How would you like to enjoy a Thanksgiving with a group of people like this singing for you? Unfortunately for us, many of these dear saints are already in Heaven and that’s wonderful for them.

Enjoy. Yes, that’s Larry Gatlin in the beginning.

For most of the population, if you missed important meetings, numerous days of work (without a viable reason) or did not carry out the responsibilities of your job I doubt very much you would be employed for very long.

Not so for members of Congress according to this post at Evangelical Outpost:

Can a Senator or Congressional Representative do their job as a legislator if they never show up for work? Ask the ten legislators currently running for President. Each has continued to collect their $165,200 salary while missing votes during the current Congress:

John McCain has missed 218 votes (53.3%)
Joseph Biden has missed 146 votes (35.7%)
Christopher Dodd has missed 140 votes (34.2%)
Barack Obama has missed 139 votes (34.0%)
Sam Brownback has missed 134 votes (32.8%)
Duncan Hunter has missed 321 votes (28.8%)
Tom Tancredo has missed 311 votes (28.0%)
Ron Paul has missed 276 votes (24.8%)
Hillary Clinton has missed 76 votes (18.6%)
Dennis Kucinich has missed 126 votes (11.3%)

Federal law requires the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House to deduct the pay of congress members who are absent without just cause (and, no, running for President is not a valid excuse). Each of these candidates should refund the portion of their salaries that were due to campaign related absences.

There is much more at the link, but I found the above paragraph rather intriguing. It would certainly be interesting to know if any of the candidates throughout the years, not only in this election cycle, have refunded any of their salary due to campaign absence.

I think I probably know the answer already, but it would be nice to think that there are those who would honor the law and return monies which they have not earned. Or, maybe there is a loophole in this law which allows them to earn taxpayer dollars while not actually carrying out the duties with which they have charged by their constituents.

It’s just another one of those unknowns, and will probably remain so, when it comes to politics today.

How clever…and on the mark too!

There are so many children in this country (especially older ones) who are in need of either quality foster care or adoptive families who can show them the love and support they need.

According to this article in the LA Times, there is real progress in placing many of these children.

Saturday was a day unlike almost any other at the Edmund D. Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park.

Children ran about playing with balloon swords outside the courtrooms, bailiffs earnestly opened doors to welcome latecomers, judges happily spoke to reporters, lawyers walked around with wide smiles and photographers snapped shots all over.

“I’m not putting anybody in jail today,” said Pamela Matsumoto, a referee who handles juvenile traffic cases in Los Angeles Superior Court. “They’re all going home.”

The courthouse that typically deals with child abuse and neglect cases was holding an annual Adoption Saturday event, an idea conceived about 10 years ago by Judge Michael Nash, who presides over Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Court, to make it easier for children in the county’s foster care system to be adopted.

The adoption process “was taking too long to complete,” Nash said.

So he created a coalition with the Alliance for Children’s Rights and the Public Counsel Law Center, and began recruiting volunteers from major law firms to help out.

During the last 10 years, the number of children in the county foster care system has been nearly cut in half, Nash said. More than 20,000 adoptions have been completed, about 9,000 of those on Adoption Saturdays, with as many as 650 completed at one such event. And Adoption Saturday has grown into a National Adoption Day that has spread to all 50 states. Last year’s national event provided permanent homes for 3,000 children, Nash said.

These numbers are fantastic and as long as those involved in the placement of the kids are screening these families carefully, then both the adoptive parents and the child are very fortunate people.

For so many volunteers to take part in a program such as this a sign of kindness and real American spirit. I can think of few things which would be more rewarding than to think you helped give a child a new lease on life.

As for the Judge who instituted this program and oversees these adoptions, I say bravo. Giving of your time and energy in this manner is something to be admired.

Hillary Clinton is touting her “experience” in the White House as reason to elect her or vote for her in the primaries.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa — The economy needs help and fast, Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Monday, claiming the experience for the job and saying the nation can’t afford to break in a newcomer.

In speech that kicked off a two day campaign swing through Iowa, the New York senator painted a bleak picture of a U.S. economy battered by home foreclosures, rising oil prices and lack of good jobs for middle class workers.

The former first lady compared the situation to 1992, when her husband ran against the first President Bush.

“There seems to be a pattern here. It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush,” she said to applause.

Without mentioning names, she suggested Democratic rival Barack Obama — less than three years into his first term in the Senate — and other candidates lack the experience necessary to address the nation’s myriad fiscal challenges.

“There is one job we can’t afford on-the-job training for — our next president. That could be the costliest job training in history,” Clinton said. “Every day spent learning the ropes is another day of rising costs, mounting deficits and growing anxiety for our families. And they cannot afford to keep waiting.”

The last time I checked, unemployment under former President Clinton was around 5.6% on a good day. We have been hovering around 4% under President Bush for a long time.

Yes, the dollar is falling, but that’s only because Alan Greenspan took the interest rates to almost zero and that allowed people to buy things they otherwise couldn’t afford. Then the adjustable rate mortgages went up and they really couldn’t afford their new houses and toys. We have no one to blame for that but ourselves.

Now, I’m a bit older but when I voted in 1992 and 1996 I remember seeing the name Bill or William Clinton on the top of the Democratic ticket. Nowhere did I see Hillary Clinton, but if her experience as co-president (two for the price of one) is her argument then we could make the argument she is not eligible for the office of President of the United States because she already served two terms.

I wonder how that would fly.

Actually the biggest accomplishments during the Clinton administration came because a Republican Congress forced him to reform welfare and do other things. The so-called balanced budget he left was more of two sets of books and it didn’t take us long to find it out.

If continuing to allow our ships to be blown up without doing a thing about it, waging air wars under the auspices of the United Nations (against our Constitution), scandal in every department of the government including the White House itself and this very candidate (lost files that turned up mysteriously after the statute of limitations had run out), pardons of shady characters, funny money from the Chinese, and outright gifts of our technology to the Chinese for those donations are what they have to offer us again I’m going to pass.

The only good thing I could see in a second Clinton presidency would be maybe they’ll return all the furnishings they trucked off when they left the last time. Even that isn’t enough to get me to vote for her. She can keep the stuff for all I care.

I have no doubt she was a big influence in the Clinton administration, but let’s not get all teary-eyed wishing for the past. It wasn’t anything to brag about.