Obama, Barack

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout/5

A local angle:

Bored during his winter school break, Firas Alkhateeb, a senior history major at the University of Illinois, crafted the picture of Obama with the recognizable clown makeup using Adobe's Photoshop software.

Alkhateeb had been tinkering with the program to improve the looks of photos he had taken on his clunky Kodak camera. The Joker project was his grandest undertaking yet. Using a tutorial he'd found online about how to "Jokerize" portraits, he downloaded the October 23 Time Magazine cover of Obama and began digitally painting over it.

Four or five hours later, he happily had his product.

Heh.

Recently there's a lot of talk of a second stimulus. It makes me wonder if anyone can count.

Here are the google news searches for "second stimulus" back in the fourth quarter of last year.  Of course, the first stimulus was in May of last year (remember your stimulus check?) and the second stimulus was in February of this year.  So if Joe "everyone guessed wrong" Biden and the White House economic team push for another stimulus, it will be our third.

Has anyone received their economic recovery payment yet? It is now June 19 and still no dd from VA for the 250.  Thanks!

Maintenance just isn't a whole lot of fun.  Sometimes you get done with it, and you hardly know you did it.  And because it doesn't come with a plaque or ribbon cutting, it's usually pretty low on the list of items for government to do.

Two years ago (November 26, 2006) the NG ran an article about the City of Champaign's $43 million backlog in road funds for arterials alone.

Champaign has a whopping $43 million backlog of arterial road projects that are needed but not yet scheduled in the city 's 10-year capital improvement plan, most of them on the city 's southern, western and northern fringe areas.

But most of these road projects didn't make the list that was submitted  to the Regional Planning Commission.  However, $14 million for the "Second Street reach" .  No doubt, the Second Street project will feature a ribbon cutting, but fixing potholes on Mattis Avenue wouldn't do that.

Ralph Langenheim in my previous post said that the projects submitted were those that were so called "shovel ready".  What he's missing is that maintenance projects are the easiest ones to get off the ground, the most "shovel ready.".  Doing the engineering on widening a road, installing a new interchange, or building a new bridge can be complicated.  No one can expect the community to get Olympian Drive up and going in two months.

But are we really to believe that putting out bids to put new concrete down on Mattis Avenue would be that complicated?  It's the maintenance projects that are easiest to get going.

Likewise with some of the energy projects.  Replacing 30 year old windows in a building isn't a great engineering task.  The payoffs are great though.

This has been an ongoing problem with County goverment.  John Jay had to fight to get the County to finally paint the exterior of Brookens, even as rust was forming on the side panels.  But somehow we were able to get $15,000 worth of flower pots to protect our entrances from insane car drivers and a cute foot bridge will take the three or four visitors a year from the Main Street sidewalk up to the new County Highway building.

Hopefully, before this is all done, we can use a little more wisdom in deciding where we are looking to put the federal dollars that appear to be on their way to our community.

The Lawn Rangers, featuring Champaign's very own Tom Bruno, made the Trib for thier Inauguration Parade appearance tomorrow.

This very unpresidential photo of Barack Obama, blown up to poster size, will be rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday along with the most unorthodox participants of the inaugural parade: the World Famous Lawn Rangers, a 28-year-old Central Illinois-based precision lawn mower drill team.

"We are the whoopee cushion of the parade," declared Ranger veteran Tom Bruno, a member of the Champaign City Council.

:-)

Speaking at a dinner honoring John McCain in the eve of his inauguration President McCain said:

"I'm here tonight to say a few words about an American hero I have come to know very well and admire very much - Senator John McCain. And then, according to the rules agreed to by both parties, John will have approximately thirty seconds to make a rebuttal.

"But in all seriousness, on this night, we are glad that the days of rebuttals and campaigning are for now behind us. There is no doubt that throughout the summer and the fall, John and I were fierce competitors who engaged in a vigorous and sometimes heated debate over the issues of the day. And in a great democracy, this debate is both healthy and necessary.

"But what is even healthier and more necessary is the recognition that after the season of campaigning has ended, each of us in public life has a responsibility to usher in a new season of cooperation built on those things we hold in common. Not as Democrats. Not as Republicans. But as Americans.

"And there are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain. It is what he has strived for and achieved throughout his life. It is built into the very content of his character.

"I could stand here and recite the long list of John's bipartisan accomplishments. Campaign finance reform. Immigration. The Patients' Bill of Rights. All those times he has crossed the aisle and risked the ire of his party for the good of his country. And yet, what makes John such a rare and courageous public servant is not the accomplishments themselves, but the true motivation behind them.

