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Thanksgiving Greetings

November 24, 2010 by · Comments Off on Thanksgiving Greetings 

Thanksgiving Greetings, (AP) – One of Congress’ most likable veterans, Rep. Charles Rangel, would become the 23rd House member in the nation’s history to be censured if the House goes along with a recommendation of its ethics committee.

After Thanksgiving, House members will take up the solemn task of disciplining one of their own when the New York Democrat is reproached for financial and fundraising misconduct.

It will be one of the more unpleasant jobs in the waning days of the 111th Congress because the congressman from Harlem is legendary for his friendliness and greetings to anyone he passes on the grounds of the Capitol.

The normally self-confident, 80-year-old Rangel, newly re-elected with 40 years of House service behind him, was reduced to pleading with the ethics committee Thursday to refrain from calling him corrupt.

It didn’t.

“Although prior committee precedent for recommendation of censure involved many cases of direct financial gain, this committee’s recommendation of censure is based on the cumulative nature of the violations and not any direct personal financial gain,” the committee said in a report.

The ethics committee deliberated about three hours before voting 9-1 to recommend a censure, plus a requirement that Rangel pay taxes he owes on income from a vacation villa in the Dominican Republic.

If the House agrees to a censure resolution, Rangel would stand before his colleagues at the front of the chamber — known as the well — where the resolution of censure would be read by the speaker of the House.

The House has the option of changing the punishment to a reprimand, which eliminates an oral rebuke at the well.

Rangel was convicted in an ethics trial this week by a panel of lawmakers on 11 counts of ethical wrongdoing, including his use of House letterheads and staff to solicit money for a college center named after him. A number of the donors had business before the House Ways and Means Committee while Rangel served as chairman.

Rangel also filed a decade’s worth of misleading financial statements understating his assets and converted a subsidized New York apartment — designated for residential use — into a campaign office. Other tenants who violated their lease got evicted.

The tax issue was a sore point for several members of the ethics committee, who said it was especially egregious that a former chairman of the House’s tax-writing committee failed for 17 years to pay taxes on the income from his island villa.

It’s unclear how much Rangel owes in taxes. An ethics committee document indicated he owed $16,775 as of 1990, but Rangel has paid some of his back taxes.

The Rangel case won’t end the ethics committee’s business. On Nov. 29, the panel of five Democrats and five Republicans will hold an ethics trial for Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

Waters is vigorously fighting charges that she improperly attempted to get federal financial aid for a bank where her husband is an investor.

Thanksgiving Wishes

November 24, 2010 by · Comments Off on Thanksgiving Wishes 

Thanksgiving Wishes, Thanksgiving is the celebration that is rich in traditions. Whether gathering with family, friends or neighbors, is the feast of the community.
Scharnweber clan, all adults living in their own houses still go home to La Grange Park Thanksgiving. Marcia (aka mom) said: “If I did not make that green bean casserole, I do not think they would come.”
300 block of Catalina Avenue is a tradition that everyone on the block can participate at bringing together the elements to send troops, topics include chips, granola bars, Oreo cookies, soup, Campbell’s Chunky Rice Krispies trafficking and magazines, among others. Each soldier she loves getting mail and really appreciate a letter of support, appreciation, a letter from the kids on the block, especially during the holidays. A neighbor has a box on the porch and has all the elements, along with monetary donations to cover shipping costs.
I have the feeling of Thanksgiving this year will return to simpler forms and simpler times. Is it the economy? Or the people who are tired of walking and want to enjoy the rest of the day’s holiday to give thanks for what you have?
That feeling of wanting to keep what is near the penalty was confirmed when I visited Plymouth Place Senior Living? 315 N. LaGrange Road, and spoke to some residents.
Elaine Kennedy has lived in Plymouth Place Senior Living? For a little over a year. She is very happy there and even happier that his daughter lives in the area.
. “I’m going to my daughter’s house for Thanksgiving; lives in Western Springs Five of the children shall be there. Home of two of the university and conducting a flight from New York Come to the table and state what we are grateful y. was fun when the children were young. ”
Elaine is grateful for his family and friends and their health and geraniums still blooming on the balcony!
In talking with Dan and Raedell Pancake, the true meaning of Thanksgiving could not have been more sincere. Dan is currently in rehabilitation at Plymouth Place Senior Living and Raedell stays with him during his stay. They have five children.
“Our greatest gift is our family. We work on it, it takes practice,” says Dan. “I can honestly say if they were our children, we still would love to have lunch with any of them. We have been blessed with a family that works.”
This year, the tradition of the kitchen Raedell will change a little, all kids Pancake and their wives and / or boyfriends will come home to the residence of the top of the crepe in Willow Springs and cook dinner for their parents.
“We have a chef in the family and with new brides and grooms, one of Columbia, one in Mexico, we will have a variety of Thanksgiving at home, like Raedell wanted When you’re a dear mother, your children honor their wishes.”says Dan.
As with Elaine, the pancakes are very grateful for all they have. Health, family, friends, good food prepared with love. Happy Thanksgiving and all the blessings of the season!

