ANOTHER OBAMA CABINET UNKNOWN

HERMAPHRODITE OR WHAT?

Lisa Jackson, EPA Secretary-nominee.
Another beaute, Barak.

Third in a series examining the Obama Cabinet.


(December 24, Newark, NJ) With the prominent issues of global climate change, environmental protection and energy independence near the center of President-elect Obama’s campaign, the importance of his choice for Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would send a strong, clear measure as to just how much effort his Administration will devote to such concerns.

With the nomination of Dr. Stephen Chu for the post of Secretary of Energy, Mr. Obama has proof positive that his energy initiatives will be scientifically based, well reasoned and practical. Chu is a highly respected Nobel Laureate winning that award for Physics in 1997. Currently he runs one of the most prestigious national laboratories in the country, The Department of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His credentials are as solid as those of anyone to have ever held the position for which he has been nominated.

Unfortunately Mr. Obama has thrown another wild card into the deck of Cabinet secretaries with his choice for the EPA Secretary, Lisa Jackson. Jackson is currently the Chief of Staff to New Jersey Governor John “Speedy” Corzine and served as the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Director(NJDEP) prior to that. She had been a fixture for 16 years at the federal EPA in Washington before diving in to the cesspool of New Jersey politics. If her record from her EPA and NJDEP positions are any indication of what she’ll do as EPA Secretary we all better purchase Personnel Protective Equipment (PPE) and expect to have a toxic waste dump located near your city or town within the next four years or for however long she manages to hold onto her Cabinet seat if even confirmed by the Senate.

As summarized in Wikipedia: “While DEP Commissioner, she led a staff of 2,990 professionals responsible for protecting, sustaining and enhancing New Jersey’s water, air and land, and preserving its wealth of natural and historic resources. In addition to overseeing environmental programs for the state, as Commissioner, Jackson oversaw state parks and beaches, fish and wildlife programs and historic preservation. As commissioner in July 2006 she had to shut down all state parks and beaches due to the state governmental shutdown in relation to the state budget delay.

As the state's chief environmental enforcer, Jackson led compliance sweeps in Camden and Paterson, communities in which the effects of pollution on public health had long been neglected. She launched the environmental initiative following multicultural outreach efforts to inform and involve community residents and businesses. Working with county officials, New Jersey State Police and the EPA, the NJDEP then mobilized more than 70 inspectors to conduct upward of 1,000 compliance investigations in the two cities, the first of a series of enforcement sweeps."

Jackson's performance at DEP was criticized by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The organization stated:

DEP employees describe Ms. Jackson as "employing a highly politicized approach to decision-making that resulted in suppression of scientific information, issuance of gag orders and threats against professional staff members who dared to voice concerns.”

Aside from her abysmal track record in every job she ever held at any level of government, she is another multiple ticket punch pick in that she covers several categories under the umbrella of diversity. Apparently she is a negroid, obese, female and that gives her plenty of clout in the Democratic Party. She is also another ill defined type of person very similar to Valerie Jarrett. (See Part Two of the TBC Obama Cabinet Series).

According to world renowned genetics expert, Dr. Anne Drogoness, The Strom Thurmond Chair of the Department of Gender, Genetics and Gatric Distress at Alcorn State University in Alabama, “Lisa Jackson remains somewhat a mystery to us regarding her genetic composition. All we have been able to establish thus far is that she is in fact a human, perhaps with some Negroid traits as expressed in her mitochondrial DNA and is most certainly obese. We would need much more time and data to establish any other facts beyond those I have just mentioned.”

Other scientists and physicians offer alternative theories as to Ms. Jackson’s composition. Dr.Ima Albino, Head of the Mutation Studies Department at Lower Central Upper North Dakota State University posits that, “Ms. Jackson may have acquired her obvious genetic deformities as a result of her time spent in New Jersey. She was, after all, involved in water, air and soil quality in that shit hole of a state and was exposed to a vast variety of carcinogens, toxins, diuretics, pollutants, rodents,and contaminants on top of her proximity to other New Jersey politicians. It is amazing she is still alive, from a medical standpoint, that is.”

