Barack the Youth Vote

Democrats Need to Fight EVERY Race EVERYWHERE in 2010

Joseph — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:38:35 EST

The Democratic party needs to take stock of the political climate, turn off the pundit-box and take a closer look at the meaning of the polls. Then, get the word out. The conventional wisdom right now says the president is losing favor and the Democrats are even less popular. Almost no one on television seems to notice that the very polls they're reporting show the Republicans even more out of favor than Congressional Democrats.

This means that even with the staggering legislative and budgetary complications facing the Democratic party right now, and the array of crises Pres. Obama is forced to wrestle with, the Republicans have made literally zero gain in terms of public image, popularity or public trust. There are substantive reasons for that, not least of which is the party's total failure to offer any relevant proposals for solving the nation's many crises, which people still remember were engendered BY their policies.

What's more, there's a mythology about poll numbers which suggests that somehow Democrats' success in 2008 was entirely related to the popularity of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. Obama did win by a landslide; even his popular vote victory was by a more than comfortable margin. But the Republican party stirred up a firestorm of passionate hate, which motivated an anti-Obama vote. What's more, the 2008 Democratic wave was a follow-on to the 2006 Democratic wave.

For all of Obama's virtues as a candidate, the Democratic agenda itself was gaining popularity ever since 2005, when it became clear to the mainstream general public the Iraq war was built on lies, involved torture and other abuses, and that the Bush administration was disinterested enough to let New Orleans descend into chaos before intervening after Hurricane Katrina.

The real secret to Democrats' success in 2008 was the Obama campaign's demand that the party compete everywhere. This was an extension of the Democratic National Committee's 2006 strategy, implemented by then Chairman Howard Dean, to compete for every seat. THERE IS NO REASON REPUBLICANS SHOULD HAVE A FREE RIDE, ANYWHERE, EVER. Especially now, when their politics has so disgracefully descended into hate language, fearmongering and programmatic distortions.

If there are 40 House seats "up for grabs", as some analysts suggest, arithmetical logic would say save half and the Democrats keep a substantial majority. But aiming for less than total victory is, inherently, unconvincing. It will undermine the entire party-wide effort, and help give Republicans momentum on shaping the rhetoric of 2010 and painting any loss as a defeat for the entire Democratic party.

So, we need to compete for every seat, regardless of geography, aim to raise record amounts from small donors, as did Barack Obama in 2008, and make sure efforts to get out the vote are strong, EVERYWHERE. Every Democratic or Democratic-friendly candidate in the country deserves a strong support system to keep the Republicans from gaining ground.

When you want NO-WAR, it's really never matter who do you vote for.

Erez Elul — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:31:07 EST

You --

Still here? Hi. Please
help us in this reverse structuring from ofa:

Any grassroots project must have a well defined aim, which when achieved
is only one among many steps together constituting a grassroots movement.

In such a process the organization must be flexible to allow some of its
parts to exit itself and some new parts to enter itself, so that the
organization could become a grassroots movement.

Yes Again We Can Be Reorganized!!!

We, who made obama to sit in the office, must be organized such that
never again any one of us could transform our organization into a top
down organization such as in the case of ofa.

The obama's grassroots movement is in a problem which could be helped by
ComComizing the mailing lists of movement.

for more please see this
http://comcom.wikidot.com/comcom-for-activists-or-an-open-letter-to-mitch-stewart

it also includes also the moore vid about this war issue

peace
namzezam

New Obama Group Forming 'AmericaNOchange'

Al Boek — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:42:29 EST

Fellow President Obama Supporters and Former Ones"

AS the founder of the Obama Group named YESWECANSOLVEIT...

I have taken the liberty of forming still another group called

AmericaNOchange. I doubt this one gets approved.

Thought I'd better hurry and write this and send it to all groups that

I am still a member of before I am banned here forever. Why would

that happen? you ask. Because I just formed a new group with a little

kid yelling "Hey You" while flipping off the viewer. Hope the president

and his staff gets the message.

The esculation of the war in Aftganistan is the last straw. Three strikes

your out!

First, he keeps the same people on the payroll that got us into this

financial disaster. He let's Bush and Cheney walk scot-free. He continues

to bail out the banks, "all too big to fail" why they screw us in every way.

And tonight on national tv he will try to convience us all that the way to

end the war in Aftganistan is to exculate it. This did not work in Vietnam,

I know, because I volunteered to go there, and it will not work in Aftganistan.

To add insult to injury. The powers that be, the ones backing McCain in

my city in Northern California, are all meeting to determine what the same

good ole boys get to do with local stimulus funds...So my question is?

WHAT THE HELL HAS CHANGED IN AMERICAN PRESIDENT OBAMA?

I am so damned mad right now, I swear, if I could afford it, I'd trade in

my next presidential ballot for a passport.

Al Boek, Ex-Supporter of a One-Term President

earlallenboek@yahoo.com

530-549-4315

Redding, California

Send A Message To Congress

EsquireUK — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:03:43 EDT

OFA Director Mitch Stewart just sent out the following email:

Despite increasingly desperate attacks from the insurance lobby, the Senate Finance Committee took the historic step of voting reform legislation out of committee with bipartisan support. They're the final committee to do so -- and the negotiations over the final bill will now move to the full House and Senate.

Soon, every senator and representative must decide where they stand. Lobbyists will be racing to each office, trying every trick in the book to derail the President's plan. In fact, just this week, the insurance lobby released a self-serving report falsely claiming that reform would increase costs. Journalists called it "deceptive" and said "something doesn't smell right here." A prominent M.I.T. economist described the study as "deeply flawed."

It's a blatant scare tactic designed to frighten voters and bully Congress -- and it's just the beginning. We need to speak out right away to show Congress that their constituents are watching closely, and we're counting on them to say "no" to the lobbyists and "yes" to reform.

Send a message urging Congress to stand with voters, not D.C. lobbyists, and pass real reform.

It's becoming clear that the insurance companies will do whatever it takes to stop progress: The New York Times is reporting that special interests are spending $1.4 million every day to kill reform -- and even commissioned their own slanted analysis of the Finance Committee's legislation in an effort to defeat it. But today, after widespread criticism, the company that produced the report issued a statement saying that it analyzed only part of the bill because that's exactly what the insurance industry paid them to do!

And we just got word that insurance companies are spending $1 million on a misleading ad to scare seniors out of supporting reform. The ad falsely declares that reform will cause cuts in Medicare, even though reform is crucial to ensuring the long-term survival of the program and preserving the care that millions of seniors depend on.

Now that all five congressional committees have passed reform legislation, we're sure to see attacks that are even more extreme. It's up to us to make sure that ordinary Americans continue to be heard louder than the Washington lobbyists.

Please send a message to Congress today:

http://my.barackobama.com/Fight_Back

The next few weeks are absolutely crucial to our success -- we'll be organizing events, running ads, and doing everything possible to make sure Congress passes real reform. But right now, the most important thing we can do is make our voices heard immediately. Please speak out now.

Thanks,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

april — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:35:50 EDT

I am so stunned on everyone's reaction to Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It seems alot of people forget what he did over the campaign and how he got SO many people off there butts and out into there communities doing something and be apart of something greater than themselves. I had the chance to see him speak in Green Bay during the campaign and had the chance to shake his hand and I can tell you....just from my experience..... when you see him in person and listen to him talk...you can tell that he truly cares about helping US and that he truly believes he can make a difference in our country. I still support him...he is trying so hard with Health Care, and with the War...we have no real idea of what he really deals with on a daily basis...I was shocked when I heard he won...but in no way did I think he didn't deserve it....I think he whole-heartedly deserves it for bringing a Nation together and for opening up talks with other countries....who are interested in what he has to say. I think the Obama's are wonderful people and it is awesome to see real people in the White House and not a bunch of rich suits. Congratulations Mr. President!!

Build Support In Your Community

EsquireUK — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:12:05 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

It's no secret that institutions of all stripes focus their communications on certain messages day to day. We thought it would all be a little more open and transparent if we went ahead and published what our focus will be for the day, along with any related articles, reports or documents.

Supporting Article: "Poll: Doctors Among Public Option's Biggest Fans," NPR, 9/15/09

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

On Friday, Dr. Alice Chen sent out a special message to fellow OFA supporters:

My name is Alice Chen. I'm an OFA supporter, and a physician practicing internal medicine in Los Angeles.

I'm following the health reform debate pretty closely -- you probably are too. And as I see opponents of reform trying to water down or derail the President's plan, I know it's our urgent responsibility to speak out.

That's why millions of my fellow doctors and nurses, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and groups like the one I work with called Doctors for America are all fighting so hard for reform right now: talking to our patients, holding grassroots events -- and a few are even filming an ad with OFA.

Health professionals are doing what we can, but this is something we need to do together. Your voice, your opinion, and your story can help influence the debate at this crucial moment. Can you take 5 minutes to write a letter to the editor of your local paper in support of President Obama's Plan for health reform?
OFA has an online tool that makes it really easy. They'll provide background info on the President's plan that you can combine with your personal story about reform, and you can even submit your letter online to newspapers near you.

You don't have to be a doctor or an expert to write an effective letter -- you just have to have an opinion or a personal story to share. And these letters are short, usually just a paragraph or two, but they can have a huge impact because it shows your representatives and the media what local folks are thinking in the most public way possible.

I know that one of the most important things I can do for the health of my patients is to stand up for the reform all Americans need. That's why I and my fellow doctors are working so hard to spread the word, and that's why I'm asking you to join me by writing a letter today.

http://my.barackobama.com/write

Thank you,

Dr. Alice Chen

P.S. -- I want to share a story with you about why I'm so passionate about reform:
Two years ago, I took care of a businessman in Los Angeles. He had Crohn's disease, and his health and nutrition had been getting worse for over a year. He was seeing doctors at one of our private hospitals, but he lost his insurance, so he couldn't see his doctors anymore. Buying private insurance was impossible - no amount of money could have convinced an insurance company to cover him. He tried the county hospital ER, but the wait was 24 hours. He thought maybe he could manage.

A few months later, when he could barely walk from his bed to the door, he tried the ER again. By then, he had kwashiorkor (the kind of malnutrition that famine-stricken African children get) as a complication of his gut disorder. Every organ system was failing. I remember that even in the hospital, he tried to keep up his work via his Blackberry. We tried to help him, but he rapidly deteriorated and died just six days after admission.

I was devastated and talked to many colleagues about what I could have done differently to save my patient. He should have been living his life and being a productive member of society today, but he's dead. We could have saved him if he had been able to come for care sooner -- instead of being deterred by his lack of insurance. Ultimately, I recognize that he died because the system failed him. In our great country, that is unacceptable.
That's a big reason why I keep fighting for reform. I hope that this week, you can share your own view and your story in your letter to the editor.

Over the past week, OFA has been organizing events for health insurance reform with doctors and nurses across the country. At a “Roundtable” event in Gainesville, FL, Dr. Rob Hatch said the health care status quo is unsustainable and unacceptable. Here’s his quote from an article in the Gainesville Sun:
"It's just inexcusable. It's absolutely inexcusable and we need to do something about it. One reason our health care is so bad is that we have so many uninsured people," Hatch said.
In Albany, Georgia, about half a dozen doctors are planning to make 40,000 calls for health insurance reform. They’re talking to locals about what reform will mean for them, answering questions, debunking rumors and asking them to call on their senators and representatives to support President Obama’s plan. Here’s an excerpt from the piece on WALB News:
"I was calling to discuss health care reform with you," said Dr. Tania Smith, of Prestige Pediatrics.

Public opinion over health care reform remains divided and now these south Georgia health care professionals are weighing in. They joined forces with Organizing for America to push reform now.

"Right now people are looking for answers, they're looking for the truth about health care reform and doctors are a great place to start," said Ken King, Organizing for America.

Pediatrician Tania Smith is on the front line of this debate. While critics worry the President's plan may take decisions away from doctors, she feels insurance companies are already doing that. "As the system is going now we have a lot of people who are medically ignorant making decisions and denying claims and making insurance populations where you don't have any wellness visits included in your plan," said Smith.

President Obama To Lobby Olympic Games Bid

EsquireUK — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:24:15 EDT

Barack Obama is to deploy his renowned powers of persuasion and charm against the International Olympic Committee this week in an effort to win the 2016 summer games for his old hometown, Chicago.

Obama will become the first US president to lobby the IOC in person when he travels to its meeting in Copenhagen on Friday to try to ensure that Chicago, his hometown before he became president, walks away with the prize.

Ban Ki-moon to make keynote address at the opening of the Olympic Congress

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is very pleased to announce the presence of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, at the XIII Olympic Congress, which will open on 3 October 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Mr Ban Ki-moon will open the IOC Congress with a keynote address to the Olympic family. For IOC President Jacques Rogge, the presence of Mr Ban in Copenhagen strengthens the partnership between the two organisations. “It’s a strong commitment to the recognition of the increasingly important role of sport in the implementation of internationally agreed development goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals. In the global community of the 21st century, the Olympic Movement is more accountable to the whole of society than ever before, and it must be sure of its place in all regions of the world. This is why the participation of the United Nations in its Congress, placed under the main theme of ‘the Olympic Movement in Society’, is invaluable.” The Congress will be held under the theme of “the Olympic Movement in Society”. Participants will discuss the current status of the Olympic Movement and projections into the future around five main themes: Theme 1 “The Athletes”, Theme 2 “The Olympic Games”, Theme 3 “The Structure of the Olympic Movement”, Theme 4 “Olympism and Youth” and Theme 5 “The Digital Revolution”.

http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp

G-20 Summit

EsquireUK — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:56:44 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Progress-with-the-G20-in-Pittsburgh/

Recorded literally on his way back from the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, the President uses his Weekly Address to recap the progress made during the intensive discussions with world leaders. From an historic agreement to reform the global financial system, to groundbreaking commitments on reducing subsidies to fossil fuels worldwide, to unity in standing against threats to world peace -- engagement produced tangible results in several areas.

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (79 MB) | read the transcript

Healthcare March on Washington

Joseph — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:33:42 EDT

We need healthcare reform in order to prevent the continuing spread of the vicious infection of personal and corporate bankruptcies linked to radically escalating healthcare costs, which are coinciding with a worsening deterioration in quality of coverage and quality of care. We need reform to make healthcare coverage affordable, reasonable, and undeniable. We need reform to save tens of thousands of lives per year and establish a sustainable long-term economic path, to help protect the market system and make protecting and sustaining life more cost-effective, liberating people to live the lives they dream they can.

We are watching a massive, nationwide movement of propaganda and mobilization spread one after another wild fabrication and spur sometimes violent anger about the most promising healthcare reform proposals our nation has seen. It is intolerable to stand by and watch this campaign of malicious fear-mongering sow hate and anger and derail reform in order to serve the morally bankrupt political strategy of those who want to "kill reform" for their own electoral gain.

We need to organize not just at the local level, but we need to organize nationally, set a date for a massive demonstration of support in Washington, DC, and march on Washington. The demonstration should be set for early October and we need to spend big to get the message out and treat this cause like a second inauguration. We stood in the freezing cold to support Pres. Obama and his message of transformative change, and now we have to do the same, in the midst of this firestorm of distortions and tempers, to show the true grassroots movement demanding a response is pro-reform.

Let's get moving on setting the date for a march. We can launch a group on this website and use it to plan and to mobilize support.

President Obama: Add Your Voice

EsquireUK — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:47:01 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help.

Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you.

Add your voice: Ask your representatives to support my plan for real health reform in 2009.

The heart of my plan is simple: bring stability and security to Americans who already have health insurance, guarantee affordable coverage for those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.

Tonight, I offered a specific plan for how to make it happen. I incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans to create a plan that's bold, practical, and represents the broad consensus of the American people.

We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way.

We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential.

See my full plan and call on your representatives to support it.
Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

March for Healthcare

Joe Brothers — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:51:53 EDT

Minnesota's March for Healthcare - in conjuction with the nationwide movement of marches on Sunday, September 13 to demand real healthcare reform.

In cooperation with TakeActionMN

Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 12 noon

Phillips Park

1530 E. Franklin Ave.

Minneapolis, MN

Speakers:

Congressman Keith Ellison

John Marty, State Senator and Candidate for Governor

Reverend Grant Stevenson

Erin Murphy, State Representative

For more information visit www.march4healthcare.com

email: mnhealthcarereform@gmail.com

[This event is not sponsored or affiliated with Organizing for America. It is a truly grassroots action at its most powerful! and finest!]

http://my.barackobama.com/ontheground

EsquireUK — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:20:50 EDT

Mitch Stewart, Director of Organizing for America, just sent out this e-mail:

At the beginning of August, President Obama wrote to the OFA community to challenge us to work hard, break through the noise and give the American people a voice in the fight for health insurance reform.

It wasn't easy: With Congress back home, special interests and partisan attack groups went into overdrive spreading lies, and the media seemed to broadcast any story of conflict or division they could find.

But you accepted the President's challenge -- and delivered.

See it for yourself: Check out the latest photos and stories from around the country.

Our strategy for the month was simple: engage the millions of individuals who know we need change to fight the lies and tell the truth, build support for reform, and ensure that support is highly visible while members of Congress are home gauging public opinion. We continued our methodical, battle-tested approach of volunteers reaching out online and offline in every part of the country. We offered the facts, answered questions and engaged those who were ready to get involved.

And the results were extraordinary. OFA supporters like you came together in an unprecedented way over the past four weeks -- and it couldn't have happened without the individual volunteers who make it all possible:
Folks like Rebecca E. in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who voted for the first time last year -- and collected more than 1,800 health care declarations this summer. Across the country, we've collected more than 1 million signatures in support of the President's core principles for health insurance reform.
Supporters like Nita L. in Longmont, Colorado, who organized hundreds of supporters in her town to come with her to talk with their member of Congress about how much this fight means to them. They were among the more than 70,000 folks who showed up at 350 town halls -- where supporters of reform at times outnumbered opponents by 10-1 -- and volunteers who made 5,000 trips to local congressional offices.
It's the people who made more than 100,000 calls to Congress to thank representatives fighting for change -- like Nancy T. in Hendersonville, North Carolina, who hosted a health care phone booth because, after her heart transplant, she knows that no American should have to choose between financial ruin and getting the care they need.
It's the 1,500 supporters who filled a local recreation center in Kansas City, Missouri, at a town hall meeting with Senator Claire McCaskill, and the 2,500 people who jammed the streets to hear from Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio -- just two of the more than 4,000 events where folks gathered to show their support across all 50 states in August.

All of these signatures, calls, office drop-bys, conversations, gatherings, and town hall meetings, all of the late nights, homemade signs, long hours in the sun, and tireless volunteers who make it happen -- totaling more than 1.5 million people who've taken part in this campaign for real reform -- it all adds up to one incredible movement for change.

Check out the latest photos and stories from the field to see this movement in action:

http://my.barackobama.com/ontheground

As Congress returns to D.C. and we roll up our sleeves for the final push toward reform, we know the hardest work may yet lie ahead. The special interests and those in Congress who have pledged to oppose the President no matter what will stoop even lower in the weeks ahead.

But you should never doubt that we face the coming challenges together, as part of something far larger than any of us alone -- and far stronger than the old broken politics that have preserved the status quo for long enough.

Our strategy is working. We are going to win this thing. Americans will finally get the health insurance reform we all need.

Thank you for making it possible,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

Poll: Do You Already Use Public Options?

Nathan Green (Sioux City, IA) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:42:15 EDT

A quick poll to see if you already use public options.

2009 Medal of Freedom Recipients

EsquireUK — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:37:29 EDT

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

Medal of Freedom Recipients

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:

Nancy Goodman Brinker is the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading breast cancer grassroots organization.
Pedro José Greer, Jr. is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Florida International University School of Medicine. He is also the founder of Camillus Health Concern, an agency that provides medical care to over 10,000 homeless and low-income patients each year in Miami.
Stephen Hawking is an internationally-recognized theoretical physicist, and is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.
Jack Kemp was a U.S. Congressman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Republican Nominee for Vice President in 1996. He died in May, 2009
Sen. Edward Kennedy is one of the longest-serving and greatest Senators of all time. He has worked tirelessly for health care reform over the last five decades.
Billie Jean King is known for winning the famous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, and championing gender equality issues not only in sports, but in all aspects of life.
Rev. Joseph Lowery has been a leader of the civil rights movement since the 1950s, and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King.
Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow is the last living Plains Indian war chief, and author of works on Native American history and culture who has served as an inspiration to young Native Americans across the country.
Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, and encouraged LGBT citizens to live their lives openly.
Sandra Day O’Connor was a Supreme Court Justice from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. She was the first woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court, and has received numerous awards for her outstanding achievements.
Sidney Poitier is an actor known for breaking racial barriers. He is the first African American to be nominated and win a Best Actor Academy Award.
Chita Rivera is an actress, singer and dancer, who has broken barriers and inspired a generation of women. In 2002, she was the first Hispanic to receive the Kennedy Center Honor.
Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Since 2002, she has been the President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative.
Janet Davison Rowley, M.D., is the Blum Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. She discovered the first consistent chromosome translocation in a human cancer.
Desmond Tutu is widely regarded as "South Africa’s moral conscience," and was a leading anti-apartheid activist in South Africa.
Muhammad Yunus is a global leader in anti-poverty efforts, and pioneered the use of "micro-loans" to provide credit to poor individuals.

See the official release for a little more detail.

Health Insurance Reform Leaves Washington, D.C.

EsquireUK — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:05:14 EDT

www.healthreform.gov

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.

August is a crucial time to show Congress where the people stand. 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.

Can you commit to attend at least one event in your community
this month?

President Obama: Spurring Innovation To Create Jobs

EsquireUK — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:54:19 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Spurring-Innovation-Creating-Jobs/

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6TH, 2009 AT 9:54 AM

The Past and Future in Elkhart

Posted by Jason Djang

Driving down State Route 19 through the endless corn fields and silos, one might think that Elkhart County in Indiana is a purely agricultural community. But the landscape is dotted with numerous manufacturing plants--places that have made the region the "RV Capital of the World."

The RV industry has been hit hard by the recession. As a result, the area has experienced a 10% increase in unemployment over the last year, the second highest jump in the country. But behind such figures are the lives of real people. We got to spend some time with people like Herman and Pam, faithful employees of Monaco Coachin, in advance of President Obama's announcement at their plant yesterday of billions of dollars in funds for advanced battery and electric drive projects. At its prime, Monaco employed some 1,200 staff; today, they're down to about 100, though the hope is these projects will help bring hundreds of jobs back to town. Herman and Pam told us the story of their embattled community, as they face this more than challenging economic climate together.

download .mp4 (159.8 MB) | read the transcript

The President spoke directly and personally to the audience in Elkhart County, Indiana today:"For as the world grows more competitive, we can't afford to run the race at half-strength or half-speed. If we hope to lead this century like we did the last century, we have to create the conditions and the opportunities for places like Elkhart to succeed. We have to harness the potential –- the innovative and creative spirit –- that's waiting to be awakened all across America." Continuing his effort to establish a 21st century clean energy economy, the President announced an unprecedented $2.4 billion investment in 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects, funded through the Recovery Act. The projects were selected through a highly competitive process by the Department of Energy, and these innovative ideas will help propel America forward as we work to establish the next generation of advanced vehicles.

