Just a short note. I watched MSNBC as the House Chamber filled up. I enjoy Keith.
But when the Barack Obama, President of the United States, began speaking, MSNBC started a stupid, idiotic crawl at the bottom of the screen, I switched to CNN. Obama voters and McCain voters are right now hitting some ridiculous buttons letting us know how they feel about the president’s speech.
Lose the crawl, MSNBC. It detracts from the seriousness of the moment and turns the speech into a sideshow.
Washington’s Sleeping Giant is waking up. The United States Congress is beginning to show signs of life.
I know this sounds premature, especially since I’m currently watching Jon Stewart rail against Congress.
But that’s Jon. I’m feeling unapologetically optimistic.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi impresses me. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will catch up in time. But the Senate is on task. The House is on task. Republicans are, well, Republicans. They’re mired to a philosophy that failed. They have no ideas.
But Congress, thanks to the Democrats, is starting to breathe again. The economic stimulus about to pass.
This from our friends at the Huffington Post:
Congressional Republicans have been pressuring Democrats to give them 48 hours to review the stimulus package before a vote is called.
The bill has yet to be fully written and released, but a vote is still likely Friday.
The combined House and Senate packages weigh in at more than 1400 pages, a reporter pointed out to Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC).
“So what?” he said. “I’m not a speed-reader, but that’s why I have staff.” Clyburn said that comparing bills side-by-side to look for changes as the bill has evolved the last several days hasn’t taken him long.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she’s happy to sit down with House Republican leadership to talk about ways to move the bill forward. “Sure. Sure we’ll do that,” she said.
So Nancy Pelosi will have story time with the Republicans. Maybe her staff can turn the stimulus bill into a pop-up book to make it easier for them to understand.
But the Democrats need to keep moving forward, whether the Republicans get it or not.
Tonight in Springfield, Illinois, President Barack Obama called America “the last, great hope for humanity.” Today, Congress breathes again, and that hope shines anew.
Aquan Lewis died in the depth of winter. We need to know why.
But first, we need to mourn his loss. All of us.
Police and school officials are releasing very little information, but the news today is sobering. The 10-year-old student from Oakton Elementary School in Skokie took his own life.
An autopsy today ruled the death of a boy found unresponsive Tuesday in a boys bathroom at an Evanston elementary school a suicide, officials said.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office made the ruling today and said 10-year-old Aquan Lewis, of Skokie, died by hanging, an office spokeswoman said.
Lewis was pronounced dead at 4:05 a.m. this morning at Children’s Memorial Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
A janitor at the school had said the boy had been taken down from a hook in the restroom on Tuesday.
Speaking at a news conference at Evanston-Skokie School Dist. 65headquarters at noon, police and school officials steadfastly refused to discuss even the most basic details.
Supt. Hardy Murphy expressed sorrow over the death of a pupil, but declined to say much more. “If there is someone to blame, I have to take it,” he said, because the death occurred while he is chief of the district.
Commander Tom Guenther, a spokesman for Evanston police, remained equally tight-lipped. He refused to give a time line of when the boy was first noticed missing from class, who found him or what time he was found.
We need to know more about what happened to this young man. There are rumors circulating that need a response before a tragic situation gets even worse. Was Aquan a victim of bullying? What could lead a child so young to hang himself? Was it really suicide? Family and friends say no, it couldn’t be.
We need to know.
This story is even more sad given the promise this young man showed, the spark:
Oakton parent Candace Smith of Evanston visited Aquan’s home shortly after the morning meeting at the school. Smith said she and Aquan’s mother had grown up together.
Smith said she was struggling to make sense of his death. She described Aquan as a good student who enjoyed school, loved to read and played sports.
“This was a young boy [who] was loved and respected. This is a tragedy for this world because we don’t know what he would have become,” Smith said.
The boy had just finished his first season of tackle football with the Evanston Junior Wildkit Football program. At just over 80 pounds, he was assigned to the flyweights team, where he rotated between running back, receiver, cornerback and safety, said program director Craig Thompson.
His speed and athleticism made him a versatile player, but the friendships he developed with his two dozen teammates were just as striking.
“He started out more reserved, but he developed a good camaraderie just by being around other folks,” Thompson said. “He was getting better every week.”
Why would any of our children kill themselves? What more do we need to do to ensure they don’t?
I’ll not waste time with unnecessary speculation, but police and school officials need to be more forthcoming. We need to know what happened to this young man. Why did this child, so full of promise, choose to take his own life?
Meanwhile, we mourn with the family and friends of Aquan Lewis, and offer our prayers and support.
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” -Albert Camus
I wonder if John McCain arranged this little treat for residents of Tucson? I’m speaking, of course, of the pornography shown to residents of Tucson, Arizona during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Sorry. I had to find a way to make this political for Turning Left, you know.
