Posts Tagged ‘White House’
Africa
Health care for $2?!
Asia
Sri Lanka’s civil war ended last year, but the UN is investigating human rights violations that might have occurred during that time.
Europe
Oo la la! There’s a scandal in France that might include your favorite shampoo brand. …read more.
White House photos
This week brought a lot of snow to the Mid Atlantic region, including Washington D.C., and we thought this picture of The White House during a blizzard summed it up perfectly. We’re hoping once the snow storm settles, we’ll find a picture of the Official Obama Snowball Fight!
So, it’s not a secret, the US has some debt.
Not like “oops I overdrew this month” debt, more like a $1.35 TRILLION deficit for the coming year.
The latest attempt to decrease this depressing disaster comes from the President. President Obama will seek a three-year freeze on some domestic spending.
Let both sides of the political aisle prepare their mud catapults! We’ve got the rundown…
Like making sausages… The health care reform may be getting messy again.
Got Wind? It could save on the energy bills.
If you thought Obama was inexperienced: Senator-elect Scott Brown was asked if he is considering a run for the White House.
We here at USDemocrazy enjoy listening to a well-worded, insightful address (A sharp contrast to our editor’s daily blabbering).
Thus, in honor of President Obama’s recent West Point speech entitled “A New Way Forward“, we decided to dedicate this week’s Awesome Sites to other noteworthy addresses.
The Presidential Speech Archive at the Miller Center for Public Affairs on the campus of the University of Virginia contains a listing of presidential speeches, in the ascending order of presidents.
One famous wartime presidential address stands out among most others, the Gettysburg Address. The Avalon Project website of Yale University makes this noteworthy speech available while also providing a compilation of information on other historical documents.
As part of its American Presidency Project, the University of California at Santa Barbara offers a catalog of nomination acceptance and inauguration speeches delivered by presidents and would-be presidents.
Our office here at U.S. Democrazy is quiet busy. You can walk in at any given time and there will be people playing games, eating food, listening to music, writing diligently.
As it turns out, we’re in good company! The Obama White House has lots of things going on all the time, from cooking competitions to Halloween parties. …read more.
thanks google images
We at USDemocrazy have been watching the recent sparring between Fox news and the White House with great interest.
Its exciting to see a real conflict every once in a while (the closest we ever get is wrestling for the printer).
No matter your political alignment, this spat is fun to watch. So get your popcorn and enjoy.
TalkingPointsMemo has a sweet blow by blow with commentary here. Along with a strategical debate on Daily Kos. Last but certainly not least Fox’s side of the story.
The arguments basically boil down to this:
Fox: You arrogant folks in the White House cannot dictate what Fox should report… It’s an abuse of power!!
White House: Abuse!?? You are citing us for ABUSE???!!! It’s our biased friends at Fox who ABUSE THE FACTS!
You get the idea…
Tell us what you think!
Thanks Wikicommons.
So what should the US do about the elections in Iran (other than the US Democrazy solution of flooding the blogosphere with posts)?
Vice President Joe Biden said “there’s some real doubt” about the legitimacy of the election. So far that admonishment is the harshest statement from the White House (and unsurprisingly it came from Joe “foot in the mouth” Biden).
Currently the administration is not closing any doors, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton avoiding any condemnation of the Iranian elections.
The current White House response is finding support from some groups.
The White House can and should “show concern for human life and protesters’ safety and promote tolerance and dialogue.” But to get any further involved, even rhetorically, would “instigate the cry that the reformers are somehow driven and directed by the United States
said Hadi Ghaemi, a spokesman, strongly apposed to Ahmadinejad, for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Others however have called for a stronger response from President Obama.
Let’s assume that Obama meant what he said when he called for a “new beginning” for the region and relations with the United States.
Isn’t now the time to consolidate and build on those gains by using that popularity to destabilize Ahmadinejad and the hardliners in Iran? He does not need to call openly for an uprising, but he should be taking the accounts of reporters and our intelligence operatives in Iran and broadcasting them to the world. He should be amplifying the voices of the Iranians who have, once again, been deprived of any say in how they will be governed, and using them to pressure the Iranian regime at a time when it is plainly very fragile.
So how should the US respond? I know all of our faithful readers have been bored over the weekend. So get juiced up for this week’s US Democrazy posts by stating your views on the Iranian Elections.
So, summer’s here, school’s out, and we at USDemocrazy are, of course, unemployed. What do we do with all of this free time when we’re not earning money? Watch late-night television, OBVIOUSLY!
Though channel-surfing is fine from time-to-time, we’re all about loyalty. In the past few weeks, so much fuss has been made over the Leno-to-O’Brien transition on NBC’s ”The Tonight Show” that we’ve decided to scope them out. When Conan took the stage in Los Angeles on Monday night, we sat in rapt attention.
Being the media junkies we are, we also we paid rapt attention to the subsequent reaction to the change-over ( of which there was reaction-a-plenty!)
Most people thought Conan opened his run on “The Tonight Show” pretty well, if safely. He steered mostly clear of topical jokes, possibly to avoid offending delicate political sensibilities.(Boring!)
On Tuesday, Conan’s second night as host, not as many people tuned in. Still, Monday night’s ratings beat prime late-night competitor, David Letterman.
For years, Leno and Letterman were late-night rivals of the best kind, and now that that head-to-head is over, some people, like Sam Anderson at New York Magazine, wonder what kind of relationship Conan and David will have:
If Letterman-Leno felt like a decades-long slow-motion death match, Letterman-Conan threatens to be its opposite: sweet, cute, possibly even boring.
The late-night shuffle began with Jimmy Fallon taking Conan’s late night seat, followed by Conan taking Leno’s “Tonight Show” slot.
Jay Leno does not plan to retire. Most of you may know that he’ll be offered a nightly prime time show on NBC at 10pm for the fall line-up. And yes, the promos have started. It will be a long summer.
Leno may appear to be getting a new lease on life, but The Daily Beast’s Kim Masters notes that maybe this was a tough move for the generously mandibled (read: big chinned) host:
They say that Leno is angry and upset that he allowed himself to be talked into taking the 10 p.m. slot. He has realized that the new arrangement will alter the kind of show that he has to deliver far more than he anticipated.
Sure, he’s feeling a lot of pressure, but who doesn’t in this recession? Conan has already made a few allusions to NBC’s struggle to survive on his new show, and thus if the network is going to survive, ratings have to keep up.
Luckily, Mr. O’Brien got a boost from none other than the Prez himself, when he talked about the big late-night transition to Brian Williams in the middle of another NBC show: “Inside the Obama White House.” (See video here.) Though, it does seem like Obama might have forgotten Conan’s name for a second, which Conan of course noted on Tuesday night’s show.
So, whether you think Conan’s take-over of the “Tonight Show” was a “yawn” , “good” or not very “memorable,” Conan clearly has some work to do. Ratings need to stay strong. Conan will need to make the “Tonight Show” distinctly his fast.
We’ll leave you with The Daily Beast’s compilation of the most talked-about moments from Conan’s still young run on “The Tonight Show!”
