American can not even make Condoms

American Jobs Threatened by Cheap Chinese Condoms
Some of the world's greatest condom manufacturers are based in America. There was a time when the words "made in the USA," stamped on a box of prophylactics, were a reassuring mark of quality, a veritable guarantee that the enclosed pessary would not fail in its appointed duty.

With the American economy in turmoil, the government has decided to drop a long-standing contract with a U.S. company and give it to a foreign one, the Kansas City Star reported.

In a move that will cost around 300 American jobs, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has decided to purchase condoms from foreign companies — in countries like South Korea and China — because they cost less than American-made prophylactics, the Star reported.

The agency distributes billions of condoms to poor countries around the world, but has previously used only American-made condoms because of "Buy American" regulations, the Star reported. The stimulus bill that recently passed in Congress, however, does not include that provision for condoms.

A USAID official told the Star that the agency considered the jobs that would be lost, but that the foreign condoms cost about 2 cents. American ones cost about 5 cents.

Alatech, an Alabama company that had been USAID's previous sole supplier, protested the contract's move, but the Government Accountability Office rejected the compliant saying the company had no standing, the Star reported.

Condom factory workers are unhappy about the move.

“We pay taxes down here, too, and with all this stimulus money going to save jobs, it seems to me like they should share this contract so they can save jobs here in America,” Fannie Thomas, who has worked at Alatech for 40 years, told the Star.

“I’ve made condoms here for 20 years,” Cindy Robinson, a $9.50-an-hour employee at Alatech, told the Star. “I understand why they bid the contract overseas, but they should buy American first, and I feel they are going back on their word.”

Rep. Bobby Bright sent a letter this week to the United States Agency for International Development

By Patrick Johnston
Published: March 25, 2009

Eufaula’s representative in Washington is concerned about the potential loss of jobs at a local latex plant.

Rep. Bobby Bright sent a letter this week to the United States Agency for International Development asking the federal organization to reconsider its decision to purchase condoms outside of the United States. Otherwise, the future of Alatech’s plant in Eufaula - and at least 100 jobs - will be in jeopardy.

USAID is planning to outsource condom manufacturing that had been occurring in Eufaula to other countries, including China. The condoms are distributed by USAID for AIDS prevention in Third World countries.

According to a recent article in the Kansas City Star, USAID officials state they can purchase the condoms cheaper overseas (the cost is two cents per condom compared to five cents now). They also cited delivery concerns with Alatech.

A USAID source who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the Star that the organization “considered how many U.S. jobs would be affected by this move.” But the source added that the change is being made because of the lower cost and the fact that Congress dropped “buy American language” in a recent appropriations bill. (Attempts by The Tribune to contact USAID were unsuccessful as of Wednesday afternoon.)

Bright said USAID should not send the contract and the jobs overseas.

“Alabama is home to the last and only domestic supplier of condoms to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), as well as for any and all condom needs for the U.S. foreign assistance program worldwide,” Bright wrote to USAID Acting Adminstrator Alonzo L. Fulgham.

“Recently, decisions were made that will result in the loss of hundreds of jobs in my district. Given the current economic climate, I believe preserving American jobs should be of the highest priority.”

Alatech’s CEO says that USAID reversed an earlier decision to buy American.

“We came to Eufaula based on assurances from USAID that they would continue to buy American condoms and now USAID has changed its mind,” Alatech CEO Larry Povlacs stated Wednesday in an e-mail. “If we do not get an additional order soon we will be faced with laying off much of our staff again, and we will be faced with the real possibility of closing our doors.”

More information on this story will appear in the weekend edition of The Eufaula Tribune, available Friday morning.

And now...well, American condoms have fallen on hard times. Recently, in fact, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a federally-funded organization that provides economic, social, and medical aid to overseas countries, decided that, when the rubber hits the road, they are not committed to buying American. In a surprising change of direction, USAID switched from American-made condoms to sheaths that are manufactured in China and Korea.

Puns aside, this is no laughing matter for Eufala, Alabama. The small town, whose citizens have been making condoms for almost 40 years, is reliant upon rubbers for a fair bit of the local economy. USAID, which has distributed an estimated 10 billion condoms overseas, was a major client, and its decision may cost Alatech, the local manufacturer, up to 300 jobs. As the consequences ripple through the area, Eufala can expect to lose many, many more jobs.

This decision wasn't made lightly, but Alatech, unfortunately, charges more than five cents per condom. While this price seems very low to anyone who has ever purchased a retail prophylactic, when multiplied across a massive order like USAID's, it becomes quite high. Overseas suppliers, notably Korea's Unidus corporation and China's Quingdao Double Butterfly Group, can supply condoms for as little as two cents apiece.

Of course, China and Korea don't have to deal with America's pesky labor laws, but that's another matter entirely...

Moreover, Alatech and the government have previously had disputes over delivery and product specifications, although Alatech claims that its delivery problems have long since been handled. The primary problem, apparently, lies in the fact that Alatech's condoms are very thick, which has caused some overseas beneficiaries to reject them. The Alabama company asserts that it can manufacture the condoms to almost any specification, and made USAID's sheaths thick because those were the requirements that the government demanded.

For that matter, it's worth noting that, as recent pet food and lead-toy scandals have demonstrated, China's manufacturing industry is far from perfect. In fact, by its own admission, its condoms are often too thick, too uncomfortable, and have poor quality control.

The government, meanwhile, has hired a Massachusetts company to act as a middleman, shielding it from a bid protest. In this, USAID has been helped by Congress' decision to drop the "buy American" provision in a recent spending bill. In doing so, it opened the door for USAID to seek overseas vendors.

If the government's stimulus program won't help condom manufacturers to retain their employees, then maybe it's time for consumers to pick up the slack. The next time you find yourself trying to choose between Durex or Trojan condoms, ask yourself if you'd rather put food on an American table or one in England. When it comes to rubbers, remember your patriotic duty and keep America's prophylactic makers in business!

Obama sets bad example, pokes fun of special olympics on Jay Leno Tonight Show

Obama First 51 Days

Drive by Mind control satellites

That's right our drive by mind control satellites are still working. Millions of people are still watching American Idol and Jay Leno Tonight Show. Pretty soon the minds of all Americans will be putty in our evil hands.

With a continuous opposition to our way of life the President contemplate his next move to stop the latest bailout threat.