"It has not been a quest for fame or vanity that has driven this man. It has not been the need to compromise for politics' sake that has shaped his distinguished career. It is rather a pure and deeply felt love of his country that comes from the painful knowledge of what life is like without it.

"Few of us can imagine what John endured during the days he spent in that lonely prison cell, but perhaps we can imagine that surviving such an ordeal provides a unique and renewed perspective about what is important and what is not; about what is worth fighting over and what is not.

"We can imagine that the pettiness and bitterness and immaturity that often pervades our politics seems even more unworthy of our country from this perspective; that the incessant bickering and partisanship for the sake of scoring a few political points seems even smaller. And what seems bigger and more worthy of defending are those ideals we hold in common as Americans: liberty, equality, and opportunity.

"Those are the ideals that John has spent and risked his life fighting for, and his example is one for all of us to remember and to follow as we seek to defend those ideals against the common threats to our prosperity and our security.

"So I'd like to thank John for all he's done and ask him to come join me on stage for a moment.

"Thank you, John, for your service to America and the service you will continue to render in the months and years ahead. And I'd like to close by asking all of you to join us in making this bipartisan dinner not just an inaugural tradition, but a new way of doing the people's business in this city. We will not always agree on everything in the months to come, and we will have our share of arguments and debates. But let us strive always to find that common ground, and to defend together those common ideals, for it is the only way we can meet the very big and very serious challenges that we face right now. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless America."

SmilePolitely.com, a local online news/commentary site, is looking for inauguration reactions from IP.com readers and commenters.

Local on-line magazine Smile Politely is compiling a collection of local perspectives on the significance of the inauguration of President Obama, as
well as expectations and hopes for his first term as president.

If anyone wants to provide a few lines or a paragraph as a local perspective, add a comment here by Monday afternoon, and we'll include what we can for the Tuesday article.  Note that we can't include anonymous postings.

Post yours in comments, and they said they'd grab a few of them later this afternoon.

As for my own cheesy reaction? 

I couldn't be more proud.  It's easy to forget just how rare the peaceful transfer of political power is, yet in America it happens all of the time, from the lowest office in the land to the highest, even after elections contested as hotly as this one was.  A Presidential inauguration is the final act of a two-year electoral process in which we, the people, choose our executive leadership.  While I'm not thrilled that Obama won, I am hopeful that he'll be wildly successful as President, as his successes are now the country's successes, and we could use a few of them right now. 

Take a moment today to review some of the great inaugual addresses (and the circumstances in which they were given), and take a few moments tomorrow to watch the ceremony in Washington.  It really is quite remarkable, and the very fact that we can witness such a ceremony is something for which we should all be grateful.

According to his transition team video here. Relevant snippet below:

Not much room for nuance with that answer. Just, "yes."

Guess the next question will have to be: "when?"

From Champaign City Council member Deb Feinen:

I am searching for fellow citizens from CU who are heading to DC for the Inauguration.  Tomorrow January 10, 2008 I will be at the Esquire at Noon for lunch.  I am hoping that others heading to DC will come too and we can share information and cell phone numbers.  If you can’t make it to the Esquire but you are going to DC contact me.  I am hoping we can pick a spot to meet after the events of the day for a meal/drink.  I am also encouraging people to wear orange so we can find each other.  Put an orange poncho over your coat- wear an orange Illini hat- find a way to stand out.  The even is going to be historical, exciting, and fun but I think it will be so much better if we are standing with a group of fellow Citizens from our community.

Have at it.

AP:

He said Wednesday, without details, that his initial budget proposal will include "some very specific outlines" of how he plans to tackle spending. That extends to the ballooning and so-far unsolvable fiscal problem presented by the Social Security and Medicare programs, which Obama promised would be "a central part" of his deficit-reduction plan.

"Ballooning and unsolvable fiscal problem presented by Social Security"?!?

When Bush proposed Social Security reform, there was an awful lot of pushback from Democrats that "there is no crisis," that SS was perfectly solvent and that the GOP was just fabricating stories about deficits to scare people into supporting privatization. Its was "politics of fear," we were told.  I even remember the "There Is No Crisis" blogads, because they were absolutely everywhere. 

Now, just three years later, it's a "ballooning and unsolvable fiscal problem?"

The NG wants readers to share their stories from Barack Obama's inauguration:

As the nation prepares for Barack Obama to become president, we want to hear from you.

We're going to Washington, D.C., for Obama's inauguration. If you're going, please let us know, so we can catch up with you in Washington.

We're also interested in what hopes you have for Obama's presidency, and we would like to hear from you about that as well.

You can do either by following this link.

