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What Change!!!!

Russia has thrown down a new gauntlet to Barack Obama

In announcement that it will sharply increase production of strategic nuclear missiles

The latest of a series of combative moves by the Kremlin, a senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years, as part of a massive rearmament programme which will also include short-range missiles, 300 tanks, 14 warships and 50 planes.

Military experts said the planned new arsenal was presumed to consist of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) rather than submarine-launched missiles. If this is the case, the plans represent a fourfold increase in the rate of ICBM deployment. The arsenal will include a new-generation, multiple-warhead ICBM called the RS-24. It was first test-fired in 2007, with first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov boasting it was "capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems".

The new missiles will be part of a £95bn defence procurement package for 2009-2011, a 28% increase in arms spending, according to Vladislav Putilin of the cabinet's military-industrial commission. There will be further increases in spending in the following two years.

The new military procurements follow the war in Georgia in August. Russian forces easily routed Georgian troops, but the conflict exposed weaknesses in the Russian army, including outdated equipment and poorly co-ordinated command structures. The defence ministry said it would carry out drastic reforms, turning the army into a more modern force.

Vladimir Putin on Monday urged cabinet officials to quickly allocate funds for new weapons and closely control the quality and pace of their production. Military experts said the construction of 70 long-range nuclear missiles in the next three years represented a Russian attempt to strengthen its bargaining position with Washington, in talks aimed at agreeing new nuclear weapons cuts when the current treaty in force, Start I, expires next December.

Moscow's strategy appears to be to challenge Obama's new administration as soon as it takes office on 20 January. On the day Obama was elected the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, announced plans to station short-range Iskander missiles in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave as a counter to American installation of its missile defence system in eastern Europe.

Ruben Sergeev, an expert on disarmament issues, said Moscow was afraid of falling behind in a new arms race.

"Russia is decommissioning its old liquid-fuel missiles from the Soviet era at a rate of several dozen every year," he said. "The Kremlin knows that if it doesn't increase production of ICBMs rapidly now then it will have no chance of getting a new arms reduction treaty out of the US, which has much greater quantities of missiles." Negotiations on a successor to Start I have been bogged down in detail, and hamstrung by the Bush administration's lame duck status.

The chief US negotiator, John Rood, said last week that the latest sticking point was Russian insistence that the new treaty cover long-range delivery systems, such as bombers and missiles, intended for conventional arms as well as nuclear warheads. The US wants the treaty to focus solely on nuclear warheads.

Moscow has also signalled that it would supply Tehran with new surface-to-air missiles in defiance of US opposition. Washington has asked for more information on the sales, fearing the weapons being sold include long-range S-300 missiles, which have a 120km (75 mile) range. They could threaten US planes in Iraq, and could also protect Iranian nuclear sites from aerial attack.

The US has set aside its own plans for military action against Iran for now, but US officials hoped that fear of an Israeli strike would make Iran more amenable to suspending its enrichment of uranium.

Arms treaties
Start I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, July 1991, limited US and Soviet Union to long-range nuclear arsenals of 6,000 warheads on 1,600 delivery systems. Expires 5 December 2009.

INF Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty 1987 banned missiles such as the US Cruise with range of 3,500 miles.

Start II Signed 1993, supposed to ban multiple warheads on long-range missiles. Russian Duma delayed ratifying and it never came into force.

Start III Negotiated in 1997 to reduce nuclear stockpiles to 2,000-2,500 warheads, but fell apart over the US missile defence system. Talks resumed in 2007.

Sort Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, or 2002 Moscow Treaty, cuts US and Russian arsenals to 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed warheads each. No verification procedures.

President-elect team Barack Obama says his own investigation shows no wrong doing by his own team

Washington(AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama and two of his top aides met last week with federal investigators building a corruption case against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, accused of trying to swap Obama's Senate seat for cash or a lucrative job.

The interviews with Obama, along with incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and adviser Valerie Jarrett, were disclosed Tuesday in an internal report produced for Obama on contacts with Blagojevich. The report supported Obama's insistence last week that there had been no inappropriate contact with the governor's office by Obama or his staff.

Obama delayed releasing his report until U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's staff had completed the interviews with Obama and his two top aides, incoming White House attorney Greg Craig said in the review he wrote for Obama.

