From the Politico.

Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania sent a note of apology to Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan Wednesday, the day after a divided House denied Rogers a vote to officially reprimand the powerful senior Democrat.

Murtha apologized for his “outburst” in a handwritten note Rogers received Wednesday morning, the latter’s office confirmed. This marks his first acknowledgement of an episode between the two lawmakers on the House floor.

Last week, the powerful Democrat allegedly threatened to deny Rogers any future spending projects in defense bills after the Michigan Republican challenged his earmark request for $23 million to prevent the administration from closing an intelligence gathering facility in his western Pennsylvania district.

Republicans have called the tirade a flagrant abuse of House rules.

Now can we all make nice and get along for the sake of our country?

For those of us old enough to remember that fateful day in November, 1963, the memories when prodded even slightly, become vivid again..

I was in school when news came over the loud speaker that President Kennedy had been shot. The hallways and classrooms became eerily quiet and after dismissal, the walk home produced a silence which was deafening.

The hours and days that followed were some of the saddest I remember…Walter Cronkite with tears announcing the President had died..the pictures of the widowed (former) First Lady at the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson, the solemn funeral and the final salute to his father from a very young “John-John.”

Lee Harvey Oswald..who had been accused of taking the life of our President and Jack Ruby who then took his as we watched in horror. Questions, unanswered to this day died when Oswald took his last breath.

Hearings began in Congress, not many of which meant much to a nation in shock..remember Senator Specters “Magic Bulllet Theory”? It seemed to make no difference, all we knew was that someone had been taken from us in an instant that we could never replace.

Funny how you can put these facts and events in the subconscious until you come across an article like this.

JFK Lone Gunman Theory Flawed

New research finds flaws in the evidence used to implicate lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The findings are based on updated bullet analysis techniques and throw a wrench in the case-clinching evidence previously cited by experts to rule out a second assassin.

“By properly reanalyzing the bullet fragments, our nation has a chance to shatter a myth about the JFK assassination,” said study team member Cliff Spiegelman, a statistician at Texas A&M and an expert in the analysis of lead in bullets.

Many scientific and conspiracy theories have been tested through the years on this subject and perhaps in the end this one will have merit. Will it make any difference to those of us who remember? The images and events will always remain and maybe, just maybe, the mystery keeps this part of history alive.

According to this article in The Hill 26 of the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus have written the Democratic Presidential candidates, with the main targets being Senators Clinton, Obama (a member of the CBC) and former Senator John Edwards to ask them to reconsider having a debate on Fox News.

Black Caucus leaders sent the letter to the entire field of Democratic presidential candidates, but the primary targets were Obama, Clinton and Edwards.

The caucus has 43 members from 22 states, who together represent about 40 million Americans, an official with the group said. Seventeen members of the Black Caucus represent districts that are less than 50 percent African-American, said caucus Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), who argued that the issues at the debate will also be of interest to other minority constituencies, such as Hispanics.

“It’s not just a black thing,” Kilpatrick said.

Thompson said presidential debates often ignore issues that are important to minority voters.

“Nobody is talking about the disproportionate statistics that we have in this country as it relates to minority population,” Thompson said. “You can look at healthcare, you can look at education, you can look at employment, you can look at housing, you can look at lending. All those [statistics] show a very bad picture for many constituents we represent.

“So we think Democratic and Republican candidates alike should have an opportunity to say what they plan to [do to] level the playing field,” he added.

By framing their decision to skip the debate as a missed opportunity to communicate to an important Democratic constituency, caucus leaders are ratcheting up the political pressure on the Democratic front-runners.

When the CBC was looking for a network to work with them on a debate Fox News was the only one to respond.

I think after seeing how Fox News performed last week in the Republican debate as opposed to how NBC performed for the Democratic debate and the first Republican debate should calm the fears of the candidates as far as being fair. They will do follow-up questions and demand answers to their questions if someone strays away from the topic, based on last week’s performance, but they won’t be asking silly questions of the candidates.

Let’s see how this plays out, especially with Barack Obama. If he says yes then Senator Clinton and former Senator Edwards will have to join in and since they’re going to get some tough questions down the road (we hope) they might as well start now and state their positions.

Here’s one more interesting quote from the piece:

Left-leaning columnist E.J. Dionne wrote last month that Democrats were well within their rights.

