obama cabinet

Barack Obama administration and cabinet

Just some of the members of the Barack Obama cabinet and other administration employees, mostly from an immigration-related standpoint. There's a running list of those appointed here.

Last modified Jan 13, 2009
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Rep. Suzan DelBene serves on Committee overseeing H1B visas despite having deep links to Microsoft - 03/03/13

From this: U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene understands Microsoft’s need for temporary work visas for skilled foreigners probably as well as anyone in Congress - and what she doesn’t know she could just ask her husband. DelBene, a freshman Democrat from Medina, is a former Microsoft executive who bankrolled her two congressional races with her high-tech wealth. Her husband, Kurt, is president of Microsoft’s Office Division, one of the company’s biggest business units.

Cecilia Munoz named to head Domestic Policy Council (former NCLR official) - 01/10/12

From this: The White House announced Tuesday that Cecilia Munoz, a former senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza, would replace Melody Barnes at the top of the [Domestic Policy Council]... Munoz is now serving as the White House's director of intergovernmental affairs and is in charge of outreach to state and local governments...

Laura Wides-Munoz of AP's noxious racial bean-counting (does Obama discriminate against white males in cabinet?) - 12/21/09

Laura Wides Munoz of the Associated Press offers a noxious bit of racial bean-counting in "Obama naming Hispanics to top posts at record pace" (link):

Mari Del Carmen Aponte nominated Ambassador to El Salvador: NCLR, PRLDEF links; cleared of being Cuban spy - 12/21/09

Barack Obama has nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be Ambassador to El Salvador:

Thomas Saenz: new president of MALDEF (Villaraigosa, Obama's DOJ, support for illegal immigration) - 07/16/09

Thomas Saenz - current chief counsel to Los Angeles City mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - has been selected to be the new president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). He was under consideration to head the civil rights division of the Department of Justice until that was withdrawn due perhaps to him and his affiliations being a bit too on the extreme side. Under his leadership, MALDEF will continue their strong support for illegal immigration. Per Phil Willon of the Los Angeles Times (link): Among his priorities as head of the Latino civil...

Louis Caldera loses job over Air Force One photo op - 05/08/09

Louis Caldera - now the former director of the White House Military Office - has been fired or quit over the recent flap where one of the Air Force One planes - together with two F-16s - buzzed New York City in an apparent "photo op" (link).

Cass Sunstein, Obama "regulatory czar", proposed "fairness doctrine" for internet - 04/28/09

From this: Barack Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" (Cass Sunstein) has advocated a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet that would require opposing opinions be linked and also has suggested angry e-mails should be prevented from being sent by technology that would require a 24-hour cooling off period... Sunstein first proposed the notion of imposing mandatory "electronic sidewalks" for the Net. These "sidewalks" would display links to opposing viewpoints... Later, Sunstein rethought his proposal, explaining that it would be "too difficult to regulate [the Internet] in a way that would...

As flu pandemic threatens, Obama admin still doesn't have HHS Sec'y, Surgeon General, FDA head - 04/27/09

From this: The Obama administration declared a “public health emergency” Sunday to confront the swine flu - but is heading into its first medical outbreak without a secretary of Health and Human Services or appointees in any of the department’s 19 key posts. President Barack Obama has not yet chosen a surgeon general or the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His choice to run the Food and Drug Administration awaits confirmation. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs says no worries, there's a team in place running day-to-day operations: "I think it’s all hands on deck, and we’re...

John Trasvina of MALDEF named to Obama administration (HUD assistant secretary) - 03/29/09

John Trasvina - president of the strongly pro-illegal immigration group MALDEF - has been nominated to the Obama administration. His title is "Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)". This follows the de-appointment of his co-worker Thomas Saenz to another post. There's more on the FHEO office here: hud.gov/offices/fheo/aboutfheo/aboutfheo.cfm Among other things, they: ...manage the Fair Housing Assistance Program, administer the award and management of Fair Housing Initiatives Program grants, and propose fair housing...

Obama sought advice from Cecilia Munoz, urged her to join his administration (Deb Price/Detroit News puffball piece) - 03/16/09

Deb Price of the Detroit News offers "Obama turns to Mich. native" about Cecilia Munoz, a former official with the far-left, illegal immigration-supporting, extremist-funding National Council of La Raza (link). The article is a complete, Soviet-level puff piece and completely fails to note the questionable activities of her former organization. And, bearing in mind that what people say might not fully reflect reality especially in articles like this, Munoz says: "When (Obama) had questions about policy, he would call [Munoz when she was at NCLR]. He really developed those kinds of...

