The mass hysteria from the right rolled in overnight, just two days after Wanda Sykes appeared at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and gave Rush Limbaugh a taste of his own medicine. Much like when Limbaugh would gleefully sing “Barack the Magic Negro” on a daily basis or when he rabidly, and brutally ripped into Michael J. Fox and his illness – Sykes decided to take it to the next level in her digs aimed at Rush.

Sykes, who was on fire riffed hard on Limbaugh – claiming she was the 20th hijacker on 9/11 but missed the plane because he was so strung out on Oxycontin, and that while Rush “hoped Obama failed”, she hoped Limbaughs “kidneys failed”. Undoubtedly, it was a fun routine – and with anything funny – all hell has broken loose with commentators and politicians alike chiming in on why they hated what Wanda said.

It’s shocking that right wing politicos/talking heads are taking so much (and I sense, contrived) outrage over Sykes stand-up routine. If you simply add up all things “disgusting”, “vile” or any other adjective being used to describe Sykes routine – that Rush Limbaugh has said just over the year or two you would come up with a compilation that would over shadow anything Sykes said to such a degree, it would be silly to even compare the two, and their public commentary.

Technorati Tags: Comedy News, Daily Show, Daily Show Wanda Sykes, Jon Stewart, Jon Stewart Wanda Sykes, video, Wanda Sykes, Wanda Sykes Daily Show, Wanda Sykes Jon Stewart, Wanda Sykes Rush Limbaugh, Wanda Sykes White House Correspondents Dinner

New Yorkers evacuated offices in panic on Monday when an unexpected overflight by one of President Barack Obama’s Boeing 747s triggered fears of a new 9/11.

The jumbo, escorted by low-flying fighter jets, roared over southern Manhattan and the Hudson River for about 30 minutes on what officials later described as a photo-op.
9/11 plane scare over New York

A government exercise involving low-flying planes creates a scare in New York City.

A livid New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had not been warned and called the lack of notice “ridiculous and poor judgment“.

Stunned office workers who failed to spot the presidential markings feared facing a repeat of the attacks of September 11, 2001, in which two hijacked airliners smashed into the World Trade Centre, killing almost 3000 people.

Commodities trader Jurgens Bauer said:

“I saw everybody running and I ran out too. My heart is still pounding,”

Mr Bauer said that his room had no window so he had not seen the plane – which is painted white with a blue nose and blue stripe – but that the terror was real.

“I was there on 9/11. I saw thousands of people die. I don’t like when I am not aware of a military photo op,”

Police confirmed that some offices were evacuated, but did not specify how many.

“I guess people panicked,” a spokesman said.

Officials explained the confusion after saying that the commander in chief’s aircraft had merely been conducting an exercise. Mr Obama was not aboard.

US Air Force spokesman Major Richard Johnson said:

“The presidential airlift group conducted an aerial photo in the New York city area today,”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called the manoeuvre a “photo op“.

FAA spokesman Jim Peters said:

“The Defence Department is conducting a photo op that involves deploying two F-16s and escorting a military version of the Boeing 747  close to lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty”

“The manoeuvre was not an emergency and was co-ordinated in advance with the FAA and state and local officials,”

But Mr Bloomberg said no one had told him of the visitors to New York’s skies.

The mayor, who is running for a third term later this year, said in televised comments that he was

“annoyed – furious is a better word – that I wasn’t told”.

“Why the Defence Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Centre catastrophe defies imagination,”

“It didn’t have the normal language of saying that this is sensitive information.”

Hijackers slammed two planes into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre in 2001, destroying the complex on the southern tip of Manhattan in what was the worst terrorist attack on American soil.

A reconstruction project has been hampered by financial and planning delays, but the foundations of new towers are now rising at Ground Zero.

Technorati Tags: New York, Obama plan, photo op, scare

Barack Obama drew praise from troops and veterans groups for his surprise visit this week to Baghdad, another step in his concerted effort to win the support of the military, despite having opposed the war in Iraq and never having served in uniform.

