Michelle and I were heartbroken to learn this morning of the death of our dear friend, Senator Ted Kennedy.
For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.
I valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague. I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the Presidency. And even as he waged a valiant struggle with a mortal illness, I've profited as President from his encouragement and wisdom.
An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time.
And the Kennedy family has lost their patriarch, a tower of strength and support through good times and bad.
Our hearts and prayers go out to them today--to his wonderful wife, Vicki, his children Ted Jr., Patrick and Kara, his grandchildren and his extended family.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Senator-Kennedy/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009-Medal-of-Freedom-Recipients/
Barack Obama will recognise the accomplishments of actors, activists, athletes and the world's foremost living theoretical physicist today when he awards the presidential medal of freedom to 16 people.
Among recipients of the United States' highest honour for a civilian will be Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist and mathematician known for his work on black holes; former Irish president and one-time UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson, and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Other recipients include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, a leader in global anti-poverty efforts who pioneered providing "microloans" to provide credit to poor people who lack collateral.
Film star Sidney Poitier, civil rights leader the Rev Joseph Lowery and tennis legend Billie Jean King were also among those to receive the medal as well as Democratic senator Edward Kennedy, who has been battling brain cancer, and Sandra Day O'Connor, former US supreme court justice.
Kennedy will remain on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, following the death of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, but the senator's spokesman said his children will attend the ceremony and his daughter, Kara, will accept the award on his behalf.
Obama, awarding his first presidential medals, also will make posthumous awards to Jack Kemp of New York, the football quarterback-turned-politician who died in May, and gay rights activist and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978.
The White House has said the individuals were selected for their work as "agents of change".
US president Harry Truman established the medal of Freedom in 1945 to recognise civilians for their efforts during the second world war. John F Kennedy reinstated the medal in 1963 to honour distinguished service.
Other recipients are: Joe Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief who fought in the second world war wearing war paint beneath his uniform. Chita Rivera, an actor, singer, dancer and winner of two Tony Awards for Broadway roles. Nancy Brinker, founder of Susan G Komen for the Cure, a leading breast cancer grass-roots organisation. Dr Pedro Jose Greer Jr, assistant dean of academic affairs at Florida International University School of Medicine. Dr Janet Davison Rowley, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/12/medal-of-freedom-obama-list
Posted by Katherine Brandon
The President announced today the 16 recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilan honor. The President praised the recipients for breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens: "These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds. Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs. Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way."The awards will be presented on August 12. Here is a little bit about this year’s recipients:
See the official release for a little more detail.
Sotomayor Sworn In As Supreme Court Justice (VIDEO)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124973431689116795.html
Sonia Sotomayor has been sworn in as America's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, after a summer of debate over her nomination.
Justice Sotomayor, 55, becomes only the third woman to sit on the court.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Justice-Sonia-Sotomayor/
The Senate voted 68-31 to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Shortly after the vote, President Obama made the following statement:
I am pleased and deeply gratified that the Senate has voted to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as our nation’s 111th Supreme Court justice.I want to thank the Senate Judiciary Committee, particularly its Chairman, Senator Leahy -- as well as its Ranking Member, Senator Sessions -- for giving Judge Sotomayor a thorough and civil hearing. And I thank them for doing so in a timely manner so that she can be fully prepared to take her seat when the Court’s work begins this September. The members of our Supreme Court are granted life tenure and are charged with the vital and difficult task of applying principles set forth at our founding to the questions and controversies of our time. Over the past 10 weeks, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate have assessed Judge Sotomayor’s fitness for this work. They've scrutinized her record as a prosecutor, as a litigator, and as a judge. They've gauged her respect for the proper role of each branch of our government, her commitment to faithfully apply the law to the facts at hand, and her determination to protect our core constitutional rights and freedoms. And with this historic vote, the Senate has affirmed that Judge Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation’s highest court. This is a role that the Senate has played for more than two centuries, helping to ensure that "equal justice under the law" is not merely a phrase inscribed above our courthouse door, but a description of what happens every single day inside the courtroom. It's a promise that, whether you’re a mighty corporation or an ordinary American, you will receive a full and fair hearing. And in the end, the outcome of your case will be determined by nothing more or less than the strength of your argument and the dictates of the law.These core American ideals -- justice, equality, and opportunity -- are the very ideals that have made Judge Sotomayor’s own uniquely American journey possible. They're ideals she's fought for throughout her career, and the ideals the Senate has upheld today in breaking yet another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union. Like so many other aspects of this nation, I'm filled with pride in this achievement and great confidence that Judge Sotomayor will make an outstanding Supreme Court justice. This is a wonderful day for Judge Sotomayor and her family, but I also think it's a wonderful day for America.
