If those attending the G-20 summit in London this week want a quick lesson in how economic booms can turn to busts, and of how grandiose bets on real estate plays can get you into trouble, they'd do well to learn the lesson of their surroundings.
Read More.
March 2009 Archives
President Obama delivered an ultimatum to General Motors and Chrysler on Monday, telling them to adopt radical changes in short order or face bankruptcy -- a move that came after a series of somber discussions in which he concluded that a controlled bankruptcy might be the best way to reorganize the two ailing auto giants.
Read More.
"This is going to be hard, Bob... I am under no illusions," he said. "If it was easy it would already have been completed."
The two spoke for an interview that will air in full on CBS' "Face The Nation" Sunday.
This week the President dedicates his address to the people of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota as they face down disastrous flooding. He speaks of what the government is doing, but also stresses that times of crisis like this are reminders of the need and opportunity Americans have to keep their dedication to service. He commends the Edward M. Kennedy National Service Act, which passed the Senate this week following similar legislation in the House last week, for helping to rejuvenate this spirit.
"In the Fargodome, thousands of people gathered not to watch a football game or a rodeo, but to fill sandbags. Volunteers filled 2.5 million of them in just five days, working against the clock, day and night, with tired arms and aching backs. Others braved freezing temperatures, gusting winds, and falling snow to build levees along the river's banks to help protect against waters that have exceeded record levels."
Vice President Joe Biden meets with Christina Fernandez de Krichner of Argentina, in Vina del Mar, Chile. March 27, 2009.
Read More.
The school-voucher movement is under assault, as opponents have cut federal funding and states move to impose new restrictions on a form of school choice that has been a cornerstone of the conservative agenda for education overhaul.
As Mary Zeiss Stange sees it, women are being denied their rightful place of leadership in American religious life. Her logic is clear, and she writes with a mixture of exasperation and energy. Her op-ed column in today's edition of USA Today, "Do Women Have a Prayer?," reflects the way many people naturally frame the issue of the role of women in the church.
Democracy: If You Want to Free Your Country, First Liberate Its Land
So you want to spread democracy. By now, it's pretty obvious that this is easier said than done. George W. Bush's stirring rhetoric about freedom has suggested a too-simple path: just rid the country of its tyrant and the people will be free.
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:
Read More.
White House praised by world's richest man, Bill Gates.
Read More.
The National Urban League is calling on President Barack Obama to close widespread racial disparities issuing its annual report Wednesday on the state of Black America.
The National Urban League is calling on President Barack Obama to close widespread racial disparities issuing its annual report Wednesday on the state of Black America.
President Obama: Hello, everybody. Please have a seat.
Good evening. Now, before I take questions from the correspondents, I want to give everyone who's watching tonight an update on the steps we're taking to move this economy from recession to recovery, and ultimately to prosperity.
A federal judge in New York ordered the FDA on Monday to make the morning-after pill available to 17-year-olds without prescription.
Parents are suing the St. Johns County School Board saying a teacher made their children learn a religious-themed song for an end-of-the-year program.
Read More.
Illustration by Matt Wuerker
Geithner & Co. may know policy, but they've proven less than adept at inspiring the public to accept tough medicine. Their most effective point man is in danger of being overused, one analyst says.
Read More.
To stop the economy's deflationary spiral, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner need to get toxic assets off banks' balance sheets so the banks can start lending again. With much fanfare and after much delay, Geithner on Monday unveiled the details of the government's "public-private" collaborative plan to make that happen.
Read More.
President Obama has an ambitious agenda and an economy to fix. Yet hundreds of top government posts stand empty. One reason: over-the-top ethics rules are disqualifying or driving away some of the best and the brightest.
Read More.
Only two months old, the presidency of Barack Obama already has a dominant theme. It rings out in nearly every public address, comes up in almost all his media interviews, and even graced the cover of his first budget. "A New Era of Responsibility," he called the document.
Read More.
Congressional Republicans on Sunday predicted a doomsday scenario of crushing debt and eventual federal bankruptcy if President Barack Obama's massive spending blueprint wins passage. UPDATED:
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Monday morning revealed some details about a new program to revive lending in the U.S. economy and said that the plan to leverage around $100 billion taxpayer dollars is the government's best option.
The Obama administration took a fresh shot at ending a national paralysis in lending Monday, teaming up with investors to buy bad bank assets and ease credit for hard-pressed consumers and businesses.
The AIG mess should be a warning to Obama that even popular presidents can squander good will.
Read More.
When President Obama released his faith advisory council list last month, Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, was the last of 15 names. Mr. Stearns attends University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, where he moved in 1998 to take the reins of World Vision, one of the world's biggest aid agencies with $2.6 billion in worldwide revenues. U.S. donors provide $1.1 billion of that amount.
