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Peter Finn / Washington Post:
Obama Seeks Halt to Legal Proceedings at Guantanamo — In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — a clear break with the approach of the outgoing Bush administration.
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Mohammed Jawad and Obama's efforts to suspend military commissions — (updated below) — This is a very good and important step — not only because of its substance, but also because it was something Obama did almost immediately, even before his first full day in office:
CNN:
Change In the Air(waves) — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Welcome to the YouTube White House. — In one of many signs of “change” in the air, President Obama has officially tweaked the name of a White House institution, the Weekly Radio Address, which has been heard on stations across the nation each Saturday for years.
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Jeff Zeleny / The Caucus:
President Obama's First Day — Press Office Opens | 9:50 a.m. The lower press office on the first floor of the West Wing was locked until about 9 a.m., when Bill Burton, a deputy White House press secretary opened the doors. He sat in the office alone as a line of reporters waited …
The Politico:
Obama faces first day as president
Obama faces first day as president
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The New Republic, Associated Press, CBS News, Political Machine, The Note, TIME.com, CNN, Political Punch and Alan Colmes' Liberaland
Alex Spillius / Alex Spillius's blog listings:
Barack Obama inauguration: his worst speech
Barack Obama inauguration: his worst speech
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Don Surber
MsUnderestimated:
DAILY SHOW - WHAT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BUSH & OBAMA? (VIDEO) — Tonight Jon Stewart rightly pointed out that there really are no differences when it comes to philosophy about national security, and he demonstrates it with sequential video clips, comparing Barack's speech with past Bush speeches.
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org
Mark McKinnon / Blogs and Stories:
Aboard the Bush Plane — Britain's Leading Historian on the Genius of Obama's Unsoaring Inaugural — Full Coverage: Obama Inauguration, Bush Farewell — Blogs and Stories — In a Daily Beast exclusive, a former Bush advisor files his account—and his photos—from aboard the former president's flight back to Texas.
Discussion:
The New Republic, USA Today, Emptywheel, Jules Crittenden, No More Mister Nice Blog and PoliticalBase.com Blog
BBC:
Dutch MP faces anti-Islam charges — A Dutch court has ordered prosecutors to put a right-wing politician on trial for making anti-Islamic statements. — Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders made a controversial film last year equating Islam with violence and has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Discussion:
Little Green Footballs, Harry's Place, Israpundit, Samizdata.net, Hot Air, Gateway Pundit, Gates of Vienna and QandO
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Carolyn Lochhead / San Francisco Chronicle:
Experts say Obama should retake the oath — (01-21) 04:00 PST Washington - — Several constitutional lawyers said President Obama should, just to be safe, retake the oath of office that was flubbed by Chief Justice John Roberts. — The 35-word oath is explicitly prescribed in the Constitution …
Juan Williams / Wall Street Journal:
Judge Obama on Performance Alone — Let's not celebrate more ordinary speeches. — With the noon sun high over the U.S. Capitol, Barack Obama yesterday took the oath of office to become president of the United States. On one level, it was a simple matter of political process — the symbolic transfer of power.
Discussion:
Commentary, Blue Crab Boulevard, Babalu Blog, This ain't Hell …, Betsy's Page, Solomonia and Neptunus Lex
Shira Ovide / Wall Street Journal:
Wall Street Journal Receives Envelopes Containing White Powder — The Wall Street Journal received more than a dozen envelopes containing an unknown white powder, and New York City police and hazardous materials crews are investigating the matter, a spokesman said.
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NY Daily News:
Human rights honcho in kiddie porn bust — A high-ranking human rights worker with ties to the United Nations was nabbed at Kennedy Airport Tuesday with kiddie porn in his suitcase, officials said. — Clarence Dias, 65, president of the International Center for Law in Development …
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Tabassum Zakaria / Reuters:
WHouse stops pending Bush regulations for review — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's new administration ordered all federal agencies and departments on Tuesday to stop any pending regulations until they can be reviewed …
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Ralph Z. Hallow / Washington Times:
Gingrich urges GOP to fight Geithner — Wants ‘tax evader’ disqualified — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is challenging Senate Republicans to take on President Obama's nomination of Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. — Mr. Gingrich said Mr. Geithner's failure to pay Social Security …
Discussion:
McClatchy Washington Bureau, Hot Air, The Washington Independent, AmSpecBlog, The Corner, QandO and Babalu Blog
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Associated Press:
Supreme Court won't revive online content law — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - The government lost its final attempt Wednesday to revive a federal law intended to protect children from sexual material and other objectionable content on the Internet.
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CNN:
A major Bush rule gets scrapped by Obama — (CNN) — It's the same Oval Office. The same desk. Even the same curtains. But President Obama has already made one major change: Go through eight years of White House photos, and you won't find one of former President Bush in the Oval Office without his jacket on.
Andy Levy / Big Hollywood:
My “To Don't” List for the Right — The only thing worse than bad winners are sore losers, and we've had enough of them for the past eight years. So with that in mind, in the wake of today's historic inauguration, here's my Handbook For The Loyal Opposition, 2009 edition - a “To Don't List,” if you will.
Denver Post:
Is dissent still patriotic? — Do all Americans truly have a yearning to fundamentally “remake” our nation? There must be a subversive minority out there that still believes the United States — even with its imperfections and sporadic recessions — is, in context, still a wildly prosperous and free country worth preserving.
Discussion:
Neptunus Lex
Haaretz:
Supreme Court revokes ban on Arab parties from national elections — Israel's Supreme court overruled on Wednesday a parliamentary panel which had decided to bar Israeli Arab parties from running in next month's parliamentary election. — The court issued its decision in response …
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
“No Words That Will Be Quoted In A Hundred Years” — Packer on yesterday's proceedings: … Allow me: she was pretty pedestrian (but better than Aretha). — Mulling over the address yesterday, I felt in retrospect that the restraint and classical tropes of the speech were deliberate and wise.
Brenda Gazzar / Associated Press:
Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels operating despite IDF offensive — Smuggling into Gaza from Egypt is underway again, only days after the end of the IDF operation against Hamas. — AP Television News footage showed Palestinian smugglers Wednesday filling a fuel truck with petrol that came through a cross-border tunnel from Egypt.
Noam Scheiber / The New Republic:
Schumer's $3-4 Trillion Horror Story — While questioning Treasury nominee Tim Geithner at his confirmation hearing this morning, Sen. Chuck Schumer said he spent some time calling around Wall Street this weekend, and what he heard was that if the government wants to clean out all the toxic assets …
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias
KRQE-TV:
terror cases — ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Former New Mexico U. S. Attorney David Iglesias, during a live interview on KRQE News 13, described his new job as a Navy judge advocate general prosecuting terrorism cases at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. — Share your opinions responsibly
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The Politico, TIME.com, Talking Points Memo, TPMMuckraker and The Washington Independent
The Politico:
Seven reasons for healthy skepticism — Even in a city of cynics, the Inauguration of a new president — and the infusion of new ideas, new personalities and new energy that comes with it — summons feelings of reverence. — Barack Obama, especially, is the object of inaugural good feelings.