Posted on 11/23/2005 3:06:15 PM PST by GretchenM
The president and first lady are at their home in Crawford, Texas. Today's photos are some pick ups from last night.
... Wishing everyone an enjoyable Thanksgiving, and issuing another welcome to Sanity Island ...
Hi, and thanks so much for the dose today! The pictures of the presidential pooches are a great bonus treat!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYBODY!
Thanks for posting the Dose. Hope you have a very nice Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving back atcha, fellow Washington stater.
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What are the Italian Foreign Minister and Rumsfield discussing anyway?
Hey, have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow.
Hi GEM,
A Dose with even a few pictures is still a pleasant visit to Sanity Island.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, and all the Dosers.
Oh, I'll bet the president is so glad to be HOME.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
It's famous, as its author is Rush Limbaugh III's Dad, Rush Limbaugh, Jr., and I think it should be required reading for all Americans .. and most especially taught in school.
It's too long to post, but here's an excerpt I hope will whet your appetite to read it in its entirety .. it's no less worthy that the richest and compelling page turner .. and yet it's all the heart-tugging truth:
==========================
"Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor"
Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called "their depredations." "Inherent and inalienable rights" came out "certain unalienable rights," and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change.
A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to a vote.
Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: " I am no longer a Virginian, Sir, but an American." But today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day.
Much To Lose
What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the crown? To each of you the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock, and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words.
Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers.
Who were they? What happened to them?
I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.
Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half -24- were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, 9 were landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.
With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property.
All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th century.
Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head.
He signed in enormous letters so "that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward." Ben Franklin wryly noted: "Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately." Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: "With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone.
These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember: a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.
They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics, yammering for an explosion.
They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought. They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.
It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of them became presidents of the United States. Seven of them became state governors. One died in office as vice president of the United States. Several would go on to be U.S. Senators.
One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers (it was he, Francis Hopkinson - not Betsy Ross who designed the United States flag).
Richard Henry Lee, A delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic in his concluding remarks:
"Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repost.
If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American Legislatures of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens."
Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2, that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration.
William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers' faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly, "but in no face was he able to discern real fear."
Stephan Hopkins, Ellery's colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: "My hand trembles, but my heart does not."
"Most glorious service"
Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.
More ................HERE
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For their courage .. for all they risked and lost to give US what we are privileged to enjoy as Americans, for the most glorious country on the face of the planet .. thank God for our Founding Fathers .. and Mothers. There was an Angel in the whirlwind who was instrumental then, as well.
It was conservatives who designed this most glorious concept of governance and order, and it's obviously it's going to take conservatives to SAVE IT AND KEEP IT. Courage!
Great story....yes it should be required reading because I don't think children are learning history anymore...just revisionist stories!
I will forever have the message of President Bush showing up in Iraq a few Thanksgivings ago...FOREVER etched in my favorite Thanksgiving memories...
I remember exactly on what part of the highway I was driving home on from my mother's house, when the news alert broke into the football game...I didn't believe it..
until I got home and saw the news all over the TV!!!
Me, too! I got all goose-bumpy and shivery when the roar went up from the soldiers when President Bush came out from the curtain as the "special guest"!
What a day that was!
Gretchen, thanks so much for the pictures. It is nice to see that the President is home. The daughters flew in with him on Air Force One, according to what I heard on Fox today.
I need to get busy in the kitchen. May all of you have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!
A Barney photo great!!
2 Barney photos!!
What would you like on your toaster?
Thank you both for the Thanksgiving graphics and informed postings.
Mega dittos! ===== Mega, mega dittos!
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