With Barack Obama now in office as the nation's 44th president, Christian leaders are calling for prayer — and accountability.
Dr. Ron Jones, senior pastor of Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Va., has written an open letter to the new president.
"Holy Scripture exhorts us to pray for kings and all those who are in authority," he writes. "Please know, we pledge to pray for you, your family and your Administration. These are difficult times to lead our nation. No President has ever done so without acknowledging the need for divine guidance.
"We will pray that God will grant you Solomon-like wisdom in all of the decisions you make."
Jones goes on to challenge Obama to “defend the cause of the weak” and “maintain the rights of the oppressed” by changing his pro-abortion positions.
"I pray that you will reconsider your views on this moral issue," Jones writes. "I raise my voice on behalf of the voiceless, pleading with you to take the lead in building an America where all of our children, whatever their race or family income, are welcomed into the world, protected by the law and have a seat at the table with the rest of the American family."
Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, said: “God can and has, changed the hearts of unwilling rulers. Nebuchadnezzar, Darius and Cyrus were three Old Testament kings, all pagans, who acted righteously after God intervened.
"Barack Obama professes to follow Christ, and so his heart should be primed for a miraculous change of heart in his plans for the innocent preborn. This should be the point of our prayers for the new president.”
January 21, 2009 7:22 PM
Anonymous said...
Anon comment #1 - you are a moron. Get a life and quit posting crap like this!
Nice Press Release. You mean "some Christian leaders are calling for prayer — and accountability."
Others are doing this - Seeking a Third Way: Progressives and evangelicals unite to end the culture war - http://minnesotaindependent.com/23629/progressives-and-evangelicals-unite-to-end-the-culture-war
January 21, 2009 9:03 PM
Anonymous said...
Anon's just back to quoting Dobson's CitizenLink crap again. Here's the link.
Following links in the piece, you learn that "Dr. Ron Jones" has a "Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) degree in Expository Preaching from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary."
January 21, 2009 10:11 PM
Anonymous said...
Obama's making lots of changes, especially toward transparency. NYTimes.com reports:
WASHINGTON — President Obama moved swiftly on Wednesday to impose new rules on government transparency and ethics, using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides, mandate new limits on lobbyists and demand that the government disclose more information.
...Starting today,” Mr. Obama said, “every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.”
January 22, 2009 7:16 AM
Anonymous said...
"using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides,"
why pick on them?
"mandate new limits on lobbyists"
are we abandoning free speech?
"and demand that the government disclose more information"
kind of vague but fine with me
Bea, you try to encourage the idea that there is something suspect about the Focus on the Family newsletter but it's widely read and if the story is inaccurate please let us know how.
Quote the very suspect NY Times while you can. Word is that advertising revenue and readership have fallen to such an extent that there is a real possibility they will go out of business before year-end.
I don't there will be any clamor for a bail-out package.
January 22, 2009 9:00 AM
Anonymous said...
Anonymous finds the FOF newsletter more credible than the New York Times. Hee hee.
January 22, 2009 10:04 AM
Anonymous said...
Find the error in their story, Robert. hee-hee
January 22, 2009 10:44 AM
Anonymous said...
It's not that it's erroneous, it's simply a report on people talking about a combination of calumny and myth. It's not news.
January 22, 2009 11:16 AM
Anonymous said...
oh yeah, myth
like the one in the Post today that 1.8 million were at BO's inauguration
anyway, let's see examples of any myth and calumny in the excerpt form the FoF newsletter
I don't see it
January 22, 2009 11:37 AM
Anonymous said...
Honey, if you don't see, I can't explain it; it' like trying to define yellow.
I have a student who get's most of his political information from the Sean Hannity show. He listens to what he agrees with already. Don't we all. If you want to see FoF as the source of news and truth, you are welcome to. I myself will put more faith in the NYT and the Post (though news media are not always the most reliable either; one really has to take what one hears with a grain of salt).
I had a colleague who read two newspapers: the Washington Blade and the Washington Times. He quoted from both and believed them as though they were gospel truth. Go figure.
I myself would much rather hear what you and others think, than have my computer screen filled up with cuts and paste from the WSJ and FoF newsletter (or the Post or NYT for that matter). I suggest you link to those sources and if we want to read them, we will.
Given your hobby of commenting here, you are extremely lucky that Jim is so tolerant of you. I don't know any other blog that would put up with it.
January 22, 2009 2:04 PM
Anonymous said...
Bea, you try to encourage the idea that there is something suspect about the Focus on the Family newsletter
No I didn't say there was something suspect, I said it was "Dobson's CitizenLink crap."
it's widely read
Just because it's widely sent to email boxes doesn't mean it's widely read.
if the story is inaccurate please let us know how.
