On Sunday, May 18, 2008, the 140th Annual Sunday Memorial Service for veterans and active duty military, who have passed away over the past year, was held at the Rochester Community War Memorial. To think that this wonderful tradition of honoring our deceased veterans and military has been going on since the first ceremony, honoring Civil War dead, back in 1868, the same year that the first Memorial Day ceremonies were held in Waterloo, NY.
My Mom was invited because my Dad, a WWII Veteran, passed away earlier this year. My Mom invited my wife and I to accompany her. The ceremony was held in the entrance atrium of the War Memorial and we all felt fortunate that we were indoors because it was rainy and windy weather outside. There’s a nice, airy feel in that atrium.
We got there a bit early and James Schmitt was playing patriotic songs on the organ. He’s very talented. The ceremony is sponsored by the Veterans Memorial and Executive Council of the City of Rochester and there were many veterans groups that were represented and in uniform.
At 3pm sharp, SSG Joseph Howlett, from the US Army 98th Division sounded the bugle call for Assembly. He was standing at attention at the top of the escalators and stairs above the atrium. Raymond F. Schultheis, the Commander for the Veterans Memorial and Executive Council, led the Call to Order. The Masonic War Veterans color guard advanced the colors and presented them at the stage. Eagle Scout, Ben Watkins from Troop 37, led the Pledge of Allegiance. Debbie Schmidt then led the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone sang!
The Chaplain, Father William Leone (LTC, US Army, retired) then led the prayer for Veterans. Major General Norbert Rappl (US Army, retired) gave the welcome address and spoke of the long 140 year history of the ceremony that’s honored Rochester area veterans since just after the Civil War. Monroe County Executive, Maggie Brooks and City of Rochester Mayor, Bob Duffy both addressed us and had some nice things to say. Bob Duffy ended his address mentioning a youtube video that’s been making the rounds. It was of an event that took place on April 25, 1976 at a Chicago Cubs baseball game and Rick Monday was the hero. Check it out:
Real Cubs Hero Rick Monday
Our Star Spangled Banner is not just a piece of cloth to we veterans!
We then heard from Colonel David J. Conboy from the US Army 98th Division and he spoke of the vital mission that his Rochester, NY based unit had in training Iraqi forces so that they will be able to defend themselves. The Colonel spoke of the five members of the 98th that gave their lives for us in Iraq, including his good friend, Lt. Col. Terrence Crowe gave his life leading his unit in combat in Tal Afar, Iraq. A book has been written about the 98th’s duty in Iraq titled Iroquois Warriors in Iraq. Check out the chapter on Lt. Col. Crowe. Here’s a video about the 98th in Tal Afar,:
98th Division Advisory Support Team (AST) aka MITTs
Eagle Scout, Ben Watkins, then acted as torch bearer, to light the eternal flame in rememberance of our deceased Veterans. Mayor Bob Duffy placed the floral wreath. Then, SSG Joseph Howlett played Taps. A woman behind us started crying. Many people, including me, had to dab the tears from our eyes. I thought of my Dad and the rest of the veterans and active duty military that have passed away over the last year. The Color Guard then honored the dead with a 21 gun salute.
The colors were then retired by the Masonic War Veterans. Fr. Leone gave the final Benediction. Debbie Schmidt then led us all on a rousing rendition of “God Bless America”! Again, everyone sang!
The number of Monroe County Veterans that have passed away, from May 1, 2007 through April 30, 2008 are as follows:
World War II - 1008
Korean War - 324
Vietnam - 208
Persian Gulf / Desert Storm 6
Iraq - 2
Peace Time - 179
Period of Service Not Recorded - 19
No, I’m not going to make the claim that I was at Woodstock to witness this great performance of “I’m Going Home” by Alvin Lee and Ten Years After. I did see Alvin Lee in Germany when I was stationed over there and he did play this great song! BTW, in the beginning of the video, you can tell that Alvin probably toked up right before coming on stage! I hope you enjoy this great video! Crank it up as the sound quality is good! Happy Friday!
