As many of you know, the GSL school district has been in statutory operating debt for a few years now. They have also failed to pass a new levy each of the past two years.
The school board will hold an open forum on Monday March 5th at 7pm, at the high school auditorium.
I'll be there! Will Dille and Shimanski show up?
For a great piece on school funding issues, check out Christoper Truscott's work. It's always high quality stuff!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Mark Olson: Justice delayed
A LTE in the SC Times this morning hits Representative Mark Olson for contradictions between his personal life and his campaign rhetoric.
Indeed. Responsibility and accountability seem to have been lost with some of our elected leaders. Perhaps Olson sees the writing on the wall and is delaying the inevitable? Who knows, but in the meanwhile, constituents in our area suffer, while a legislator flops in limbo.
First he asked for a new arraignment to start the process all over again. When that was denied, he asked for a trial date in June, after the legislative session was over. The judge offered him three trial dates, one in March, April and May. Olson took the last one.
His efforts seem to be aimed at delaying the inevitable ethics investigation and his possible expulsion until the next session in January, rather than bringing this matter to a close and moving on.
... Olson ran on the issues of personal integrity and responsibility for one's actions. It's past the time for him to apply this slogan to himself.
Indeed. Responsibility and accountability seem to have been lost with some of our elected leaders. Perhaps Olson sees the writing on the wall and is delaying the inevitable? Who knows, but in the meanwhile, constituents in our area suffer, while a legislator flops in limbo.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Problems in Minnesota Veterans Homes...and more
While conservative bloggers and their blogosphere manufacture outrage towards Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Al Franken, we receive more news of substandard care for our Veterans.
At work tonight, I came across the new Newsweek which had the cover story of our "Forgotten Heroes" depicting the plight of our nations Veterans.
Then, talking to my significant other, she informed me of the Startribune headlines, about 3 deaths in the Minneapolis Veterans Home.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
Governor Pawlenty has ordered the Minnesota Department of Health to take over operations at the Minneapolis Veterans Home, a state owned nursing home.
At this point, the $7 million is insignificant.
This comes on the heals of the recent suicide of Jonathan Schulze, a 25 year old Marine from Stewart, Minnesota and the horrendous conditions from which our soldiers and Veterans are living through at Walter Reed Army Hospital.
I watched testimony in the past weeks, of administrators and primary care givers from the Veterans Homes, testifying before a Minnesota House committee. Administrators made no indication in the committee that the homes were suffering significant problems. These committee hearings were in late January as well, after these deaths occurred.
Nursing professionals differed in their testimony from the administrators. They discussed great concern over a lack of qualified nurses and conditions that hindered their performance of duties.
Obviously, our military health care system is stretched beyond its means. It's really pathetic.
We deployed for this war with not enough soldiers. General Shinseki fell on his sword for this one.
Once there, our soldiers did not have the equipment needed to protect themselves. Armored Hummers and personal body armor were in such short supply, soldiers had to improvise for their protection.
Some are on their 4th and 5th deployments, tours have been extended.
Soldiers suffer in squalid conditions at Walter Reed and other military facilities.
Veterans go mistreated in state and federally funded facilities.
I am outraged. It shows a complete failure of planning for this war. It's easy for President Bush to send another 21,500 soldiers off to war and call on Congress to fund them, but how much longer are we going to allow him to shift accountability on this war?
Where is Congresswoman Bachmann on this? She ran her campaign on this staunch support of our troops and their mission!
Schulze earned two Purple Hearts in Iraq, but was 26th in line to get help at the St Cloud VA after 46 visits to the VA!
Despite the fact that more and more soldiers are wounded, those obtaining Army disability ratings are lower than pre-war levels.
The same issues surrounding care at Minnesota facilities, surround facilities across the United States.
Just like my colleagues waiting for months for benefits, one young soldier waited 17 months for his first VA disability check.
The budget requests and forecasts have not accurately reflected the need for VA health care.
The complete lack of planning will result in decades upon decades and generations of Veterans suffering.
For every soldier that is killed in Iraq, 16 are injured. So while deaths are down, as compared to other wars, more or our soldiers are being maimed.
As of 2006, there was a 401,701 case back log for Veterans receiving benefits and treatment.
36% of our Veterans are being diagnosed with Mental disorders, post war.
Of 73,000 that have been diagnosed with Mental health disorder, nearly half suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Many of these soldiers will end up in Minnesota Veterans Home's someday. It hits home with me everyday.
Whether it's hearing storied from Nolan about his dad, talking to Jim Klobuchar about Veterans stories he heard on the campaign trail, or my own stories, the enormity of the issue cannot be exaggerated.
12% of our population served in World War II.
2% served in Vietnam.
Less than 1% will have served in Afghanistan or Iraq.
It's sad, but I firmly believe that the American public does not understand what is really happening to our Veterans. Stories that grab headlines in the Startribune and Newsweek are a good start.
Holding our elected leaders who put soldiers in harms way will go a long way towards actually supporting our troops, not another frickin yellow sticker.
Who's going to step up and have "our back"?
We had yours!
At work tonight, I came across the new Newsweek which had the cover story of our "Forgotten Heroes" depicting the plight of our nations Veterans.
Then, talking to my significant other, she informed me of the Startribune headlines, about 3 deaths in the Minneapolis Veterans Home.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
Governor Pawlenty has ordered the Minnesota Department of Health to take over operations at the Minneapolis Veterans Home, a state owned nursing home.
The governor's action was prompted by the deaths, two years of "not so good"
inspections that found scores of infractions, and the threat by federal
officials on Friday to cut off about $7 million in payments for the care of
veterans at the Minneapolis facility, said Health Commissioner Dianne
Mandernach.
At this point, the $7 million is insignificant.
This comes on the heals of the recent suicide of Jonathan Schulze, a 25 year old Marine from Stewart, Minnesota and the horrendous conditions from which our soldiers and Veterans are living through at Walter Reed Army Hospital.
I watched testimony in the past weeks, of administrators and primary care givers from the Veterans Homes, testifying before a Minnesota House committee. Administrators made no indication in the committee that the homes were suffering significant problems. These committee hearings were in late January as well, after these deaths occurred.
Nursing professionals differed in their testimony from the administrators. They discussed great concern over a lack of qualified nurses and conditions that hindered their performance of duties.
Obviously, our military health care system is stretched beyond its means. It's really pathetic.
We deployed for this war with not enough soldiers. General Shinseki fell on his sword for this one.
Once there, our soldiers did not have the equipment needed to protect themselves. Armored Hummers and personal body armor were in such short supply, soldiers had to improvise for their protection.
Some are on their 4th and 5th deployments, tours have been extended.
Soldiers suffer in squalid conditions at Walter Reed and other military facilities.
Veterans go mistreated in state and federally funded facilities.
I am outraged. It shows a complete failure of planning for this war. It's easy for President Bush to send another 21,500 soldiers off to war and call on Congress to fund them, but how much longer are we going to allow him to shift accountability on this war?
Where is Congresswoman Bachmann on this? She ran her campaign on this staunch support of our troops and their mission!
Schulze earned two Purple Hearts in Iraq, but was 26th in line to get help at the St Cloud VA after 46 visits to the VA!
About 50,000 service members so far have been banged up or burned, suffered
disease, lost limbs or sacrificed something less tangible inside them. Schulze
is an extreme example but not an isolated one, and such stories are raising
concerns that the country is failing to meet its most basic obligations to those
who fight our wars.
Despite the fact that more and more soldiers are wounded, those obtaining Army disability ratings are lower than pre-war levels.
"I think a big part of [Walter Reed's problems] is they just don't have
enough people to adequately handle all the wounded troops coming in here every
day,"
The same issues surrounding care at Minnesota facilities, surround facilities across the United States.
Yet, as the number of veterans continues to grow, critics worry the VA is in a
state of denial. In a broad sense, the situation at the VA seems to mirror the
overall lack of planning for the war. "We know the VA doesn't have the capacity
to process a large number of disability claims at the same time," says Linda
Bilmes, a Harvard public-finance professor and former Clinton administration
Commerce Department official. Last month Bilmes released a 34-page study on the
long-term cost of caring for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. She projects
that at least 700,000 veterans from the global war on terror (GWOT) will flood
the system in the coming years.
Just like my colleagues waiting for months for benefits, one young soldier waited 17 months for his first VA disability check.
The budget requests and forecasts have not accurately reflected the need for VA health care.
But veterans' support groups and even some former and current VA insiders
believe there's a reluctance in the Bush administration to deal openly with the
long-term costs of the war. (All told, Bilmes projects it could cost as much as $600
billion to care for GWOT veterans over the course of their lifetimes.)
That reluctance, they say, trickles down to the VA, where top managers are
politically appointed. Secretary Jim Nicholson, a decorated Vietnam War veteran
who was chosen by Bush in 2005, tends to be the focus of this criticism.
The complete lack of planning will result in decades upon decades and generations of Veterans suffering.
For every soldier that is killed in Iraq, 16 are injured. So while deaths are down, as compared to other wars, more or our soldiers are being maimed.
As of 2006, there was a 401,701 case back log for Veterans receiving benefits and treatment.
36% of our Veterans are being diagnosed with Mental disorders, post war.
Of 73,000 that have been diagnosed with Mental health disorder, nearly half suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Many of these soldiers will end up in Minnesota Veterans Home's someday. It hits home with me everyday.
Whether it's hearing storied from Nolan about his dad, talking to Jim Klobuchar about Veterans stories he heard on the campaign trail, or my own stories, the enormity of the issue cannot be exaggerated.
12% of our population served in World War II.
2% served in Vietnam.
Less than 1% will have served in Afghanistan or Iraq.
It's sad, but I firmly believe that the American public does not understand what is really happening to our Veterans. Stories that grab headlines in the Startribune and Newsweek are a good start.
Holding our elected leaders who put soldiers in harms way will go a long way towards actually supporting our troops, not another frickin yellow sticker.
Who's going to step up and have "our back"?
We had yours!
Black talks about Bachmann
The Big Question at the Startribune is carrying more discussion of the Bachmann / Iran commentary.
The Congresswoman is practicing the "4 D's of Dodgeball" as we speak, as she dodges, ducks, dips and dives from and away her Iran commentary.
Black has attempted numerous times to speak with the Congresswoman.
Perhaps she is meeting with her Rovian handlers trying to find a way to spin this thing?
Perhaps she's seeking legal counsel for slipping confidential information out to the public?
Who knows.
200,000 blog hits later, the Strib knew they had a story.
The SC Times agrees with Black's commentary.
One thing is certain, campaign commercials in the 6th will be interesting, to say the least, next election cycle.
The story will follow Bachmann until she actually addresses the issues behind it. Her statements that her comments were misconstrued are insulting to constituents like myself. I am an educated man and fully understand her comments.
They always say it's not the act that gets the politician in trouble, but the cover-up. Perhaps the Congresswoman hasn't heard that one before.
The Congresswoman is practicing the "4 D's of Dodgeball" as we speak, as she dodges, ducks, dips and dives from and away her Iran commentary.
Black has attempted numerous times to speak with the Congresswoman.
Unfortunately, Bachmann decided not to talk to me on Thursday or Friday,
nor, so far as I can tell, any other reporter. I asked again Monday, five times.
I held this post back for a day, hoping that instead of discussing her two
previous statements, which pass each other – and the legitimate
questions they raise – like ships in the night, I could instead provide her
opportunity to put the matter to rest. I did not receive even the courtesy
of a reply.
Perhaps she is meeting with her Rovian handlers trying to find a way to spin this thing?
Perhaps she's seeking legal counsel for slipping confidential information out to the public?
Who knows.
200,000 blog hits later, the Strib knew they had a story.
I believe her constituents are still entitled to a straight answer about
that and I repeat here my request for an interview to seek that
clarification. I interviewed her many times during her 2006 campaign
and was always completely straight with her and would be so again.
The SC Times agrees with Black's commentary.
She needs to fully explain either how she knows of a plan to split Iraq in
half, or if she was talking over her head — way over her head — in making that
statement.
The Iraq war is too important an issue. Any member of Congress, even a
junior member of the minority party, must be accountable for such claims.
One thing is certain, campaign commercials in the 6th will be interesting, to say the least, next election cycle.
The story will follow Bachmann until she actually addresses the issues behind it. Her statements that her comments were misconstrued are insulting to constituents like myself. I am an educated man and fully understand her comments.
They always say it's not the act that gets the politician in trouble, but the cover-up. Perhaps the Congresswoman hasn't heard that one before.
SC Times Opinion on Bachmann
The SC Times has an opinion today on Congresswoman Bachmann's Iran comments.