I never said it was "inaccurate." I named the field "Dr. Ron Jones"' graduate degree is in. If you think referring to a blogger with a Ph.D. as "Dr." is the way to go, then I guess you will be referring to Jim as "Dr. Kennedy" from now on.
very suspect NY Times
Careful, your paranoia is showing again. Maybe you consider the NYT as suspect, but it is prize winning journalism -- it has repeatedly won Pulitzer Prizes for it's excellence. In fact, the New York Times has been a finalist or won 655 Pulitzers, but CitizensLink has won zero
January 22, 2009 3:07 PM
Anonymous said...
"Anonymous" - Ho, hum...so tiresome and boring. I am thinking of taking up a collection here to get enough money to enable you to start up your own blog site (instead of pirating this one over and over and over and over). It would be so much fun for us here to visit your site and dominate the discussion there, as you do here. However - given your proclivities and beliefs, there wouldn't be much to say. Get a life!! Citizen
January 22, 2009 3:41 PM
Anonymous said...
Wow!
A comment urging the President to defend the rights of the oppressed who are killed before they can defend themselves and the TTF vitriol machine pumps out a flood of sludge.
Consider a guy abandoned by his birth father. His single mother struggles to raise him. Life isn't always a breeze and yet, despite all the diffuculties, he's glad he's alive and that his mother didn't abort him because he was inconvenient.
Besides, he grew up to be the first African American President and that's pretty cool!
I accidently read the anonymmodes cut and paste from FoF.
The Immanuel Bible Church named in the second paragraph, from whose pastor's open letter to our President the Foffers quoted, was the site several years ago of one of FoF's "Love Won Out" supposedly 'ex-gay conferences' (they're really mostly for parents who haven't yet accepted their lgbt people, though some gay people go). "Porno Pete" LaBarbera was there, and Regina had a booth. She published some calumny (great word, isn't it?) about my dear self having brought students to protest the ex-gays; not true, but it's on her website.
There seems to be a relatively small circle of these anti-gay activists who can rile up their folks, collect some money, and quote from one another.
Mmmmmmh.
January 22, 2009 5:05 PM
Anonymous said...
another name for comments from Robert is the Sludge Report
[Dr. Ron] Jones goes on to challenge Obama to “defend the cause of the weak” and “maintain the rights of the oppressed” by changing his pro-abortion positions.
Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, said: "Barack Obama professes to follow Christ, and so his heart should be primed for a miraculous change of heart in his plans for the innocent preborn. This should be the point of our prayers for the new president.”
Sociopathanon says: “A comment urging the President to defend the rights of the oppressed who are killed before they can defend themselves and the TTF vitriol machine pumps out a flood of sludge.”
Oh *sniff* *sniff* boo hoo.
How does Focus on the Family and their followers go about preventing abortions?
- Demand ignorance only sex education. -Condemn and lie about birth control. -Stigmatize out of wedlock sex and pregnancy. -Spend hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-gay measures INSTEAD of funding homes and support programs to help young and low income women carry to term and guarantee adoption placement. -Prevent gay and unwed couples from adopting hard to place children, further discouraging potential mothers from carrying to term babies who have, or who may have birth defects. -Support Republican measures and Bush when it comes to slashing funding for child care and low income families in favor of tax cuts for the richest of the rich.
And goodie for the one seven billionth of the population who beat the odds in a most extraordinary way. Any ethical person’s concern would be with the children who are being abused, and with the people who are on the verge of suicide, and who are mentally ill, and who have no practical hope of beating the odds to even get to a place of being “ok,” Not to mention the 40,000 people who starve to death and die of easily preventable diseases every day.
“Romania's orphan problem began in the last days of Communism. Romania suffered under the harsh dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who ruined the nation's economy while building lavish monuments to himself. Ceausescu outlawed abortion at a time when Romania faced severe shortages of food and heating oil.
Denied access to contraception and struggling to feed their families, many Romanians instead abandoned their newborn children. These children suffered neglect and abuse in under-funded state-run orphanages.”
Which says nothing of all the back alley abortions that occured. Killing women and deforming babies when unsuccessful.
Also, it is estimated that 70,000 women die each year due to lack of access to safe and legal abortions - thanks to the "morality" of the Bush Administration.
It’s absolutely disgusting to hear you people piss and moan about how concerned you are for the preborn, when nearly all of your efforts increase the incidence of unwanted pregnancies - and thus, increase abortions.
"Spontaneous Abortions: Depending upon which data you believe, fifty to seventy-five percent of all pregnancies spontaneously abort. Most impregnated eggs never attach to the uterine wall. They flow out of the woman's body with her menstrual flow.
Remember, according to the anti-abortionists, God creates each new human being as a physical body every time a human egg and sperm unite. It doesn't matter where or under what circumstances that union occurs.”
If they really cared about saving the unborn, they’d be pouring money into research that would ensure that every fertilized egg attached to the uterine wall and was invulnerable to miscarriage.
So the Citizenlink article IS inaccurate, because their words of concern are the opposite of their actions.
Or did you want to make the argument that they really are that stupid?
January 22, 2009 11:59 PM
Anonymous said...
