Northwest Indiana Discussion

According to White House Dossier, with 18 rounds of golf played by June 30, President Obama is on track to surpass his 2011 record of 34 rounds completed.

“After playing nine weeks in a row, Obama was forced to break his streak the last weekend in June when his trip to Africa edged inconveniently into the weekend,” the website explains. Further, it notes that the commander-in-chief will presumably make it to the golf-course nearly every weekend in July and August, and partake in his favorite pastime during his customary Martha’s Vineyard retreat this week.

In her second term as First Lady,Michelle Obama’s reign as American fashion royalty stays strong as she continues to support designers—this time by hosting a luncheon on Friday for the winners of the Hewitt National Design Awards. The event, which was conceived by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum to honor U.S. talent will take place at the White House. Top names expected in attendance include Tim Gunn, award-winner Behnaz Sarafpour, and jurors Isabel and Ruben Toledo. Twelve aspiring high-school designers from NYC and Washington, D.C., were also invited as part of the Teen Design Fair, sponsored by Target.

“It takes a village to design the future and it all starts here with these students—they will help to invent our future,” Ruben Toledo told WWD of the project

We’re super jealous of those teens (who will earn serious bragging rights for the lunch table), and we wish we could high five Mrs. Obama for making sure American glamour in the White House carries on.

On Saturday, as the shutdown drama played out on Capitol Hill, President Obama played golf at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.

According to published reports, the White House said that Obama’s partners were two presidential staff members, Joe Paulsen and Marvin Nicholson, and Nicholson’s brother, Walter.

One of Obama’s preferred golf courses, the course on Andrews Airforce Base remains open during the government shutdown.

The grocery stores on the base, where troops get discounted groceries for their families are, however, closed. They will shop “at local stores that cost about 30 percent more, Lieutenant General Raymond Mason, the service’s deputy chief of staff for logistics, said yesterday at a House hearing.”

The Andrews Air Force Base golf course is funded through user fees and that’s why it remains open, said Air Force Captain Lindy Singleton, chief of public affairs for the 11th Wing at Andrews.

Obama hit the links last weekend for a round, on the eve of the possible shutdown. Last week the President played his 35th round of golf this year.

As the media obsesses over early September lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, a greatly underreported story has slowly emerged this week. Apparently Barack Obama is now a single parent as it appears his wife has taken up permanent residence in Hawaii.

An under-reported story is playing out in Hawaii right now — the story of Michelle Obama and her royal, incredibly luxurious, taxpayer-paid vacation in Hawaii.

As America stays mired in the Great Obama Depression, Michelle Obama acts like a queen, sticking it in the eye of unemployed and under-paid Americans. Many of them are out of work thanks to her husband’s policies, his signature program, and the failed policies of socialism.

Michelle Obama is staying at the Hawaii home of Oprah Winfrey for a few days without her husband and children. This is not simply the vacation of a private citizen. Because she is the First Lady of the United States — FLOTUS — her vacations cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. Because she is a queen, she considers that cost her just due.

In Hawaii, security zones have been set up around the Winfrey estate. Residents and business owners are being inconvenienced to an exceptional degree. Security checkpoints have kept customers and vendors away from businesses, effectively shutting them down. But the people who are hurt are little people, nobodies. Who cares what happends to them as long as Michelle Antoinette gets her vacation?

In 2011, The Mail Online, a British newspaper reported that Michelle’s vacations over the space of one year alone had cost the American taxpayer over $10 million. Her royal holiday excursion in Hawaii will cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands more in direct costs. The indirect costs to local businesses may be large, even catastrophic to those involved, but to Michelle, they are inconsequential.

The cost of security alone will be large. The Secret Service, citing security concerns, will not release the exact cost of protecting the Obamas on any of their excursions.

First Lady Michelle Obama will be accompanied by her children and her mother on her trip to China, which begins today. But she won’t be accompanied by the press.

“Michelle Obama’s trip to China starting on Wednesday will be nonpolitical, the White House says, a ‘people-to-people exchange’ emphasizing the importance that both nations place on education. As if to underscore the point, no reporters are traveling with the first lady, and she does not plan to give interviews while there,” reports theNew York Times.

The White House is defending the first lady bringing her family along for the ride by saying it’s what the Chinese would want. “Tina Tchen, Mrs. Obama’s chief of staff and a first-generation Chinese-American, said a multigenerational visit would be appreciated by the Chinese, who value tradition,” says the Times.