Obama's half brother arrested in Kenya

http://rightwingsparkle.blogspot.com/

Obama's half brother arrested in Kenya

George Obama was arrested in Kenya on a charge for possession of marijuana, according to police.

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) — George Obama, the half brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has been arrested by Kenyan police for possession of marijuana, police said Saturday.

Inspector Augustine Mutembei, the officer in charge, said Obama was arrested for possession of cannabis, known in Kenya as Bhang, and resisting arrest. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday, Mutembei said.

He is being held at Huruma police post in the capital of Nairobi.

CNN Correspondent David McKenzie talked with George Obama at the jail where he is being held. Speaking from behind bars, Obama denied the allegations.

"They took me from my home," he said, "I don't know why they are charging me."

George Obama and the president barely know each other, though they have met before. George Obama was one of the president's few close relatives who did not go to the inauguration in Washington last week.

In his memoir, "Dreams from My Father," Barack Obama describes meeting George as a "painful affair." Barack Obama's trip to Kenya meant meeting family he had never known.

McKenzie tracked down George Obama in August 2008 and found him at a small house in Huruma, a Nairobi slum, where he lives with his mother's extended family. His birth certificate shows he is Barack Obama's half brother.

The two men share the same Kenyan father.

In the memoir, Barack Obama struggles to reconcile with his father after he left him and his mother when he was just a child.

Like his half brother, George hardly knew his father. Barack Obama Sr. died in a car accident when George was just 6 months old.

George was his father's last child and had not been aware of his half brother's fame until he rose to prominence in the Democratic primaries last year.

Unlike his grandmother in Kogela, in western Kenya, George Obama had received little attention from the media until reports about him surfaced in August 2008.

The reports sprung from an Italian Vanity Fair article saying George Obama lived in a shack and was "earning less than a dollar a day."

The reports left George Obama angry.

"I was brought up well. I live well even now," he said. "The magazines, they have exaggerated everything.

"I think I kind of like it here. There are some challenges, but maybe it is just like where you come from, there are the same challenges," Obama said.

Obama, who is in his mid-20s, said at the time that he was learning to become a mechanic and was active in youth groups in Huruma. He said he tried to help the community as much as he can.

IS President OBAMA An ILLEGAL President THE TRUTH about his citizenship

Iranian Nuclear Progress

An Iran on the brink of possessing, or actually possessing, nuclear weapons would create a multitude of problems in the Middle East. Not only would the United States have to deter and contain an emboldened Iran, it could also have to forestall a cascade of destabilizing reactions by other states, whether they were to accommodate Iran, attack it, or match its capabilities. Preventing Iran’s acquisition or development of a military nuclear capability is therefore a vital national priority. To that end, the United States should strengthen its policies to prevent, mitigate, or counteract cascading instability resulting from Iranian nuclear progress. It should also strengthen policies to increase U.S. leverage in achieving a negotiated resolution of the nuclear impasse such that Iran does not achieve military nuclear capability. Confronting the Iran nuclear program also offers other opportunities to advance U.S. interests: to demonstrate U.S. commitment to multilateral diplomacy, to deepen U.S. relationships with its Middle East friends, and to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime. Read the report to the White House.

www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PTF-Iran.pdf

A Tribute To America's Military

The Portuguese water dogs

The Portuguese water dogs

Those are some of the traits America's first family, the Obamas, can expect from the Portuguese water dog they plan to adopt next month.

"I can't imagine the Obamas with this dog,"

He thinks the presidential family chose the breed because Sen. Ted Kennedy, a close friend of the Obamas and the so-called Lion of the Senate, has three of them.

The dogs are outgoing, mischievous, high maintenance and cannot be left alone for long periods, according to the Portuguese fishermen Club of America.

"I've heard stories about this breed doing some crazy things," Lezin said. "Things, like getting into the bathtub and turning on the water."

Portuguese water dogs look like poodles. With curly or wavy hair, they are hypo-allergenic. They can weigh up to 60 pounds.

The breed is considered smart and energetic. The dogs also are excellent swimmers and divers. They were bred by Portuguese fishermen to school fish into nets. They also carried messages back and forth between fishing boats, using their tails as rudders.

A Portuguese fishermen had mixed feelings about the Obamas adopting one of the breed.

He said they fear the notoriously high-maintenance breed could become too popular. If prices of the dogs start to drop, perhaps because of breeders going into overdrive to try to meet demand, they would become almost too easy to get -- with more of the dogs eventually ending up in shelters and rescue operations when owners become overwhelmed.

On the other hand, they said, breeders also could maintain current breeding practices, driving prices up, they said.

The dogs cost about $1,000,000,000,000 to $2,200,000,000,000 each.

Last Supper starring President Obama and his entourage

Listening to the Rush Limbaugh show and listening to his spill about Barack Obama traveling around the Middle East with his Disciples. Well the discussion inspired a artist to arrange the picture below of the Last Supper starring Obama and his entourage of unpaid propagandists. It is my hope that readers find the pic as humorous as I do. Hopefully the citizens of this great nation won’t be too offended. I haven’t decided yet which character I like the best but George Soros is looking like a first place winner.

Abe Lincoln said "So I said to him, "Barak, I know Abe Lincoln, and you ain't him."

There's No One as Irish as Barack Obama. Corrigan Brothers

Party-Line President

A Post-Partisan Dawn Quickly Turns False
Party-Line President
By Michael Gerson

In Mark Strand's pleasingly odd poem "The Tunnel," the author is tormented by a persistent, moaning man in front of his house. The narrator vainly orders him to leave, makes obscene gestures through the window and destroys the living room furniture "to prove I own nothing of value." Finally, the author takes refuge in his basement and digs a tunnel to escape -- only to emerge moaning outside a house, where "I have been waiting for days."

Against all my expectations, President Obama is having this effect on me.

Following Obama during the New Hampshire primary, I saw a candidate who -- though I disagreed with him on many issues -- defended idealism and rhetoric against the supremely cynical Clinton machine, who brought a religious sensibility to matters of social justice, who took care to understand and accommodate the arguments of others, who provided a temperamental contrast to culture-war politics.

After just weeks of governing, that image seems like a brittle, yellowed photograph, buried at the back of a drawer.

