Emanuel Sets A Challenge (Wall Street Journal)
President-elect Barack Obama's incoming White House chief of staff challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won't be acceptable. "When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, 'We're OK with minor reform.' I'm challenging you today, we're going to have to do big, serious things," Rahm Emanuel said, speaking to The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council, a conference convened to elicit corporate opinion on the challenges facing the new president.
So Obama’s refusal to endorse a universal plan during the primary was just a way to diss Hillary? I am SO surprised. Nevertheless, I do think it’s a good thing to be talking universal, and to be persuading business leaders instead of just bowing to the right wing.—Caro
Obama repeats vow to move rapidly on climate issues (International Herald Tribune)
WASHINGTON: President-elect Barack Obama has indicated that he intends to move rapidly on one of the most ambitious items on his agenda - tackling climate change. Speaking to a bipartisan group of governors by video on Tuesday, the president-elect said that despite the weakening economy, he had no intention of softening or delaying his aggressive targets for reducing emissions that cause the warming of the planet. "Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all," Obama said. "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response." He repeated his campaign vow to reduce climate-altering carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050 and invest $150 billion in new energy-saving technologies.
Duke study says 'going green' will grow jobs in U.S. (McClatchy)
For all their talk of building a green economy — one flush with jobs that help protect the environment — most politicians have not said exactly where the new jobs would come from. A new study from Duke University tries to fill in the gaps.
Black Caucus members warn Obama can't do everything (McClatchy)
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Rep. John Lewis jokingly says he'll try to resist calling Barack Obama "Brother President" after he's sworn in as the nation's first African-American president on January 20.
Let’s lower those expectations, now! Don’t ask for too much! But to my mind, this is the very time to demand as much as possible. It so happens that Cornel West agrees with me. See below.—Caro
Cornel West on the Election of Barack Obama: "I Hope He Is a Progressive Lincoln, I Aspire to Be the Frederick Douglass to Put Pressure on Him" (Democracy Now)
Princeton University professor of religion and African American studies, Cornel West, speaks about the election of Barack Obama, his selection of Eric Holder to be Attorney General, the possible selection of Lawrence Summers to be Treasury Secretary and the role of the progressive left to push Obama.
Public distrust of government could hobble Obama (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — Hold on to those clever caricatures of Barack Obama as Franklin D. Roosevelt for a bit. This election could end up more 1992 than 1932. Despite media-fed expectations of an FDR-like flood of legislation that would help Obama transform the country and its politics, there's also a real chance that he could face a Bill Clinton-like morass that would stymie some of his boldest promises and lead to a backlash against his party and him. The key reason, two former Clinton White House insiders warn, is that Americans don't trust the government, even if they want it to do things.
The main reason that Americans don’t trust government is that the right wing has spend 40 years and billions of dollars telling them and showing them that government can’t be trusted, and the Democrats haven’t countered with their own campaign to justify their much better stewardship when they do get in power. That lack of foresight by Democrats is not the fault of us liberals, and we shouldn’t have to pay for it.—Caro
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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
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Emanuel's statement may portend real action on UHC-hope, hope.
Very interesting--and did Rahm actually use the term "universal healthcare"? Could this be a feint leftward to scare them into accepting gratefully what Obama and Daschle actually put forward?
And how does Daschle's "commission" or "board" look like something big?
Hhhmmmm...time will well. I guess.
they've been saying "universal" all along--
even when it's clearly not so.
this was interesting, about Rahm on Wall St-- Is Rahm Proposing A Health Care Horse Trade? -- http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump...
"... Is it possible that Rahm's essentially saying to corporate America: Look, we have to help middle-class workers. We have a number of ways we'd like to do that--health care reform, tax cuts, green-energy investments, other infrastructure projects, education, on down to card check. But we also understand that card check is absolutely anathema to you. So work with us on our other priorities and maybe we can make card check go away for a while. ..."
"I Hope He Is a Progressive Lincoln..."
Excuse my French but A-fuckin-men. Really, how hard is it for the OFB
to say this? If more of them were like this, I'd be much less antagonistic towards them.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...