POLITICALPYRO CONTRIBUTORS

Obama’s Answer to the ACORN Sex Scandal:

As I look at the Polanski situation one glaring question needs to be answered. Why now?

Searching through the information I have found on the internet concerning the details of Polanski, a few glaring truths hit you in the face. He (Polanski) did it, he plead out, the judge was not going to honor the plea, so Polanski fled and no one has cared up til now.

35 years, and several US presidents later, Washington DC’s ilk finally has a sex scandal that calls for the ‘Polanski’ solution.

Like the proverbial ace in the whole, Obama pulls Polanski from his sleeve… and in one fell swoop clears the way for a non tolerance stance against sexual solicitation, that is backed by a ‘where no other president would go before‘ claim. It is the perfect means to validate his stance and gives Obama and crew the ‘If we would have known‘ out, for the ACORN scandal.

He (Obama) is the perfect political mad scientist, building a political Frankenstein. GOD HELP US ALL!

>>> What next… The ‘Ruby’? Could this be Polanski’s fate. I was going to use the ‘Roth’ but could not find a Godfather Part 2 video clip of Herman Roth getting shot when getting off the plane from Israel.

The ‘Ruby’

Hitler was failed art student. Yet so are millions. Most create as a means of expression. Hitler created as a vessel for adulation. When he did not earn respect he sought it by force.

Throughout history nations have endured the egos of dictators. Yet those like Castro and Kim Jung Ill stemmed from a military uprising that involved thousands.

Without doubt, their egos developed later but their beginnings were humble and even today both men dress plainly because they still have a genuine belief that they are one of the people.

Even Pinochet Duvalier and Mao Tse Tung never shed the military uniform that served as a symbolic reminder of the genuine movements that propelled them to and unlikely existance of power.

Seeing themselves as some sort of royalty, these dictators took on the image of having a divine purpose to their existance. Royalty throughout history created dictatorships not derived from ego of the individual but from a people’s desire to be lead by divinity. A King was informed of this divinity at birth and later comes to believe (if not sacked first) it his God chosen place among the masses.

Hitler, Stalin, Obama… are all different men. They were not propelled by the sort of revolution we have come to understand as Americans. No, not at all… Each man fed on the fears -like vultures- and fomented distrust by predicting mass carnage across a great people. Thus, filling the vacuum created with the idea of Hope and that change was said to be caused by governance that was flawed.

Spooking a trouble nation for the purposes of feeding their egos and in turn pulling out of thin air a clarion call for radical change. In short they created chaos where none could be found as a means to power.

Lenin despised Stalin who supported Trotsky. Stalin simply eliminated Trotsky by assassination. Obama eliminated Palmer by nullifying her eligibility.

Stalin eliminated his opponent then silenced the majority with fear. Obama lost the popular vote to Hilary Clinton but used his foot soldiers (The Hopians) to organize the Super Delegates.

Obamas ego like Hitlers is nothing more than a mask to hide a lifelong crisis of his true identity. Torn by opposing colors and religious zealots, Obama has chosen to forge his own identity through Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Robinson.

Yet his homosexuality developed from the need to seek a father figure. In Michelle he found the axis that squashed these homosexual leaning. Her strong minded militant black perspective gave Obama a sense of masculinity. It would be akin to dating Jodie Foster.

In all… Hitler found that the contrived adulation of his people was not enough. Then he needed to destroy those not like him, then he needed more love from Poland, Denmark then France…

This is where all short lived dictators loose their way. Hitlers ego was his driving force. Castro on the other hand never let his ego consume him. Castro knew when enough was enough and how to paralyze an nation but still make it social conscious believe that it was able to still walk and run.

What we as American should fear is that when Obama learns that his adulation stems from his false self, he will become lethal. He is too weak to tell us who the man behind the curtain is. He expects us to continually guess what shape his persona will take and he will punish those who don’t.

Like a balloon that never stabilizes, Obama -like Hitler- will rise to self destruction.

Digesting the efforts of Obama to look presidential and patriotic I noted a few things that need to be said.

Why lay a wreath at the Pentagon and not at Ground Zero in NYC?

Why is Obama continually searching for a way to dilute this day (9-11) His most recent action would have us use this day as a day of service. What? 3000 people died so he goes and paints some colored persons kitchen.

The VP of my company said I have the couth of a truck driver… SO let me say this.

Many family’s have at one time or another experienced a tragedy that is remembered by family and friends at certain times of the year. In those years too follow some my get depressed on personal days like birthdays or anniversaries.

My sister experiences this each year on the day our dad died and his birthday. I use this example to point out the fallacy of Obama and his day of service. If Obama had asked my sister to go clean a highway (our father was killed by a head on collision) on those days that she was feeling down in remembering of our father she would have smacked his purple lipped face.