Anyhow, here’s the news from CNN:
Super Bowl fans in Tucson, Arizona, caught a different kind of show during Sunday’s big game.
Just as Cardinals’ superstar Larry Fitzgerald watched himself sprint into the end zone on the stadium’s Jumbotron during Sunday’s Super Bowl, 10 seconds of eye-popping pornographic imagery “flashed” across the screens of those watching at home.
“We are mortified by last evening’s Super Bowl interruption, and deeply apologize to our customers for the inappropriate programming,” Comcast Cable said in a written statement.
“Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act,” the statement added.
Well, today we learn that all Tucsonites who saw the 10-second clip of full-frontal male nudity will receive a $10 credit if they call a special number.
Ain’t that America.
In one day and a few strokes of the pen, President Obama signed an executive order that will close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year and prosecute terrorism suspects in the United States.
Granted, closing Gitmo is easier said than done:
Underscoring the difficult decisions Obama must make to fulfill his pledge of shutting down Guantanamo, the plan could require the creation of a new legal system to handle the classified information inherent in some of the most sensitive cases.
The issue is only so difficult because the Bush Administration dispensed with Habeas Corpus, and much of the United States Constitution with it.
With a few more strokes of the pen, President Obama banned torture.
“Both civil libertarians and ex-CIA officials involved in interrogations and detentions policies hailed the changes,” says the Washington Independent.
Under the executive orders issued Thursday, the CIA’s interrogators cannot question detainees using “any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual 2 22.3.” That manual was rewritten by the Army in 2006 to reemphasize its compliance with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. laws banning torture. The Bush administration took an unyielding stance toward exempting CIA interrogations from that manual and those laws. But the Obama administration revoked all Bush administration executive orders from September 11, 2001 onward “concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals,” and directed the attorney general to conduct a thorough review of all other “directives, orders, and regulations” on the subject issued by the Bush administration that are no longer applicable.
Remember the Geneva Conventions? They’re worth reviewing. Seems we have a president who knows them, and desires to uphold them.
We all stand taller today.
Nicely done, Mr. President.
Comedian Rish Limbaugh wants America to fail.
Even before President Barack Obama (love the sound of that) took office, Limbaugh was hoping for his failure. According to Faiz Shakir at Think Progress, last Friday, Limbaugh told his radio audience, ““I disagree fervently with the people on our [Republican] side of the aisle who have caved and who say, ‘Well, I hope he succeeds.’”
According to Shakir, Limbaugh said he was asked by a “major American print publication” to offer a 400-word statement explaining his “hope for the Obama presidency.” His response?
So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.
Really, Rush? As bad as things are now, you want the president to fail?
If this president fails, America fails. There is no other alternative. The country is in an almost unprecedented financial crisis, inches away from another Depression. The only people not suffering are the filthy rich who lack empathy, like Limbaugh.
Over 500,000 people lost their jobs last week. That’s right — 500,000 people lost their jobs last week.
There aren’t enough pain pills in the world for them, Rush, even if you donate some of your stash.
The majority of Americans get it — the time for screaming matches is over. Limbaugh’s audience will fade. People will see him for what he is: a comedian in search of an audience. Barack Obama is not the polarizing figure Bill Clinton was at times. President Obama is an honest, likeable guy.And he’s honest.
It’s going to be tough being Rush the next four years. And it’s about time.
Martin.
The man whose name became a verb, quintessential action focused on the ultimate good. We stand together today because Rosa sat, Martin marched, and Barack chose to run.
The sun has set on Monday. Today is the day we’ve been waiting for, in many respects, since before this country was founded.
Have any of us ever seen the surrealistic festive atmosphere in the nation’s capitol in the days leading up to a Presidential Inauguration?
I stand in awe and joy as well, but I am bruised by the past eight years. My economic recovery has yet to occur. I wanted to go to Washington for the festivities, actually mentioned it at work months ago.
Then things got a lot worse, and the financial collapse hit much too close to home. Things may get worse at home before they get better, indeed.
So I will stand and laugh and cry and pray tomorrow as Barack raises his right hand, and I will promise to hope for the future, focusing on the ultimate good.
Because we all stand taller today. All of us. And we must never let anything bring us down again.
It’s Playoffs in Pittsburgh. Enough said.
America has yet to reach rock bottom. We’re beyond playing games blaming “W” for all our problems. Yes, this recession belongs to George W. Bush, in spite of the “W” administration’s lame attempts to preemptively blame the Clinton Administration for any and all economic woes to come.
History will judge Bush 43. We need to look forward and help each other through this mess.
Economic Survival Rule Number One: Ignore all conservatives henceforth. Their time has come and gone, and they have left this country in shambles.
From our friends at The Nation:
Garry Wills says Americans think of government only as a “necessary evil,” a last resort. Well, folks, all the other resorts are boarded up. In November, America shed more than 500,000 jobs, the worst single-month record in thirty-four years. We lost more than 2 million over the course of 2008–and the crash is accelerating across the globe.
