March 2007

And I am not exaggerating this either. When you read CQ's latest article on the Walter Reed situation, you will also realize the same thing (if you haven't already):

Senior Republicans who knew about problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center while their party controlled Congress insist they did all they could to prod the Pentagon to fix them.

But C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said he stopped short of going public with the hospital’s problems to avoid embarrassing the Army while it was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Young and Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., the former chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, both acknowledged in interviews that they were aware of patient care problems at Walter Reed long before The Washington Post exposed them two weeks ago.

I blogged about Bill Young's blatant dereliction of duty, not just as a member of Congress, but also as a human being. Young was one of the key republicans in a position to do something and he ignored it. Why wouldn't he push the issue? The article gives us some details into that:

Young said he “separates my life as a member of Congress and the work I do on a volunteer basis,” visiting military hospitals with his wife almost every week.

Translation - I am on vacation so I can't be bothered with it. This is a sad day for our nation, knowing that a member of Congress flat out refused to use his constitutional authority to try and correct this disastrous situation. Young needs to be replaced next year. Him and his wife need high public exposure for their sorry excuse of inaction.

There is a big discussion going on here in Ohio right now. At the center of the discussion is pending legislation called Kristin's Law. This new law will require sexual predators to have green license plates on their vehicles. Last night Anderson Cooper had Kevin Coulghlin, the state senator who wrote this legislation, to discuss the impact it may have:

This may sound like some sound legislation on the outside, but will it really work?

Ten years ago Ohio started the sexual offenders registration list. To date there are almost 16,000 names on the list. This is, however, a highly inflated number.

I know of cases where 18 year old boys had sex with their 16 year old girlfriend, resulting in the girl getting pregnant. The parents of the girl get upset and file charges against the boy and in turn he gets convicted of having sex with a minor and being branded a sex offender for life. There are numerous other cases that are similar to this.

What the sexual offender list has become is a form of punishment instead of a tool of warning. Something as innocent as the incident I cite happens and judges decide to invoke the list as part of their sentence, causing serious negative consequences.

First - should the boy be branded the same as someone in their 50's who rapes a 13 year old? That doesn't seem right.

Secondly, and the most serious, is that the list is becoming unmanageable. The true repeat offenders never follow the rules. I can't tell you how many times I have heard of a child being raped by a repeat offender who didn't follow the rules and their information on the list became outdated.

Coughlin is trying to assure people that the plates will not be used as generously as the list. The list also was created with these promises. So now we have people being branded with green license plates like the 18 year old boy I mentioned; all because a judge wants to set an "example".

Old Pete must be getting worried:

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) has hired a top defense attorney to handle the pending ethics investigation into allegations that he pressured a federal prosecutor to bring indictments against New Mexico Democrats on the eve of the 2006 elections.

Lee Blalack, who recently represented former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), who is now serving time in prison for bribery and other offenses, said today that he has signed on as Domenici's attorney in the wake of allegations from fired U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias. Iglesias alleged that Domenici phoned him at his home and asked about a pending public corruption investigation.

The Senate Ethics Committee indicated Monday that it has opened a preliminary inquiry into the matter, which will examine Iglesias's and Domenici's differing accounts of the phone call.

This is how one phone call can ruin your life. You think a lawmaker in our nation would know better.

Yesterday Bush said he was seeing "remarkable progress" in Iraq because of his surge. Yeah - remarkable progress on the day 9 U.S. soldiers were killed along, with over 140 Iraqi's. So if things are going so well then why are we increasing the surge by 33%?

The number of U.S. troops needed to carry out President George W. Bush's Iraq security plan could approach 30,000, significantly more than he projected in January, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday.

In testimony to the House of Representatives Budget Committee, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England said U.S. military commanders in Iraq were requesting varying numbers of support troops to augment the additional 21,500 soldiers Bush has ordered into combat.

"At this point, our expectation is the number of ... troops could go above 21,500 by about 4,000, maybe as many as 7,000," England said.

There are nearly 140,000 U.S. troops already fighting in Iraq, where sectarian violence has thwarted American efforts to bring the 4-year-old war to a close.

Now why are we sending 7,000 more troops when the U.K. is pulling their troops out and trying to say "mission accomplished"? It appears as though the administration is furthering their lies about what is happening in Iraq.