Hi everybodies! Its me, LindaSoG! and… guess what today is?
Yep. That’s right, today is Chrissie’s birthday!
Yannow… I’ve known Chrissie for many years, long before we got ourselves our blogs, and I can tell you that every single day has been a treasure for me. We met on another forum, when Chrissie was still living out west, in the land of movie stars. We met on a “support the troops” thread, it seems like yesterday, and yet… so much has happened since then.
From the first day we met, there was a connection between us, a sense of “coming home,” a feeling that I had known Chrissie my entire life. More than a friend, Chrissie is the sister I would choose to have.
I put my website up in 2002, and I helped Chrissie put up her own shortly after. We played with our pages, emailed our comments to friends and then, in 2004, my site became my blog. I tried to talk Chrissie into blogging as well, but she was hesitant. I think some of the hesitation was because she didn’t want to trouble me (as if!) and I just nodded my head and waited.
And then, one fine day in August of 2006, I came home from work and found a message on my answering machine from Chrissie, and in between the giggles she said…. “Linda…. I want a blog.” Theodore’s World was born.
Setting up Theodore’s World was a joy! Chrissie and I spent hours talking about it, planning it, choosing pictures, colors, layout. “Can I have my bears?” she wanted to know, “and my dolls? Will people take me seriously if I do?” I told her “Hell yeah they will, you can do whatever you want, just be you.” And I was right. Chrissie puts a tremendous amount of time and energy into each post, and it shows. Theodore’s World has been viewed by over a million people in the two years it has been up, more than my site, and more than many. I would call that a success.
What makes it success? Chrissie does. Her heart and her soul are in every post. Theodore’s World is a serious place, and Chrissie is a serious person, but… and this is a big but… Theodore’s World is also a happy place, a friendly place, a loving place, and Chrissie is a happy, friendly and loving person. Being here is like sitting on Chrissie’s couch, having a cup of coffee and a warm conversation with a dear friend. The bears are part of the scenery.
And today, well, today is our dear friend Chrissie’s birthday! Have a piece of cake and join the celebration!
Chrissie! Hurry up and blow out the candles before I burn the internet down!
Happy Birthday my dearest friend, and thank for all you do! I honestly don’t know how I would get through my days without having you in my life.
I love you!
LindaSoG
Pilots from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 238th General Support Aviation Brigade, a National Guard unit from Shelbyville, Ind., conducted a flyover at the flag-raising ceremony held at Forward Operating Base Delta, Iraq, March 22. More than 150 U.S. Soldiers and civilians attended the ceremony for a flag that had lain on the grounds of a Georgia apartment complex for almost a week in February until it was taken by Dan Turner, a passerby, who sent it to Iraq to have its honor restored. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Stacy Niles.
Soldiers Restore Honor to Old Glory
By Sgt. 1st Class Stacy Niles
214th FB PAO
FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA
More than 150 U.S. Soldiers and civilians restored honor to a U.S. flag that lay lonely and forgotten on the grounds of a Georgia apartment complex for almost a week in February.
The flag was retrieved by a passerby who could not stand seeing the flag treated in such a manner.
Having passed the discarded flag twice, Dan Turner took the flag the third time he saw it lying on the ground and sent it to his friend Chief Warrant Officer 4 Thomas Golden of the Joint Forces Headquarters Forward, Georgia National Guard.
“This flag was being used as landscape art and a business flagging without the daily outdoor ceremony it deserved. In the end it simply was allowed to lie in the mud of the Irwin Bridge right-of-way for a week while managers, landscape personnel and employees, residents and neighbors simply ignored it lying on the ground,” wrote Turner in a letter to the apartment complex, sheriff’s department, judges and the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
After taking the flag, Turner e-mailed Golden and asked if he would fly the flag at Forward Operating Base Delta, Iraq. Turner cleaned the flag and shipped it to Golden who was more than happy to restore the flag’s honor before returning it to Turner.
“The U.S. flag for me is more than just a piece of cloth to be flown or displayed as a matter of convenient patriotism or decoration. It is the one true symbolic representation of what our nation and her principles stand for,” Golden said. “Also, many great men and women have served in uniform, and in many cases, died for advancing freedom and democracy as well as the preservation and perpetuation of our freedom, liberty and way of life we enjoy every day which our flag symbolizes.
“It’s our flag, and people don’t always pay it the respect it’s due,” he said.
Turner and Golden, who have been friends for more than 16 years, share a strong sense of patriotism which is shown annually on Memorial Day weekend when they drive to Marietta National Cemetery to place wreaths on the graves of Turner’s father and brother. Turner’s father fought in World War II and his brother died in Vietnam at the Battle of Hue. Turner’s mother served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II.
