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In final days, Bush likely to pardon more than turkeys
The headline in The Onion may have nailed it: “In Thanksgiving Tradition, Bush Pardons Scooter Libby In Giant Turkey Costume.”
Skip the turkey costume, and the reality may not be far off: Many are betting that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff will be among those granted clemency before the president steps down.
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Libby is unlikely to be the only last-minute pardon. Other top prospects, listed by ProPublica, are said to include:
- Michael Milken, the 1980s junk bond king whose pardon application is being handled by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson – a close friend of the president’s, and the lawyer who successfully argued Bush v. Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court.
- James Tobin, Bush’s 2004 New England campaign chairman who raised more than $200,000 for the president’s re-election bid. Tobin was indicted in October for making false statements to the FBI in connection with the bureau’s investigation of the plot to jam Democratic Party phones in New Hampshire in 2002;
- Brent Wilkes, the defense contractor who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in February for furnishing former California Congressman Randy Cunningham with yachts, vacations and other luxury items in exchange for lucrative contracts, because of his cooperation with federal investigators;
- J. Steven Griles, a deputy Interior secretary during Bush’s first term who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charge sin connection with his 2005 Senate testimony regarding the Jack Abramoff political corruption scandal.
Presidential pardons are a long political tradition, embraced by both parties. In his final days, for instance, George H.W. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, along with 10 others who had been convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal, an arms for hostage program during the Reagan administration (when Bush was vice president).
That raised eyebrows, but nothing like the reaction to Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife Denise Rich had been a major contributor to his presidential library and to the Democratic Party.
The Rich decision, which became the subject of Congressional and criminal investigations, is likely to come up again in the confirmation hearings for Eric H. Holder Jr, Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general, given Holder’s involvement in the decision.
(One interesting historic footnote: Rich’s attorney from 1985 until the spring of 2000 was Scooter Libby.)
By comparison with his predecessors, the younger Bush has been downright niggardly in his use of pardons, granting clemency to only 171 people over eight years.
Most of those have been for penny-ante crimes. For instance, Leslie O. Collier – one of 14 people he pardoned last week – was pardoned for his conviction for the unauthorized use of a pesticide in killing bald eagles.
Bush’s most significant clemency to date was commuting Libby’s prison sentence. But of course, he still has almost two months to make up for lost time.
Among those who have submitted applications are disgraced Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones, suspended National Football League quarterback Michael Vick, home living doyenne Martha Stewart, former Enron executives Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow, jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff and convicted former California Congressman Randy Cunningham.
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This post is tagged with: Brent Wilkes, Crime, George W. Bush, I. Lewis Libby, J. Steven Griles, James Tobin, Marion Jones, Martha Stewart, Michael Milken, Politics, Randall Cunningham
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Small donors played comparable roles in Obama and Bush campaignsNovember 30, 2008 at 7:28am
A new study by the Campaign Finance Institute shows that Barack Obama received about the same percentage from small donors in 2008 as George W. Bush did in 2004.
High-powered group, most from Chicago, plans Obama inaugural
The group overseeing Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inaugural boasts a bipartisan roster of go-getters, most with deep Chicago roots.
In addition to Democrats William Daley, Penny Pritzker, John W. Rogers Jr. and Julianna Smoot, Republican Patrick G. Ryan, the businessman who heads Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics, is a co-chair.
By drawing big names from both parties, Obama is clearly hoping to emphasize his commitment to a bipartisan governing style.
Ryan’s participation particularly helps boost the image of collegiality. The chairman of Chicago-based Aon Corporation has been a major donor to George W. Bush and the Illinois Republican Party. On the other hand, he is spearheading Chicago’s Olympic bid, and it can’t have hurt that Obama made a video last week extolling the Windy City to the International Olympic Committee.
The other co-chairs of the inaugural committee are longtime Obama pals, as well as fund-raisers.
Pritzker, the hotel heiress, and Smoot, a professional Democratic fund-raiser, are credited with Obama’s record-setting campaign war chest.
Daley, a former Commerce secretary and the brother of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, is a Chicago bank executive. Rogers, a longtime friend, is the founder of Ariel Capital Management. (His ex-wife, Desirée Rogers, is set to become White House social secretary.)