That's likely the end result of the Blagojevich appointment.  There's a nice roundup at Bench Memos.  Volokh and Brian Kalt with more.

It is remarkable to me how many people have taken as fact the presumption that the Senate can refuse to seat this appointment.  The controlling law here appears to be Powell v. McCormack.  America has been here before and the Supremes have ruled that the member must be seated.

Certainly the Democratic Party doesn't have a monopoly on grandstanding, but in this instance their moves are incredibly cynical.  They purport to not want Blagojevich to have this appointment power.  They can take it away from him next week if they want by simply passing legislation calling for a special election.  But by offering up the option that they can pretty clearly see is unconstitutional they are all but guaranteeing that Blagojevich will have this appointment. 

I suspect that when all is said and done, Burris will be sitting in Washington in the Senate seat.  And Democratic legislators will come back to their districts and claim they tried.  The reality is that they didn't try.

Now we have other scenarios to consider.  For example, if the Burris appointment goes to court but Governor Quinn tries to appointment someone else on February 15th, will the Senate seat that person?  What would be the effect of votes cast by the Quinn appointee if the Supreme Court rules that he/she should never have been appointed. 

The solution is easy.  Let Roland Burris have this seat until April 7th.  Elect a new Senator on April 7th and immediately seat that person.

That’s my question after reading the latest draft of the legislation to have a special election for the vacant United States Senate seat.  There’s no doubt that the legislation is inadequate as written and leaves gaping holes regarding its implementation. 

What the legislation does is create two scenarios for a special election.  The first is if the legislation is signed on January 1st or before.  In that case we’d have a primary election on February 24th in conjunction with the various municipal primaries happening around the state (and potentially in Champaign and Urbana).  That would be followed by the general election on April 7th, in conjunction with the already scheduled Consolidated Election which already includes every voter in the state of Illinois.

The second scenario kicks in if the legislation is signed after January 1st.  In that case, there will be a primary in conjunction with the April 7th election followed by a special election for Senate only on May 26th. 

The first problem with the legislation is that it gives our current Governor far too much leverage.  He gets to decide when he signs it, if he does, and thereby controls when the election will happen.  He could sign it as late as mid February, leaving the entire state in suspense.  In addition, after he signs it, he would still have to issue writs of election.  The proposed legislation takes that authority away from him should he fail to exercise it, but that particular provision is likely unconstitutional.  So he could sign it and just sit on the whole problem for an indeterminate amount of time.  The optimists in this process (which seems to be most everyone) are counting on the Governor’s rationality and fair play, not unlike what they counted on when they passed a budget that was $2 billion in the red.  Haven’t they learned?

In either case, the legislation gives sweeping authority to the State Board of Elections to write rules to make this whole event come off.  Good luck to them.  Crafting rules that will deal with the incredible time crunch for a primary while not running afoul of the legal requirements for ballot access, voter rights, absentee voting, and other items will be a tough task.  Tough enough that the legislative drafters apparently didn’t want to touch it here in this legislation.

As it stands now, filing for the February election is to close on Monday, December 15th, 71 days prior to the primary.  If the Governor actually signs the bill on Thursday, January 1st, it will be just 54 days prior to the primary election.   Let’s assume that the State Board of Elections has the rules already written to implement this and they meet on January 2nd to pass them.  I think as emergency rules they can be implemented immediately.  So now candidates have to swing into action to get petitions signed and turned in.  Because of the tight schedule, let’s say that the State Board of Elections reduces the signature requirement (2500?) and also requires filing to be done by January 9th.  Some sort of check for compliance will have to be conducted, at least by the State Board and possibly it will be allowed for others to check the papers (a time honored tradition in Illinois).  But let’s say the State Board passes rules that prevent any challenges and eliminates judicial review of the certification and the State Board certifies the ballot to County Clerks on January 12th, just 43 days prior to the primary.  Absentee voting is scheduled to start on Thursday, January 15th.  Ballots have to go out to overseas voters and military personnel. 

So even if the State Board passes rules immediately that include an evisceration of due process rules while liberalizing ballot access, the window to get ballots prepared is minuscule.  Expand the time to do any of these elements (a week to issue writs, a week to pass rules, two weeks to circulate, a week for judicial review) and we’re talking about a primary election that could turn into a debacle.  I haven’t even scratched the surface of the problems here.  And there are additional problems and costs should this legislation get signed after January 1st.

The cost for that potential debacle is about $25 million, at a time that when the state is flat broke, barely able to borrow money, and $2 billion in arrears on our payments to vendors.  Not surprisingly, this bill includes no money from the state to the counties.  So the cost will be passed on to tax payers in each of those counties, at a time when many of them are looking at cutbacks.

