Obama assured Mahmud Abbas that he intended "to work with him as partners to establish a durable peace in the region," the Palestinian leader's spokesman told AFP.
The new US leader told Abbas that the Palestinian president was the first foreign leader he called since taking office, said spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.
That's change I can believe in.
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We don't have to like the president:
...
It's an article of faith with true believers that the great man really did a fine job – it's just that everyone hated him too much to admit it. To them he was a martyr in the Great Georjihad and he'll receive a river of speaking fees and 72 unfished crappie ponds as his reward.
And, they'd be at least partially right.
George was no more hated nor hounded than Bill Clinton. Many people hated both of them. It goes with the territory of being President, especially if you're as seriously flawed as these two mooks. The difference is that Bill could manage to enrage people on his own.
George needed help.
And on that score, he had an embarrassment of riches. First, there were the original true believers, those who'd rather see anyone other than the evil fornicator Clinton in the White House. The Democrats and Republicans helped him too. Every one of the craven bastards who caterwauled about being duped into war is lying or a Rainman clone. Every person who voted for him a second time in the face of the mounting evidence of crapitude enabled him. Every political crony who carried his water - even while knowing it was illegal - gave him a hand.
Keep reading: http://www.teambio.org/2009/01/20/we-don%e2%80%99t-have-to-like-the-president/#more-6964
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Washington, DC knows how to host an event.
Kudos to the Secret Service, police and even military members who provided security and assistance for President Obama's inauguration. There were protestors, but they weren't harassed and targeted during the celebrations, let alone for weeks beforehand. I hope America's increasingly paranoid and authoritarian law enforcement officials can use the inauguration as a learning experience and as an example that a little trust in their fellow citizens - let alone some respect for Constitutional rights and the rule of law - goes a long way.
Oh, and this was my favorite part:
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Look what's up on the White House website with no apologies or minced words: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights /
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Brother Stucky's inaugural wishes
Brother Stucky preaches the Word:
I've had people say I need to have more compassion & our church needs to have more compassion for him....I suppose I should have compassion on the child rapists & on Adolf Hitler, etc.
People are very ignorant especially many Christians. I AM NOT praying for Obama to be blessed by God. I hope he dies quickly & another takes the office of the Presidency.
Mean people suck. Especially mean people masquerading as christians.
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As you know, President Obama's first order of business was to halt pending regulations the Bush administration pushed through in its last days.
But did you know that the decision to put the regulations on hold was an attempt by Barack Obama to prevent an investigation into his eligibility to be president!!!! ????
Obama Cancels Bush Exec Order to Review Qualifications! ...
The order went out shortly after Obama was inaugurated president.... It's urgency may have been to head off the Executive Order filed by President Bush on Jan. 16, 2009: 'President George W. Bush enacted an Executive Order providing for, in part, "Reinvestigating Individuals in Positions of Public Trust." ... The Order provides in pertinent part that, "It is necessary to reinvestigate individuals in positions of public trust in order to ensure that they remain suitable for continued employment."
YIKES!!!!
... Or, um, perhaps not. The text of the executive order is here. The order actually focuses on mid-level bureaucrats and federal contractors, not elected officials - the full title is "Granting Reciprocity on Excepted Service and Federal Contractor Employee Fitness and Reinvestigating Individuals in Positions of Public Trust." A brief article explaining the executive order is here.
If anything, it appears intended to reduce the number of reinvestigations to which federal workers are subject - so you'd think, if Obama had a sinister purpose (and if this even applied to him), he'd actually want it to stay in effect. But the facts aren't going to stand in the way of a PUMA/Freeper/Paulbot freakout.
Ah well, it guess it keeps them from wandering aimlessly in the streets.
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While pundits picked apart President Barack Obama's inaugural address — did it meet expectations, was it too sober, did he rip off earlier presidents' speeches — Chinese authorities were busy censoring parts of the 20-minute speech. Though most Chinese news sites carried the full text of the speech in English, the versions translated into Chinese were mildly redacted, according to the BBC.
Man, those Chinese are sensitive. I mean, Obama could just as easily been referring to Russia or to the United Arab Emirates as China. But the Chinese may be on to something, as Obama might not be as cozy as George Bush was with world's third-largest economy.
