CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Palin Makes it official -- will not seek 2012 GOP presidential nomination

Sarah Palin made it official and announced what some of us predicted months ago, she will not seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination:

October 5, 2011
Wasilla, Alaska

After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.

My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office - from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.

From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back - and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.

I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.

Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.

In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.

Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country!

God bless America.

- Sarah Palin

I agree 100% with Palin that she can be more effective helping elect governors Congressional candidates and a new President. As we have said before, Palin is doing exactly what the Republicans need her to do.

Palin set the stage for this announcement with last month's release of her "Restoring America Together" video:

Obama and SEIU Flashback - Obama Leads SEIU Chant

Addressing Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members on January 5, 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama reminded the crowd that he is firmly tied to the SEIU:

I come from an organizing background. I've been working with the SEIU before I was elected to anything. When I was a community organizer SEIU Local 880 and myself we organized people ... we organized voter registration drives. That's how we developed political power on the South side of Chicago.... And now the time has come for us to do it all across this country. We are going to paint the nation purple with SEIU.

SEIU I'm glad you are with me. Let's together change the country.

Then Obama leads the crowd in an SEIU chant, SEIU, SEIU, SEIU ....

Watch the video:

Obama Flashback - Obama promised to 'walk on that picket line'

In a November 3, 2007 speech in Spartanburg, South Carolina, presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to walk the "picket line":

"And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner."

Watch the video:

So why isn't Obama in Madison instead of tyring to back away from the demonstrations he and his campaign organizations supported?

Obama and SEIU Flashback - Obama: SEIU's agenda is my agenda

In a September 17, 2007 speech to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) membership, presidential candidate Barack Obama revealed more than solidarity with the SEIU admitting they share a common agenda -- "your [SEIU] agenda's been my agenda," and that he consults with Union before debating health care and immigration issues. 

Obama makes those admissions at the about the 3:16 mark in the following video:

Wyatt Cenac on how Europeans tricked us about Obama

"The deal was we give them Obama -- they don't hate us anymore." - Wyatt Cenac

On "the Daily Show", Jon Stewart pokes fun at European protesters and Wyatt Cenac has an epiphany about our relationship with Old Europe.

Watch the following video. The part about Old Europe still disagreeing with us starts at about the 1:24 mark:

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Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, reminds us that there have always been differences between the United States and Old Europe:

• If you go back to the time of the Revolution, there have been differences between Europeans and Americans very reminiscent of things we've seen in more recent years.

• During World War I French Prime Minister George Clemenceau said, America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

• If you read the diaries and letters of the British and American top political and military leaders in World War II, they were at each other's throats.

• Lord Allenbrook, the British commander, didn't think Dwight Eisenhower was fit to be Supreme Commander or Americans were fit to fight.

• In 1996, during those halcyon days of the Clinton administration's transatlantic relations, former French President Francois Mitterrand said  we are at war with America, a permanent war, a war without death. They are very hard, the Americans. They are voracious. They want undivided power over the world. And that was five years before George Bush was elected president.

The mere election of a liberal left-wing president isn't going to change the fundamental differences between Old Europe and the United States.

Obama Received a $101,332 Bonus from AIG

Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are - Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama. 

The A.I.G. Financial Products affiliate of A.I.G. gave out $136,928, the most of any AIG affiliate, in the 2008 cycle.  I would note that A.I.G.’s financial products division is the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps and "misjudged" the risk.

The Washington Post reports a "mob effect" at A.I.G financial products division:

A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.

With the anger and rage that is being exhibited against A.I.G., perhaps the bonuses Obama received from A.I.G. explain Obama's A.I.G crocodile tears.

Now that the Wall street Journal has revealed that A.I.G. paid bonuses of $1 million or more to 73 employees, it's time to ask if recipients of A.I.G. "bonuses," including President Obama, will give what now ought to be taxpayer money back?

President Obama takes the Oath

Barack Hussein Obama took the presidential oath as he became the 44th president of the United States:

What a shame President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts flubbed the 35 word oath.

President Obama declares a day of renewal and reconciliation

In his first official act after taking the oath of office, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation, declaring his Inauguration Day a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation:

NATIONAL DAY OF RENEWAL AND RECONCILIATION, 2009

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.

We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

I was disappointed in Obama's inauguration speech. It did not have that inspirational wallop we have grown to expect from his major speeches. It reminded me of President Carter"s malaise. 

You can read President Obama's inauguration speech here or watch it in the following video:

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Cheney needs wheelchair for Obama inauguration

Vice President Dick Cheney  will be in a wheelchair for Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony.

Cheney pulled a muscle in his back on Monday while moving into his new home in McLean, Virginia.

The Associated Press produced the following Video report: