This is the "Pastor's Page" from the February 26, 2006, Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin.  Barack Obama was a member of the church at the time.  It is unknown if he attended services that day.

After a glorious day yesterday of the Senate coming to a standstill while we heard a marathon amendment recital, all because the Democrats refuse to honor their word and move Bush judicial appointments to the Appellate courts, the Senators provided their own late night antics to take stock on the day's events.

When the dramatic reading of Barbara Boxer's 491-page amendment to the climate control boondoggle finally finished late into the evening, to the snapping of fingers all over the Senate floor, the majority and minority leaders reflected on what happened Wednesday and why.  Here's a little bit of the highlights, or what happens when Senate Reid stays up past his bedtime.

For those of you who don't speak fluent politician, let me translate for you.

Sen. Sessions: Didn't we have a deal to move 15 circuit court judges?

Sen. Reid: Hummina hummina hummina, blah blah blah.

Sen. Sessions:  Thank you for your articulate response, but you didn't answer my question.  Didn't we have a deal to move 15 circuit court judges?

Sen. Reid: You hurt my feelers.  You said I was clueless.  Don't deny it, I saw you. You called me clueless. That's an insult, and I'm sure that's against the rules.  At least I think it is.  Are you sorry you called me clueless?

Sen. Sessions: If I broke a rule, I'm sorry. But if the question mark fits, find someone to explain what it means to you. 

I know it's late, but hopefully someone will tell Senator Reid not to take it too personal, that one man's insult is another man's definition.  And start moving the judges.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell used the element of surprise today to follow through on a promise he's made to fellow conservatives for quite some time.  Either the Democrats were going to give President Bush's judicial nominees, especially ones for the Appellate Court level, the same treatment given to previous administrations, or things were going to start moving very slowly in the Senate.  Harry Reid's most recent broken deal with McConnell was to confirm three of Bush's nominees by the Memorial Day recess.  It didn't happen.

Today, just before 1PM in the East, Harry Reid took to the floor for the purpose of substituting a 491-page amendment by Barbara Boxer on the Climate Change bill currently being discussed.  The clerk read the title of the bill, which is customary.  Senator Reid asked that the reading of the bill be ended so time could be divvied out and the matter discussed on the floor, which is again very customary.  Mitch McConnell then objected to the suspension of the reading of the bill, much to Reid's surprise and amazement.  Watch the video of the antics of today.



The bill is still being read as of this writing.  Senator Boxer, after complaining bitterly to any reporter in the Senate gallerly wishing to listen, took to the floor during this process a couple of times, desperately trying to stop the open reading of the bill on which she wants people to discuss and vote.  I guess the irony was lost on her. 

Meanwhile, Senator McConnell held his own press conference to explain what the maneuver was really about.  He has no qualms about debating the 491-page gas tax that Senator Boxer thinks will save the Earth.  He's very confident that going from $4 bucks a gallon to $4.50 virtually overnight if the bill were to become law isn't exactly the solution most Americans are looking for.  But a deal is a deal, and he's calling the Democrats out for their consistent screwing of Bush judicial nominees. 

For conservatives who bemoan Congressional Republicans always spending too much money, or not being pure enough on one issue or another, they should take note of the lengths Senate leadership is willing to go to protect one of the principles on which all conservatives should agree, and that's the the abilty of appointed conservatives to be able to be confirmed to the courts. 

Let's hope Republicans all over the country keep this in mind this fall when they're considering on how much time, energy and money they want to spend on their state's Senate race.   

CNN reported this morning, story here, that The Obamas have confirmed they've resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ in the wake of the latest outburst of a sermon, this time by Father Michael Pfleger.  While Senator Obama hopes this ends a very nagging problem to his candidacy, the move today raises many more concerns about his judgment.

In Senator Obama's A More Perfect Union speech in Philadelphia last March, the one he later had to walk back from after Jeremiah Wright's National Press Club performance led Obama to quickly disown his pastor, he made a very careful effort to say there was a wonderful new pastor at the church now, Rev. Otis Moss, and that he continued to value the church community. 



Going back to the Pfleger debacle from Trinity last Sunday, look again at the introduction and the wrap-up.  Rev. Moss welcomes Pfleger as a brother who has clearly been there before, and then after sitting there and watching Pfleger's racial rant of a sermon, he praises God not only for the message, but the messenger. 




Some of the questions that should be asked of Senator Obama are ones like when does he think that Trinity United Church of Christ changed?  Does he believe the church became radical only in the last few weeks?  If Senator Obama is as anti-Farrakhan as he stated when he disowned Jeremiah Wright, how could he not know of the church's past and present fondness for Farrakhan? Was Senator Obama aware of Father Pfleger's Farrakhan ties when he orchestrated hundreds of thousands of earmarked dollars to projects run by Pfleger? 

