JAHI MCMATH: Why Do Some Very Powerful People Still Want Her DEAD?? (Cover-Ups & Organ Harvesting)

#JahiMcMath


SOME VERY POWERFUL PEOPLE STILL WANT JAHI MCMATH DEAD SO PLEASE KEEP PRAYING FOR HER

Can anyone please explain to me in layman's terms why some Very Powerful, Influential People (POLITICIANS, etc.,) are actually ANGRY that JAHI MCMATH is still Alive??

These same Powerful, Influential People (POLITICIANS, etc.,) are also ANGRY because JAHI'S Family has been granted more time by a Judge to have their Daughter Transferred from the OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL to another Medical Facility.

If this entire ordeal is NOT about Stealing this Precious Child's ORGANS and Covering Up MEDICAL MALPRACTICE........

Then please explain to Me what is going on??

Where is the Human COMPASSION for Children in this situation??

These same Powerful, Influential People (POLITICIANS, etc.,) are even ANGRY at ME for Blogging about JAHI'S story!

Is it because thousands of People all over America have been PRAYING for this Child to LIVE & Not DIE??

Is it because perhaps someone is waiting to receive her ORGANS??

Many people have been asking why a CHILDREN'S Hospital is so determined to remove a Child from LIFE SUPPORT so quickly??

I too have asked myself the same question.

I repeat.

Can anyone please explain to me in layman's terms why some Very Powerful, Influential People (POLITICIANS, etc.,) are actually ANGRY that JAHI MCMATH is still Alive??

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR JAHI.

IT'S NOT OVER YET!

"Judge Extends Life Support For Jahi McMath Until Jan. 7"

The family of the 13-year-old Oakland, Calif. girl who was declared brain-dead after a tonsillectomy was desperately trying to move her to a New York facility until a judge extended her life support at the Children's Hospital in Oakland Monday.

A judge extended life support for a brain-dead 13-year-old girl in Oakland until 5 p.m. on Jan. 7.

Jahi McMath suffered complications from a routine tonsillectomy at the Children's Hospital of Oakland on Dec. 9 to treat sleep apnea. She bled heavily and went into cardiac arrest.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo ruled to extend her time on a ventilator shortly before 5 p.m. Monday Pacific time, when she was scheduled to be taken off life support.

The family wants the life support to continue in case there is a possibility for recovery.

The girl's mother, Nailah Winkfield, said she cried and hugged her relatives outside the hospital when she heard the ruling.

"Who wants to know the date and the time their child would die?" she said, according to the Associated Press.

Up until that point, McMath's family was frantically trying to transfer the girl to a New York hospital.

The family's attorney Chris Dolan said he was waiting to hear from the New York facility, which he did not identify because he did not want media attention to influence its decision.

Dolan said other facilities in California have declined to take McMath and the New York hospital is the "last, last hope."

"The family is together, and today everybody is praying and being together," Dolan said Sunday.

The Children's Hospital in Oakland sent a letter to the family Sunday stating they have yet to hear from a New York hospital about taking Jahi.

The Oakland facility said it would need to discuss transportation and other legal issues before it can release the patient.

"We need to be able to talk to the other facility to understand what it is they are capable of doing," Cynthia Chiarappa, a spokeswoman for Children's Hospital, said. "This is not transferring an individual in a vegetative state, but a dead body."

Her family has set up a gofundme account to accept donations to move Jahi.


Sources: AP; CBS New York; HLN, KGO-TV; NY Daily News

Bill Clinton Steps In To Sell Obama's Tax Deal & Quiet Liberals

Bill Clinton To The Rescue?


With the fate of a tax deal reached with Republicans still uncertain, President Obama brought out one of his party's biggest guns to help drum up support for the agreement: former President Bill Clinton.

The current president called on his predecessor in part to help convince angry Democrats -- especially in the House of Representatives -- to pull together to vote for a bill he believes will help spur economic growth and job creation and without which the economic recovery could falter.

"I thought, given the fact that he presided over as good an economy as we've seen in our lifetimes, that it might be useful for him to share some of his thoughts," Obama said in introducing Clinton.

Clinton's surprise appearance in the White House briefing room after a closed door meeting with the president was the latest salvo in a massive, week-long, multimedia blitz by the White House urging passage of the bill.

Officials have used television interviews, the Internet, speeches, and phone calls to press the plan.

"The agreement, taken as a whole, is I believe the best bipartisan agreement we can reach to help the largest number of Americans and to maximize the chances that the economic recovery will accelerate and create more jobs and to minimize chances that it will slip back," Clinton said, later adding that if he were in office right now, he would do what Obama has done.

Under the plan -- which has angered many Democrats, especially in the House -- the Bush-era tax rates would be extended for two years for people at all income levels and unemployment insurance would be extended for 13 months. The deal includes a one-year 2 percent reduction in payroll taxes, an extension of certain tax credits for working families and students and other tax incentives to support business expansion.

The Senate is set to move first. Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a procedural vote in the upper to begin debate on the agreement for Monday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Democrats got a good deal out of the compromise, because provisions like unemployment insurance and the American Opportunity Tax Credit were things that were "tremendously important." Earlier efforts to extend unemployment insurance were repeatedly blocked by Republicans this year.

