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May 20, 2012 Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord   Reading 1 Acts 1:1-11 In the first book, Theophilus,I dealt with all that Jesus did and taughtuntil the day he was taken up,after giving instructions through the Holy Spiritto the apostles whom he had chosen.He presented himself alive to themby many proofs after he had suffered,appearing to them during forty daysand speaking about the kingdom of God.While meeting with them,he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem,but to wait for "the promise of the Fatherabout which you have heard me speak;for John baptized with water,but in a few days...

The pastor said he chased down the suspect despite what happened recently in the Trayvon Martin caseA Mission Valley pastor tracked down a man on the run from police and tried to convince the man it’s not worth it to keep running. Frank Giovinetti witnessed an accident between a Nissan Altima and a Volkswagon Jetta on Waring Road just south of Orcutt around 10 p.m. Wednesday. As he was at a nearby convenience store in Allied Gardens, he heard the loud screeching sound and saw one of the cars plow into two other cars. The driver then left the scene....

When John McCain introduced Sarah Palin at the Republican convention it was an exercise in contrasts. As the brusk stiff warrior, whose smiles seem to be as much grimaces of pain as expressions of joy (a persona born of old war wounds and a infamous temperament), was replaced on stage by a vibrant enthusiastic woman the difference was like going from dusk back to daytime.  The electorate seem to have all the enthusiasm and energy of a funeral procession before she was chosen. As the left was going hog wild over their “historic candidate” the conservatives were looking for something...

All the President's Man The Dodd Frank law was supposed to rein in abuses by Wall St. It was supposed to end "too big to fail." It was supposed to end so-called "risky trading" by banks. Some of us knew better. Barack Obama was effusive in his praise of the bill as he signed it. We are gathered in the heart of our nation’s capital, surrounded by memorials to leaders and citizens who served our nation in its earliest days and in its days of greatest trial. Today is such a time for America. Over the past two years, we...

On one of the many days Leo Dunson wanted to die, the Iraq veteran put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. The loaded weapon misfired. For the troubled former soldier, it was another inexplicable failure, like his divorce or inability to make friends after returning from the war. In a Las Vegas recording studio, Dunson rapped about his life: "What's wrong with me? Got PTSD. These pills ain't working, man, I still can't think." One in six Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder in 2011, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Some...

A Florida couple is suing a yacht company, claiming the bride suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after the reception had to be moved at the last minute. A small fire broke out in the kitchen of a yacht that Karina Edde and Lorenzo Lapi leased from Great Bay Corp. for their Aug. 14, 2010, post-nuptials in Miami, reports Courthouse News Service. The couple claim the yacht company didn't call the fire department right away, and then didn't call the coast guard for clearance to proceed after the fire was put out, according to the report. Instead, it decided to remove all...

Clement’s career is cresting just as the momentous legal crusades of a radicalized Republican Party are reaching the appellate level. His ability to strip the politics out of a contentious argument, the goodwill he engenders from Democrats, and his chumminess with the justices�these are all qualities that would appear to be anachronistic in contemporary, hyperpartisan Washington. But the case of Paul Clement suggests that, at least in one corner of the capital, they are very much in demand. Clement disputes this political interpretation. �Look, I get it, I hang out in this town, I understand how people are looking at...

NAACP Endorses Same-Sex Marriage Peter Wallsten 05/19/2012 The NAACP’s board of directors voted Saturday to endorse same-sex marriage rights – adding the influential voice of the country’s leading black civil rights organization to a debate that has divided the African-American community. The decision has political implications for President Obama, who needs an enthusiastic turnout from black voters to help him win reelection in November but angered some African-American church pastors with his announcement this month that he believes gays and lesbians should have the right to marry. The NAACP now presents itself as a counterbalance to the influence of the...

FC Chelsea defeats FC Bayern Munchen 4-3 on PKs, wins UEFA Champions League Final after the match was tied 1-1.

Its three great basins -- the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra -- are the most densely populated area in the world. The Ganges alone supports half a billion people. Seventy per cent of South Asia's 1.5 billion people live in farming families, and depend on the water of those basins for their survival. That number grows by 25 million every year. For generations the rivers have watered the bread basket of the Punjab, the cotton plants and fruit trees of the Sindh, and the rice paddies of Bangladesh, and grown this region faster than anywhere else. But South Asia's...

