What’s going on – News Roundup

Posted on December 7th, 2008 by ecthompson md

Sunday Morning News Roundup

Barack Obama announced a large public works project yesterday. This project will help rebuild roads, make public buildings more energy-efficient, renovate our crumbling schools and install modern computers with high-speed Internet access in our schools. It should put 2.5 million people to work. After the shocking news that we lost 533,000 jobs last month, this may be exactly the medicine we need for our ailing economy.

Retired four-star general Eric Shinseki has been named to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. This is the general who said before Congress that it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq and was promptly fired by Donald Rumsfeld. I argued on this blog a year or so ago that General Eric Shinseki deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This also means that Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth will not be appointed to that position. Several veterans’ groups supported her for the position of Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. There is still a chance she may be named to Barack Obama’s Senate seat.

Louisiana voters have finally fired Representative William Jefferson , the indicted Congressman. Unfortunately, from a Progressive stance, his seat has gone not to a Democrat but to a Republican, Anh “Joseph” Cao.

William Ayres, the political football in Barack Obama’s past, has decided that he’s avoided the public spotlight for long enough. He has an op-ed in the New York Times in which he tries to explain that he was not a terrorist. I don’t know…on one hand, I think William Ayres should simply go away. On the other hand, however, I have seen people wrongly accused who have no way of clearing their names. His op-ed is very thoughtful. He mentions he never did “pal around” with Barack Obama. He also discusses his “real regrets” at some of the conduct of the Weather Underground. The problem as I see it is that those who vilified William Ayres will not be convinced by his pronouncement. I think one of the biggest problems is that there is no way to convey the pain, anguish and fear that existed in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drugs, sex, war, sexual revolution, civil rights, and rights for workers are just a few of the issues that our country was trying to resolve in the United States at that time. It is nearly impossible to convey that in a 400-600 word op-ed piece.

Sunny von Bulow has died. She slipped into a coma back in 1980. Her husband was caught up in not one but two sensational trials in which he was accused of injecting her with insulin. She had been in a coma for 28 years. I’m sorry, but you cannot tell me that this was living. May she rest in peace.

Finally, this blog is still acting funny. Not “funny ha ha,” but funny as in weird.

The winner of the first Christmas Amazon prize for signing up for my blog will be named later today!

Tags: House of Representatives, Obama administration // 7 Comments »

  • theDdoubleSstandard

    i am slowly losing “faith” in Obama

    is he truly gonna change America or was he preaching a progressive agenda in order to get elected

    his economic speech was nice but he failed to tie America’s economic woes to the military – corporate – Congresional complex

    example – if he justed ended the war, America would save $10+ billion/month !!!!

  • JeffLeon

    Re DS’s comment, I’ve been voting since 1972. I voted more “for” Obama than I ever did for any other presidential candidate. Mostly I had just voted “against” the Republican schmuck du jour.

    I hate having to say this:

    Obama is the guy who promised us in 2/07 that he’d “…not just end the war but end the mindset that led us into the war.” Now he says he’s escalating Afghanistan with 26,000 more U.S. troops. And citing a recent fall in oil prices from the insane to the merely expensive, this past week Mr. Obama deep-sixed his campaign-promised oil-industry windfall profits tax.

    For those who hoped (and who still hope) Obama is a progressive and not just another corporate militarist, these are not encouraging signs.

  • http://www.whereistheoutrage.net ecthompson

    DS

    I’ll be addressing your progressive angst in a post later on today. Remember that Obama’s job is to fix the country NOT bash the neocons for their stupidity and lies.

    thanks for your comments.

  • Jay Alt

    It was interesting that Gen Shinseki was announced on a Sunday not during the week like most of the rest. Sunday was Pearl Harbor day and he is a native of Hawaii. As a subtle emphasis of Obama’s desire to bridge differences – his heritage is Japanese-American. I haven’t seen that mentioned anywhere although many on the islands undoubtedly noticed.

    E. Thompson – Here are 2 links for you and your readers, about a NYT best seller and the author – Van Jones of Oakland.

    http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061650758/The_Green_Collar_Economy/index.aspx

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8WGdO28pT0

  • JeffLeon

    Doc, good point you make here re retribution not being Obama’s job. I’d like to see punishment justly meted out for the past 30 years of conservative depredations, and that skews my perspective..

  • http://themuntabquestion.blogspot.com Caroline Miniscule

    example – if he justed ended the war, America would save $10+ billion/month !!!!

    You mean, if he withdrew American troops from the war zone, we’d save money for a time true.

    Then the terrorists would be free to continue the war – more Mumbais are going to happen, and after our military infrastructure is dead we’ll be back into “after Pearl Harbor mode” trying to prepare to defend ourselves again…

    Only this time the enemy is way too powerful and they have the technology to destroy us…

    >>this past week Mr. Obama deep-sixed his campaign-promised oil-industry windfall profits tax

    See…the oil companies are losing money now…it’s OPEC who is going to start cutting production in order to send prices higher…it’s the government that adds 20 cents or more on to every gallon of gas in taxes, etc. etc.

    >>For those who hoped (and who still hope) Obama is a progressive and not just another corporate militarist, these are not encouraging signs.

    Too bad you had to “hope.” If he’d served out a couple of terms in the Senate so that you’d actually *know* him, you wouldn’t be so surprised by his actions now.

    Who’s the politician who right out and said, “If I had told the truth, I wouldn’t have gotten elected.” Obama learned at the knees of some pretty good “politcians” and I invest that word with all the contempt it deserves.

  • http://www.whereistheoutrage.net ecthompson

    CM –

    Wow, you did drink from the Republican fear/irrational cup didn’t you?

    OPEC has not cut production. They couldn’t agree at their last meeting.

    Terrorists will not spread from Iraq like a virus. That will not happen. Both Sunni’s and Shiites hate Al Qaeda. So, if there is any significant presence in Iraq they will crash it. Just like the Sunni Awakening crashed Al Qaeda before.

    Remember that Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq until we opened the country and didn’t seal the borders.

    Thanks for your comments.

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