Obama's Transition Team Ethics Rules

• Federal Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.
• Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.
• If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied.
• If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the Administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked.
• A gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests.
-Huffington Post

A Personal Rumination

Four years ago now I thought going to law school was the answer to all of life's problems, the promise of a path to a higher purpose.

Since graduation I have ascended hills and descended to lower valleys wondering if it was all a myth, an ego trip of some sort. The idea I could be a lawyer...just the word seemed to have so much effect (I'm sure a lot of Investment Bankers might be feeling the same sentiment right about now).

I have finally reached a place I can convincingly (to myself) say I am right where I am supposed to be. I have learned:

-my "problems" will follow me until I deal with them, no matter how good the job, the relationship, the house, the weather, the circumstances.
-inner peace is paramount to anything else, which requires one not to care whatsoever what anyone else thinks, and also requires the ability to make peace with everyone in one's life no matter what has happened (it's for me not them, but both benefit).
-the ego causes many more problems than I ever could have conceived.
-giving to and helping, in whatever capacity, someone else pays more dividends than any paying job ever can.
-my mind is a beautiful thing, but can simultaneously be rather torturous, control is a work in progress.
-out of this hell I emerge a forever changed and better person, but I am eagerly anticipating the end, while also trying to embrace patience to ensure a polished finished product.

That is all for now.

The South's Reign in Politics...Gone

For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics
By ADAM NOSSITER

VERNON, Ala. — Fear of the politician with the unusual name and look did not end with last Tuesday’s vote in this rural red swatch where buck heads and rifles hang on the wall. This corner of the Deep South still resonates with negative feelings about the race of President-elect Barack Obama.

What may have ended on Election Day, though, is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say.

The region’s absence from Mr. Obama’s winning formula means it “is becoming distinctly less important,” said Wayne Parent, a political scientist at Louisiana State University. “The South has moved from being the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics.”

...

Less than a third of Southern whites voted for Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent of whites nationally. By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say.

That could spell the end of the so-called Southern strategy, the doctrine that took shape under President Richard M. Nixon in which national elections were won by co-opting Southern whites on racial issues. And the Southernization of American politics — which reached its apogee in the 1990s when many Congressional leaders and President Bill Clinton were from the South — appears to have ended.

...

The Republicans, meanwhile, have “become a Southernized party,” said Mr. Schaller, who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “They have completely marginalized themselves to a mostly regional party,” he said, pointing out that nearly half of the current Republican House delegation is now Southern.

Merle Black, an expert on the region’s politics at Emory University in Atlanta, said the Republican Party went too far in appealing to the South, alienating voters elsewhere.

“They’ve maxed out on the South,” he said, which has “limited their appeal in the rest of the country.”

...

Several Southern states, including Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, have voted for the winner in presidential elections for decades. No more.

...

David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, pointed out that the 18 percent share of whites that voted for Senator John Kerry in 2004 was almost cut in half for Mr. Obama.

“There’s no other explanation than race,” he said.

...

Race was a strong subtext in post-election conversations across the socioeconomic spectrum here in Vernon, the small, struggling seat of Lamar County on the Mississippi border.

One white woman said she feared that blacks would now become more “aggressive,” while another volunteered that she was bothered by the idea of a black man “over me” in the White House.

Don Dollar, the administrative assistant at City Hall, said bitterly that anyone not upset with Mr. Obama’s victory should seek religious forgiveness.

“This is a community that’s supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks,” he said. “If they’re not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.”

...

“I am concerned,” Gail McDaniel, who owns a cosmetics business, said in the parking lot of the Shop and Save. “The abortion thing bothers me. Same-sex marriage.”

“I think there are going to be outbreaks from blacks,” she added. “From where I’m from, this is going to give them the right to be more aggressive.”

F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real

MSNBC

MSNBC is clearly in the tank for Obama. While I agree with them on most of their reporting/commentary, I think the last thing we need is a leftist version of Fox. Fox is pathetic; most "liberals" harbor deep seated animosity and rage towards this faux news agency. Therefore, we should not stoop to their level. Just my humble opinion.

You Might Disagree

With his policies, but I think an objective person has to admit that the Obamas are really good parents, very loving, caring, and affectionate. Also, if you have not seen the 60 minutes piece on The Insiders talking about the campaign, you should watch it; it is here on the blog. It is indicative, I believe, of how Obama will govern, how thoughtful he seems to be, and it seems like he is one to go with principle (at least on some issues-a general prediction cannot be made at this juncture) no matter how it will play out in the public. For example, his speech on race was his idea, and he decided to deliver what he thought, and if the public was not accepting then he would not be president. I really like what I'm hearing thus far.

Barack delivering his children to school. How many male officials of any position do you see doing this?

Mormons Fund Opposition to Prop 8

Perez Hilton provides this link.