The committee will go to some lengths to honor another Obama pledge – to reduce the influence of money on government – by limiting donations to $50,000. George W. Bush’s inaugural committees accepted contributions as high as $250,000, according to the New York Times.
It will also bar any contributions from corporations, political action committees, lobbyists who are currently registered with the federal government, people who are not citizens of the United States and from registered foreign agents.
No pricetag has been put on this inaugural, which is expected to draw a record number of people to the Capitol, perhaps in the millions. To get some perspective, Bush spent around $40 million on his inaugural events in 2005, much of which was raised from corporations and lobbyists.
Committee spokeswoman Linda Douglass said higher costs than usual are expected as a result of the president-elect’s intention to open as many events as possible to the public.
“This inauguration is more than just a celebration of an election,” she said. “This is an event that can be used to inspire and galvanize the public to act. That is what we’re aiming for.”
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This post is tagged with: Barack Obama, Barack Obama inaugural committee, Chicago, John W. Rogers Jr., Julianna Smoot, Patrick G. Ryan, Penny Pritzker, Politics, Recent Stories, William Daley0 Comments
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New owners take charge of Houston AstrosNovember 23, 2011 at 7:38am
After a long vetting process by Major League Baseball, ownership of the Houston Astros passed Tuesday to businessman Jim Crane and his partners.
Congratulations on your big promotion. . .and your cut in pay
Here’s a switch. XTO Energy, the Fort Worth oil and gas company, promoted two executives last week and cut their pay potential for next year. It also eliminated the chairman’s bonus.
Bob Simpson, the chairman, explained to the Star-Telegram that XTO previously paid officers in “an entrepreneurial fashion,” linking bonuses to increases in the company’s stock price.
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Exxon dwarfs XTO in size.
“We chose to address that now, to make it less controversial,” Simpson told the Star-Telegram, referring to XTO’s entrepreneurial pay plan.
On Dec. 1, Simpson, who remains chairman, is relinquishing his CEO title to Hutton, who was president. Vennerberg becomes president.
Going forward, Simpson will receive an annual salary of $3.6 million, but no bonus. Total salary and bonus for Hutton and Vennerberg are capped at $12.5 million and $7.5 million, respectively, according to a company filing with the SEC.
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This post is tagged with: big promotion but a cut in pay, Bob Simpson, executive compensation, Exxon Mobil, Fort Worth, Keith Hutton, oil and gas, Rex Tillerson, Vaughn Vennerberg, XTO EnergyRead related stories: Business · Recent Stories0 Comments
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Small donors played comparable roles in Obama and Bush campaignsNovember 30, 2008 at 7:28am
A new study by the Campaign Finance Institute shows that Barack Obama received about the same percentage from small donors in 2008 as George W. Bush did in 2004.
Social Secretary Desiree Rogers is decades-old Obama pal
It is testament to her close relationship to Barack and Michelle Obama – and to members of their inner circle – that Desiree Rogers threw an intimate birthday party for her friend, Valerie Jarrett, last week. Among the guests were the president-elect and his wife.
“She has extraordinary flair and exquisite taste,” Jarrett, co-chairman of Obama’s transition team, told the Washington Post. “My party was perfect – she had my favorite food, my favorite flowers.”
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And she has been a close friend of the Obamas for decades. Rogers was once married to John W. Rogers Jr., another old pal of the Obamas, who played basketball with Michelle Obama’s brother Craig Robinson at Princeton. John Rogers, the founder of Ariel Capital Management and also a major Obama fund-raiser, is co-chairman of the president-elect’s inaugural committee.
“This appointment sends a strong message that the Obamas want to use the White House strategically . . . [to] open it to a broader range of people,” Jarrett said.
“Desiree is a heavy hitter – she comes with her own range of contacts from around the country. She’s close to Michelle and she knows everyone who will be working in the West Wing, so she will be able to create a synergy.”
The Post notes that the position of social secretary is more influential than commonly realized. Best known for staging state dinners, the social secretary is also responsible for every event or ceremony that occurs in the White House or on the grounds.
The day after the inauguration, for example, Rogers will be responsible for organizing the swearing-in of the Cabinet.
Ann Stock, a social secretary in the Clinton White House, was once charged with pulling together the signing of the historic Mideast peace agreement in four days, for 4,000 guests.
