The Common Good

Daily News Digest

The Top 10 Stories of November 20, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-20-2012

Quote of the day.
"I am going to try to represent the mother attribute of God. A mother is a caring person but at the same time, a mother can be firm in doing whatever she is doing." Ellinah Wamukoya, consecrated Saturday to serve as the Anglican bishop in Swaziland, is the church’s first female bishop in Africa.
(Associated Press)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 19, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-19-2012

Quote of the day.
"This isn''t really rocket science here. You have a lot of people on the roads over Thanksgiving, so the crashes are naturally going to get worse." Allen Parrish of the University of Alabama Center for Advanced Public Safety, author of a new statistical study showing the Thanksgiving holiday is one of the year''s deadliest times for traffic accidents.
(USA Today)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 15, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-15-2012

Quote of the day.
"We're complete strangers to them, and for them to put this together for us, it's an amazing feeling. The Katrina victims paying it forward to the Sandy victims is part of their healing process as well." Tim Occhipinti, Hoboken, N.J. city councilman, helped coordinate transportation and distribution of  8 tons of donated food, clothes and other supplies brought on the “Train of Hope” from Louisiana.
(USA Today)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 14, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-14-2012

Quote of the day.
"For Hispanic evangelicals, I don''t think it''s a secret that this is a top priority. This is home, this is granma and granpa, this is a child and a mother, a son and a dad." Rev. Gabriel Salguero, President of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, part of a broad coalition of evangelical leaders calling on President Barack Obama to meet with them and introduce a bipartisan immigration reform bill within the first 92 days of his term.
(ABC News)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 13, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-13-2012

Quote of the day.
“I fully expected to come in here on Tuesday and open up my temple to serve the community and let it be a food distribution place. And we couldn’t. Instead, I’m going around telling volunteers helping us, ‘It’s unsanitary: put your mask on; wear your gloves.’” Rabbi Marjorie Slome, on her West End Temple in Queens, where flooding filled the basement and reached up to four feet on the first floor. 
(New York Times)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 12, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-12-2012

Quote of the day.
“It’s important not just in black Christianity but in American Christianity to hold onto the progressive strand of evangelical Christianity — the social gospel. To hold accountable this hypercapitalist and radically individualist strand of Christianity in American religion.” Rev. Jonathan L. Walton, installed yesterday as Pusey minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard University.
(New York Times)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 9, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-09-2012

Quote of the day.
“By making death and producing tragedy, you sought to extinguish the beauty of life, to diminish potential, to strain love and to cancel ideas. You tried to create for all of us a world as dark and evil as your own. But remember it always: You failed.” Mark Kelly, as he and his wife, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, faced at his sentencing the man who shot her and 18 others nearly two years ago.
(New York Times)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 8, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-08-2012

Quote of the day.
“In 2012, communities of color, young people and women are not merely interest groups, they’re the ‘new normal’ demographic of the American electorate.” Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza.
(McClatchy News)

1. Back to work, Obama is greeted by looming fiscal crisis.
Newly re-elected, President Obama moved quickly on Wednesday to open negotiations with Congressional Republican leaders over the main unfinished business of his term — a major deficit-reduction deal to avert a looming fiscal crisis — as he began preparing for a second term that will include significant cabinet changes.
(New York Times)

2. Immigration reform returns to fore.
Immigration’s sudden rise to the top of Washington’s to-do list after years on the legislative back burner spotlights how worried Republicans are about Latinos abandoning their party.
(Politico)

3. Barack Obama stokes expectations of climate change action.
Barack Obama's invocation of "the destructive power of a warming planet" in his victory speech has stoked expectation that he will act on climate change in his second term.
(Guardian)

4. Republicans face murky political future in increasingly diverse U.S.
Republican leaders awoke Wednesday to witness their grim future. And then they promptly began what promises to be an extended period of internal strife over how a party that skews toward older white men can compete in an increasingly diverse nation.
(Washington Post)

5. Youth vote decides presidential election – again.
Millennials made it to the polls in droves Tuesday – proving themselves a central voting bloc in swing states and defying speculation that their enthusiasm had waned since the days of Barack Obama’s historic candidacy in 2008.
(Christian Science Monitor)

6. Romney won over white evangelicals, Catholics, but they weren't enough to win.
Concerns that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism would put off white evangelical voters did not bear out at the polls Tuesday. Seventy-eight percent of white evangelical Christians went for Romney, up from 74 percent for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain.
(Washington Post)

