Howie Luvzus

My son is currently a student at the University of Florida. He and his roommates got this puppy last weekend. Her name is Sam. She’s named after Samuel L. Jackson. I once named a puppy Reggie. She was named after Reggie White. Take care of her son.

I’ve joked about Kanye West’s comment about Bush not caring about black people. In fact, I’ve written a few posts that argue that Bush isn’t a bad guy. However, the latest news about FEMA really makes me wonder. Maybe someone needs to email him the Gomer Pyle “fool me once” quote. He obviously isn’t sure about the quote or what it means.

He appointed someone who was not competent to run FEMA and it resulted in quite a few deaths in my town. Remember Brown’s padded resume? But rather than admitting his mistake, Bush has gone against congress and has decided that he can continue to hire incompetent friends just because he is president.

The big story in the New Orleans newspaper saturday was: Bush rejects minimum experience to lead FEMA

Lawmakers from both parties criticized President Bush on Friday for saying he won’t comply with a homeland security law that sets minimum qualifications for future directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The law requires the president to nominate a FEMA director with “a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management” and “not less than five years of executive leadership.” The qualifications are included in a spending bill the president signed into law Wednesday and aimed at the federal government’s ineffective response to Hurricane Katrina.

That response was initially overseen by FEMA director Michael Brown, who had only limited experience in emergency management before coming to the agency in 2001, initially as the agency’s attorney before being named by Bush as its top official in 2003.

Even those in his own party are outraged.

Here’s what Bush said:

… establishing minimum standards for the director of FEMA could rule out a “large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge” to run the agency. The president, he added, has the constitutional authority to supervise the executive branch and recommendations to Congress should be subject to “appropriate executive branch review and approval before submission.”

Here’s what he meant—

“Establishing minimum standards would both show that I care about what happened to citizens of New Orleans and show that I want to do a good job. I don’t really want to do either. Minimum standards will rule out a lot of friends I want to take care of. Heck, you all know that I really don’t care about doing a good job. Don’t y’all watch the tv screens or the internet? Look at what has happened to the Axis of Evil I talked about a few years ago. 1. North Korea has become a nucular power. 2. Iran is getting close to being a nucular power. 3. The US death toll in Iraq is the highest it’s been in 2 years!”

Yep. Now I’m ticked at W. He’s more concerned with patronage and power than he is ensuring the safety of his citizens. Fool me once…

Two stories from two blogs I read regularly and then my thoughts:

From a Baptist Minister:

Amish mourn gunman who killed 5 girls

Dozens of Amish neighbors gathered Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.
Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, was buried in his wife’s family plot behind a small Methodist church, a few miles from the one-room schoolhouse he stormed Monday.
His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped grave of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him, said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Colorado who attended the service.

About half of perhaps 75 mourners on hand were Amish.
“It’s the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed,” said Porter, who had come to Pennsylvania to offer what help he could. He said Marie Roberts was also touched.
“She was absolutely deeply moved, by just the love shown,” Porter said.

From Bruce Prescott:

Garrison Keeler’s Congress’ shameful retreat from American values

I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.

The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, decided that an “enemy combatant” is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of “crimes against the state” and held in prison, you’d assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.

The Senate also decided it’s up to the president to decide whether it’s OK to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple of days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators. This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file “enemy combatants” and throws the poor schnooks into prison and at his leisure he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by President Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts.

Real Christians respond to violence with love. (Matthew 5:43-48 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.)

The response of the Amish community to a person who tied up their little girls and shot them in the head is as shocking as the event itself. But, that’s what the “merciful” do in response to violence. These “peacemakers” are demonstrating the love and grace of God in the midst of a world that understands neither.

What do non-Christians do in the face of violence? They resort to violence. They decide that it’s better to do unto others before they do unto us. They throw out all rules of decency because they don’t care about that. They only care about themselves which is the hallmark of sin. They reject the laws of the land and don’t give a second thought about the law of love and God’s commands.

Christians love. Enemies of God hate. Christians show mercy. Enemies of God torture.

My prayer:
Lord give me the strength to act as Christ commands me to act if I ever hear the term “Christian nation” again. I pray that you will open our eyes to grace and love. I pray that you will open our eyes to hypocrisy. I pray that you will strengthen us to stand against the forces of evil (I ain’t talking about terrorists here.).

Hastert’s statement on Monday:
“No one in the Republican Leadership, nor Congressman Shimkus, saw those messages until last Friday when ABC News released them to the public. When they were released, Congressman Foley resigned. And I’m glad he did, if he had not, I would have demanded his expulsion from the House of Representatives.”

