The Inauguration of A New President: President Barack Obama Calls For A 'New Era of Responsibilty,' in America

Barack Obama addresses the nation and the world earlier today as the 44th President of the United States. (Photo: Ron Edmunds/AP.)

At noon today outside the U.S. Capital building in Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama placed one hand on the bible used by Abraham Lincoln when he took the oath of office as President and raised his other hand in the air as he was sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Following the brief swearing-in by Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts, President Obama gave his inaugural address to a crowd that included outgoing President George W. Bush and the other three living former President's -- his father George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

In his speech, President Obama struck a high tone, but also mentioned specifics. At times he echoed Abraham Lincoln who talked about creating a more perfect union in his inaugural address. In telling the American people, and those millions and perhaps billions watching the speech throughout the world, that America will overcome it's current economic and financial recession the new American President sounded a bit like President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who told the American people to "fear nothing but fear itself" when the United States was in the Great Depression in the 1930's.

Issuing a call for change, for an end to business as usual in Washington, D.C. and throughout the land, and calling for what he termed "A New Era Of Responsibility,"President Obama reminded one of both Ronald Reagan (personal responsibility) and John F. Kennedy (the New Frontier).

President Obama also issued a call to the nations of the world, telling them the United States was ready to once again lead, announcing to the nation's friends, and those that want to become friends, that America is ready to join them in a host of global endeavors. He also let foes and potential foes know that, similar to what John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural speech in 1961, that the United States will essentially bear any burden -- and that it will defeat any enemies that attempt to destroy the country's way of life and its national interests.

But despite sounding themes similar to those of these past Presidents, President Obama's speech today was pure Obama -- the ideas, themes and words the 44th President of the United States has been sounding since he first emerged into the public's eye when he gave the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Party Convention. And those who've known him and worked with him will all tell you the themes he focused on in his campaign, and that he addressed today in his speech, have been his in various forms for many years prior to 2004.

The President's speech was firmly rooted in American history and the American tradition. American values such as religion and faith. Service and patriotism. Hard work. Volunteerism. Individual and shared sacrifice. But it also was forward looking. It was a clarion call to the American people that, in the words of the late 1960's community organizer Sol Alinsky, "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem." (Obama is a former community organizer. What good community organizers know, just like good CEO's know, is that in order to be a good and affective leader that leader must have citizen and consumer "buy-in." See a connection with Obama's strategy? We do.)

Conservative newspaper columnist, author, former speechwriter and aid to Presidents Nixon and Reagan, former candidate for President, and NBC News' political analyst Patrick Buchanan said on MSNBC today that President Obama's inaugural speech was one of the best he has every heard, comparing it favorably to those of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan. He said in his analysis the President's speech struck the right tone between being high-minded and idealistic but also and pragmatic.

The conservative writer and analyst, who despite being a major figure in America's conservative movement for decades, was mostly at odds with President Bush, including opposing the invasion of Iraq, also said on MSNBC today that President Obama's speech managed to put the Bush years in the past and allow America and the new Administration to begin anew.

But President Obama's speech speaks best on its own. Therefore, below is the full text from the inauguration day speech given today by the 44th President of the United States of America:

Jan 20, 2009
Text of President Barack H. Obama's Inaugural Address

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.

And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you. For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it. As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

[You can view President Obama's inaugural speech on YouTube at this link: YouTube - President Barack Obama 2009 Inauguration and Address. Try reading the full text above first. Then watch and listen to the video at the link. It's interesting to compare and contrast what you make of the speech via reading the written words first, and then what you make of it after both reading and viewing it. It's a interesting examination of how using your multiple senses can add to and sometimes even change your impressions and perceptions.]

USA Presidential Inauguration 2009 Memo - Essay: The Inauguration of Barack Obama and the New American Spirit

President-elect Barack Obama addresses a crowd of Americans today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the cradle of American liberty, before embarking on a historic train ride to Washington, D.C., where he will be sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States of America on Tuesday, January 20. Tuesday morning America renews itself, not devoid of its history, but rather determined to create a more perfect union. [Photo: courtesy of The New York Times.]

On Tuesday morning, January 20, Barack Obama -- a 47-year old man who was born of an African father from Kenya who deserted his son shortly after he was born and a white mother from Kansas in America's heartland who raised her son alone with the help of her parents, a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, a former community organizer in Chicago's South Side neighborhood and a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, and a former member of the Illinois State Legislature and most recently a United States Senator -- will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Mr. Obama joins only 43 other men who've held the nation's highest office since the United States won its independence through lots of guts and the shedding of much blood. Take a minute and think about that -- just 43 men, and soon 44, -- that's certainly an elite club. And yes, no woman yet. But that's coming as well -- and nearly did in 2008 with Hillary Clinton.

President-elect Obama stands out most obviously among those other 43 men to be elected President because he's the only soon to be member of that elite club who has black skin.

