Obama off to Copenhagen[Updated]
By pm317 on September 29, 2009 at 3:30 PM in Current Affairs
(Bumped up from Monday. View the original comments here.)
He is off to Copenhagen to lobby IOC to bring 2016 Olympics to Chicago.
One has to wonder who is running the country, as he goes gallivanting around the globe pretending he is the world president or something.
But even more importantly here is my dilemma with his trip. How will it reflect on him if they don’t pick Chicago?
Or is there a guarantee now that they will pick Chicago and therefore he is going in which case is this not a wasted trip on taxpayers’ backs in this difficult economy?
Or he must not have much faith in his wife’s persuasive powers that he thinks he can make the difference which leads me back to my first question and the fallout if his overtures do not pan out.
But this fits in with his style — intimidate IOC in the name of charm. Will they be called Racists if they don’t pick Chicago? If they are afraid and they will pick Chicago anyway for that reason, is this not a wasted trip leading me back to my second question?
US President Barack Obama is to visit Copenhagen to support Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, the White House confirmed Monday. Obama will arrive in the Danish capital Friday morning, and return to the US following the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting the same day when the decision about the 2016 host city will be made. The other contenders are Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo.
“President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will both make presentations to the IOC during Friday’s session,” said the White House in a statement.
“They will discuss why Chicago is best to host the 2016 Summer Games, and how the United States is eager to bring the world together to celebrate the ideals of the Olympic movement.”
Michelle Obama, who is leading the Chicago delegation, will arrive in Copenhagen on Wednesday along with talkshow host Oprah Winfrey and Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama and head of the White House Office on Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport.
Something is lacking in this whole extravaganza. Gravitas, perhaps? Or perspective as in Iran smolders, Afghanistan burns, and Obama heads to…Denmark
[UPDATE] HINDSIGHT is 20/20
Commenter Mel on his blog post dated June 22, 2008 (last year when everything was happening!) wrote this time-line:
Dateline Chicago:
2004, Obama lays claim to no intentions of running for POTUS having no experience
Early 2006, Chicago starts working on an Olympic bid,
December 2006, Mayor Daley strangely supports the man who called Daley a “corrupt sonofabitch” Obama for POTUS
January 2007, Obama supports the corrupt sonofabitch Daley re-election
Feb 2007, Obama announces his bid for POTUS.
April 2007, USOC gives Chicago the nod for bidding on the 2016 Games
April 2007, Obama’s run for POTUS picks up huge fundraising traction
October 2007, Obama numbers very weak, Daley machine backs Obama via Daley’s brother unleashing money Rolodex
Early 2008, media, led by NBC, and Obama’s campaign keep projecting the illusion Obama is the nominee
Most Important:
April 7, 2008 Clinton calls for Bush to boycott 2008 China Summer Games Open Ceremonies
April 2008 Obama continually avoids question of Bush boycott of Summer Games
June 3, 2008 Obama declares himself the nominee after many false media reports Clinton was withdrawing the same evening
June 4th, 2008 OIC announces short list for 2016 Games, Chicago is on it and media is pressuring Clinton to withdraw
June 5, 2008 media continues to claim Clinton withdraw
June 5, 2008 sudden meeting between Obama and Clinton that evening and speculation of Clinton withdraw next day or so
June 6, 2008 IOC meetings with Chicago delegation to explain some bid problems.
June 7, 2008 Clinton suspends campaign.Anyone wonder why it was so critical for Obama to be crowned the Democratic Party nominee prematurely to June 3rd, and then his doing so himself on the evening of June 3rd after a day full of false AP and media reports that Clinton would be dropping out that evening? Simple answer is the International Olympic Committee was announcing the finalists for the 2016 Summer Games on June 4th and Chicago was one of the Cities in the running.
Note: there are other secondary links on Mel’s original post that provide plenty of articles to support the connection between Obama’s campaign, his money makers, Chicago political machine, all in the context of the Summer Olympics 2016.
It is surreal to me that a handful of people from one single city could hoist an inexperienced, unskilled person with negligible accomplishments on the entire nation for the office of the presidency and HE GETS NOMINATED AND ELECTED. They just gave him a teleprompter and a speechwriter and he adopted his inspiration Rev. Wright in his speech making, after all he had listened to him for 20 years, and the gullible people fell for it. Those same handful of people who propped him up made a mockery of the phrase “We the People” and the election last year seems like a cruel and sick joke played on the American people. The Olympics coming to Chicago (if it does) is just icing on the cake for the Chicago pols.