RochesterConservative.com Friday Night Blues
Featuring
Ten Years After - I’m Going Home (live Woodstock ‘69)
Actress Sally Field won an Oscar in 1979 for playing a union organizer in “Norma Rae.” Six years later, she won the same prized-award for her role in “Places in the Heart,” her acceptance speech earning its own special place in sound-bite history:
“…I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”
That about sums up what the Democratic party strives for – likeability. They fervently believe that if an American leader is “liked,” then “the world” will like us. And if the world likes us, the possibility of war is diminished.
Sally Fields’ impromptu phrase explains the phenomenon that is Barack Obama. On the face of it, his resume is not befitting that of a President in these complex times. Experience-wise, years of “community organizing”– his longest held “position”– is ridiculously insufficient.
His long personal associations with the blame-America-first: terrorist William Ayers, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, and wife Michelle – not to mention his close association with the Chicago real estate “fixer” Tony Rezko – would have already brought down 99 percent of any other presidential aspirant.
So if it’s not experience or sound judgment or unsavory associations that have elevated Senator Obama to the status of Presumptive Nominee of the Democratic Party, what has?
It’s his likeability, the political asset that trumps all others in Left-world. Succinctly, the Left is dying for America to be liked again!
When European articles are written with titles such as “Obamamania! Europe Can’t Get Enough!” it’s confirmation to the Left that they have the right candidate. Hillary Clinton could have had 20 years in the Senate, and crafted important legislation, but she still wouldn’t have had the style, looks, charm or “cool” the Left yearns for in its candidates.
Being liked, has long been central to who the Left’s identity. The playwright Arthur Miller says as much in his 1949 play, Death of a Salesman. The failed traveling salesman, Willy Loman, tries to impress upon his son Biff that success in life depends less on hard work and more on being “well liked” and having personal attractiveness. Biff breaks with his father when he recognizes the speciousness of “being liked” and realizes how it has led his father to live in a world of dreams and illusions. Kind of like the modern Democratic party believing that if Ahmadinejad “likes” Obama, the Iranian zealot will dismantle his nuclear program!
Harry Truman wasn’t “liked” during his last year in office and had an approval rating of 22 percent. In retrospect, we know the tough decisions he made were not influenced by thoughts of his own popularity. The same can be said for President Bush, who has had to make even more difficult and heart-wrenching decisions – decisions that have led to ZERO attacks against our country in almost seven years.
America is safer because seasoned men like Truman and Bush knew that being right is more important than being liked. It’s something the modern Democratic party, as shown in its choice of Obama as its standard bearer, does not understand.
For, when all is said and done, the true goal of the Left, is to be able to gush from the proverbial world stage and say: “You like us, right now, you like us!”
Dave Jeffers encouraged me to get the word out about Erik Rush’s expose’, “Black Liberation Theology: The Enemy Within” in the New Media Journal. Here’s an excerpt from this hard-hitting article:
Erik Rush writes:
A point I’ve made many times in response to those who claim that black conservatives are Uncle Toms, race traitors, and things of this nature: Black civil rights activists (BLT proponents included) have long since been corrupted by the agenda of far Left whites, an agenda that has done infinitely more harm to black Americans than good. The individuals who engage in the aforementioned invective seldom have a solid working knowledge of the history of the United States, but with BLT, pundits and pastors are validated with an almost unlimited supply of credentials toward promoting this insidious movement.
“The goals of BT are to turn religion into sociology, Christianity into a political agenda, Jesus into a black Marxist rebel, and the gospel into violent revolution. They are more interested in politics than preaching the gospel.” – The Truth about Black Liberal Theology, Dr. Robert A. Morey
This is evidenced in just about every excerpt we’ve seen of late; Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks and Otis Moss (Wright’s successor) seem wholly invested in accentuating the negative in every meaningful area of blacks’ lives, from their self-perception, to their worldview, to the evil of their “oppressors.” No doubt their advocates will accuse this columnist of having cherry-picked “snippets” of sermons to deliberately place said pastors in an unfavorable light.