He painted because he is thinking if the buildings, not the people. Had he visited an orphanage or hospital I might not have so much contempt for his sorry socialist ass.

Hopians have attacked at will the basic foundation of an American society and now the backlash is starting to be felt by the Obama administration and to his loyal subjects.

Obama and his visions of Hope is often portrayed as an apocalyptic and seismic break with our White European ideals and capitalistic history. Yet the truth is that it is the culmination and reification of European (and American) history in the 20th century. The United States connection too colonialism have prepared it for a wide range of phenomena associated with Obamas vision of Hope. This is what I now deem as the Hopian regime of the Obama Empire- from Muslim motivated terrorist murders to racial theories, from white European slave owners to the forcible annexation of Capitalism.

Moreover, a inside look at Obama and his Hopian views can suggest that it was innovated by applying prevailing racial theories (usually reserved only-whites) to the black race itself. It started with attacking those that objected to Obamas inexperience as being closet racists and denouncing religious black leaders - a non-controversial proposition - but then expanded them to include Christianity and all other forms of religion that were in contradiction to the of Hopian laws of socialist freedoms.

Hopian - and Fascism, Socialism - Obama and his ‘third world’ ideologies, adopted enthusiastically in places as diverse as Iowa, New Hampshire, and the Carolinas. It was clear by the middle of Obamas campaign that liberal capitalism, communism, and fascism (and its mutations) were locked in mortal battle of ideologies. Obamas mistake was to delusional believe in the affinity between capitalism and Americanism. But this affinity was a part of our collective DNA as a nation - and this affinity enhanced, in his mind, by Americas distrust of corporatism and by the existence of a imaginary common enemy: Capitalist Corporate Greed.

It is no wonder that the Hopian socialist movement has possessed all the hallmarks of an institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples, worship, catechism, mythology and now school room indoctrination. Obama has deemed himself a religious ascetic saint and supreme thought provider.

Obama monastically denies himself common White European Capitalist pleasures (or so he claimed) in order to be able to dedicate himself fully to his calling. Obama is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his life and denying himself so that humanity should benefit. By surpassing and suppressing his humanity, Obama has became a distorted contradiction and a version of embodiment of the Second Coming.

It is an aesthetic of decadence and evil (though it was not perceived this way by Obama), carefully orchestrated, and artificial. The Hopian view is about reproduced copies, not about originals. It was about the manipulation of symbols - not about veritable atavism.

In short: The Hopian is about theater, not about life. To enjoy the spectacle (and be subsumed by it), Obamas vision demands the suspension of judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization. The cleansing of American Capitalism is tantamount, in Hopian dramaturgy, to self-annulment. The Hopian is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its very language and narratives were nihilistic. The Hopian is conspicuous nihilism - and Obama served as a role model, annihilating Obama the Man, only to re-appear as Obama the Saviour.

Obama used ‘white guilt’ and the systematic repression of blacks as a rebellion call against the “old ways” - against the assimilation culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the Capitalistic system, our leading Superpower status. The Hopians took the Leninist vocabulary and assimilated it effectively. The burgeoning movement, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted upon the narcissistic upbringing of Obama . Obama himself is malignant narcissist, as too was Hitler.

The over abundance and self deprecating over indulgences of Capitalism constituted a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that was “wrong” with America. We were an old nation, with old ‘White European’ ideals that could be eerily dismissed as evil, they were slothful, they were part of the establishment, they were “decadent”, they were hated on religious and socio-economic grounds, they were different, they were greedy, they were morally superior, they were everywhere, they were defenseless, they were credulous, they were adaptable . They were the perfect hated father figure and parricide was in fashion.

This is precisely the source of the fascination with Obama. He was an inverted human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out our most repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with a glimpse of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians at our personal gates, and what it was like before we invented civilization.

Obama forced us all through The Looking Glass and many did not emerge. He is not the devil. He is one of us. He is the banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally disturbed, failure, and member of a mentally disturbed and failing political party, who lives in disturbed and failing times. He is the perfect mirror, a channel, and voice, for the very reasons why, more than ever, we as a nation have a reason to recapture those American ideals that set us free as a nation, and to reclaim those those ‘God given’ rights that pour from the very depth of our souls.

While sitting on the commentary sidelines and waiting for the bilge too spill forth from our corrupt and debt ridden government, I could not help to think… When is the King going to declare that if his Health Care legislation approved we will cure all cancers and to boot… the common cold.

Do these people have no honor? Do they not have a soul?

Thanks to Mike T. I have been able to find a web site that has been covering this issue very well.

Hope And Fail

Take a minute of your time to check this site out. It is amazing what this administration will say to get this legislation passed.