Obama's proposed budget shows all the vision, restraint and grace of a grasping committee chairman, using the cover of a still-unresolved banking crisis to push through a broad liberal wish list before anyone notices its costs and complications. The pledge of "responsibility" has become the massive expansion of debt, the constant allocation of blame to others and the childish cultivation of controversy with conservative media figures to favorably polarize the electorate. The pledge of "honesty" and "sacrifice" has become the deceptive guarantee of apparently limitless public benefits at the expense of a very few. The pledge of "bipartisan" cooperation has become an attempt to shove Republicans until their backs reach some wall of outrage and humiliation.

None of this is new or exceptional -- which is the point. It is exactly the way things have always been done.

Obama's stem cell decision was worse, because it is a thing that has never been done before. "Obama," explains Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, "is willfully ignoring the moral complexity of the subject. He says he understands the views of his opponents, but he never addresses or answers them. He seems to have adopted the premise that the stem cell debate presents a choice between science and ignorance, when in fact the debate requires the kind of weighing of competing goods which we elect presidents to contend with."

Obama's approach is ethically simplistic -- the kind of argument that gets nods at a fashionable cocktail party instead of engaging and respecting serious disagreement.

One tragedy of these polarizing moves is that they obscure elements of Obama's agenda that deserve praise and support. It makes perfect moral and economic sense to expand child nutrition programs, ensuring that low-income children get breakfast and lunch during a time of economic stress. Also, to expand rental assistance to low-income families. To fully fund the Second Chance Act, which helps ex-prisoners reintegrate into society. To increase funding for domestic AIDS treatment, especially in African American and Latino communities. To make the child tax credit at least partially refundable. To limit farm subsidies that distort global food markets and hurt the poor. To provide additional support to strained food banks. To make the saver's credit refundable, encouraging low-income Americans to build assets. To maintain lifesaving commitments promoting global health and development.

These should be common-ground issues in our politics -- havens on the ideological battlefield and sources of genuine consensus. But these issues have been roundly ignored during the ideological death match Obama has encouraged -- a partisan struggle that has made congressional Republicans less likely to support his best initiatives. Obama's overall budget is praised by economist Robert Reich as driving "a nail in the coffin of Reaganomics." Republicans attack the budget for the same reason. And both are correct in their analysis. It is not a sign of post-partisanship when liberals swoon and conservatives seethe for exactly the same reason. It is a sign that our differences have been exploited and deepened.

Some relish this kind of politics. But the false dawn of post-partisanship is no reason for celebration. Ideological war creates an atmosphere in which the angry predominate -- and it can cause anger to rise unbidden within all of us. While in government, I saw the persistent, moaning critics outside the window. Now I have dug my tunnel and joined them. It is not where I want to be -- or where American politics might have been.

President Bush, President Obama medical ethics

President Obama's 'Science' Fiction

By Charles Krauthammer

Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics.

I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated.

President Bush had restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed (as of his speech of Aug. 9, 2001). While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, President Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.

I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn. I suggested the bright line prohibiting the deliberate creation of human embryos solely for the instrumental purpose of research -- a clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end.

On this, Obama has nothing to say. He leaves it entirely to the scientists. This is more than moral abdication. It is acquiescence to the mystique of "science" and its inherent moral benevolence. How anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee and the fake (and coercive) South Korean stem cell research is hard to fathom.

That part of the ceremony, watched from the safe distance of my office, made me uneasy. The other part -- the ostentatious issuance of a memorandum on "restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making" -- would have made me walk out.

Restoring? The implication, of course, is that while Obama is guided solely by science, Bush was driven by dogma, ideology and politics.

What an outrage. Bush's nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.

Obama's address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the "false choice between sound science and moral values." Yet, exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds later he went on to declare that he would never open the door to the "use of cloning for human reproduction."

Does he not think that a cloned human would be of extraordinary scientific interest? And yet he banned it.

Is he so obtuse as not to see that he had just made a choice of ethics over science? Yet, unlike Bush, who painstakingly explained the balance of ethical and scientific goods he was trying to achieve, Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and others not.

This is not just intellectual laziness. It is the moral arrogance of a man who continuously dismisses his critics as ideological while he is guided exclusively by pragmatism (in economics, social policy, foreign policy) and science in medical ethics.

Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible. Obama's pretense that he will "restore science to its rightful place" and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand -- this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically "scientific."

Dr. James Thomson, the pioneer of embryonic stem cells, said "if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough." Obama clearly has not.

Projects Contained In The Stimulus Bill

How do you use Stimulus Watch?

http://www.stimuluswatch.org/project/by_state

Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth

It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.

Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.

M.E. Cohen

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.

A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.

There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.

Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seated, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.

When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.

Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.

While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.

And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.

There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.

While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.

Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.

Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.

Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.

Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing. Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

My Democrat friends, I voted for McCain

I have to admit it. My liberal friends were right.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the nation's hope would deteriorate, and sure enough there has been a 20 point drop in the Consumer Confidence Index since the election, reaching a lower point than any time during the Bush administration.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the US would become more deeply embroiled in the Middle East, and sure enough tens of thousands of additional troops are scheduled to be deployed into Afghanistan.

They told me if I voted for McCain, that the economy would get worse and sure enough unemployment is approaching 8.8% and the new stimulus packages implemented recently have sent the stock market lower than at any time since the 1980's.

They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more "crooks" in high ranking positions in Federal government and sure enough, several recent cabinet nominees and Senate appointments revealed resumes of bribery and tax fraud.

They told me if I voted for McCain, we would all have our health benifits taxed and and sure enough that is on the table.

Well I ignored my Democrat friends in November and voted for McCain. And they were right ... all of their predictions have come true.

AIG Financial Please support Comrads Chris and Barney

Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group (AIG: 0.9465, 0.1664, 21.33%) bonus recipients so the government could recoup the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.

While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law.

Also, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org.

Dodd’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

One of AIG Financial Products’ largest offices is based in Connecticut.

Thomas Paine

President Barack Obama's roots that connect a world family

The Obama family tree is huge and complex, a plant of extended boughs and multiple offshoots — some of which, like Barack Obama's relatives in the US, have taken root in the most unexpected places.

Mr Obama is not the first president to suffer embarrassment on account of his kith and kin. Just about every one has contained at least one black sheep in the family; some have had flocks of them.