“Tell me again: Why do Democrats have an obligation to participate in debates on Fox?” Dionne wrote. “I am an avid reader of conservative magazines such as National Review and the Weekly Standard. But if these two publications teamed up to sponsor a Democratic debate, would anyone accuse Edwards, Obama and Clinton of ‘blacklisting’ if the candidates said, ‘no thanks’?”

I think last week’s performance by the Fox News crew of Brit Hume, Wendell Goler and Chris Wallace did an outstanding job of being prepared and of handling the debate.

If you’re going to play baseball you can’t have softballs lobbed at you all the time.

Here’s a pretty sobering article about a poll taken of Muslims in our own country.

The first nationwide survey of Muslim Americans revealed that more than a quarter of those younger than 30 say suicide bombings to defend Islam are justified, a fact that drowned out the poll’s kinder, gentler findings suggesting that the community is mainstream and middle class.

“There are trouble spots,” noted Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, which conducted the survey of 1,050 adult Muslim Americans — two-thirds of whom were foreign-born — January to April. The results were released yesterday.

“We should be disturbed that 26 percent of these young people support an ideology in which the ends justify the means,” said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the Arizona-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

“But the survey also found that only 40 percent of the overall American Muslim population would even admit that Arabs were behind 9/11. They’re in denial, refusing to take moral responsibility, and the radicals will feed on this,” Dr. Jasser said.

Farid Senzai of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding said he had “concern” about evidence of youthful radicalism.

The revelation that some young American Muslims condone violent bombings led coverage from CBS News, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations.

“I’m not surprised that the press picked up on the bad news, because that’s what sells. I’d like to see another ethnic group get asked the same question,” said Laila Al-Qatami of the District-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

OK then, let’s ask Jews, Catholics, Protestants of all branches, Hindus, Buddhists and any other religious group I’ve left out and see what their answers would be.

In addition we’ll ask all Italians, Irishmen, Japanese, Chinese, Latinos, American Indians, Indians from India and every other ethnic group that isn’t Arab or Muslim and compare notes. Bet you lose.

The point is, Laila Al-Aqtami, two wrongs don’t make a right and it was people of your faith who were asked and who answered the question.

Perhaps you’d better get to work teaching the peace in your “religion of peace” or we’ll likely see car bombs by your “peaceful” co-religionists here in America and it will be all our faults.

This is getting tiresome.

newton has been a good blogging friend of mine since she and I were the only bloggers on Oh How I Love Jesus. She moved with me and my partners to HRP but continued to write on OHILJ until I shut it down earlier this year.

She has written an email to me that breaks my heart.

There is a lady from her church who has 3 children, the youngest I believe is seven years old. Her husband left her after the third child was born and she became a nurse to support her family.

Monday night she suffered a severe stroke and there is absolutely zero brain activity on the monitor. She is technically dead, but her eldest daughter, who is married and a mother of two, has full power of attorney and I assume full medical power of attorney, and cannot give up her hope that her mother will live, so she will not allow her mother to be taken off the machines that are keeping her alive.

I fully understand how this girl feels as I was in the same situation seven years ago, and I held out hope my mother would come out of it.

I finally realized she was between two worlds and had to go to one or the other and since she wasn’t strong enough to come back to us I told her to go with the Lord.

Making a decision to pull life-sustaining equipment from your parent or anyone you love is the hardest thing I’ve ever been involved in.

I know the heartbreak this daughter and the other children are feeling. Thankfully, a sister of the mother has arrived from New York and will hopefully will give them good advice and, along with Jesus, will be their rock.

I have known of people who have died even while on life-support and I ask if she is to die that we will all pray this is the case for her so her daughter will not have to carry the guilt and she will not be forced against her will to do it by the doctor as we were.

Sweet, kind-hearted newton sent this amendment to her original email and asked me to ask you folks to pray for her friend:

Her name is Karen. Karen V. Originally from Brooklyn, NY.

She is not famous, nor rich. But right now, in the Lord’s presence, she’s a superstar.

(Daniel 12:3)

Please pray for Karen and her family during this difficult time.

Update from newton

I was at church about two hours ago. The secretary there told me that, as of last night, the machines were turned off: her kidneys and liver were taken off her for transplant purposes.

No one, not even the pastor, has any idea as to what kind of funeral arrangements are to be done. Her ex-husband said he was going to do all of that. As of this morning, so far, he has done nothing.

May she rest in peace. It is not unusual to not have funeral arrangements made the morning after a death.

Both of the photos below are taken by AP. I noticed the one of Harry Reid and wondered how in the world the photographer was situated in order to get this kind of shot.

Either he’s very short or Harry Reid is very tall in order for him to have gotten this particular shot naturally. Instead, I believe he was on the floor and looking up, but why publish a picture that doesn’t look in the right perspective?

Why would anyone publish this shot of anyone, let alone a former First Lady and presidential candidate? They make her look like a rabbit.

For the record I googled unflattering photos of GWB but all I found were articles and no photos. If you have any and are a blogger here please add them to this post, but only one because that’s all I’m showing of the other two.

Look for other prominent people in unflattering poses and let’s see what we come up with.

Speech including airfare and travel: $55,000

Haircut: $400

Hypocricy: Priceless to other Democratic candidates

Story here.

I seriously doubt Edwards will be the Democratic nominee for president or the running mate this time as he didn’t do such a good job of being a running mate last time.

If he stays in the top three and things tighten up you can expect someone to bring up this episode.

Early this morning I contacted my Congressman’s office. My Congressman is John Spratt of the 5th Congressional District in SC.

He’s a Democrat but I have been known to vote for him in the past. When his aide answered I gave her my name and address and then told her there were three things I wanted to discuss.

I asked her to pass the message on to the Congressman that I wanted him to vote yes on the new supplemental spending bill for the military and they could fight the battle for time lines later.

I then told her I wanted to address illegal immigration and that I thought we need to secure the border first, look for those with expired visas and deport them and not give amnesty to an entire family because the head of the household would get a worker’s permit after returning to his country of origin. I respectfully asked to have each immigrant learn our language and wait in line before becoming citizens.

My last request was that Congressman Spratt would possibly sponsor legislation that would free the Border guards that US Attorney Johnny Sutton seems to have taken so much pleasure in prosecuting and putting in jail for long periods of time.

I asked that a pardon for all these officers be put into the bill as long as they didn’t deliberately murder anyone.

Then I was off to Senator DeMint’s office, where I expressed my same concerns and was met with a more positive attitude about the border patrol agents and the immigration issue.

I was unable to contact Senator Lindsey Graham’s office, as I suspect a lot of his constituents are contacting him right now to tell them what they think of the immigration bill.

Although I stated what I want in an immigration bill, I am realistic enough to know I won’t get it all at one time. Let’s get passed what we can now and fight the other battles later on, just as I suggested we do with time lines to Congressman Spratt’s office.

I urge each of you to also contact your Congressman and Senators in a respectful way and make your requests known.

I then went downstairs to check if my dog was in and promptly slipped all the way down from the third step to the bottom, hurting my hip and back. That’s why I’ve been scarce today.

This did not come as a surprise.

House Kills Reprimand of Rep. John Murtha

WASHINGTON — On a partisan tally, House lawmakers on Tuesday voted to kill a reprimand of Rep. John Murtha after a Republican lawmaker introduced a resolution citing Murtha for earmark and ethics violations related to the intelligence authorization bill.

The vote of 219-189 with 13 voting present laid the motion on the table, meaning that the resolution was put in limbo. Two Democrats, Reps. Jim Cooper of Tennessee and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, voted with Republicans not to table the resolution. Republican Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania voted with majority Democrats.

The roll call is available through a link in the article.

I find this a disgrace, regardless of party affiliation, that members of Congress do not abide by the rules laid out specifically for them.

Next time a child in your home or at school plays loose with rules let’s allow them to round up several of their friends and take a vote to see if they will pay a consequence..to me it’s the same difference.

James Lileks offers his take on the illegal immigration bill.

