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A President Who Spoke to America on Thanksgiving

Posted by Shemuses from The Nation

Roosevelt's Thanksgiving Proclamations, poetic in character, epic in scope, addressed an anguished people - offering recognition of their difficulties, understanding of their fears and, above all, hope for the better day that might be forged through common cause Fully recognizing the power of his bully pulpit, the 32rd president went to the heart of the matter 75 years ago, in his first Thanksgiving Proclamation...

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ACORN Accusations: How The Right Got It Wrong

Posted by Shemuses from

Negative media sensationalism and how it affected this so-called "radical" group of community organizers. "It is these wackos... these anti American Afrocentric Black Liberation theologists working with ACORN... they have been training young black kids to hate-hate-hate this country... It was a movement, it was a Bill Ayers anti-capitalist anti-American educational movement, ACORN is how it was implemented right under our noses!... It has been a movement, it has been a religion." - Rush Limbaugh

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Why churches fear gay marriage | Salon News

Posted by maplight from Salon

Richard Rodriguez on Proposition 8

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If Detroit Fails, What about the pensions? | The Agonist

Posted by Villagenyc from Agonist

There is another side that must be addressed with some sort of legislative mandate because if the auto world of Detroit is allowed to fail and sink behind the veil of protection that bankruptcy provides, the potential for great human tragedy becomes increasingly real for large groups of vulnerable Americans unless laws protecting pensions are fully protected.

FROM The Agonist

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Who will click with President 2.0?

Posted by Shemuses from Globe and Mail

Not since former vice-president Al Gore "invented" the Internet has technology been as hot a talking point in the corridors of power in Washington. President-elect Barack Obama has raised it to a new level, to the point where aides say he wants to become the first American President to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office. He also wants to be the first president to have a national tech czar.

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Arizonan will head Homeland Security

Posted by Shemuses from Politico

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) has been chosen to serve as secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security for President-elect Obama, Democratic officials said. Napolitano is a border governor who will now be responsible for immigration policy and border security, which are part of Homeland Security's myriad functions.

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Best Move for Liberals: Govern by Coalition

Posted by Shemuses from The Tyee

How Grits can save Canada and themselves.

Talk of a parliamentary accord between the Liberals, Bloc and NDP continues across the country, and inside and between the Bloc and NDP parties. It would take the form of a Liberal minority government, following a non-confidence vote, with a proposal to the Governor General that the three parties would agree to govern for at least two years.

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Immigration Reform in 2009?

Posted by Shemuses from

Will Barack Obama's historic election victory give new impetus to immigration reform in the United States? Analysts and political observers in the United States and Mexico have mixed assessments. Auguring against a quick fix are the economic crisis and the Iraq war, both of which the president-elect promises to prioritize early on his administration. Speaking on Univision Spanish-language television network shortly after Obama's victory, Chicago City Councilman Billy Ocasio said he did not think immigration reform would be possible within the first 100 days of the new administration, but he proposed the suspension of ICE raids and mass deportations until a solution to the question of illegal immigration could be further analyzed.

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Podesta nonprofit to take center stage

Posted by Shemuses from Politico

The changing of parties in the White House inevitably brings a reordering of Washington's think tanks. Come January, perhaps none will be more piped into the executive branch than the 5-year-old Center for American Progress, known for its emphasis on outreach and online messaging. The self-identified "action tank" was founded by John Podesta, who took a leave as the center's president and CEO to serve as Barack Obama's transition chief. Fox News host Chris Wallace seemed a little surprised when Podesta pledged in a recent interview that he would return to the helm of CAP, rather than join the administration - a sign he wants CAP to take center stage and rival the political influence and intellectual power of Washington's conservative think tanks.

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Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood

Posted by Shemuses from

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'Change' Wins in Vancouver

Posted by Shemuses from The Tyee

The party promising "change" won by a landslide in Vancouver on Saturday. Just what measure of change the voters demanded wasn't immediately apparent, however. Were they expecting Vision mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson to make good on his victory speech promises to eliminate homelessness and turn Vancouver into "the world's greenest city"?

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Three versions of the American Declaration of Independence

Posted by crown from

Cut and paste from the blog:

"We dropped Jefferson's alpha into TextFlow ( www.textflow.com) as an "original Word document" that he really wrote with a feather, and then the committee beta and the 1.0 Congress release for comparison."

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