“It’s like running a small agency,” said Stock, who briefed Rogers on the job last week. “Her business savvy, her marketing skills will all come into play. Her close relationship with the Obamas is very important because she comes to the job already understanding their preferences.”
Rogers, 49, will come to the White House from Allstate Financial, where she was hired to create a social network of consumers and clients.
Prior to that, she was president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, a $2-billion utility which she had headed since 2004. She worked at the company starting in 1997 as its chief marketing officer.
Besides serving on business boards like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Rogers is vice chairman of the board for both Lincoln Park Zoo and the Museum of Science and Industry, and is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Perhaps her most important qualification for the job of White House social secretary, Jarrett said, is that she understands the Obamas’ desire to bring in all sorts of people, “so it’s the people’s house again.”
“This campaign engaged a lot of people in ways they had not engaged before,” Jarrett said. “This is about continuing to capture that excitement.”
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Small donors played comparable roles in Obama and Bush campaignsNovember 30, 2008 at 7:28am
A new study by the Campaign Finance Institute shows that Barack Obama received about the same percentage from small donors in 2008 as George W. Bush did in 2004.
Robert Rubin’s disciples dominate Obama economic team
No team of rivals, this.
If anything, Barack Obama’s economic team is stunning for its homogeneity. Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers and Peter Orszag are all proteges of former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, a centrist economist who was one of the key Democratic architects of the financial deregulation undertaken in the Clinton years.
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Liberal economist Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect, expresses bafflement at Obama’s decision to pack his team with disciples of Rubin, an advocate of balanced budgets, free trade and financial deregulation – especially given Rubin’s central role at Citigroup, now on the brink of financial disaster.
“What kind of magic does this man Rubin have?” Kuttner asked in a recent Huffington Post column:
He was one of the key Democratic architects of the extreme financial deregulation that brought the economy to this pass. At Citi, he was one of the grand strategists of the speculation in securitized loans and off-balance-sheet gimmicks that has brought Citi to the edge of bankruptcy. Yet he continues to fall upwards. Surely Barack Obama must have noticed that Rubin is a false prophet. So why is his entire senior economic group a Team of Rubinistas?
. . .In fairness, adults are not merely tools of their patrons. In recent months, Larry Summers has disagreed with Rubin on the scale of the needed stimulus. Tim Geithner is for far more regulation than Rubin. Jason Furman, though suggested by Rubin for his campaign post of economic policy director, actually spent more of his career working for Joseph Stiglitz than for Robert Rubin. Peter Orszag has done a fine job as director of the Congressional Budget Office, and is not averse to large scale public spending.
Kuttner urges Obama to pick at least one senior economic adviser from outside Rubin’s centrist circle who would reflect the more muscular view of the government’s role favored by liberals.
But New York Times columnist David Leonhardt suggests the old, ideological battles of the Clinton years – known as the “Battle of the Bobs, Rubin versus Reich” – are now irrelevant.
Explaining the old divide, Leonhardt wrote: “On one side was Clinton’s labor secretary and longtime friend, who argued that the government should invest in roads, bridges, worker training and the like to stimulate the economy and help the middle class. On the other side was Bob Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs executive turned White House aide, who favored reducing the deficit to soothe the bond market, bring down interest rates and get the economy moving again.”
But today, against the backdrop of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, Leonhardt suggests the “Battle of the Bobs” has given way to a consensus on the need for a vigorous government intervention in the economy.
Certainly, Geithner is on record in support of regulating financial instruments and Obama himself has pledged to ushering in a period of re-regulation.
Both the president-elect and his team have also agreed on a massive stimulus plan that if passed by Congress would pump hundreds of billions into an economic jumpstart – hardly Rubin’s old recipe of balanced budgets, deficit reduction and deregulation.
“Everyone recognizes that we’re looking at deficits of considerable magnitude,” liberal economist Jared Bernstein told the New York Times. “Whether it’s Bob Rubin, Larry Summers or the most conservative economist, that’s a widely shared recognition.”
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College presidents may be wearing too many hatsJanuary 30, 2009 at 9:42am
Should university presidents sit on corporate boards? Sen. Chuck Grassley doesn’t think so.