Interesting news about the immigration debate, eh? I understand they’ve crafted some sort of bill. Having read the whole thing, I feel compelled to offer some of the highlights:

6 (1) (D) Undocumented Xenonationals who have been in the country since noon March 16, 2004 (this language reflects a compromise between the hardline “AM” faction and moderates who wanted to extend the deadline to 4:57 PM) will have to report to a government office to announce they are departing. This is the HIMBG Provision, or the “Hello, I Must Be Going” provision. Immigrants will have to return to the Mexican border, put their left foot in, put their left foot out, put their left foot in and shake it all about. (Language requiring that the applicant then “do the hokey pokey was removed over an inability to define the exact nature of said action.) The immigrant is then required to return to the place where he announced he was leaving, present a notarized photograph of himself sticking a portion of his body into Mexican airspace; at that point, he will be eligible to receive a “Q” visa, which enables him to start the process towards a “Z” visa, which estabishes a legal framework towards a “path towards citizenship,” although applicants who have paid 67% of their adjusted tax burden over the last 14 years, minus inflation, will be put on a “jogging path” towards citizenship.

Read the rest and enjoy!

According to this story we are in for a big storm season this year.

The U.S. government will issue its official forecast for the forthcoming hurricane season Tuesday, but already two leading storm experts have predicted that it will be busy.

After the battering by storms Katrina and Rita in 2005 there were widespread fears last summer of another powerful storm, but the unexpected development of the El Nino climate phenomenon helped dampen conditions.

The El Nino has ended, however, leaving the potential for more tropical storms threatening the Gulf and East coasts.

El Nino is a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that occurs every few years. The warm water affects wind patterns that guide weather movement, and its effects can be seen worldwide. In El Nino years, there tend to be fewer summer hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.

Earlier this month Philip Klotzbach, a research associate at Colorado State University, and Joe Bastardi, the chief hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather Inc., said they anticipate a more active storm cycle this year.

And, almost as if to underscore their comments, a subtropical storm formed off the southeast coast and became Andrea, the first named storm of the year, well before the June 1 official beginning of hurricane season.

Hurricane season ends Nov. 30, but the strange season of 2005 ran over into late December, as well as using up all the planned alphabetical names, forcing storm watchers to switch to the Greek alphabet to continue naming storms.

You know what I heard? I heard Bush is secretely planning all these storms to take the heat off the immigration debate. It’s pretty amazing the powers he has.

This gets more and more interesting every day.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a little trick up his sleeve that could spell an end to President Bush’s devilish recess appointments of controversial figures like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. We hear that over the long August vacation, when those types of summer hires are made, Reid will call the Senate into session just long enough to force the prez to send his nominees who need confirmation to the chamber. The talk is he will hold a quickie “pro forma” session every 10 days, tapping a local senator to run the hall. Senate workers and Republicans are miffed, but Reid is proving that he’s the new sheriff in town.

Story here

This is where a real threat to world peace comes from. They are one administration away from sending a nuclear missile into the US or supplying one to our enemies.

After a series of political blunders in the last two months, Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is being advised by his political supporters to make a dramatic change of course or risk losing power amid more chaos and bloodshed.

Members of the ruling party, the Pakistani Muslim League, who provide General Musharraf’s base of support in Parliament, say that nationwide protests since the suspension of the country’s chief justice in March, and violent clashes that left 42 people dead in Karachi on May 12, have cast a pall over his leadership.

They are encouraging General Musharraf to strike a compromise with the Supreme Court justice, who did not shy away from challenges to the government and whose removal has been protested as a threat to the judiciary.

Some party members have also recommended that General Musharraf open the elections for the presidency, which are supposed to take place this year, to his exiled political opponents and that he make sure that the polling is free and fair.

The alternative to compromise, party members warn, is a hard-line military solution that leads only to greater confrontation.

For the moment, General Musharraf seems to be sticking to his planned course to maintain power rather than seek conciliation with either the chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, or his political rivals, supporters and opponents say.

Last week the president repeated his insistence that there would be no deal to bring home either of the opposition leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who left the country under a cloud of corruption allegations.

“About their return before elections, no, there is nobody returning before elections,” he told the private, Karachi-based Aaj Television in an interview on Friday.

But a number of party members say they intend to push their case. Opposition members and some from the ruling party warn that not only is General Musharraf’s future at stake, but also the stability of the country, which sits on the front line of American efforts to combat Taliban insurgents and Al Qaeda.

“There are two ways he can go: retreat to the bunker or stop, pause, review, reflect and reverse course,” said one ruling party member who did not want to be identified. “He has to show leadership, magnanimity, and be loyal to the broader objective. The important thing is Pakistan’s future.”

Read the story

HT: Flopping Aces

There will never be another Rev. Jerry Falwell.
My sympathy goes out his family and congregation.