“I’m honoured and grateful to be with all of you. And I’m not going to talk long because I want to shake as many hands as I can,” the President said, to loud applause and shouts. The troops, he said, had performed “brilliantly” and he pledged to do “everything we can” for military families and combat veterans.

“We have not forgotten what you have already done – we are grateful for what you will do,” Mr Obama said.

“And as long as I am in the White House, you are going to get the support that you need and the thanks that you deserve from a grateful nation.”

The unannounced trip to Baghdad on Tuesday is Mr Obama’s latest gesture designed to win over the armed forces since he went on a “listening tour” with top Pentagon brass seven weeks ago. Last month, speaking to marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, he promised a pay rise and more help for wounded veterans, which brought the most applause in a speech detailing his plan to end the Iraq war and bring troops home.

Rudy DeLeone, a military specialist at the Centre for American Progress, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, said Mr Obama knew the military had a key role in shaping the tone of his early presidency.

“Taking care of the men and women who are serving in the field is one of the unique requirements of the President as commander-in-chief. He gets that,”

Yet members of the military and their families have long been sceptical of Democratic leaders, especially those who have not served in the military.

Mr Obama was no exception. A Military Times poll conducted three weeks before his inauguration showed two-thirds of men and women in uniform either questioned or doubted his ability as commander-in-chief, pointing to his lack of service and his opposition to the Iraq war.

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama has made support for military families her signature cause – including a trip to the army’s Fort Bragg base – to show concern for military spouses and dependents.

“Our soldiers and their families have done their duty, and they do it without complaint,”

“And we as a grateful nation must do ours – do everything in our power to honour them by supporting them.”

Yesterday, in a speech broadcast on state radio, Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, compared Mr Obama to a beacon of light in the “obscurity of imperialism“.
After Mr Obama spoke in favor of a Palestinian state and reached out to Muslims, he said:

“So far his political discourse has been reasonable, breaking with the arrogance prevalent in statements by former US presidents,”

Technorati Tags: barack obama, Irqa, Muammar Gaddafi, Rudy DeLeone

US President Barack Obama is vowing to tackle trillion-dollar budget deficits facing the nation after he launched an unprecedented spending program aimed at helping the troubled US economy get back on its feet.

In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Obama said that he and his administration were determined to do

“all we can to get exploding deficits under control as our economy begins to recover.”

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the provisional US budget deficit in fiscal 2009 will balloon to a record $US1.2 trillion.

The deficit for fiscal 2008 which ended in September reached $US438 billion, or 3.1 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the office said in a report last month.

However, the figures do not include the cost of a huge $US787 billion economic stimulus plan signed by Obama into law last Tuesday.

Roughly one-third of the stimulus funds will be spent on tax cuts, totaling $US286 billion, in an effort to boost consumer spending, a key engine of the world’s largest economy.

Leading Republicans and other critics said the mammoth spending plan was mortgaging the nation’s future, for which America’s “children and grandchildren will pay a hefty price.”

But Obama said he was now determined to put spending under control, saying that work on the deficit will begin on Monday, when he will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts, unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress to discuss how the trillion-dollar deficit could be cut.

He promised to further tackle the issue in Tuesday’s address to the nation, in which he planned to outline urgent national priorities

On Thursday, the White House releases a budget blueprint, which Obama said is “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”

A senior administration official told AFP that Obama planned to cut the federal budget deficit by half by end of his first term.

Savings will be made by cutting spending on the war in Iraq and by eventually raising taxes for the “wealthiest Americans,” the official said.

The official did not specify how much money a person must make to be categorised as the “wealthiest.” But during the election campaign, Obama included into this group people making more than $US250,000 a year.

Obama used his radio address to again showcase his recovery plan, saying that because of it, “three and a half million Americans will now go to work doing the work that America needs done.”

