ThePoliticsReport.com

I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt’s advancement.

Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum.

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world - tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. Read the rest

On the eve of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday celebration and the approach of his own historic swearing-in as president, Barack Obama stood Sunday in front of the Lincoln Memorial, evoked the country’s heroes and heritage and told the nation that “the dream of our founders will live on in time.”

Obama spoke during an afternoon celebration of his historic election, featuring musicians led by Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce as well as famous actors, all entertaining an estimated half-million people on the National Mall with songs and readings aimed at capturing the gravity of the moment.

Obama, the first African-American to be elected president, looked out at the sea of people and told them, “What gives me hope is what I see when I look out across this mall. For in these monuments are chiseled those unlikely stories that affirm our unyielding faith _ a faith that anything is possible in America.”

He gazed fleetingly at the Washington Monument in the distance. “Rising before us stands a memorial to a man who led a small band of farmers and shopkeepers in revolution against the army of an empire, all for the sake of an idea,” he said. Read the rest

Reversing course, Senate Democrats grudgingly accepted embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s hand-selected Senate appointee, Roland Burris, as they sought to break an impasse over President-elect Barack Obama’s former seat.

The new Illinois senator is expected to be sworn into office later this week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois made the announcement in a joint statement Monday, saying Burris “is now the senator-designate from Illinois and, as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a senator-elect.”

Burris, in turn, called himself honored and humbled to be the state’s newest senator. “I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve,” he said at a news conference in Chicago. “I recognize that my appointment triggered a challenging time for many.”

The development prevented the impasse that has plagued Democrats from dragging on into Obama’s inauguration festivities, and it capped a gradual retreat by the Senate’s top Democrats. Read the rest

A week shy of taking office, President-elect Barack Obama already is putting his persuasion skills to a high-stakes test with Congress as he seeks access to the second half of the $700 billion financial bailout fund.Obama planned to be in the Capitol on Tuesday to meet with Senate Democrats. And his transition team prepared to dispatch top aides to meet with Senate Republicans this week in anticipation of a possible vote Thursday on whether to release the money from the embattled Troubled Asset Relief Program.

In the House, the Financial Services Committee scheduled a hearing on the program in advance of legislation offered by committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., that would place tough new restrictions on recipients of the money and require spending to reduce mortgage foreclosures.

The legislation is scheduled to reach the floor of the House on Wednesday, with a vote set for Thursday.

That flurry of activity comes in the wake of President George W. Bush’s decision Monday to act on Obama’s behalf and ask Congress for access to the remaining $350 billion of the money Congress authorized to rescue the nation’s financial sector. Read the rest

BushWith rare public emotion, George W. Bush sat in judgment on his controversial, consequential presidency on Monday, lamenting mistakes but claiming few as his own, heatedly defending his record on disasters in Iraq and at home and offering kindly advice to a successor who won largely because the nation ached for something new.

By turns wistful, aggressive and joking in his final news conference, Bush covered a huge range of topics in summing up his eight years in the White House — the latest in a recent string of efforts to have his say before historians have theirs.

Then the White House said he would do it again Thursday night in a final address to the nation.

Reaching back to his first day in office, he recalled walking into the White House and having “a moment” when he felt all the responsibilities of the job landing on his shoulders.

Barack Obama will feel that next week, he said, his tone gently understanding. [More…]

Indeed, he was full of supportive words for Obama — the nation’s first black president — and talked of being deeply affected while watching people say on television that they never thought they would see such a day, many with “tears streaming down their cheeks when they said it.” Read the rest

Acting at Barack Obama’s behest, President George W. Bush on Monday asked Congress for the final $350 billion in the financial bailout fund, effectively ceding economic reins to the president-elect in an extraordinary display of transition teamwork. Obama also sharply criticized Bush’s handling of the money and promised radical changes.

Bush’s move sets the stage for Obama to get swift access to the $350 billion and the opportunity to overhaul the much-criticized rescue package after taking office next Tuesday. Obama said that it would be “irresponsible … to enter into the administration without any potential ammunition should there be some sort of emergency or weakening of the financial system.”

Congress, where the use of the money has met stiff bipartisan skepticism, has 15 days to vote to reject the request. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was considering holding a vote on a resolution of disapproval as early as Thursday in hopes it would be defeated, thus making the funds available about a week after Obama inherits one of the worst financial crises in U.S. history.

“It is clear that the financial system, although improved from where it was in September, is still frail,” Obama said, a few hours after seeking Bush’s help in requesting the money. Read the rest

Wanna get you some meditation, some peace, some wisdom? Wanna do a weekend program where you learn how to calm and open your mind to…reality? Buddhism–tested over 2,500 years in dozens of diverse cultures–is worth a go.

Thanks to murderous Mao (he killed more than Hitler and Stalin) & his loyal Red comrades, Tibetan Buddhism came to the West following the 1959 “liberation.”

Given that 50 years have passed, the last generation of born-and-raised-and-trained in Tibet teachers is getting long in the tooth. So get thee to a nunnery or monastery–or an urban meditation center, or a luxurious rural retreat–and dip your toes in enlightenment.

The Buddhists won’t mind if you’re just window-to-the-soul shopping…a pioneer (along with Alan Watts and Suzuki Roshi) in transmitting Buddhism to the West, Chogyam Trungpa (author; founder of Naropa University) wanted his best-selling Shambhala book to be sold in every grocery in America, right by the tabloids. Read the rest

More than 1000 Indians took part in a candlelight vigil outside the targeted Taj Mahal Hotel a week after the terrorist siege of Mumbai began.

Last week’s terrorist siege of Mumbai has created a new geopolitical crisis, with many angles and complications that will make President-elect Barack Obama’s life even more complicated as he attempts to keep things in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India on an even keel. Here are some important things to keep in mind about it.

** The attackers were Islamic jihadists, and Pakistani-connected. This isn’t what we want to hear, but even the Pakistanis are not denying this. What they do deny is official Pakistani involvement in the attacks. Read the rest

Obama’s organization retains some $30 million after his successful presidential bid, but it’s unclear how the Democratic president-in-waiting might use the money.

Members of his party are doing their best to appeal for the funds without appearing greedy, ungrateful or hostile to their new leader.

“If I was a top adviser to the president elect, I wouldn’t necessarily be advocating saving those dollars,” said Raymond Buckle, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

“It was critically important that we not repeat what happened in ‘93, ‘94,” when President Bill Clinton held the purse strings and Democrats lost 54 U.S. House seats and eight senators during midterm elections.

“We need the resources to build the national grass roots network for the Obama agenda. We need to make sure the president is successful and that the administration fulfills his promises,” Buckley said. Read the rest

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro said on Thursday his country could talk to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, in Havana’s latest overture to the incoming Democratic administration in Washington.

His remarks followed comments from his brother, President Raul Castro, who told a U.S. magazine he could meet Obama in a “neutral place” to try to end the Communist-run island’s four-decade conflict with the United States.

“With Obama, talks could happen anywhere he wants,” Fidel Castro, America’s longtime Cold War enemy, wrote in the latest of a series of columns he has published in state-run media since falling ill in 2006.

“He should remember the carrot-and-stick approach will not work with our country,” Castro wrote of Obama. “The sovereign rights of the Cuban people are not negotiable.” Read the rest