South Financial Group’s Mack Whittle offers to renegotiate his retirement deal
The curious timing of Mack Whittle’s retirement as CEO of The South Financial Group continues to test the boundary of what constitutes a golden parachute at a bank receiving emergency aid from the federal Troubled Assets Relief Program.
In early September, well before Congress passed the bailout, Whittle said he would retire from the bank he founded, South Carolina’s largest, before the end of the year. His actual retirement came in late October, just days after his bank applied for TARP funds.
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The size of Whittle’s package is as least $12 million, according to TheStreet.com, which first reported the controversy. Others place the value higher.
Late last week, TheStreet.com said the Treasury Department was reviewing Whittle’s deal and quoted a letter from the former CEO defending his arrangement and saying he’d be willing to renegotiate to “mutually agree to something that allows the TARP investment to be made.”
The South Financial Group says it has received preliminary approval for a $347 million investment from the government.
John C.B. Smith Jr., the bank’s chairman, has defended Whittle, who remains on the company’s board of directors. But South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Rep. Bob Inglis, both Republicans, have been critical.
The most prominent member of the bank’s board is probably Darla Moore. The Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina is named after her.
Moore, who is married to investor Richard Rainwater, sits on the bank’s compensation committee.
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Caroline Kennedy’s ties to Bloomberg may hurt her prospectsDecember 25, 2008 at 10:13am
Caroline Kennedy has friends in high places, including President-elect Barack Obama, whom she supported in his quest for the presidency.
Feinberg and Cerberus: out of the frying pan
What’s in a name? Ask the folks at Cerberus Capital Management, named for the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell.
Managers of the private equity firm like to stay out of the limelight, an impossibility given Cerberus’ ownership of Chrysler.
As Reuters noted yesterday, Cerberus co-founder Stephen Feinberg is in the untenable position of seeking government funds to rescue a privately held company:
Feinberg – a frequent contributor to Republican coffers — seems content to let fellow executives John Snow, a former treasury secretary in the current Bush administration, and Dan Quayle, who was vice president under former president George H. W. Bush, be the famous names at his company.
Snow’s title is chairman of Cerberus Capital Management. Quayle is chairman of Cerberus Global Investments.
It has been Snow who has been the public face of the Chrysler deal. Snow talked in a press release at the time of the deal about the “inherent strength of U.S. manufacturing and of the U.S. auto industry” – a judgment called into question by the current economic crisis.
Cerberus has pledged that federal assistance would be used to shore up Chrysler, and would not flow back to the investment company.
Chrysler chief Bob Nardelli told a Senate committee Tuesday that Cerberus “has made it clear that it will forgo any benefit from the upside that would, in part, be created from any government assistance that Chrysler LLC may obtain.”
Although Republicans have vociferously opposed a bailout for the automakers, Feinberg is a generous supporter of the GOP. Earlier this year, he gave $28,500 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
When Cerberus bought Chrysler in 2007, Feinberg was hailed as a man who might save Detroit. In retrospect, the task seems as impossible as Katie Couric saving network news.
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FDR knew networksJuly 29, 2010 at 8:03am
A 75-year-old document released Wednesday by the National Archives highlights Franklin Roosevelt’s keen understanding of network dynamics.
Waxman’s coup likely to boost Obama energy agenda
He has been called the “scariest guy in town” and the Democrats’ Eliot Ness.
Rep. Henry Waxman, the 69-year-old Californian who wrested control of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee from Congress’ longest-serving chairman yesterday, is expected to usher in far more activist approach to global warming and energy independence than his predecessor, Michigan Rep. John Dingell.
And with his longtime chief of staff Phil Schiliro just tapped by President-elect Barack Obama as his liaison with Congress, Waxman is likely to work closely with the new administration, speeding passage of Obama’s health and energy agenda, which includes spending $150 billion on renewable fuel research and one million new hybrid cars.
“We are at a unique moment in history,” Waxman told reporters after the secret-ballot vote. “Seniority is important, but it should not be a grant of property rights to be chairman for three decades or more.”
Waxman developed a reputation as a tough and tenacious inquisitor as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, where he churned out an endless series of reports on issues ranging from Halliburton’s excessive billing on contracts in Iraq to the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education programs.
Though he represents one of the most liberal and affluent districts in Congress – an area that includes Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Santa Monica – there is nothing slick about the man.
