Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.

Thomas Bertram "Bert" Lance (June 3, 1931 – August 15, 2013) was an American businessman, who was Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter. He is known mainly for his resignation from President Jimmy Carter's administration due to a scandal in 1977. He was cleared of all charges.

Lance was born in Gainesville, Georgia and lived in Gordon County (Calhoun), Georgia. His father, Thomas Jackson Lance, had served as president of Young Harris College. In 1941, the family relocated to Calhoun when Lance's father became superintendent of the Calhoun schools. Lance graduated from the University of Georgia in 1951 and was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity at the Delta Chapter. He graduated from LSU in Baton Rouge and Rutgers. While attending college he married LaBelle David, whose family owned the Calhoun First National Bank; they had four sons. After graduation, Lance became a clerk at the bank and within a decade, its president. He later served as president of the National Bank of Georgia in Atlanta from 1975 to 1977.---WIKI

Lance became acquainted with Jimmy Carter during the latter's time as Governor of Georgia, and served as State Highway Director during his administration. Lance ran to succeed Carter in 1974, but lost a bid for the Democratic nomination, finishing third in the first primary, behind Lester Maddox and the eventual winner, George Busbee. During the campaign, Lance accrued campaign debts of nearly $600,000.

Lance was an adviser to Jimmy Carter during Carter's successful 1976 campaign. After Carter's victory over President Gerald Ford, Lance was named Director of the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB). According to former OMB officials, it was well known in the department that Bert Lance and President Carter prayed together every morning.

Within six months, questions were raised by the press and Congress about mismanagement and corruption when Lance was Chairman of the Board of Calhoun First National Bank of Georgia. William Safire's article written during this time, Carter's Broken Lance, later earned a Pulitzer Prize.

This was an embarrassment for Carter's administration, particularly as it occurred soon after Nixon's Watergate scandal and President Ford's pardon of Nixon just before he could be impeached. To insure there was no hint of similar impropriety in the Carter administration, Lance resigned his position. Later, after a well-publicized trial in 1981, Lance was acquitted by a jury on all 9 charges.

In 1981, Lance returned to the Calhoun First National Bank as Chairman. He left in 1986. He then made something of a political comeback in 1982 when he was elected Chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party. In 1984 Walter Mondale, who was the Democratic candidate for U.S. President at the time, sought to name Lance chairman of the Democratic National Committee, but was forced to withdraw his name because it was felt that it would hurt Mondale's chances. In 1988 Lance was an advisor to Jesse Jackson during Jackson's presidential campaign.

...(HE) cruised around Washington during Inaugural week in a black Cadillac bearing special license plates with BERT on the front bumper and LANCE on the back...

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915153,00.html#ixzz2cAzbuxcp

Lance is credited with originating the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", when he was quoted saying it in the May 1977 issue of the magazine Nation's Business. The expression became widespread, and William Safire wrote that it "has become a source of inspiration to anti-activists."

Lance died on August 15, 2013 at his home in northwest Georgia. He had been in hospice care due to recent declining health. He was 82.

Obama to award Oprah, Bill Clinton Presidential Medals of Freedom

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-to-award-oprah--bill-clinton-presidential-medal-of-freedom-214439983.html

President Barack Obama announced on Thursday the latest recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor presented to "individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States," "world peace" or to "cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." Among them, two of the president's biggest political supporters: Oprah Winfrey and former President Bill Clinton. According to the White House release, Winfrey is being honored as "one of the world’s most successful broadcast journalists" and for "philanthropic causes and expanding opportunities for young women."

Winfrey and Clinton aren't the only Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients with historical ties to Obama. The late Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye represented Obama's home state of Hawaii on Capitol Hill. Ernie Banks, the Hall of Fame slugger, played his entire career for the Chicago Cubs — the crosstown rival of the White Sox, the president's preferred hometown team. And former Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican who served with Obama on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Obama was a junior senator from Illinois, will be honored for his "bipartisan leadership and decades-long commitment to reducing the threat of nuclear weapons."

“The Presidential Medal of Freedom goes to men and women who have dedicated their own lives to enriching ours," Obama said in a statement announcing this year's list.
I CANNOT BELIEVE HE OPENLY REVEALED THAT!--DEMETER

Also among the 16 recipients named on Thursday were writer and women's rights activist Gloria Steinem; the late Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut to travel to space; jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer Arturo Sandoval; and legendary college basketball coach Dean Smith. Two advisers to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — Cordy Tindell "C.T." Vivian and the late Bayard Rustin — were named for their efforts during the civil rights movement.

The awards will be presented at the White House later this year. More than 500 people have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom since President John F. Kennedy established it in 1963.

Haute cuisine (French: literally "high cooking", pronounced: ot kɥi.zin) or Grande cuisine refers to the cuisine of "high level" establishments, gourmet restaurants and luxury hotels in France. Haute cuisine is characterized by meticulous preparation and careful presentation of food, at a high price level, accompanied by rare wines.

Haute cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe....

HISTORY

The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne marked a change from cookery known in the Middle Ages, to somewhat lighter dishes, and more modest presentations. In the following century, Antonin Carême, born in 1784, also published works on cooking, and although many of his preparations today seem extravagant, he simplified and codified an earlier and even more complex cuisine.

Georges Auguste Escoffier is a central figure in the modernisation of haute cuisine as of about 1900, which became known as cuisine classique. These were simplifications and refinements of the early work of Carême, Jules Gouffé and Urbain François Dubois. It was practised in the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe and elsewhere for much of the 20th century. The major developments were to replace service à la française (serving all dishes at once) with service à la russe (serving meals in courses) and to develop a system of cookery, based on Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, which formalized the preparation of sauces and dishes. In its time, it was considered the pinnacle of haute cuisine, and was a style distinct from cuisine bourgeoise (cuisine for families with cooks), the working-class cuisine of bistros and homes, and cuisines of the French provinces.

The 1960s were marked by the appearance of nouvelle cuisine, as chefs rebelled from Escoffier's "orthodoxy" and complexity. Although the term nouvelle cuisine had been used in the past, the modern usage can be attributed to authors André Gayot, Henri Gault, and Christian Millau, who used nouvelle cuisine to describe the cooking of Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Michel Guérard, Roger Vergé and Raymond Oliver, many of whom were once students of Fernand Point.

In general, nouvelle cuisine puts an emphasis on natural flavours, so the freshest possible ingredients are used, preparation is simplified, heavy sauces are less common, as are strong marinades for meat, and cooking times are often reduced. While menus were increasingly short, dishes used more inventive pairings and relied on inspiration from regional dishes. Within 20 years, however, chefs began returning to the earlier style of haute cuisine, although many of the new techniques remained...wiki