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Obama: Now's the time for unity, sacrifice and bold, swift action

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Inauguration: President Obama: "With hope and virtue, let us ... endure what storms may come"

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday afternoon, banishing forever more than 200 years of history during which the office passed from white hands to white hands and promising a new era of “hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”Under the Constitution, Obama became president at noon ET, even though he had not formally been sworn in with the inaugural ceremonies running behind schedule. Using his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, the new president took the oath of office at 12:05 p.m. from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, whose nomination to the court he opposed as the junior Democratic senator from Illinois.Clasping hands with his wife, Michelle, Obama smiled and waved to the crowd of as many as 2 million people who jammed the National Mall.As the crowd chanted “Obama, Obama,” the president thanked his predecessor, George W. Bush, and said he was “humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.”Obama acknowkledged that “we are in the midst of crisis.”“Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred,” he said. “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.”Saying ”the time has come to set aside childish things,” Obama declared: “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.”

Biden  sworn in as vice president
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens swore in former Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as vice president at 11:57 a.m. ET before as many as 2 million people who swarmed the National Mall. They were there to witness Obama’s banishing forever more than 200 years of history during which the office had passed from white hands to white hands.Obama and Bush arrived together at the Capitol, riding in a motorcade from the White House, where Bush and his wife, Laura, hosted the Obamas and Biden and his wife, Jill. CONTINUE READING...

Huge crowds gather in D.C. for inauguration

WASHINGTON - The U.S. capital came to life well before dawn Tuesday, as out-of-towners and area residents alike overwhelmed mass transit and filled city streets to witness the swearing-in of  President-elect Barack Obama.As dawn broke, tens of thousands of people turned Washington's orderly grid of streets into a festive party scene, energized by the historic moment. Ready to endure below-freezing temperatures, they streamed up from subway stations and past parked buses, emergency vehicles and street vendors, bound for the National Mall lawn in front of the Capitol for the inauguration."This is the culmination of two years of work," said Obama activist Akin Salawu, 34, of Brooklyn, New York, who helped the candidate as a community organizer and Web producer. "We got on board when Obama was the little engine who could. He's like a child you've held onto. Now he's going out into the world." Security lines were long and daunting on Tuesday morning, according to reports from around the city, with people trying to get onto the Mall, onto the parade route and the ticket areas on the Capitol. Parking lots full By 4 a.m., lines of riders formed in suburban parking lots for the Metro transit system, which opened early and put on extra trains for the expected rush. Many parking lots filled up and had to be closed.Streets around the Capitol quickly filled with people, and security checkpoints were mobbed.Warming tents and other facilities on the Mall were late opening because traffic and crowds delayed staffers from reaching them.Ticket holders approaching the Inaugural site on Capitol Hill awaited security sweeps in a line estimated at thousands. People were in a festive mood, despite the cold and economic gloom that that has millions unemployed and tens of thousands homeless.Connie Grant of Birmingham, Alabama, said she got up at 3:30 a.m. after coming to Washington with a group. Three hours later she was still on 7th street waiting for police to clear the way into the Mall.She said the wait didn't matter. "I sacrificed and came here. To me, this is very historic. I just wanted to be here.""I brought my patience," said Matt Rohrbaugh, 37, who had traveled from Santa Cruz, Calif. with his two sons aged 12 and 15. "Everyone else seems to have brought their patience as well," he said, referring to the long lines at checkpoints. 'Dream come true 'Christian Alderson of Berryville, Virginia, said he was in Memphis, Tennessee when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. "That day was sorrowful," Alderson, 73, said as he stood near the mall. "This is a dream come true for me." CONTINUE READING...

OBAMA Inauguration TV coverage

Want to catch the inauguration but can't make it to D.C.? Fear not, you'll be able to watch the ceremonies and festivities on more TV stations than ever, thanks to cable and satellite services. (All times are PST) Broadcast: ABC (Channel 7): Coverage starts at 5 a.m. with "Good Morning America: Special Edition" from Washington, D.C., followed by ABC live coverage anchored by Charles Gibson of the Obama inauguration starting at 7 a.m., the swearing-in ceremony at 9 a.m. and then the parade until 2 p.m. At 7 p.m. a wrap-up "ABC News Special" on the day's events airs, with coverage of inaugural balls at 8 p.m. At 10 p.m. an "Inaugural Review" special airs. CBS (Channel 5): CBS live coverage from Washington hosted by Katie Couric starts at 7 a.m., with ceremony followed by parade coverage until 2 p.m. At 6 p.m., CBS plans a one-hour special on the first hours of the Obama administration. At 9 p.m., CBS airs a "Inauguration Review" special report. NBC (Channel 11): Live "Today Show" coverage from Washington begins at 7 a.m. Inauguration and parade coverage hosted by Brian Williams starts at 7:30 a.m. and runs until 1 p.m. At 7 p.m., NBC will air a live one-hour special from the inaugural galas. At 10 p.m. "Dateline: NBC" reports on the inauguration's major events. PBS: From 8 to 10 a.m., KRCB-TV airs "NewsHour's" live coverage of the inauguration. At 5:30 p.m. on KRCB (6 on KQED-TV), Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour" will feature inaugural highlights. At 10 p.m., Channel 9 airs a new "Frontline" special, "Dreams of Obama.

