Video: Obama Weekly Address (1-24-09) January 25, 2009
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In his first weekly address since being sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, President Barack Obama discusses how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will jump-start the economy.
“This is not just a short-term program to boost employment,” he said. “It’s one that will invest in our most important priorities like energy and education; health care and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century.”
The Administration is still working with Congress to refine the plan, but in the address, President Obama lays out the key priorities. He goes into detail, noting that the plan will update our electric grid by laying more than 3,000 miles of transmission lines; weatherize 2.5 million homes; protect health insurance for more than 8 million Americans in danger of losing their coverage; secure 90 major ports; renovate 10,000 schools; and triple the number of science fellowships.
Courtesy Whitehouse.gov
Obama re-takes oath of office January 22, 2009
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Courtesy Salon:
Sometimes, even presidents — and chief justices of the Supreme Court — need to take the occasional mulligan. Wednesday evening, Barack Obama was sworn in as president again, and this time he and Chief Justice John Roberts got it right.
On Tuesday, Obama, following Roberts’ lead, had said, “I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of President of the United States faithfully” instead of “do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.”
“We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the President was sworn in appropriately yesterday,” new White House Counsel Greg Craig said in a statement. “But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time.”
A pool reporter was present for the swearing-in. According to the pool report, as Roberts prepared, Obama joked, “We decided it was so much fun…” and later told the chief justice, “We’re going to do this
-Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Calif. man charged for threatening Obama’s life over Yahoo January 10, 2009
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Nearly three months after telling a Yahoo message board that Barack Obama will “have a 50 cal in the head soon,” a California man was charged Thursday with threatening a presidential candidate.
After raiding Walter Edward Bagdasarian’s home in November, U.S. Secret Service agents found three handguns and three rifles, including a 30.06 with a telescopic sight and a Remington .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle.
The 47-year-old man is not accused of actually plotting against Obama, and he was released last month on a $100,000 real estate bond, according toWired.
The message board post in question, which appeared on Oct. 22, about two weeks before the election, was titled “Shoot the nig.”
“County fkd for another 4+ years, what nig has done ANYTHING right???? Long term???? Never in history, except sambos… Fk the niggar, he will have a 50 cal in the head soon,” the message concluded. Bagdasarian reportedly admitted authoring the message during an interview with Secret Service agents.
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Conjecture: Obama and the Shifting of the Center. December 19, 2008
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Courtesy Open to the Future.
Why Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to give an opening prayer at the inauguration is a lesson for environmental activists — and poses a troubling question about the future.
If you follow political news in the US, you’re probably aware that President-Elect Barack Obama has asked conservative Pastor Rick Warren to give the opening invocation for the inauguration ceremony (Joseph Lowery, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and open supporter of gay marriage, will give the closing benediction). Given that Warren is known for some fairly un-Obama-like statements (explicitly comparing gay marriage to pedophilia, calling for the assassination of Iran’s leaders), this selection has been a smidge controversial, with quite a few liberals seeing this as Obama having “peed in the ol’ cornflakes” of gay and progressive supporters. The uproar about this choice, however, has in turn been met with dismissive or angry replies from other Obama supporters, who say that having Warren speak for two minutes is pretty close to meaningless, and it’s a good move by Obama to be willing to reach out to communities that didn’t vote for him in November. Some even argue that it’s smart politics for Obama to attack liberals to show his independence.
It struck me, reading the debate online (and having a mild debate of my own over Twitter with Howard Rheingold), that not only are both sides right in this, it’s actually very useful to have this kind of debate be so public, even if it gets caricatured as “the Left vs Obama.”
-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.
Editorial Comment: The way I read this, we as progressives need to stick to our ‘guns’ as it were. What do y’all think? -Shinai
12/13/08: President-Elect Obama’s Weekly Address December 14, 2008
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Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect: December 6, 200 December 6, 2008
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President-Elect Obama’s weekly Video Address (11-22-08) November 23, 2008
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Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect November 15, 2008
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Iraq vet possible Senate replacement for Obama November 13, 2008
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Courtesy The Army Times:
Tammy Duckworth, who earned the Purple Heart for her service in Iraq, may be moving up with President-elect Barack Obama.
Duckworth, now the Illinois Veterans Affairs director, has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Obama in the U.S. Senate or as Veterans Affairs secretary in an Obama administration.
She accompanied Obama yesterday as the Illinois senator marked Veterans Day by placing a wreath at the bronze soldiers memorial between the Field Museum and Soldier Field in Chicago.
Duckworth, then a pilot with the Illinois Army National Guard, lost both her legs in Iraq in 2004 when her Black Hawk helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.
She has said she would be interested in either the Senate seat or a post in Obama’s administration.
“I would be honored to be able to do that on a national level,” Duckworth told The Associated Press recently about the prospect of helping veterans.
U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, following a Veterans Day ceremony yesterday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, said Duckworth’s experience and the respect she has garnered from other veterans would make her an excellent choice for Veterans Affairs secretary.
Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said Duckworth has appeared in front of his committee and has proven to be knowledgeable of the challenges facing military veterans and their families.
“She’s smart and she would be able to deal with the problems facing our veterans,” he said. “She has a feel for veterans issues. She’s one who has been through it and feels the needs.”
-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.
Thousands of Alaskan Ballots ‘Found’ November 11, 2008
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Courtesy Bradblog:
This just in from Alaska, where thousands of new ballots continue to be found each day, since it wasfirst reported that turnout in 2008 was 11% lower than in 2004. Thousands of ballots, nearly a third of them, remain uncounted nearly a week after the election. Their numbers could explain the strange results so far in races — such as those of the felonious Sen. Ted Stevens (R) and the under-investigation Rep. Don Young (R) — for which pollsters had predicted decisivelosses for the Republicans.
Even with the newly acknowledged ballots and even with Alaska’s once-popular Gov. Sarah Palin and popular Sen. Barack Obama both on the Presidential ballot this year, turnout numbers still remain slightly below those from 2004. The Anchorage Daily News, with numbers somewhat out of date from those now posted below, called it all “puzzling” over the weekend, and pointed out much of what we’ve detailed here in previous posts.
The following updated numbers come from the DNC’s Alaska Communications Director, Kay Brown late this afternoon [emphasis in the original]…
New totals for ballots were posted today at:
http://www.elections.ala…rly_question_numbers.pdfThe Division of Elections reports there are now 90,635 ballotsremaining to be counted. This means nearly 29 percent (28.8%) of the total vote has not been counted yet.
With these new numbers the total vote is at 314,268, withturnout at 63.3% (registered voters = 495,731).
The new ballots posted today include about 4,000 additional Questioned ballots about 5,600 additional Absentees.
The Division of Elections (DOE) plans to count the majority of early vote and absentee ballots that were verified by Election Day on Wednesday. The DOE Plans to count the remaining ballots on Friday (but this is all obviously subject to change). However, there could be enough ballots left after Wednesdays count for the race to still go either way.
All overseas ballots have to be received by Wednesday, November 19th and the DOE plans to certify the election on Tuesday, November 25. A recount, should one be necessary, would occur after that. An automatic recount is only implemented if the final votes are within 0.5 percent.
Total turnout in 2004 was 314,502 with these new ballots posted today we are still slightly under the number who voted in 2004. Turnout in the 2004 General was 66.6%, with 314,502 voting and 472,160 registered voters statewide.
-Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
The Central Tabulator 