Read Sarah Palin's answer, when asked what she thought that a Republican-controlled Congress's top three priorities should be, here.
One of the fundamental principles of the United States Constitution is the separation of religion and the state - but Palin wants the Congress to seek "divine intervention".
And Americans criticise Iran for being a theocracy.
Should Americans panic about the current level of the federal deficit?
In the "New York Times", Paul Grugman has this op-ed which explains rationally why an economy just out of recession needs a tolerable level of deficit.
A good friend of mine in Washington DC sent me an e-mail today which includes this comment:
"Our politics suck now--looks like no health care reform. Premiums for private insurance went up an average 8.5% over the past year while premiums charged to retirees on our Medicare jumped more than 12%. Americans have difficulty "connecting the dots" and easily succumb to the fear and scare tactics from the right-wing conservatives doing the bidding of the private insurance companies who want no change.
Think about it: The U.S.--the oldest constitutional democracy--is the only democracy in the world where a person can get the most votes for President and lose (Al Gore), and the majority party in the 100-member Senate needs 50 votes plus ten to pass any legislation. Strange."
Tomorrow Barack Obama will have been US President exactly one year and there's lots of media analysis on his challenging and troubled first year.
In this piece, it points out:
"A poll for the Pew Research Centre last month showed that 84% of Democratic party voters identified as liberal believe the president is doing an excellent or good job "in standing up for the traditional positions of the Democratic party". Support among conservative and moderate Democrats, who often tend to lean toward conservative positions, stood at 69%.If you read Obama's book "Dreams From My Father" [my review here]. you will see that this former community organiser knows all about uphill struggles.That's the good news from the poll for Obama. The bad news is that it shows that broader public opinion has moved to the right on many issues since he came to power, particularly in greater opposition to abortion rights, gun control and scepticism about global warming."
In this piece in today's "Guardian", Gary Younge brings a dose of reality to the discussion:
"Yes, there are grounds for disappointment. Bush's torture infrastructure has been left largely intact, the Iraq withdrawal has been extended by two years and the healthcare reform debate might have panned out differently had he led more decisively. But there is a world between that and accusations of betrayal and treachery. In Afghanistan in particular, the problem was that he kept his campaign pledge whereas many of us wish that he had broken it."He adds:
"The distance between the aspirations invested in him during his campaign and his record after one year is the distinction between the electoral and the political in this current period. Popular demands thwarted by institutional stasis and ideological sclerosis."
Whenever I contemplate this question, I'm tempted to recall what Chou En-lai said when asked what he thought of the French Revolution: "It's too soon to tell." After all, Obama is only one year into a four-year term and hopefully will have eight years in the White House. But there's no doubt that he's under pressure and this Tuesday the Democrats could lose the Senate seat held by Edward Kennedy until his death which would take away the power of the party in the upper house to force through legislation like the healthcare bill.
A friend with whom I recently discussed Obama's performance has drawn my attention to this column which Andrew Sullivan wrote for the "Sunday Times" over Christmas. The piece concludes:
"It’s worth remembering that America is a vast and cumbersome machine, designed to resist deep change. That this one man has moved the country a few key, structural degrees in one year, and that the direction is as clear and as strategic as that first embraced by Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (in the opposite direction) is under-appreciated. But the shift is real and more dramatic than current events might indicate. I wouldn’t bet on its evanescence quite yet."This certainly reflects my views.
Ever heard of the Rapture? This is a predicted future event, found primarily among Conservative Protestant denominations, relating to the return of Jesus and the taking into Heaven of the devout. Apparently there are 40-50 million believers in the Rapture in USA. Further information here.
Now the problem is that animals are said to be ineligible for Rapture. So what do you do if you're a devout Christian who believes in the Rapture but has a pet? If you live in the United States, there is an answer. See details here.
Wonder why there are so few takers?
Gibraltar - a limestone crop on the southern tip of Spain - has been ruled by Britain since 1713 under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, but Spain continues to claim sovereignty over the territory. Gibraltar is self-governing in all areas except defence and foreign policy and it is home to a British military garrison and naval base.
