52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.

Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.

The reelection numbers are slightly more sour than Obama’s approval ratings, which are basically tied. 49 percent of people told CNN that they approve of the way Obama is handling his job, while 50 percent disapprove.

Still, the 2012 election is still a long way’s away, with this fall’s midterm elections looming large. Republicans are hoping to make inroads into Congress, while Democrats are hoping to hold onto gains won in the 2006 and 2008 cycles.

Respondents to CNN were split at 46 percent as to whether they preferred a generic Republican or Democratic candidate in this fall’s elections.

At least one retiring lawmaker is confident Obama will sail to reelection, with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) predicting Monday the president would win “overwhelmingly” in 2012.

The CNN poll, conducted Feb. 12-15, has a three percent margin of error.

Source:  The Hill

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Official documents catch Barack Obama in another apparent misrepresentation of his life story, this time challenging a claim made during his campaign that his father was part of a JFK-era airlift to bring Kenyan students to the U.S. to study in American universities.

WND research indicates Barack Obama Sr. was not brought to Hawaii in 1959 by any airlift of Kenyan students organized by baseball great Jackie Robinson, John F. Kennedy or the African-American Students Foundation, the AASF.

Nor was Barack Obama Sr. on any of the three subsequently chartered airplanes in what became known as the “second airlift” organized by Kenyan Luo politician Tom Mboya in 1960 after the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation contributed $100,000 to AASF.

Moreover, after a thorough search of the Jackie Robinson papers at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, WND can find no mention of Barack Obama Sr. in the files on deposit, either as an applicant or candidate for an airlift from Kenya to study in the U.S.

The manifest of the 81 students actually flown from Kenya Sept. 9, 1959, in a plane chartered by Jackie Robinson in conjunction with the AASF does not contain Barack Obama Sr.’s name. Robinson was assisted by singer Harry Belafonte and actor Sidney Poitier.

In Hawaii before first student airlift

By the time of the Sept. 9, 1959, airlift to New York City, Barack Obama Sr. was already in Honolulu, enrolled in classes as an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii.

WND previously published official affirmation from the University of Hawaii that Barack Obama Sr. was enrolled for the 1959 fall term.

The first article documenting Barack Obama Sr.’s presence in Hawaii was by journalist Shurei Hirozawa in the Honolulu Star Bulletin on Sept. 18, 1959, only nine days after the Jackie Robinson airlift.

The article suggested Barack Obama Sr., then fully settled in Hawaii and enrolled at the university, had used personal savings to pay his travel expenses from Kenya to Hawaii and tuition costs at the university.

“But the money [Barack Obama Sr.] saved will only stretch out for two semesters or less because of the high cost of living in Hawaii, he found out,” wrote Hirozawa. “He’ll work, he says, and possibly apply for a scholarship.”

Obama claims JFK responsible

Barack Obama Jr.’s claim that John F. Kennedy brought his father to the U.S. was made in a March 4, 2007 speech, from the pulpit of the historic Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma, Ala.

Obama declared he owed his very existence to Selma, according to a transcript of the speech and a video clip posted on YouTube.com.

A few minutes into the speech, Obama began discussing the protests in Selma and Birmingham, Ala., that were instrumental to Martin Luther King building the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Obama invented dialogue of Kennedy advisers, musing, “It worried the folks in the White House who said, ‘You know, we’re battling communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world if right here in our own country, John, we’re not observing the ideals set forth in our Constitution? We might be accused of being hypocrites.”

Obama continued: “This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. But she had a good idea there was some craziness going on, because they looked at each other, and they decided that we know that (in) the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child.”

Kennedy, however, was not in the White House until Jan. 20, 1961, and he did not participate in the organization of the September 1959 airlift.

The historical record is further established by a background memorandum prepared by Sen. John Kennedy’s office in August 1960, while JFK was running for president.

The memo documents that JFK met with Mboya – but after the 1959 airlift had already occurred. Mboya met with JFK at Hyannis Port July 26, 1960, while Kennedy was running for president.

Mboya’s goal was to convince JFK to fund a second airlift of African students to the U.S.

The memo further documents that the State Department, despite intervention by Vice President Richard Nixon, had already turned down Mboya’s request for a second airlift to bring in 200 African students who had received scholarships from U.S. schools.

The Kennedy family, utilizing the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, decided to give Mboya a $100,000 donation to pay for the second airlift, in memory of JFK’s brother who was killed in World War II.

