Showing posts with label SECRET SERVICE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SECRET SERVICE. Show all posts

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Sequestration Sacrifices Are Obviously Only For Us and Our Kids

Amazing how there are funds for Sasha and Malia to head to Idaho, the Bahamas (and Mexico  last year) with Secret Service in tow for Spring Break, but no funds for the rest of America’s kids to visit the White House (the People’s House) or have an Easter Egg Roll on the White House Lawn… finally reinstated after an uproar from the public; Obama even played the Jesus card in his Easter message…  no doubt hoping to appease “We the Sheeple” and to take the focus off the first daughters’ trip(s)?

Idaho Station Removes First Daughters Ski Trip Report on White House Request

Breitbart.com: A local news affiliate in Idaho reported that the first daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, are on a Spring Break ski trip in Sun Valley, Idaho. The story quickly spread across the Internet when picked up by the highly trafficked Drudge Report website.

But hours later, the story disappeared from the KMVT website without an update or correction.

Video:  Obama Daughters Hit Slopes

In March of last year, the White House requested media outlets to remove accurate reports that Malia Obama was on a trip in Mexico with over two dozen Secret Service agents.

Earlier this week, Breitbart News broke the story that the Obama daughters spent part of Spring Break at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

***

UPDATE: The White House has confirmed the report was removed on their request. From Kristina Schake, Communications Director to the First Lady:

From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest. We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.

Earlier this week, Breitbart News broke the news that the First Daughters were on a spring break trip in the Bahamas, with Secret Service protection in tow, despite staff shortages that the White House cited in closing tours to the public.

The cross-continental trip for the First Daughters represents an epic tour. The KMTV news report cited photo evidence that the First Daughters were on the ski slopes, but noted that it was "unclear" whether First Lady Michelle Obama had accompanied them.

Separately, Breitbart News received a tip Friday morning from a parent whose daughter encountered the First Daughters in Sun Valley: "My daughter found herself in the middle of the entourage as she exited a local shop."

Meanwhile, the White House remains closed to thousands of students traveling to Washington, D.C. over Spring Break.

President Obama canceled the public, self-guided tours in a bid to trim $2 million from the Secret Service budget. The full cost of the First Daughters' 2013 spring break travel and necessary security detail are unknown at this time. Presumably, the Secret Service costs could have covered at least a few weeks of public White House tours.

Most people, if they have a spring break vacation, have to choose between the beach or the slopes. The Obamas, however, are not most people.

Let us remember that the Feds, per the Obama administration, want the public to feel the pain of Sequestration to make the Republicans look bad.

It is, apparently, good to be King.

*Beware people… this will be our world, the have and have-nots, if we don’t snap out of our daze quickly. Just like in most of the rest of the world, we the masses, the sheeple, the lowly taxpayers will not be taking the trips… it will be the ruling elite, and most of the time, you won’t even get to see the pictures!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Biden Spends $1 Million Annually for Weekend Trips

Tighten your belts America… just don’t expect Team Obama or Washington to do the same…

Newsweek:

Ronald Kessler reporting from Washington, D.C. — Last June, President Obama appointed Vice President Joe Biden to root out wasteful government spending. But behind the scenes, it’s a different matter.

Every Friday, Biden takes a helicopter designated as Marine Two from the vice president’s residence to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and then hops on Air Force Two to fly back to his home in Delaware. At the end of the weekend, he returns on Air Force Two, usually a Boeing C-32.

joe-biden-prepares-to-board-af2-in-2011-ap.jpg

Vice President Biden boards Air Force Two.
(AP Photo)

During warm weather, Biden regularly returns to Andrews on the airplane on Saturdays to play golf at the Air Force base with President Obama. After the golf game, he flies back to Delaware and returns to Washington on the plane on Sunday evening — all at taxpayer expense.

The cost of flying Air Force Two is $22,000 an hour, so each half-hour trip to or from Delaware costs about $10,000. Each golf game costs taxpayers $20,000. At that rate, the annual cost to taxpayers of Biden’s weekend trips is well over $1 million.

In addition, the Secret Service rents more than 20 condominiums in the Wilmington, Del. area for agents who must accompany Biden when he returns to his home state.

Biden’s press office had no immediate comment.

“Biden leaves every Friday from Joint Base Andrews, so he gets lifts from the observatory via Marine Two to Andrews Air Force Base, takes off via Air Force Two, lands in Delaware, and stays the weekend and then comes back on Sunday nights,” says a Secret Service agent familiar with the trips.

biden-train2009ap.jpg

Biden has been a long-time proponent of train travel.
(AP Photo)

“Every three or four weeks when it’s warm, he gets up there on Saturday and then will fly back on Air Force Two,” the agent says. “While Air Force Two is sitting on the tarmac at Andrews, he goes and plays golf with the president at Andrews Air Force Base, gets back on the plane, and flies back to Delaware. Let me tell you something, that is egregious.”

Besides that, “The Secret Service rents condos in Wilmington because his schedule is so fluid and never concrete enough to properly prepare for his visits to Delaware,” the agent says. “So they keep a fully staffed Secret Service advance team in Delaware in condominiums that we lease so that when he does these things back and forth to D.C., they’re up there ready for him to arrive.”

The Boeing C-32 that usually flies as Air Force Two is a specially configured Boeing 757-200 commercial jet which typically requires a crew of 18.

As a U.S. senator, Biden was proud of the fact that he commuted daily by train from his home in Delaware to Washington during the week. Amtrak named the newly renovated Wilmington station the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad Station. But after taking office as vice president, a Secret Service agent says Biden began the pattern of commuting on Air Force Two on weekends, costing taxpayers close to $4 million so far.

As recently as May 12, Biden flew back to Andrews to play golf with Obama and with Biden’s second son Hunter and White House trip director Marvin Nicholson. They played 18 holes of golf for four and a half hours.

Biden also plays golf at a country club he belongs to in the Wilmington area. The Secret Service agent says that since Air Force Two parks at Andrews, Obama is obviously aware that Biden is running up a huge government tab for each game of golf he plays with him.

Asked if President Obama thinks these costs are appropriate, why he has not questioned Biden flying to play golf with him at a cost of $20,000 per game, and in view of these costs of $1 million a year for weekend trips, whether the vice president should no longer be in charge of cutting government waste, the president’s press office had no immediate comment.

In addition to his salary as vice president of $230,700, Biden has free use of the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory. The vice president’s residence is a handsome 9,150-square-foot, three-story mansion overlooking Massachusetts Avenue NW in Washington.

Complete with pool, pool house, and indoor gym, the white brick house was built in 1893 as the home of the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Congress turned it into the official residence of the vice president in 1974 and gave it the address One Observatory Circle.

During the day, at least five Navy stewards attend to every personal need of the second family, including cleaning, cooking, shopping for food, and doing the laundry.

Biden has portrayed himself as a regular Joe, a product of a working class family who takes on millionaires and Republicans who are said to be out of touch with middle-class Americans.

Last June 13, Obama placed Biden in charge of a Campaign to Cut Waste, which will “hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the federal government,” according to the White House website.

In an email, Biden told supporters that he was the “new sheriff in town.” He said that “particularly at a time when we’re facing tough decisions about reducing our deficit, it’s a no-brainer to stop spending taxpayer dollars on things that benefit nobody.”

By Ronald Kessler - chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. He is the New York Times bestselling author of books on the Secret Service - In the President's Secret Service, FBI - The Secrets of the FBI, and CIA - Inside the CIA.

The one thing you can bet on is that the Obama White House is not interested in sharing in your sacrifice!!  Make you mad?  It should!!  Remember this in November~

Monday, May 23, 2011

Big Brother Update

GUN OWNERS YOU HAVE TO READ THIS-BIG BROTHER IS AT THE VA HOSPITALS..PASS THIS ALONG AT ONCE

VA and Concealed Carry

Please pass this on to all the other retired guys and gun owners...