As an editorial in the state-run China Daily put it: "Given the popular American eagerness for a break from the Bush years, many wonder, or worry to be precise, whether the new president would ignore the hard-earned progress in bilateral ties."
And in other news ...
Corporate accountability in China:
Two men were sentenced to death on Thursday and the chairwoman of a dairy conglomerate received a life sentence for their roles in the contaminated-milk scandal that killed six children and sickened nearly 300,000, according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency.And in other corporate accountability news, Merrill Lynch paid billions of dollars of bonuses to its employees, three days before completing its life-saving sale to Bank of America Corp: http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsUS/idUKN2150757420090122
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Obama issues a pay freeze for White House staff, tightens ethics rules for his staff, strengthens the FOIA, and says, "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency." things: http://www.politicaliq.com/Public/ShowVideo.aspx?vcid=5165335
After that, he met with senior economic advisors and top military staff to discuss plans for the economy and Iraq; later, he hosted an open house for the American people, a new symbol of his commitment to access and transparency.
He's already done more in one day than Chimpy did in 8 years! Imagine what he'll do after a week!
And check out this short clip of Crazy Joe Biden, viciously mocking Chief Justice John Roberts for ruining Obama's oath of office. By the look on Barry's face, this might be the last Biden press conference, ever. http://www.politicaliq.com/Public/ShowVideo.aspx?vcid=5165337
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The Senate has confirmed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in a 94-2 vote, with only Jim "Every Sentence Must Have 'God' In It" DeMint and David "Diaper" Vitter voting against. John Cornhole put down his hearty opposition to the immediate confirmation after WALNUTS! himself, John McCain, told him to do so.
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WASHINGTON—Moments after witnessing the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama Tuesday, the massive, euphoric crowd shifted to the White House gates to watch the rest of his four-year term unfold. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the new president administrate as it happens," said Hawaii resident Matt Rogers, who paid a scalper $100 to secure his portion of sidewalk until January 2013. "These first 100 days will really set the tone for his presidency, and I'm going to see it all from 50 yards away." This is reportedly the largest crowd of presidential spectators to assemble since 1974, when 20 million Americans stood for six months outside disgraced former president Nixon's home in San Clemente, CA just to rub it in.
The executive order that would keep Chimpy's records secret forever is revoked.
Triangulation is an approach whereby a political figure praises one member of an opposing party in an effort to draw contrast between that member and other members of his/her party. In other words, Republicans intend to praise Obama's "bipartisanship" while using it as a foil for liberal Democrats in Congress.
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LIMBAUGH: What I'm afraid of is that what Obama did with this executive order is actually make it easier for the media to go get Bush documents. Because you know Pelosi and some of the guys over in congress are talking about war crimes trials and charges and so forth. […]
What I'm afraid of is what Obama's done here is made the gathering of the information for this kind of stuff– This is not American. This is not America. This is not what America does. We don't– This is Banana Republic kind of stuff.
Why do Republicans hate accountability?
Dick Cheney when asked about waterboarding:
"I signed off on it; others did, as well, too."
"I thought that it was absolutely the right thing to do."
Here's The Decider:
"One such person who gave us information was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. … And I'm in the Oval Office and I am told that we have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the professionals believe he has information necessary to secure the country. So I ask what tools are available for us to find information from him and they gave me a list of tools, and I said are these tools deemed to be legal? And so we got legal opinions before any decision was made."
Clearly demonstrating that one doesn't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, sanctimonious quisling Joe LIEberman(I-Me) is unsurprisingly leaping on to the bandwagon.
"I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq," Obama said in a statement one day after being sworn in as commander-in-chief.
Obama said he issued the instructions in a meeting with the US ambassador to Iraq, the US military commander in Iraq, the commander for the region and top cabinet and national security officials.
The meeting was designed "to get a full update on the situation in Iraq," Obama said.
Obama had promised during his campaign to order US troops out of Iraq within 16 months.
The chairman of the board, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist, pushed in 2003 for a more skeptical version of evolution to be presented in the state's textbooks, but could not get a majority to vote with him. Dr. McLeroy has said he does not believe in Darwin's theory and thinks that Earth's appearance is a recent geologic event, thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion as scientists contend.This know-nothing religious zealot is posed to force the textbook publishers to rewrite biology textbooks to make them conform with his ignorant beliefs, and of course, he has the support of a bunch of his intellectual equals in Texas.
