Carol Lee, Nia Malika Henderson | Yahoo.com 

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it’s all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

Even supporters make clear they’re on the lookout for backsliding. “There’s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,” said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future.

Obama insists he hasn’t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left’s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.

Obama drew rousing applause at campaign events when he vowed to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. As president-elect, Obama says he won’t enact the tax.

Obama’s pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts and redistribute that money to the middle class made him a hero among Democrats who said the cuts favored the wealthy. But now he’s struck a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year, signaling he’ll merely let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.

Obama’s post-election rhetoric on Iraq and choices for national security team have some liberal Democratseven more perplexed. As a candidate, Obama defined and separated himself from his challengers by highlighting his opposition to the war in Iraq from the start. He promised to begin to end the war on his first day in office.

Now Obama’s says

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911blogger.com
Jon Gold
11/30/2008

Donna Marsh O’Connor, mother of 9/11 victim Vanessa Lang Langer, recently posted an “idea” at change.org, “which was then promoted at both 911truth.org and 911blogger” for America to have a new investigation into the attacks of 9/11.

Unfortunately, Donna’s “idea” never picked up steam.However, on 11/28/2008, Debora Blake posted a similar “idea” at change.org, and for whatever reason, that entry “took off.” Within 2 days, the “idea” for a new investigation into 9/11 was #1 on the entire site with 660 votes. The #2 entry, “Pass the DREAM Act Now!,” posted on 11/24/2008, only has 347 votes.

They have since deleted every “idea” calling for a new investigation into 9/11, including the #1 entry. Here is the email I just received from change.org: Read the rest of this entry »

Leonard Doyle |theindependent.co.uk

Before Hillary Clinton has been formally offered the job as Secretary of State, a purge of Barack Obama’s top foreign policy team has begun.

The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady’s foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public face of America to the world. In negotiations with Mr Obama this week before agreeing to take the job, she demanded and received assurances that she alone should appoint staff to the State Department. She also got assurances that she will have direct access to the President and will not have to go through his foreign policy advisers on the National Security Council, which is where many of her critics in the Obama team are expected to end up.

The first victims of Mrs Clinton’s anticipated appointment will be those who defended Mr Obama’s flanks on the campaign trail. By mocking Mrs Clinton’s claims to have landed under sniper fire in Bosnia or pouring scorn on her much-ballyhooed claim to have visited 80 countries as First Lady they successfully deflected the damaging charge that he is a lightweight on international issues.
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TheNewAmerican.com 

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a senior adviser to President-elect Barack Obama on matters of national security and foreign policy, was the featured speaker at Chatham House in London on November 17, 2008. The title of his lecture was “Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President.” Although Chatham House events are known to attract “the great and the good” of England’s political, financial, and academic elites — as well as many of its top media representatives — there has been virtually no word as to what Brzezinski had to say in any of the world’s press.

Type “Brzezinski” and “Chatham” into your Internet search engines and you will come up with … virtually zilch, nada, nothing.The esteemed Times of London had only this to say on November 16, the day before the lecture: “Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democrat former national security adviser … will give an address tomorrow at Chatham House, the international relations think tank, in London.” No report on the event the day after — or since. Ditto for the Telegraph, the BBC, and other British media. Same for the U.S. media: no reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CNS, CNN, Fox, etc.

This is but the latest example of the hermetic seal known as the “Chatham House Rule,” which states:
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Jeremy Scahill | Alternet.org 

U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good.

Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who Obama is considering for top positions in his administration, the more his inner circle resembles a staff reunion of President Bill Clinton’s White House. Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join Obama’s team.

“What happened to all this talk about change?” a member of the Clinton foreign policy team recently asked the Washington Post. “This isn’t lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time.”

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DemocracyNow.com

At least a half-dozen of President-elect Barack Obama’s new transition team leaders were among Obama’s top fundraisers who “bundled” cash for him on the campaign trail. Four of them raised $500,000 or more for the Obama campaign. Some public interest advocates have expressed concern over the links. Craig Holman of Public Citizen said, “Any time you see these people who brought in half a million dollars to the campaign being appointed to government service, it’s a red flag.”

JerusalemPost.com

Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, a key member of the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives, has accepted President-elect Barack Obama’s call to serve him as chief of staff, party officials said on Thursday.

Obama barely had time to savor his victory before he began filling out his new administration and getting a sobering look at some of the daunting problems he will inherit when he takes office in just 10 weeks.