7. Spending by independent groups had little election impact.
Never before has so much political money been spent to achieve so little. Record spending by independent groups, which in many ways defined how campaigns were waged this year, had no discernible effect on the outcome of most races.
(Washington Post)

8. Obama faces familiar world of problems in 2nd term.
Now that his re-election is secured, President Barack Obama has a freer hand to deal with a world of familiar problems in fresh ways, from toughening America's approach to Iran and Syria while potentially engaging other repressive countries such as Cuba and North Korea and refocusing on moribund Middle East peace efforts.
(Associated Press)

9. As 'insider attacks' grow, so does U.S.-Afghanistan divide.
Interviews with commanders and soldiers in Kandahar provided graphic details of several so-called insider attacks and illustrated how deeply they are dividing U.S. forces from the Afghan army and police units the Americans have promised to mentor, train and fight with for at least two more years.
(Chicago Tribune/Los Angeles Times)

10. Anger in Athens as Greek austerity measures passed.
It came after a night of rain, tear gas and clashes. But after four months of tortuous negotiations and a rancorous parliamentary debate, the Greek parliament finally announced late on Wednesday night that it had passed the most draconian package yet of austerity measures needed to keep Europe's weakest economy afloat.
(Guardian)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 7, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-07-2012

Quote of the day.
“Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy. That won't change after tonight, and it shouldn''t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty.” President Barack Obama, from the victory speech following his reelection.
(Chicago Tribune)

1. Rejuvenated Obama reelected as president.
Barack Obama was elected to a second presidential term Tuesday, defeating Republican Mitt Romney by reassembling the political coalition that boosted him to victory four years ago and remaking himself from a hopeful uniter into a determined fighter for middle-class interests.
(Washington Post)

2. Democrats grab Senate seats in Massachusetts and Indiana.
Democrats snatched Republican Senate seats in Indiana and Massachusetts on Tuesday, averted what was once considered a likely defeat in Missouri and held control of the Senate, handing Republicans a string of stinging defeats for the second campaign season in a row.
(New York Times)

3. GOP keeps House control, beats back Democrats.
Republicans won enough crucial races Tuesday to retain control of the House of Representatives, beating back a strong Democratic challenge and allowing the GOP to keep pushing an agenda of fiscal austerity.
(Washington Post)

4. State-by-state recap: Who won? Who lost?
The results from all of the key races across the country.
(Washington Post)

5. Election results raise questions about Christian right's influence.
On multiple levels, Tuesday’s election results seemed to mark a dramatic rejection of the Christian right’s agenda, eight years after the movement helped sweep President George W. Bush into a second term and opened the era of state bans on same-sex marriage.
(CNN Belief Blog)

6. Republicans face struggle over party's direction.
Mitt Romney’s loss to a Democratic president wounded by a weak economy is certain to spur an internecine struggle over the future of the Republican Party, but the strength of the party’s conservatives in Congress and the rightward tilt of the next generation of party leaders could limit any course correction.
(New York Times)

7. Barack Obama has another chance to deliver his foreign policy promises.
Obama now has four more years and a second chance to deliver on his promise to become an agent of change in the world. The logic of a second term will certainly push him to try.
(Guardian)

8. Obama win spells trouble for Netanyahu.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an even more awkward time with Washington and re-energized critics at home who accused him on Wednesday of backing the loser in the U.S. presidential election.
(Reuters)

9. Western efforts on Syria shifting.
Western efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad shifted dramatically Wednesday, with Britain announcing it will deal directly with rebel military leaders and Turkey saying NATO members have discussed using Patriot missiles to protect a safe zone inside Syria. The developments came within hours of Barack Obama's re-election, with U.S. allies anticipating a new, bolder approach from the American president to end the deadlocked civil war.
(Associated Press)

10. Pakistani militants hiding in Afghanistan.
The Taliban leader who sparked international outrage by ordering the attack on a Pakistani schoolgirl last month has escaped retribution by hiding in a section of eastern Afghanistan where U.S. forces are already spread thin and focused on other targets, according to U.S. officials.
(Washington Post)

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The Top 10 Stories of November 6, 2012

by Duane Shank 11-06-2012

Quote of the day.
“This campaign-finance thing is crazy. Imagine all the people we could be feeding and helping with all the money that’s gone into ads.” Denise Benning, 53, Columbus OH.
(Columbus Dispatch)

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