Cecilia Munoz gets lobbyist waiver to work in Obama administration - 03/11/09

The Barack Obama administration has a strict rule against lobbyists working in his administration. Of course, exceptions can be made if there's a "public interest" (link): The waivers were provided for Jocelyn Frye, director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady, and Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs in the executive office of the president... Before joining the administration, Frye served as general counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she directed the group’s workplace fairness program. The White House blog said Frye, an...

Your Monsanto, Tom Vilsack, GMO food assignment - 03/07/09

I'm not up-to-date on farming matters and I let McDonald's handle the food side of things.

Charles Freeman on board of Chinese government oil company - 02/27/09

Barack Obama has selected Charles Freeman (aka "Chas Freeman") to head the National Intelligence Council ("NIC"). Since 2004, Freeman has served on the board of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation ("CNOOC"). That company is 75% owned by the Chinese government, and in 2005 they tried to buy Unocal with an $18.5 billion all-cash offer.

Thomas Saenz of MALDEF is new DOJ civil rights division chief (Villaraigosa) - 02/24/09

Per the Los Angeles Daily Journal (reblogged by the WSJ here), the new head of the civil rights division at the Department of Justice is Thomas Saenz. For about a dozen years, Saenz worked as an attorney for the far-left, illegal immigration-supporting Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and lately he was of counsel to the far-left, illegal immigration-supporting mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. Needless to say, the ACLU cheered the news: "I don’t think the president or attorney general could make a better selection," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of...

DHS Dep. Asst. Sec'y for Policy is from CAP, United Nations, Ted Kennedy office (Esther Olavarria) - 02/23/09

Janet Napolitano has selected Esther Olavarria as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security. And, she's from the Center for American Progress, called around here the "think tank that can't think straight". CAP supports illegal immigration and defines opposition to massive illegal activity as "xenophobia"; see the link for more on them. And, since August 2008 she's been a CAP Senior Fellow and their Director of Immigration Policy [1], [2] The first page has her bio containing more nuggets of great news: Esther comes to CAP/CAPAF from the UNHCR, the UN Refugee...

Thomas Perez to head Citizenship and Immigration Services? (close with Casa de Maryland) - 02/20/09

According to this, the new pick for Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is Thomas E. Perez, currently Labor Secretary of Maryland. In April 2007, he "joined students in Annapolis to urge approval of a bill granting in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants" (link). And from this: Perez, a former Clinton Administration official and currently Maryland’s Secretary of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, has had a long association with (CASA de Maryland). Both Montgomery and Prince George’s counties pay CASA millions of dollars each year in social services contracts and have put up...

Obama Faith-Based Initiative includes secular "community organizations" (+ illegal immigration supporters Jim Wallis, David Saperstein) - 02/07/09

On Feb. 5, Barack Obama issued an Executive Order [1] making changes to George W Bush's 2001 Order which established the "White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives". That's now the "White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships", and per the press release [2]: [It] will be a resource for nonprofits and community organizations, both secular and faith based, looking for ways to make a bigger impact in their communities, learn their obligations under the law, cut through red tape, and make the most of what the federal government has to offer. Will those "...

Obama "Director of Citizen Participation" is from Google (Katie Jacobs Stanton) - 01/29/09

Per this, Barack Obama has named former Google product manager Katie Jacobs Stanton to be his "Director of Citizen Participation".

DHS Deputy Secretary was top United Nations official (Jane Holl Lute) - 01/25/09

From this: A top United Nations official who once served on the White House National Security Council has been picked for deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, a move that would place two women at the top of the department for the first time. President Barack Obama's nomination of Jane Holl Lute, a retired Army major who worked on the NSC under President Bill Clinton, was announced Friday by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. ...At the U.N., Lute coordinates peace efforts among countries in conflict. ...In addition to her NSC work, Lute has served as vice...

Obama Office of Public Liaison: let's ask them tough questions - 01/20/09

Whitehouse dot gov has a new Office of Public Liaison & Intergovernmental Affairs (OPL-IGA) which is Barack Obama's gatekeepers to hoi polloi. They're going to be soliciting input from the citizens, and I urge everyone to give them more input than they can manage by asking them tough questions. It's not clear from their page (whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/opl) how exactly they'll be soliciting that input, whether online or at public events. The first would be problematic due to the way they've handled things such as the "Citizen's Briefing Book", which was a scam designed simply to...