He announced that, starting this Saturday, employers had begun reducing taxes for 95 per cent of working American families as mandated by the stimulus package.

By April, the average American family will begin to keep an additional $US65  each month.

But the president acknowledged that signing the stimulus plan into law was only a first step on the road to economic recovery.

He said a complete recovery will require stemming the spread of real estate foreclosures and falling home values, stabilising and repairing the banking system in order to restore the flow of credit to families and businesses and reforming the broken regulatory system that made the crisis possible.

“None of this will be easy,” he cautioned.

“The road ahead will be long and full of hazards. But I’m confident that we, as a people, have the strength and wisdom to carry out this strategy and overcome this crisis.”

Technorati Tags: barack obama, Economy, federal deficit

In his first major military move, US President Barack Obama has approved the deployment of 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, saying they were needed “to stabilise a deteriorating situation”.

“There is no more solemn duty as president than the decision to deploy our armed forces into harm’s way,” Obama said in a statement.

“I do it today mindful that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action.”

Obama said the deployment orders were in response to a months-old request by the US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, who had asked for 30,000 more troops.

“To meet urgent security needs,” Obama said he had approved a request by Defence Secretary Robert Gates to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade in the northern spring, and an Army Stryker Brigade and support forces later this summer.

The White House said some 17,000 troops would be deployed to Afghanistan ahead of the Afghan elections scheduled for August 20, significantly building up the 38,000 US force already on the ground battling a growing insurgency.

Asked about possible future troop deployment orders, a senior administration official told Agence France-Presse they were unlikely to come before an ongoing comprehensive review of US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan was completed.

“The thinking is that this was necessary at this time because of the expected increase of fighting in the spring and the upcoming elections,” the official said.

“The strategy needs to be complete to determine whether additional troops would be necessary,” the official added, saying the objective was for the review to be completed before a NATO summit in April.

The US-backed government in Kabul has come under intense pressure as the insurgency led by Taliban and al-Qadea Islamic militants has gained strength and spread from the east and south into parts of the west and areas around the capital, Kabul.

As the security situation in Iraq has improved, the US has increasingly shifted its focus to the insurgency in Afghanistan and reduced the number of its troops in Iraq.

Last year saw the deadliest Taliban violence, including suicide attacks, assassinations of government officials and ambushes on Afghan and international troops.

“The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and Al-Qaeda supports the insurgency and threatens America from its safe haven along the Pakistani border,” Obama warned.

“This increase is necessary to stabilise a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.”

The Pentagon said Gates had ordered the deployment of two additional combat units totalling more than 12,000 troops, with Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman indicating they would be deployed in the violence-plagued south.

Another 5,000-some support troops would receive deployment orders at a later date “to support these combat forces”.

Under the orders, some 8000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade will deploy to Afghanistan in late spring 2009, and about 4,000 soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division would deploy in mid-summer 2009, the Pentagon said.

Obama indicated that the units being sent to Afghanistan had initially been earmarked for Iraq, saying the drawdown of US forces there “allows us the flexibility to increase our presence in Afghanistan”.

He said the deployment decision would not predetermine the outcome of the review but instead “further enable our team to put together a comprehensive strategy that will employ all elements of our national power to fulfill achievable goals in Afghanistan”.

Obama ordered the review amid growing alarm about mounting Islamic extremism in the region seven years after the United States launched its “war on terror” and ousted Afghanistan’s Taliban regime.

It was unclear how the additional troops would be used, amid warnings that there is no military solution to Afghanistan’s growing problems.

Senator John McCain, Obama’s rival for the presidency in last year’s election, welcomed the move but expressed hope that it was

“just the first step in a new comprehensive approach to Afghanistan”.