Please click on the following link to read the rest of Erik Rush’s article:
The political “hot button” issues of guns and judges have become intertwined in this election year. The fate of both issues will be decided by the candidate we elect as president. Why? Because over a four-year term, that president will likely appoint at least two and possibly three justices to the United States Supreme Court. Simply stated, this year when we elect a president, we will also cast our ballot for the next Supreme Court.
Everyone concerned about the Second Amendment and judicial accountability should heed John McCain’s speech to the NRA on May 16. The presumptive Republican nominee will speak directly to guns owners about the Second Amendment at the NRA’s Celebration of American Values event at the NRA Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.
And in America today, there has never been a greater opportunity or a greater threat to gun rights. In March, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the watershed case of District of Columbia v. Heller, a lawsuit challenging the DC gun ban. Residents of the District of Columbia are categorically prohibited from possessing handguns and operable long guns (rifles and shotguns) in their homes, even for self-defense.
The Heller case turns on whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms refers to private, law-abiding citizens, or whether it is a right of the people “collectively” to have guns only when they serve in the National Guard or a state-sponsored militia unit. The Court is scheduled to decide the case the third week in June.
Whatever the Court decides, that decision will shape gun rights in America for generations to come. The Heller decision will become the definitive standard for gun rights in America. The Second Amendment is the insurance policy on American liberty. And whether you own guns or not, you cannot afford for a single minute to think that it doesn’t matter to you, your family or the security of this country.
Just like other controversial decisions, such as those on religious liberty and free speech, the Heller decision will lead to many more questions than it answers.
When the Court decided Everson v. Board of Education in 1947 it created the doctrine of separation of church and state. For over 60 years this nation has grappled with what that doctrine means, in a raging cultural battle.
When the Court declared a previously unnoticed right to abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973, America’s courts and presidential politics were thrust into an issue that still stirs deep passions and is ever present in political debates.
From now on, the same will be true of the Second Amendment. The Heller decision will launch 30 years of defining the nature and scope of gun rights in our courts. The Heller holding will likely be narrow, and will leave open countless other questions, such as what kinds of guns are protected, how far that right extends beyond your home, and whether the Second Amendment controls state law. At least some of these questions will find their way up to the Supreme Court years later. Who sits on the Court when those cases arrive matters a great deal to those of us who believe in the value of widespread lawful gun ownership in America.
That’s why the 2008 presidential election has unprecedented importance for gun owners. Despite their campaign rhetoric purporting to support the right to keep and bear arms, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are categorically opposed to our Second Amendment rights. Hillary Clinton opposed the 2005 tort reform law that saved the American gun industry from bankruptcy. Barack Obama has declared his opposition to all concealed carry laws. He has refused to repudiate his answer to a 1996 questionnaire, where he answered “yes” to a question asking if he supported laws banning “the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.” And Senator Obama’s true contempt for gun owners came out when he described us as “clinging” to our guns out of bitterness.
In contrast, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain joined bipartisan majorities on a Congressional amicus brief in the Supreme Court in DC v. Heller for the proposition that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Both Clinton and Obama refused to sign that brief, instead supporting the District of Columbia’s law that prohibits its law-abiding residents from possessing any operable firearm at home, even for self-defense.
The president of the United States appoints all federal judges. Senator McCain has stated he will appoint justices like John Roberts and Sam Alito, and Antonin Scalia, all of whom seem likely to vote to uphold individual gun rights. Senator Obama, on the other hand, has promised to nominate liberal judicial activists and wants the Court to uphold the DC gun ban.
So who Americans elect as president this year will determine the fate of the Second Amendment. In electing a president we also elect a Supreme Court, and in the coming years the makeup of the High Court will be crucial in defining our rights.
For that reason I’m honored to serve on Senator McCain’s Justice Advisory Committee, and will do everything I can to make sure that America’s 90 million gun owners elect a president who will appoint Supreme Court justices faithful to the text of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment.
Gun owners are very sensible people. America’s heartland is filled with people devoted to faith, family and classic American values like lawful gun ownership for hunting, recreation and self-defense. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could learn a lot from them, but I doubt they’ll be joining us at the NRA convention.
