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Today marks 100 days since President Obama took office. Yesterday, The Progress Report examined how conservatives chose to spend their first 100 days. Today, we highlight the accomplishments of the Obama administration.
President Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 21, 2009, with two broad mandates bestowed upon him by the American people: repair the mess that President Bush and his administration left behind after eight disastrous years in office, and enact a bold, progressive agenda that includes fixing our nation's health care system and seriously addressing global climate change. Obama went to work right away, pushing the "biggest, boldest countercyclical fiscal stimulus in American history" through Congress -- a $787 billion dollar measure that not only creates jobs but also provides investments in energy, transportation, education and health care. Obama also announced his intention to shift focus and resources away from Bush's misbegotten adventure in Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan, where the security situation is worse than it has been since the start of the U.S.-led war there in October 2001. Now, a series of recent public opinion polls shows that the American public not only overwhelmingly approves of the job Obama is doing as president, but they also believe the nation is heading in the right direction -- "the first time in years the nation has held such an optimistic view of its future." For example, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 50 percent of Americans now say the country is on the right track (48 percent say the wrong track), compared with just 13 percent who had the same feeling last October (85 percent said the U.S. was heading in the wrong direction at that time). Indeed, in his first 100 days in office, Obama has received the support of the American public to implement the progressive agenda he campaigned on.
BREAK FROM BUSH: Shortly after taking office, Obama worked quickly to repair the damage done under Bush and has, in total, issued 29 executive decisions reversing Bush administration policy. On his first day as president, Obama signed an executive order mandating the closure of the Guantanamo Bay terror detainee prison camp within one year. The next day, he ordered military leaders to establish a plan for a responsible withdrawal from Iraq,and he signed executive orders ending CIA secret prisons and ending torture by requiring that all interrogations abide by the Army Field Manual. Obama put these first actions as president in simple terms. "We intend to win this fight" against terrorists, he said. But "we are going to win it on our own terms." On the domestic front, Obama reversed Bush's restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research in March, asserting that his administration would "make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." In London at the G20 Summit and in other European capitals earlier this month, Obama reassured America's friends and allies that the United States would reengage the world as an equal partner. "We're starting to see some restoration of America's standing in the world," Obama said in London. " It is "very important for us to be able to forge partnerships as opposed to dictating solutions." As far as "dictating solutions," Obama also ditched Bush's "with us or against us" foreign policy mindset in dealing with America's allies and adversaries. Indicating his sincerity in reaching out to the Muslim world, Obama granted his first television interview as president to Dubai-based Al-Arabiya. "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama said, adding, "We are offering a hand of friendship." Most significantly, Obama also opened the door to direct dialogue with Iran last month, sending the government and its people a "groundbreaking" "special message" on Nowruz, the start of the Persian New Year, in which he said the U.S. is seeking "engagement" with Iran "that is honest and grounded in mutual respect."
A PROGRESSIVE AGENDA: On Jan. 29, Obama signed his first major piece of legislation, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, an equal pay law making it easier for workers -- most of whom are women -- to initiate pay discrimination lawsuits. "We are upholding one of this nation's first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness," Obama said at the bill's signing ceremony. Six days later, Obama signed a bill expanding publicly funded health insurance for children, known as SCHIP, legislation Bush had vetoed twice despite strong bipartisan support in Congress. The bill reduces the number of uninsured children by about half over the next four years and will "boost the number covered by the program to 11 million." "In a decent society, there are certain obligations that are not subject to trade offs or negotiation -- health care for our children is one of those obligations," Obama said. And just last week, the President signed a $5.7 billion national service bill championed by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that "triples the size of the AmeriCorps service program over the next eight years and expands ways for students to earn money for college."
THE NEXT 100 DAYS AND BEYOND: Obama and Congress have yet to finalize legislation that would fully accomplish health care reform and solve our climate crisis, but these two major issues remain on the front-burner and have received significant attention in the administration's first 100 days. The economic recovery bill passed earlier this year contained key health care provisions that lead the way toward reform, including $19 billion for health care information technology to implement electronic health records and an agency to "conduct and support research that would assess the benefits of competing treatments," both of which aim to reduce future overall costs. Moreover, Obama's budget creates a "reserve fund" as a down payment to reform the health care system. The stimulus bill also provided a boost to a green economy. In what The New York Times called "the biggest energy bill in history," the Recovery Act provides $91 billion for clean energy investments. In a further indication that addressing climate change is a top priority for the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed this month that greenhouse gas pollution endangers the health and welfare of the American public. The move finally complies with the Supreme Court's 2007 ruling -- ignored by Bush -- that such emissions should be regulated by the federal government under the Clean Air Act. Obama's budget contains key energy provisions that also aim to limit greenhouse gases and build a clean-energy economy, such as a mandatory cap on carbon emissions which is expected to raise hundreds of billions of dollars over the next ten years that will go toward clean energy development and tax credits for working Americans. 
JUSTICE -- BYBEE DEFENDS HIS TORTURE MEMO AS 'LEGALLY CORRECT': In August 2002, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee signed an Office of Legal Council memo authorizing the torture of detainees, ruling that everything from slapping detainees to confining them in boxes to waterboarding them was legal. "The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering," Bybee wrote. Though some of Bybee's friends claimed they had heard him "express regret" for writing the memo, Bybee has broken his silence to defend it and the use of torture. He told the New York Times "that he continued to believe that the memorandums represented 'a good-faith analysis of the law' that properly defined the thin line between harsh treatment and torture." "I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct," Bybee said. After Obama released Bybee's memo earlier this month, The Progress Report launched a campaign to urge Congress to begin hearings to impeach Bybee, who now sits as a federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last weekend, Center for American Progress Action Fund President and CEO John Podesta called for Bybee's impeachment and delivered The Progress Report's petition, with nearly 20,000 signatures, to Congress. Bybee "doesn't have the moral or legal authority to continue" to sit on the federal bench, Podesta said. "And I think a simple matter would be to remove him from office."
