Obama's Fitness Trainer - Another Example of Do As I Say, Not As I Do

The article below is from the Washington Examiner: Beltway Confidential.

According to this article, the Obamas have a personal trainer fly in from Chicago every week to work with them for an hour every morning.

Defenders of Obama on this article's message board point out that the trainer is probably flying commercial - on a plane that pollutes anyway,so why shouldn't he ride in it, and that the Obamas are probably paying him out of their own money and not out of our tax money.

But that's not the point. The point is, if they need a personal trainer - why not hire someone local? And when you're telling everyone in the country that they must lower their carbon footprint, when you're telling everyone in the country to buy electric cars and stop polluting, to pay a guy to come to you from Chicago when you can get a local trainer .... it's just hypocritical.

Obama's jetset fitness trainer helps shed pounds, adds to global warming

With a schedule as hectic as President Obama's it must be hard to stick to a training regimen without help -- but why does he insist on having his old trainer fly out from Chicago to D.C. regularly when Obama and his wife exhort the rest of us to drive less? And in a recession? According to Ashley Parker at the New York Times, Obama's fitness czar Cornell McClellan comes out to D.C. every week:

Mr. McClellan grew up practicing martial arts, eventually earning a black belt, and as a college student realized that he had a knack for working with people. He owns Naturally Fit, a personal training and wellness center in Chicago, and now spends part of his week in Washington at Mr. Obama’s request.

“It was an easy sell for me, because I thought of it as kind of a duty, to serve the president,” said Mr. McClellan, who works out with the first couple, often in the early morning, at the gym in the White House residence. Mr. and Mrs. Obama both try to exercise for at least an hour every day, and Mr. McClellan says he usually sees them two to four times a week, depending on their schedules.

David Axelrod says he lost 25 pounds under McClellan's watch, but that comes at a steep cost for those as environmentally minded as the Obamas: 50,000 lbs of carbon emissions. That's how much carbon emissions are involved in McClellan's flying back and forth every week for a year (according to TerraPass.com).

Couldn't they have just hired someone in D.C. to take over the training? The Yellow Pages provides over 56 entries under "Personal Fitness Trainers" alone, most of whom would have been able to reach the White House by bike.

Doing so would have at least been consistent with Obama's statements about the need to reduce emissions. Last July, Obama announced that he wanted federal workers to cut down on business travel and commuting by car in order to reduce emissions produced by the federal government:

The White House was announcing Tuesday that the government will aim to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from indirect sources like employee driving by 13 percent in 2020, compared with 2008 levels.

Even First Lady Michelle Obama's support for locally produced food is steeped in environmental concerns. From MotherEarthnews:

Local food is also better for the planet. It supports a healthy, clean environment that benefits wildlife and the land. Growing local, seasonal food preserves genetic diversity and reduces our reliance on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Buying local contributes to the community economy and protects our food supply for the future.

The Nation also notes the importance of lower emissions to the Obamas' "buy local" campaign:

Agriculture's large greenhouse footprint is due mainly to its heavy reliance on fossil fuels to grow and transport food to market, as well as the increasing popularity of the meat-rich American diet. Meat production accounts for 18 percent of global emissions, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, in part because livestock emit large amounts of methane, an exceptionally potent greenhouse gas.

Even if Obama were to put his money where his mouth is and purchase offsets for McClellan's Chicago-to-D.C. commute, the message is pretty clear: If you're an average federal employee or your everyday taxpayer, stop driving and be careful of your carbon footprint. If you're in the White House and you want some toned arms and a firm buttocks, fly your trainer out from Chicago every week.


___________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Who is Dr. Walter Williams?

I'm pretty sure I posted his bio the last time he guest-hosted, but just in case I didn't, here it is from Wikipedia:

Walter E. Williams, (born 1936 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.

Early life and education
Williams grew up in "Philadelphia’s Richard Allen housing projects, where his neighbors included a young Bill Cosby."

Wlliams holds a bachelor's degree in economics from California State University, Los Angeles (1965) and a master's degree (1967). He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1972. Since being a graduate student at UCLA, he has been a friend of fellow African American economist and columnist Thomas Sowell. Correspondence between Sowell and Williams appears in the 2007 "A Man of Letters" by Sowell.

Williams served as a Private in the United States Army prior to obtaining his bachelor's degree.While serving in the Army, he "waged a one man battle against Jim Crow from inside the army (where he was nearly court-martialed for challenging the racial order)." Williams wrote a letter to President John F. Kennedy denouncing the pervasive racism of the American government and military.

“Should Negroes be relieved of their service obligation or continue defending and dying for empty promises of freedom and equality,” Williams demanded of the president. "Or should we demand human rights as our Founding Fathers did at the risk of being called extremists....I contend that we relieve ourselves of oppression in a manner that is in keeping with the great heritage of our nation.”

Academic career
Williams has been a Professor of Economics at George Mason University since 1980, and chairman of that University's Economics department from 1995 to 2001.

He has previously been on the faculty of Los Angeles City College, California State University – Los Angeles, Temple University, and Grove City College. Williams was awarded an honorary degree at Universidad Francisco Marroquin.

Writing career
Williams has written hundreds of articles and his syndicated column is published weekly in approximately 140 newspapers across the United States, as well as on several web sites by Creators Syndicate.

Economic and political views
Reason has called Williams "one of the country’s leading libertarian voices." In 2009, Greg Ransom, a writer for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, ranked Williams as the third most important "Hayekian" Public Intellectual in America, behind only Thomas Sowell and John Stossel.

As an economist, Williams often speaks and writes in favor of free market economics and against socialist systems and government intervention. He "is perhaps best known for his rigorous, fact-based argument that the free market is a force for racial equality." Williams has said "That's a challenge I love: making economics fun and understandable." He has also said: "I praise lassez-faire capitalism as being the most moral and most productive system man has ever devised. Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man."

Williams supports legalization of selling one's own bodily organs on the grounds that it increases the supply of organs for transplant. He also makes the libertarian argument that the true proof of whether or not an individual owns something is whether or not he/she has the right to sell it. If selling organs is illegal, he says, then, consequently, individuals do not own their own bodies.

He is also a critic of the minimum wage and affirmative action, believing that both practices are detrimental to both blacks and liberty. Williams has penned a number of pieces detailing his view that wage increases are harmful to low-skill workers. Williams especially emphasizes his belief that racism and the legacy of slavery in the United States are overemphasized as problems faced by the black community and do not adequately explain the situation blacks face today.

Holding libertarian viewpoints, Williams criticizes gun control as endangering the innocent and failing to reduce crime. Williams opposes anti-discrimination laws in the private sector on the libertarian grounds of freedom of association.

He has gone on record as advocating the Free State Project in at least two columns and once on television. The Williams endorsement correlated with the largest single membership jump in the first 5000 phase of the project, a jump even higher than the results of the project being Slashdotted. He also believes in the right of U.S. states to secede from the union as several states attempted to do during the Civil War. Williams has supported or been sympathetic toward various secessionist ideas in his writings.

"As I got a little older I had it mostly polished when I was in college in terms of the ideas of liberty. And also I must have read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense I don’t know how many times. At least twenty-thirty times, and that kind of instilled some radical ideas in me as Thomas Paine was trying to instill in the colonists. Affirmative action has led to, I believe, many Black people expecting favors from the system and not working as hard as they otherwise would, that is if you know that you can get into college because of affirmative action—or some people call it diversity nowadays—well then why work as hard in high school? So it might undermine some of the spirit of people. And I think that the basic premise of those who advocate affirmative action is that the problems that Black Americans face today are the result of racial discrimination."

In his work, Williams builds on the economics of the previously mentioned Thomas Sowell, as well as those of Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Henry Hazlitt, and he has described Ayn Rand's Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal as "one of the best defenses and explanations of capitalism one is likely to read." Williams fills in as host on the Rush Limbaugh radio program when Limbaugh is traveling.

Non-profit activities
Williams serves on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations, including the Bruin Alumni Association.

Presidential draft campaign
Cartoonist Bruce Tinsley, in his comic strip Mallard Fillmore, launched a campaign to draft Williams for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election. Although Williams initially stated that he wouldn't completely rule out the possibility, he ultimately decided against such a run, and endorsed Ron Paul.

Personal life
Williams and his wife Connie were married from 1960 until her death on December 29, 2007. They have one daughter, Devyn, who resides in Los Angeles, California.[citation needed]



__________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Walter Williams Filling In For Rush Today

Rush has a cold today so Walter Williams is filling in for him.

