White Americans Sold Into Slavery to European Bankers

US taxpayers have bailed out AIG, the largest insurance company in the world and we learn now that billions of those dollars were then given to mostly European banks and/or banks that had already received billions of taxpayer bailout dollars. The Republicans and many whites, in general, have often scapegoated using African Americans and Mexicans when the economic situation sours. This is the opportunity for those defined as "white" to rise above the level of those who have often manipulated you against other groups. It is time to unite and make America what it should be.

Who are those banks that are getting over on American labor and what remains of its wealth? Who are the politicians, bankers and corporate officials who have betrayed the interests of the country that made their wealth possible? What should we do about these bailouts? Who needs to go to prison? Who needs to be removed from political office?

Schwarzenegger to help Obama answer GOP critics

LOS ANGELES – President Barack Obama is playing a bit of divide and conquer this week, pitting his Republican critics in Washington against GOP governors and mayors eager for the federal money that his hard-fought stimulus plan will bring. Next on the list of Republican notables to embrace the president is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is to join Obama at a town hall meeting Thursday in Los Angeles.

Congress recently enacted Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill without a single House Republican's vote, and with only three GOP senators' votes.

Republican governors have had mixed reactions to the massive measure. Some hardline conservatives, such as Mark Sanford of South Carolina, have rejected portions of the economic bounty.

Other GOP governors, including Charlie Crist of Florida, have welcomed Obama and the stimulus money. Schwarzenegger is casting his lot with that group.

As Obama began his two-day Southern California visit Wednesday in Costa Mesa, the White House released a list of projects to be funded with stimulus money. They include adding an eastbound lane to the Riverside Freeway/SR91 in Orange County. Obama's mention of the project drew cheers from a crowd of 1,300 that greeted him in Costa Mesa.

When a recently laid-off school teacher told Obama of her plight, he said the stimulus will help thousands of teachers nationwide keep their jobs.

Throughout the trip, Obama is playing the role of the embattled populist crusader, helping average Americans fight entrenched interests on Capitol Hill and Wall Street.

He said Southern California's weather and conversations are much nicer than in Washington. The conversation Wednesday was more one-sided, to be sure, as the Costa Mesa crowd cheered, 2,500 miles from the Capitol's shadow.

He defended his ambitious plan to overhaul health care, energy, education, taxes and spending policies in the coming months, against unidentified forces aligned against him.

"I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should focus on only one problem at a time: 'our problem,'" Obama said. "But that's just not the way it works."

"You don't get to choose between paying your mortgage bills or your medical bills," he told those in a hot auditorium. The government also must tackle multiple challenges at the same time, he said.

Obama spoke for 21 minutes, then took eight questions. The first: Will he seek re-election in 2012?

"If I could get done what I think needs to get done in four years, even if it meant that I was only president for four years, I would rather be a good president — to take on the tough issues for four years — than a mediocre president for eight years," Obama said.

There were other whiffs of self-sacrifice. Referring to the uproar over bonuses paid to executives of the largely nationalized AIG insurance company, Obama said: "I know Washington's all in a tizzy, and everybody's pointing fingers at each other and saying, 'It's their fault, the Democrats' fault, the Republicans' fault.' Listen, I'll take responsibility. I'm the president."

In the same breath, he said, "We didn't draft these contracts." But he added, "It is appropriate when you're in charge to make sure that stuff doesn't happen like this."

Obama tried to head off questions about AIG by saying he understood taxpayers' anger. And he tried to broaden the issue, which has vexed his young administration.

"These bonuses, outrageous as they are, are a symptom of a much larger problem," he said. It's "a culture where people made enormous sums of money taking irresponsible risks that have now put the entire economy at risk."

In fact, no one asked Obama about AIG. The questions focused on jobs, schools, union rights and other issues that are easier for him to handle.

One little curve ball came, however, on a topic Obama rarely mentions on his own: immigration. Before a crowd that seemed divided on the emotional, politically dangerous issue, Obama said he still supports "comprehensive immigration reform."

The nation must find a way, he said, to strengthen its borders while also giving about 12 million illegal immigrants a path to possible citizenship.

"People who have been here for a long time and put down roots," he said, should have "a mechanism over time to get out of the shadows" and achieve legal status, including citizenship.

They would have to learn English, pay a significant fine and "go to the back of the line" of those applying for legal entry, he said.

Former President George W. Bush backed a similar immigration program. But it died in Congress amid heavy criticisms, especially from those saying too many illegal immigrants have been allowed to enter the country.

Before returning to Washington late Thursday, Obama will tape an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

Smush Trashes Kobe in an interview

Obama's town hall in GOP heartland -- and open to the public

President Barack Obama will make his first official stop in blue-state California with a two day trip starting Wednesday -- but here's the twist: He has chosen the GOP heartland of Costa Mesa in Orange County for his debut town hall meeting here.

That's classic OC territory -- the site of the weekly Orange County Swap Meet, within shouting distance of the South Coast Mall, one of the hallowed altars of OC culture, and at the epicenter of a world-class freeway tangle that is the stuff of nightmares. So, yeah, there will be issues to talk about.