Obama, who was accompanied by lawyer Robert Bauer in the interview, had no contact with the governor or his aides, the report states. Prosecutors have said Obama is not implicated in the case.

"We are satisfied there was nothing inappropriate that took place here, either in terms of conversations or communications or contacts, between transition officials and the governor's office," Craig said after releasing the report.

Emanuel was the only Obama transition team member who discussed the Senate appointment with Blagojevich, and those conversations were "totally appropriate and acceptable," Craig said Tuesday. No one on Obama's transition team discussed any deals or had any knowledge of deals, Craig's report said.

Sources have said Emanuel is not a target in the case. Jarrett also is not a target of the federal investigation, a transition official said. Both were accompanied by lawyers for their interviews with the prosecutor's staff, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Craig's report identified close Obama friend Eric Whitaker as someone approached by one of Blagojevich's top aides to learn "who, if anyone, had the authority to speak for the president-elect" about the Senate appointment.

The report states that Obama told Whitaker that "no one was authorized to speak for him" and that "he had no interest in dictating the result of the selection process."

Blagojevich was charged on Dec. 9 with plotting to use his governor's authority to appoint Obama's Senate replacement and make state appointments and contracts in exchange for cash and other favors. He has denied any criminal wrongdoing and has resisted multiple calls for his resignation, including one from Obama.

Blagojevich attorney Edward M. Genson, who has said allegations that the governor was trying to sell or trade the Senate seat are built on nothing but talk, said Obama's report proves his point.

"I've said from the beginning that there was nothing inappropriate, and this just corroborates what I've said," Genson said.

Prosecutors have accused Blagojevich of scheming with aides and advisers to reap some personal benefit in the Senate appointment, starting days before Obama's Nov. 4 election through Dec. 5. Their conversations are characterized and quoted in the criminal complaint, including discussions about swapping the appointment if Obama provided a Cabinet post, an ambassadorship and help raising millions for a private foundation that Blagojevich could tap for personal use.

But Obama's report says none of Blagojevich's aides reached out to the president-elect's staff. Only the contact with Whitaker is noted in the report.

Emanuel's contacts with the governor and his staff are identified in Obama's report.

During Emanuel's interview Saturday with federal authorities, he listened to a taped recording of at least one conversation he had with Blagojevich's office, according to a transition official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss information not included in the report.

Craig's report states that Emanuel had "one or two telephone calls" with Blagojevich and four conversations with John Harris, the governor's chief of staff who later resigned after being charged in the federal case. Craig told reporters Emanuel said he couldn't be sure it was only one call.

Harris' lawyer, James Sotos, declined to comment Tuesday.

Emanuel left for a long-planned family vacation in Africa on Tuesday and was not available for comment.

The report was released in Washington while Obama was vacationing in Hawaii. The president-elect did not make himself available for questions.

The report said Obama authorized Emanuel to pass on the names of four people he considered to be highly qualified to take over his seat - Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, Illinois Veterans' Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth, Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Obama later offered other names of what he thought were qualified candidates, including Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Chicago Urban League Director Cheryle Jackson, the report said.

"Mr. Harris did not make any effort to extract a personal benefit for the governor in any of these conversations," the report said. There was no discussion of a Cabinet position, creation of a nonprofit foundation for Blagojevich, a private sector position or of any other personal benefit for the governor, according to the report.

The report said that earlier, Emanuel recommended Jarrett for the Senate seat without Obama's knowledge, and Jarrett later accepted a job as a senior White House adviser.

Obama's report states Jarrett did not have any contact with the governor or his staff about the appointment, and had no sense Blagojevich was seeking something in exchange. But she discussed the appointment with Tom Balanoff, the head of the Illinois chapter of the Service Employees International Union, the report states.

SEIU officials are referenced, but not named, in an FBI affidavit filed with the federal complaint against Blagojevich. Blagojevich is quoted as discussing some of his schemes with a union official.

Balanoff, believed to be one of the unnamed parties referenced in the affidavit, told Jarrett that he spoke to the governor about her possible appointment to the Senate, the Obama report says. In that conversation, Balanoff also told Jarrett that the governor "raised with him the question" of being appointed Obama's health and human services secretary.

Balanoff said he told Blagojevich that wouldn't happen, and Jarrett agreed, the report states.

There was no suggestion to Jarrett that the Senate appointment was linked to the Cabinet post, the report states.