He grew up in an apartment over a Watts grocery store owned by his father, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. After a stint in the California assembly, he came to Congress as part of the group of post-Watergate reformers known as the Class of 1974.
“Doing reports, conducting oversight – it’s what he has always done,” Schiliro told the Nation.
Although both Dingell and Waxman support universal health care, they have fought over the best methods of curbing global warming.
Dingell, 82, has worked on some environmental legislation, helping pass the Clean Air Act of 1990 and the raising of fuel-efficiency standards on the auto industry last year. But he has resisted previous efforts to raise fuel-efficiency standards, and environmentalists view him as an impediment.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was officially neutral in the Waxman-Dingell contest, circumvented Dingell last year by creating a temporary global warming committee chaired by Rep. Edward J. Markey of MA., a close ally.
While Dingell’s biggest contributors have been Detroit’s automakers and telecommunications giants – hardly surprising for a Michigan lawmaker and commerce chairman – Waxman’s are health-care players and unions.
The Center for Responsive Politics lists Dingell’s top donors as General Motors, Ford, BellSouth and DaimlerChrysler, AT&T and Comcast, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Waxman’s biggest contributors are the American Association for Justice, a lawyers’ trade group, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Hospital Association, the Service Employees International Union and the American Medical Association, according to the watchdog group.
The leadership change is a blow to the already-reeling auto industry, another confirmation of their diminished power on Capitol Hill. Republicans, meanwhile, expressed concern that the Democratic party is shifting leftward.
“This decision sends a troubling signal from a Majority that has promised to govern from the center,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “They moved away from Chairman Dingell because he is committed to approaching energy and environmental issues in a manner that protects American jobs.”
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New owners take charge of Houston AstrosNovember 23, 2011 at 7:38am
After a long vetting process by Major League Baseball, ownership of the Houston Astros passed Tuesday to businessman Jim Crane and his partners.
Penny Pritzker says no thanks to Commerce post
Penny Pritzker, the billionaire heiress who oversaw Barack Obama’s record-breaking fund-raising efforts, has taken herself out of the mix for U.S. Commerce Secretary.
“Penny Pritzker ultimately has decided she does not want to do the Commerce thing,” the Chicago Tribune’s Swamp quotes a senior Obama official.
Pritzker is already part of the Obama Biden economic transition team. But sources said it would have been exceedingly difficult for her to disentangle from her family’s far-flung business empire to fulfill the president-elect’s ethics requirements for members of his administration.
The 49-year-old Harvard- and Stanford-educated lawyer and businesswoman, whose net worth was estimated at $2.8 billion last year, is one of a trio of Pritzkers who run a sprawling family empire that includes the Hyatt hotel chain.
Pritzker first met the Obamas in the late 1990s when her son and daughter played in a summer basketball league at a Chicago YMCA coached by Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother, who introduced them.
Another key link was Obama’s longtime friend Martin Nesbitt, a vice president of the Pritzker Realty group, who approached her about getting involved in Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign, where she also would serve as finance chairman then.
A Pritzker appointment would certainly have not broken the “business as usual” mold that Obama has campaigned against. On the other hand, many commerce secretaries have been major donors of the presidents who appoint them.
Pritzker also would have brought baggage as the former chairwoman of Chicago’s Superior Bank, which failed in 2001 after making large amounts of sub-prime loans. While she stepped down as chairwoman in 1994, she remained on the board of the bank’s holding company.
The Chicago-Sun Times reported in April that it had obtained a letter showing that until Superior’s end, Pritzker made efforts to try to revive the bank with an expanded push into subprime loans. Pritzker’s attorney Kevin Poorman said that the kind of subprime lending that Superior was doing in 2001 was not predatory.
Update: Chicago Sun Times columnist Lynn Sweet posts an email from Pritzker herself saying she is not a candidate for the Commerce post. “I think I can best serve our nation in my current capacity: building businesses, creating jobs and working to strengthen our economy,” Pritzker said.
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Sibling rivalries in national politicsMay 21, 2010 at 7:30am
Not since 1968 have brothers stood against one another for such a powerful political position.
Rahm Emanuel agrees to be chief of staff
Fresh from his victory Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama has tapped a fellow Chicagoan to be the White House enforcer.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., announced today that he had agreed to be the president-elect’s chief of staff.
