Obama - Person of the Year 2008

As many people have thought, TIME magazine select Barack Obama as Person of the Year 2008. I don’t think many people will ever doubted TIME’s decision choosing Barack Obama.

What happened in the last one year have become a prove of how devoted Barack Obama to his country and the rest of human kind. His strong leadership is America’s hope for a better future.

Many people still remembered how his speech after winning the U.S election touch many people’s heart and many people think it was the best speech they ever heard. The speech later on remembered as the “Yes We Can” speech.

The runner-up for Person of this Year is Henry Paulson which is United States Treasury Sectetary and French President Nicolas Sarkozy took the 3rd place.

FYI, according to MSNBC Barack Obama appeared as TIME’s magazine cover fourteen times in the past year.

Congratulation Obama! We counting on your leadership.

Barack Obama

After 13 electors cast their ballots this Monday, it’s now official Barack Hussien Obama is the first ever black president in the United States.

538 electors from 50 states and DC cast their ballots as the process to legally and constitutionally elect Barack Obama as nation’s 44th president.

Obama walks smoothly into the White House after defeating his fellow U.S. senator John McCain on November 4th election. Barack Obama will start his new job as the U.S. president starting from mid January 2009.

We wish you luck Obama! Bring this nation to a better place.

Arne Duncan

Rumors has it that President-elect Barack Hussien Obama is planning to put Arne Duncan as nation’s education secretary.

It is said Obama choose Duncan to help him fix the educational system in the U.S. 44-year-old Arne Duncan is known for running the 3rd biggest school district in the United States.

Obama has known Duncan since the 90’s, when he and Duncan played pickup basket ball in Harvard.

George Miller from Education & Labor Committee said that Duncan is very good choice to reform nation’s school educational system. He also added that Duncan is very experienced in his field and he’s very open on new ideas to improve education.

Some people think that the choice of Arne Duncan somehow answered doubts on those who wondered whether Illonois Governor Rod Blagojevich might reduce the chances of a cabinet contender from Illinois.

Joseph Lieberman

The nominee of US Vice Presidential, Joseph Lieberman, won the vote that allow him to keep his chairmanship as a chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and member of the Democratic caucus. But it might be not so easy and he might be not so lucky without the implicit backing of Barack Obama.

Regardless of what he already did during Obama campaign for the US presidential election, by openly questioned Obama’s patriotism, Obama still want to help Lieberman. By doing this, Obama will get point or benefit in order to get every vote that he needs from the senate, and Lieberman can be an asset for obama because he already owes from him.

Actually what Obama did is not a big surprise for us. If we look back for his meeting with McCain in Chicago, this is already a sign that he wants to build cooperation than the opposite.

Eric Holder

Eric Holder, a senior legal adviser for Obama’s presidential campaign and a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling in the District of Columbia, has accepted Obama’s offering to become attorney general.

With his position as a attorney general, Holder will be responsible for the job as the U.S. top law enforcement & legal officer who will deals with issues like terrorism and crime, and also as the key role in setting policy on prosecuting terrorism cases while protecting civil liberties.

Like Barack Obama who is the first black elected president, Holder would be the first black to head the Justice Department. And not only that, he also has the same opinion with Obama that America must close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Like Barack Obama who is the first black elected president, Holder would be the first black to head the Justice Department. And not only that, he also has the same opinion with Obama that America must close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Obama With His BlackBerry Phone

Barack Obama who’s already addicted in using BlackBerry is likely to change for another equipment for her daily communication. He has to do this because public can view his correspondence through transparency laws, and also the Presidential Records Act.

Besides this reason, there are also security problems that should be consider. There are always possibilities that digital communication is being hacked into, and our location can be tracked using this tool.

Although Barack Obama is already familiar with his mobile e-mail, neither former president Bill Clinton nor George W Bush used e-mail during their presidencies, there is no final decision that he will become the first e-mailing president.

But, he is expected to be the first person who should have a laptop in his office. And one possibility reported to be under consideration is that he could continue to get e-mails, but not send them out.

John Mccain and Barack Obama

After competed hardly during the campaign for several issues like taxes, war in Iraq and how to solved the failing of national economy, and also bad campaigns, Republican Sen. John McCain and the winner of 2008 US election Barack Obama met in Chicago (on Monday, Nov 17 2008) to talk about how to reduce government waste, promote bipartisanship and find other ways to improve government.

Before the meeting started, Obama said that he and McCain planned “a good conversation about how we can do some work together to fix up the country, and also to offer thanks to Sen. McCain for the outstanding service he’s already rendered.”

After the meeting, they issued a joint statement saying: “At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time.”

Barack Obama Step Down From U.S. Senate (nytimes.com)

Officially since yesterday (Sunday, Nov 16th 2008) Barack Obama is not an officer again as a Senate from Illionis. The winner of 2008 US Election announced his resignation in a letter published in Illionis newspapers, and the one who will replace him will be appointed at the end of 2008.

After not being a member of the congress anymore, it means that he will not follow the congressional debate this week which is going to talk about a stimulus package to jump-start the nation’s struggling economy.

While Congress debates about how to boost US economy, which is slowing down and affecting many countries around the world -whether developed or developing countries-, on the other hand at the same time Barack Obama is building his team to go to the White House.

So far, the team is a combination of Washington veterans and trusted campaign aides. Until now Barack Obama is not yet announced who are the people who will be post in his cabinet.

Missile Interceptors (skomer.u-net.com)

President-select Barack Obama move to halt plans initiated by Bush administration to install missile interceptors in Europe will hurt U.S. severly, said Air Force general who runs the missile defense project.

This missile interceptors project tended to draw less support from the Democrats side in this past years.

Obama once said that it would be prudent to deploy the missile defense system in Europe, just like what Iran did the past years developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

The main question now is whether Obama will continue with Bush administration plans to install about 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a missile tracking radar in the Czech Republic. Because the system is scheculed to be ready for use by 2014.

What ever Obama will do, we hope that it would be for the better sake of every human being in this planet.

Catholic Bishop Criticized Obama for Supporting Abortion (thefloridacatholic.org)

Roman Catholic bishops in United States are determined to fight Barack Obama on his support for abortion.

The Roman Catholic bishops stated that they will not compromise on the policy regarding abortion.

“They can not call themselves Catholic if they violate the core beliefs such as the dignity of the fetus,” bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton said.

Francis George-Chicago’s archbishop is preparing a join-statement that criticize Obama on his policies regarding abortion. But the statement will also support President-elect Barack on various social issues.