"using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides,"
why pick on them?
Because a good leader does not fiddle around while Rome burns. Since you asked "why," I'll let your President explain it to you:
The United States is in a period of severe economic stress. Too many Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health insurance, or a substantial part of their retirement savings, and many more feel uncertain about the future.
In these circumstances, Government must act forcefully and creatively to stimulate our economic recovery, investing in infrastructure, innovative energy technologies, and education. It must act quickly to provide assistance to average Americans.
Many have accepted the call to serve in Government and to assist me in restoring a sound economy and in improving the lives of average Americans. In this challenging economic period, it is only appropriate that senior officials on the White House staff forgo pay increases until further notice.
Accordingly, as a signal of our shared commitment to restoring the country's economic vitality and because of the serious economic conditions we are facing, I intend to freeze the salaries of senior members of the White House staff, to the extent permitted by law. I direct you to report back to me within 30 days with recommendations for actions to implement this freeze.
When times are tough, you don't raise the pay of civil servants making over $100,000.00 a year.
"mandate new limits on lobbyists"
are we abandoning free speech?
Here are the limits Obama placed on lobbyists. They are still free to "speak," they just aren't free to try to influence elected officials with gifts anymore.
Executive Order -- Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and sections 3301 and 7301 of title 5, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Ethics Pledge. Every appointee in every executive agency appointed on or after January 20, 2009, shall sign, and upon signing shall be contractually committed to, the following pledge upon becoming an appointee:
"As a condition, and in consideration, of my employment in the United States Government in a position invested with the public trust, I commit myself to the following obligations, which I understand are binding on me and are enforceable under law:
"1. Lobbyist Gift Ban. I will not accept gifts from registered lobbyists or lobbying organizations for the duration of my service as an appointee.
"2. Revolving Door Ban All Appointees Entering Government. I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.
"3. Revolving Door Ban Lobbyists Entering Government. If I was a registered lobbyist within the 2 years before the date of my appointment, in addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 2, I will not for a period of 2 years after the date of my appointment:
(a) participate in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment;
(b) participate in the specific issue area in which that particular matter falls; or
(c) seek or accept employment with any executive agency that I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment.
"4. Revolving Door Ban Appointees Leaving Government. If, upon my departure from the Government, I am covered by the post employment restrictions on communicating with employees of my former executive agency set forth in section 207(c) of title 18, United States Code, I agree that I will abide by those restrictions for a period of 2 years following the end of my appointment.
"5. Revolving Door Ban Appointees Leaving Government to Lobby. In addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 4, I also agree, upon leaving Government service, not to lobby any covered executive branch official or non career Senior Executive Service appointee for the remainder of the Administration.
"6. Employment Qualification Commitment. I agree that any hiring or other employment decisions I make will be based on the candidate's qualifications, competence, and experience.
"7. Assent to Enforcement. I acknowledge that the Executive Order entitled 'Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel,' issued by the President on January 21, 2009, which I have read before signing this document, defines certain of the terms applicable to the foregoing obligations and sets forth the methods for enforcing them. I expressly accept the provisions of that Executive Order as a part of this agreement and as binding on me. I understand that the terms of this pledge are in addition to any statutory or other legal restrictions applicable to me by virtue of Federal Government service."
These changes are long overdue and will go a long way to restoring integrity and honor to the White House.
"and demand that the government disclose more information"
kind of vague but fine with me
We can all be proud that President Obama is working so hard to restore long missing honor, integrity, and dignity to the White House. Here is the memo on the new openness and transparency in government issued by President Obama:
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
You can sit at your PC hurling your stupid stink bombs, or "as a signal of our shared commitment to restoring the country's economic vitality" you can decide to push up your sleeves and get to work helping your country out of the mess it's in. You might even want to ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"
January 23, 2009 8:15 AM
Anonymous said...
From the front page above the fold of today's Washington Post:
"I remind all my colleagues: We had an election," McCain noted. "I think the message the American people are sending us is they want us to work together, and get to work."
January 23, 2009 8:29 AM
Anonymous said...
Emproph,
I'm really disappointed in this post of yours. It sounds more like a pathetic grasping at straws than anything else. And that's not usually the case with you.
For instance, your point (and that's being kind) about spontaneous abortions is absolutely absurd. Fertility doctors spend their lives trying to figure out how to keep spontaneous abortions from happening. Man simply cannot figure everything out when it comes to the human body. If we could, then nobody would ever die.
And, besides...let's go with your argument. Suppose we COULD stop every spontaneous abortion. To do so, you would need a woman to come to the doctor and tell the doctor: "I am pregnant. Can you please make sure that I don't spontaneously abort?"
Remember -- we're talking about women who DON'T want their babies. Why, then, would they come to the doctor and ask the doctor to make sure they don't have a spontaneous abortion?