Clinton echoed that argument, thanking Republicans for "agreeing to include things that were important to" Obama, and saying he believed the American people were "heaving a sigh of relief" that the two parties might come together and agree on something. The former president spoke several times about the need for the two parties to work together, as they did in the 1990s when he presided over a divided government.

"The story line is how well we worked with the Republicans and all that, but you know, we played political Kabuki for a year, had two government shutdowns. We can't afford that now," Clinton said. "We have got to pull together and both sides are gonna have to eat some things they don't like, because we cannot afford to have the kind of impasse that we had last time over a long period of time."


Sources: CNN, First Read, MSNBC, Yahoo News

Pelosi Defies Obama, Holds Worried Taxpayers "Hostage"; Obama Stands Firm

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Democrats Blast Obama-GOP Deal


Disappointed congressional Democrats Tuesday night continued to blast the White House's tax deal with Republicans despite a spirited argument by President Barack Obama that concessions were preferable to higher taxes for millions of Americans.

"I'm not here to play games with the American people or the health of the economy," Obama said of his day-old deal, which is designed to avert a scheduled Jan. 1 expiration of tax cuts at all income levels.

In a remarkable political role reversal, Republicans lined up to support the package, while lawmakers of the president's party said they were prepared to oppose it. Liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pledged to "do everything I can to defeat this," including a filibuster to prevent a final vote.

The deal includes an extension of expiring Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels — not just for lower and middle-income taxpayers, as Democrats wanted. It also contains a renewal of jobless benefits due to expire in a few weeks, and a one-year cut in Social Security taxes paid by workers.

Other elements would loosen the estate tax and provide breaks for businesses to spur hiring. Officials said that overall, the proposal could add $900 billion to the federal deficit over two years.

Dem leader: Compromise is 'not done yet'
Democratic opposition focused chiefly on two parts of the deal that marked concessions to Republicans — the decision to let expiring tax cuts remain in effect for people in upper incomes, and a change in the estate tax that the GOP has long sought.

After meeting with other Democratic leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that "so far the response has not been very good" to the proposed deal.

She was described to NBC News as having a poker face during a Tuesday night closed-door caucus meeting in which other members said they had problems with Obama's compromise.

House Democratic leader, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, said afterward he cannot recommend the package to his colleagues.

"The question is what is the best deal you can get and whether you really needed to have, for example, this provision with respect to the bonanza for the wealthiest estates in the country," he said, according to NBC News.

Pelosi called the estate tax provision "a bridge too far."

Overall, officials said, the proposed compromise deal could increase federal borrowing by $900 billion.

"I don't think that the president should count on Democratic votes to get this deal passed," said Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York. "It's a bad deal that wasn't skillfully negotiated."

Among other caucus members expressing concerns, NBC News said, were Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin, D-Mich., Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., outgoing co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., who called the compromise "just not acceptable to people."

The compromise is "something that's not done yet," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We're going to have to do some more work," he said after a closed door meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and members of the Democratic rank-and-file.

At his hastily called news conference, Obama bristled at times, casting himself in the role of compromiser-in-chief with the best interests of the economy and public in mind.

"This isn't an abstract debate. This is real money, It will make a real difference in the lives of people who sent us here," Obama said.

The presidential news conference was part of a full-scale defense of the agreement, which the White House said would pump billions into the economy at a time it is recovering from the worst recession in eight decades and unemployment stands at 9.8 percent.

President critical of both sides of the aisle
The president was critical of Democrats and Republicans, saying that if purely partisan attitudes rule, compromise would be impossible.

At one point, he appeared to liken Republican lawmakers insisting on tax cuts for the wealthy to terrorists.

"I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. In this case the hostage is the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed," he said.

But he also rejected criticism from Democrats. "I know there are some who would have preferred a protracted political fight," he said. But he added he had decided that compromise was preferable to letting taxes rise on Jan. 1.

The events left Democratic leaders struggling to avoid a major fight with the president, at a moment that they are hoping to complete work on several measures before Republicans take control of the House in January. Most prominently, Obama wants the Senate to ratify a new arms control treaty with Russia.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a Democrat-turned-independent, urged support for the plan. "This tentative agreement is an example of Washington working across party lines to confront the challenges facing our nation," he said.

But organized labor, the liberal group MoveOn.org and others criticized the deal.

In public and private, Democrats expressed anger that Obama had bowed to Republican demands to extend the expiring tax cuts on the wealthy and make additional concessions to the GOP on estate tax relief.

Some Democrats who met with Biden quoted him as saying the deal was the best the White House could obtain from Republicans, who had staunchly blocked legislation over the weekend to extend tax cuts only on incomes below $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he intended to oppose the new proposal barring changes. "It didn't wind up in a good end. The deal as struck is not the best deal for our country," he said.

Others questioned whether the deal would spur the economic growth enough to outweigh the additional damage it would do to the already disastrous debt situation.

"If we don't vote for this, what happens — not politically, but economically? If we do vote for it, how sure can we be that it will, in effect, spawn jobs and pump the economy?" said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Other parts of the plan
Besides holding current tax rates in place for all, the proposal would extend unemployment benefits and reduce payroll taxes for a year, avoiding a threatened cutoff in checks to two million over the holidays and as many as another five million next year.

The proposed Social Security tax cut would apply to virtually every working American. For one year they would pay 4.2 percent of their income, instead of 6.2 percent, to the government retirement program, fattening U.S. paychecks by $120 billion in 2011.