Blagojevich mentioned in a Nov. 5 conversation with an aide taped by the FBI that he would take the HHS job or "various ambassadorships" in exchange for appointing Obama's choice, according the affidavit. The affidavit states he discussed again days later with an unnamed SEIU official, believed to be Balanoff.

The governor told advisers in a Nov. 10 discussion that "it was unlikely" Obama would give him the HHS appointment or an ambassadorship, and he discussed other favors he could seek, according to the complaint.

Obama's report also addresses confusion over earlier statements by David Axelrod, a top adviser who had said at one point that Obama discussed the Senate appointment with Blagojevich. Axelrod had discussed potential recommendations for the Senate appointment with Obama and Emanuel, and "was under the impression" that Obama would offer those to Blagojevich.

"He later learned that it was Mr. Emanuel who conveyed those names," the report states.

Craig revealed his findings in a memo to Obama. The memo was dated Tuesday, but a transition official said an initial copy was given to Obama on Dec. 15. On that day, Obama announced that the report was ready but that he was withholding it from the public for a week at the request of prosecutors still conducting their investigation.

The report is based on the Obama team investigating itself, and was conducted by interviewing staff and taking their answers about any contacts at their word. Gibbs said this was consistent with the charge given to Craig by the president-elect.

A transition official said Craig doesn't have the legal power to more thoroughly investigate and try to corroborate the accounts The official spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely discuss the thinking behind the inquiry.

---

Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven and Ben Feller in Washington, and Mike Robinson in Chicago, contributed to this report.

Obama's change message may Ground NASA's Next Moon Mission?

Getting into a shouting match with the HR rep is not exactly the best way to land a job. But according to the Orlando Sentinel, that's just what happened last week between NASA administrator Mike Griffin and Lori Garver, a member of Barack Obama's transition team who will help decide if Griffin keeps his post once the President-elect takes office. If the contretemps did occur, it could help doom not only the NASA chief's chances, but the space agency's ambitious plans to get Americans back to the moon.

The mere fact that the story is making the rounds reflects the very real friction between NASA and the transition team — which has sparked a groundswell of support among space agency employees to keep the boss. Within NASA, there is a real concern that while the Obama campaign rode the call for change to a thumping victory in November, change is precisely what the space agency does not need. (See photos of different countries' space programs here.)

The stagnant NASA of the past 20 years has been poised to become a very new NASA — thanks, in many respects, to the outgoing Bush Administration. In 2004, the President announced a new push to return astronauts to the moon and eventually get them to Mars. Many skeptics saw the hand of political whiz Karl Rove in that, suspecting that the whole idea was just a bag of election year goodies for space-happy states like Florida and Texas, as well as for voters nostalgic for the glory days of Apollo. But Bush, NASA and Congress did mean business, and eventually came up with a plan under which the space station would be completed and the shuttle would be retired by 2010. That would free up about $4 billion per year, which would be used to pay for a new generation of expendable boosters as well as a 21st century version of the Apollo orbiter and lunar lander for those rockets to carry. (Read about the space moon race here.)

"At the time, the shuttle had flown 290 people, and out of those 14 were dead — nearly one in 20," says Scott Horowitz, a four-time shuttle veteran who designed the Ares 1, one of the new boosters. "We needed something that was an order of magnitude safer."

NASA has moved with uncharacteristic nimbleness in the last five years and is already cutting metal on the new machines in the hope of having crews in Earth orbit by 2015 and on the moon by 2020. Schedules have slipped some — the original plan was to launch the orbital missions in 2014 — and costs have swollen, though so far not dramatically. (See the Top 50 space moments since Sputnik.)

"We've been moving in the right direction since the Columbia accident [in 2003]," says Chris Shank, NASA's chief of strategic communications. "The concern is that we'll lose that." Lately, that concern appears well-placed.

The Obama team picked Garver to run the NASA transition, in part because of her deep pedigree and long history at the space agency, which saw her climb to the rank of associate administrator. But Garver started as a PAO — NASA-speak for a public affairs officer — and never got involved in the nuts and bolts of building rockets. She is best known by most people as the person who in 2002 competed with boy-band singer Lance Bass for the chance to fly to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket. Neither of them ever left the ground.

