An action shot of the left hand that controls the Executive branch.*

Some friends and I have been interested in following and documenting Obama's actions now that he's President. We're curious to know whether he's living up to his campaign promises, and we thought it'd be useful to keep them in one easy-to-find place.

We started noting what we'd read in the news and sending it back and forth in an email thread, but really -- what is this, 1999?  So I started a blog, and invited the friends as moderators. Unfortunately, we found that once our days picked up for a few hours, we quickly fell behind and started missing events. Not a very useful tool if it's ad hoc and incomplete.

Obama's first signature as president -- Jan. 20, 2009.

• Politifact is useful for tracking campaign promises and is being kept up to date.
• FactCheck.org is great for all recent claims made by politicians or floating around the rumor mill.
• FiveThirtyEight.com is Nate Silver's political stats and analysis site -- the best in the business.
• Whitehouse.gov tracks the various executive orders, which is kinda cool, too. So far...

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

January 22, 2009

• Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and Closure of Detention Facilities
• Review of Detention Policy Options
• Ensuring Lawful Interrogations

January 21, 2009

• Presidential Records
• Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel

PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDA

January 22, 2009

• Review of the Detention of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri

January 21, 2009

• Freedom of Information Act
• Pay Freeze
• Transparency and Open Government

Still, Chris couldn't find a blog or other site that's just tracking what Obama does, what actions he approves or denies each day. Another oddity -- Kottke (citing others) also notes that once the new White House site goes up, the prior president's site disappears -- *poof* -- and is moved over to that president's library site.

All problems seem strange, given the ubiquity of this type of information. If anyone finds resources or tools that are particularly useful, please post in the comments.

* The President's watch is a Jorg Gray JGC6500 Chronograph Watch. Or you could go here and pay double...

** Many thanks to those willing and able to dedicate themselves to this work. Also key is Obama's dedication to transparency and the open, free exchange of information. So refreshing.

[First image via The Big Picture. Second image via Reuters, ffffound.]

Mary (in profile) and Sun (front and center) are intercontinental when they eat french toast.

A couple of my friends -- law school classmates -- are giving back by working for the public good in southeast Asia. They got together in Cambodia to watch the inauguration, and had their photo snapped and blown up with a half-page, above-the-fold article in the Phenom Penh Post!**

Mary is working in Chiang Mai, Thailand, experimenting in the new frontier of corporate social responsibility and setting up a new ice cream business dedicated to supporting needy children in the region. She's posting adventure updates on her blog.

Sun is working as a law clerk for the UN in Cambodia. She explains,

The United Nations Assistant to the Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT) provides the international component to the “hybrid” court, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The tribunal was set up in 2003 jointly by the UN and the Cambodian government to prosecute senior members of the former Khmer Rouge regime. Among the crimes charged are violations of the Cambodian penal code, genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the Geneva Convention. 

[It's] a clerkship, but on the international level. doing research, writing memos, orders, decisions and stuff for the pre-trial judges. Ok, that's familiar. But throw in this hybrid tribunal and parts of the civil law system (since cambodian criminal procedure is based on the french civil system from the 1950s) and the learning curve is steep.

Sun is blogging, too. Check her out here.

Great to see that they're getting to hang out and enjoy life abroad. Now if they can just keep the damn paparazzi out of their way, they'll be set. Celebrity is nice for a minute, but believe you me, it gets old fast.

* Caption refers to a line from The Move by the Beastie Boys.

** Their friend who was interviewed by the Post was misquoted by the reporter!

What I said to journalist I liked McCain personally, but I don't like Republican Policy: 1) War in Iraq and 2) Anti-abortion. He misquoted my opinions -- anyways now I turned to support Obama.

There's a new sheriff in town.

Use of torture, the murder of habeas corpus, secrecy and the unilateral use of force. Over time, these are four of the most powerful memories we will have of President Bush, and they will linger as a stain on Americas past.

It was widely speculated that one of Obama's first actions as President would be to move towards closing Guantanamo. Still, Cheney (along with commentators on the Right) argued that Obama would enter his new post, see the daily security reports, and change his position, finding that the threat was real and imminent, that Guantanamo was central to our security.

What did the new President do?

Hours after taking office on Tuesday, President Barack Obama ordered military prosecutors in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals to ask for a 120-day halt in all pending cases. . . . 