I wonder if we'll be hearing any more ads for Zycam on Rush's show?

_________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

28 Feb, 2011, Mon, SoS Clinton and Staff Schedule

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/appt/2011/02/157395.htm

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
Secretary Clinton is on foreign travel in Geneva, Switzerland.

8:45 a.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Rudd, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(POOLED CAMERA SPRAY)

9:30 a.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(POOLED CAMERA SPRAY)

10:45 a.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(POOLED CAMERA SPRAY)

11:00 a.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton meets with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and French European Affairs Minister Laurent Wauquiez, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(POOLED CAMERA SPRAY)

1:00 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(POOLED CAMERA SPRAY)

2:10 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with Tunisian Secretary of State Radhouane Nouicer, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

2:30 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:30 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton delivers remarks to the Conference on Disarmament in the Disarmament Chamber, at Palais des Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY UN)

4:00 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(POOLED CAMERA SPRAY)

5:20 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton holds a press availability, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)

6:25 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Clinton meets with the staff and families from Mission Geneva, in Geneva, Switzerland.
(POOLED PRESS COVERAGE)

PM Secretary Clinton returns from foreign travel.

DEPUTY SECRETARY JAMES STEINBERG
5:30 p.m. Deputy Secretary Steinberg delivers the Von der Heyden Distinguished Lecture, at Duke University in North Carolina.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)


DEPUTY SECRETARY THOMAS NIDES
7:30 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Department of Energy Chief of Staff Rod O’Connor, in Washington DC.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

9:15 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with the Assistant Secretaries, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

11:15 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Assistant Secretary Carson, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

12:15 p.m. Deputy Secretary Nides attends a meeting at the White House.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:30 p.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Senator Lugar, on Capitol Hill.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

USAID ADMINISTRATOR RAJIV SHAH
9:15 a.m. Administrator Shah joins Deputy Secretary Nides’ meeting with the Assistant Secretaries, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

12:15 p.m. Administrator Shah attends a meeting at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

US FOR MANAGEMENT PATRICK KENNEDY
Under Secretary Kennedy delivers remarks to the National Governor’s Association spousal group, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

US FOR ECONOMIC, ENERGY AND AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS ROBERT HORMATS
11:30 a.m. Under Secretary Hormats meets with Lord Greek, the UK Trade and Investment Minister, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

12:30 p.m. Under Secretary Hormats meets with Ian Solomon, U.S. Executive Director of the World Bank, at the World Bank Group.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:30 p.m. Under Secretary Hormats speaks with John Frisbie, President of U.S.-China Business Council.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:15 p.m. Under Secretary Hormats meets with David Lipton and Ambassador Patterson, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

5:15 p.m. Under Secretary Hormats meets with Jordanian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Ja’far Hassan, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

US FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS JUDITH MCHALE
8:45 a.m. Under Secretary McHale speaks with Russian Ambassador Mikhail Shvydkoy, co-chair of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

9:15 a.m. Under Secretary McHale joins Deputy Secretary Nides’ meeting with the Assistant Secretaries, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

2:00 p.m. Under Secretary McHale meets with her public diplomacy leadership team, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:00 p.m. Under Secretary McHale attends a briefing by the Office of Opinion Research.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

US FOR DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS MARIA OTERO
Under Secretary Otero travels to Nigeria through March 3. She meets with senior government officials, electoral observation organization representatives, and civil society groups to discuss efforts to create an environment for free, fair and transparent general elections in April.

US FOR ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS ELLEN TAUSCHER
11:30 a.m. Under Secretary Tauscher meets with Ambassador Victoria Nuland, Special Envoy for Conventional Armed Forces, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

COUNSELOR AND CHIEF OF STAFF CHERYL MILLS
Counselor Mills is on foreign travel in Haiti to meet with U.S. Government officials and to participate in a meeting of the Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission.

CHIEF OF PROTOCOL AMBASSADOR CAPRICIA PENAVIC MARSHALL
Ambassador Marshall delivers remarks to the National Governor’s Association spousal group, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS JEFFREY FELTMAN
Assistant Secretary Feltman travels to Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates through March 2.

AS FOR CONSULAR AFFAIRS JANICE JACOBS
Assistant Secretary Jacobs delivers joint remarks with USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas to Congressional staff members, at the Capitol Visitor Center.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY CONGRESS)

AS FOR POPULATION, REFUGEES AND MIGRATION ERIC SCHWARTZ
Assistant Secretary Schwartz travels to Colombia and Ecuador through March 4.

AS FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS ARTURO VALENZUELA
8:30 a.m. Assistant Secretary Valenzuela delivers opening remarks at the 2011 Conference on Caribbean Policy Objectives, at the Meridian House in Washington DC.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE DANIEL BENJAMIN
Ambassador Benjamin is on foreign travel in Morocco to meet with Moroccan government officials.

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE AND GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR ERIC GOOSBY
Ambassador Goosby participates in the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, in Boston, Massachusetts.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR GLOBAL WOMEN’S ISSUES MELANNE VERVEER
Ambassador Verveer delivers a statement on behalf of the United States at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and participates in bilateral meetings in New York City.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY UN)

6:00 p.m. Ambassador Verveer introduces Michelle Bachelet, head of UN Women, at the National Council for Research on Women Awards Dinner, at Cipriani in New York City.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE TO MUSLIM COMMUNITIES FARAH PANDITH
Special Representative Pandith travels to Berlin for meetings with the German Marshall Fund, government officials, youth, members of civil society and the media.

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING SCHEDULE
1:15 p.m. Daily Press Briefing.




_________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

28 Feb 2011, Mon, Pres and VP Schedules

http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president
9:45 am The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

11:00 am The President and the Vice President meet with a bipartisan group of governors
State Dining Room
Pooled Press

2:10 pm The President meets with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
Oval Office
Pool Spray at the Top

http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/vice-president
9:45 am The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

11:00 am The President and the Vice President meet with a bipartisan group of governors
State Dining Room
Pooled Press


_______
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

The Welfare Program for Saudi Princes

I'm not really sure what I'm reading in the article below. Initially I thought it was talking about money we - American taxplayers - were paying the Saudi princes, for American "goodwill" but re-reading it it never actually says that, just that American diplomats were concerned with how those guys squandered their millions...maybe the welfare they are talking about is money the Saudis force their oil company to pay them?

Reading the history of Brunei is also interesting - one of the richest country's in the world, now rather poor because the king's brother had to be paid millions of dollars a month - out of Brunei's coffers - and he squandered it all.

Give me a goodol' American millionaire or billionaire any day of the week!

Special Report: U.S. cables detail Saudi royal welfare program

LONDON (Reuters) – When Saudi King Abdullah arrived home last week, he came bearing gifts: handouts worth $37 billion, apparently intended to placate Saudis of modest means and insulate the world's biggest oil exporter from the wave of protest sweeping the Arab world.

But some of the biggest handouts over the past two decades have gone to his own extended family, according to unpublished American diplomatic cables dating back to 1996.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and reviewed by Reuters, provide remarkable insight into how much the vast royal welfare program has cost the country -- not just financially but in terms of undermining social cohesion.

Besides the huge monthly stipends that every Saudi royal receives, the cables detail various money-making schemes some royals have used to finance their lavish lifestyles over the years. Among them: siphoning off money from "off-budget" programs controlled by senior princes, sponsoring expatriate workers who then pay a small monthly fee to their royal patron and, simply, "borrowing from the banks, and not paying them back."

As long ago as 1996, U.S. officials noted that such unrestrained behavior could fuel a backlash against the Saudi elite. In the assessment of the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in a cable from that year, "of the priority issues the country faces, getting a grip on royal family excesses is at the top."

A 2007 cable showed that King Abdullah has made changes since taking the throne six years ago, but recent turmoil in the Middle East underlines the deep-seated resentment about economic disparities and corruption in the region.

A Saudi government spokesman contacted by Reuters declined to comment.

MONTHLY CHEQUES

The November 1996 cable -- entitled "Saudi Royal Wealth: Where do they get all that money?" -- provides an extraordinarily detailed picture of how the royal patronage system works. It's the sort of overview that would have been useful required reading for years in the U.S. State department.

It begins with a line that could come from a fairytale: "Saudi princes and princesses, of whom there are thousands, are known for the stories of their fabulous wealth -- and tendency to squander it."