While I agree with the Times assessment, I do chuckle a bit inside knowing that the SC Times had these comments 17 days ago, and now are calling for a clarification. I know the Strib and the progressive blogosphere have forced this hand to be played, but I wonder if the SC Times truly knew what it had and attempted to bury it, or they just simply did not realize what they had.
She needs to fully explain either how she knows of a plan to split Iraq in half, or if she was talking over her head — way over her head — in making that statement.
The Iraq war is too important an issue. Any member of Congress, even a junior member of the minority party, must be accountable for such claims.
Again, its about accountability. When a Congressperson steps up and says something, people listen. These remarks are heard across the world.
I think this shows a complete contrast between Bachmann and other Minnesota members of Congress. While Congressmen Ellison and Walz are holding hearings in their district on predatory lending, the Farm Bill, DM & E fight and other important Minnesota matters, Bachmann is finally opening a Congressional office in the state.
Meanwhile, constituent services suffer.
Despite a term and a half in the Minnesota Senate, Congresswoman is a "not ready for prime time player". Other freshmen legislators, Ellison, Walz and Klobuchar, have hit the ground running.
I hope the 6th CD doesn't wallow in Congresswoman Bachmann's extremist agenda. Perhaps if the Congresswoman focused on the "work of the people" and not the shock jock politics she is accustomed to, we'd see positive results for our district.
That's one helluva an if!
While I agree with the Times assessment, I do chuckle a bit inside knowing that the SC Times had these comments 17 days ago, and now are calling for a clarification. I know the Strib and the progressive blogosphere have forced this hand to be played, but I wonder if the SC Times truly knew what it had and attempted to bury it, or they just simply did not realize what they had.
She needs to fully explain either how she knows of a plan to split Iraq in half, or if she was talking over her head — way over her head — in making that statement.
The Iraq war is too important an issue. Any member of Congress, even a junior member of the minority party, must be accountable for such claims.
Again, its about accountability. When a Congressperson steps up and says something, people listen. These remarks are heard across the world.
I think this shows a complete contrast between Bachmann and other Minnesota members of Congress. While Congressmen Ellison and Walz are holding hearings in their district on predatory lending, the Farm Bill, DM & E fight and other important Minnesota matters, Bachmann is finally opening a Congressional office in the state.
Meanwhile, constituent services suffer.
Despite a term and a half in the Minnesota Senate, Congresswoman is a "not ready for prime time player". Other freshmen legislators, Ellison, Walz and Klobuchar, have hit the ground running.
I hope the 6th CD doesn't wallow in Congresswoman Bachmann's extremist agenda. Perhaps if the Congresswoman focused on the "work of the people" and not the shock jock politics she is accustomed to, we'd see positive results for our district.
That's one helluva an if!
Monday, February 26, 2007
Constituent services? Bachmann fails once again!
I love driving through Buffalo and seeing the Congressman Mark Kennedy office sign near the intersection of Hwy 55 and Hwy 25 (right by Pizza Hut, you can't miss it!)
At least the Congressman was accessible, even if his people, like Mark Matuska, and others were absolutely rude.
Dump Bachmann has a nice post up about Bachmann's lack of accessibility.
Here's my favorite line!
Well, if it's like the plan for Iran, it's either a piece of sensitive national security that she offered up for free, or completly lied about it. Either way, an email address from her should not be trusted!
At least the Congressman was accessible, even if his people, like Mark Matuska, and others were absolutely rude.
Dump Bachmann has a nice post up about Bachmann's lack of accessibility.
Here's my favorite line!
If anybody has Representative Bachmann's email address, please write in
with it and post it here. She's treating it like she should treat a national
security issue.
Well, if it's like the plan for Iran, it's either a piece of sensitive national security that she offered up for free, or completly lied about it. Either way, an email address from her should not be trusted!
GOP attacks on the Secretary of State
The progressive blogosphere has hit back at a neo-conservative plot to defame our newly elected Democratic Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie.
Minnesota Campaign Report has a diary up pointing out the hypocritical nature Minnesota Republicans.
Minnesota Monitor covers the Kiffmeyer era of contradiction.
The GOP attack machine seems to be sputtering a bit already.
How did those all out attacks against Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar, and Keith Ellison go anyway? Trying to smear Al Franken and now Mark Ritchie, while refusing to discuss the real issues at hand, solidifies the National Enquirer status of the conservative blogosphere.
Minnesota Campaign Report has a diary up pointing out the hypocritical nature Minnesota Republicans.
Minnesota Monitor covers the Kiffmeyer era of contradiction.
The GOP attack machine seems to be sputtering a bit already.
How did those all out attacks against Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar, and Keith Ellison go anyway? Trying to smear Al Franken and now Mark Ritchie, while refusing to discuss the real issues at hand, solidifies the National Enquirer status of the conservative blogosphere.
Excellent LTE in SC Times
Posted at Dump Bachmann as well.
On the SC Times website.
None of us can see how these comments were miscontrued. It's just a pathetic attempt at spin.
Story Chat comments are epic in nature. Keep in mind, percieved liberal media bias or not, if Congresswoman Bachmann had not made such insane comments, this is not a story.
On the SC Times website.
She went so far as to say, and I quote: “There’s already an agreement made; they’re going to get half of Iraq and that is going to be a — a terrorist free — a terrorist safe haven zone.”
I can’t see how this statement was misconstrued as she indicated in her press release on Friday.
None of us can see how these comments were miscontrued. It's just a pathetic attempt at spin.
Story Chat comments are epic in nature. Keep in mind, percieved liberal media bias or not, if Congresswoman Bachmann had not made such insane comments, this is not a story.
SC Times op-ed on Per Diem
Randy Krebs is dead on with this editorial.
It's stuff like this that people were tired of the status quo. They voted for change this past November (in most cases). Actions like this fly in the face of the electoral storm that consumed the 2006 elections. Backdoor pay raises will haunt many in swing districts. I see this coming back to bite a lot of people in the ass.
Taxes are a big issue out here. Locally elected officials, County Commissioners, mayors, and city council members I spoke with discussed the anxiety behind truth in taxation hearings. All are more than willing to "open up the books" and ensure that the public knows what their money is being spent on.
It's all about accountability.
Last weeks vote in the Senate flew in the face of accountability. A $30 per diem increase in which no one has to submit expenses?
In the non-profit world, I got less than what the market dictated for mileage. Believe me, driving across the state countless times adds up too. Meals would only be reimbursed with a receipt.
It's the real world people, a world where accountability is not a ten point Scrabble word.
BTW, I would have voted against this bill. Senator Dille was absent.
That means during this 140-day session they now can collect up to $13,440 for
daily expenses. And they aren't even required to provide receipts!
It's stuff like this that people were tired of the status quo. They voted for change this past November (in most cases). Actions like this fly in the face of the electoral storm that consumed the 2006 elections. Backdoor pay raises will haunt many in swing districts. I see this coming back to bite a lot of people in the ass.
Taxes are a big issue out here. Locally elected officials, County Commissioners, mayors, and city council members I spoke with discussed the anxiety behind truth in taxation hearings. All are more than willing to "open up the books" and ensure that the public knows what their money is being spent on.
It's all about accountability.
Last weeks vote in the Senate flew in the face of accountability. A $30 per diem increase in which no one has to submit expenses?
In the non-profit world, I got less than what the market dictated for mileage. Believe me, driving across the state countless times adds up too. Meals would only be reimbursed with a receipt.
It's the real world people, a world where accountability is not a ten point Scrabble word.
BTW, I would have voted against this bill. Senator Dille was absent.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Dead on coverage once again!
Some have asked me about the greater number of posts on issues in national politics. Namely, Iraq and now the scandals that have ensued at one of the finest Army hospitals in the United States.
Out here in rural Central Minnesota, we worry about energy independence, education funding, property taxes, health care and many other issues. Unfortunately, Veterans issues are a bit further down the priorities of many out here.
I write about Veterans issues, Iraq, and these issues because they are deeply interconnected. When federal budget cuts fall in the areas we all support and understand, our state is forced to make decisions on whether they:
A. Pick up the slack.
B. Half ass it and let services degrade.
C. De-fund and watch vulnerable populations fall by the wayside.
Tax cuts for the rich, a war that taxes to middle class. Look at special education funding. Look at access to affordable and quality health care. Don't you think if we had not spent more than $500 billion in Iraq, we would be better off in many of these areas that concern us.
The "war" in Iraq is interconnected to what happens down in St. Paul.
Back now at my outpost in Wright County, I read some more great stuff on deadissue. Check this stuff out, Al is dead on once again!
Dead on right. Paul Wellstone fixed some stuff for me that Colonels and other soft skill MOS folk were messing up for months. One phone call and this shit got cleared up quickly.
From the Army Times, courtesy of Al's great research.
Incredible! A decline in those approved for disability retirement from the Army during a time of war? No wonder VA claims are up by 1.2 million since 2003. The Department of Defense is outsourcing our disabled Veterans, making them fight two bureracracies for their benefits.
Oh this fires me up...
Keep checking our deadissue. It's got some great commentary on many of the issues near and dear to our hearts!
Out here in rural Central Minnesota, we worry about energy independence, education funding, property taxes, health care and many other issues. Unfortunately, Veterans issues are a bit further down the priorities of many out here.
I write about Veterans issues, Iraq, and these issues because they are deeply interconnected. When federal budget cuts fall in the areas we all support and understand, our state is forced to make decisions on whether they:
A. Pick up the slack.
B. Half ass it and let services degrade.
C. De-fund and watch vulnerable populations fall by the wayside.
Tax cuts for the rich, a war that taxes to middle class. Look at special education funding. Look at access to affordable and quality health care. Don't you think if we had not spent more than $500 billion in Iraq, we would be better off in many of these areas that concern us.
The "war" in Iraq is interconnected to what happens down in St. Paul.
Back now at my outpost in Wright County, I read some more great stuff on deadissue. Check this stuff out, Al is dead on once again!
I’ve been advising soldiers and marines for years now that their hope must not
be placed with a lawyer, but with their Congressman and Senator in DC.
Dead on right. Paul Wellstone fixed some stuff for me that Colonels and other soft skill MOS folk were messing up for months. One phone call and this shit got cleared up quickly.
The mold and holes in the ceiling are temporary, whereas the veteran with severe
brain damage, that the Army is insisting to be a pre-existing condition, is
being tricked into signing off on their 0% disability discharge with a severance
payment is permanent.
From the Army Times, courtesy of Al's great research.
The numbers of people approved for permanent or temporary disability retirement
in the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force have stayed relatively stable since
2001. But in the Army — in the midst of a war — the number of soldiers approved
for permanent disability retirement has plunged by more than two-thirds, from
642 in 2001 to 209 in 2005, according to a Government Accountability Office
report last year. That decline has come even as the war in Iraq has intensified
and the total number of soldiers wounded or injured there has soared above
15,000.
Incredible! A decline in those approved for disability retirement from the Army during a time of war? No wonder VA claims are up by 1.2 million since 2003. The Department of Defense is outsourcing our disabled Veterans, making them fight two bureracracies for their benefits.
Oh this fires me up...
Keep checking our deadissue. It's got some great commentary on many of the issues near and dear to our hearts!
Who's behind the pipeline?
Need some more info on these cool cats that are pushing this pipeline down our collective throats?
Here you go!
Koch Industries indicted on 97 counts of violating federal clean air and hazardous waste laws.
More violations and fines paid out by Koch.
They pay big amounts of money for their media/pr spin!
Even Janet Reno drilled them hard, pun intended.
"This record civil penalty will put those who transport hazardous materials on notice -- you cannot endanger public health or the environment," said Attorney General Janet Reno. "We will not let you foul our water and spoil our land by breaking the law."
"Ties that bind".
Company execs have given almost a half million dollars to Republican's and to President Bush.
Anna Nicole Smith even filed a lawsuit against the company.
We could seriously go on and on...and we probably will.
It is my belief that people need to know who is building this pipeline in our backyards. For the most part, the mainstream media has failed in its role to provide unbiased coverage of the pipeline discussion.
I admit, I am biased. I am biased towards ensuring that Minnesotans have a full and fair opportunity to discuss the pipeline, without being coerced into supporting it.
This is our powerline people, time to step up and make our voices heard.
It's time to fight.
Here you go!
Koch Industries indicted on 97 counts of violating federal clean air and hazardous waste laws.
"Companies that produce dangerous pollutants simply cannot focus on profit and
efficiency at the expense of a community's health," said Lois Shiffer, Assistant
Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Environment and Natural
Resources Division. "We will continue to find and prosecute those who would
flout our environmental laws."
More violations and fines paid out by Koch.