The request would halt proceedings in 21 pending cases, including the death penalty case against five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks in 2001.

An excellent start for the new President. Mark Day #1 down as a success. On to tomorrow...

[Image via The Big Picture.]

Inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander.

Written and recited by Elizabeth Alexander.* Transcript via the NY Times.
[Update: Formatted in much more authentic fashion here.]

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Critics are already voicing their opinions.

I loved it.

*More about Professor Alexander:

Alexander, a 2006 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her work, American Sublime, will become the fourth poet to read a poem written especially for the occasion. (Robert Frost was the first at the Kennedy inauguration in 1960).

Alexander, who teaches in the African-American Studies Department at Yale University, recently told School Library Journal that as students and teachers watch the January 20 inaugural ceremony, she’s delighted that they’ll also reflect on the poem. “As a teacher who works with students daily, I think that it is wonderful that I will be contributing something to assist other teachers,” she says.

Returning to the Oval Office: truth, justice, and the American way.

Today's the day. Our first black President will take the oath of office with his hand on a Bible owned by the man who ended slavery in the U.S.

What a time to take over. W will fly away from the White House in his chopper, leaving his successor with an enormous mess.

Expectations for Obama are crazy. He's not a savior, but he is replacing cynacism with optimism, faith with reason, distrust of science with tech saavy, Machiavellian machinations with transparency.  And that's a great way to start.

Celebrations in San Francisco, this wonderful bastion of liberalism, will be in full swing.  Some even started a little early, making civic upgrades to usher in our new leader. Well done, team, well done.

Bush Street signs in San Francisco were changed to Obama down the entire length of Bush Street.

[Update: says Gidge "Thank artist Alex Zecca. He stickered the street signs from Presido to Grant... but police have made him remove them."]

* For more on Superman's famous line, see Truth, justice and (fill in the blank).

Just a reminder to enjoy the last day of W. He spent two full years of his presidency on vacation, but still managed to cause more than his fair share of trouble.

Harper's has put together an excellent, indexed retrospective of the Bush years (via Daring Fireball) and The Economist did a fantastic job recapping his body of work in their article George Bush's legacy: The frat boy ships out. Some highlights:

HE LEAVES the White House as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. At home, his approval rating has been stuck in the 20s for months; abroad, George Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s reputation since the second world war. The American economy is in deep recession, brought on by a crisis that forced Mr Bush to preside over huge and unpopular bail-outs.

America is embroiled in two wars, one of which Mr Bush launched against the tide of world opinion. The Bush family name, once among the most illustrious in American political life, is now so tainted that Jeb, George’s younger brother, recently decided not to run for the Senate from Florida. A Bush relative describes family gatherings as “funeral wakes”. . . .

Lack of curiosity also led Mr Bush to suspect intellectuals in general and academic experts in particular. David Frum, who wrote speeches for Mr Bush during his first term, noted that “conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House”. . . .

Relentless partisanship led to the politicisation of almost everything Mr Bush did. He used his first televised address to justify putting strict limits on federal funding for stem-cell research, and used the first veto of his presidency to prevent the expansion of that funding. He appointed two “strict constructionist” judges to the Supreme Court, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, turned his back on the Kyoto protocol, dismissed several international treaties, particularly the anti-ballistic-missile treaty, loosened regulations on firearms and campaigned against gay marriage. His energy policy was written by Mr Cheney with the help of a handful of cronies from the energy industry. His lacklustre attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, who was forced to resign in disgrace, was only the most visible of an army of over-promoted, ideologically vetted homunculi.

The Iraq war was a case study of what happens when politicisation is mixed with incompetence. A long-standing convention holds that politics stops at the ocean’s edge. But Mr Bush and his inner circle labelled the Democrats “Defeaticrats” whenever they were reluctant to support extending the war from Afghanistan to Iraq. They manipulated intelligence to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had close relations with al-Qaeda. This not only divided a country that had been brought together by September 11th; it also undermined popular support for what Mr Bush regarded as the central theme of his presidency, the war on terror.

And that's just the beginning. Read the rest here.