Whitehouse.gov omits Blagojevich link from Michael Strautmanis biography - 01/20/09

The all new whitehouse dot gov has a new Office of Public Liaison & Intergovernmental Affairs, the new president's gatekeepers to hoi polloi. That office's "Chief of Staff to the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison" is Michael Strautmanis, a long-time Obama associate who also used to work for Rod Blagojevich. Oddly enough, that association is not listed in his biography (link and full text below). Even the New York Times tells us this (go here and browse people): A longtime friend of the Obamas who once worked as Michele Obama's paralegal. Obama's...

Jeanne Lambrew lies about uninsured (deputy director of Obama Office of Health Reform) - 01/13/09

Jeanne Lambrew - University of Texas professor, former Bill Clinton aide, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress - has been named the deputy director of the Office of Health Reform for the upcoming Obama administration (link). Her biography is at [1]. She contributed a chapter [2] to the just-released book "Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President", which contains at least one lie: In 2007, about 47 million Americans lacked health insurance In actual fact, as Census figures show, millions of those are not Americans but are citizens of other...

Let's review "Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President" - 01/13/09

Mark Green [1] and the Center for American Progress Action Fund have teamed up to release the new book "Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President" See the rave reviews from such notables as Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi

Obama "Energy Czar" Carol Browner's membership in Socialist panel scrubbed from website, Wikipedia - 01/10/09

Up until the past few days, the website of Socialist International - the main, worldwide socialist organization - listed Carol Browner - Barack Obama's choice to be Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change aka "Energy Czar" - as a member of their Commission for a Sustainable World Society (CSWS) group. Now, however, her membership in that group has been scrubbed from their website. Don't worry, though: I saved off a copy and screengrab here. The scrubbing continued at Wikipedia, where the news that she was a member of that panel was deleted by someone using an IP address...

How close was Leon Panetta to the Institute for Policy Studies? - 01/07/09

Leon Panetta - Barack Obama's choice to be director of the CIA - supposedly had/has links to or perhaps even membership in the radical Institute for Policy Studies, an alleged Communist front organization. However, a search fails to turn up much beyond noise. If anyone has credible information - such as with contemporaneous news reports or IPS literature - please leave a comment. More on IPS here and here (1977 Heritage Foundation report), supposed Clinton links here (also here) And, this page prefaces a list including Panetta with this: Congressional supporters of the IPS have included many...

Bill Richardson withdraws as Commerce Secretary - 01/04/09

MSNBC and the Associated Press are reporting that Bill Richardson is withdrawing his nomination to be secretary of the Department of Commerce (link). The reason is an on-going investigation into his links to a company that did business with New Mexico: "Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact... But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process... I appreciate the confidence President-elect Obama has shown in me, and value...

NYT editorial hopeful about Obama immigration picks; Bush "terrorized", "hunted down" illegal aliens - 12/26/08

As their Christmas gift to the world, the New York Times offered the editorial "Getting Immigration Right" (link). As with all their other editorials on this topic, it's wrong, beginning with their sleazy inability to admit that they and George W Bush are on the same side: This is why it is so important to reverse the Bush administration’s immigration tactics, which for years have attacked the problem upside down and backward. To appease Republican nativists, it lavished scarce resources solely on hunting down and punishing illegal immigrants. Its campaign of raids, detentions and border...

Lubchenco, Lysenko: Hope Yen/AP on Obama's science picks and politicization - 12/20/08

The aptly-named Hope Yen of the Associated Press offers an article about recent science-related Barack Obama appointments. She shows us what she at least really thinks about the politicization of science: she supports it, just as long as the politics are the right kind. In fact, either she or an AP editor re-wrote a later version of the article to delete a questionable phrase; see the two editions compared side-by-side in the extended entry. The first version, from today at around 8AM, says this: President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday named Harvard physicist John Holdren and marine...

Ron Kirk, Obama's U.S. Trade Representive? (supported "NAFTA freeway") - 12/19/08

Barack Obama is apparently considering naming former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk as U.S. Trade Representative. Kirk is a strong NAFTA booster while Obama has only pretended not to be one. During the campaign, Obama played a cute game: pretending to want to "renegotiate" NAFTA, only to later admit that he'd been misleading. With Kirk, at least what they want to do is a bit more out in the open. Around March 12, 2001, Dino Chiecci of the Associated Press included this in "Meeting of Minds/Governors agree on Dallas trade center" (PDF link): Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk said “75 percent of goods that move...

