From Volume 37, Issue 36 of EIR Online, Published Sept 17, 2010

United States News Digest

The Incredible Shrinking President

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—Senior Democratic Party officials have conceded that they failed to see the early signs of Barack Obama's synthetic personality, but now clearly recognize that the President is a psychological basket-case. Witness yesterday's White House press conference—Obama's first such event since May. The President spent most of the time blaming everyone, from the Congressional Democrats, to George W. Bush, to the Congressional Republicans, for the economic mess that he has inherited, and for which he is now (rightly) blamed.

Behind the scenes, the President and his Chicago White House posse are reportedly scrambling to preempt what is now seen as a full-scale revolt by endangered House Democrats. To head off any possibility of some concrete legislative action during the brief post-Labor Day session, which begins Sept. 13-14, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), under White House orders, is saying that she may cut the House session, already scheduled for a mere three weeks, back by ten days. As of now, House members are supposed to end their deliberations on Oct. 8, but Pelosi is threatening to gavel them out of session before the end of September.

Rangel Going All Out for Landslide Primary Win

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), the lead target of the Obama White House's racist Operation Frühmenschen revival, is fully mobilized in the final days before his Sept. 14 primary election. In the past few days, former President Bill Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have both recorded endorsements of Rangel, that are going out as robo-calls to all voters in Rangel's Harlem district. In his recording, Bloomberg says, "Tough times require tough leadership, and that is what Charlie Rangel has provided for us, and will continue to provide for us going forward." Clinton's endorsement will carry special weight, given both his enormous popularity, particularly in the African-American community, and the fact that the headquarters of the Clinton Foundation is in Harlem.

A victory for Rangel will be a dramatic defeat for Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. The House Speaker played a vicious role in forcing Rangel to step down from the chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and the Obama White House has been running a non-stop effort to oust Rangel, covertly funding his challengers, particularly Adam Clayton Powell IV, who has campaigned as an "Obama Democrat," a foolish move.

Lyndon LaRouche commented today that Sept. 15 will be a "break point" in the current political situation. Between the Rangel race in New York and LaRouche Democrat Rachel Brown's Sept. 14 primary challenge to Barney Frank in Massachusetts, this could be a real setback for Pelosi and Frank.

Will Obama's Thug Apparatus Be Shut Down? Boren Comes Out for Ending OCE

Sept. 10 (EIRNS)—In July, Lyndon LaRouche denounced the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), the Soros-Pelosi-Obama-backed thug apparatus against Congress, as unconstitutional, and called for it to be "uprooted" and abolished.

On Sept. 9, the Tulsa World reported that Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) said "that the Office of Congressional Ethics might need to be eliminated." With that, Boren is the first Democrat, beyond members of the Congressional Black Caucus, to come out for action against OCE. In 2008, after strong-arming and rule-breaking by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the OCE was created by a one vote margin of 207-206, after the vote was kept open past deadline, and members were pressured to change their votes. Boren was the only Oklahoma Congressman to vote for OCE. But now, after OCE went after Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) in a high-profile accusation, but then dismissed the charges as unfounded on Sept. 9, Boren has defended Lucas's record and reputation, and blasted the OCE.

On Sept. 8, the Washington Independent reported that the opposition is growing against OCE, but that the Republican leaders will not say whether they will eliminate it if the GOP wins the House.

There is already a bill by Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) and 19 other members of the Black Caucus, to curtail the powers of the OCE. When she introduced the bill, she declared that "OCE is currently the accuser, judge, and jury. This isn't the case in the American justice system, and it shouldn't be so in Congress." Since the House Ethics Committee's witchhunt against Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) became official—and since their decisions to fight back—opposition against OCE has grown.

Has Obama Gone to Pot? Counters Clinton on Drug Threat in Mexico

Sept. 10 (EIRNS)—President Obama came out to counter Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the drug cartel's threat to Mexico, one day after she had presented an alarming, and accurate assessment of the horror to which Mexico is being subjected by the drug cartels. Obama's decision a year ago to stop using Federal law to prosecute marijuana trafficking in California has aided the drug cartels in Mexico, facilitating an explosion of purveyors (100 in San Diego alone) of highly concentrated "super-pot" products, mostly made with marijuana trafficked from Mexico.

In the discussion following her address to the Council on Foreign Relations on Sept. 8, Clinton stated that the drug-trafficking threat in the Western Hemisphere "is in some cases morphing into, or making common cause with what we would consider an insurgency, in Mexico and Central America." Citing the appearance of car bombs in Mexico, she noted that Mexico "is looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, where the narcotraffickers control certain parts of the country ... significant parts; in Colombia, it got to the point where, you know, more than a third of the country—nearly 40% of the country at one time or another was controlled by the insurgents, by FARC."

In an exclusive interview the next day with the Los Angeles La Opinion daily, Obama flatly contradicted Clinton, asserting that "Mexico is a broad and progressive democracy, with a growing economy, and consequently you cannot compare what is happening in Mexico with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago."

As Obama Sinks...

Sept. 8 (EIRNS)—Lyndon LaRouche commented today that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's decision not to seek a seventh term, will drive President Obama wild, with the expectation that his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel will leave the White House to campaign to succeed Daley. Financial Times Washington bureau chief Ed Luce headlines today's column, "Disaster Looms at the Polls as President Finally Eyes Economy." He writes, "While Mr. Obama is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, his fellow Democrats are putting on dresses and heading for the lifeboats."

Obama provoked more questions about his sanity today, when he went to Cleveland for an almost hour-long Jeremiad against House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who had demanded two weeks ago, in the same city, that Obama fire White House economics advisor Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. It was already clear that the White House cabal had been badly stung by Boehner's call; after today, one can only guess what the level of hysteria was in that looney-bin.

LaRouche: The President Is Not in Good Mental Health

Sept. 7 (EIRNS)—The Washington Post calls the Obama Administration, "The Incredible Shrinking Presidency"; Time magazine publishes an article, and a video interview titled, "Why Is Obama Mr. Unpopular?"; CNN's Situation Room asks Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic Party, if the party is going to cut off election funding for Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) and any other Democrat in Congress who criticizes the President; and the Post, Wall Street Journal, and dozens of other newspapers publicize polls that the Republicans are going to mop up in the mid-term elections because of Obama.

Lyndon LaRouche nailed the situation in a discussion today: "The President is not in good mental health," and is "approaching a crack-up." This means that "there's only one thing on the agenda for action ... there's only one thing that can be done, which has a correlation of forces behind it that will work: the immediate retirement of this President, combined with, and possibly triggered by, the onset of the existing proposed law, draft law, which is sitting there, ready to be voted up—for the renewal of the original Glass-Steagall policy." LaRouche specified that the Democrats up for re-election can survive in only one way—come out en masse for restoring Glass-Steagall. This will only work if it is done in large numbers, and it would drive Obama out, said LaRouche.

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