For Koch Industries, the amounts of money it can save by sabotaging
environmental rules make the sums diverted to the think tanks that do the dirty
work pale in comparison. The year 2000 was particularly rough for the Kochs. In
January, Koch Industries agreed to pay about $35 million for violations of the
Clean Water Act related to 310 oil spills in six states. Two months later, Koch
admitted to environmental violations at its oil refinery in Rosemount,
Minnesota, and was forced to cough up another $8 million in penalties. Then in
July, it agreed not only to spend about $80 million to cut emissions from its
Rosemount facility and from two other refineries in Texas, but also to pay a $1
million fine for air-pollution violations.
They pay big amounts of money for their media/pr spin!
Koch's track record on the environment includes the largest pollution penalty
ever assessed by the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as lawsuits over
groundwater pollution in Minnesota, escaping benzene gas in Texas and oil leaks
in six states.
Even Janet Reno drilled them hard, pun intended.
"This record civil penalty will put those who transport hazardous materials on notice -- you cannot endanger public health or the environment," said Attorney General Janet Reno. "We will not let you foul our water and spoil our land by breaking the law."
"Ties that bind".
Company execs have given almost a half million dollars to Republican's and to President Bush.
During the 1990s, the company's leaky pipelines were responsible for more
than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a penalty of $30 million.
In 1996, a faulty pipeline caused an explosion outside of Dallas in which
two teenagers were killed. In a lawsuit related to the deaths, a trial court
returned a judgement of $376.69 million against the company.
Anna Nicole Smith even filed a lawsuit against the company.
We could seriously go on and on...and we probably will.
It is my belief that people need to know who is building this pipeline in our backyards. For the most part, the mainstream media has failed in its role to provide unbiased coverage of the pipeline discussion.
I admit, I am biased. I am biased towards ensuring that Minnesotans have a full and fair opportunity to discuss the pipeline, without being coerced into supporting it.
This is our powerline people, time to step up and make our voices heard.
It's time to fight.
Micromanaging a Clusterscrew
In the Army, I had a much more vulgar term for what is going on in our Department of Defense right now, specifically in Iraq and our military hospitals.
Condi is out now telling Dems to not micromanage Iraq.
Will greater Government oversight over Walter Reed Army hospital and VA facilities be met with similar rhetoric?
Clearly we would not have micromanagement issues if the majority of American's beleived the Iraq strategy and our soldiers and Veterans were being supported.
It's easy to cite micromanagement issues when the current political powers that be want to continue a "strategy" of keeping our collective heads in the sand, kind of like that South Park episode.
Condi is out now telling Dems to not micromanage Iraq.
"Then you're going to have the worst of micromanagement of military affairs. AndI have said this once, and I'll say it again. In order to micromanage something, doesn't it have to be managed beforehand? Iraq has not been managed well since the quagmire began 4 years ago. At some point, we need accountability. We need people to step up to the plate, take charge, and change the direction of our situation in Iraq.
it's always served us badly in the past," she said.
Will greater Government oversight over Walter Reed Army hospital and VA facilities be met with similar rhetoric?
Clearly we would not have micromanagement issues if the majority of American's beleived the Iraq strategy and our soldiers and Veterans were being supported.
It's easy to cite micromanagement issues when the current political powers that be want to continue a "strategy" of keeping our collective heads in the sand, kind of like that South Park episode.
Snowed in at my Meeker County outpost
Well, they got 15 inches about 15 minutes south of here. We look to have about a foot here with more coming soon, according to accu weather radar. Looks like I get to dig out today.
How about them Huskies? A swwep of the Golen Gophers! (Left the d out since the Gophers played no D).
Will they be #1 in nation this week.
North Dakota is coming to town this week, it should be a great series. I think my sister, brother in law, girlfriend and I will be at the National Concrete Center Saturday night for the game.
Anyone watch the Huskies last night? With all the snow flying, that's all we could do out here, besides watching "Man of the Year".
Homers. That's what the Fox Sports people were, complete homers. No credit to a great Husky squad.
I love the Gopher fans who chant "Gopher rejects" when my boys sweep you and win the season series 2-0-2.
"Man of the Year". What a disappointing movie. I thought it would be a lot more funny. Robin Williams had some great one liners, but I guess I expected more.
Have fun digin out and drive safe!
How about them Huskies? A swwep of the Golen Gophers! (Left the d out since the Gophers played no D).
Will they be #1 in nation this week.
North Dakota is coming to town this week, it should be a great series. I think my sister, brother in law, girlfriend and I will be at the National Concrete Center Saturday night for the game.
Anyone watch the Huskies last night? With all the snow flying, that's all we could do out here, besides watching "Man of the Year".
Homers. That's what the Fox Sports people were, complete homers. No credit to a great Husky squad.
I love the Gopher fans who chant "Gopher rejects" when my boys sweep you and win the season series 2-0-2.
"Man of the Year". What a disappointing movie. I thought it would be a lot more funny. Robin Williams had some great one liners, but I guess I expected more.
Have fun digin out and drive safe!
Saturday, February 24, 2007
More wonkette on Bachmann
Blogging from an outpost in Meeker County today...as the snow is flying, to the tune of about 6 inches by now.
Wonkette loves our Congresswoman!
and
Gophers v. Huskies is on now. Time to focus!
Wonkette loves our Congresswoman!
Our nation’s loopiest congresslady has revealed Top Secret governmentThe comments are of a classic Wonkette nature as well.
intelligence plans to give half of Iraq to Iran. The new half-country will be a
special terrorist safe haven, says Rep. Michele Bachmann, and it’s going to be
called “the Iraq State of Islam, something like that.”
Yet Bachmann coyly refused to identify the “they” who made this clandestine deal, just that “they’ve already decided.”
Bachmann exposed the nation’s greatest secret on a podcast with Minnesota reporter Lawrence Schumacher, which you can download and enjoy — if you like to hear crazy people on your iPod. We’re pretty sure Cheney and Libby will have her suicided; first she sexually assaults the president, and now she’s announcing Washington’s most crucial secret information to journalists?
Wait, wait, wait: the Bush Whisperer claims that they are "tipping over apple
carts in Iraq".
This has GOT to stop! Paul Bremmer paid a cool $8 billion for those apple carts.
and
I don't think Monica's bj's of Bill were as intimate and gross as Michelle's pawing and groping of W after the SOTUS last month, but I'm easy to titillate when it's live and on the teevee, primo time.and
'Specially when Laura is looking on from the gallery.
What the hell has gone wrong with Minnesota?and lastly
When I was growing up in the fifties & sixties, we in the hopelessly corrupt Land of Lincoln, looked northwest to an honest place, filled with intelligent politicians, that cared for their country & only wanted to do it proud.
Since then, the Land of 10,000 Lakes has elected Jesse Ventura, Norm Coleman & this whack job!
Is it the cold, the snow, the old Swedes dieing off, crazy old farts from all over going to Mayo's & then staying & voting or the bovine growth hormones in cows?
Please tell us, we want to help you!
xecks, that's all there is up there to GET elected.
They usually find themselves outvoted in statewide elections by the non-looney Minnesotans that populate Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and some regions of the Iron Range.
But accidents do happen. Like Paul Wellstone's death maybe two weeks before what would have been a shoo-in reelection to the Senate. That's how we all wound up with the Senator from Eraserhead, Norm Coleman.
Gophers v. Huskies is on now. Time to focus!
Drawing parallels
Don't you find it funny how standards are not consistent between the two major political parties?
Republicans are very quick to respond, in a negative manner, when a Democrat states similarities between the quagmire in Iraq and the quagmire in Vietnam.
President Bush came out this week and compared the Revolutionary War with the quagmire in Iraq.
It's also quite obvious though that President Bush, the history buff he appears to be, does not abide by some of George Washington's famous words for our Veterans.
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country."
Unfortunately, another comparison of quagmires, Iraq to Vietnam the treatment of our Veterans and soldiers appears to have not gotten a lot better.
Suicide rates of our Veterans are twice that of the regular society.
Hundreds wait for health care in rat infested and moldy barracks, a stone's throw from the man who's decisions culminated in their visit to Walter Reed or another military hospital.
Soldiers from the 1st Cav who will soon be on their 5th deployment to Iraq, away from their families once again.
Tours have been extended for Minnesota National Guard men and women.
I get pretty pissed off when I read another rant from a Republican chickenhawk, going after those that criticize the war. But then again, when they know of the secret plans for Iran, maybe we should listen to them more...
Republicans are very quick to respond, in a negative manner, when a Democrat states similarities between the quagmire in Iraq and the quagmire in Vietnam.
President Bush came out this week and compared the Revolutionary War with the quagmire in Iraq.
"In the end, General Washington understood that the Revolutionary War was a test
of wills, and his will was unbreakable," Bush said during a speech marking the
Presidents' Day national holiday.
It's also quite obvious though that President Bush, the history buff he appears to be, does not abide by some of George Washington's famous words for our Veterans.
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country."
Unfortunately, another comparison of quagmires, Iraq to Vietnam the treatment of our Veterans and soldiers appears to have not gotten a lot better.
Suicide rates of our Veterans are twice that of the regular society.
Hundreds wait for health care in rat infested and moldy barracks, a stone's throw from the man who's decisions culminated in their visit to Walter Reed or another military hospital.
Soldiers from the 1st Cav who will soon be on their 5th deployment to Iraq, away from their families once again.
Tours have been extended for Minnesota National Guard men and women.
I get pretty pissed off when I read another rant from a Republican chickenhawk, going after those that criticize the war. But then again, when they know of the secret plans for Iran, maybe we should listen to them more...
So Bachmann backs off her comments now?
Conservatives are out working hard to save one of the only true Conservatives the Republican's have left in Minnesota. Whether its Jason Lewis debating Eva Young on KTLK or blogs like Residual Forces coming to Bachmann's defense, the spin is out in full force.
Lewis and RF place the blame on an ultra liberal agenda to smear Congresswoman Bachmann.
They fall seriously short though in explaining why the Congresswoman made these comments. The bottomline is, had the Congresswoman not said such outrageous comments, this would not be a story.
Did Bachmann just make that stuff up? Who would have entrusted her to such information. If anyone on the Minnesota GOP delegation would have been John Kline. Hell, he carried the nuclear football! I know, I saw the commerical.
But I digress. SC Times coverage.
First, we misconstrued her comments.
I did not misconstrue her comments, how could any of us misconstue this maddness?
Did Bachmann leak confidential info?
If, and that's a big if, this info was learned in this meeting, we have another Valerie Plame case on our hands.
Political science professionals weigh in. From the Strib.
Not even two months into the Bachmann term and all this news. We know that she is a lightning rod for controversey, but she definately does herself more harm than good with rants like the Iran rant.
Lewis and RF place the blame on an ultra liberal agenda to smear Congresswoman Bachmann.
They fall seriously short though in explaining why the Congresswoman made these comments. The bottomline is, had the Congresswoman not said such outrageous comments, this would not be a story.
Did Bachmann just make that stuff up? Who would have entrusted her to such information. If anyone on the Minnesota GOP delegation would have been John Kline. Hell, he carried the nuclear football! I know, I saw the commerical.
But I digress. SC Times coverage.
First, we misconstrued her comments.
In a statement she issued Friday afternoon, Bachmann, R-Minn., did not retract her remarks on Iran but said they had "been misconstrued."
The release did not specify how her words had been misconstrued, nor by whom. But it reframes her partitioning statement to say that "there are multiple reasons to believe (Iran) would seek to expand their territory to include Shi'a Iraq."
I did not misconstrue her comments, how could any of us misconstue this maddness?
“And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called ... the Iraq State of Islam, something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it is meant to be the training ground for the terrorists.
Did Bachmann leak confidential info?
Bachmann did not explain where she received her information, though Bachmann
said in a Jan. 21 Times story she and U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., had received "classified information on the war effort" during a visit to the Pentagon.
If, and that's a big if, this info was learned in this meeting, we have another Valerie Plame case on our hands.
Political science professionals weigh in. From the Strib.
University of Minnesota political scientist Kathryn Pearson, who specializes in Congress, said Bachmann's original statement was "extremely irresponsible." Members of Congress are privy to intelligence that the rest of the public isn't. So when a member of Congress says something of such significance, the first assumption is that she knows something that the public doesn't. So on that basis, people are going to take it seriously.
"Either this is top secret information that she's leaking, which is a problem. Or she's presenting her thoughts on a very serious topic as if they were established fact, and that's a problem for other reasons," Pearson said.
Washington University Prof. Steve Smith, another Congress watcher who lives in the Sixth District, said Bachmann's first statement "was a pretty strong claim to make. If she can't back it up she should be held accountable."
Smith speculated the original statement was drawn from some ideas circulating in "the neoconservative network in which she circulates."