Someone earning $40,000 a year would receive a $800 benefit, and a $70,000 earner would save $1,400, officials said. More than three-fourths of all Americans pay more in these so-called payroll taxes than in federal income taxes.

The White House said money from other sources would be shifted so the Social Security trust fund loses no revenue.

Obama said he reluctantly made another concession to Republicans, concerning the estate tax. It would tax estates worth more than $5 million at a rate of 35 percent, a GOP goal. Democrats favored a $3.5 million threshold, with a 45 percent tax on anything higher.

Obama's willingness to compromise with Republicans comes a month after the GOP won resounding victories in congressional, gubernatorial and state legislative elections.

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Obama Predicts Success For Tax Deal


President Barack Obama said Friday he's confident that Congress will pass a compromise tax package despite the objections of House Democrats.

"Nobody -- Democrat or Republican -- wants to see people's paychecks smaller on January 1 because Congress didn't act," Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio.

"And I think that the framework that we've put forward, which says not only that people's taxes don't go up on January 1, but also that we extend unemployment insurance for a year, that we make sure that key provisions like the college tax credit, the child tax credit, the earned-income tax credit are included -- that that framework is going to serve as the basis for compromise."

The debate over taxes in the waning days of a lame-duck session of Congress illustrated the mistrust and animosity that has built up in the deeply partisan environment on Capitol Hill.

Democrats voted Thursday against considering the tax package that Obama negotiated with Republicans, raising questions over the president's influence in his own party.

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told CNN Friday that the tax plan will need Republican support to pass so that voters in 2012 will know it was not Democrats who approved the measure's projected $857 billion cost.

Obama will have to "get more Republicans than Democrats to make it go through," Ackerman said.

So far, Republicans "haven't said that they're all going to vote for it. They haven't said how many votes they're going to provide," Ackerman said. "This is on our (Democrats') watch. Then they're going to attack us in the next election for increasing the deficit when most of them are going to vote against it. ... Why should the Democrats get all the blame? The Republicans are very good at this. ... They get the credit for everything we do. We get the blame for everything they did that went bad."

Also Friday, conservatives Republicans questioned the tax and benefit package, warning it went against the campaign mantra from November of holding down the deficit.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, told CNN that the package would increase the deficit, adding that "investors are reacting to the increases in the deficit and so we're concerned about that. We want to get on a sound financial footing."

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, vowed earlier this week to filibuster the tax and benefit package to prevent a vote on the Senate floor. He noted that those who ran from the right in the election had said they would oppose anything that increased the deficit.

The Senate will consider the tax package first. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, released the first version of legislation to implement the negotiated deal and said the first vote on it, a procedural one to open debate, would occur Monday.

The Senate version made public by Reid was largely the same as the deal announced by Obama, but it added a one-year extension of a program that provides cash grants in lieu of a tax credit for construction of new solar and wind energy projects. The Treasury Grant Program was part of the 2009 economic stimulus bill.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Friday that the additional clean energy provision added $3 billion to the cost of the package. Meanwhile, a letter to House Democratic leaders signed by at least 79 Democratic members called for the provision to be extended for two years.



The negotiated package includes a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, as well as 13 months of unemployment benefits and a cut of 2 percentage points in the payroll tax. In addition, the plan extends current tax breaks for students and lower-income Americans, and adjusts the estate tax in a way that Democrats believe benefits the wealthy.

However, Bachmann and other conservatives complained that the compromise resurrects the estate tax, which had expired for 2010 but was set to be restored in 2011 at a rate of 55%, with inheritances under $1 million exempted. A bill that passed in the House set the tax rate at 45% and exempted inheritances under $3.5 million, while the provision in the tax deal would exempt estates up to $5 million and set the tax rate at 35%.

To Obama, the bottom line is that legislators from both parties will prevent a tax increase on January 1 by accepting the main components of the negotiated package, including the extension of unemployment benefits.

"At the end of the day, people are going to conclude we don't want 2 million people suddenly without unemployment insurance and not able to pay their rent, not able to pay their mortgage, not able to pay their house note," Obama said, adding that the package also will bolster the so-far sluggish recovery from a recession that has unemployment still near 10%.

"I think that people are also going to understand that the single most important thing we can do for all of our constituencies is to make sure that the recovery that is taking place right now gets stronger," he said, adding that economists have noted the negotiated package would increase growth and could mean more jobs, a development that "has got to be the highest priority for everybody."

He called for legislators "to act responsibly and to think not in terms of abstract political fights here ... on Capitol Hill, but to think about those families that, in the middle of the holiday season, are trying to figure out -- are they still going to have unemployment benefits at the end of this month?"

"I'm confident that we're going to be able to get this resolved by the end of the month," Obama said.

Thursday's vote by the House Democratic caucus was a defiant rejection of both the agreement on tax and benefit measures, as well as what many Democrats in the chamber perceived as being marginalized in the talks by the White House.

"This message today is very simple. That in the form that it was negotiated, it is not acceptable to the House Democratic caucus," said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who represented House Democrats in the negotiations. He pledged to "work with the White House and our Republican colleagues to try and make sure we do something right for the economy and right for jobs."

During their meeting, caucus members chanted "Just say no," according to two Democrats in attendance, and Rep. Laura Richardson of California later asked reporters outside the room: "Did you hear us saying 'Just say no'?"