The most common mechanism for distributing Saudi Arabia's wealth to the royal family is the formal, budgeted system of monthly stipends that members of the Al Saud family receive, according to the cable. Managed by the Ministry of Finance's "Office of Decisions and Rules," which acts like a kind of welfare office for Saudi royalty, the royal stipends in the mid-1990s ran from about $800 a month for "the lowliest member of the most remote branch of the family" to $200,000-$270,000 a month for one of the surviving sons of Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.

Grandchildren received around $27,000 a month, "according to one contact familiar with the stipends" system, the cable says. Great-grandchildren received about $13,000 and great-great- grandchildren $8,000 a month.

"Bonus payments are available for marriage and palace building," according to the cable, which estimates that the system cost the country, which had an annual budget of $40 billion at the time, some $2 billion a year.

"The stipends also provide a substantial incentive for royals to procreate since the stipends begin at birth."

After a visit to the Office of Decisions and Rules, which was in an old building in Riyadh's banking district, the U.S. embassy's economics officer described a place "bustling with servants picking up cash for their masters." The office distributed the monthly stipends -- not just to royals but to "other families and individuals granted monthly stipends in perpetuity." It also fulfilled "financial promises made by senior princes."

The head of the office at the time, Abdul-Aziz al-Shubayli, told the economics officer that an important part of his job "at least in today's more fiscally disciplined environment, is to play the role of bad cop." He "rudely grilled a nearly blind old man about why an eye operation promised by a prince and confirmed by royal Diwan note had to be conducted overseas and not for free in one of the first-class eye hospitals in the kingdom." After finally signing off on a trip, Shubayli noted that he himself had been in the United States twice for medical treatment, once for a chronic ulcer and once for carpal tunnel syndrome. "He chuckled, suggesting that both were probably job-induced."

FOLLOWING THE MONEY

But the stipend system was clearly not enough for many royals, who used a range of other ways to make money, "not counting business activities."

"By far the largest is likely royal skimming from the approximately $10 billion in annual off-budget spending controlled by a few key princes," the 1996 cable states. Two of those projects -- the Two Holy Mosques Project and the Ministry of Defense's Strategic Storage Project -- are "highly secretive, subject to no Ministry of Finance oversight or controls, transacted through the National Commercial Bank, and widely believed to be a source of substantial revenues" for the then-King and a few of his full brothers, according to the authors of the cable.

In a meeting with the U.S. ambassador at the time, one Saudi prince, alluding to the off-budget programs, "lamented the travesty that revenues from 'one million barrels of oil per day' go entirely to 'five or six princes,'" according to the cable, which quoted the prince.

Then there was the apparently common practice for royals to borrow money from commercial banks and simply not repay their loans. As a result, the 12 commercial banks in the country were "generally leary of lending to royals."

The managing director of another bank in the kingdom told the ambassador that he divided royals into four tiers, according to the cable. The top tier was the most senior princes who, perhaps because they were so wealthy, never asked for loans. The second tier included senior princes who regularly asked for loans. "The bank insists that such loans be 100 percent collateralized by deposits in other accounts at the bank," the cable reports. The third tier included thousands of princes the bank refused to lend to. The fourth tier, "not really royals, are what this banker calls the 'hangers on'."

Another popular money-making scheme saw some "greedy princes" expropriate land from commoners. "Generally, the intent is to resell quickly at huge markup to the government for an upcoming project." By the mid-1990s, a government program to grant land to commoners had dwindled. "Against this backdrop, royal land scams increasingly have become a point of public contention."

The cable cites a banker who claimed to have a copy of "written instructions" from one powerful royal that ordered local authorities in the Mecca area to transfer to his name a "Waqf" -- religious endowment -- of a small parcel of land that had been in the hands of one family for centuries. "The banker noted that it was the brazenness of the letter ... that was particularly egregious."

Another senior royal was famous for "throwing fences up around vast stretches of government land."

The confiscation of land extends to businesses as well, the cable notes. A prominent and wealthy Saudi businessman told the embassy that one reason rich Saudis keep so much money outside the country was to lessen the risk of 'royal expropriation.'"

Finally, royals kept the money flowing by sponsoring the residence permits of foreign workers and then requiring them to pay a monthly "fee" of between $30 and $150. "It is common for a prince to sponsor a hundred or more foreigners," the 1996 cable says.

BIG SPENDERS

The U.S. diplomats behind the cable note wryly that despite all the money that has been given to Saudi royals over the years there is not "a significant number of super-rich princes ... In the end," the cable states, Saudi's "royals still seem more adept at squandering than accumulating wealth."

But the authors of the cable also warned that all that money and excess was undermining the legitimacy of the ruling family. By 1996, there was "broad sentiment that royal greed has gone beyond the bounds of reason". Still, as long as the "royal family views this country as 'Al Saud Inc.' ever increasing numbers of princes and princesses will see it as their birthright to receive lavish dividend payments, and dip into the till from time to time, by sheer virtue of company ownership."

In the years that followed that remarkable assessment of Saudi royalty, there were some official efforts toward reform -- driven in the late 1990s and early 2000s in particular by an oil price between $10-20 a barrel. But the real push for reform began in 2005, when King Abdullah succeeded to the throne, and even then change came slowly.

By February 2007, according to a second cable entitled "Crown Prince Sultan backs the King in family disputes", the reforms were beginning to bite. "By far the most widespread source of discontent in the ruling family is the King's curtailment of their privileges," the cable says. "King Abdullah has reportedly told his brothers that he is over 80 years old and does not wish to approach his judgment day with the 'burden of corruption on my shoulder.'"

The King, the cable states, had disconnected the cellphone service for "thousands of princes and princesses." Year-round government-paid hotel suites in Jeddah had been canceled, as was the right of royals to request unlimited free tickets from the state airline. "We have a first-hand account that a wife of Interior minister Prince Naif attempted to board a Saudia flight with 12 companions, all expecting to travel for free," the authors of the cables write, only to be told "to her outrage" that the new rules meant she could only take two free guests.

Others were also angered by the rules. Prince Mishal bin Majid bin Abdulaziz had taken to driving between Jeddah and Riyadh "to show his annoyance" at the reforms, according to the cable.

Abdullah had also reigned in the practice of issuing "block visas" to foreign workers "and thus cut the income of many junior princes" as well as dramatically reducing "the practice of transferring public lands to favored individuals."

The U.S. cable reports that all those reforms had fueled tensions within the ruling family to the point where Interior Minister Prince Naif and Riyadh Governor Prince Salman had "sought to openly confront the King over reducing royal entitlements."

But according to "well established sources with first hand access to this information," Crown Prince Sultan stood by Abdullah and told his brothers "that challenging the King was a 'red line' that he would not cross." Sultan, the cable says, has also followed the King's lead and turned down requests for land transfers.

The cable comments that Sultan, longtime defense minister and now also Crown Prince, seemed to value family unity and stability above all.

_________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Booklist: Bad Money, by Kevin Phillips

Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of Amercain Capitalism, by Kevin Phillips
Viking, 2008
209 pages plus Appendix, Notes and index

Description
In his last book, American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned us of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the spiking cost-and growing scarcity-of oil. Now, in his most provacative and timely book yet, he takes the full measure of this crisis, of which the housing bubble is but one aspect. In its hubris, the financial sector has hijacked the American economy and put our very global future at risk.

"Bad money" refers not just to the depreciated dollar but to the dangerous attitudes and flawed products of wayward megafinance. Over the last thirty years, financial services, including the ballooning debt and credit industry, have nearly doubled to a record 20 percent of the gross domestic product, while manufacturing has halved to 13 percent, greatly imperiling the economy.

Also "bad" are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion dollar producs and vehicles like CDOs and SIVs.

Phillips lashes out at the "bad money" practices and reckless behavior of buccaneering institutions like hedge funds and tabulates the dangers of hot-wiring US home ownership to global credit instability. He exposes the absurd but insisten faith in the efficiency of casino-like markets and WAshington's reliance on misleading statistics about inflation and consumer prices. Foreign policy has taken its toll as well. The dollar is losing value in the world because of America's financial irresponsibility and indebtness, and the ruinous war in Iraq has severely eroded our influence over global oil producers and foreign central banks.

