President Barack Hussein Obama! We have to say it again. President Barack Hussein Obama! It has a nice ring to it. It has a historical ring to it, and a quite satisfying ring. Barack Hussein Obama (yes, that is his middle name and no one should feel constrained about using it, proudly) has been elected President of the United States.

This is the most momentous presidential election in the nation’s history. It is, as Gen. Colin Powell, said, a “transformational” election, one that will change America. Voters have a choice to change it for the better, or to interrupt change and continue along the same ruinous path that has put this great country in serious economic difficulty, mired in two wars, dependent upon foreign oil and deeply split upon racial, social and ideological lines.

America will soon elect a new president. If that new president is Barack Obama, and we sincerely hope that it is, Illinois will need to quickly fill one of the most famous seats in the U.S. Senate.

It has to be disturbing to see video footage associated with criminal activity. But it must be wrenching to identify the video’s subject as not just someone you know of, or even a relative, but as your own child; the one you gave birth to.

African Americans have been faced, throughout the Barack Obama campaign for president, with the presumption that our support for him is due to racial solidarity, rather than his electability, policy stands and, yes, strong, traditional family values.

Sometimes when things are written down and clearly laid out, they appear to be more understandable and stark than verbal appeals, regurgitations and explanations. So hopefully the following facts and figures will remove the greed mote from the Chicago aldermen's eyes and help them to see that not only should they have not voted affirmatively to give themselves a pay raise, now is not the economic time to even broach the subject.

Now that Congress has rejected the massive bailout proposal for the nation's financial system, perhaps some cooler heads can actually take a look at what needs to be fixed, and come up with ways to fix it without rewarding greed and risky investments.

The Bush administration is pushing a plan for a $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial lending system, a system so broken that some were predicting a wholesale collapse of our financial system. Time is of the essence, according to President George Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., because the situation is so severe.

This letter was sent from Sharon Hicks (Chicago) as a Letter to the Editor and is our first published online letter.

It is estimated that 8.5 million African Americans voted for Barack Obama during the lengthy primary season. It is a remarkable number, and it contributed greatly to his triumph in several states. But there are 14 million African America registered voters, which means 5.5 million African American registered voters did not cast a vote.