years, but the government wouldn't tolerate it. Instead, it used every sign of downturn as an excuse to keep the illusion going, creating billions and billions in new dollars. The Fed drove interest rates lower and lower despite the non-existence of savings available to back them up.
(Low interest rates in a sound money system are a reflection of accumulated capital and deferred consumption. When you see the Fed pushing them down during a boom, it is creating a dangerous mirage.)
Did anyone stop and wonder where the government was getting all this money to pump up the system? Yes, the Austrian economists warned us. The pages of Mises.org and LewRockwell.com were filled with alarms. But it was something people wanted to ignore. We are talking about human nature: the desire to believe in things that do not exist. The government was happy to fuel this sense because it gave the Fed, its connected industries, and the state more power and more money in the short term.
Madoff's scheme played into the belief that wealth was not something to work for, but something to scheme for. It could be generated by playing your cards right, hooking into the right networks, and finding the right "investments." The people with whom he dealt had, it turns out, some internal sense that there was something a little bit shady about the whole operation. But they dispensed with this sense when the fat checks arrived, and concluded that whatever was making this perpetual motion machine operate, it did work.
But listen: the government right now is using the same tactic to convince you that it is saving you from the recession. The whole scheme partakes of the same sense of denying reality that characterized Madoff's scheme. And I'm not just talking about Social Security, which is almost an exact replica of the Ponzi version, except that at least Charles Ponzi didn't force people to give him money. I'm speaking of something broader. The entire financial system that is propped up by the Treasury and the Fed is based on the same idea: that something out of nothing is possible.
So they will jail Madoff. Wall Street would flog him if it could. He is disgraced for all of history. But meanwhile, the likes of Clinton, Bush, Bernanke, Paulson, Obama, and all the rest are still riding high, even though their scheme is far larger and more egregious.
Most of us like to believe that we wouldn't have been tricked by Madoff. But are you being tricked by the elites who claim that they can conjure up a trillion dollars to stabilize our economy by clicking a few buttons on a computer screen? Most people are. Certainly the press seems to have bought it. Many people were outwitted by Madoff. Many more people are today being outwitted by the government and its central bank. And it will all end in disgrace and disaster, only on a far, far grander scale.
________________________________________
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty. Comment on the blog.
http://mises.org/story/3272
4.
THE OBAMAS' MORPHING BIRTHDATES
Why do the birthdates keep changing?
Recently I saw reports about Madelyn Dunham dying at the age of 97. There is a problem with that. I remember reading about BO's family history that stated, that Madelyn Dunham eloped with her boyfriend Stanley Armour Dunham, when she was finishing high school and she gave birth shortly afterwords, in 1942 to her daughter (Stanley) Ann Dunham. This means that Madelyn Dunham was born sometimes in 1924, which means that she should be 84 years old now. Why do I see reports of her being 97, 96, 93.
Same thing happened when BO's mother, Ann Dunham died. There was a memorial, where it stated that she was 56, while in reality she was a little younger then 53.
What is wrong with these people? Normal people have a set birthdate, it is carved in stone, it is not something amorphous, that keeps changing on the daily basis. WHO are these people, where are they coming from, where are they going, with no set birth dates, no marriage licenses, hidden birth certificates, no medical or school records, no coroners reports, death certificates from wrong states with wrong dates???
Posted by Pamela Geller
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