Barack Obama NOW!

Did you know that President Barack Obama has a Flickr account?

You can view The Official White House Photostream’s photostream at Flickr with photos by Pete Souza.

Here’s a few photos that caught my eye:

April 28th, 2009 | Category: celebrations, dog, Iraq, military, news, pop culture | Comments (2)

Bob Dylan speaks out about Barack Obama in a special interview for the (UK) Times.

He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage – cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

April 6th, 2009 | Category: endorsements, Music, pop culture | Comments (2)

Nancy Reagan, widow of President Ronald Reagan shared praise of Barack Obama:

“I’m very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research,” she wrote in a statement released shortly after Obama signed an executive order lifting the Bush-era restrictions. “These new rules will now make it possible for scientists to move forward. I urge researchers to make use of the opportunities that are available to them, and to do all they can to fulfill the promise that stem cell research offers.”
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Nancy Reagan has been an outspoken advocate of stem-cell research – and scientists hope that the research could someday lead to cure to Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicted her husband, Ronald Reagan.
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Reagan continued, “Countless people, suffering from many different diseases, stand to benefit from the answers stem cell research can provide. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to do everything in our power to find cures for these diseases – and soon. As I’ve said before, time is short, and life is precious.”

March 10th, 2009 | Category: endorsements, health, news, Republicans, technology | Comments (2)

The majority of Americans have spoken. We’re ready for big changes in this country, and we are putting our support behind the new President.

Our economy is in the toilet, and we need to get things on track- AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

History has shown that Democratic Presidents have provided the best environment for job growth.

Daily Kos created this excellent graphic, using statistics provided by the United States Labor Department.

What does it show? Under Democratic presidencies, job creation goes up. Every Democrat who followed a Republican did better than the Republican who preceded them. Every Republican who followed a Democrat produced fewer jobs than their predecessor.
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And before anyone jumps on the “but that was because they got all the jobs that were started up under the previous administration,” notice that where Republican followed Republican, the second administration came out worse than the first. When Democrat followed Democrat (for which we don’t have nearly enough examples) job creation improved in the second administration.

I just hope the job growth in the United States picks up soon….

March 3rd, 2009 | Category: economy, history | Comments (9)

As you might have heard, after Shepard Fairey was sued by AP for unauthorized use of the Obama photo, Shepard Fairey decided to counter-sue AP using the “fair use” defense.

As a member of Fairey’s defense team, Lawrence Lessig has an update on Shepard Fairey’s case, asking the public for similar images of Obama on his blog:

As mentioned, the Fair Use Project at Stanford’s CIS is representing Shepard Fairey in his suit against the AP. To that end, we’d be grateful for some net-based knowledge. How many photos are there “like” the beautiful photograph that Mannie Garcia took (the one on the left; the one on the right is a CC licensed photo taken by Steve Jurvetson)? Can you send any examples to [email protected]?
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Also, please send any favorite examples of photos used as visual references for other works of art. We lawyers don’t know much, but we can learn pretty quickly.

You can read more at Lawrence Lessig’s blog at Lessig.org

February 17th, 2009 | Category: grapics, money | Comments (5)

Fellow blogger BarackOblogger has an interesting idea for a petition:

Background (Preamble):
We the people of the United States who support Barack Obama and the economic stimulus package hereby challenge each and every Republican congressman and congresswoman who voted against the stimulus package to return any and all federal monies given to their constituents because of the stimulus package….
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And if you don’t have the guts to do this and are just playing politics, then we demand that you cease and desist from standing in the way of progress, and let our President do what is necessary to get this country back on track!
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Petition:
We the people of the United States who support Barack Obama and the economic stimulus package hereby challenge each and every Republican congressman and congresswoman who voted against the stimulus package to return any and all federal monies given to their constituents because of the stimulus package.
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The Republican Party claims that it is the party that stands for economic and personal responsibility.
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So we take the Republicans at their word and challenge them to stand by their moral principles.

You can read the full text of this petition and add your support by visiting this page.

I have mixed feelings about this petition. It definitely sends a direct message to members of the Great Obstructionist Party about standing in the way of progress and recovery for the United States of America.

If it will help voters realize that their Republican representatives are on the wrong side of common sense, then I’m in favor of this.

On the other hand, it still hurts the American people that need the help.

I don’t know the answer, but I hope that President Barack Obama will recognize that there’s very few Republicans that are willing to demonstrate actual bi-partisanship, so the Democrats might as well just write the legislation they want, instead of trying to dilute their best efforts.

February 16th, 2009 | Category: economy, money | Comments (6)

ePolitics.com has assembled a great collection of articles on how Barack Obama became President.

Click HERE to see this great list.

February 15th, 2009 | Category: Democrats, Election 2008 | Comments (1)

The big news is that President Barack Obama was able to get a big stimulus package passed by the U.S. Congress.

The public is still loving Barack Obama, with sky-high approval ratings.

Cartoonist Lloyd Dangle imagines what the stimulus package could have been…

Elsewhere in the news, the Obamas announced that their first cultural event at the White House will honor Stevie Wonder.

The White House is planning a concert this month to honor Stevie Wonder, whose music provided part of President Barack Obama’s campaign soundtrack.
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The White House says the president and first lady Michelle Obama will present Wonder a Library of Congress award on Feb. 25. The concert will be broadcast the next day on PBS as part of its “Performance at the White House” series.

… and this blogger is getting lazier with this Obama blog, choosing other activities to spend his time on..

February 14th, 2009 | Category: cartoons, celebrations, economy, humor, money, Music | Leave a comment

Here’s a story that doesn’t surprise me

The pensive Obama facing upward, forward, onward and futureward, with that Warholesque red, white and blue and the word, HOPE, is the work of Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist.
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It has driven the sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, with Fairey-signed copies fetching thousands of dollars on eBay.
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It is based, Fairey has acknowledged, on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia at the National Press Club in Washington.
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The AP is asking for credit — and compensation.

Read more:
Chicago Tribune Swamp blog
Huffington Post overview
Today with President Barack Obama

.. and to think…. today, I just discovered Obamaicon.Me !

February 4th, 2009 | Category: government ethics, grapics, pop culture | Comments (9)