Not even two months into the Bachmann term and all this news. We know that she is a lightning rod for controversey, but she definately does herself more harm than good with rants like the Iran rant.
Friday, February 23, 2007
More of the Walter Reed quagmire
The Washington Post continues its coverage.
When I had an Infantry platoon, I visited my soldiers barracks on a pretty regular basis. When things were in disorder, they quickly came to order. I do not understand where or how the leadership could have failed. Non-commissioned Officers (NCO's) live a creed. One statement, while short in nature, provides the NCO with his or her basics.
NCO's at Fort Stewart beforehand and now at Walter Reed has failed on both counts. The General in charge should be relieved of duty.
Obviously they have forgotten about this one.
Some are not happy with the coverage.
What would be happening now if the Washington Post had not uncovered this madness? Of course the comments come from the former Commander of the facility.
General Kiley seems to be just another one of those men with the stars on their hats and the funky "Generals Belts" who have forgotten, after all these years, what it's like as a foot soldier, not a high paid General.
The Post found recovering soldiers living in squalid conditions in Building 18, a decrepit former hotel just outside the Walter Reed grounds, with some of the quarters plagued by mold, rot and vermin. The series also documented a larger
issue of bureaucratic indifference that soldiers and family members said had
demoralized them and impeded recovery.
When I had an Infantry platoon, I visited my soldiers barracks on a pretty regular basis. When things were in disorder, they quickly came to order. I do not understand where or how the leadership could have failed. Non-commissioned Officers (NCO's) live a creed. One statement, while short in nature, provides the NCO with his or her basics.
My two basic responsibilities will always be uppermost in my mind --
accomplishment of my mission and the welfare of my Soldiers.
NCO's at Fort Stewart beforehand and now at Walter Reed has failed on both counts. The General in charge should be relieved of duty.
Gates said he had no indication of problems at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda or facilities elsewhere comparable to those at Walter Reed, but he said the review group would be empowered to investigate wherever it wanted because "we need to know the scope of this problem."
Obviously they have forgotten about this one.
Some are not happy with the coverage.
The comments came a day after the Army's surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C.
Kiley, criticized the Post articles, saying they unfairly characterized the living conditions and care for soldiers recuperating from wounds at the hospital's facilities.
Kiley, chief of the Army Medical Command, told reporters that the Post series "was a one-sided representation."
What would be happening now if the Washington Post had not uncovered this madness? Of course the comments come from the former Commander of the facility.
General Kiley seems to be just another one of those men with the stars on their hats and the funky "Generals Belts" who have forgotten, after all these years, what it's like as a foot soldier, not a high paid General.
No excuses for the treatment of our Veterans
I thought I recalled hearing about this a few years ago while I was active on the public speaking circuit.
Sure enough, we heard these complaints in 2003.
Where is the accountability? We have always heard of the VA issues, but what about care for Active Duty and Reserve or National Guard hero's who have honorably served our nation?
We knew the system was failed in 2003. Four years later, the incompetence still exists.
600 soldiers here, 700 at Walter Reed, how many more?
It would appear as though this pandemic has spread to other installations across the nation.
Soldiers have to work their way to morning formation and sit in the rain and snow in their wheelchairs, hobble across the base on crutches! It happened years ago as well.
Same shit, different day I guess.
The more and more I dig about this, the more and more I find. It truly is disgusting. The saying "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" can't even touch the surface of what I feel right now.
It's pathetic, it really is.
Sure enough, we heard these complaints in 2003.
FORT STEWART, Ga. -- Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.
The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is
trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.
"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War. "Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen."
Where is the accountability? We have always heard of the VA issues, but what about care for Active Duty and Reserve or National Guard hero's who have honorably served our nation?
We knew the system was failed in 2003. Four years later, the incompetence still exists.
One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart -- home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses.
The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls "medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are and what benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.
Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an appointment without seeing a doctor. Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis or proper treatment.
600 soldiers here, 700 at Walter Reed, how many more?
The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting better treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army Reserve are left to wallow in medical hold.
"It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two -- Army and Reserves," said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, during which she developed a serious heart condition and strange skin ailment.
It would appear as though this pandemic has spread to other installations across the nation.
Soldiers have to work their way to morning formation and sit in the rain and snow in their wheelchairs, hobble across the base on crutches! It happened years ago as well.
Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy dirt to a
communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between otherwise
open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper.
Same shit, different day I guess.
The more and more I dig about this, the more and more I find. It truly is disgusting. The saying "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" can't even touch the surface of what I feel right now.
It's pathetic, it really is.
Bachmann knows of plans to divide Iraq
Ed Schultz talked about it for a minute during his radio show a bit ago and the Stib has the sccop!
The extended quote courtesy of "The Big Question"
Why do we have to be represented by the biggest lunatic on Congress. Seriously!
Where are the Washington Post, New York Times and other major news sources on this? If the plan to divide up Iraq is out there, no offense, how come Congresswoman Bachmann is the first elected leader in the United States to come out with this nefarious plan?
Bizarre, absolutely bizzare.
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann claims to know of a plan, already worked out with a
line drawn on the map, for the partition of Iraq in which Iran will control half of the country and set it up as a “a terrorist safe haven zone” and a staging area for attacks around the Middle East and on the United States.
The extended quote courtesy of "The Big Question"
“Iran is the trouble maker, trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out. And do you know why? It’s because they’ve already decided that they’re going to partition Iraq.
And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called…. the Iraq State of Islam, something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it’s meant to be the training ground for the terrorists. There’s already an agreement made.
They are going to get half of Iraq and that is going to be a terrorist safe haven zone where they can go ahead and bring about more terrorist attacks in the Middle East region and then to come against the United States because we are their avowed enemy.”
Why do we have to be represented by the biggest lunatic on Congress. Seriously!
Where are the Washington Post, New York Times and other major news sources on this? If the plan to divide up Iraq is out there, no offense, how come Congresswoman Bachmann is the first elected leader in the United States to come out with this nefarious plan?
Bizarre, absolutely bizzare.
Another opinion on the Walter Reed scandal
From deadissue.com WARNING! Naughty Language
If you really want someone to feel like a piece of dog shit for a long time, then be sure to recommend that they earn money for college and gain job experience by enlisting in the United States Army. Once they’re all contracted up and ready to ship out, a masochist’s dream world opens up to them, and no matter how dark and lonely the trip becomes, it can always get worse. Thinking that the loss of your legs and the ability to keep your mind focused long enough to order a cheeseburger at McDonald’s is the low point in your tragic life is the stupid reasoning of dog shit that thinks its special, and the essence of what I’m getting at here. Turn off your mind, panic, and work upstream - you’re still in the Army, and the Army still hates you.
To be so foolish as to assume that the actual injury and thousands of miles of transport and surgery after surgery constitute the worst of what your signature on that contract was in exchange for, is to undoubtedly be stupid enough to expect that because you’re in possession of that smart looking Purple Heart medal that you’ve been upgraded within the Army to something more consequential than the piece of dog shit you’ve been up to that point, and if the feeling you were taught to become one with as a fully capable soldier in your unit is something you consider a thing of the past, then see how you feel wheeling your broke ass down to formation in the rain, say for a year and a half or so.
You’re missing parts of your body and mind; still over in Iraq or Afghanistan somewhere, already been pissed on by people, livestock and rolled over by tires of trucks, seeing day and night looking up at whatever, wondering if their host is every coming back to pick them up.
They won’t of course, but such soulful meditation, the cutting of ties, the acceptance of what’s lost, it’s all part of making it to 30 and then 40 and hopefully past that age right there, to a veteran it’s the new 70, and Hallmark might have a clue as to whether or not the poor bastard has things worked out even then with what to say or think about that part of them still being pissed on and rolled over on the other side of the world.
It’s on the top of the to-do list, but Army dog shit hasn’t yet earned the right to feel entitled to anything besides the constant reminder of what it is and what it is worth. In the rain you sit, because you have to, on account of having no legs, but above all that is the need for the Army to further shame and humiliate and break away that will to live…smear some Kiwi all over that unauthorized gloss from being called a hero, and sit there in that chair you’ll loathe forever hearing this asshole at the front of the formation talking to you and the rest of what’s left of the sorry fuckers soaking in the phantom sensations from toes that still wiggle when thought about for a second in the rain on a 30 degree morning, still ten minutes before the asshole stops talking and the five minute trek back to the moldy walls and seclusion of hell can be returned to.
Fifteen months of this and the paperwork is lost, tied up, incomplete…and so the guy down the hall figures he can bring back the booze for me along with his own, and just like in that book Misery, I’ll dump all that chemical dust into a few cocktails and this life can finally end. Just tell anyone you can to stay away and forget about all that hero bullshit everyone in the civilian world thinks exists in the Army. Before that though, check my room and see I’m collected and buried before these rodents get to biting on me. Just don’t let me get eaten by my roommates here, and we’ll be even. Hopefully I’ll smell enough dead like the Army has made me feel alive to attract someone who’ll wheel me out of here and get me one of those nice funerals with the gunfire and bagpipes.
If you really want someone to feel like a piece of dog shit for a long time, then be sure to recommend that they earn money for college and gain job experience by enlisting in the United States Army. Once they’re all contracted up and ready to ship out, a masochist’s dream world opens up to them, and no matter how dark and lonely the trip becomes, it can always get worse. Thinking that the loss of your legs and the ability to keep your mind focused long enough to order a cheeseburger at McDonald’s is the low point in your tragic life is the stupid reasoning of dog shit that thinks its special, and the essence of what I’m getting at here. Turn off your mind, panic, and work upstream - you’re still in the Army, and the Army still hates you.
To be so foolish as to assume that the actual injury and thousands of miles of transport and surgery after surgery constitute the worst of what your signature on that contract was in exchange for, is to undoubtedly be stupid enough to expect that because you’re in possession of that smart looking Purple Heart medal that you’ve been upgraded within the Army to something more consequential than the piece of dog shit you’ve been up to that point, and if the feeling you were taught to become one with as a fully capable soldier in your unit is something you consider a thing of the past, then see how you feel wheeling your broke ass down to formation in the rain, say for a year and a half or so.
You’re missing parts of your body and mind; still over in Iraq or Afghanistan somewhere, already been pissed on by people, livestock and rolled over by tires of trucks, seeing day and night looking up at whatever, wondering if their host is every coming back to pick them up.
They won’t of course, but such soulful meditation, the cutting of ties, the acceptance of what’s lost, it’s all part of making it to 30 and then 40 and hopefully past that age right there, to a veteran it’s the new 70, and Hallmark might have a clue as to whether or not the poor bastard has things worked out even then with what to say or think about that part of them still being pissed on and rolled over on the other side of the world.
It’s on the top of the to-do list, but Army dog shit hasn’t yet earned the right to feel entitled to anything besides the constant reminder of what it is and what it is worth. In the rain you sit, because you have to, on account of having no legs, but above all that is the need for the Army to further shame and humiliate and break away that will to live…smear some Kiwi all over that unauthorized gloss from being called a hero, and sit there in that chair you’ll loathe forever hearing this asshole at the front of the formation talking to you and the rest of what’s left of the sorry fuckers soaking in the phantom sensations from toes that still wiggle when thought about for a second in the rain on a 30 degree morning, still ten minutes before the asshole stops talking and the five minute trek back to the moldy walls and seclusion of hell can be returned to.
Fifteen months of this and the paperwork is lost, tied up, incomplete…and so the guy down the hall figures he can bring back the booze for me along with his own, and just like in that book Misery, I’ll dump all that chemical dust into a few cocktails and this life can finally end. Just tell anyone you can to stay away and forget about all that hero bullshit everyone in the civilian world thinks exists in the Army. Before that though, check my room and see I’m collected and buried before these rodents get to biting on me. Just don’t let me get eaten by my roommates here, and we’ll be even. Hopefully I’ll smell enough dead like the Army has made me feel alive to attract someone who’ll wheel me out of here and get me one of those nice funerals with the gunfire and bagpipes.
Bill Prendergast opines on Bachmann
From Dump Bachmann and cross posted at Minnesota Campaign Report.
Many people have been saying that Bachmann is a "one term-er;" that she's basically "over" after the people in her district find out how poorly she's going to represent them in Congress.
Well, it's true that she's one of these special interest hacks; that fact is written all over her campaign contribution filings. And it's true that the special interests who are most interested in Michele are from outside the 6th district-James Dobson and the national religious right, wingnut "education reform" groups based outside the district who are pledged to ending all public school funding, and many rich Minnesotans from outside the district (Taxpayers' League types who wouldn't be caught dead in Stearns County.)