If you want to follow the Inaugural gala and participate online, some friends have helped set up a fantastic site dedicated to the occassion. Says the San Jose Mercury News:

LINK-live Presidential Inaugural Gala, Tuesday night:

It's billed as a party to celebrate technology serving humanity. Steven Chu, Lawrence Berkeley's Nobel laureate physicist and Obama's choice for energy secretary, is slated to receive "the nature award." You can attend virtually via www.linklive.org. And you can join the celebration online using Twitter (name: linklive; address: #linklive2009), ScribbleLive, Ustream and Flickr. We think we've got tickets, and would hate to miss Chu, the Bay Area's hottest — or is that coolest? — scientist.

Politics transforms a reasoned system into a tool for control.

Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman is "perturbed by the state of debate over fiscal stimulus. ... This has not been one of the profession’s finest hours."

There are certainly legitimate arguments against spending-based fiscal stimulus. You can worry about the burden of debt; you can argue that the government will spend money so badly that the jobs created are not worth having; and I’m sure there are other arguments worth taking seriously.

What’s been disturbing, however, is the parade of first-rate economists making totally non-serious arguments against fiscal expansion.

Everyone he lists in his post is politically conservative, to which he says...

That’s their right: economists are citizens too. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that all of them have decided on political grounds that they don’t want a spending-based fiscal stimulus — and that these political considerations have led them to drop their usual quality-control standards when it comes to economic analysis.

Think back to the time between 9/11 and the Mission Accomplished press conference, when anyone who disagreed with President Bush was deemed, at best, a partisan opponent and, at worst, a traitor. Reasoned, honest debate was squashed as disingenuous political maneuvering.

Those were challenging, uncertain times, but the scale of that threat is dwarfed into absurdity by the systemic economic collapse continuing around us today.

When met with a crisis, we look to detached, objective experts to provide leadership and to create a path to safety. Economists who, thanks to their past, excellent work, have emerged as experts and leaders are brought front and center under the spotlight of societal need.

To revel in the spotlight and masquerade political plays as reasoned opinion is an abuse of trust and tarnishes the reputation of these experts. While the personal harm may be great, even worse is the harm to society. Krugman left the gloves on for that post, but should the posturing continue, I hope he ignores restraint and unleashes fury.

I expect that Obama and his team will have the confidence and security to cut to the truth. The real question is how will Congress respond? The last, Democratically-led Congress was weak. Hopefully now the leadership will be hitting their stride and will similarly be able to work for the public good. If, instead, politics trumps objectivity, we're all in trouble.

[Image by Warren Noronha, used under a Creative Commons license.]

Tax plans drawn to scale.

I've gotten into a few debates recently with friends who oppose Obama's tax plan for two main reasons: (1) they feel that raising the capital gains tax will hurt the national economy by discouraging investment and removing liquidity from the market; and (2) taxes are going up for those households making over $250,000 per year. That's not much money, they argue -- a good chunk of my friends have advanced degrees (with associated debt) and live in S.F. and NYC. If they want to even dream of owning their own apartment in a decent neighborhood, making that kind of money is a necessity.

If you agree with point number two, first take a look at the chart above, which shows how the tax plans of McCain and Obama will directly impact different segments of the population.*

Clear? Good. Welcome back. Next, Daniel Gross takes apart the second argument in his Slate article "The deluded Obama critics who think $250,000 is a middle-class salary."

Barack Obama's tax plan, . . . promises to improve the nation's fiscal standing by scaling back tax cuts for people making more than $250,000. Since then, the business pundit class has been griping that people who make $250,000 a year aren't really wealthy, especially if they live in and around New York; San Francisco; or Washington, D.C. . . . On Wednesday afternoon, CNBC's unscientific online poll found that (surprise!) only 35 percent of respondents believed an income of $250,000 qualified a household for elite rich status.

I have two pieces of bad news for the over-$250,000 crowd. First, the reversal of some of the temporary Bush tax cuts is probably inevitable, given the Republican fiscal clown show of the past eight years. Second, I regret to inform you that you are indeed rich. . . . [I]ncome data can surely tell us something. And they tell us that $250,000 puts you in pretty fancy company. The Census Bureau earlier this week reported that the median household income was $50,223 in 2007—up slightly from the last year but still below the 1999 peak. So a household that earned $250,000 made five times the median. In fact, as this chart shows, only 2.245 million U.S. households, the top 1.9 percent, had income greater than $250,000 in 2007. (About 20 percent of households make more than $100,000.)

