"White House in Crisis
by Wayne Madsen
Washington has not witnessed so much top level White House intrigue since October 20, 1973, when a Saturday night saw President Nixon fire the Watergate independent counsel, the U.S. attorney general, and the deputy attorney general in the “Saturday Night Massacre.” Just ten days earlier, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after being charged with accepting bribes while governor of Maryland.
In the case of President Obama, the senior firings are not happening during a single nght but the recent involuntary sudden departures of the White House chief of staff and national security adviser, along with what WMR can confirm from multiple sources is a president who is suffering from Nixonian levels of paranoia, depression, and schizophrenia, has some top-level administration officials considering the first-ever invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment — the involuntary removal of the president from office. The White House meltdown has the Washington political circuit buzzing under the surface.
Unlike Watergate and the Iran-contra scandal, however, the corporate media is refusing to report on the breakdown of the Obama administration and the internecine political warfare within the Executive Office of the President.
The “Ulsterman” Diary
Like Watergate, the rumors about Obama’s mental health, his lack of interest in the routine tasks of the presidency, and his mistaken belief that the crowds who see him on the campaign trail automatically adore him, are emanating from a “Deep Throat,” a former White House staffer who is providing detailed information on the chaos and in-fighting in the White House to a blogger who goes by the name of “Ulsterman.” Ulsterman has conducted a number of background interviews with the former Obama staffer over the past few weeks, publishing them in a series. WMR has independently confirmed with Washington insiders, some with high-level contacts in the White House, that most of the information in the interviews is correct.
The latest leak from the former White House official has Obama offering Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the vice presidential position in 2012. However, Clinton has no intention of taking the job and may well quit as Secretary of State after the mid-term election, especially if Secretary of Defense Robert Gates leaves earlier than his announced departure of next year and the Democrats suffer a big defeat at the polls on Nov. 2. It is known that Gates does not like the new National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and was not happy that National Security Adviser James Jones was fired earlier than his own planned departure date.
The other Ulsterman interviews are as follows:
White House Insider On Obama: The President Is Losing It Sep. 7
White House Insider Part 2: The President needs to grow up. Sep. 15
White House Insider: What The Hell Have We Done? Sep. 18
White House Insider: The Clintons Are Going For It. Sep. 21
White House Insider: Pelosi and Obama at War Oct. 7
Another similarity to the Watergate crisis is the usual “pre-crisis presence” of Washington Post influence peddler and original “Deep Throat” conjurer Bob Woodward. Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, quoted Jones as calling Obama’s advisers “water bugs,” an utterance that resulted in Jones’s early firing by Obama.
Rahm Emanuel’s firing came after he and Mrs. Obama had a major argument, and the First Lady told Emanuel he had to go “for a reason.” Mrs. Obama reportedly flatly told Emanuel he was “no longer welcome at the White House.” The “Emanuel-running-for-Chicago-mayor” story was mere window dressing to cover up the meltdown in the White House leadership....
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Let's pick it up there, shall we?
The Power Women of AmeriKan Politics
I guess she has earned it.
Obama chief of staff reportedly to announce resignation today
Emanuel bids farewell to White House
CHICAGO — The former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, announced yesterday that he is preparing to run for mayor of Chicago, a position it was widely known he has long desired....
Yeah, okay, cover-up media.
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"Emanuel faces skepticism during first day on the trail
CHICAGO — Last week, Afghanistan. This week, parents protesting the proposed demolition of a park field house.
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel hit the campaign trail yesterday and got a sudden taste of the vastly different agenda he would face as Chicago’s mayor — and the hurdles he must overcome to be elected....
Outside Izola’s restaurant, a bastion for Chicago’s black leaders, a fair number of curiosity seekers said they had never even heard of Emanuel.
:-)
Inside, treated to a $13 breakfast with Emanuel, a trio of local men told him their concerns — unemployment, education, crime....
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Related:
WASHINGTON — Former Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers, the chief architect of President Obama’s federal stimulus plan and some of his other top economic initiatives, is leaving his post and returning to the university to teach by the end of the year, the White House said yesterday.
As director of the White House National Economic Council, Summers has been at the forefront of the administration’s efforts to pull the nation out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
This is one of the guys who helped cause it.
In addition to developing the much-criticized $787 billion stimulus package, Summers also played crucial roles in creating plans to bail out a sputtering car industry and to overhaul the nation’s health care system....