As always, Phillips goes far beyond the daily news coverage of these topics, both to add historical context and to show the foolish web of dubious strategies in which they are entangled. America's current challenges and failures display striking parallels to the declines of previous leading wortld economic powers,especially the Netherlands and Britain. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy supplies are all chilling signals that America is declining as a world superpower.

Washington's promotion of public and private debt, its incompetence in energy matters, its blunders in Iraq, and the overall loss of international respect for American political leadership and global strategies are all fuel for Phillips' fire. He is devastating in his conclusion that, in all these ways, "bad" money and finance have failed the American people and pointed flawed US capitalism toward a global crisis.

Table of Contents
Preface: The Political Economics of Deception
1. Introduction: The Panic of August
2. Finance: The New Real Economy?
3. Bullnomics: Its Favoritisms and Fictions
Securitization: The Insecurity of it all
5. Peak Oil: A Potential pivot of the 2010s
6. The Politics of Evasion: Debt, Finance and Oil
7. The Global Crisis of American CApitalism
Appendix: Global Public Opinion and the Loss of Respect for the United States, 2003-2007
Notes
Index

__________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Obama on Libya: Dithering or Patience?

Rush had an audio clip of somebody wondering why Obama has taken so long to take a stronger stance on what Libya is doing.

According to Limbaugh, Obama's "excuse" is that he wanted to get American citizens living in Libya out of harms way before he took decisive action.

And that frankly makes sense to me. Sure, there were apparently only 167 US citizens in Libya, but did we really want them seized as hostages by Khadaffy - or by the protesters. It's not like it was 40 years ago when no one dared target American citizens because they knew the hammer would fall. Now, with the rise of suicide bombers, of course they don't care. The more deaths - even of their own - the better.

Anyway, this makes sense, but of course Rush cannot praise Obama for anything, so he gets in a dig because the captain of the ship that was supposed to take these Americans to safety, stayed in port for 3 days because of rought weather. So of course Rush blames Obama for hiring a boat that's too small.

Now, come on, Rush! By this constant put down of every single little thing Obama does, you're really hurting your credibility (and Republicans credibility) with Dems and Independents over why we are so down on Obama. Criticize him when necessary, but don't nitpick on picayune things like the fact that the only boat available to evacuate American citizens had a captain who didn't want to risk his boat in rough seas. If the ship had sunk, you'd have criticized Obama for hiring a boat with a foolhardy captain!

On the other side of the Obama issue, foreign policy, Fareed Zakaria, not happy with the way Obama's dealing is Libya. This was yesterday afternoon on CNN's Newsroom. The anchor Brooke Baldwin was speaking with Fareed Zakaria GPS host Fareed Zakaria, which would make sense that Fareed Zakaria GPS host was Fareed Zakaria. And the anchor said, what should the US be doing with regard to Libya?

ZAKARIA: The Libyan case mystifies me. This is an anti-American regime, a rogue country, a sponsor of state terrorism. He's butchered his own people and is now in the process of, effectively, a kind of massacre of his own people. Why would it be so difficult to have a stronger position? And I don't think there's much need for consultation. What are you gonna talk to Sarkozy or Cameron about? This country is immune to sanctions, it has very little trade. All President Obama needs to do is to get to the White House podium and call publicly for the end of the Khadafy regime.

RUSH: This assumes, Mr. Zakaria, that we have a traditional president in Barack Obama. I mean, most people do think that the president of the United States would stand up for freedom-loving people everywhere around the world; we're the beacon of hope for freedom. And now even some of his big supporters: "Where is he on this?" And the excuse the White House is putting out on this, by the way, is, well, Obama hasn't evacuated all the Americans out of there yet. 'Til he gets all the Americans out of there, he's not gonna agitate the Khadafy regime. Really? Well, they're even botching getting Americans out of there, and you only get the news from the UK Daily Mail: "Team Obama Botches Libya Evacuation." They chartered the wrong boat to get Americans out of there. It's in the UK media.

RUSH: Once again we have to go to the UK to get news like this. The UK Daily Mail: "'Team Obama Botches Libya Evacuation, Charters Wrong Boat' -- Hundreds of Americans trapped aboard a rescue ship that was too small to sail in rough weather have finally left Libya this morning. The 167 stranded U.S. citizens have been holed up on the Maria Dolores since Wednesday, as rough weather has prevented the ship from leaving. The Dolores left Tripoli at 6:37 am EST and is expected to reach its destination port of Valetta, Malta at around 3:00 pm EST. ... Tony Munoz Editor of shipping magazine The Maritime Executive said: 'I don't understand why this vessel didn't leave earlier - The Maria Dolores is a new vessel built for Mediterranean seas. I can only imagine the captain was refusing to sail because he felt the vessel was not capable enough of taking the sea on. "

__________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Should Our Tax Money Be Used to Fund Public Service Campaigns?

or build roads and bridges?

Actually, I was thinking. Every First Lady has their cause, Michelle Obama's is "fighting childhood obesity."

Wouldn't fighting "childhood poverty" be a better cause? Fighting "childhood illiteracy."

I would think that now, with the US in the state its in, all these public service announcements should be about staying in school, working hard, getting good grades, and embracing middle class-ness, not worrying about whether or not you should be eating a bag of Fritos or a bag of carrots.

Story #7: Michelle Obama's War on Fat is Spreading

RUSH: From The Daily Caller website: "Michelle Obama isn’t the only one waging a war on obesity. Unbeknownst to them, taxpayers are too. A stimulus-funded anti-obesity campaign has spread throughout the country. And the $650 million Recovery Act program called Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) --" that sounds communist-like. Yeah, FDR-like, you know, the CCCP. That was the USSR. "The $650 million Recovery Act program called Communities Putting Prevention to Work is funding not just anti-obesity campaigns in New York City, but campaigns throughout the country.

"Thirty-one localities -- from cities in Hawaii to Maine to South Carolina -- have received grants to combat the effects of sugary drinks. The state of California was by far the biggest beneficiary, receiving $55.1 million to do things like 'reduce sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and promote healthy eating' and 'implement physical education policies in schools.'" Now, that money would hire a lot of teachers if they were concerned about jobs. So we have a total here of $650 million spent on this anti-obesity program, 31 localities. The state of California got $55 million. Of the $55 million to study reducing sugar sweetened beverage consumption, $32 million went to Los Angeles, $16 million went to San Diego, $6.9 million went to Santa Clara, and it says here that California's one of the country's slimmest states.

"Washington State received $25.5 million in taxpayer dollars to fight obesity. The grant went directly to the Seattle and King County Department of Public Health. However, according to Forbes rankings, Seattle is one of the top ten fittest cities in America. Nonetheless, in 2010, Seattle announced a campaign to reduce consumption of sugary drinks, modeled after 'materials developed in New York City.' The Philadelphia Department of Public Health received $25.4 million to 'make healthy foods more available and affordable' and remove 'unhealthy food' from schools." Why does this cost any money? You have here a campaign, okay, don't drink sugary drinks. What does it even require? The whole thing is... I don't even want to go there. I don't even want to go to tabulating the money. The idea that taxpayer dollars in a recession were used for this during a time we were told it was all for job creation. We're talking about 75, 80% of the money in Wisconsin went to teachers. The balance of it went to stuff like this. That's why there are no new roads or bridges or any of the sort.

_________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Pot, Kettle, Black?

Rush had a dig today at James Carville, who is apparently one of the new spokesmen for Miracle Whip. The headline says that he's "shilling' for Miracle Whip.

Well, gee Rush. Shall we count the companies you shill for? Heritage, Sleep Number Mattress, Goldline, and many more that I'm forgetting right now.

And if you want the kind of shill, what about Peyton Manning?


_______________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

25 Feb, 2011, Fri, Rush Limbaugh headlines

--Media Fears Democrats Will Take Hit for Any Government Shutdown
Republicans ought not have any worry about this.
AP: Psst. No Shutdown During a "Shutdown"
Byron York: GOP Shouldn't Fear Shutdown

--Sleepy Wisconsin Dems, Unions, Obama Face Walker's Armageddon
They showed up just too early at the Assembly vote.

--Holding a President Accountable for Lack of Results Isn't Nitpicking
A caller fails to understand the role of the media.

--Indiana: "Fort Wayne Has Baals"
A very nice T-shirt and invitation from Mayor Henry.

--Economic Growth Revised Down
Phony data was amplified to boost Obama. Again.
NYT in January: Great 4th Quarter Growth!
AP Today: Growth Revised Down to Pitiful 2.8%

--Prez Engages in Oil Speculation, Confuses With Dithering on Libya
This is unprecedented behavior from a US president.