Cable BET: Live Inauguration coverage starts at 7 a.m., followed at 8 p.m. by an inauguration musical special, "Yes We Will," hosted by Nick Cannon, with an appearance by Gen. Colin Powell. CNBC: The NBC financial-news channel will air a special live inaugural edition of "Squawk Box" from D.C., from 6 to 9 a.m. CNN: Live Inauguration Day edition of "American Morning," hosted by John Roberts starts at 2 a.m. followed by nonstop, all-day coverage of inaugural events. Main inauguration coverage at 7 a.m. will be co-hosted by Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper from the Newseum in D.C. A special edition of "Situation Room" with Blitzer airs from 1 to 4 p.m. followed by live team coverage of galas. FOX NEWS: The network plans live coverage of inauguration events starting at 7 a.m. and running until noon. MSNBC: The network's 21 hours of continuous coverage starts at 3 a.m. with special edition of "Morning Joe" from Washington. MSNBC's primary 7 a.m.-1 p.m. live inauguration coverage will be anchored by Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, and Eugene Robinson. Special inauguration-day editions of Matthews, Olbermann and Maddow shows will air live, outdoors from Washington's National Mall.

Anticipation Grows for Obama Inaguration

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Obama’s Inauguration Fund-Raising Tops $24 Million

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has raised more than $24 million for his inauguration so far, much of it with single checks of $25,000 or $50,000 from executives from Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Hollywood as well asfrom former supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. The prominent donors include George Soros, the billionaire financier of liberal causes; the director Steven Spielberg; the actress Halle Berry; and Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown Records. The $24 million puts Mr. Obama more than halfway toward the goal of raising $40 million to $45 million for what could be the most expensive inauguration ever, topping the $42.3 million that President Bush spent in 2005. About 1,200 people have contributed $200 or more, according to the inaugural committee’s Web site, pic2009.org/donors, which is voluntarily disclosing the donations in near real-time. The site does not show donations of small donors, so it is not clear how many have contributed or how much, and Obama officials say the online fund-raising aimed at smaller donors is just beginning. The big donors include 189 bundlers, who have collected $21.6 million of the $24.8 million (many also gave $50,000 themselves). Of those, 103 bundlers, who have raised $12 million for the inauguration, also raised money for the Obama campaign, according to a review by Alexander Cohen of Public Citizen, a watchdog group that seeks to tighten the nation’s campaign finance laws. “It’s the same well-connected big-money people who are now funding the inaugural,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist with Public Citizen. “What they get is a chance to influence policy or get government contracts or earmarks.” Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for the Obama inaugural committee, disputed that notion and said donors could not buy access. “No one who has contributed to President-elect Obama has ever been led to believe that they’re going to have any special influence with him,” Ms. Douglass said. “He is passionately committed to changing business as usual and breaking the grip of special interests on government.”The committee’s donor disclosures are a first for an incoming administration. The committee has also banned donations from corporations, unions and lobbyists. It limits donations from individuals to $50,000, which is lower than the $250,000 limit set by Mr. Bush and higher than the $100 set by Bill Clinton in 1997. (Mr. Clinton carried over a $9 million surplus from his 1993 inauguration, when he accepted six-figure donations.) The Obama team also limits contributions from bundlers to $300,000. CONTINUE READING...

