J's Cafe Nette

Archive for August 18th, 2007

Former Reagan presidential advisor Michael Deaver has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 69.

Michael K. Deaver, one Ronald Reagan’s closest advisers during in the White House and the director of the president’s picturesque and symbolic public appearances, died Saturday. He was 69.
Deaver, who had pancreatic cancer, died at his home in Bethesda, Md., according to a statement from the Deaver family that was issued by Edelman, the public relations firm he served as vice chairman.

Deaver was celebrated and scorned as an expert at media manipulation for focusing on how the president looked as much as what the president said. Reagan’s chief choreographer for public events, Deaver protected the commander in chief’s image and enhanced it with a flair for choosing just the right settings, poses and camera angles.

“I’ve always said the only thing I did is light him well,” Deaver told the Los Angeles Times in 2001. “My job was filling up the space around the head. I didn’t make Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan made me.”

Sympathies and prayers go out to his family.

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The recall and removal of products used or played with by children just keep expanding. If this continues some major retailers will no doubt be in for a tough sales season as the holidays approach. Via the NYT:

Toys “R” Us halted the sale of vinyl baby bibs at its stores nationwide yesterday and offered customers refunds on perhaps more than a million bibs after tests confirmed that at least some of the Chinese-made items are contaminated with lead.

“Quality control slipped at the point of manufacturing,” said Kathleen Waugh, a Toys “R” Us spokeswoman. “I certainly don’t know how. But it happened somewhere in the quality control process.”

The move by the company, which sells about one million vinyl baby bibs a year, came in response to an article in The New York Times on Wednesday that reported that independent laboratory tests by The Times and a California environmental group had found lead contamination in the store-brand bibs.

The contaminated bibs were marketed under the Koala Baby, Especially for Baby and Disney Baby labels and manufactured for the company by Hamco Baby Products, a unit of Crown Crafts.

You bet quality control slipped. I don’t care if the retailer or the manufacturer says there are no significant health care worries associated with these bibs. We simply need to have faith that products we purchase, especially for our children and grandchildren are safe.

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This is a very small blog in the vast blogosphere, but our goal from the beginning was to try to cool down the hate-speech and politicization of every topic in our great country.

Yesterday Sue wrote a nice column telling of Sen. Tim Johnson’s remarkable recovery from his stroke and his being able to return to work soon.

We wished him well, and on most of the conservative blogs you will see that same wish if they published the story.

That’s why it’s disheartening to read the comments on the Huffington Post regarding Tony Snow’s announcement he is leaving before Mr. Bush’s presidency ends and he says it’s for financial purposes.

Why do people wish death and bad things on other people over politics? Is it because they are like this normally? If so, I pity them.

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Lt. General Ray Odierno, second in command in Iraq, has said before the U.S. pulls back in Iraq we will conduct quick strike raids mainly in Al Qaeda strongholds.

The U.S. military is planning “quick-strike raids” aimed at smashing al Qaeda strongholds in the country before bringing some of the forces from the troop buildup home, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq said yesterday.

Faced with increasing violence from insurgents in the less-guarded northern outskirts of the country, U.S. forces will assist Iraqi forces in weeding out insurgents — mainly al Qaeda operatives — bent on destabilizing the region.

“Due to the constant pressure and depletion of their leadership, extremists have been pushed out of many population centers and are on the move, seeking other places to operate within the country,” Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno said at a Pentagon press conference via video from Baghdad.

“As a result, we are now in pursuit of al Qaeda and other extremist elements, and we’ll continue to aggressively target their shrinking areas of influence,” he said. “Over the coming weeks, we plan to conduct quick-strike raids against remaining extremist sanctuaries and staging areas.”

From what Gen. Petraeus is already quoted as saying, we can pretty much assume by this time next year the surge will be over and troops will begin drawing down.

Hopefully, the Iraqi army and police will be well-enough trained to maintain a semblance of peace in their country.

For a different take on the draw down strategy go here.

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These days it’s a big deal to be a federally recognized Native American tribe.

The tribe has to prove it has existed as a tribe for a long time and there’s a lot of paperwork associated with it. After recognition, the tribe is usually sovereign meaning they make their own laws on their reservations and the people from the outside can’t interfere with their government.

Federal recognition also brings with it money from the federal government in the form of grants among other things.

Now comes news that two unrecognized tribes are selling memberships for as little as $50 to illegals, telling the illegals this will be able to make them legal.

“You can’t just decide to become a member of a tribe and all of a sudden legalize your status,” said Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In Nebraska, some people reported paying up to $1,200 to join the Kaweah Indian Nation, which became the target of a federal investigation after complaints about the tribe arose in at least five states.

Manuel Urbina, the tribe’s high chief, acknowledged his group has sold at least 10,000 tribal memberships to illegal aliens for about $50 each.

“We are not going against the law, we’re with the law,” he said, claiming membership papers can help illegal aliens avoid being detained by authorities if they are asked for documents.

A Florida man has made similar sales pitches to illegal aliens on behalf of a North Dakota-based tribe.

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs denied the Kaweah group recognition in 1985 because it was not a real tribe. A Kaweah tribe did exist once, but is unrelated to the one that applied for recognition.

John Dossett, a lawyer for the Washington-based National Congress of American Indians, called the group “just a total sham” and compared its membership offer to spam e-mail solicitations.

Angel Freytez of the Nebraska Mexican-American Commission said advocates have fielded complaints about the group from illegal aliens in Kansas, California, Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Tim Counts confirmed that documents from the tribe offer no protection “from the consequences of being in a country illegally. It won’t work.

My daughter in law is a member of an unrecognized tribe, and because she is it means my grandchildren by her are not recognized as Native American because my son just hits the bare minimum blood quantum to be considered a member of our tribe.

It’s like a band of Ward Churchills getting together and deciding they are a tribe because they claim a few drops of Indian blood somewhere way back in their heritage. Wanting it doesn’t make it so.

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This is incredible! I know I have never read or heard of it happening before.

A 35-year-old Canadian woman has given birth to rare identical quadruplets, officials at a Great Falls hospital said Thursday. Karen Jepp of Calgary, Alberta, delivered Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia by Caesarian section Sunday afternoon at Benefis Healthcare, said Amy Astin, the hospital’s director of community and government relations.

The four girls were breathing without ventilators and listed in good condition Thursday, she said.

“These babies are doing grand,” said Dr. Tom Key of Great Falls, the perinatologist who delivered the girls.

The babies were born about two months early and were conceived without fertility drugs, he said. They weighed between 2.6 pounds and 2.15 pounds.

Can you imagine having four girls in the house who are identical? Wow, could they pull some fast ones on people.

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The best press secretary this president has had has announced he is going to step down before the end of the current presidency.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said Friday he’ll leave sometime before the end of the Bush presidency because of financial pressures.

He declined to say when he would depart, but that, “I’m going to stay as long as I can.”

The 52-year-old Snow, the father of three children, earns $168,000 as an assistant to the president but made considerably more as a conservative pundit and syndicated talk-show host on Fox News Radio. He was named press secretary on April 26, 2006.

The White House has been shaken by the resignations of some of President Bush’s closest aides. Political strategist Karl Rove announced Monday that he would leave at the end of the month. Longtime Bush adviser Dan Bartlett left earlier this year and Andrew Card left earlier as Bush’s chief of staff.

Bush’s term ends on Jan. 20, 2009.

“I will not be able to make it to the end of this administration, just financially,” Snow said. “This job has been such a pleasant surprise in how much I like it. I love it.”

It seems a person has to be independently wealthy to serve the government.

I hope he stays as long as he can and then lands a good job in the private sector after.

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