In addition, lots of money goes toward pregnancy detection. I don't believe we even have the means to detect most pregnancies before they're spontaneously aborted and discarded through the menstrual cycle. This would require a woman knowing, even before her first menstrual cycle, that she's pregnant. This would probably require constant monitoring and blood tests or urine tests.
Even if we did have technology to figure that out, no woman would ever use it. It is not unusual for a woman's menstrual cycle to not be precise. In fact, most women can't set their calendar by their menstrual cycle. And even if they could, they still would have no idea if they were pregnant, unless they wanted to go through a daily blood test. And even women who want to get pregnant don't wish to go through daily or weekly blood tests or urine tests. Most women have faith that they will get pregnant and get worried only when it doesn't happen after a reasonable amount of time has passed. That's when they head to fertility clinics for more intensive testing.
So, even if tons of money were spent to detect early pregnancies and stop spontaneous abortions, they would rely on the woman to carry it through, and that just isn't going to happen for a whole host of reasons, including the ones I mentioned above. The only women who are willing to go through that kind of scrutiny and meticulous record keeping are women who know, beforehand, that they WANT to get pregnant, have already tried for a while to get pregnant, and who have already had trouble getting pregnant (i.e., women who now go to fertility clinics where they can get this type of care.)
Your whole theory is so flawed, it really borders on the ridiculous.
January 23, 2009 8:33 AM
Anonymous said...
P.S. When I said "no woman would ever use it" -- I meant, no woman who wants to abort would ever use it. Some women who want the child, as I said later in my post, would use it if they truly want a child, have had a hard time getting pregnant and are willing to go through lots of testing.
The only way we're going to dig ourselves out of the budget hole Bush & Company dug for us when they turned Clinton's $237 billion budget surplus into a $1.2 trillion budget deficit, is if we all do our part.
January 24, 2009 9:58 AM
For the past eight years, the official White House web page, WhiteHouse.gov, has been a place for ... propaganda. It was a dry, uninformative web site, rarely cited, rarely read except by the very gullible.
Yesterday, by the time Barack Obama had fumbled through his oath of office, there was a bright new spot on the Internet. Here, let's let the Wall Street Journal tell us about it: At noon Eastern time on Tuesday, the very moment that the president-elect Barack Obama officially became Commander in Chief, the presidential Web site also made the switch from outgoing President George H.W. Bush to Obama.
The new whitehouse.gov site promises more interactivity than that of the Bush administration, with a presidential blog as well as a briefing room, where President Obama will give a weekly video address. A “citizen’s briefing book” will allow users to add suggestions to posted proposals so that heads of agencies and the president will see them, and another feature called Your Seat at the Table lets users follow the proceedings of government meetings and add their commentary. Change Has Come To WhiteHouse.Gov Two things: web development, and government. It isn't hard to make a primitive web page. HTML is hardly a "computer language," just about any kid can write some code inside angle-brackets to make their blog or MySpace look nicer. But to scale up an enterprise system that will get millions of hits per day, that accesses hundreds of databases which are all being updated constantly, that has to have government-level, absolutely leakproof security, is no kid's game. In these days of Web 2.0, a web site is interactive, dynamic, it might route messages from users to the appropriate recipients, it has to be accessible to all kinds of disabled people, it might answer your questions in plain language from a database of solutions, there can be audio, video ...
The second thing: government. Nothing in the government happens in one day. Our little Maryland county is a bedroom community for Washington, DC, a lot of TTF readers work inside the bureaucracies of government, we know. After a few years you don't even tell the stories any more. Everything requires consensus from a bunch of silver-haired old-timers who are looking at budget spreadsheets when they're not studying the disaster of their TSP accounts. You want to set up a new web site? You propose it, you pitch it, you tell your supervisor what you have in mind, you write up a statement of purpose and a ton of other documents that will never be read, your boss takes it to a management meeting, they beat it around and almost certainly have a "better" idea, you charter a team, you try to please management while still doing something tolerable ... years pass.
I am amazed and heartened by the fact that as soon as the Constitution assigned power to the new President, his new web site went live. It appears some of the stuff came from the change.gov portal, but there's nothing wrong with borrowing a little code, there's nothing wrong with setting up one web site to prepare for another one. That's just good planning. Barack Obama’s meteoric rise to popularity via the Internet and his record breaking online fundraising efforts have the new administration promising it will continue to use the Web to make its actions more transparent. On the site’s blog, director of new media Macon Phillips calls for users to contact him with suggestions for the Web site, and in a blog posting he writes that the site “will serve as a place for the President and the rest of the administration to connect with the nation and the world.” Doesn't it seem funny to capitalize "Web" and not "Director of New Media?" I remember fighting with a publisher back in 2000, my co-author and I insisted that "web" should not be capitalized, though "Internet" would be. Their stylebook differed. We won.