All true, as far as it goes. But I don't think the fact Michele will probably do a rotten job of representing the district means that Michele is a one term-er. Remember: she did a rotten job of representing Stillwater, but she was returned to office again and again.
And you also gotta remember: the kind of politician that Michele is, doesn't depend of "performance for the district" to get herself elected. She's kind of like Joe McCarthy: her core issues-and thus her base of support-are not the issues of the district, they extend beyond its boundaries. They are religion in politics issues, talk-radio issues, federal taxation issues, abortion, support for the Iraq war and the conservative program issues.
If Michele can obtain national conservative support by following the conservative line on these non-6th district issues, she can largely ignore problems specific to her district--and still rise. Her career in Stillwater is evidence of that.
And Michele *is* going to get the support of the national conservative movement. She was getting it before she was elected to Congress and now they are preparing to give her the `big push,' to introduce her into the national spotlight. If she get that kind of promotion, she will have effectively reached the next "plateau" and will become the darling of national conservative talk-radio hosts, pundits and funding people-not just our local Minnesota ones.
A web page advertising the upcoming Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington, D.C. shows Michele as one of the featured speakers at the conference. She will appear shortly after the conference opens and will be sharing the dais with conservative luminaries like Phyllis Schlafly and R. Emmett Tyrell of the American Spectator.
That's the big leagues, folks--Michele has arrived! Look at some of those other guests: Vice President Dick Cheney, Sean Hannity, Senator Mitch McConnell, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Newt Gingrich, and of course, Wayne LaPierre. And many more. Flyin' with the conservative eagles-that's the big money, the big network, the really big promotion. Given that, do you think it's really "over" for her if she ignores the 6th district of Minnesota for the next two years?
And, as we know, we've got local press professionals back here who refuse to acknowledge she's an extremist, and Jason Lewis and all those other conservative guys who'll continue to pimp her to the rank-and-file. The bottom line is: if Bachmann isn't brought down by a major scandal in the next two years, she's likely to go higher; not lower, not "out."
There is another way to take her out, short of a major scandal. To see how that would work, you have to return to her career in Stillwater again.
At first, Michele could win Stillwater because a majority of people there were trending GOP and they accepted her pose as a Ronald Reagan Republican conservative. Gradually, the facts about her extremist connections and beliefs came out, the conservative economic policy she slavishly followed caused property taxes and "fees" rocket on her watch, and it came out that she'd actually voted against spending that would have benefited the voters of her district. So the voters got wised up, and she lost her hometown in last year's congressional election.
If the voters get wised up, Michele loses. We are trying to wise up voters at Dump Bachmann; dogging her finances, recording her most extreme statements and outright lies. Our problem has always been getting a supposedly "biased liberal media" to print the most alarming facts about her; it's like they're running interference for her.
That may change; look at the stuff Keith Olbermann ran about Bachmann--people outside Minnesota politics aren't afraid to identify her for what she is. Michele's a closeted extremist, a John Birch Society/conspiracy theory type posing as a mainstream conservative. Get the mainstream media to pick up on that fact--and that, along with her pathetic record of representing the people of her district, means she loses.
Many people have been saying that Bachmann is a "one term-er;" that she's basically "over" after the people in her district find out how poorly she's going to represent them in Congress.
Well, it's true that she's one of these special interest hacks; that fact is written all over her campaign contribution filings. And it's true that the special interests who are most interested in Michele are from outside the 6th district-James Dobson and the national religious right, wingnut "education reform" groups based outside the district who are pledged to ending all public school funding, and many rich Minnesotans from outside the district (Taxpayers' League types who wouldn't be caught dead in Stearns County.)
All true, as far as it goes. But I don't think the fact Michele will probably do a rotten job of representing the district means that Michele is a one term-er. Remember: she did a rotten job of representing Stillwater, but she was returned to office again and again.
And you also gotta remember: the kind of politician that Michele is, doesn't depend of "performance for the district" to get herself elected. She's kind of like Joe McCarthy: her core issues-and thus her base of support-are not the issues of the district, they extend beyond its boundaries. They are religion in politics issues, talk-radio issues, federal taxation issues, abortion, support for the Iraq war and the conservative program issues.
If Michele can obtain national conservative support by following the conservative line on these non-6th district issues, she can largely ignore problems specific to her district--and still rise. Her career in Stillwater is evidence of that.
And Michele *is* going to get the support of the national conservative movement. She was getting it before she was elected to Congress and now they are preparing to give her the `big push,' to introduce her into the national spotlight. If she get that kind of promotion, she will have effectively reached the next "plateau" and will become the darling of national conservative talk-radio hosts, pundits and funding people-not just our local Minnesota ones.
A web page advertising the upcoming Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington, D.C. shows Michele as one of the featured speakers at the conference. She will appear shortly after the conference opens and will be sharing the dais with conservative luminaries like Phyllis Schlafly and R. Emmett Tyrell of the American Spectator.
That's the big leagues, folks--Michele has arrived! Look at some of those other guests: Vice President Dick Cheney, Sean Hannity, Senator Mitch McConnell, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Newt Gingrich, and of course, Wayne LaPierre. And many more. Flyin' with the conservative eagles-that's the big money, the big network, the really big promotion. Given that, do you think it's really "over" for her if she ignores the 6th district of Minnesota for the next two years?
And, as we know, we've got local press professionals back here who refuse to acknowledge she's an extremist, and Jason Lewis and all those other conservative guys who'll continue to pimp her to the rank-and-file. The bottom line is: if Bachmann isn't brought down by a major scandal in the next two years, she's likely to go higher; not lower, not "out."
There is another way to take her out, short of a major scandal. To see how that would work, you have to return to her career in Stillwater again.
At first, Michele could win Stillwater because a majority of people there were trending GOP and they accepted her pose as a Ronald Reagan Republican conservative. Gradually, the facts about her extremist connections and beliefs came out, the conservative economic policy she slavishly followed caused property taxes and "fees" rocket on her watch, and it came out that she'd actually voted against spending that would have benefited the voters of her district. So the voters got wised up, and she lost her hometown in last year's congressional election.
If the voters get wised up, Michele loses. We are trying to wise up voters at Dump Bachmann; dogging her finances, recording her most extreme statements and outright lies. Our problem has always been getting a supposedly "biased liberal media" to print the most alarming facts about her; it's like they're running interference for her.
That may change; look at the stuff Keith Olbermann ran about Bachmann--people outside Minnesota politics aren't afraid to identify her for what she is. Michele's a closeted extremist, a John Birch Society/conspiracy theory type posing as a mainstream conservative. Get the mainstream media to pick up on that fact--and that, along with her pathetic record of representing the people of her district, means she loses.
An Al Franken onslaught
For those that stop by Minnesota Democrats Exposed, Michael has taken a great deal of time to go after Al Franken!
I find it very Tim Walz and Keith Ellison esque, don't you?
I find it very Tim Walz and Keith Ellison esque, don't you?
MinnCan pipeline comments
This was posted as a comment. Since it's so good, I am giving it its own post.
As property owners sharing the suffering and hardships created by the MinnCan pipeline project, we urgently ask that you assist everyone in harms way by actively supporting the “Buy the Farm – Pipeline Act.” MinnCan's crude oil pipeline severely impacts the lives of over 1,000 property owners in Minnesota, by taking their land and offering to pay pennies on the dollar for their property loss. The MinnCan pipeline will bring more than 165,000 barrels of oil per day across these properties, and create a risk of oil spills in our rich agricultural lands. Such a spill happened recently in Little Falls, MN where a different Koch pipeline ruptured spilling more than 134,000 gallons and permanently contaminated the land.
The “Buy the Farm – Pipeline Act” is based directly off an existing statute informally called the “Buy the Farm Act” (Minn.Stat 216E.12). “Buy the Farm” gives property owners the option to require proposers of high-voltage transmission lines to purchase their entire property rather than just an easement. The new law would simply extend this option to land owners that are affected by large crude oil pipelines.
We believe that this is a fair and reasonable option that enhances the rights of property owners who will be negatively impacted on a permanent basis because they were chosen to "Host" the pipeline's route. It will also become a viable tool in every property owner’s toolbox for constructing a fair settlement with the proposer.
This statute is directly inline with the overwhelmingly public support of eminent domain limits. While the recent eminent domain legislation unfortunately did not affect these types of utility takings, the above bill will bring some power back to Minnesota landowners who are impacted by utility development.
Please share this letter with others you know that are being affected by the proposed MinnCan pipeline route. We strongly urge all of those affected or support the property owners in harm's way, to call, email, or write their Representatives (To find out who represents you go to www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/Districtfinder.asp), asking them to bring the " Buy the Farm – Pipeline Act" to the floor. There is power in numbers and the more interest the Representatives receive, the more likely this bill will be heard.
Time is critical and these interests need to be expressed, NOW...They all need to be sent as soon as possible. Thank you for your help in spreading the word and voicing your support!
Proposed Bill:Eminent Domain amendment for Pipeline Facilities
Adapted from MinnStat 216E.12, 2006
Proposed Language
Contiguous land. When private real property that is an agricultural or nonagricultural homestead, nonhomestead agricultural land, rental residential property, and both commercial and noncommercial seasonal residential recreational property, as those terms are defined in section 273.13 is proposed to be acquired for the construction of a site or route for a crude oil pipeline that requires a certificate of need, by eminent domain proceedings, the fee owner, or when applicable, the fee owner with the written consent of the contract for deed vendee, or the contract for deed vendee with the written consent of the fee owner, shall have the option to require the utility to condemn a fee interest in any amount of contiguous, commercially viable land which the owner or vendee wholly owns or has contracted to own in undivided fee and elects in writing to transfer to the utility within 60 days after receipt of the notice of the objects of the petition filed pursuant to section 117.055. Commercial viability shall be determined without regard to the presence of the utility route or site. The owner or, when applicable, the contract vendee shall have only one such option and may not expand or otherwise modify an election without the consent of the utility. The required acquisition of land pursuant to this subdivision shall be considered an acquisition for a public purpose and for use in the utility's business, for purposes of chapter 117 and section 500.24, respectively; provided that a utility shall divest itself completely of all such lands used for farming or capable of being used for farming not later than the time it can receive the market value paid at the time of acquisition of lands less any diminution in value by reason of the presence of the utility route or site. Upon the owner's election made under this subdivision, the easement interest over and adjacent to the lands designated by the owner to be acquired in fee, sought in the condemnation petition for a right-of-way for a crude oil pipeline which requires a Certificate of Need shall automatically be converted into a fee taking.
As property owners sharing the suffering and hardships created by the MinnCan pipeline project, we urgently ask that you assist everyone in harms way by actively supporting the “Buy the Farm – Pipeline Act.” MinnCan's crude oil pipeline severely impacts the lives of over 1,000 property owners in Minnesota, by taking their land and offering to pay pennies on the dollar for their property loss. The MinnCan pipeline will bring more than 165,000 barrels of oil per day across these properties, and create a risk of oil spills in our rich agricultural lands. Such a spill happened recently in Little Falls, MN where a different Koch pipeline ruptured spilling more than 134,000 gallons and permanently contaminated the land.
The “Buy the Farm – Pipeline Act” is based directly off an existing statute informally called the “Buy the Farm Act” (Minn.Stat 216E.12). “Buy the Farm” gives property owners the option to require proposers of high-voltage transmission lines to purchase their entire property rather than just an easement. The new law would simply extend this option to land owners that are affected by large crude oil pipelines.
We believe that this is a fair and reasonable option that enhances the rights of property owners who will be negatively impacted on a permanent basis because they were chosen to "Host" the pipeline's route. It will also become a viable tool in every property owner’s toolbox for constructing a fair settlement with the proposer.
This statute is directly inline with the overwhelmingly public support of eminent domain limits. While the recent eminent domain legislation unfortunately did not affect these types of utility takings, the above bill will bring some power back to Minnesota landowners who are impacted by utility development.
Please share this letter with others you know that are being affected by the proposed MinnCan pipeline route. We strongly urge all of those affected or support the property owners in harm's way, to call, email, or write their Representatives (To find out who represents you go to www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/Districtfinder.asp), asking them to bring the " Buy the Farm – Pipeline Act" to the floor. There is power in numbers and the more interest the Representatives receive, the more likely this bill will be heard.
Time is critical and these interests need to be expressed, NOW...They all need to be sent as soon as possible. Thank you for your help in spreading the word and voicing your support!