As the Democrats finish wrestling with what to do with the Florida and Michigan half-a-delegates, in a move to try and wrap up their contentious primary, you've got to think at least some of the Obama supporters out there have to be extremely concerned that it seems no friend of Obama is above being jettisoned when it becomes politically expedient to do so.

If there is one thing that has been uncovered about the character of Barack Obama during the primary process, it's his questionable judgment.  On a micro level, the space under the Obama bus is getting crowded with Jeremiah Wright, former staffer Samantha Power, Father Pfleger, and now, apparently, an entire church.  On a macro level, Obama spent all week parsing words, essentially trying to maintain he's willing to meet with any despot around the world with no preconditions, yet he's unwilling to meet with our military leaders in Iraq unless there's a precondition of withdrawal.

The question Americans should be asking as we continue the slow, methodical march to November, doesn't judgment still matter in a president, and hasn't Barack Obama demonstrated that his judgment is flawed at best?

In an article well worth reading yesterday at the Weekly Standard, Stanley Kurtz asked the question of what did Barack Obama know about the controversial views and statements of his friend, mentor and pastor of twenty years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and when did he know it.  Kurtz obtained a year's worth of Wright's writings, included as part of his monthly magazine, Trumpet. In analyzing the 2006 messages, Kurtz comes to the conclusion that Rev. Wright's political views were on such full public display that it's just not plausible to believe Senator Obama when he claims he never heard anything offensive from his pastor until he had to finally cut him loose after the National Press Club debacle.  He knew, and he had always known how radical he was.  Yet he chose to attend regularly for 20 years.

The larger question, though, comes from ABC News' The Note blogger, Jake Tapper, who in March of this year wondered who is scrubbing Trinity United Church of Christ of any references to Trumpet Magazine.  There used to be links on the Church website to get the magazine. There doesn't seem to a website available for the magazine now.  The only reference is here, which shows the Trumpet logo, and lists previous sermons you can purchase, but when you try to navigate to other parts of the magazine, you get redirected to a temporary domain host. 

Thanks to BizzyBlog, here are three instances where Barack Obama has graced the cover of Trumpet in the recent past.



January, 2005



February, 2006 - Note that the person on the right in the same row as Senator Obama is Louis Farrakhan.



March, 2007

CNN anchor John Roberts' pledge to make this a Wright-free zone notwithstanding, it is very relevant to try and determine whether Senator Obama is being truthful about his relationship with Wright and his knowledge of when he discovered how radical Wright's views are.  It goes to his judgment, and whether or not he subscribes to the same views as the people with which he had surrounding him.  The question is, why is it so hard to obtain the magazines?  Why have they all been disappeared? 

After a lot of digging, in addition to the 2006 volume that Kurtz has reviewed, here are two other random months that for now are available on the web. 

September, 2005

Here's some excerpts from Rev. Wright:

The conservative fanatics are made up of folks who are called “al-Qaeda” and/or “God Bless American Christians.” I will say more about that in a moment. The conservative fanatics are the people who make Christianity and “moral values” a matter of gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research and fighting a war against terrorism.

And,

Since 9/11/01, George Bush has convinced many Americans that to criticize his illegal war against Iraq is to be unpatriotic. That is conservative fanaticism.

And,

 

The faith handed down by Samuel DeWitt Proctor, the faith taught to me by Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Sr. and Dr. Mary Wright, the faith lived by Dr. Thomas Howard Henderson and the faith that teaches Africans to use their minds as Jesus said (“Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy mind”), that faith is not exciting. That faith does not make headlines. That faith does not bomb abortion clinics. That faith does not say that a vote against George Bush is a vote against God. That faith does not say that gays are going to hell. That faith does not say that we are right and everybody who is not on our side is wrong. The Christian faith that was given to me (from my past, that I keep looking back over) is a faith that faces each new challenge with the understanding that there would have been no civil rights movement if it had been left up to Christian fanatics. Christian fanatics used the Bible to keep us in slavery. Christian fanatics used the Bible to justify segregation and apartheid!

And,

Conservative fanatics line up on the side of al-Qaeda or they line up behind George Bush. Both are terrorists! Both believe that war is the answer. Both believe in murdering innocent people. George Bush lied to the public.

Remember, Obama had consented to have a picture of himself with his arm around Wright on the cover of this magazine eight months earlier.  Still think Obama had no idea in what Wright believed?

Two months later, in November of 2005, here is sections of what Rev. Wright had to say. 