After placing the wreaths on the graves, Golden and Turner walk the entire cemetery to pick up and replace any flags that may have fallen after being placed by Boy Scouts.
“Dan and I feel as though no flag, no matter how small or great, can be left upon the ground if we have the ability to take action and correct the situation,” Golden said, “which is exactly what Dan did by ‘rescuing’ the current flag.
“Unfortunately, our society has come to take for granted the sacrifices that have been made throughout our history to ensure our way of life will survive and endure no matter the source or location of the threat. It is for these and many other reasons I feel so strongly that our flag should never be allowed to be desecrated in any form or fashion,” he said.
Title 4, Section 8 of the U.S. Code says the flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water or merchandise. The section goes on to say that the flag should never be fastened, displayed, used or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled or damaged.
To restore the flag’s honor, Golden and Soldiers from 214th Fires Brigade organized a flag-raising ceremony March 22 attended by Soldiers and civilians.
“I’m really thankful that a lot of folks came out,” Golden said. “What made it even better was its simplicity. People came because they wanted to and they came out of respect.”
The ceremony offered a way for those who believe in the flag to be united, said Chap. (Maj.) Michael Hoffman, the 214th FB chaplain.
“I appreciated this citizen taking the time to remember and act on what the flag stands for,” Hoffman said. “Being a part of the ceremony and restoring honor is just a way for us to be included with him in honoring both the flag and our nation.
“I wonder what people were thinking, but I am grateful for this man taking the time to do something. I am inspired by him taking the initiative to do something,” said Hoffman of those who allowed the flag to remain on the ground. “You can say how you feel about this country, but this guy proved it by what he did.”
Turner was charged with theft for taking the flag, but he expresses no regrets in doing what he did.
“I wanted to make this issue a statement and I’m willing to bear the consequence of my actions to the sheriff as directed by the judge or the property owner,” said Turner in his letter. “There is no excuse for common theft, yet I felt compelled to take action now and worry about the consequences later.
“I find no pride in breaking the law, but there are mitigating circumstances that put me over the line,” Turner said. “Allowing this flag to lie in the mud was a disgrace; however, my lack of action would have been even more disgraceful. I acted on the behalf of all those that did not, could not or would not take action.”
Wild Thing’s comment……..
What an amazing and wonderful thing to do. Awesome!
But it is a disgrace what the local authorities and apartment complex owner did. No no fines for the dirtbags who desecrated the symbol of our Republic??????!!!!
I guess the Sheriff can’t find something better to do than arrest this flag-rescuer, he needs to be turned out of office at the first opportunity.
There is no need to “restore an American flag’s honor”, for it can NOT be taken, lost, defiled, burned out, torn out or stamped out.
It exists permanently and indestructible in the hearts of all Americans who have fought or died defending the concepts for which she stands…
It’s place in our hearts is either that of an honored icon or our hearts are turned against it and its meaning…
Did our warriors returning from Vietnam “lose their honor” simply because morons called them murderers, spit on them or celebrated the lies being told about them by traitors like Kerry and Fonda? Of course not…
Honor can never be diminished by the dishonorable conduct of dishonorable morons or traitors…
Those who fail to show the proper respect to our flag – dishonor themselves, not our flag..
Those who burn our flag, dishonor themselves and publicly proclaim themselves as ignorant and undeserving of the blessings available under that flag..
I dream of the day, when the intentional desecration of the American flag in America is considered grounds for receiving a violent thrashing that will bear witness for the remainder of the moron’s life..
The “folks” in Atlanta who allowed this disrespectful treatment of the flag -— would enjoy sitting in on a Rev. Wright’s sermon alongside of Senator Obama -——— who not only refuses to wear a flag pin but even refused to salute the flag during the playing of our National Anthem.
Thank you Mr. Turner!
And God bless our troops in Iraq!
Gore launches $300 mln climate change campaign
Reuters
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
Al Gore, former U.S. vice president, Academy Award winner and Nobel peace laureate, on Monday launched a $300 million, three-year campaign to mobilize Americans on climate change.
“We can solve the climate crisis, but it will require a major shift in public opinion and engagement,” Gore said in a statement.
“The technologies exist, but our elected leaders don’t yet have the political will to take the bold actions required. When politicians hear the American people calling loud and clear for change, they’ll listen,” he said.
A longtime environmental activist, Gore chairs the Alliance for Climate Protection, which unveiled the “We” campaign with a series of videos, a Web site — www.wecansolveit.org — and a television advertisement set to air during such programs as “American Idol,” “House,” and “Law & Order.”