Related: Censoring Larry Summers' Conflict-of-Interest
His departure from the White House comes at a critical moment for the president, both politically and economically. The administration and Democratic leaders are struggling to calm the economic fears of anxious voters, who threaten to turn the upcoming midterm elections into a referendum on Obama’s economic policies.
Despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up some industries, reorient others, and generate jobs, the administration is still dealing with an unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent.
Summers is the third key member of Obama’s economic team to depart in recent months, a sign that a shakeup may be underway. White House budget director Peter Orszag left in July and Christina D. Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, left earlier this month.
It's called the rats deserting a sinking ship syndrome.
Of the key members of his original economic team, only Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner remains.
Political analysts said that the string of departures could help Obama make the case that he’s listening to the electorate and heading in a new direction. But it could also provide ammunition for Republicans to argue that he’s admitting his economic policies are not working....
Christopher Mann, a political science professor at the University of Miami: “It indicates that the White House has determined that the risk of these folks departing before election day is less than the potential gain for having them stay.’’
You buying this cover-up crap from the corporate media?
Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under President Clinton, could be brusque and confrontational with those who disagreed with him. During the debate over overhauling financial regulations, he angered some liberal legislators when he pushed back against proposals to limit the size of banks. But Representative Barney Frank, who worked closely with Summers on those negotiations, had high praise for him yesterday.
“I very much enjoyed working with Larry Summers in passing the financial reform bill because his general economic expertise provided important context for the decisions we had to make,’’ Frank said in an interview.
Obama said he is not completely severing his relationship with Summers.
Summers will return to teach at Harvard alongside colleagues with whom he had appeared to make peace following the turmoil that marked his presidency. The opinionated, at times controversial, economist was forced out of academia’s most high-profile job in 2006, five years after he had been installed as Harvard president.
Summers, who alienated faculty with his autocratic management style, suggested during a speech at an academic conference in 2005 that women lacked the same “intrinsic aptitude’’ for science as men.
Summers apologized for the remarks, saying they were intended to provoke a discussion among a small group of scientists and not as a public proclamation. He resigned a year later following a faculty meeting during which professors told him they lacked confidence in his leadership.
Summers, however, continued teaching, lecturing, and writing about the problems confronting a changing global economy. In columns for the Financial Times, he predicted a recession before others did.
Seeing as he helped create it he should have!
After a stint with a hedge fund management firm, he worked his way into Obama’s inner circle during the campaign of 2008....
Yeah, the Globe just GLIDES BY the CONFLICTS of INTEREST!
Summers has been on leave from Harvard, which has a rule that professors lose their tenured positions after a two-year absence. If he didn’t return by January, he could lose his position at the university, the White House official said. In an interview with The New York Times, Summers confirmed that concern....
Harvard officials released a statement saying the university welcomes him back to campus.
Even after his investment advice cost your endowment billions?
“Larry Summers is one of a number of distinguished Harvard faculty who took leave to serve the government, continuing a long tradition of public service by Harvard faculty. We look forward to his return.’’
Better there than in the White House.
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"Summers Stature Will Make Replacing Him a Tough Task
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- For all of Lawrence Summers’s drawbacks, a strong-willed and intellectual economist who critics say is difficult to work with, President Barack Obama faces a tough task in finding a replacement with the stature of the departing director of the National Economic Council....
Obama will be searching on three fronts, people familiar with the discussions say. Administration officials are debating recruiting a corporate executive to allay the business community’s doubts about White House policies.
I thought Democrats were the party of the working man.
They’re also looking at female candidates to add balance on an economic team dominated by men.
Token.
Most of all, the White House could use another Larry Summers.
Summers was the “brain trust for Obama,” said Catherine Mann, a former Federal Reserve economist who is now an economics professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Look at who the Globe called up for source expertise.
Among those whose names have been discussed is Anne Mulcahy, the former chief executive officer of Xerox Corp., two people familiar with administration discussions said. Other potential candidates include David Cote, CEO of Honeywell International Inc., and Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup Inc., according to one of the people....
Erskine Bowles, the co-chairman of the deficit commission and a former Clinton administration official, has also been mentioned as a possibility, a third person said.
Martin Neil Baily, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in President Bill Clinton’s administration, said Obama needs someone who can smooth the tensions between the White House and the corporate world.
Aren't they doing enough?
“I think they are looking for someone who businesses can feel they can talk to and understands their interests,” Baily said....
As if they didn't already?
The WORKING MAN and the MIDDLE CLASS do NOT EVEN have a SEAT at the TABLE!