If the Rev. Jerry Falwell personified the Christian right in the past, then the Rev. Frank S. Page may represent its future.From his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., where his funeral will be held today, Falwell gave evangelicals a strong political voice. But it was often the voice of a sure and angry prophet, as when he blamed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in part on “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” or described warnings about global warming as “Satan’s attempt” to turn the church’s attention from evangelism to environmentalism.Page, 54, was chosen last year as president of the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, Falwell’s denomination and the country’s largest evangelical one, in an election that he saw as a mandate for change.

“I would not use the word ‘moderate,’ because in our milieu that often means liberal. But it’s a shift toward a more centrist, kinder, less harsh style of leadership,” Page said. “In the past, Baptists were very well known for what we’re against. . . . Instead of the caricature of an angry, narrow-minded, Bible-beating preacher, we wanted someone who could speak to normal people.”

Read the rest

The so-called Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, the one that hates everyone but themselves, which are 35 members of the same family, have made a video.

This is sickening but I want you to watch it and observe the hate in their faces except when they say “God hates the world.”

These people intend to disrupt Rev. Jerry Falwell’s funeral on Tuesday.

[Note: I had placed the video in this post, but I felt it was so Satanic I couldn't in good conscience post it here. If you want to see it go here. Warning: It will make you sick and weak-kneed.]

After seeing this, please tell me who you think is in Heaven and who will not make it if they don’t make a 180 degree turn.

These people call themselves a church only to get tax-exempt status and they are nothing but pigs and tools for Satan. I don’t call anyone by that name on purpose, but they are his tools.

Only a Satanist could believe God hates the world. He has done too many good things in my life for me to believe He hates anything but sin. Not even the sinner.

God doesn’t hate the world. He loves it so much and the people so much He sent His only Begotten Son to die in payment for our sins because that was the only sacrifice acceptable to Him. It had to be blood from the Perfect Lamb of God.

It’s not too late for anyone if you’re still alive—even these people who seem to be so possessed and are so full of their own hatred they draw pleasure from disrupting funerals of soldiers and now a man who dedicated his life to serving God.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced the Senate will delay final action on the Immigration Reform Bill.

Senate leaders agreed Monday that they would wait until June to take final action on a bipartisan plan to give millions of unlawful immigrants legal status.

The measure, which also tightens border security and workplace enforcement measures, unites a group of influential liberals, centrists and conservatives and has White House backing, but it has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. In a nod to that opposition, Senate leaders won’t seek to complete it before a hoped-for Memorial Day deadline.

“It would be to the best interests of the Senate … that we not try to finish this bill this week,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., as the chamber began debate on the volatile issue. “I think we could, but I’m afraid the conclusion wouldn’t be anything that anyone wanted.”

The bipartisan compromise cleared its first hurdle Monday with a bipartisan Senate vote to begin debate on a separate immigration measure. Still, it faces significant obstacles as lawmakers seek dozens of modifications to its key elements.

Republicans want to make the bill tougher on the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Democrats want to change a new temporary worker program and reorder priorities in a merit-based system for future immigration that weights employability over family ties.

The unlikely coalition that brokered the deal, led by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is plotting to protect the agreement from “deal-breaker” changes that would sap its support. The group will hold daily meetings starting Tuesday to determine whether proposed revisions would sink what they are calling their “grand bargain.”

“We have to try our very best to work together to get something that will actually pass,” Kyl said.

Among the first changes to be debated will be a proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to shrink the temporary worker program created by the compromise plan. Some lawmakers in both parties consider the initiative, which would provide at least 400,000 guest worker visas annually, too large.

Others charge it’s impractical and unfair to immigrants, because it would allow them to stay only temporarily in the U.S. without guaranteeing them a chance to gain legal status.

“We must not create a law that guarantees a permanent underclass, people who are here to work in low-wage, low-skilled jobs but do not have the chance to put down roots or benefit from the opportunities of American citizenship,” Reid said.

I guess they heard an earful from their constituents on both sides of the issue and are now going to try to work out the major objections.

It remains to be seen if an immigration reform bill will pass in this Congress or any other in the near future.

saying this administration is the worst in history. This is what he says now:

ATLANTA (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday his remarks were “careless or misinterpreted” when he said the Bush administration has been the “worst in history” for its impact around the world.

Speaking on NBC’s “Today,” Carter appea