100 Days

I give President Obama an A-. The reason it is a minus is threefold. First, I hate the continuation of the state secrets privilege, but my concern over it is tempered by the fact that Courts will overrule it, as it did today. Second, I am not keen on Giethner’s closeness with Wall Street, and would have preferred some Krugman-style nationalization of the failed banks. But my concern over that is tempered by the fact that we are slowly moving that way anyway, with Geithner finding out that stress tests reveal that 6 of the 19 banks tested failed. Finally, the lack of prosecution of the Bush war criminals who approved torture. I understand the practicality and pragmatism, that Obama doesn’t want these prosecutions to be seen as politically motivated, and he doesn’t want them to consume his presidency or his political capital. That is understandable, but it doesn’t make it right. So I hope there is a Truth Commission.

Otherwise, President Obama’s first 100 days have been spectular. Let’s recap, with a hat tip to Al Rodgers at Daily Kos (go there for the pretty pictures):

► Ordered the closing of the Bush-Cheney torture facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
► Ordered the closing of the Bush-Cheney overseas Gulags (so-called “black sites”).
► Banned the use of torture.
► Suspended Military tribunals of foreign detainees.
► Orders the withdraw of combat forces from Iraq by August 2010, a residual force, between 35,000 to 50,000 leaving by December 2011.
► Passes $787 BILLION Jobs-Stimulus bill.
► Signed $32.8 billion bill for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, extending health care to 4 million uninsured children. A bill vetoed various times buy Bush.
► Overturned Bush administration’s limits on embryonic stem cell research.
► Budgets $634 billion over 10 years as a down payment on health care insurance.
► Cancels government contract of Blackwater Mercenaries.
► Voids George W. Bush’s so-called “signing statements”.
► Addressing Turkey’s Grand National Assembly, President Obama states the United States “is not and never will be at war with Islam.” Signaling a thaw, the story is carried on the front page of Tehran’s daily newspapers.
► Announced the US will engage in direct group talks with Iran aimed at ending Tehran’s nuclear program, marking another shift from former Bush’s policy.
► Signed Lilly Ledbetter Act, making it easier for women and others to sue for pay discrimination, even if the discrimination has prevailed for years, even decades.
► Cancelled Bush decision to allow oil-shale development on federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
► Cancelled Bush decision allowing oil and gas drilling parcels near national parks in Utah.
► Started a $75 billion plan to help 9 million struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure, offering refinanced mortgages or modified loans with lower monthly payments.
► Announces plans to drastically cut the world’s NEW-CLEAR arsenal.
► Began negotiations to reduce NEW-CLEAR arms with Russia.
► Persuades G-20 to open $1.4 trillion fund to restore international credit.
► EPA moves, for the first time, to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet.
► Lifted the on family travel, remittances and gifts to people in Cuba along with allowing telecommunications companies to pursue licensing agreements in Cuba. Begins to reopen channels of communication with Cuba.
► Katrina-No More: residents of Fargo, N.D., were impressed by how quickly and thoroughly the Obama administration came through on its pledge to help after a flood ravaged the town. Some were even calling it an overreaction, but a welcome one.
► Directs $900 million in aid to help rebuild Gaza.
► Pledged $302 million in aid for Haiti, who is struggling from last year’s devastating storms.
► Reversed Bush administration regulation allowing health workers to refuse to take part in abortions.
► Summoned CEOs to the WH, and informed them of the public’s anger over the financial crisis, warning them “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchfork.”
► Announced plans to buy 17,600 American-made, fuel-efficient cars and hybrids for the U.S. government fleet.
► Joins UN declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality, a major reversal of Bush administration policy.
► The U.S. joins 66 other UN member states condemning human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
► Cuts off funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.
► Released Bush Justice Department’s torture memos.
► Released minutes of Bush administration’s torture interrogations.
► Receiving a rave response, the President told CIA personal, intelligence agents must hold themselves to a “higher standard” when dealing with the nation’s most unscrupulous enemies, even when they believe adhering to anti-torture policy makes it more difficult to protect America from attack.
► Declined to rule out prosecutions for Bush officials who authorized torture, saying Attorney General Holder should determine whether they broke the law.