Garver's lack of engineering cred is especially surprising in light of the eggheads with whom Obama has been surrounding himself — most recently, Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Chu, who has reportedly been tapped to be Secretary of Energy. Garver is also not thought to be much of a fan of Griffin — who is an engineer — nor to be sold on the plans for the new moon program. What she and others are said to be considering is to scrap the plans for the Ares 1 — which is designed exclusively to carry humans — and replace it with Atlas V and Delta IV boosters, which are currently used to launch satellites but could be redesigned, or "requalified," for humans. Griffin hates that idea, and firmly believes the Atlas and Delta are unsafe for people. One well-placed NASA source who asked not to be named reports that as much as Griffin wants to keep his job, he'll walk away from it if he's made to put his astronauts on top of those rockets.

NASA is right to be uneasy about just what Obama has planned for the agency since his position on space travel shifted — a lot — during the campaign. A year before the election he touted an $18 billion education program and explicitly targeted the new moon program as one he'd cut to pay for it. In January of 2008, he lined up much closer to the Bush moon plan — perhaps because Republicans were already on board and earning swing-state support as a result. Three months before the election, Obama fully endorsed the 2020 target for putting people on the moon. But that was a candidate talking and now he's president-elect, and his choice of Garver as his transition adviser may say more than his past campaign rhetoric.

The dust-up between Griffin and Garver is said to have occurred last week at a book launch party in Washington when, according to the Sentinel, a red-faced Griffin told Garver she was "not qualified" to make engineering decisions. Horowitz, who was not at the party but knows the NASA boss well, says he doubts that Griffin raised his voice.

"I think that's bulls---," he says. "I believe that anything he was asked he was very honest in answering because he's a systems engineer. And Lori Garver is not equipped to make technical judgments on the architecture of a space exploration system." The unnamed NASA source concedes that Griffin can be brutally honest and occasionally tactless, but insists that his shouting is simply improbable. The Obama transition office did not return an e-mail seeking comment from Garver.

For now, says the NASA source, both present and former astronauts as well as some NASA contractors are quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — lobbying for Griffin to stay. But the incoming administration is not saying anything so far. It was President John F. Kennedy who famously committed Americans to reaching the moon. Now it is Obama — who so often invokes the themes and style of JFK — who may decide if we go back.

By Jeffrey Kluger time

Obama future Pardons list already started

Barack Obama’s promise on Guantanamo Bay prison camp

(Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected terrorists will force the new president to decide what to do with inmates who can’t be tried for war crimes yet are deemed too dangerous to be released.

About 250 detainees remain at the prison camp opened on a U.S. Navy base in Cuba after the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 520 others have been repatriated or sent to another country. Obama said Nov. 16 on CBS he will close the prison as part of an effort, including a ban on torture during interrogations, “to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”

Logistically, Obama may be able to “close Guantanamo pretty quickly” once he finds facilities on the mainland to house the prisoners, said Matthew Waxman, a former Defense Department official who teaches law at Columbia University. “The bigger issue is on what legal basis are you going to hold them?”

More than 100 inmates can’t be put on trial because of a lack of evidence and the Bush administration considers them too dangerous to release. Legal experts suggest several options, such as keeping them under the Bush administration designation of “unlawful enemy combatant,” labeling them prisoners of war or asking Congress to create a new type of preventive or administrative detention.

Obama has called for trying detainees in civilian or regular military courts instead of the military war-crimes tribunal created in 2006. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of al-Qaeda’s Sept. 11 attacks, and four co-defendants are scheduled to appear before a tribunal next week, possibly their last hearing if Obama quickly abolishes or replaces the war-crimes courts.

Defense Secretary

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will remain in Obama’s administration, said at a news conference yesterday that closing Guantanamo should be a “high priority” and that new legislation will be needed to keep released detainees from seeking asylum in the U.S. In May, Gates said the U.S. was “stuck” with Guantanamo because some inmates couldn’t be charged or released.

Adjusting the legal status of the Guantanamo detainees means “you are not just going to close the base and give everyone an airline ticket,” said Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who has supported expanding due-process rights of Guantanamo inmates.

Closing Guantanamo won’t “happen as quickly as people would like. It’s such a Gordian knot,” said Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California, a former prosecutor who has pushed for changes in detainee policy.