The first ad likens the battle against climate change to U.S. troops storming the beaches at Normandy during World War Two, the struggle for civil rights and the drive to send humans to the moon.
“We didn’t wait for someone else” to tackle these historic problems, the actor William H. Macy says in the spot. “We can’t wait for someone else to solve the global climate crisis. We need to act now.”
Future spots are expected to feature such “unlikely allies” as civil rights activist Al Sharpton and conservative preacher Pat Robertson, and country singers Toby Keith and the Dixie Chicks speaking together against climate change.
“What’s different about this (campaign) is for the first time ever, we’re going to be able to reach the general public in their daily lives through television, through media, through community-based organizations … and online,” Cathy Zoi, the alliance’s chief executive officer, said by telephone.
Zoi said that ultimately the United States needs new laws to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that spur climate change, “but frankly, in the first instance, we want to get people to join the movement.”
She said 9 percent to 10 percent of Americans are already active in the movement against climate change, and 80 percent are aware of the problem.
Wild Thing’s comment……..
I find this commercial extremely offensive. To compare global warming kooks with men who sacrificed and saw their fellow soldiers be blown apart on the beaches is sickening. When do we get to call in airstrikes against the eviro-whacks?
LOL I can’t help but laugh though at the title of the writer of the article…….”Environment Correspondent”….good grief.
Iraqi Security Forces discovered a cache in a 6-ton truck in a garage in al Qasim, Iraq, April 2. The cache contained more than 1000 EFP components, more than 3000 pounds of explosives, 45 Katusha 107 mm rockets and stands.
ISF find largest EFP cache to date
By 4th BCT, 3rd Inf. Div. PAO
FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq
A tip led Iraqi Security Forces to the largest explosively-formed penetrator cache found to date in Multi-National Division – Center’s area of operation, April 2. The munitions were discovered in a 6-ton truck in a garage in al Qasim.
The cache contained more than 1000 EFP components, more than 3000 pounds of explosives and 45 Katusha 107 mm rockets and stands. Also included in the cache were more than 10 devices used to detonate improvised explosive devices, 250 PKC rounds, 10 60 mm mortar shells and one 60 mm stand.
The rockets are believed to have been manufactured in Iran.
“The ISF continue to confiscate the lethal tools of the enemy, disrupt the enemy’s freedom of maneuver, and apprehend key members of the (criminal) leadership,” said Capt. Michael Ranado, battle captain for 31st Military Transition Team, 4th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division. “The IP (Iraqi Police) and IA (Iraqi Army) have successfully provided security for the people of the Babil province and continue vigilantly to do so.”
The cache was moved to the Joint Coordination Center in Hillah.
Hillary Clinton Visit to Children at the Hospital
(Story originally appreared in the American Spectator, March 97)
Also here
It seems that Hillary, who’s had her fingerprints found on all the new scandals that are breaking on a daily basis is trying to fix her public image.
So, to promote the new effort, showing how deeply Hillary cares about children, especially sick children in hospitals, Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington got a call. Hillary Clinton would be coming over soon with children’s author Maurice Sendak. Hillary’s advance team would be showing up arranging the security and logistics. The team did show up. What they saw horrified them.
The kids in the hospital children’s ward really looked sick! Some of them had tubes sticking out. Some had lost their hair to chemotherapy. Some were groggy because of the pain killers they had to take.
Hospital officials were quickly told this would not do. Hillary would look bad in a newspaper photo if she posed with sickly looking children. They were told. “No children that look drowsy, skip bald kids, sick looking kids, or kids with tubes sticking out.”
So here’s what the hospital actually did. They outfitted a hospital conference room with toys and kids decorations. They ordered hospital staff members to bring in their healthy children who would pose as sick children in photos with the great St. Hillary.
So, on January 10th, Hillary Clinton showed up to Georgetown University Medical Center and read to a bunch of kids with author Maurice Sendak. Had you read the papers or heard the news the next day, you might have been bowled over by her compassion. Actually she demonstrated the opposite. You see the real sick kids, who were originally told they would be visited by the first lady were originally extremely happy and excited at the prospect of her visit.
When they were later told, they were too sick looking to be with the great Hillary, some became deeply depressed. After all how would anyone feel not being good enough for Ms. compassion herself.
Of course the press published the photos of Hillary reading to the cute kids the next day. They just forgot to tell you that Hillary, in the quest of the perfect photo could not bring herself to be photographed with an actual sick child.
The phony mask of compassion that Hillary hides behind has slipped once again. Just around Purim time too!
Wild Thing’s comment……..