At the same time, America is falling apart, literally. We’ve witnessed the ghastly spectaculars: failure of the levees in New Orleans, collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, bursting of the steam pipe that shut down ten square blocks of Manhattan. But these tragic catastrophes are a small part of the growing costs of a conservative-era failure to invest in our future.
Conservative scorn for government has produced a crippling public-investment deficit. America’s core infrastructure–roads, bridges, sewers, airports, trains, mass transit–is overcrowded, outdated and crumbling. The evidence, assembled by Eric Lotke in The Investment Deficit in America, issued by the Campaign for America’s Future, is stark. Poor road conditions cost Americans billions in repairs and countless hours in delay. Though China opens a new subway system every year, and Europeans travel from Paris to Frankfurt on high-speed rail, American railroads don’t have the funds needed even to maintain their outmoded infrastructure. Cities are suffering an epidemic of broken pipes and sinkholes, with the Environmental Protection Agency estimating more than 40,000 discharges of raw sewage into our drinking water, streams and homes each year from collapsing and overwhelmed sewage systems. The Education Department found that one-third of our schools are in such a severe state of disrepair that it “interferes with the delivery of instruction.”
These are only some of our challenges. 500,000 jobs lost. The worst single-month record in thirty-four years.
What lies ahead?
We must move forward unfettered by the ideologies of the past eight years, and several years before that. The erstwhile Republican Contract with America died a miserably bloated death, choking on pork and fat. It was a joke.
Remember the great Republican promise?
Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.
How did that work out?
We stand together poised on the brink of an economic Depression: abnormal increases in unemployment, restriction and collapse of credit industries, bankruptcies, reduced trade and commerce, the devaluation of the dollar.
We must stand together and resist the urge to panic. This is not the time to cry foul at any and all forms of government. Remember, President Ronald “government-is-not-the-solution-to-our-problem-government-is-the-problem” Reagan grew the Federal Government as no liberal would have dared dream. His 1983 $165 billion bailout of Social Security was a huge paradigm shift for The Gipper, but it was necessary.
Consider this blast from the past from Joshua Green:
It’s conservative lore that Reagan the icon cut taxes, while George H.W. Bush the renegade raised them. As Stockman recalls, “No one was authorized to talk about tax increases on Ronald Reagan’s watch, no matter what kind of tax, no matter how justified it was.” Yet raising taxes is exactly what Reagan did. He did not always instigate those hikes or agree to them willingly–but he signed off on them. One year after his massive tax cut, Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored fully one-third of the previous year’s reduction. (In a bizarre bit of self-deception, Reagan, who never came to terms with this episode of ideological apostasy, persuaded himself that the three-year, $100 billion tax hike–the largest since World War II–was actually “tax reform” that closed loopholes in his earlier cut and therefore didn’t count as raising taxes.)
Why the stroll down memory lane?
As liberals, we need to remind conservatives that staunch ideology breeds mindless idiocy. As liberals we need remind ourselves as well that staunch ideology breeds mindless idiocy.
The crises of the current moment demand we seek solutions beyond our level of comfort. We won’t make it through these crises simply because we are Americans. The only way to confront the current crises head on is to embrace the inevitable — everything we have known before is now different. There are industries in this country we risk losing entirely unless we change our thinking and reinvent ourselves. We can’t transplant solutions from bygone eras.
Everything now is different. Talk about your moment of Zen.
Change has come to America. Change always comes to America. It’s only when we resist or ignore change that we suffer. Resist change, and our infrastructure — spiritual, economic or concrete — can indeed collapse.
No matter how try to I spin this in my mind, it still makes no sense.
Why did President-elect Barack Obama invite Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration? Warren is the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California, a man who supported Proposition 8 in California, the California constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Why him? What kind of pandering is this? Why honor Homophobia-incarnate front-and-center on such an historic occasion?
Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign, perhaps put it best in an open letter to the President-elect:
Let me get right to the point. Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.
Rick Warren has not sat on the sidelines in the fight for basic equality and fairness. In fact, Rev. Warren spoke out vocally in support of Prop 8 in California saying, “there is no need to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population … This is not a political issue — it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.” Furthermore, he continues to misrepresent marriage equality as silencing his religious views. This was a lie during the battle over Proposition 8, and it’s a lie today.
We will forever remember Bill Clinton’s First Big Mistake, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” his infamous collapse as Commander-in-chief before the far right forces of the military?
Has Warren undergone a conversion in the last few weeks? The HRC has been calling for religious leaders to join the fight against Homophobia for years. Warren is Homophobia personified.
Sorry, I don’t get it, Barack.
Who’s next? Bob Jones University President Steven Jones for evening prayer?
Let the pandering begin.