The White House announced this morning that on Wednesday, Obama will open the town-hall session, starting at 4 p.m. That's followed the next day by a tour of the Edison International Vehicle Electrics Plant in Pomona.

The town hall is scheduled for the Orange County Fair and Event Center -- and free tickets are available to the public on a first- come, first-served basis. They'll be distributed starting Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the following location: OC Fair and Event Center (Enter at Gate 1 or Gate 10; park in Lot A.), 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa.

So if you haven't caught the O yet on the campaign trail -- or if you think the press still isn't asking the tough questions -- here's your chance, OCers.

Nigerian student gets 19 years' jail for love scam

LAGOS (Reuters) – A Nigerian undergraduate has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for obtaining $47,000 (33,382 pounds) from an Australian woman by convincing her over the Internet that he was 57 years old, white, and madly in love with her.

Lawal Adekunle Nurudeen met his victim on the Internet in 2007 and convinced her that he was a British widower called Benson Lawson. He said he was an engineer working in Lagos whose wife and only child had been killed in a car accident.

"The victim, a 56-year-old woman from Australia, told the convict that she wanted a husband and all the men she had met always disappointed her," said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria's anti-corruption police.

"The convict, who is married with three children, instantly replied and told the victim she had met her Mr Right ... He sent the picture of a white man to foreclose any suspicions."

The woman sent Nurudeen money for medical treatment and travel costs to visit Australia. He spent the funds on two plots of land and a Honda Prelude car.

Nigerian confidence tricksters have a long history of extorting money via the Internet through "419" scams, named after the clause that outlaws them in Nigeria's penal code. Many are never caught.

The EFCC said Nurudeen was ordered to pay around $10,000 immediately and a further $250 a month to his victim until the full amount stolen was returned. She would also receive the proceeds of the sale of his land and car.

US firm to close branch due to lack of employees

the Florida, US-based Sykes Enterprises works in front of her terminal …

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TAMPA, Florida (AFP) – A Florida-based firm will soon close one of its North Dakota offices for a reason that seems unfathomable during the deepening US recession: it can't find enough employees to hire.

Sykes Enterprises, which specializes in creating and maintaining computer customer care services for corporations, opened a telephone call center in Minot, North Dakota in 1996. Last May, management wanted to increase the number of employees to 450.

Yet an unexpected thing happened: so few people applied for the Minot jobs that the Tampa-headquartered company will have to close the call center on May 10 -- a cutback by Sykes that will result in 200 people losing their jobs.

"We've been working for several months there (in Minot) to find enough applicants for the work, since we have been experiencing significant growth in the US," said Sykes spokeswoman Andrea Burnett.

She also told AFP that Sykes advertised for many months in the local Minot electronic and press media for applicants.

The state of North Dakota has bucked the national trend which has seen the US economy hemorrhage 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate to a 25-year high of 8.1 percent and pointing to an ever-deepening recession.

But the unemployment rate in North Dakota stood at just 5.1 percent, one of the lowest in the nation.

And Minot in particular has been seemingly recession-proof with the city's economy being based on agricultural commodities and oil production, and with it being the home town of a US Air Force base. The micro-economies of all three are productive, leading to Minot's economic healthiness.

Geography, demographics and weather may have kept outsiders from applying for the jobs. The sparsely populated state of just 640,000 residents is in the far northern Great Plains, one of the remotest regions in the contiguous United States.

Parts of North Dakota, including the northwest where Minot, a city of about 40,000, is located, can be as cold as Alaska during winter months.

Gridiron singed by Obama no-show

No offense intended, says the Obama White House.

None taken, say the esteemed leaders of the Gridiron Club.

Still, in Washington, a slap does not have to be officially labeled as such for its sound to echo — and its sting to be felt.

And make no mistake: President Barack Obama deciding that he is too busy to attend the Gridiron’s annual banquet later this month is a slap. He’s the first president since Grover Cleveland to skip the white-tie-and-tails affair in his first year in office.

The official line from the Gridiron Club — a society of Washington reporters, columnists, and bureau chiefs — is, “We understand.”

But some Gridiron veterans make clear they don’t understand. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said, “People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed and burned.

“I don’t think he understands the implications of not coming to the club in the first year. It’s not your ordinary state dinner. I think it would be helpful for him and his relations with the Washington establishment to come to the club.”

Beyond bruised feelings among the pundit class, Obama’s snub is a revealing cultural moment.

Gridiron has for decades been an inner sanctum of Washington’s political press corps. The club’s mostly aging members were considered highly prestigious because they said so — and because they had the ability to summon the capital’s political elite to a spring frolic of skits and songs.

But if a young and glamorous president decides he can afford to blow off an august and tradition-bound institution, one has to at least entertain the possibility that this institution may not be quite as august as its members assumed.

The rejection was heightened by the that’s-the-night-I-wash-my-hair explanation the Gridiron got from Obama.