Obama’s first step should be to announce a plan to close Guantanamo, then review all detainee files to determine which ones can be prosecuted, said Jennifer Daskal, counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

Coerced Evidence

That will depend on whether the evidence meets the higher standards of proof required in those courts, including a ban on evidence obtained by coercion, experts say.

Such legal determinations may complicate the prosecution of such “high value” detainees as Mohammed, who has alleged during courtroom appearances that he was tortured in CIA custody.

The CIA said he was one of three inmates subjected to waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning. If his statements on the Sept. 11 attacks are barred from use in court, Mohammed still could be taken to trial on 1996 criminal charges of conspiring to blow up U.S. airliners en route to the Far East.

In addition to the Sept. 11 defendants, 12 other people await trials before the military tribunals. The Pentagon is preparing to bring war-crimes charges against as many as 80 detainees altogether.

The new administration then should “move quickly to repatriate or resettle others,” Daskal said.

Resettlement

Resettlement won’t be easy. The Pentagon has determined that at least 60 Guantanamo detainees are releasable if the U.S. can persuade other countries to accept them.

In the last seven months, almost 20 have been released. The latest is Salim Hamdan, a former bodyguard and driver for al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, convicted of providing material support for terrorism, was sent from Guantanamo to Yemen in November to serve the final month of his 5 1/2-year sentence.

More than 100 inmates are classified as not releasable because they can’t be put on trial and they also pose a threat to national security.

“There are some real concerns” these detainees “will join the fight against us” or will be tortured if returned to their homeland, Schiff said.

“Clearly some are more of a threat than others” and the Obama administration may have a different view on whether releasing a particular detainee would endanger U.S. security, said Anthony Clark Arend, a government and foreign service professor at Georgetown University.

Enemy Combatants

The new administration may decide to continue to hold this group as enemy combatants subject to periodic administrative review, though Obama criticized the procedure in 2006.

Federal judges in Washington are considering about 200 Guantanamo inmates’ challenges to their detention, and the Supreme Court has signaled there may be a limit on indefinite detention. One judge last month ordered the release of five inmates on grounds the government didn’t prove they were enemy combatants.

Obama could also ask Congress to create a new legal status called preventive or administrative detention. Waxman said that would be “politically controversial” and trigger a debate about “the dangers to our legal system and legal principles that flow from institutionalizing a system of detention without trial.”

Alternatively, the Obama administration could declare these detainees to be prisoners of war, which would remove them from the jurisdiction of federal courts.

Geneva Conventions

Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war must be released once hostilities end. President George W. Bush declared that al-Qaeda terrorists weren’t traditional POWs -- soldiers who could be relied upon not to attack the U.S. once their country ceases the hostilities of war.

“The real challenge when you are dealing with non-state actors and terrorists in a so-called war on terror” is that they “want to continue to challenge you,” Arend said.

For inmates awaiting trials before the military tribunals, a fresh review of their cases by new political leadership at the Pentagon may enable some to be tried in federal courts or under military court-martial, said Schiff, a former prosecutor.

The Obama administration “may well face extremely difficult, shattering choices” of dropping some cases because the evidence doesn’t meet higher standards of proof, said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut, and is president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

The new administration “may have to allow one or two people to escape justice in order to accomplish a larger goal” of restoring confidence in U.S. rule of law, Fidell said.

Dodd acknowledged the difficulties the new administration faces in closing the prison camp. Still, he said, “the most important point is closing the place” because “that message is the one that is going to resonate.”

Obama picks Gov. Bill Richardson as commerce secretary

CHICAGO (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama named New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as commerce secretary on Wednesday, placing a second former campaign rival in his new Cabinet.

Obama called Richardson a leading "economic diplomat for America. During his time in state government and Congress, and in two tours of duty in the Cabinet, Bill has seen from just about every angle what makes our economy work and what keeps it from working better."

Richardson, 61, was United Nations ambassador and energy secretary during the Clinton administration, and he is in his second term as New Mexico's governor. He also served seven terms in the House of Representatives.

One of the nation's most prominent Hispanic politicians, Richardson pledged - in English and Spanish - to work to renew the economy.

If confirmed by the Senate, will become the latest former Democratic primary opponent to join Obama's Cabinet. The incoming chief executive has chosen another adversary-turned-ally, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to be his secretary of state. Obama also chose former rival Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.