And why exactly are we doing this?  I keep hearing that it’s to bring back credibility, or take the taint out of the selection, or some similar sentiment. Is giving voters a chance to vote on the replacement for Obama a good idea.  Of course.  Will it wash away the taint of this scandal?  Of course not.  And at what cost?  And for what benefit?  A narrow window for an election puts an inordinate amount of importance on fundraising.  Barack Obama was able to win the Senate seat four years ago in large part because of his ability to develop a grass roots organization and to reach out to voters individually with personal appearances.  Well, that model won’t cut it this time.  This primary, should it happen, will likely be won by the candidates with the deepest pockets.  I fear that February 26th will be a day of bitter irony for Illinois voters as we nominate candidates for each party receiving less than 35% of the vote.  Think about the joy of spending $25 million to get a face off between Blair Hull and Jim Oberweis. 

There is another alternative.  The party state central committees of each party could meet and nominate a candidate for the April 7th election.  This is how vacancies in nomination are routinely filled in Illinois. Does it take away some choices for the voters?  Yes, it does.  But the legislature, in passing the provisions to fill vacancies, understood that a balance had to be struck between the cost and complications of running a special election and the benefits of giving voters a say in the process.   The cost to do this would drop from $25 million to about $25,000 (the cost of printing about 10 federal only ballots for each precinct in the state).

Every legislator feels the sting of this scandal, even without their personal involvement.  The reputations of those in State government have been battered for the last four or five years.  But giving voters this single vote (the legislation does not provide for this to ever happen again) is merely a bone thrown at disgruntled voters.  This move is certainly not based on some grand principle.  If it was, the same legislators falling all over themselves to give you a vote on this vacancy would support Rep. Mike Boland’s Constitutional Amendment to have special elections for vacancies in the General Assembly.  Not a single other legislator signed on to his HJRCA.

If politicians were serious about reform and the right of the public to have a voice in these matters, they have plenty of ways to accomplish that.  They could send voters Constitutional Amendments for recall, initiative, or a revision of the redistricting process.  They could put the Con Con question back on the ballot and give it a fair up or down vote.

This bill doesn’t make even a pretense of reform.  It’s the equivalent of making up to your wife with a bouquet of flowers that you bought by taking money out of her purse.

Even after it's over, the Obama campaign continues to be the best run I've ever seen:

Gift of office equipment from the Obama campaign thrills Sto-Rox schools.

So, what's next?

What are your thoughts on President-Elect Obama's first 100 days:  what are his most probable achievements, defeats, headaches, and reliefs?  Who's the leading candidate for his open Senate seat?  What's the import of the various local races?  Any thoughts on various high-profile ballot initiatives from other states?

Only fair that I offer my own thoughts.  Regarding Obama's first 100 days, I would expect a few things.  I would think it's fairly obvious that some economic-related legislation will come across his desk; whether it's another stimulus package (like the checks from earlier this year), something directed to the states for infrastructure repair and maintainence, or some mixture of the two isn't clear to me right now.  Also, I'd be willing to bet some form of new or revised financial services sector regulation will be brought up.

Internationally, the US is awfully close to an agreement with Iraq regarding the future of US forces in that country. (h/t Obsidian Wings).  Unless the current administration gets it's ducks in a row really quickly and signs the agreement before, say, Christmas, this will probably come across Obama's desk.  Beyond that singular foreign affairs matter, I'm not going to hazard a guess as to what Obama will do; events, as they happen, will dictate too much for me to offer a reasonable guess.

I know next to nothing about statewide politics, so leading candidates for the open US Senate seat will have to come from someone else.  Locally, it seemed that incumbents were the winners (somewhat disappointingly, from my perspective) through pretty much all the races.  Third party candidates did reasonably well, such as the Green Party folks up for County Board spots.  The tax-related referendum (referenda?) were all defeated, I believe, with the school sales tax losing by about 300 votes, apparently.  Can't say I'm disappointed with those results...

Hope everyone got a good night's sleep, and didn't celebrate/mourn too much.

HG

I don't normally forward viral emails, but I got this today from Scott Kair (who is not, btw, kentuckyscott), and it was so moving that I think it deserves reading even if it's fake.  (And yes, I'm breaking my own self imposed "silence until the election" for a second time to do so.)  There will obviously be many here who disagree with kentuckyscott's conclusions and his choice, but I think we all have to respect his motives:

I Didn’t Vote For Obama
by kentuckyscott

I’m a middle-class white guy living in Jacksonville, Florida. I’ve got a wife and two kids. Because the kids had no school today, I took a vacation day from work, and took the kids downtown to vote early.

