;)
Inauguration Day 2013
The Capitol Building this morning. Getty image.C-SPAN will cover inaugural events, beginning at 7:00 am ET. If you must watch it on the Intertoobz, you can supersize the picture.
Here's the New York Times' guide to today's inaugural ceremony.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times has borrowed some of "fascinating facts" about inaugurals from the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. The comprehensive guide, prepared by the committee, is here (pdf). ...
... Carrie Dann of NBC News has a list of fairly funny &/or macabre stories of past inaugural "festivities." The slideshow of drawings & photos of earlier inaugurations, available on the page, is good, too; nothing funny, though.
I think this Senate site is the official inauguration site. It's not all that helpful. Here's the Washington Post's inauguration page. it's not all that helpful. This About.com page on the inauguration includes the schedule of events.
The Washington Post is liveblogging the inauguration.
The Obamas & Bidens arriving at St. John's Church, across the street from the White House, this morning:
David Nakamura & Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: President "Obama, who has confessed to feeling bruised by the partisanship in Washington, aims to use his remarks to underscore the importance of seeking common ground in Washington and encourage Americans to engage in the political process, White House senior adviser David Plouffe said." ...
... A lot of good that will do. There won't be many Republicans listening to any inspirational calls for consensus, Jackie Kucinich of USA Today reported.
Michelle & Barack Obama spoke at an inaugural reception last night:
Brett Zongker of the AP: "Latinos are taking a more prominent role in President Barack Obama's second inauguration, from the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice swearing in the vice president to a star-studded concert celebrating Latino culture. Eva Longoria, a co-chairwoman for Obama's campaign, hosted 'Latino Inaugural 2013: In Performance at the Kennedy Center' as a salute to the president Sunday evening ahead of his public swearing-in Monday."
Paul Krugman: "... if progressives look at where we are as the second term begins, they’ll find grounds for a lot of (qualified) satisfaction."
The Oath -- a Re-enactment:
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The next legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act is moving quickly to the high court, and bringing potent questions about religious freedom, gender equality and corporate 'personhood.' The issue is the health-care law's requirement that employers without a specific exemption must provide workers with insurance plans that cover a full range of birth-control measures and contraceptive drugs. Inclusion of the no-cost contraceptive coverage for female workers has always been a controversial part of the legislation. It has now sparked more than 40 lawsuits around the nation involving more than 110 individuals, colleges, hospitals, church-affiliated nonprofits and private companies."
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senate Democrats will draft a budget blueprint for the first time in four years and use it to fast-track an overhaul of the tax code that is intended to raise significant revenue over the next decade, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said on Sunday."
Come on Down, Y'all. Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "Last week, the day after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York approved a broad package of gun-control measures that made New York's tough gun laws even tougher, the Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, began running Internet advertisements in Manhattan and Albany asking New York gun owners to consider moving to Texas.... In a speech last year, [Abbott] described his job this way: 'I go to the office. I sue the federal government. And then I go home.' Mr. Abbott has been laying the groundwork and raising millions of dollars for a possible run for governor in 2014, regardless of whether Gov. Rick Perry, his ally and fellow Republican, decides to seek re-election."
Noam Cohen of the New York Times on how M.I.T. caught Aaron Swartz hacking the university's computer system.
Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "In recent weeks, public executions [in Iran] have been stepped up, and in several large cities the police have been rounding up what they call thugs and hooligans." The article describes the public hangings of two young men caught on camera robbing & knifing a man. The victim survived.
January 21 News Ledes
Reuters: "The global jobless queue will stretch to more than 200 million people this year, the International Labour Organization said in its annual report on Tuesday, repeating a warning it has made at the start of each of the last six years. The U.N. jobs watchdog estimates unemployment will rise by 5.1 million this year to more than 202 million, and by another 3 million in 2014, following a rise of 4.2 million in 2012."
AP: "Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests, provide damage control for the church and keep parishioners in the dark, according to church personnel files. The confidential records filed in a lawsuit against the archdiocese disclose how the church handled abuse allegations for decades and also reveal dissent from a top Mahony aide who criticized his superiors for covering up allegations of abuse rather than protecting children." ...
... Update: New York Times story here. Los Angeles Times story here. Documents, via the L. A. Times, are here.
Washington Post: "Germany's center-left opposition won a wafer-thin victory over Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition in a major state election Sunday, dealing a setback as she seeks a third term at the helm of Europe's biggest economy later this year."
