Results tagged “barackobama”

Now that it's June the inauguration may seem like old news, but these films are refreshingly candid, hilarious, and often-poignant records of what D.C. communities were thinking and feeling back in January. "Most of them have even started caring about their futures," a student at Luke C. Moore Academy says of his classmates. "You can no longer go off the same expectations." An older woman captured in one film explains, "I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't know it would happen in my time." A shy fifth-grader tells the camera that she felt "Excited. Happy. All kinds of words."

Courtesy of NBC4

If you haven't spied it on newsstands yet, Washingtonian magazine's newest issue features a black cover with a rather grainy image of a shirtless President Obama superimposed over it. It looks really, really crappy from a design perspective, and the photo is recycled from last year, but it'll probably sell out anyway just for the novelty factor, which is no doubt what the magazine's editors had in mind.

UPDATE: Politico has video of the President's comments. We've posted them above.

             

Shortly after his Wednesday night Oath of Office do-over, President Obama motorcaded to the D.C. Armory for the final official inaugural event of an endless weekend.

       

Some 15,000 people showed up on a cold day at D.C.'s RFK Stadium Monday to answer President Barack Obama's call to service, in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty encouraged District residents to participate in the massive event, where volunteers helped assemble 75,000 kits containing food and personal items for soldiers serving overseas.

                   

As a Historic Event, Sunday’s We Are One concert on the Mall was often stirring and inspiring. But as a show? As music?

The Detroit Free Press kinda buries the lede in this posting about the announced entertainment line-up for the Youth Ball, one of the 10 official balls happening on Tuesday. In addition to Kid Rock and Fall Out Boy, Kanye West has been named a confirmed performer. Sources close to Kanye tell DCist that his decision to travel to D.C. and perform at the Youth Ball was made at the last minute. We had heard just a couple of days ago that the hip-hop star (who was rumored to have been being wooed by D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty to play his invite-only 9:30 Club benefit tonight, which will coincidentally also feature Fall Out Boy) had decided not to attend the inauguration due to logistical issues. But now West and a partial entourage are on their way to Washington, making the Youth Ball an even hotter ticket.

              

Take a look at how DCist's Flickr contributors have captured what Washington, D.C. looks like this weekend, with two days left until Inauguration Day. Add your inauguration-related Flickr photos to our pool by tagging them with "dcist" and "inauguration."

President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden arrived at Washington's Union Station and emerged from the "Obama Express" at just after 6:40 p.m. this evening. The "whistle stop tour" began earlier today in Philadelphia, then stopped in Biden's home of Wilmington, Delaware, and also in Baltimore for a public event at the War Memorial Plaza.

WTOP's Mark Segraves has a nice little scoop—apparently President-elect Barack Obama played basketball at the Marie Reed Community Learning Center in Adams Morgan on Sunday. According to his spokesperson, he left the Hay Adams Hotel at 5:15 p.m. and and played basketball for 45 minutes. But wouldn't the center have been closed at that hour? Indeed, but Mayor Adrian Fenty arranged for it to be opened for the president-elect.

When I was in Denver for the Democratic National Convention last August, I wondered if the anti-Coca-cola policies of the Pepsi Center wouldn't lead the then-Obama campaign to alienate a large segment of the population: Coke drinkers. But with Pepsi's latest ad campaign popping up all over Washington, in Metro stations, the sides of Metro buses, and even outside Union Station in advance of Obama's inauguration on Tuesday, the tables have turned.

Over the weekend we all excitedly talked about President-elect Barack Obama's impromptu visit to District mainstay Ben's Chili Bowl. Goofy as it may seem to outsiders, Obama's choice of a half-smoke before even officially becoming president speaks volumes to his understanding of the symbolic gulf that has existed between Washington and the District.

The rumors were true: the Presidential Inaugural Committee has released the list of confirmed performers for what's being called We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, scheduled to air on HBO on Sunday, January 18 from 7-9 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. There's no set start time for the concert itself yet, just a note that it will be taped on Sunday afternoon. (NB: We've updated this paragraph to clarify the concert schedule).

Everyone was excited that President-elect Obama made his first big foray into the city this weekend with a stop at Ben's Chili Bowl. Some were more excited than others. Namely, the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, who put out a press release hilariously titled, "National Hot Dog & Sausage Council Says President-Elect Obama's Historic Trip to Famous DC Hot Dog Restaurant Reflects Excellent and All-American Taste in Cuisine."

Tickets for the 56th Inaugural Parade go on sale to the public at 1 p.m. today for $25 each through Ticketmaster. There are only 5,000 such tickets for bleacher seats being made available to the public, so expect them to go in the blink of an eye. Each person is limited to four tickets per purchase.

Former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard! Chalk another scoop up to the Washington Post's transition blog. Turns out that the only overnight guest staying at Blair House between now and Jan. 15 is Howard, who will be in town to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush on Jan. 13.