--Caller on Odd Tribute to Motown
As Detroit shutters half of its schools and Libya burns.

--Collective Bargaining: Not a Right
We call too many things "rights" that simply are not.

--Montana's Tea Party Angers AP
Win elections and pass laws? That's the Confederacy!

Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page
» James Carville Shilling for Miracle Whip
» Sexist CNN Keeps Hookering Spitzer, Dumps Ditzer
» Rush Limbaugh to Mick Jagger: Iron Your Face, Man!
» CBO: Jobs Created and Saved Cost Average $228K
» Largest One-Day Oil Surge Since Katrina
» Alaska Could be 8th Largest Oil Producer on Earth
» Michelle Obama's War on Fat is Spreading
» Honolulu City Council Officially Condemns Rush
» Rush Warned About Food Riots Over Ethanol
» Heritage: Wisconsin GOP Shows Power of NO

--Pro-Abortion Threats Force Down Pro-Life, African-American Ad
And they tell us only right-wing, pro-lifers are violent.

--How Can We Rule Them Today?
Obama has modified the old Clinton Era question.




_____________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

The United Nations Commission on the status of women in New York City

That is the name of an event that Ambassador Melanne Verveer is going to be attending today.

There are plenty of third world countries where the status of women is that they are living in hell-holes thanks to a religion that credits them as being less than dogs...and they are holding a meeting to discuss the status of women in New York City?

edited, as I'd confused the United Nations Commission with a New York-based organization.

Let's see what the United Nations commission is all about.

http://www.ngocsw.org/. An NGO is a Non-Government Organization.

Whatever they are doing it sure isn't getting a lot of press!

___________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomat*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

25 Feb 2011, Fri, SoS Clinton and Staff Schedules

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/appt/2011/02/157112.htm
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON:
11:00 a.m. Secretary Clinton attends a meeting at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

12:30 p.m. Secretary Clinton attends a meeting at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

1:45 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with President Obama and Special Representative Marc Grossman, at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

3:45 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan Anthony Wayne, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:15 p.m. Secretary Clinton attends a meeting at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

DEPUTY SECRETARY JIM STEINBERG:
Deputy Secretary Steinberg travels to Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Albania and Bosnia through February 26.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TOM NIDES:
9:15 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Special Representative Marc Grossman, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

10:30 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Administrator Shah, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

11:15 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Special Advisor for Global Health Partnerships John Monahan, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

USAID ADMINISTRATOR RAJ SHAH:
10:30 a.m. Administrator Shah meets with Deputy Secretary Nides, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:00 p.m. Administrator Shah officiates the Swearing-In Ceremony for Robert Wuertz as Mission Director to Macedonia, at USAID.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:00 p.m. Administrator Shah meets with Special Representative Marc Grossman, at USAID.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

US FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS WILLIAM BURNS:
Under Secretary Burns is on foreign travel to Rome and Berlin, where he will meet with foreign government officials.

US FOR DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS MARIA OTERO:
10:30 a.m. Under Secretary Otero meets with Director General Nancy Powell, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

1:00 p.m. Under Secretary Otero meets with USAID Mission Director of Yemen Bob Wilson, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

2:00 p.m. Under Secretary Otero meets with Assistant Secretary Carson, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

2:45 p.m. Under Secretary Otero meets with Assistant Secretary Brownfield, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:30 p.m. Under Secretary Otero meets with USAID Deputy Administrator Don Steinberg, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:30 p.m. Under Secretary Otero meets with Assistant Secretary Brimmer, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

COUNSELOR AND CHIEF OF STAFF CHERYL MILLS:
3:45 p.m. Counselor Mills participates in an alumni panel on the student experience at the University of Virginia Board of Visitors meeting, in Charlottesville, Virginia.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS ROBERT BLAKE:
2:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Blake meets with Dr. Carol Neves of the Smithsonian Institution, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Blake meets with W.M. Senevirathne of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS ESTHER BRIMMER:
11:00 a.m. Assistant Secretary Brimmer meets with UN Special Coordinator for Middle East Peace Robert Serry, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:30 p.m. Assistant Secretary Brimmer meets with Under Secretary Otero, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS JEFF FELTMAN:
Assistant Secretary Feltman travels to Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates through March 2.

AS FOR ECONOMIC, ENERGY AND BUSINESS AFFAIRS JOSE FERNANDEZ:
9:45 a.m. Assistant Secretary Fernandez meets with Moroccan Ambassador Aziz Mekouar, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

11:30 a.m. Assistant Secretary Fernandez meets with Brazilian Ambassador Mauro Vieira, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:30 p.m. Assistant Secretary Fernandez attends a meeting on the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

AS FOR EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS PHIL GORDON:
Assistant Secretary Gordon accompanies Deputy Secretary Steinberg on foreign travel to Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

AS FOR ARMS CONTROL, VERIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE ROSE GOTTEMOELLER:
10:00 a.m. Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller delivers a speech on New START and Next Steps in Arms Control at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

12:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller delivers a speech on Nuclear Negotiations with Russia at for the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

6:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller receives the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award and delivers a speech on New START and Next Steps in Arms Control for the EPIIC Symposium, “Our Nuclear Age: Promise and Peril” at Tufts University, in Medford, Massachusetts.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

AS FOR OCEANS AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS KERRI-ANN JONES:
Assistant Secretary Jones participates in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York City.

AS FOR POLITICAL-MILITARY AFFAIRS ANDREW SHAPIRO:
11:30 a.m. Assistant Secretary Shapiro meets with Yemeni Ambassador Abdulwahab Al-Hajjri, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS ARTURO VALENZUELA:
2:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Valenzuela meets with the Youth Ambassadors from Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE AND GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR ERIC GOOSBY:
10:00 a.m. Ambassador Goosby meets with representatives of faith-based organizations (FBOs) that implement PEPFAR programs to discuss their public outreach efforts, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR GLOBAL WOMEN’S ISSUES MELANNE VERVEER:
Ambassador Verveer participates in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York City through February 27.

SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS KRIS BALDERSTON:
Special Representative Balderston is on foreign travel to Brazil, Argentina and Peru through February 26.

SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR COMMERCIAL AND BUSINESS AFFAIRS, LORRAINE HARITON:
8:15 a.m. LOCAL Special Representative Hariton delivers keynote remarks to the APEC 2011 Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Seminar at the University of California, Riverside Alumni and Visitor’s Center. The event is part of the APEC 2011 National Road show program, a public-private partnership of the U.S. Government and the APEC 2011 USA Host Committee.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE TO MUSLIM COMMUNITIES FARAH PANDITH:
Special Representative Pandith travels to Frankfurt for meetings with youth, members of civil society, and the media.

PRESS BRIEFING SCHEDULE:
1:15 p.m. Daily Press Briefing with Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley

_______________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

25 Feb, 2011, Fri, Pres and VP Schedules

http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president
9:30 am The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

11:00 am The President and the Vice President meet with Democratic Governors
Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Room 430
Pool Spray at the Top

Stills only. Gather Time 10:45AM – Brady Press Briefing Room
12:30 pm The President and the Vice President meet for lunch
Private Dining Room
Closed Press

http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/vice-president
9:30 am The President and the Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

11:00 am The President and the Vice President meet with Democratic Governors
Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Room 430
Pool Spray at the Top
Stills only. Gather Time 10:45AM – Brady Press Briefing Room

12:30 pm The President and the Vice President meet for lunch
Private Dining Room
Closed Press

What if Obama Stopped Defending Women's Right To Have Abortions?

Rush made a very good point today.

He opened his show today talking about how Obama has told Eric Holder not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act anymore. Which legally, he's not allowed to do. It's the law, it should be defended. (Just as we have laws against illegal immigration, and they're not being defended, either!)

So Rush asks what would happen if the shoe were on the other foot. Roe v Wade allows women to have an abortion if they want one. What if Obama decided that he wouldn't allow any women to have abortions, just because he doesn't like that law?

It's the same principle.

RUSH: Barack Obama, ladies and gentlemen, took an oath -- not that that means anything -- but he took an oath to faithfully execute his duties. And what he's doing in this Defense of Marriage Act is abandoning the defense of the law which means there's no one left to defend it. The president of the United States and his corrupt attorney general just decided that the law is unconstitutional, a law that dates all the way back to Bill Clinton. They just don't like the law. So he's gonna repeal the law, or part of it, by refusing to defend it. This is really extraordinary. We could apply the age-old test: Imagine if this were Richard Nixon. Imagine if this were George W. Bush and the law were abortion.

