Rick Warren Lauds Obama Choice Of Openly-Gay Pastor For Inaugural Prayer

Question from the Editor: Can anyone tell me what is wrong with the following story!? I want to hear from the readers on this. Please leave your comments below.

Pastor Rick Warren, demonstrating his recently discovered and ever-increasing political savvy, has issued a statement lauding President-elect Obama's choice of openly-gay Pastor Eugene Robinson for the Sunday night Inaugural kickoff prayer. From the statement, issued to Christianity Today:

"President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground...I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen."
Obama announced Warren's role in the Inauguration in December of last year, and there has since been relentless criticism from various gay-rights groups and others, due to the conservative pastor's anti-gay actions and statements.

Warren has gone to great lengths to make his inaugural appearance more politically palatable to such critics by obscuring any signs of homophobia -- for example, by removing from the Saddleback Church website the statement, "someone unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be welcome at Saddleback." But such efforts have failed, at least in the eyes of his critics, to recreate the man as the bastion of tolerance and acceptance that he now claims to be.

Indeed, just this month David Brody of the Christian Broadcast Network dredged up a skeleton Warren perhaps missed: a video from the Saddleback "News and Views" video site wherein Warren describes same-sex marriage as a "humanitarian crisis".

Notably, his detractors include his fellow inaugural participant, Pastor Robinson. As Robinson told Beliefnet:

" He's done some good things. The difficult thing is that he's said, and continues to affirm, some horrendous things about homosexuality -- comparing it to incest, bestiality, that kind of thing. This is not a choice that really represents everyone. This choice was just really, really unfortunate.

It's about this particular venue and the role that he has in praying for all of America, and I'm just not sure he'd pray to God the same way I would."

Warren, presumably playing it safe, is no longer accepting interview requests, as reported by the New York Times Thursday. However, in his Beliefnet interview, Robinson expressed a desire to sit down with Warren and engage him on issues, making Warren's statement a likely welcome overture.

Obama: "We Need A New Declaration Of Independence"

Note From the Editor: In publishing this article, I am in no way endorsing its remarks or sycophantic tone. My intent is to merely emphasize how far we have already traveled down a devastatingly dangerous road. Pay particular attention to the words Barack Obama chooses in his speech and the manner in which he is being portrayed by the writer. It is as if we are crowning a King as opposed to the swearing in of a public servant who has been hired by the People as the Constitution intended.


(CNN) -- Barack Obama's historic train ride to Washington on Saturday drew large, cheering crowds of people who braved freezing weather and gathered along the tracks in cities and small towns along the way in hopeful anticipation of getting a glimpse of the nation's next president.

In Baltimore, Maryland, alone, about 40,000 people stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the cold to greet Obama as he stopped on his way to his Tuesday inauguration.

His welcome was raucous and animated, as the sea of people cheered, waved and took pictures. Tears rolled down one woman's face as Obama spoke. "We love you, Obama!" another yelled out. "I love you back," Obama answered calmly, eliciting a roar from the crowd.

The same emotions were expressed up and down the tracks on the 137-mile journey, a trip that started in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and retraced the train ride Abraham Lincoln took on his way to becoming president in 1861. Watch Obama share the love »

As he did so often during his campaign, Obama drew upon American history in his remarks to pose a parallel to the country's current challenges. He noted the struggles of the colonials, the "first patriots," against the British.

"They were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line," Obama told the crowd in Baltimore. "Their lives, their fortune, and sacred honor for a set of ideals that continue to light the world: that we are all equal. That our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws but from our Maker."

Later he said, "the American Revolution was, and remains, an ongoing struggle in the minds and hearts of the people."

And, as in Philadelphia, Obama alluded to, but did not name, the president who inspired his train journey. The soon-to-be president used a call-to-action uttered by Lincoln in his inaugural address in 1861, an appeal to Americans' "better angels."

Obama, who will take up what he called the country's "enormous" challenges in fewer than 72 hours, noted that they will probably not be solved quickly.

"There will be false starts; there will be setbacks," he said. "There will be frustrations and disappointments. I will make some mistakes. But we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency."

He added, "So, Baltimore, starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union," an appeal that brought forth a loud rumble of approval.

Obama arrived later in Washington, where he will take the oath of office Tuesday. He did not have a speaking event there Saturday.

Before getting on board the train in Philadelphia, the president-elect implored Americans to commit to a new declaration of independence -- rejecting ideology and bigotry -- as he acknowledged that the nation faces severe challenges.

"Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast," he said at a town hall meeting in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station.

"An economy that is faltering. Two wars: one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil."

"What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation but in our own lives -- from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry -- an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our 'better angels,' " he said, using a phrase from Lincoln's inaugural address.

The train stopped in Wilmington, Delaware, to pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his family and then headed to Baltimore, Maryland, on its way to Washington.

The train made its first "slow roll" in Claymont, Delaware, allowing Obama to wave at cheering residents gathered near the tracks. Claymont is also the town where Biden's family moved in 1953, when he was 10 years old. iReport.com: Is the train coming to your town? Send us your photos

Security for Obama's train ride was tight. Law enforcement officers from 40 jurisdictions provided protection from the ground. The U.S. Coast Guard was stationed on waterways along the route as well.

The Federal Aviation Administration established "moving" flight restrictions that prevented private pilots, news helicopters, balloonists and others from getting anywhere near the train.

The FAA is imposing additional airspace restrictions in Washington on Sunday during pre-inaugural activities and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, the day of the inauguration. Watch how security will protect Obama on way to Washington »

Nearly 2 million people are expected to hit the streets of Washington on Tuesday. Police will shut bridges across the Potomac River into the city, along with a huge chunk of downtown. People coming from Virginia will have to walk or take public transport, such as the area's Metro subway system. Read about the times and places for inaugural events »

Two of the major routes coming into the city -- Interstates 395 and 66 -- will be closed to inbound traffic, at least for private vehicles.

Amtrak said it has increased the number and length of trains running to Washington on Inauguration Day. Tickets are still available but are going fast, it said. Watch more on inauguration transportation and security plans »

Security officials also say charter buses, taxis and car services are an option for those attending.

Rescue of U.S. banks hints at nationalization

By Edmund L. Andrews

Friday, January 16, 2009
WASHINGTON: Last fall, as Federal Reserve and Treasury Department officials rode to the rescue of one financial institution after another, they took great pains to avoid doing anything that smacked of nationalizing banks.

They may no longer have that luxury. With two of the nation's largest banks buckling under yet another round of huge losses, the incoming administration of Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve are suddenly dealing with banks that are "too big to fail" and yet unable to function as the sinking economy erodes their capital.

Particularly in the case of Citigroup, the losses have become so large that they make it almost mathematically impossible for the government to inject enough capital without taking a majority stake or at least squeezing out existing shareholders.

And the new ground rules laid down by Obama's top economic advisers for the second half of the $700 billion bailout fund, as explained in a letter submitted to Congress on Thursday, call for the government to play an increasing role in the major activities of the banks, from the dividends they pay to shareholders to the amount they can pay executives.

"We are down a path that this country has not seen since Andrew Jackson shut down the Second National Bank of the United States," said Gerard Cassidy, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets. "We are going to go back to a time when the government controlled the banking system."

The approximately $138 billion aid package on Thursday for Bank of America — including injections of capital and absorbed losses — as well as a $300 billion package in November for Citigroup both represented displays of financial gymnastics aimed at providing capital without appearing to take commanding equity stakes.

Treasury and Fed officials accomplished that trick by structuring the deals like insurance programs for big bundles of the banks' most toxic assets.

Instead of investing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in exchange for preferred shares in the banks, which has been the Treasury Department's approach so far with its capital infusions, the government essentially liberated the banks from some of their most threatening assets.

The trouble with the new approach, analysts say, is that it is likely to conceal the amount of risk that taxpayers are taking on. If the government-guaranteed securities turn out to be worthless, the cost of the insurance would be much higher than if the Treasury Department had simply bailed out the banks with cash in the first place.

Christopher Whalen, a managing partner at Institutional Risk Analytics, said the approach also covers up the underlying reality that the government is already essentially the majority shareholder in Citigroup.

"There's nobody else out there to invest in them," Whalen said. "We already own them."

Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, outlined the elements of what could become the Obama administration's new approach to bank rescues in a speech on Monday.

Speaking to the London School of Economics, but addressing American audiences as much as European ones, Bernanke warned that the U.S. government had no choice but to put more money into banks and other financial institutions if it had any hope of reviving the paralyzed credit markets.

Known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, the rescue program has infuriated lawmakers in both parties, who complain that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. has doled out money to banks without demanding accountability in return. Obama and his top economic advisers convinced enough lawmakers that shoring up the banks was essential to preventing a broader financial collapse, and offered written assurances that they would address the lawmakers' biggest complaints.

But Bernanke proposed an array of alternative approaches to dealing with the banks in the months ahead, and all of those options reflected a fundamental shift from the original assumptions of the Bush administration.

Paulson had insisted that the government would be investing only in healthy banks, some of which might take over sicker rivals. The Treasury would invest taxpayer dollars in exchange for preferred shares, which would pay a regular dividend and come with warrants that would allow the government to profit from increases in company stock prices.