“A major change in course is long overdue,”

US intelligence has warned that endemic corruption in Afghanistan and the government’s inability to deliver services and protect the population has eroded its legitimacy.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, barack obama, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, General David McKiernan, john mccain, NATO summit

BARACK OBAMA’S bold experiment in bipartisanship has taken another hit with his second nominee for commerce secretary, the Republican senator Judd Gregg, abruptly withdrawing his nomination citing “irresolvable differences”.

Senator Gregg pointed to the stimulus package and changes to the Census Bureau as the two areas where he could not support Administration policy.

The bones of the stimulus package have been public for weeks. But the Census Bureau issue has been festering behind the scenes after the White House indicated it wanted to move it from the Commerce Department to an independent agency reporting to the White House.

The bureau is crucial; it is not only used for determining funding to programs but also to redistribute congressional districts.

Mr Gregg was the second nominee for the important post of commerce secretary. Bill Richardson, the Democratic Governor of New Mexico, withdrew because of a federal inquiry into donations.

When Senator Gregg came to his decision is unclear and two separate statements were issued – one from the senator and another from the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs – suggesting tensions.

Mr Gibbs said it was Senator Gregg who had “reached out to the President and offered his name for secretary of commerce”.

Senator Gregg said that he had thought he could bring some ideas and views that would assist the President at this difficult time.

“I especially admire his willingness to reach across the aisle,” he said.

“However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the census there are irresolvable conflicts for me.”

This latest setback in Mr Obama’s bipartisanship experiment is likely to further polarise the vote on the stimulus package.

There have been rumours that up to 20 Republicans, other than the three renegades who have been involved with negotiations, would support the bill in its final form.

Speaking in Peoria, Illinois, where he paid a visit to the Caterpillar factory, the President highlighted the fact that his Transport Secretary, Ray LaHood, who is from Peoria, was a Republican. Mr Obama said he would keep working on a bipartisan approach; Americans were “desperate” for Republicans and Democrats to co-operate.

The fact that Mr Obama was in the Caterpillar factory campaigning in the same way as he did during the election shows that the experiment in bipartisanship is not going smoothly.

Mr Obama has let Republicans paint his stimulus package as irresponsible spending – and their message has started getting traction.

Polls show that while Mr Obama enjoys enormous personal approval, there are serious reservations about his stimulus package.

As a result Mr Obama has reverted to his old campaign strategies, taking his message on the road and directly to the public.

But in some good news for the President, his pick for director of the CIA, the veteran Democratic politician Leon Panetta was confirmed by the Senate late on Thursday.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, Bill Richardson, bipartisanship, Census Bureau, Judd Gregg, Ray LaHood, White House

The US House of Representatives has voted for the massive $US819 billion stimulus to jump-start the US economy – the first step towards its enactment – but President Barack Obama’s hopes for bipartisan support were dashed when not a single Republican voted for it.

The bill passed 244 to 188 on Wednesday with opposition from the entire Republican conference and 11 conservative Democrats.

The first important vote of the new Administration raises real questions about whether Mr Obama will be able to craft the new style of politics on which he campaigned.

Other policy areas, such as climate change and health-care reform, are likely to be even more polarising than the stimulus bill and the Republicans’ show of unity does not bode well.

The House minority leader, the Republicans’ John Boehner, said he was opposing the measure because it “won’t create many jobs but it will create plenty of programs and projects through slow-moving government spending”.

“This 647-page bill represents one of the worst abuses of power I have ever seen,” one Republican congressman said. Another accused the Democratic leadership of dusting off the Democrats’ 40-year wish list of policies and putting it into action.

Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat, called it “a nightmare” and accused his party leadership of being “the same old bulls in the paddock”.

The White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, lobbied 11 moderate Republicans and Mr Obama briefed Republicans on the bill. He made several concessions but this did not help.

Mr Obama will now turn his attention to winning Republican support in the Senate, which will consider the bill next week. So far, the Senate leadership has been more moderate in its remarks on the package.

It is possible for the Republicans to stymie the bill in the Senate through a filibuster – a move that would likely send global financial markets into a spin.