Hitlery is the one who’s sick…she has no heart!!!! She is such a total piece of crap! What a sick DEMONIC woman she is. To USE children in any way and sick children to be treated this way by her is so horrible.
And can you imagine the kind of people who serve on Hillary’s staff? How does she find people who have absolutely no shame or self-esteem to fetch for her? I mean, they have to be scumbags too. Also seen here from 1997 at Official White House link: THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ….Please click to read For Immediate Release January 10, 1997 REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
AT CHILD DEVELOPMENT EVENT
Georgetown Medical Center
Washington, DC
A youth ‘on track’ until fatal gunfire
Football player’s dreams die in a flurry of bullets in South L.A. Los Angeles Times
Stanford University called about Jamiel Shaw a week or so ago, intrigued by the slight but speedy running back for Los Angeles High School, the Southern League’s most valuable player last year. Rutgers University called a few days later.
The Shaw family already had reason to be proud. Jamiel’s mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, was on her second tour of duty in Iraq.
Jamiel Sr. heard the shots almost as soon as he hung up. He ran out of the house, raced around the corner and found his son lying on the sidewalk, bleeding.
“She’s over there trying to protect us from guns and bombs, and then she has to hear that her son is dead over here,” he said of Anita on Monday. “I’ve got my own personal Iraq now.”
Los Angeles police officials described the killing as random and senseless, cutting down a youth who had been doing everything right in his life — from hitting the books to never missing church to inspiring the Los Angeles High Romans to last year’s Southern League title.
A police spokeswoman said two Latino men pulled up in a car, jumped out, asked Jamiel if he belonged to a gang, and shot him when he didn’t answer. She said Jamiel was not affiliated with a gang.
Jamiel’s teammates called him the “the spirit of the team.”
.
L.A. shares blame in teen’s death LA Daily News
By Doug McIntyre, Columnist
Doug McIntyre hosts the “McIntyre in the Morning” program on Talk Radio 790 KABC ANITA Shaw says, “My country let me down.”
It’s hard to argue with her. Not only did America let Anita Shaw down, so did California and Los Angeles. Truth be told, Anita Shaw is being diplomatic, if not generous, by not lashing out in righteous indignation at the massive tragedy she has suffered at the hands of an indifferent government. Our government: federal, state and local.
Who is Anita Shaw and why should you care what she says? Pull up a chair.
Anita Shaw is a sergeant in the United States Army. On March 2, little more than a month ago, she was serving in Iraq when her CO told her to report to the Red Cross office. It was there she learned her 17-year-old son, Jamiel Shaw II, had been murdered – gunned down exactly three doors away from his own home.
Jamiel Shaw Sr. heard the shots that killed his son; one to the chest, one between the eyes. Jamiel Sr. sprinted down the block, arriving just ahead of the police. The cops found him standing over his son, already dead, still clutching the cell phone he had used to tell his dad he’d soon be home. Now he was never coming home.
But his mother was. Sgt. Shaw was given 20 minutes to pack for a flight out of Baghdad. Jamiel Shaw was a star football player with a solid GPA and a bright future. He was the apple of his father and mother’s eye; a hero to his kid brother, 9-year-old Thomas. Tom Shaw wanted to be a football player like Jamiel. Maybe even wear his big brother’s number 4. That was before. Now Thomas wants to be “a scientist” so he can “invent a time machine” and go back and save his brother. Shaw’s killer? Police believe they have him – 19-year-old Pedro Espinosa, an illegal alien gangbanger, a killer for the 18th Street Gang.
And here’s how America let Sgt. Shaw down: Pedro Espinosa should never have been allowed into this country.
Here’s how California failed Sgt. Shaw: It allowed Pedro Espinosa to live in a state that does nothing about its open borders except shift the blame to Washington.
Here’s how Los Angeles failed Sgt. Shaw: We accommodated gangs, we still throw out the welcome mat for illegal aliens, we allowed Pedro Espinosa to serve 180 days on gun charges without checking his immigration status. We released Espinosa onto the streets, and 24 hours later he murdered Jamiel Shaw II.
While Jamiel’s mother patrolled the streets of Baghdad, helping spare Iraqi mothers the grief Los Angeles visited upon her, we did nothing. This transcends outrage. It’s obscene.
The ultimate responsibility for the murder of Jamiel Shaw rests with the triggerman. But let me be blunt – the cowardice of local politicians who hide behind political correctness and racial pandering as an excuse to look the other way on the mounting death toll perpetrated by illegal aliens are enablers of death.
This may be uncomfortable for some to read. I assure you it’s uncomfortable to write. Jamiel Shaw’s death was preventable. The president, Congress, the governor, the state Legislature, the mayor, the City Council, the County Board of Supervisors, the chief of police, the county sheriff – all of us failed him.
