Two bicycles belonging to President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were snatched from inside the Carter Center near downtown Atlanta earlier this month.
The couple likes to ride bicycles in nearby Freedom Park when they have free time. Peter Wicker, the owner of a local bike shop, donated the bicycles to the Carters in 2007 after seeing the poor condition of their old bikes, which had been brought in for repairs. Well, yeah, they live on their meager Presidential pension, and it's a fixed income...I can see why they needed donated bikes.
Atlanta police say they have made no arrests.
A spokeswoman for the Carters told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the couple is currently in China.
Roland Burris will be seated this week as a U.S. senator, taking over the position vacated by President-elect Barack Obama and capping a bizarre, weeks-long saga surrounding the legality of his appointment.
Senate leaders first rejected Burris and turned him away from the Senate before finally accepting his appointment by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested in December for allegedly trying to sell the very same Senate seat.
The move reverses an unlikely standoff between Burris, a former Illinois attorney general who has not held elective office in more than a decade, and the powerful Democratic lawmakers who control Congress. The Democratic leaders had wanted to avoid accepting an appointment made by Blagojevich, because of the charges against him.
Blagojevich was impeached Friday by the Illinois House of Representatives, but as a sitting governor he still has the legal authority to make appointments.
A breakthrough was reached for Burris when Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, who had pledged not to sign the document by which Blagojevich officially appointed Burris, signed a separate sheet, acknowledging Burris. While unconventional, Blagojevich's appointment and White's separate certification of that appointment satisfied the Senate parliamentarian when Burris' attorney and Blagojevich's chief of staff presented the credentials today.
"The secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate Rules and validate his appointment to the vacant Illinois Senate seat," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a joint statement announcing they would accept Burris. "In addition, as we requested, Mr. Burris has provided sworn testimony before the Illinois House Committee on Impeachment regarding the circumstances of his appointment."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2009 00:00 ||
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US president-elect Barack Obama has invited the world's first openly gay Anglican bishop to offer the prayer that will mark the beginning of the inauguration festivities.
In an email sent to a US blog yesterday the Right Rev Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire, said it would be an "enormous honour" to offer prayers for the country and its new president at the Lincoln Memorial.
He wrote that he was "humbled and overjoyed" at the news and took the invitation as a sign of Obama's commitment to being "president of all the people".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
"Don we now our Gay apparel, Falala, lalala, la, la, la.
I look just like my Aunt Carol Falalalala, la, la, la, la."
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/13/2009 12:34 Comments ||
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#3
What a wonderful choice to represent the religious.
What would be better is if he were black, or a woman, or a disabled dwarf-gay-bishop.
But those are prolly hard to come by.
#4
O is not a believer, so why should he care? Expect to see the last White House Christmas and easter egg hunt in his term as well. This is going to be a painfull four years.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/13/2009 16:39 Comments ||
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#5
What, no Wiccans?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/13/2009 19:44 Comments ||
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#7
There will be plenty of holiday celebrations during the Obama presidency. Just because the president-elect doesn't believe, does not imply that his wife and children also do not, nor his mother-in-law. His familyis very, very important to the man whose own parents dumped him one after another until he ended up with his Red-diapering grandparents.
However, I fail to understand why Mr. Obama would choose to interject himself into the Anglican mess, about which the participants feel so very strongly. Perhaps he just doesn't realize that there are issues.
The beleaguered US Republican Party, reeling from big losses to Democrats and about to relinquish the White House, took another blow on Monday, when a key Ohio senator announced his retirement. Veteran Senator George Voinovich said he would not run for a third term when his seat comes up for reelection in 2010, leaving Republicans another tricky race in a state which voted for Democrat Barack Obama for president.
Given the fierce challenges facing the United States, including the deep economic crisis, Voinovich said he could best serve his state by devoting himself to the Senate rather than campaigning and fundraising.
"In my lifetime of public service, I have never seen the country in such perilous circumstances, Voinovich said in a statement. "Not since the Great Depression and the Second World War have we been confronted with such challenges, as a nation and as a world.
"These next two years in office, for me, will be the most important years that I have served in my entire political career," said Voinovich, a former mayor of Cleveland and Governor of Ohio.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2009 00:00 ||
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#3
I may be in the minority but I am not sad to see most of these Senators retire. Conservatives need to inject some new (younger) blood into thier ranks. If Voinovich (Crybaby-Ohio) represnts the best we can offer in Ohio then we don't deserved that seat.
#4
My understanding is that he was planning all along to retire after this term. I heard that just after the '04 election from someone who was in a position to know.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/13/2009 8:20 Comments ||
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Gang of 14 Voinovich will not be missed except by the dems.
#6
They are assuming that in 2010 people will still be happy with Obama. In case they aren't a monkey will be able to carry the seat provided it is not a Democrat.
#7
We've got lots of monkeys here in Ohio, JFM. ;-) The Cincinnati Zoo is famed in the profession as a breeder of monkeys (as well as everything else).
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