Sandy Froman is the immediate past president of the National Rifle Association of America, only the second woman and the first Jewish American to hold that office in the 136-year history of the NRA. The views expressed are her own and not that of any organization.
Last Thursday the House of Representatives voted 266-154 to advance a $300 billion program of taxpayer-financed mortgages to home speculators and their lenders.
The bill does not protect taxpayers. The bill gives six-figure taxpayer loans to people who have terrible credit scores and to people who have made fewer than 12 payments on their existing mortgages. The bill even provides these taxpayer handouts to non-citizens. The plan lets banks cherry-pick the worst loans in their portfolios and sticks taxpayers with 100 percent of the risk.
However, our “Angry Renter.com” campaign is making a difference and the opposition is growing to this bailout plan. Renters and responsible homeowners are the “forgotten man” of this debate, as Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida put it in his speech on the House floor.
Can you help spread the news about this legislation so we can stop it?
On Tuesday President Bush came out strongly against the bill, saying “First of all, we are committed to a good housing bill that will help folks stay in their house, as opposed to a housing bill that will reward speculators and lenders. I will veto the bill that’s moving through the House today if it makes it to my desk.”
Even though the bailout bill passed the House, it was not by margins large enough to override the president’s veto.
This week the battle turns to the U.S. Senate. where, Senator Bunning of Kentucky is leading the charge against a flipper bailout in the Finance Committee. Senate rules make it easier to offer amendments, so we should see greater debate about the risky and unfair aspects of the bill.
FreedomWorks has identified five key senators as targets on the housing bailout bill. Please take a moment to call them and urge them to oppose this flawed piece of legislation.
Sen. Dole: 202-224-6342 Sen. Bennett: 202-224-5444 Sen. McConnell: 202-224-2541 Sen. Bayh: 202-224-5623 Sen. Carper: 202-224-2441
This is a great opportunity to encourage your friends to get involved. These issues affect everyone and a robust opposition has the power to do great things. Ask your friends to sign the Angry Renter petition, and to join you in calling their senator.
Farm Bill Fiasco
Another disgraceful Congressional idea is the wasteful and redistributive farm bill. Here is an excerpt from an article on the farm bill by FreedomWorks Chief Economist Dr. Wayne Brough.
Despite a record $175.5 billion in crop production, with the price of all major crops continuing to rise, Congress is seeking to expand subsidies for farmers.
In fact, the bill now pending in Congress would allow married couples with an adjusted gross income of $1.5 million to receive subsidies from the government, and even individuals who are not full-time farmers would be eligible for subsidies with an adjusted gross income of $500,000!
The White House has suggested a lower cap of $200,000, which is still more than four times the median household income in the United States. Read more…
Help us hold the politicians accountable as they consider economically harmful ideas like the mortgage bailout and the farm bill.
The earthquake in China is a disaster of epic proportions! Entire towns and cities were destroyed and the death toll continues to rise. I heard of those high schools collapsing down on themselves and all those kids and teachers getting buried and killed. My oldest is in high school and I can only imagine the horror and grief those poor parents and families of the students and teachers must be experiencing.
The following account was posted on Free Republic by rubyliu. It give a first-hand account with what the Chinese are dealing with now. Keep these folks in your prayers… RV
qimeng(3603*****) the closure the traffic of Wenchuan has completely closure, I do not know how kind the scene there, but the Prime Minister instructed the soliders no matter how difficult,must be get into Whenchuan city.
In World War II and even into the Cold War, academics, journalists and politicians tempered their criticism of American foreign policy with a concern for U. S. troops serving in harms way. Sixty years later, men and women in U. S. military combat fatigues can count on no such sympathy from American elites.
This treatment is on vivid display in the new book Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America’s War on Terror Before and After 9-11 by David Horowitz and Ben Johnson. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the most unrepentant offenders were the renegades cocooned in academia.