Overall, Republicans generally appear supportive of the package, which White House advisers noted gave them their two main priorities -- an extension of the lower tax rates from the Bush era to everyone, including the wealthiest Americans, and setting a lower-than-expected estate tax rate only on inheritances of more than $5 million.

Both provisions angered liberal Democrats, who oppose extending the lower tax rates enacted in 2001 and 2003 to the wealthy. Some said Obama should have forced a showdown with Republicans over the tax cut extensions by holding out longer to force more GOP concessions.

However, Obama and White House aides said the deal reached in negotiations was the best they would get from unyielding Republicans, who will take control of the House and enjoy a stronger minority stake in the Senate when the next session of Congress begins in early January.

Gibbs told reporters Thursday that he expected Congress to pass a package this year because the alternative was higher taxes for everyone after December 31.

"At the end of the day, members are not going to want to be in their districts, senators are not going to want to be in their districts, when their constituents find out their taxes have gone up by several thousands of dollars," Gibbs said, noting that the deal is a compromise with elements unpalatable to both sides. "If everybody took out what they didn't like, we'd have nothing. And we know the consequences of doing nothing."

A top Democratic adviser to the White House added that Senate Democrats "have several vehicles they can use" as the legislative base for the tax plan, and are working on a plan to pass a tax bill and "then jam the House" with that legislation.

Some House Democrats say they will support the tax package as a compromise made under tough circumstances.

"If it passes the Senate and this is the compromise the president of the United States has committed to, what are we going do in the House, hold this up?" said Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada.


Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Newsbuster.org

Obama Confronts His Angry Liberal Base Over Bush-era Tax Cuts Extension: Outrage Grows

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Obama Defends Tax Deal At news Conference


One day after announcing a framework for a deal that would preserve the very tax cuts for the wealthy that he promised would be allowed expire, a fiery President Obama today defended the agreement, saying that he did not want to hurt the American people or the economy with a protracted political fight.

Under the agreement -- which has angered many Democrats, especially in the House -- the Bush-era tax rates would be extended for two years for people at all income levels, unemployment insurance would be extended for 13 months, and payroll taxes would be decreased by 2 percentage points for one year. According to a fact sheet provided by the White House, the deal would allow a typical working family to avoid a $3,000 tax increase next year.

At a hastily convened news conference in the press briefing room, the president vowed to continue the debate over tax cuts for the rich, saying he would fight to end them when they expire again. In a nod to his pragmatic governing philosophy, Obama said a refusal to compromise on any issue would lead nowhere and he asked members of his own party to remember "this is a long game, not a short game."

"This country was founded on compromise," Obama said. "I couldn't go through the front door at this country's founding. And, you know, if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a union. So my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there: What is helping the American people live out their lives?"

Neither congressional chamber has voted on the tax measure and the president's event today was intended to drum up the support of lawmakers. With November's 9.8% jobless rate marking the 19-straight month of unemployment above 9%, Obama argued yesterday that while not perfect, the compromise was "an essential step on the road to recovery" that would spur job creation in the private sector. Today, he said that while he understood the desire from Democrats to continue the fight over the tax issue, this was not an abstract debate, but one that had real consequences for people.

The plan, although not paid for, has won support from Republicans, even though many of them ran on promises to trim the nation's massive budget deficit. Meanwhile, Democrats like outgoing House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they were concerned the deal would exacerbate the deficit.

In today's press conference, the president said the left's disappointment with this deal was reminiscent of the battle over the public option in the health-care fight. He noted that Democrats had succeeded in a century-long battle to expand health-care coverage, but that many on the left saw the compromises made to reach a deal on that bill as a sign of weakness.

"If that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let's face it -- we will never get anything done," Obama said. "People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people."

The president also defended his record on campaign promises and said his focus was not on the day-to-day news cycle or political battle -- but rather on the long term.

"I don't think there's a single Democrat out there who, if they looked at where we started when I came into office and looked at where we are now, would say that somehow we have not moved in the direction that I promised," he said. "Take a tally. Look at what I promised during the campaign. There's not a single thing that I've said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do and if I haven't gotten it done yet, I'm still trying to do it."

The deal was struck after Senate Republicans blocked efforts over the weekend to make the tax cuts for middle-class families permanent or to raise the threshold for the tax relief to those making $1 million, forcing the two sides to find another solution.

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Obama Faces Liberal Revolt Over Tax Cut Deal


The battle over extending the Bush-era tax cuts has emerged as a defining moment for liberals disenchanted with President Obama, who they increasingly see as unwilling or unable to back up his campaign promises.

Mr. Obama vowed as a candidate to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for incomes below $250,000 for a couple or $200,000 for an individual - but let the cuts, which lapse at the end of the year, expire for incomes above those thresholds.

Republicans want the cuts extended for all income levels, including the wealthiest Americans. Though the American people favor Mr. Obama's position according to the latest CBS News poll, the White House and congressional Democrats appear poised to accept a temporary extension of all of the cuts this week.

The White House's apparent willingness to give in to the GOP on the tax cut issue - despite Democrats' large majorities in both houses of Congress (at least for a few more weeks) - is striking many on the left as emblematic of a president who they say has repeatedly failed to fight for what he believes in.

