(from http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/19/20582863-mozart-and-french-cars-what-we-know-about-the-popes-likes-and-why-it-matters?lite)
". . . Pope Francis took a selfie with youths from the Italian Diocese of Piacenza and Bobbio inside St. Peter's Basilica in August.
— Selfies. Benedict XVI started the official Vatican Twitter account, @pontifex, and Francis makes use of it almost daily. (Why not? He already has more than a billion followers.)
But the new pope is just as much an Instagram guy. In August, a group of 500 young people was visiting the Vatican from a diocese in Italy. He called them “bearers of hope,” and then mugged for the camera. Behold, the papal selfie. . ."
(from http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/49470)
". . . Most of those who hold public office are drunk with the intoxication of power.
Republicans, we are learning more and more, are led by a Speaker of the House who is not only drunk from power but also, based on his actions and the smell that accompanies him, is blasted from the effects of too much booze.
Speaker John Boehner‘s severely affected mental state comes from his drinking and increases his inability to deal with his failures as leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and as the man that Americans blame most often for the government shutdown that is dragging his party into political oblivion.
Bob Ney, Boehner’s one time Ohio GOP colleague who went to prison for his part in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, is one of the few Republicans willing to publicly discusses Boehner’s drinking.
Ney calls Boehner “a chain-smoking, relentless wine drinker more interested in the high-life — women, cigarettes, fun and alcohol.” The Speaker, Ney says, “golfed, drank constantly, and took the easy way legislatively.”
Ney’s criticism might be excused as the bitter ramblings of a politician caught in his own vices, but other Republicans also say publicly and privately that Boehner is a lightweight who drinks too much.
Former Florida GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough, now a talk show host, says “so many Republicans tell me this is a guy that is not the hardest worker in the world. After 5 o’clock, 6 o’cock at night, he is disengaged at best. You can see him around town…you can see him at bars.”
Boehner is a regular at The Capitol Hill Club, a GOP club where members of Congress often get drunk in the basement bar.
“Is John Boehner a drunk? Of course he is,” a House GOP aide says his boss grumbled to him recently. “He’s a boozer.”
When Boehner became Speaker of the House in 2011, more than a few Republicans shook their head and wondered why. Some speculated on just how long it would be before their new Speaker got caught drunk in public.
Ney, in his book: “Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill,” wrote that Boehner broke promises to him, including one to take care of his Ohio colleague if he would resign from Congress during the Abramoff affair.
In 2006, Boehner, then House Majority Leader, called Ney to his office and said to the embattled Congressman:
If you resign the next day, I will personally guarantee you a job comparable to what you are making, and raise legal defense money for you that should bury all this Justice Department problem for you.
Ney says he took the advice and quit and Boehner walked away from him and did nothing.
Unlike Boehner, Ney admits being a drunk. In his book, Ney writes:
After a night of drinking, I concluded that it was better for my children financially if I were to die before going broke. My problem with alcohol became an alcohol problem on steroids from 2005 to 2006, escalating into blackouts, anger, depression, extreme sadness. You name it. I experienced it.
Ney says he took his last drink on Sept. 13, 2006. Like many in recovery, he deals with his dependance on alcohol by being honest about himself and others around him.
As a fellow recovering alcoholic who has been sober since June 7, 1994, I can recognize what Ney is going through and also believe his stories about Boehner and the drinking problem of the Speaker of the House.
My friends and contacts on Capitol Hill from my days as a Congressional staff member (press secretary, chief of staff and committee staffer) from 1981-87 and a later stint from 1987-1992 as Vice President of Political Programs for the National Association of Realtors, tell me that Boehner’s bouts with alcohol abuse are well known around Capitol Hill and the subject of much concern.
On December 20th of last year, Boehner stood before Congress, after his Republican colleagues defeated his “Plan B” for avoiding a fiscal cliff and said: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
More than a few of the House members in the chamber know the words that Boehner spoke. They comprise the Serenity Prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous.
A week later, after voting for a bill that brought even more criticism from the conservative wing of the GOP, Boehner spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby, walked up and jabbed a finger at the Democratic Leader, and said “go fuck yourself!”
Republicans with Boehner said he reeked of alcohol at the time.
It’s one thing to be drunk with power. It’s even worse to be a drunk who abuses power. . ."
I don't know John McCain personally. Honestly, he's not exactly a personal hero to me. I wouldn't vote for him for president. As time goes on though, I'm thinking maybe . . . NAHH!!! With time however, I am seeing what I believe to be a thoughtful, principled and conscientious public servant, a decent human being. . . and man with a sense of humor too.
(from www.wikipedia.com)
". . . John McCain's early military career began when he was commissioned an ensign and started two and a half years of training at Pensacola to become a naval aviator. . . His combat duty began when he was 30 years old, in mid-1967, when Forrestal was assigned to a bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, during the Vietnam War. . . John McCain's capture and subsequent imprisonment began on October 26, 1967. He was flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi. McCain fractured both arms and a leg ejecting from the aircraft, and nearly drowned when he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake. Some North Vietnamese pulled him ashore, then others crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted him. McCain was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton".
Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to treat his injuries, beating and interrogating him to get information; he was given medical care only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral. His status as a prisoner of war (POW) made the front pages of major newspapers.
McCain spent six weeks in the hospital while receiving marginal care. By then having lost 50 pounds, in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white, McCain was sent to a different camp on the outskirts of Hanoi[39] in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week. In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years. . .
(Later, after pursuing his political ambitions). . . McCain developed a reputation for independence during the 1990s. He took pride in challenging party leadership and establishment forces, becoming difficult to categorize politically. . ."
The Washington Post wrote that an NBC-WSJ showed that seven in
10 people agreed with the statement that Republicans are “putting their
own political agenda ahead of what is good for the country”. At the other end, only
27 percent said that the GOP is “demonstrating strong leadership
and standing up for what they believe in.”
House Republicans repeatedly said that their efforts to derail the Affordable Care Act were in response to the wishes of the American people.
WHAT American People???? I shouted at the radio or television every time I heard it.
Why didn't our dear friends in the press, who daily bring us the mealy-mouths and pasty faces of these cartoonish "public servants", ASK THIS QUESTION???
I think the outcome of this debacle answers MY question.
(based upon http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tomdews and http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tomdews2)
Georgia-born singer/songwriter/bluesman TOM DEWS puts guitar/simultaneous harmonica and vocals together to create a satisfying blend of original acoustic folk and blues. Growing up in South Georgia and Central Florida he soaked up roots rhythms and fished the Flint, Ocmulgee, Chatahoochee and Oklawaha rivers. After recent sojourns in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Dews makes his home now in Washington, DC.
Tom released his first recording, EPIPHANIES & EPITAPHS, after a successful tour in Ireland several years ago. The CD features original songs and instrumentals, some collected from years of playing coffeehouses and bars from Savannah to Minneapolis, and some stuff inspired by the time in Ireland. Reflecting on his musical adventures Dews says, " A novelist creates a fictive dream, and when done well there are revelations for the reader. My interest is in creating a mood, at once mirthful and melancholy - a sort of re-creation of the old 'hearth' experience. Created by artist and audience together, this mood-edifice can generate spontaneous improvisations that are nourishing for everybody - a sort of musical epiphany can strike its seal into the world."
Tom surrounds gritty vocals with deft acoustic guitar and haunting harmonica to provide a satisfying foray down the back roads of literate folk/blues. Collected on his third CD (DRIVING DREAMS), are songs of loss and regret, blues to soothe, and anthems of hope. He counts among his influences Mose Allison, Lyle Lovett, J.J. Walker, Delbert McClinton, Pierce Pettis, Keb Mo and Tom Kimmel. You’ll hear him in his familiar mode here doing the simultaneous guitar/harp thing in an inimitable way, but there are also two piano solo pieces and several National Resophonic instrumentals.
(from http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/Woman-Stabs-Boyfriend-In-Eye-After-He-Refuses-to-Have--Sex-Deputies--227065371.html)
". . .A Florida woman stabbed her boyfriend in the eye with a knife after he refused to have sex with her and another woman she had brought home from a local club, authorities said.
The late September incident occurred after La Crystal King-Woolfork, 28, came home from a spot called Shake Your Booty Club with another woman at about 4 a.m. The two women had sex, and then King-Woolfork asked her boyfriend to participate, according to an Indian River Sheriff’s Office arrest report.
When he refused, the intoxicated King-Woolfork “became very angry and grabbed a knife,” the boyfriend told authorities.
The two struggled until the man was able to take the knife from King-Woolfork and hide it between the mattresses of the bed, according to deputies.
He left the house and called for a ride to the hospital, the report said. She was arrested on an attempted murder charge on Sept. 26 after police spoke to her boyfriend.
When police spoke to King-Woolfork, she said confirmed that she brought the woman home to have sex and wanted her boyfriend to join.
When the other woman left, and her boyfriend was in bed, King-Woolfork said she “picked up a knife off the dresser because she knew (her boyfriend) was going to get mad,” the arrest report said. She said her then boyfriend took her hand to take the knife and the two struggled, which cut her knee, the report said.
The fight escalated and she hit her boyfriend in the head with her cell phone, King-Woolfork said.
She denied stabbing him but said she had hit him in the face several times with a metal candle holder, according to deputies. Then he punched her in the nose, the report said.
It wasn’t immediately known if she had an attorney. . ."
(from The Hidden History of 9-11, Edited by Paul Zarembka)
". . . According to Chossudovsky (2004), the 9-11 attacks have been used as "a war pretext incident," in which the over twenty-year history of the CIA inventing and supporting the terrorist network that is now call al-Qaeda has been "shoved to the background".
The fact that the successive US governments since the Soviet-Afghan
war have supported and abetted the Islamic terror network is no longer
mentioned for obvious reasons. It would break the consensus regarding
al-Qaeda as the outside enemy of America, which is a crucial building
block of the entire National Security doctrine. (Chossudovsky, 2004)
Focusing on the 9-11 "hijackers," we have shown that the US government withheld crucial evidence from the public for no justifiable reason, fabricated other evidence in support of its story, and confiscated and destroyed still other evidence which would prove that story a falsehood. . ."