Other experts in related fields of expertise also express some degree of surprise, if not amazement, that Ms. Jackson is indeed very much alive. Salvatore “Skutch” DePalma, Medical Observation Officer for the New Jersey Trash, Rubbish and Crap Haulers AFL-CIO local 666 commented that “That bitc...I mean Ms. Jackson was always busting my bal...I mean she...ah...was very diligent in her efforts to get hand outs and palm greasings. We tried to whack....I means we tried to persuade her to get off our freakin’ backs but she still wanted more and more. Christ, she was more greedier than that garbonzo Pasquale “Patsy” Palamerri from Brooklyn. I’d rather see Patsy in the Cabinet instead of Ms. Jackson. Cause at least with Patsy it was always “any pal of Palamerri is a pal a’ mino.”

Several other officials and unofficials from New Jersey who had dealings with Jackson while she headed up the NJDEP expressed deep reservations as to her qualifications, morals, gender, temperament, intelligence, ethics, eating, drinking and drug use habits in addition to her rumored mental dysfunction. Angelo “Anvil” Avollini from the Jersey City Sludge Commission stated “ I woulda kilt her myself but I was kinda...ya’ knows....afraid of having to touch her. We thought about putting a bomb in her car but was afraid we might blow half the state up. Hey, ya’ knows , we gots to make a livin’ here too. Fuck her. I hope she does to the rest of the country what she tried to do to destroy our beauty-fulled Garden State.”

Click on title for link to Wikipedia entry for Lisa Jackson.

Copyright TBC 2008 © All Rights Reserved

MR OBAMA: DIVERSITY’S OK, HOWEVER...

...Ambiguity Is Not.


Top Obama advisor from Chicago, Valerie Jarrett.
What is she?


Second in a series examining President-elect Obama’s Cabinet selections.

(Dec. 24, Chicago, IL) With virtually unprecedented rapidity, President -elect Barak Obama began assembling the inner circle of long time confidantes and advisors he would take with him to Washington as well as his potential Cabinet within hours of his electorial trouncing of John McCain. As most top presidential advisors, counselors and aides along with most previous cabinets, despite how the various appointees are presented, they are mostly friends of the President to be.

Mr. Obama has naturally boasted that his Administration and especially his Cabinet and inner circle would be “diverse”, inclusive and “more representative as to who we are as a Nation.” Of course he would say such things, although Bill Clinton was the first to really give the whole diversity thing a shot. He failed and the failures of some of his top appointees nearly derailed his Presidency long before he derailed it himself.

John Kennedy proclaimed that his Cabinet would be populated by “the best and the brightest” men he could find. (In 1960 women were not even considered for such positions.) His good intentions brought Robert McNamara from corporate success to his Foggy Bottom Meltdown as they bungled our earliest intervention in South Viet Nam.

Those two historical asides out if the way, let’s return to 2008. While some of Obama’s choices have been predictable and follow the code of loyalty, some of been surprising if not downright disturbing. The Blagogate scandal back in his hometown of Chicago has also cast some of his choices beneath the roiling clouds of scandal that may well eventually result in a stormy beginning of his Administration.
Already Obama has lived up to his word regarding the composition of his Cabinet and top advisors. He had said he wanted “dissenting voices, various opinions” available internally, ergo, Hillary Clinton will be his Secretary of State. Punching two tickets , loyalty and the Jew vote, Blago crony, Rahm Emmanuel will be his Chief of Staff. Other flacks and dorks; failures in their past positions in the Executive Branch such as Bill “Lou Costello” Richardson will squeeze his lard ass into a Cabinet seat.

So, he has hit all the biggies; loyalty, dissenting voices, experience and diversity. However, among his dubious choices one stands out among the rest; Valerie Jarrett. besides her past as a Chicago political insider and FOB (Friend of Barak’s) what exactly qualifies her for her role in the upcoming Administration and, what exactly is she? Is she an African American woman or a Jew with a tan? Is she a frog or other member of the toad family? Is she a mammal, marsupial, or reptile? Is she actually a woman by birth or by elective surgical and hormonal intervention? Perhaps she was the product of an ambiguous birth possessing both a pair of functional testes and ovaries? These are not meant to be malicious questions but rather a serious inquiry as to who and exactly what will be advising our new 46 year old President-elect once ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The challenges he will face are stupendous. Let us all hope his upper echelon will serve him well and that the tax payers will not have to underwrite the installation of a third type of rest rooms in the White House: one labeled “Other.”