Earlier in the day, surrounded by chief executives from several US companies, Mr Obama told the nation that “we don’t have a moment to spare”.

“The businesses that are shedding jobs to stay afloat, they can’t afford inaction or delay,” he said. “The workers who are returning home to tell their husbands and wives and children that they no longer have a job and all those who live in fear that their job will be next on the cutting blocks, they need help now.

“They are looking to Washington for action, bold and swift. And that is why I hope to sign an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan into law in the next few weeks.”

Some projects funded by the bill have enraged Republicans. These include $400 million for climate change research, $350 million for arts funding and funds for healthcare programs.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, bipartisan, President, stimulus

On his second day in office, US President Barack Obama has made good on his campaign promises to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within a year and end the practice of torture by the spy agency the CIA immediately.

At a ceremony this morning in the Oval Office, witnessed by a dozen former military officers, Mr Obama signed four presidential orders including the much-anticipated order to close the controversial detention facility within 12 months.

The Guantanamo Bay order sets up a commission to look at options for relocating the remaining 245 inmates of Guantanamo Bay. This is likely to include asking allies, such as Australia, to consider taking inmates.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has already rejected similar overtures from the former President George Bush, but other countries Portugal and Switzerland have indicated they may be willing to take some detainees.

Other options include moving inmates to US military prisons, returning some to their native countries, and finding third countries to take them.

The President also signed an order saying that all interrogations conducted by the United States would abide by the army field manual, effectively banning the CIA from using “enhanced interrogation” techniques including waterboarding.

“The message we are sending around the world is the US intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism but we are going to do so consistent with our values,”

“As I said during the inauguration, we are not going to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals,” he said. “We are going to win this fight but we will win it on our terms.”

The order also sets up a process to review rendition practices, where prisoners are sent to CIA prisons in countries without any human rights protections.

The US says it intends to bring charges against 80 of the 245 detainees, but so far only a handful of trials have got under way.

But 175 are unlikely to face any charges. Of these, about 100 were considered too dangerous to be released by the Bush administration.

The others were from countries where the US feared they would be tortured or killed if returned. In one case, there is a group of Chinese Uighur Muslims who Washington said it cannot return because they would face persecution.

A third order sets up a commission to devise future policies on detention within the next 180 days and the fourth deals with the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who is currently held at the Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, Guantanamo Bay, President

BARACK OBAMA will urge Americans to “rebuild their country one neighbourhood at a time” as he vows to revive the spirit of sacrifice and pays homage to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King today.

Half a million people had gathered in Washington’s National Mall a day earlier, cheering as Bruce Springsteen struck the first chords of his famous song The Rising.

The setting for the concert stage, before the Lincoln Memorial, is always spectacular. But on this day it was filled with greater meaning.

The huge illuminated statue of Abraham Lincoln, the president who abolished slavery, looked down from his colonnaded eyrie as the first African-American president-elect welcomed the crowd from the same place as civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream speech” in 1963.

Obama said:

“Directly in front of us is a pool that still reflects the dream of a King, and the glory of a people who marched and bled so that their children might be judged by their character’s content. And behind me, watching over the union he saved, sits the man who in so many ways made this day possible,”

But although his message was again a sober reminder of the difficulties facing the nation, Mr Obama was also optimistic, urging Americans to work together to tackle their latest challenges.

It is a theme that is likely to be repeated in his inauguration speech.

“I won’t pretend that meeting any one of these challenges will be easy. It will take more than a month or a year, and it will likely take many,”

“And, yet, as I stand here tonight, what gives me the greatest hope of all is not the stone and marble that surrounds us today, but what fills the spaces in between. It is you – Americans of every race and region and station who came here because you believe in what this country can be and because you want to help us get there,”

If the event served as a test run for what is expected to be a record crowd for the inauguration, the lesson was simple: arrive early.