We are all just sheep to them… being herded for the slaughter.

LOOK! I am not one whom likes to stand and howl at the moon… and this ‘birther’ question did catch my attention early on… but after a few looks I knew that the point was moot as Obama made sure early on that this issue would not see the light of day. Nonetheless….

Pastor Manning would first like to make his entry…

America is Under Attack

Now… to the legal stuff.

US Law establishes that while there are several ways one can become a US citizen, there are actually only three different types of US Citizens with three very different sets of qualifications and citizen rights.

* A US Citizen
* A Native Born Citizen
* A Natural Born Citizen

To become President you can only be a natual born citzen:

Exactly What is a Natural Born Citizen?

U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

“No person except a Natural Born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

The Founding Fathers had to grandfathered themselves to become President. Thet did not allowed dual citizenship because of divided loyalties.

A “natural born citizen” is born on U.S. soil to TWO parents who are BOTH U.S. citizens.

Obama’s father was not a citizen. He was a student on Visa from Kenya who was a colony of Britain at the time. His mother was 4 months short of age to be able to give him citizenship. So Obama was a British citizen at his birth. He is not eligble to be President, no matter if where he was born.

But if he is indeed born in Kenya, he is not even a U.S. citizen since he was never naturalized. That means that he didn’t even had the right to be a Senator.

A CITIZEN and a Natural Born Citizen is very different. Amendment 14 talks about citizenship… but not Natural citizen ship.

But because of Obama’s adoption, pass port travel (back in the eighty’s), Indonesian Collage records, and that every document pertains to his birth has been sealed along with many others… suspicion abounds.

SO… Lets just list the facts, so that you may weigh the evidence and its usefulness then let your own judgment be your guide.

For the record, the following Obama records remain under lock and key, more than two years into public demands for Obama “transparency”… and Obama has spent a reported $1 Million in legal fees to keep them SEALED!ll

* Obama’s official birth records -SEALED
* His Occidental College records -SEALED
* His Columbia College records -SEALED
* His Harvard College records -SEALED
* His College Thesis -SEALED
* His Harvard Law Review articles -SEALED
* His Indonesia Adoption records -SEALED
* His Passport file -SEALED
* His connection to countless foreign and domestic thugs -SEALED.
* His Kenyan Birth Records -Sealed And More on Kenyan -

Obama’s adoption by Indonesian citizen Lolo Soetoro is also of consequence, as Obama could only be a US citizen by way of “naturalization.” There is no record of Obama naturalizing as a U.S. citizen upon returning from Indonesia.

Since ALL Obama records remain SEALED, what files have others used in their investigations in order to draw their absolute conclusion that Obama is legitimate?

Historically, all presidents have sealed potions of their personal information for security reasons… and this is understandable. But the amount and type of documentation currently under seal for president Obama is unprecedented.

All of this wound up into a loose frame of gray matter and a bunch of dislike for a socialists styled, no count, do nothin… user of the people… and you got a very good conspiracy theory.

And the movement continues… Tonight, on the radio… they will be discussing Obama’s Kenyan birth records.

I am not one who thinks that this issue makes believers look like they are just filled with hate and want their pound of flesh wherever they can get it… I think that Pastor Manning said it best…”When I get pulled over by a police officer… I don’t go into a whole long thing about where I learned to drive, or how my daddy taught me this or that, I just produce the god darn drivers license… Barack, just produce the gosh darn birth certificate!”

Now… the Pyro weighed in on this issue. Here is his take.

Is He or Isn’t He? The Obama Birth Certificate Drama Continues…

Today, August 5, 2009 we have this from Canada Free Press:

Canada Free Press & Northeast Intelligence Network Exclusive

Media Blackout on Obama eligibility dates back to November

Do you remember Watergate? Thirty-five years ago this Sunday, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon submitted his letter of resignation for his role in the scandal. There was the crime – the break-in, and then there was the cover-up by the Nixon administration. There were threats, media manipulation and disinformation. It was the cover-up more than the crime itself in the aftermath of the Watergate break-in that led to the downfall of the Nixon administration. It was a politically critical time for our country, but we survived because of the strength of the U.S. constitution.

Now, we potentially face a new constitutional crisis stemming from the refusal of Barack Hussein Obama to produce a one-page document that would confirm his eligibility to hold the highest office in the land. Eligibility to hold office is not a “fringe” matter, but a core constitutional issue that lies at the very heart of a growing controversy.

Although we do not have the birth certificate or proof of ineligibility, the Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press have documentation of a cover-up relating to the issue of Obama’s eligibility to hold office. The proof we possess not only exposes a well orchestrated cover-up, but also provides critical insight into why the topic of Obama’s eligibility has failed to gain traction in the corporate media.

The Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press are in possession of extremely sensitive investigative documents, including a stunning written admission by a nationally known talk show host stating that he was threatened with his career – or worse - should he talk about the issue of Barack Hussein Obama’s birth records to a national audience. This document was obtained on December 10, 2008, and provides explicit detail of a “gag order” imposed on this host before and immediately following the national election last November.

After receiving and authenticating the document, US based veteran private investigator Douglas J. Hagmann opened a full scale investigation into the media blackout, with specific emphasis on tracing the blackout origins to those issuing them. This investigation was conducted in conjunction with Judi McLeod, founding editor of Canada Free Press and Brian Thompson, CFP Information Technology chief following a meeting near Toronto, Ontario last December. At that meeting, it was decided to keep the existence of the document secret until additional evidence could be obtained.

Today, after an extensive eight month investigation, the Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press are breaking their silence and revealing explosive information about a widespread cover-up that began at the earliest stages of the Obama presidential campaign. The cover-up traces back to some of the most powerful and influential people in the U.S. and continues today.

Summary of the Evidence~

As noted above, we are in possession of a written account by a well known national talk show host who details how he was prohibited to discuss the controversy of Barack Hussein Obama’s eligibility as president of the United States. This signed document cites exact dates and times when he was forbidden to discuss any aspect of the birth certificate controversy, and includes direct references to the individuals responsible for such prohibitions. Further, his statement identifies the individuals who originated the orders and their positions, and confirms that failure to adhere to the order would likely end his career in that industry. He also confirms that other, less specific but more menacing threats were implied during conversations with those making the subject off limits.

Although we possess the original document containing the name and contact information of the talk show host, we have decided not to publish his name or network affiliation at this time. Based on the correspondence from this individual and respecting the nature of the threats to him personally and professionally, it is our decision to allow him to enjoy anonymity until such time as he decides to reveal the facts himself at a time of his choosing.

From multiple interviews conducted within the last eight months, we have obtained information from other sources, independent of the above, who have also been instructed to avoid any discussion of the birth certificate issue at all costs, to wit:

The account of an administrative assistant employed in New York City by a cable network news station who provided significant, detailed information of a 2008 meeting between the top network executive and four-(4) well-known news anchors. This source confirmed that she drafted the memo to the various hosts to notify them of the date, time and location of this high-level meeting at the request of the network’s top executive.

Present at this meeting, she verified that the network official issued “warnings” to the personalities “to avoid any on-air discussion of the birth place, eligibility, and news accounts of litigation compelling [Barack Hussein] Obama to produce a legitimate copy of his birth certificate.” She stated that the network executive had her arrange the conference immediately following a meeting “between [the network executive] and an attorney closely associated with candidate Obama who was acting on his behalf.”

The statement of a corporate secretary for a major news network confirming the existence of a one-page inter-office memo, bearing the markings “confidential” and “not for dissemination,” addressed and distributed to news anchors and on-air talent” that specifically instructed the recipients to avoid any discussion pertaining to the Obama birth certificate controversy. The memo was written and distributed in October 2008, and specifically instructed on-air talent to “advise guests, as necessary, to refrain from citing any news story, legal proceedings, Internet ‘blogs’ or other sources that pertain to the ongoing eligibility controversy of future President Barack Obama.”

As outlined above, our Investigation has uncovered both direct and indirect evidence of threats being made against some of the nation’s top radio and television personalities, which would explain some giving this topic mere lip service. As one source interviewed during the course of this investigation stated, “I’ve got a career and family to think about.”

Although no one should be surprised over the manipulation of the news, the nature of this manipulation, and the extent of the threats against journalists, should shock even the most well grounded.

Any reasonable person must question the motivation of the media moguls. The individuals who have – and continue to threaten talk show hosts, news anchors, and others are the top people. We are not talking about mid or upper level management – this is from the very top in all cases. If there is nothing to the birth certificate issue and the question of eligibility, why the secrecy?

Douglas Hagmann & Judi McLeod
Copyright © Canada Free Press

Take the poll:

Death of a Doctrine
Obama Discovers Engagement’s Limits

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Obama administration lacks a foreign policy ideology as a matter of ideology. Speaking recently at the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted, “Rigid ideologies and old formulas don’t apply.” The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — tempered by pragmatism, proud of its ad hockery and willing to consider everything on a case-by-case basis.

But even lacking an ideology, the administration does have a doctrine. The defining principle of President Obama’s foreign policy is engagement with America’s adversaries. Much of the president’s public diplomacy has been designed to clear a path for such talks — expressing respect for legitimate grievances, apologizing for past wrongs and offering dialogue without preconditions.

Six months on, how fares the Obama doctrine? Concerning North Korea and Iran, the doctrine is on its deathbed.

