J's Cafe Nette

Archive for January 19th, 2009

President Bush has commuted the sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean from their eleven and twelve year sentences respectively.

They will be released from prison on March 20 this year. I am not a lawyer and don’t know why it was not reduced to time served, but at least there is a future for them and their families.

These two border patrol agents have been in solitary confinement since they were jailed in 2007. They have been let outside their cells for one hour per day since their imprisonment.

Travel to visit them has been hard for their families because they are in out of state federal prisons.

Thank you, Mr. President, for letting these men have hope again. They were just doing their jobs and hopefully, after five years expire the incoming president or the one who succeeds him, whichever is the case, will give a full pardon to these men so their records are clean as fresh-fallen snow again.

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I must admit to a growing sense of nervousness and fear as we draw closer to the Inauguration of a new president.

I can’t quite put my finger on the source of these feelings, but they are real to me and I have never been so troubled as I am now for our country.

Perhaps this is how the people with BDS felt when President Bush was inaugurated the first time; I don’t know.

We have a man we know almost nothing about because he has refused to release any kind of records to tell us anything about him about to be sworn in as the Leader of the Free World.

He spent ten uneventful years as a state senator in Illinois, racking up numerous “present” votes instead of taking one side or the other on specific issues.

He was in the United States Senate for four years, two of them spent on the campaign trail for the job he is about to take, by his own admission.

What is his experience? What kind of leader is he? What does he mean by change and everyone will have to sacrifice?

He has a strong ally or opponent in Nancy Pelosi, who just Sunday announced she has no problem with raising taxes by repealing the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire in 2010 anyway.

When asked how she can raise taxes during a recession she just gave a gobbledy-gook answer and basically said that’s what she wants. (See transcript.)

When asked if she supports investigating the Bush Administration for crimes committed she said she thinks we should look into that, even though the incoming president says we must look ahead and not behind. Even though she herself signed off on what she is now calling illegal practices and asked if we could do something more harsh than water-boarding.

Is Mr. Obama capable of standing up to this old hand in Washington, or is he so fresh it will be impossible for him to do so?

Already campaign promises are being broken and we are being told all cannot be accomplished in one term. It certainly doesn’t sound like the sure-minded voice of Candidate Obama while he proclaimed across the nation, “Yes, we can!” Yes, we can what?

He has appointed a man who flagrantly refused to pay his back income taxes to be the head of the Treasury Dept. and in charge of the IRS. How can any citizen be honestly prosecuted for not paying their share of income taxes when the head of the agency overseeing this process is guiltier than they?

He has appointed a man who OK’d the pardons of Marc Rich and the FALN so Hillary Clinton could win the Puerto Rican vote in NY and so they could pay back Rich for money given to the Clinton Library.

Holder has also defended Chiquita Company in a lawsuit brought against them in which the company pled guilty to knowingly dealing with Colombian terrorists in order to purchase bananas. Holder then said it was the corporation that was guilty and not any individuals.

It reminds me of the time I had to work all night and get off at 7 am, and was scheduled to return to work at 10 am. I was told the computer made the schedule, but some person had to have programmed the computer.

The corporation made a mistake, but corporations are run by people and to argue they should not be punished is ridiculous, but he won the case.

We have a former congressman and chief of staff to Bill Clinton, Leon Panetta, named as the new CIA head. In a time of two wars do we want someone who knows absolutely nothing about intelligence gathering to head our spy agency?

Obama can’t even make up his mind about what kind of dog to get and I’m supposed to be calm and trust his decisions he made even before the one that seems of such small consequence in the whole scheme of things?

Maybe I can’t put my finger on it because the worries and problems seem so large I must wrap my arms around them to be able to understand why I feel this way.

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One of the religious leaders invited to address Barack Obama’s inaugural prayer service Wednesday heads an Islamic group named by federal prosecutors as a co-conspirator in a terrorism-fundraising trial in Texas.

Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, is scheduled to join Christian ministers and Jewish rabbis offering prayers for the new president and his family during a service at the National Cathedral in Washington, organizers announced Friday. Source

The above are the two opening paragraphs in a Politico report.

What bothers me about the whole thing is the fact a Muslim religious leader has been extended an invitation to lead in a prayer and probably a few words at the National Cathedral, an Episcopal (read Christian church in Washington DC.)