Obama is considering another Hispanic politician, California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra, to be U.S. Trade Representative, according to two Democratic officials speaking on a condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement for the position.

New Mexico's Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, a Democrat will become the state's first female governor when Richardson leaves to assume his new post. Denish will take over for the remainder of Richardson's term, which runs through 2010.

In neighboring Arizona, the ascension of a Democratic governor will put the state in the hands of a Republican governor.

Under Arizona state law, the move of Gov. Janet Napolitano to secretary of Homeland Security will mean a Republican, Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer, will assume the reins there.

The president-elect has moved quickly to fill out his Cabinet, having named more than half of it in the month since he was elected the country's 44th president.

An energy secretary and United Nations ambassador in President Bill Clinton's administration, Richardson was a contender for the State Department job, but Obama offered him the post as commerce secretary after choosing the former first lady as his top diplomat.

Richardson sought the Democratic presidential nomination this year but eventually dropped out and endorsed Obama.

On Monday, Obama announced his foreign and national security team, led by Clinton and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican. A week ago, Obama named his economic team, led by Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary. In the coming weeks if not days, he plans to announce former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as health and human services secretary.

The upper echelon on his Cabinet now is in place.

Among those posts yet to be disclosed if not chosen: the heads of the Interior, Transportation, Labor, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments. Obama also has yet to name his intelligence team, including his director of national intelligence and CIA chief.

President Elect obama’s ho-pocrisy: when it comes to his music.

Obama recently told Rolling Stone magazine that Jay-Z and Ludacris are "great talents and great businessmen".The President Elect listens to Ludacris and other rapers while working out.

"It would be nice if I could have my daughters listen to their music without me worrying they were getting bad images of themselves," the candidate said.

LUDACRIS LYRICS

“Ho”

[Chorus]
Hooooooooo (Ho)
Youza Hoooooo (Ho)
Youza Hoooooo (Ho)
I said that youza hooooo (Ho)
[Repeat 1x]

[Ludacris]
You doin ho activities
With ho tendencies
Hos are your friends, hoes are your enemies
With ho energy to do whacha do
Blew whacha blew
Screw whacha screw
Yall professional like DJ Clue, pullin on my coat tail
an why do you think you take a ho to a hotel?
Hotel everybody, even the mayor
Reach up in tha sky for tha hozone laya
Come on playa once a ho always
And hos never close they open like hallways
An heres a ho cake for you whole ho crew
an everybody wants some cuz hoes gotta eat too

[chorus x2]

[Ludacris]
Cant turn a ho into a housewife
Hos dont act right
Theres hos on a mission, an hoes on a crackpipe
Hey ho how ya doin, where ya been?
Prolly doin ho stuff cuz there you ho again
Its a ho wide world, that we livin in
feline, feminine, fantastical, women
Not all, just some
You ho who you are
Theres hoes in tha room, theres hoes in tha car
theres hoes on stage, theres hoes by tha bar
hos by near, an hos by far
Ho! (But can i getta ride?!)
NO! (Cmon, nigga why?!)
Cuz youza

[chorus 2x]

[Ludacris]
You gotta run in your pantyhos
Even your daddy knows
that you suckin down chocolate like daddy-o’s
You hos are horrible, horrendous
On taxes ya’ll writin off hos as dependents
I see tha ho risin
it aint surprisin
its just a hoasis
with ugly chicks faces
but hos dont feel so sad and blue
cuz most of us niggaz is hos too

[chorus x2]

(Ho)
Muthafuckas im so tiired of yall niggaz always talkin
bout hos this, hos that, you tha muthafuckin ho nigga
I wasnt no ho last night

(Pimp)
Ho, bring yo ass!

(Ho)
Ok, hold on
get that man a grammy! i think we can all see the artistic merit there.

maybe obama hasn’t condemned ludacris’ behavior because of the sheer time commitment it would entail. it would take weeks to catalog every harmful line the artist has sung. plus, the press conference would be mostly bleeped out, so what’s the point?

here is what i have concluded: obama doesn’t mind when ludacris calls his daughters hos. he minds when imus calls his daughters hos (or cute, depending on whether his daughters dress more like the girls from rutgers or tennessee).

ludacris’ entire discography is available by searching google for “ludacris discography” (without quotes). there, you will find that about 1/3 of the song titles directly discuss vulgar sexual behavior or innuendo. the other 2/3 just mention the subjugation of women within the songs themselves, not the titles. here are a few of my favorite titles:

girls gone wild
move bitch
pimpin all over the world
hoes in my room
and of course,i haven’t explored them to see which ones are the most offensive.