Most of the 29,000 Gibraltarians are of mixed Genoese, British, Spanish, Maltese and Portuguese descent. Recent arrivals have included migrant workers from Morocco. There is no large-scale agricultural or industrial activity, so much of Gibraltar's income comes from customs duties, offshore finance, internet gaming, tourism and the provisioning of ships.
At least one well-informed commentator thinks so. In a piece in today's "Guardian", Michael Tomasky writes:
You can read my description of the American political system here and my comparison with the British political system here.
If I'd read it in the English-language "Iran News" which I studied on my recent trip to that country, I might have thought that it was propaganda from a fiercely anti-American regime, but the story was in the British "Guardian" and the statistics are taken from an official US Government survey.
One-sixth of the US population was found to be unable to afford enough food to stay healthy at some point last year. More than a million children regularly go to bed hungry in America.
This is the situation in the richest country on earth. This is the price of unregulated capitalism.
Barack Obama made brilliant use of the Internet in his primary and presidential campaigns but, now that he is in the White House, the Right is mobilising opposition against him using similar online campaigning tools heavily funded by suspect business sources.
It's not just the economic stimulus and healthcare reform that angers these Republicans; they would like to remove Obama from the presidency. They almost did it with Bill Clinton and they are going to do their darnedest against Obama.
Further information here.
President Barack Obama has addressed Congress in an effort to break the deadlock on passage of a healthcare reform bill.
You can read the full text here.
I refer to Arizona pastor Steve Anderson.
Check out the evidence.
There's an interesting piece in the "Wall Street Journal" about the decision-making processes of President Barack Obama.
One commentator sums up the style as: "He's thinking big but being cautious."
The American debate over health care reform receives front-page treatment in today's "Guardian" newspaper because the bitter opposition to Obama's reform proposals is frequently involving outrageous misrepresentation of the performance of the National Health Service in Britain.
The sickest suggestion - I use the adjective advisedly - is that, if he lived in the UK, Senator Ted Kennedy would not receive treatment for his brain tumour. This and other falsehoods are answered here.
For the record, the UK spends less per head on health care but has a higher life expectancy than the US. The World Health Organisation ranks Britain's health care as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place.
In a country like Britain - where we have had a National Health Service for 61 years and where all the major political parties support the NHS - it's hard to comprehend the level of emotional debate in the United States over President Obama's health care plan.
In this "New York Times" op-ed piece by the Nobel Prize economist Paul Krugman (drawn to my attention by my American friend David Eden), he talks of "congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds" and, no doubt rightly, identifies much of the vilification of the proposals as based on a caricature of the real plan and a reaction to a black man in the White House.
Yesterday I wrote: "I sometimes think that no belief is too weird that someone somewhere - probably quite thoughtful and intelligent - will hold that belief. I really wonder whether there are any boundaries to some people's belief systems."
Today we have yet another example with the BBC web site's coverage of the ridiculous suggestion that Barack Obama is not eligible to be President of the USA because he is not a US citizen - see here.
I suppose, if Sarah Palin ever became President, someone would query the validity of the sale of Alaska by Russia to the USA in 1867 and claim that she was in fact Russian.
What November election? And why has it taken eight months to conclude?
At the beginning of November 2008, the Americans elected a new President, all of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. But one Senate seat was so closely contested that only this week has the final result been declared. The Democrat Al Franken beat his Republican opponent Norm Coleman by a mere 312 votes out of a total of 2.9 million in the state of Minnesota.
It is not just the people of Minnesota who have been holding their breath. The resut has profound implications for the US Congress and indeed for the world.
When Franken takes his seat in the Senate, the Democrats for the first time in three decades will potentially have 60 of the 100 seats in the chamber, possibly an unassailable majority that means they can overcome Republican blocking tactics, such as filibustering. This is because Franken will bring the total number of Democrats to 58 and there are also two independents who normally vote with them.
But on some issues Obama cannot be sure of the support of all 58 Democrats or the two independents. About 20 Democrats, though socially liberal, are conservative on fiscal matters. Also another reason why the 60-seat majority is not as solid as it seems is the ill health of two Democrats, Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd, both of whom are often absent from the chamber.