North Korea responded to administration outreach by testing a nuclear weapon, firing missiles toward U.S. allies, resuming plutonium reprocessing and threatening the United States with a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation.” During congressional testimony, Clinton admitted, “At this point [it] seems implausible, if not impossible, the North Koreans will return to the six-party talks and begin to disable their nuclear capacity again.”

The Iranian regime’s reaction to engagement was to cut the ribbon on a nuclear enrichment facility, add centrifuges, conduct a fraudulent election, and kill and imprison a variety of political opponents. Regarding administration overtures, Clinton recently told the BBC, “We haven’t had any response. We’ve certainly reached out and made it clear that’s what we’d be willing to do . . . but I don’t think they have any capacity to make that kind of decision right now.”

The problem is not engagement itself — which was, after all, attempted in various forms by the previous administration. The difficulty is that the Obama foreign policy team has often argued that the reason for tension and conflict with nations such as North Korea and Iran is a lack of adequate American engagement — which is absurd, and which has raised absurdly high expectations.

During the 2008 campaign, for example, Obama adviser P.J. Crowley (now State Department spokesman) argued, “Hard-liners on both sides have dominated that relationship and made it very difficult for the United States and Iran to come together and have a serious conversation.” But can the lack of a serious conversation with Iran — or with North Korea — now credibly be blamed on the previous administration? Obama’s diplomatic hand has been extended for a while now. Fists remain clenched. This is not because some magical diplomatic words remain unspoken. It is because of the nature of oppressive regimes themselves.

Such regimes are often internally preoccupied. Precisely because they lack genuine legitimacy, they spend large amounts of time and effort maintaining their fragile authority, consolidating power and managing undemocratic transitions. North Korea confronts a succession crisis. Iran deals with growing dissent and clerical division. Both tend to make calculations based on internal power struggles, not some rational calculation of their external image and interests. They are so inwardly focused that they do not have, as Clinton said, “any capacity” to respond to engagement. It is questionable in these cases whether we currently have any serious negotiating partners at all.

And the inherent instability of oppressive regimes also leads them to tighten control by invoking threats from abroad — particularly from the United States. Because anti-Americanism is a central commitment of North Korean and Iranian ideologies, any softening of this resentment requires a kind of voluntary regime change. Pyongyang and Tehran would need to find a new source of legitimacy — a new prop for their power — other than hatred for America. Not easy or likely.

The Obama administration’s public campaign of engaging enemies is headed toward an entirely unintended consequence. Eventually it will raise expectations for action. As the extended hand is slapped again and again, the goals of North Korea and Iran will be fully revealed and the cost to American credibility will rise. Already the administration has given Iran a September deadline to respond to the offer of talks and has threatened “crippling action” if Iran achieves nuclear capabilities. Congress is preparing sanctions on Iranian refined petroleum, which would escalate tensions significantly.

This is the paradox of the Obama doctrine. By attempting to engage North Korea and Iran so visibly, Obama is dramatically exposing the limits of engagement — and building the case for confrontation.

Pyro Says:

It is all warm an fuzzy to be a narcissist’s… But when dealing with megalomaniacs, tyrants and just plain dictator thugs… Warm and fuzzy just don’t work.

Should Health Officials Have to Be Healthy and Trim?

Are there jobs where your weight should matter? Obviously if you can’t squeeze down the aisles, you might not make a great flight attendant, but what if you’re in reasonably good health and capable of doing the job?

President Obama has nominated Regina Benjamin for Surgeon General, but instead of people being totally psyched about her MacArthur genius award, her impressive charitable works, or her down-to-earth working-class background, everybody is trying to guess her BMI. Some people think a country plagued with obesity should not have an obese person representing our nation’s health care.

Still, we don’t remember anyone throwing this argument at all those husky surgeon generals who happened to be male. If C. Everett Koop ~ could be in charge of the nation’s health-care system while doing an amazing impression of a Civil War surgeon, should we really care about Benjamin’s few extra pounds?

Pyro Say’s

Back in the day, doctors were judged for their skills too find what will heal you. Now, in America we only care about what is on the outside. What is that saying about beauty and it being skin deep…

On a More Positive Note:

Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues
Approval Rating on Health Care Falls Below 50 Percent

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 20, 2009

Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama’s stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Obama’s approval ratings on other front-burner issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped over the summer, as rising concern about spending and continuing worries about the economy combine to challenge his administration. Barely more than half approve of the way he is handling unemployment, which now tops 10 percent in 15 states and the District.

The president’s overall approval rating remains higher than his marks on particular domestic issues, with 59 percent giving him positive reviews and 37 percent disapproving. But this is the first time in his presidency that Obama has fallen under 60 percent in Post-ABC polling, and the rating is six percentage points lower than it was a month ago.