Hilda Solis named Obama's Labor Secretary - 12/18/08

Sources say that Barack Obama has named U.S. Representative Hilda Solis to be his Secretary of the Department of Labor: Solis, who is the daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants, has been the only member of Congress of Central American descent. She just won a fifth term representing heavily Hispanic portions of eastern Los Angeles County and east LA... Andy Stern, president of the 1.9-million member Service Employees International Union, the 51-year-old praised Solis for her deep roots in the union movement. He recalled marching with her in Los Angeles - well before she was elected to...

Obama names Tom Vilsack Agriculture Secretary - 12/17/08

Barack Obama has named former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack to be his Secretary of the Department of Agriculture.

Ken Salazar as Interior Secretary - 12/15/08

Democratic sources are telling the Denver Post that Barack Obama is going to name Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as his secretary of the Department of the Interior.

Western Growers promoted Napolitano as DHS secretary - 12/11/08

Back on November 20, 2008, Western Growers issued this press release: Western Growers President and CEO Tom Nassif sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama today commending him on his election victory and encouraging him to choose Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to serve in his administration as Secretary of Department of Homeland Security. ...Indeed, over the years, Western Growers, whose members primarily operate in Arizona and California, has worked with the Governor on myriad immigration related policy issues including the Arizona employer sanctions law, port-of-entry...

Xavier Becerra: new U.S. Trade Representative? (meets Obama in Chicago) update: declines the offer - 12/04/08

Andrea Mitchell says that Representative Xavier Becerra - Democrat representing Los Angeles - is in Chicago to meet with Barack Obama over the possibility of become U.S. Trade Representative: Becerra voted for NAFTA in 1993, a vote he later said he regretted because of the lack of labor protections. He also supported China's World Trade Organization membership in 2000, and last year he pushed for passage of the trade deal with Peru, after labor protections were added. In the past, he also has opposed trade deals -- like the Central American Free Trade Pact. Meanwhile, the identity...

Bill Richardson named Commerce Secretary - 12/03/08

Barack Obama has named Bill Richardson as Secretary of the Department of Commerce. From this:: [After the announcement, Richardson] addressed a news conference in Chicago in English and in Spanish, saying Obama has a vision he thinks will revitalize the American economy and restore the country's position of respect around the world. In addition, Richardson said, "It will be a great honor to serve a president that recognizes America's diversity is its greatest strength." Love that quota system: Although Richardson becomes the first Latino appointed to the Cabinet now in formation,...

Louis Caldera: Obama's White House Military Office director (CFR, fmr CA Assemblyman; immigration?) - 12/02/08

Another Clinton retread has joined the Barack Obama administration. This time it's Louis E. Caldera, who's been named director of the White House Military Office. Per this, that "oversees all White House military operations, including Air Force One, Camp David and presidential trips overseas".

Janet Napolitano's immigration stance criticized (she doesn't really oppose illegal immigration) - 12/01/08

From this: Far from being a border hawk, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano frequently blocked efforts to curb illegal immigration, say enforcement advocates concerned about her expected nomination to be the Homeland Security secretary under President Barack Obama. In July 2007, Napolitano signed what she called the toughest employer sanctions law in the country. During her first term, she established a state task force to curb ID fraud. She was also the first governor to call for using the National Guard on the border, though she subsequently vetoed legislation to grant funding for more...

Is Obama's "Civilian National Security Force" just a nation-remaking diplomatic corps? - 12/01/08

In a July, 2008 speech, Barack Obama proposed the creation of a "civilian national security force" that would be "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded" as the U.S. military. However, there wasn't anything at his site about that, but "A Handpicked Team for a Sweeping Shift in Foreign Policy" by David Sanger of the New York Times (link) might have revealed what he meant: ...all three of his choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, the...

Obama makes NCLR's Cecilia Munoz director of intergovernmental affairs - 11/26/08

The extremist-funding National Council of La Raza now has someone else "on the inside": their senior vice president Cecilia Munoz has been named as the White House director of intergovernmental affairs. At least in the current administration, that office "serves as the President's liaison to state, local, and tribal governments" (whitehouse.gov/government/off-descrp.html). Expect her to get up to some far-left mischief in order to support her race, but what exactly that will be remains to be seen.

Raul Grijalva considered for Interior Secretary in Obama administration (Juliet Eilperin/WaPo) - 11/23/08

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post informs us (link) the Democratic U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva is in the running to be Secretary of the Department of the Interior. See the link for much more on him, including the fact that he's a strong supporter of illegal immigration and a proud former member of the racial separatist group MEChA. Needless to say, Eilperin doesn't tell her readers that: Grijalva's experience and background meshes nicely with some of the Obama team's top requirements. The son of a migrant worker who grew up in Tucson, Grijalva boasts a strong environmental record...

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