Thank you to everyone who made phone calls to your representatives, wrote letters, and displayed your support for Justice Sotomayor.
www.whitehouse.gov
Today, President Obama sent out a message to supporters asking them to get involved in the fight for health insurance reform this month:
This is the moment our movement was built for.For one month, the fight for health insurance reform leaves the backrooms of Washington, D.C., and returns to communities across America. Throughout August, members of Congress are back home, where the hands they shake and the voices they hear will not belong to lobbyists, but to people like you.Home is where we're strongest. We didn't win last year's election together at a committee hearing in D.C. We won it on the doorsteps and the phone lines, at the softball games and the town meetings, and in every part of this great country where people gather to talk about what matters most. And if you're willing to step up once again, that's exactly where we're going to win this historic campaign for the guaranteed, affordable health insurance that every American deserves.There are those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game, and they will stop at nothing to block reform. They are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change. And some people, not surprisingly, are getting pretty nervous. So we've got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight.That's why Organizing for America is putting together thousands of events this month where you can reach out to neighbors, show your support, and make certain your members of Congress know that you're counting on them to act.But these canvasses, town halls, and gatherings only make a difference if you turn up to knock on doors, share your views, and show your support. So here's what I need from you:Can you commit to join at least one event in your community this month?In politics, there's a rule that says when you ask people to get involved, always tell them it'll be easy. Well, let's be honest here: Passing comprehensive health insurance reform will not be easy. Every President since Harry Truman has talked about it, and the most powerful and experienced lobbyists in Washington stand in the way. But every day we don't act, Americans watch their premiums rise three times faster than wages, small businesses and families are pushed towards bankruptcy, and 14,000 people lose their coverage entirely. The cost of inaction is simply too much for the people of this nation to bear. So yes, fixing this crisis will not be easy. Our opponents will attack us every day for daring to try. It will require time, and hard work, and there will be days when we don't know if we have anything more to give. But there comes a moment when we all have to choose between doing what's easy, and doing what's right. This is one of those times. And moments like this are what this movement was built for. So, are you ready? Please commit now to taking at least one action in your community this month to build support for health insurance reform:http://my.barackobama.com/CommitAugustLet's seize this moment and win this historic victory for our economy, our health and our families. Thank you,President Barack Obama
Sotomayor clears committeeBy: Manu Raju July 28, 2009 12:03 PM EST
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court on a sharp party-line vote, handing President Barack Obama a victory and putting the federal judge one step closer to becoming the nation’s first Latina justice. Following a two-hour debate, the vote was 13-6, with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham the lone Republican joining all the committee’s Democrats in support of the nomination. With the GOP vowing not to filibuster the nomination, the Senate is expected to confirm her to the bench as early as next week. And while her nomination is falling largely along party lines, the Judiciary Committee vote marks a much-needed victory for Democrats suffering through weeks of internal rancor over health care. Graham stood alone among Republicans with his support. “This is the first Latina woman in the history of the United States to be selected for the Supreme Court. Now that is a big deal,” Graham said. “I would not have chosen her, but I understand why President Obama did. I gladly give her my vote because I think she meets the qualifications test that was used in [Antonin] Scalia and [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg.” But the nomination failed to win a big bipartisan majority in the Judiciary Committee, instead tracking along the usual party lines that the White House was hoping to avoid. The 13-6 committee vote sets the stage for another partisan battle over the nominee that follows Sotomayor – especially if that pick would change the ideological balance of power on the court. Sotomayor would fill the seat vacated by Justice David Souter, considered to be one of the more liberal members of the court. At Tuesday’s committee vote, Republicans said Sotomayor failed in her four days of testimony to answer questions about several speeches that they said suggest a judicial bias, including her infamous remark that a “wise Latina” could render a better judgment than a white male. At the hearings this month, Sotomayor expressed regret for her statement, and said that her 17-year record as a federal judge proves she puts fidelity to the law above anything else. “Based on her record as a judge and her statements, I am not able to support her nomination,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), top Republican on the committee. “In speech after speech, year after year, Judge Sotomayor set forth a fully formed judicial philosophy that conflicts with American philosophy of blind justice to the law.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who in his six terms in the Senate has voted for every Supreme Court nominee he’s faced, said he examined her entire record “with the more exacting scrutiny appropriate for Supreme Court nominations.” But in criticizing Sotomayor’s testimony, the GOP sought to repudiate Obama’s previous statements that a judge should consider “empathy” in his or her decision-making. In her testimony, Sotomayor said she does not empathize with those appearing before her in court. “This radical empathy standard stands in stark opposition to what most of us understand to be the proper role of the judiciary,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose “no” vote against Sotomayor marks the first time he’s voted against a Supreme Court nominee in his 29 years in the Senate.