Tom DeLay had finally gotten caught!  He had been indicted not once but twice and his illegal gerrymandering of the districts in Texas negate the Black vote have been exposed for what it is; but my mother was dying.The White House Iraq Group had been exposed.The lies that they had told since 09.11.01 and the plan to take over Iraq (and secure all the oil in the Middle East for American interests!) that had been in place since 1992 was coming to light; but my mother was dying.The cooking of the books, the fixing of the facts to make it justify an illegal war was being exposed day-by-day; but my mother was dying.  The politicians who had pulled the wool over Christians eyes with their lies, their deceptions and their putting all of their attention on gay marriage were being caught “with their drawers down”; but my mother was dying.

And,

Rove and Libby found themselves in the crosshairs of a Special Investigator and Grand Jury probe.Their deliberate attempts to “out” Valerie Plame to pay her husband back for daring to tell the truth about the lies told about the Bush Administration; but my mother was dying. Ms. Plame who was an undercover CIA operative was married to a man high up in the Bush Administration.  He found out that there was no enriched uranium being sent to or exported from Niger as lied about in the Bush “evidence” and quoted in the Presidential State of the Nation speech.  He had to go!  Because he dared to say that there were no weapons of mass destruction before we invaded Iraq, he had to be silenced and the White House Intelligence Group sought out to silence him.  Christians needed to know that; but my mother was dying.  Bush appointed an undercover conservative to the Supreme Court; but my mother was dying. I had warned the members of our congregation and the citizens of this nation prior to the election in 2004 that Christians needed to be concerned about the 2004 Presidential Election because two possible Supreme Court judges would be named by whoever was in the Oval Office; and nobody listened.  I needed to speak a prophetic word to help connect the dots between what I said in the fall of 2004 and what was happening to us in the fall of 2005; but my mother was dying.

And,

The Bush-Cheney-Halliburton financial rip-offs that were taking place not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but now in New Orleans, in Louisiana and Mississippi were matters that the Christian church needed to address; but my mother was dying.  The President was trying to put onto the Supreme Court a woman who had never been a judge.  Christians were coming to me asking me, “How can he do that?”  I wanted to point out in a national forum that his daddy had done the same thing.  Judge Clarence Thomas never sat on a judicial bench either!  I needed Christians to see the games that were being played on them by the persons in whom they had put so much misplaced faith; but my mother was dying.

About three months later, Obama's face was part of an all-star line-up on the cover of the February, 2006 edition.  Joining Obama's face was that of Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam co-founder Elijah Muhammad, Dick Gregory, and Johnny Cochran. 

Trumpet Magazine was founded in 1982.  Each month, the magazine is offered and promoted in the Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin.  Members of that church are affiliated with the magazine.  Yet for twenty five years, the musings of Jeremiah Wright, and others he esteemed, are hiding somewhere outside of routine view, with the Barack Obama campaign hoping they stay hidden from view until after the election in November.  Who will be the first blogger to find the extended cache of Trumpet magazines? Who will be the first MSM'er to connect the dots and call Senator Obama on why this radical pastor wasn't considered by Obama to be radical until polls in Pennsylvania forced him to publicly disown him?   

Let the Trumpets sound. 

It's hard to make this up.  Longtime character actor, Dennis Farina, was arrested at LAX Sunday after packing heat in his suitcase.  In case you don't remember who Dennis Farina is, here's a little bit of his work from the 2000 motion picture, Snatch.



My guess is this won't be the last time you hear this joke.

Living in California as we do, it's depressing that the closest thing to representation we conservatives have in the United States Senate is Jon Kyl from Arizona.  What we are left to endure usually comes from our junior Senator, both in seniority and in intellect, Barbara Boxer.

Among the myriad of causes and issues of which she claims to be a champion, she is an abortion absolutist above all else.  Boxer put that on display once again today, when she temporarily blocked the passage of a Senate resolution honoring the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.  The resolution, offered by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, was deemed offensive to Boxer in two areas, and wouldn't allow the measure to move forward until the language was removed.  One of the clauses dealt with religious expression in public places.  Boxer certainly can't have that.  

But the line in the sand clause to Boxer was this one, which you can read at Politico.com.

Whereas Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out for the weak and vulnerable, witnessing to the value of each and every human life;

That raised the anti-abortion alarm bells with Senator Boxer, and she raced into action.  This cannot stand.  She will not allow the United States Senate to blindly honor someone who values every human life, even someone like the Pope, who actually has spoken out, witnessing to the value of every human life. 

She is as hard left on the life issue as Barack Obama is, which is radical.  Senator Obama was rhetorically talking about his potential grandchild when he made his now infamous remarks about not wanting his daughters to be "punished with a baby."