The $2.4 billion is the single largest investment ever in advanced battery technology for hybrid and electric drive vehicles, and coupled with another $2.4 billion in cost share from the award winners, it will result in the creation of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs that are much needed in places like Elkhart. Places like Elkhart have been hit particularly hard as manufacturing jobs have disappeared, but this new investment provides $39 million for Navistar to create or save hundreds of jobs in Elkhart.

Happy Birthday President Obama!

EsquireUK — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:37:42 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

From WhiteHouse.gov:

Every day, President Obama reads ten letters from the public in order to stay in tune with America's issues and concerns. "Letters to the President" is an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the process of how those ten letters make it to the President's desk from among the tens of thousands of letters, faxes, and e-mails that flood the White House each day.

WhiteHouse.gov/live: Join The Discussion

EsquireUK — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:16:04 EDT

Joining the discussion at Whitehouse.gov/live

Posted by Nathan Sterken

The White House live stream broadcasts all kinds of White House events, from press conferences with the President to concerts in the East Room. As you may have seen, it’s also home to a new, interactive feature—Open for Questions. During what we call "Open for Questions" sessions, which are hosted about once a week, administration officials answer questions from the public in a live, online video chat. To participate in a future session, stay tuned to the White House blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed for announcements, and then head to the White House Live application on Facebook during the event to submit a question.

By looking at the percentage of people from each state who tuned in, we can see that the popularity of Open for Questions and other White House events varies from state to state with each event. The map below, for example, shows this Wednesday’s Open for Questions session with the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors was most popular in the Midwest and Virginia:

The President’s primetime press conference in the midst of the H1N1 outbreak, though, was popular in California—home to the first confirmed case of H1N1:

And when President Obama weclomed Alison Krauss and Union Station, Brad Paisley, and Charley Pride to the White House, the event was most popular in Tennessee, the nation’s country music capital:

Stay tuned to the White House blog to hear about future Open for Questions sessions and other White House events. To participate in future Open for Questions segments, visit the White House Live application on Facebook.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Joining-the-discussion-at-Whitehousegov-live/

President Obama's Special Thank You

EsquireUK — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:25:14 EDT

On Thursday, Sarah O. of Westerville, Ohio, went to Chicago to meet President Obama. Sarah is one of the hundreds of thousands of volunteers organizing for health insurance reform, and last week she was selected to meet the President in Chicago so that he could personally thank her for her work.

Photo by Steve Kagan

Sarah, a college journalism teacher and lifelong Ohio resident, volunteered to help elect President Obama last year. She shared a bit about her night in Chicago and why she’s working to make sure we pass health insurance reform now:

I'm Sarah, from Westerville, Ohio, and I just got back from the trip of a lifetime -- meeting President Obama in Chicago.

It was an amazing night. After writing an essay about why I support health care reform, I was fortunate enough to be selected for a trip to Chicago, where President Obama thanked me for my work. But he also thanked all of you. He thanked us for knocking on doors, making phone calls, telling our health care stories, and digging deep to donate and make this all happen. Thanks to our work, we’re closer than we’ve ever been to making health insurance reform a reality.

We all have incredibly personal reasons for fighting for health care reform, and this is mine: While I’ve had health insurance all of my life, others in my family haven’t been so lucky. My husband lost his job last fall along with thousands of other Americans, and his employer-paid health insurance went with it. Because he’d had a carcinoma removed a year earlier, when he tried to find private health insurance he was told if he were to develop more cancer in the future, it would not be covered. Fortunately, he now has a new job, but it pays less than half of what he was earning in his previous position and doesn't provide health care insurance to new hires.

Wherever I go, everyone I meet has a health care story like mine about a family member, friend, or colleague. This is why we need reform, and this is why we need it right now, this year.

The reason I volunteered in my small town to help elect President Obama was his message of hope. I am fighting for health care reform today as an extension of that hope. We did it before, so we can do it again -- and turn the change we worked so hard for last fall into real improvements in the lives of millions of Americans.

We've come too far to stop now.

Sarah O.

To all of you who have walked, called, worked and organized to make health insurance reform a reality over the past months, thank you. As the President explained, your work has brought us closer to real reform than we as a country have ever been -- but there's still much work left to do.

If you haven't already done so, now is the time to declare your support for health insurance reform.

Declare Your Support For Health Insurance Reform

EsquireUK — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:26:18 EDT

http://www.healthreform.gov/

From the Washington Post:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to postpone a final vote on President Obama's health care proposal until September sets up a one-month campaign sprint between supporters and opponents of the legislation that will span over Congress' August recess.

"With final votes now pushed back to at least September, this means every pro and con group is drawing up new media plans," said Larry McCarthy, a Republican media consultant who is doing work for the conservative Americans for Prosperity. "Two week media plans just extended to eight week media plans. Targets will expand -- not only national cable and swing Senators, but more congressional districts will be added."

...The all-out ground and air war is broadly understood as a fight for the hearts and minds of the American public but is more rightly seen as a battle for the votes of the 100 members of the Senate. (These two strands are interrelated; public opinions does tend to sway political positioning -- particularly on issues as controversial as this health care plan.)

The most important player in this fight -- aside from the president himself -- is Organizing for America, the group set up within the DNC to manage the massive 13-million person e-mail list built up during Obama's presidential campaign.

OFA was created for just this sort of fight -- to bring the political power gathered during the campaign to bear on the legislative process. The group has been active for months in the health care fight but is expected to significantly ramp up its grassroots and advertising efforts over the next month, according to sources familiar with the plans.

There will be "intensive OFA activity", promised one senior Administration official and, as if on cue, OFA sent out an e-mail appeal late Thursday night aimed at securing one million public supporters for health care reform before the end of next week.

...The fate of the health care bill hangs in the balance.

If you haven't already done so, now is the time to declare your support for health insurance reform.

White House Video: Going Global

EsquireUK — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:23:18 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/White-House-Video-Going-Global/

White House Video -- Going Global

Posted by Katie Stanton

As noted in a recent TechPresident article, you can now see interesting statistics on where videos are most popular from various YouTube accounts, including the official White House channel on YouTube. For example, President Obama's video message to the Iranian people on the Nowruz holiday was our third most viewed video overall and our most viewed in Iran.

The President's speech to the Muslim World in Cairo was also widely viewed and was especially popular in the US, Egypt, Nigeria, and Tanzania (in addition to being our most-viewed live-stream broadcast, despite beginning around 6:00 AM EDT):

And not surprisingly, the President's speech in Ghana was most popular in Ghana, although you can see the pick-up in various countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa as well:

Lastly, when the President welcomed 2009 Major League Soccer Champions, the Columbus Crew, to the White House the majority of the video traffic came from .. Argentina!

To see these kinds of insights and trends, go to the official White House channel on YouTube, click on the video you are interested in, click "View comments, related videos, and more" and then click the "Statistics & Data" link."

Health Care Week Of Action

EsquireUK — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:13:16 EDT

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ofhcfindevent?source=feature

Congress is moving rapidly toward finalizing health care reform legislation, with crucial votes expected in both the House and the Senate within days. With so much at stake -- and the D.C. lobbyists going into overdrive -- we have to take our grassroots campaign to the next level.

All this week, OFA volunteers like you will be knocking on doors, making calls to neighbors, and attending public events to build the local support for health care reform we need to pass a strong final bill. If you can spare an hour or two for health care reform, this is the week to do it.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ofhcfindevent?source=feature

We’ve hit the midway point in OFA’s Health Care Week of Action: a coordinated effort from Monday, July 20th to Monday, July 27th during which OFA’s supporters and volunteers are participating in thousands of events in all 50 states -- including door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, roundtables and community gatherings – to build grassroots support for reform and show their representatives that there is broad desire for Congress to take action on health care in their communities.

Over the last 10 days in Ohio, OFA has held over 150 neighbor-to-neighbor events. Elected officials including Mayor Rhine Mclin in Dayton and Mayor Jay Williams in Youngstown are working with OFA to urge Congress to pass health care reform this year.

In advance of the President’s visit to Shaker Heights, OH today (for a health care town hall), OFA held a press conference call yesterday. Ohio State Director Greg Schultz joined U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Christina Barke, a nurse at Lorain’s Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center, and Elizabeth Lessner, a small business owner in Columbus, to talk about the urgent need for reform and the grassroots effort underway to make it happen this year.

You can listen to the full audio here, and the Middletown Journal did a nice round up of the call. A few highlights below:

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH):

“If Americans like the plan they’re in, they can keep it. If they don’t like their plan, or if they’re uninsured or have inadequate insurance, they’ll have new choices including a public health insurance option that will compete on a level playing field with private plans and will keep those private insurers honest.”

Elizabeth Lessner, Small Business Owner and Resident of Columbus, OH:

“My problem right now is the increase in cost. I am just going through an insurance renewal now. My health insurance went up 40 percent. That’s something that, in these economic times, I can’t afford. I have to make some tough choices.”

Christina Barker, Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center in Lorain, OH:

“[Patients] can’t afford the medications we fix them. We get them on a medication regiment, they get home, they don’t have the means to provide for their medication - it’s food and their rent, or their medication. And what, in turn, happens to them is they end up back in the hospital very quickly. Probably within a day or two. Most of them are back in the same boat they were in a few days ago when we fixed them the last time.”

President Obama: Health Care Can Not Wait

EsquireUK — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:19:02 EDT

http://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare

This afternoon the President continued his conversation on health reform with a roundtable at the Children's National Medical Center, a conversation that has taken him to every region of the country and encompassed every imaginable perspective on health care reform.It has been a conversation that has brought more people and more stakeholders into the fold supporting strong reform than ever before, and taken us further down that road than ever before. And so it is no surprise, perhaps, that those who feel they would profit financially or politically have come out swinging furiously to try to kill reform.Surrounded by those who heroically do everything they can to help the young and the ill, today the President made clear that whereas those special interests and their voices in Congress have stopped change in the past, they would not win this time:And over the past decade, premiums have doubled in America; out-of-pocket costs have shot up by a third; deductibles have continued to climb. And yet, even as America's families have been battered by spiraling health care costs, health insurance companies and their executives have reaped windfall profits from a broken system.Now, we've talked this problem to death, year after year. But unless we act -- and act now -- none of this will change. Just a quick statistic I heard about this hospital: Just a few years ago, there were approximately 50,000 people coming into the emergency room. Now they've got 85,000. There's been almost a doubling of emergency room care in a relatively short span of time, which is putting enormous strains on the system as a whole. That's the status quo, and it's only going to get worse.If we do nothing, then families will spend more and more of their income for less and less care. The number of people who lose their insurance because they've lost or changed jobs will continue to grow. More children will be denied coverage on account of asthma or a heart condition. Jobs will be lost, take-home pay will be lower, businesses will shutter, and we will continue to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on insurance company boondoggles and inefficiencies that add to our financial burdens without making us any healthier.So the need for reform is urgent and it is indisputable. No one denies that we're on an unsustainable path. We all know there are more efficient ways of doing it. We just -- I spoke to the chief information officer here at the hospital and he talked about some wonderful ways in which we could potentially gather up electronic medical records and information for every child not just that comes to this hospital but in the entire region, and how much money could be saved and how the health of these kids could be improved. But it requires an investment.Now, there are some in this town who are content to perpetuate the status quo, are in fact fighting reform on behalf of powerful special interests. There are others who recognize the problem, but believe -- or perhaps, hope -- that we can put off the hard work of insurance reform for another day, another year, another decade.Just the other day, one Republican senator said -- and I'm quoting him now -- "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Think about that. This isn't about me. This isn't about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America's families, breaking America's businesses, and breaking America's economy.And we can't afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care. Not this time. Not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake. There are too many families who will be crushed if insurance premiums continue to rise three times as fast as wages. There are too many businesses that will be forced to shed workers, scale back benefits, or drop coverage unless we get spiraling health care costs under control.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Health-Care-Reform-Cannot-Wait/

The President calls on Congress to seize this opportunity – one that may not come again for decades – and finally pass health care reform: "It’s about every family unable to keep up with soaring out of pocket costs and premiums rising three times faster than wages. Every worker afraid of losing health insurance if they lose their job, or change jobs. Everyone who’s worried that they may not be able to get insurance or change insurance if someone in their family has a pre-existing condition..."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Health-Care-Reform-Cannot-Wait/

Dear Congress,

Americans want health care costs brought under control, unfair treatment of people with pre-existing health conditions to end, everyone to have access to high-quality, affordable health care.

And we want it now. We – and the millions of Americans who want coverage they can afford, coverage they can get and they can keep – urge you to move quickly and to enact meaningful health care reform.

Sincerely,

Harry and Louise

http://www.harryandlouise.org/

President Obama Speaks Of Hope For Africa

EsquireUK — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:10:11 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

FRIDAY, JULY 10TH, 2009 AT 5:25 PMThe President Takes Questions from AfricaPosted by Katie Stanton

Tonight, President Obama arrives in Ghana in his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as President of the United States. Over the past week, we have been collecting questions, comments and words of welcome for President Obama via SMS, Twitter, Facebook and from newspapers across Africa. We shared these responses with 3 journalists in Africa, Ms. Angela Quintal of the Independent Newspapers in South Africa, Mr. Mamadou Thior of Radio Television Senegal (RTS) and Mr. Peter Kimani of The Standard in Kenya. These journalists, in turn, picked a few of the questions for the President to answer. We'll post a video and audio recording of those answers on Monday.

Tomorrow, the President will address the Ghanaian Parliament. We'll post the transcript and the audio of the speech soon after on this site, and get video up in the coming days.

In the meantime, we thought we'd share an interactive map which samples some of the questions.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-President-Takes-Questions-from-Africa/

www.whitehouse.gov

President Obama Receives A Boost In The Senate

EsquireUK — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:56:42 EDT

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/273e8d0e-65b4-11de-8e34-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

In a 5-0 decision, the Minnesota State Supreme Court today declared Al Franken the winner of the state's Senate race. Shortly thereafter, Franken's opponent Norm Coleman officially conceded.

In an official statement, President Obama congratulated Franken, saying:

"I look forward to working with Senator-Elect Franken to build a new foundation for growth and prosperity by lowering health care costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century.”

Barack Obama Campaign Claims Prizes

EsquireUK — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:40:53 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

The campaign that drove Barack Obama to victory in the US presidential election has claimed two top awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards.

The campaign, submitted by Obama for America, has been hailed as a masterful combination of new media, door-to-door and community grass roots campaigning with a clever tactical use of traditional TV advertising.

The campaign won two grands prix in the Titanium and Integrated Lions categories.

To win the Titanium grand prix, a campaign must involve a breakthrough idea that is "provocative, challenges assumptions and points to a new direction".

"Titanium celebrates work that causes the industry to stop in its tracks and reconsider the way forward," according to the rules set out by the Cannes organisers.

The integrated prize is awarded to a campaign using three or more media – such as TV, press and the internet - that is "high standard and state-of-the-art".

Earlier in the week, Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, gave a seminar about how the different facets of media were used to deliver the campaign.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/29/barack-obama-cannes-lions

Democrats Are Confident ...

EsquireUK — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:32:57 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

Democrats say they are confident of delivering on one of Barack Obama's defining promises tomorrow, by calling a vote in Congress on a sweeping energy and climate change bill.

The bill, produced with hands-on involvement from the White House and surrounded by an intense lobbying and PR offensive, would see the US commit for the first time to cutting back the carbon emissions that cause global warming.

After weeks of attack from Republicans, the energy reform package got an important boost yesterday when its most formidable opponent in Congress – the Democratic chair of the house agricultural committee – said he would now push for its passage.

"We think we have something here now that can work with agriculture," Collin Peterson, who led the Democratic opposition to the bill, told a conference call yesterday. "I think we will be able to get the votes to pass this."

Within the White House and in Congress, the vote is seen as a historic moment, both for Obama's political agenda and international efforts to reach a climate change treaty at Copenhagen at the end of the year.

"This legislation is a game changer of historic proportions," said Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who is one of the authors of the bill. "The whole world is waiting to see if Barack Obama can arrive in Copenhagen as a leader of attempts to reduce green house gas emissions."

The importance of the bill was underlined by the deep involvement from the White House. Obama earlier this week urged Congress to pass the bill, and aides have been closely involved in efforts to reach yesterday's compromise. The Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, took a gamble on moving up the date for a vote on the bill to tomorrow.

The gamble appeared to have paid off, with the Democratic leadership putting on a high-profile meeting yesterday with environmental, labour, war veterans and religious groups to talk up the bill's prospects.

"We are going to get this done," said Chris van Hollen, a member of the Democratic leadership in the house of representatives. "It's long overdue."

The bill, now swollen to about 1,200 pages, would bind the US to reduce the carbon emissions from burning oil and coal by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 and more than 80% by 2050.

It also envisages a range of measures to promote clean energy – from a development bank for new technology to new, greener building codes and targets for expanding the use of solar and wind power.

The Democratic leadership is now hoping to pass the bill by a comfortable margin. Some environmental organisations have suggested that the bill might even win over a small number of Republicans, which would mean an important victory for Obama.

For the most part, however, Republicans have almost uniformly opposed the bill, and say it amounts to a hidden energy tax. They have also argued that the bill would drastically raise electricity prices – a claim debunked with the release of a cost-analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office showing it would cost the average family $175 (£107) by 2020, and would save poor families about $40.

The study – together with the compromises won by Peterson – have made the bill more palatable to Democrats from coal and oil states and from the old manufacturing areas.

"We have been taking people out of the 'no' column, into the 'undecided' column, into the 'yes' column," said Mike Doyle, a Democratic member from a former steel industry town in Pennsylvania. "The momentum is coming to 'yes'."

But Peterson's support appears to have come only after wringing a number of key concessions on the bill over several days of bargaining, overseen by the White House energy and climate advisor, Carol Browner, and other Obama administration officials.

The most significant concession would give the US Department of Agriculture – and not the Environmental Protection Agency – control over a programme that would reward farmers for practices that reduce carbon emissions.

Peterson also forced a four-year delay in a separate environmental regulation that would have cut the profits of corn-based ethanol, and encouraged the development of non-food biofuels instead.

Those concessions have deepened the concerns of some environmental organisations that the bill is not aggressive enough in cutting emissions. However, Henry Waxman, who has been leading the bill through Congress, argued that the most important element of the bill had come through the hard bargaining process intact.

"We have not given away the essentials of the bill because the essentials are the reduction of carbon emissions," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/25/us-democrats-climate-bill-vote

Message From President Obama

EsquireUK — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:32:26 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

Dear Friend,

Last week, I announced United We Serve – a nationwide call to service challenging you and all Americans to volunteer this summer and be part of building a new foundation for America.

And when I say “all,” I mean everyone – young and old, from every background, all across the country. We need individuals, community organizations, corporations, foundations, and our government to be part of this effort.

Today, for the official kick off of United We Serve, members of my administration have fanned out across America to participate in service events and encourage all Americans to join them.

The First Lady is rolling up her sleeves and getting to work too. But before she headed out today, she asked me to share this message with you.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaforamerica/gGGGXP

Our nation faces some of the greatest challenges it has in generations and we know it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get us back on track.

While Michelle and I are calling on every American to participate in United We Serve, the call to service doesn’t end this fall. We need to stay involved in our towns and communities for a long time to come. After all, America’s new foundation will be built one neighborhood at a time – and that starts with you.

Thank you,
President Barack Obama

National Health Care Day of Service

EsquireUK — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:36:30 EDT

National Health Care Day of Service

This summer, Organizing for America will fight to ensure Americans receive much-needed health care reform in 2009. Community service is a critical piece of our health care campaign and our National Health Care Day of Service on June 27, 2009 will highlight its importance.

These health care service projects give volunteers a chance to make an impact in their own communities while we simultaneously fight for long term, systemic health care reform.

Why Service?

Volunteers who participate in the National Health Care Day of Service will be stronger advocates for health care reform. Volunteer projects directly expose participants to the reality of our country’s health care system and the millions of people who it is currently failing.

Suggested National Health Care Day of Service Opportunities:

Where do you see the need for health care reform in your community? Some ideas include:

• Volunteer at a Community Health Center
• Coordinate a Community Blood Drive
• Run a Healthy Food Drive
• Provide education to the community on Children's Health Insurance Programs

Download our Host Guide for more information.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/servicehost

You don’t need to be an expert to help out. If you have a few hours to spare, you can help people near you get the care they need, and raise awareness about the urgent reform our nation requires.

President Obama's Weekly Address: Financial Reform

EsquireUK — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:09:47 EDT

Obama: I'm ready for a fight
By: Carrie Budoff Brown
June 20, 2009 07:23 AM EST

Taking a populist tone in his Saturday address, President Barack Obama framed the debate over his proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency as a showdown between special interests and average Americans.

“And while I’m not spoiling for a fight, I’m ready for one,” Obama said in the radio and Internet speech.

His proposal this week to create an agency that protects consumers from risky financial products has become the chief target of the banking industry, which stands to lose profits and fears it would create conflicting regulations.

But Obama said the industry needed to clean up the practices that led to the financial crisis.

“It’s no coincidence that the lack of strong consumer protections led to abuses against consumers; the lack of rules to stop deceptive lending practices led to abuses against borrowers,” Obama said. “This new agency will have the responsibility to change that. It will have the power to set tough new rules so that companies compete by offering innovative products that consumers actually want – and actually understand.”

Obama announced the consumer protection agency Wednesday as part of a sweeping set of new regulations designed to prevent another meltdown in the financial markets like the one that pushed the nation into a recession.

The centerpiece of the plan aims at giving the Federal Reserve new powers to oversee the entire financial system, which no agency was in the position to do ahead of the latest crisis. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency would safeguard against mortgage, credit card and other abuses.

“Some argue that these changes – and the many others we’ve called for – go too far. And I welcome a debate about how we can make sure our regulations work for businesses and consumers,” Obama said Saturday. “But what I will not accept – what I will vigorously oppose – are those who do not argue in good faith. … We’ve already begun to see special interests mobilizing against change. That’s not surprising. That’s Washington.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23962.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Financial-Reform-to-Protect-Consumers/

President Obama Boost - New Poll Ratings

EsquireUK — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:39:01 EDT

New poll numbers from NBC/Wall Street Journal produce two major and potentially conflicting story lines when it comes to the Obama administration's efforts for a health care overhaul. On the one hand, the American public overwhelmingly favors a choice between getting insurance coverage either through the private market or a government run option. Indeed, 76 percent of respondents said it was either "extremely" or "quite" important to "give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance."

With the public option being such a lightning rod in the current health care debate, progressive activists are already emailing around these numbers as evidence that voters are way ahead of the politicians. Certainly, the findings provide a boost of sorts to President Obama, who has stood by the public plan even as Republican opposition has crystallized.

That said, the president still has his work cut out for him. In the same NBC/WSJ poll, only 33 percent of respondents said they thought the president's health care plan, to the extent they knew of it, was a "good idea;" 32 percent said it was a bad idea.

In short: the administration has yet to complete the sale. An additional 30 percent of the public had no opinion of Obama's proposal for reform. But when read a description of the general outline -- requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, an employer mandate, tax credits for lower income families to buy coverage, and tax increases on wealthier Americans to pay for it - the number of respondents in support rose to 55 percent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/17/obama-boost-new-poll-show_n_217175.html

The Obama Presidency: Health Care Reform

EsquireUK — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:11:02 EDT

President Obama spoke to a crowd of over 2,200 medical professionals at the American Medical Association's annual meeting in Chicago today. The President reiterated that health care reform that brings down costs can't wait another year or another administration:

When it comes to the cost of our health care, then, the status quo is unsustainable. Reform is not a luxury, but a necessity. I know there has been much discussion about what reform would cost, and rightly so. This is a test of whether we – Democrats and Republicans alike – are serious about holding the line on new spending and restoring fiscal discipline.

But let there be no doubt – the cost of inaction is greater. If we fail to act, premiums will climb higher, benefits will erode further, and the rolls of uninsured will swell to include millions more Americans.

If we fail to act, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care within a decade. In thirty years, it will be about one out of every three – a trend that will mean lost jobs, lower take-home pay, shuttered businesses, and a lower standard of living for all Americans.

During his speech, President Obama reiterated the core promise and principle of the reform effort -- that people who like their health care can keep it, and that the President wants a plan that fixes what’s broken with our system and builds on what works.

The first thing we need to do is protect what’s working in our health care system. Let me repeat – if you like your health care, the only thing reform will mean is your health care will cost less. If anyone says otherwise, they are either trying to mislead you or don’t have their facts straight.

If you don’t like your health coverage or don’t have any insurance, you will have a chance to take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange. This Exchange will allow you to one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose a plan that’s best for you and your family – just as federal employees can do, from a postal worker to a Member of Congress. You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package. And one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest.

Read the President's full remarks . . .

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

American Medical Association

Chicago, Illinois

June 15, 2009
From the moment I took office as President, the central challenge we have confronted as a nation has been the need to lift ourselves out of the worst recession since World War II. In recent months, we have taken a series of extraordinary steps, not just to repair the immediate damage to our economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting and sustained growth. We are creating new jobs. We are unfreezing our credit markets. And we are stemming the loss of homes and the decline of home values.

But even as we have made progress, we know that the road to prosperity remains long and difficult. We also know that one essential step on our journey is to control the spiraling cost of health care in America.

Today, we are spending over $2 trillion a year on health care – almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation. And yet, for all this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured; the quality of our care is often lower; and we aren’t any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend less than we do are actually living longer than we do.

Make no mistake: the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. It is an escalating burden on our families and businesses. It is a ticking time-bomb for the federal budget. And it is unsustainable for the United States of America.

It is unsustainable for Americans like Laura Klitzka, a young mother I met in Wisconsin last week, who has learned that the breast cancer she thought she’d beaten had spread to her bones; who is now being forced to spend time worrying about how to cover the $50,000 in medical debts she has already accumulated, when all she wants to do is spend time with her two children and focus on getting well. These are not worries a woman like Laura should have to face in a nation as wealthy as ours.

Stories like Laura’s are being told by women and men all across this country – by families who have seen out-of-pocket costs soar, and premiums double over the last decade at a rate three times faster than wages. This is forcing Americans of all ages to go without the checkups or prescriptions they need. It’s creating a situation where a single illness can wipe out a lifetime of savings.

Our costly health care system is unsustainable for doctors like Michael Kahn in New Hampshire, who, as he puts it, spends 20 percent of each day supervising a staff explaining insurance problems to patients, completing authorization forms, and writing appeal letters; a routine that he calls disruptive and distracting, giving him less time to do what he became a doctor to do and actually care for his patients.

Small business owners like Chris and Becky Link in Nashville are also struggling. They’ve always wanted to do right by the workers at their family-run marketing firm, but have recently had to do the unthinkable and lay off a number of employees – layoffs that could have been deferred, they say, if health care costs weren’t so high. Across the country, over one third of small businesses have reduced benefits in recent years and one third have dropped their workers’ coverage altogether since the early 90’s.

Our largest companies are suffering as well. A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble in recent decades were the huge costs they racked up providing health care for their workers; costs that made them less profitable, and less competitive with automakers around the world. If we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way of GM; paying more, getting less, and going broke.

When it comes to the cost of our health care, then, the status quo is unsustainable. Reform is not a luxury, but a necessity. I know there has been much discussion about what reform would cost, and rightly so. This is a test of whether we – Democrats and Republicans alike – are serious about holding the line on new spending and restoring fiscal discipline.

But let there be no doubt – the cost of inaction is greater. If we fail to act, premiums will climb higher, benefits will erode further, and the rolls of uninsured will swell to include millions more Americans.

If we fail to act, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care within a decade. In thirty years, it will be about one out of every three – a trend that will mean lost jobs, lower take-home pay, shuttered businesses, and a lower standard of living for all Americans.

And if we fail to act, federal spending on Medicaid and Medicare will grow over the coming decades by an amount almost equal to the amount our government currently spends on our nation’s defense. In fact, it will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on anything else today. It’s a scenario that will swamp our federal and state budgets, and impose a vicious choice of either unprecedented tax hikes, overwhelming deficits, or drastic cuts in our federal and state budgets.

To say it as plainly as I can, health care reform is the single most important thing we can do for America’s long-term fiscal health. That is a fact.

And yet, as clear as it is that our system badly needs reform, reform is not inevitable. There’s a sense out there among some that, as bad as our current system may be, the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t. There is a fear of change – a worry that we may lose what works about our health care system while trying to fix what doesn’t.

I understand that fear. I understand that cynicism. They are scars left over from past efforts at reform. Presidents have called for health care reform for nearly a century. Teddy Roosevelt called for it. Harry Truman called for it. Richard Nixon called for it. Jimmy Carter called for it. Bill Clinton called for it. But while significant individual reforms have been made – such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the children’s health insurance program – efforts at comprehensive reform that covers everyone and brings down costs have largely failed.

Part of the reason is because the different groups involved – physicians, insurance companies, businesses, workers, and others – simply couldn’t agree on the need for reform or what shape it would take. And another part of the reason has been the fierce opposition fueled by some interest groups and lobbyists – opposition that has used fear tactics to paint any effort to achieve reform as an attempt to socialize medicine.

Despite this long history of failure, I am standing here today because I think we are in a different time. One sign that things are different is that just this past week, the Senate passed a bill that will protect children from the dangers of smoking – a reform the AMA has long championed – and one that went nowhere when it was proposed a decade ago. What makes this moment different is that this time – for the first time – key stakeholders are aligning not against, but in favor of reform. They are coming together out of a recognition that while reform will take everyone in our health care community doing their part, ultimately, everyone will benefit.

And I want to commend the AMA, in particular, for offering to do your part to curb costs and achieve reform. A few weeks ago, you joined together with hospitals, labor unions, insurers, medical device manufacturers and drug companies to do something that would’ve been unthinkable just a few years ago – you promised to work together to cut national health care spending by two trillion dollars over the next decade, relative to what it would otherwise have been. That will bring down costs, that will bring down premiums, and that’s exactly the kind of cooperation we need.

The question now is, how do we finish the job? How do we permanently bring down costs and make quality, affordable health care available to every American?

That’s what I’ve come to talk about today. We know the moment is right for health care reform. We know this is an historic opportunity we’ve never seen before and may not see again. But we also know that there are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what – who will use the same scare tactics and fear-mongering that’s worked in the past. They’ll give dire warnings about socialized medicine and government takeovers; long lines and rationed care; decisions made by bureaucrats and not doctors. We’ve heard it all before – and because these fear tactics have worked, things have kept getting worse.

So let me begin by saying this: I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage – they like their plan and they value their relationship with their doctor. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what. My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: fix what’s broken and build on what works.

If we do that, we can build a health care system that allows you to be physicians instead of administrators and accountants; a system that gives Americans the best care at the lowest cost; a system that eases up the pressure on businesses and unleashes the promise of our economy, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, making take-home wages thousands of dollars higher, and growing our economy by tens of billions more every year. That’s how we will stop spending tax dollars to prop up an unsustainable system, and start investing those dollars in innovations and advances that will make our health care system and our economy stronger.

That’s what we can do with this opportunity. That’s what we must do with this moment.

Now, the good news is that in some instances, there is already widespread agreement on the steps necessary to make our health care system work better.

First, we need to upgrade our medical records by switching from a paper to an electronic system of record keeping. And we have already begun to do this with an investment we made as part of our Recovery Act.

It simply doesn’t make sense that patients in the 21st century are still filling out forms with pens on papers that have to be stored away somewhere. As Newt Gingrich has rightly pointed out, we do a better job tracking a FedEx package in this country than we do tracking a patient’s health records. You shouldn’t have to tell every new doctor you see about your medical history, or what prescriptions you’re taking. You should not have to repeat costly tests. All of that information should be stored securely in a private medical record so that your information can be tracked from one doctor to another – even if you change jobs, even if you move, and even if you have to see a number of different specialists.

That will not only mean less paper pushing and lower administrative costs, saving taxpayers billions of dollars. It will also make it easier for physicians to do their jobs. It will tell you, the doctors, what drugs a patient is taking so you can avoid prescribing a medication that could cause a harmful interaction. It will help prevent the wrong dosages from going to a patient. And it will reduce medical errors that lead to 100,000 lives lost unnecessarily in our hospitals every year.

The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so that we can avoid illness and disease in the first place. That starts with each of us taking more responsibility for our health and the health of our children. It means quitting smoking, going in for that mammogram or colon cancer screening. It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside.

It also means cutting down on all the junk food that is fueling an epidemic of obesity, putting far too many Americans, young and old, at greater risk of costly, chronic conditions. That’s a lesson Michelle and I have tried to instill in our daughters with the White House vegetable garden that Michelle planted. And that’s a lesson that we should work with local school districts to incorporate into their school lunch programs.

Building a health care system that promotes prevention rather than just managing diseases will require all of us to do our part. It will take doctors telling us what risk factors we should avoid and what preventive measures we should pursue. And it will take employers following the example of places like Safeway that is rewarding workers for taking better care of their health while reducing health care costs in the process. If you’re one of the three quarters of Safeway workers enrolled in their “Healthy Measures” program, you can get screened for problems like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And if you score well, you can pay lower premiums. It’s a program that has helped Safeway cut health care spending by 13 percent and workers save over 20 percent on their premiums. And we are open to doing more to help employers adopt and expand programs like this one.

Our federal government also has to step up its efforts to advance the cause of healthy living. Five of the costliest illnesses and conditions – cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung disease, and strokes – can be prevented. And yet only a fraction of every health care dollar goes to prevention or public health. That is starting to change with an investment we are making in prevention and wellness programs that can help us avoid diseases that harm our health and the health of our economy.

But as important as they are, investments in electronic records and preventive care are just preliminary steps. They will only make a dent in the epidemic of rising costs in this country.

Despite what some have suggested, the reason we have these costs is not simply because we have an aging population. Demographics do account for part of rising costs because older, sicker societies pay more on health care than younger, healthier ones. But what accounts for the bulk of our costs is the nature of our health care system itself – a system where we spend vast amounts of money on things that aren’t making our people any healthier; a system that automatically equates more expensive care with better care.

A recent article in the New Yorker, for example, showed how McAllen, Texas is spending twice as much as El Paso County – not because people in McAllen are sicker and not because they are getting better care. They are simply using more treatments – treatments they don’t really need; treatments that, in some cases, can actually do people harm by raising the risk of infection or medical error. And the problem is, this pattern is repeating itself across America. One Dartmouth study showed that you’re no less likely to die from a heart attack and other ailments in a higher spending area than in a lower spending one.

There are two main reasons for this. The first is a system of incentives where the more tests and services are provided, the more money we pay. And a lot of people in this room know what I’m talking about. It is a model that rewards the quantity of care rather than the quality of care; that pushes you, the doctor, to see more and more patients even if you can’t spend much time with each; and gives you every incentive to order that extra MRI or EKG, even if it’s not truly necessary. It is a model that has taken the pursuit of medicine from a profession – a calling – to a business.

That is not why you became doctors. That is not why you put in all those hours in the Anatomy Suite or the O.R. That is not what brings you back to a patient’s bedside to check in or makes you call a loved one to say it’ll be fine. You did not enter this profession to be bean-counters and paper-pushers. You entered this profession to be healers – and that’s what our health care system should let you be.

That starts with reforming the way we compensate our doctors and hospitals. We need to bundle payments so you aren’t paid for every single treatment you offer a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how you treat the overall disease. We need to create incentives for physicians to team up – because we know that when that happens, it results in a healthier patient. We need to give doctors bonuses for good health outcomes – so that we are not promoting just more treatment, but better care.

And we need to rethink the cost of a medical education, and do more to reward medical students who choose a career as a primary care physicians and who choose to work in underserved areas instead of a more lucrative path. That’s why we are making a substantial investment in the National Health Service Corps that will make medical training more affordable for primary care doctors and nurse practitioners so they aren’t drowning in debt when they enter the workforce.

The second structural reform we need to make is to improve the quality of medical information making its way to doctors and patients. We have the best medical schools, the most sophisticated labs, and the most advanced training of any nation on the globe. Yet we are not doing a very good job harnessing our collective knowledge and experience on behalf of better medicine. Less than one percent of our health care spending goes to examining what treatments are most effective. And even when that information finds its way into journals, it can take up to 17 years to find its way to an exam room or operating table.

As a result, too many doctors and patients are making decisions without the benefit of the latest research. A recent study, for example, found that only half of all cardiac guidelines are based on scientific evidence. Half. That means doctors may be doing a bypass operation when placing a stent is equally effective, or placing a stent when adjusting a patient’s drugs and medical management is equally effective – driving up costs without improving a patient’s health.

So, one thing we need to do is figure out what works, and encourage rapid implementation of what works into your practices. That’s why we are making a major investment in research to identify the best treatments for a variety of ailments and conditions.

Let me be clear: identifying what works is not about dictating what kind of care should be provided. It’s about providing patients and doctors with the information they need to make the best medical decisions.

Still, even when we do know what works, we are often not making the most of it. That’s why we need to build on the examples of outstanding medicine at places like the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where the quality of care for cystic fibrosis patients shot up after the hospital began incorporating suggestions from parents. And places like Tallahassee Memorial Health Care, where deaths were dramatically reduced with rapid response teams that monitored patients’ conditions and “multidisciplinary rounds” with everyone from physicians to pharmacists. And places like the Geisinger Health system in rural Pennsylvania and the Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, where high-quality care is being provided at a cost well below average. These are islands of excellence that we need to make the standard in our health care system.

Replicating best practices. Incentivizing excellence. Closing cost disparities. Any legislation sent to my desk that does not achieve these goals does not earn the title of reform. But my signature on a bill is not enough. I need your help, doctors. To most Americans, you are the health care system. Americans – me included – just do what you recommend. That is why I will listen to you and work with you to pursue reform that works for you. And together, if we take all these steps, we can bring spending down, bring quality up, and save hundreds of billions of dollars on health care costs while making our health care system work better for patients and doctors alike.

Now, I recognize that it will be hard to make some of these changes if doctors feel like they are constantly looking over their shoulder for fear of lawsuits. Some doctors may feel the need to order more tests and treatments to avoid being legally vulnerable. That’s a real issue. And while I’m not advocating caps on malpractice awards which I believe can be unfair to people who’ve been wrongfully harmed, I do think we need to explore a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first, let doctors focus on practicing medicine, and encourage broader use of evidence-based guidelines. That’s how we can scale back the excessive defensive medicine reinforcing our current system of more treatment rather than better care.

These changes need to go hand-in-hand with other reforms. Because our health care system is so complex and medicine is always evolving, we need a way to continually evaluate how we can eliminate waste, reduce costs, and improve quality. That is why I am open to expanding the role of a commission created by a Republican Congress called the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission – which happens to include a number of physicians. In recent years, this commission proposed roughly $200 billion in savings that never made it into law. These recommendations have now been incorporated into our broader reform agenda, but we need to fast-track their proposals in the future so that we don’t miss another opportunity to save billions of dollars, as we gain more information about what works and what doesn’t in our health care system.

As we seek to contain the cost of health care, we must also ensure that every American can get coverage they can afford. We must do so in part because it is in all of our economic interests. Each time an uninsured American steps foot into an emergency room with no way to reimburse the hospital for care, the cost is handed over to every American family as a bill of about $1,000 that is reflected in higher taxes, higher premiums, and higher health care costs; a hidden tax that will be cut as we insure all Americans. And as we insure every young and healthy American, it will spread out risk for insurance companies, further reducing costs for everyone.

But alongside these economic arguments, there is another, more powerful one. It is simply this: We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women, and children. We are not a nation that lets hardworking families go without the coverage they deserve; or turns its back on those in need. We are a nation that cares for its citizens. We are a people who look out for one another. That is what makes this the United States of America.

So, we need to do a few things to provide affordable health insurance to every single American. The first thing we need to do is protect what’s working in our health care system. Let me repeat – if you like your health care, the only thing reform will mean is your health care will cost less. If anyone says otherwise, they are either trying to mislead you or don’t have their facts straight.

If you don’t like your health coverage or don’t have any insurance, you will have a chance to take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange. This Exchange will allow you to one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose a plan that’s best for you and your family – just as federal employees can do, from a postal worker to a Member of Congress. You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package. And one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest.

Now, I know there’s some concern about a public option. In particular, I understand that you are concerned that today’s Medicare rates will be applied broadly in a way that means our cost savings are coming off your backs. These are legitimate concerns, but ones, I believe, that can be overcome. As I stated earlier, the reforms we propose are to reward best practices, focus on patient care, not the current piece-work reimbursement. What we seek is more stability and a health care system on a sound financial footing. And these reforms need to take place regardless of what happens with a public option. With reform, we will ensure that you are being reimbursed in a thoughtful way tied to patient outcomes instead of relying on yearly negotiations about the Sustainable Growth Rate formula that’s based on politics and the state of the federal budget in any given year. The alternative is a world where health care costs grow at an unsustainable rate, threatening your reimbursements and the stability of our health care system.

What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. I’ll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. But I believe – and I’ve even taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief – that it is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States. So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this – they are not telling the truth.

What I am trying to do – and what a public option will help do – is put affordable health care within reach for millions of Americans. And to help ensure that everyone can afford the cost of a health care option in our Exchange, we need to provide assistance to families who need it. That way, there will be no reason at all for anyone to remain uninsured.

Indeed, it is because I am confident in our ability to give people the ability to get insurance that I am open to a system where every American bears responsibility for owning health insurance, so long as we provide a hardship waiver for those who still can’t afford it. The same is true for employers. While I believe every business has a responsibility to provide health insurance for its workers, small businesses that cannot afford it should receive an exemption. And small business workers and their families will be able to seek coverage in the Exchange if their employer is not able to provide it.

Insurance companies have expressed support for the idea of covering the uninsured – and I welcome their willingness to engage constructively in the reform debate. But what I refuse to do is simply create a system where insurance companies have more customers on Uncle Sam’s dime, but still fail to meet their responsibilities. That is why we need to end the practice of denying coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions. The days of cherry-picking who to cover and who to deny – those days are over.

This is personal for me. I will never forget watching my own mother, as she fought cancer in her final days, worrying about whether her insurer would claim her illness was a preexisting condition so it could get out of providing coverage. Changing the current approach to preexisting conditions is the least we can do – for my mother and every other mother, father, son, and daughter, who has suffered under this practice. And it will put health care within reach for millions of Americans.

Now, even if we accept all of the economic and moral reasons for providing affordable coverage to all Americans, there is no denying that it will come at a cost – at least in the short run. But it is a cost that will not – I repeat, not – add to our deficits. Health care reform must be and will be deficit neutral in the next decade.

There are already voices saying the numbers don’t add up. They are wrong. Here’s why. Making health care affordable for all Americans will cost somewhere on the order of one trillion dollars over the next ten years. That sounds like a lot of money – and it is. But remember: it is less than we are projected to spend on the war in Iraq. And also remember: failing to reform our health care system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of dollars more in lost economic growth and lower wages.

That said, let me explain how we will cover the price tag. First, as part of the budget that was passed a few months ago, we’ve put aside $635 billion over ten years in what we are calling a Health Reserve Fund. Over half of that amount – more than $300 billion – will come from raising revenue by doing things like modestly limiting the tax deductions the wealthiest Americans can take to the same level it was at the end of the Reagan years. Some are concerned this will dramatically reduce charitable giving, but statistics show that’s not true, and the best thing for our charities is the stronger economy that we will build with health care reform.

But we cannot just raise revenues. We also have to make spending cuts in part by examining inefficiencies in the Medicare program. There will be a robust debate about where these cuts should be made, and I welcome that debate. But here’s where I think these cuts should be made. First, we should end overpayments to Medicare Advantage. Today, we are paying Medicare Advantage plans much more than we pay for traditional Medicare services. That’s a good deal for insurance companies, but not the American people. That’s why we need to introduce competitive bidding into the Medicare Advantage program, a program under which private insurance companies offer Medicare coverage. That will save $177 billion over the next decade.

Second, we need to use Medicare reimbursements to reduce preventable hospital readmissions. Right now, almost 20 percent of Medicare patients discharged from hospitals are readmitted within a month, often because they are not getting the comprehensive care they need. This puts people at risk and drives up costs. By changing how Medicare reimburses hospitals, we can discourage them from acting in a way that boosts profits, but drives up costs for everyone else. That will save us $25 billion over the next decade.

Third, we need to introduce generic biologic drugs into the marketplace. These are drugs used to treat illnesses like anemia. But right now, there is no pathway at the FDA for approving generic versions of these drugs. Creating such a pathway will save us billions of dollars. And we can save another roughly $30 billion by getting a better deal for our poorer seniors while asking our well-off seniors to pay a little more for their drugs.

So, that’s the bulk of what’s in the Health Reserve Fund. I have also proposed saving another $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending in several other ways. One way is by adjusting Medicare payments to reflect new advances and productivity gains in our economy. Right now, Medicare payments are rising each year by more than they should. These adjustments will create incentives for providers to deliver care more effectively, and save us roughly $109 billion in the process.

Another way we can achieve savings is by reducing payments to hospitals for treating uninsured people. I know hospitals rely on these payments now because of the large number of uninsured patients they treat. But as the number of uninsured people goes down with our reforms, the amount we pay hospitals to treat uninsured people should go down, as well. Reducing these payments gradually as more and more people have coverage will save us over $106 billion, and we’ll make sure the difference goes to the hospitals that most need it.

We can also save about $75 billion through more efficient purchasing of prescription drugs. And we can save about one billion more by rooting out waste, abuse, and fraud throughout our health care system so that no one is charging more for a service than it’s worth or charging a dime for a service they did not provide.

But let me be clear: I am committed to making these cuts in a way that protects our senior citizens. In fact, these proposals will actually extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 7 years and reduce premiums for Medicare beneficiaries by roughly $43 billion over 10 years. And I’m working with AARP to uphold that commitment.

Altogether, these savings mean that we have put about $950 billion on the table – not counting some of the longer-term savings that will come about from reform – taking us almost all the way to covering the full cost of health care reform. In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to working with Congress to make up the difference so that health care reform is fully paid for – in a real, accountable way. And let me add that this does not count some of the longer-term savings that will come about from health care reform. By insisting that reform be deficit neutral over the next decade and by making the reforms that will help slow the growth rate of health care costs over coming decades, we can look forward to faster economic growth, higher living standards, and falling, not rising, budget deficits.

I know people are cynical we can do this. I know there will be disagreements about how to proceed in the days ahead. But I also know that we cannot let this moment pass us by.

The other day, my friend, Congressman Earl Blumenauer, handed me a magazine with a special issue titled, “The Crisis in American Medicine.” One article notes “soaring charges.” Another warns about the “volume of utilization of services.” And another asks if we can find a “better way [than fee-for-service] for paying for medical care.” It speaks to many of the challenges we face today. The thing is, this special issue was published by Harper’s Magazine in October of 1960.

Members of the American Medical Association – my fellow Americans – I am here today because I do not want our children and their children to still be speaking of a crisis in American medicine fifty years from now. I do not want them to still be suffering from spiraling costs we did not stem, or sicknesses we did not cure. I do not want them to be burdened with massive deficits we did not curb or a worsening economy we did not rebuild.

I want them to benefit from a health care system that works for all of us; where families can open a doctor’s bill without dreading what’s inside; where parents are taking their kids to get regular checkups and testing themselves for preventable ailments; where parents are feeding their kids healthier food and kids are exercising more; where patients are spending more time with doctors and doctors can pull up on a computer all the medical information and latest research they’d ever want to meet that patient’s needs; where orthopedists and nephrologists and oncologists are all working together to treat a single human being; where what’s best about America’s health care system has become the hallmark of America’s health care system.

That is the health care system we can build. That is the future within our reach. And if we are willing to come together and bring about that future, then we will not only make Americans healthier and not only unleash America’s economic potential, but we will reaffirm the ideals that led you into this noble profession, and build a health care system that lets all Americans heal. Thank you.

Making America Healthier...

EsquireUK — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:17:57 EDT

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23559.html

Coach Obama: Shape up now
By: Carrie Budoff Brown
June 10, 2009 04:34 AM EST

President Barack Obama eats his vegetables and exercises every day — and he really wants you to do the same.

From the White House garden to his picks for top health jobs, Obama is telling America’s McDonald’s-loving, couch-dwelling, doctor-phobic populace that things are about to change.

Don’t be fooled by the presidential burger runs. Obama and Congress are moving across several fronts to give government a central role in making America healthier — raising expectations among public health experts of a new era of activism unlike any before.

Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs at workplaces and community centers. He wants more time in the school day for physical fitness, more nutritious school lunches and more bike paths, walking paths and grocery stores in underserved areas.

The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.

Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.

To some, it smacks of a “nanny state on steroids” — but for others who fret that America is turning into one big Overeaters Anonymous meeting, Obama’s prescription is like a low-fat dream come true.

“He has expressed more interest in preventing diseases and promoting health than any previous president. It is not a breath of fresh air. It is a tornado,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “That contrast is breathtaking. This is really a rare opportunity to make progress on so many issues.”

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Still, Obama needs to strike a balance between fashioning himself an advocate of clean living and coming across as a public scold or a killjoy. That’s precisely how some people view Jacobson’s group, which has denounced movie popcorn, Chinese food and other indulgences that many Americans — including Obama voters —enjoy. Clean living in balance is an appealing notion, but finger-wagging moralism may not play so well in some precincts of Middle America, where voters may decide government commentary on the size of their beer gut or that plate of nachos isn’t such a good idea.

The public health community has worked intensively in recent years to build a body of evidence in support of the very initiatives Obama and lawmakers are now embracing. They frame the issue as one of money: Chronic diseases account for 75 percent of the nation’s $2 trillion in medical costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And if the government encourages healthful lifestyles, it could slow the rising cost of health care, though the exact savings are debatable.

Obama has been leading the charge. He secured $650 million in the economic stimulus package for prevention programs, and brought corporate executives into the White House last month to highlight their success at lowering insurance costs by investing in wellness.

“All this [is] designed to save taxpayers money, save businesses money and ultimately make the American people healthier and happier and make sure that we’re getting a better bang for our health care dollar,” Obama said after the meeting.

Then there is the first family itself.

Barack and Michelle Obama sweat through a morning workout before most Americans step out of bed. They receive almost as much attention for their toned bodies as they do for their policies, which for the first lady includes an early concentration on healthful eating. She made headlines worldwide for planting a vegetable garden. And they marked their first Easter at the White House by organizing an Egg Roll that focused on exercise.

Former President George W. Bush was equally devoted to fitness but never gave it as prominent a role in policymaking as public health experts expect from Obama.

“I was always struck by President Bush, who was in terrific shape. It was a lost opportunity on his part,” said Kenneth Thorpe, an Emory University public health professor and leading advocate of chronic disease care. “President Obama is very physically fit, and this is very much part of his personal philosophy, and he has made it a centerpiece of health care reform.”

The whole situation has libertarians craving a basket of onion rings and a beer.

“If you care about the sorts of things I do, then you are going to be losing big-time for the next four to eight years,” said David Harsanyi, a Denver Post columnist and author of the book “Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children.”

Don’t get them wrong, critics such as Harsanyi say — they like broccoli and they lift barbells and they have no particular beef with a healthy president who was once described by his physician as having “no excess body fat.” They just don’t like it when government becomes the messenger and the enforcer.

The appointment last month of New York Public Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden as director of the CDC really made the libertarian-minded nervous.

Frieden is a big part of the reason New Yorkers no longer smoke in bars or eat trans fats at restaurants and find calorie counts on their menus. Frieden once said that when anyone in New York dies at an early age from a preventable disease, “it’s my fault.”

His groundbreaking approach to curbing chronic disease — heart disease, diabetes, cancer — has been mimicked in cities across the country, including Baltimore under Joshua Sharfstein, now the deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration. (One example is Sharfstein inaugurating a Salt Task Force last year to study the "impact of excessive salt intake in the city.")

“Frieden’s stick-over-carrot, for-your-own-good approach to public health is no longer confined to the Big Apple,” the industry-backed Center for Consumer Freedom wrote on its blog. “Get ready, because the ‘nanny state on steroids’ is going national.”

An administration aide said it was too early to tell what approach Frieden would take at the CDC, where he started Monday. In announcing the appointment, Obama said Frieden’s “experiences confronting public health challenges in our country and abroad will be essential in this new role.”

But other skeptics have critiqued the healthier-is-happier approach with the numbers. An article this year in the journal Health Affairs concluded that prevention measures usually add more to medical costs than they save.

Louise Russell, a professor of health and economics at Rutgers, examined hundreds of studies over the past four decades and found that policymakers needed to make “careful choices” about how to invest in prevention. She did not look at savings such as added workdays that might be realized outside health care spending because, she wrote, “the issue under debate is what happens to medical costs.”

Yet Democrats are looking to ease the way toward more preventive services by eliminating co-payments and deductibles. Members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee want a federal Prevention and Public Health Council to “develop a national strategy with public health goals and objectives for the nation to achieve,” according to a committee briefing paper.

“People do want to be healthy. It is just hard,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a leading proponent of prevention policies. “When you walk into places, the fastest, easiest food you can get is the saltiest and highest in fat, highest in calories. I want something quick, but I want it low in all this stuff. I want to give people choices so that they know, so when you put it on the menu board, they know. I think most people, if they knew, they would take better care of themselves.”

The bill released Tuesday by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee orders chain restaurants with 20 or more locations to disclose calories on the menu board and make more nutrition information -- fat, cholesterol, sodium -- available upon request.

Republicans are no less on board. Some of the most conservative members of the House and Senate, as sponsors of the Patients’ Choices Act, want to prohibit junk food under the federal food stamp program and reward seniors who adopt healthful behaviors with lower Medicare premiums.

“This isn’t about telling people what to do,” said Nick Papas, a spokesman for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “It is about giving people the tools they need to live longer, healthier, happier lives.”

Whatever the case, libertarians like Michael D. Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, aren’t looking forward to it.

“At the very least,” said Tanner, “we are going to get nagged a lot.”

The Obama Presidency: Health Care Reform

EsquireUK — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:36:39 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

This past weekend, grassroots supporters gathered at thousands of meetings across the country to kickoff a summer long campaign for health care reform. For Organizing for America, it was the largest post-campaign effort yet, but the timing and the issue couldn't be more urgent.

From the Boston Globe:

Barack Obama became president thanks to house parties like the thousands across the county this weekend, and thanks to activists who wrote checks and blogged and made phone calls to neighbors for the campaign. The agenda then was clear: Win the election.

Now Obama is reactivating his grass-roots political machine for a new purpose: Pass major legislation overhauling the nation's healthcare system.

From Reuters:

From a living room in Kansas to a bagel shop in New York to an Alabama church, Democrats have started mobilizing support for President Barack Obama's healthcare reform plans.

Suburban housewives and social workers mixed with Baptist ministers, college students, retirees and many others at grassroots gatherings over the weekend. Spurred by the Democratic National Committee's burgeoning political machine dubbed "Organizing for America," thousands of such meetings had been planned for Friday through Monday.

Those attending the scripted two-hour events viewed a videotaped message from Obama, shared personal stories and made local battle plans to counter the expected stiff opposition.

"It's going to be a vicious fight," said 76-year-old Hank Putsch who attended an organizing meeting on Saturday at a Kansas City restaurant. "The insurance companies and healthcare companies are gearing up to oppose this. We've got to get our voices heard."

Obama has declared this summer "make-or-break" time for healthcare reform and has called on Congress to pass comprehensive legislation by the end of the year, saying America can no longer afford the costs of a system dominated by profit-driven insurance and healthcare companies which leaves 46 million people uninsured.

Though he is leaving the details to Congress, Obama has said reform must ensure a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans, a reduction in basic costs, and assurance that no one is denied insurance.

"This is why we elected him," said Sarah Starnes, a hospital social worker who has volunteered to help campaign for the Obama plan in Missouri. "It used to be that we'd elect a president and then the lobbyists would determine what happened. This time it is going to be us who determine what happens."

President Obama : A New Beginning

EsquireUK — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:07:02 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/NewBeginning/

In Germany today, the President visited Dresden castle, held meetings and a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and toured the Church of Our Lady. The event of greatest significance, however, was a visit with Chancellor Merkel and Elie Wiesel to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, where they were joined Bertrand Herz, a survivor of the camp.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Buchenwald/

Hello -

As a Senior Advisor to the President, I'm here in Cairo, Egypt where I watched President Obama deliver an unprecedented speech calling for a new beginning for the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

We all know that there has been tension between the United States and some Muslim communities. But, as the President said this morning, if all sides face the sources of tension squarely and focus on mutual interests, we can find a new way forward.

The President outlined some big goals for this new beginning in his speech -- including disrupting, dismantling, and defeating violent extremism. It was a historic speech, and since many Americans were asleep at the time it was given we wanted to make sure you had a chance to see it:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/NewBeginning/

Majority-Muslim countries around the world are filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives, just as in America. Indeed, part of what makes America great is having nearly seven million Muslim Americans living here today and enriching our culture and communities.

We can extend that kind of relationship abroad. It won't always be easy, but if we make an effort to bridge our differences rather than resigning ourselves to animosity, we can move toward a more peaceful world over time.

Thank you,
David Axelrod
Senior Advisor to the President

Obama Administration Securing Our Digital Future

EsquireUK — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:03:28 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/CyberReview/

Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 10:00 amSecuring Our Digital Future

Melissa Hathaway, Cybersecurity Chief at the National Security Council, discusses securing our nation's digital future:

The globally-interconnected digital information and communications infrastructure known as cyberspace underpins almost every facet of modern society and provides critical support for the U.S. economy, civil infrastructure, public safety and national security. The United States is one of the global leaders on embedding technology into our daily lives and this technology adoption has transformed the global economy and connected people in ways never imagined. My boys are 8 and 9 and use the Internet daily to do homework, blog with their friends and teacher, and email their mom; it is second nature to them. My mom and dad can read the newspapers about their daughter on-line and can reach me anywhere in the world from their cell phone to mine. And people all over the world can post and watch videos and read our blogs within minutes of completion. I can’t imagine my world without this connectivity and I would bet that you cannot either. Now consider that the same networks that provide this connectively also increasingly help control our critical infrastructure. These networks deliver power and water to our households and businesses, they enable us to access our bank accounts from almost any city in the world, and they are transforming the way our doctors provide healthcare. For all of these reasons, we need a safe Internet with a strong network infrastructure and we as a nation need to take prompt action to protect cyberspace for what we use it for today and will need in the future.

Protecting cyberspace requires strong vision and leadership and will require changes in policy, technology, education, and perhaps law. The 60-day cyberspace policy review summarizes our conclusions and outlines the beginning of a way forward in building a reliable, resilient, trustworthy digital infrastructure for the future. There are opportunities for everyone—individuals, academia, industry, and governments—to contribute toward this vision. During the review we engaged in more than 40 meetings and received and read more than 100 papers that informed our recommendations. As you will see in our review there is a lot of work for us to do together and an ambitious action plan to accomplish our goals. It must begin with a national dialogue on cybersecurity and we should start with our family, friends, and colleagues.

We are late in addressing this critical national need and our response must be focused, aggressive, and well-resourced. We have garnered great momentum in the last few months, and the vision developed in our review is based on the important input we received from industry, academia, the civil liberties and privacy communities, others in the Executive Branch, State governments, Congress, and our international partners. We now have a strong and common view of what is needed to achieve change. Ensuring that cyberspace is sufficiently resilient and trustworthy to support U.S. goals of economic growth, civil liberties and privacy protections, national security, and the continued advancement of democratic institutions requires making cybersecurity a national priority.

Cybersecurity

Watch experts from the public and private sectors discuss the Administration's combined arms approach to securing our nation's digital future:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/CyberReview/

Health + care is not equal to insurance companies

Lindsey Allen — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:38:16 EDT

I though I would post this on here, It's my story and opinion I offered to the President's cause. I hope someone listens.

I am no longer covered under my parents' insurance plan, though I am still a college student. They failed to send a cancellation notice, and instead sent us a bill for my blood work and doctor's visit, totalling about $500. That may not seem like much, but to a poor college student, paying my own way through university with a part-time job, it was a lot. It was definitely a lot to have been forced upon me with no notice. My father and I fought with the company for months before they finally sent a cancellation notice for a later date, thus covering the disputed costs. It was an unnecessary struggle I do not wish to repeat. The result is now, I cannot afford to go to the doctor and when I got flu like symptoms a month ago, all i could do is rest and wait it out. Thankfully it went away after a week. That is now how I must operate. One thing my family is concerned with is that I have a thyroid problem, which left unattended could worsen my general health in the long run. That's what the disputed blood work was testing. However, even if I wish it, I cannot afford to do anything about that situation. Even before I had to worry about my lack of health coverage, the idea of profiting off of health offended me deeply. I am against the idea of insurance which adds middle-man bureaucracy only concerned with how wide their profit margins can grow. Health care should be a right and not a privilege for the wealthy. I support the idea of a single payer system, where my taxes are raised to pay for my health care. I believe, in this system, it would be easier to implement a PREVENTATIVE health care system which would save us more costs preventing serious illness early. Please, Congressmen and women, for once consider what is best for our society as a whole, regardless of concerns about re-election bids being affected. If re-election is your main agenda, then you are not truly representing the people. I implore you to create a system to benefit the future of America. That's for what your elected position is meant.Power with inaction, isn't power at all. Thank you, and I hope to the fruits of your labor soon. A deeply concerned citizen, Lindsey Allen,

Denton, TX

The Obama Presidency

EsquireUK — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:49:50 EDT

OBAMA WINS OVER NOTRE DAME Obama: "Maybe We Won't Agree On Abortion, But We Can Still Agree That This Is A Heart-Wrenching Decision With Both Moral And Spiritual Dimensions"
READ THE SPEECH

President Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame this afternoon, speaking directly about the challenges that face this new generation of graduates and the need to find common ground on even the issues that divide us:

This is the generation that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit – an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work.

We must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. We must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity – diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief.

In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.

In his speech, President Obama directly addressed the controversy that has emerged over the Catholic university's decision to invite a pro-choice president to deliver today's commencement address:

The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

Nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.
As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that’s not what was preventing him from voting for me.

What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website – an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that – when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do – that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.”

Understand – I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it – indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory – the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

Read the President's full speech . . .

Message From The White House

EsquireUK — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:18:31 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

The White House sent out it's first email yesterday to supporters on the WhiteHouse.gov email list. In the message, the President recapped some of the key events of the last three days -- including a pledge from healthcare stakeholders to reduce the growing rate of healthcare costs, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement today that the House of Representatives would take up healthcare legislation before the end of July.

President Obama urged both the House and Senate to move quickly with a process that is both transparent and inclusive. He also reiterated his three core principles for reform: driving down healthcare costs, assuring quality and affordable care for everyone, and guaranteeing all Americans a choice of doctors and plans.

www.whitehouse.gov

The Obama Presidency

EsquireUK — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:41:05 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

May 14, 2009Work Is Never Done, Obama Tells Class By PETER BAKER

TEMPE, Ariz. — President Obama traveled Wednesday to the university that does not think he has done enough to merit an honorary degree and declared that he agreed.

Mr. Obama delivered his first commencement address as president at Arizona State University, whose decision not to award him a ceremonial diploma touched off a national furor. He used the controversy to make the point that no one should be satisfied with “the outward markers of success,” either as individuals or as a country.

“I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven’t achieved enough in my life,” Mr. Obama told tens of thousands of students and relatives packed into Sun Devil Stadium. “First of all, Michelle concurs with that assessment. She has a long list of things I have not yet done waiting for me when I get home.

“But more than that,” he added, “I come to embrace the notion that I haven’t done enough in my life. I heartily concur. I come to confirm that one’s title, even a title like president of the United States, says very little about how well one’s life has been led — and that no matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, always more to learn, and always more to achieve.”

The decision not to award an honorary degree to Mr. Obama was taken by many as a snub, especially after university officials explained that “his body of work is yet to come.” Embarrassed university officials tried to contain the damage by renaming its most important financial aid program the President Barack Obama Scholars Program, which will benefit 1,600 freshmen this fall.

The university’s president, Michael Crow, heaped praise on Mr. Obama in introducing him on Wednesday night. “You’ve lit a fire under all of us to move America forward,” Mr. Crow said.

Mr. Obama thanked him and called the controversy “much ado about nothing.” But he still aimed a barb at the university’s leadership. “President Crow and the board of regents will soon learn about being audited by the I.R.S.,” he joked.

Mr. Obama’s commencement season schedule this year has generated more attention than most presidents receive. His plan to speak at the graduation at Notre Dame on Sunday has drawn vociferous protests from anti-abortion leaders who consider it inappropriate for him to be invited to speak at the nation’s most prominent Catholic university.

In his speech here to a stadium full of people who waited hours in temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, Mr. Obama said the degree controversy underscored that the nation needs “a fundamental change of perspective and attitude,” one that values substance over appearance, character over celebrity and wise investments over “get rich quick schemes.”

The country, he suggested, has lost its way. “In recent years, in many ways, we’ve become enamored with our own success, lulled into complacency by our own achievements,” he said, citing the economic crisis. “We started taking shortcuts. We started living on credit, instead of building up savings. We saw businesses focus more on rebranding and repackaging than innovating and developing new ideas that improve our lives.”

He cited Americans who ran the Underground Railroad, fought for worker rights, developed new technology and saved people caught in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. “A whole bunch of them didn’t get honorary degrees,” he said in an ad lib not in the released text, “but they changed the course of history and so can you.”

He added: “That’s what building a body of work is all about: it’s about the daily labor, the many individual acts, the choices large and small that add up over time, over a lifetime, to a lasting legacy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/politics/14obama.html?ref=politics

Foundation For Change

EsquireUK — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:28:29 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

The Democrats.org blog highlights a recent article on one of the everyday Americans featured on our Foundation for Change page . . .

First Lady Michelle Obama

EsquireUK — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:14:29 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

The woman's woman
Tough, ambitious, clever - and very normal

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

The Obama Presidency: First 100 Days

EsquireUK — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:00:13 EDT

Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 12:27 pm

Egg Roll!

www.whitehouse.gov

If you have not been watching, be sure to check in on our coverage of the White House Easter Egg Roll. You can watch some of the best artists, story-tellers, chefs, and egg-rollers around on four separate live-streams, carrying on and expanding on the tradition established by President Bush.President Obama and the First Lady spoke to the happy crowd this morning:THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody -- that's Malia, our technical advisor. (Laughter.)It is wonderful to see all of you today. Welcome. I hope everybody had a wonderful Easter. This is one of the greatest White House traditions because it reminds us that this is the people's house. And to see so many children out here having a great time just fills Michelle and myself and the entire family with a whole lot of joy.So I'm not really in charge here today. My sole job, in addition to thanking Fergie for that wonderful rendition of our National Anthem and thanking my buddy, the Easter Bunny, for being here, is to introduce my First Lady, your First Lady, Michelle Obama. (Applause.)MRS. OBAMA: All right -- okay, it's working. Welcome everybody. I don't have much to say. I want to welcome you all to the 2009 White House Easter Egg Hunt. Yay!Our goal today is just to have fun. We want to focus on activity, healthy eating. We've got yoga, we've got dancing, we've got storytelling, we've got Easter egg decorating. Oh, we've got basketball -- (applause) -- a little soccer, as well. And we want everybody to think about moving their bodies, get out -- we don't have tennis; it's on the tennis court -- the peanut gallery back here. (Laughter.)So the goal today is to have fun, to get out and play. And let's get things started with the Easter Egg Roll. Thank you all for coming today. Have fun. Thanks so much. (Applause.)http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/13/Egg-Roll/

http://www.politico.com/slideshow/slideshow.html?xml=xml/311#id=311&num=1

Help The Victims Of Red River Floods

EsquireUK — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 09:14:49 EDT

On Wednesday President Obama declared a major disaster exists in the entire state of North Dakota, due to severe storms and flooding of the Red River. Yesterday the President declared an emergency exists in seven Minnesota counties to the east of the Red River as well.

Melting snow and heavy rains have caused the river to rise to record levels. Current projections are that the river could crest as high as 20 feet above flood level by Saturday, and water levels could remain high for many days.

Sandbagging operations in Fargo, North Dakota have continued non-stop throughout the week in subfreezing temperatures. City officials reported that about 3 million sandbags have been filled, but more volunteers are still needed. The American Red Cross is sending disaster workers into North Dakota and Minnesota to staff shelters that will be needed in the event of evacuations.

Despite the challenges, we've seen time and again that when ordinary people act together, they can make a difference.

Learn how you can help support the Red River disaster relief efforts.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been affected by the floods.

Learn more what you can do to help at RedCross.org.

Red Cross Readies Shelters As Flood Waters Threaten to Top Levees

Fargo Residents Urged to Register with Safe and Well

Editorial note: Call (202) 303-5551 to speak with an American Red Cross spokesperson on the ground. Visit the Red Cross Disaster Online Newsroom for flood preparedness and response information, including photos, audio, and press releases. Downloadable b-roll is available at redcross.org in the media resources section.

Friday, March 27, 2009 — The American Red Cross is sending more disaster workers into North Dakota and Minnesota today to staff shelters that will be needed in the event of evacuations should the Red River top levees as it rises to record heights. Projections are that the Red River could crest at 43 feet Saturday, more than 20 feet above flood stage, and the National Weather Service reports water levels could remain high for days.

“Our supplies and workers already have been on the ground in North Dakota and Minnesota for a week, but we are getting ready for the long haul,” said Joe Becker, senior vice president of disaster services for the Red Cross “Our President, Gail McGovern, has pledged that we will be here for as long as it takes.”

Residents who may be affected by the flooding should register on the Red Cross Safe and Well Website at www.redcross.org. Those without internet access can call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) to register. A trusted friend or loved one can also register evacuees on the site.

The Red Cross encourages evacuees to bring any prescription and emergency medication, extra clothing, pillows, blankets, hygiene supplies, important documents and other comfort items. Don’t forget special items for children and infants such as diapers, formulas and toys, along with special items for family members who are elderly or disabled.

The Red Cross has already opened shelters and is prepared to have more available to help people affected by the flooding. More than 400 Red Cross disaster workers are working in the area. Thirty Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) are providing mobile feeding and more are on the way. More than 50,000 ready-to-eat meals are already on site, and mobile kitchens are deploying with a capacity of serving 15,000 meals a day.

Even as the Red Cross is assisting the residents of North Dakota and Minnesota, severe spring weather is also hammering other parts of the country, and Red Cross is providing help to people in those areas as well. Nine counties in Mississippi have been hit with heavy rain, high winds and tornadoes. A major spring snowstorm has buried parts of Colorado and Wyoming under more than a foot of snow and heavy snow is predicted for New Mexico, Kansas, Michigan and the Ohio Valley. Red Cross has shelters open to help people stranded by the snow and Disaster Action Teams are on the scene in Mississippi.

Help people affected by disasters like the recent flooding and winter storms, by donating to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. On those rare occasions when donations exceed Red Cross expenses for a specific disaster, contributions are used to prepare for and serve victims of other disasters. Your gift enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to victims of all disasters. Call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions to the Disaster Relief Fund may be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P. O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Internet users can make a secure online contribution by visiting www.redcross.org.

About the American Red Cross:
The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and counsels victims of disasters; provides nearly half of the nation's blood supply; teaches lifesaving skills; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its humanitarian mission. For more information, please visit www.redcross.org or join our blog at www.redcrosschat.org.

President Obama's Online Town Hall...If You Missed It

EsquireUK — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:00:44 EDT

Thursday, 26th March 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.whitehouse.gov

The initial run of Open for Questions came to a close with the President’s online town hall this morning. With almost a hundred thousand participants and more than three and a half million votes, it was an eye-opening experience and showed the potential of what this kind of open engagement can accomplish. The online town hall had an amazing feel of something that had never been done before, and something we should be trying to do more of. If you missed it, watch the video of the entire event:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/26/Wrapping-Up-Open-for-Questions/

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaforamerica/gGxxf9

The White House Is Open For Questions

EsquireUK — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:52:52 EDT

Tuesday, 24th March 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/24/Open-for-Questions-President-Obama-to-Answer-Your-Questions-on-Thursday/

www.whitehouse.gov

President Obama: Good Ideas Not Political Tactics

EsquireUK — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:58:28 EDT

Wednesday, 18th March 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/17/Good-ideas-not-political-tactics/

www.whitehouse.gov

"But the one thing I will say is this: With the magnitude of the challenges we face right now, what we need in Washington are not more political tactics -- we need more good ideas. We don't need more point-scoring -- we need more problem-solving. So if there are members of Congress who object to specific policies and proposals in this budget, then I ask them to be ready and willing to propose constructive, alternative solutions. If certain aspects of this budget people don't think work, provide us some ideas in terms of what you do. "Just say no" is the right advice to give your teenagers about drugs. It is not an acceptable response to whatever economic policy is proposed by the other party.The American people sent us here to get things done. And in this moment of enormous challenge, they are watching and waiting for us to lead. Let's show them that we're equal to this task before us. Let's pass a budget that puts this nation on the road to lasting prosperity. I know Kent Conrad is committed to doing that; John Spratt is committed to doing that; I'm committed to doing that. We're going to need everybody working together to get this thing done." - President Barack Obama

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/17/Good-ideas-not-political-tactics/

The U.S. Congress Clears President Obama's Spending Bill

EsquireUK — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:49:40 EDT

Tuesday, 10th March 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.whitehouse.gov

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19855.html

Senate clears omnibus bill
By: David Rogers
March 10, 2009 07:22 PM EST

A $409.6 billion omnibus appropriations bill cleared Congress Tuesday even as the White House pursued new steps to try to pare back the level of parochial spending projects attached to the budget each year.

President Barack Obama is poised to sign the measure into law quickly to avoid any disruption of government operations. But Democrats anticipate that he may use the occasion Wednesday to outline new earmark reforms and answer Republican critics led by his old rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)

The decisive Senate vote came on a 62-35 roll call in which Democrats finally reached the 60-vote super majority threshold that had eluded them only last week. Eight Republicans joined in the motion to cut off debate, allowing Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to succeed even with three of his own Democrats defecting.

A Treasury letter related to Cuba travel provisions in the bill proved pivotal as well in winning over needed votes. But just to get to the final cloture roll call, Reid had to first beat back a series a series of politically punishing Republican amendments, many designed to delay enactment by forcing further consideration in the House.

The most dangerous was offered by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) requiring the House and Senate to vote on any future cost-of-living increases for lawmakers rather than allow the pay adjustment to take effect automatically. Given the collapsing economy, Democrats are already committed to canceling any pay adjustment for next year as part of the omnibus bill. And Reid offered a stand-alone bill to accomplish the same result Vitter wanted without entangling the omnibus in the fight.

The Louisianan argued that Democrats were only seeking political cover, and he forced an up-and-down vote on his proposal alone. It was narrowly tabled by a vote of 52-45, setting up the votes on cloture and passage.

Five months late already, the giant measure is really nine bills in one, covering more than 12 Cabinet-level departments and agencies that represent the heart of the domestic budget this year as well as U.S. contributions to global health and foreign aid programs overseas.

The total cost represents a nearly $20 billion increase over the former Bush administration’s spending requests for the fiscal year that began last October. Rather than engage in veto fights last fall, Democrats opted to postpone action until Obama took power in January.

Major increases include new money for food and consumer product safety agencies as well as Wall Street regulators and tax enforcement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is promised $550 million more for its operations, and an additional $76.5 million is provided for U.S. attorneys to forestall threatened furloughs. IRS spending for tax enforcement is increased to $5.1 billion, a $337 million increase over last year’s level.

Significant new money is provided for education and science initiatives, including a $309 million increase for weather and climate satellites and $754 million for the Energy Department’s Office of Science. From clean water to transit and highway spending, the measure builds on the landmark public works investments already made in the recently enacted economic stimulus bill.

Beyond appropriations, the bill’s 1,132 pages carry with them legislative provisions touching on an array of issues. State attorneys general are given new powers to pursue truth-in-lending cases. The bill terminates an 18-month pilot program to allow Mexican-licensed trucks to compete for long-haul routes in the United States. And down to the last hours, a set of Cuba travel provisions required the Treasury Department to step in to ease differences among Democrats that threatened passage.

The Mexico truck program began in September 2007 as a way for the United States to meet its commitment under NAFTA to allow freer trucking operations on both sides of the border. But it has faced persistent opposition in Congress, and a recent Transportation Department report found that only 29 of 100 projected Mexican carriers were admitted to the project, and this “level of participation is not adequate to yield statistically valid findings.”

The Cuba travel provisions most directly pit two former House Democratic colleagues, New York Rep. Jose Serrano and now Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, against one another. At issue are Bush-era restrictions on Cuba-Americans visiting relatives in Cuba as well as persons traveling for the purpose of arranging commercial sales of agriculture or medical goods allowed under US sanctions.

Serrano, who oversees Treasury’s budget on the House Appropriations Committee, favors a more liberalized approach and has predicted Obama will as well. But in a letter dated Monday to Menendez, Secy. Timothy Geithner pledged that any such business missions would be narrowly prescribed, require full reporting and be subject to a per diem expenditure cap.

That helped get the New Jersey Democrat’s vote, but it could be a short-lived truce. In a press release immediately after passage, Serrano warned the bill is “not subject to creative interpretation” and has “the force of law.”

Thus to describe the giant measure as routine — as some have — doesn’t really do it justice. But this is scarcely the first time that Congress has resorted to such a catch-all omnibus to wrap up the budget business for an entire year.

The situation is very similar to early 2003, when Republicans and the Bush administration pushed through a nearly $400 billion package after the budget process had collapsed amid partisan fighting the prior year. Filling almost 1,160 pages, that measure was even more complex, including Medicare and farm-disaster spending as well as appropriations. But it moved through the Senate in about six days, and after a quick conference with the House it was signed by Bush.

Looking back, the 2003 debate was much more substantive and focused on major accounts within the bill, rather than on the spending earmarks. By comparison, the current measure devotes substantially less money to earmarks, but that issue has come to dominate the politics so much that it has dwarfed most other issues in the six days of debate.

Caught most in the middle are those Republicans historically allied with the Appropriations committees and with their own stake in earmarks for their home states. Sen. Arlen Specter is such a case. Yet as a senior member of the once-proud panel, he was very cautious even Tuesday about committing himself to the bill.

Back home, he faces a potential challenge from the right in next year’s Republican primary, and supporting even his old committee can be politically dangerous. Taxpayers for Common Sense lists about $25.3 million in earmarks requested by Specter alone in the bill, but when asked Tuesday afternoon about his vote, the Pennsylvania Republican was still hesitant.

“I want to see what the lineup is before I decide,” he told POLITICO.

Hours late, Specter did, joining seven other Republicans in support of the bill: Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker; Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby; Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander; Missouri Sen. Kit Bond; Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe.

The three Democrats opposing were:Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana; Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

www.whitehouse.gov

Remarks by the President and Vice President at Meeting with Nation's Mayors

N. Julio Barthson - E-Campaign Leader — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:18:27 EST

IF THE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS IN CONGRESS DON'T WANT TO WORK WITH THE PRESIDENT, HE SHOULD CONTINUE GOING DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE LIKE HE'S BEEN DOING WITH THE LOCAL MAYORS. THESE LEADERS KNOW BETTER THE NEEDS OF THEIR PEOPLE, AND IT'S BETTER TO LISTEN DIRECTLY FROM THEM THAN FROM ALL THE WASHINGTON TALKING HEADS...

Getting Ready for Obama's Recovery Plan

N. Julio Barthson - E-Campaign Leader — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:48:49 EST

The President's address to the Nation this week was far from usual. It was crafted and delivered in the middle of a major victory for the American people, as the President's Economic Recovery Plan passed through Congress, even without Republican support. This President did everything he could to get bi-partisan support for the bill, but the Republicans are only interested in blind obstructionism. But the people voted for change, and that is what we exect the President to deliver. We cannot let the losers of the last election dictate on us the same old, stale, tried and failed policies on us any more...

A Major Milestone

EsquireUK — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:10:58 EST

Saturday, 14th February 2009

Washington, D. C.

www.whitehouse.gov

Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 5:30 am A major milestone

Today President Obama is celebrating the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as a "major milestone on our road to recovery," while still emphasizing that we have many miles yet to go.

"This historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but the beginning," he says in his weekly address. To get us there, he invokes President Kennedy, who said, "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks."

President Obama acknowledges that some people are skeptical about the plan given how Washington has performed in the past, which is why he's encouraging people to check back at Recovery.gov -- the site where, once the plan is in action, you'll be able to track the funds.

"Utlimately, this is your money, and you deserve to know where it's going and how it's spent," he says.

Watch the address below.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/02/14/A-major-milestone/

Major Victory For President Obama...

EsquireUK — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:43:02 EST

Friday, 13th February 2009
Washington, D.C.

www.whitehouse.gov

WASHINGTON -- In a major victory for President Barack Obama, Democrats muscled a huge, $787 billion stimulus bill to the brink of final passage Friday night in hopes of combating the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Republican opposition was nearly unanimous. The vote in the House was 246-183 for the package of tax cuts and federal spending that Obama made the centerpiece of his plan for economic recovery.

The Senate was following suit in a roll call that was without suspense but extended into the night. That was to allow time for Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown to fly back from Ohio, where his mother died earlier in the week. His was the decisive 60th vote for the bill.

Obama is expected to sign the bill soon.

www.whitehouse.gov

America, We Have An Economic Stimulus Deal

EsquireUK — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:10:59 EST

Friday, 6th February 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.whitehouse.gov

The White House and Senate Democrats secured a deal Friday with moderate Republicans to clear the way for passage of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan.

After days of watching from the sidelines, Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, came to the Capitol Friday afternoon to help seal the final arrangements, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called a Democratic caucus for the evening to go over the revisions with his party.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18508.html

www.whitehouse.gov

WASHINGTON — With job losses soaring nationwide, Senate Democrats reached agreement with a small group of Republicans Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at the heart of President Barack Obama's plan for combatting the worst recession in decades.

"The American people want us to work together. They don't want to see us dividing along partisan lines on the most serious crisis confronting our country," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of at least two GOP senators who pledged their votes for the bill.

Democratic leaders said the concessions they had made to Republicans and moderate Democrats to trim the measure had cleared the way for its passage. It seemed likely a final vote would take place Saturday or Sunday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/06/dem-stimulus-deal-reached_n_164808.html

www.whitehouse.gov

The Obama Presidency: First 100 Days

EsquireUK — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:49:12 EST

Friday, 6th February 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/beyond_the_echo_chamber/

www.whitehouse.gov

Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm

Advice from "beyond the echo chamber"

We just learned the economy lost another 600,000 jobs last month. It's a staggering number, and it underscores just how deep this crisis is – and, as the President pointed out this morning, it’s accelerating.

That's why he created the Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to solicit ideas from "beyond the echo chamber of Washington, DC."
"I’m not interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology," he said. "We’ve recruited Republican and Democrats; veterans of government and the private sector; advocates for business and labor. Not everyone is going to agree with each other, and not all of them are going to agree with me – and that’s precisely the point. Because we want to ensure that our policies have the benefit of independent thought and vigorous debate." Before the President signed the executive order officially creating the board, he addressed the jobs numbers and brought home the individual pains behind those almost incomprehensibly large numbers. "Somewhere in America, a small business has shut its doors; a family has said goodbye to their home; a young parent has lost their livelihood, and doesn’t know what’s going to take its place," the President said.

Read the rest of his remarks below -- along with those of PERAB chairman Paul Volcker -- and the list of board members below that.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY ADVISORY BOARD
East Room, The White House
February 6, 2009

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. Please have a seat. (Applause.) Good morning, everybody.

AUDIENCE: Good morning.

THE PRESIDENT: I have just had the opportunity to welcome the members of my Economic Recovery Advisory Board. And I'm grateful that I will have the counsel of these extraordinarily talented and experienced men and women in the challenging months to come.

If there's anyone, anywhere, who doubts the need for wise counsel and bold and immediate action, just consider the very troubling news we received just this morning. Last month, another 600,000 Americans lost their jobs. That is the single worst month of job loss in 35 years. The Department of Labor also adjusted their job loss numbers for 2008 upwards, and now report that we've lost 3.6 million jobs since this recession began.

That's 3.6 million Americans who wake up every day wondering how they are going to pay their bills, stay in their homes, and provide for their children. That's 3.6 million Americans who need our help.

I'm sure that at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, members of the Senate are reading these same numbers this morning. And I hope they share my sense of urgency and draw the same, unmistakable conclusion: The situation could not be more serious. These numbers demand action. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay, or politics as usual, while millions of Americans are being put out of work.

Now is the time for Congress to act. It's time to pass an Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan to get our economy moving.

This is not some abstract debate. It is an urgent and growing crisis that can only be fully understood through the unseen stories that lie underneath each and every one of those 600,000 jobs that were lost this month. Somewhere in America a small business has shut its doors; somewhere in America a family has said goodbye to their home; somewhere in America a young parent has lost their livelihood -- and they don't know what's going to take its place.

These Americans are counting on us, all of us in Washington. We have to remember that we're here to work for them. And if we drag our feet and fail to act, this crisis could turn into a catastrophe. We'll continue to get devastating job reports like today's -- month after month, year after year. It's very important to understand that, although we had a terrible year with respect to jobs last year, the problem is accelerating, not decelerating. It's getting worse, not getting better. Almost half of the jobs that were lost have been lost just in the last couple of months.

These aren't my assessments -- these are the assessments of independent economists. If we don't do anything, millions more jobs will be lost. More families will lose their homes. More Americans will go without health care. We'll continue to send our children to crumbling schools, and be crippled by our dependence on foreign oil. That's the result of inaction. And it's not acceptable to the American people.

They did not choose more of the same in November. They did not send us to Washington to get stuck in partisan posturing, to try to score political points. They did not send us here to turn back to the same tried and failed approaches that were rejected, because we saw the results. They sent us here to make change, with the expectation that we would act.

Now, I have repeatedly acknowledged that, given the magnitude and the difficulties of the problem we're facing, there are no silver bullets and there are no easy answers. The bill that's emerged from Congress is not perfect, but a bill is absolutely necessary. We can continue to improve and refine both the House and Senate versions of these bills. There may be provisions in there that need to be left out; there may be some provisions that need to be added. But broadly speaking, the package is the right size, it is the right scope, and it has the right priorities to create 3 to 4 million jobs and to do it in a way that lays the groundwork for long-term growth -- by fixing our schools, modernizing our health care to lower costs, repair our roads and bridges and levees and other vital infrastructure, move us towards energy independence. That is what America needs. It will take months, even years, to renew our economy, but every day that Washington fails to act, that recovery is delayed.

Now, we also know that no single act can meet the challenges of this moment. This process is just the beginning of a long journey back to progress and growth and prosperity. Given the scope of this crisis, we'll need all hands on deck to figure out how we are going to move forward. And I'm pleased to have an extraordinary team of folks in my administration -- Tim Geithner at Treasury, Larry Summers, Christina Romer, Peter Orszag -- they're all here in the White House. I also want to be sure that we're tapping a broad and diverse range of opinion from across the country, because a historic crisis demands a historic response. And that's why we took the unique step of creating the new institution whose members have gathered here today.

Put simply, I created this board to enlist voices to come from beyond the Washington echo chamber, to ensure that no stone is unturned as we work to put people back to work and get our economy moving.

Within this group, you've got leaders of manufacturing and leaders of finance. You've got labor and you've got management. You've got people who work in small businesses and people who work in large businesses. You've got some economists and some folks who think they're economists. (Laughter.) By the way, these days everybody thinks they're an economist. (Laughter.) We will meet regularly so that I can hear different ideas and sharpen my own, and seek counsel that is candid and informed by the wider world.

The board is headed by Paul Volcker -- not only because he's the tallest among us -- (laughter) -- but because, by any measure, he is one of the world's foremost experts on the economy; one of the most experienced and insightful economic minds that we have. He's advised me for many months. He has helped steer the American economy through many twists and turns. Probably prior to this one, the worst economic crisis we had back in the early '80s, it was Paul Volcker who helped restore confidence and pull us out of that extraordinarily difficult time.

So I'm glad that Paul has decided to continue his public service at this critical moment. Assisting Paul and the rest of the board will be Austan Goolsbee, who's been one of my closest economic advisors, one of the finest young economists that we have in the country. He's going to ensure that we are making the best possible use of this unique resource.

I'm not interested in groupthink, which is why the board reflects a broad cross-section of experience and expertise and ideology. We've recruited Republicans and Democrats, people who come out of the government as well as the private sector. Not everyone is going to agree with each other, and not all of them are going to agree with me -- and that's precisely the point, because we want to ensure that our policies have the benefit of independent thought and vigorous debate.

And we're also going to count on these men and women to serve as additional eyes and ears for me as we work to reverse this downturn. Many of them have ground-level views of the changes that are taking place, as they work across different sectors of the economy and different regions of the country, and they can help us see the trends that are not fully formed, the trouble that may be on the horizon, and the opportunities that have yet to be seized. I look forward to relying on their input and recommendations on specific questions as we jumpstart job creation and pursue strong and stable economic growth.

This new institution should send a signal of how seriously I take the responsibility of building an economic recovery that is broad and enduring. These are extraordinary times. For far too many Americans, the future is filled with unanswered questions: Can I get a job? Will my family be able to stay in their home? Will I be able to retire with dignity, and see my children lead a better life? And these are the questions that we will answer affirmatively during the course of this administration.

We are going to create the jobs that our people need and the future that this great nation deserves. Those are the challenges that I've put before my economic team, and these distinguished advisors will be tackling those same issues in the months and years to come.

So I'm grateful to them. And before I officially sign this executive order, I would like Paul just to say a quick word.

MR. VOLCKER: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I will say a very quick word. You've spoken about the variety of experience and talent you brought together. One thing I am sure they all share, we all share, is a sense of urgency, that you alluded to and emphasized. The figures this morning simply reenforce that. And I can't imagine that the Congress won't share this sense of urgency and you can get on the road toward the kind of program you want.

But thank you for the confidence that you've shown in all of us. We hope to help.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Paul. All right, let me get over there.

(The executive order is signed.) (Applause.)

The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board

Chairman
Paul Volcker

Staff Director and Chief Economist
Austan Goolsbee

Members
William H. Donaldson, Chairman, SEC (2003-2005)

Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President & CEO, TIAA-CREF

Robert Wolf, Chairman & CEO, UBS Group Americas

David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University

Mark T. Gallogly, Founder & Managing Partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P.

Penny Pritzker, Chairman & Founder, Pritzker Realty Group

Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE

John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers

Jim Owens, Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc.

Monica C. Lozano, Publisher & Chief Executive Officer, La Opinion

Charles E. Phillips, Jr., President, Oracle Corporation

Anna Burger, Chair, Change to Win

Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO

Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley

Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Return to the remarks.

www.whitehouse.gov

The Obama Presidency: Day Sixteen

EsquireUK — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:09:02 EST

Thursday, 5th February 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/coast_to_coast_and_across_party_lines/

www.whitehouse.gov

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 7:26 pm

Coast to coast and across party lines

If you don't think the nation's economic situation is dire, just ask the governors who are seeing firsthand the pain its causing in their state's economies.

That’s why this week, a group of 19 governors -- Democratic and Republican alike, from Oklahoma to Oregon and from Vermont to the Virgin Islands -- made a bold statement of bipartisan support for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with a letter addressed to the President.

"Families and businesses across the nation are hurting," read the letter, dated February 2, 2009. "Credit markets have seized up, which is affecting both business activity and consumer spending. Unemployment is rising sharply. While we all believe in the importance of free markets, we believe that the markets today need stimulating."

Governors Deval Patrick (D-MA), Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), Bill Ritter Jr. (D-CO), M. Jodi Rell (R-CT), Jack Markell (D-DE), Charlie Crist (R-FL), Pat Quinn (D-IL), Chester J. Culver (D-IA), Jennifer M. Granholm (D-MI), Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ), David A. Paterson (D-NY), Ted Strickland (D-OH), Brad Henry (D-OK), Theodore R. Kulongoski (D-OR), Edward G. Rendell (D - PA), James H. Douglas (R - VT), Timothy M. Kaine (D - VA), John deJongh Jr (D-VI), and Jim Doyle (D-WI) all signed the letter.

We’ve published the letter, complete with their signatures, here.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/coast_to_coast_and_across_party_lines/

The Obama Presidency: New Rules

EsquireUK — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:25:45 EST

Wednesday, 4th February 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/new_rules/

www.whitehouse.gov

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 2:51 pmNew rules

"Shameful." That was the President's response last week to the news that Wall Street had doled out $18 billion in bonuses, even after the government had propped up many of the Street's most prominent firms.

Today, he and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner took action by imposing new restrictions on executive compensation at firms taking money from the government.

"We all need to take responsibility," President Obama said. "And this includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves customary lavish bonuses....[T]hat's exactly the kind of disregard of the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else."

Features in the new rules for companies receiving "exceptional assistance" from the government include a $500,000 cap on salaries for senior executives (compensation beyond that must be in restricted stock), expanded bans on golden parachutes, and increases to "clawback" provisions.

Read the President's full remarks below.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
Grand Foyer, The White House
Febuary 4, 2009

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Tim, for your hard work on this issue and on the economic recovery.

The economic crisis we face is unlike any we've seen in our lifetime. It's a crisis of falling confidence and rising debt, of widely distributed risk and narrowly concentrated reward; a crisis written in the fine print of sub-prime mortgages, on the ledger lines of once mighty financial institutions, and on the pink slips that have upended the lives of so many people across this country and cost the economy 2.6 million jobs last year alone.

We know that even if we do everything that we should, this crisis was years in the making, and it will take more than weeks or months to turn things around.

But make no mistake: A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future. Millions more jobs will be lost. More businesses will be shuttered. More dreams will be deferred.

And that's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the economic recovery and reinvestment plan that is before Congress today. With it, we can save or create more than three million jobs, doing things that will strengthen our country for years to come. It's not merely a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for long-term economic growth in areas like renewable energy and health care and education.

Now, in the past few days I've heard criticisms that this plan is somehow wanting, and these criticisms echo the very same failed economic theories that led us into this crisis in the first place -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care; that we can somehow deal with this in a piecemeal fashion and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject those theories. And so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. So I urge members of Congress to act without delay. No plan is perfect, and we should work to make it stronger. No one is more committed to making it stronger than me. But let's not make the perfect the enemy of the essential. Let's show people all over the country who are looking for leadership in this difficult time that we are equal to the task.

At the same time, we know that this recovery and reinvestment plan is only the first part of what we need to do to restore prosperity and secure our future. We also need a strong and viable financial system to keep credit flowing to businesses and families alike. And my administration will do whatever it takes to restore our financial system. Our recovery depends on it. And so in the next week, Secretary Geithner will release a new strategy to get credit moving again -- a strategy that will reflect some of the lessons of past mistakes while laying the foundation of the future.

But in order to restore trust in our financial system, we're going to have to do more than just put forward our plans. In order to restore trust, we've got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street.

We all need to take responsibility. And this includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves customary lavish bonuses. As I said last week, this is the height of irresponsibility. It's shameful. And that's exactly the kind of disregard of the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else.

This is America. We don't disparage wealth. We don't begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we certainly believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset -- and rightfully so -- are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, many of whom are having a tough time themselves.

For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis isn't just bad taste -- it's bad strategy -- and I will not tolerate it as President. We're going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for federal aid -- so that when firms seek new federal dollars, we won't find them up to the same old tricks.

As part of the reforms we're announcing today, top executives at firms receiving extraordinary help from U.S. taxpayers will have their compensation capped at $500,000 -- a fraction of the salaries that have been reported recently. And if these executives receive any additional compensation, it will come in the form of stock that can't be paid up until taxpayers are paid back for their assistance.

Companies receiving federal aid are going to have to disclose publicly all the perks and luxuries bestowed upon senior executives, and provide an explanation to the taxpayers and to shareholders as to why these expenses are justified. And we're putting a stop to these kinds of massive severance packages we've all read about with disgust; we're taking the air out of golden parachutes.

We're asking these firms to take responsibility, to recognize the nature of this crisis and their role in it. We believe that what we've laid out should be viewed as fair and embraced as basic common sense.

And finally, these guidelines we're putting in place are only the beginning of a long-term effort. We're going to examine the ways in which the means and manner of executive compensation have contributed to a reckless culture and a quarter-by-quarter mentality that in turn helped to wrought havoc in our financial system. We're going to be taking a look at broader reforms so that executives are compensated for sound risk management, and rewarded for growth measured over years, not just days or weeks.

We all have to pull together and take our share of responsibility. That's true here in Washington. That's true on Wall Street. The American people are carrying a huge burden as a result of this economic crisis: bearing the brunt of its effects as well as the cost of extraordinary measures we're taking to address them. The American people expect and demand that we pursue policies that reflect the reality of this crisis -- and that will prevent these kinds of crises from occurring again in the future.

Thank you very much.

www.whitehouse.gov

The Obama Presidency: Day Twelve

EsquireUK — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:09:23 EST

Sunday, 1st February 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=31B796AA-18FE-70B2-A82A1AFFD9EAB0CF

www.whitehouse.gov

Obama remakes political rules
By: Charles Mahtesian
February 1, 2009 06:57 AM EST

Three months after his election, President Barack Obama continues to remake the political landscape—and there’s no clearer example than Friday’s election of Michael Steele as the Republican National Committee's first black chairman.

It took the election of the nation’s first African-American president, one who won landslide margins among blacks, Latinos and Asians, to convince Republicans of the party’s increasingly urgent need to expand its appeal beyond its overwhelmingly white base. And it was Obama’s ability to produce emotive rhetoric on cue that reminded the GOP of the power of a forceful communicator.

“Clearly Obama’s success contributed to Steele’s victory,” said former Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), who served two terms as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Had Obama not won, I can’t imagine the Republicans would have elected an African-American chairman.”

Obama’s historic presidency, the way in which he won and the scale of the crises he inherits have scrambled some of the underlying assumptions about American elections and politics and altered the laws of political logic.

"Barack Obama's a phenomenon,” said California Republican Committeeman Shawn Steel after Friday’s election. “It's going to take a phenomenon just to challenge him. Michael is the one guy we have, regardless of background, who can do that."

Call it the Obama phenomenon.

The architecture of Obama’s presidential victory has already led to a rethinking of the electoral map. By winning nine states carried by George W. Bush, he ended the notion of electoral map determinism, the dominant presidential election narrative for close to two decades.

Even the Solid South isn’t so solid anymore, as Obama carried Virginia and North Carolina and nearly won in Georgia.

In many states, a corollary to the widely-held opinion that a black man couldn’t win the presidency was that an African-American couldn’t win statewide either. But following Obama’s win, that notion is being challenged by pols including Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), who is leaving a safe, majority black House seat to run for Florida’s open Senate seat in 2010.

“The idea that an African-American can’t win statewide in Pennsylvania is no longer the assumption,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman T.J. Rooney, who notes that former professional football player Franco Harris is suddenly viewed as a very attractive prospective Senate candidate. “The evolution in politics has been so quick and profound over the past 18-24 months.”

Political analyst Charlie Cook, publisher of the influential Cook Political Report, is skeptical of the notion that Obama is somehow rewriting the rules.

“There’s not a lot new that the Obama campaign did. They just did things better and took them to a higher level. Had you not had Dean, you would not have had Kerry. And if not Kerry, then you wouldn’t have Obama.”

Obama’s effect on the nation’s political landscape, he says, “was evolutionary, not revolutionary.”

Still, even in Washington some of the long-standing rules of engagement appear to be in the process of being rewritten.

Political imperatives once led President Bill Clinton to declare that the era of big government is over. Suddenly, it’s not.

Polls even suggest that regulation-averse voters embrace the prospect of a sweeping Obama administration overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory system.

Then there is the experience of Timothy Geithner, the recently confirmed treasury secretary. The old political rules governing Cabinet-level nominees — particularly those charged with overseeing the Internal Revenue Service — dictate that failure to pay more than $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes would be a fatal blow to confirmation prospects.

This time, it wasn’t. The administration dismissed the news as an honest mistake, and Geithner was confirmed by a 60-34 vote. Former Sen. Tom Daschle, Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services, looks likely to also win confirmation, despite a $100,000-plus back tax bill for a car and driver provided by a wealthy friend. That, too, was an honest mistake, according to the administration, which is understandably taking full advantage of an unlikely new dynamic in which that claim holds water.

It's too early to tell whether all of this signals a rulebook that is in the midst of being rewritten—or just a fleeting moment caused by the euphoria surrounding the history-making nature of Obama's win.

“Politics in this country has changed,” says Frost. “But the pendulum swings in this country. I don’t think you can say the politics have changed permanently.”

As evidence of that, Rooney offers an alternative assessment of the meaning of Michael Steele's victory over four other candidates for RNC chairman.

"You could also make the case that he was the least crazy of all of them."

www.whitehouse.gov

President Obama Declares Emergencies...

EsquireUK — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:43:01 EST

Thursday, 29th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/president-obama-declares-emergencies-in-arkansas-and-kentucky/

www.whitehouse.gov

President Barack Obama signs an Emergency Declaration for the State of Arkansas Wednesday evening, Jan. 28, 2008 in the Oval Office, and also signed a declaration for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. (White House photo by Pete Souza).
Download high-resolution.

ARKANSAS

The President declared an emergency exists in the State of Arkansas and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local response efforts in the area struck by a severe winter storm beginning on January 26, 2009, and continuing.
The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the counties of Baxter, Benton, Boone, Carroll, Clay, Cleburne, Conway, Craighead, Crawford, Crittenden, Cross, Faulkner, Franklin, Fulton, Garland, Greene, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Johnson, Lawrence, Logan, Lonoke, Madison, Marion, Mississippi, Monroe, Montgomery, Newton, Perry, Poinsett, Polk, Pope, Prairie, Pulaski, Randolph, St. Francis, Saline, Scott, Searcy, Sebastian, Sharp, Stone, Van Buren, Washington, White, Woodruff, and Yell.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures, limited to direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.
Nancy Ward, Acting Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named W. Michael Moore as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

KENTUCKY

The President also declared an emergency exists in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and ordered Federal aid to supplement Commonwealth and local response efforts in the area struck by a severe winter storm beginning on January 27, 2009, and continuing.
The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the counties of Allen, Anderson, Barren, Bath, Boyd, Boyle, Breathitt, Breckinridge, Butler, Caldwell, Calloway, Carlisle, Clark, Crittenden, Daviess, Edmonson, Elliott, Estill, Fayette, Floyd, Fulton, Garrard, Graves, Grayson, Hardin, Harrison, Hart, Hickman, Hopkins, Jackson, Jessamine, Johnson, Larue, Lincoln, Logan, Lyon, Madison, Magoffin, Marion, Marshall, Mason, McCracken, Meade, Mercer, Metcalfe, Morgan, Muhlenberg, Nelson, Nicholas, Ohio, Owsley, Perry, Powell, Shelby, Todd, Trigg, Union, Washington, Webster, Wolfe, and Woodford.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures, limited to direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.
Nancy Ward, Acting Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Kim R. Kadesch as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/president-obama-declares-emergencies-in-arkansas-and-kentucky/

Statement From Al Gore: The Climate Crisis

EsquireUK — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:02:49 EST

Wednesday, 28th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.whitehouse.gov

My opening statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today:

We are here today to talk about how we as Americans and how the United States of America as part of the global community should address the dangerous and growing threat of the climate crisis.

We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home - Earth - is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan.

As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread - our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels. As long as we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign oil - year after year - to the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world, our national security will continue to be at risk.

As long as we continue to allow our economy to remain shackled to the OPEC rollercoaster of rising and falling oil prices, our jobs and our way of life will remain at risk.

Moreover, as the demand for oil worldwide grows rapidly over the longer term, even as the rate of new discoveries is falling, it is increasingly obvious that the roller coaster is headed for a crash. And we're in the front car.

Most importantly, as long as we continue to depend on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil to meet our energy needs, and dump 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, we move closer and closer to several dangerous tipping points which scientists have repeatedly warned - again just yesterday - will threaten to make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable destruction of the conditions that make human civilization possible on this planet.

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.

For years our efforts to address the growing climate crisis have been undermined by the idea that we must choose between our planet and our way of life; between our moral duty and our economic well being. These are false choices. In fact, the solutions to the climate crisis are the very same solutions that will address our economic and national security crises as well.

In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our destiny, we must take bold action now.

The first step is already before us. I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama's Recovery package. The plan's unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas - energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy grid and the move to clean cars - represent an important down payment and are long overdue. These crucial investments will create millions of new jobs and hasten our economic recovery - while strengthening our national security and beginning to solve the climate crisis.

Quickly building our capacity to generate clean electricity will lay the groundwork for the next major step needed: placing a price on carbon. If Congress acts right away to pass President Obama's Recovery package and then takes decisive action this year to institute a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions - as many of our states and many other countries have already done - the United States will regain its credibility and enter the Copenhagen treaty talks with a renewed authority to lead the world in shaping a fair and effective treaty. And this treaty must be negotiated this year.
Not next year. This year.

A fair, effective and balanced treaty will put in place the global architecture that will place the world - at long last and in the nick of time - on a path toward solving the climate crisis and securing the future of human civilization.

I am hopeful that this can be achieved. Let me outline for you the basis for the hope and optimism that I feel.

The Obama administration has already signaled a strong willingness to regain U.S.leadership on the global stage in the treaty talks, reversing years of inaction. This is critical to success in Copenhagen and is clearly a top priority of the administration.

Developing countries that were once reluctant to join in the first phases of a global response to the climate crisis have themselves now become leaders in demanding action and in taking bold steps on their own initiatives. Brazil has proposed an impressive new plan to halt the destructive deforestation in that nation. Indonesia has emerged as a new constructive force in the talks. And China's leaders have gained a strong understanding of the need for action and have already begun important new initiatives.

Heads of state from around the world have begun to personally engage on this issue and forward-thinking corporate leaders have made this a top priority.

More and more Americans are paying attention to the new evidence and fresh warnings from scientists. There is a much broader consensus on the need for action than there was when President George H.W. Bush negotiated - and the Senate ratified - the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and much stronger support for action than when we completed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

The elements that I believe are key to a successful agreement in Copenhagen include:

- Strong targets and timetables from industrialized countries and differentiated butbinding commitments from developing countries that put the entire world under a system with one commitment: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and otherglobal warming pollutants that cause the climate crisis;

- The inclusion of deforestation, which alone accounts for twenty percent of the emissions that cause global warming;

- The addition of sinks including those from soils, principally from farmlands and grazing lands with appropriate methodologies and accounting. Farmers and ranchers in the U.S. and around the world need to know that they can be part of the solution;

- The assurance that developing countries will have access to mechanisms and resources that will help them adapt to the worst impacts of the climate crisis and technologies to solve the problem; and,

- A strong compliance and verification regime.

The road to Copenhagen is not easy, but we have traversed this ground before. We have negotiated the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the ozone layer, and strengthened it to the point where we have banned most of the major substances that create the ozone hole over Antarctica. And we did it with bipartisan support. President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill joined hands to lead the way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/were-arrived-at-a-moment_b_161627.html

www.whitehouse.gov

Reversing The Bush Record...

EsquireUK — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:01:31 EST

Monday, 26th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.whitehouse.gov

Commentary by Albert R. Hunt

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama will enjoy a longer honeymoon because of George W. Bush.

The new president’s transition to the White House has been eased by the preparatory work done by his predecessor. This may be the most successful transfer of power ever in the U.S., and Bush deserves a lot of the credit.

Yet Obama’s prospective good fortunes may owe more to Bush’s failures than his successes.

Every change of administration reflects the public’s desire for an antidote to what it didn’t like about the incumbent. Call it the predecessor-president syndrome.

Sometimes it’s small stuff. Neither Bill Clinton in 1993 nor Bush in 2001 really rode in on a wave of revulsion demanding dramatic change.

Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933, giving him considerable leeway as even his missteps looked better than Herbert Hoover’s. In 1981, Ronald Reagan found it far easier to strike a tough posture following the perceived weakness of Jimmy Carter.

Obama’s situation is analogous to those presidents. Bush left office with disapproval ratings rivaling those of Richard Nixon. On almost any domestic issue, and on more than a few foreign policy ones, the desire for change is powerful.

Some of the Bush antidote themes were evident in the Obama campaign from the beginning. More than a year and a half ago, David Axelrod, his chief political adviser, said what voters “don’t like about Bush is his stubbornness, excessive partisanship, excessive ideology or catering to special interests.”

Obama would offer “civility to reengage in a national dialogue,” he said.

Closing Guantanamo

The opening days of the Obama presidency have been about being the non-Bush: closing down the Guantanamo Bay prison, ending torture and dubious interrogation methods, transparency, sweeping ethics measures, special envoys for the Middle East and South Asia, and reaching out for bipartisan support.

It began with the inaugural address.

For all the public civility between Bush the Republican and Obama the Democrat, the 44th president was blistering in his critique of the past eight years.

His call for “a new era of responsibility” was particularly pointed, since it echoed Bush’s own inaugural address eight years earlier. Obama’s message on Jan. 20: You struck out on responsibility. His call to “restore science to its rightful place,” and deriding of the “false choice between our safety and our ideals” were no less subtle.

The overall theme: “Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America.”

Massive Deficits

Moreover, Bush’s policies, especially economic ones -- record budget deficits and huge government involvement in the financial industry -- will probably inoculate Obama against charges that he’s a reckless, big government liberal.

Republican congressional leaders assail Obama’s economic- stimulus plan. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said taxpayers are “in no mood to have a single dollar wasted” in what he called “a rush to spend their money.” And House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia warns against laying “the groundwork for a future financial catastrophe.”

It’s as if they slept through the past eight years. In 2001, Bush and Congress inherited a $127 billion budget surplus. Under Bush, government debt almost doubled to about $11 trillion.

No Vetoes

During the six years that Bush was president while Republicans mainly controlled Congress, spending soared, special interest projects became commonplace and there wasn’t a single presidential veto of a spending bill.

Thus, Obama has political cover to use the “stimulus” umbrella to push separate energy, education and health-care initiatives that otherwise would require many months of congressional deliberations.

He also plans to make “bold and swift” moves to overhaul the banking system as promised in his inaugural speech. This will entail buying up banks’ bad assets and setting stringent new conditions for firms, with the greatest federal involvement in the financial system in 75 years.

Republicans and economic conservatives will scream. After the Bush administration tried to rescue some of the nation’s biggest financial firms by setting up a $700 billion asset- relief program, those complaints will have a hollow ring.

Dismal Record

Obama has time to show economic progress. Even Republican economist Ken Rogoff says the Bush record has been dismal.

Over the last eight years, the U.S. created the fewest jobs since Hoover’s presidency; real economic growth was only a little more than half the post-World War II average, the stock market plummeted and blue-chip companies went out of business. Whatever the challenges facing the president, the timing is propitious. Just imagine if the financial cratering had occurred six months later.

Some of the symbolism is a fresh respite from the Bush years. Transparency and open government won’t create any jobs or provide health care for kids; they are, however, a welcome relief from the secretive, dark mood inspired by Dick Cheney.

And no pensions are saved when the president expresses outrage that a wealthy executive like former Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Thain, after feeding at the federal trough, spent $1.2 million to lavishly decorate his office. Still, Bush ignored this sort of corporate arrogance, which surely infuriates most Americans.

The Non-Bush

There will be a time when just being the non-Bush won’t be sufficient. Results will be expected; programs and initiatives will be analyzed on their own merits.

Obama has won plaudits for moving to close Guantanamo. What he does with the few dozen really bad guys remains uncertain. He inherits deficits from Bush this year; by 2012, they will be Obama’s.

Internal debates over exactly how to reshape the financial-rescue program and how much to throw at it demonstrate how perilous the situation is, and the elusiveness of clear answers. Getting troops out of Iraq is popular; getting more into Afghanistan won’t be.

Ultimately, these matters will determine the fate of the Obama presidency. The Bush record, however, provides a comfortable political cushion for now.

(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aP81q248ZS9I&refer=politics

www.whitehouse.gov

Please Pardon Paul Pantone

Marianne — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:50:41 EST

Please help Pardon inventor of the GEET Fuel Processor, Paul Pantone, wrongfully imprisoned and terribly mistreated in a facility in Utah for supposedly selling illegal stocks. This was obviously a sinister agenda at play.

We have to get this guy pardoned and his invention considered. Please pass it on:

A report from his son, and phone calll to Paul Pantone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLFt_cUa_0

Here's the actual invention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlrxueyulPc

I've called the Justice Department requesting his case to be considered for pardon. The number there is 202-514-2000. You can also contact the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Let's make some noise!!

President Obama...First 100 Hours

EsquireUK — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:41:16 EST

Monday, 26th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5581120.ece

www.whitehouse.gov

1 Wednesday, 12.05pm: Obama places his hand on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible to swear the 35-word inaugural oath before Chief Justice John Roberts. Puts the word “faithfully” in the wrong place.

2 Delivers 17-minute inauguration address to crowd in Washington estimated at 2m. Biggest cheer when he says it is time to “begin work again — the work of remaking America”.

3 12.56pm: escorts George and Laura Bush to waiting helicopter to say farewell to the former president. They embrace. The helicopter leaves for Texas.

4 “I’m a leftie — get used to it,” he jokes as he signs his first official documents as president. He is the eighth president to be left-handed.

www.whitehouse.gov

5 Attends lunch in the Capitol with congressional leaders, where he dines on a menu from Lincoln’s day. Senator Ted Kennedy collapses before Obama makes his speech.

6 Vans race to the White House to install Obama family belongings. First members of the new administration enter their offices. There are no missing keys on the keyboards, as happened after the Clinton administration departed.

7 Steps into his $300,000 armoured limousine, known as “the Beast”, for the parade to the White House. But then he chooses to walk two blocks, to the delight of the crowd.

8 4.45pm: reviews the parade and 40 bands from a stand at the White House. Delivers a smart salute, which he has been spotted practising earlier.

9 Signs documents instructing military prosecutors to seek 120-day suspension of legal proceedings against the prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This is the first step in executing his campaign promise to close the camp.

10 Barack and Michelle get changed for a night at the inaugural balls. She wears a one-shouldered, ivory silk chiffon gown. He wears white tie.

11 8.33pm: makes his first public dance as president with Michelle at the Neighbourhood Ball to the song At Last performed by Beyoncé. “First of all, how good-looking is my wife?” he says.

12 He attends 10 balls, five more than John F Kennedy during his inauguration night, but fewer than Bill Clinton managed. Obama is rated a good dancer but Michelle is better. At the Midwest Ball he jokes it is “time to dance with the one who brung me, who does everything that I do except backwards and in heels”.

13 At the Youth Inaugural Ball he confirms his reputation as the coolest world leader by saying: “Hit it, band.” And he doesn’t sound embarrassing. At the Commander-in-Chief Ball he dances with an army sergeant, Margaret Herrera, who weeps in his arms. Vice-president Joe Biden makes the sign of the cross as he steps on to the dancefloor himself.

14 The Obamas, both looking weary, return to the White House at about 1am. It is just a nap, because the lights are back on before 5am.

15 Thursday, 8.35am: the president enters the Oval Office and spends 10 minutes quietly meditating alone.

16 As he sits at the Resolute desk, presented by Queen Victoria in 1880, he reads a private letter from his predecessor, addressed to “#44, from #43”.

17 At 9.10am Michelle enters the Oval Office and joins him in a motorcade to the National Cathedral. The service ends with the song He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

18 Back at the White House Obama gets down to work. Meets the Iraq military commanders In the Situation Room. He telephones Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian authority; Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister; King Abdullah of Jordan; and Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt.

19 The president and his wife declare an open house to 200 neighbours. President Obama tells one young man: “Welcome. Enjoy yourself. Roam around. Don’t break anything.”

20 He announces a wage freeze for all White House staff earning more than $100,000 (£73,000) a year. “Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington,” he says.

21 At 7.35pm, Supreme Court Justice Roberts administers the oath of office for the second time. The president tells reporters that they are redoing it because “we decided it was so much fun”. It takes 25 seconds. Later he has dinner with the family in the private dining room on the first floor.

22 The president and first lady arrive at 8.40pm for the “thank you” ball at the DC Armory. Obama makes a gracious speech to thousands of campaign, inaugural and transition staff.

23 On Thursday morning he signs an order to close Guantanamo Bay prison and prohibit torture of suspected terrorists. Later he holds a meeting with his economic adviser about his plans to revive the nation’s struggling economy.

24 Visits the State Department, where he reveals he will name George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader, and Richard Holbrooke, the former UN ambassador, as special envoys to the Middle East and to Pakistan and Afghanistan respectively.

25 Pays a surprise evening visit to the White House press briefing area and reveals he has permission to use a $3,000 specially encrypted BlackBerry. He will be the first president to have personal e-mail at the White House

26 Invites Republican leaders into the White House. So far his nominations have received an easy ride from the opposition party. He also holds meetings with congressional leaders to brief them on the economic crisis, as he can expect a rough ride for the huge economic package that he will propose.

27 After a meeting of the National Security Council he authorises the first American missile strike of his presidency. Later it is reported that the attack killed 22 people on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border. They are the first casualties of his presidency.

28 No doubt exhausted after his first three days in office, the Obamas spend their first evening in the White House. Although they have the use of the private presidential cinema, it is more likely that Obama caught up with time in the gym or the newly installed basketball court, where he likes to play with a few close aides.

29 Sees his economic team, led by Larry Summers, forits daily meeting at the White House. Later, at 11am, in his first radio and YouTube address, he warns the US that a “bad situation could become dramatically worse”.

30 Savours his first weekend as Mr President at the White House with Michelle and their daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. Could it be time to go shopping for a puppy?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5581120.ece

www.whitehouse.gov

President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address

N. Julio Barthson - E-Campaign Leader — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:41:31 EST

A speech for posterity. A speech for the history books. We will never forget...

The Obama Presidency: Day Two

EsquireUK — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:08:25 EST

Thursday, 22nd January 2009

Washington, D.C.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year.

www.whitehouse.gov

A draft order circulated on Wednesday also called for halting military trials in the prison, where terror suspects had been held for years without trial.

Separate orders are expected to ban abusive interrogations and review the detention of terror suspects.

On his first full day in office on Wednesday, Mr Obama issued orders on government ethics and transparency.

The measures included curbs on lobbying and a pay freeze for senior White House staff. Federal employees will have to sign up to new ethics procedures.

Later Mr Obama and his advisers are expected to discuss the global economic downturn affecting the US and also the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Sworn again

Late on Wednesday, a panel in the House of Representatives gave its support to a $358bn government spending package, giving the first post-inaugural backing to the Democrats' economic plans.

Obama sworn in for second time

Mr Obama - who was sworn in as America's new president on Tuesday - said he was beginning "a new era of openness" in government.

He was sworn in for a second time late on Wednesday, because one word had been out of order when the oath was first administered.

The White House said the ceremony had been repeated in an "abundance of caution".

On Wednesday, the US Senate confirmed the appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

Senators earlier approved six Cabinet members, including Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary and Steven Chu as energy secretary. Several other positions are still to be confirmed.

Trials suspended

The draft executive order on the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was circulated by the Obama administration on Wednesday.

Obama diary: The first 100 days Born on Obama's inauguration day In pictures: Obama's first full day

"The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order," the draft read, according to Reuters.

It says anyone still in detention when the prison is shut "shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country or transferred to another United States detention facility".

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a White House official said the order would be signed on Thursday.

Mr Obama has repeatedly promised to close the Guantanamo Bay, where some 250 inmates accused of having links to terrorism remain and 21 cases are pending.

On Wednesday, judges suspended several of the military trials of terror suspects at Guantanamo, at Mr Obama's request. One trial involved several men accused in the 11 September attacks in the US.

The legal process has been widely criticised because the US military acts as jailer, judge and jury, the BBC's Jonathan Beale reports from Guantanamo.

However, closing Guantanamo Bay will not be easy, he says. Questions remain over where those charged will be tried and where those freed can be safely sent.

On Thursday, Mr Obama is also expected to issue a separate executive banning abusive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding - a form of simulating drowning used by the CIA.

The president is also expected to order a review of America's detention policies, a White House official said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/obama_inauguration/7843864.stm

www.whitehouse.gov

WASHINGTON — President Obama moved swiftly on Wednesday to impose new rules on government transparency and ethics, using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides, mandate new limits on lobbyists and demand that the government disclose more information.

Mr. Obama called the moves, which overturned two policies of his predecessor, “a clean break from business as usual.” Coupled with Tuesday’s Inaugural Address, which repudiated the Bush administration’s decisions on everything from science policy to fighting terrorism, the actions were another sign of the new president’s effort to emphasize an across-the-board shift in priorities, values and tone.

“For a long time now there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” Mr. Obama said at a swearing-in ceremony for senior officials at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House. He added, “Transparency and rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/us/politics/22obama.html?_r=1&hp

YOUR PICTURE GALLERY IS NOW LOADING...

Barack Obama has had a busy schedule on his first full day in office as US president. The first public stop for the president and First Lady Michelle Obama was a service at Washington's National Cathedral.

www.whitehouse.gov

MUST SEE New Site...Spread The Word !

Greg Jones' Blacks4Barack ! — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:51:02 EST

It's A New Day !

Visit:
www.WhiteHouse.gov
B4B

www.whitehouse.gov

EsquireUK — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:46:52 EST

Tuesday, 20th January 2009

Washington D.C.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

www.whitehouse.gov

Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States.

His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

www.whitehouse.gov

Inauguration, a day to celebrate!

Emma — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:19:59 EST

During the horrors of Bush’s reign I slowly began to come to the dreadful realization that before long the world might actually find itself in the midst of a third World War, something that had seemed unthinkable for many decades. But the new millennia seemed to hold far more frightening scenarios than ever before imagined and the outcome of all these fears would rest in the hands of the future President of the United States.

For so long it felt like disaster was inevitable, as the hope of all civilized nations, the country that held so much promise, had begun to act so erratically, irresponsibly and impulsively. This was cause for great concern, since the world needed a unifying force more than ever before. The challenges we all faced could not be solved alone and the United States of America was the only potential candidate to unite an unruly world. But President Bush, supported, at least in the beginning, by large numbers of his people, made it clear that the US thought nothing of the rest of the world or the wisdom that had evolved within it.

Then suddenly there was a young Senator from Illinois with the strange name of Barack Obama. It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come since then.

When Obama won in Iowa, it was like the fog finally lifted after so many years of impenetrable darkness. There was hope and possibilities again, a chance at least for peace and prosperity. But going through my own blog posts, as they depict this incredible journey, I can’t help but marvel at the challenges he faced and obstacles he overcame. All of it converging on this day, in this moment in time, when I can finally write the words I have so longed to write; President Obama. It’s enough to take your breath away. But despite the fact that my belief in the possibility of this moment and my faith in this man has never wavered, I have to admit most days it did seem like an impossible dream.

Yet here we are. Today impossible has been proven null and void for all to see. Faith has finally prevailed over despair, commitment and dedication has prevailed over the age old prejudice of money and breeding, and the ethereal experience of hope became an actual beacon in the darkness.

Today millions all over the world enjoy the sensation of victory, the sweat aroma of joyous celebration. It is truly remarkable how many of us became personally invested in this campaign and shared in the struggles and woes of our fellow humans. Never before has the election in nation become such a shared endeavor for so many, so far apart!

Even though I’m unable to be a part of the celebrations in Washington DC today, I will be there in heart and spirit, for this day feels like it belongs as much to me as it does to the American people and others across the globe. It’s more than just the swearing in of yet another President. It’s the pinnacle of a collective journey, where accepted truths were tested and faith challenged, with victory the final outcome. It has been a journey so much greater than one man or one voice.

Barack Obama became the focus point of a world full of hope, dreams and fears and he carried it all without faltering or wavering. I have never been more proud of a single individual before, and elated that he has not yet allowed my belief in him to be in vain.

As countless Americans proudly, and rightly so, declare themselves winners, not just of an election, but rather winners of the battle against the hopelessness and crippling fear that has held the nation in its grip for so long, we should all remember the fragility of this victory. The celebration is well deserved and should be a moment worthy of the history books. But tomorrow the true test and challenge begins.

(More to come… I will continue to blog throughout the day, my small way of being a part of this joyous occasion)

America's Moment Of Change: The Obama Presidency

EsquireUK — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:09:31 EST

Celebrate President Obama's Inauguration

AndrewsMcMeel — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:47:42 EST

Celebrate President Obama's Historic Inauguration with a keepsake book of Nov. 5, 2008 newspaper front pages! http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/products/?isbn=0740784803

Official Inaugural Kick-Off...Steps Of Lincoln Memorial

EsquireUK — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:18:09 EST

Sunday, 18th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

Today the President Elect will kick-off the official inaugural celebration on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in a star-studded show, featuring big names like Sheryl Crow, John Legend, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and Bono. If you’re planning on going, make sure to read up about how to get there and other logistical information.

The event will air live on HBO (non-subscribers will be able to watch it for free) at 2:30 p.m. ET and be webcast on HBO.com. You also can catch encore presentations on HBO at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT.

http://www.pic2009.org/page/content/jan18logistics

The Promise Of A New Beginning www.change.gov

National Service Day and Inauguration Ball at The El Rey Theater!

Erin Oliver — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:52:32 EST

Hi everybody!

I don't know if you have already heard but January 19th is also National Day of Service. This is a day to show and help the communities that we all live in, in unity in an act of goodwill and to show the whole world what kind of people occupy this country. Here in Albuquerque there are a few events going on. One event is DPNM is sponsoring a Day of Service at the Ronald McDonald House and Casa Esperanza in Albuquerque. These organizations help house UNM Hospital patients and their families while they are being treated. We will be aiding them by cleaning, painting, landscaping, home repair, detailing and anything else they can think of! (Lunch will be provided.)

If manual labor isn't for you,come by and donate anything from their wishlist:
http://www.rmhc-nm.org/help/wishlist.php

There is a food drive at roadrunner food bank drive as well.

What I am doing is 1- Donating Blood, I will be donating blood in the name of progressive change (my charity I am trying to start up) as well as others. Please consider donating blood and calling United Blood Services1515 University Blvd., N.E. Albuquerque, NM 87102
1-800-333-8037

Last and most important for me: I am picking up, and accepting drop offs of household goods, furniture, and CLOTHING and toys for The Barrett Foundation ( http://www.barrettfoundation.org/ ) to make a massive donation to them on the 19th. So if my friends here have closets they are willing to go through and toys they want to give away I will pick them up or you can drop them off at my house we are willing to pick up couches, I am donating a washer and drye and the couches right out of my living room. The barrett foundation is a vital part of the Albuquerque community. They provide housing and job training for homeless women and their children. Many of these women and children are homeless because of domestic abuse, mental illness, being laid off their jobs. So please considr doing some "inauguration" cleaning and donate.

I also wanted to address the El Rey inauguration Ball on Tuesday the 20th. I totally understand that most people within my circle of friends do not support the el rey in light of the launchpad tragedy. I am with you there. However, this ball is open to the public, you do not have to pay 1,000 dollars a plate.. you can bring your children and the proceeds are going to charity. There will be a ballott of three different charities, including mine (check out progressivechange.org) that the guests decide how to dispurse. My son is going with me. It is 10 dollars at the door 5 dollars for kids. It starts early at 6:45 so you can celebrate other balls or go to other parties. You can read more about it here http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/communityservice/gptzc2 or http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=87716&id=

Any proceeds that progressive change receives will help us to organize and fund our adopt a teacher program as well as our goal in assisting underpaid, under appreciated civil servants (like teachers, firemen, police, nurses etc) with Solar heat, Solar power and energy effeciant upgrades. On top of throwing an appreciation ceremony for these people who continue to committ to do excellent work despite a harsh economic challenges. So please join me in this.

And if you want to watch the actual swearing in, Enjoy this momentous occasion with the people who shared your joy and tears during the election.

Come join the Democratic Party of New Mexico and friends to watch the inauguration LIVE at IBEW Union Hall. We’ll meet at 9am to begin watching the morning ceremonies. Feel free to bring coffee, donuts, bagels or anything else that you may want to share with your fellow Campaigners.

• When: January 20th, 2009, 9am
• Where: IBEW Union Hall, Renaissance

Donations of $5 are requested to contribute to our Union brothers at IBEW.

So lets hope for some good weather, and a good turn out. Please repost this wherever you see fit.

The Promise Of A New Beginning

EsquireUK — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:58:56 EST

Saturday, 17th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.change.gov

In his final weekly Radio/YouTube address before assuming office, Presiden Elect Barack Obama speaks about the upcoming Inauguration activities, a tradition at the heart of our democracy.

This year’s inauguration will be the most open and accessible in history. Millions of people will come together—not just in the capital, but across the nation—to serve their communities and celebrate a new era of change in America:

On Tuesday, the world will be watching as America celebrates a rite that goes to the heart of our greatness as a nation. For the forty-third time, we will execute the peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next.

www.change.gov
... Here at home, transitions also remind us that what we hold in common as Americans far outweighs our political differences. Throughout the current transition, President Bush and his Administration have extended the hand of cooperation, and provided invaluable assistance to my team as we prepare to hit the ground running on January 20th.
There is much work to be done. But now, all Americans hold within our hands the promise of a new beginning.

www.change.gov

Faithfully Execute The Office of President...Defend The Constitution...

EsquireUK — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:52:03 EST

Saturday, 17th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.change.gov

Inauguration Day Events

http://inaugural.senate.gov/history/daysevents/index.cfm

Morning
Worship Service
The tradition of attending a morning worship service on Inauguration Day
began with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.
Learn more >
Procession to
the Capitol
By tradition, the outgoing President accompanies the President-elect to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony.
Learn more >
Vice President’s
Swearing-In Ceremony
Until 1937, the Vice President was sworn into office in the Senate chamber.
Learn more >
President’s
Swearing-In Ceremony
There have been 54 formal Presidential Inaugural ceremonies, held at over 10 different locations.
Learn more >
Inaugural Address
Since George Washington in 1789, every President has delivered an Inaugural address, ranging from 8,445 words, to just 135.
Learn more >
Departure of the Outgoing President
Following the inaugural ceremony on the west front of the U.S. Capitol, the outgoing President and First Lady leave the Capitol to begin their post-presidential lives.
Learn more >
Inaugural Luncheon
Since 1953, the JCCIC has hosted a luncheon at the U.S. Capitol for the new President, Vice President, and guests.
Learn more >
Inaugural Parade

While early parades were mostly military escorts, by 1841, floats, citizens groups, and bands became standard.

Learn more >

Inaugural Ball
The first Inaugural ball in Washington was thrown for James and Dolley Madison in 1809, at Long's Hotel. There have been as many as 14 balls.
Learn more >

http://inaugural.senate.gov/history/daysevents/index.cfm

www.change.gov

Be The First To Know...5 Days Until Inauguration

EsquireUK — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:48:18 EST

Thursday, 15th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.change.gov

The Presiden Elect and his wife Michelle, along with tens of thousands of Americans, will mark this Martin Luther King Jr., Day by participating in community service events across the country. The following afternoon, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and later that night the new president will celebrate by hosting the first-ever Neighborhood Ball, attended by everyday Americans.

Through interactive technology and a live broadcast on ABC, the Neighborhood Ball will be linked with local, grassroots parties across the country, making for a truly special night that all Americans can take part in. The event will include musical performances by Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Shakira, Stevie Wonder and Nick Cannon.

You can sign up to host or attend a Neighborhood Ball in your community at PIC2009.org.

These parties can be as simple as a group of neighbors gathering in a living room or local restaurant to watch the live broadcast and interact online and through text messaging. Local Neighborhood Balls will be a place to gather with neighbors to celebrate an historic night, the end to one long journey, and the beginning of a new one.

President Elect Obama himself explained:

This is an inauguration for all Americans. I wanted to make sure that we had an event that would be open to our new neighborhood here in Washington, D.C., and also the neighborhoods across the country. Michelle and I look forward to joining our fellow Americans across the country during this very special event.

www.change.gov

MoveOn's First Action Event of 2009 Today Was a Beautiful Day

Erin Oliver — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:59:09 EST

this was written by Suzanne Prescott

In less than 72 hours MoveOn volunteers Angela Texiera, Erin Oliver and Connie Orendorf stepped up and together with other MoveOn volunteers organized the first MoveOn action in Albuquerque of 2009. The group, waving placards and carrying petitions amidst much honking and smiles from passing motorists, met outside Senator Tom Udall's office at 3rd and Copper. The signs read 'New Jobs - Green Jobs' and the petitions urged Senator Udall to support the passage of the Obama economic recovery plan as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Angela Texeira, second from left, stepped up to help organize the Wednesday, January 14, 2009 MoveOn event.

Erin Oliver, MoveOn media representative talks with a channel 7 reporter.

Senator Udall was in Washington D.C., so MoveOn volunteers presented the petitions to Udall staffers. Sarah Cobb and Bill Woldman listened as MoveOn spokesperson Connie Orendorf explained that Americans want a comprehensive economic recovery plan which invests in green jobs, health care, and clean energy. Ms. Orendorf stressed that the time of special interest influence must end in order to turn the country around.
Connie Orendorf, left, stresses the importance of passing an economic recovery plan quickly as Sarah Cobb and Bill Woldman listen.

Orendorf pointed out that some right wing Republicans in Congress are still pushing for politics as usual and are trying to remove important parts of the economic recovery plan. MoveOn stressed that it's time to put a failed ideology aside and that the President with the help of Congress can turn a new vision for America into reality by passing a strong economic recovery plan.

Udall Field Representative, Bill Woldman responded, saying, "Your emphasis on green jobs is the key," adding that new investment in clean energy can make New Mexico a world leader. The local MoveOn action was one of many similar events held across the country, including a similar event at Tom Udall's cousin, Senator Mark Udall's office in Denver. MoveOn action councils are organizing to show that Americans are not giving up until America gets back on track toward prosperity. For more information contact MoveOn representative Erin Oliver at eoliver@progressivechange.org .

Obamainaugural is using Twitter...

EsquireUK — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:08:58 EST

Tuesday, 13th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.change.gov

Hey there! obamainaugural is using Twitter.Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Join today to start receiving obamainaugural's updates.

http://twitter.com/obamainaugural

obamainaugural Pictures from an Inauguration volunteer training session in Washington, DC http://bit.ly/15QOf about 14 hours ago from webCheck out our profile of the Suurimmaanitchuat Eskimo Dance Group from Alaska (they're marching in the Inaugural Parade) http://is.gd/fBSe about 17 hours ago from webMichelle Obama just recorded a short video about President-elect Obama's call to service http://bit.ly/yknY about 21 hours ago from webFull lineup released for Lincoln Memorial welcome event on Sunday: "We Are One" http://is.gd/fz43 about 21 hours ago from webLots of important logistical information about the swearing-in at our Inauguration "Plan Your Trip" page http://is.gd/fwIU (h/t JCCIC) 7:47 AM yesterday from webWatch President-elect Obama in a new public service ad by the Presidential Inaugural Committee and Advertising Council http://bit.ly/2UhkIN 7:42 AM yesterday from webDress rehearsal photos from the swearing-in, Presidential Review of troops, and the landing of Marine One http://tinyurl.com/8onog9 11:52 AM Jan 11th from webAnd check out photos from the official Parade dress rehearsal this morning http://bit.ly/NyyD 10:29 AM Jan 11th from webFun profile of The Azalea Trail Maids from Mobile, Alabama, who will be marching in the Inaugural Parade http://is.gd/fntv 10:28 AM Jan 11th from webObama to hold bipartisan dinners the night before the Inauguration http://bit.ly/jz3p 11:25 AM Jan 10th from webUnfortunately, parade tickets sold out very quickly. Check back at http://pic2009.org for updates about other tickets 1:14 PM Jan 9th from webFirst two DC students chosen to receive prime seating at the Inaugural Parade after submitting essays about service http://bit.ly/mJLh 12:36 PM Jan 9th from webGen. Colin Powell http://bit.ly/I0V7 and Jill Biden http://bit.ly/zetd welcome you to http://USAservice.org - find or host an event on 1/19 8:58 AM Jan 9th from webParade tickets go on sale at 1pm today! $25 http://bit.ly/kpfv 202-397-SEAT (7328), 410-547-SEAT (7328) or http://www.ticketmaster.com 7:37 AM Jan 9th from webTonight is your last chance to donate for an opportunity to be selected to attend the Inauguration http://bit.ly/dXqd (deadline 11:59pm ET) 4:11 PM Jan 8th from webThe Neighborhood Ball and the Children’s Concert will be broadcast on ABC and The Disney Channel (also webcasted live) http://bit.ly/teR9 2:35 PM Jan 8th from webFor those coming to DC, a big list of the Smithsonian's special expanded programs and services over Inauguration Weekend http://bit.ly/gQL0 10:25 AM Jan 8th from webWe've just launched www.USAservice.org — Sign up today to attend or host a local service event on January 19th to "Renew America Together" 1:17 PM Jan 7th from webCynthia Russell, the first supporter chosen to attend the Inauguration, was featured on the Today Show this morning http://bit.ly/4MhV 7:44 AM Jan 7th from webA group of everyday Americans will join President-elect Obama on the "Whistle Stop Tour" train ride to DC on Jan. 17th http://bit.ly/3xaE 5:40 AM Jan 7th from web

www.change.gov

Be The First To Know...7 Days Until Inauguration

EsquireUK — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:50:27 EST

Tuesday, 13th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

Renew America together, let us live through the journey of service:

www.change.gov

Thousands of events will take place across the country on Monday, January 19th, as people connect through our new site, USAservice.org. In Washington, DC, the President-elect and Michelle Obama will participate in local events to serve their new home.

No matter what you do – mentoring at-risk youth, giving blood, volunteering at a homeless shelter, cleaning up a park – this is just the beginning.

President-elect Obama’s initiative begins now, but it ultimately demands an enduring commitment from every one of us to serve our communities well in to the future. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (in whose honor we’ll serve next week):

If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But, recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness.

Please visit USAservice.org to find an event near you. Now is the time to remind all Americans what ordinary people can accomplish when we stand together. Join us on January 19th in our effort to Renew America Together.

www.change.gov

Dreams of Barack Obama's Inauguration

N. Julio Barthson - E-Campaign Leader — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:37:54 EST

I still can't believe it's actually happening. Please, tell me I'm not dreaming...

Economic Advice for Obama from Everywhere

N. Julio Barthson - E-Campaign Leader — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:18:03 EST

See, now this is being helpful.

Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly With His Song

Bob Bethany — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:33:47 EST

I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style, and so I came to see him & listen for a while...and there he was this young boy, a stranger to my eye. Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words... Roberta Flack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpNdMIAnKko

News Release:The Joint Congressional Committee

EsquireUK — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:33:20 EST

For Immediate Release
Sunday, 11th January 2009

JCCIC Releases Map and Ticket Information for
Inaugural Swearing-in Ceremonies... More Info

WASHINGTON, D.C. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies today released information about the ticket and access plan for January 20, 2009. The official map of the Capitol Grounds shows the various tickets sections, identifies the colors of the tickets that correspond to each section, and identifies the most convenient Metro Stop for that sections�� entry point.

Tickets for the Inaugural Swearing-in Ceremonies will be released to Members of Congress beginning Monday, January 12, 2009. Each Member��s office is then responsible for distributing their allotment of tickets to their constituents. Members of Congress are no longer taking requests for tickets.

The 240,000 color-coded tickets were printed by the Government Printing Office and contain multiple security features to protect against counterfeiting. Every person attending the Swearing-in Ceremonies on the Capitol Grounds is required to have a ticket, including children (with the exception of infants too young to walk).

Ticketed guests must enter the Capitol Grounds through the entry point designated for their particular section. Because of the large crowds expected to be travelling to the Capitol Grounds and the National Mall, and the numerous street closures and other security measures that will impact travel routes, ticketed guests are advised to make careful plans to ensure they arrive at their designated access point well in advance of the start of the official program. Security screening gates will open at 8:00 AM, music will begin at 9:00 AM, and the formal program begins at 11:30 AM. Guests not through the screening points by 11:30 AM may not be allowed to enter.

Following are important notes for ticketed guests coming to the U.S. Capitol Grounds:

Ticketed guests with tickets in any of the south sections (Orange and Blue) or the Mall Standing Areas (Silver) will enter through gates on the south side of the Capitol Grounds. Due to the closure of Pennsylvania Avenue for the parade, those guests coming from the north will have to access the south side of the Capitol Grounds in the following ways:

Metro: Use the Federal Center SW or Capitol South Metro stops, and walk from there (there will be signage, Wayfinders and U.S. Capitol police personnel directing tickets holders to the correct access points) Alternative Metro exits in case of overcrowding include L��Enfant Plaza to the west and Eastern Market to the east;
On Foot from the East or Northeast: Walk around the east side of the Capitol using 2nd Street NE/SE (or streets further east) to reach C Street SE and walk west from there to the Blue, Orange and Silver gates.
On foot from the North or Northwest: Use the 3rd Street tunnel, entrance at 3rd and D Streets near the Labor Department, NW to cross under Pennsylvania Avenue and the Mall. The tunnel will be closed to through traffic and open for pedestrian use, and this will be the only way to cross Pennsylvania Avenue and the Mall near the Capitol.

Ticketed guests in the north sections (Yellow and Purple tickets) will enter on the North side of the Capitol grounds. Guests will also need to follow routes that do not require them to cross Pennsylvania Avenue.

Metro: Union Station is the best access point for Yellow Ticket Holders; Judiciary Square is the preferred Metro station for Purple ticket holders.
On foot from the South or Southwest �� Use the 3rd Street tunnel to cross under the Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue. One side of the tunnel will be closed for pedestrian use, and this is the only way to cross the Mall near the Capitol. Or, walk around the Capitol to the east using 2nd Street SE/NE (or streets further east) to reach the north side of the Capitol Grounds.

Metro riders should be aware that Metro trains may not be able to stop at stations that are deemed to be overcrowded for safety reasons. If this happens, and ticketed persons miss the designated stop for their ticket area, they should get off at the next possible stop and walk back toward their designated station.

Information about how to access the Capitol Grounds and other important information for people with tickets to the Inaugural Swearing-in Ceremonies is available on the website of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, http://www.inaugural.senate.gov. The website also includes an interactive map that allows users to enter their address and find public transportation routes to the Capitol. The map includes markers for all VRE, MARC, and Metrorail train stations operating on Inauguration Day outside the District of Columbia. When a marker is selected (or clicked) an information bubble displays showing the station name, address, type of transportation (metro, VRE, MARC), and two links: one to the station web page and one to the inauguration page setup by either VRE, MARC, or metro. This will help people make decisions about which form of transportation is best to use.

###

Please note that opening times listed on the tickets have been revised due to the anticipated crowds. Screening points will open at 8:00 AM and music will begin at 9:00 AM.

2009 Committee Members

Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Chairman
D-CA
Sen. Harry Reid
U.S. Senate Majority Leader
D-NV
Sen. Bob Bennett
Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration
R-UT
Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
D-CA
Rep. Steny Hoyer
U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader
D-MD
Rep. John Boehner
U.S. House of Representatives Republican Leader
R-OH

® Economics in Action = History

diasporaonline — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:39:48 EST

When Karl Marx coined "History is economics in action" and we seem to understand distinct dynamics, that's where we lose sight of the real interplay between History and Economics. That's because in our daily lives most decisions we face have unintended consequences, which then combine to create larger-scale social forces having an utterly unpredictable effect. Production and demand fuel basic needs fulfillment of people interacting in society at large, creating an intense, rather than a static framework.

It appears now through unbiased media that such a crisis of great magnitude nationwide, otherwise worldwide, is a result of biased politics distorting the truth and providing biased public opinion through media bias.

These aspects are worth recollecting in a sense they show how one can set a paradigm and operate within as long as it lasts...Life comes at us fast (now more than ever before) when we seem to ignore the true rationale of Evolution, Revolution or simply the essence of Change!

As recently reported Alan Greenspan "I found a flaw," he confessed. "I was shocked because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well"... "40 years or more", meaning a decade after the economic slump of the Great Depression that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1940. By 1932, U.S. manufacturing output had fallen to 54 percent of its 1929 level, and unemployment risen to between 12 and 15 million workers, or 25-30 percent of the work force. In absolute terms, same downturn ratios, counting, prevail.

Business Week's June 18 2007 cover story estimates that 40% of the gain in US manufacturing output since 2003 is phantom GDP: same wrongdoings about the Mortgage Industry, more about speculations than true facts..!

Same way a renewal in politics is in dire need, same goes for an economic policy renewal. As the United States is experiencing major unexpected transformations in its demographics, economics and politics combined, Change remains the most prevalent keyword of our times. But what it means to undergoing Change at a pace we barely have time and the skills to pinpoint the true rationale? You don't need to dig deep to realize that average american as well is not aware of the power of Media in ways it's shaping his way of thinking, and weighing the future... such a whole dedication hitherto unknown in the history psychological conditioning is today the only battle worth raging!

How to take back that personal sense of judgment and restore that innate ability to weigh in the light of an array of facts, concerns and issues and make the right choice?

Less and less that question will draw on historically preset figures and emotionally tainted solutions that only help achieve biased personal interests instead of the masses.

During this recent Election Season, the numbers of underrepresented first time voters and constituencies have remained at an all-time high, and most recent voters behaviors surveys about political leaders and priorities denote a growing trend to uncertainties and vote swing at an unprecedented rate... Here is the reason why we should engage more in local and national debates fostering the truth of our times. True facts are built-in components, what spirit is in it for?

The true is, it's all about preconceived ideas that spare black and white away, And that values keep being taken for granted as gender specific; Most race projections are seemingly tied to geography.

All of a same page that is to date proven, right before our eyes, false, reiterating that Free Will without which our Future and all the expectations it carries are vain.

Demba Ndiaye, more on Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Demba_Ndiaye

Dionne Warwick

Bob Bethany — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:08:49 EST

Dionne Warwick music video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnbA_vjCR8w

Joint Session Of Congress Makes It Official...

EsquireUK — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:38:40 EST

Thursday, 8th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.change.gov

In a Joint Session of Congress, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were officially certified as President-elect and Vice President-elect paving the way for the inauguration in just twelve days.

www.change.gov

Obama Win Keepsake Book -- Newspaper Front Pages From Nov. 5, 2008

AndrewsMcMeel — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:16:13 EST

President Obama keepsake book available now!

President Obama Election 2008: A Collection of Newspaper Front Pages Selected by the Poynter Institute

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States was a worldwide historic event resulting in perhaps some of the most important front pages in US history. President Obama Election 2008 is a collection of over seventy November 5th, 2008 newspaper front pages from around the world. There is no better statement of the emotion, excitement, and significance of this moment in history.

During his campaign for the White House, Barack Obama garnered an almost frenzied following. President Obama Election 2008 will be a cherished keepsake or gift for any of the millions of Americans who cast their vote for the 44th President of the United States. Here is the must-have commemorative book on this historic event.

    * Features over 70 historic newspaper front-pages from the day after the election, including international, campus, and ethnic publications.
    * Includes an introduction by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.
    * Compiled by The Poynter Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan school of journalism.

About The Poynter Institute

Founded in 1975, The Poynter Institute is a school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders. It promotes excellence and integrity in the practice of craft and in the practical leadership of successful businesses. It stands for a journalism that informs citizens and enlightens public discourse. It carries forward Nelson Poynter's belief in the value of independent journalism in the public interest. As a financially independent, nonprofit organization, The Poynter Institute is beholden to no interest except its own mission: to help journalists seek and achieve excellence.

Buy now! http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/products/?isbn=0740784803

A Time to Nourish Ourselves with the Hot Interplay of Ideas

Joseph — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:55:33 EST

I grew up being educated about why ours was the most hopeful system, because it was under the sway of human decency, common sense and imagination, and not the urges of the powerful. Between a Catholic school —the lessons of which resonate with me more as philosophy, the quest for understanding and fellowship and an ethical approach to citizenship— and a family of Republicans —the strictures of which resonate more in me as a lesson about the virtues and the pitfalls of caution and the vice and convenience of a narrow focus—, I came to understand that American democracy was an epic struggle against history, in hopes of bettering the condition of the individual human being, and securing a just and open society against tyranny and its wasting of vital energies.

I had never felt like a political being, as a child, though my grandfather held office in New Jersey and my upbringing did instill in me a lasting social consciousness. I can recall the feeling of a thrill running through me when I saw in Bill Clinton a president who worked for the people, with committed intellectual passion, and who included us, or made an effort to appear to count the people as part of the work of governing. Maybe it was the first real instance of the Democratic approach my young consciousness had been able to witness, and the experience helped to fix a meditative, philosophical mind, interested in ecology and the possibility of justice in human society, on a set of values in political action: defend the defenseless, struggle against oppressors, and let each person choose the best life possible, which should, ideally, entail the chance to build that life from one's own vision and energies.

It had never seemed clear to me that freedom implied a negation of the ethical bond to others, and it worried me that so many genuinely radical principles, negating the social contract on which I think all successful democracies are based, were taking root as the latter Bush rose from obscurity, heading into the 2000 campaign. I think it is hardly an original observation to note that between the procedural fiasco of the 2000 election and the first year of George W. Bush's presidency, it was as if we had been nudged by some remorseless antagonistic force into a twilight-zone America, where all the dark projections that we were taught to associate with the fear of Soviet world dominance, were becoming pet projects of mainstream agencies in our government. "Total Information Awareness" and the "USA PATRIOT Act" were just two examples. The Constitution was becoming the adversary, a suspicious, revolutionary text that would only serve to dilute the power of the new set of arrogant hands urging the wheel of state away from what we used to proudly call the common values of American democracy.

In the year 2000, Al Gore made a desperately difficult choice, and opted to withdraw from remaining avenues of contest and support the integrity of the Constitutional system, by honoring the verdict of the Supreme Court with regard to Florida. Instead of further legal challenges or calling for the impeachment of one or more Justices, instead of calling his supporters into the streets, Gore bet on the virtues of process and carried out his duties, counting the votes of Florida for his opponent. It was an act of devotion to the fragility of the democratic process, and to the faith that the rule of law and the government by the people, would prevail, in time.

I think in many ways, I was drawn into poetry, philosophy and my love of language, by the degree of poetry and philosophy I had early-on learned were a part of the cultural landscape of our democracy, how great words artfully rendered revealed truths and how those words had summoned and focused the humanity of a continent to move for liberation, time and again.

In 2004, when I saw Barack Obama address the Democratic National Convention, it was the first time I had seen any political figure so infused with this deep historic current of poetry, philosophy, and brilliantly humane rhetoric, so exhibiting the hope, faith and fearless devotion to the idea of American democracy, to the aspiration inherent in that idea. It was a moment whose resonance, in combination with a growing grassroots pro-democracy movement, is now deservedly incalculable. With the unflappable poise of humanitarian principle, indignant about the poisoning of our public discourse, and serious about serving, Obama reminded us that in the depths of our humanity, we retain, at all times, the urge to distinguish between right and wrong, and to apply our energies to bettering the general condition of the world.

I was living in Europe, working in the Spanish language, talking to people who had fled repressive political systems in other parts of the world, or who had seen such a system choking Spanish society for decades, and receiving critiques and good wishes from all quarters, from the 10th of February, 2007, when I began asking everyone I knew to spend a little time with Barack Obama's announcement speech, on the steps of the old State House in Springfield. No other document, as far as I was concerned, so ably expressed what I felt was my homeland, the fundamental grace and potential good of a place we feel proud of, but don't flaunt, the nation whose icons are foundational ideas and whose revolutionary spirit still lives in us, latent, waiting to take up the challenges of reform and ingenuity, humanism and public discourse, that come in times of historic upheaval.

I was often told, as I had been so many times before, that I was too idealistic for believing Obama could defeat the Republican machine, or the Democratic machine, for that matter. My well-meaning European friends would tell me, as if advising a lost soul, he's too much the poet, too much an idealist, that America is not evolved enough to elect a visionary. And, he's black. America could not be evolved enough to elect an African American, I was endlessly told. And I would say with confidence, ever more sure, that I know they've seen disappointment, corruption and debasement in their politics, that they feel betrayed on a human level by what our government had been doing, but that I know the heart of my country, and I trust that we are ready to do great things, and it's impossible not to recognize the hunger that is everywhere across our culture, for something smarter, better, more compassionate, more effective, for able leadership that manifests the virtues we like to see in ourselves.

I found that at every level, even in one-on-one conversations on other continents, we Americans, or maybe the people of the world generally, are engaged in a fierce struggle against cynicism. It became clearer to me that mayybe it's not about cynics versus idealists, but that those laboring to infect every corner of our political culture with the logic of force and the desolate attitudes of cynicism, were in fact victims of cynicism, already fallen, and that our struggle was not against "the cynics" but against those unfortunate people who had fallen into the moral bankruptcy of cynicism, embracing its flawed logic and its false promises.

American history is full of grave deviations from our ideals, but is also a story of transcendent progress, in service of which we continually open our society, ever further, in search of a more just, more humane, more philosophically progressive and democratic society. We answer challenges, and thanks to the devotion and poetry of as rare a voice as Barack Obama's, we were awakening to the fact that our most perilous challenge was here at home, at the helm, that we were facing a crisis of self-fashioning, in which we could cripple or empower ourselves and future generations.

I'm not the only person whose eyes welled up in joy and faith on the night of November 4, 2008. My staunch Republican father, for example, a vehement McCain supporter, but a now-and-again critic of his party's leadership, told me he could not help being overcome by the beauty and human accomplishment of the moment, that he was proud of his country and that seeing the Rev. Jesse Jackson reduced to tears, at what must have seemed an almost impossible and amazing overturning of historic injustices, moved him deeply.

For me, Barack Obama's inauguration is both a restoration —to our nation's transcendent character of hope and idealism, of confident ingenuity and capacity for great and human vision— and a surpassing of global resonance. It means that people can again find communion in civics, in civility, in unabashed hopes and in the work of manifesting our ideals, always just a little better than the best of us, but always worth reaching for; it means we can find common cause in those "better angels of our nature".

To me, this inauguration marks the beginning of a time in which we will be consistently driven to realize the best of what we are as a political culture, motivated by the constant reminder of one of our most transformative historic achievements. Back in the United States, having returned in hopes of being able to contribute somehow to making this moment more likely, at work on my own projects of expression and innovation, I feel as if I have really come home for the first time to the country of my origins, to the rich earth of a place where the deepest roots and the furthest extensions of my own true self, find nourishment in the hot interplay of public ideas and the real possibility of working together to find the right approach, and be the solutions our times demand of us.

Presidential Inauguration...You Could Be There

EsquireUK — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:54:24 EST

You could be there on Inauguration Day as Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President. Ten supporters will be selected between now and midnight on January 8th to join the inaugural activities. You and a guest could be flown to Washington, D.C., put up in a hotel, and be part of this once-in-a-lifetime event. Unlike past inaugurations, this one won't be funded by lobbyists or corporations. Barack is counting on grassroots supporters like you to make this the most open and accessible Inauguration in history. Make a donation right now to make the inauguration a success.

If you'd prefer not to make a donation, sign up here and you could still be selected to attend the Inauguration.

Our First Guest at the Inauguration

Last week, we announced that the Presidential Inaugural Committee would be selecting 10 Americans to attend the historic inauguration of Barack Obama and Joe Biden on January 20th, 2009.

In an e-mail message this morning, Michelle Obama announced the selection of the first grassroots supporter chosen to attend the Inauguration.

Cynthia Russell, of Newberry, Florida, and her guest will attend the welcome ceremony, President-elect Obama’s swearing-in, the Inaugural Parade, and our Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.

Cynthia has been a builder for 18 years, but, like so many Americans, she is under pressure because of the economic crunch.

I’ve supported myself and have been able to help out my mother from time to time. Now I find myself wondering how much longer I can hold on and be able to pay my bills and keep the doors open for business.

But she is hopeful that President-elect Obama will lead the nation through this challenging time.

As she pushes ahead, striving to maintain her business and home, she will take a few days vacation to attend the Inauguration as a guest of the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Want to sit with Cynthia at the Inauguration? We’re still looking for nine more supporters like her. Donate and let us know what this Inauguration means to you, and you could be selected to witness this historic event on January 20th.

January 5, 2009, 1:16 pm Obama to Attend ‘Neighborhood Ball’By Katharine Q. Seelye

On inauguration night, Barack and Michelle Obama will dance their first dance as the first family with their new neighbors, including members of the public and residents of Washington.

“In keeping with his commitment to make this inaugural celebration open and accessible to all Americans, President-elect Barack Obama will host the first-ever ‘Neighborhood Inaugural Ball’ during this year’s inaugural celebration,” says a statement from the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

“It is the first official inaugural ball of its kind to be held during a presidential inauguration,” the statement adds.

There have been rumors for weeks that Mr. Obama would hold a so-called people’s ball; the announcement confirms that it will be the first event of inauguration evening on Jan. 20 and will take place at the Washington Convention Center, where several balls are being held.

Tickets will be free or at “an affordable price,” and some of the tickets will be set aside for residents of the District of Columbia.

“This is an inauguration for all Americans,” Mr. Obama said in the statement. “I wanted to make sure that we had an event that would be open to our new neighborhood here in Washington, D.C., and also neighborhoods across the country. Michelle and I look forward to joining our fellow Americans across the country during this very special event.”

In a symbol of the importance of the Web, both to Mr. Obama’s election and presumably to how he will run the government, this ball will be interactive, with webcasting and text messaging, “to link neighborhoods across the country with the new president and this premier event.”

Details coming soon, both on the distribution of tickets and on how people at neighborhood balls across the country can link up, virtually, of course, to this one.

This is just one of the 10 official balls that the Obamas will be attending that night. Five others are at the convention center (cutting down on the need for a motorcade). The other four are at the National Building Museum, the Hilton Hotel, Union Station and the D.C. Armory.

www.change.gov

Utah Democrats Host Inaugural Party at "The DEPOT"

Marc - "It's a New Day" — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:58:47 EST

EVENT: Utah Democratic Party Inaugural Ball

Utah Inauguration Night Ball

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 @ 7:00 pm

Location: The Depot
13 N 400 W, Salt Lake City
(The Depot is a private club - must be 21 or older to attend)

Entertainment includes 2008 State Senate candidate

John Rendell's band - Mean Phoenix

Marc Buckley - former Salt Lake KZQQ Radio DJ

Be The First To Know...16 Days Until Inauguration

EsquireUK — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 03:48:27 EST

Sunday, 4th January 2009

Washington, D.C.

www.change.gov

MTV announced that it has partnered with ServiceNation to co-host the "Be the Change Inaugural Ball" in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2009 — the same day President-elect Barack Obama will take his oath of office.

The event will celebrate the massive youth-voter turnout in this month's presidential election and an active commitment from America's youth to impart positive social change through volunteer service. ServiceNation is an organization that campaigns to increase support for expanding national service programs like the Peace Corps and Americorps. In September, it hosted a forum with Obama and Senator John McCain, in which both presidential candidates agreed on the importance of community involvement.

A record 24 million people between the ages of 18 and 29 voted in the 2008 presidential election, accounting for 18 percent of the 133.3 million voters who hit the polls. It marked the third major election in a row with increased youth-voter numbers, and for the first time in 20 years, the number of young voters surpassed the number of voters over the age of 65.

The ball will be staged at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center and will feature several leading artists, celebrities and government officials (to be named later), alongside hundreds of young people who've been chosen to attend based on their demonstrated volunteerism.

The "Be the Change Inaugural Ball" will be televised live across all MTV platforms, including MTV, MTV2, MTV Tr3s, mtvU, MTV Hits, MTV Jams and MTV.com on the evening of January 20. Exact air times will be announced in the coming weeks.

The live television event will also include live broadcasts from other locations across the globe, where young people are completing major service projects. Leading up to the event, MTV will showcase stories of young people providing service within their communities on a daily basis, beginning on January 1.

"Over the last year and culminating in this election, we have seen a groundswell of engagement and a refreshed spirit of activism from young people," MTV general manager Stephen Friedman said. "ServiceNation is the perfect partner for this inaugural event, given that they encompass a broad coalition of youth service organizations. We want to celebrate young people across the nation who are answering the call and working to make changes in their communities and beyond."

www.change.gov

President-elect Obama will host a Commander-in-Chief’s Ball on the night of January 20th in honor of our country’s brave men and women in uniform. Those invited will include wounded warriors (Purple Heart recipients), families of fallen heroes, and spouses of deployed military.

www.change.gov

"It is a privilege to honor our men and women in uniform during our inaugural festivities by continuing the tradition of the Commander-in-Chief’s Ball. Our troops represent the best America has to offer, and without their dedication and sacrifice we would not be able to enjoy the freedoms that we are coming together to celebrate on January 20th. They deserve our thanks and our gratitude. Michelle and I look forward to attending the Commander-in-Chief’s Ball and sharing this special evening with representatives of our armed forces." - President-Elect Barack Obama

Rescue Me - Fontella Bass

Bob Bethany — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:31:27 EST

This song fits the times we're in. Originally performed by - Fontella Bass -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXSocE_M1G4

Be The First To Know...18 Days Until Inauguration

EsquireUK — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:40:34 EST

Only 18 days until 20th January, 2009 - Inauguration Day

www.change.gov

Reminder: Volunteer Signup Deadline is Today Interested in volunteering for the 56th Presidential Inauguration? Fill out the application now. The deadline to submit your application is 11:59 p.m. Today.

www.pic2009.org

Curtis Mayfield-We Got To Have PEACE

Bob Bethany — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:43:05 EST

Curtis Mayfield - WE Got To Have PEACE

click to view - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QglEbgON9o