RandySF
RandySF's JournalABC News: Mormons baptized Obama's deceased mother in June of 2008
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints confirmed Tuesday afternoon that someone improperly, posthumously baptized the late mother of President Obama into the Mormon faith.
Last June 4 — the day after then-Sen. Obama secured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nominee — someone had the president’s mother Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995 of cancer, baptized.
On June 11, she received the endowment.
The White House had no comment.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/05/presidents-late/
Rep. Schweikert tops Rep. Quayle in Arizona's member matchup
Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) defeated fellow freshman Rep. Dan Quayle in their member-vs-member primary.
Quayle called him to concede, the Arizona Republic reports. The Associated Press has called the race.
According to the most recent results, Schweikert had 53 percent of the vote to Quayle's 47 percent, with nearly 80 percent of precincts reporting.
Quayle and Schweikert were thrown into the fierce fight due to redistricting. Though Quayle retained most of his constituents in the new district, Schweikert's campaign has worked to label the congressman as a member of the political establishment, playing off of local memories of his father, former Vice President Dan Quayle.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/246333-schweikert-tops-quayle-for-republican-nomination-in-az-7
Missouri delegates angry at Mitt Romney over Todd Akin
TAMPA — Missouri GOP delegates are rejecting the heavy-handed push by Mitt Romney and national Republicans to boot Todd Akin from their state’s Senate race, revealing a split among Republicans that could imperil the party’s effort to take back the chamber in the fall campaign.
In interviews with POLITICO, delegates argued that Akin could still win the race in the conservative state, pushing back against the notion that his remarks on rape were a death blow to his Senate candidacy. Several delegates here in Tampa seemed angry at the national party, saying the decision to withhold millions of dollars in campaign funding is the real impediment in their effort to oust Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in November.
“Absolutely,” said John Putnam of Carthage, Mo., when asked if he was disappointed at Romney for demanding that Akin exit the race. “I think he needs to rescind that, retract that. I think [RNC Chairman] Reince Priebus and [Sen.] Roy Blunt and all the people need to support the candidate that the folks from Missouri nominated and picked in the primary.
“I think the GOP party bosses that are trying to drum him out are creating a bigger split in the party than Todd Akin is,” said Putnam, head of the Jasper County Republican Central Committee.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80203.html#ixzz24o7lddDu
Future SF archbishop apologizes for DUI
(08-27) 18:09 PDT SAN DIEGO -- The man set to become the next archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco was arrested Saturday in San Diego on suspicion of drunken driving as he was taking his elderly mother home after having dinner with friends.
Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, 56, was headed along San Diego State University's southern edge when he encountered a sobriety checkpoint, said Officer Mark McCullough. Cordileone was amiable but appeared intoxicated and was arrested at 12:26 a.m., McCullough said.
The bishop was released from jail shortly before noon after posting $2,500 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charge on Oct. 9.
Cordileone issued a contrite statement Monday, admitting he "was found to be over the California legal blood alcohol level."
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Future-SF-archbishop-apologizes-for-DUI-3818655.php#ixzz24ngQcQZo
Newly appointed SF archbishop arrested for DUI
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The newly appointed archbishop of San Francisco was arrested for DUI over the weekend.
Police in San Diego say Bishop Salvatore Cordileone was arrested over the weekend for driving under the influence. Police say it happened in San Diego's College District just before 12:30 Saturday morning.
Bishop Cordileone is currently bishop of Oakland -- a post he's held since 2009. Last month Pope Benedict chose Bishop Cordileone to become archbishop of San Francisco -- replacing retiring Archbishop George Niederaur. He's scheduled to assume the new post in October.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8788117
First week of Catholic school done: My thoughts.
1. Uniforms make life easy for us, but I don't know what they accomplish at school.
2. A huge difference between this school and our public school can be seen before class starts. No fighting, no pushing or kicking and a lot of supervision.
3. The teacher is not fond of parents wandering in the classroom. Last year, some of us would stand around and chat while our kindergarden teacher tried to take attendance. I plead guilty on this one.
4. On the third day of school last year, someone slapped my son in the face during recess. So far after a week, no incident.
5. The school expects us to be very involved. If a child gets a "red" or "yellow" card for the day, we have to initial their homework folder and return the next day.
6.PE is not something to be thrown away if there is not enough money leftover. It's an essential part of the school week.
One thing I am not thrilled about. They take the kids outside as soon as school is over. I liked how the last school made kids stay in the room until a parent or other designee showed up.
7. The building is definitely "no frills".
8. I already see the diffrence in academic standards.
9. I like how Spanish is part of the daily curriculum in keeping with it's historic founding by the Spanish missionaries.
10. Both public and Catholic schools have a lot to learn from each other.
GOP Md. Del. Dwyer acknowledges drinking before operating boat that struck another, injuring kids
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A Maryland lawmaker on Thursday acknowledged that he had been drinking alcohol before operating a motorboat that collided with another vessel, injuring himself and five others, and that his blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit.
Delegate Don Dwyer, an Anne Arundel County Republican known as one of the most conservative lawmakers in Annapolis, said that he regretted his actions, adding that no one should ever drink and operate a motor vehicle or powerboat.
Three children were among those hospitalized after the collision Wednesday evening in the Magothy River, which flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The legal limit in Maryland for operating a boat is the same as for a car, .08.