The important question at this point is will it (the 2016 Chicago Olympics) clinch Obama’s second term?
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pm13: I hope they don’t pick Chicago.
That said, it is no more incredible than George W. Bush, son of one of the most unpopular presidents in the 20th century, getting on the Republican ballot in 2000. Then after a series of unbelievable corruptions to the democratic process, the Supreme Court (who actually had no jurisdiction in the case) declares him the winner.
Last two presidents: demagogues. It’s the new “democracy in America.”
Oh, and I would also like to add, I don’t believe Obama’s nomination had much at all to do with the Olympics. The agenda is way more sinister than that,
Daley,Jarret,et al stand to make billions with all the contracts going in for the Olimpics. In turn, The O campaign would also benefit in a way that the $700mill he spent for 2008 will look like a mere drop in a sea of money for his re-election: they know what they are doing and it’s not to benefit Chicago or its people.
The Chicago Olympic shananigans, Mayor Daley, Valerie Jarrett, and the rest of the Chicago political mafia made up only a couple of the facets of the amazing success that simply fell into the lap of this most unlikely and certainly undeserving candidate.
The corrupt Chicago gang of many lacked the gravitas to pull off this miracle of a scheme.
I really think he must have some kind of assurance that Chicago IS going to get the Olympics. He is such a narcissist that he wouldn’t go and risk coming back a ‘loser.’ Michelle and Oprah, et al are going in advance to lay the groundwork. He just wants to swoop in and pick up the credit.
My fantasy: He goes, he strongarms, he eats kransestykeren, drinks good beer, has open-faced sandwiches with herring, all with Oprah and Valerie (The Eminence grise in the W. H.), he meets the King and Queen.
They award it to Brazil. He looks like the dope he is.
Well, by going there, he has made it a no-win situation for the IOC.
They pick Chicago and it looks like they are sucking up to Obama and the United States.
They don’t pick Chicago and risk that Obama and the U.S. will be insulted.
BTW – be careful what you wish for. L.A. made a profit on the Olympics because it already had facilities. A lot of cities lost money – can you say “MONTREAL?”
Of course Obama’s cohorts in Chicago will make tons. For a corrupt politician it is a license to print money. For him personally that is.
Rezco will provide the “housing” for the athletes.
I’ve read somewhere (sorry, no link, it was a year ago) that every city that host an olympics goes into an economic slump the very next year after the olympics.
Mayor Daley has been touting that 4 Billion dollars would come into Chicago during the olympics, but he fails to tell people that to get ready for the olympics, he has sold the parking meters to a private company for a few billion dollars (the people are up in arms since the private company has been screwing up the parking situation in the city), raised city parking charges sky high, been raising the property tax the past 6 years, sold the Chicago skyway tollway system to a private company based in Madrid, did lay down a lot of salt that past two winters (in order to save money but jeopardized commuters), and squeezed just about every fee that they can on every tax and city fees in order to show that Chicago’s city coffers are full of money.
now the city is facing the facts that they need to add more police, firefighters, and EMS personnel to cover the Olympics and the only they can do that is to raise city fees and taxes again!
once the Olympics are done, who’d bet that the Democrat Political Machine in Chicago would rollback all of the increase in fees and taxes that they did these past few years? Chicago already boasts the highest gasoline tax in the nation, the highest parking rates, and among the highest sales and property tax. I’m expecting to see a surcharge on inhaling and a carbon tax on exhaling soon!
How much did that trip cost the taxpayers? I understand that he went on Air Force One…which cost $425,000 for his Valentine date fight to Chicago. Does anyone know??? Am I the only one who doesn’t?
He has a need to be phrased and adored it’s more then the spot light , he wants the world stage, All on the taxpayers dollar.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090929/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_olympics_republicans
tek — I agree there’s a much bigger agenda than the O games involved.
Daisy Mae — that’s my fantasy, too.
BARB — I like the reference to the Valentine’s date fight. I hope it wasn’t a typo cuz I can just see MO pitching a hissy fit to get there.
They don’t mind how much it costs as long as it’s not on their Mastercard bill.
Obama is already planning to build the Obama Library on the site of the Olympics. Presidents usually open their library to coincide with the end of their second term, which would be in 2016. That’s all he cares about and all Daley cares about is his legacy and if Chicago lands the Olympics, he can stay in office for that long, rather than get investigated for corruption. And as usual we the taxpayers will foot the bill (Chicago already has the highest county taxes in the country).
