Flight of the Conchords

Prominent liberal groups and gay rights proponents criticized President-elect Barack Obama Wednesday for choosing evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration next month.
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

Warren, one of the most influential religious leaders in the nation, has championed issues such as a reduction of global poverty, human rights abuses and the AIDS epidemic.

But the founder of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, has also adhered to socially conservative stances — including his opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights that puts him at odds with many in the Democratic Party, especially the party’s most liberal wing.

“[It's] shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now,” Andrew Sullivan wrote on the Atlantic Web site Wednesday.

People for the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert told CNN she is “deeply disappointed” with the choice of Warren and said the powerful platform at the inauguration should instead have been given to someone who has “consistent mainstream American values.” iReport.com: What do you think of the pick?

“There is no substantive difference between Rick Warren and James Dobson,” Kolbert said. “The only difference is tone. His tone is moderate, but his ideas are radical.”

Dobson, a social conservative leader, is founder and chairman of Focus on the Family.

Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for Obama, defended the choice of Warren, saying, “This is going to be the most inclusive, open, accessible inauguration in American history.”
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“The president-elect certainly disagrees with him on [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] issues,” Douglass said. “But it has always been his goal to find common ground with people with whom you may disagree on some issues.”

Douglass also noted that Obama and Warren agree on several issues, including advocating on behalf of the poor, the disadvantaged and people who suffer from HIV/AIDS. Video Watch CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his panel discuss the selection »

Warren’s support of California’s Proposition 8, a measure that outlaws same-sex marriage in the state, sparked the ire of many gay rights proponents earlier this fall.

Warren, who has made it a practice not to endorse candidates or political parties, wrote in October that the issue of gay marriage is not a political issue, but instead “a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.”

“For 5,000 years, every culture and every religion — not just Christianity — has defined marriage as a contract between men and women,” Warren wrote in a newsletter to his congregation. “There is no reason to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population.”

Warren also stirred controversy earlier this week when he told Beliefnet.com his grounds for opposing same-sex marriage lay primarily on his right of free speech.

“There were all kinds of threats that if [Proposition 8] did not pass, then any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships, and that would be hate speech.”

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights campaign, said Wednesday he feels a “deep level of disrespect” over the choice of Warren and is calling on Obama to reconsider the move.

“By inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table,” Solmonese said in an open letter to Obama that was released by his organization.

In his recent interview with Beliefnet, Warren also sparked outrage among supporters of abortion rights for criticizing those who have said abortion would be “safe and rare.”

“Don’t tell me it should be rare,” he said in the interview. “That’s like saying on the Holocaust, ‘Well, maybe we could save 20 percent of the Jewish people in Poland and Germany and get them out and we should be satisfied with that — I’m not satisfied with that. I want the Holocaust ended.”

But Warren, whose church attracts more than 20,000 people a week, has widely been recognized for his attempts to expand the evangelical movement beyond socially conservative issues.

In the 2008 election, Warren hosted Obama and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, at a candidate forum held in his church.
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His book “The Purpose Driven Life” has sold more than 20 million copies since it was first published five years ago, and Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in 2005.

“Many believe that Warren … is the successor to the [Rev. Billy Graham] for the role of America’s minister,” Time wrote in 2005.

Barack Obama reveals stimulus package that could exceed $1 trillion
Barack Obama

(Scott Olsen/Reuters)

By talking up the scale of the recession, the president-elect was lowering expectations for what he can achieve next year
Tim Reid in Washington

Barack Obama warned Americans yesterday that the US economic crisis will deepen next year, as he revealed the first details of a massive stimulus package that could ultimately exceed $1 trillion.

The President-elect, giving the most extensive interview since winning the election a month ago, spoke the day after he announced the biggest public works construction programme since Dwight Eisenhower created the interstate highway system half a century ago.

In saying twice that “things are going to get worse before they get better”, Mr Obama was not simply reflecting the realities of the stricken US economy but seeking to gain political advantage from the financial crisis.