Thanksgiving Quotes

November 24, 2010 by · Comments Off on Thanksgiving Quotes 

Thanksgiving Quotes, Understanding many Americans have of the early history of their country is stuck in the level of competition Thanksgiving and rhymes about the navigation of Columbus Blue Ocean. “The truth is more complicated and less uplifting. The Europeans who came to the Americas were not meek refugees were conquerors. Some came for freedom, many came for gold and the majority belonged to the land. They took what they wanted and justify their ruthless methods in the same way today’s jihadists to justify their own: God wanted it.

In recounting the fierce war that occurred in the years shortly after the legendary first Thanksgiving, Zinn cites the Puritan leader William Bradford description of an English attack on a Pequot village. Bradford recalled that the Indians who escaped from their homes on fire were slain with the sword, cut into pieces and pierced by swords. Few in the town escaped. At least 400 – and perhaps up to 600 – were killed.

Bradford wrote:

It was a terrible sight to see them frying in the Fyer, and streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke present and that, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and (the English) gave the prayers thereof to God, who had done so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands…

This was just one of many reciprocal atrocities that only ended when the Indians were driven off their land and almost exterminated.

Going back a century before Plymouth Rock Foundation seminal our history, Zinn cites the men who witnessed the slaughter that Columbus went after the New World opened in 1492. Back to Spain from his first voyage, Columbus made wild promises to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, telling them to bring shiploads of gold and hordes of slaves if they want to finance a second expedition. Had 17 ships and 1,200 men who proceeded to murder his way through the Caribbean islands.

They found very little gold and enslaved thousands of Indians died, but Columbus and his men kept trying. In the process, which killed entire populations of people who had innocently received Columbus with gifts and hospitality?

Zinn rightly asserts that the understanding of history has an impact on contemporary life and politics. If this were not so, there would be fights in the local school boards about the history textbooks and curriculum. Zinn purpose in writing his own version of American history was to fill the huge gaps left by women, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, poor workers and immigrants while white, male presidents, generals, adventurers and capitalists most of the credit for building the nation.

Zinn’s book has page after page of critical analysis ruthless jewel tones of the American experience with dark intentions. Zinn facts are solid and many of their performances are convincing. However, his revisionism is, in its way, an incomplete story that requires a broader context.

There is nothing unique about the cruelty that accompanied the arrival of Europeans on American shores. Human history in all times and all places is a record of invasion, plunder, slaughter and subjugation. The ancient Hebrews could have said that they were entering the Promised Land, but taking it for swords. The Romans built a great civilization legions marched behind. The Mongols carved an empire in the blood of their homeland in the eastern end of Asia to the borders of Europe. In the eighth century, Muslims from North Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar and conquered most of Portugal and Spain, only to be expelled from their last stronghold Iberian Columbus sailed the same year.

Not that the English invaders of North America is exempt from the ruling simply saying everyone does. But it is important to understand their sins were not unique. And, if we are to give full context, it is worth noting that the country the Puritans of New England Shakespeare left behind in 1620 had produced only a generation earlier. There are good and bad in every society and every human being. Unlike Columbus, the English settlers were not driven by gold and glory. Their motivations were more complex and brought with them an emerging vision of human rights that Americans would ask Zinn dispossessed again and again to push the limits of freedom in the coming centuries.

Now, the Puritan vision of personal autonomy did not extend far beyond their own narrow field of rigid religion and private property – and certainly not extended to Indians, according to William Bradford had a “natural right” but not a legal right to their land. However, since the small seed grew the American declaration that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Zinn notes that when Thomas Jefferson wrote these words, “all men” more or less mean white male Protestant landowners. But we can celebrate Thanksgiving Day is the path we have taken Plymouth and Monticello to a truly inclusive experience of freedom.

Like Jefferson, the slave owner who wrote so eloquently about freedom, we get caught by monsters of our past, however, like him, we send our dreams forward and, by laying claim to ancestral promises, making real.

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