I write this column from the Cannes Film Festival, although it is not about Cannes. But this year's 65th anniversary poster for the festival features an iconic photograph of Marilyn Monroe blowing out a birthday candle with the most sensuous lips in human history. That got me thinking about whose celebrity survives after death and in what manner. You could argue Monroe survives only as a morbid tragedy -- and also for her smoldering sexuality that still stirs the imagination from inside the frames of the photographs that helped make her famous. Her films? She contributed several remarkable performances despite...

Each held Saturday on $1.5 million bondTwo Broward County men were among three arrested this week in a nighttime police raid after they planned to attack four police stations, President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house, according to court documents. The men arrested Wednesday in an apartment building in the Bridgeport neighborhood. They're accused of trying to make Molotov cocktails ahead of the two-day summit that starts Sunday. They were each held Saturday on $1.5 million bond. Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla. and Jared Chase, 24, of...

Clearing up Matter of Sinatra and JFK

Do you know this person? I was born in one country, raised in another. My father was born in another country. I was not his only child. He fathered several children with numerous women. I became very close to my mother, as my father showed no interest in me. Although my father deserted me and my mother raised me, I later wrote a book idolizing my father----not my mother. Later in life, questions arose over my real name. My birth records were sketchy. No one was able to produce a legitimate, reliable birth certificate. I grew up practicing one faith...

...In a statement, the campaign says Mr Romney would support using an executive order to waive "Obamacare" for all 50 states, and the pipeline would be "approved" by Mr Romney...

A lesbian couple who claimed they were victims of a hate crime have been arrested after police determined they staged the incidents. On Oct. 28, Aimee Whitchurch, 37, and Christel Conklin, 29, called police and reported the words “Kill the Gay” were scrawled in red spray paint on the garage door of their Parker, Colo., home. The next day, the couple told deputies they found a noose hanging on the handle of their front door. The women told officers they believed the incidents were retaliation from their neighbors and homeowner’s association, who had complained the couple did not pick up...

Patrick B. Pexton Ombudsman Is The Post Anti-Catholic? May 18 In the past six months, many readers have written to me to say that The Post is anti-Catholic. What led them to that conclusion? It started with the annual March for Life anti-abortion rally in January, which readers said was inadequately covered. It accelerated with a front-page story in March about Barbara Johnson, a Catholic lesbian who was refused Communion at her mother’s funeral by the Rev. Marcel Guarnizo, a conservative priest in a Gaithersburg parish. Later, readers were upset over The Post’s coverage of the federal government’s requiring employers...

By a 211-209 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to protect taxpayers and workers from costly, discriminatory union-only requirements on military construction projects. You see, less than a month after he took office, President Obama signed an Executive Order encouraging federal agencies to adopt discriminatory so-called "project labor agreements" (PLAs) on large-scale construction projects costing the taxpayers $25 million or more. Government-mandated PLAs typically require contractors to reach a monopoly bargaining arrangement with union bosses with all the usual trappings: Forced dues. Exclusive union hiring hall schemes. Inflexible union work rules. These policies discriminate against the more...

Everything about Barack Obama is an enormous tapestry of lies woven from interlocking fictions spun from false narrative threads, wrapping and obscuring a dark, poisonous web of malice. An agenda concocted from the depths of Morhdor and wickedly implemented. Given, he is a robber baron politician, worthy of designer torches and gold-plated pitchforks, his deceptions are much worse than surface glitter. They go all the way back to his beginnings, when he was ‘selected’ for his political sainthood. An agenda to bring ‘change’ to America, do away with the Constitution and bring totalitarian rule to the US, enforced with an...

The U.S. oil boom has created a glut of crude in Cushing, Okla., a major oil storage hub. This sign dubs the city the "Pipeline Crossroads of the World." For years, Cushing, Okla., has been on the receiving end of a 500-mile pipeline funneling oil from the Gulf of Mexico to the American heartland.Starting this weekend, that pipeline will start moving crude in the other direction. That flow reversal could soon have implications at gas pumps around the country."For 40 years, crude oil flowed north," says Philip Verleger, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Today, oil...