He got a quick start with the transition Wednesday, calling on Emanuel, a fellow Illinois politician, to serve as White House chief of staff.

Emanuel, who served in the Clinton White House, has Israeli family and spent significant amounts of time in Israel. He now serves as the fourth-highest member of the House of Representatives, is known as a skilled political operator who helped engineer the gains the Democrats made in Congress in 2006.

In an interview with Ma’ariv, Emanuel’s father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son’s appointment would be good for Israel. “Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel,” he was quoted as saying. “Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”
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By Morton Skorodin

November 01, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse“: The period we’re living in now is the Bush-Obama-McCain Administration.

The 24 hr/7 days/wk media Wurlitzer distracts us from looking at these white elephants too closely. The circus is so loud and visually entraining that it hides the deeper structure of society. The U.S. is a military dictatorship with scientific public relations. Part of this scientific PR is the careful cultivation of and trumpeting of America’s democratic trappings. The important thing to remember is that McCain and Obama were carefully vetted by the moneyed rulers and this is not particularly a secret. It’s called “campaign contributions”. After that, we the people get to choose from two approved candidates. Read the rest of this entry »

Dissident Voice

by Joe Mowrey / October 20th, 2008

Okay, that title is a cheap sensationalist tactic to get you to read this article. But before all you extreme left-wing progressives rush to your keyboards to condemn me for using a Nazi reference in the same sentence with the patron saint of changeyness, let me clarify for you that I am engaging in hyperbole and that I will employ that technique along with the use of irony and dark humor in this article. You can Google these terms if they are unfamiliar to you. I feel the need to make this clarification because it is apparent of late that no amount of irony is able to penetrate the fog of Obama mania which has settled over the consciousness of the so-called progressive liberal community.

I awoke this morning to exciting news. Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Yippie! The blogosphere is all atwitter. Our guy has worked hard, taken solid positions on all the most important progressive issues and managed to convince the exalted Mr. Powell to throw his support our way. Celebrations are in order. We’re one step closer to the Oval Office thanks to this latest breaking development. Oh, and for those of you who may have forgotten who Colin Powell is (history is so boring, isn’t it?) let’s take a moment to highlight some of his stellar qualifications as a supporter of the Left. Read the rest of this entry »

If what happened last night is any indication of what is in the future for America, we may as well brace for it. There was no mention of civil liberties being returned to Americans, no lessoning of the military budget that brought us into this debt, along with the declining housing market.

By Timothy V. Gatto

08/10/08 “ICH” – -Tonight’s debate between the two corporate candidates’ was predictable and superficial. If I were to judge by the debates only, I would have a hard time differentiating between the two. Both Senator’s were very close to one another on most issues save healthcare which in all reality is just a “straw-man” issue that probably won’t be enacted in the next term of either candidate, but it makes good fodder for political discourse. Read the rest of this entry »

Daily Newscaster

September 4th, 2008

By: D. H. Williams @ 7:29 PM - EST

Today at the Republican National Convention, as the Ron Paul Delegates were taking a picture in front of the model White House inside the Convention Center, they were surrounded by Secret Service which proceeded to search the bags of all the delegates. They took any and everything related to Ron Paul including signs, buttons, videos, slim jims, cards, even books.

Alternate Delegate Dennis Rothacker from Florida said “We were done taking the picture when Secret Service started walking into the room and surrounded us. There were about 30 of them. When they searched my bags they took my Ron Paul sign and turned a deaf ear to my complains, they just walked away.”

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 Salon.com
Glenn Greenwald

Sunday Aug. 31, 2008 11:46 EDT

As the police attacks on protesters in Minnesota continue — see this video of the police swarming a bus transporting members of Earth Justice, seizing the bus and leaving the group members stranded on the side of the highway — it appears increasingly clear that it is the Federal Government that is directing this intimidation campaign. Minnesota Public Radio reported yesterday that “the searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff’s office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Today’s Star Tribune added that the raids were specifically “aided by informants planted in protest groups.” Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force — an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI — was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate “vegan groups” and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing. There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by the Federal Government that led to the excessive and truly despicable home assaults by the police yesterday.
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In order to pass their political driving test, successful politicians need to be masters of one tricky manoeuvre in particular - the U-turn.

Max Deveson | BBC.com

The contenders in this year’s US presidential election are no exceptions - both John McCain and Barack Obama have engaged in some nifty repositioning.

Mr McCain’s U-turns have mostly increased his appeal to the Republican Party’s base, placing him on a rightward trajectory.