The son of a U.S. solider was murdered on the streets of L.A. What are we going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?
The good intentions that created Special Order 40 surely weren’t intended for gangbangers. Personally, I believe Special Order 40 has been a vast and deadly failure. It’s a poverty and crime magnet for L.A. and every other city that has its equivalent.
But whatever view you hold on sanctuary-city policies, can’t we at least agree the special consideration given illegal aliens by Order 40 should not apply to domestic terrorists? Gangbangers should be hunted down just like international terrorists. In fact, a case can be made Pedro Espinosa is an international terrorist.
We need to pass “Jamiel’s Law.” We need to force every local politician to explain how they are not complicit in the murder of Shaw. We can’t return Jamiel to his mother, however, we can restore her faith in the country she has served better than it has served her.
Wild Thing’s comment……..
The fault of this starts at the top with President Bush and his LOVE for illegal aliens. For his NOT securing our borders and for his wanting to put their comfort, desires and demands ABOVE the citizens of this country.
The blame trickles down from the office of the President to the Gov. and all involved.
Look to the liberals to blame for this.Bush LIBERAL, Arnie LIBERAL, the list is long and each name disgusting.
I am so sick of these people saying they are conservatives JUST to get elected and then they do their liberal crap like they do about illegals. And we are in for more of this too since we have three liberals running to sit in the Oval Office. None of them are worthy that is for damn sure.
And I can’t help but wonder what our soldiers must be thinking…going off to risk their lives, while their loved ones here are so vulnerable and their CIC absolutely flat out refuses to EFFECTIVELY SECURE OUR BORDERS…risking loosing the WAR, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, but right here in our own backyards. “we allowed Pedro Espinosa to serve 180 days on gun charges without checking his immigration status. We released Espinosa onto the streets, and 24 hours later he murdered Jamiel Shaw II”
How damn hard is it to verify someone’s residency after being arrested? And, if they’re found to be ILLEGALLY here, why cannot they be deported after the complete their sentence.
We already HAVE perfectly good laws to deal with illegal immigration. The focus should be on enforcing them, rather than creating yet another law that we won’t enforce.
The question to the three running for President should be are YOU willing to call up a soldier to tell her that her son has been murdered by an illegal alien????!!!!
President Bush, Chertoff, Congress, Schwartzeneggar, State reps, LA City Council, Mayor Villagroisa, etc.
She should place all the blame exactly where it belongs. I would be screaming from the rooftops to ANYONE that would listen.
And to think they are working on another May 1 illegal alien march in L.A. This would be the perfect time for her to make her point and demand that the before mentioned ‘officials’ obey our country’s laws and protect citizens.
It really makes me sick and angry. I lived in California for 28 years, the State itself is the most beautiful I have ever seern. The coastline drive is like non other. It is the LIBERALS that have messed with it and are destroying so much about California.
But this illegal alien problem is not only in Calif. it is in every State and those in charge should be held accountable each and every time one of the illegals commits a crime against an American citizen.
Military Order of the World War under Colonel Thatcher Luquer established Army Day. Army Day was first celebrated on May 1, 1928. That date was chosen in hopes of dampening Communists’ celebration of Workers’ Day, which also occurs on May 1. But, starting in 1929, Army Day was changed to April 6, the anniversary date of the United States’ entry into World War I.
Army Day was established as a nationwide observance to draw public attention to national defense and to acquaint the public with Army activities. In addition, the day was used to stress the need for military preparedness, which the nation had lacked as it entered earlier major conflicts. “The failure to make adequate preparation for the inevitable struggle, the consequent suffering from disease and death entailed upon the armies which were hastily raised, the prolongation of the conflict far beyond the time which sufficient and equipped forces would have required for victory, and the heavy costs of reconstruction” were caused by the lack of preparation of the nation.
THANK YOU to all of you that served in the U.S. Army! Thank you with all my heart. I am so sorry I am late posting this.
….Thank you SSgt.Steve for letting me know about this very special day.
Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells New York Times
By DEBORAH SONTAG Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee. The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.
“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.
Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy in late February.
A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, said candidates would frequently retell stories relayed to them, vetting them when possible. “In this case, we did try but were not able to fully vet it,” Mr. Elleithee said. “If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that.”
The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said.
Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday.
As Deputy Holman understood it, Ms. Bachtel had died of complications from a stillbirth after being turned away by a local hospital for her failure to pay $100 upfront.
“I mentioned this story to Senator Clinton, and she apparently took to it and liked it,” Deputy Holman said, “and one of her aides said she’d be using it at some rallies.”