Democrats said that the GOP was unfairly treating the nominee, whose record senators from both sides have agreed is within the mainstream and who the American Bar Association has said is well qualified to serve on the high court. “It’s interesting to me to hear the comments of those who will not vote for this judge; for me I look at her very differently – I look at her as a most impressive person on a number of different levels,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “She has shown a dedication of the law, this has been tested and tested. ... I find no example of infidelity to the law.” Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), pushed back hard against the Republican opposition. “In her 17 years on the bench there is not one example, let alone a pattern, of her ruling based on bias or prejudice of sympathy,” said Leahy. “She has been true to her oath and faithfully and impartially performed her duties as set forth by the Constitution.” Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) voted for her nomination and called her well qualified. But he criticized the confirmation process, saying that nominees including Sotomayor have increasingly hid their views on a host of critical matters by saying they could not take a position on a matter that could come before the court. “These hearings have become little more than theater,” Feingold said. In his analysis of Sotomayor, Graham said she was well qualified, would not upset the ideological balance of the court and that Obama should have the latitude to choose a Supreme Court nominee. And he said that he wanted to return to the days where senators simply gauged whether to vote for a nominee based on his or her qualifications – not extraneous and political factors. “I do not want to set a standard here that people who are aspiring to be a judge will never have a thought, never take on an unpopular cause,” Graham said, referring to concerns over her speeches and her work with a Puerto Rican advocacy group before she became a judge. “It is OK to advocate a position that is different than we would advocate ourselves.” Sotomayor will pick up a handful of Republican votes on the Senate floor next week, including that of Cuban-American Sen. Mel Martinez. “As an Hispanic-American, it makes me immensely proud that there will be a Hispanic on the Supreme Court,” said Martinez. “That’s not why I decided to support Judge Sotomayor, but it does make me very proud to know that someone of my heritage will be sitting on the Court.” Kathryn McGarr contributed to this story.
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=106076196383&h=lZlXT&u=iTpqD&ref=mf
From Vice-President Joe Biden:
Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin Monday, and that means we're one step closer to getting her on the Supreme Court.Since President Obama nominated her back in May, Judge Sotomayor's brilliance and unique legal qualifications have stood strong against fierce scrutiny. Law enforcement officials have praised her tough-mindedness and experience as a prosecutor and trial judge, and just this week she earned the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association. There's no doubt -- the President picked the right person for the job.Next week, the Senate hearings will once again focus the press on this historic nomination, and those who are desperate to play politics with the President's nominee will see this as their last, best chance. Your support for Judge Sotomayor at this critical step will make a big difference.Visit Organizing for America's online action center where you can write a letter to a local paper, call your senators, and share the facts with friends and neighbors.Judge Sotomayor has earned praise from across the political spectrum. Her vast legal experience and commitment to the rule of law, widely recognized brilliance, and common sense understanding of how the law affects our daily lives makes her an outstanding choice for the Supreme Court.Unfortunately, some people would rather try anything to score political points than debate honestly about the facts. Some people are even trying to say Judge Sotomayor's proud record as a civil rights advocate in the Latino community is evidence of "extremism." Well, there was a time when standing up for the disadvantaged and fighting for equal rights was called extreme -- but now we just call it doing what's right.Now is the critical moment for us to stand up and fight back against these attacks. Together, we'll make our case to the public, the media, and decision makers in the Senate that the Supreme Court needs a strong defender of justice like Sonia Sotomayor.Visit our online action center now, and show your support for this great nominee. The action center has all the tools you need to write a letter to the editor, tell your senators why Judge Sotomayor should be our next Supreme Court Justice, and spread the word to everyone you know. I've been through many confirmation hearings, and believe me, what you say and do right now matters a lot. So please join me in becoming a part of this historic moment for the Court and our country.Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor? I can't wait.Thank you,Vice President Joe Biden www.whitehouse.gov
Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin Monday, and that means we're one step closer to getting her on the Supreme Court.Since President Obama nominated her back in May, Judge Sotomayor's brilliance and unique legal qualifications have stood strong against fierce scrutiny. Law enforcement officials have praised her tough-mindedness and experience as a prosecutor and trial judge, and just this week she earned the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association. There's no doubt -- the President picked the right person for the job.Next week, the Senate hearings will once again focus the press on this historic nomination, and those who are desperate to play politics with the President's nominee will see this as their last, best chance. Your support for Judge Sotomayor at this critical step will make a big difference.Visit Organizing for America's online action center where you can write a letter to a local paper, call your senators, and share the facts with friends and neighbors.Judge Sotomayor has earned praise from across the political spectrum. Her vast legal experience and commitment to the rule of law, widely recognized brilliance, and common sense understanding of how the law affects our daily lives makes her an outstanding choice for the Supreme Court.Unfortunately, some people would rather try anything to score political points than debate honestly about the facts. Some people are even trying to say Judge Sotomayor's proud record as a civil rights advocate in the Latino community is evidence of "extremism." Well, there was a time when standing up for the disadvantaged and fighting for equal rights was called extreme -- but now we just call it doing what's right.Now is the critical moment for us to stand up and fight back against these attacks. Together, we'll make our case to the public, the media, and decision makers in the Senate that the Supreme Court needs a strong defender of justice like Sonia Sotomayor.Visit our online action center now, and show your support for this great nominee. The action center has all the tools you need to write a letter to the editor, tell your senators why Judge Sotomayor should be our next Supreme Court Justice, and spread the word to everyone you know. I've been through many confirmation hearings, and believe me, what you say and do right now matters a lot. So please join me in becoming a part of this historic moment for the Court and our country.Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor? I can't wait.Thank you,Vice President Joe Biden
US 'concerned' over cyber threat
The issue of cyber security is of "great concern" to the US, the nation's homeland security secretary has said.
Janet Napolitano told the BBC that protecting against virtual attacks was something the US was "moving forward on with great alacrity".
Speaking on a visit to the UK, she said the US also had "a number of capabilities" to launch such attacks.
Ms Napolitano's comments follow the announcement last month of a new cyber security office in the White House.