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“Obama wants a bad cop, so he can be good cop 90 percent of the time,” an unnamed Obama adviser told Politico.
The fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, Emanuel, 48, was first elected in 2002. He won re-election Tuesday with nearly 74 percent of the vote.
In 2006, he was the driving force behind his party’s successful effort to take back the House in 2006.
As the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he vetted potential challengers to Republican candidates, making sure they had the money or could raise the money to run a real race.
His style, by all reports, did not include playing nice.
“Emanuel is hard-wired to go for the jugular,” Nina Easton wrote in Fortune at the time. “Politics Chicago-style are part of his DNA.”
Given that DNA, it’s not surprising that Emanuel has Democratic, as well as Republican, detractors.
“I love Rahm, but that’s a small group of us,” Democratic operative Paul Begala told Easton. “He’s not a beloved figure like Tip O’Neill or Dick Gephardt. Rahm’s there (at the DCCC) because they want to
win.”When Emanuel joins Obama, he will be returning to a familiar workplace, as he served as a senior adviser in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 1998.
Before that, Emanuel was director of finance in Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign.
In January 1999, Emanuel left politics, joining the investment bank then known as Wasserstein Perella & Co. In four years, he made a reported $18 million before leaving banking to run for Congress.
Given his connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton and his friendship with Barack and Michelle Obama, Emanuel has emerged as a link between two factions in the Democratic Party.
“There are people that know the Obamas better than Rahm does, there are probably people who know the Clintons better than Rahm does,” Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker magazine said this spring in introducing Emanuel in a video interview.
“But I don’t think there’s anyone in American politics that knows both the Clintons and the Obamas better than Rahm does.”
This dual connection left Emanuel, a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention, unwilling to choose between Obama and Hillary Clinton until the primary season was over.
He endorsed Obama in June after Clinton conceded defeat and went on to work on Obama’s behalf.
In May, Emanuel told Lizza that he believed Obama’s first few weeks in office, if he were elected, would focus on the passage of the children’s health bill that President Bush vetoed last year.
“You want to show you can get something done,” Emanuel said.
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Obama convenes economic advisers, calls for swift action on economyNovember 7, 2008 at 4:37pm
In his first news conference as president-elect Barack Obama laid out the top priority of his first 100 days: A package of spending that he hopes will stimulate economic growth and aid a struggling middle class.
Candidate Obama is now president-elect
Winning decisively in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Virginia, Barack Obama was elected the 44th president today – the first black American ever chosen for the office.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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“Hello Chicago!” he declared. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
Republican candidate John McCain conceded the race at 11:15 p.m., graciously pledging to work with Obama “to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.”
Obama’s acceptance speech echoed the theme of inclusion he offered four years ago, at the Democratic convention that nominated John Kerry as its candidate.
“We have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states,” he said. “We are the United States of America.”
He addressed those who did not vote for him: “I will be your president too,” he said.
And he spoke to those beyond America’s borders: “Our stories are singular but our destiny is shared.”
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Obama convenes economic advisers, calls for swift action on economyNovember 7, 2008 at 4:37pm
In his first news conference as president-elect Barack Obama laid out the top priority of his first 100 days: A package of spending that he hopes will stimulate economic growth and aid a struggling middle class.
Catholic bishop: Obama supporters risk their ‘eternal salvation’
Bad enough to experience earthly doubts about one’s choice for president.
But Kansas City’s Bishop Robert W. Finn warned yesterday that supporting Barack Obama could jeopardize a Catholic’s eternal salvation, because of what he called the Democrat’s “fanatical” stance on abortion rights.
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(requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.“You make yourself a participant in the act of abortion” if you vote for Obama, Finn said in an interview with KCMO Talk Radio. “That’s gravely wrong. And you mustn’t do it because your eternal salvation is tied up with that important choice.”
At a time when both parties are aggressively courting Catholic voters, Finn is among a group of at least 70 bishops of the Catholic Church’s 195 diocesan leaders who have urged Catholics to vote on the single issue of abortion, which the church deems a grave sin, according to church commentator Rocco Palmo.
Others in that category include Cardinals Edward Egan of New York, Francis George of Chicago, Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.
But none of those have expressed themselves in such fire-and-brimstone terms.