Proposed Bill:Eminent Domain amendment for Pipeline Facilities
Adapted from MinnStat 216E.12, 2006
Proposed Language
Contiguous land. When private real property that is an agricultural or nonagricultural homestead, nonhomestead agricultural land, rental residential property, and both commercial and noncommercial seasonal residential recreational property, as those terms are defined in section 273.13 is proposed to be acquired for the construction of a site or route for a crude oil pipeline that requires a certificate of need, by eminent domain proceedings, the fee owner, or when applicable, the fee owner with the written consent of the contract for deed vendee, or the contract for deed vendee with the written consent of the fee owner, shall have the option to require the utility to condemn a fee interest in any amount of contiguous, commercially viable land which the owner or vendee wholly owns or has contracted to own in undivided fee and elects in writing to transfer to the utility within 60 days after receipt of the notice of the objects of the petition filed pursuant to section 117.055. Commercial viability shall be determined without regard to the presence of the utility route or site. The owner or, when applicable, the contract vendee shall have only one such option and may not expand or otherwise modify an election without the consent of the utility. The required acquisition of land pursuant to this subdivision shall be considered an acquisition for a public purpose and for use in the utility's business, for purposes of chapter 117 and section 500.24, respectively; provided that a utility shall divest itself completely of all such lands used for farming or capable of being used for farming not later than the time it can receive the market value paid at the time of acquisition of lands less any diminution in value by reason of the presence of the utility route or site. Upon the owner's election made under this subdivision, the easement interest over and adjacent to the lands designated by the owner to be acquired in fee, sought in the condemnation petition for a right-of-way for a crude oil pipeline which requires a Certificate of Need shall automatically be converted into a fee taking.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Minnesota Senate Per Diem vote
And for my 300th post on this blog!
You probably won't believe this until you look at it.
The Minnesota Senate voted yesterday on a raise in their per diem. It passed 59-7.
What did our local legislators do?
Senator Clark? Yes
Senator Gimse? Yes
Senator Wergin? Yes
Senator Koch? No
Senator Dille? ? Senator Dille?
Seems like Senator Dille missed that vote.
I can't make this stuff up, even if I tried.
I am sure it was excused though.
You probably won't believe this until you look at it.
The Minnesota Senate voted yesterday on a raise in their per diem. It passed 59-7.
What did our local legislators do?
Senator Clark? Yes
Senator Gimse? Yes
Senator Wergin? Yes
Senator Koch? No
Senator Dille? ? Senator Dille?
Seems like Senator Dille missed that vote.
I can't make this stuff up, even if I tried.
I am sure it was excused though.
Why do we keep screwing our Veterans over?
It's sad.
Pathetic really.
It takes numerous high profile news stories to shed significant light on the health care surrounding our nations Veterans.
A month ago, Jonathan Schulze, a young Marine originally from Stewart, committed suicide after being denied access by persons at the VA Medical Center in St Cloud.
An investigation is ongoing as we speak. Unfortunately, I remain positive that it will be handled in the same manner as previous issues with our Veterans where the VA and its cronies abide by a strict policy of "Don't look, don't find, don't pay."
Letters to the editor poured into the SC Times and other media outlets, calling the suicide of the young Marine a rare occurrence. Many stated that they had great health care coverage at these VA Centers.
I don't doubt that. Without hesitation, I know that the medical professionals at the VA centers do the best they can with the resources that they are given. They do care about our Veterans. The problems at the VA and other military hospitals is not an indictment against them. In fact, in spite of funding cuts, these medical professionals do a remarkable job with our Veterans.
I thank all of you for your service to our troops and Veterans.
The case at Walter Reed is disturbing to me, words cannot capture my outrage. If this can happen at the crown jewel of military hospitals, it can happen anywhere.
Truth be told, we have a lot of Building 18's out there. Buildings where our Veterans rest and recuperate in moldy and varmint infested government facilities. The most egregious cases have been reported just miles from the marble and granite palaces where Michele Bachmann and other politicos publicly state their support for our troops.
Ironically, this same floor is where they cut their benefits. It's where they decide to close VA hospitals. And it's the same floor from which they propose to send more troops to Iraq.
Many read the recent Washington Post stories and for them, it was the first time that they had heard such tales. Stories of bureaucracy, incompetence, neglect, waste, fraud, and abuse.
Unfortunately, for Veterans, these stories are all too common. I did a significant amount of public speaking a few years ago on Veterans issues. One of my colleagues, Chris, is a 1990-91 Gulf War Veteran. We spoke together a lot.
Chris was an Infantryman in the 82nd Airborne. He finished his tour in Kuwait/Iraq in 1991 near An-Nasariah, where his Infantry unit stopped as the ground war ended.
Chris and his unit stayed in this location for nearly two weeks, pulling security on a route that could be a main supply route from Central to Southern Iraq. Daily, even after the war ended, Chris spoke of Air Force jets that would bomb munitions bunkers in his area. His best guess was that they were trying to destroy everything Iraq's military possessed.
Chris showed pictures of the large explosions that were just a few miles away from him. He told stories of how no matter how much him and his soldiers slept, they were always tired. He could literally sleep 20 hours a day. The combat medics with them attributed it to combat exhaustion, stress and depression.
Six years later, Chris got a letter from the VA. It told him he "may have been exposed to Sarin Gas near An-Nasariah in 1991." It told him to go to the nearest VA Medical Center with this letter to be evaluated.
Little did he know, it would start an 8 year fight with the VA.
I met Chris in 2001, after I came off of Active Duty. We shared many interests and our time on Active Duty as Infantrymen. As the drumbeat for war became louder, Chris and I began to work harder to tell people about what happens to our Veterans after wars. We spoke on college campuses, schools, and other places across the state on these issues. Chris, spoke of Gulf War Syndrome specifics. I spoke of issues around Depleted Uranium munitions and a history of what our nation does to its Veterans.
We were a very effective team.
But many years of fighting the bureaucracy took its toll on Chris. You see, Chris not only suffered the physical impact of being exposed to a chemical agent, he experienced the mental anguish of fighting for his own benefits.
Chris and I were two of many Veterans that were threatened with arrest at Congressman Kennedy's old office in St Cloud, after he had touted his strong support for the troops and screwed over more veterans with a vote to cut benefits.
There were many nights when the phone would ring at 3 am and Chris would need someone to talk to. Some nights, I drove up to St Cloud to make sure he was alright. More than once myself and other Veterans had to infiltrate his barricaded small St Cloud apartment because Chris was having a PTSD flashback.
Some at the St Cloud VA said he was faking it. He was lying. He has pre-existing conditions. Going through a series of 22 physical appointments when the mental trauma was not being addressed was a stressful experience for those of us that surrounded Chris. Imagine what it did to him. Everytime he had a mental breakdown, the VA told him he would have to start his appointments over again.
One day it was because his first test was "outdated".
Then it was lost paperwork.
Excuse after excuse ensued, and the Veteran got screwed.
In late 2004, Chris finally got his VA disability and does some work in New Mexico now as a social worker. He does some great work for Veterans in the Southern United States now.
The stories that have hit recently about the St Cloud VA and now Walter Reed, are not rare occurrences. They may not be the everyday story that gets attention in the main stream media, but they are not rare by any stretch of the imagination.
Where is the accountability? While the stories are all similar, Walter Reed and other military hospitals fall under a different jurisdiction than VA medical centers. Walter Reed falls under the Department of Defense, the Commander in Chief.
Remember a few years ago when Abu Ghraib occurred? General Janis Karpinski became the scapegoat. Many called for her to be relieved of duty and some called for a Court Martial. The actions of her soldiers were absolutely despicable and many of them have been punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
VP Cheney comes out and bashes Democrats yesterday because of our newest plans for Iraq. Where were the Republicans and VP Cheney when Building 18 was being run down? Surely the conditions did not denigrate to the state they are in today in the past 50 days Democrats have had control of Congress.
It starts with accountability. From day one, there has been little of no accountability when it comes to Iraq. How many billions of dollars is missing now?
Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, should be relieved. If General Karpinski can be threatened with Courts Martial for mistreating the "enemy", what's the punishment for mistreating 700 of our own?
Senator's Snowe and Obama will offer legislation soon to try to keep this from happening again.
That's fine and dandy really. Why do we need legislation to take care of our Veterans, our soldiers?
Republican's love to tout their support for our troops. They called us Democrats out for a "cut and run" strategy. What have they done for our Veterans, other than create more of them?
It saddens me and motivates me in the same breath. Only a few of us walked door to door and spoke to people about Veterans issues this past campaign cycle.
Legislation is great. But now it's time to put our collective words to action.
Who will stand with our Veterans and not use them for props in a campaign speech?
Who will go beyond putting the yellow ribbon on their SUV and support the Veterans, our troops?
What about all those "vote values" voters? Are these values in congruence with your actual actions?
This is indeed a call to action. Volunteer at the VA. Volunteer with other Veterans groups. Call your elected officials and express your outrage at what is happening to our Veterans.
Or, you can sit their and say you support our troops and allow Walter Reeds and SC VA Medical Center cases to fester.
It's your choice.
Pathetic really.
It takes numerous high profile news stories to shed significant light on the health care surrounding our nations Veterans.
A month ago, Jonathan Schulze, a young Marine originally from Stewart, committed suicide after being denied access by persons at the VA Medical Center in St Cloud.
An investigation is ongoing as we speak. Unfortunately, I remain positive that it will be handled in the same manner as previous issues with our Veterans where the VA and its cronies abide by a strict policy of "Don't look, don't find, don't pay."
Letters to the editor poured into the SC Times and other media outlets, calling the suicide of the young Marine a rare occurrence. Many stated that they had great health care coverage at these VA Centers.
I don't doubt that. Without hesitation, I know that the medical professionals at the VA centers do the best they can with the resources that they are given. They do care about our Veterans. The problems at the VA and other military hospitals is not an indictment against them. In fact, in spite of funding cuts, these medical professionals do a remarkable job with our Veterans.
I thank all of you for your service to our troops and Veterans.
The case at Walter Reed is disturbing to me, words cannot capture my outrage. If this can happen at the crown jewel of military hospitals, it can happen anywhere.
Truth be told, we have a lot of Building 18's out there. Buildings where our Veterans rest and recuperate in moldy and varmint infested government facilities. The most egregious cases have been reported just miles from the marble and granite palaces where Michele Bachmann and other politicos publicly state their support for our troops.
Ironically, this same floor is where they cut their benefits. It's where they decide to close VA hospitals. And it's the same floor from which they propose to send more troops to Iraq.
Many read the recent Washington Post stories and for them, it was the first time that they had heard such tales. Stories of bureaucracy, incompetence, neglect, waste, fraud, and abuse.
Unfortunately, for Veterans, these stories are all too common. I did a significant amount of public speaking a few years ago on Veterans issues. One of my colleagues, Chris, is a 1990-91 Gulf War Veteran. We spoke together a lot.
Chris was an Infantryman in the 82nd Airborne. He finished his tour in Kuwait/Iraq in 1991 near An-Nasariah, where his Infantry unit stopped as the ground war ended.
Chris and his unit stayed in this location for nearly two weeks, pulling security on a route that could be a main supply route from Central to Southern Iraq. Daily, even after the war ended, Chris spoke of Air Force jets that would bomb munitions bunkers in his area. His best guess was that they were trying to destroy everything Iraq's military possessed.
Chris showed pictures of the large explosions that were just a few miles away from him. He told stories of how no matter how much him and his soldiers slept, they were always tired. He could literally sleep 20 hours a day. The combat medics with them attributed it to combat exhaustion, stress and depression.
Six years later, Chris got a letter from the VA. It told him he "may have been exposed to Sarin Gas near An-Nasariah in 1991." It told him to go to the nearest VA Medical Center with this letter to be evaluated.
Little did he know, it would start an 8 year fight with the VA.
I met Chris in 2001, after I came off of Active Duty. We shared many interests and our time on Active Duty as Infantrymen. As the drumbeat for war became louder, Chris and I began to work harder to tell people about what happens to our Veterans after wars. We spoke on college campuses, schools, and other places across the state on these issues. Chris, spoke of Gulf War Syndrome specifics. I spoke of issues around Depleted Uranium munitions and a history of what our nation does to its Veterans.
We were a very effective team.
But many years of fighting the bureaucracy took its toll on Chris. You see, Chris not only suffered the physical impact of being exposed to a chemical agent, he experienced the mental anguish of fighting for his own benefits.
Chris and I were two of many Veterans that were threatened with arrest at Congressman Kennedy's old office in St Cloud, after he had touted his strong support for the troops and screwed over more veterans with a vote to cut benefits.
There were many nights when the phone would ring at 3 am and Chris would need someone to talk to. Some nights, I drove up to St Cloud to make sure he was alright. More than once myself and other Veterans had to infiltrate his barricaded small St Cloud apartment because Chris was having a PTSD flashback.