Obama has taken on a series of major problems during his young presidency, but he faces a particularly difficult fight over his effort to encourage Congress to pass an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system.

The legislation has run into problems in the House and Senate, as lawmakers struggle to contain spiraling costs and avoid ballooning the deficit.

Since April, approval of Obama’s handling of health care has dropped from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent. Obama still maintains a large advantage over congressional Republicans in terms of public trust on the issue, even as the GOP has closed the gap.

The erosion in Obama’s overall rating on health care is particularly notable among political independents: While positive in their assessments of his handling of health-care reform at the 100-day mark of his presidency (53 percent approved and 30 percent disapproved), independents now are divided at 44 percent positive and 49 percent negative.

At the same time, there is no slackening in public desire for Obama to keep pressing for action on the major issues of the economy, health care and the deficit. Majorities think he is either doing the right amount or should put greater emphasis on each of these issues.

On health care, the poll, conducted by telephone Wednesday through Saturday, found that a majority of Americans (54 percent) approve of the outlines of the legislation now heading toward floor action. The measure would institute new individual and employer insurance mandates and create a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Its costs would be paid in part through new taxes on high-income earners.

There are sharp differences in support for this basic package based on income, as well as a deep divide along party lines. Three-quarters of Democrats back the plan, as do nearly six in 10 independents. More than three-quarters of Republicans are opposed. About two-thirds of those with household incomes below $50,000 favor the plan, and a slim majority (52 percent) of those with higher incomes are against it. The income divide is even starker among independents.

Republicans have hammered the president and congressional Democrats over the cost of an health-care overhaul and its potential impact on the federal deficit, twin issues that have emerged as a possible brake on any new package.

Obama’s approval rating on his handling of the deficit is down to 43 percent, as independents now tilt toward disapproval (42 percent approve; 48 percent disapprove).

Pyro’s Thoughts

Looks like the spoon feeding has somewhat awaken those apathetic for Obama and his color… Oops, did I say that. It seems that color is only skin deep…huh.

When I first read this I kinda sat back and pondered what would I do with ‘Joe’ if I were the Obama Administration… Yep, Under the Obama Speeding Bus of Disaster! Awesome economic piece… makes you wonder who Obama is listening too, or what his real plans are for the US.

The Most Misunderstood Man in America

Joseph Stiglitz predicted the global financial meltdown. So why can’t he get any respect here at home?

By Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK
Published Jul 18, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jul 27, 2009

Anya Stiglitz was in the middle of a Pilates class in Central Park on an April morning when her cell phone rang. Glancing down, she saw “202″ pop up—no number attached—and knew it was the White House. An aide to Larry Summers ~ was on the line, looking for her husband, the Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Anya said she’d pass on the message to Joe—then went back to work on her abs. No big deal, she thought. People often call her when they want to talk to Joe, because even though he’s spent four decades figuring out how the global economy works, he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of voice mail. “He doesn’t listen to his messages, so if you want to talk to him, keep calling,” Anya says on his cell-phone recording.

Anya figured Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, was probably just calling to gripe about Joe’s latest op-ed in The New York Times. Joe Stiglitz and Larry Summers, two towering intellects with egos to match, are not each other’s favorite economist. “They respect each other, but they hate each other like poison,” says Bruce Greenwald, Stiglitz’s friend and academic collaborator at Columbia. (”I’ve got huge admiration for Joe as an economic thinker,” Summers told NEWSWEEK.) Stiglitz had been hammering at Obama’s economic team for its handling of the financial crisis. He wrote that the stimulus program was too small to be effective—a criticism that has since swelled into a chorus, though Obama says he’s not adding more money. Stiglitz also had called the administration’s bailout plan a giveaway to Wall Street, an “ersatz capitalism” that would save the banks’ investors and creditors and screw the taxpayers. “I thought, Larry—he’s just going to yell at Joe,” Anya recalls.

But Summers’s aide soon called back, and this time he said it was urgent: could Professor Stiglitz come to Washington for a dinner hosted by the president—that same night? Anya patched him through to Joe’s office at Columbia University~; Stiglitz accepted, and jumped on an early train. He was a little miffed: the other eminent economists attending the dinner, like Princeton’s Alan Blinder and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, had been invited the week before. Stiglitz, a former chairman of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, had supported Barack Obama as a candidate as early as 2007. But until that day, four months into the administration, he had heard barely a word from the White House. Even now, when the president was making an effort to hear a range of economic voices, Stiglitz seemed to be an afterthought. (A White House spokesman said only that the president wished to include Stiglitz.)