Indeed, saying that the story haunted her, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly offered it as a dire example of a broken health care system. At one March rally in Wyoming, for instance, she referred to Ms. Bachtel, a 35-year-old who managed a Pizza Hut, as a young, uninsured minimum-wage worker, saying,
“It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor.”
Mrs. Clinton does not name Ms. Bachtel or the hospital in her speeches. As she tells it, the woman was turned away twice by a local hospital when she was experiencing difficulty with her pregnancy.
“The hospital said, ‘Well, you don’t have insurance.’ She said, ‘No, I don’t.’ They said, ‘Well, we can’t see you until you give $100.’ She said, ‘Where am I going to get $100?’
“The next time she came back to the hospital, she came in an ambulance,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “She was in distress. The doctors and the nurses worked on her and couldn’t save the baby.”
Since Ms. Bachtel’s baby died at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, the story implicitly and inaccurately accuses that hospital of turning her away, said Ms. Weiss, the spokeswoman for O’Bleness Memorial said. Instead, the O’Bleness health care system treated her, both at the hospital and at the affiliated River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology practice, Ms. Weiss said.
The hospital would not provide details about the woman’s case, citing privacy concerns; she died two weeks after the stillbirth at a medical center in Columbus.
“We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient,” said Mr. Castrop, the health system’s chief executive. Any implication that the system was “involved in denying care is definitely not true.”
Although Mrs. Clinton has told the story repeatedly, it first came to the attention of the hospital after The Washington Post cited it as a staple of her stump speeches on Thursday. That brought it to the attention of The Daily Sentinel in Pomeroy, Ohio, which published an article on Friday.
Neither paper named the hospital or challenged Mrs. Clinton’s account.
UPDATE:
Clinton drops hospital story from stump speech CNN for complete story update
Hillary Clinton’s campaign says the candidate will stop telling the story of an uninsured pregnant woman who lost the baby and died after being denied medical care, following a hospital raising questions over its accuracy.
Clinton has frequently told the emotional story of the woman from rural Ohio since late February. In the speech, Clinton said the woman made minimum wage working at a local pizza restaurant, without insurance, when she became pregnant. Clinton said the woman ran into trouble, went to a hospital in a nearby county but was denied treatment because she couldn’t afford a $100 payment. In the speech, Clinton said the woman later was taken to the hospital by ambulance and lost the baby. The young woman was then taken by helicopter to a Columbus hospital where she died of complications.
As recently as Friday night in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Clinton said, “As I was listening to this story being told, I was just aching inside. It is so wrong, in this good, great and rich country, that a young woman and her baby would die because she didn’t have health insurance or a hundred dollars to get examined.”
Wild Thing’s comment……..
The casual way this woman lies, the public shrugging at her lies, the willingness to make up things to advance a cause for her is just breathtaking. And to take a dead woman, to lie about her death for a political point, is just, well, there is no word for it. REGARDING THE UPDATE……. Ah, the old “Fake, but accurate” defense. Well good, too bad she didn’t do it because she felt bad about her lie. Who’s writing her stuff? Dan Rather?
With Hillary’s ability to remember things that never happened and Obama’s ability to “disremember” things that did happen, we have the perfect team to lead the moonbats off into Candy Land, where everything they bake will be satisfying and delicious—talk about your childhood wishes, you can even eat the dishes—la, la, la, la.
Charlton Heston died on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills, California with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, by his side. He was 83.
In 1944, Heston left college and enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps. He served for two years as a B-25 radio operator/gunner stationed in the Aleutian Islands with the Eleventh Air Force, rising to the rank of Staff Sergeant.
Originally a Democrat who campaigned for Presidential candidates Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy, he gradually switched to becoming a conservative Republican during the 1960s.
His favorite food was peanut butter, and he took it with him everywhere, even overseas.
He was of English/Scottish descent.
Wrote that he switched to being a conservative Republican due to LBJ’s term as President.
He campaigned for Republican candidates Ronald Reagan in 1984, George Bush in 1988 and George W. Bush in 2000.
He was an opponent of abortion and gave the introduction to an anti-abortion documentary by Bernard Nathanson called Eclipse of Reason (1980) which focuses on late-term abortions.
He was one of several prominent people to serve on the advisory board of U.S. English, a group that seeks to make English the official language of the United States.
He owns more than 400 modern and antique guns. Some quotes by Heston:
(From a taped announcement concerning his having symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease): “For an actor, there is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can’t part with you, which is why I won’t exclude you from this stage in my life. … For now, I’m not changing anything. I’ll insist on work when I can; the doctors will insist on rest when I must. If you see a little less spring to my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you’ll know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway.”