Some at the St Cloud VA said he was faking it. He was lying. He has pre-existing conditions. Going through a series of 22 physical appointments when the mental trauma was not being addressed was a stressful experience for those of us that surrounded Chris. Imagine what it did to him. Everytime he had a mental breakdown, the VA told him he would have to start his appointments over again.
One day it was because his first test was "outdated".
Then it was lost paperwork.
Excuse after excuse ensued, and the Veteran got screwed.
In late 2004, Chris finally got his VA disability and does some work in New Mexico now as a social worker. He does some great work for Veterans in the Southern United States now.
The stories that have hit recently about the St Cloud VA and now Walter Reed, are not rare occurrences. They may not be the everyday story that gets attention in the main stream media, but they are not rare by any stretch of the imagination.
Where is the accountability? While the stories are all similar, Walter Reed and other military hospitals fall under a different jurisdiction than VA medical centers. Walter Reed falls under the Department of Defense, the Commander in Chief.
Remember a few years ago when Abu Ghraib occurred? General Janis Karpinski became the scapegoat. Many called for her to be relieved of duty and some called for a Court Martial. The actions of her soldiers were absolutely despicable and many of them have been punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
VP Cheney comes out and bashes Democrats yesterday because of our newest plans for Iraq. Where were the Republicans and VP Cheney when Building 18 was being run down? Surely the conditions did not denigrate to the state they are in today in the past 50 days Democrats have had control of Congress.
It starts with accountability. From day one, there has been little of no accountability when it comes to Iraq. How many billions of dollars is missing now?
Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, should be relieved. If General Karpinski can be threatened with Courts Martial for mistreating the "enemy", what's the punishment for mistreating 700 of our own?
Senator's Snowe and Obama will offer legislation soon to try to keep this from happening again.
That's fine and dandy really. Why do we need legislation to take care of our Veterans, our soldiers?
Republican's love to tout their support for our troops. They called us Democrats out for a "cut and run" strategy. What have they done for our Veterans, other than create more of them?
It saddens me and motivates me in the same breath. Only a few of us walked door to door and spoke to people about Veterans issues this past campaign cycle.
Legislation is great. But now it's time to put our collective words to action.
Who will stand with our Veterans and not use them for props in a campaign speech?
Who will go beyond putting the yellow ribbon on their SUV and support the Veterans, our troops?
What about all those "vote values" voters? Are these values in congruence with your actual actions?
This is indeed a call to action. Volunteer at the VA. Volunteer with other Veterans groups. Call your elected officials and express your outrage at what is happening to our Veterans.
Or, you can sit their and say you support our troops and allow Walter Reeds and SC VA Medical Center cases to fester.
It's your choice.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Koch Industries: Some interesting connections
Minnesotan's always like to know who's digging in our collective backyards. I guess that's just the way we are up here.
We call it Minnesota Nice.
We already know that Koch Industries was co founded by Anna Nicole Smith's former husband. I'm sure that revelation curled some toes in conservative Central Minnesota.
It seem also that a high profile GOP staffer, who now is employed by Koch Industries, may have assisted former Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in his illegal lobby dealings. Whether they knowingly or unknowingly assisted is at question now, per the story cited above.
It's pretty clear where the Koch family charitable interests go as well.
I suggest going to the main link to view the sources used in this piece as well.
This is the company that wants a pipeline built in rural Central Minnesota.
More research pending!
We call it Minnesota Nice.
We already know that Koch Industries was co founded by Anna Nicole Smith's former husband. I'm sure that revelation curled some toes in conservative Central Minnesota.
It seem also that a high profile GOP staffer, who now is employed by Koch Industries, may have assisted former Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in his illegal lobby dealings. Whether they knowingly or unknowingly assisted is at question now, per the story cited above.
It's pretty clear where the Koch family charitable interests go as well.
David and Charles Koch, sons of the ultraconservative founder of Koch Industries, Fred Koch, direct the three Koch family foundations: the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation.
Following in the footsteps of their father, a member of the John Birch Society, the Kochs clearly have a conservative bent. Charles Koch founded the Cato Institute, and David Koch co-founded Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) [now FreedomWorks], where he serves as chairman of the board of directors. David also serves on the board of the Cato Institute. The Koch foundations make substantial annual contributions to these organizations (more than $12 million to each between 1985 and 2002) as well as to other influential conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, media organizations, academic institutes and legal organizations, thus participating in every level of the policy process.Their total conservative policy giving exceeded $20 million between 1999 and 2001.
Curtis Moore argues that "Koch money funds industry-friendly messages that fill our airwaves and editorial pages, and influences outcomes in the halls of Congress and courtrooms across the country." CSE produces numerous policy papers that reach every congressional office as well as hundreds of newsletters and op-ed pieces. Representatives of the organization may be seen on a number of radio and television shows. Cato's influence also extends to policymakers and the public.In touting limited government and free markets, these organizations doubt the dangers of various chemicals, environmental pollutants and global warming, as well as challenge research efforts documenting these hazards. One CSE paper argued that "environmental conservation requires a commonsense approach that limits the scope of government."
In writing these papers and making these appearances, individuals associated with these organizations often conveniently decline to acknowledge the substantial funding they receive from Koch and other corporations from the oil, coal, auto and other industries. By withholding such information, they are able to front as unbiased the public-minded associations promoting rigorous scientific research and economic autonomy, when, in fact, the individuals are mere mouthpieces for industries like that of the Koch brothers.
These organizations influence not only public opinion and policy but also judicial outlook. For example, in 1999 CSE subsidized the creation of amici
briefs providing reasons to proclaim the Clear Air Act unconstitutional. CSE received $600,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation that year. The foundation also provided substantial funding to the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), which holds seminars for federal judges at its ranch near Big Sky, Montana. Many influential judges attend these seminars, including those who heard arguments made by legal representatives receiving funding from CSE. It makes sense that the Kochs would fund such anti-environment organizations, given their seedy past of environmental violations and lawsuits.
Most significantly, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Koch Industries with
97 counts of defying federal hazardous waste and clean air-acts when it
knowingly emitted benzene fumes and then lied about its actions when questioned.
In 2001, Koch Industries agreed to a $20 million settlement, a drastically smaller sum than it would have paid if convicted.
I suggest going to the main link to view the sources used in this piece as well.
This is the company that wants a pipeline built in rural Central Minnesota.
More research pending!
Coverage of the Walter Reed investigations
From the Strib.
It's sad that some of our elected leaders could spend the time in the high profile prostetic's wing and not venture around to where other Veterans are staying. They only work about 10 miles from Walter Reed, it's a pretty quick trip really!
And yet, we had hundreds of those that served in Iraq and Afghanistan living here, some with their families?
Treating our Veterans in a manner such as this is inexcusable. Someone should be relieved for cause for this!
The White House and congressional leaders called Tuesday for swift investigation and repair of the problems plaguing outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical
Center, as veterans groups and members of Congress expressed anger over substandard housing and bureaucratic ineptitude.
It's sad that some of our elected leaders could spend the time in the high profile prostetic's wing and not venture around to where other Veterans are staying. They only work about 10 miles from Walter Reed, it's a pretty quick trip really!
workers in protective masks stripped mold from the walls and tore up soiled
carpets
And yet, we had hundreds of those that served in Iraq and Afghanistan living here, some with their families?
"In the warrior ethos the last line says you should never leave a fallen
comrade, and from that facility point of view we didn't live up to it ... and it
looks to me we may have not lived up to it from a process side," he said, adding
that conditions at the building are "inexcusable."
Treating our Veterans in a manner such as this is inexcusable. Someone should be relieved for cause for this!
Katherine Kersten hears from Strib readers
Strib LTE's today. Perhaps instead of regurgitating what other bloggers posted weeks ago and what Marty Seifert said a month ago now, maybe we should come up with an original thought, or expand upon what's out there.
Just a thought...
A small sampling...
They are all for "small government" when it's their version of small government.
Just a thought...
A small sampling...
It is curious, however, that Kersten and other social conservatives are not shy about proscribing and demonizing personal behavior that offends their tendentious sensibilities.
Kersten led cheers when Michele Bachmann crusaded to enthrone bigotry in the state Constitution with the Defense of Marriage Amendment. As no credible data support her claim that gay marriage will somehow degrade families, how does Kersten square this proposed debarring a "zone of freedom" with her new wish to get the government off our collective back?
They are all for "small government" when it's their version of small government.
McLeod County Chronicle on the Pipeline
The McLeod County Chronicle has coverage of the MinnCan pipeline.
I love how many of the GOP members in both the House and Senate cite individual rights when it comes to smoking bans, but when a pipeline comes through our district and people are coerced, they sit around and do nothing.
I have stepped up my actions in the pipeline issue. All of our locally elected officials have gotten a letter from me and I am also awaiting a response from the Attorney General's office.
"People's rights were violated, and they never got their due process. It's wrong," said Ken Posusta. Posusta's brother, Jonathan, is a McLeod County farmer, and is purchasing 230 acres owned by their parents. That property is being affected by the pipeline.
"People's property is one of the most important things to their livelihood," said Posusta. "They (the pipeline company) need to be held to a higher ethical and moral standard."
I love how many of the GOP members in both the House and Senate cite individual rights when it comes to smoking bans, but when a pipeline comes through our district and people are coerced, they sit around and do nothing.
I have stepped up my actions in the pipeline issue. All of our locally elected officials have gotten a letter from me and I am also awaiting a response from the Attorney General's office.
The "Toxic 13"
Christopher Truscott has another great blog up at mnpACT!
Renewable energy sources have a great deal of support in the Minnesota Legislature. In fact, 188 of 201 elected leaders support the initiative for 25% of the state's energy sources coming from renewable energy by 2025.
13 elected leaders do not support this proposal.
We have all spoken out about the importance of renewable energy sources and our state's vision to become energy independent.
Not surprising though, are the individuals that do not support these initiatives in our local area.
Mark Olson
Tom Emmer
Bruce Anderson
Ron Shimanski
We anxiously await the spin...
Renewable energy sources have a great deal of support in the Minnesota Legislature. In fact, 188 of 201 elected leaders support the initiative for 25% of the state's energy sources coming from renewable energy by 2025.
13 elected leaders do not support this proposal.
In addition to being good for our environment, this legislation also puts Minnesota in a position to lead in the 21st century, while other states struggle for answers to their own energy needs. Whereas smokestacks symbolized progress at the turn of the last century, green industry is the wave of the future and we're now on the cutting edge of a promising new era.
We have all spoken out about the importance of renewable energy sources and our state's vision to become energy independent.
Not surprising though, are the individuals that do not support these initiatives in our local area.
Mark Olson
Tom Emmer
Bruce Anderson
Ron Shimanski
We anxiously await the spin...
The Treatment of our Veterans
"We owe them all we can give them. Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come home ..."
President Bush said this at Walter Reed Army Hospital this past winter.
The Washington Post covered stories that contrast the words of Bush. The President's actions during his terms have fallen short of his words as well.
Veterans suffer when the President lacks the will to keep his word to our troops. For crying out loud, he's only the Commander in Chief.
The Strib editorial.
With the marble and granite palace a mere 10 miles from Walter Reed, I wonder if Congresswoman Bachmann will take the time to go visit the troops she so strongly supports?
President Bush said this at Walter Reed Army Hospital this past winter.
The Washington Post covered stories that contrast the words of Bush. The President's actions during his terms have fallen short of his words as well.
Veterans suffer when the President lacks the will to keep his word to our troops. For crying out loud, he's only the Commander in Chief.
The Strib editorial.
Last week, members of Congress debated a resolution opposing President Bush's Iraq escalation. Everyone bent over backward to declare their support for "the troops" -- especially opponents of the resolution, some of whom suggested only they really, truly have the troops in their hearts.
With the marble and granite palace a mere 10 miles from Walter Reed, I wonder if Congresswoman Bachmann will take the time to go visit the troops she so strongly supports?
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Good ole Strib LTE's today!
The Strib had some great LTE's today.
About the "bad bills" being brought forth by the DFL. I wonder if any of our local papers will opine on this one soon, it's only been a month since Rep Seifert shot that round across the bow...surely someone out here will pick it up.
With another parent having left a child to go to a casino, perhaps us liberal democrats are not so crazy after all?
Congresswoman Bachmann made the Strib again!
Such a tired and overused piece of GOP rhetoric. Iraq/9-11/Al-Qaida...
Congressman Peterson also drew the ire of Strib readers.
Wow, the letter writer remains clueless as to:
1. How big the 7th Congressional District is. FYI, it has 35 of Minnesota's 87 counties and is one of the largest Congressional Districts in the US.
