Barack Obama
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President Barack Obama has ordered lawyers to halt the release of photos showing detainees being subjected to abuses by U.S. prison guards and soldiers.
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President Barack Obama is revealing reforms aimed at changing the tax code to end overseas tax havens and direct jobs back to the U.S.
The Palestinian organization Hamas has sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday, most likely through Senator John Kerry while he was visiting Gaza. So far there is no news as to the contents of the letter. Kerry, as head of the Senate Foreign Committee, is on a visit to Gaza for humanitarian reasons, visiting the bombed American International School and other locations in order to survey the aftereffects of Israel's recent incursion into the territory. He has not met with Gaza directly as the U.S. will not deal with organizations which it considers terrorist in nature.
While the economic situation continues to decline, I thought I'd focus on a more positive story today. President Obama has signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which makes it easier for workers to sue employers for pay discrimination. The new law gives employees the ability to sue for unfair pay as long as the employee files the suit within 180 days of their most recent paycheck. The former law made it necessary to file suit within 180 days of the first unfair paycheck, which severely limited legal rights of anyone who discovered the discrimination long after it had begun.
Russian military officials declared on Wednesday that it would halt its plans to deploy missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad because of a change in U.S. attitude. The missiles, set to be placed near the Russia/Polish border, were to act as a counter to the proposed U.S. missile-defense shield. While President Bush pushed for the missile shield, President Obama did not make a commitment either way during his run for office, other than to declare that he would cut unproven military technology spending in order to help the economic situation.
President Barack Obama has ordered the government to temporarily end prosecution of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (or Gitmo) "in the interest of justice." Many detainees have been held for years without being charged for any crimes, under the claim that they are not entitled to protections of U.S. Constitutional Law or the Geneva Conventions. Obama has said that he will close Gitmo, and many see this as the first step (read the story on the U.N.
Tuesday at noon, in a historic ceremony, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the forty-fourth President of the United States. It is thought that as many as two million gathered in "The Mall," the area between the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building, to witness the inauguration. Obama's inaugural speech echoed of Lincoln and FDR, Jefferson and JFK. He spoke to the people, letting us know that it would be difficult, but that we would emerge better, and the world with us. Here's a portion, speaking of strength and peace:
The presidency of George W. Bush ends on Tuesday at noon. It's been an almost surreal eight years, with highs and lows alike. Bush's term in office began with controversy, as he lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore but won the electoral votes after the fiasco with hanging chads in Florida (read the story here). His first several months went without much fanfare, until September 11, 2001.
President-elect Barack Obama delivered a major policy speech - his first since his election - on Thursday, urging Congress to rapidly pass his $800 billion stimulus plan. His speech addressed the economy specifically, calling for dramatic action in order to prevent a lingering recession. "For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs. More families will lose their savings. More dreams will be deferred and denied. And our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse," Obama stated.