Like many African clans, the Kenyan side of Mr Obama's family tree is a thicket of half-siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. The genealogy is complicated by the fact that both his father and grandfather had several wives and numerous children. Hussein Onyango Obama, the patriarch of the clan, was married three times. He had Barack Obama Sr with his second wife, Akuma, but she left soon after, and the job of raising his son fell to his third wife, Sarah. This is the elderly woman whom Mr Obama refers to as “Granny” although she is, in fact, his step-grandmother.

Uncle Omar and Aunt Zeituni, the two relatives who moved to Boston, are the children of Sarah and Hussein Onyango Obama, and therefore Mr Obama's half-uncle and half-aunt.

Mr Obama's father had at least eight children by four different women. Intelligent, charming and irresponsible, Barack Obama Sr referred to himself as a “serial polygamist”, and appears to have drifted from woman to woman as he drifted from job to job, fathering numerous progeny along the way. He was already married to a Kenyan woman, Kezia, with whom he had two children, when he met and married Ann Dunham, Mr Obama's mother. In his memoir Dreams From My Father, Mr Obama describes his excitement and confusion on meeting his Kenyan family when he visited the country for the first time in 1988. He attended a family reunion, and was mobbed by his newly discovered kin, “all of them smiling and waving like a crowd at a parade ... we continued around the room, shaking hands with aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. Family seemed to be everywhere ... all of them fussing, fretting over [my father's] long-lost son”.

Mr Obama also described the new sense of responsibility he felt towards this extended family. “If Jane [another aunt] or Zeituni ever fell ill, if their companies ever closed or laid them off, there was no government safety net. There was only family, next of kin; people burdened by similar hardships. Now I was family, I reminded myself, now I had responsibilities.”

Barack Obama's English relatives

President Barack Obama's English relatives whose lives are a world apart from the White House

One is the first black president of the most powerful country in the world, the other is a retired teacher from a sleepy village in central England. But according to genealogists these two very different men are related.

By Richard Gray and Alastair Jamieson
Last Updated: 12:05AM GMT 08 Mar 2009

Charles Blossom at his home near Louthborough, Leicestershire. He shares a common ancestor, Thomas Blossom in the 17th century, with US President Barack Obama Photo: DAVID ROSE / AP

US President Barack Obama's grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. Stanley enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor, and Madelyn worked on a bomber assembly line

Barack Obama Sr, the father of US President Barack Obama, is seen in an undated family snapshot from the 1960's Photo: REUTERS

US President Barack Obama seen as a child with his mother Ann Dunham in an undated family snapshot from the 1960's Photo: REUTERS

US President Barack Obama stands during Columbus Police Department graduation ceremonies at the Aladdin Shrine Center in Columbus, Ohio Photo: AFP / GETTY IMAGES

Charles Blossom, a former lecturer in automotive engineering at Loughborough University, discovered on Saturday that he is a distant cousin of President Barack Obama.

Genealogists have traced the family roots of the 44th US President back to a seventeenth-century Pilgrim settler who emigrated from England to America as one of the founding fathers of the colony of Plymouth, Massachusettes.

They found that President Obama is the 13th-generation descendant of Deacon Thomas Blossom, who was born in the village of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, around 1580.

Research by Charles Blossom, 63, and his close family had already revealed that they, too, are related to Thomas Blossom.

After being told of the link between their ancestor and the new President, Mr Blossom, from Wolton on the Wolds, Leicestershire, declared himself "astonished".

"I guess it makes us distant cousins," said Mr Blossom.

"We have been looking at our family history quite recently after we found some old documents and diaries. We certainly have ancestors that went to America and one was called Thomas Blossom.

He was on board a ship which took some of the first Pilgrims to America."

Experts at the New England Historical Genealogical Society traced the link between President Obama, through his white mother, Ann Dunham, to the Pilgrim forefathers.

The President, who is half Kenyan and was born in Hawaii, is the 12th-generation grandchild of Thomas Blossom.

The discovery has sparked bickering between villages in Cambridgeshire about who can lay claim to President Obama's English roots.

Thomas Blossom was one of seven children of Peter and Annabel Blossom from Great Shelford, Cambs. After his birth the family moved to Stapleford in around 1582, where Peter is described as a "husbandman", or small farmer, in records.

In 1605, at the age of 25, Thomas married Anne Elsdon in Cambridge.

The couple fled to the Dutch city of Leiden to escape religious persecution in England along with other exiles known as the Pilgrims. During their time there the couple buried three children who died at a young age.

They first attempted to sail to the New World in 1620 on board the Speedwell, a sister ship of the Mayflower. But while the Mayflower carried America's founding fathers across the Atlantic, the Speedwell developed a leak and had to turn back.

The original Mayflower was dismantled for scrap in 1623, but a second ship of the same name eventually took Thomas Blossom and his family to America at their second attempt in 1629.

Thomas Blossom became an important member of the Pilgrim community as the first Deacon of the Church of Plymouth, but died in 1633 from an infectious fever, probably influenza.

After his death, he left behind a daughter Elizabeth, who was nine when the family set sail, and two sons, Thomas and Peter. President Obama is descended from Elizabeth.

Charles Blossom and his family believe they could be descended from one of Thomas Blossom's brothers who chose to stay in England rather than emigrate.

"It is amazing – I've found fame at last," joked Mr Blossom. "I'm just a humble lad. While Blossom is a nice name, it isn't a brilliant surname for a man, I've found."

Religion appears to have been a strong sentiment running through the Blossom family. Charles Blossom's great great grandfather, also called Thomas Blossom, spent 23 years as an evangelist in the south Pacific with the London Missionary Society.

Matthew Blossom, a history teacher at Marlborough College and nephew of Charles Blossom, who has studied some of his family's history, said: "As far as we know, we are the only Blossom family left in England who are related to Thomas Blossom who was on board the Speedwell.

"It must have been one hell of an undertaking to set off across the Atlantic in a rather cramped boat. Although we haven't been able to establish the complete line back yet, we are fairly sure we are related to him."

Christopher Child, of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, said he was now keen to trace any relatives of Thomas Blossom who may still be living in Britain. He has found that the Pilgrim was also a direct ancestor of two other US presidents – George Bush and his son George W Bush.

President Obama has previously joked about his distant links to the Bushes.