AP: "The hostage-taking at a remote Algerian gas plant was carried out by 30 militants from across the northern swath of Africa and two from Canada, authorities said. The militants, who wore military uniforms and knew the layout, included explosives experts who rigged it with bombs and a leader whose final order was to kill all the captives. The operation also had help with inside knowledge -- a former driver at the plant, Algeria's prime minister said Monday." ...
... New York Times: "The known death toll from the bloody four-day hostage siege in Algeria rose on Monday after Algerian officials said that security forces combing the scene had discovered many more corpses, some badly burned, at a gas-production complex deep in the Sahara."
AP: "Nehemiah Griego, 15, was arrested following ... shootings at the residence in a rural area southwest of downtown Albuquerque, the sheriff's department said. He was charged with two counts of murder and three counts of child abuse resulting in death.... Investigators ... found several guns believed used in the shootings, including one assault rifle...." CW: please, NRA, keep telling us it's a good idea to keep a lot of weapons around the house for "protection."
Reuters: "Bangladesh's war crimes tribunal sentenced a popular Islamic televangelist to death on Monday, the first verdict by the controversial body set up to probe abuses during the country's bloody struggle for independence. Abul Kalam Azad, a former member of Bangladesh's biggest Islamist party, was found guilty of torture, rape and genocide during the war for independence from Pakistan in 1971. Police believe he fled to Pakistan last April and he was tried in absentia."
BGR News: "Google (GOOG) chairman Eric Schmidt is back from his adventure in North Korea and he's penned a post on his Google+ page detailing the current state of the country's current technological capabilities and the way it allows citizens to have limited access to the Internet. In short, North Korea isn't anywhere close to matching the technological capabilities of its rival South Korea, and the country is incredibly restrictive of the information it allows its citizens to access."
Repression Aggression. AP: a harsh anti-gay "bill is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and [Russian Orthodox C]hurch see as corrupting Russian youth and by extension contributing to a wave of protest against President Vladimir Putin's rule."
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Reader Comments (11)
Can't help meself! I gotta watch inaugurations of Black Presidents! With all the NRA craziness in full swing, however, I hope the Secret Service has cowboyed up and has twice as many agents protecting Obama. (I do not have a good feeling about this.) Too many gun-crazed, IQ-challenged people out there just waiting to get their 15 minutes of fame by shooting the President from Kenya.
With all the dysfunction in Sin City, I am still glad I voted for him.
Comment on Krugman sent to NYTimes, shared with Reality Chex readers just in case it get buried or lost and garners the audience it likely deserves (few or none.)
"Dr. Krugman, I would add to your list of qualified successes the myriad improvements the Obama administration has made to the complicated, always unheralded and frequently unreported business of governance.
We now have an EPA that actually wrestles with some real environmental issues, an FDA that is becoming more than a catspaw for big pharma and a Labor Relations Board that acts to protect workers' interests, not in all ways and not all the time, but trending in the right direction.
In addition to inheriting an unimaginably bleak economy, Mr. Obama was also heir to eight years of an administration that did everything it could to inhibit and dismantle those government functions ordinary citizens depend upon. He also had to deal with a dismaying record of filibusters in the Senate from the "just say no" party and for the last two years of his first term a House inhabited by committed deniers of any social, economic or scientific reality they wanted to bury their heads and wish away (or any government action that might have cost their well-heeled supporters a dollar or two).
From my point of view, yes, I find room for disappointment (why the ACA when single payer makes so much more sense, for large instance?), in my President's first four years, but I am even more astonished at the range of accomplishment he has managed in the face of active and angry opposition at every turn.
If this is what a cool, detached, professorial elitist can do, I want more of it."
In short, I kinda like this guy from (as Kate says) Kenya, who has my best wishes as he begins he second term.
@Kate: I'm with you. I'm also worried about all of the crazies out there. My wife and I are very glad we voted for him too.
We live in a VERY red county in North Georgia. The day following election day, when we encountered people bemoaning that the Kenyan Marxist Fascist was reelected, we just smiled like the cat who ate the canary and went on our way.
How delicious that the second inaugural of an African American president will take place on a day set aside (by most Americans) to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. The haters must be beside themselves. Fox can't even bring itself to turn on the transmitters, as if sitting in a dark room with his eyes closed, his hands over his ears, muttering "la-la-la-la-la-la...", will allow racist turd Roger Ailes to pretend that it's just not happening and when he wakes up, he'll have an autographed picture of President Rat on his wall.