Thanks From a Vietnam Vet and retired Police Officer:

“I had a doctors appointment at the local VA clinic yesterday and found out something very interesting that I would like to pass along. While going through triage before seeing the doctor, I was asked at the end of the exam, three questions : 1 . Did I feel stressed? 2. Did I feel threatened? 3. Did I feel like doing harm to someone? The nurse then informed me, that if I had answered yes to any of the questions, I would have lost my concealed carry permit as it would have gone into my medical records and the VA would have reported it to Homeland Security.”

Looks like they are going after the vets first. Other gun people, like retired law enforcement will probably be next. Then when they go after the civilians, what argument will they have? Be forewarned and be aware. The Obama administration has gone on record as considering veterans and gun owners potential terrorists. Whether you are a gun owner veteran or not, you've been warned.. If you know veterans and gun owners, please pass this on to them.

Be Very cautious about what you say and to whom. (From Facebook)

 

Family Facing $4 Million in Fines for Selling Bunnies

by Bob McCarty, Big Government – Photo AP File

Almost nine months after a Missouri dairy was ordered to stop selling cheese made from raw milk, I share details of another hare-raising story from the Show-Me State: John Dollarhite and his wife Judy of tiny Nixa, Mo., have been told by the USDA that, by Monday, they must pay a fine exceeding $90,000. If they don't pay that fine, they could face additional fines of almost $4 million. Why? Because they sold more than $500 worth of bunnies - $4,600 worth to be exact - in a single calendar year.  READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT BIGGOVERNMENT.COM

 

30 cities dropped from U.S. anti-terror grants

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has notified more than 30 cities across the country that they are losing anti-terror funding from the federal government.

The department said Thursday that money for the Urban Areas Security Initiative grants has been cut by about $170 million as part of a larger budget cut that eliminated more than $780 million in grant money from the latest federal budget. The budget cuts mean that only 31 high-threat urban areas, including New York and Washington, will still receive grants this year.

Texas is taking the largest hit, with Austin, El Paso, and San Antonio no longer eligible to receive millions in funding through the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Areas Security Initiative grant program. Combined, the cities received more than $14.5 million in federal funding last year.  Full Article Here 

Circumcision Ban to Appear on San Francisco Ballot

SAN FRANCISCO—A group seeking to ban the circumcision of male children in San Francisco has succeeded in getting their controversial measure on the November ballot, meaning voters will be asked to weigh in on what until now has been a private family matter.

City elections officials confirmed Wednesday that the initiative had received enough signatures to appear on the ballot, getting more than 7,700 valid signatures from city residents. Initiatives must receive at least 7,168 signatures to qualify.

If the measure passes, circumcision would be prohibited among males under the age of 18. The practice would become a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail. There would be no religious exemptions.  Read rest of post HERE at the WSJ

McDonalds CEO:  The Clown Stays, Food Nazis

Okay, he didn’t quite put it that way, but that’s how I heard it:

The 48-year-old, red-haired mascot has come under fire from health-care professionals and consumer groups who, in recent days, have asked the fast-food chain to retire Ronald McDonald. But McDonald’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner staunchly defended the clown at the company’s annual meeting on Thursday, saying, “Ronald McDonald is going nowhere.”

Shareholders seemed to agree, voting down a proposal to require the hamburger giant to tally the financial impact of defending its children’s meals. Just 6% of shareholders voted in favor of the resolution.

McDonalds has been sued, they’ve been lobbied to remove toys from Happy Meals because that makes them pedophiles or something, and now this.

Can you imagine sitting around all day not only worrying about what somebody else is eating, but making a concerted effort to tell everybody what to eat and control what restaurants sell and how they sell it?

It just occurred to me that this is the first time I’ve come to the defense of a clown since once admonishing myself for calling Al Gore fat (I loathe ad hominem attacks).

**Written by Doug Powers

Read full article and comments at: Michelle Malkin

Uttering 'Jesus' in school 'not protected free speech'

A hearing is scheduled Monday before the5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appealsin New Orleans that could determine if students in elementary schools have the protections of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The case arose in the Plano Independent School District in Texas where Thomas Elementary School Principal Lynn Swanson and Razor Elementary School Principal Jackie Bomchill were sued for restricting student speech when it referenced "God" or "Jesus."

