Posts Tagged ‘White House’
Obama Campaign Announces It Will Protest Obama Administration
Oct17
By John Feehery
(Chicago, IL) Today, David Axelrod, the chief of the Re-elect Obama Campaign, today announced that it will formally join the Occupy Wall Street protests and start mobilizing against the policies endorsed by the Obama Administration.
Axelrod brandished a Tim Geithner bobblehead doll, which he stabbed repeatedly with a pen knife while chanting an indecipherable spell, which he later said he hoped would lead to the Treasury Secretary’s immediate departure from his office.
Axelrod, in announcing this unusual campaign, said: “We have decided that we aren’t going to defend the indefensible. Yes, we have terrible unemployment. Yes, Wall Street is getting away with murder. Yes, people have lost faith in the future. As much as I have tried, we can’t blame Bush for this anymore. We have to blame the Obama Administration.”
“I believe in Barack Obama, the campaigner. I have lost faith in Barack Obama, the President. So our campaign will basically run against the President and urge his replacement with the guy on the campaign.”
When a reporter pointed out that essentially the campaigner and the President were the same person, Axelrod smirked and said: “No, they are not. You don’t know the real Barack Obama, like I do. The real Barack Obama would never extend the Bush tax cuts, tax cuts that he campaigned against in the last election. The real Barack Obama would never sign an expansion of NAFTA to include Panama, Columbia and South Korea. He said that he would repeal NAFTA in his first campaign for President!”
“The real Barack Obama would never allow his Treasury Secretary to coddle Wall Street like Geithner does. He would never take on the Teacher’s Unions like that Duncan dude does. He would never, ever, play so much damn golf. That is a rich man’s sport. Something in the White House water must compel Presidents to take up that damn game.”
“The Obama campaign is at one with the Occupy Wall Street crowd, and we are going to be using them to help us round up votes to replace the current President with a better, more liberal one.”
“And if that doesn’t work, we will move to replace Barack with Michelle.”
The White House Press Secretary Jay Carney wept uncontrollably when asked about this latest move by the Obama campaign: “I knew I should have stayed at Time Magazine. I am going to slug Biden for getting me into to this,” he said, with tears streaming down his face.
Quick Trade
Oct13
By John Feehery
Well, that was quick.
Yesterday, as I drove through Washington’s streets, all I saw was a bunch of traffic, made worse by the 30 rabble-rousers who occupied a half-block in downtown D.C.
Today, dozens of South Korean flags were fluttering in the pouring rain.
The President of South Korea is in town, meeting with Barack Obama and addressing a joint session of Congress.
Apparently, this visit constituted an important enough deadline to compel Congress to finally act on a free trade agreement with one of our best Asian allies.
The House and Senate usually only work this quickly together when they pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open.
South Korea wasn’t the only trade pact passed in a New York minute yesterday. So were the Colombia and Panama Free Trade agreements.
If you like NAFTA, you will love this trio of trade pacts.
If you don’t like NAFTA, you will be despondent.
The big business and the agriculture sectors love free trade. Free trade makes it easier for our companies to sell their products at a lower price to more customers and that is something that makes farmers and multi-national CEO’s very happy.
Labor hates free trade. More competition from foreign companies usually means lower wages for workers at the bottom rung of the chain. Workers that are protected by labor agreements are threatened because many companies would rather move their operations overseas than be forced to pay unnecessarily higher wages for low-skill workers.
President Obama campaigned against NAFTA, you may recall. He promised to take a look at repealing the trade agreements. That is how he got labor support.
The President’s campaign team assailed Mitt Romney for being a “flip-flopper” for some inconsistencies in the former Massachusetts governor.
Mr. Obama is not a flip-flopper. It seems to me that he is a liar.
He campaigned on getting rid of trade agreements like NAFTA, and now he is hurriedly pushing to expand NAFTA to other countries in Asia and Central America because he wants to save face with the South Korean President.
Wow!
I am a free-trade guy. Always have been and always will be. So I like the fact that we have these Bush-Administration trade agreements finally in place.
But putting my pundit’s hat on, I can’t see how passing these trade agreements so quickly is going to somehow settle down either the Tea Party or the Occupy Wall Street folks.
Free trade is the right thing to do, but it is not very popular with the voters.
Fast-tracking the votes and jamming it through both the House and Senate similarly was the right thing to do, but it won’t be very popular with the voters either.
My guess is that President Obama is going to quietly sign these new trade pacts without the glare of the television cameras in his face.
Big labor may want to rethink its support for their man in the White House.
