Obama's State of the Union Silent on Yemen and Soft on Banks, Cites CFPB, UN Not Mentioned

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 20 -- US President Barack Obama's speech on the State of the Union on January 20 was long on stories and domestic issues, short on foreign policy including the day's near-coup in Yemen, once cited as an Obama success story. Yemen was not mentioned; nor was Somalia, nor Libya.

  Obama said clearly he would veto any new sanctions on Iran at this time. He spoke about fighting ISIL in Syria, helping “moderate opposition” to do so, with no mention of Bashar al Assad. There was some triumphalism on Ukraine, about Russia's economy being in tatters. One wondered if it would be repeated at the January 21 UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

  The UN wasn't mentioned, even in the section about climate change. Obama said he's “worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained.”  One wondered if civilians in Pakistan would agree. Or, from the day's (UNmentioned) news, in Yemen.

 Mortgages appeared three times, with little anti-bank analysis. Little surprise: Obama nominated Lazard's head of mergers to work in the Treasury Department, which even after the withdrawal of nomination he will still advise. Banker Allan Landon has been nominated to the Federal Reserve. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it's true, was cited, and Elizabeth Warren showed up twice, at least in the feed on NBC.

   How will these issues play out, with the new split between Congress and the White House? Watch this site.

   

Obama Heavy on Iran, Silent on Pawned-Out UN, Predatory Lending Laundered, Citigroup in the House

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 28 -- US President Obama's State of the Union speech mentioned Iran ten times, but not that the US got UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to dis-invite Iran from the Syria talks in Switzerland. In fact, Obama did not mention the United Nations once.

  In the middle of his speech, the UN e-mailed out a readout of Ban Ki-moon's meeting with Haitian president Martelly. It mentioned cholera, but not who brought it to the island: the UN.

  Obama did not mention South Sudan, where the US bears some responsibility, but he did mention Mali, where the US is delegating to colonial power France, as it does in Central African Republic.

  The television cameras flashed to Secretary of State John Kerry, and UN Ambassador Samantha Power -- no mention of their push-back from saying that the Rwanda genocide of 1994 was directed at the Tutsis.

  Obama talked trade, citing the Asia-Pacific. That would by the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, which would globalize corporate abuse like the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, under which for example Reuters got Google to block from its search a leaked document showing Reuters trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, click here for that.

  The camera flashed to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, too. No mention that he came from Citigroup, as does Obama's nominee for deputy chair of the Federal Reserve. The predatory lending scandal has been laundered into the "Great Recession." Watch this site.

Interactive update: Readers' responses led to more research and this: John F. Kennedy in his 1961 State of the Union speech cited (twice) the UN, and strife in the Congo. Jump cut to 2007, when President Bush cited Mutombo helping build a hospital in the DR Congo...

   

Amid UN Negligence in S. Sudan, US Brags of Cutting Budget, Obama Raises Funds

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 19 -- In the midst of a crisis in South Sudan in which the UN stands accused of negligence in not ensuring the deployment of peacekeepers and "lethal equipment to dissuade" attacks in Jonglei state, the Obama administration on Thursday issued a press release bragging of "containing the growth of the UN peacekeeping budget... by closing peacekeeping missions, as appropriate, and showing increased discipline in establishing new missions."

It was unclear what missions the US was claiming credit for having closed. The mission in Chad closed because President Idriss Deby threw it out. The Mission in Sudan closed because Khartoum refused to renew it; now there are complaints of war crimes in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state where UN peacekeepers first sat idle, then left.

While there are things the US Mission could credibly brag about, this seems the wrong time to crow about "defeating a proposed 57% annual increase in the reimbursement rate for troops in peacekeeping missions."

The timing of the press release appears keyed to a January 20 speech by the US Mission's Ambassador for Management Joe Torsella. While the Council on Foreign Relations has a large facility on Park Avenue not far from the UN, Tosella will speak at CFR in Washington, with UN correspondents only able to listen, not ask questions.

Among the questions one would like answered by the US Mission and State Department, beyond a 10-month delayed Freedom of Information Act request and a thRice-requested more forthright appraisal of the UN's performance in not arranging for replacement helicopters in South Sudan after Russia told the UN in mid November that it would no longer be flying there, concerns who will replace Lynn Pascoe atop the UN Department of Political Affairs.

Inner City Press has already exclusively named two of what it's told are three nominees: Jane Hall Lute, a previous UN peacekeeping official who presided over a $100 million "sole source" contract for Lockheed Martin in Darfur, and Alejandro Wolff, for a time the acting chief then deputy at the US Mission to the UN, now Ambassador to Chile. Who is the third name?