Liberal New York Times columnist Frank Rich this weekend explained "the baffling Obama presidency" in part by arguing that Mr. Obama "has seemingly surrendered his once-considerable abilities to act, decide or think." The president's attempts to seek out compromise instead of holding fast to a position, he wrote, has rendered him "indistinct" and "weightless."

Over at the liberal Huffington Post, meanwhile, the talk has turned to rallying around a serious primary challenge to Mr. Obama. While such a challenge is unlikely to materialize, the discussion reflects the level of disenchantment with Mr. Obama among the activist left.

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist nor have a PhD in political science and sociology to see clearly that Obama has abandoned much of the base that elected him," wrote Clarence B. Jones Sunday in a column calling on liberals to consider rallying around someone else in 2012. "He has done this because he no longer respects, fears or believes those persons who elected him have any alternative, but to accept what he does, whether they like it or not."

Daniel Roche, a 2008 Deputy Field Organizer in Nevada for Mr. Obama, is quoted in an email from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee saying that if the president "capitulates on this, there really is no point in voting for him in 2012."

"The difference between voting for a Republican and voting for someone whose default negotiation strategy is rolling over and dying whenever the Republican Party says mean things is marginal," he said. "This should be a ridiculously easy fight to win."

For liberals, the first half of Mr. Obama's term has been a long and so-far unfulfilled wait for something to rally around. The so-called "public option" never made it into the health care bill; "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" remains as military policy; immigration reform efforts have barely moved forward; the Guantanamo Bay prison facility remains open. Now comes the fight over the Bush-era tax cuts, which, barring a surprise outcome, marks one more disappointment for those who want to see the president fight for what he believes in.

"Like the public option, which enjoyed similar bipartisan consensus among voters, progressives are pushing President Obama to fight for both a policy winner and a political winner," Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said. "...President Obama has shown a complete refusal to fight Republicans throughout his presidency even when the public is on his side -- and millions of his former supporters are now growing disappointed and infuriated by this refusal to fight. Obama is demobilizing the troops and demoralizing the public right before he seeks re-election."

What liberals want to see is for Mr. Obama to stand firm on the issue, in part by arguing (perhaps in a holiday primetime address) that an America drowning in debt can't afford to give a handout to the richest Americans. As the Times noted Sunday, the $60 billion per year that would be saved by not extending the cuts for high earners would save as much as the elimination of earmarks, a federal pay freeze, a ten percent cut in the federal workforce and a 50 percent cut in foreign aid - combined.

From the White House's perspective, however, drawing the ire of what Robert Gibbs once dismissed as the "professional left" may well be worth it. The Republicans, after all, hold most of the cards: With the help of a handful of Democrats and the filibuster rule, they can (and have) blocked Senate Democrats' efforts to extend the cuts only for those making less than $250,000 (or, in a separate vote, less than $1 million). Lacking the votes to push through their position through the Senate, the White House and Democrats are left to either let the cuts expire for all Americans - which they see as bad for the economy, not to mention potential political suicide - or accept the GOP's terms, at least for a year or two.

And, the White House is stressing to reporters, it's not like they won't get anything for their trouble: The deal being negotiated between the White House and members of Congress will likely include a vote on extending long-term unemployment benefits (which expired last week) as well as some tax cuts important to the White House. The negotiation reflects the compromise necessary to get things done in Washington, they argue (behind closed doors, anyway) - and what's so bad about acknowledging political reality?

According to liberal Times columnist Paul Krugman, what's so bad is that Mr. Obama is essentially giving into GOP blackmail - and "if Democrats give in to the blackmailers now, they'll just face more demands in the future."

"So Mr. Obama should draw a line in the sand, right here, right now," he writes in his column today. "If Republicans hold out, and taxes go up, he should tell the nation the truth, and denounce the blackmail attempt for what it is. Yes, letting taxes go up would be politically risky. But giving in would be risky, too -- especially for a president whom voters are starting to write off as a man too timid to take a stand."

Such a potentially cathartic move would indeed be high risk, however - another promise Mr. Obama made during the campaign was not to raise taxes on the middle class. Republicans have been effective in blaming Democratic policies for the still-struggling economy, and while it's hard to know exactly how it would play politically if Mr. Obama let taxes for everyone rise, it's clear the GOP would aggressively cast the situation as the latest example of financial mismanagement by the party in power. The GOP is the stronger force in American politics at the moment, and it can be particularly difficult to enter a duel when it feels like the other side has all the momentum.

And despite the criticism from the "professional left," the White House knows that the perceptions of pundits like Krugman and Rich don't necessarily translate to the general public. According to the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, 90 percent of blacks still approve of the president, as do 82 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of liberals. That's not exactly the numbers one might expect for a man whom voters - at least in the Democratic base - "are starting to write off."

Still, there is a danger in the opinions of so-called "opinion makers" eventually trickling down to the general public. In his column Sunday, Rich compared Mr. Obama to Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is popular in his state despite its blue tint. (It should be noted that Christie has more executive control than Mr. Obama does, which makes it easier to stick to your guns.)

"...the core of Christie's appeal at home is that he explains passionately held views in concrete, plain-spoken detail," he writes. "Voters know what he stands for and sometimes respect him for his forthrightness even when they reject the stands themselves."

That's a quality sorely lacking in Mr. Obama, Rich and others say - even when he has the public on his side. And, they say, it has fed into the notion that the president is a wishy-washy Washington politician instead of a true champion of the middle class.