You've read about Obama's insistence on keeping his Blackberry. They wanted to take it away from him, you know how it is, somebody can sue and read all your emails. Our previous President, shall we say, didn't seem to know what email was or how it worked, and when the subpoenas started coming, all the email his demons from hell staff had sent and received turned out to be lost, simply evaporated. One techie knew how to get it back, but unfortunately he died in a plane crash before he was able to recover the lost email. I'm not saying that was suspicious or anything. Web archives show that the Bush administration’s Web site did feature an interactive section called Ask the White House, in which users submitted questions and the answers were posted. And press releases, historical documents, and house and senate proceedings could be accessed via various government Web sites and THOMAS. But the recent presidential campaign seems to have prompted a demand for the so-called Googling of government, with a smattering of sites such as Open Secrets as inspiration for a more comprehensive, central place where users can track government proceedings and data. In the same vein, both the House and the Senate have created YouTube channels to address the American public directly. That's nice, unfortunately government employees at many agencies are denied access to YouTube. I wonder if that will change.
Readers of this blog will be interested in the Civil Rights page of the site, especially the section called Support for the LGBT Community, which includes these bullet points: Expand Hate Crimes Statutes Fight Workplace Discrimination Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell Expand Adoption Rights Promote AIDS Prevention Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS People might want to complain about Rick Warren saying a prayer, but the fact is, there was nothing -- nothing! -- like this at WhiteHouse.gov twenty-four hours ago.
All this looks like a move toward transparency in government. The first thing that happened was that an information connection was established. I doubt you can send "Dear Barack" emails directly to the President's Blackberry, but you can ask questions and get answers through this revamped web site. We read that today President Obama has scheduled a full day of meetings with big-shots, he will be getting briefed, making decisions, reviewing the mess he has inherited. The new web site is a visible indication that he is going to take responsiveness to the public seriously. Let's watch skeptically but hopefully, and see what happens.
"Change Comes at High Noon on Day One"
28 Comments -
With Barack Obama now in office as the nation's 44th president, Christian leaders are calling for prayer — and accountability.
Dr. Ron Jones, senior pastor of Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Va., has written an open letter to the new president.
"Holy Scripture exhorts us to pray for kings and all those who are in authority," he writes. "Please know, we pledge to pray for you, your family and your Administration. These are difficult times to lead our nation. No President has ever done so without acknowledging the need for divine guidance.
"We will pray that God will grant you Solomon-like wisdom in all of the decisions you make."
Jones goes on to challenge Obama to “defend the cause of the weak” and “maintain the rights of the oppressed” by changing his pro-abortion positions.
"I pray that you will reconsider your views on this moral issue," Jones writes. "I raise my voice on behalf of the voiceless, pleading with you to take the lead in building an America where all of our children, whatever their race or family income, are welcomed into the world, protected by the law and have a seat at the table with the rest of the American family."
Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, said: “God can and has, changed the hearts of unwilling rulers. Nebuchadnezzar, Darius and Cyrus were three Old Testament kings, all pagans, who acted righteously after God intervened.
"Barack Obama professes to follow Christ, and so his heart should be primed for a miraculous change of heart in his plans for the innocent preborn. This should be the point of our prayers for the new president.”
January 21, 2009 7:22 PM
Anon comment #1 - you are a moron. Get a life and quit posting crap like this!
January 21, 2009 8:47 PM
Nice Press Release. You mean "some Christian leaders are calling for prayer — and accountability."
Others are doing this - Seeking a Third Way: Progressives and evangelicals unite to end the culture war - http://minnesotaindependent.com/23629/progressives-and-evangelicals-unite-to-end-the-culture-war
January 21, 2009 9:03 PM
Anon's just back to quoting Dobson's CitizenLink crap again. Here's the link.
Following links in the piece, you learn that "Dr. Ron Jones" has a "Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) degree in Expository Preaching from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary."
January 21, 2009 10:11 PM
Obama's making lots of changes, especially toward transparency. NYTimes.com reports:
WASHINGTON — President Obama moved swiftly on Wednesday to impose new rules on government transparency and ethics, using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides, mandate new limits on lobbyists and demand that the government disclose more information.
...Starting today,” Mr. Obama said, “every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.”
January 22, 2009 7:16 AM
"using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides,"
why pick on them?
"mandate new limits on lobbyists"
are we abandoning free speech?
"and demand that the government disclose more information"
kind of vague but fine with me
Bea, you try to encourage the idea that there is something suspect about the Focus on the Family newsletter but it's widely read and if the story is inaccurate please let us know how.
Quote the very suspect NY Times while you can. Word is that advertising revenue and readership have fallen to such an extent that there is a real possibility they will go out of business before year-end.
I don't there will be any clamor for a bail-out package.
January 22, 2009 9:00 AM
Anonymous finds the FOF newsletter more credible than the New York Times. Hee hee.
January 22, 2009 10:04 AM
Find the error in their story, Robert. hee-hee
January 22, 2009 10:44 AM
It's not that it's erroneous, it's simply a report on people talking about a combination of calumny and myth. It's not news.