Mrs. Michelle Obama arrives at Pope Air Force Base on her first official trip as First Lady. Mrs. Obama visited Ft. Bragg and Fayetteville, N.C., Thursday, March 12, 2009.
Read More.
The President reflects on lessons from his time spent outside Washington recently, which only reinforced the core principles in his budget. The budget will be his central focus throughout this week:
"These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air - they are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of health care and our dependence on oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit."
You may have heard about a North Carolina judge's pending order that may place three children in public schools this fall because the home-schooling their mother provided over the last four years needs to be "challenged."This case should deeply concern every American who values parental rights and the freedom to make the best educational choices for their children.
In an unprecedented video message released Friday on the celebration of the Persian new year, President Barack Obama speaks directly to the Iranian people and government, saying his administration "is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us" and that that the process "will not be advanced by threats."
Read More.
"Buckle up. We're on our way." So wrote William Saletan, one of the most influential reporters covering today's medical and moral controversies. Saletan writes for Slate.com, and his words made reference to the fact that our world just got a little more complicated . . . and a lot more dangerous.
The top two Senate Democratic leaders met with the Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday afternoon to discuss Sen. Roland Burris' (D-Ill.) controversial appointment, part of an ongoing inquiry into Burris' associations with ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
There is flattery, there is shameless flattery, and there are conversations with Arianna Huffington. She'll talk to old men about their libido, beautiful women about their intelligence, the unemployed about their talent and the wealthy about their artistic depth. In her hands, a compliment is the social equivalent of a Tomahawk missile, launched in stealth at a heavily researched target and perilously difficult to defend against.
Michelle's idea?
With the Jefferson Memorial looming in the background, the fountain on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington is seen with green-colored water in honor of St. Patrick's Day in Washington.
To me, the real question is not whether the Republican Party should find itself another chairman but whether the chairman should find himself another party. 
It was a year ago today that Barack Obama, then a candidate for president fearing a divisive racial backlash over his pastor, took to the stage in Philadelphia and said it was time to have a new conversation about race.
Former President George W. Bush, making his first public speech since leaving office in January, says he wants Barack Obama to succeed and that it's "essential" to support the new leader.
Two weeks ago, amidst concern that Michael Steele's media exposure was creating serious political damage, the RNC chairman decided to guest-host William Bennett's national conservative radio program.
In a virtually unnoticed two-hour tour-de-force, the Maryland Republican sat in for the conservative talker on March 6, right as the controversy over his statements on Rush Limbaugh reached its height.
In the middle of decrying the misdeeds of the financial firm AIG, President Obama cracked a joke. "Excuse me," he said Monday, after coughing into the microphone. "I am choked up with anger here." There were laughs all around the gilded East Room of the White House, because he didn't sound angry at all.
Read More.
Michael S. Steele, the man tapped six weeks ago to run the Republican National Committee, had never been known as a successful manager. He struggled to make money in a private legal consulting firm he founded before entering politics, led few winning races as the head of the Republican parties of Prince George's County and later the state of Maryland, and lost in his attempts to win statewide office on his own.
The miraculous marketing machine that carried a junior senator into the White House is now at work trying to convince Americans that writing fat checks from an empty Treasury represents a giant step toward fiscal responsibility.
President Barack Obama has sent Congress a $3.6 trillion federal spending plan that outlines his administration's priorities.
Co-anchor Robin Roberts (L) interviews first lady Michelle Obama in an exclusive to air on Good Morning America. Roberts is traveling with the first lady as she embarks on her first official trip to Ft. Bragg to meet with military families and servicemen and women.
Read More.
The embryonic stem cell research debate is steeped with religious arguments, with some faith traditions convinced the research amounts to killing innocent life, others citing the moral imperative to alleviate suffering, and plenty of religious believers caught somewhere in between. 
We've been hearing a lot of criticism of Barack Obama in recent days from pro-Obama corners -- from celebrity investor Warren Buffett, from moderate conservative columnist David Brooks, from one of the Democratic Party's deepest thinkers, William Galston -- all along the same lines. Put aside your plans, announced in your budget, for national health insurance, for a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, for effectively abolishing the secret ballot in unionization elections. And, they might have added, for higher taxes on, and a reduction in, their charitable deductions to channel money away from charities and nonprofits and toward the government. Pay attention to the first thing on your platter and the nation's, Buffett and Brooks and Galston say: the financial crisis.
In this week's address, President Barack Obama makes key announcements regarding the safety of our nation's food.
"We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can't do on our own. There are certain things that only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don't cause us harm."
Watch Your Weekly Address below to learn more about the President's measures to make the food that lands on America's dinner tables safer.
Michael Steele, the embattled chairman of the Republican National Committee, has chosen as his chief of staff Ken McKay, a New Englander he describes as being "not afraid of a challenge," party sources tell POLITICO.
Read More.
What happens when a pregnant woman is told her unborn child has some ghastly defect?
