Archive for December, 2008
Barack Obama To Swear In On Lincoln’s Bible
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008“On January 20th, President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible upon which President Lincoln was sworn in at his first inauguration. The Bible is currently part of the collections of the Library of Congress. Though there is no constitutional requirement for the use of a Bible during the swearing-in, Presidents have traditionally used Bibles for the ceremony, choosing a volume with personal or historical significance. President-elect Obama will be the first President sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its initial use in 1861.”
Today’s News
Monday, December 22nd, 2008Economy:
Bailed-Out Executives Got $1.6 Billion In 2007
Toyota Expects Its First Loss in 70 Years
Politics:
Exclusive: Obama’s Blago Report: Only One Rahm Call to Governor
For Conservative Radio, It’s a New Dawn, Too
Fundraiser seeks immunity in Blagojevich probe
World:
Somalis’ Choice: Join Islamists or Flee
Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk emerges as front-runner for Obama Cabinet post
Thursday, December 18th, 2008“High-level Democrats confirmed that Mr. Kirk is a leading contender for U.S. trade representative, and there were reports his nomination would be announced as early as Friday. Reached by phone, Mr. Kirk declined to comment. ”
Today’s News
Thursday, December 4th, 2008To Bail-Out or Not To Bail-Out….
Thursday, December 4th, 2008The Congress voted quickly to provide a bail-out for Wall Street firms and has no real oversight of where/how the money is spent, but the same congress is extremely slow to provide money for auto manufacturers. I’m convinced this is due to a few reasons:
1. We and Congress understand the problems of the auto industry better than the financial crisis created by Wall Street and mortgage banks. We’ve seen just how negligent the Detroit executives have been in making a profit compared to their competition (Toyota and Honda).
2. The financial bail-out was sold as something that was not only good for “Wall Street”, but necessary for “Main Street”. In addition, we were made to feel that we actually had a part in causing the financial crisis by buying homes we couldn’t afford - even though the problem was mostly caused by lack of regulation of the financial industry. However, with the failing auto industry, we and congress act as if it’s not a “crisis”.
Sure, there are more reasons for why the auto bail-out feels different than the financial bail-out, but I think the biggest reason is that no one (even now) really has a grasp of how expansive the mortgage/financial crisis actually is (or will be). Therefore, we are willing to give Henry Paulson and Wall Street’s whatever they ask for to “solve” the crisis for us - even though this is the same group that got us in this mess.
Sorry, Detroit. It seems like congress and most of the public are just tired of hearing about problems in your industry and we’ve had all the “crisis” we can stand.
Wall Street vs Detroit Bail-Out: [Video]
Auto Executives Request Bail-Out Again: [Video]
GM CFO Against Bankruptcy: [Video]
Obama, Assassination and the White Supremacist Threat
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008[Video]
Never met anyone like Obama? You must be kidding.
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008An essay from Stanley Crouch addresses how the election of Barack Obama should affect America’s conversation on race in a new way. He warns against romanticizing Barack Obama as “special” because he has skills and abilities not stereotypically associated with African Americans.
Referring to this “African-American Experience” stereotype, Stanley Crouch writes:
| “This began with the writings of Richard Wright and James Baldwin, both of whom painted essentially one-dimensional portraits of black experience that were determined to shame the white people into removing black people from the limitless house of pain reserved for them. Racism made black people ashamed of their hair, their skin color, their lips and noses, their supposed intellectual inferiority. Were there truly bad things that had been done to black people and continued to be done and are still, in some ways, done to this very day? Yes and no.
Once I got my own bearings, I became as frustrated with black people who were so enraged by liberals trying to be condescendingly sympathetic to their supposed plight of psychological scars, humiliations, and ongoing ass whippings that they went to far in the other direction. Equally smug, they pretended that, except for a couple of redneck knuckleheads here and there, black American life had just been one endlessly wonderful set of evenings dancing to Duke Ellington, eating the cuisine invented by plantation slaves, watching a succession of black boxing champions beat the bull dookey out of white men, and savoring the unique black American expression of timeless and specific but universal variations on the national ethos at its best. … The simple truth is so old that it seems forever brand new. Human being do not know—and have never ever known—how to be anything other than human beings and, I might add but am quite sorry to say, there is nothing that ever holds them free of that reality. When John Lewis recently said that with the election of Barack Obama we had seen a non-violent revolution, he was exactly right. Not the overthrow the nation that we had been promised, not the slaughter of the white people, not the Third World gathering of the troops that would reset the clocks of the planet. … So these fake and pretentious versions of American reality… are some of the things that we have to deal and do away with to the best of our abilities.” |