America’s weakness

Choom Gang Reunites on Golf Course for Obama's Birthday Weekend

breitbart

By Daniel J. Flynn 

Choom Gang

In the 1970s, Barry Obama would shout "Interception!" to them as he took a hit off a joint out of turn. This weekend, he shouts "fore!" with the reunited members of the Choom Gang.

The president spends his birthday weekend like so many other weekends of his presidency: playing golf. Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb, and Greg Orme--friends from Obama's high school daze in Hawaii--joined the president for a round on the links at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Saturday morning. The foursome, according to the Associated Press, teed off with another eight players.

The president turns 53 on Monday.

As Israel exchanges fire with Hamas, a crisis continues to envelope the southern border, and the House of Representatives votes to sue the president for overreach, golf outings increasingly wear thin on the public even if they reinvigorate the president. A website dedicated to documenting presidential rounds of golf marks Obama's count as approaching 200. But Obama hardly stands alone among the other leaders to occupy the White House in finding a respite from the demands of office on the fairways.

Far more unique is the president's high school associations, brought together so much by marijuana that they named their group the "Choom Gang" in honor of the intoxicating plant. Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton shared a love of golfing. Who among the previous 42 men to hold the office came together with boyhood chums over a shared interest in burning dried hemp plants?

"As a member of the Choom Gang," David Maraniss explains in his presidential biography, "Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends." These included "roof hits," rolling the windows up and inhaling the last trails of smoke remaining in the Volkswagen van, and "total absorption," or "TA" for short. "TA was the opposite of Bill Clinton's claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled," Maraniss tells. In their pot circle, smokers exhaling too soon "were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around." Obama, a critic of football as president, imitated the elements of the game while pursuing his marijuana pastimes with his Punahou School friends. "When a joint was making the rounds," Maraniss explains, "he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted!,' and took an extra hit."

More than three decades later, a grayer, paunchier Choom Gang reunites to play a sport instead of spark up a joint. And to listen to one Choom Gang gang-banger tell it, the group always centered more around athletics than herb. Mike Ramos maintained in a conversation with the New York Times earlier this year that "we played a lot more basketball than we smoked pot."

And Bill Clinton never inhaled.

The threats to America grow

Amid Multiple Crises, Obama to Spend Weekend at Camp David

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www.frugal-cafe.com

Obama will be spending this week on vacation at Camp David – this photo is from a previous Camp David vacation, where he is seen engaging in a water gun ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is foregoing his usual round of weekend golf at a Washington suburban military base. Instead, he and his family are choosing what is for them a rare woodland getaway: a weekend at the presidential mountaintop retreat of Camp David.

The family was leaving Friday for the isolated and heavily guarded hideaway in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. The White House said the family weekend had already been planned and that he would return to the White House on Sunday.

The escape from the White House caps a fierce week of foreign policy eruptions, highlighted by a downed commercial jet liner over Ukraine and Israel's ground offensive into Gaza, as well as maneuvers over how to address a surge of Central American migrants at the U.S. border.

Camp David is an unusual destination for Obama. His last visit was Aug. 3-4 of 2013, almost a year ago, when he celebrated his 52nd birthday.

The trip will be his 33rd visit to Camp David, according to CBS News White House reporter Mark Knoller, the unofficial but meticulous chronicler of presidential outings. Obama went to Camp David only three times in 2013.

About 1,800 feet above sea level and about 70 miles from the White House, the camp occupies at least 125 acres, is protected by Marines and, though nestled in the Catoctin Mountains, it is part of the Navy's budget. A short drive from the town of Thurmont in northern Maryland, the compound is not marked by road signs and is ringed by imposing security fences.

On the grounds, presidents and their guests can enjoy an abbreviated game of golf, play tennis, bowl, swim in the heated pool, even shoot skeet.

Obama hosted the leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations at Camp David in 2012. It was the largest gathering of foreign leaders ever to assemble there.