Just as the US Mission issued its press release and statement by Ambassador Susan Rice, Obama was nearly at a $10,000 a plate fundraising at Daniel on Park Avenue and 65th Street, on his way to another fundraiser with an entry price over $30,000.

Some wondered: would Obama's hedge funder nominee to the Federal Reserve Board, Jay Powell, be present at either? And if it's true that "we can't wait," why not a less industry compromised recess appointment to the Fed?

On the housing front, the Chicago Tribune has touted Obama's support for a Federal Reserve plan on "how to turn thousands of homes held by the government and commercial banks into rental properties. Obama administration officials have been mulling the idea for months, and say they plan to launch a pilot program in early 2012."

This proposal, which some surmise will involve "dumping" housing stock into the hands of slumlords (and campaign contributors) may well appear in Obama's State of the Union address, sources say. Watch this site.

As Obama Speech Jumps from South Sudan to Tunisia, Skipping Darfur, Asia Ceded

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 25 -- Foreign policy was obviously an afterthought in President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday night in Washington. But why tell only the good news?

When Obama jumped from South Sudan to Tunisia, without even a mention of Darfur, a message was being sent. After November's election, Team Obama wants wins. The Republican response by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, as it turned out, did not mention foreign affairs.

So Obama did not mention Myanmar or Ivory Coast, much less the tens of thousands of civilians killed in Sri Lanka. Less than twelve hours after a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing mostly about corruption at the United Nations, he did not mention the UN.

The cameras several times panned to show Obama's UN Ambassador Susan Rice, as well as Transportation Secretary LaHood, who has come to the UN albeit to talk about texting and driving.

When Obama mentioned South Sudan, the cameras cut to John Kerry. Who would the cameras have shown for Darfur, after Kerry “de-linked” it from taking Sudan off the state sponsors of terrorism list?

One country, strangely, was mentioned four or five time in the speech: South Korea. The technology, the pedagogy and new free trade agreement, leading up to deals with Panama and Colombia.

The last two may represent an attempt to shore up the US sphere of influence, and that Myanmar and Sri Lanka, after Africa, is being ceded to China. Then Paul Ryan spoke only about money. And so it goes.

As Obama's Speech Omits Sudan, Susan Rice Says Jobs Come First, Gration on Case

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/usun1sotu012810.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 28 -- Just as the motorcade of U.S. President Barack Obama left Capitol Hill on Wednesday night after his State of the Union speech, a coalition of Darfur activists issued a press release expressing "disappointment that President Obama did not highlight Darfur, Sudan or genocide prevention during his State of the Union address.... 'We are very far from the unstinting resolve on Sudan that President Obama promised in the campaign.'"

The next morning at the UN in New York, when U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, a "long time friend" of Mr. Obama, stepped to the Security Council stakeout microphone to speak about Somalia and Ivory Coast, Inner City Press asked her about the activists' disappointment.

Were they misreading the omission of Sudan and genocide from the lengthy speech as reflecting a lessing of commitment on these issues by the Obama administration?

Yes, Ambassador Rice said, this is a misinterpretation. She said the speech has correctly focused on jobs and the American economy, not every foreign policy issue could be mentioned. She said the Administration remains "deeply committed," and mentioned for the second time this week the work of U.S. envoy on Sudan Scott Gration. Video here, transcript below.

That Ambassador Rice has spoken to the press at the UN twice this week is "something of a record," one reporter noted. The Mission is known to have bristled at recent negative coverage. Inner City Press has previously documented the fall off in media access and U.S. advocacy since Ms. Rice arrived at the Mission, and has been told 2010 may be different. We'll see.

Footnotes: on Ivory Coast, when Inner City Press asked if the U.S. agrees with holdover President Laurent Gbagbo about the over 400,000 names on the voter list that he is contesting, Ambassador Rice said there was an incident of a "false list." The UN has not acknowledged that the list is false, and France has only said that it, like all other complaints, should be investigated.

So is it the U.S. position that the list is false? If so, cynics might say that the U.S. backs up Gbagbo more and more, to gain even more influence in Abidjan assuming Gbagbo remains in power.

On the anti-corruption front, Inner City Press recently exposed and got confirmed that the nephew of the UN's top envoy in Ivory Coast then got employed by the UN system in the country, which even UN investigators have described to Inner City Press as highly problematic. But has the U.S. Mission said anything about this? Or about the even longer standing nepotism problem surrounded the UN's Congo envoy Alan Doss? We will follow this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/usun1sotu012810.html