I don’t mind having a Jewish religious leader present as the Jews pray to the same God of Christianity, but the Muslims pray to Allah and Allah and the Great I Am are not one and the same. One exists only in the minds of Muslims while the other exists in reality and is The One to Whom this church was dedicated at its first service.

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I have a problem with a Christian church being desecrated by a Muslim standing at the pulpit and saying anything resembling a prayer to a false god.

I can’t blame Obama for this because he’s trying to make sure everyone’s backside is kissed and it’s tough being president. A president has to be politically correct, but the pastors of the church and whomever is their leader had the duty to say no one who worships a false god will be allowed to take to the pulpit of their church.

To make matters worse, this Muslim religious leader works for a group that is an accused Hamas enabler and she will be standing in a building with a Jewish rabbi, a race her associates are trying to wipe off the map.

This is like inviting Adolph Hitler to a service at the Old Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. You just don’t do it.

This has bothered me to the extent I awakened early Sunday morning with the words, “This is a desecration of the Church!” in my mind after dreaming of the one day coming anti-christ riding into the newly rebuilt temple in Israel on a pig and sitting on the throne meant only for God.

I wish this service had been held outside or in the White House, but never, ever in a Christian church building.

Again, I want to make it clear I hold the church officials responsible for this rather than a new president who, because of the nature of his new job, has to try to please everyone at this event.

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Old Glory. Stars and Stripes. Star Spangled Banner.

Remember rising in the early hours of the school day and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance?

Did you ever feel you stood a little taller as you rose to salute our flag while singing the Star Spangled Banner or as a Color Guard Passed in Review?

Most of us are taught at an early age that Old Glory is a symbol of our freedom. That freedom which we continue to enjoy today has been secured for us by men and women of all color who have sacrificed of themselves of behalf of this country and yes, in defense of the American Flag.

There could be no better example than that of Arlington National Cemetery over the Memorial Day weekend:

Some have burned the flag in protest of what they termed unjust wars.
Others in foreign nations have desecrated our national symbol in various ways.

Those here at home who have treated the flag in a less than patriotic manner may have received their fifteen minutes of fame but are soon forgotten.

Through it all and the many wars in which the Stars and Stripes have flown, there is still something which stirs within many of us. It is pride.

See, the American Flag is bigger than any of us. It represents an entire Union, one which has remained indivisible for ages. No one can take it away. Individual claim can not be laid upon it.

Red Skeleton had this to say about Old Glory:

I – - Me; an individual; a committee of one.

Pledge – - Dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity.

Allegiance – - My love and my devotion.

To the Flag – - Our standard; Old Glory ; a symbol of Freedom; wherever she waves there is respect, because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts, Freedom is everybody’s job.

United – - That means that we have all come together.

States – - Individual communities that have united into forty-eight great states. Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose. All divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose, and that is love for country.

And to the Republic – - Republic–a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people; and it’s from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.

For which it stands

One Nation – - One Nation–meaning, so blessed by God.

Indivisible – - Incapable of being divided.

With Liberty – - Which is Freedom; the right of power to live one’s own life, without threats, fear, or some sort of retaliation.

And Justice – - The principle, or qualities, of dealing fairly with others.

For All – - For All–which means, boys and girls, it’s as much your country as it is mine.

(written prior to Alaska and Hawaii being admitted into the Union)

I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag
Of The United States Of America

These are strong meaningful words and not meant to be taken lightly.

The text was not altered due to the presidential election to read:
I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag
Of The United States of Barack Obama

Folks, we better pray that no man or woman ever becomes so powerful in this country that such use of our flag is condoned.

Instead, let us praise those like this courageous flag bearing athlete at the 1980 Olympic Games:

For example, the flag should never be dipped to any person or thing, unless it is the ensign responding to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation. (This tradition may come from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, where countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII: the American flag bearer did not. Team captain Martin Sheridan is famously quoted as saying “this flag dips to no earthly king,”

[emphasis-mine]

Call me old, prudish, a republican or whatever you may, but those 50 Stars and 13 Stripes to me are very dear.

I would hope it is as relished by our incoming President and he rejects this form of hero worship.

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