A boring article in the NYT about how President Obama isn't in touch (and thus doesn't bear any responsibility) for all his ne'er-do-well Kenyan relatives who keep winding up in America at taxpayer expense suddenly takes a swerve in a previously unknown direction:
As president, Mr. Obama has kept his distance from, and even failed to acknowledge, members of this eclectic clan. In the time-honored tradition of eccentric presidential relatives, the assorted Obamas have faced deportation and drunken-driving charges, started Obama-branded foundations and written memoirs.
But they also made for a powerful element of the president’s Kansas-meets-Kenya narrative as a candidate who could connect different worlds. ...
But I hadn't known this:
In 2000, Ms. Onyango moved to the United States on a valid visa, and in 2001, when Mr. Obama was an Illinois state senator, she helped take care of his newborn daughter, Sasha, and did household chores for the family in Chicago, according to Obama family members. But she stayed illegally after unsuccessfully seeking asylum. When reporters found her in Boston public housing during the 2008 election, Mr. Obama’s aides said he did not know she was in the United States illegally and returned her $265 in campaign contributions.
In 2010, she received asylum and celebrated by telling an interviewer: “President Obama, I’m his aunt. If he does a wrong thing, I’m the only person on earth allowed to pinch his ears and smack him.”
Does this suggest that Barack and Michelle imported his Kenyan aunt to work illegally in the U.S. for them and then dumped her on the welfare system when she didn't work out? Did they pay her or was this one of those quasi-slave labor arrangements? How many laws were broken?
In 2010, she received asylum and celebrated by telling an interviewer
ReplyDeleteAsylum?? What on earth from?
Aunt Zeituni - doing jobs Americans won't do
ReplyDeleteRemember what they did to Meg Whitman?
ReplyDeleteI'm sympathetic to the notion of a family member coming to assist in child care.
ReplyDeleteI'm unsympathetic to the notion of letting said family member fall on the public roles while illegally in the country.
President Obama has spent a lot of energy imploring us to care for our fellow man, while he shows little interesting in his extended family.
In 2010, she received asylum and celebrated by telling an interviewer
ReplyDeleteWas this another instance of immigration fraud?
"Don't ask. Don't tell."
ReplyDeleteMy best guess, she came here on a tourist visa, stayed after it expired, and when the family didn't need her anymore (and perhaps Michelle started bitching about this old woman who was too close to her husband-a la MIL problems) she was "helped" to get on social services and move out.
ReplyDeleteOccam's razor.
Obama us Black. Desnt matter.
ReplyDelete>>Geoff Matthews said...
ReplyDelete""""President Obama has spent a lot of energy imploring us to care for our fellow man, while he shows little interesting in his extended family.""""
Well, he simply showing what he learned from his own mother. She dumped him off in Honolulu while she traipsed around Indonesia working on her doctorate.
In his mind, perhaps he figures that he helped his aunt out. "Suddenly" after getting elected as President the aunt was granted asylum; she wasn't deported.
How many laws were broken?
ReplyDeleteI am beginning to think it will take decades to figure out what this administration has gotten away with.
Let's just admit the truth - this president is simply above the law.
ReplyDeleteThis is I think what got so many riled up about the Bundy Ranch situation, the selective and capricious enforcement of laws. Bundy probably does owe the Feds grazing fees, but if the Feds aren't going to enforce their immigration laws, why crackdown on Bundy?
ReplyDeleteZeituni Onyango arrived on a short-term visitor visa. For her to work as Barack Obama's nanny was illegal. She and the Obamas were breaking US law, which requires a worker visa in order to work in the US.
ReplyDeleteCongress should investigate if Barack Obama broke US immigration laws.
The Bush family also seems to have illegally hired a Mexican servant back in the 1950s.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/the-fulford-file-by-james-fulford-86
"Does this suggest that Barack and Michelle imported his Kenyan aunt to work illegally in the U.S. for them and then dumped her on the welfare system when she didn't work out?"
ReplyDeleteI'll let you decide. But the answer is, Yes.
My recollection also is that she came on a visitors visa.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the article puts it this way:
In 2000, Ms. Onyango moved to the United States on a valid visa, ... according to Obama family members."
Visiting is not moving. Which one was it, VISIT or MOVE?
It would not surprise me to learn she came to stay.
How many laws were broken?
ReplyDeleteProbably few to none on the part of Obama, depending somewhat on the circumstances of the visa (?). Anyway, the real problem in the US is the government refusing to enforce the law.
(and thus doesn't bear any responsibility)
He doesn't, regardless. If she overstayed, then she is responsible for that. I won't fault Obama for not reporting that, even if he knew she was here illegally.
returned her $265 in campaign contributions
Which he did of course. So either 1) Obama himself lied about that, ie by saying directly that he didn't know she was still here (illegally), or 2) he failed to correct this misinformation once it was put out there by people connected to him, which is more likely. And that is definitely akin to a lie.
He has a lot of penniless relations whom he doesn't know well and doesn't want to be responsible for--and I don't blame him.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, Aunt Zeituni is a much-loved American icon like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Keller.
ReplyDeleteAnon.
Zeituni Onyango arrived on a tourist visa and was legally prohibited from working in the US. Becoming a nanny/maid for the Obama family, in return for shelter, was illegal. It's time to prosecute the Obamas for breaking US labor and immigration laws.
ReplyDelete> In the time-honored tradition of eccentric presidential relatives, the assorted Obamas have faced deportation and drunken-driving charges, started Obama-branded foundations and written memoirs.