Fifty-nine minutes later, two smiling children and I proudly sported “I Voted” stickers.

But I didn’t vote for Obama.

I voted for my ancestors, who believed in the promise of this country and came with nothing as immigrants.

I voted for my parents, who taught in the public schools for decades.

I voted for Steve, an acquaintance of mine from Kentucky. (Killed by an IED two years ago in Iraq).

I voted for Shawn, another who’s been to Iraq twice, and Afghanistan once, and who’ll be going back to Afghanistan again soon -- and whose family earned eleven bucks a month too much to qualify for food stamps when the war started.

I voted for April, the only African-American girl in my high school -- it was years before it occurred to me how different her experience of our school must have been.

I voted for my college friends who are Christian, Jewish, Mormon, and yes -- Muslim.

I voted for my grandfathers, who worked hard in factories and died too young.

I voted for the plumber who worked on my house, because I want him to get a REAL tax break.

I voted for four little angels from Birmingham.

I voted for a bunch of dead white men who, although personally flawed, were willing to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, and used a time of great crisis to expand freedom rather than suspend it.

I voted for all those people and more, and I voted for all of you, too. But mostly, I voted selfishly. I voted for two little kids, one who has ballet in an hour, and one who has baseball practice at the same time. I voted for a world where they can be confident that their government will represent the best that is in this country, and that will in turn demand the best of them.

I voted for a government that will be respected in the world. I voted for an economy that will reward work above guile.

I voted for everything I believe in.

Sure, I filled in the circle next to the name Obama, but it wasn’t him I was voting for -- it was every single one of us, and those I love most of all.

Who else is there to vote for?

Well, yes:

The actions of the left over the last eight years, and the behavior of Obama's supporters and the press over the past few months has made me angry. Actually, that's an understatement. The truth is that this election has made me angrier than any other since I was eligible to vote.

It's not Obama himself who fuels my anger - it's the way the media covers for him. It's the fact that if he wins, I'll spend the next four years being accused of racism for disagreeing with his policy proposals.

I'm not sure "angry" is an accurate description of my attitude regarding national politics right now, but no better descriptors leap to mind (depressed?  frustrated?  maybe disappointed works best...).  I'm also not sure what is giving me this attitude: Obama's supporters (with many exceptions, like Kevin and his excellent comment here) and associates and media sycophants; or the completely absurd reactions of the Bush Administration and the McCain campaign to the financial crisis. 

A number of people have expressed to me sentiments similar to this:

This is surely small of me, but if Obama wins, I plan on giving him as much of a chance as the Democrats gave George Bush. I will gleefully forward every paranoid anti-Obama rumor that I see, along with YouTube footage of his verbal missteps. I will laugh and email heinous anti-Obama photoshop jobs, and maybe even learn photoshop myself to create some. I'll buy anti-Obama books, and maybe even a "Not My President" t-shirt. I'm sure that the mainstream bookstores won't carry them, but I'll be on the lookout for anti-Obama calendars and stuff like that. I will not wish America harm, and if the country is hurt (economically, militarily, or diplomatically) I will truly mourn. But i will also take some solace that it occurred under Obama's watch, and will find every reason to blame him personally and fan the flames.

I'm not ready to go there.  If Obama wins, so be it.  There are no intrinsic virtues in bipartisanship, but I do hope that after the election perhaps people can stop shouting at each other so much and at the very least be respectful to those with whom they disagree.  I doubt it, though.  I am afraid it's only going to get worse.

SmilePolitely.com has some suggestions for how John McCain can improve his campaign's fortunes.  A few of my favorites:

• Without advance word, completely disappear from the world for a few days, and create a storm of speculation and intrigue. Emerge three days latter, scratched and bloody, with the dead carcass of Osama Bin Laden across his back. [Note: This will take some embalming work, since Bin Laden has been in deep freeze in US government storage since 2005. He will need to call in some favors from his mortuary friends.]
• During next debate, slap Obama with a leather riding glove and demand satisfaction for the restoration of McCain’s honor. Offer choice of fencing epee, dueling pistol, or full javelin and riding horse. If Obama claims this is illegal, simply question his manhood, and choose riding horse, since Obama is known to be a poor equestrian.
• Announce that the election is now a raffle, and that anyone who votes for him can win up to six of his twelve houses. Have Sarah Palin make the announcement, and have her wink a lot, implying that she or Todd just might come with the deal, depending on which way you swing. If Obama complains that this is illegal, slap him with a leather riding glove and see above.

After all, if you can't laugh at the absurdity of this year's Presidential campaigns, then what can you laugh at?