Camp David has been a weekend presidential refuge since 1942, when Franklin D. Roosevelt decided he wanted to flee Washington's muggy summers and still stay close to the capital during wartime. Roosevelt named it "Shangri-la," the fictional valley in James Hilton's 1933 novel "Lost Horizon."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower renamed the retreat after his grandson David. It also retains its official pedestrian name: Naval Support Facility Thurmont.

A border war in the media

Eric Holder Gets Serious About Limiting Speech

Mary Greeley

With Immigration, Obama Lets a Crisis Go to Waste

breitbart

By Charles Hurt 

Whatever happened to the Obama administration’s guiding principle never to let a serious crisis go to waste?

Ex-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel pronounced this shockingly brazen political principle before a group of Wall Street executives in November 2008.

He said this even before President Obama took office. It was after that historic election, a time when the president was riding high on a wave of good will and political euphoria that few American politicians have ever enjoyed. It was also a time when the president’s party controlled both chambers of Congress and could have approved just about any agenda the White House could dream up.

Mr. Emanuel was, at the time, speaking about the financial crisis that was savaging the stock market, straining unemployment rolls and simultaneously spiking both foreclosed homes and homelessness across the country.

“Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with,” Mr. Emanuel elaborated. “This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.”

Machiavellian? Sure. But, boy, did that crew talk a big game back then. It really sounded like they knew what they were talking about.

And he struck a bipartisan chord back then that sounds laughable today, knowing now how utterly hollow those words would turn out to be.

“The good news, I suppose, if you want to see a silver lining, is that the problems are big enough that they lend themselves to ideas from both parties for the solution,” Mr. Emanuel cooed.

You mean like, say, Obamacare? The single biggest, most strictly partisan government program ever created? These people have taken partisanship to its nastiest level in more than 80 years. Heck, Mr. Obama has turned partisanship against even his own party. When he doesn’t get his way, he goes around even fellow Democrats in Congress with his unconstitutional gambits.

So what did Mr. Emanuel’s “serious crisis” unwasted get us?

National debt exploded 70 percent to a staggering $17 trillion. Unemployment went from 6.8 percent up to 10 percent where it hovered for about a year and a half and is finally back down now to 6.1 percent. Today, a record 92 million Americans are no longer in the workforce, a rate of hopeless indolence not seen in the USA since Jimmy Carter was president.

Maybe America would have been better off if they had just decided to waste that serious crisis.

Now Mr. Obama faces another “serious crisis.” This one almost entirely of his own making.

Tens of thousands of children wandering the desert alone or shepherded by the modern equivalent of slave traders across the U.S.-Mexico border. Untold numbers have died, been raped and murdered.

All because Mr. Obama has promised to make them free Americans if they just touch our blessed borders — or at least that is the message the president conveys to these children and their families.

One little boy told a reporter through an interpreter: “He’s helping us. He signed papers and said all Guatemalans who come to the United States can stay. He’s helping us.”

Just look at the facts. Enforcement of immigration laws is a joke in the United States and everybody in South and Central America knows it. Then, Mr. Obama himself unilaterally granted amnesty to children in the U.S. illegally.

How does he now claim to be surprised by the humanitarian crisis of children flooding the border? What did he think would happen?

If ever there were a serious crisis not to let “go to waste,” it is this one now.

The president could finally get serious about enforcing immigration laws on businesses that hire illegals. He could begin real deportations. And he could send the starkest message yet by returning the children streaming across the border to their families back home.

Instead, the president keeps harping about “comprehensive immigration reform,” which is politicalese for refusing to enforce border laws until a widespread amnesty process is approved for all illegals. Of course, this is precisely why we have the humanitarian crisis on the border in the first place.

Mr. Obama plans to travel to Texas this week to attend political fundraisers. Astonishingly, the White House says that while is he collecting political campaign cash, he has no plans to visit the border.

Indeed, a serious crisis wasted by a president who apparently does not care.

Rick Perry on his meeting with President Obama

The president stays north of the border

Chief White House Calligrapher Paid $97,692 Salary

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Wynton Hall

U.S. taxpayers paid $37.8 million in salaries for President Obama's 456 White House employees, according to a newly released administration report.

With a median individual salary of $70,700 per year, White House workers make well above the median household income of just $51,017.