Obama inaugural to encourage spirit of service

Using the same online networking that helped put him in the White House, President-elect Barack Obama is pushing to expand Martin Luther King Day from a national day of community service into an ongoing commitment to help the needy. While presidents past have used Jan. 19 to show by example how helping the poor is good for the country, Obama is using the eve of his inauguration to rally millions of Americans to community service as an antidote to the recession. In the coming days, Obama's inaugural committee will launch a Web site to link volunteers with service projects in their neighborhoods. The new Web site will incorporate similar work already begun by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency overseeing 7,000 service programs - including AmeriCorps, given the directive by Congress in 1994 to turn Martin Luther King Day into a national day of service. "President-elect Obama hopes to summon a new spirit of service and call on Americans to make a more enduring and active commitment to our communities throughout the year, because it is a critical time for America to come together to tackle the common challenges we face," said inaugural spokeswoman Shannon Gilson. In California, there are already 700 King Day community projects listed on the Corporation for National and Community Service's www.mlkday.gov site. "This is an unprecedented moment of need and opportunity because of the economy and Obama's pledge to make service a theme of his administration," said Sandy Scott, spokesman for the corporation. On King Day 2008, roughly 500,000 people turned out to lend a charitable hand for 5,000 projects nationwide, Scott said. This year, he's expecting the turnout to more than double. Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families plan to volunteer in Washington on Jan. 19, but have not revealed their specific plans. About 26 percent of American adults already do some form of community service throughout the year, according to the 61 million of them who checked the volunteer box on the 2007 U.S. census. Todd Bernstein, who runs the Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service, the nation's largest King Day event with 65,000 volunteers, is launching MLK365 to coincide with Obama's call for a cultural shift from helping on holidays to every day. "Clearly Obama gets this," Bernstein said. "He's using the power of mobilizing on the Net to get people engaged, and offer solutions to solving our most critical problems." Volunteers will be asked to use the presidential Web site to look for projects, but also to post their own ideas, such as weatherizing an elderly neighbor's home, or collecting used clothes for homeless shelters. SOURCE:SFGATE.COM

Barack Obama on 60 Minutes: "The Road to the Whitehouse"

The Next Generation of American Designers Fashion New Looks for a New First Lady

It's no exaggeration to say that any American designer would be thrilled to create an inaugural gown for Michelle Obama. The dress she wears to the official balls will be enshrined in history. If tradition holds, it will be donated to the First Ladies Collection at the National Museum of American History to hang alongside gowns worn by Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton. And making the commission even more irresistible: The first lady is tall, fit and, the record has shown, willing to take an aesthetic risk. But the challenges of creating an inaugural gown are immense. The dress not only serves as an emphatic pronouncement of the first lady's personal style, but also reflects how Americans would like to portray themselves to the world. Sophistication, class, modernity, creativity and the elusive notion of Americanness must be evoked in a few yards of silk, satin or organza. The expectation is that the dress should be designed by someone from an American company. This may be an increasingly borderless world, but the gown is an expression of patriotism. For their first inaugurations, both Clinton and Laura Bush were loyal to hometown designers. Clinton relied on Arkansas-based Sarah Phillips for her purple beaded ball gown, and Bush turned to the Dallas-based Michael Faircloth for her red Chantilly lace one. (For their second inaugurations, both decamped to the atelier of Seventh Avenue veteran Oscar de la Renta.) First ladies have used their inaugural dresses to set the tone for the incoming administration or even to make a political point. Rosalynn Carter reflected the down-home, frugal flavor of the Carter administration by wearing a six-year-old dress for the 1977 inauguration. Reagan's beaded, one-shoulder James Galanos dress marked the return of glamour, extravagance and optimism to the White House, underscoring the view of America as a "shining city upon a hill." For all the personal and political symbolism stitched into each dart, the gown is also a bit of an anachronism. It is akin to a wedding gown -- freighted with tradition and expectations. And all the guests at the celebration -- in this case, all 300 million citizens -- figure they have the right to weigh in with an opinion. Folks might be proud of Michelle Obama's Ivy League pedigree. They may respect her as intelligent and accomplished. Still, they will be disappointed if her dress isn't awfully pretty on Jan. 20. The inaugural gown is inexorably intertwined with the discomforting idea that a woman can and will be judged on her appearance. This stubborn convention has not been shattered despite generations of women's studies classes and 18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling. One suspects that even if it were Hillary Clinton taking the oath of office in January, not many people would be interested in what the first gentleman planned to wear. Call the American people sexist, old-fashioned or just plain honest, but the inaugural gown is central to the celebration. It is part of the photographic tableau that is meant to instill pride, joy and optimism. Barack Obama may be the new leader of the free world, but it is difficult to get that excited about a one-button tuxedo that Hart Schaffner Marx says it is custom-making for him. CONTINUE READING...