Just like November 5 saw a run on post-election editions of the Washington Post and New York Times, Metro says it is doing brisk business with their commemorative Barack Obama inauguration SmarTrip card.

You've been asking, so here's the answers so far. Yes, many Metrobus lines are being rerouted around the street closures announced over the weekend for the area surrounding the Hay-Adams Hotel, where the Obama family is living until January 15. Metro spokesperson Steven Taubenkibel pointed us to the Bus alert notice on WMATA's web site noting that the following routes are on detour around the street closures "until further notice": all of the 30 buses, plus routes 42, 11Y, G8, P17 and P19, L2, W13, S2 and S4, and X2 and X3.

First Lady-to-be Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia arrived in D.C. last night, a day earlier than expected, in order to have some additional time to settle in to the Hay-Adams Hotel before the girls start school on Monday. Reporters and onlookers have been camped outside the hotel since Saturday, but the Obama women managed to enter the hotel through the alley last night without anyone capturing images of them. The Post reports that President-elect Barack Obama is expected to arrive this afternoon.

Inaugural enthusiasts won't be the only ones traveling into D.C. in the next couple of weeks. The city will also see its annual influx of leather fetishists.

Fox 5 reminds us that the deadline to apply to be a volunteer at one of the many presidential inauguration festivities, celebrations and ceremonies is tonight at midnight. The Presidential Inauguration Committee needs as many as 18,000 volunteers for the several days surrounding Jan. 20, though be warned that 60,000 people have reportedly already signed up for the spots. Still, the volunteer application form makes it pretty plain that the PIC favors those folks who live in the area and won't have transportation issues, are familiar with the city, and have previous volunteer experience -- all prerequisites we're sure DCist readers have in spades. Just make sure to fill out the form by midnight, and keep your fingers crossed that you'll be one of those selected. You won't get to pick your assignment, but you will get a meal, a commemorative volunteer credential, and a red hat.

   

Reader Matt Ashburn sent in these captures of workers installing special street lamp globes adorned with golden eagles along Pennsylvania Ave. The eagles are being placed in time for the inaugural parade on Jan. 20.

Vice President-Elect Joe Biden is a well-known train geek, so we have to assume he was involved in the decision for him and President-Elect Barack Obama to arrive in Washington on Jan. 17 via Amtrak. Sure, the Lincoln-loving Obama says he's replicating his presidential hero's journey to Washington by starting out in Philadelphia and stopping in Baltimore on his way, but Biden made the fact that he rides the train between D.C. and Wilmington almost every day one of his talking points during the campaign, so the symbolism works for both of them rather nicely.

When our pals at Chicagoist forwarded us a link to their post about how the U.S. Supreme Court is actually going to consider whether to take up a lawsuit challenging President-Elect Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship, we thought it had to be a joke. But no, this is sort of really happening tomorrow, and although it's almost assured of going no further than merely appearing on Friday's court meeting schedule, it will bring with it a small army of weirdos who are still pushing this sad little conspiracy theory. There's a vigil planned for the steps of the Supreme Court tomorrow, so if you're looking to get an extra helping of crazy before the start of your weekend, stroll on by!

As everyone from here to Kerguelen knows, there was a historic election in America on Tuesday. Appropriately, a lot of the overheards sent in by our valiant overhearers are political in nature. But other than Mark Russell, no one can live on political humor alone (and Capitol Steps doesn't count as humor), so there's some non-political stuff, too.

“Any website or ticket broker claiming that they have inaugural tickets is simply not telling the truth,” said Howard Gantman, Staff Director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. “Tickets for the swearing-in of President-elect are all provided through members of Congress, and the President-elect and Vice President-elect through the Presidential Inaugural Committee. We urge the public to view any offers of tickets for sale with great skepticism.”This morning D.C. Wire reported that D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton's office has already fielded 1,000 phone calls from constituents looking for inauguration tickets, but that Norton has no idea how many tickets she'll actually get. Given that we only have the one delegate and no senators, sounds like it's possible D.C. residents could end up getting the shaft as far as how many tickets are allotted to us versus the similarly-sized states - though we won't know that for sure until the tickets are sent out in January. In the meantime, you can try calling Norton's office and ask to be put on a waiting list, or else find someone who lives in a congressional district to put in a request to their representative for you and then arrange for them to be here to pick up the ticket in person, with ID.

           

Finding a newspaper by 9 a.m. this morning was a more difficult task than getting out of bed for the long trudge into work. But while trying to obtain a tangible piece of paper journalism for posterity might have been a futile task, your second best option is the Newseum's humongous online collection - 682 of this morning's front pages, all accessible from the comfort of your desk (or, depending on how late you were out, your couch). The site's moving a little slow with all the post-election traffic this afternoon, so we've highlighted a number of local papers - ranging in scope from large to small - for your perusal. You won't even have to put slippers on or grab some spare change this way.

Barack Obama is the winner. Obama, age 47, is the first African-American to win the presidency.