He has also been found to have family lines to former Vice President Dick Cheney; Presidents James Madison, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter; and 19th-century cowboy Wild Bill Hickok.

Mr Child said the extent of the inter-relationships was not surprising given the small colonial population that went on to spread throughout much of the United States.

Barbara Blossom, from Buckhurst Hill in Essex, also believes she could be related to the current president.

She said: "I have an idea that we might be related. We can't trace continually very far back, but we can trace ourselves to Thomas Blossom."

bust of Winston Churchill

I thought President Barack Obama was supposed to bring in a new era of foreign policy; an era where everybody loves the U.S. of A., including all those “Axis Of Evil” countries???????

I looked at the bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein of Churchill and it does not come across that great. So I am putting this photo here instead.

« British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visits with U.S. President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, March 3, where the bust of Winston Churchill once resided.
(Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Obama Sends Churchill Home

March 6, 2009 |

Some years ago, the British government gave a bust of Winston Churchill to the White House, and George W. Bush featured it directly in the Oval Office. It symbolized the special relationship between Britain and the United States that has lasted for decades.

Recently, President Obama decided to return Churchill to his home country.

As radical as the changes being proposed by the new American administration are, one of the most radical in the foreign-policy realm is its imminent redefinition of the historic British-American relationship. As Ron Fraser explainsTrumpet print edition, in the newest

The coming of the Obama administration has mortally wounded the natural symbiosis of diplomacy between Britain and America. This is a radical departure from the 200 years of mutual support and cooperation between the U.S. and Britain, particularly in matters of defense and security. The Blair-Bush years were the swan song for that strongest of natural, yet unwritten, alliances.

Last Saturday’s Telegraph reports on the same theme in its article “Will Barack Obama End Britain’s Special Relationship with America?”

In the marbled halls of the British ambassador’s residence in Washington … a quiet fear is calcifying. Hints from the White House machine suggest that the Age of Obama means a dramatic makeover not just for America, but for that old symbol of Anglo-American fealty, the special relationship. … [W]ord is spreading through political Washington that the new president wants to shake up the way the U.S. government relates to its allies, which will leave little space for the sentiment of old ties.

Two weeks ago, when the White House announced British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s visit this week, spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “The United States and the United Kingdom share a special partnership.” The Telegraph says,

Those familiar with the thinking of Mr. Obama’s top team say that use of the word “partnership” rather than “relationship” is an important distinction—it illuminates Mr. Obama’s belief in practical measures that work, not the old way of doing things.

A Washington official who is close to several members of Mr. Obama’s inner circle said: “They craft every word for the stone tablets. Words are what they do. It is not a mistake.

“A partnership is a business arrangement based on what you can do for Obama, not a relationship like a marriage that thrives through thick and thin until death do us part. He’ll judge the specialness of a partnership with Britain on what he gets out of it.” … [I]nsiders say he will be ruthless in cutting adrift countries who do not cooperate with his global agenda, whatever their historic relationships.

A British official said: “I don’t think Obama is steeped in the tradition of the special relationship going back to Churchill and Roosevelt. Of course someone of his generation is going to look at it differently. I think what he looks at are the assets that are brought to the table and the expertise you have. This is a definite change of emphasis.”

In the six decades since … Winston Churchill first coined the phrase “special relationship,” successive American presidents have paid ritual obeisance to the notion that Britain should assume a place at the White House top table.

Now even allies of Mr. Obama believe he intends to extract a higher price for access to the corridors of his power.

Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation think tank, who has links with the higher echelons of the Obama administration, said that Britain would be expected to make sacrifices in return for influence.

Mr. Obama’s approach was “all about putting a price on access and a price on the relationship,” he said. “I think Obama does believe that this is a time of historical change. He wants to push reset on a lot of things. He thinks old patterns, old framings can get you into trouble, particularly when you’re trying to encourage different parts of the world.” …

The conventional wisdom, which Mr. Obama has done little to dispel, is that he is less anglophile than his predecessors. He hailed the resilience of America’s Founding Fathers against the British “enemy” in his inauguration speech and devoted 35 pages of his memoir, Dreams From My Father, to his grandfather’s torture under British colonial rule during Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion.

The British-U.S. relationship can only be fully understood when viewed in its true historical context, explained in rich detail in Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. And as much as President Obama would like to push reset on these ties, biblical prophecy shows that America’s fate is inextricably linked with that of Britain. The weakening of the relationship will only weaken both countries and make them more vulnerable to being trampled by ascendant powers. Read about the stunning prophecy of their simultaneous fall in our article “Band of Brothers.”

Brushing off Mr. Brown, too tired' to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown thought long and hard about what gift to bring on his visit to the White House last week. Barack Obama is the first African-American president, so the prime minister gave him an ornamental desk-pen holder from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy´s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President.

The president´s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift from Queen Victoria to Rutherford Hayes - the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office.

And, just to round things out, as a little stocking-stuffer, Gordon Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert's seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill.

In return, America's head of state gave the Prime Minister 25 DVDs of "classic American movies."

Evidently, the White House gift shop was all out of "MY GOVERNMENT DELEGATION WENT TO WASHINGTON AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT" T-shirts. Still, the "classic American movies" set is a pretty good substitute, and it can set you back as much as $38.99 at Wal-Mart: Lot of classics in there, I'm sure - "Casablanca," "Citizen Kane," "The Sound Of Music" - though this sort of collection always slips in a couple of "Dude, Where's My Car? 3" and "Police Academy 12," just to make up the numbers.

I'll be interested to know if Mr Brown has anything to play the films on back home, since U.S.-format DVDs don't work in United Kingdom DVD players. It could be worse. The president might have given him the DVD of "He's Just Not That Into You."

Gordon Brown landed back in London a sadder but wiser man. The Fleet Street correspondents reported sneeringly that he (and they) had been denied the usual twin-podia alternating-flags press conference. The Obama administration had supposedly penciled one in for the Rose Garden, but then there was that catastrophic snowfall (a light dusting). This must be the first world leaders' press conference to be devastated by climate change.

No doubt President Obama could have relocated it to a prestige indoor venue, like the windowless room round the back of the White House furnace in Sub-Basement Level 5. But why bother? Some freak flood would have swept through and washed the prime minister and his DVD set into the Potomac and out to the Atlantic. By the time the Coast Guard fished him out, the sodden classic movies wouldn't work in any American DVD player any better than in the British one.