Wanna party with Obama on Jan. 20? Better bring some Benjamins

So you want to go to the inaugural and dance next to the Obamas? Dream on, unless you're ready to drop a lot of cash or your first name is "Rahm." Sure, for those dying to be there just to be there for President-elect Barack Obama's historic inauguration Jan. 20, there will be plenty of pomp, drama and free stuff offered in Washington, D.C., over several days surrounding the big event. But expect to part with at least several house payments/rent checks if you want the chance to be in the same room as the Obamas or view them on anything other than one of the 10 massive video walls pitched around the national Mall on the big day. Even cash is not a guarantee of proximity. There are unofficial inaugural balls - many of which are already selling tickets - and official Presidential Inaugural Committee balls - which won't be announced until perhaps later this week. The first couple - and their Secret Service minders - haven't decided which balls or events they will stop by and probably won't reveal their schedule before they show up for a dance and a wave. No telling if they'll stop by unofficial ones. While official inaugural committee organizers promise "inclusive and accessible" events between Jan. 17 and 21, there is chasm between what is available based on the amount of cash you're packing. It's just like any political fundraiser: If you pay $2,300, you get your photograph snapped with the candidate. If you don't, you wait outside for a fleeting glimpse. The Presidential Inaugural Committee is defraying costs of the event by selling four-ticket packages for $50,000. Included in the package are four tickets to the swearing-in ceremony, the inaugural parade, one of the 10 official inaugural balls and ducats to other concerts and happenings.CONTINUE READING....

FOUR-DAY INAUGURATION SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED: Plus, Hampton University band scores spot in parade.

President-elect Barack Obama's team on Wednesday released a preliminary schedule of inauguration events, which will take place over a four day period and include a national day of service to honor Martin Luther King's holiday. Under the theme "Renewing America's Promise," the schedule also includes a national prayer service the day after Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden take office on Jan. 20. Obama says in a statement that the events are designed to renew Americans' faith in their country. He says he hopes the events unify the country amid its economic struggles.Organizers also announced Monday that Hampton University's marching band, "The Force," has been chosen as one of three Virginia groups to march in the Inaugural Parade on Jan. 20.Close to 1,400 groups, bands, musical acts and drill teams submitted applications, and most included recordings, which were reviewed by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, military musicians and others, reports HamptonRoads.com.Following the swearing-in ceremony, the parade will travel from the U.S. Capitol, along Pennsylvania Avenue, to the White House. The T.C. Williams High School Army JROTC in Alexandria and the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets in Lexington also were selected. Parade participants are responsible for paying for their own hotel and transportation, and Hampton University will begin fundraising for the trip. To donate, contact the university office of development at (757) 727-5356.

Got a Room? Inauguration Is a Windfall

More precisely, how much is it worth to someone who is coming to town for President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration in January and needs a place to stay? One three-bedroom house in suburban Virginia is said to have gone for $57,000 for inauguration week. A week at a four-bedroom in suburban Maryland was listed at $60,000, though that, like other offerings, may be wishful  hinking.As Washington gears up for the historic inauguration of the first African-American president, more than one million people are expected to descend on the capital. The five-county metro area has 95,000 hotel rooms.You do the math. The demand for hotels outstripped the supply more than two months before the Jan. 20 inauguration, not just in Washington and environs but as far away as Pennsylvania and West Virginia; even campsites are filling up. Some people are renting RVs; others are offering apartment swaps.At this relatively late date, the chance of finding a warm place to spend a cold January night (or two) within range of the swearing-in may be largely a matter of luck — and the ability and willingness to pay. But despair for would-be visitors has become an entrepreneurial opportunity for locals. While many people who own, rent or otherwise control sleeping space are packing in family and friends without charge, many others smell profits and are auctioning off their homes, rooms, sofas and even spots on the basement floor. All of this enterprise has prompted complaints that some in the area are exploiting the historic moment by price-gouging. Such high prices are “barring earnest people who want to witness and participate in something remarkable, positive, and promising” from coming to the capital, wrote one poster on Craigslist, who had let out his or her home for “a very modest sum” and urged others to do the same. “Let’s act like we really do want it to be a democracy,” the poster wrote. But another poster responded that it costs money to rent out your house. Besides, this poster added: “Do I deserve to avail myself to a little windfall profit from the smart investment I made and sacrifice for to live so centrally? Darn right I do. So get over it.” One of the highest prices obtained so far appears to be $57,000 for a week in a three-bedroom home near Chantilly, Va., about 24 miles from Washington. Or at least that is what Keith Bell, a lawyer for the federal government, said he was told by the lawyer who reviewed the contract between the homeowner and the renter, who is coming from overseas. SOURCE:NYT.COM