A member of the conservative Opus Dei movement, Finn has become a standard-bearer of conservative orthodoxy since being elevated to head the Kansas City-Saint Joseph, MO diocese in May 2005.
Before being elevated to bishop, he was a priest in St. Louis under Archbishop Raymond Burke, who made headlines himself in 2004 when he forbade Sen. John Kerry from taking communion in the area due to Kerry’s stance on abortion.
Two weeks after Finn was installed as the head of the midwestern diocese, he demonstrated his take-no-prisoners attitude by dismissing the diocese’s longtime chancellor and vice chancellor, and canceling a nationally known lay education program, according to National Catholic Reporter.
“Our goal is to get ourselves to heaven and take as many people with us as we can,” he said by explanation.
Listen to an excerpt from Finn’s interview:
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This post is tagged with: 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign, Daniel DiNardo, Edward Egan, Francis George, Justin Rigali, Politics, Recent Stories, Religion, Robert W. Finn2 Comments
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Only the Catholic Church could be so narrow minded and wrong about an issue. Obama is not pro abortion, he is pro rights and a womans right to choose. The whole abortion rights issue is not about abortion at all it’s about rights, and a womans right to privacy. Obama is only in favor of abortion if it becomes a health issue or in cases of rape or inscest.
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I think what’s really wrong about his statement, has nothing to do with women’s rights or the rights of an unborn child. His view of salvation and what it takes to go to heaven is way out of wack. Even though I don’t support Obama or abortion, if you voted for Obama, it will not send you to hell. That’s as accurate as the doctrine the “Church Lady” had on SNL. Listen to what God says:
Romans 10:9-10 (9)that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (10) For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
God loves you, He did what had to be done as a Just Judge, he gave us what was necessary to pay the price for sin. For sin, any sin big or small, the penalty is eternal death, but like a judge paying your speeding ticket, He gave His Son Jesus to stand in for the sin of the world. That is what salvation is.
Not trying to republish a bible here, but this is key…
John 3:15-21
15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but[b] have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
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Bernard Madoff charged with multi-billion securities fraudDecember 11, 2008 at 6:33pm
Bernard L. Madoff, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and a former NASDAQ governor, was arrested Thursday morning by FBI agents and charged with a multi-billion-dollar criminal securities fraud.
Harvard won’t let Google scan copyrighted books
Harvard University is dropping out of Google’s massive book-scanning project involving copyrighted books, citing concerns about reader access.
The university was among Google’s early partners for the project, but expressed reservations about the $125-million settlement reached last week between Google and authors and publishers, setting up a framework for splitting the profits from digitally copied books between the Internet titan and the original writers and publishers.
Harvard was not a party to the suits brought by the Authors Guild and five different publishers, which led to that settlement.
“As we understand it, the settlement contains too many potential limitations on access to, and use of the books by members of the higher-education community and by patrons of public libraries,” wrote University Library Director Robert C. Darnton in a letter to staff.
Darnton also said he was skeptical of the subscription pricing model laid out in the settlement.
Harvard had been one of five academic libraries – along with Stanford, Oxford, Michigan, and the New York Public Library – who had agreed to partner with Google when the book scanning initiative was announced in October 2004.
Harvard’s decision to bar copyrighted material from the project could have broader repercussions since Harvard maintains the largest academic library in the world, and its director, Darnton, also serves as a trustee of the New York Public Library.
However, it does not affect an earlier agreement allowing Google to scan books with expired copyrights. Of the approximately seven million books Google has scanned since 2004, four to five million are out of print and not covered by copyright laws. Among those copied from Harvard’s collection are books by Henry James, Edith Wharton, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Margaret Fuller.
Under the settlement, which still must be approved by a judge, Google would publish up to 20-percent of a book’s text online at no charge to readers. The entire book would be available for a fee. Universities, libraries and other organizations would be able to buy subscriptions to make entire collections available to their users online.
Google plans to take 37 percent of the revenue, leaving 63 percent for publishers and authors. If Google sells ads on pages where previews of scanned books appear, it will split the revenue on the same basis.
Harvard officials said the university would reconsider its participation if the deal were restructured with more “reasonable terms.”
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FDR knew networksJuly 29, 2010 at 8:03am
A 75-year-old document released Wednesday by the National Archives highlights Franklin Roosevelt’s keen understanding of network dynamics.
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