Barack Obama adopted Illinois as his hometown after living as a child and teenager in places as varied as Kansas, Hawaii and Indonesia. And it isn't lost on him or us, and shouldn't be on any American, that is was another Senator and President from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, who signed the emancipation proclamation, which ended America's most cardinal of cardinal sins -- black slavery.

But Barack Obama is far from only being the first a "black" President. He's a man of dual ethnicity and multiple cultural backgrounds and experiences. Some years ago people laughed at (and many criticized) the great professional golfer Tiger Woods when he used the word "Cablinasian" to describe his ethnic makeup. Tiger created the word himself, a combination of Caucasian, Black, American Indian and Asian, which are all parts of his ethnic makeup. He was trying to make a personal and public point that his whole was much more than what others could see.

But the fact is, multi-ethnicity is becoming the new normal in America. The melting pot has and is increasingly becoming more of a blender. Americans aged about 30 and younger don't even consider race as a significant attribute like generations of older Americans have, except to celebrate it as unique to one another. And older Americans, many who have children in mixed marriages and grandchildren who like Tiger Woods are multi-ethnic, in most cases no longer looks at a person's ethnic background as something that should limit them or make the any different they they themselves are.

Sure, racism still exists in the U.S., as does discrimination. But it's truly on the way out. When those Americans who are in there late teens and twenties today are running things in 20-25 years, imagine how even much more irrelevant a person's race and ethnic background will be in terms of equal treatment and opportunity.

And 20-25 years from now those of us still living will likely look back on the candidacy and Presidency of Barack Obama as being the seminal 21rst century watershed event to a fully ethnically-integrated America two decades hence, if not sooner.

President-elect Barack Obama will place his hand on a bible used by Abraham Lincoln on what promises to be a very cold Washington, D.C. morning on Tuesday, January 20, taking the oath of office to lead a country with serious challenges. But America also has abundant opportunities -- some we can already see and others we've yet to discover.

We tend to agree with President-elect Obama's chief of staff, former Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who has been delighting in a new saying he created: "A crisis (as in economic and financial) is a terrible thing to waste." What Rahm Emanuel, a scrappy political operative from Chicago, Illinois, basically means is that sometimes it is only in a crisis that change and new, better things (in this case a better America) can come about. Abraham Lincoln, a fellow man from Illinois, knew this well. He used a divisive and bloody crisis, the Civil War, to, despite objections from advisers and many of the pundits of his day, to ultimately end America's stain -- slavery.

The new President faces a U.S. economy in full free-fall. Over 1 million Americans lost their jobs in just November and December of 2008 alone. Despite injecting hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the financial and credit markets, those markets are still frozen for all intents and purposes. And, even if the markets were to thaw tomorrow, most Americans are in no position to borrow money to buy a home, new car or even in many cases a washing machine.

Additionally, housing foreclosures continue to grow. Business bankruptcies are on the rise. And Americans are worried about the future more so than they have been in many decades.

Barack Obama isn't the messiah. And it's important Americans remember this. It will take time to turn the U.S. economy around. There will be false starts and outright failures.

It also will take time to extract America's fighting men and woman from Iraq, even though the new President is committed to doing so. Those on the left who supported Barack Obama, as well as those on the right who didn't, need to give him, and America, time. By this we don't mean idle time. That's not on Barack Obama's agenda. He will, and already has, hit the ground running, even before officially becoming President.

What we mean is that Americans of all types and stripes need to understand this isn't the new President's mess. It's a mess made by many, including in some ways all Americans. And it will take many -- all of us in one way or another -- to make it better.

But there is a new spirit blowing across America this Saturday afternoon. This new spirit could be felt at the train station in Pennsylvania where President-elect Obama, incoming first lady Michelle Obama, and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill took off for their historic train trip from the cradle of American liberty on to Washington, D.C.

This new American spirit could be felt in the Vice-President-elect's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, where at an Amtrak station that for 36 years as a U.S. Senator Joe Biden left from each weekday morning and returned to after doing Senate business in Washington, D.C. because after losing his wife in a car accident and becoming a single father he did what he had to do, which was come home each night to his sons. Today at the Amtrak station President-elect Obama mentioned that aspect of Biden's life. It's a bond of shared loss the two men share, one having lost his mother way to soon in her life, the other having lost his first wife far too soon in her life.

The new spirit blowing across America was again felt a short time later when the train carrying the Obama's and Biden's, along with about 50 Americans from all walks of life chosen to make the train trip in an historic rail care with the incoming President, pulled into Baltimore, Maryland, where one of the most important battles of the War of Independence was fought, the last stop before Washington, D.C. for the incoming President. At least 30,000 people waited for hours in bone-chilling 11-degree weather in front of Baltimore's City Hall to hear the President-elect speak. And he did -- sounding the themes of unity, change, shared responsibility and hope.

As we write this piece, the train is do to pull into the train station in Washington, D.C., America's capital city which is named after America's first President, a great soldier and statesman, but also a slaveholder, named George Washington.

The streets of D.C. are already packed with hundreds of thousands of visitors in preparation for Tuesday's inaugural ceremony -- and its just Saturday. Cars bearing license plates from Utah, Montana, Illinois, Indiana line the streets. People are driving in (thanks to the drop in the price of gasoline), flying in, riding the train and the bus to the nation's capital.