Seeing an opportunity to discredit the allied cause, American radicals began an anti-sanctions movement based solely on the Iraqi regime’s propaganda, Horowitz and Johnson write of the Left’s efforts in the run-up to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The founder of the movement was [University of] Texas journalism professor and jihadist sympathizer Robert Jensen, who claimed that each month 5,000 to 6,000 children die because of the sanctions.
Working journalists were not much less reckless than journalism professors such as Jenson. The outlook of the fourth estate can be seen in, among other ways, their coverage of abuses, verifiable or alleged, at the Abu Ghraib prison for prisoners of war.
If the number of stories on Abu Ghraib equaled the number of legitimate complaints unearthed by every bipartisan official source, all the major media would have tapped and sapped this journalistic well in about a month. Instead, we are still seeing Abu Ghraib stories four years after the last official report was submitted. There were 24 New York Times stories on the holocaust during World War II compared to hundreds on Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War in that same newspaper, Horowitz pointed out at the national Press Club here on April 22.
As the title of his book indicates, it is big-name Democrats Horowitz primarily takes to task for setbacks in the war on terror. As a result of Howard Dean’s surge in votes and fundraising [Sens. John] Kerry and Edwards took an anti-war stance in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, Horowitz observed. Gephardt, Biden and Lieberman didn’t go along.
Gephardt retired and Lieberman was driven out of the party. Horowitz himself is a fairly high-profile political pilgrim who has moved from red-diaper baby to Conservative-Republican senior citizen.
Among the bill of particulars he faults congressional Democrats for in the war on terror: thwarting investigations of terrorists. Senator Robert Byrd introduced a bill to establish a commission that would investigate the now-crippled surveillance program, Horowitz and Johnson recount. Sen. Byrd said that such a commission will lift the fog of secrecy and clandestine government activity aimed at law-abiding citizens.
How a citizen taking an international call from a previously identified member of a terrorist organization would qualify as law-abiding, the senator didn’t explain, Horowitz and Johnson note. The scary thing is that Sen. Byrd is the Democratic Party’s go-to guy on the Constitution, perhaps because his fellow Democrats think he was there when it was written.
Responsible criticism expresses policy differences without malice towards the soldiers implementing those policies or their commanders defending the national interest, Horowitz and Johnson write. Though it does not make up the bulk of the book, the authors do deliver such critiques themselves.
More precisely, they failed to see that we are in a war with Islamists who were terrorists, a failure contributed to by the Bush Administration’s reluctance to recognize the religious nature of the enemy we face, Horowitz and Johnson write.
It is a civilizational war, Horowitz explained at the Press Club. It is against a movement within Islam, not Islam itself.
Horowitz also criticized elements of the first President Bush’s incursion into the Gulf. The coalition that Bush 41 assembled to go into the war in Iraq was too multilateral, Horowitz said. It included the Arabs, Chinese and Russians, all of whom were doing business with Saddam and had no interest in overthrowing him.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
Columbus, OH (LifeNews.com) — Officials with Planned Parenthood in Ohio are finally responding to allegations a UCLA student newspaper made in February that they gladly accepted donations from a caller who said he wanted it used for racist purposes. The Advocate magazine called Planned Parenthood centers in several states.
The pro-life publication told LifeNews.com at the time that an actor posing as a racist donor called Planned Parenthood and asked that his donation be used to abort African American babies in order to “lower the number of black people.”
The magazine said an Ohio Planned Parenthood representative, Lisa Hutton, told the donor that Planned Parenthood “will accept the money for whatever reason.”
The abortion business has never responded, but Stephanie Tresso, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood in Columbus, talked with the Associated Press about the calls on Saturday.
She did not dispute that the Planned Parenthood staffer accepted the donation.
However, Tresso said the calls were a sham to discredit the pro-abortion group and she claimed the audio of the call posted on the Internet was edited. Tresso says pro-life advocates left out part of the staffer’s comments saying the money would be used for black women in need.
“It was quite an unprofessional call that she received, and she struggled with how to address it,” Tresso told AP.