Nothing is simple or stable in politics.
Full story here
During the US presidential election campaign, we all knew that expectations of Barack Obama were so high that the reality was bound to disappoint. On the inauguration of Obama as president, we all knew that the honeymoon period could not last for ever. At the end of his first 100 days in the White House, we all knew that the challenges he faced were unprecedented: the economic recession, health care, climate change, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. Given all this, some criticism from faint-hearts and even concern from supporters was inevitable. But this is a guy who is barely half a year into what should be an eight-year term of an historic and transformational nature..
So, how is Obama doing? The signs are good. On Friday night, the president achieved a political breakthrough when the House of Representatives passed a historic bill to combat climate change, binding the United States to cut levels of carbon emissions. I share the positive assessment of Michael Crowley, a senior editor of the "New Republic Magazine", as expressed in this article.
For those of us who supported Barack Obama's candidacy for so long and so enthusiastically, his first 100 days have been heady stuff. As this piece puts it:
"Although only a short way into his first term, Obama has already committed trillions to lift the country out of recession, discarded some of the most unpopular policies of the Bush administration, begun to repair the country's battered reputation abroad and made a start on potentially far-reaching health, education and other social reforms. The changes racked up already suggest a potential to become one of the most liberal presidents in US history."The Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine asked 35 US foreign affairs specialists around DC to rate him so far. The result? Eleven As, 16 Bs, 7 Cs, and a D. I would give him an A - but it's still very early days and he has not been tested yet in a military crisis.
The election of Barack Obama to the United States Presidency has changed so much in world politics, but non-Americans may not appreciate how transformational his administration is for domestic politics. Obviously the world's media reports the new policies aimed at overcoming the economic recession, but you probably haven't been aware that a proposed change to the processes for achieving trade union recognition - supported by Obama - is causing considerable controversy in Congress.
It's called the Employee Free Choice Act which, as a national trade union official for 24 years, I certainly support. Of course, if I had any doubts, they would be dispelled by the fact that three actors from my all-time favourite television programme, "The West Wing", have endorsed the proposed legislation.
It wasn't just the regulators who failed totally to control the absurdities of the market that led to the credit crunch; financial journalism failed big time and most financial commentators were complicit in the myth making that deluded ordinary borrowers and investors.
Over in the United States, Jon Stewart has done a brilliant job on "The Daily Show" - which has a global edition (see it on More4 in the UK) - in exposing this failure and most especially savaged Jim Cramer for his unforgivable role in all this.
You can start viewing the three-part clip of the interview here:
You can read the background to this encounter here.
Following a suggestion from a reader in Taiwan, I've added a paragraph to my web essay on "A Short Guide To The American Political System" to point out that, below federal level, the overwheming majority of American judges are elected whereas, in virtually every other country, they are selected in some way.
Nationwide 87% of all state court judges are elected and 39 states elect at least some of their judges. Outside of the United States, however, there are only two nations that have judicial elections and then only in limited fashion. Smaller Swiss cantons elect judges and appointed justices on the Japanese Supreme Court must sometimes face retention elections (although those elections are a formality).
You can read more about the American system of electing judges and the advantages and disadvantages of this system in this "New York Times" article.
I can exclusively reveal that somehow Osama bin Laden has already managed to obtain the secret address of the Blackberry that newly-inaugurated President Barack Obama has been permitted to retain. Osama has sent a coded message to Obama.
"3 7 0 H S S V
0 7 7 3 H"
Barack was baffled. Unfortunately the CIA, the FBI and the NSA could not decipher it. Neither could Britain's MI6 or Israel's Mossad. It was left to the Gardai in Ireland to tell the President that he was holding the message upside down.
Barack Obama finally became US President at noon on Tuesday Washington DC time. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were very busy days for him and very satisfying ones for those of us who supported his candidacy:
If you're as massive a fan of the television series "The West Wing" as I am, you can't help but think of President Barack Obama as a combination of the erudition and eloquence of President Jed Bartlet and the minority ethnicity and youth of President Matt Santos.
Over the seven series of "The West Wing", we got to know the president's aides very well. People like Leo, Josh, C.J and Toby. But who are now their real life equivalents in the White House? Today the "Guardian" explains in this feature.