Ms Napolitano said cyber attacks were an "area where critical infrastructure can be affected and where economic damage can be done".
She said the US government took all aspects of cyber crime very seriously and that the US defence department had formed "an entire cyber command" to handle online threats.
When asked whether the US had been the instigator of cyber attacks, Ms Napolitano told the BBC: "I think there are a number of capabilities with which to do that, yes."
'Security priority'
Last month, US President Barack Obama said the cyber threat was "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation".
He said the country's computer networks were "a national security priority" and announced a multi-billion plan to protect them against attack, including the creation of a new cyber security department.
In 2007 alone, the Pentagon reported nearly 44,000 incidents of what it called malicious cyber activity carried out by foreign militaries, intelligence agencies and individual hackers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8126668.stm
CA OPTION AL MEDICAL AND IHHS BENEFITS CUT FOR THOSE IN VOC REAHB TICKET TO WORK, EVEN SOME SEVERELY AND MULIPLY DISABLED. CUTS WERE BACKFILLED IN STAKEHOLDERS MEETINGS WHERE LOBBY ISTS AGREED TO REIN STATE FOR MULITPLE SPECAIL INTERST GROUPS ONLY
- NOT BY MEDICAL NEED -
THOSE SEVERELY MULITPLEY DISABLED AND THOSE HOPING TO BE ABLE TO WORK WILL NOW SUFFER and be UN -ABLE .
FOR THOSE SOME LESS DISABLED ALREADY WITH MORE SUPPORTS BECASUE THEY HAD REPRESENTATION OF LOBBYISTS .
THIS VIOLATES ADA +/OR SECTION 504 .
THERE ARE NO advocates and no voice for severely and multiply disabled not attached to regional centers certain senior and other outside special interests.
This has been done by affiliation NOT medical need !
PLEASE ASK Washington to stand up for us and give us a voice!
CA LOBBYISTS BACK FILL some cuts for SPECIAL INTERESTS only!
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/introducing-sotomayor?signup=true
May 27, 2009Obama Selects Sotomayor for Court By PETER BAKER and JEFF ZELENY
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Tuesday that he will nominate the federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, choosing a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation’s first Hispanic justice.
Judge Sotomayor, who stood next to the president during the announcement, was described by Mr. Obama as “an inspiring woman who I am confident will make a great justice.”
The president said he had made his decision after “deep reflection and careful deliberation,” and he made it clear that the judge’s inspiring personal story was crucial in his decision. Mr. Obama praised his choice as someone possessing “a rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law.”
But those essential qualities are not enough, the president said. Quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mr. Obama said, “The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience.” It is vitally important that a justice know “how the world works, and how ordinary people live,” the president said.
Judge Sotomayor is Mr. Obama’s first selection to the Supreme Court, and her nomination could trigger a struggle with Senate Republicans who have indicated they may oppose the nomination. But Democrats are within reach of the 60 votes necessary to choke off a filibuster, and Republicans concede that they have little hope of blocking confirmation barring unforeseen revelations.
Judge Sotomayor, 54, who has served for more than a decade on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York City, would become the nation’s 111th justice, replacing David H. Souter, who is retiring after 19 years on the bench. Although Justice Souter was appointed by the first President George Bush, he became a mainstay of the liberal faction on the court, and so his replacement by Judge Sotomayor likely would not shift the overall balance of power.
But her appointment would add a second woman to the nine-member court and give Hispanics their first seat. Her life story, mirroring in some ways Mr. Obama’s own, would add a different complexion to the panel, fulfilling the president’s stated desire to add diversity of background to the nation’s highest tribunal.
Judge Sotomayor’s father died when she was 9 years old and she was raised by her mother, who worked six-day weeks to earn enough money to send her and a brother to Catholic school. She got into Princeton University, where she once said she felt like “a visitor landing in an alien country,” but graduated summa cum laude.
After Yale Law School, where she was editor of the Yale Law Journal, she worked for Robert M. Morgenthau in the district attorney’s office in New York and later was in private practice. The first President Bush nominated her in 1991 to the federal district court on the recommendation of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, and she was confirmed a year later. President Bill Clinton decided to elevate her to the appeals court in 1997, and she was confirmed a year later.
Judge Sotomayor has said her ethnicity and gender are important factors in serving on the bench, a point that could generate debate. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” she said in a 2002 lecture.
She also once said at a conference that a “court of appeals is where policy is made,” a statement that has drawn criticism from conservatives who saw it as a sign of judicial activism. Judge Sotomayor seemed to understand at the time that she was making a controversial statement, adding that, “I know this is on tape, and I should never say that, because we don’t make law.”
Conservatives quickly pointed to such statements after word of her selection on Tuesday.
“Judge Sotomayor is a liberal activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, an activist group. “She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.”
White House officials concluded that such statements, while perhaps providing fodder for opponents, would not be problematic enough to hinder her confirmation. Some officials have said in recent days that they relish the prospect of Republicans standing up against a Hispanic woman with her life story, because it would only damage the G.O.P. with a key voting bloc.
The president sought to defuse some of those charges in advance, declaring his confidence that she has “a recognition of the limits of the judicial role.”
