For the second time in as many inaugurations, the president screwed up the oath of office. This time — unlike in 2009 — it wasn't even Chief Justice John Roberts' fault: Obama just stumbled over "the office of the President of the United States," settling for an embarrassed grin instead of finishing the sentence.
The last time Barack Obama stepped up to an inaugural podium, the notion that we would spend four years with the Senate minority leader pledging not to pass a single item of legislation to help the president, the GOP House holding the American debt rating hostage, and countless party members whispering birther conspiracies and publicly sucking Donald Trump's feathered, blowdried asshole would have sounded like lunacy. Now it sounds like a Thursday.
It's been a hard four years for liberals. There's the radicalized and intractable opposition, the weak response to our sluggish economy, the widening inequality, and the ever-lengthening "Kill List" of extrajudicial, extralegal assassinations.
Tom Foreman is an Emmy Award-winning journalist for CNN who has covered everything from the Sago Mine explosion to the economy to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also been obsessively writing letters to President Obama for the last four years. Every. Single. Day.
President Barack Obama was officially sworn in for his second term as president. In a small ceremony at the White House, Obama swore to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." The oath was administered by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts; Michelle, Sasha and Malia joined him too.
Ahead of his second inauguration on Monday, President Obama's office has released a new official portrait.
In America we are all endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of conspiracy theory. In America we are all free. A new study, from Fairleigh Dickinson University, has found 63 percent of registered voters in the U.S. believe at least one political conspiracy theory. That is three in five people.
A few minutes ago, President Obama announced a $500 million package, synthesized from suggestions put forth by Vice President Joe Biden's task force on gun control, aimed at curbing gun violence in the U.S. in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. The President called on Congress to take action in a number of ways, including:
According to Politico, President Obama will nominate former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense on Monday. For those dreading the current, post-fiscal cliff lull in political bickering, the announcement will come as great news; Hagel has already faced criticism for anti-gay remarks in 1998, an interview in which he discussed the "Jewish lobby" in 2007, and for breaking ranks with Republicans during the Iraq War.
Two hours before the ball dropped in Times Square last night, the Senate was hard at work and managed to pass a plan that would avert the fiscal cliff. The deal was strongly agreed upon in an 89-8 vote.
Barack Obama is a master of the casually revealing photo. For months, you'll see the President of the United States blocking out a stiff rectangular space behind all those podiums, seeming a little vulnerably gangly in one of his slightly roomy grey or blue suits, alternating among a familiar reserve of strained expressions meant to convey leadership, certainty, disappointment, concern, reason, gravity, and occasional disgust. But then, at a regularly reaffirming clip, there are these moments when the President of the United States seems most at ease, somewhat unguarded, and most resolutely human. In these scenes, Obama's character doesn't shrink, it swells.
It's New Years Eve and not too much is going on on the internet so let's contemplate The Most Important Question In The World: "Who would win if every country sent their leader to fight to the death?" Yesterday a user on Reddit posed the question that every stoned college sophomore home on winter break asks himself when ambling to the corner store to get some Pop Chips not because he's even that hungry but just to get out of the house for a minute or two.
President Obama appeared on Meet The Press this morning to talk about the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations. His 30 minute conversation with host David Gregory was pretty cordial and never really got heated at any point. Those looking for Obama to show anger at Republicans were probably disappointed, but he dug into them at several moments for their inability to take any of the deals that he offered over the past month.
At about noon Wednesday, five days after the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., President Obama addressed the nation, announcing the creation of a task force to strengthen gun control laws in America.