Mr. Brown did, however, get to give an almost entirely unreported address to Congress. U.S. legislators greeted his calls to resist protectionism with a round of applause, and then went back to adding up how much pork in the "Buy American" section of the stimulus bill would be heading their way.

I would make a modest prediction that in 2012, after four years of the man who was supposed to heal America's relations with a world sick of all that swaggering cowboy unilateralism, those relations will be much worse. From Canada to India, the implications of the Obama ascendancy are becoming painfully clear.

The other week Germany's Der Spiegel ran a piece called "Why Obamania Isn't The Answer," which might more usefully have been published before the Obamessiah held his big Berlin rally. Written by some bigshot with the German Council on Foreign Relations and illustrated by the old four-color hopey-changey posters all scratched up and worn out, the essay conceded that Europe had embraced Mr. Obama as a "European American."

Very true. The president is the most European American ever to sit in the Oval Office. And, because of that, he doesn't need any actual European Europeans getting in the way - just as, at his big victory night rally in Chicago, the first megastar president didn't need any megastar megastars from Hollywood clogging up the joint: Movie stars who wanted to fly in were told by his minders that he didn't want any other celebrities deflecting attention from him. Same with world leaders. If it's any consolation to Gordon Brown, he's just not that into any of you.

What Mr. Brown and the rest of the world want is for America, the engine of the global economy, to pull the rest of them out of the quicksand. That's not unreasonable. Even though a big chunk of the subprime/securitization/credit bubble axis originated in the United States and got exported round the planet, almost every one of America's trading partners will wind up getting far harder hit.

And that was before Mr. Obama made clear that for him the economy takes a very distant back seat to the massive expansion of government it provides cover for. That's why he is indifferent to the plummeting Dow. The president has made a strategic calculation that, to advance his plans for socialized health care, "green energy" and a big government state, it is to his advantage for things to get worse. And, if things go from bad to worse in America, overseas they'll go from worse to total societal collapse.

We have already seen changes of government in Iceland and Latvia, rioting in Greece and Bulgaria. The great destabilization is starting on the fringes of Europe and working its way to the Continent's center.

We're seeing not just the first contraction in the global economy since 1945, but also the first crisis of globalization. This was the system America and the other leading economies encouraged everybody else to grab a piece of. But whatever piece you grabbed - exports in Taiwan, services in Ireland, construction in Spain, oligarchic industrial-scale kleptomania in Russia - it's all crumbling.

Ireland and Italy are nation-state versions of Bank of America and General Motors. In Eastern Europe, the countries way out on the end of the globalization chain can't take a lot of heat without widespread unrest. And the fellows who'll be picking up the tab are the West European banks who loaned them all the money.

Gordon Brown was hoping for a little more than: "I feel your pain. And have you ever seen 'The Wizard Of Oz'? It's about this sweet little nobody who gets to pay a brief visit to the glittering Emerald City before being swept back to the reassuring familiarity of the poor thing's broken down windswept economically devastated monochrome dustbowl. You'll love it!"

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"? Oh, perish the thought. The prime minister flew 8,000 miles for dinner and a movie. But the president says he'll call. Next week. Next month. Whatever.

London newspapers are howling over a string of alleged snubs by Obama to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit to Washington last week — including a squabble over presidential gift-giving.

"President Obama has been rudeness personified towards Britain," sniffed The Daily Telegraph Friday. "His handling of the visit of the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to Washington was appalling."

The list of complaints is longer than the Magna Carta: Obama canceled a planned, podium-to-podium news conference with Brown (actually, none was ever scheduled); he recently removed a bust of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the Oval Office; and he gave gifts to the Brown family that were "about as exciting as a pair of socks," one Fleet Street wag whined.

That last bit might be true. After Brown presented Obama with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk), Obama offered up ... 25 DVDs of American movie classics.

"Oh, give me strength," wrote one appalled Daily Telegraph staffer. "We do have television and DVD stores on this side of the Atlantic."

Never mind that Brown is blind in one eye and may have a hard time seeing the stars in "2001: A Space Odyssey," or that American DVDs are usually incompatible with British players.

Equally insulting, decided the Times of London, was Michelle Obama's "solipsistic" and "inherently dismissive" gifts to the Browns' two little boys, Fraser and John.

The offending souvenirs? Toy models of Marine One, the President's helicopter — gifts no doubt plucked from the White House gift shop at the last minute, The Times decided.

Brown's wife, Sarah, by contrast arrived with dresses for Sasha and Malia from the UK's trendy Top Shop (with matching necklaces) and a selection of books by British authors.

"A bit of thought had clearly gone into choosing them," crowed The Daily Mail. "Lovely."

The Brits have blown up the alleged snubs into new evidence that the "special relationship" between the two nations is no longer quite so special.

The hand-wringing began last month when Obama removed a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office and replaced it with his hero, Abraham Lincoln.

The Times of London immediately traced Obama's "disdain" for Churchill to Kenya, where Obama's grandfather was caught up in the Churchill-led suppression of the 1950s Mau Mau Rebellion that left thousands of
Kenyans dead.

"It's not surprising that Mr. Obama didn't want Churchill looking over his shoulder," explained one correspondent.

At this point, the two sides seem to be in full repair mode. The White House let it be known that Obama and Brown shared a chummy phone call as the prime minister was headed home.

And Friday, it was revealed that Obama would be granted a private audience with Queen Elizabeth when he is in London next month.

Quipped one reader of The Sun, "I hope Her Majesty likes DVDs."

Barack Obama 'too tired' to give proper welcome to Gordon Brown

Barack Obama's offhand approach to Gordon Brown's Washington visit last week came about because the president was facing exhaustion over America's economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told.

By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 10:03PM GMT 07 Mar 2009

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown walk down the Colonnade of the White House in Washington, Photo: AP

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".

A British official conceded that the furore surrounding the apparent snub to Mr Brown had come as a shock to the White House. "I think it's right to say that their focus is elsewhere, on domestic affairs. A number of our US interlocutors said they couldn't quite understand the British concerns and didn't get what that was all about."

The American source said: "Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

"That was the gamble these guys made at the front end of this presidency and I think they're finding it a hard thing to do everything."