Indeed, in nominating the first Hispanic justice, Mr. Obama may appeal to a large and growing constituency whose party loyalty is still very much in play. Hispanic groups have expressed excitement about the idea of one of their own serving on the high court. (Some scholars argue whether Benjamin Cardozo was really the first Hispanic justice, but with his Portuguese-Jewish background, he never identified himself as a Hispanic.)
On the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor has not been involved in many hotly disputed decisions, but one that she participated in is before the Supreme Court right now. As part of a panel, she voted to uphold New Haven’s decision to throw out a set of fire department promotion tests because no minority candidates made the top of the list. White firefighters who scored high but were denied promotion are appealing that ruling.
As a district judge, she briefly earned fame in 1995 by ending a Major League Baseball strike, ruling in favor of players and against the owners, who she said were trying to subvert the labor system.
At the White House announcement, the East Room filled with members of the legal community and several Hispanic leaders, who received calls and emails on Tuesday morning to attend the ceremony and applauded enthusiastically when Mr. Obama entered the room with the nominee. To keep the decision secret, outside groups were not notified until about two hours before the event began.
The president conducted a face-to-face interview of Judge Sotomayor on Thursday at the White House, officials said. She was the second finalist to be interviewed, following Judge Diane P. Wood of Chicago.
Mr. Obama called her at 9 p.m. on Monday, officials said, to inform her that she was his choice. She traveled to Washington late Monday evening.
The president reached his decision over the long Memorial Day weekend, aides said, but it was not disclosed until Tuesday morning when he informed his advisers of his choice less than three hours before the announcement was scheduled to take place.
Mr. Obama telephoned Judge Sotomayor at 9 p.m. on Monday, officials said, advising her that she was his choice to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Later Monday night, Mr. Obama called the three other finalists — Judge Diane P. Wood of Chicago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Solicitor General Elena Kagan — to inform them that he had selected Judge Sotomayor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/politics/27court.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
DOESN'T THE MINORITY SPEAKER GET BRIEFED ATT HE SAME TIME?
http://www.gop.gov/media/features/09/05/19/what-did-speaker-pelosi-know
Michelle Obama's Secret Service code name is Renaissance. This is apt. The role of First Lady has long seemed old-fashioned, even moribund, and those who tried to fiddle with it did so at their peril. While a revolution was taking place in the lives of most American women, Jacqueline Kennedy kept her own bra firmly on, devoting herself instead to interior decoration and the replanting of the Rose Garden. Thereafter, a pattern was set. Forget Eleanor Roosevelt: it was the job of the First Lady, be she ever so boring (Barbara Bush) or ever so brittle (Nancy Reagan), to write menus, to commission pretty new china, and to advance various uncontroversial Good Causes. She was allowed to care about flowers and trees (Lady Bird Johnson) or refugees (Rosalynn Carter), but not too much, and not too politically. When Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Washington, maiden name still in tow, and promptly abandoned the White House chef to his recipe books while she took on a job attempting to overhaul healthcare, there was widespread outrage. How dare she? It wasn't long before poor old Hillary was back indoors, plumping cushions, writing invitations and chewing her fist.
Obama is only three months into her strange new career as First Lady, yet already the job feels refreshed: less dusty, less embarrassing, less tight-assed. To all intents and purposes, she really has effected some kind of renaissance, not by bagging some high-profile role as, say, Barack's Middle East envoy - she made it clear right from the start that politics was not part of her own plan - but simply by being herself: a wife and a mother, but also a clever, educated woman. She is the first First Lady anyone can remember who seems remotely like the rest of us, or other women we know, and not just because she is only 45 (Hillary Clinton, remember, was 45 when she became First Lady, Laura Bush was 54). She has a quality that cannot be faked: to be prosaic about it, she is normal.
Women can scent normality at 100 paces, not to mention through the pages of a glossy magazine. We know it when we see it. And while we can be merciless about other women, passing judgment on them in an instant, we are keen on sisterhood, too. Obama feels like a sister: feminine, and with hard-felt ideas about domesticity, but in no sense a daffy pinny-wearer; tough and ambitious, but without having appropriated male behaviour as a way of getting on.
This paradigm shift feels like a minor miracle, and you can't help but feel that Hillary Clinton, so often and so horribly reviled, must look at Michelle, in her perky cardigans and her J Crew skirts, and wonder how she has pulled it off. In the beginning, after all, Obama was regularly characterised in the press as an "angry black woman" (her speech to an audience in Milwaukee in which she said: "For the first time in my life, I am proud of my country" went down about as well as some of Hillary's sarky comments about Tammy Wynette, standing by your man, and baking cookies).
What's more, she and Hillary have plenty in common. Both grew up in Chicago, in reasonably modest circumstances. Both were academic (Princeton and Harvard for Obama, Wellesley and Yale for Clinton). The two also shared an early reputation for being straitlaced and determined (Obama's friends called her the Taskmaster; Clinton's high-school yearbook made some joke about how she would one day be a nun called Sister Frigidaire). So how come everyone is now mad for Obama? It's so unfair.