► Ends use of the phrase, “Enemy Combatant”.
► Ends use of the phrase, “Global War on Terror”.
► Al-Qaida suspect trial moves to civilian court in an abrupt change in policy from the Bush administration. The suspect has been held in a military brig in South Carolina for more than five years. The Bush administration had argued that he could be held indefinitely without being charged.
► Met with families of the September 11th and the bombing of the USS Cole to explain his decision to suspend military tribunals.
► Increases troop levels in Afghanistan by 17,000.
► Passes the LARGEST middle-class tax cut in US History — $282 billion. Wage-earners who don’t make enough to pay income taxes would get a reduction in the Social Security and Medicare taxes they pay.
► Cut income taxes for 95 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses. Raising taxes on couples that make more than $250,000.
► Proposed eliminating decades-old subsidies to college loan middlemen, replacing them with direct financial aid to students, saving $48 billions.
► Created a White House Council on Women and Girls, to help eliminate the challenges they face and to ensure that cabinet level agencies coordinate their policies and programs that affect women and families.
► Created a $15 billion initiative to spark lending to small businesses
► Began the process to establish worldwide regulation of hedge funds and tax havens.
► Proposes to tax Off-Shore tax shelter of US corporations.
► Allocated $11 Billion of Stimulus funds to build Smart Electric Grid.
► Allocated $45 billion to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.
► Allocated $8 billion in state and local weatherization and energy efficiency efforts.
► Calling on Americans to volunteer, the President signed a $5.7 billion national service bill Tuesday that triples the size of the AmeriCorps service program over the next eight years and expands ways for students to earn money for college.
► Launched a $200 billion initiative with the Federal Reserve to jump-starting lending to consumers and small businesses.
► Allocated $87 billion of Stimulus funds to the states for Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people, and unemployment.
► Allocated $100 billion of Stimulus funds over two years for public schools, universities and child care centers.
► Releases 250,000 pages of White House papers from Reagan and Bush Sr. era, overturning Cheney’s ban.
► Reversed Bush administration regulation, in part, removing the gray wolf off the endangered species list in Montana and Idaho, but leaving the animal under federal protection in Wyoming.
► Expands Pell Grants to a maximum award of $5,550 in the 2010-11 school year.
► Allocated $19 billion to digitize medical records.
► Allocated $60 million to the National Endowment for the Arts
► Signed a series of executive orders to “level the playing field” for labor unions with management. Union officials say the new orders by Obama will undo Bush administration policies that favored employers over workers. The orders will: Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change; Reverse a Bush administration order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives; Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.
► Passed $410 billion 2008-2009 budget with significant increases in food aid for the poor, energy research, and other programs, over McSame’s crybaby hysterics.
► Conducted a town hall meeting in France.
► Conducted a town Hall meeting with Muslim students in Istanbul.
► Expanded Medicare’s coverage of off-label drugs for cancer treatments.
► Held the first ever White House Passover Seder.
► Received high marks from NYT editorial board for his first judicial nomination, David F. Hamilton.
► Began new campaign to combat AIDS complacency and the disease’s potential to strike the unwary.
► Dems win special election fo NY’s 20th Congressional district that Republicans said would be a referendum on Obama’s Presidency.
► Issues challenge to corporations: “I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight,” Obama said, “my message to them is this: So am I.”
► Suckers drug-addict Rush Limbaugh into a fight, branding the fifthly swine as the face of the waning –Whig- Republican party.
► Replaced Bush’s office of faith based initiatives with a new office that will reach out to organizations that provide help “no matter their religious or political beliefs” and that are conduced by BOTH secular and faith-based organizations.
► Gates cut several major weapons programs, including F-22, and the new White House helicopter. Gates says his budget will “profoundly reform” the way the Pentagon buys weapons and does business.
► Banned on lobbyists discussing economic stimulus projects with federal officials.
► Addressing the EU, President Obama recommends the admission of Turkey into the European Union.
► Turkey moves to reopen the Greek Orthodox Halki seminary, which was closed to new students in 1971, at Obama’s request.