In addition, the Chicago government is so broke they have to shut it down 2 or 3 days a week.
If Chicago does get the Olympics this has every indication of becoming the biggest political scandel in American history with some very prominent people doing the perp walk.
Chicago is broke, over-taxed, and crime ridden – and you have a contingent of prominent Chicagoans going over there with a heppy face to paint Chicago as a utopean city.
I would like to see two photos juxtaposed when this is over:
A Smiling Obama pitching Chicago
and the beating death by a gang of a Chicago student.
This is change you can believe in.
i hope Rio gets it
Pele thinks they will and he’s accomplished a hell of a lot more than shamwow man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_WVMzHHshE
OBAMA AND OPRAH OFF TO DENMARK
In Denmark they will think: who is this woman with the Obamas?She (Oprah) is a nobody outside the US, as the episode in Paris proved when she went to some big designer after normal hour of business, like celebrities do when they want to shop, and they refused to let her in, saying they were closed.
Oh, but that was just racism.
Hillary Clinton was born and raised in Chicago.
I haven’t seen her name listed as one of those going to Copenhagen.
Hillary would make him look like a amateur, he can’t have that.
That’s cause she not going to profit from the olympics if Chicago is chosen. Now for Tony Rezko he sure is as well as Valerie Jarrett. And Obama who owns the Rezko home, that would be a walk away from the location. CROOKS!! I hope Brazil wins, I would rather watch a Samba dance than kids singing songs about Obama.
and Oprah would get new viewers from around the world, her ratings have fallen since she came out for Obama, Money, Money
The same Hillary that became a lifelong Yankees fan after she became a New York Senatorial Candidate?
sorry, she might have come from Chicago, but not many like here there.
Hillary was a Yankees fan well before that. That’s just another example of the media not doing its homework when it comes to the Clintons.
Hillary mentioned, many, many times, that she’s a lifelong Cubs fan every time she and Bill is in Illinois on a campaign back then. I heard it from her own lips herself.
she already went to se asia four years ago to push for the 2012 olympics in New York City – NYC was knocked out on the first round, never even made it to the final selection.
RIVALS UNFAZED BY SHADOW OF OBAMA IN 2016 BID
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE58S1H820090929
Off Topic:
Michelle Obama to promote gardening on “Sesame Street”
I guess they won’t report about her White Garden that was a total failure, thanks to the Clintons for spreading sludge on the White House grounds. I guess artificial gardening will be safer for her.
It will cost plenty. When is this nonsense going to stop? They need to read up on the French revolution. We the People could oust them. I hope we don’t get the olympics. A struggling economy can’t afford to hold them. It cost millions of dollars. Maybe even billions. In China people were starving and their government spent all that money on the olympics. At Salt Lake City in 2000 they built buildings that will never be used again and a railroad between two towns 10 miles apart that, I believe, isn’t being used. I have friends living there who didn’t get to see any event because you couldn’t get tickets and they were too expensive even if you could.
Opra is dispicable. She is a big reason why we have this Chicago thug as POTUS. They are all clowns putting on a photo op distraction from what is really going on in this cuntry. He lied, cheated and stole to get in our Oval Office and when has he spent one day in there actually doing any work? I would bet not one!
He’s too busy campaigning! Someone should remind him that he won and that requires work – real work!
Cheer up! Maybe he’ll like Copenhagen so much he’ll stay.
People seem to not get it, he isn’t going because he’s got it, he’s going to try to salvage it like a mark does for his bookmaker.
Everyone from Auchi to Bill Ayers to Daley to the Crown Family to Pritzker (who owes the Feds millions from failed banks) to Valerie Jarrett and friends stand to make millions and who pays for it, well everyone since Obama was given billions in stimulous money! Even Acorn will make money off this! For Obama there is no failing because $700 million was funneled for him to be in the possition he is now in, screw healthcare, the wars and all else!
Think back folks, Axelrod who worked and still works for Daley engineered to get Obama to run and manipulated it for Obama to win, why? Daley!
I am thinking it is not a done deal yet and therefore this frantic trip on Obama’s part. PA Gov. Rendell on Hannity just said he would not have gone. Rendell uncharacteristically let him down on Afghanistan too.