CONGRESS -- BOEHNER APPOINTS GLOBAL WARMING DENIER BACHMANN TO HOUSE GOP 'ENERGY SOLUTIONS' GROUP: Last month, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) announced the creation of his GOP American Energy Solutions Group to "work on crafting Republican solutions to lower energy prices for American families and small businesses." Helping lead the way is Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who was also appointed to the group. If Boehner and the House GOP were truly interested in promoting real solutions to America's energy and environmental crises, Bachmann should have been their last pick. After all, she has made a name for herself by constantly repeating misleading untruths about energy and the environment. For example, in March, Bachmann flatly denied that global warming is man-made, saying, "The science indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc." "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous" on the issue of cap-and-trade, she also said recently. Bachmann is hardly the only member of Boehner's "solutions" group who is untethered to reality. Rep John Shimkus (R-IL) has declared that capping CO2 would be "taking away plant food from the atmosphere," and called such caps "the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country that I've ever experienced." Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), another member, called cap-and-trade "an economic declaration of war on the Midwest." JUSTICE -- APPEALS COURT REJECTS DOJ'S 'STATE SECRETS' IMMUNITY CLAIM: Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected the Obama Administration's assertion of " state secrets" privilege in an "extraordinary rendition" case brought by five detainees against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan. The claim, which said Jeppesen Dataplan "should pay monetary damages for its role in conspiring with officials in the United States and other countries to fly the men overseas, where they allegedly experienced electric shocks, beatings and sleep deprivation," was thrown out last year after the Bush administration intervened. The Bush administration argued that the disclosure of information could cause "serious and in some instances exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States." The men appealed, and the Obama administration " took the same position." Yesterday, the appellate court, which noted that the state secrets privilege had been abused in the past, held that upholding the Department of Justice's claim would "effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law." Instead, the panel of judges said that "a judge should weigh, on a case-by-case basis, what kinds of evidence the detainees could receive and use in court." "This historic decision marks the beginning, not the end, of this litigation," said ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner, who argued the case. Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller simply said that " the United States is reviewing the court's decision." The Justice Department has invoked state secrets in three court cases since Obama took office. | 
In a New York Times op-ed, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) writes that, as a moderate member of her party, "you often get the distinct feeling that you're no longer welcome in the tribe." She adds that "the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania." House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said President Obama's push for progressive policies, including a hate crimes bill, "makes me want to throw up," and declared Obama has "no plan for keeping America safe." When asked by the Washington Times to grade his own party's 100 days of opposition, Boehner replied, "I think our team's doing fairly well, considering the barrage that's coming at us." "American authorities confirmed the first death outside of Mexico from swine flu" today, as Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on CNN this morning "that the first American death of the disease was a 23-month-old child in Texas." Today, the Supreme Court will be hearing a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which "requires selected jurisdictions across the country to 'preclear' new voting rules with the Justice Department or a federal court." The NYT writes that it would be "judicial activism" to take away Congress's right to protect minority voters, and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has an op-ed with evidence that the VRA is still needed.
Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs "pointedly refused to rule out a firing in the case of the Air Force One backup's flight that terrified some in New York City on Monday." Gibbs said that the White House Deputy Chief of Staff will conduct a review of the incident and the President "will take steps based on the outcome of the review." Attorney General Eric Holder will make a "public appeal" to European officials for help in closing the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay by taking some of the freed inmates. Yesterday, Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer suggested that European nations would be receptive to Holder's appeal, saying, "I expect Europe will take some, and there is a strong will do so among some countries." The achievement gap between black and white students has not narrowed, "despite President George W. Bush's frequent assertions that the No Child law was having a dramatic effect." Although minority students "all scored much higher on the federal test than they did three decades ago, most of those gains were not made in recent years, but during the desegregation efforts of the 1970s and 1980s."
And finally: On Monday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) received a reminder that politics is "a full-body-contact sport" when he "collided with a teenage skateboarder while strolling along Pennsylvania Avenue." Boehner reportedly "was knocked off his feet, but not totally off his game; he stumbled, but didn't completely wipe out, after the crash." Boehner and the teen then "exchanged wary looks." |
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On the 99th day of his term in office, President Obama's Cabinet was finally completed yesterday when the Senate confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius by a vote of 65-31. 
INDIANA: Republican lawmakers object to legislation that funds free breast- and cervical-cancer screenings for uninsured women.
NEW YORK: Hundreds of gay rights advocates rally outside the state Capitol.
MISSOURI: "The joint judiciary committee of the Legislature approved a bill to allow same-sex marriage in the state." 
THINK PROGRESS: CNN's Rick Sanchez calls out Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-SC) vapid talking point: "What the hell does that mean?"
WONK ROOM: Progress towards equal pay in the last 45 years: 19 cents.
YGLESIAS: Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) bashes -- and then tries to take credit for -- high-speed rail.
PROGRESS ILLINOIS: Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL): Although waterboarding is "more torture than not," we still shouldn't have investigations. 
"I support your agenda."
-- Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), 4/28/09, to President Obama
VERSUS
"I'm opposed to the nominee for Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen."
-- Specter, 4/28/09 | |
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Keep a civil tongue.