Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Sunday, January 20, 2013

President Barack H. Obama, 2nd Inaugural, January 20, 2013



Well done, Mr. President.




All citizens of good will wish you well.



Here's a benediction [via Atheist Camel] that ALL Americans could embrace:

"Let's all use our humanity, self determination and common sense, to make this a better nation for everyone. Let’s re-establish the tradition of bridging divides by compromise as our Founders envisioned it. Let’s assess our needs and priorities and stop taking extremist positions…in any direction. Let’s quit demonizing those with whom we disagree, be it a fellow politician, or our neighbor down the street. Let’s quit depending on some story book character to take control and do something for us when all that does is breed false hope while shifting the responsibility for our nation’s direction away from our own minds and hands. Let’s grow the hell up and get to work. The lives and happiness of our children’s children depend on it. Amen.”

33 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

History shall determine if President Barrack H. Obama receives a Job Well Done.

In the meantime Americans of good will indeed wish the President well.

Anonymous said...

Some do not, including your readers and commentators.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Sigh.

RN. Well done, meaning to those who are not as persnickety as you--well done in achieving a second electoral victory and inauguration. I wasn't invoking history.

You seem not to be able to let a compliment to this president stand without spraying vinegar all over the place.

Anon,

Not all of us were thrilled with the 2nd inauguration of GWB.

Shaw Kenawe said...

PS. RN, you misspelled the president's name.

Les Carpenter said...

Oh so sensitive. Your problem, not mine. As to persnickety, I guess it takes one to know one.

By the way, if you think my rather magnanimous compliment and good will is spraying vinegar you obviously don't know what spraying vinegar is.

Have a fine day.

Silverfiddle said...

It's a real porkapalooza for the big donors and the DC corporate cronies...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/20/inaugural-corporate-donors_n_2516457.html?utm_hp_ref=business

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/inauguration/for-top-donors-inauguration-means-access-influence-and-angling-for-next-big-job/2013/01/19/4082a184-60d7-11e2-a389-ee565c81c565_story.html

Silverfiddle said...

Oh, and I do wish him well. He's our president!

Anonymous said...

If you think the attitude is the same, you are wrong

Shaw Kenawe said...

SF, class act. Written without a drop of sarcasm. It's real.

Les Carpenter said...

Shaw... PS, A misspelled word, oops. Do you really think I am concerned about such things as a occasional misspelled word? Oh yeah, Almost forgot. It must have been an intentional sigh of disrespect. Yikes! I'm outta here.

News Flash said...



State Lawmaker Arrested For Threatening To Shoot Colleague



GOP Senator Praises Outrageous NRA Ad


Senator's Gift To Big Pharma Causing Problems For Medicare

Shaw Kenawe said...

No, RN, it's not a misspelled "word." It's the president of the United States of America's name that was misspelled.

Anyway, I was just pulling your chain.

Les Carpenter said...

Whatevah Shaw.

Anonymous II said...

To Rush Limbaugh, who said "I hope he fails" on inauguration day: Suck it. He didn't.

To the birthers, whose claims about Barack HUSSEIN Obama's "questionable" citizenship were nothing but racism cloaked in concern-trollery: Suck it. He's a two term Kenyan president now.

To Mitch McConnell, who said his #1 goal was to make Barack Obama "a one-term president": Suck it, turtleman. #44 is #44 for another 4.

To John Boehner, who as House minority leader yelled "Hell NO you can't!" to Obama's first-term agenda: Suck it. Hell YES he could!

To former South Carolina senator and tea party organizer Jim DeMint, who said the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would be "Obama's Waterloo": Suck it. It so wasn't.

To the tea party idiots who hoisted signs at their Obamacare protest rallies that read, "Bury Obamacare with Ted Kennedy": I'd rather bury your ideas with Reagan. Suck it, jerks.

To Mitt Romney, who ran the most classless and bullshit-dense campaign of any presidential candidate in my memory: Here's something you can scrawl on your Etch-A-Sketch: S-U-C-K-I-T.

To Dick Cheney, who said America would be less safe under Obama: sir, the attacks of 9/11/01---and there were four of them---happened on your watch. Obama killed bin Laden and there were no al Qaeda attacks on American soil. So suck it. Right after you take a remedial gun-safety course.

To all those ignorant fools who called Barack Obama a Muslim, a Kenyan and/or a socialist as if those are all inherently and self-evidently "bad" things: grow the fuck up. Right after you suck it.

To Sean Hannity, Karl Rove and Dick Morris: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!!!!! Suck it.

To the Wall Street banksters, who….. who….. hell, I can't even begin to write the words that describe your obscene, cold-hearted, destructive, greedy and soulless behavior over the past four years. Just suck it.

To all the governors and state legislatures that tried their damndest to rig election laws so they favored Romney over Obama: Suck it. All you did was ensure that voters were more committed than ever to making sure their votes were counted.

And to President Barack Hussein Obama, who withstood all the slime, slop and sleaze that the conservatives' political, financial and media catapults could hurl at him: Carry on. Congratulations. And enjoy your day.

Silverfiddle said...

Anon may want to investigate the President's cozy relationship with the banksters...

President Obama is not singular in this respect, but rather following tradition.

The government-corporate-finance triad is a corrosive acid.

We have a problem, and it is a bipartisan one.

Carol G. with no blog said...

The symbolism of the two Bibles & the inauguration taking place on MLK's birthday and it being President. Obama's 2nd term...is wonderful. I still have hope the country will find more commonality than during the first term.