Wonder who rang the alarm to Obama et al, could it of been IOC Director Mr Richard L. CARRIÓN, consider this guy from Puerto Rico his info:
IOC Bio:
http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/members/bio_uk.asp?id=50
Notice, Chair of TV negotiations and Director of Fed Reserve of New York?
Fed Reserve of New York listing:
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/org_nydirectors.html
Notice, Mr. Carrión is chairman and chief executive officer of Banco Popular de Puerto Rico and chairman, president and chief executive officer of Popular, Inc., Banco Popular’s holding company and a member of the board of Verizon Communications.
Hmmmmmm wonder how much money Banco Popular needs from the stimulous money Obama controls, just wondering?
Wonder how good his relationship is with NBC since he was the one who was on the TV rights committee that awarded NBC (th Obama network) in 2004, just wondering?
I generally go along with the opinion it is not a done deal except for the historical fact that this is what 0bama does -others do the heavy lifting while 0bama swoops in at the end and takes the credit and the bows. This from his former colleagues in the IL legislature describing his short stint there as well as his year in the US Senate as he was running for POTUS.
mel
Exactly. 100% right. He owes Daley bigtime, this was set long before he won (bought or stole) the election. They’ve got so much dirt on this guy if he doesn’t deliver God knows what videos we’ll be seeing of him and Lady MacBeth or maybe they’ll just break his kneecaps.
I’m in Chicago and I know why he’s spending his time for this stupid project.
(I really dont want the Olympics here.. it’s going to turn this already bankrupt city more bankrupt… and also into a police state)
For the longest time, the world’s largest housing project was directly east of the I-90/94 (Dan Ryan) between the highway and the lake in the South Side.
They tore them all down like 10 years ago. There is nothing there now.
There is nowhere in the city that has large amount of available large-scale developable land than along that corridor that abuts the highway..
PLUS theres tons of freespace surrounding the south and west boundaries of Hyde Park , where the Obama corrupt mothership is
I demarked these areas here, chicago is the most zoomed out picture, hyde park is the most zomed-in
Maps of Chicago showing where there is lots of free space, close to Obama’s power base:
Hyde Park
South Side
Chicago
Now.. who is going to get the money to build all the crap needed for an Olympics?
Just think of the money that is going to flow there.
I can vomit it makes me so sick knowing the inferno of corruption to come.
you got that right! the union, the mob, and every corrupt private company is salivating about the olympics.
all the alderman in the city is fighting over the scraps for their ward, but just about every one of them are sucking up to Daley just to ensure that their ward will get something from the olympics funds.
they plan on using Washington Park as a venue for one of the olympics events. anyone who came from Chicago would know that that is a disaster waiting to happen…they would need a brigade of police to make that park safe for anything.
then they’ll use McCormick Place for the gymnastics events, in order to spruce up that area, they are now demolishing the taylor housing project right next to the red line. yet that area is still an eyesore, I know, I work right in the landmark Donnely building next to the Hyatt and McCormick place.
I believe that they’ll spend around 16 billion for the Olympics. makes me wonder what percentage of that is “patronage” funds since Chicago never spends money without accounting for the corruption percentage. if they stick to the “nominal” 30% corruption rate, then that’s a big 5 billion going to corruption.
I wish Michael Steele had kept his mouth shut about this stupid trip. Now if we don’t get the Olympics, the Repubs will be blamed by BO; and if we do get the games, BO will rub their noses in the fact that yes he can go to Denmark and still run the country.
The GOP should’ve just let him make a dunce of himself. They should see by now that BO doesn’t need any help at looking seriously inadequate.
Yep, Steele should know not to interrupt the enemy as they shoot themselves in the foot..
http://www.edgeofsports.com/2009-09-29-456/index.html
Great article, pm317!
I laughed, I cried, I wanted some popcorn. If only the unenlightened ones would get it…
The real MAFIA from Siclia, Italy, should take lessons from the Chicago maffia which is corrupt beyond any imagination. Question, who will end this outlaw society?
There should already be a congressional investigation into the conflict of interest of the Obama’s and Valarie Jarret.
Of course there will not be. I hope the repubs are keeping a list of all of the things to investigate when they get in next year. The list is long, and I would bring every one of them.
Here is exactly why he is there:
Senior White House adviser and Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett is a Daley loyalist who worked as his deputy chief of staff, deputy corporation counsel, and planning commissioner. She hired the future First Lady of the United States, then-Michelle Robinson, as a mayoral assistant. Jarrett went on to serve as president and CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate firm with a massive stake in federally-funded Chicago public housing projects.