At first, Gridiron members heard through back channels that the Obama family would be in Chicago during the Obama daughters’ spring break from school. Then, on Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing that the family would actually be in Camp David on March 21, the night of the dinner.

That’s not exactly out of town by presidential standards — in fact, it is about a 20-minute helicopter ride if Obama had decided the event were important enough.

According to one member, “We got the impression from talking to our senior members who had talked to senior people at the White House that Mrs. Obama had made the decision about the family’s spring break and no one on the senior staff was about to challenge that.”

A White House official said this is untrue — Obama made the decision and it should not be pinned unfairly on the first lady.

The White House said larger meaning should not be read into Obama’s choice. An official told POLITICO via e-mail, “The assumption was we would do this — then we found out the girls would have spring break — it was as simple as that.”

But the chattering class that either attends the Gridiron dinner or busies itself finding out who did reads large meaning into small events. So there was zero chance that Obama’s gesture would not be carefully dissected.

Is the Gridiron still vital? Still cool?

“Was it ever cool?” asked D.C. journalist Matt Cooper. He’s never been to the dinner but said it reeks of old-timers. “It always seemed kind of geriatric. The humor is slightly out of sync in the Jon Stewart and even the Johnny Carson era,” he said. “In general, isn’t it musical comedy?”

But if not exactly cutting edge, the Gridiron in the view of some observers serves a function in the Washington ecology.

“It’s a tradition of massaging the cooperating aspects of the relationship between the president and the press,” said presidential historian and political scientist Martha Joynt Kumar. “They are in a relationship in which each is tied to the other; neither can do its job without the other.”

And for that, she said, “I think the Gridiron is going to survive. I wouldn’t read too much into [Obama] not showing. ... Don’t look upon this as Armageddon.”

Even so, it was a fate the Gridiron tried mightily to avoid.

Gridiron Secretary Carl Leubsdorf and member George Condon took on the responsibility of lobbying the White House press office about the president’s attendance. The effort started when Gridiron President Dick Cooper gave an Obama aide an invitation letter to the president-elect at a Washington social event in December. “After that, every contact we had with them was very positive,” Leubsdorf said. “Every indication was that he was coming.”

Condon took the job of talking to Gibbs about it. “There was a lot of back and forth between me and Robert,” Condon said. “I would pop in and ask. And he was trying to find out.” Then, on Feb. 28, Jay Carney of Vice President Joe Biden’s office sent an e-mail to one of the club’s officers, indicating that Biden would be filling in for Obama.

One of the Gridiron’s big challenges has nothing to do with Obama. Consider the names in the paragraph above. The regional newspaper bureaus from which the club drew many of its members are on the ropes. Leubsdorf works for The Dallas Morning News, which has scaled back its capital staff. George Condon was bureau chief for the Copley newspaper chain — owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune — which recently shuttered its bureau. He now writes for CongressDaily. Dick Cooper worked for the Los Angeles Times, which has suffered severe cuts to its D.C. bureau and was merged with the Tribune Co. for whom he now works.

The club’s motto is “singe but never burn,” and its members rehearse for months the ditties parodying the president and other Washington politicians.

As it happens, the proceedings are supposed to be off the record — an odd custom, arguably, for a press association — but the best lines and performances all make it quickly into widespread circulation. Each year, there is a Democratic and Republican speaker. This year, the choices are California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michigan Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Obama does not evidently have any disdain for the dinner. He attended in 2004 and 2006, when he even sang a song.

Some presidents have been downright hostile toward the ritual. Richard Nixon started skipping the events, and even declined to send the vice president. But even that was a validation of sorts — the Gridiron was worth getting worked up about.

Is it still?

Many (relatively) younger journalists say it is still an honor to be invited to join. Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum said he recently joined “because I was asked.” Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty’s rationale: “It’s fun!”

“I kind of like the retro and tradition-bound nature of it — it very much is part of its charm and part of what makes it fun,” Tumulty said.

According to Purdum, “It’s like the Statue of Liberty or liver and onions: You’d miss it if it wasn’t there.”

Members emphasize that Obama’s absence hasn’t changed any songs or the lineup. Associate member Annie Groer said that, even without the president, “it will be no less a schmooze-fest.”

As for Obama’s choice, Groer said, “I don’t see it as an insult. I think his priorities are perfectly in order.”

Leubsdorf also notes that this year the dinner is two weeks later than last year — and they signed the contract three years ago. “I suspect this would have never come up and he would have been at the dinner,” he said. “Having it later worked against us.”

It’s not like the Gridiron is being left with a bunch of political B-listers. In addition to Biden, most members of the Cabinet are planning to attend, along with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, according to one member.

Club historian Cheryl Arvidson said: “I don’t think the club is going to take this personally. I think the Gridiron is an important part of Washington. I don’t think that the absence of the president is what’s going to bring the club into any sort of spiral effect.”

Leubsdorf laughs off the naysayers of his club thusly: “People think its silly, old fashioned, so be it. Some people think baseball is silly — I think it’s great.”

And Purdum is taking the long view: “This too shall pass.”