Knowing the Kennedy family was going to pay for the second airlift, Nixon prevailed on the State Department to reverse its earlier negative decision.

The African-American Students Foundation, however, decided to accept the Kennedy Foundation’s offer, preferring the willing generosity of the privately offered financing to the obvious hostility the State Department had initially expressed to the group’s request.

Mboya’s decision was a rebuke to Nixon, who had failed to deliver the State Department until after the Kennedy family had stepped forward with funding.

At the time, the State Department was turning down Mboya’s request in deference to the government of Jomo Kenyatta, which had argued, contrary to Mboya, that young, talented Kenyans should study closer to home and attend Makerere College in neighboring Uganda, instead of being trained in American universities.

Still, the myth of JFK’s role in bringing President Obama’s father to the U.S. persisted, reported again Jan. 10, 2008, by Washington-based reporter Elana Schor of London’s Guardian newspaper.

On March 30, 2008, Michael Dobbs published an article in the Washington Post, carefully entitled “Obama Overstates Kennedy’s Role in Helping His Father,” so as not to characterize candidate Obama’s Selma remarks as a lie.

“Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged yesterday that the senator from Illinois had erred in crediting the Kennedy family with a role in his father’s arrival in the United States,” Dobbs wrote. “[Burton] said the Kennedy involvement in the Kenya student program apparently started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past.”

To correct the “overstatement,” Dobbs incorrectly reported that Barack Obama Sr. had come to the United States in the Sept. 9, 1959, initial airlift organized by Jackie Robinson without the financial support of the Kennedy family.

“There was enormous excitement when the Britannia aircraft took off for New York with the future Kenyan elite aboard,” Dobbs wrote of the first airlift. “After a few weeks of orientation, the students were dispatched to universities across the United States to study subjects that would help them govern Kenya after the departure of the British. Obama Sr. was interested in economics and was sent to Hawaii, where he met, and later married, a Kansas native named Ann Dunham.”

Further corroboration that Barack Obama Sr. was not on the first airlift is provided by Tom Shachtman in his 2009 book, “Airlift to America.”

On page 9 of the book, Shachtman confirms Mboya was unable to transport Barack Obama Sr. to the United States on any of the airlifts organized by Jackie Robinson or the AASF.

Nativity story

WND also has reported that contrary to the president’s statements, his father did not abandon the family in Hawaii when he accepted an invitation to study at Harvard in 1962.

Documents uncovered by WND also have raised questions about whether President Obama’s parents ever lived together as husband and wife, despite Obama’s repeated assertions his parents lived together in Hawaii during the first two years of his life.

WND has reported the only documentation for Ann Dunham’s marriage to Barack Obama Sr. comes from their divorce documents that list the marriage date as Feb. 2, 1961.

In actuality, it isn’t clear Obama’s parents were married, since official records have never been produced showing a legal ceremony took place. No wedding certificate or photograph of a ceremony for Dunham and Obama Sr. has ever been found or published.

WND previously reported Michelle Obama stated at a public event that her husband’s mother was “very young and very single” when she gave birth to the future U.S. president.

President Obama, who pledged to establish the most open and transparent administration in history, on Monday surpasses his predecessor’s record for avoiding a full-fledged question-and-answer session with White House reporters in a formal press conference.

President George W. Bush’s longest stretch between prime-time, nationally televised press conferences was 214 days, from April 4 to Nov. 4, 2004. Mr. Obama tops that record on Monday, going 215 days – stretching back to July 22, according to records kept by CBS Radio’s veteran reporter Mark Knoller.

Obama tops Bush at ducking reporters; No formal press conference in 215 days…

The president has seemingly shunned formal, prime-time sessions since his last disastrous presser, when he said police in Cambridge, Mass., “acted stupidly” by arresting a Harvard professor who broke into a home that turned out to be his own. The off-the-cuff comment took over the news cycle for a week, overshadowing his push for health care reform, and culminated in a White House “Beer Summit,” where the president hosted white police officer James Crowley and the black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr.

“He does seem a little snakebit on the whole presser thing,” said Julie Mason, a longtime White House reporter and board member of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

“At his last big press conference in July, he lost control of the message with his response to the Gates question, and then returns six months later with an unannounced, five-question avail in the briefing room – on a snow day. Was it something we said?”

Earlier this month, the president did field a few questions from reporters in a “mini-presser.” He dropped by the White House briefing room unannounced at midday just after Washington’s second snowstorm, right when the daily briefing by the press secretary was to occur. The “press availability” lasted only 33 minutes and encompassed questions from just five reporters – plus one after Mr. Obama tried to head for the door.