Barack Obama has been performing a more traditional manoeuvre: running to the left during the primaries, when party activists need to be wooed, then shifting to the centre once the nomination is clinched.

Flip-flopping politicians will always attract charges of hypocrisy and opportunism: it may be worth it if it helps them win over undecided voters in the middle, but when the goal is to shore up their political base, the benefits are much less clear.

Here are some examples.

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Jonathan | TruthAlliance.net

We Are Change Colorado has now become aware that another group, Unconventional Action, is planning on being violent at the DNC protests.  Violence is a broad term.  Some argue that property damage is violent, others might tell you it sends a message.  To most of the Truth Alliance and We Are Change Colorado activists, there is no message to property damage and is in fact, a form of violent behavior.  In the eyes of the law, property damage is completely, without debate, illegal.

To make the long story short, Unconventional Action seems to be open about their plans for the DNC.  Their website, which can be found here: http://www.unconventionalaction.org/ has one link which is pretty disturbing.

Under the link, “The Strategies: How We Win,”  a section titled: Denver: Disrupt the DNC, clearly outlines for “Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians” to “join (them) in Denver, Colorado, August 24th-28th as (they) engage in coordinated Direct Actions against the Democratic National Convention, its corporate sponsors, and the military/police occupation of public space.”

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Piper’s Pit: A Common Reality
by Saab Lofton/Seattle Sinner

“Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality. Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore. The two are rarely compatible.”
–Neil Gaiman, The Books of Magic

Science usually saves the day, not from a technological standpoint but a sociological one. The military-industrial complex may avoid the laws of man (for now), but it can’t possibly evade the laws of physics. Therefore, since physics dictate bullets can’t zig zag in mid air, the Warren Commission’s “magic bullet” theory was completely discredited. As a result, it’s known, though still not admitted, that the C.I.A. was the only force on Earth powerful enough to both kill J.F.K. and get away with it.

Likewise, science – this time, the twin fields of archeology and anthropology – ensures that my black ass will NEVER AGAIN be equated with an animal by white supremacists (of course, anal retentive animal rights activists equate all Humans with animals, but fuck them). Now science comes to the rescue once again, this time in the form of groups such as WeAreChangeSeattle.org. They have dedicated themselves to pointing out how, scientifically speaking, a plane crashing into a skyscraper is not always enough to bring down said skyscraper. In other words, in order for those New York towers to have fallen the way they did on 9-11, some kind of demolition had to have simultaneously occurred at their foundations. That’s right, 9-11 was an inside job, science says so.
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Apparently, according to this congressman, it is to avoid pushing King George into attacking Iran, declaring martial law within the U.S.A. and preventing the 2008 elections from occurring.

Ralph Nader (the man some people, who are somewhat narrow-minded, blame for Bush’s appointment as the first King of the U.S.A.) reads a quote from a letter response from faux (aren’t they all at this point?) Congressman John Olver (D-Mass.) to his constituents whose several towns councils have passed resolutions demanding the impeachments of King George and Viceroy Dick.

Important quote from the video:

“Made fully aware of the overwhelming majority of his constituency resolved for impeachment, Congressman Olver vehemently refused. Rather, he expressed his opinion that the current autocratic executive (meaning the White House), would attack Iran from the air, declare a national emergency, institute martial law, and call off the 2008 elections were the Democrats to initiate impeachment.”

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RonPaul2008.com

Ron Paul on the issues.

Is it More than Politics with Wesley Clark?
Jack Lesser / WeAreChangeSeattle.org

LAKE FOREST PARK, Washington - Time makes for experience and lessons learned, knowledge gained. Wesley Clark served in the United States Army for thirty - four years and rose to the rank of four -star general as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. On his most recent book tour stop for A TIME TO LEAD, We Are Change Seattle talked with Wesley Clark about his book, 9/11, Iraq and Iran.
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Aaron Dykes / JonesReport.com
October 2, 2007

KIRKLAND, Washington - Responding to questions from local activists during a recent campaign stop, Rudy Giuliani made a strange claim that air quality reports concerning Ground Zero were “open” and “public” despite a recent publicized controversy over the suppressed and intentionally misleading reports released in the aftermath of 9/11.

Giuliani was polite enough to give formal answers to questions from members of WeAreChange Seattle who were concerned about Osama bin Laden– who remains free in Pakistan– and Ground Zero first responders– who remain sick and dying without health care or other public support.

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