According to the Liberty Institute,in the first incident, officials banning 8-year-old Jonathan Morgan from handing out candy canes with Jesus' name on them to classmates at a school party.

"Then they confiscated a little girl's pencils after school because they mentioned 'God,'" the Institute reported.

But that's not all, the group said.

'Then they confiscated a little girl's pencils since they mentioned God'

Read Full Article HERE at WND 

 

Second Amendment Takes Double Shot in California


A double-whammy came down today against gun rights advocates in California. First, the California Assembly voted to prohibit the open carry of unloaded handguns. Current law had allowed unloaded weapons to be carried openly in public.

“You are disarming our citizens” while doing little to disarm criminals, said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.
“It is not just the right to keep, it is the right to bear arms,” said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks.

California Democrats had seized upon the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the bill’s introduction. Unable to pass a bill last year that accomplished the same goal, they brought a similar measure to the Assembly days after the Giffords’ tragedy in Arizona.

Read Rest of Post Here

 

Secret Service Grills 7th Grader Over Facebook Post About Obama… And Without Parental Notification

Fox News:

A 13-year-old boy in Washington state faced federal interrogation by a Secret Service agent over a Facebook posting that warned President Obama of suicide bombers, q13fox.com reports.

Vito LaPinta of Tacoma, Wash., said he posted a message on Facebook after Usama bin Laden’s death, saying Obama should be careful of possible retaliatory acts against him by other terror members, according to the station.

“I was saying how Usama was dead and for Obama to be careful because there could be suicide bombers,” the boy told the station.

A week later, the boy said a man walked into Truman Middle School “with a suit and glasses and he said he was part of the Secret Service.”

“He told me it was because of a post I made that indicated I was a threat toward the president,” he said.

Full article and video HERE

 

Feds Sting Amish Farmer for selling Raw Milk Locally… Really?  With all our problems, this is what the Feds are focusing on and using our taxpayer money for?

Bloomberg News
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters stand in Silver Spring, Maryland.

FDA Headquarters, Silver Spring, Maryland

A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.

The product in question: unpasteurized milk.

It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.

Full Story Here

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Mr. and Mrs. Salahi are created 5th column operatives.....and much more

Note: I am just passing this on for you to view. I don't necessarily concur with all that is in it. But there is sure some interesting stuff in the link by Lame Cherry about O's Grandma etc.

Posted by Emil J Milano/Founder on November 30, 2009 at 7:00am

That is who Nidal Hasan was, a terrorist soldier not of the United States, but a terrorist soldier of the Islamic order. He was created, groomed and activated in his field just as certainly Mr. and Mrs. Salahi are created 5th column operatives.

By Lame Cherry - http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/
With the remnant of loyal United States Intelligence Agencies begging someone in the press to break the real meaning behind the Salahi event at the White House, it is time to further explain the real meaning what this Barack Obama 5th column was really accomplishing as they gained access to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Perceptions are all in the nuance of the event. Readers will remember Mr. Obama showing the sole of his shoe to the Jews while he was on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Such events are not by chance no more than Mr. & Mrs. Salahi meeting Sen. Obama in 2005 at a Polo match (now why was Obama there?) and the Salahi’s stating they were indeed on the invited guest list as the White House scrambles to cover up what happened.

One needs to return to the distance past of the 1930’s when Austrian Adolf Hitler started a maniacal rise to power exactly like Barack Hussein Obama, another non native import.

Mr. Hitler was the first architectural political genius of the modern age. He was a true artist at heart in understanding the complete envelopment of the German psyche.

There was nothing which national socialist or Nazi Adolf Hitler did not invade in his Germanic culture. The stirring operas of Richard Wagner stirred the soul, the Valkyrie gave his cause epic proportions, Darwin gave him the science of a master race, antiquity provided him with the Aryan mythos, the Babylonian Mystery Religion gave him his cultus and all of the pageantry of the SS gave him his noble knights.

People miss that aspect in the mystique of Hitler in his German elite were indeed knights. Himler had secret orders with rites and this was a calling for Hitler.