Jeff Lord at American Spectator has a funny piece today. Sarah Palin's new attorney general, Mark Levin, has just decided that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional. They're just gonna decide not to defend abortion anymore, it's silly, they're just gonna effectively pretend it doesn't exist. Can you imagine the outcry? Very extraordinary, and particularly from a liberty point of view. There's a pattern of abuse here. Obama is encouraging lawlessness in Arizona. He is encouraging lawlessness in Wisconsin. He is undermining state governments everywhere he can, particularly if they're battleground states, which Wisconsin is. He's ordering his Justice Department not to defend a federal law. Nobody has said the law is unconstitutional other than Obama and Holder, and they don't have the power to do that. Obama is ignoring court orders he doesn't like, such as drilling moratorium laws in the Gulf of Mexico, and, of course, DOMA, Defense of Marriage Act.

The president is lawless. The evidence is mounting every day. And the only ones blind to it are his ass kissers in the media. I don't care, a leftist is a leftist. I don't care whether they're a journalist, so-called journalist or whether they're a pundit or member of Congress or whatever, leftists are leftists. In fact, I think these guys are celebrating. They're having all kinds of fun here. You had a prank caller to the governor of Wisconsin pretending to be David Koch. (imitating media) "Oh, wow, how creative, well, this is wonderful." Whatever it takes to defeat conservatives, because the enemy is not Moammar Khadafy, the enemy is not Al-Qaeda, the enemy is not terrorist organizations. No, the enemy is conservative Republicans. That's the enemy that the American left lines up against. I don't even think these ass kissers in the media are blind to it. They are active supporters. They encourage this lawlessness. They applaud it. They laugh. They celebrate it. They love it whenever one of their own pulls the wool over our eyes, they think. They love it when one of their own tricks us or defeats us. That's one of the reasons they loved Clinton so much.

Look, let's not forget, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is in effect legislating now when it comes to carbon dioxide, imposing rules on citizens that Congress has not passed. In fact, rules that Congress has refused to pass. What we are witnessing here is a deterioration of our society, our norms, our systems. It's what it is. Alexis de Tocqueville referred to this as soft tyranny. What is soft tyranny? Obama using executive orders, regulations, and now withholding the defense of laws he doesn't like to run the government out of his office. These czars, as we have discussed on countless previous occasions, exist simply to bypass cabinet offices and they're unaccountable, nobody knows who they are, nobody knows what they make, they've never been confirmed to anything.

As I said earlier, if Nixon or Reagan or Bush 43 had done this on a different issue such as abortion or whatever, what would the left say? For a president to ignore a federal law, I mean not just ignore it, but to announce he's going to ignore it, to have a big ceremony essentially, a big press conference to announce he's going to ignore the law, for him to act as legislature and court through the back door like this, this is troubling, folks, it is hugely troubling. There would be headlines blazing across every newspaper. Network news anchors would be jumping all over it. And if nothing were done about it, they'd be jumping out of windows. They'd be demanding impeachment! Dare I say, if a Bush 43, a Reagan or Nixon had done anything like this, the headlines today would be screaming for impeachment. So what has to be done is a continuing expose. Education of the public, continue to let people know what's going on, because then they get it, they find out.

The media is all ecstatic today that General Motors is making a profit. The news is reported ceaselessly. Didn't they get lots and lots of special favors from this government, tax breaks and so forth? So when General Motors reports a profit, the media is all excited, it's the government reporting a profit. There are two words that define this president and his administration: reckless and lawless.

In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Good Teachers Deserve to make a fortune

The husband of a teacher called up Rush today to take issue with some statements Rush made about teachers last week. I won't share his comments here, but the husband's words got me thinking about my own teachers.

Basically - what the husband said was, if kids are failing to learn, don't blame the teachers, blame the kids and the parents. And you know, he's right. For every one parent who spends time working with their kids on their homework, there's 99 parents who can't do that because they never finished high school themselves, and don't even know what their kids are learning. And of course since they never finished high school and don't ever anticipate being able to work at a job that will make them a living wage, they can't explain to their kids that that's what education will help them do - get them off welfare and into mainstream America.

It's not just the poor, of course. Plenty of wealthy parents will call up a principal and say, "Hey, my son is getting a D in his class and he needs a B. Make sure he gets a B, or I won't be donating any money to this-or-that school fund."

But for the last few decades, education has not been prized in the US. If you're a kid who is great at sports, you're lauded and looked up to. If you win a knowledge bowl or a chess tournament, you're spurned as a show-off or a nerd. Poor kids who want to get an education and get out of the ghetto are actually victimized by their own neighbors, who will beat them up for trying to be "better" than they are. "You think you're better than us? Well, you're not better than us, because I can stomp you into a coma and I will, too."

It's been 25 years since I was in high school, in a little, mid-western town, with an all-white enrollment, if I remember correctly. And like all schools, the teasing and tormenting and bullying that went on were rife. Perhaps not as violent as you find in inner city schools, but the verbal abuse and destruction was there, all right.

There was one teacher, an English teacher, and for some reason two girls in my class had conceived a real dislike for him. And they spent a whole year persecuting this guy - making jokes out loud in class to disrupt it, sneering at him, putting super glue on his chair to ruin his slacks, all kinds of vile, petty things. He'd send them to the principle and they never once got suspended, let alone spanked. Eventually, I think he just quit.

So when it comes to how much teachers should make, I admit I'm in a quandary. If we could afford it, I'd say every teacher who had to deal with kids deserved to make a hundred thousand a year. Unfortunately, we can't afford it.


___________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Obama Won't Condemn Khadaffy?

Normally I only share a few paragraphs of what Rush had to say on any particular subject, but sometimes what he says is so cogent that I just have to share the whole thing - no comments from me necessary.

Here's his take on Obama refusing to mention Khadaffy's name when he denounces Libya.

One of the most brutal, evil, anti-American tyrants of our time is facing a massive popular revolt that is threatening to finally remove him from power, and Obama cannot find the time to say anything about it? I'm speaking here of Khadafy, Gadhafi, however he spells it. And when the president finally does say something about it, he doesn't even dare mention Khadafy by name. What does that tell you about Mr. Obama?

Now, the media tried to explain away Obama's lack of specific mention of Khadafy because they're still Americans stuck in Libya. But weren't there Americans in Egypt when Obama was demanding that Mubarak step down immediately? Have you noticed that Obama's on the wrong side of just about every conflict? Georgia versus Russia, Honduras, Iran, he's not supporting the pro-democracy revolt in Iran. Egypt, no way. And until yesterday, Libya. He's been on the wrong side of just about every conflict. Maybe it's just an accident. What a track record, though, for somebody who took a course in international affairs as an undergraduate. We're gonna go back to the campaign, Mrs. Clinton questioning Obama's foreign policy credentials. Obama's rejoinder, (paraphrasing) "No, no, no, I lived over there 'til I was ten years old, I lived, I have seen it." Mrs. Clinton said, "We really need more experience than that. Somebody who lived in Middle Eastern countries until he was ten years old?" We have audio sound bites. Let's start here. This is the ridiculous Obama speech on Libya last night from the White House, first of a series of sound bites.

OBAMA: First, we are doing everything we can to protect American citizens. That is my highest priority. In Libya, we've urged our people to leave the country, and the State Department is assisting those in need of support.

RUSH: Right. No mention of Khadafy, just Libya. Here's another excerpt.

OBAMA: We strongly condemn the use of violence in Libya. The American people extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of all who have been killed and injured. The suffering and bloodshed is outrageous, and it is unacceptable. So are threats and orders to shoot peaceful protesters and further punish the people of Libya. These actions violate international norms and every standard of common decency. This violence must stop.

RUSH: You tell 'em, Mr. President, you tell 'em. By golly, you tell 'em. You bring down the hammer. That violence must stop. Damn straight it must stop. It's great to see our president on the case. The violence must stop. Now, I don't recall when we're talking about Egypt and the president was addressing that issue, I don't recall him mentioning the UN, do you? Well, he did, talking last night about Libya.

OBAMA: In a volatile situation like this one, it is imperative that the nations and peoples of the world speak with one voice and that that has been our focus. Yesterday a unanimous UN Security Council sent a clear message that it condemns the violence in Libya, supports accountability for the perpetrators and stands with the Libyan people.