Such is the lot of Joe Stiglitz. Even in the contentious world of economics, he is considered somewhat prickly. And while he may be a Nobel laureate, in Washington he’s seen as just another economic critic—and not always a welcome one. Few Americans recognize his name, and fewer still would recognize the man, who is short and stocky and bears a faint resemblance to Mel Brooks. Yet Stiglitz’s work is cited by more economists than anyone else’s in the world, according to data compiled by the University of Connecticut. And when he goes abroad—to Europe, Asia, and Latin America—he is received like a superstar, a modern-day oracle. “In Asia they treat him like a god,” says Robert Johnson, a former chief economist for the Senate banking committee who has traveled with him. “People walk up to him on the streets.”

Stiglitz has won fans in China and other emerging G20 nations by arguing that the global economic system is stacked against poor nations, and by standing up to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He is also the most prominent American economist to propose a long-term solution to the imbalances in capital flows that have wreaked havoc, from the Asian contagion of the late ’90s to the subprime-investment craze. Beijing has more or less endorsed Stiglitz’s idea for a new global reserve system to replace the U.S. dollar as the world currency. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has been influenced by Stiglitz’s work, especially when “he talks about the economics of poor people,” says Fang Xinghai, the head of Shanghai’s financial-services office. But his stature is huge in Europe as well: French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently featured him at a conference on rethinking globalization. And earlier this month, while traveling to Europe and South Africa, Stiglitz received a call from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office: could he return through London and help the P.M. get ready for the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh?

Stiglitz is perhaps best known for his unrelenting assault on an idea that has dominated the global landscape since Ronald Reagan: that markets work well on their own and governments should stay out of the way. Since the days of Adam Smith, classical economic theory has held that free markets are always efficient, with rare exceptions. Stiglitz is the leader of a school of economics that, for the past 30 years, has developed complex mathematical models to disprove that idea. The subprime-mortgage disaster was almost tailor-made evidence that financial markets often fail without rigorous government supervision, Stiglitz and his allies say. The work that won Stiglitz the Nobel in 2001 showed how “imperfect” information that is unequally shared by participants in a transaction can make markets go haywire, giving unfair advantage to one party. The subprime scandal was all about people who knew a lot—like mortgage lenders and Wall Street derivatives traders—exploiting people who had less information, like global investors who bought up subprime- mortgage-backed securities. As Stiglitz puts it: “Globalization opened up opportunities to find new people to exploit their ignorance. And we found them.”

Stiglitz’s empathy for the little guy—and economically backward nations—comes to him naturally. The son of a schoolteacher and an insurance salesman, he grew up in one of America’s grittiest industrial cities—Gary, Ind.—and was shaped by the social inequalities and labor strife he observed there. Stiglitz remembers realizing as a small boy that something was wrong with our system. The Stiglitzes, like many middle-class families, had an African-American maid. She was from the South and had little education. “I remember thinking, why do we still have people in America who have a sixth-grade education?” he says.

Those early experiences in Gary gave Stiglitz a social conscience—as a college student, he attended Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech—and led him to probe the reasons why markets failed. While studying at MIT, he says he realized that if Smith’s “invisible hand” always guided behavior correctly, the kind of unemployment and poverty he had witnessed in Gary shouldn’t exist. “I was struck by the incongruity between the models that I was taught and the world that I had seen growing up,” Stiglitz said in his Nobel Prize lecture in 2001. In the same speech he declared that the invisible hand “might not exist at all.” The solution, Stiglitz says, is to move beyond ideology and to develop a balance between market-driven economies—which he favors—and government oversight.

Stiglitz has warned for years that pro-market zeal would cause a global financial meltdown very much like the one that gripped the world last year. In the early ’90s, as a member of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, Stiglitz argued (unsuccessfully) against opening up capital flows too rapidly to developing countries, saying those markets weren’t ready to handle “hot money” from Wall Street. Later in the decade, he spoke out (without results) against repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which regulated financial institutions and separated commercial from investment banking. Since at least 1990, Stiglitz has talked about the risks of securitizing mortgages, questioning whether markets and authorities would grow careless “about the importance of screening loan applicants.” Malaysian economist Andrew Sheng says, “I think Stiglitz is the nearest thing there is to Keynes in this crisis.”

That would be John Maynard Keynes, the great 20th-century economist who rocketed to international renown in late 1919 when he published The Economic Consequences of the Peace. In his book, Keynes warned that the draconian penalties imposed on Germany after World War I would lead to political disaster. No one listened. The disaster he predicted turned out to be World War II. Like Stiglitz, Keynes was not a favorite at the White House. Keynes also believed that markets were imperfect: he invented modern macroeconomics—which calls for major government intervention to help ailing economies—in response to the Great Depression. But after meeting Keynes for the first time in 1934, FDR dismissed him as too abstract and intellectual, according to Robert Skidelsky, Keynes’s biographer. Keynes himself fretted that Roosevelt was not spending enough.