British diplomats insist the visit was a success, with officials getting the chance to develop closer links with Mr Obama's aides. They point out that the president has agreed to meet the prime minister for further one-to-one talks in London later this month, ahead of the G20 summit on April 2.

But they concede that the mood music of the event was at times strained. Mr Brown handed over carefully selected gifts, including a pen holder made from the wood of a warship that helped stamp out the slave trade - a sister ship of the vessel from which timbers were taken to build Mr Obama's Oval Office desk. Mr Obama's gift in return, a collection of Hollywood film DVDs that could have been bought from any high street store, looked like the kind of thing the White House might hand out to the visiting head of a minor African state.

Mr Obama rang Mr Brown as he flew home, in what many suspected was an attempt to make amends.

The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment." The apparent lack of attention to detail by the Obama administration is indicative of what many believe to be Mr Obama's determination to do too much too quickly.

In addition to passing the largest stimulus package and the largest budget in US history, Mr Obama is battling a plummeting stock market, the possible bankruptcy of General Motors, and rising unemployment. He has also begun historic efforts to achieve universal healthcare, overhaul education and begin a green energy revolution all in his first 50 days in office.

The Sunday Telegraph understands that one of Mr Obama's most prominent African American backers, whose endorsement he spent two years cultivating, has told friends that he detects a weakness in Mr Obama's character.

"The one real serious flaw I see in Barack Obama is that he thinks he can manage all this," the well-known figure told a Washington official, who spoke to this newspaper. "He's underestimating the flood of things that will hit his desk." A Democratic strategist, who is friends with several senior White House aides, revealed that the president has regularly appeared worn out and drawn during evening work sessions with senior staff in the West Wing and has been forced to make decisions more quickly than he is comfortable.

He said that on several occasions the president has had to hurry back from eating dinner with his family in the residence and then tucking his daughters in to bed, to conduct urgent government business. Matters are not helped by the pledge to give up smoking.

"People say he looks tired more often than they're used to," the strategist said. "He's still calm, but there have been flashes of irritation when he thinks he's being pushed to make a decision sooner than he wants to make it. He looks like he needs a cigarette."

Mr Obama was teased by the New York Times on Thursday in a front page story which claimed to have detected a greater prevalence of grey hairs since he entered the White House.

The Democratic strategist stressed that Mr Obama's plight was nothing new. "He knew it was going to be tough; he said as much throughout the campaign. But there's a difference between knowing it is going to be tough and facing the sheer relentless pressure of it all."

Welcome aboard Air Force One

Air Force One March 6th, 2009

Welcome aboard Air Force One

Larry Downing is a Reuters senior staff photographer assigned to the White House. He shares that duty with three other staff photographers. He has lived in Washington since 1977 and has been assigned to cover the White House , including flying aboard Air Force One, since 1978. President Barack Obama is the sixth president Larry has photographed.

Only two identical aircraft exist in the world which both share the same high-level function. They mirror one another precisely except for the numeric identifier on the tail. One reads 28000, the other 29000.
They’re as sleek as they are majestic. Anticipation runs high when either travels and both are red carpet worthy. They are concealed around-the-clock in a protective cocoon while being constantly pampered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

“Use of Deadly Force is Authorized” inside the security perimeter ringing around the outermost tips of their wings, and absolutely no one is allowed to enter without permission.

However, the moment the President of the United States, or POTUS, steps aboard, the aircraft immediately transforms from a mild-mannered Boeing 747 passenger jet into an aviation ambassador for the might of the United States, carrying one of the most powerful men in the world to any destination he chooses; all the while in complete luxury.

Welcome aboard Air Force One.

It’s America’s magic carpet and it floats freely through the clouds under a veil of secrecy while transporting essential elements of the White House inside a secure “bubble” to any corner of the world. Surprisingly, there’s an operating room with a doctor in case of a medical emergency and a protective armada of U.S. warplanes shadows its every movement.

Air Force One is the ultimate military jet transport with a simple, yet singular mission; to serve the needs of the President of the United States. Only the president, his family, invited guests, select White House staff, armed Secret Service agents and members of a small press pool are allowed as passengers during flight.

Even the president’s pets are treated as royalty. President George W. Bush used to ferry his dogs and cat back and forth on every trip to his central Texas ranch in Crawford. One of his dogs, Barney, gained a local following after the much publicized biting of a Reuters’ reporter at the White House.

Bush also liked to use a special mountain bike when riding, so it was necessary for an aide to load it onto the back of the aircraft for his use on arrival, just in case. An “Air Force One Travel Pool” always accompanies the president when he’s on the jet.

It’s the tightest and most prestigious of all White House press pools, just 13members total with rotating representatives from each of the disciplines of journalism. These “poolers” are present in all presidential motorcades, on all helicopter movements (but never aboard Marine One), and are housed overnight in the president’s 5-star hotel when his travels take him out of town or country. Reuters assigns a wire service correspondent and a news photographer to travel on board during all presidential travel.

Armed military police and trained dogs make sure no one goes near Air Force One without a complete security vetting process. All personnel assigned to the squadron have a top secret clearance and, in Air Force-speak, “a need to know” before working on the aircraft. All press and their equipment are thoroughly sniffed, scanned and searched before being issued an additional U.S. Secret Service credential which allows him or her to walk on the tarmac towards the jet. That pass is changed by a Secret Service agent on every travel segment of a trip.

Wearing different press credentials is a daily part of White House travel.

The “security sweep” at Andrews Air Force Base involves no less than ten different challenges to each member of the press pool at the beginning of travel. Starting with manifesting by the White House, security continues through elements of the U.S. Air Force, TSA, U.S. Secret Service (both Uniformed Division and Presidential Protective Division), explosive ordinance experts, bomb-sniffing dogs, and finally, Air Force One’s own armed bouncers, their exclusive security force.

Only then are you allowed to board the aircraft using the rear stairs. The front steps belong only the president. That tradition was lost somehow on Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich when he complained to the press of having to use the rear steps after flying as the president’s guest.

Air Force One offers much more than your father’s military transport ever could… Most veterans’ memories of military travel aren’t fond ones. Circumstances made military travel reminiscent of the migratory adventures discovered inside a John Steinbeck novel; tired vagabonds hitching rides inside the wooden boxcars of the steel freight trains while chasing their tumbleweed dreams across the flats of west Texas. GI’s have always been exposed to conditions like those dust bowl hobos of the early 1900’s.