Salaries ranged from $172,200 to $42,000. President Obama's 22 senior administration officials, such as Valerie Jarrett and John Podesta, all bagged the top end of the salary scale. Others, like Chief Calligrapher Patricia A. Blair, cost taxpayers $97,692. Calligrapher Debra S. Brown receives a $86,812 salary.

Obama, who was not included in the list, earns $400,000. a year. 

The White House said it was releasing how much money U.S. taxpayers pay for Obama's staff in order to remain "consistent with President Obama's commitment to transparency."

President Obama and illegal immigration

O'Reilly: Subverting American democracy

Supreme Court limits president's recess appointment power

foxnews

The Supreme Court delivered a blow Thursday to President Obama, ruling that he went too far in making recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. 

In a unanimous decision, the high court sided with Senate Republicans and limited the president's power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments. It was the first-ever Supreme Court test involving the long-standing practice of presidents naming appointees when the Senate is on break. 

In this case, Obama had argued that the Senate was on an extended holiday break when he filled slots at the NLRB in 2012. He argued the brief sessions it held every three days were a sham that was intended to prevent him from filling the seats. 

The justices rejected that argument, though, declaring the Senate was not actually in a formal recess when Obama acted during that three-day window. 

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his majority opinion that a congressional break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution. 

"Three days is too short a time to bring a recess within the scope of the Clause. Thus we conclude that the President lacked the power to make the recess appointments here at issue," Breyer wrote. 

At the same time, the court upheld the general authority of the president to make recess appointments. 

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, among those who criticized the president for unilaterally filling the NLRB slots, applauded the high court decision on Thursday. 

"The president made an unprecedented power grab by placing political allies at a powerful federal agency while the Senate was meeting regularly and without even bothering to wait for its advice and consent," he said in a statement. "A unanimous Supreme Court has rejected this brazen power-grab." 

On a separate track, House Speaker John Boehner said a day earlier he plans to proceed with a lawsuit against the president over his alleged abuse of executive power. 

Reacting to the Supreme Court decision on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the administration is "deeply disappointed" in the ruling. He said that while the administration disagrees with the decision, it will honor it. 

The issue of recess appointments receded in importance after the Senate's Democratic majority changed the rules to make it harder for Republicans to block confirmation of most Obama appointees. 

But the ruling's impact may be keenly felt by the White House next year if Republicans capture control of the Senate in the November election. The potential importance of the ruling lies in the Senate's ability to block the confirmation of judges and the leaders of independent agencies like the NLRB. A federal law gives the president the power to appoint acting heads of Cabinet-level departments to keep the government running. 

Still, the outcome could have been worse for the administration. The justices, by a 5-4 vote, rejected a sweeping lower court ruling against the administration that would have made it virtually impossible for any future president to make recess appointments. 

The lower court held that the only recess recognized by the Constitution is the once-a-year break between sessions of Congress. It also said that only vacancies that arise in that recess could be filled. So the high court has left open the possibility that a president, with a compliant Congress, could make recess appointments in the future.  

The case decided Thursday arose out of a dispute between the NLRB and a Pepsi-Cola distributor, Noel Canning. The NLRB had ruled against him in a labor dispute, but Canning argued that three of the five board members were improperly appointed. 

A recess appointment can last no more than two years. Recess appointees who subsequently won Senate confirmation include Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William Brennan, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, two current NLRB members and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray. Former UN Ambassador John Bolton is among recess appointees who left office because they could not win a Senate vote. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Boehner Confirms Lawsuit Against Obama for Executive Actions

NBC News.com

By Frank Thorp V

House Speaker John Boehner will file a lawsuit against the Obama administration for its use of executive actions to change laws, he formally announced Wednesday.

"I believe the President is not faithfully executing the laws of our country, and on behalf of the institution and our constitution standing up and fighting for this is in the best long term interest of the Congress," he said.

Boehner would not say which executive action the lawsuit would target specifically.

The specifics and mechanics of the suit have yet to be worked out, but Boehner could enlist an organization called the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to carry it out.