In contrast, a typical White House press conference is usually announced well in advance and takes place in the far more formal White House East Room. The prime-time sessions – carried live by all TV networks – last at least an hour and include questions from 12 to 15 reporters, sometimes more.

“I don’t count that five-question, surprise ‘avail,’ as a presser,” Miss Mason said.

Still, Mr. Obama has held plenty of tightly controlled sessions with reporters. He has given 66 interviews since July 22 – including two that day, according to Mr. Knoller’s records. But that doesn’t satisfy White House veterans.

“The administration will point you to all the interviews he does, but that is all about control. We are naturally at cross-purposes with him, because he wants to come out with his talking points and the press wants to knock him off those talking points – so the result is he just doesn’t come around anymore,” Miss Mason said.

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama tops his predecessor in total output. He has given 43 press conferences of various degrees, six of which were solo White House sessions, Mr. Knoller said. During the same period, Mr. Bush gave 24 press conferences, of which four were formal, solo White House sessions.

Source:  Washington Times

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a statement it was reviewing the complaints and interviewing vehicle owners. The agency stressed that the complaints are unproven allegations.

The agency has also asked Toyota to provide information about any complaints it has received.

Toyota said on Wednesday after NHTSA reported the first 10 complaints that it, too, would move quickly to investigate the matter. The automaker said its recall remedies were rigorously tested.

NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said on Thursday that regulators were “determined to get to the bottom” of complaints. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a Senate committee earlier in the day Toyota owners should bring their cars back to dealers if they are still having problems.

The government said it has the authority to order Toyota to provide a different solution if it appears that remedies are not working. NHTSA did not object to the company’s recall fixes.

Toyota said this week it had fixed more than 1 million of the more than 6 million cars and trucks subject to recalls in October 2009 and January. Recalls covered loose floor mats that can jam the accelerator and gas pedals that do not spring back as designed.

NHTSA is reviewing whether there are glitches with Lexus and Toyota electronic throttles as a possible explanation for unintended acceleration.

Toyota, which has hired an independent consulting firm to study the issue, has said it has tested the systems exhaustively and found no problems. Congress has sharply criticized NHTSA for its handling of previous complaints about electronic throttles.

Separately, Edmunds.com, an online research source for consumers, said Toyota’s newly unveiled purchase incentives including interest-free loans and free maintenance have noticeably boosted interest in the company’s vehicles among prospective buyers. Kelley Blue Book also noted a spike in traffic for Toyota.

WASHINGTON — More Toyota drivers say their cars have sped up by themselves even after being fixed to correct the problem.

Another five people have reported problems to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s complaint database, describing surges of speed that came without warning. That is on top of at least 15 similar cases found by an Associated Press review of the data on Wednesday.

The complaints, which are submitted online or through a NHTSA hot line, have not been independently verified. Government investigators said Wednesday that they had found 10 possible cases of post-fix problems.

As part of two recalls involving more than 8 million vehicles worldwide, Toyota is installing special metal shims and shortening gas pedals to solve the problem of unintended acceleration. The Japanese automaker blames the problem on gas pedals that can become sticky or be trapped under floor mats.

The company says it is confident its fixes will take care of the problems, but that its engineers will check into the complaints.

The driver of a 2008 Camry, which received fixes under two Toyota recalls, wrote in a complaint that the sedan speeds up when it is started.

“I can drive up to 30 miles an hour without applying the gas,” the driver wrote.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a Senate appropriations subcommittee Thursday that drivers who are still having problems after the fixes should take their cars or trucks back to the dealer.

A panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that deals with consumer protection told lawmakers Thursday it plans to hold a March 11 hearing to look at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The hearing was titled, “NHTSA Oversight: The Road Ahead.”

A jury didn’t believe him, and a judge sentenced him to eight years in prison. But now, new revelations of safety problems with Toyotas have Lee pressing to get his case reopened and his freedom restored. Relatives of the victims — who condemned Lee at his sentencing three years ago — now believe he is innocent and are planning to sue Toyota. The prosecutor who sent Lee to prison said he thinks the case merits another look.

“I know 100 percent in my heart that I took my foot off the gas and that I was stepping on the brakes as hard as possible,” Lee said in an interview Wednesday at the state prison in Lino Lakes. “When the brakes were looked at and we were told that nothing was wrong with the brakes, I was shocked.”