Perception is not necessarily reality, of course. The White House can point to financial reform, the health care bill, and the stimulus package as important liberal achievements, and Mr. Obama said even as he made his campaign promises that he was open to compromise in order to move forward. But for a president who has over the course of two years yet to deliver a single clear victory for the Democratic base that got him elected, the debate over tax cuts looks like the latest in a string of missed opportunities.


Sources: CBS News, First Read, MSNBC, Youtube

TSA vs Passengers: Anti-TSA Sentiment Heats Up

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Passenger Chooses Strip-Down Over Pat-Down



When a San Diego man opted out of security screening using the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) at Lindbergh Field Friday, he stripped down to his underwear in an attempt to avoid the pat-down procedures.

Samuel Wolanyk took the protest started Nov. 13 by Oceanside's John Tyner to a whole new level.

While Tyner videotaped his refusal to be patted down, telling the agent "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested," Wolanyk decided to give TSA a look at his body down to his Calvin Klein's.

Through a statement released by his attorney Sunday night, Wolanyk said "TSA needs to see that I'm not carrying any weapons, explosives, or other prohibited substances, I refuse to have images of my naked body viewed by perfect strangers, and having been felt up for the first time by TSA the week prior (I travel frequently) I was not willing to be molested again."

Wolanyk's attorney said that TSA requested his client put his clothes on so he could be patted down properly but his client refused to put his clothes back on. He never refused a pat down, according to his attorney.

Wolanyk was arrested for refusing to complete the security process. A woman, identified by Harbor police as Danielle Kelli Hayman, 39, of San Diego was detained for recording the incident on a phone.

San Diego has played a central role in the debate over the need for AIT machines in our nation's airports. From Tyner's videotape and U.S. Rep. Bob Filner's call for a congressional hearing, to the parody song penned by Poway musician and Grammy-winner Steve Vaus. This Wednesday, one group is asking Americans to opt out of the AIT machines.

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Pat-Down Backlash Grows During Holiday Travel Rush



s backlash against airline passenger pat-downs intensified with a viral online video, the nation's top airline security official said Monday that his agency is walking a fine line between privacy concerns and public safety.

A short video clip circulating on the internet shows a shirtless boy receiving a pat-down from a Transportation Security Administration agent. His father watches, hands on his hips, obstructing part of the view.

But the words playing in the background are clear.

"Are they harassing a kid?" one man asks.

"It's ridiculous," another voice chimes in. "Unbelievable."

Finance student Luke Tait said he started recording the incident with his cell phone when he saw the "visibly upset" father while waiting in line Friday at the airport in Salt Lake City, Utah.

"It was an interesting situation. I never saw a little boy with his shirt off getting a pat-down," Tait told CNN.

TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird said screeners searched the child after he set off a metal detector alarm.

"The father removed his son's shirt in order to speed up the screening process. Once screening was complete, both proceeded to the gate for their flight," Baird said in a statement.

Asked about the incident Monday on CNN's "American Morning," TSA Administrator John Pistole said his understanding was the same as the account given by Baird.

The TSA is trying to strike a delicate balance, Pistole said -- ensuring the safety of the traveling public while taking privacy concerns into account. "The bottom line is, everybody wants to arrive safely at their destination," he said.

In the short term, no changes will be made as the holiday season approaches. Some 2 million people a day are expected to travel on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

A Michigan man, who endured an "extremely embarrassing" pat-down earlier this month, disagreed.

"These new pat-downs have to be stopped until [TSA agents] are trained and are comfortable doing what they need to do," Thomas Sawyer told CNN's "American Morning."

Sawyer, a bladder cancer survivor who has worn a urostomy bag since a surgery three years ago, said a TSA agent at Detroit Metropolitan Airport caused the seal of the bag to open partially during a pat-down, spilling urine on his clothes.

Sawyer said he tried to caution the agent against pressing too hard on his abdomen because of the bag. The agent didn't understand and continued with the search, Sawyer said, and "pulled the seal kind of half-off" the bag.

"These people need to be trained on medical conditions ... and emotional conditions," Sawyer said Monday on CNN's "American Morning." He said the agent "didn't apologize, he didn't do anything."

"I'm a good American, I know why we're doing this and I understand it," Sawyer said. "But this was extremely embarrassing and it didn't have to happen. With educated TSA workers, it wouldn't have happened."

Pistole pointed out that the pat-downs are not mandatory -- passengers receive them only if they opt out of a screening with advanced imaging technology. The technology is the TSA's best effort, he said, to head off attacks like the would-be Christmas Day bomber last year. Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab allegedly had a bomb sewn into his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan.

Asked whether the technology and pat-downs would have been able to find that device, Pistole said he believes they would have, saying it would have shown up as "an anomaly" with the imaging technology and then might have been located in a pat-down.

There has never been an explosive found on a flight from one U.S. city to another, Pistole acknowledged. But, he pointed out, domestic terrorists exist -- Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski, for instance -- and there are people who want to do the government harm. While America is "fortunate" that such an incident has not occurred on a domestic flight, he said, it could conceivably happen.

"We welcome feedback and comments on the screening procedures from the traveling public, and we will work to make them as minimally invasive as possible while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve," Pistole said in a statement released Sunday. "We are constantly evaluating and adapting our security measures, and as we have said from the beginning, we are seeking to strike the right balance between privacy and security."