The US Park Police chief, Sal Lauro, said officials had decided to close the area around the frozen reflecting pool before the crowding became dangerous.

In temperatures hovering around zero, the cream of Hollywood and the US music industry contributed to the festivities.

Some, such as will.i.am, Springsteen and Denzel Washington, have been part of Mr Obama’s presidency campaign since early on. Others, such as Tiger Woods, who thanked military families, are newer to the political stage.

And although Mr Obama made only a small reference to the historic nature of his win, many of the artists reminded the audience of the huge steps America had made towards racial reconciliation.

During U2′s performance of Pride (In The Name Of Love), a tribute to Martin Luther King, the frontman, Bono, referred to the civil rights leader’s famous speech, saying it was also “an Irish dream, a European dream, an African dream, an Israeli dream, and a Palestinian dream”.

The concert culminated with a rendition of Woody Guthrie’s song, This Land Is Your Land. A smiling and relaxed president-elect sang along, with just 36 hours to go until he takes the mantle of power that he has fought so hard to achieve.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, Bruce Springsteen, inauguration, martim luther king, Washington

THE US president-elect, Barack Obama, has confirmed that he will pursue a clear policy of engagement with Iran and press immediately for peace in the Middle East.

Speaking on the ABC News television program This Week, Mr Obama said he wanted to work directly with Iran – a country whose president has called for Israel’s destruction – to improve relations and halt a nuclear program that Tehran describes as peaceful, but the West believes is not.

“We are going to have to take a new approach,” he told the program’s host, George Stephanopoulos, in his first interview since arriving in Washington.

“My belief is that engagement is the place to start.”

Mr Obama said he wanted to adopt “a new emphasis on respect and a new willingness on being willing to talk” to the Iranians, while making it clear “that we also have certain expectations”.

The remarks suggest a clear departure from the often pointed and deprecatory speech that has prevailed between the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the US President, George Bush.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Mr Bush had told the Israelis last year he had authorised covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr Obama also softened his pledge to close the US’s controversial prison at Guantanamo Bay within the first 100 days of his administration, saying it was proving a more complex task than he had thought.

As next Tuesday’s inauguration approaches, Mr Obama has scaled back some of the ambitious time frames he set himself during the election campaign and immediately after winning the election in November.

The withdrawal of troops from Iraq within 16 months may be adjusted depending on advice from the generals; the economic stimulus package that he hoped to sign on inauguration day is now likely to take until mid-February; and the timetable on closing Guantanamo is likely to be more protracted.

Washington will be pre-occupied this week with two important issues: the economy and the confirmation hearings for Mr Obama’s cabinet nominees.

Hillary Clinton’s hearing, on Tuesday, is expected to be straightforward because she has been extensively vetted in the past and because she is a senator.

But not all the hearings are likely to go as easily. Republican senators such as Arlen Specter, the party’s highest-ranking member on the judiciary committee, have voiced objections over Mr Obama’s choice for attorney-general, Eric Holder.

Mr Holder, a former undersecretary in the Attorney-General’s Department, is under fire over his role in the pardon by the former president Bill Clinton of the millionaire Marc Rich, often cited as one of the most egregious uses of such pardons.

Mr Holder has admitted it was a mistake to support the pardon, but Mr Obama is under pressure because he has promised to ensure the Justice Department’s integrity is restored, and some Republicans see Mr Holder as a partisan figure.

There have also been concerns expressed about Leon Panetta, Mr Obama’s choice for director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Several senators, including some Democrats, have expressed concern about his lack of intelligence experience.

Mr Panetta was chief of staff to president Clinton and would have been part of White House security briefings, but has no direct intelligence experience in the agency or the military.

Mr Bush is also expected to ask Congress this week to release the second $US350 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, after consultations with the Obama economic team. It is likely to include funds to help small business and to assist directly victims of foreclosure.

But many in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, are angry at the lack of accountability for the first $US350 billion, which was used to help the big banks.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, iran, iraq