ReplyDeleteCan we take a moment before continuing to read down the page?
Time-honored traditions (written ironically) of presidential relatives:
* Drunken driving ... check
* Starting foundations to milk name recognition ... check
* Writing memoirs ... check
* Facing deportation ... huh? Exactly what precedents does reporter Jason Horowitz have in mind?
The Times is serving up a slight and subtle lie to promote its elite agenda. But, still, a lie.
He has a lot of penniless relations whom he doesn't know well and doesn't want to be responsible for--and I don't blame him.
ReplyDeleteI don't either, but from their perspective their heads must be about to explode from the disconnect. Here's their relative Barack, Biggest of Big Man, and he can't even flick a few crumbs anybody's way!
"How many laws were broken?"
ReplyDeleteSomeone would have to commit journalism for us to find out. Not gonna happen.
We all belong to the world and are one species.....I never did like artificial borders to keep separation ongoing.
ReplyDeleteNO ONE IS ILLEGAL
Leonard Pitts has a wonderful article about the pernicious effects of immigration restriction and borders:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/18/3567594/elysium-a-metaphor-for-our-times.html
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteAunt Zeituni - doing jobs Americans won't do."
Or, rather, not doing them.
Lest we forget, Obama, who now administers one of the world's largest organizations and wields enormous power over the worlds economy, was financially irresponsible in his personal life. Despite their solid incomes, the Obama's were broke and in debt when he was elected to the Senate - living on credit-cards.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is the man who thinks that government (meaning him) better knows how your life should be run than you do.
You know, a metric shit ton of uber-powerful women have had their careers ruined because of this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteChicks like Zoë Baird and Linda Chavez.
If they learn of this, then they're gonna be fuming.
And then of course there's Ahnold, who put a bun in the nanny's oven.
Well, I guess that by "hiring" Aunt Zeituni, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson pretty much guaranteed herself that she wouldn't have Maria Shriver's nightmares haunting the Obama marriage.
PS: How does this all overlap with the timeframe when Barry was so broke that he had to attend some convention or other on credit cards?
Did they even have any money to pay Aunt Zeituni, or was she literally performing slave labor?
It's a shocking article, when you think about it. It's not just his aunt, but an aunt who lived with him and kept house for him for some time--- maybe for years (the article doesn't say). But then he lets her go on public assistance (how is it that an illegal immigrant can get public housing, anyway?) and skips her funeral to go golfing. That's COLD.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like he gives his relatives money, but that's no doubt to keep them from expressing their true opinions of him.
As with Uncle Omar, with whom he lived for a little while, it sounds as if it's not even that he ignores his relatives. It's worse: he uses them when convenient, and then discards them.
If we'd had a better candidate than Romney in 2012, he'd have put this into TV ads. It would have killed black and hispanic turnout.
"After Zeituni Onyango, the woman President Obama once called Auntie, died in a South Boston nursing home this month, her closest relatives gathered her belongings at her nearby apartment."
ReplyDeleteBehind the pay wall, is there anything on how many are these "closest relatives" and who they are?
As president, Mr. Obama has kept his distance from, and even failed to acknowledge, members of this eclectic clan.
ReplyDeleteEclectic: deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.
Does this make sense?
Obama us Black. Desnt matter.
ReplyDeleteGet a keyboard, or a spell check.
As far a embarrassing presidential relatives go, Obama at lease hasn't had to deal with a situation like that of Thomas Jefferson, whose nephews murdered one of their slaves and then entered into a joint suicide pact while out on bail awaiting trial (one died, the other ran off & was never heard from again).
ReplyDelete"......Despite their solid incomes, the Obama's were broke and in debt when he was elected to the Senate - living on credit-cards....."
ReplyDeleteThey were way spending above their paygrade *at the time*. But, BO - correctly- anticipated that he would never make so little again for the rest of career. One could argue that he was very self-aware rather than financially irresponsible.
ReplyDelete"Aunt Zeituni - doing jobs Americans won't do"
Now that might actually be true.
How would you like to work for Michelle Obama as a nanny to her baby?
Yikes!
ReplyDelete"President Obama has spent a lot of energy imploring us to care for our fellow man, while he shows little interesting in his extended family."
It's a black thing.
You wouldn't understand.
ReplyDelete"Eclectic: deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources."
eclectic also means off center, like something that is out of round when it should be round, aka irregular.
ReplyDeleteHow is it that two frigging Harvard lawyers can't manage to get the damned aunt a green card?
Incompetence much?
Aunt Zeituni was in Anaheim as early as 1967. Check out the '67 All-Star game on YouTube. She's cheering as Richie Allen homers off Dean Chance.
ReplyDeleteLeonard Pitts has a wonderful article about the pernicious effects of immigration restriction and borders
ReplyDeleteLol, that article is shit. 400 years is about 399 years, 11 months, and 3 weeks longer than "good luck" can explain.
Barack has no full siblings.
ReplyDeleteHe only keeps in touch with one half-sibling, Maya, who seems a decent sort being a teacher and such. Curiously, he has ignored the half-brother who seems closest to him in intellect and temperament: Mark, who couldn't quite get a Stanford Ph.D in physics, and made a life in China.
I think it is pretty cold for Obama not to attend the funeral. From all the coverage of his 2009 inaugural, it seemed that she was one of his closer relatives.
ReplyDeleteGeez, just show up for half an hour, don't say anything, and claim personal space with the media.