A small army of doctors and genetics counselors arrive on the scene with one message: End the pregnancy and get one of those horrendous second or third-trimester abortions, where the child perches on the edge of viability.
This could be the week when the greatest financial crisis in history finally reached its nadir. Then again, it could merely be another week in which a brief rally in global stock markets has suckered more investors, politicians and commentators into assuming that the worst is over, when the tentative improvement in financial confidence is just another false dawn.
Read More.
New Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he's pro-life, but comments he made about abortion during an interview with GQ magazine have left some social conservatives wondering.
Editor's Note: In light of the horrific Rihanna-Chris Brown situation, we thought we would run this article again.
Dear Daughters & YBW:
I trust that you are doing well today. I hope that you are growing in the Lord and living a victorious life. Today, I want to write to you about domestic violence and how you can avoid it.
As President Obama carves out his own foreign policy, there are signs that his use of military force overseas will be tempered by his views on the limits of American power.
President Barack Obama isn't as great as he thinks he is. To be fair, neither were Presidents Bush or Clinton -- or Washington or Lincoln, for that matter. The same can be said for every general who ever commanded an army or every boss who ever ran an office. The fact is, if there's one thing that defines people in powerful positions, it's that they overestimate what they can do with that power.
President Barack Obama firmly resists ideological labels, but at the end of a private meeting with a group of moderate Democrats on Tuesday afternoon, he offered a statement of solidarity. During the presidential campaign, education was not one of Barack Obama's signature issues.
But in the seven weeks since his inauguration, education -- education reform, more precisely -- has rightly skyrocketed nearly to the top of his priority list.
On Tuesday, President Obama gave his first major education speech, stringing together the pieces of an ambitious education agenda that includes investing in early childhood education, rewarding teachers for performance and lifting caps on charter school growth.
The high-risk, questionable venture is a staple of biblical narratives -- Noah building the ark, the Israelites heading out into the wilderness without any provisions, the idea that a couple of loaves and fish could feed a crowd. So maybe Rick Warren was reading Scripture instead of the business pages when he decided to expand his ministry this year by launching a glossy new magazine with a $10 cover price.
Read More.
Over the past week, new RNC Chairman Michael Steele has walked through the fire, or more accurately, through a shooting gallery inside the Beltway. To be clear, some of this was self-inflicted. As the chairman has said, he made some missteps in a few media appearances. Live and learn.
After a losing presidential campaign in 2000, John McCain came back to the Senate and established himself as a force no White House could ignore. Eight years later, he's home from defeat again, facing a very different landscape dominated by President Barack Obama and the collapsing American economy.
President Obama today fulfilled his campaign promise to lift federal-funding restrictions on research involving the destruction of human embryos. He couldn't have done so at a more inappropriate time, for just last week scientists made headlines again announcing yet another breakthrough in what is known as "induced pluripotent stem-cell" technology. Following up on the initial breakthrough in November 2007 that allowed scientists to produce the biological equivalent of embryonic stem cells without creating, using, or destroying any human embryos, scientists have continued to refine their methods. Last week's announcement was the latest in a long string of developments. If Obama truly wants to find honorable compromises that the entire nation can accept in good conscience and even endorse, he should be promoting these alternative sources.
Read More.
President Barack Obama Monday signed an executive order that reverses the Bush administration's restrictions on federal funding for research that involves the destruction of human embryos. More than 12,000 people turn 50 each day in America. In this era of layoffs and downsizing, many wonder if it's all downhill from there for the next 30 years.
When Bob Buford, 69, a cable TV millionaire, wrote "Half Time" in 1995, it sold 600,000 copies. The book offered Bible-based advice on how to move "from success to significance" in Act II of one's life.
It was the question that preoccupied President Ronald Reagan: Was Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a religious believer? Reagan held a series of summits with Gorbachev from 1985 to 1988, and as their meetings proceeded, Reagan sometimes speculated to his aides that Gorbachev's use of phrases such as "God bless" might be an expression of religious faith.
In the wake of James Dobson retiring from Focus on the Family, leaving a possible vacuum of power in evangelical leadership, Dr. Gary Dull and other Christian leaders are forming The Faith and Freedom Institute to combat "satanic wickedness" in order to return America to a foundation of Biblical principles.
Read More.
President Obama spoke in a 35-minute interview aboard Air Force One on Friday afternoon as he traveled from Columbus, Ohio to Andrews Air Force Base. This is an edited transcript, as recorded by The New York Times.
Read More.
Fifteen thousand days. That's how long Joni Eareckson Tada has spent in a wheelchair.
She was 17 when she dived into the Chesapeake Bay and came out paralyzed for life.
When hard times reached the Schneider household in central Oregon, the longtime stay-at-home mom got a job at Subway to offset a drop in her husband's earnings. What she didn't do was also notable - she didn't stop home-schooling her three teenage children.