Adolf Hitler designed everything from the Germania Reich of 1000 years from his city of the future he designed down to the incredibly beautiful SS uniforms which still inspire today.

In all honesty, only the United States Marines dress blues surpass the Nazi SS uniform. The SS was cast as both beauty and dread and Hitler crafted that guise so well that it still inspires Star Wars to the evil on the wonderful series Firefly.

Think of that in not one SS soldier is uniformed today and yet those uniforms of Hitler still make the world fill with awe. They were artistic perfection in indulging all that was rapine in the human soul.

I remember the old Germans speaking of Hitler in phrases like, “Yah yah, you listen now. We will sing our songs. We will march to our music. We will do as we please”.

This was what Hitler tapped into, instead of a national apology for an enslaved German people, he inspired them by making it a wonder to be a German again.

This psyche was not alone a German order. Italy would be swept away by this and Imperial Japan would have it’s own master race order. The Hitler mystique would inspire the Persians under British mandate to change their name to Aryan or Iranian which they are not, but just to gain sympathy from Hitler so he might give them freedom when he defeated the English.

In Egypt the order would travail in the form of the bana Nazi and after the war, transcend into the Muslim Brotherhood. As time passed Sheik bin Laden would lead the Wahhabist order of the Islamfascists and the Egyptian would lead the growing order of Islamocommunists in Dr. Zawahiri.

In Palestine the Islamocommunist Hezbollah and Hamas, are at odds with the Isalmofascist Fatah.

In America one finds the two Juniors, Ellison and Obama, as they hybrid Islamomarxists of black power. In Persia, the Islamocommunists are led by a growing Emmanuel Kant, a German again, infusing a sort of prime directive of all is legal as long as the ends justify the means.

All of this is fueled by the Muslim oil cartel finance structure. It has been busy building mosques around the world churning out maniacs to the bana Nazi order.

That is who Nidal Hasan was, a terrorist soldier not of the United States, but a terrorist soldier of the Islamic order. He was created, groomed and activated in his field just as certainly Mr. and Mrs. Salahi are created 5th column operatives.

To explain this is to understand Kaiser Wilhelm’s infamous insights into the world order which destroyed his Christian Germany twice as the Germans were an impediment to the central European financial cartels communization of the world, starting in Europe.

The Kaiser noted that with John Wilkes Booth that it was always easy to find some lunatic to pull a trigger. The finding was by the European cartel who assassinated President Lincoln and who did start the Civil War to accomplish what Barack Hussein Obama is now accomplishing in the devastation of America.

One must understand that there are moles and sleeper agents, but in a group of 1000 people there are Nidal Hasan’s who can be programmed and there are operatives like those in CAIR working on self gratifying political motives, there is an Obama kid to be funded and groomed in Chicago, there is a Tony Rezko making money off of blacks as a slum lord and there are Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who in Washington Redskin cheerleader uniforms, part of the affluent Virginia polo set, just have that new venture of the “sex me up Muslim” that is so appealing to an American market who just have had it with these wooly turban heads they don’t understand.

See the Salahi’s are on their own attention whore mission like Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame in being close to the cause, but not high enough in the global cause to get the seats at the main table.

Information from American intelligence is going to have to be more in depth, but when the Salahi’s are part of a group which was run by an Obama terrorist in Mr. Khaladi, meant to circumvent Jews out of their territories for a Philistine state, the Salahi’s are the sexy 5th column to what CAIR is doing through Junior Ellison in Congress.

See Tareq Salahi is what Americans can understand, and is the mission they will sign off on, because just like Joe Biden was horn dog over her, the current Obama voter who was wet pantie over him, can say that good Hugh Hefner sex is good no matter if it is getting bushels of Jews slaughtered and bushels of Gazites under rubble.

So when Mr. and Mrs. Salahi say they were on the guest list, it means they have the influential terror backing friends who are the same friends who built Barack Hussein Obama from his communist organizer kit.

Stevie Wonder suspicion though leads one by the Secret Service reaction in begging the puppy press to figure this story out as beyond a security issue, that the Salahi photos were just as planted as Obama’s showing the shoe to Jews photo was.