Democrats continue to maintain the illusion that public anti-war sentiment is going to sweep them to power in November, just like it did in the Congressional elections in 2006.  What they fail to realize, however, is that the Democratic Party is about to nominate someone who is out of the mainstream liberal.  And America, as divided as we keep being told it is, simply isn't as far to the left as the Democratic Party thinks it is.

Most Americans, even ones who are pro-choice, wouldn't go to the lengths of Senator Boxer to deem one of the hallmarks of the Pope's Catholic faith as unacceptable political speech that should not be honored by the United States Senate.

What a horrible night for Barack Obama, and for the Democrats in general.  George Stephanopoulos, along with Charlie Gibson, conducted a great debate on substance, showing any American willing to look that neither Democratic candidate is ready for the West Wing, and that John McCain clearly is.

In an exchange that will be played all through the general election season, Senator Obama was asked about his connections to unrepentent anti-war bomber/terrorist/Weather Ungerground member Bill Ayers.  Obama was clearly flustered by the question, and in responding, compared Ayers to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn's views on doctors who perform abortion.  Here's the video:



The last time I checked, Doc Coburn neither advocated, participated, nor had a need to repent from any terrorist activity, unlike Bill Ayers, who to this day is proud of his activities forty years ago.  If Obama wanted to unify America, he took another large step in achieving half of that goal with conservatives, who are not going to take this slander on Coburn lightly.   

Both Clinton and Obama stumbled on taxes, especially capital gains taxes, on guns, and on foreign policy.  Obama was clearly uncomfortable on the Wright issue that hasn't been put behind him yet. 

The other exchange that's going to come back and bite Obama is him doubling down once again on the bitterness comment that has caused him so much grief this past week. Here's the video of that:

When people feel like Washington's not listening to them, when they're promised year after year, decade after decade that they're economic situation's going to change, and it doesn't, then politically, they end up focusing on those things that are a constant, like religion. They end up feeling this is a place where I can find some refuge. This is something that I can count on. They end up being much more concerned about votes around things like guns, where traditions have been on from generation to generation.

So if the economy is going great, especially if it's caused by action in Washington, people have no need to focus on things like religion or votes on guns?  It sounds to me like he didn't walk back from what he said to the elites in San Francisco a week and a half ago.  Instead, Obama's answer came out sounding something like, "I made a mistake about what I said in San Francisco, so let me be clear about what I really meant then, and mean today.  When small town people get bitter, it sometimes drives them to guns and God.  Hopefully, I cleared that up."

As has been said around the blogosphere, there was only one clear winner tonight, and that is John McCain.  

Thanks to the amazing skill Barack Obama has shown this week of how easily he can stick his foot in his mouth while trying to speak off the cuff, the country continues to focus on who is or is not bitter, and whether guns and religion and trade policy are just crutches used by small town Americans who can't get what they want out of life. 

In the meantime, however, two of the chief Democratic windbags in the United States Senate took to the floor this morning, with their charts and graphs, and decried how essentially the republic as we know it is in jeopardy because of an unprecedented amount of Republican filibusters. 

With the assistance of C-SPAN, it is clear that majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Chuck Schumer of New York, senior senators of their respective states, had senior moments today.

Here is Schumer, not today, but just over a month ago, March 6th, 2008, to be precise:



And here is Chuck Schumer, on the Senate floor today, on the same subject:



Oops.  Something doesn't quite add up, does it?

Here's Harry Reid from Leap Year Day, 2/29/08:



And here is Happy Harry today:



Why the discrepancy, you ask?  The Democrats seem to have a living, breathing definition of the word filibuster.  It seems if the Democrats block judicial nominations, Reid and Schumer count it as a Republican filibuster.  If Chris Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, filibusters the FISA reform bill, Reid and Schumer count that as a Republican filibuster. If Democrats vote unanimously or near-unanimously with the Republicans to uphold a filibuster and beat a bill, as has happened on almost a dozen occasions, that counts as a Republican filibuster.

Harry Reid, despite the fact he has trouble with two digit numbers, also took to the floor yesterday morning, and made the following remarks about fellow Americans visiting the United States Capitol:

04-14reid.mp3

“Mr. President, someone wanting to visit the Capitol today, there is no place for them to gather. They gather -it used to be out on the East Front - now they gather on the West Front. And the people who work here joke about you can always tell when it's summertime because you can smell the visitors. And what we mean by that Mr. President – they stand out there in the high humidity, heat, sweating, and it’s really – there’s no place for them to go. The bathrooms in this facility are almost nonexistent. There is one on this side, one on the other side, both very small.”