Interestingly, in interviews with Fox News later this week Hastert, Pete Hoekstra (See his website for this claim), and Len Mehlman directly contradict this statement. See the video here. Here’s the transcript:

HASTERT: When Congress found out about the explicit messages, Republicans dealt with it immediately and the culprit was gone. [10/5/06]

HASTERT: I, first of all, learned of this last Friday, when we were about to leave Congress for the break, to go out and campaign. And that’s the first time that I heard of the explicit language. When it happened, Republicans acted. And the guy’s gone. [10/5/06]

HOEKSTRA: I mean, we were all disgusted by what we found out last week Friday. But we also need to remember that what we did do on Friday is the speaker, the leadership and the House Republican conference, we spoke with clarity. It was a defining moment for us. We said, Resign or be expelled. Mark Foley left the House of Representatives within hours of this information becoming public. [10/6/06]

MEHLMAN: The fact is, what Denny Hastert did is something that we haven’t seen done in thirty years in this town in Washington DC, and that is he said to a member of congress, either you go or we’re going to make you go. That happened the moment that Denny Hastert found out about this. [10/6/06]

GILLESPIE: In fact, voters are starting to understand that speaker Hastert reacted very strongly. As the father of a 16-year-old son, I appreciate him going to Mark Foley and saying, “You either resign or you’re going to be expelled.” That would be the first time in thirty years. [10/6/06]

Why don’t we get outraged when they lie to us? Is it that we are just so used to it that it’s just no big deal any more?

Congrats to my friend Mark Gstohl! The million dollar grant he wrote for United Way in New Orleans was successful!

He’ll be throwing a party for himself soon. Keep an eye out for details!

Here they are:

Celebrate with me! On Friday, October 13 th (That’s right. I laugh in the face of bad luck.) I am celebrating the success of a million dollar grant I wrote for United Way for the Greater New Orleans Area. It was awarded by the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Community Services (OCS). The Assets for Independence (AFI) Project will assist low-income persons in the six parish region served by United Way in becoming economically self- sufficient. Project participants will learn about economic and consumer issues and will establish matched savings accounts ($4 to $1) called Individual Development Accounts (IDA) in order to save for a first home, a child care business, or automobile. This project will enable low-income persons to be actively involved in helping to rebuild New Orleans.

Judy Muller’s commentary on NPR this morning was touching and sensitive. My problem with the Foley affair is not only what he did, but also the Republican and conservative response.

“Muller says anyone who knows anything about alcoholism would say it doesn’t excuse what Foley did, but it could help explain it.”

Once again, I am not looking for specks of sawdust while ignoring the plank in my own eye. I’m trying to point out hypocrisy.

Richard Cizic, the vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals spoke to Alex Chadwick of NPR about the Foley scandal. Here are a few great quotes!

In regard to Hasert:

“I give Mr. Hastert a break here and say he did what he probably should have done.”

Cizic went on to say that only a “small percentage” of evangelicals will be “turned off” to the GOP by the scandal.

“There are other issues that will impact their vote, but I’m not sure this one will”

Haggard calls the NAE “the representative of evangelicalism worldwide.”

BTW: James Dobson has been silent on the issue.

More from Evangelicalright.com:

The Radical Right’s reaction to the Foley scandal is getting progressively more disgusting. First, they blamed Foleygate on the Internet. Then they blamed the gays and political correctness. Now, they want to divert attention away from the GOP cover-up by demanding an investigation of the “outside help” responsible for an alleged October Surprise. [From Focus on the Family's primary DC lobby, Family Research Council]:

…the media and homosexual networks, also owe a public account, because they have helped turn what could have been one man’s tragedy last year into this year’s politics-laden “October surprise.” Congress should authorize its own internal investigation, make it fully independent, and empower it to look at everything, including the role of outside groups. If we’ve learned anything about members of Congress gone wild, it’s that they usually have plenty of “outside help.”

Hot Damn They’re Good!

Randall Balmer sounds off on the Arlington Group (whose members include James Dobson, Ted Haggard, Gary Bauer, and Skeletor). [From Faithful Democrats hat tip Jesus Politics]

In a press release dated October 3, 2006, the Arlington Group, an umbrella coalition of Religious Right leaders, said: “We are very concerned that the early warnings of Mr. Foley’s odd behavior toward young male pages may have been overlooked or treated with deference, fearing a backlash from the radical gay rights movement because of Mr. Foley’s sexual orientation. It appears that the integrity of the conservative majority has given way to political correctness, trading the virtues of decency and respect for that of tolerance and diversity. No one should be surprised at the results of such a tragic exchange.”

Let’s see if I got this right. Foley’s indiscretions were swept under the carpet by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives not because of political considerations which would force the Republican majority to acknowledge the presence of a pedophile among their ranks and might endanger their majority status in the November elections. No, the Foley incident developed into a full-fledged scandal from fears of “a backlash from the radical gay rights movement because of Mr. Foley’s sexual orientation.” That explains why the speaker of the House and other Republican leaders allowed Foley to remain in office and, presumably, to continue making untoward advances to underage pages.

A little research reveals that a similar scandal occurredin 1983. Unfortunately, the two US Representatives involved had sex with minors.

On July 14, 1983, the House Ethics Committee concluded that U.S. Rep. Dan Crane (R-Ill.) and U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) had engaged in sexual relationships with minors. The minors in question were 17-year-old congressional pages. In Crane’s case, it was a 1980 relationship with a female page and in Studds’ case, it was a 1973 relationship with a male page. Both representatives immediately pleaded guilty to the charges and the committee decided to simply reprimand the two.

U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) rightly demanded their expulsion. But the House voted for censure. Majority leader at the time—Democrat James C. Wright, Jr. from Texas.
How’s that for fair n’ balanced?

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