It is a well known fact that Mr. Obama used Twitter with the Iranians to foment a revolution there, so that Iranian Patriots would be exposed to be captured and executed.

The Greeks discovered this same Twitter sphere was being used against them by Muslims. Yahoo is now being source for the same upheavals.

So is it just chance that people connected to the Philistine takeover of Israeli territory and Jerusalem, happen to get into the White House, happen to be photographed with important Jew Rahm Emmanuel drooling over Mrs. Salahi, find themselves fondled by Joe Biden and then the Obama White House releases a photo of Mrs. Salahi having hand sex with Obama as the husband glowingly pimps his wife who is clearly in control of Barack Hussein Obama………..

OK now in this photo op, just what message did Bearick Obama send to his Palestinians and Muslims worldwide as they released the photo deliberately. Bowbama wasn’t bowing this time to a Saudi King, he was being hand serviced by the harem girl in an oasis of ecstasy.

That Salahi message was seen all over the Middle East Islam connect and it’s message was Muslims and their cause are in control of the White House Oval Office, Vice President Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.

Weigh the depths of this though in this was the Palestinian Islamomarxist cause invading the Hindu Indian main event. The Indians are in a terror war within their nation and against Pakistan.

The Indians are running their own terrorists against Muslims, and here is Barack Hussein Obama, having the blonde benefactors of the Palestinian mandate fondling themselves all over the Indian state dinner.

Nothing in this news media happens unless it is generated by the patricians. The Salahi’s could have had their pictures online for a 100 years and if the White House didn’t want the story run, that story would have been shut down by the puppy press.

This was a directed event of manipulation, cover up, lies, and this blog concludes a desperate plea by loyal security service members who know exactly what this 5th column of Obama has been up to.

What Nidal Hasan did in Fort Hood is what Tareq Salahi did with a slinky red dress in the White House.

There is definitely security personnel who are begging for someone to expose this full story who are loyal to the United States. They know a whole lot more what the Salahi event is about as the tip of the iceberg and more is to come if someone bothers to do the digging.

I know I am right on this for numerous reasons. This was the honeypot attack which the Soviets utilized so clumsily in corrupting US Citizens for generations. It is only fitting as the Hitler bana Nazi has degraded to the control of Dr. Zawahiri and his Russian Bolshevik KGB and FSB operations that Marxist Obama would be part of this group which is sexing it up for an American message from the Islamocommunist 5th column.

The fact is the United States has been infiltrated and corrupted, the Salahi’s are proof positive of this. They were being used in their own attention whore schemes. The message has been sent, condoned by Barack Hussein Obama and Axelrod Inc., and, another terror attack upon America has gone unnoticed.

You have to get the point children, they are not going to do this with bombs and bullets alone. This is a new game and sexy chics are as much a facet as million dollar donations to Jimmy Carter Jew and American hating Carter Center propaganda.

Start viewing this from a new perspective and you just might start seeing things more clearly as to what the news really is showing, this was a Tokyo Rose broadcast.

Posted by Lee Johnson on asamom on December 1, 2009 at 4:00pm

(This is an odd post and sometimes hard to follow, but it makes you think about it and to think out of the box)

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Secret Service Secrets: Obama Threats Up 400 Percent

A new book by Newsmax Chief Washington Correspondent Ronald Kessler features startling revelations about current and former U.S. presidents, including Barack Obama.

"In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect," released Tuesday, discloses that threats against the president have increased dramatically — by a staggering 400 percent since Obama entered the White House.

Kessler is the first journalist to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, and his book is based on interviews with more than 100 current and former agents.

See Video: Ron Kessler Details Obama, Bush Secrets, More - Click Here Now

The book not only offers intriguing stories about presidents from JFK to George W. Bush but also provides an inside look at the current White House resident, including the fact that, despite his iffy denials, Obama is still smoking cigarettes.