One of those public-private partnerships, the Grove Parc Plaza Apartments, was run into the ground under Jarrett’s watch. Federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex a bottom-of-the-barrel 11 on a 100-point scale. “They are rapidly displacing poor people, and these companies are profiting from this displacement,” Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle of Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that seeks to help tenants stay in the same neighborhoods, told the Boston Globe last year. “The same exact people who ran these places into the ground,” the private companies paid to build and manage the city’s affordable housing, “now are profiting by redeveloping them.”
Coincidentally enough, Grove Parc — now targeted for demolition as a result of years of neglect by Obama’s developer friends—sits in the shadows of the proposed site of the city’s 2016 Olympics Stadium.
Jarrett served as vice chair of Chicago’s 2016 Summer Olympics bid committee before moving to the White House, where she has helmed a new “White House Office on Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport” with an undisclosed budget and staff. It’s not just taxpayers in cash-strapped Chicago who should be worried about this field of schemes. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that Jarrett and Chicago 2016 committee member Lori Healey met this month with federal officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development “to discuss financing options” for the estimated $1 billion Olympic Village.
The door is open and the administration is “willing to meet and listen” to any federal subsidy proposals, Jarrett said. Hey, what happened to Obama’s tough rules on interest-conflicted lobbying by his administration officials?
A majority of Chicagoans who live in pay-for-play-plagued Cook County oppose public funding for the Olympic party. The city has more than a half-billion-dollar deficit – and just received word that its Olympic insurance policy will cover only about $1.1 billion of the $3.8-billion operating budget drawn up by Daley. Cost overruns, fraud, and union-inflated contracts are inevitable. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defended President Obama’s all-out campaign for Chicago’s 2016 Olympics bid by claiming America will see a “tangible economic benefit.”
But as is always the case with sports corporate welfare disguised as “economic development,” an elite few will benefit far more than others.
Take senior White House adviser and Obama campaign guru David Axelrod. He’s been a Daley loyalist since 1989, when he signed up as a political consultant for the mayor’s first run. Axelrod’s public relations firm, Chicago-based AKPD Message and Media, has pitched in work for the Chicago 2016 committee. It is unknown how much AKPD has received for its services – or how much they’ll make in future income if the bid is successful. AKPD currently owes Axelrod $2 million.
The head of the Chicago 2016 bid committee is Patrick Ryan, chairman of the Aon Corporation and a co-chair of Obama’s deep-pocketed presidential inaugural committee. (Under Ryan’s watch at Aon, the company settled a massive corruption probe with 3 states for $190 million. More here on Ryan/Aon/Daley dealings More on corruptocrat Chicago Republicans like Ryan and others here.)
Also on both of those committees: Obama confidante Penny Pritzker, who in addition chairs the Olympic Village Subcommittee and is president of Pritzker Realty Group – a mega-developer in Illinois that could reap untold millions in project work if the Daley Machine/White House campaign succeeds.
Former Pritzker executive and Obama campaign treasurer Martin Nesbitt is also on the bid committee – and serves as Mayor Daley’s chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority.
Another bid committee member, Michael Scott Jr., is “trying to develop a for-profit real estate project that would sit within feet of the cycling venue if Chicago wins the 2016 Summer Games,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
It takes a crony-filled White House to raise a Chicago Olympic village. Daley and Obama will get the glory. America will get stuck with the bill.
I have to think there is a quid pro quo agreement between GOP & Dems (& msm) this time around: we won’t look into your stuff (White House Iraq Group, etc.) and you won’t look into ours (Chicago politics as you outlined).
btw your comment in general is very interesting. Example of why I read this website.
Wow, Carmen! Amazing post!
Remember him saying during the campaign:
He is the first sitting president to address the IOC directly. Ugh.
That is disgusting! Can he be more arrogant?
I really don’t think I have ever heard of anyone this self-absorbed. And to think those who nearly worship this mere mortal keep encouraging this very sick behavior with him thinking nearly everyone feels the same way. This is dangerous!
It has been awhile since I’ve done any posting here, but now I’m baaaack.
I just read this on Drudge from the Washintonexaminer.com entitled: Michelle Obama: It’s a ’sacrifice’ to travel to Europe to pitch for the Olympics. But I’m doing it for the kids.