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the top economic adviser to Republican nominee John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign, said the Obama White House has “a serious problem” in relations with U.S. businesses.
“They need an ambassador to that community, and a visible appointment that says they respect and care about business in the United States would be very important,” Holtz-Eakin said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
How much blood and flesh do you guys want?
White House advisers acknowledge it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find anyone who matches Summers’s knowledge of economics and public policy, people familiar with the selection say.
The announcement was made as the administration and Democrats are preparing for November’s congressional elections....
The departure of Summers will leave Geithner as the only member of Obama’s original top-level economic team. Since the end of July, Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, have resigned.
Within the Obama administration, Summers has been a forceful advocate of his positions and sometimes clashed with other advisers, people familiar with those matters said.
Obama may also seek someone who will serve more as a broker for alternative policies rather than an advocate, Mann said. “Larry’s a very strong person who has very strong opinions,” she said.
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Related: For Obama, task of replacing Summers could be difficult (By Michael D. Shear and Jackie Calmes, New York Times)
So is reading any updated s*** from that PoS paper.
Or this one:
"Summers prepares to exit, but his policies may yet bear fruit
Obama’s and Summers’ most unpopular program — the Troubled Asset Relief Program — is the clearest success. The plan, initiated by former President George W. Bush and continued with crucial support from Obama and Summers, has succeeded in stabilizing the banking industry, thereby stemming far more serious job losses.
Billions in profits and bonuses from fraudulent mortgages they made up out of thin air is called stabilizing to the propaganda paper.
This accomplishment is invisible, since the much-worse economy that it prevented never materialized.
And soon the Boston Globe will be from my table.
But most of the funds paid out by the government have already been returned, attesting to the improved health of the banks, and taxpayers will likely be out under $100 billion, far less than predicted. Most economists and policymakers agree that the program averted a catastrophe.
It's the same horse s*** line they have sold you all along, America. The same one the bankers used to ram the crap through Congress.
You taxpayers being out only $100 billion(?) -- according to the lying, PoS corporate media -- is a SUCCESS when you should have been out NOTHING at ALL!
Related: This is the biggest scandal in human history
Yup, $45 TRILLION dollars worth -- that's with a CAPITAL T, America.
Obama has reaped almost no credit, while suffering enduring political damage.
As he rightly should have, PoS shill!!
For this, Summers may be partly to blame. Summers, along with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, reportedly discouraged Obama from criticizing failed banks too sharply out of fear of alienating the business community.
Notice how they never fear alienating you, American?
When, early in his presidency, Obama took aim at the financial industry’s multi-million-dollar bonuses and paychecks as an affront to taxpayers, Summers and Geithner reportedly reined him in. They feared that businesses would be destabilized and less likely to hire new workers.
As if they hired any.
Whether those fears were valid is a matter of debate.
Un-flipping-real!
But Obama’s reluctance to criticize the banks contributed to widespread perceptions of TARP as helping the same fatcats who were responsible for the financial meltdown.
That is because the PERCEPTION is ACCURATE, a**holes!
The result is that many middle-income voters view Obama’s Democrats as the party of corporate America, giving Republicans an undeserved boost, especially given TARP’s GOP roots and the role of the party in advocating for banks in the financial-reform bill.
They BOTH ARE, folks!
Still, Summers can leave office with his head high.
But, still, shit!
He served as the chief presidential economist during a period of historic turbulence, and did much to stabilize the economic ship....
Do you feel stabilized, Americans?
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And about that TARP (good name for a looting and cover-up):
WASHINGTON — Herb Allison, the head of the government’s $700 billion financial bailout program, said yesterday that he would resign, the latest in a series of departures from President Obama’s economic team.
Related:
“If we were going to spend $700 billion, it seems it would be wiser having that $700 billion going to folks who would spend that money right away’’
Did he really say that after the bank bailouts and the stimuloot?
Tell me he didn't really say that.
Please, tell me he didn't say that.
Allison, who had served as head of the bailout program since April 2009, said in a letter to colleagues at the Treasury Department that they had accomplished a great deal and helped to stabilize the financial system.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program, the formal name for the program that began during President George W. Bush’s administration, has been widely criticized as a rescue for wealthy bankers who took extraordinary risks.
Allison will be succeeded by Tim Massad, who will become acting assistant Treasury secretary for financial stability. Before joining government, Massad had been a partner for 17 years at the New York City law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
Allison’s resignation is the latest departure from Obama’s economic team, which has been under fire from Republicans and many voters. Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director, and Christina Romer, head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, departed recently. The White House announced Tuesday that Lawrence H. Summers, the president’s top economist, would leave at the end of this year to return to teaching at Harvard.