Obama Quote of Imus;
imus] didn’t just cross the line. [imus] fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America. The notions that as young African-American women….that that somehow makes them less beautiful or less important. It was a degrading comment. It’s one that I’m not interested in supporting….What we’ve been seeing around this country is this constant ratcheting up of a coarsening of the culture that all of have to think about….Insults, humor that degrades women, humor that is based in racism and racial stereotypes isn’t fun….And the notion that somehow it’s cute or amusing, or a useful diversion, I think, is something that all of us have to recognize is just not the case….as a culture, we really have to do some soul-searching to think about what kind of toxic information are we feeding our kids.

Our Proud President of the United States "Change is comming"

President Elect The Message of Change has many faces

President Elect Obama over his primary campaign for the last two years had stated it was time for change in Washington to bring in fresh new faces and clean up Washington.

Take a good look at some of the 17 people our nation’s president-elect chose last week for his Transition Economic Advisory Board. And then try saying with a straight face that these are the leaders who should be advising him on how to navigate through the worst financial crisis in modern history. First, there’s former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Not only was he chairman of Citigroup Inc.’s executive committee when the bank pushed bogus analyst research, helped Enron Corp. cook its books, and got caught baking its own. He was a director from 2000 to 2006 at Ford Motor Co., which also committed accounting fouls and now is begging Uncle Sam for Citigroup- style bailout cash.Two other Citigroup directors received spots on the Obama board: Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Anne Mulcahy and Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard Parsons. Xerox and Time Warner got pinched years ago by the Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting frauds that occurred while Mulcahy and Parsons held lesser executive posts at their respective companies. Mulcahy and Parsons also once were directors at Fannie Mae when that company was breaking accounting rules. So was another member of Obama’s new economic board, former Commerce Secretary William Daley. He’s now a member of the executive committee at JPMorgan Chase & Co., which, like Citigroup, is among the nine large banks that just got $125 billion of Treasury’s bailout budget.


Now here is his national security team list

Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator from New York and former First Lady, will serve as Secretary of State. March 8, 1992 WHITEWATER, Whitewater runs deep - investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton's real estate investments that may have involved abuse of government funds
Secretary Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense, will continue to serve in that role.
Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General and a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, will serve as Attorney General. In 1993, President Clinton nominated Mr. Holder to become the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1997, President Clinton appointed Mr. Holder to serve as Deputy Attorney General, the number two position in the United States Department of Justice. Then came the Pardon of Marc Rich during the Clinton administration.

Janet Napolitano, Governor and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, will serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. This pick is not an a surprise for the President Elect the Bills she has vetoed include one denying in state tuition and day care for illegal aliens, and one allowing law enforcement to enforcement to enforce immigration law on May 20. On May 10 she also vetoed a bill making English the official state language which would have allowed the state to save money by not having to provide all official documents in multiple languages and would have encourage assimilating immigrates into the American culture more effectively. But the Governor did endorse the senate amnesty bill.

Her statement on the Bill"The status quo is not acceptable, and when I hear those who are opposed to the bill call it amnesty, I really want to say to them what we have now is silent amnesty, because nothing is being done with those who are already illegally in this country, and we have no system to do anything with those already illegally in this country," she said.

Janet Napolitano is one of the reasons that nothing is being done to end illegal immigration. She silently stands by and watches as her state is inundated with illegal aliens taking advantage of the Arizona taxpayers and then blames it on the federal government.


Dr. Susan E. Rice, Born November 17, 1964 (age 44) Political Party Democrat a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Obama for America campaign, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, will serve as Ambassador to the United Nations.
served in the Clinton administration in various capacities: at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997 then appointed as Assistant Secretary for African Affairs until Clinton left office in 2001.

General Jim Jones, USMC (Ret), former Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander of the United States European Command, will serve as National Security Advisor.


If you were Hoping for Change… Don’t hold your Breath

Pardon Is Back in Focus for the Justice Nominee

New York Times Story Eric H. Holder Jr. faced questions from a Congressional committee in 2001 about the efforts to secure a presidential pardon for the financier Marc Rich.