By contrast, Bernanke proposed various ways to fence off the troubled assets, from nonperforming loans to mortgage-backed securities that investors had stopped buying at almost any price.

Bernanke's options included guarantees for bank assets, which was at the heart of the rescue packages for Bank of America and Citigroup. Citigroup received its rescue package in November, but it is expected to report additional losses on Friday that could top $10 billion.

In both of those deals, the U.S. government set up a complicated arrangement that would limit the banks' losses on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of their worst assets.

Citigroup's deal in November covered $300 billion in assets. Citigroup agreed to absorb the first $29 billion in losses. The Treasury agreed to take a second round of losses up to $5 billion, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation agreed to take a third round of losses of up to $10 billion. The Federal Reserve then agreed to lend Citigroup money at low interest rates for the value of the remaining assets.

As a second option, Bernanke and other Fed officials have proposed putting a bank's impaired assets into a separate new "bad bank." The effect would be much the same as providing a federal guarantee: the bank would be able to free itself from the need to set aside reserves for extra losses.

Both the idea of a government "wrap" and a government-backed "bad bank" have the virtue of protecting the bank's common stockholders from being wiped out by the government.

By contrast, the Bush administration's original approach to recapitalizing banks — injecting capital in exchange for preferred shares with warrants to convert to common stock — had the effect of squeezing out the common shares. That was because any losses would have to first wipe out common stockholders before the bank could stop paying dividends on preferred shares.

"One of the problems with TARP has been a result of the government not wanting to own the banks," said Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. "If you get losses, there is less common stock. What we are hopefully moving toward, to the extent that the government guarantees some of the assets, is a structure that protects common shareholders and allows the company to go out and raise common shares through the market."

But a growing number of analysts warned that the approach may be too clever, because it gives policy makers too many ways to conceal true problems at banks and true risks to taxpayers.

"What we have is a weird, shadow nationalization," said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting firm in Washington. "The government does not want to and should not want to own banks. But if they get forced into that situation, they should resolve that situation. Here, what you have is a huge diversified financial services industry with recognized losses and looming losses in every aspect of its operations. There's nothing straightforward about it."

Stimulating Our Way to Rock Bottom

By Ron Paul



With attention turning to the next big economic stimulus package, questions are still swirling about our economic troubles. How did we get here? How do we get out? As usual, Washington has all the wrong answers. According to many politicians, we got here by not spending enough, not consuming enough, and not regulating enough. Now government, like some mythical white knight, is going to ride in to save the day by blanketing the economy with dollars, hiring an army of new bureaucrats, creating make-work jobs, and sending everyone some form of a bailout check. The debate seems to focus on whether this will cost enough to save the economy, or if this is just a "down payment" with much more government spending to come. Talk like that would be comical, if the results weren't going to be so tragic.

The results will be worsening economic woes until we learn our lesson. But instead Congress is behaving like drug addicts who must hit rock bottom before they are ready to face reality. They are playing foolish games with the economy now because they are thinking only of political expedience. This talk of job creation is a perfect example.

Contrary to the belief of many, the goal of the economy is not job creation. Jobs can be a sign of a healthy economy, as a high energy level can be a sign of a healthy body. But just as unhealthy substances can artificially give the addict that burst of energy that has nothing to do with health, artificially created jobs just exacerbate our problems. The goal of a healthy economy is productivity. Jobs are a positive outcome of that. A "job" could be to dig a hole one day, and fill it back up the next, or perhaps the equivalent at a desk. This does no one any good. But the value in that paycheck ultimately has to come from taxing someone productive. Some think this round-robin type of economic model is supposed to get us somewhere.

Politicians and bureaucrats have already done their fair share to ensure that jobs in the private sector are prohibitively complicated and expensive to create. They are now shocked that the economy is shedding jobs, and want to simply create hundreds of thousands of jobs to make up for the job losses, through another so-called economic stimulus package. The private sector must be permitted to do that, but instead they are massively burdened with taxes and webs of red tape and regulation. Washington's bandaids will only prolong this agony. The Austrian school of economics teaches that only a free market economy, unencumbered by onerous government controls, creates long-term prosperity. Politicians, however, tend to be notoriously short-sighted.

I am left with these questions - who is going to be left standing to tax in the private sector to pay for all these public sector make-work jobs? Is Washington really to be considered some sort of savior for creating unproductive jobs in place of the productive jobs they eliminated?

We are at an economic dead-end and those in power are in denial. The truth is our economic problems are due to loose monetary policy, central economic planning, and the parasitic expenses of government. Unless we assess these problems honestly, we unfortunately have a long way to go until, like the junkie, we hit rock bottom.

Ron Paul is a Republican United States Congressman from Texas and a former 2008 U.S. presidential candidate.