Actor George Clooney joked about Heston having Alzheimer’s Disease. When questioned, Clooney said Heston deserved whatever was said about him for his involvement with the NRA…….
After hearing an unkind remark made about his condition by George Clooney, nephew of Rosemary Clooney: “It’s funny how class can skip a generation, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know the man – never met him, never even spoken to him. But I feel sorry for George Clooney – one day he may get Alzheimer’s disease. I served my country in World War II. I survived that – I guess I can survive some bad words from this fellow.”
“Affirmative action is a stain on the American soul.”
“Political correctness is tyranny with manners.”
“Here’s my credo. There are no good guns, There are no bad guns. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a good man is no threat to anyone, except bad people.”
“There is no duty more noble than that which has called you across the world in defense of freedom. Yours is a mission of hope and humanity for the oppressed. Rest assured that while pretend-patriots talk of supporting you, even as they condemn your noble cause, an unwavering vast majority of Americans share and take pride in your mission. You represent all that is good and right about America and are the true face of American patriotism. You walk in those same righteous footsteps of all those patriots who, before you, fought to preserve liberty for all. Our prayers and our personal gratitude are with you and your families. May God Bless You, Charlton and Lydia Heston.” – Message sent to the US troops in Iraq, April 2003
“After spending all of last winter in armour it’s a great relief to wear costume that bends.” – After completing El Cid (1961)
“I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses. If that doesn’t create an ego problem, nothing does.”
“I’ve been killed often, on film, the stage, and the television tube. Studios insist the audience doesn’t like this. It’s been my experience that it makes them unhappy, but that’s not the same thing. In any event, they often attend those undertakings where I come to a violent end even more enthusiastically than they do those where I survive. There may be a message for me somewhere there.”
“I find my blood pressure rising when Clinton’s cultural shock troops participate in homosexual rights fund raisers but boycott gun rights fund raisers – and then claim it’s time to place homosexual men in tents with boy scouts and suggest that sperm-donor babies born into lesbian relationships are somehow better served.”
“Mainstream America is depending on you – counting on you – to draw your sword and fight for them. These people have precious little time or resources to battle misguided Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of the homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it’s a divine duty for women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand, while they seek preference with the other.”
“The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of those wise old, dead, white guys who invented this country. It’s true – they were white guys. So were most of the guys who died in Lincoln’s name, opposing slavery in the 1860s. So, why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is Hispanic pride or black pride a good thing, while white pride conjures up shaved heads and white hoods?”
“People in the film community think being politically active means getting on Air Force One and going to dinner at the White House. I’ve scorned a few liberals in this town, and I get a kick out of that.”
“In Hollywood there are more gun owners in the closet than homosexuals.”
“The Democratic Party slid to the Left from right under me.”
“America didn’t trust you with their health-care system, America didn’t trust you with gays in the military, America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters. And we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.” – On President Bill Clinton
Vote freedom first. Vote George W. Bush. Everything else is a distant and forgettable second place. This is the most important election since the Civil War. Al Gore, if elected, would have the power to hammer your gun rights right into oblivion. Instead of fighting redcoats, we are now fighting blue blood elitists. (2000)
“Al Gore is now saying, ‘I’m with you guys on guns.’ In any other time or place you’d be looking for a lynching mob.”(2000)
” have spent my life in service to these two sacred sets of work – the gift of human passion in William Shakespeare and the gift of human freedom enshrined in the American bill of human rights. Tony Blair can have his body guards and the police are all allowed to defend themselves, then so should the people.”
AWESOME SPEECH Charlton Heston’s speech “Winning the Cultural War”.
Harvard Law School Forum
February 16, 1999
Text version of his speech.
I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. “My Daddy,” he said, “pretends to be people.” There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling re-painted I’ll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I’m never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I’m the guy.
As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: if my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty, your own freedom of thought, your own compass for what is right
Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, “We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”
Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that’s about to hijack your birthright to think and say what lives in your heart. I’m sure you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you, the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.
Let me back up a little. About a year or two ago, I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms of American citizens. I ran for office. I was elected, and now I serve. I serve as a moving target for the media who’ve called me everything from “ridiculous” and “duped” to a “brain-injured, senile, crazy old man.” I know, I’m pretty old, but I sure Lord ain’t senile.
As I’ve stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I’ve realized that firearms are — are not the only issue. No, it’s much, much bigger than that. I’ve come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain accepted thoughts and speech are mandated.
For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 — and long before Hollywood found it acceptable, I may say. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else’s pride, they called me a racist.
I’ve worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life — throughout my whole career. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.
I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out the innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.
Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution I’m talking about, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.
From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they’re essentially saying, “Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that. You are using language not authorized for public consumption.”
But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we’d still be King George’s boys — subjects bound to the British crown.
In his book, “The End of Sanity,” Martin Gross writes that
“blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly twisted on us — foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don’t like it.”
Let me read you a few examples. At Antioch College in Ohio, young men speaking and seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process, from kissing to petting to final, at last, copulation — all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.
In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who’d been infected by dentists who had concealed their own AIDS, the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not — need not! — tell their patients that they are infected.
At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team “The Tribe” because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs really like the name, “The Tribe.”
In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.
In New York City, kids who didn’t speak a word of Spanish had been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R’s in Spanish solely because their own names sound Hispanic.
At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.
Yeah, I know, that’s out of bounds now. Dr. King said “Negroes.” Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said “black.” But it’s a no-no now.
For me, hyphenated identities are awkward, particularly “Native-American.” I’m a Native American, for God’s sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife’s side, my grandson’s a twelfth generation native-American, with a capital letter on “American.”
Finally, just last month, David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word “niggardly” while talking about budgetary matters with some colleagues. Of course, “niggardly” means stingy or scanty. But within days, Howard was forced to publicly apologize and then resign.
As columnist Tony Snow wrote: “David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn’t know the meaning of ‘niggardly,’ (b) don’t know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance.”
Now, what does all of this mean? Among other things, it means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can’t be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America’s campuses? And why do you continue to — to tolerate it? Why do you, who’re supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?
Let — Let’s be honest. Who here in this room thinks your professors can say what they really believe? (Uh-huh. There’s a few….) Well, that scares me to death, and it should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.
You are the best and the brightest. You, here in this fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River. You are the cream. But I submit that you and your counterparts across the land are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that and abide it, you are, by your grandfathers’ standards, cowards.
Here’s another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they’ll lose their jobs. But why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayors’ pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.
Now, I don’t care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Democracy is dialogue. Who will defend the core values of academia, if you, the supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, “Don’t shoot me.”
If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does — does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don’t celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.
Don’t let America’s universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. That’s what it is: New McCarthyism. But, what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation?
Well, the answer’s been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.
You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don’t. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.
I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.
Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam.
In that same spirit, I’ m asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives, and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.
But be careful. It hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated, to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water Cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. Now, I’m not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have left their mark on me. Let me tell you a story.
A few years ago, I heard about a — a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called “Cop Killer,” celebrating the ambushing and of murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the country — in the world. Police across the country were outraged. And rightfully so. At least one of them had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the — the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills, and I owned some shares of Time/Warner at the time, so I decided to attend the meeting.
What I did was against the advice of my family and my colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of “Cop Killer” — every vicious, vulgar, instructional word:
I got my 12-Gauge sawed-off. I got my headlights turned off. I’m about to bust some shots off. I’m about to dust some cops off.
It got worse, a lot worse. Now, I won’t read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyrics brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing the two 12-year-old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore:
She pushed her butt against my —
No. No, I won’t do to you here what I did to them. Let’s just say I left the room in stunned silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps outside, one of them said, “We can’t print that, you know.” “I know,” I said, “but Time/Warner is still selling it.”
Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T’s contract. I’ll never be offered another film by Warner Brothers, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you have to be willing to act, not just talk.
When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself, jam the switchboard of the district attorney’s office. When your university is pressured — your university — is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors, choke the halls of the Board of Regents. When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl’s cheek on the playground and then gets hauled into court for sexual harassment, march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you — petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine’s cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month, boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.
So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God’s grace, built this country.
.
Wild Thing’s comment……..
Chuck Heston did a good job speaking truth to power and will be missed by many many of us. He was passionate, committed one with great faith, integrity, solid values, and presence. What a talent he was.
Nick worked with Chuck Heston on the movie “Earthquake” in 1974.
In 1982 I was working on a film called “National Lampoon Goes to the Movies”. I had just pulled my car into the parking lot and it was full. So I decided to just pull out and look for a place on the streets near the set. We were filming in downtown Los Angeles. As I was backing him a man yelled for me to wait. I looked forward and it was Chuck Heston walking toward me. He leaned down as I put my window the rest of the way down and he told me that he was done with his work and was leaving and I could have his parking space.
He was so kind and a real gentlemen. We talked for a few minutes about the film I was working on and then I thanked him and will always remember how he didn’t have to do any of that.
There are few left now that have been a part of the film industry that are Patriotic Americans, Chuck Heston was one of them. Rest in peace and prayers for your family.
….Thank you RAC for sending this.
Recent Comments