“It is true that I was drinking while operating my boat yesterday,” Dwyer said at news conference he gave from a wheelchair outside Maryland Shock Trauma in Baltimore. “It’s also been reported that my blood alcohol content was .2. No one, no one should be drinking and operating a motor vehicle or power boat.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-state-del-don-dwyer-among-many-injured-when-2-boats-collide-on-magothy-river-in-pasadena/2012/08/23/c646ec00-ed1c-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_story.html
SF elementary school to native English speakers: You are on your own.
A parent at the SFUSD elementary school my son attended called me today to tell me she was transferring her daughter out after receiving a letter from the school that, because staff was so overwhelmed by the number of ESL students, they will not be able to provide native English speakers with the English program they need to move forward to their full potential. I know ESL students need our support, but is this fair?
Stuart Rothenberg moves MO-SEN race to "pure tossup".
Via email:
Two weeks ago, we were preparing the move the Missouri Senate race from Toss-up/Tilt Republican to Lean Republican, if either businessman John Brunner or former state treasurer Sarah Steelman had won the GOP Senate primary on August 7 and the right to face Sen. Claire McCaskill (D).
Now, after Republican Senate nominee Rep. Todd Akin’s comments about rape, we are moving the race to pure Toss-up.
While suggestions that Akin’s comments could impact the presidential race or the fight for the House or the Senate strike us as exaggerated, it’s very possible that Akin’s own prospects have been damaged dramatically.
If the congressman, who has a history of poor fundraising, can’t raise money and national Republican groups refuse to advertise on his behalf, it’s hard to see how he can weather an onslaught of Democratic ads. Obviously, if this were to happen, we would move the race toward McCaskill. Without an NRSC independent expenditure effort for Akin, he would need to rely on social conservatives to fund his campaign.
Akin has injected religious and cultural issues into the Senate race, and while Missouri is a culturally conservative state, the congressman’s insistence to keep talking about abortion and religion makes no sense strategically. McCaskill was a relatively easy target for the GOP because of her voting record, statements of support for President Obama and her own personal and family baggage. Akin now runs the risk of turning a referendum on McCaskill into a referendum on himself.
We will let this race find its “new normal” over the next few weeks before deciding how seriously Akin has been hurt. And, of course, the congressman could still petition a state court to allow him to drop out before the September 25th deadline. But there is no doubt that, at this point, Akin has turned what should have been a comfortable victory into a much different race that enhances McCaskill’s chances of winning another term.
Akin’s new problems obviously impact the GOP’s prospects for winning control of the Senate, magnifying the importance of several other contests and forcing the GOP to win the bulk of competitive races.
Akin’s Spiritual Mentor: Women Occasionally Invite Rape, Victims Are ‘Hysterical’
Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) spiritual mentor Reverend D. James Kennedy harbored extreme and sometimes flatly misogynistic views about rape and abortion, according to a ThinkProgress review of Kennedy’s sermons on the topic. The Senate candidate, who set off a massive controversy by claiming this weekend that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant, has deep ties to Reverend Kennedy, having cited some of his sermons as key intellectual influences and having been named in Kennedy’s book How Would Jesus Vote? as one of the Reverend’s “favorite statesman.”
Kennedy, who the Anti-Defamation League has termed a “Christian supremacist,” repeatedly railed against legalized abortion, calling it the “American Holocaust” and suggesting that it would lead inevitably to genocide in the United States. But Kennedy’s discussions of rape and abortion in particular betray extraordinarily disturbing views about rape victims:
1. Kennedy believed that rape victims who chose abortion are “hysterical.” In “Abortion: Myths and Realities,” Kennedy labels victims of rape who chose unsafe abortions when safer procedures are illegal “hysterical,” saying “We are told by some of the radical feminists that the women will become hysterical, that they will abort themselves with coat hanger.” Abortion rates are, in fact, higher in nations where the procedure is criminalized, and men describing women whose choices they disapprove of as “hysterical” has a storied sexist history.
2. Kennedy suggests rape victims can be responsible for being raped. In “Life: An Inalienable Right,” Kennedy expresses concern that rape victims who chose to get an abortion are occasionally responsible for their own rape, saying that “Even if they want to say the woman had some part in it—which in most cases they probably don’t—surely the baby did nothing wrong, so the only innocent party is killed and the rapist often goes free.” He doesn’t elaborate on how this might be true, but another Kennedy sermon says “the immodest woman is contributing to the lust of other people” by wearing revealing clothing.
3. Kennedy held that the Bible should set our laws about rape and abortion. Kennedy is very explicit on this point, saying “In the Bible, the child of rape was allowed to live and the rapist was put to death. Today, we find that the penalties against rape have become more and more lenient, whereas the child is now the subject of capital punishment. Justice has been totally destroyed and perverted in that the guilty are practically allowed to go free and the innocent are killed.” This fits with Kennedy’s general view that we should “rebuild America based on the Bible.”
4. Kennedy thought husbands should determine if their wives can have abortions. Though not specifically addressing rape, Kennedy approvingly cited a Roman prohibition on abortion motivated by the husbands should have control over women’s reproductive choice, saying “That newly created life is as much the husband’s as it is the wife’s. Historically, it is interesting to note that when the Roman Empire did away with laws that allowed abortion, it was done not because of the woman or the harm that abortions were doing to women (and indeed they do vastly more harm than most people are aware of), but because the husband was being defrauded of his progeny.” Interestingly, Akin has worried that criminalizing marital rape provides women “a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.”
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/20/713571/akins-spiritual-mentor-women-occasionally-invite-rape-victims-are-hysterical/
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