But Rep. John Mica told "State of the Union" Sunday the enhanced screening shows the TSA is "headed in the wrong direction as far as who they're screening and how they're doing it."

"I don't think the roll-out was good and the application is even worse," he said. "This does need to be refined. But he's saying it's the only tool and I believe that's wrong."

The Florida Republican, who will be chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January, has argued that airports should hire private security screeners.

The ramped up use of pat-downs and full-body scanning is needed to stop non-metallic threats including weapons and explosives from getting aboard planes, the TSA says. And it appears that most Americans agree.

In a recent CBS News poll, 4 out of 5 Americans supported the use of full-body scans.

President Barack Obama stood by the new controversial screening measures Saturday, calling methods such as pat-downs and body scans necessary to assure airline safety.

The president told reporters that the balance between protecting travelers' rights and their security is a "tough situation," but stressed that such methods are needed after what happened last Christmas Day.

But Obama's support hasn't stopped a growing group of objectors, from civil rights and privacy advocates to scientists and pilots, from loudly claiming these measures are too invasive, ineffective and possibly unsafe.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked by CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday whether she would submit to an enhanced pat-down, laughed and said, "Not if I could avoid it. No, I mean, who would?"

Pistole noted Monday Clinton went on to say she understands the importance and focus on travelers' security.

Some are calling the frenzied travel day before Thanksgiving "National Opt-Out Day," urging travelers selected for full-body scanning to refuse.

Travelers have the right to opt out of full-body scanning, according to the TSA, but the pat-down alternative has, in turn, created its own public furor.

Last week, a San Diego, California, man's viral video of his clash with security screeners spawned several T-shirt designs with his "Don't touch my junk" quip.

And CNN affiliates around the country have reported examples of passengers who say they find pat-downs embarassing or invasive.

But on Sunday, Pistole told CNN that the outcry over the new screening was overblown.

"Very few people actually receive the pat-down. In spite of all the public furor about this, very few people do," he said.


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Sources: CNN, Denver Post, MSNBC, NBC San Diego, The Guardian, Youtube, Google Maps

Bill Nelson, Other Dems Turn On Pres. Obama: Angry Rants!

Senate Democrats Vent Anger With Barack Obama


Senate Democrats — including typically mild-mannered Bill Nelson of Florida — lit into President Barack Obama during an unusually tense air-clearing caucus session on Thursday, senators and staffers told POLITICO.

Nelson told colleagues Obama’s unpopularity has become a serious liability for Democrats in his state and blamed the president for creating a toxic political environment for Democrats nationwide, according to two Democrats familiar with his remarks.

“It was a raucous caucus,” said one Democratic senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because closed-door sessions are not supposed to be discussed with outsiders.

Nelson declined to respond when asked about the incident Thursday night, saying he was in a hurry to leave the Capitol to catch a flight. His spokesman didn’t return a request for comment.

In interviews after the marathon three-hour meeting, several senators and senior aides told POLITICO that Nelson was just one of several senators to express anger at White House missteps — and air deep concerns about their own political fates if Obama and the Democratic Party leadership can’t turn things around by 2012.

Added one veteran senator: “It was the most frank exchange of views I’ve ever seen.”

Several senators expressed the opinion that Obama needed to show more passion, while party liberals renewed their complaint that Obama should abandon the pretense of bipartisanship in the face of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s intransigence and what they consider the Kentucky Republican’s blatantly political tactics aimed at making Obama a one-term president.

Others said Democratic leaders need to clearly spell out what they believe are the motivations behind the Republicans' positions: that they are beholden to special interests, who bankroll their campaigns.

If Democrats keep losing the message war, they worry, they will be wiped out in 2012.

“There was a lot of passion in that room,” one senator said. “The reason is because the public is with us on our policies, but they’re not getting the message.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders had met with Obama at the White House earlier in the day, calmly presided over the gripe session, sources say, allowing members to have their say.

Reid, who barely survived a challenge from tea party favorite Sharron Angle, has already taken steps to improve his own messaging operation, tapping New York Sen. Chuck Schumer to run the communications and policy operations of the Democratic Caucus in the next Congress.

With 21 Democrats and two independents facing reelection in 2012, Reid and the White House will be forced to deal with skittish Democrats eager to see a sharpened political operation.

But the complaints are not new. Over the past year, Senate Democrats have expressed dissatisfaction with Obama’s policy priorities, especially his determination to ram through a health care bill against the objections of party conservatives like Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). The caucus’s left wing, including Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, have argued the opposite point: that Obama’s timidity has led to the defection of liberals and young people turned off by Obama compromises on the public option and economic stimulus.

Thursday’s confrontation reminded some of a February 2010 showdown between Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod after the president’s question-and-answer session with senators. An irate Franken, witnesses told POLITICO at the time, dressed down Axelrod and the White House for failing to provide a clearer sense of direction on health reform and other large legislative initiatives.


Sources: Politico

Obama Expresses Anger At BP, Gets Criticized (Double Standard)

Why Obama Doesn't Dare Become The "Angry Black Man"


Here's proof that President Obama has indeed ushered in a new era in race relations.

Who would have ever expected some white Americans to demand that an African-American man show more rage?

If you've followed the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, you've heard the complaints that Obama isn't showing enough emotion.