More here

Toyota has been accused by a U.S. House of Representatives committee with misleading the public and investigators over its recent recalls.

The accusations, in a statement from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, claim that Toyota both relied on a flawed study in its assessment of the issue of sticking accelerator pedals at the heart of the recalls, and then made misleading statements about its response. According to the authors of the letter, Henry Waxman andBart Stupak, Toyota dismissed, rather than investigated, the idea that the cars’ computers were at fault. In a statement, James Lentz, the president of Toyota’s American division, claimed that hardware issues were to blame, and that dealers were repairing the faulty part. Toyota also released a study commissioned from the research firm Exponent that said electronic systems were not to blame. According to the House committee, however, the study involved only six vehicles, none of which had problems with their electrical systems, and was insufficient to produce an accurate result.

The company is under a criminal investigation, and has received two subpoenas for documents from two House committees relating to the recalls, although whether they are directly related to the letter is unclear. The documents are related to accelerator issues in several models, as well as brake problems with the Prius hybrid car, and were served earlier in in February by a federal grand jury and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Toyota has released upwards of 75,000 pages of documents under the requests.

In a separate, though related, development, it has emerged that Toyota last year negotiated a limited recall for two models, the Toyota Camry andLexus ES, that were affected by the accelerator recalls, saving the company an estimated $100 million. A confidential internal presentation in July 2009 made the claim, and a month later, a Lexus ES, one of the models under the limited recall crashed in California, killing four people. The claims apparently referenced a September, 2007 recall of floor mats that could trap gas pedals, the same problem that triggered a full recall of numerous Toyota cars to fix the same problem. In the same presentation, the company claimed to have avoided recalls of another model related to rust, as well as delaying new federal safety regulations.

Toyota hammers Obama and Administration

According to a presentation obtained under subpoena by the House Oversight and Government Relations committee, Toyota referred to the “changing political environment” as one of its main challenges and anticipated a “more challenging regulatory” environment under the Obama administration’s purview.

This document, in addition to piles of other records, will be front and center this week as the Japanese automaker girds to face lawmakers hungry for answers about a recall that has the company teetering.

Upwards of 8 million cars have been recalled in the U.S. and worldwide, amid reports of Toyota’s vehicles accelerating rapidly. The problems have turned political, as the company has shuttered some American factories, potentially resulting in layoffs.

The oversight committee, which is led by Democrat Edolphus Towns of New York and Republican Darrell Issa of California, will seek to discover if Toyota was forthright in disclosing problems with rapid acceleration – and if the government was responsible and quick in investigating such complaints.

Toyota has launched an image rehabilitation campaign on Capitol Hill, and its top lobbyist has sent e-mails to congressional aides in an attempt to shape its image amid this crisis.

Committee aides say the presentation, which was obtained by POLITICO, gives the clearest view into the minds of Toyota executives.

Aides believe the presentation was an explanatory slideshow prepared to explain the inner-workings of Toyota’s Washington lobbying operations. It includes a responsibility flow chart, in addition to resources the office calls upon, including The Brookings Institution and the Chamber of Commerce.

The slideshow is titled “Toyota Washington, DC” and the cover sheet is labeled “Yoshi Inaba” – the president of Toyota North America, who is slated to testify.

It is a peek into how Toyota executives view the American political environment.

The “Activist Administration & Congress – increasing laws & regulations” is listed as one of “Toyota Challenges,” as is “Massive government support for Detroit automakers.”

The July 2009 presentation also says the Department of Transportation and National Highway Transportation Safety Administration “under Obama administration” is “not industry friendly,” and anticipates a “more challenging regulatory and enforcement environment.”

It says the NHTSA “new team has less understanding of engineering issues and are primarily focused on legal issues.”

“While the administration may have changed, the bureaucracy itself has not and we must ensure that government regulators give every possible consumer concern its due diligence,” said Republican Oversight spokesman Kurt Bardella.

By JAKE

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33248.html#ixzz0gK80EEMz

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‘Good Spirits’

Former President Bill Clinton, 63, was rushed to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City today following chest pains, and underwent a stent procedure.

Current Location: Columbia Presbyterian Hospital 168th street in New York.

Here’s the statement by Douglas Band, counselor to the former president:

Today President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest. Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries. President Clinton is in good spirits, and will continue to focus on the work of his Foundation and Haiti’s relief and long-term recovery efforts. In 2004, President Clinton underwent a successful quadruple bypass operation to free four blocked arteries.