To his critics—and there are many—Stiglitz is a self-aggrandizing rock-thrower. Even some of his intellectual allies note that while Stiglitz is often right on the substance of issues, he tends to leap to the conclusion that government can make things better. Harvard economist Rogoff has called him intolerably arrogant—though he added that Stiglitz is a “towering genius.” In a letter to -Stiglitz published in 2002, Rogoff recalled a moment when the two of them were teaching at Princeton and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker’s name came up for tenure. “You turned to me and said, ‘Ken, you used to work for Volcker at the Fed. Tell me, is he really smart?’ I responded something to the effect of ‘Well, he was arguably the greatest Federal Reserve chairman of the 20th century.’ To which you replied, ‘But is he smart like us?’” (Stiglitz says he can’t remember the comment, but adds that he might have been referring to whether Volcker was an abstract thinker.)

Stiglitz’s defenders say one possible explanation for his outsider status in Washington is his ongoing rivalry with Summers. While they are both devotees of Keynes, Summers often has supported deregulation of financial markets—or at least he did before last year—while Stiglitz has made a career of mistrusting markets. Since the early ’90s, when Summers was a senior Treasury official and Stiglitz was on the Council of Economic Advisers, the two have engaged in fierce policy debates. The first fight was over the Clinton admin-is-tration’s efforts to pry open emerging financial markets, such as South Korea’s. Stiglitz argued there wasn’t good evidence that liberalizing poorly regulated Third World markets would make any one more prosperous; Summers wanted them open to U.S. firms.

The differences between them grew bitter in the late 1990s, when Stiglitz was chief economist for the World Bank and took issue with the way Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Summers, who was then deputy secretary, were handling the Asian “contagion” financial collapse. After World Bank president James Wolfensohn declined to reappoint him in 1999, Stiglitz became convinced that Summers was behind the slight. Summers denies this, and maintains that no rivalry exists between them. Summers’s deputy Jason Furman says that Summers now “talks to [Stiglitz] a lot.” “A lot” is an exaggeration, Stiglitz responds. “We’ve talked one or two times,” he says.

Despite the Obama team’s occasional efforts to reach out to him, Stiglitz remains deeply unhappy about the administration’s approach to the financial crisis. Rather than breaking up or restructuring the big banks that failed, “the Obama administration has actually expanded the notion of ‘too big to fail,’ ” he says. In a veiled poke at his dubious standing in Washington, Stiglitz adds: “In Britain there is a more open discussion of these issues.” A senior White House official, responding to this critique, says that the Obama administration is most often criticized these days for intervening too much in the economy, not too little.

In other respects, Obama is embracing some of Stiglitz’s views, suggests Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget—and a former Stiglitz protégé (he worked for Stiglitz during the Clinton administration). One example: Obama’s new idea for reforming health care by creating a government-run program to compete with private-sector insurers. “There is an intellectual paradigm in health care that says you should move to purely private markets,” says Orszag. “Joe’s perspective would suggest major difficulties [with that]. That led to the thought that we need a mix: there is an important government role.”

Today, settled as a professor at Columbia, Stiglitz occasionally finds himself welcomed in the nation’s capital, though usually at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, to testify before Congress. While he had no great desire to go back into government, friends say he was deeply disappointed when an offer didn’t come from Obama last fall. Not surprisingly, Stiglitz believes his old rival was behind it, though Summers denies this. As for the invitation to dinner at the White House, there were a few theories kicked around the spacious Stiglitz household on Manhattan’s Upper West Side as to why it came at the last minute: one was that Obama, in an interview posted online that week by The New York Times, had cited Stiglitz as one of the critics he listens to, so it would have seemed strange if he hadn’t been invited to the dinner. While Stiglitz was flattered by the discussion over a dinner of roast beef and Michelle Obama’s homegrown lettuce, he can’t stop himself from complaining that an occasional meal with dissidents is not the best way for the president to formulate policy. “Some of the most difficult debates and judgments can’t really be hammered out in an hour-and-a-half meeting covering lots of topics,” he says. Stiglitz may a prophet without much honor in Washington, but he seems to be determined to keep the prophecies coming.

When the party of free lovin’ meth-mouth transvestites, five minute abortions, prekindergarten with condoms, and generally any American who tends to take it up the ass on a regular basis suddenly feigns “offense” to teenage pregnancy – I know I have fallen through the proverbial rabbit hole.

THE PYRO IS BACK!

It took me a few minutes to get through this piece. Its nicely put together and does not miss anything.

Here is the Link: Barack Obama: The Naked Emperor