But the truth is that there was always something unconvincing about Clinton's efforts to appear well-rounded; a part of you always knew that she was more interested in talking about Kosovo and Gulf War syndrome than cookie recipes. I don't especially blame her for this - why shouldn't a woman be like that? - but I can see that it didn't make one warm to her. Obama, on the other hand, seems not to feel the need constantly to remind others of her intellect. She is comfortable with girl talk. Anecdotes about how Barack looked as he drove her home from hospital after the birth of their first child - nervous - fall from her lips easily, if not unthinkingly. This is a generational thing. It was Obama's good fortune to enter the world of work at a different, and more progressive moment than Clinton. At the same point in her life when Clinton was serving mint juleps in the Governor's Mansion in Arkansas and worrying that her brain was turning to mush, Obama was in Chicago, working in law and later in hospital administration; when Barack was elected senator she didn't even feel the need to move to Washington.
But perhaps it's to do with Obama's essential personality, too. Granted, in reality we know little about her. The information that we have been given has been doled out in coffee spoons. It has to do with internet shopping - all that "cute" stuff you can find there! - and the irritation she feels when the president's undergarments fail to find their way to the laundry basket; with Italian food, which she likes, and with her mother's fried chicken, made with Ritz crackers in the batter, which she apparently avoids.
Still, the thing that really strikes me is that, for all the trials involved in being First Lady - and they must be legion - Obama looks like she is enjoying herself. Gone are the long-suffering looks and clenched, lacquered smiles of past First Ladies. She is not enduring; she is thriving. Her wardrobe has been much praised for its use of acid yellow and credit crunch-defying high-street bargains. Maybe so. What I like about it is the obvious pleasure she takes in it. I keep imagining her tying the outsized bow on the white blouse that she wore on her big trip to Europe, and the home film that I see in my mind's eye - she has a few attempts and then, triumphant at last, does a little twirl in front of her mirror - makes me smile. She went to Harvard; I think it's OK for her to play around with outsized bows and for us to relish that play, so long as we never forget that she is only the third First Lady to have a postgraduate degree, and that one day, when all this is over, when it is her turn, she will resume her career out there in the real world.
Rachel Cooke
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/03/michelle-obama
what is the complete story? This is not it.
Waterboarding: Clearly not all of the classified documents have been released and not all information is available. But it appears that 3 leading Al Qaeda detainees were waterboarded numerous times after which, at least one of them, indicated that there were new terrorist plots about which the US would learn when they happened. Speaker Pelosi and other Congressional leaders were informed of the decision to use the controversial interrogation method and did not protest at the time. Information obtained from these waterboarding interrogations tipped off US officials as to the plot to blow up the tallest office building in Los Angeles. That plan was then foiled by law enforcement and counter-terrorism officials. Therefore, it appears that the destruction of that building and potentially the loss of many thousand American lives was prevented by these interrogations. But others say that such methods should never be employed by a civilized society even to save many lives. There are certain things we just don't do. As you consider such a decision, I think it is important to think about what might have happened had the information not been obtained and the building destroyed. Would we now be investigating intelligence agencies for not doing enough to prevent it, which is what happened after 9/11? If your son, daughter, parent, or spouse were in that building, would you feel differently? Before you decide, you may also want to know that pilots and special operations forces (Navy Seals and the like) undergo waterboarding during training to teach them not to break under these types of interrogation tactics. - PER CONGRESSMAN JOHN CAMPBELL R-CA
4-27 -09 email
BUT HE'S TRYING TO DO IT SOME MORE ON MAY 19. VOTE NO ON PROPS MAY 19 -DO NOT STAY HOME.
A few things worth noting this morning:
UNION WINS FURLOUGH SUIT: In a ruling on Wednesday, Judge Peter Busch ruled that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should not have furloughed state workers at the State Compensation Insurance Fund.
SCIF, as it's called, is a self-sufficient business insurance provider that receives no money from the state's general fund. The suit against the furlough had been brought by California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment (also known as CASE).
Jon Ortiz has more on the State Worker blog.
The whole thing makes one wonder what's next for those California state workers who are being furloughed despite having their salaries paid for entirely by the federal government.
That practice, both in California and elsewhere, was the subject of a New York Times story over the weekend.
"The states' response is completely illogical," said Michael J. Astrue, the commissioner of Social Security.
OIL AND WATER: Fresh from his helicopter tour of the Delta on Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will hunker down in San Francisco today for a hearing on offshore oil drilling.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who was once deputy interior secretary under President Bill Clinton, plans to testify against such drilling.
Both houses of the Legislature have floor sessions scheduled for this morning.
BIRTHDAY: Republican Assemblywoman Jean Fuller of Bakersfield turns 59 today.
GOVERNOR 2010: Lew Uhler, president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, announced his endorsement of Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner on Wednesday, calling the GOP candidate for governor "a proven tax fighter for the people of California."
Capitol Alert Coordinator
Friday, 27th March 2009
Washington, D.C.
March 27 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will seek support today from executives of the nation’s largest banks for his plan to stabilize the financial system and try to get beyond the furor over bailouts and bonuses.
The White House meeting at noon Washington time is scheduled to include chief executive officers Vikram Pandit of Citigroup Inc., Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., all headquartered in New York. They are among as many as 15 banking executives expected to attend.
Lawrence Summers, Obama’s top economic adviser, said the meeting was a measure of the ties between the government and banking industry at a time of economic crisis.