Copyright TBC 2008 © All Rights Reserved

CUT THE PORK, DON'T TAX THE FAT

NY State Obesity Tax Proposal Absurd

(December 24, NYC) New York City, once the capital of rebelliousness, culture, social and political trend setting, the home of cutting edge innovations in fashion, style and entertainment as well as the birthplace of every genre of music from punk, new wave , hip hop and rap, has lost much of the spirit that once defined the Big Apple and New Yorkers themselves. The latest intrusion aimed at increasing the government's influence in personal decisions comes in the form of what has been proposed by Governor David "Blinky" Paterson as the "Obesity Tax."

Mike Bloomberg, the "Independant" Mayor of New York City, has imposed taxes and surcharges on aspects of individual lives that are not only excessive but also unconstitutional. He and whoever the Governor of the moment has been have been all too eager to tax cigarettes while banning smoking in public places, raised taxes on mass transportation translating practically into increased commuter fares and a host of other heavy handed taxes under the auspices of "the Public Good." That is, plain and simple, a blatant lie. Revnue is the only motivatonal factor that ever drives such "public initiatives."

Now the obese, fat people - are to be taxed for being fat. Actually, it is not that simple, it is more subtle however, the message is clear: the fat among us will pay more for their choice to be fat. Blinky wants to tax such "non-nutitional" goods such as soda. A tax on soda, beyond being absurd, would impact the lower income New Yorker's far more than those wh are higher educated, earn more and tend to have better nutritional, medical and recreational options.

The people of New York State are vehemently opposed to this tax proposal as demonstrated clearly by several recent state-wide polls. (Click on title for link.)

Blinky is patently incapable of seeing the impact such a tax would have on communities such as that he alledges to have represented in his past elected offices before being Spitzerized into the Governor's Seat. He and Mike have made the cliche' about liberals become further cemented in truth by their actions: raising taxes is NOT the answer to every problem and the notion that the government, at any level, should be permitted arbitrary, aggressive intrusion into our lives is diamertically opposite of the principals our Nation was founded on.

Wake up and open your eyes, Mr. Governor! Perhaps better fiscal management and controling your wreckless pork barrel spending on the State level would help correct the perpetual (and now your), state budgetary shortfalls.

If you are prepared to tax the fat why not tax the skinny; obviously they don't eat enough and, following your blinded logic, should be taxed for not buying emough food or soda or beer and pastries. Tax commuters who walk: they are not paying their fair share of the MTA's monetary needs. Raise taxes on cheap clothes while you're at it. People who cannot afford to shop at Macy's or along Lexington Avenue are not paying THEIR fair share of taxes, right? Where does it end Blinky, when will it end?

Legally speaking, you are on very shaky ground here as have been your recent predecessors and Mr. Mayor. Thusfar yours and theirs legislative agendas have been approved simply by virtue of targeting social issues that most people felt sufficiently strongly about that they went along with them. People, by and large, do not like those among us who choose to smoke cigarettes or enjoy other tobacco products. It appears Blinky that you may have run up against an invisible wall of demonstrable public resistance. Most folks are of a "live and let live" attitude and have expressed their views in polls accordingly. If someone is fat and wants to drink a gallon of two of Mountain Dew, Mr. Pibb, A&W Root Beer and day, why tax them unjustly?

Go back to your neighborhood Mr. Paterson and explain to the obese residents their why they will be paying more for things they like or eat because their choices are limited. See how that goes, Okay?

Gino Palermo is an attorney with The Palermo Associates and has a great interest in NYC and NY State politics.

Copyright TBC 2008 © All Rights Reserved

THE PRICE IS RIGHT – ILLINOIS STYLE

PAT & ROD: TWO TURDS IN A POD







Pat, Rod and Jesse Jr.
Come on down.

(Dec 11, Chicago, IL) As the details of the scandal involving the Illinois Governor and his wife as the prime culprits, the broad federal investigation will no doubt dredge up a veritable who’s who of Illinois politics. No doubt he dark under belly of Chicago politics will be exposed. There is no way at this point to even reasonably speculate as to the scale and scope of the corruption and criminality alleged in the federal indictment. However, with only the facts known at this time it appears that some of the people closest to President-elect Obama may find the dirty tidewaters rising above their shoes.

This is a particularly juicy scandal for several reasons not the least of which is the fact that Obama’s nascent administration, weeks before his inauguration, finds itself already in the shadow of scandal. How it will affect Obama as President, if at all, remains to be seen. But, the remotest association with some of the major players involved is enough to handicap him to some degree. If nothing else it has awakened the chorus of right wing zealots who had been occupied in trying to solve their identity crisis since the trouncing they took in November’s elections.