January 22, 2009 11:16 AM
oh yeah, myth
like the one in the Post today that 1.8 million were at BO's inauguration
anyway, let's see examples of any myth and calumny in the excerpt form the FoF newsletter
I don't see it
January 22, 2009 11:37 AM
Honey, if you don't see, I can't explain it; it' like trying to define yellow.
I have a student who get's most of his political information from the Sean Hannity show. He listens to what he agrees with already. Don't we all. If you want to see FoF as the source of news and truth, you are welcome to. I myself will put more faith in the NYT and the Post (though news media are not always the most reliable either; one really has to take what one hears with a grain of salt).
I had a colleague who read two newspapers: the Washington Blade and the Washington Times. He quoted from both and believed them as though they were gospel truth. Go figure.
I myself would much rather hear what you and others think, than have my computer screen filled up with cuts and paste from the WSJ and FoF newsletter (or the Post or NYT for that matter). I suggest you link to those sources and if we want to read them, we will.
Given your hobby of commenting here, you are extremely lucky that Jim is so tolerant of you. I don't know any other blog that would put up with it.
January 22, 2009 2:04 PM
Bea, you try to encourage the idea that there is something suspect about the Focus on the Family newsletter
No I didn't say there was something suspect, I said it was "Dobson's CitizenLink crap."
it's widely read
Just because it's widely sent to email boxes doesn't mean it's widely read.
if the story is inaccurate please let us know how.
I never said it was "inaccurate." I named the field "Dr. Ron Jones"' graduate degree is in. If you think referring to a blogger with a Ph.D. as "Dr." is the way to go, then I guess you will be referring to Jim as "Dr. Kennedy" from now on.
very suspect NY Times
Careful, your paranoia is showing again. Maybe you consider the NYT as suspect, but it is prize winning journalism -- it has repeatedly won Pulitzer Prizes for it's excellence. In fact, the New York Times has been a finalist or won 655 Pulitzers, but CitizensLink has won zero
January 22, 2009 3:07 PM
"Anonymous" - Ho, hum...so tiresome and boring. I am thinking of taking up a collection here to get enough money to enable you to start up your own blog site (instead of pirating this one over and over and over and over). It would be so much fun for us here to visit your site and dominate the discussion there, as you do here. However - given your proclivities and beliefs, there wouldn't be much to say.
Get a life!!
Citizen
January 22, 2009 3:41 PM
Wow!
A comment urging the President to defend the rights of the oppressed who are killed before they can defend themselves and the TTF vitriol machine pumps out a flood of sludge.
Consider a guy abandoned by his birth father. His single mother struggles to raise him. Life isn't always a breeze and yet, despite all the diffuculties, he's glad he's alive and that his mother didn't abort him because he was inconvenient.
Besides, he grew up to be the first African American President and that's pretty cool!
January 22, 2009 4:17 PM
"Vitriol" "Sludge" "Gangrenous":
Definitely evidence of the writing classes of Matt "Bam-Bam" Barber
January 22, 2009 4:58 PM
I accidently read the anonymmodes cut and paste from FoF.
The Immanuel Bible Church named in the second paragraph, from whose pastor's open letter to our President the Foffers quoted, was the site several years ago of one of FoF's "Love Won Out" supposedly 'ex-gay conferences' (they're really mostly for parents who haven't yet accepted their lgbt people, though some gay people go). "Porno Pete" LaBarbera was there, and Regina had a booth. She published some calumny (great word, isn't it?) about my dear self having brought students to protest the ex-gays; not true, but it's on her website.
There seems to be a relatively small circle of these anti-gay activists who can rile up their folks, collect some money, and quote from one another.
Mmmmmmh.
January 22, 2009 5:05 PM
another name for comments from Robert is the Sludge Report
January 22, 2009 5:09 PM
Dr. Ron Jones from the Citizenlink article: "We will pray that God will grant you [Obama] Solomon-like wisdom in all of the decisions you make."
And the wisdom of invoking the "wisdom" of Solomon?
Drum roll please...
1 Kings 11:3 "He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray."
January 22, 2009 7:27 PM
Obviously the dude should've stuck with the concubines, it's those wives that'll get ya.
January 22, 2009 8:11 PM
Also from the Citizenlink article:
[Dr. Ron] Jones goes on to challenge Obama to “defend the cause of the weak” and “maintain the rights of the oppressed” by changing his pro-abortion positions.
Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, said: "Barack Obama professes to follow Christ, and so his heart should be primed for a miraculous change of heart in his plans for the innocent preborn. This should be the point of our prayers for the new president.”
Sociopathanon says: “A comment urging the President to defend the rights of the oppressed who are killed before they can defend themselves and the TTF vitriol machine pumps out a flood of sludge.”
Oh *sniff* *sniff* boo hoo.
How does Focus on the Family and their followers go about preventing abortions?
- Demand ignorance only sex education.
-Condemn and lie about birth control.
-Stigmatize out of wedlock sex and pregnancy.