They may be coming from all over, and getting to Washington, D.C. by different means of transportation, but these Americans all have one thing in common -- hope and optimism for a better tomorrow.

And a better tomorrow will come. It will come for the 12-year old African American child who on Tuesday morning will see a man with the same skin color as he has being sworn-in as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. It will come for the unemployed machinist, who despite knowing he shouldn't drove from Detroit to Washington, D.C. because of the cost, he did anyway because he too wants to help keep hope alive. It will come for the 18-year old high school senior from California who despite getting excepted into the prestigious University of California at Berkeley campus has no idea how she will pay for her tuition and other expenses because dad lost his job and mom's hours have been reduced because of the recession.

It won't come easy. But then few good things seldom to. But a new spirit is blowing across the land. Eight years is a long time for a President in the U.S. We saw that even in the case of Bill Clinton, who left office in 2001 with a rather high popularity rating. But the eight years of the Bush Administration has been particularly long, and troubling to many, even to many of the most loyal Republicans who supported him. One can feel a collective spirit of "its time for a change" among many Republicans in the nation's capital, as well as throughout America.

What needs to be unleashed once again in America is its unique entrepreneurial spirit. Human and financial capital. Ideas once again turned into new products. Education once again made supreme.

The U.S. has led in just about every human and technological revolution since it went from a colony to a nation -- agriculture, food and fiber, automobiles, architecture and building, computers, the Internet. And each time Americans have come through the strongest and most innovative has been after a period of malaise, bad economic times and war.

During and after World War II America's farmers created the world's premiere agricultural system, and entrepreneurs and innovators revolutionized food processing and retailing.

With his New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, tinkered with idea after idea and program after program. Americans were put to work. New industries were created. Idle industries like automotive plants were turned into assembly lines for the production of trucks, tanks and other vehicles to be used in the war and to keep Europe free after the war. Spirits were raised.

No one really knows for sure Roosevelt's New Deal is what got the U.S. out of the Great Depression, but most believe without it and all of its programs, despair just might have defeated survival, which then led to progress. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the New Deal was that it raised the American (and Americans) spirit.

It was following World War II and then the Korean War that a Republican President, Former Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower pushed through legislation in which America spent tens of billions in today's dollars creating what was billed as the 20th century U.S. infrastructure -- new interstate highways, roads, bridges, tunnels and more. This building prepared the way for American industry to create jobs in the private sector.

The 1950's and 1960's saw changes and innovations earlier generations thought impossible -- the creation of the middle class, home ownership for the masses, personal transportation as the norm, a huge boost in college education and social security and Medicare, which has allowed millions of older Americans to live lives of dignity.

Later on, Americans invented the microchip and the personal computer. Then the Internet and World Wide Web. The nation has been on the forefront in science, medicine -- and so much more.

Each time before a new wave of American innovation there have been dark clouds -- war, recession, even depression But then a new, fresh breeze in the form of a renewed American spirit somehow kicks up from throughout the land. Today is and should be no different. It will get worse before it gets better. But so what -- that's always been the case.

The challenge and goal now, for both the new Obama Administration and Congress, for the American people and American business, is to learn from our mistakes over the last decade. To change for the better. To do what we've always done best -- innovate, experiment, explore. We should not fear experimenting, failing, then trying something new. And we should allow the new Administration that same option, to do just as Franklin Roosevelt did with his New Deal.

The way that airline pilot took his plane down in New York's Hudson River the other day, a confident, solid, soft landing, in which every one of the about 150 passengers on the plane survived, is a pretty good object lesson for America beginning on the morning of January 20.

Like that pilot, we need not fear taking a chance. Nor should we not allow the new President to take some chances. In the pilot's case he took a chance on landing the plane, which was disabled because birds flew into its jet engines, in the Hudson River in a way most experts have called audacious and amazing. Yet at the same time, like that pilot with his hand on the airplane's stick, we must be confident -- confident in America's future because of its past. Like the pilot we also must be steady and resolute -- things will not get better overnight.

There's a new spirit blowing across America as the 44th President of the United States prepares to take office on Tuesday morning. You can feel this new American sprit blowing across the Potomac in Washington, D.C., across the great lakes in the Midwest, and in big cities and small towns throughout America. Call it hope. Call it optimism. Call it the American spirit.

It's the incoming President's job, and even more important it's the duty of all Americans, to make sure this new American spirit is harnessed -- that it becomes a new American spirit we capture and use and don't let go of until we've made the country a more perfect union in all of the many ways it can become, just as those before us have tried to do.

[Natural~Specialty Foods Memo (NSFM) Editor's Note: Beginning today, Saturday, January 18, until Tuesday, January 20, Inauguration Day 2009, we will be writing and publishing various stories, and making related posts, about the new American President, with a particular focus on how the new Administration will impact and interact with the food and grocery industry, including from a public policy standpoint. Stay tuned.]