Tag: Obama Administration

Greens Call Obama To Task

This is from a press release of the Green Party on Obama and his appointments.

Green Party leaders called on President-elect Barack Obama to appoint a Cabinet that will pursue real reform, in accord with Mr. Obama’s promise of change in the new administration.

“Democratic and Republican presidents alike have a record of naming industry chiefs, corporate board members and lawyers, and others loyal to wealthy, elite interests,” said Holly Hart, secretary of the Green Party of the United States. “If President Obama truly believes in ‘change we can believe in,’ he’ll appoint a Cabinet that looks like America — not just in ethnic and gender diversity, but in its dedication to the needs of working Americans and the goal of international peace and justice.”
“Barack Obama’s mantra of ‘change’ is already a lie. With Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, and with Hillary Clinton rumored to be Secretary of State, the Obama White House is ready to pursue much of the same agenda as previous administrations,” said Cliff Thornton, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. “It’s a twisted irony that some tried to tag Obama as a socialist, a perception that will make it that much easier for his administration to continue the practice of redistributing wealth from middle- and low-income Americans to America’s wealthiest. Bill Clinton was denounced as a liberal by the same right-wing pundits whose corporate buddies he was handing America over to. The same sell-out is going to happen all over again.”

“Voters who elected Barack Obama because of his promise of change and the hope of a progressive administration need to wake up and realize they’re in for yet another fight. Only if the voters hold Obama to his promises can we avoid the same pro-corporate and warhawk policies that came out of the disastrous Clinton and Bush White Houses,” added Mr. Thornton.

Do not think he is listening…..

Meet The National Security Team

The formal introduction of the incoming Obama administration’s national security team at a Chicago hotel on Monday provided a definitive exposure not merely of the fraudulent character of the “change you can believe in” mantra of the Democratic presidential campaign, but more importantly of the failure of American democracy itself.

There on the platform with the president-elect was Senator Hillary Clinton, his nominee for secretary of state, and Robert Gates, whom Obama has asked to remain at the post of secretary of defense to which George W. Bush appointed him. Rounding out the nominees for the key national security positions was retired Marine Gen. James Jones, tapped to serve as national security adviser.

The significance of these choices is unmistakable. They represent an open and contemptuous repudiation of the will of the voters expressed just last month. While millions turned out at the polls in November with the aim of putting an end to eight years of war and repression under the Bush administration, Monday’s announcement signaled there will be no such change.

I have heard from other sources that this is just a ploy to keep the media and the Repubs off balance while he tries an end run to the Left.  I think that analysis is just wrong.  He, Obama, once the nomination was his, he ran to the center and that is where he is today, if not a bit right of center.  Sorry guys change is not in the cards.

Expectations For Clinton Are High

President-elect Barack Obama’s expected nomination today of Hillary Clinton as the next secretary of state has energized human rights and women’s rights activists, who expect the former first lady to bring a dramatic new focus to the plight of women around the globe.

But Clinton’s ascension to be the nation’s top diplomat also gives new hope to supporters of international women’s rights, who see Clinton as one of the world’s leading figures in the fight to improve education, safety, and economic opportunity for women and girls.

“This is a new opportunity. We’re very optimistic,” said Daphne Jayasinghe, Amnesty International’s acting advocacy director for Europe/Central Asia and violence against women. The human rights group is pushing for ratification of a UN document calling for an end to gender discrimination, as well as programs to counter violence against women and girls.

Further, the human rights groups are hoping for a more assertive approach by the new administration to stop mass rapes of women in war, and a more vocal stance against such practices as genital mutilation and forced marriages for girls.

The former first lady was a strong advocate for development programs for women – such as loan assistance to help women in third-world nations start small businesses, giving them both a higher household income as well as a stronger role in the local economy, her supporters note. Such development programs can be crucial forces in empowering women, they said.

The sheer star power Clinton offers is in itself a boost for women, said Representative James McGovern, a Worcester Democrat and early supporter of Clinton’s presidential run. McGovern, who was recently in rural Ecuador, said local women clamored to know whether Clinton indeed was in line to head the State Department.

And In This Corner–Team Obama

Obama made his comments as he unveiled the top members of his economic team, beginning with New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner to be his treasury secretary. Geithner, 47, is a veteran of financial crises at home and overseas and has worked closely with the Bush administration in recent months.

Obama chose Lawrence Summers as director of his National Economic Council. Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton.

Obama said his newly minted economic team offered “sound judgment and fresh thinking” at a time of economic peril.

He expressed confidence the nation would weather the crisis “because we’ve done it before.”

Obama also announced two other members of his economic team in the making. He named Christina Romer as chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, and Melody Barnes as director of his White House Domestic Policy Council.

Obama declined to say how large a stimulus package he wants from Congress. Democratic lawmakers speculated over the weekend that the price tag could reach $700 billion over two years as the nation struggles to emerge from a recession compounded by a credit crunch. “It’s going to be costly,” the president-elect said.

He has chosen centrists for the team….people who will try to make sure that all remains the same on Wall Street.

Obama Backpeddles on Lobbyists

Yesterday I wrote about Obama introducing a “ban” on lobbyists in his administration and today I have to say…oops….maybe I was a bit premature.

As written in boston.com:

President-elect Barack Obama, who vowed during his campaign that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House,” said through a spokesman yesterday that he would allow lobbyists on his transition team as long as they work on issues unrelated to their earlier jobs.

Obama’s transition chief laid out ethics rules – which also bar transition staff from lobbying the administration for one year if they become lobbyists later – and portrayed them as the strictest ever for a transfer of presidential power.

But independent analysts said yesterday that the move is less than the wholesale removal of lobbyists that he suggested during the campaign – and shows how difficult it will be to lessen the pervasive influence of more than 40,000 registered lobbyists.

During his campaign, Obama declared: “I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race. I don’t take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.”

That left unclear whether he was referring to the relatively small number of staff members in the West Wing or to the hundreds of political appointees throughout an administration. Obama’s campaign website said a lobbyist could join the administration as long as he or she didn’t work on “regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.” He also proposed that political appointees be prohibited from lobbying the executive branch for the remainder of the administration, if they left government.

During the campaign, Obama’s anti-lobbyist rules weren’t ironclad. His staff included some lobbyists, though his aides said they stopped all such activities once they joined the campaign full time. He accepted fund-raising help from lobbyists registered with states and took money from associates and family members of federal lobbyists.

The change of administration and the prospect of dividing up billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street firms and to stimulate the economy are bound to create more business for lobbyists.