Yeah, we know about him.
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And it is not just economics, folks.
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, Obama announced the appointment of Thomas E. Donilon, the principal deputy national security adviser. Donilon, a Democratic Party stalwart, has advised two previous Democratic administrations.
The long-rumored departure of national security adviser General James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant who never struck a close bond with his boss, does not necessarily signal a big swing in administration policy, partly because Donilon has been running the show for months.
But it does portend a bigger voice for Obama’s political and civilian advisers. Although Donilon is steeped in national security, his political skills and connections to Capitol Hill are well known enough that he was rumored just weeks ago to be a candidate to succeed Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff.
Jones’s exit had been expected at the end of the year, but it came earlier, administration officials said, after the White House became annoyed by the appearance of quotations attributed to Jones in Bob Woodward’s book “Obama’s Wars.’’
So Madsen's piece is being confirmed by my newspaper.
Donilon’s reminders inside the White House, that the US public has limited patience with the Afghan war and that the country’s goals should match its capabilities, are likely to loom large in the two strategy reviews ahead....
Oh, I can SEE WHY there is a EXODUS from the White House!
Maybe Obama is NOT PARANOID at all!
In running the foreign policy debates at the White House, Donilon has at times been a controversial figure, especially inside the Pentagon, where he angered many officers and senior officials during the review of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy in the fall of 2009.
Then he must be doing something right.
That debate pitted the nation’s top military officers, along with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who sought a heavy troop presence for a prolonged period, against a range of the president’s political advisers, including Emanuel and Vice President Joe Biden.
What you have here is what Madsen outlined: the hardcore CIA-Zionist Neo-Con connection splitting away from Obama because he is veering from the Zionist agenda.
Is a FALSE FLAG in the works to MAKE OBAMA SEE?
Donilon, according to officials who witnessed the exchanges, repeatedly challenged the military to justify the need for large numbers of troops over a period of a decade or more, finally cautioning the president that a policy of what he termed “endless war’’ was not wise or politically sustainable.
And LOOK WHO DIDN'T AGREE! The MILITARY BRASS, the CIA MAN-turned- DEFENSE SECRETARY, and the NEXT PRESIDENT of the United States.
According to Woodward’s book, tempers flared and the debate became so personal that Gates warned that choosing Donilon as the next national security adviser would be a “disaster.’’
********
During the Afghanistan review, Donilon had similarly testy relations with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff....
Inside the White House, Donilon has spoken often of the need to conduct a “rebalancing’’ of US foreign policy, devoting renewed attention to great power relationships and America’s long-term position in Asia.
And AWAY from ISRAEL!!
Everything is starting to make sense!
At age 55, Donilon has taken an unusual route to the national security adviser post.
A native of Providence, he worked as a political aide for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, helped manage Democratic National Conventions, and served in the State Department during Bill Clinton’s presidency. A lawyer, Donilon served for years as executive vice president at Fannie Mae, the mortgage finance company taken over by the government during the economic crisis.
It really doesn't matter who fills what position, does it? All cut from the same cloth.
He has long been close to Vice President Joe Biden; Donilon’s wife, Cathy, is chief of staff to the vice president’s wife, Jill; and his brother, Michael, is an adviser to Biden.
Confirming Madsen.
Another brother, Terrence, oversees communications and public affairs for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and serves as Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s spokesman.
Donilon’s role as deputy national security adviser will be filled, according to a White House official, by another foreign policy aide with deep connections to Capitol Hill: Denis R. McDonough, now the National Security Council’s chief of staff.
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More:
"President Obama, who is detached from his duties, and, according to the former White House staffer who is talking to Ulsterman, extremely lazy, only interested in watching ESPN and discussing sports, and playing golf, and doing what he is most comfortable at: campaigning. Obama clearly wants to run again for president, citing the “adoring crowds” who greet him on the political stump. Mrs. Obama has reportedly told the president that “there are no more adoring crowds.”
Last March, the annual report on the president’s health contained a reference to drinking. Obama’s doctor urged him to ”Continue smoking cessation efforts, a daily exercise program, healthy diet, moderation in alcohol intake. . .” WMR has been told by informed sources that Obama’s drinking has, on occasion, been more than moderate."
That's SCARY STUFF, folks!
Related: The Power Women of AmeriKan Politics
She really is running the show -- and maybe that is not such a bad thing.