I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama live and felt that I was sharing in history. Amazingly he stumbled over his lines in the actual swearing of the oath of office, but he delivered his 20 minute inaugural speech flawlessly. You can see and read it here.
Today worldwide only one story can be the top news item - the inauguration of America's 44th and first black president. So, just a reminder ....
I first blogged about Barack Obama on 12 April 2004 [see that posting here]. I blogged 11 times on the Illinois Senate race won by Obama on 4 November 2004. In my last posting on the election, I wrote:
"I was delighted to see Barack Obama become the junior senator for Illinois and the only black member of the new Senate. This blog has been tracking his progress for many months. He is an able and inspiring politician who is destined to go far and maybe even as far as the White House one day."On 17 December 2006, I did a posting in which I opined as follows:
"In an article in today's "Observer" newspaper, reference is made to Maureen Dowd, a "New York Times" columnist, who has dubbed the possible battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as 'Hillzilla vs Obambi', implying that the newcomer will be crushed by Clinton's experience and money. Don't you believe it. There is a desperate desire in the USA for an exciting new face and right now Obama does not need money to win publicity."Since Obama declared his candidacy, I followed him every step of the way and blogged about him every step of the way. I've read both his books: "Dreams From My Father" [my review here] and "The Audacity Of Hope" [my review here].
So I guess you could say that I'm fan of Barack Obama. Like many millions all around the world, today I'll be watching the inauguration ceremony live on television.
A friend in the United States has e-mailed me as follows:
"We're all excited here about Obama's inauguration. The security is incredible--expanded security zone around the Mall area, Virginia bridges closed to cars, bomb trucks, etc. But everyone understands why it is necessary. I'm staying out of town myself, but we're doing a pre-inaugural party in the city on Monday night and joining friends on Tuesday morning for an inaugural brunch.
Obama is doing something very different--he's keeping his internet campaign organization alive and calling it a new name: Organizing America. He going to use it for on-going fund-raising and grass-roots lobbying on Congress by his supporters. We'll see whether it sustains the same energy now that he is elected.
But the entire country is going Obama-crazy. For the first time in the history of our country, every child can grow up with the hope to be anything they want to be in life. His election truly is transformational for America."
I talked about the idea of Obama keeping his Internet campaign alive in this posting.
We still don't know the actual composition of the United States Senate that will face President-elect Obama for the next two years. There's been a lot of publicity about the choices to be made to replace Barack Obama (Jesse Jackson Jr?) and Hillary Clinton (Caroline Kennedy?), with a stench of scandal surrounding the first and some amazement involved in the second.
At least we know who will replace Joe Biden. Delaware's Democratic governor, Ruth Ann Minner, has announced that she will appoint Biden's longtime senior adviser Ted Kaufman to succeed Biden in the Senate. The procedure for the relevant State Governor to choose a replacement for a Senate seat until the next biennial election cycle is one that non-Americans at least find opaque if not bizarre.
But it gets worse. In the state of Minnesota, they have still not concluded the election of one of their two senators a month and a half after the ballot because of recounts and disputes that remind one of the fiasco in Florida in 2000. You can see a summary of the Byzantine manoeuvring here.
There's some fascinating data here - including the information that 24% of Americans believe that they were once someone else.
I guess that I would find it hard to be an American - of the 17 beliefs tested, I only hold one (a belief in evolution) and apparently that is a minority view in the US.
So why do people believe weird things? - see one explanation here.
And why don't I believe so many things that so many other people hold so dear? - see my reasoning here.
From a viral e-mail that is making the rounds:
To: The World
From: The USA
Subject: Technical Notice
Dear World,
The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage.
The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located, and the parts responsible for it were replaced Tuesday night, November 4. Early tests of the newly-installed equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional by mid-January.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage, and we look forward to resuming full service --- and hopefully even to improving it in years to come.
Thank you for your patience and understanding,
-- USA
I pinched this message from the Obama London blog.