For those of us who live in the real world, it's a great day, and I heartily concur with my confreres and con-soeurs what a good thing it is to have voted for Barack Obama.
Things aren't perfect with him as our leader, there's a lot I'd like to see different, but there are things, as Ken mentions, that are going far better than if the Rat and the Fraud had been elected.
We have the possibility of health care for all (if the Supremes don't gut it), the possibility of some actual movement on some form of gun control (however tenuous), things unimaginable just a few years ago.
We also have the return of many fools from the worst congress in history, but the argument with those scoundrels can be set aside for another day.
Today however, we can bask in the light. We've avoided the precipice, and I don't mean the fiscal cliff, for at least another four years. We can let the children of the right scream and cry in their nursery for the nonce, leave them to their secret handshakes and pirate codes and criminal plans scrawled in their own feces on the walls above their cribs.
Today is a day for the adults. And for Americans who still believe in democracy.
Hooray for us.
Speaking of Roger Ailes, I wanted to post a meta comment to Doug's entry over the weekend reducing Ailes to the level of pig tracks.
I'd like to suggest that this blowhard traitor doesn't even rise to the honorable level of the porcine ranks. At least pigs can boast that they are not malevolent liars and racist cranks.
Moreover, the connection of Ailes and pigs brings to mind an old ditty. The narrator is Ailes:
Twas the pig fair last December.
A day I well remember.
I was walking down the street in drunkin' pride.
When me legs began to flutter
And I sank down in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
As I lay there in the gutter,
Thinking thoughts I could not utter
I thought I heard a passin' lady say:
You can tell the man who boozes
By the company that he chooses
And with that,
The pig got up and walked away.
@Kate Madison, I agree with your not having a good feeling about this. There is so much hatred filling our lives from some really crazy people and @Akhilleus is right about Fox and their denial ~ how absurd to go off the air for 12 hours. Yet, this action is exactly what feeds the hate of its viewers. We need to think positive thoughts to help dispel all the darkness that cripples so many of our country people.
And, yes, Akhilleus, Hooray for us!
And here I thought the Borowitz report that Faux News would go off the air today was just another typical Borowitz jape. Guess I've been snookered again by a crafty humorist. Maybe someday I'll get the joke. Of course, if Fox is really off the air for Inauguration Day, that's funny (and a blessing), too.
Slight clarification. I realize that Fox will be carrying the inauguration, but I'm sure that Andy Borowitz' take on Ailes' feelings are 100% accurate.
What's not funny is the mindset of the people hired to work for Ailes.
A reporter for the Fox affiliate in DC, of all places, WTTG, dropped the N word in a piece on a Washington hotel, the Willard. The reporter breathlessly spouts that the hotel has been "...a key nigger inaugural spot..."
Yup. Fair and balanced.
Fair, balanced, and not too, too racist
Ken,
That would be funny. But Fox probably wouldn't want to deprive their listeners of hearing their on-air personalities give plenty of right-wing top spin and snark to inaugural commentary.
Re: What, stop selling shinola? Come on, Ak and Ken; do you guys really think the asswipes of Fox drizzle-shit info'nation Corporation would for one second stop selling their product? Ailes would sell his mother's wedding ring and sign the papers as the coffin was lowered. There are the believers of the drizzle-shit and then there are the profiteers of the drizzle-shit. Don't confuse the two. The believers will believe anything; the sellers will sell anything. Ailes sells drizzle shit twenty-four, seven. He prays for mass shootings and train wrecks. He turns finance into cliffs; guns into fashion.
Shutting down his drizzle-shit factory because of his "principles" will never happen; the man has no principles.
I just have to say that Beyonce's version of the Star Spangled Banner was just over the top because of that annoying delay in the sound system that I heard all inauguration long. She sang a duet in rounds with herself and it was just wonderful.
Go Obama!!!
Climate Change. Entitlement. Tolerance. Oportunity. Human Dignity. Justice.
Gays. Right to Vote. Immigrants.
Act in Our Time.
Absolutism is not Politics.
Act Knowing that Our Work Will be Imperfect. ACT!
The next four years is going to be exciting. I really appreciate the President stating that the people are the strength to get these things done.