Kessler also reveals that Obama and his wife, Michelle, are well-liked by the Secret Service agents who protect them. Kessler's book reveals that on April 4, 2008, just before Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, spoke at the National Press Club, Obama secretly met with Wright at the pastor's home. So that they would not be noticed, agents made a point of driving Obama in a minivan instead of the usual Suburban. They parked their other vehicles a block away. Obama spent an hour with Wright and then left.

During Wright's Press Club speech, he confirmed that he thought America created the AIDS virus to kill off blacks. After that, Obama claimed to have severed ties with him.

Once Obama entered the White House, the Secret Service experienced a 400 percent increase in the number of threats against the president, in comparison with his predecessor George Bush. While most of the threats were not credible, each had to be checked out and adjudicated.

"Because the Secret Service thinks calling attention to threats gives people ideas and generates more threats, the agency never publicly characterized their frequency," Kessler observes.

Agents told Kessler that both Barack Obama — code-named Renegade — and wife Michelle — code-named Renaissance — treat them with respect, as does Vice President Joe Biden. Still, agents were shocked when Biden revealed the location of the “undisclosed location” — or safe house for the vice president and president. If they had done the same, they would have been fired.

Obama invited agents to dinner twice, including a party for relatives at his home, and the Bidens buy agents food.

Contrary to Obama's repeated claims that he is quitting smoking, he has continued to smoke regularly, agents say. A week after being sworn in as president, Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper that he hadn't had a cigarette on the White House grounds. That left open the possibility that he smokes on the Truman Balcony and in the White House residence and West Wing.

Agents say he smokes outside the White House as well.

Among the many other disclosures in Kessler's book In the President's Secret Service:

  • George W. Bush's daughters Barbara and Jenna gave their Secret Service details a hard time and would try to lose the agents assigned to them.
  • To this day, agents, including Chuck Taylor, who was on the Kennedy detail the day JFK was assassinated, believe they could have saved the president's life if they had been stationed on the back running boards of his car. But Kennedy told agents he didn't want them to ride on the rear running boards.
  • Lyndon Johnson would walk around naked in the presence of his daughters; his wife, Lady Bird; and female secretaries. He was quite well endowed in the testicles, so everyone started calling him bull nuts. He found out about that and was very disturbed.
  • Johnson was angry when a guest was served rare roast beef on Air Force One, and threatened to send the two stewards to Vietnam if they ever served "raw" meat again.
  • Agents say Richard Nixon was the strangest president they ever protected. He had no relationship with his wife and did not sleep with her. He also would walk on the beach wearing a blue suit and dress shoes. Even in the summer he would insist on having a fire burning in the fireplace.
  • Gerald Ford's code name was Passkey. He was considered very cheap. Caddies at a golf club in California usually receive $25 tips, but Ford gave a dollar, if anything at all.
  • Ford was, indeed, a klutz. The day after he left office, he was driving an electric golf cart in Palm Springs, Calif., when he accidentally crashed into an electric panel hanging on the wall of a shack for golf carts.
  • Agents considered Jimmy Carter sanctimonious and a phony. The former peanut farmer pretended to be one of the people but actually had little regard for the “little people,” agents say.
  • Ronald Reagan was folksy, and agents loved him. But they feared Nancy Reagan, and many saw her as cold and calculating.

    The White House "is a character crucible," Bertram S. Brown, M.D., a psychiatrist who formerly headed the National Institute of Mental Health and was an aide to President Kennedy, told Kessler.

    "It either creates or distorts character. Few decent people want to subject themselves to the kind of grueling abuse candidates take when they run in the first place."

    Brown, who has seen many top Washington politicians and White House aides in his practice, added: "Many of those who run crave superficial celebrity. They are hollow people who have no principles and simply want to be elected.

    "Even if an individual is balanced, once someone becomes president, how does one solve the conundrum of staying real and somewhat humble when one is surrounded by the most powerful office in the land, and from becoming overwhelmed by an at times pathological environment that treats you every day as an emperor?

    "Here is where the true strength of the character of the person, not his past accomplishments, will determine whether his presidency ends in accomplishment or failure."

    By: Jim Meyers - Monday, August 3, 2009 7:23 PM

    Posted: Daily Thought Pad