“She filed an incident report and notified her supervisor, which she was supposed to do. Her supervisor then notified other Planned Parenthoods, and we realized that this was happening all over the country and it was an organized effort,” Tresso added.
She indicated Planned Parenthood staff have been trained about how to field similar phone calls in the future but didn’t indicate what that included.
Lila Rose, the editor of the student newspaper, also spoke with the Associated Press and defended the phone calls, saying they proved Planned Parenthood at least tolerates racism.
“They could have hung up, they could have disagreed, they could have said ‘No, we don’t discriminate,’ but not a single clinic did that, and that’s disturbing and shocking,” she said.
The Bay Area chapter of Code Pink had a schedule of events all week long on this, the week of Mother’s Day.
They had bring-your-daughter (indoctrinate and brainwash your youngins) day
They had a mother’s day and grandma’s day too
Today they had Witches, Crones and Sirens day. Why? I don’t know… maybe witchcraft is just a female theme? Maybe they just had too much Frogs Breath and Dragons Eggs lying around and they had to get rid of them, who knows.
Code Pink showed up early so they could be on Fox News, who came to report on their shenanigans. Move America Forward, not to be outdone, was also there early with our broom sticks to mock Code Pink’s witches
MAF also brought some SALT to pour around the recruiting center, because as every good witch-hunter knows, salt will block the evil spells!
So the witches had their cauldron out, and performed several bizarre little rituals, none of which I really understood.
They erected this little altar that was a real hodgepodge of anything associated with religions or superstitions.
They tried to burn something in their cauldron.
They got a citation for that, which was hilarious to all our patriots who came by to denounce the attempted witching of the Marines.
We had a few ladies who stopped by who are just local supporters. One supporter who stopped by mused about whether or not the mass of legitimate practicing wiccans out there were insulted by Code Pink embarrassing their religion. I wasn’t so sure but it sounded like a likely and compelling possibility to me.
A young man who stopped by later on said that while he was a liberal himself, he was absolutely ashamed at the Berkeley City Council and angry at Code Pink for misrepresenting Berkeley. He said several times, “I grew up in Berkeley, I’m a liberal, and I will tell you; this is NOT BERKELEY”
We knew that not all of Berkeley’s population was on board with Code Pink, but now with the dwindling numbers of people attending their protests and the increasing ridiculousness of their gimmicks, perhaps the people of Berkeley are growing weary of this insane crusade.
Usually I delight in making fun of Code Pink, but by the end of today I almost felt bad because they just made it far too easy. All their chants and spells were just so off-the-wall that it was like…I don’t even really have to be here, they are making fools of themselves.
I really laughed out loud –obnoxiously so- when they had one particular chant of “we are the change, we are the ones they’ve been waiting for” …or something like that
Whatever it was, it was just such self-important hippie nonsense I couldn’t help but keel over in gut bursting chuckling.
We at MAF continue to monitor Code Pink and will bring you the next episode in their gradual slide into madness… keep watching, same moon-bat time, same moon-bat channel!
RC Pirate Forums
I hope you enjoy this great video! Crank it up as the sound quality is good! Happy Friday! 
RV 
“…I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”
By Sandy Froman
And in America today, there has never been a greater opportunity or a greater threat to gun rights. In March, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the watershed case of District of Columbia v. Heller, a lawsuit challenging the DC gun ban. Residents of the District of Columbia are categorically prohibited from possessing handguns and operable long guns (rifles and shotguns) in their homes, even for self-defense.
is making a difference and the opposition is growing to this bailout plan. Renters and responsible homeowners are the “forgotten man” of this debate, as Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida put it in 
where, Senator Bunning of Kentucky is leading the charge against a flipper bailout in the Finance Committee. Senate rules make it easier to offer amendments, so we should see greater debate about the risky and unfair aspects of the bill.
Columbus, OH (LifeNews.com) — Officials with Planned Parenthood in Ohio are finally responding to allegations a UCLA student newspaper made in February that they gladly accepted donations from a caller who said he wanted it used for racist purposes. The Advocate magazine called Planned Parenthood centers in several states.
All POW-MIA