But scholars say Obama's critics ignore a lesson from American history: Many white Americans don't like angry black men.

It's the lesson Obama absorbed from his upbringing, and from an impromptu remark he delivered last summer. Yet it's a lesson he may now have to jettison, they say, as public outrage spreads.

"Folks are waiting for a Samuel Jackson 'Snakes on the Plane' moment from this president as in: 'We gotta' get this $#@!!* oil back in the $#!!* rig!' But that's just not who Obama is,'' says Saladin Ambar, a political science professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Some of the same people crying for Obama to show more emotion would have voted against him if he had displayed anger during his presidential run, says William Jelani Cobb, author of "The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress."

"It would have fed deeply into a pre-existing set of narratives about the angry black man," Cobb says. "The anger would have gotten in the way. He would have frightened off white voters who were interested in him because he seemed to be like the black guy they worked with or went to graduate school with -- not a black guy who is threatening."

Obama ready to kick butt?

Now some critics say that Obama should be a little bit more threatening.

On Monday, Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today" told Obama that critics don't want him to react to the oil disaster by meeting with experts and being calm. They want him to "kick some butt."

Obama responded by saying he talks to experts "because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."

Obama's tough talk comes after criticism mounted over his response to the oil fiasco.

During a White House press briefing last week, a reporter told Obama's press secretary that most people haven't seen rage from the president. (That led Obama's press secretary to say he had seen an enraged Obama's "clenched jaws" in meetings.)

Obama's cool temperament even prompted black filmmaker Spike Lee to tell CNN that for at least one time, Obama should "go off."

Why Spike Lee thinks this is the time for Obama to go off

But Obama has "gone off" before and that didn't work too well for him, says Ambar.

During a news conference last summer, Obama casually said that police acted "stupidly" when they arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates in his home for disorderly conduct after a confrontation with a white police officer.

Obama's comments infuriated many white people, and even some black supporters. Obama had to have a Beer Summit to calm the public uproar.

"He flashed genuine anger," says Ambar. "At that moment, when he touched on the issue of race, he spoke frankly and passionately about what he felt and it got him into a big deal of trouble."

Evoking the specter of the angry black man almost cost Obama his shot at the White House, says Paul Street, an author and political activist who worked with Obama in Chicago.

Street says videos of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily condemning America were so dangerous to Obama's campaign because it hinted that Obama may have been an angry black man behind closed doors.

"Rev. Wright almost cost him his run for the presidency because of fears of the angry black man," says Street, author of the upcoming book "The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power."

"What was Rev. Wright but the ultimate symbol of the angry black man who is going to take revenge," Street says.

That symbol is hardwired into American history and popular culture. It's Nat Turner, the slave who inspired a bloody 19th-century uprising. It's Malcolm X, the black militant who denounced "blue-eyed devils."

It's the hip-hop and rap artists who populate contemporary radio.

Why Obama can't get angry if he tried

Obama, though, has spent a lifetime trying to rewrite that script, says Street, who says he worked with Obama in Chicago.

"He is Mr. Equanimity and Mr. Consolation," says Street. "That's how he negotiated his way through multiple worlds, and reached out across bridges."

In his 1995 memoir, "Dreams of My Father," Obama explained why he thought such negotiation was necessary when he met white people as a young man growing up in Hawaii.

"People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. Such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry."

If Obama wants to go down as a great president, though, he may have to discover the political value of rage, others say.

Franklin Roosevelt was such a president, historians say. During the Great Depression, he went after business leaders who opposed his New Deal policies. Roosevelt once said that he "welcomed the hatred" of the economic elites.

Could Obama become a 21st-century version of Roosevelt, not only in taking on the oil companies but big bankers as well?

Ambar, from Lehigh University, doesn't think so. Obama doesn't share Roosevelt's elite background, which inoculated him from charges of being anti-American. Roosevelt came from a prominent, and wealthy, American family.

"It's easier to do it if your name is Roosevelt," Ambar says. "No one questions your love of capitalism or your patriotism."

Obama's challenge ahead

The BP oil spill, though, goes beyond race. It is so egregious that Obama now has permission to stoke some "pitchfork, populist" anger, says Street.

"He's now in danger of being perceived as being too soft and conciliatory and too much in the bed of corporations," he says.

Some forms of rage remain a potent political weapon, says John Baick, an associate professor of history at Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Tea Party organizers; Democratic leader Howard Dean; former presidential candidate Ron Paul -- all used rage as a powerful organizing tool, Baick says.

"Rage can provide answers to murky questions, rage can provide passion for the dispirited, rage can provide focus," Baick says.

But race-specific anger is off-limits, Street says.

"He would be politically dead; it would be over," Street says.

Yet the call for a black man to show more emotion on subjects outside of race is still a healthy development, says Ambar, from Lehigh University.

"I take it as a sign of progress that people are calling for Obama to be angry, an almost impossible sentiment a decade ago," he says.

Still, Obama must be careful about getting in touch with his inner-Samuel Jackson, others say.

Just as gushing oil lurks below the Gulf's surface, all sorts of ugly, racial undercurrents exist beneath the surface of American politics, Baick says.

"Our commander in chief has many burdens, and among them is our history and culture," Baick says. "Compared to the weight of that, the current BP crisis and the years of environmental damage and cleanup must seem transient."


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps