Jack & Jill Politics

enter Oprama...http://lamasletterstoamerica.blogspot.com/2008/12/dear-opramists.html

The Seven Deadly Deficits
NEWS: What the Bush years really cost us, and how President Obama can get the economy back on track.

By Joseph E. Stiglitz
November/December 2008 Issue

When president George W. Bush assumed office, most of those disgruntled about the stolen election contented themselves with this thought: Given our system of checks and balances, given the gridlock in Washington, how much damage could be done? Now we know: far more than the worst pessimists could have imagined. From the war in Iraq to the collapse of the credit markets, the financial losses are difficult to fathom. And behind those losses lie even greater missed opportunities.

Put it all together—the money squandered on the war, the money wasted on a housing pyramid scheme that impoverished the nation and enriched a few, and the money lost because of the recession—and the gap between what we could have produced and what we did produce will easily exceed $1.5 trillion. Think what that kind of money could have done to provide health care for the uninsured, to improve our education system, to build green technology...The list is endless.

There is more.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/11...

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve by Ella Fitzgerald

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cxoq1Q2DY0

I am inclined to think like JJP poster Michele that Obama is a master at narrative and story telling. His previous comments and actions as a negotiator, conciliator and latest "no comments" about Israeli aggression lead me to believe that in many ways Obama will continue business as usual with some superficial changes that will be retold and packaged as seismic change. I am willing to be surprised but I think he has pretty much telegraphed how he is going to act on many issues from foreign policy, health care, the economy based on who he has surrounded himself with. I think this article on BAR The Wait Till He Gets In Delusion: The President Elect is Not a Latent Lefty http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?opti... does a great job of synthesizing what I am feeling. I was never under the impression that he was truly progressive. I did think that Obama could be forced to accept progressive ideals. But this ceaseless apologism ( is that a word?) from progressives is not what is needed to force a progressive agenda. We need to remember what has been promised by the Obama campaign and be ready to hold his administration accountable. Dont get swept up in the narrative pageantry and rhetoric but look at what he promised and make sure he delivers.

Excerpt from the BAR article:
There were four key problems with this alternatively naïve and cynical defense of candidate Obama's centrism. First, it neglected Obama's history as a deeply conciliatory and conservative, privilege-friendly politician. From his Harvard Law School days through his state legislative career and his brief stint in the U.S. Senate, Obama has exhibited what liberal journalist Ryan Lizza rightly calls "an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions."

Those who think Obama is a "true progressive" whose left and democratic orientation has been "squandered" or carefully hidden thanks to his national political ambitions and/or the influence of his political handlers might want to consider an interesting description of the young phenomenon penned by the veteran black political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. just as Obama's political career began. By Reed's account, Obama came to the political game with an already advanced and highly cultivated bourgeois taste for incremental change and compromise with concentrated power. Alternately praised (by moderates) as "pragmatism" and "realism" and reviled (by left progressives and radicals) as "selling out" and "cooptation," his finely honed centrism was a habit of thought that flowed naturally from his elite socialization in a corporate-neoliberal post-Civil Rights era at privileged private institutions like Columbia, Harvard, and the metropolitan foundations (including the Woods Fund of Chicago and the Joyce Foundation) on whose boards he sat and in whose circles he moved (a rarely noted aspect of Obama's biography) while he worked as a Chicago lawyer.

"Obama came to the political game with an already advanced and highly cultivated bourgeois taste for incremental change and compromise with concentrated power."

This is how Reed described the 30-something Obama in early 1996, shortly after the latter won his first election to the Illinois legislature and more than eight years before the world beyond Springfield and the Chicago and Washington money-politics elite discovered the "Obama phenomenon":

"In Chicago, for instance, we've gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation-hatched black communitarian voices: one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program - the point where identity politics converges with old-fashioned middle class reform in favoring form over substances. I suspect that his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics here, as in Haiti and wherever the International Monetary Fund has sway." [1]

SKIP

There's little basis for many progressives' desire to share some right-wingers' picture of Obama as a closeted true-progressive waiting for the White House ascendancy to unveil his left agenda.

Path Confusion

Second, to quote a Buddhist maxim, "the path is the goal." The point can be exaggerated, but it is hard to end up on the left turn ramp while driving in the center and right lanes. It is difficult (thought not impossible) to rally the troops for progressive change while steering again and again - however stealthily (see my next point) - to the corporate and imperial right.

Third, the bigger truth is that candidate Obama tended to run to the rhetorical left of his actual policy agenda. Especially during the primary campaign, he sounded far more progressive than he actually was. He posed for the liberal base as an "antiwar candidate" even while he signaled clearly to the foreign policy establishment that he would continue the Iraq occupation for an indefinite period. He ran as an advocate of universal heath insurance even while he advanced a plan that left critical cost-driving power in the hands of the big insurance and pharmaceutical corporations.

Things He Didn't "Have" to Say and Do

Last but not least, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Obama repeatedly said and did things more reactionary than actually required to make a viable presidential run and still pass muster with concentrated power. The imperial plutocracy didn't require Obama to vote for the expansion of federal domestic wiretapping powers with retroactive immunity to the big telecommunications corporations last spring.

Harsh political power realities did not mean that Obama "had" to tell CNN's Candy Crowley last summer that the U.S. should never apologize for any of its actions abroad. A supposedly great and benevolent empire can and probably should occasionally apologize for such "occasional" "mistakes" as the recurrent indiscriminate bombing of Afghan wedding parties.

Obama did not "have" (to stay viable in the presidential race) to tell the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that the American people were "resolved" in support of the Iraq War since "they have seen their sons and daughters killed in the streets of Fallujah" (a city that suffered massive U.S. imperial assaults, with a giant civilian death toll, in April and November of 2004).

Obama didn't "have" to blow up the public presidential election financing system once and for all, though he would have been crazy (from an "in it to win it" perspective) not to given his remarkable private funding advantage over John McCain.
"Obama got just a quarter off his campaign finance haul from small donors."

In the process of torpedoing federal election funding, moreover, Obama didn't "have "to create the dark deception that his fundraising operation constituted "a parallel system of public financing." The truth of the matter, reported on ABC's evening news last week, is that Obama got just a quarter off his campaign finance haul from small donors. That was the same share small donors contributed to George W. Bush's funding take in 2004 - a telling little detail that gets lost in Obama' recurrent trumpeting of the fact that he received 91 percent of his contributions from small givers. Too bad those small givers comprised just a fourth of his total money.

And Obama hasn't "had" to go to the remarkable lengths he has gone to deny the depth and degree of U.S. racial disparities and continuing relevance of racism in explaining those inequalities.

I could go on.
THERE IS MORE

I dont know but did it ever occur to you Obama does not care what you do nothings in the so called Black agenda,Black activism,Black self appointed spokesmouths think.The Black community is facing peril,and many in our community know that even if Obama tries to improve the community but implementing some of his ideas.We for the first time in about 40 years will be better off.The only people who will not benefit from Obama are the Black self appointed do nothing parasites who live off Black misery and ignorance.We put Obama in office he knows that it was us.It is to his determent or benefit that the problems facing urban America be addressed.Obama knows that he just has to play it cool to ward off the extreme right.They still can filibuster so besides the minimum wage going up and job creation any major thing will have to wait till the second term.Get a clue before you write.

Good article but BAR should they not have cited that study on Obama's small donor base. It has been discredited.

Correction:

Good article but BAR should not have cited that study on Obama's small donor base because it has been discredited.

true critics of Obama...I've never considered them ' haters'.

rikyrah: Mr. Emanuel is making his OWN MOVE:

Emanuel Announces House Resignation (Tuesday, December 30, 2008;)

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) used an automated phone call to let his constituents know he would be resigning his House seat Friday as he prepares for his role in the Obama White House.

"This is Congressman Rahm Emanuel. As you may have heard, President-elect Obama has asked me to be his new chief of staff and I have accepted this offer. Therefore, in the near future, I will be resigning from Congress," Emanuel said, according to a transcript of the call.

Emanuel also wrote a resignation letter to embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), whose wiretapped conversations with public officials, including Emanuel, are at the core of his corruption case.

"It has been a tremendous privilege to serve the people of the Fifth District over the past six years," Emanuel wrote. "I am grateful for the opportunity to represent the hopes and dreams of a quintessentially American district, from hardworking families to new immigrants to the senior citizens who built this great country. It has been my particular privilege to represent the district's many military troops and veterans, who put their lives on the line to protect the values we cherish. Their sense of duty and sacrifice has been an inspiration, which I will carry with me to my new duties as chief of staff to President-elect Barack Obama."
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Emanuel's resignation takes effect Friday, setting the stage for a special election to fill the 5th District seat in the spring.

-- Anne E. Kornblut

Decently and In order. :>)

Rahm is like "Let me get the heck up out this Chicago, things getting too tricky up in here."

TOWN: Got dat right!! :>) :>)

It might B cold - - - BUT "THINGS" are STR8 heatin' UP!! :>) :>) HE KNOWS!! :>) :>)

rikyrah: I know that it's late, BUT. . . .

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2008; DAY -21 On His "JOURNEY TO JANUARY 20, 2009

1. WORD(s) of the DAY: TRANSITION TRAIL/CHICAGO SEN. APPT

2. HEADLINE(s):

a) His SCHEDULE: Tuesday Dec. 30, 2008
All Times Eastern7:00 AM
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4:19 PM

Obama travels to his old alma mater, Punahou School, in Honolulu to play basketball.
5:00 PM
5:20 PM

Obama emerges after playing basketball with friends Martin Nesbitt, Eric Whitaker, Greg Orme and Mike Ramos, to greet a crowd of students, parents and faculty members that had gathered outside. More...

b) Moving Day for the Obamas

Even in a town where the hotels are swamped for the inauguration, it turns out to be easy to get a room if you’re the one being inaugurated.

President-elect Barack Obama and his family will move to Washington this weekend in time for his daughters to start school, aides said Tuesday. With the White House still occupied and the official guest residence unavailable, the future first family will hole up in one of the city’s most exclusive hotels.

[NOTE: The reference to $$$ was OMITTED! Shhhh! :>)]

The decision to come to Washington early will put Mr. Obama in the very place he has avoided since his election and will increase the spotlight on him as he tries to prepare for the presidency without yet assuming its burdens. Except for an afternoon visit with President Bush at the White House on Nov. 10, Mr. Obama has stayed away from Washington during the transition, spending his time in Chicago and Hawaii instead.

Mr. Obama, who wraps up his Oahu vacation on New Year’s Day, will hold meetings in Washington next week on how to revive the faltering economy, according to the transition officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss unannounced plans. On Wednesday Mr. Obama will attend a White House luncheon to which Mr. Bush also invited all the former president.

The president-elect will arrive just before the new Congress is sworn in Tuesday and begins work on the economic package he wants to sign after he is inaugurated Jan. 20.

Although Mr. Obama served in the Senate for the last four years, he spent little time out of session in Washington and never moved his family from Chicago.

Other new presidents arriving from out of town have waited until closer to their inaugurations. Jimmy Carter came the day before his swearing in and Ronald Reagan six days before his. Bill Clinton staged a day-long trip to Washington three days before his ceremony, retracing the route Thomas Jefferson took from his home outside Charlottesville, Va.

Mr. Obama too has arranged for a symbolic arrival, in his case on a train trip starting in Philadelphia on Jan. 17. But Sidwell Friends, the private school where he is sending his daughters, Malia and Sasha, begins classes on Monday after its holiday break, so the family decided to pack up and move Saturday or Sunday.

The Obama team inquired about staying in Blair House, the government mansion across Lafayette Park from the White House. But the White House said it was already booked for events until Jan. 15, when it traditionally becomes available to a president-elect.

The Obama team instead found a hotel with a suite large enough for the presidential family until they move to Blair House. Transition officials would not identify which hotel because of security concerns.

[NOTE: Despite all the love and affection from SO MANY, it sometimes comes down to that FAMILY BOND! NOTE the pic. :>)]

c) Finally, Obama Is a Man About Town

[NOTE: The "OXYGEN MASK" IS WORKING! :>) :>)]

HONOLULU -- For the 11th day of his Hawaii vacation, President-elect Barack Obama was unusually active today, playing pick-up basketball at his alma mater, visiting the Honolulu Zoo with his daughters and stopping by his late grandmother's apartment.

Obama skipped his usual workout at a local Marine Corps base gym, opting instead for an hour on the basketball court at Punahou School, the Honolulu private school where he attended fifth through 12th grades. Obama played ball with his former classmates Greg Orme and Mike Ramos, as well as Martin Nesbitt and Eric Whitaker, two close friends from Chicago who are accompanying him on vacation.

A pool of journalists was not allowed to observe the game, but Obama emerged from the Punahou gym looking freshly showered and wearing an off-white T-shirt, khaki shorts and brown sandals.** It seems everywhere Obama goes on his native Oahu island he draws a crowd, and today was no different. About 200 students, parents and faculty gathered on the campus to meet Obama, and the president-elect spent several minutes posing for photographs and signing autographs.

[**Fashion show/runway MUSIC, please. :>) :>)] **shakin' my head** :>)

Obama then took his daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, and the families of several Chicago friends to the Honolulu Zoo in the tourist-heavy Waikiki Beach area. Reporters traveling with the Obamas did not see which exhibits the family visited, but the Honolulu Zoo boasts two new sun bears that arrived in November -- a mating pair of a male, named Blackie, and a female, Juwetta. The zoo also features a Sumatran tiger, Chrissie, that gave birth to three male cubs in September, the first litter of tigers at the seaside zoo in more than a quarter-century.

Later in the day, Obama stopped at the downtown Honolulu apartment building where his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, lived for decades. Dunham helped raise Obama in the 12-story high-rise, and she lived there until she died of cancer at 86 on the eve of the presidential election. Last week, Obama and his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, attended a private memorial service for their grandmother.

d) Obama says "extremely disappointing" Blagojevich went ahead with Senate pick {SORRY! Couldn't find another reporter.]

Below is a statement from President-elect Obama:

"Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat. I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Governor Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it. I believe the best resolution would be for the Governor to resign his office and allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place. While Governor Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy," said President-elect Obama.

3. Obama Golfing In Hawaii - PHOTOS

NOTE: HOPE these are NOT duplicates. Apologies.]

President Elect Barack Obama continued to enjoy his Hawaiian vacation with another round of golf on Monday afternoon.

Dressed in a white shirt, shorts and red hat, Obama played with friends, former classmate Greg Orme, Dr.Eric Whitaker and Eugene Kang.

A crowd watched Obama's game from the sides.


PHOTO SLIDESHOW:

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW!! :>)

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!! :>) :>)

Cynthia McKinney tried to deliver medical supplies to Gaza and got attacked by Israeli naval ships.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/30...

CNN Anderson Cooper 360 showed footage of Mckinney and party on the boat.

I heard about the medical supply boat being attacked. HAD NOT HEARD that McKinney was on the boat.

Here's video clip with Mckinney

http://www.infowars.com/?p=6880

Thanks Spirit!

I'm glad that McKinney wasn't hurt! Thank God!

How is it that this story is getting virtually NO play? interesting...I heard it on talk radio on a local show here in Atlanta earlier....but nowhere else at all....amazing.

Miranda, check up thread for video clip with McKinney. I had to practically dig a cave to find it.

You did good!

They had it on CNN, but I haven't heard anything about it on MSNBC yet.

I am happy she was not harmed. This is the first I am hearing of it as well.

Funny, I recall reading a few posts earlier “edumucating” us uniformed Black folk on the whole Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. However, I don’t recall this being mentioned.

Whats up with the sarcasm? I think despite the tone WorldTraveler brought up a valid point. Obama's no comment telegraphs that he is likely to maintain the Jewish lobby-neocon evangelical right line of rubberstamping any action of the Israeli government. I think people concerned with social justice and American safety should be concerned about the ramifications of continuing this policy.

Sounds like you just answered your own question. The "tone" was the issue. That's whats up.

Without going off on a tangent because it is late, I will say that it is a topic that I have a growing interest in. I am willing to learn from who are knowledgeable on the topic. In the last few years I have started "really" paying attention to the world outside my little bubble. This particular issue has always confounded me though as it relates to American politics and the allegiance that one has to make to the Israeli cause.

I hear your point about the tone. But the tit for tat that often happens on the internet doesnt lend itself to intelligent discourse. If you respond in kind the conversation always devolves. WorldTraveler made a good point but no one responded to it and instead tried to point out how she seemed to be acting like a dick. I think that was unfortunate on both sides cause it could have been a good conversation isallimsayin

Ok Miranda, thez getin dow withthe blues on cbs

I missed it!! dammit!!

KOKO Taylor sang Bad To The Bone!!!

Ok, Beonyce made an appearance- She sang "Somewhere." Tribute to Barbara Streisand.

That's about right.

They really are.

Denzel is on the Kennedy Center Honors to introduce Morgan Freeman on CBS

After a solid speech and introduction to the nation by Michelle, Barack brings out the kids and Sasha hit the ball out of the park.

As soon as I saw this I thought it's over he's won...

rikyrah: ***tears*** ***big smiles*** That "video" evokes some many EMOTIONS!! :>)

Sooooo, I missed the whole day! Had ta go out of town! :>)

Annnnnnd, I have read through most of the THREADS, however. WHEW!!! DEEP BREATHS!! ***shakin my head***

ROLAND BURRIS is on Rachel Maddow.


rikyrah

I remember when Roland Burris was elected Attorney General; I worked for the Attorney General's Office at that time and cried from happiness as though he was my father.

I don't know how I feel about Blago appointing him though. I'll have to really give it some thought seems like he's being used.

Have you read any of his writings about the blatant racism he faced in law firms in Chicago after he served as Attorney General?

msmartin: ON IT! :>) Thank you. :>)

Love that vid.

Silver lining about the Burris/Blago/Obama seat thing:

No one is talking about "ickray areenay" at least not until the inauguartion gets closer.

Man, everyday is close to Jan 20th. I wish I could be there.

Man...is Oprah giving tickets away yet.

Those Oprah tickets are long gone!

lamh31: "ickray arren-way". You just USE THAT "CODE!" LOL!! :>) :>)

"ickray areenay"....ROFLMAO!!

Someone, please tell me what "ickray areenay" means? I wanna know!

Shhhhhh....(gotta whisper......it means rick warren....dont' say it out loud!! they might here you and get all riled up again!!)

Okay! Forgive me guys, I'm kinda slow sometimes! Heeee!

Miranda: ***WHISPERING*** (I didn't hear you! Not to worry!) :>) :>)

My mom tried that around me annnnd, I answered her! She went back to "spelling!" :>) :>)

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Huh? LOng day can you explain this one LOL!!!

ssshhhhh!!!! not out loud!! read above.....don't yell!!

OMG....too cute for words! All you can do when watching that video is sit there with the biggest smile on your face. My jaws hurt from just smiling while watching it! They make me HAPPY just to look at a beautiful adorable black family! Those girls are gorgeous and Michelle and Barack done GOOD! LOL

"Hi Daddy"! You know that was just too dang cute! I love it!

Now, this Sasha's moment is a real time drama & Delight!

Pure Gold "HI DADDY!! :-)))))