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January 2009

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 23, 2009 0 Comments

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich just finished a press conference in which he claimed that he is not participating in the Senate impeachment trial, scheduled to start Monday, because the Senate impeachment trial rules deprive Blagojevich of a fundamentally fair hearing. Blagojevich is right that he...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 23, 2009 2 Comments

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 22, 2009 0 Comments

As if the flubbed oath of office wasn't enough, it has now been revealed that the all-star musical ensemble at Barack Obama's inauguration didn't play the music you heard live. The honorable Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, Yo-Yo Ma, and Anthony McGill actually played on the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 22, 2009 5 Comments

Dramatic increases in domestic drilling were offered as the answer to many of our economic problems last summer when gas was approaching $4 per gallon. Even Democrats were forced to recognize the need to open up some offshore drilling, and pressure was building to drill...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2009 0 Comments

Symbolism counts for a lot. In a highly symbolic move, Barack Obama's first President-to-President phone call was to Abu Mazen, a/k/a Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority:In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, [Obama]...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2009 6 Comments

I really wanted to put my disgust at Bush Derangement Syndrome behind me in approaching Obama.Yes, Obama and his supporters (i) repeatedly lied about Bush lying us into war, (ii) distorted the court rulings on Gitmo to create the false impression that Bush is a...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2009 0 Comments

On the morning of the inauguration, when attention was focused on the peaceful transition of power from George Bush to Barack Obama, the NY Times disclosed that it had taken out a loan from Mexican financier Carlos Slim on terms that would shame the worst...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2009 1 Comment

The Associated Press already has announced that Hamas is "restoring order" to Gaza, just like Hamas did in July 2007, before the Israeli invasion. The UN is decrying the "alarming" humanitarian situation, just like it did in July 2008, before the Israeli invasion. And British...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 20, 2009 0 Comments

Israel has ended its Gaza operation in the hope that Hamas has learned to change its ways. No surprise, Hamas already is attempting to rearm with even longer-range missiles via a large shipment from Iran:US and Egyptian warships were scouring the Gulf of Aden and...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2009 2 Comments

Whenever it is a slow news day, or some event (like the Obama inauguration) is sucking the air out of the media and internet, someone whose blog I follow invariably posts a picture of a pretty woman under some pretext. When the picture pops up...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2009 4 Comments

The media is all aflutter today with reports -- as headlined in the NY Times -- that "all active-duty and reserve forces meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004, the year that violence in Iraq intensified drastically...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 18, 2009 0 Comments

I recently received a renewal invoice for The Providence Journal, in the amount of $259 annually. The national and international coverage in the ProJo simply regurgitates wire service stories, but the local and state coverage is superb. ProJo investigative reporters have uncovered numerous government scandals,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 17, 2009 2 Comments

I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of Illinois politics. I've been following the Rod Blagojevich saga as an outsider looking in, from a legal perspective. One things seems clear to me, as we approach the impeachment trial: Rod Blagojevich is very good...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 17, 2009 1 Comment

The image on the home page of The New York Times website is startling. A bombed out building in Gaza with a single brightly colored child's shoe in the middle of the photo. The imagery is powerful, particularly the contrast between the blackened floor and...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 16, 2009 0 Comments

The Obama bed has made its way from a fancy antique shop in Seekonk, Massachusetts, to the White House. The 200-year-old antique tall-post tiger maple bed was resized to king for the Obamas. The bed comes from Leonards antiques, which did not reveal the price....

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