Read More.
In his March 7th weekly address, the President capped off a busy week in Washington remarking on new lending guidelines aimed at lowering mortgage payments; an initiative to generate funds for small business and college loans; the release of his administration's first budget which includes $2T in deficit reduction, and the start of long overdue health care reform.
Read More.
President Barack Obama and White House Domestic Advisor Melody Barnes listen as firefighter Travis Ulerick of Dublin, Ind., addresses the White House Forum on Health Reform, Thursday, March 5, 2009, in the East Room at the White House.
Read More.
Gordon Brown has become the first European leader to visit Barack Obama, the new American president. His plane touched down at Andrews air force base amid heavy snow
Read More.
Southern Baptist ethics leader Richard Land says he has plenty of disagreements with President Obama but believes the commander-in-chief was on the right track during a recent major policy speech on Iraq. During his Feb. 27 speech at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Obama said the U.S. will end its combat mission in Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, but will leave a "transitional force" of between 35,000-50,000 troops there to: train, equip and advise Iraqi security forces; conduct "targeted counter-terrorism missions"; and protect ongoing civilian and military efforts. Under an agreement signed with the Iraqi government during the Bush administration, all U.S. forces must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.
Fifteen Christian leaders, some identified as evangelicals, have endorsed Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' nomination to the federal government's top health post even as state and national pro-life organizations contend her opposition to restrictions on abortion makes her unworthy of the office.
Read More.
President Barack Obama will lift the eight-year ban on embryonic stem cell research on Monday, the White House has announced.
A White House ceremony is scheduled for late morning, when Obama will issue an executive order formally removing the federal funding limits imposed by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, in 2001.
Along with millions of jobs and 401(k)s, the concept of a shared national ideal is said to be dying. But is the American Dream really endangered, or has it simply been misplaced? Exploring the way our aspirations have changed--the rugged individualism of the Wild West, the social compact of F.D.R., the sitcom fantasy of 50s suburbia--the author shows how the American Dream came to mean fame and fortune, instead of the promise that shaped a nation.
by DAVID KAMP April 2009
In less than 100 days, Obama has made good on a few of his promises. One of them is to expand President Bush's faith-based initiatives office. Unfortunately, Obama's latest attempt to reach out to religious groups might may not work out so well either -- for them or him.
Read More.
It used to be that people who wanted to solve a social problem -- like lack of access to clean water or inadequate housing for the poor -- created a charity. Today, many start a company instead. D.light, a company cofounded by Sam Goldman, who spent four years in the Peace Corps in Benin before earning a master's degree in business from Stanford University, is an example.
While many social conservatives have focused attention on Obama's liberal social commitments, few have considered what effects an expanded welfare state will have on religious belief--or how these religious effects will in turn impact civic virtue, personal responsibility, altruism, or solidarity. If the European experience with the welfare state and religion is any indication, the Obama revolution could well lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.
Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Arlen Specter talk as they ride the train to Philadelphia along with members of the Middle Class Task Force including for the Task Force's first meeting Friday, Feb. 27, 2009 at University of Pennsylvania.
Read More.
Four months after John McCain's sweeping defeat, senior Republicans are coming to grips with the fact that the party is still - in stock market terms - looking for the bottom.
Republicans this week are processing two sobering new polls that found the party's support reduced to a slim one-quarter of Americans. In the absence of a popular elected leader, its most visible figure is a polarizing radio host. Its strategic powerhouse is a still-divisive former House speaker forced from power 15 years ago.
Michael Steele has just dipped his toe into the water and is already in over his head.Steele has been the chairman of the Republican National Committee for only about a month, and already there is speculation that he may be on his way out.
I confess I did not believe Barack Obama entirely during the campaign when he bragged on working across the aisle and championing bipartisanship.
You see, as in the case of any other politician, one must look to what he does--and has done--not what he says for election advantage.
A month after Michael Steele became the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee, key party leaders are worried that the GOP has made a costly mistake -- one that will make it even harder for them to take back power from the dominant Democratic Party. 
The long-expected resignation of Focus on the Family's James Dobson highlights an open secret among America's roughly 70 million evangelicals: There are no obvious successors to the group of evangelical leaders who created massive organizations or built up media empires in the 1980s and '90s. 
Anti-abortion activists are planning strong opposition to Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's pick for secretary of health and human services, saying the Kansas governor's positions on abortion and her ties to a late-term abortion provider are too extreme for her to be in charge of America's health care policy.
Rosa Parks's name is known round the world, but what about Claudette Colvin? On March 2, 1955, nine months before Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., a skinny, 15-year-old schoolgirl was yanked by both wrists and dragged off a very similar bus.
On his pre-inaugural visit to Ben's Chili Bowl, a landmark for Washington's African-American community, President Barack Obama was asked by a cashier if he wanted his change back.
Read More.
|