Oh, how nice.  There certainly is no elitism in the Senate, is there?  Barack Obama thinks you're bitter, and Harry Reid thinks you stink. 

General David Petraeus is in Washington, D.C. to give his latest report to the Senate and the House about the progress in Iraq after the surge, and what still needs to be done.  The last time this warrior visited the Congress, instead of receiving the honor and gratitude from a grateful nation that he deserves, his arrival in Washington was greeted by a full-page ad placed by MoveOn.org in the New York Times, calling him a traitor by renaming him General Betray-us.   

This time around, at least one Senator has made sure that General Petraeus will be thanked properly for his service, and you can add your name to that list, too. 

Republican leader Mitch McConnell, over on his campaign site's blog, has drafted a thank you letter to David Petraeus, and has it set up so that you can add your name and brief comments that will be presented to the General. 

Please click here to add your name to the card, and show General Petraeus that the MoveOn view is not how most Americans feel about their military men and women. 

If you've heard some of the audio of Barack Obama reading from his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, that we've been playing this week, and have a hard time articulating what's wrong with it, Columnist To the World, Mark Steyn, explains it all for you.  Listen to it here.  The full transcript will be available here later.

Mickey Kaus writes about some problems heard in Obama's book here.

Our good friend and fellow broadcaster, Frank Pastore, was a major league pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds during the late 70's and early 80's.  He holds no baseball records of note, but until this week, held a record for 21 years that made him a legend in the Hall of Gluttony. 

During the last trip to Texas in his storied career, he stopped at The Big Texan and ate himself a 72 ounce steak in 9 1/2 minutes.  For a generation, many tried, many failed to claim the speed eating record away from Frank.  Until a professional eater bested him by about 40 seconds.  Read about it here.

Hugh talked to Frank on the air today, dismayed that Frank wasn't already in Amarillo, Texas to reclaim his record.  It seems that he's content with letting some youngster carry on the mantle.  This just can't stand.  Frank needs encouragement to summon the stomach for one more day in the sun.  The following training video might help.



You can do it, Frank.  Beat the stomach.  E-mail Frank at frank@kkla.com.

If you are an aficionado of the American political scene, and happen to be conservative, pop yourself a batch of your favorite popcorn, and watch the following video between Clinton supporter, James Carville, and Obama supporter, Tom Daschle. 



Two hard lefties shooting at each other from point blank range.  Kind of makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over, doesn't it?

At the hour of ten, Washington, D.C. time, Harry Reid reconvened the United States Senate for another busy week.  Holding his pencil like the late Lawrence Welk held his baton, the hapless majority leader started off the week by defending the Democrats' budget bill in the following way:



Reid stated the stock market was dropping, "as we speak", at 10:07AM EDT.  At that time, the stock market was up approximately 300 points, on the way to the largest one day gain in nealy five years, closing over 416 points.  You think somebody on the Democratic side, another Senator, a staffer, might have leaned in and whispered something to Senator Reid, something like, "Senator, the market's through the roof today, you're making a fool of yourself...again?" Nope.

You could say Reid just had a slip of the tongue, but that wouldn't explain him saying the market was in freefall again in a press conference a little while later.   The one thing you can say about Harry Reid is that he's remarkably consistent.  He almost never lets facts get in the way of whatever narrative he's trying to sell the American people. 

As we've learned a short while ago, the state of New York is embroiled in another sex scandal, this one surrounding former Attorney General and first term Governor Eliot Spitzer allegedly trying to arrange for a high-priced prostitute to meet him in a Washington D.C. hotel room. 

The Governor had been expected to announce his resignation earlier today, but instead read a prepared statement in which he said he had done wrong, but his policies are bigger than any one individual.  He said he needed to take some personal time, but would report back soon. 

Meanwhile, on the national stage, the Spitzer scandal has implications.  He is a superdelegate, and has pledged his support for Hillary Clinton.  The Lieutenant Governor, David Paterson, also is a Clinton superdelegate.  The question that has to be asked is if Spitzer does try to remain in office in spite of the scandal, what does Team Hillary do with his superdelegate vote?  The Democratic nomination has reached the point where neither candidate can realistically achieve the necessary delegate count to claim the nomination outright, so the process is going to fall to the superdelegates.  And if Hillary is going to try and steal the nomination, she surely cannot afford to waste any superdelegate votes out there.  Will Hillary call for him to step down, or will she do the unthinkable, reminding people of all that was wrong with the Clinton administration in the 90's by defending him?

Does anyone else see the irony in Hillary Clinton supporters having to defend Spitzer becuase they need his superdelegate vote?  Does the Obama camp figure this out and press Hillary to reject his vote?