Les Carpenter said...

Carol G. --- Well said, and it is what we should all strive for.

To Anon, smugness becomes you.

Fortunately your message is not the one our President is now speaking to. Barack H. Obama has more wisdom and class in his pinky than you possess in your entire being. And we all know it.

KP said...

The Presidential Inauguration is an amazing display and celebration of democracy. On one stage you have Congress, the Supreme Court and the President.

Obama really seemed to enjoy himself. As he left and climbed the stairs, he appeared to turn around and just take it all in.

We have a wonderful country!

S.W. Anderson said...

The sentiment expressed in the post (anyone remember that?) is as admirable as it is unrealistic at this point.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

I like what Anonymous II said. I might steal it - smugly with a song.

Dave Miller said...

Great points KP... as always...

Shaw, it was a great day, as all inaugurations are in my opinion...

But yes, it was a little nicer in that President Obama was reelected.

KP, Shaw, Silver, RN and the rest... what about the idea that our inauguration day should be a national holiday in celebration... It was great having yesterday be a holiday...

I'd like to see that for both this and election day too...

Anonymous said...

Why don't presidents put their hand on the constitution instead of the bible during the inauguration?

Sammy said...

How about the idea of an election commission, that would eliminate the kind of laws that stop legal voters from voting

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anon, we live in a country that is not mature enough to be able to deal with a president swearing his/her oath of office on the Constitution. This is a country saturated in religion and too frightened of anyone in the Oval Office who isn't just as saturated. Many of our presidents were not religious, but they had to play along to make those religious American people feel secure. It's nothing more than a show.

In fact, the Constitution does not specify that the president place his or her on a Bible.

It makes more sense to me that the oath of office, which includes allegiance to the Constitution, be sworn on it, not to God.

God isn't anywhere in our Constitution.

But that's just the way it is. Tradition, and anyone who breaks it would be seen as the anti-Christ.

Happily, in decades to come, this will change. People are becoming less and less religious, and after watching people hate and slaughter each other over it all my life, that's a good thing, IMO.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Sammy, we already have something that addresses that:

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. §§ 1973–1973aa- is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S.

Echoing the language of the 15th Amendment, the Act prohibits states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." Specifically, Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which Southern states had prevented African Americans from exercising the franchise. The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had earlier signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.

The Act established extensive federal oversight of elections administration, providing that states with a history of discriminatory voting practices (so-called "covered jurisdictions") could not implement any change affecting voting without first obtaining the approval of the Department of Justice, a process known as preclearance. These enforcement provisions applied to states and political subdivisions (mostly in the South) that had used a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote in 1964. The Act has been renewed and amended by Congress four times, the most recent being a 25-year extension signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006.

KP said...

Hi Dave,

I like the idea of of the inauguration on a Saturday or Sunday, and voting days too. We already have (I think) 23 paid holidays for federal employees. I am not in favor anymore. I have zero paid holidays and do just fine :-)

If we were to priorotize, I would drop about twenty federal holidays and add voting as one. Inaugurations can be seen via highlights at anytime. I am not sure live is all that important and the whole spending thing kinda bothers me.

I could name names but it isn't necessary. Anymore than those names there and the cost was necessary.

Having said that, the President, Congress and the Supreme Court rocked!

KP said...

Shaw, do you have specific Prezs you think played up religious views?

I am working through that myself.

Les Carpenter said...

Tradition Anon, and the Founders actually did belive in Providence and a higher authority... Just saying

Les Carpenter said...

Sammy, definitely for that, as well as insuring anyone who doesn't habe the right to vote doesn't get a ballot.

Shaw Kenawe said...

KP,

Two presidents that come to mind immediately as very religious and very demonstrative of their religion while in office are Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.

As I look back over the presidents who've held office in my life time, they are the only two who invoked their religion and God on numerous occasions.

George Washington was not an openly religious man--there was no pastor at his bedside when he died, he rarely attended church and never took communion, according to the history books.

We all know Jefferson's attitude toward religion--he was a skeptic and wary of churchmen and the divinity of Christ.

John Adams was religious, and invoked God's name often. The Massachusetts state constitution [which was somewhat of a model for the US Const.) is steeped in references to God, unlike the US Const.

James Madison, although he himself was a religious man--he studied theology, but settled on a career in politics--Madison, known as the father of the US Const.--proposed this at one point:

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established."



Thomas Paine, was not religious, nor was Benjamin Franklin.

Anonymous said...

Talking about something that goes beyond that act. Court decisions show that act not enough to stop the kind of voting violations that happened this election.

Les Carpenter said...

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two intellectual giants. Right they were.

More were "religious" than not.

KP said...

Shaw, I may have misunderstood you. I thought you had in mind Presidents that exaggerated or made up the extent of his religious beliefs.

On another tangent, it seemed to me that Romney downplayed the extent of his deeply held religious beliefs.

As well, that those in the left who (I feel) unfairly painted him as cruel to dogs, uncaring in business, having had savings accounts all over the world to avoid taxes, etc, down played his deeply spiritual life story.

Obama appears to be on shifting sands. He ran his first campaign a bit differently when it came to discussions of religion than his second. Basically, there was no discussion during the second (not counting the loons claiming he was a muslim).

Probably a good move on Obama's part. His was as close to a perfect campaign as I have ever seen. Perfect as in powerful and successful; not all admirable at all times.