RUSH: Great, great. Well, we'll slough it off to the UN. Still hasn't mentioned Khadafy by name. Did not dare to do so. I think I saw that Libya still maintains its position on the Human Rights Commission at the United Nations despite all this? Yeah, I think they do. You may remember us mentioning this story last year. This is April 17th of last year from a website called ynetnews.com, and it's a story quoting Khadafy: "'Barack Obama is Friend' -- Libyan leader praises US president: 'He is of Muslim descent, his policy should be supported, as he now leans towards peace.'" By the way, Hugo Chavez is aligned with Khadafy. Chavez is telling Khadafy, yeah, you know what? If we get together we can totally change the balance of the world, getting rid of western imperialism. So Hugo Chavez, who has had handshakes and laughs and smiles with Barack Obama, is now in unison, in support with Moammar Khadafy.

"Libyan leader Muammar Khadafy considers the US president a blessing to the Muslim world. In a speech published in London-based al-Hayat newspaper on Saturday, Khadafy praised Barack Obama, called him a 'friend' and said there is no longer any dispute between his country and the US. Speaking in the Libyan city of Sirt at an event marking the 24th anniversary of an American attack on Libya, he said, 'At the time, we were the target of the American cannon, the American navy challenged us in the gulf of Sirt and attacked us all along Libya's shores. America tested Libya, and the Libyan people resisted the large country, but today, thank God, the difference is great.' He said, 'Now, ruling America is a black man from our continent, an African from Arab descent, from Muslim descent, and this is something we never imagined -- that from Reagan we would get to Barak Obama.'

"Khadafy stressed that Obama's presidency is 'a major historical gain' and said, 'He is someone I consider a friend. He knows he is a son of Africa. Regardless of his African belonging, he is of Arab Sudanese descent, or of Muslim descent. He is a man whose policy should be supported, and he should be assisted in implementing it in any way possible, since he is now leaning towards peace.' He continued, 'I urge all peoples to give him this chance and to support this policy, because America is a country that, when its policy is bad -- harms the world, and when it is good -- it helps the world.' The Libyan leader also expressed hopes that, 'the dream that Obama has for a world free of nuclear weapons will come true. This is something that no previous American president has proposed. Obama is a man who opposes wars that previous American presidents were entangled in; he has declared that he will withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq -- something which has never been proposed before.'"

No wonder Khadafy is throwing a temper tantrum. (laughing) We haven't gotten out of Gitmo. We haven't gotten out of Iraq. We haven't gotten out of Afghanistan. We threw Mubarak overboard, and we're not getting rid of our nuclear weapons yet, although we've taken a couple of steps. So Moammar Khadafy is feeling betrayed here by his buddy. September 28th, 2009, CNN's Larry King Live, he interviewed Moammar Khadafy. Larry King said, "What are your thoughts about our president, Barak Obama?"

KHADAFY: My views are identical to the American views. And we pray for him that he would be able to achieve the visions that he has in his mind and made it public, and we are comfortable --

KING: Did you say he should be president forever?

KHADAFY: I hope so. I wish that.

KING: Why?

KHADAFY: Because the vision he has will save America and will save the world. His vision.

________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Banks Are Poised to Fail at Record Rate...Yet Obama Wants Them to Eat Mortgage Debt

Rush shared two stories about banks today - one, which I'll share below, that Obama's regime is working to force banks to arbitrarily forgive loans on the houses of people whose homes are worth less than the amount of money they owe on them. (Here's a tip - keep your house, and once we get rid of Obama, home prices will rise and your house will be worth what it should be again).

The second piece of news is that Fortune Magazine points out that the "Problem Bank" ratio is at a 23-year high. There's fewer banks in this country than we've had in the last 25 years, but one in nine of the remaining banks are at risk of failure. And of course the government will have to step in and rescue them with our tax dollars.

Why are they at a risk of failure, one wonders. Because they've loaned money to people who couldn't afford to pay it back?



_______________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.Story #5: This Will Cripple Economy: US Pushes Mortgage Deal

RUSH: The Wall Street Journal has a story running today, the headline: "US Pushes Mortgage Deal." Now, if you've been paying attention and you hear that headline, you say, "Uh, what mortgage deal? How many have we had?" "The Obama administration is trying to push through a settlement over mortgage-servicing breakdowns that could force America's largest banks to pay for reductions in loan principal worth billions of dollars." So this is mortgage forgiveness. This is the regime's way of dealing with the foreclosure problem. Punish banks for making loans by making them eat not just the interest but a good deal of the principle of some of these underwater mortgages. So once again you have the regime tearing up and making it impossible for a segment of the economy to do business. Punish the banks for making the loans in the first place and then eat the loan, not just the interest but a good deal of the principal of some of these underwater mortgages.

Now, the idea here is to ease credit, which is Obama's top priority, easing credit. Supposedly that will make it easier to get a mortgage and get housing prices up again. How could it fail? (laughing) Oh, we are so doomed. "Terms of the administration's proposal include a commitment from mortgage servicers to reduce the loan balances of troubled borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth." Well, ACORN ought to be very proud. This is the fulfillment of their mission, and of course it's easy when one of your own is president. I mean this is the subprime mortgage all over. In order to keep these people in their houses, reduce their loan payment. Bank, you eat it. Well, hello, that's what led us to the problem in the first place. The banks are not gonna eat it. They're gonna find a way to make what they're being forced to eat back. So the vicious cycle here just continues. Making banks eat these loans is gonna make loans harder to get. This is not gonna ease credit. It's the exact opposite of what the regime claims they want to accomplish here. This is gonna cripple the economy. It's gonna cripple the housing market. If this was the way to make it all work then we'd all have free houses. Folks, I don't care anymore. You talk about ignorance or naivete, good intentions or whatever, this is simply destructive, purely and simply destructive.

Laws That Mandate What Teachers Have to Teach

Why have Americans lost control of their own country? Or perhaps I should ask, How have they lost control of their own country.

Well..it comes from two areas - the mass media of television which has long emphasized mediocrity (I'm talking sit.coms, where it seems like every business has an inept fool whom they never fire, because he's supposed to be "lovable" for example Ted Baxter of the Mary Tyler Moore show, and Andy Dick from News Radio.

But a lot of it has to do with what's being taught in schools. Or not being taught in schools, as the case may be. We've got "former" terrorists serving as Professors in Universities, we've got teachers in high school who know only a bit more about math than what's in the book, and so on.

(But, as the teacher's husband who called in today said, truthfully, I think, it's awful hard for teachers to teach kids anything when their parents don't give a damn.)

Anyway, here's what Rush had to say about what schools in Wisconsin are teaching:

Story #4: Wisconsin Teachers to Teach Labor Rights to Kids

RUSH: "Wisconsin's Teachers Required to Teach Kids Labor Union and Collective Bargaining History." This is from the Daily Caller today. "Wisconsin's teachers are required to teach children about the history of the labor union movement and collective bargaining in the United States, per a law former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle signed in December 2009. Wisconsin's Assembly Bill (AB) 172 requires the state's teachers to incorporate 'the history of organized labor in America and the collective bargaining process' into their lesson plans. Describing the new law, AB 172, Wisconsin's official Department of Public Instruction (DPI) website says, 'Wisconsin has long been a leader in labor rights.

"The Progressive Movement, which had its beginnings in our state, led to laws limiting child labor and safety in the workplace. Unions such as the AFL-CIO and Teamsters allow us to enjoy an eight-hour work week and vacation time. In fact, it has been argued by some historians that the history of the United States itself could be a history of labor.'" (interruption) They don't teach the other side of it. What do you mean "teach the other side of it"? Don't make me chuckle here. You get me to start chuckling I might not stop chuckling. So... Propaganda? It's indoctrination, Snerdley. Propaganda, yeah, but it's indoctrination.

Since 2009, Democrat governor Jim Doyle: "Wisconsin's Teachers Required to Teach Kids Labor Union and Collective Bargaining History." And, of course, it's, I'm sure, shaded in ways. (interruption) Uhhh, "Is there a law about how the country was founded?" I don't know. I don't know. Now, normally I would say, "Yeah, that that would be part of every curriculum," but I'm not that confident. I mean, the founding of this country could well be taught that we kicked the Indians off the land. Now, that may be how the founding is taught. Who knows how it's taught in some of these places.