By talking up the scale of the recession the President-elect was lowering expectations for what he can achieve next year while seeking to justify what will, in effect, be the greatest injection of federal money into the US economy since the Depression-era New Deal.
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The economic crisis is so great that Mr Obama and his economic team now believe that nothing less than a giant stimulus package is needed. The depth of the worsening recession has presented him with an extraordinary mandate to throw hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem – an opportunity that he did not have even a few weeks ago – and with it the chance to fund much of his hugely expensive legislative agenda.

The economic conditions – combined with a Democratic-controlled Congress – mean that Mr Obama is perhaps the most powerful incoming President, in terms of the ability to pass legislation quickly, since Lyndon Johnson took office in 1963.

On Friday the US Government announced a net loss of 533,000 jobs in November, the largest one-month drop since 1974, bringing unemployment to 6.7 per cent. The National Bureau of Economic Research said that America has been in recession for a year.

“This is a big problem, and it’s going to get worse,” Mr Obama told Meet the Press on NBC. “My number one priority is making sure that we’ve got a recovery plan that is up to the task.” In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Mr Obama pledged a five-tier rescue plan to create jobs by melding traditional road-building projects with massive investment in new technology and green infrastructure.

The scale of the plan, which Mr Obama hopes to sign into law shortly after he takes office on January 20, appears to be increasing by the day. He wants a nationwide road and bridge-building scheme; to make public buildings more energy-efficient by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs; the renovation of schools and installation of computers in every classroom; to extend high-speed internet across the nation; and to give hospitals access to electronic medical records.

Mr Obama said that he would make “the single largest investment in our national infrastructure” since the 1950s highway programme. The plan is expected to include spending on electrical grids, public transport, dams and investment in alternative fuels.

Mr Obama refused to put a cost on the plan, but senior Democrats are talking about $700 billion (£477 billion), with others urging up to $1 trillion. When he met the nation’s governors last week he was told that there was $136 billion worth of building projects on the state level ready to go if federal money was made available.

Ed Rendell, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, said that he had no doubt the package was going to be big, adding: “He didn’t blink an eye when we talked about $136 billion.”
Mr Obama conceded that the federal deficit was already predicted to hit $1 trillion this year. He also said that allowing the stricken “big three” US car manufacturers to collapse was unacceptable. He said that he backed Democratic moves in Congress to give Ford, General Motors and Chrysler an estimated short-term $15 billion bail-out. He added however that the money had to be accompanied by conditions to “keep the automakers’ feet to the fire” to begin making fuel-efficient vehicles.

The New Deal

— Launched by Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933

— At the start of his term 13 million Americans were unemployed and most banks were closed
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— Banks reformed and bailed out with government financing

— Social Security programme established

— Minimum wages and prices set by government for first time

— Massive public works projects

— US dollar decoupled from gold standard

— New agency to regulate the stock markets

— Most expensive government programme in the country’s history

— Started new era of government intervention

— Most economic indicators had returned to late1920s levels by 1936

— Roosevelt reelected three times

Sources: White House; Times archives

Barack Obama yesterday named retired Army General Eric Shinseki – whose prediction before hostilities that the US was sending too few troops to Iraq hastened the end of his career – to his Cabinet. General Shinseki, whose testimony to Congress about troop levels was ridiculed by Donald Rumsfeld, then Defence Secretary, was picked to be Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs.

Mother you saw my eyes
On the fourth of July
Under a banner of roman candles
Mother war is kind
Like hell but I am fine
Brother have you gone west
Have you followed through once yet
You are still younger how dare you forget
Brother war is best
In the morning when you’ve had rest

Like a lost dog between houses
In the unknown open country
Line up at dawn to see who’s missing
My age is a metaphor
It only speaks of everything before

Daughter you wear my name
Those are my eyes keep ‘em raised
I may have scars but I give more than I take
Daughter war is safe
Where you are far away
Lover are you gone
My heart has taken too much on
One octave lower than thunder it drums
lover war is done
In more ways than just one

Like a lost dog between houses
In the unknown open country
Like an outlaw now standing
At the foot of infinity
The sun is wild
And just in front of me

that Bob Dylan says “Green Which Villiage”

hehe