Corruption is as old as politics. Over the last 10 to 15 years we have grown accustomed to watching elected officials resign under dark clouds of controversy, be convicted of crimes, misdemeanors and felonies. Both Houses of Congress have had more than their share of ethical violations, criminality and depravity yet most of these incidents have been brushed aside by a censure vote or midnight resignation. This “BlagoGate” will not be easily disposed; these allegations are not only blatantly egregious but also indicate how precariously balanced our entire government is between the competing interests of the sinners and saints.

Power and money – greed is at the heart of this particular series of crimes. While many politicians succumb to the temptations inherent in their elected offices, Rod Blagojevich was a scum bag of the highest order long before he attained his Governorship. The fact that was also complicit in some of his extortion-like tactics is further evidence of his and her natural propensity for crime. She added some spite to his filthy exploits such as his vindictive approach to fund raisers who would not contribute to his campaigns, his threats to withhold funding for a children’s hospital, having reporters who were critical of him fired and their joint vendetta against the Chicago Tribune.

Already three close Obama associates have been mentioned in connection with the dealings surrounding filling Obama’s Senate seat. Rahm Emmanuel, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, all deeply entrenched in Chicago’s political ways. If Mr. Obama had any sense he would cut all three of these characters loose immediately.

Then there is the esteemed Congressman from Chicago, Jesse Jackson, Jr., better known now as contestant number five in the Senate seat sweepstakes. It has been rumored that operatives offered one million dollars on Jesse Jr.’s behalf to fill that seat. That particular rotten apple has not fallen far from the tree has it now? Nope, his father has made a career as an exploitive charlatan. Reverend Jackson certainly taught his son well.

The winds blowing out of the Windy City these days carry the dank stench of age old corruption. Hopefully all involved will be found guilty as charged and marched off to a federal penitentiary that is not a country club.

Click on title to link to David Broder's Opinion Column, WashingtonPost.com



Copyright TBC 2008 © All Rights Reserved

UPHOLDING TRADITION

ILLINOIS GOVERNOR ARRESTED
Blagojevich Turns Shytown into Buy Town

Illinois Governor Rod “Blago” Blagojevich arrested.



(Dec. 9, Chicago, IL) In keeping with the tradition of corrupt criminality in the statehouse, Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested today on federal charges including bribery, corruption and improper use of his office. Blagojevich is the third Illinois Governor to be indicted out of the last six.

While corruption, extortion, bribery, influence peddling and under handed deal making are virtually synonymous with Illinois politics, particularly the type practiced for decades in Chicagoland, the allegations against the current Governor may prove to be the most significant. Blago’s crimes, as alleged in the federal indictment unsealed today detail a portrait of an elected official well versed in the ways of corruption and bribery and certainly not shy about using the power of his office for personal financial gain.

Among the factors that elevate Blago’s alleged crimes to a level of their own is the fact that one of the key items in his indictment is that he tried to “sell” the Illinois Senate seat recently vacated by President-elect Barak Obama. While Obama has yet to be connected in any way to the Governor’s “crime spree”, the developing situation certainly brings unwanted scrutiny just weeks before his inauguration. For his part President-elect Obama has refused to comment due to “the on-going investigation.”

While the federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was quick to emphasis that Mr. Obama was in no way implicated in any of the alleged crimes, two prominent Obama Cabinet appointees may have been involved directly or indirectly. Rahm Emmanuel, the Chief of Staff appointee is rumored to have played an active roll in some of Blago’s nefarious activities. Some inside sources hint that Emmanuel, after some sort of “disagreement” with the Governor actually “turned in” Blago to the FBI. The Illinois Governor has been under FBI investigation for most of the past year if not sooner.

The Chicago political operative who lead the Obama campaign and has been named a Senior Presidential Advisor in the Obama White House, David Axelrod, may have had “conversations” with Blago regarding Obama’s Senate replacement. Axelrod denies such discussions.

The following months will be interesting as the legal proceedings begin and the public learns the sordid details. Prosecutor Fitzgerald, alluding to the gravity of the charges said that “Lincoln must be turning over in his grave”, making reference to the 16th president Abraham Lincoln also of Illinois.


Copyright TBC 2008 © All Rights Reserved