Linda K. was kind enough to email me some gorgeous shots for the blog. She took these lovelies at Rich Howard’s greenhouse where bloom season is already in full swing. And, of course, Rich has some of the newest and most spectacular plants there are.
Thanks for sharing the eye candy, Linda! 🙂 I’ll be posting a few shots at a time to get us warmed up for our upcoming season.
First up (above and below) we have Rose F. Kennedy (Doorakian, 2007), which is simply amazing, and proof that Dips can still hang with the Tets. 😉
Bring your full-throated voice. Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee (H. van Dyke, L. van Beethoven) 1 Joyful, Joyful we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of Love; Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, Opening to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, Drive the dark of doubt away. Giver of immortal gladness, Fill us with the light of day. 2 All Thy works with joy surround Thee, Earth and heaven reflect Thy...
(What is the Backstory and why?) (Check back tomorrow for what songs we’ll sing Sunday) Subscribe to the Backstory October 30th, 2014 Notwithstanding the apostle Paul’s warning about ritualized observances as an assumed mark of authentic belief, there’s quite a convergence of commemorations on the Christian calendar over the next several days. Our piety before God does not hang in the balance...
(What is the Backstory and why?) (Check back tomorrow for what songs we’ll sing Sunday) Subscribe to the Backstory October 23rd, 2014 The next time I take some time off I think I need to wear a disguise. I’m not worried about being seen or intruded upon. I run no risk of being assaulted by photogs with cameras. But on more occasions than I’d like to recount, some microscopic menace finds me or one of...
Washington –President Donald Trump on Friday blocked the release of a memo written by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee concerning its investigation into Russian meddling in U.S. election.
In a letter to the House Intelligence Committee, White House counsel Don McGahn said that while the president is “inclined” to declassify the memo, he will not “at this time” because it contains “numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages.”
The memo was written to try to provide context for a Republican memo named after the Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes. That memo, released last week alleges abuses by the FBI and the Justice Department against the Trump campaign.
McGahn said Trump has directed the Justice Department to offer assistance to the House committee to revise the memo.
“The Executive Branch stands ready to review any subsequent draft … for declassification at the earliest opportunity,” McGahn said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., tweeted, “Trump’s refusal to release Democratic response to #NunesMemo makes a mockery of national security and common sense.”
Members of the House Intelligence Committee, including Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, voted Monday to release the Democratic memo. But the committee could not make it public until the White House national security officials vetted it and said it could be declassified.
A transcript of the closed-door debate over the memo shows Himes said he did not dispute that the FBI cited a controversial dossier in seeking Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court permission to wiretap former Trump campaign aid Carter Page. That dossier was compiled, in large part, by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and paid for, in part, by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Himes argued the fact it was commissioned by Trump’s political rivals is not “in any way, shape or form, either intellectually or legally material.”
“I suspect that the existence of a fully unbiased source of information is extraordinarily rare, if not non-existent,” Himes said. “As we all know, law enforcement and intelligence paying for information is hardly unconventional.”
Himes also said, “No one has alleged or proven that specific things in the dossier are completely wrong” and that most members of the committee did not know what elements of the dossier had been used in the FISA application.
Himes also pushed back against a claim made in the Republican memo that the FBI misled the FISA court about the source of its information.
WASHINGTON — House Intelligence Committee Republicans on Friday released a controversial, once-classified memo critical of the way top FBI and Justice Department officials sought court permission to wiretap Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump campaign. Connecticut Democrats scorched the memo as a partisan attempt to discredit a probe into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
WASHINGTON – Democratic Rep. Jim Himes is spending more money on the races of other Democratic candidates than he is on his own, while his Republican challenger Harry Arora, raised less than $9,000 in campaign cash this summer. Himes donated to the campaigns of more than 70 House Democrats in the last quarter, the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission show.