This elevation of ideology over science and fact is a prime example of how this country got so screwed over for the past eight years. It also is further proof that the party of Hoover remains in thrall to these ignoramuses.
They are entitled to their beliefs. They are not entitled to their own set of facts. A boob who believes in the theology of the "young Earth" should not be having any input whatsoever on how science is taught to anyone other than those unfortunate children he may have sired. I presume that after these douchebags get done trying to obfuscate the Theory of Evolution, they are going to go after Copernicus and try to insert language to argue that the Universe is Earth-centric.
Shame on Texas for doing what it can to raise future generations of scientific illiterates. The textbook publishers should bite the bullet and make a "dumbass" edition of science textbooks for them (using really small words).
Things could get a hell of a lot worse. I suspect that if the Hooverites manage to obstruct things so that the economic stimulus package winds up playing "small ball," it will.Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) - U.S. financial losses from the credit crisis may reach $3.6 trillion, suggesting the banking system is "effectively insolvent," said New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who predicted last year's economic crisis.
"I've found that credit losses could peak at a level of $3.6 trillion for U.S. institutions, half of them by banks and broker dealers," Roubini said at a conference in Dubai today. "If that's true, it means the U.S. banking system is effectively insolvent because it starts with a capital of $1.4 trillion. This is a systemic banking crisis."
This isn't good news,: A previously unknown fault in eastern Arkansas could trigger a magnitude 7 earthquake with an epicenter near a major natural gas pipeline, a scientist said Wednesday. "This is a very, very dangerous (area) at risk of earthquake," Al-Shukri said. "When you talk about (magnitude) 7 and plus, this is going to be a major disaster."
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Now they come for the peanut sauce! And Nutrisystem!
More than 125 products have been recalled in a salmonella-and-peanuts investigation that keeps getting bigger, federal health officials said Wednesday.
The list ranges from goodies like cookies and ice cream to energy bars. Even food for pooches may not be entirely safe, with a national company recalling some of its dog treats.
On Tuesday, PetSmart recalled seven kinds of its Grreat Choice dog biscuits. On Wednesday, the weight loss company NutriSystem issued a recall for peanut butter granola bars. And some Asian foods made with peanut sauces are starting to turn up on the recalls list.
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Good move
In an interview with a local New Mexico station today, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a JAG corps member, said that he has been tapped to be part of a special team of prosecutors for Guantanamo detainees. "One hundred percent of what I'm doing is prosecuting terrorist cases out of Guantanamo," he explained. "We want to make sure that those terrorists that did commit acts will be brought to justice — and those that did not will be released."
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On flight back to Texas, Alberto VO5 cried and received a kiss from Bush: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/21/gonzales-kiss-bush/
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4,229 soldiers killed in Iraq; 641 in Afghanistan.
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The Labor Department said Thursday initial jobless benefit claims rose to a seasonally adjusted 589,000 in the week ending Jan. 17, from an upwardly revised figure of 527,000 the previous week. Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28790811 /
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The hawks that keep saying the Palestinians were dedicated to fighting with Israel, and that Israel had no choice but to fight back have fogotten a mid-December poll that showed 74% of Palestinians wanted to see the truce extended, and 51% of Israelis did. Let me just repeat that. In calling Hamas's bluff to break off negotiations, and massively punishing Gaza civilians, the Olmert government was ignoring the majority view among Israelis and the vast majority of Palestinians who wanted a truce.
After killing 223 Hamas guerrillas, 280 children and minors, 111 women, and 503 male noncombatants, Israel has removed all of its ground troops from Gaza. In other words, they managed to kill more children than real militants.
Israeli politicians and military commanders are being urged to consult counsel before they travel in Europe, where some courts assert universal jurisdiction and where war crimes cases are being filed against Israeli leaders.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak is setting up a legal defense of Israeli troops from potential war crimes prosecutions. Barak pledged that Israeli soldiers would not have to worry about prosecution: "The soldiers did not embark on a private operation . . .We will give them out full support." It is ironic that an Israeli defense minister seems unaware that the Nuremberg trials established the principle that following orders is no defense for a soldier charged with atrocities.
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