“This is about our duty to do everything we can to support a robust and sustained economic expansion and the reality that the country’s major financial institutions have a major role to play,” Summers said.
White House advisers said the meeting will focus on stabilizing financial markets, boosting lending to businesses and consumers, reducing foreclosures and imposing regulatory overhaul rather than specific issues at individual institutions.
With the U.S. economic recovery tethered to the health of the financial industry, Obama has proposed a public-private partnership to soak up the banks’ toxic assets and help unlock credit, as well as new regulations on banks, hedge funds, private-equity firms and derivatives markets.
“It’s terribly important that an environment of consensus replace the polarization of recent weeks,” said former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt, now a senior adviser to The Carlyle Group based in Washington and a board member of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News. “It’s essential to the business community that they be very much part of this process.”
Continuing Engagement
The gathering is the latest in a continuing engagement with the business community, advisers said. Obama has held meetings with Dimon and Kenneth Chenault, the CEO of New York- based American Express Co., as well as Redmond, Washington- based Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, over the last couple of months, they said.
Industry representatives said they will underscore the connection between the success of the financial-services industry and the broader economic recovery.
“For the economy to recover, for the stimulus to work, Main Street and Wall Street have to work hand in hand,” said Rob Nichols, a former Treasury official and now president of the Financial Services Forum in Washington.
‘Pick Their Brains’
After weeks in which the White House was often sharply critical of excesses at financial companies, the president wants to adopt a more collaborative approach.
“We’re reliant upon them to help rebuild our economy,” said senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. “It would be very unnatural if we didn’t engage them and have a direct opportunity to pick their brains and look to the future.”
Along with Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Jarrett and Summers will meet with the chief executive officers, also including Kenneth Lewis of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp., John Mack of New York- based Morgan Stanley, John Stumpf of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., Ronald Logue of Boston-based State Street Corp. and Robert Kelly of New York-based Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
Other participants are scheduled to include American Express’s Chenault, Herbert Allison, president and CEO of Washington-based Fannie Mae; Frederick Waddell, CEO of Chicago- based Northern Trust Corp., James Rohr, CEO of Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group, and Richard Davis, CEO of Minneapolis-based US Bancorp.
‘Lots of Details’
“There are just lots of details, that’s one of the things I know that is very much on the minds of some of these folks, they need to know more,” said Bert Ely chief executive officer of Ely & Co., a financial institution and monetary policy consultant in Alexandria, Virginia. They can then “provide input into how these issues are addressed legislatively.”
The administration’s plan is dependent in part on the financial companies being willing to sell distressed assets at prices attractive enough to create a new market and enable banks to start lending, which they have been reluctant to do.
The plan would remove banks’ distressed assets from the lenders’ balance sheets though a public-private investment program, with Treasury providing $75 billion to $100 billion to finance investors’ purchases of devalued loans and securities.
“A recovery based on a public-private partnership will depend, to a large extent, on the business community believing that they are in a partnership rather than enthralled to politicians and a punishing public that wants to extract the last ounce of blood,” Levitt said.
Meeting With Geithner
A number of the CEOs met with Geithner last night at a dinner sponsored by the Financial Services Roundtable.
Popular anger erupted this month after the Treasury said it couldn’t stop $165 million in bonuses to American International Group Inc. employees, after the New York-based insurer received $182.5 billion in taxpayer bailout funds.
Administration officials downplayed the need to strengthen ties that may have been frayed over the fallout from AIG.
Several executives have criticized the administration’s anti-Wall Street rhetoric, its stress-tests to monitor banks’ health and restrictions imposed by the Troubled Asset Relief Program affecting lending, foreclosures, pay and perks.
Capital Injection
The U.S. Treasury in October injected more than $120 billion from the TARP program into nine of the biggest U.S. banks. More than 500 banks, insurers and credit-card companies applied for capital, and the government has distributed almost $300 billion. Lenders including Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp and New York-based Goldman Sachs have said they want to give back the TARP money.
Dimon of New York-based JPMorgan this month called on government officials to stop demonizing Wall Street, saying “it’s just hurting our country at this point.”
“When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in a speech earlier this month hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.
US Bancorp’s Davis called TARP a “lousy program” last month during a speech in Minneapolis, and Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Kovachevich said the stress-test policy is “asinine.”
“The atmospherics have to improve,” said Ely. Today’s meeting signals that “the policy makers are listening and trying to deal with this in a positive constructive manner and moving past all the blaming and finger pointing and demonizing.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: March 27, 2009 00:38 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aLhW6WphVhAk&refer=politics
Wednesday, 25th March 2009
March 25, 2009, 3:38 pm
In another extension of the online White House, President Obama plans to answer the most popular questions submitted via the Web by civilians at a new feature, Open for Questions, when he holds a town hall in the East Room tomorrow morning.
The new online effort, officially maintained as part of WhiteHouse.gov, went up last night and has already generated quite a lot of interest.
The East Room town hall tomorrow begins at 11:30 a.m., and Mr. Obama will answer incoming questions from three avenues. At that meeting, a moderator will choose questions from some of those submitted online — those voted the most popular — and a video screen may display a few submitted through YouTube and ask the president to answer them.