After weeks of speculation, President-elect Barack Obama has now confirmed that his Secretary of State will be his arch-rival for the Democratic nomination Hillary Clinton. Now three months ago, when Clinton gave her endorsement speech at the Democratic National Convention, I did a posting which argued:
"If I was Barack Obama, I would promise that - if she and Bill are really seen to deliver for him in the general election - when he enters the White House she will be put in charge of health care reform to complete the task she started during her husband's presidency."Clearly no deal was done at the time but perhaps Hillary and Bill got the message. I was wrong about the actual post offered Hillary, but heh I was on the right lines. Maybe Barack reads NightHawk ...
Now that the dust has settled on the American presidential election (although the Electoral College does not actually vote until 15 December), I've pulled together some of my blog postings and expanded them a little to create a new web page on "Contrasts Between The American And British Political Systems".
I did an earlier posting about how Barack Obama could take the Internet tools he used in his successful campaign into his Presidency so that his supporters continue to play a role.
As this "Newsweek" article puts it:
"Barack Obama is the first major politician who really "gets" the Internet. Sure, Howard Dean used the Web to raise money. But Obama used it to build an army. And now, that army of digital kids expects to stick around and help him govern."
It is widely accepted that Barack Obama has made cleverer and more extensive use of the Internet than any previous politician in any country. This should not stop once he enters the Oval Office.
Obama was fighting not just to win an election but to change a nation and ultimately change the world. This requires more than legislation and government initiatives; it needs a grass-roots movement.
Obama has the contact details of over 3 million who donated to his campaign and over 10 million who expressed support for it. If he mobilises these people as president, then his occupancy of the White house could be truly transformational.
The Net will play a big part - as explained in this article - but, as in the election campaign so in his presidential term, the real force of his advocacy is not virtual but actual, not e-mails in cyberspace but activists in local communities.
Two and a half months ago, I did a blog posting on the contrast between American and British politics. It attracted more comments that I usually obtain on this blog, so you might like to revisit it.
Now that the presidential election is over, this is a good time to make some further comments about the differences between the two political systems as it especially affects the transfer of power between leaders:
This week, George Bush finally broke all records with the most unfavourable ratings ever at 24% - lower than either Truman or Nixon.
At the same time, Barack Obama recorded the most favourable ratings ever for an incoming president at 75%.
Of course, these two phenomena are not unrelated. No doubt, Obama's ratings will fall when he enters the White House and starts to make the tough decisions. Probably, in a few years, there will be revisionist biographies of Bush claiming that his presidency was not quite so bad as his final ratings suggested.
But, in the meanwhile, never at any time in my lifetime has there been such a contrast between the standing of an outgoing and an incoming US president. Truly these are historic times.
On the morning after the US presidential election, I did a posting of just three words:
"Thank you, America"
It seems that I was not the only one as you'll see from this site.
The same week that Americans saw the election of their 44th president witnessed the release of the latest Oliver Stone movie - a bio-pic about Bush Jr, the 43rd president, titled simply "W." [see my review here].
As the Bush presidency staggers to its much-welcomed end, I reproduce below some of the infamous Bushisms and a contemporary joke. You have to smile; otherwise you'd have to cry ...
The Internet was a central tool in the election campaign run by Barack Obama and, only days into the crucial transition, he has launched a new web site which will announce all the new appointments and full details of the transition process.
We can expect a pro-science, pro-technology administration from President Obama and he has appointed Julius Genachowski to help him choose members of his new administration which could signal the prominence of high-tech policy.
Genachowski, who served at the Federal Communications Commission as chief counsel to former Chairman Reed Hundt, has already been active in Obama's campaign by advising him on technology policies as chairman of the president-elect's Technology and Innovation Plan. The Plan includes strong support for network neutrality and an aim “to get true broadband to every community in America”.
As regular visitors to NightHawk will know, I've blogged a great deal about the primaries and presidential election in the United States over the last two years. Now the election is over, I won't stop blogging, especially since my long-favoured candidate Barack Obama is about to enter the White House.
Previously I've categorised my blog postings on American politics under the broad category of" World current affairs" as opposed to the category "British current affairs". However, I've decided now to create a new category called "US current affairs" which you'll see listed on the right.