Even by today’s standards military travel is less than glamorous.

Last summer, while former first lady Laura Bush rode in comfort inside her luxury trailer strapped to the floor of a C-17 transport jet, White House staff, Secret Service and press members were left outside in the cold…literally. Frostbite awaits anyone who falls asleep on the steel floor of that particular aircraft without making sensible precautions. It’s a biting cold at 37,000 feet.

This picture was taken during that 2008 secret visit to Afghanistan after seven frigid hours of flight.

Guests on Air Force One are treated in comforting fashion. Service is reminiscent of the attention passengers received during the dawn of commercial airline travel. The seats are large and recline far enough back to sleep comfortably on long flights. No meals are pre-packaged or sealed in plastic bags and nothing is served from an airline cart; instead meals are cooked fresh by Air Force cooks in the jet’s large flight kitchen and then served on Air Force One’s own china. Full meals and desserts are cooked and created by hand in-flight. The press cabin also offers a large library of movies with comfortable headsets.

Before returning to Andrews Air Force Base the stewards pass out the most prized of all White House travel souvenirs…The Presidential M&M’s. They are exclusive to Air Force One and are limited edition. Each box has the Presidential Seal on its front and the autograph of the current president embossed below it. President Barack Obama’s M&M’s are eagerly anticipated and are due out in late March 2009.

Each passenger later receives a large flight certificate from the White House, signed by the presidential pilot, indicating that they flew as a “Guest of the President” aboard Air Force One. It resembles an undergraduate degree from an American university. Air Force One’s on-time record is perfect and no one has ever filed a claim for lost luggage. The aircraft commander prides himself on one simple fact… you can set your watch to his scheduled arrival time. He’s right!

Only once in recent history has Air Force One been delayed beyond the commander’s control. That incident occurred in the 1990’s when President Bill Clinton insisted on bringing a Beverly Hills stylist out to the readied aircraft before take-off while it sat on the airport’s tarmac in Los Angeles. He wanted to experience a $200 “Christophe” hair treatment. Commercial aircraft waited patiently to take off during the airport’s mandatory Air Force One ramp-freeze while Clinton received the cut.

The nickname “Hair Force One” grew out of that exclusive appointment.

News photographers are allowed to work “under the wing” for all arrivals and all departures of the president. (Photography from behind the main wing is discouraged. The trailing edge of the jet’s wing supports cutting-edge electronic gadgetry not found on commercial aircraft.)

Once aboard, the press pool is instructed to remain inside the designated press cabin at all times. No movement outside of the area is allowed without a White House staff escort and is monitored by the Secret Service agents sitting in the adjacent cabin. Photography is allowed only during “on camera” briefings inside that press cabin.

Air Force One is as much an official backdrop for news photography as is the White House. The exterior colors are visually hypnotic. Every angle is eye candy. First lady Jackie Kennedy chose it all when she resided at the White House.

One of my favorite pictures of President George W. Bush is his boarding the aircraft after a visit to New Orleans on a very hot, sweaty night following Hurricane Katrina. A simple picture…yet, it says a lot. It would be nothing without the majesty of the aircraft.

No news picture will ever top the one taken aboard by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton on the return flight from a bloody visit to Dallas in November 1963 shortly after President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. As LBJ was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States, the former first lady stood by his side with her dead husband’s blood still on her jacket. His body rode home quietly in the cabin of the plane. This picture is from the Johnson Presidential Library and is a huge part of White House history.

That aircraft was a Boeing 707 and its tail identifier was 26000. I flew on that exact Air Force One 15 years later. It would be more than a decade after that before the 707’s would be replaced with the new pair of 747’s. 26000 is now on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum in Ohio.

To fly aboard Air Force One is a continuing honor and even after 31 years of White House duty, the experience still gives me goose bumps. Every flight is monumental to me.

My first flight was with President Jimmy Carter when he flew to Denver to promote the use of solar energy in residential homes in 1978. Carter’s luck always seemed to sit under a dark cloud. He was handed an umbrella as soon as he stepped off Air Force One in Colorado to keep him dry. It poured rain during the event.

I remember flying with President George H.W. Bush to Somalia to lunch with U.S. military troops on a very quick visit. As we departed Mogadishu the temperature hovered right at 100 degrees. We took off, flew north to Moscow, and arrived before midnight. The temperature in Russia was 20 degrees below zero. 120 degrees difference in less than 12 hours.

I traveled with his son twice on secret missions to Iraq. On the second trip, after the Air Force issued armored vests to each member of the traveling press moments before touching down in Baghdad, we were instructed that President George W. Bush wanted us to leave them on the ground before we left Iraq. He wanted to be sure combat soldiers in harm’s way would have the newest body armor.

Another striking memory for me was President Bill Clinton’s visit to Vietnam after the U.S. elections in 2000. While Air Force One banked into its final turn towards Hanoi, I noticed dozens of brown bomb craters lining the green countryside on our approach. The closer we flew towards the runway, the more craters I counted. U.S. Air Force pilots are quite familiar with that flight pattern. American B-52 warplanes dropped thousands of bombs over the area during the Christmas Bombing of Hanoi in 1972; all during the peace negotiations to end the Vietnam War. The next morning Clinton stood in front of a large bust of Vietnam’s wartime hero, Ho Chi Minh.

An example of the ease of travel Air Force One enjoys was during the 2005 trip of President George W. Bush to Rome for the funeral of Pope John Paul II. After attending the somber Vatican funeral with two former U.S. President’s, Bush loaded his wife onto Air Force One and together they flew from Rome, Italy, to Waco, Texas. Imagine calling a travel agent and requesting that same non-stop service?

Air Force One earns its wings daily during the busy travel schedule of the last year of any president’s Administration. He schedules the entire year traveling to say goodbye to anyone who will join him for lunch.

I remember President Bill Clinton’s final journeys to India, Africa, Asia, Europe. Bush’s goodbye exodus was equally long. In 2008 White House travel took me to: Thailand, Korea, the Beijing Olympics, Israel (twice), the Palestinian Territory, Saudi Arabia (twice), Afghanistan (with the first lady), Slovenia, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

My only complaint is that we DON’T get Air Force One frequent flyer miles…