Because that body is controlled by the Speaker, the Majority Leader, the Majority Whip, the Minority Leader and the Minority Whip, Republicans could order the lawsuit to go ahead even if Democrats objected.

The speaker insisted Wednesday that the lawsuit does not amount to an effort to impeach the president.

"This is not about impeachment, this is about his faithfully executing the laws of our country," Boehner said.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Wednesday said he is confident the president has operated well within the confines of the law and that Republicans have brought the suit simply because they disagree with Obama's policies.

"This lawsuit is not going to consume the attention of the White House," Earnest said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday called the lawsuit "subterfuge."

"They're doing nothing here and so they have to give some aura of activity," she said.

Barack Obama mistaken for England footballer on mug

ITN

 

From The White House: On Mujica and Castro

capitolhillcubans

Cuba’s continued incarceration of Alan Gross represents a significant impediment to a more constructive bilateral relationship and securing his immediate release remains a top priority of the United States. President Obama asked that President Mujica use any opportunity he might have to convey this same message to President Castro. With respect to Cuba, President Obama urged President Mujica to use his considerable credibility as a regional leader to encourage political and economic reforms in Cuba, noting that such measures would be well received by the United States and other members of the international community.

-- Patrick Ventrell, National Security Council spokesman, The White House, 6/20/14

Confirman que Obama sí envió mensaje a Raúl Castro

martinoticias

El presidente Barack Obama, envió un mensaje a Raúl Castro a través del presidente de Uruguay, José Mujica, en el que pide al gobernante cubano la liberación del contratista estadounidense, Alan Gross  y el fomento de reformas políticas, declaró el portavoz del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, Patrick Ventrell.

El vocero explicó que con respecto a Cuba, el presidente Obama ha instado a su par uruguayo, durante su visita a los Estados Unidos en mayo pasado,  a que haga uso de su considerable credibilidad como líder regional para fomentar las reformas políticas y económicas en  la isla, señalando que esas medidas serían bien recibidas por los Estados Unidos y otros miembros de la comunidad internacional.

Ventrell añadió que el presidente Obama pidió al presidente Mujica utilizar cualquier oportunidad que pudiera para transmitir ese mismo mensaje a Raúl Castro.

El semanario uruguayo Búsqueda, primero en informar sobre la carta de Obama a Mujica, el jueves, dijo que Mujica transmitió el mensaje del presidente estadounidense a Castro el pasado fin de semana, cuando Mujica y Castro asistieron a la cumbre del G-77 en Bolivia.

Marco Rubio: 'The Obama Presidency Is Over'

breitbart 

In an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Wednesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) hit President Barack Obama on the grounds of his low poll numbers, particularly as a newly released NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows 54 percent of those polled saying they no longer feel the president “is able to lead the country and get the job done.”

Rubio agreed with NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd, who earlier in the day said the Obama presidency is effective over.

“I saw a commentator today say that these polls they reflected with the Obama presidency is over,” Rubio said. “And I agree with that. I think it is in general. Obviously he still has responsibilities that I hope he'll live up to. But whether it's foreign policy or the issue on the border, or the VA, or the IRS losing its e-mails or Benghazi before that, it seems like every day now, every other day, there's a new crisis -- almost like we're overwhelmed by the number of crisis and conflicts that are arising as a result of the incompetence and in some instances the design of this administration.”

Rubio also criticized the Obama’s handling of the unfolding crisis in Iraq. The Florida senator emphasized the need to cut off the ISIS supply lines from Syria into Iraq in his criticism and he took issue with Obama taking certain actions off of the table.

“First of all, I don't think the president should be ruling things out even if he never intends to send a single American back. And by the way I don't take that lightly, nor am I calling for that. But you don't start by telling terrorists, here's what we're not going to do. But second, I think we need to use American power, primarily air power and targeted missile strikes to wipe out the ISIS advance, particularly these supply routes that they now have in place. Again, this is not about saving Maliki. This is about preventing these guys from setting up a caliphate that they're going to use to attack us here in the United States.”

O'Reilly: Figuring out what to do

Is there a bigger story behind the Bergdahl exchange?