John Silber, who used to run Boston University (this is ten or so years ago now) did a survey of the top five history textbooks used in high schools throughout the country. He found the longest reference to Abraham Lincoln was two paragraphs. In a couple of textbooks, there were chapters devoted to Bill Clinton. Two paragraphs devoted to Abraham Lincoln. (interruption) Look, the fundamental of this is the left has gotten hold of the entire education institution, just as they have gotten hold of the media, and they use it for indoctrination purposes. That's what's coming to a head now in any number of places.

_________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

24 Feb, 2011, Thu, Rush Limbaugh Headlines

--The Lawless Obama Regime
The president decides to simply ignore a federal law.

--Obama Won't Say Khadafy's Name, But Khadafy Calls Obama "Friend"
Our president is on the wrong side of every conflict.

--Seattle Teamster Calls the Show
He says union leaders don't care about the rank-and-file.

--What's the Democrat Strategery?
Rush explains the left's endgame for Wisconsin.

--Donald Trump Can Play Golf
Your host attests to the possible candidate's ability.

--Imagine President Palin Doing This
Consider the reaction if she did what Obama has done.

--CNN Still Searching for Praise of Pharaoh Obama on the Arab Street
Like in Egypt, Obama blasted by Libyan protestor.

--Husband of Teacher Lectures Host
All you good "educators" want to be heard? Then speak!

Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page
»»Saudi National Arrested in WMD Plot Against Bush
» Australia's Herald Sun: Khadafy "Ordered Lockerbie"
» 67% Disapprove of Legislators Fleeing Wisconsin
» Wisconsin Teachers to Teach Labor Rights to Kids
» This Will Cripple Economy: US Pushes Mortgage Deal
» Fortune: Problem Bank Ratio at 23-year High
» CBO Raises Its Stimulus Cost Estimate, Again
» Final Mission: Goodbye Shuttle, Hello Muslim Outreach





Rev. Jackson: We Must Feed
the "Ruts," Not Just the Leaves

The scary thing is, the crowd understood it.


Now is the Time to Gird Loins

It's not time to panic. On the contrary, get ready to fight.













_______________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

24 Feb, 2011, Thu, SoS Clinton and Staff Schedules

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/appt/2011/02/157044.htm

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
9:15 a.m. Secretary Clinton meets with the Assistant Secretaries of the Regional Bureaus, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

11:00 a.m. Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with Timor-Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, at the Department of State.
(CAMERA SPRAY PRECEDING BILATERAL MEETING)

2:45 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with the SRAP team, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton attends a meeting with President Obama at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

DEPUTY SECRETARY JIM STEINBERG
Deputy Secretary Steinberg travels to Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Albania and Bosnia through February 26.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TOM NIDES
10:30 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Deputy Ambassador to Afghanistan Anthony Wayne, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

11:00 a.m. Deputy Secretary Nides speaks U.S. Ambassador to Israel James Cunningham.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

1:00 p.m. Deputy Secretary Nides attends a meeting at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

3:00 p.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Deputy Director of U.S. Foreign Aid Rob Goldberg, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:30 p.m. Deputy Secretary Nides meets with Under Secretary McHale, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

USAID ADMINISTRATOR RAJ SHAH
11:30 a.m. Administrator Shah attends a meeting with Denis McDonough & General Lute at the White House.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

1:00 p.m. Administrator Shah attends a meeting at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

6:00 p.m. Administrator Shah participates in the Swearing-In Ceremony of Susan Hildreth, Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (ILMS), at the DC Public Library, 901 G Street NW.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY ILMS)

US FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS WILLIAM BURNS
Under Secretary Burns is on foreign travel. On February 24, he departs Tunis for Algiers, where he will meet with government officials and civil society representatives.

US FOR ECONOMIC, ENERGY AND AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS ROBERT HORMATS
9:00 a.m. LOCAL Under Secretary Hormats delivers remarks at the APEC Road Show and participates in a policy roundtable, in Los Angeles, California.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

US FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS JUDITH MCHALE
4:30 p.m. Under Secretary McHale meets with Deputy Secretary Nides, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

US FOR DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS MARIA OTERO
4:30 p.m. Under Secretary Otero meets with Assistant Secretary Shapiro, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

US FOR ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ELLEN TAUSCHER
1:00 p.m. Under Secretary Tauscher meets with Ambassador to Bulgaria James Warlick at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

2:00 p.m. Under Secretary Tauscher meets with EU Nonproliferation Chief Annelisa Giannella, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:00 p.m. Under Secretary Tauscher attends a meeting at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

AS FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS WILLIAM R. BROWNFIELD
9:30 a.m. Assistant Secretary Brownfield meets with Afghanistan Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi Khan, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS PHILIP J. CROWLEY
11:00 a.m. Assistant Secretary Crowley joins Secretary Clinton’s bilateral meeting with Timor-Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, at the Department of State.
(CAMERA SPRAY PRECEDING BILATERAL MEETING)

3:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Crowley briefs the foreign press on “Current Global Events and Issues,” at the Washington Foreign Press Center.
(OPEN PRESS COVERAGE FOR FOREIGN MEDIA)
RSVP to CustinDR2@state.gov.

AS FOR NEAR EASTERN AFFAIRS JEFF FELTMAN
Assistant Secretary Feltman travels to Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates through March 2.

AS FOR ECONOMIC, ENERGY AND BUSINESS AFFAIRS JOSE FERNANDEZ
3:30 p.m. Assistant Secretary Fernandez meets with American Turkish Council members in advance of the U.S.-Turkey Economic Dialogue.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS PHIL GORDON
Assistant Secretary Gordon accompanies Deputy Secretary Steinberg on foreign travel to Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

AS FOR ARMS CONTROL, VERIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE ROSE GOTTEMOELLER11:00 a.m. Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller participates in a workshop on the Challenges of Emergent Nuclear States at Tufts University, in Medford, Massachusetts.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR OCEANS AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS KERRI-ANN JONES
Assistant Secretary Jones participates in the Global Ministerial Environment Forum of the UN Environment Program in Nairobi, Kenya.

AS FOR POLITICAL-MILITARY AFFAIRS ANDREW SHAPIRO
11:00 a.m. Assistant Secretary Shapiro meets with Afghanistan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan Interior Minister Bismellah Mohammadi Khan, and Afghanistan Ambassador Eklil Ahmad Hakimi, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:30 p.m. Assistant Secretary Shapiro meets with Under Secretary Otero, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS ANN STOCK
10:00 a.m. Assistant Secretary Stock meets with Indonesian Ambassador Dino Djalal, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AS FOR THE BUREAU OF INFORMATION RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER SUSAN SWART
Assistant Secretary Swart participates in Microsoft’s 9th Annual Public Sector CIO Summit in Redmond, Washington.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY HOST)

AS FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS ARTURO VALENZUELA
12:30 p.m. Assistant Secretary Valenzuela meets with Under Secretary of Agriculture for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Edward Avalos, in Washington DC.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:30 p.m. Assistant Secretary Valenzuela meets with the Vice President of Policy and Evaluation of Millennium Challenge Corporation Shelia Herrling, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE AND GLOBAL AIDS COORDINATOR ERIC GOOSBY
9:00 a.m. Ambassador Goosby participates in the UNAIDS consultation on women and girls living with HIV at the 55th UN Commission on the Status of Women Meeting, in New York City.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

12:30 p.m. Ambassador Goosby meets with Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Population Fund, in New York City.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

2:00 p.m. Ambassador Goosby meets with Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, in New York City.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

4:00 p.m. Ambassador Goosby meets with the Permanent Representatives of Australia and Botswana, co-facilitators for the upcoming U.N General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS, in New York City.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR GLOBAL WOMEN’S ISSUES MELANNE VERVEER
Ambassador Verveer leads the United States delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York City through February 27.

Ambassador Verveer participates in a number of bilateral meetings and side events, including the U.S.-sponsored side events focused on the link between women’s empowerment and technology.

SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS KRIS BALDERSTON
Special Representative Balderston is on foreign travel to Brazil, Argentina and Peru through February 26. Special Representative Balderston is meeting with senior government officials, non-governmental representatives and business leaders to discuss investing with impact in the region. He is also participating in the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air forum in Lima, Peru and meeting with potential partners for the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves initiative.

PRESS BRIEFING SCHEDULE:
12:30p.m. Daily Press Briefing with Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley
_________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.