-Spend hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-gay measures INSTEAD of funding homes and support programs to help young and low income women carry to term and guarantee adoption placement.
-Prevent gay and unwed couples from adopting hard to place children, further discouraging potential mothers from carrying to term babies who have, or who may have birth defects.
-Support Republican measures and Bush when it comes to slashing funding for child care and low income families in favor of tax cuts for the richest of the rich.
Bush veto for child health bill
House Republicans Side with the Very Rich as they Axe Child Support Services, Student Loan Programs, Health Services, and Food Stamps from American Families
Bush Budget Would Cut Programs that Help Mothers Provide Basic Needs for Their Children
And goodie for the one seven billionth of the population who beat the odds in a most extraordinary way. Any ethical person’s concern would be with the children who are being abused, and with the people who are on the verge of suicide, and who are mentally ill, and who have no practical hope of beating the odds to even get to a place of being “ok,” Not to mention the 40,000 people who starve to death and die of easily preventable diseases every day.
If you people had your way, the U.S. would be like Romania before the fall of communism:
“Romania's orphan problem began in the last days of Communism. Romania suffered under the harsh dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who ruined the nation's economy while building lavish monuments to himself. Ceausescu outlawed abortion at a time when Romania faced severe shortages of food and heating oil.
Denied access to contraception and struggling to feed their families, many Romanians instead abandoned their newborn children. These children suffered neglect and abuse in under-funded state-run orphanages.”
Which says nothing of all the back alley abortions that occured. Killing women and deforming babies when unsuccessful.
Also, it is estimated that 70,000 women die each year due to lack of access to safe and legal abortions - thanks to the "morality" of the Bush Administration.
It’s absolutely disgusting to hear you people piss and moan about how concerned you are for the preborn, when nearly all of your efforts increase the incidence of unwanted pregnancies - and thus, increase abortions.
Like the war on gays, it’s just another political money maker.
Furthermore, consider this:
"Spontaneous Abortions: Depending upon which data you believe, fifty to seventy-five percent of all pregnancies spontaneously abort. Most impregnated eggs never attach to the uterine wall. They flow out of the woman's body with her menstrual flow.
Remember, according to the anti-abortionists, God creates each new human being as a physical body every time a human egg and sperm unite. It doesn't matter where or under what circumstances that union occurs.”
If they really cared about saving the unborn, they’d be pouring money into research that would ensure that every fertilized egg attached to the uterine wall and was invulnerable to miscarriage.
So the Citizenlink article IS inaccurate, because their words of concern are the opposite of their actions.
Or did you want to make the argument that they really are that stupid?
January 22, 2009 11:59 PM
"using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides,"
why pick on them?
Because a good leader does not fiddle around while Rome burns. Since you asked "why," I'll let your President explain it to you:
The United States is in a period of severe economic stress. Too many Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health insurance, or a substantial part of their retirement savings, and many more feel uncertain about the future.
In these circumstances, Government must act forcefully and creatively to stimulate our economic recovery, investing in infrastructure, innovative energy technologies, and education. It must act quickly to provide assistance to average Americans.
Many have accepted the call to serve in Government and to assist me in restoring a sound economy and in improving the lives of average Americans. In this challenging economic period, it is only appropriate that senior officials on the White House staff forgo pay increases until further notice.
Accordingly, as a signal of our shared commitment to restoring the country's economic vitality and because of the serious economic conditions we are facing, I intend to freeze the salaries of senior members of the White House staff, to the extent permitted by law. I direct you to report back to me within 30 days with recommendations for actions to implement this freeze.
When times are tough, you don't raise the pay of civil servants making over $100,000.00 a year.
"mandate new limits on lobbyists"
are we abandoning free speech?
Here are the limits Obama placed on lobbyists. They are still free to "speak," they just aren't free to try to influence elected officials with gifts anymore.
Executive Order -- Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and sections 3301 and 7301 of title 5, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Ethics Pledge. Every appointee in every executive agency appointed on or after January 20, 2009, shall sign, and upon signing shall be contractually committed to, the following pledge upon becoming an appointee:
"As a condition, and in consideration, of my employment in the United States Government in a position invested with the public trust, I commit myself to the following obligations, which I understand are binding on me and are enforceable under law:
"1. Lobbyist Gift Ban. I will not accept gifts from registered lobbyists or lobbying organizations for the duration of my service as an appointee.
"2. Revolving Door Ban All Appointees Entering Government. I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.
"3. Revolving Door Ban Lobbyists Entering Government. If I was a registered lobbyist within the 2 years before the date of my appointment, in addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 2, I will not for a period of 2 years after the date of my appointment:
(a) participate in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment;
(b) participate in the specific issue area in which that particular matter falls; or
(c) seek or accept employment with any executive agency that I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment.
"4. Revolving Door Ban Appointees Leaving Government. If, upon my departure from the Government, I am covered by the post employment restrictions on communicating with employees of my former executive agency set forth in section 207(c) of title 18, United States Code, I agree that I will abide by those restrictions for a period of 2 years following the end of my appointment.