In dealing with aggregate nationwide numbers, we should of course take account of the significant differences in the cost of living from state to state. . . . But even in wealthy states, $250,000 ain't bad—it's nearly four times the median income in wealthy states like Maryland and Connecticut. And even if you look at the wealthiest metropolitan areas—Washington, D.C. ($83,200); San Francisco ($73,851); Boston ($68,142); and New York ($61,554)—$250,000 a year dwarfs the median income.

Still feel that $250,000 isn't much money? Let me know why -- I'd love to discuss.

[Update -- According to this 1997 paper put out by the Fed [pdf], 1% of the population owns 82% of the stock market.]

* Looking at tax policy alone can be misleading, especially because of the radical differences in proposed health care plans.

Since you asked, and since it's therapeutic for me to unload, here are my honest opinions of Sarah Palin and her candidacy for the Heartbeat Away ministry:

Of course she's not fit for the office she seeks and everyone who had a hand in her selection knows it; McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is the most cynical and reckless machination on the part of a serious candidate for high office I have seen in my lifetime.

It remains disturbingly unclear the extent to which voters will acknowledge or punish McCain's recklessness (in part because many wise Democrats cannot figure out how to impugn his judgment without attacking her, which is, ironically, all but impossible to do b/c of her comically messy personal life).

Her biggest impact will be in bringing skeptical religious conservatives to the polls despite her personification of many things they demonize in others.  McCain simply can not win without these voters, and they have no taste for him.  But a bunch of them will bother to vote for her.  This development more or less evens the playing field and returns the electoral map to its 2004 dimensions, putting the burden on Obama to flip a red state or two, and returning to disproportionate power and influence the so-called "independent" voters.  These voters make up the little sliver of the electorate known as the "middle" on our wafer-thin political spectrum, and they usually profess to not knowing the difference between the two candidates/parties.  To my horror, many of these voters are, allegedly, women.  Who should just know better.  No offense, guys.

However, by election day Sarah Palin's novelty will have worn off and although it pains me to say it, I believe that we women are our own worst enemies when it comes to positions of real power and influence.  Ultimately, many of the so called "independent" "moms" who are said to be a key voting bloc - married suburban and small-town women with children - will betray her in the voting booth.  She may be "just like them" - that's what we're hearing all the time now, how refreshing it is for women to have the validation of her serious candidacy given the resemblance of her narrative to their own.  But although they'll never admit it, a lot of women are, themselves, sexist, and there surely is no shortage of sexist women among independent suburban moms.  Just as Barack Obama will have to overcome some social acceptability bias - you ought to subtract four to five points from his number in any poll to account for the people who don't want to admit to survey takers that they're racists - Sarah Palin will be a victim of sexism in the voting booth, even as a candidate for the #2 job.  And that sexism will come as much - or more - from women as from men.  The fact that she is simply unfit for the office may even be a secondary consideration to these voters, although again, they won't admit it.

Tangentially, the same female voters who may distrust their sisters to hold positions of power may also decline to elevate someone who reminds them of the strident PTA mom in their neighborhood, or the overbearing and meddlesome parent whose kid is on their kid's little league team.  Sarah Palin will end up reminding a lot of people of the bossy women they know who take over the high school sports boosters club or the girl scout troop or whatnot.  All of which leads me to the conclusion that McCain gave up the all-important "middle" when he chose Sarah Palin, in exchange for a base that he despises and that despises him.  Obama, then, still has a chance if he can step oh so lightly through the minefields.

But what has discouraged the hell out of me is the way Sarah Palin has dragged our public dialogue into ratholes I never thought existed.  She has deliberately and gleefully shown us to be a country of haters in her own image.  By her own words and deeds and by those of the campaign team that is controlling her (which I imagine is done by one of those joysticks on old-school video games), she has gotten us to cheapen our own futures, individually and collectively.  She/they are striving viciously to ensure we don't ever get around to talking about real, serious, maybe life-threatening public issues.  Whatever your doubts (or mine) about the extent of George Bush's command of the levers of power (as opposed to Cheney's, Ashcroft's, et al), she will raise such doubts to the level of the Broadway musical if she should ever make it to Washington.  Wait, scratch that.  That movie has already been made.  It was called "Being There."