Posted By: grace127, 4/23/2020 10:38:52 AM
The layover would last five hours. Some cried. Most cheered. Kalitta Air 4371, with service to March Air Reserve Base in California, landed to refuel in Anchorage on the night of Jan 29. The cargo plane had been hastily converted to accommodate passengers and commissioned by the State Department to bring 201 Americans home. And while planes landing safely seldom make the news and delays rarely make anyone happy, this one did both. It came from Wuhan.
As we head toward Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings on her nomination to the Supreme Court, let’s not forget that former Vice President Joe Biden is responsible for turning the high court confirmation process into a blood sport driven by character assassination. Biden, now the Democratic presidential nominee, claims to work across the aisle with Republicans. But his vicious conduct as a Democratic senator from Delaware in the confirmation hearings for Robert Bork (whose nomination was not confirmed) and now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a permanent stain on the Senate’s reputation.
The Justice Department’s recent decision to weigh in on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) stay-at-home order poses a fundamentally important question: If governments rightly consider physical nourishment an “essential” service, should not the spiritual sustenance that churches can provide receive at least equal consideration? The Justice Department intervened after the pastor of the Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Chincoteague, Va., received a criminal charge for holding a service that 16 people attended, more than the limit of 10 set out in Northam’s order. Its brief noted that the congregation abided by social distancing guidelines and that other establishments — including liquor stores and big-box retailers — do not have to abide by a 10-person limit on gatherings.