J's Cafe Nette

Archive for May 5th, 2007

Darrell Scott who lost his daughter Rachel and whose son was injured that fateful day eight years ago at Columbine High School, accepted an invitation to speak before a House Judiciary sub-committee just a month later.

I do not recall this hearing or Mr. Scott’s compelling testimony, (there may be those who do), but whether reading for the first time or refreshing a memory his words are dynamic yet sobering.

Since the dawn of creation, there has been both good and evil in the hearts of men and women, and we all contain those seeds: We contain the seeds of kindness and we contain the seeds of violence. And the death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joyce Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other 11 children who died, must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used, neither was it the NCA – the National Club Association – the true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in his heart. In the days that followed the Columbine tradgedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA, I am not a hunter, I do not even own a gun, I’m not here to represent or to defend the NRA, because I don’t believe they are responsible for my daughter’s death, therefore I don’t believe they need to be defended by me. If I believed that they had anything to do with Rachel’s murder, I would be their strongest opponent. I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tradgedy, it was a spiritual event which should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies. Much of that blame lies here in this room – much of that blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves.

“I wrote a poem that expresses my feelings best. This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here today:”

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question “Why?”

You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

This brave, grieving man had the courage to speak what many may feel…please continue reading.

Tweet This Post

Lorie Byrd is liveblogging the Milblogs conference taking place in Arlington VA. today.

Seems as though they had an unexpected visitor waiting for them this morning.

The service the owners and writers at the Milblogs provide to those of us looking for positive information on the US military is so valuable. It appears that surprise visitor believes the same.

Update: Watch the conference live here…

Tweet This Post

President Bush has reaffirmed to Congress his intention to veto any bill which would federally fund abortion according to this article at NRO.

President Bush took the extraordinary step of preemptively issuing a veto threat against an entire category of potential legislative tactics on Thursday afternoon. In a letter to congressional leaders, Bush warned that any move to use appropriations riders or the budget process to provide support for abortion, or to undermine existing protections against such support, would be vetoed.

“I am concerned that this year Congress may consider legislation that could substantially change Federal policies and laws on abortion,” Bush wrote, “and allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life. I am writing to make sure there is no misunderstanding of my views on these important issues.” His letter left no room for misunderstanding. “I will veto any legislation that weakens current Federal policies and laws on abortion,” he concluded, “or that encourages the destruction of human life at any stage.”

The letter is unusual, but not unprecedented. Indeed, in June of 1991, President George H. W. Bush sent Democratic leaders of Congress a very similar letter, making much the same pledge. This year, in the wake of the Democratic takeover of Congress, Republicans in both the House and Senate sent the White House letters requesting that the president send such a message, as they put it, “reaffirming your strong pro-life policy convictions and serving notice that you will veto any legislation that weakens present pro-life policy.”

These letters from House and Senate members had 155 and 34 signatures, respectively, which would be enough to uphold a veto in both houses. In effect, this means the Democrats can know in advance that a move to weaken existing pro-life measures or encourage the destruction of nascent life would not make it through the process, and would only hold up the relevant budget bills.

If Congress is aware that tacking federal funding for abortion into the budget bill will cause a veto with no chance to override, why waste time and taxpayer money. Draw a seperate bill and let it stand or fall on its own.

The line item veto looks better all the time, not just for this President but for all to come.

Read on.
A copy of the letter President Bush sent to Congress is available here.

Tweet This Post

Sometimes words we speak get thrown back at us and they taste bitter when we have to swallow them.

In the past campaign top Democratic leaders complained we had a “do nothing” Congress, and they were right. Republicans had become complacent in their role as the majority party and they frittered away their time, thinking they were invulnerable.

The voters showed them in November how vulnerable they really were.

Now I read this Washington Post article, which is telling us the new Congress is in danger of getting the same moniker.

The Democrats made much of their “Six for ‘06″ plan which was to pass some quick legislation that should have been easy to pass and get them a running start.

The “Six for ‘06″ policy agenda on which Democrats campaigned last year was supposed to consist of low-hanging fruit, plucked and put in the basket to allow Congress to move on to tougher targets. House Democrats took just 10 days to pass a minimum-wage increase, a bill to implement most of the homeland security recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, a measure allowing federal funding for stem cell research, another to cut student-loan rates, a bill allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and a rollback of tax breaks for oil and gas companies to finance alternative-energy research.

The Senate struck out on its own, with a broad overhaul of the rules on lobbying Congress.

Not one of those bills has been signed into law. President Bush signed 16 measures into law through April, six more than were signed by this time in the previous Congress. But beyond a huge domestic spending bill that wrapped up work left undone by Republicans last year, the list of achievements is modest: a beefed-up board to oversee congressional pages in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, and the renaming of six post offices, including one for Gerald R. Ford in Vail, Colo., as well as two courthouses, including one for Rush Limbaugh Sr. in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Protecting pages from sexual predators should be a no-brainer, but renaming post offices and courthouses, no matter how noble, is not exactly earth-shattering legislation.

So, why hasn’t Congress been able to enact their agenda? As you can tell from the above quote, the House and the Senate are not necessarily in synch.

There has been a big elephant in the room and everyone is talking about it, making it difficult to talk about anything else. The big elephant is Iraq.

With all the fighting, delaying and posturing on the funding of the Supplemental Funding bill, other things have been pushed to the side. Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet This Post

I wore a few of these POW bracelets years ago, but sadly I was never fortunate enough to meet the brave men they honored.

This is pretty remarkable:

ELKO, Nev. — As a teenager in Nebraska, Kathy Long wore a POW bracelet as part of a program to honor U.S. soldiers missing in action in Vietnam.

Engraved on the bracelet was the name of a soldier, Navy Lt. Commander John McCain, along with the date his jet was shot down in 1967.

More than 30 years later, Long finally met McCain _ during a campaign stop by the Republican presidential candidate Saturday in Elko.

While some might say Ms. Long had the advantage of owning the bracelet of a very well known POW it amazes me that after all these years she was able to make personal contact with Senator McCain. Rest of story.

Tweet This Post

In the rich historical district of Philadelphia yet another treasure is being unearthed.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Dig yields some unexpected finds

Six weeks into the excavation of the site where George Washington and John Adams lived and conducted their presidencies, archaeologists have unearthed significant portions of the original President’s House – the nation’s first “White House” – including foundation walls of the house kitchen, where Washington’s enslaved chef Hercules conjured up many a memorable meal.

“We had no idea any of that was there,” he continued. “We always thought those back buildings [including the house kitchen] were built on very shallow foundations. Now we can see most of the kitchen is there and the entire kitchen had a basement.”

In fact, in one of the exciting moments of the dig, archaeologists broke through the cement basement of one commercial building last week and there, right on top of a remaining President’s House foundation wall, was an 1833 penny. It was common practice for builders to place a properly dated coin beneath new construction – and the commercial building was, in fact, erected in 1833.

Balance of story.

Tweet This Post