"5. Revolving Door Ban Appointees Leaving Government to Lobby. In addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 4, I also agree, upon leaving Government service, not to lobby any covered executive branch official or non career Senior Executive Service appointee for the remainder of the Administration.
"6. Employment Qualification Commitment. I agree that any hiring or other employment decisions I make will be based on the candidate's qualifications, competence, and experience.
"7. Assent to Enforcement. I acknowledge that the Executive Order entitled 'Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel,' issued by the President on January 21, 2009, which I have read before signing this document, defines certain of the terms applicable to the foregoing obligations and sets forth the methods for enforcing them. I expressly accept the provisions of that Executive Order as a part of this agreement and as binding on me. I understand that the terms of this pledge are in addition to any statutory or other legal restrictions applicable to me by virtue of Federal Government service."
These changes are long overdue and will go a long way to restoring integrity and honor to the White House.
"and demand that the government disclose more information"
kind of vague but fine with me
We can all be proud that President Obama is working so hard to restore long missing honor, integrity, and dignity to the White House. Here is the memo on the new openness and transparency in government issued by President Obama:
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
You can sit at your PC hurling your stupid stink bombs, or "as a signal of our shared commitment to restoring the country's economic vitality" you can decide to push up your sleeves and get to work helping your country out of the mess it's in. You might even want to ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"
January 23, 2009 8:15 AM
From the front page above the fold of today's Washington Post:
"I remind all my colleagues: We had an election," McCain noted. "I think the message the American people are sending us is they want us to work together, and get to work."
January 23, 2009 8:29 AM
Emproph,
I'm really disappointed in this post of yours. It sounds more like a pathetic grasping at straws than anything else. And that's not usually the case with you.
For instance, your point (and that's being kind) about spontaneous abortions is absolutely absurd. Fertility doctors spend their lives trying to figure out how to keep spontaneous abortions from happening. Man simply cannot figure everything out when it comes to the human body. If we could, then nobody would ever die.
And, besides...let's go with your argument. Suppose we COULD stop every spontaneous abortion. To do so, you would need a woman to come to the doctor and tell the doctor: "I am pregnant. Can you please make sure that I don't spontaneously abort?"
Remember -- we're talking about women who DON'T want their babies. Why, then, would they come to the doctor and ask the doctor to make sure they don't have a spontaneous abortion?
In addition, lots of money goes toward pregnancy detection. I don't believe we even have the means to detect most pregnancies before they're spontaneously aborted and discarded through the menstrual cycle. This would require a woman knowing, even before her first menstrual cycle, that she's pregnant. This would probably require constant monitoring and blood tests or urine tests.
Even if we did have technology to figure that out, no woman would ever use it. It is not unusual for a woman's menstrual cycle to not be precise. In fact, most women can't set their calendar by their menstrual cycle. And even if they could, they still would have no idea if they were pregnant, unless they wanted to go through a daily blood test. And even women who want to get pregnant don't wish to go through daily or weekly blood tests or urine tests. Most women have faith that they will get pregnant and get worried only when it doesn't happen after a reasonable amount of time has passed. That's when they head to fertility clinics for more intensive testing.
So, even if tons of money were spent to detect early pregnancies and stop spontaneous abortions, they would rely on the woman to carry it through, and that just isn't going to happen for a whole host of reasons, including the ones I mentioned above. The only women who are willing to go through that kind of scrutiny and meticulous record keeping are women who know, beforehand, that they WANT to get pregnant, have already tried for a while to get pregnant, and who have already had trouble getting pregnant (i.e., women who now go to fertility clinics where they can get this type of care.)
Your whole theory is so flawed, it really borders on the ridiculous.
January 23, 2009 8:33 AM
P.S. When I said "no woman would ever use it" -- I meant, no woman who wants to abort would ever use it. Some women who want the child, as I said later in my post, would use it if they truly want a child, have had a hard time getting pregnant and are willing to go through lots of testing.
January 23, 2009 8:35 AM
My goodness, sociopathanon. That’s the most thought you’ve put into avoiding the subject since...
January 23, 2009 9:52 AM
women who know, beforehand, that they WANT to get pregnant
That's right. Women decide if they want to become pregnant or not. They also decide if they want to continue an unplanned pregnancy or not.
January 23, 2009 10:00 AM
Anon thinks lobbying is "free speech?" Good, then he won't mind when Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence takes over the White House office formerly occupied by the NRA.
January 23, 2009 10:13 AM
Obama is not the only elected official asking employees to share in the cost of getting our economy back on track. Many Governors are implementing furloughs and cutting pay, hours and benefits for state employees.
The only way we're going to dig ourselves out of the budget hole Bush & Company dug for us when they turned Clinton's $237 billion budget surplus into a $1.2 trillion budget deficit, is if we all do our part.
January 24, 2009 9:58 AM