The event will be streamed on the White House site as well. And the president will also take questions from the live audience, made up of invited “regular folks” like teachers and nurses.
A video of Mr. Obama was posted at the site to solicit questions, which he said should focus on the economy. The categories listed alongside the questions section range from jobs to financial stability to health care reform.
Not surprisingly for an administration known for its Internet campaign prowess and young Web-savvy followers, since the site’s launch around 7 p.m., thousands of people have already posted their own queries and voted on any number of others. The numbers keep jumping up even as we work on this post. More than 20,000 questions have been posted and more than three-fourths of a million votes cast.
For example, under the jobs category, the top questions a short while ago were:
As a student, who like so many others works full time and attends school full time, only to break even at the end of the month. What is the government doing to make higher education more affordable for lower and middle class families?”James, Bloomington, IndianaAre you still planning on penalizing the big business execs who take US jobs out of the country?”Bart, Va.
Many are extremely thoughtful, ranging from how to gin up manufacturing jobs again to how to ensure that automakers use bailout money responsibly. You get the gist. And there are flags for people to deem those considered inappropriate. Some of our readers had questions of their own to ask the president before yesterday’s news conference, and many of them also revolved around economic concerns.
Open for Questions is the latest in the connected ways of the Obama administration, which has hired a new media team and also has opened up sites of various agencies to solicit input on issues like health care and the environment. This latest is an outgrowth of what the transition team was doing at Change.gov and of course, it furthers the online reach of the campaign, whose Web site frequently sought policy input from voters.
It’s unclear how often President Obama will answer questions posed to him at the new site. It’s also unclear for now what will happen to all of those he can’t answer in an hour. (An awful lot of people will probably be disappointed.)
We’re told it’s possible that in the future, Cabinet officials or surrogates may be invited to take part or to field the questions. But for now, this first-time solicitation was called an “experiment” by the president.
So for now, you might want to get busy. The cutoff for questions and votes is 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Let’s hope the site doesn’t crash.
please take a minute or two and sign on.
individuals and organizations WE need YOU!
CAN YOU ALL CUT AND PASTE THE LETTERS AND SUPPORT ME ON THIS.. REMOVE EXIST TYPE IN BOXES AND INSERT THIS.. OR YOUR OWN.
http://capwiz.com/aarp/issues/alert/?alertid=12846746&type=CO
On behalf of millions of American families and businesses struggling in today's economy, I urge you to demonstrate your commitment to health care reform in the federal budget. Moving health care reform forward in 2009 is a critical first step to improve our nation's economy. PLEASE do not tax the poor to support middle class, making us less able, it costs more in the long run. SEE my poorly typed letter below. As you put together the federal budget, I hope you will also make the up-front AssESSMENTs of failure to help disabled be able and make investments needed to enhance the quality of care, expand coverage, and save money in the long-run. Please include enough funds in the fede ral budget to achieve meaningful health care reform, FOR ALL OF US. one issue-
To: ofainfo@dnc.org Subject: PLEASE STOP TAXING THE POOR Hello ALL, PLEASE FORGIVE MY DISABLED TYPNG NAD GET THE URGENT MESSAGE... On budget- do not do anymore tax the poor FOR the middle class. don't approve more cig taxes as mostly poor and anxiety prone (including veterans) smoke. and we have no REAL benefits from the tax we pay. the minimal stop smoking programs usually don't work. AND THEY ARE STILL CHEAPER THAN FOOD nad are better psyche care than we can get and easier to carry for the homeless. TAX HARD LIQOUR INSTEAD. TO SUpPORT only ONLY, ONLY! ALL THE PROGRAMS AND SHELTERS FOR THEIR RECOVERY. i spent 8 years homeless VA AnD LOCAL PROGRAMS DO FAMILIES, HEALTHY ADDICTS AnD HEALTHY UNEMPLoYED most say able to work in 30 days . some staffed by-the unsupervised recently recovered do real harm. THEY all discriminate against disabled.
PLEASE and no more POOR derived income going to those double above poverty level... WE CANT AFFORD IT. NO MORE HUD RENTAL ASSISTANCE TO THAT GROUP EITHER. CAN'T AFFORD TO RENT ON 60K A YEAR - fix your credit mess. More cigarette taxes that STILL wont benefit smokers or prevent smoking?! LOAD OF DOO DOO. Democratic Party leaders plan another try and are expecting success with fellow Democrat Barack Obama as president
. http://www.heartland.org/article/24637/Cigarette_Tax_Would_Triple_Under_35_Billion_SCHIP_Plan.html The proposal would take the federal excise tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1 a pack, on top of existing state and local taxes. Families earning up to four times the poverty level—about $83,000 for a family of four—could qualify for SCHIP coverage. SCHIP has been funded largely through federal cigarette taxes. Critics of the expansion proposal point to the irony of imposing sha rply higher taxes on cigarettes, whose buyers tend to come from lower- and middle-income families, because the very people SCHIP aims to help would be disproportionately hurt by this.
Sincerely, Darlene C. Matthews Irvine , CA 92614
PS: Systems can be broke, but not broken, if all the cogs work. OUR SYSTEMS ARE BROKEN.