2. How important Congressman Peterson's work is for farmers and conservation advocates alike.
About the "bad bills" being brought forth by the DFL. I wonder if any of our local papers will opine on this one soon, it's only been a month since Rep Seifert shot that round across the bow...surely someone out here will pick it up.
Kersten doesn't think we need legislation to protect children from their parents, she doesn't read the newspaper. If we need legislation at all, it's to protect those without a voice. Parents are overwhelmingly responsible for the deaths of their own children.
With another parent having left a child to go to a casino, perhaps us liberal democrats are not so crazy after all?
Congresswoman Bachmann made the Strib again!
Pushing a falsehood
Rep. Michele Bachmann said that the 9/11 attacks and the need to prevent future attacks are two of the reasons that we need to continue our policy in Iraq. Is she kidding? Anyone knowledgeable would never have linked the tragic events of 9/11 to the current situation in Iraq. Al-Qaida, which was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, operates out of Pakistan, not Iraq.
MIKE KLEITER, SAVAGE
Such a tired and overused piece of GOP rhetoric. Iraq/9-11/Al-Qaida...
Congressman Peterson also drew the ire of Strib readers.
I would welcome Peterson's resignation. Better a mature Republican representing the Seventh District than a temper-tantrum-throwing Democrat.
Wow, the letter writer remains clueless as to:
1. How big the 7th Congressional District is. FYI, it has 35 of Minnesota's 87 counties and is one of the largest Congressional Districts in the US.
2. How important Congressman Peterson's work is for farmers and conservation advocates alike.
As Congressman Peterson said, "It could be that I can't event legally fly my own plane even if I don't ask anybody to pay for it, which would be kind of crazy."
Neither of the letter writers live in the 7th CD.
Has Congresswoman Bachmann been anywhere near the rural areas of the 6th CD? No signs out in our rual Wright County outpost. Truthfully, if it makes an elected official more efficient, I am all for it.
School funding story
The Strib had a piece today on school funding.
As we know out here in SD 18, the ACGC school levy failed for a third time now, this time by 110 votes.
Some bloggers think its a rejection of liberal school funding.
With 58% of school levy/bond requests failing this past election cycle, people are tired of paying higher property taxes.
I bet if AAA did his research, he would find that the majority of places where these levys/bonds failed were in rural communities. Take a comparison of property tax rates in rural versus urban communities.
A one percent raise in property taxes in the Glencoe Silver Lake School District will raise just under $6. A one percent increase in property taxes in Wayzata will raise over $25.
What the people in many of our rural areas are asking for is an educational funding model that puts schools in rural areas on equal footing with places like Wayzata and Edina. We have had political leaders out here telling us for nearly 20 years that this is a top legislative priority, and yet they have never authored a bill to get it done.
It's not a rejection of education funding. It's a plea for our elected leaders to get off their asses and do what they told us they would do.
As we know out here in SD 18, the ACGC school levy failed for a third time now, this time by 110 votes.
Some bloggers think its a rejection of liberal school funding.
With 58% of school levy/bond requests failing this past election cycle, people are tired of paying higher property taxes.
The latest defeats "send a loud, clear message that we need more state funding rather than reliance on property taxes," said Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, chairwoman of the House K-12 Finance Division.
I bet if AAA did his research, he would find that the majority of places where these levys/bonds failed were in rural communities. Take a comparison of property tax rates in rural versus urban communities.
A one percent raise in property taxes in the Glencoe Silver Lake School District will raise just under $6. A one percent increase in property taxes in Wayzata will raise over $25.
What the people in many of our rural areas are asking for is an educational funding model that puts schools in rural areas on equal footing with places like Wayzata and Edina. We have had political leaders out here telling us for nearly 20 years that this is a top legislative priority, and yet they have never authored a bill to get it done.
It's not a rejection of education funding. It's a plea for our elected leaders to get off their asses and do what they told us they would do.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Face lift tax
Looks like Joan Rivers will not be moving to Minnesota any time soon if Rep Kahn has her way.
I hope it applies to teeth too. Wasn't MN Publius hit with a cease and desist order for showing Norm Coleman's hideous grill before he had cosmetic surgery?
If the GOP hits Franken hard on SNL stuff, and they will do it...people should get a look at Senator Coleman's grill pre-cosmetic surgery.
I hope it applies to teeth too. Wasn't MN Publius hit with a cease and desist order for showing Norm Coleman's hideous grill before he had cosmetic surgery?
If the GOP hits Franken hard on SNL stuff, and they will do it...people should get a look at Senator Coleman's grill pre-cosmetic surgery.
Kurdish populations not happy with the timing of Saddam's execution
I read this article on yahoo and thought about what my good friend Kani Xulam would think about the situation.
I have known Kani for several years now. He has come to SCSU and held discussions on what occurred in Iraqi controlles Kurdistan and other issues involving the Middle East. His speeches are always very moving.
Here is a speech Kani delivered recently.
Of Kurds and Avian Flu and More
World Affairs Councils of America National Conference
Washington, DC
Kani Xulam
February 3, 2007
(A shortened version of this statement was also delivered at the firstKurdish American Youth Organization (KAYO) conference at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee on February 10, 2007)
If I -- like the participants of this conference -- were a member of aWorld Affairs Council (WAC) and attended a workshop titled, "The Kurdish Dilemma" and found out that the speaker was a Kurdish activist, I would have, if I were you, been curious about what he thought of the hanging ofSaddam Hussein on December 30, 2006. Wouldn't you? Since my friend Barbara Propes, President of World Affairs Councils of America, has seen fit that yours truly be that speaker for this talk, I will indulge you with my answer, but, if you don't mind, not until I am done with my presentation. In the twenty minutes that I have between now and then, I would like to take you on a quick tour of a desolated part of Kurdistan, which is presently occupied and misruled by Turkey, a country that styles itself a democracyand has plenty of misguided friends the world over, including a few, I suspect, at this national gathering, who ardently and blindly promote the lie and shamelessly and inexplicably wear the titles of statesmen or mandarins or -- get ready for a shocker here -- lovers of humanity, and all, through and through, misnomers, if ever there were any.
These no friends of humanity, or Kurdish liberty if you are concerned about the purity of the English language, as I am, especially when I get a chance to read the likes of Chaucer or Milton or Dickens, are at best like whacky doctors who add to the misery of the world rather than eradicate it. They use not brutal facts or the reflections of sages, but fantasies of their delusional minds and want us to trust them the way babies trust their mothers. In this country, they occupy high places in all kinds of positions, span both parties, represent both sexes, and engage in absurdities like there is, surprise, surprise, a "freedom deficit" in the Middle East and, in the same breath, tell the Kurds to submit to the yoke ofArabs in Iraq, Turks in Turkey, Persians in Iran and Asad in Syria. Should I make you privy to a few specimens of this strange breed? George W. Bush. Lee Hamilton. James A. Baker, III. Condoleezza Rice. And, yes, even that one time president wannabe Howard Dean. With these captains at the helm of your ship of state, the Middle East will not, and let me underscore the word not, make any advances towards freedom -- that is, of course, if wemistakenly assume that the West alone can free the Middle East.
A cursory look at the recent history of the region makes it abundantly clear that, at least for those who have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that feel, the West, while holding onto one of the most precious blessings of humanity, liberty, has done more to deny it to the children of the Middle East than help them gain it. "What Went Wrong?" is the title of a book about the Middle East by Bernard Lewis, a confidante of Vice President DickCheney, but it could also be the subject of my presentation this morning. The sage of Princeton, to his eternal credit, predicted the implosions that are sweeping the region, but unfortunately, absolves the role of the Occident in their proliferations. God knows, and Mr. Lewis is quick to pointout as well, we have had an abundant crop in dictators, -- no place in theworld can compete with us in despots, -- from his favorite Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to the bloodthirsty butcher of Baghdad Saddam Hussein, but both, anda slew of no bodies in between, have had longer and better relations with the West than all their dissidents, including this scribe, put together. Why is that? While I am at it, let me also poke at the thousands of peace activists who descended on the National Mall in Washington, DC last week. Notwithstanding their heartfelt humanity that genuinely stirred me, I can'thelp but ask them, and forgive me for using you as a conduit, where was their righteous indignation when thousands of Kurds were gassed in broad daylight and the body parts of some of the hapless Kurds or Shiites we reserved as food to the pet lions of Uday Hussein?
I don't know how to put this for you but to state it the way it is and that is that I see a profound disconnect between the level of complaint that is out there in the media and the level of misery that is out there in the world. Make no mistake about it; this dysfunctional human family of ours is in dire need of therapy. In my work, as a Kurdish activist, I used to worry just about the Kurds; but these days, I have added you to my list. In the remaining time that I have, I would like to dwell on this dichotomy of our times with two stories from Turkish Kurdistan. And if I don't do a good job of it, please feel free to badger me with your questions afterwards.
The first story belongs to the Kocyigit family and their three kids, Fatma, Mehmet Ali and Hulya. About a year and a month ago, no one, outside of their little town, Bazid, had heard of them. On January 1, 2006, a tragedy struck their home without any warning. Fourteen-year-old Mehmet Ali died of mysterious symptoms. His death certificate noted a severe case of pneumonia. Then Fatma and Hulya followed suit. A panic spread over the tight community. People began wondering if a deadly virus had lodged itself in their midst. When word got out that the family had consumed one of their sick ducks for lunch, the alarm bells were sounded all the way in Geneva, Switzerland, at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO). Could it be that the avian flu, which had killed scores of people in Southeast Asia, had now relocated itself to Turkish Kurdistan? The initial reaction of the Turkish officials was that H5N1, the scientific name for the strain of flu, had nothing to do with their country. A local effort to cull and destroy all the fowl had the opposite effect. Kurds rushed to consume their domesticated birds rather than surrender them to the authorities. Within days, a delegation of the World Health Organization made it to the isolated town to rein in the situation. What looked, at first sight, like a simple health crisis, analyzed more closely, revealed a gaping hole in the façade known as the Turkish government! Those in the know couldn't help but notice that their intervention was like rushing food to the starving Jews of concentration camps in Europe, or Darfuris in Sudan, and "thanking" the governments that had no use or the worst of intentions for the affected populations.
I was in Washington, DC, when the reports of Mehmet Ali and his sisters appeared first in the wire reports and then on the television screens and newspapers. As someone who follows Turkey closely, I have learned to withhold judgment on the news emanating from that forsaken country, be it good or bad, for a while at least. It takes a trained sharp eye and a lot of practice to find truth among the pile of verbose declarations, bitter denunciations or outright denials that are the standard stock of the Turkish officials and are in turn repeated in the country's journals pretty much verbatim. And if the news has anything to do with the Kurds, it is better not to believe it at all, but if you have to make heads or tails of it, follow a simple rule of thumb: believe the opposite. Never in the historyof modern times has a country so thoroughly adopted the diction of George Orwell's scary book, 1984, as Turkey has, and, here is what makes my job one of the most mournful in the world, without a mutter or a murmur from the international community. Going back to our story, I knew something serious was afoot when the initial Turkish denials began to reflect the findings ofthe World Health Organization. In no time, in addition to the staff of theWorld Health Organization, scores of reporters descended on the stricken town and came face to face with a profound "Eureka" moment. The Kurds were not as alarmed as their visitors. For one thing, they were more afraid of the Turkish government than their chickens. There was also a "Eureka" moment for the Kurds. The outsiders, with their expensive camera recorders, cared more about what the infected Kurdish chicken might do to the world and not at all what the world could do for the terrorized Kurds in the occupied Kurdistan. The first, the chickens, had the potential to kill the Whitepeople, the preferred race; the second, the Kurds, could only wallow in their misery, just like Darfuris in Sudan, and it would be business as usual in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and Moscow.
Thirteen months have passed since that fateful day in which the first of four Kurdish children died and scores of others were hospitalized. Considering the ongoing ban on the Kurdish language in the public buildings throughout Turkey, I sometimes wonder, how did Mrs. Kocyigit, the mother of three Kurdish teens, seek help from the Turkish-only speaking doctors who staffed her local hospital? Did she feel like a cow with her three calves, with an indecipherable tongue as one high-ranking Turkish official called her language once back in 1991, visiting a veterinarian who was barred by law to decipher it? If you think this is like criminalizing an entire people, it is, and let me elaborate on it a bit with two tidbits from Bazid, the stricken Kurdish town, to underscore my point. A Canadian reporter, Caleb Lauer, visited the region one year after the event. He met with the families of the dead children and interviewed some of the grief-stricken residents. But he also checked his emails from time to time in the local Internet café and one day got the urge to visit a Kurdish website in theEnglish language. Do you know what he found on his monitor in a country that is on tenure track to join the European Union? "This site is listed as forbidden and has been blocked." He then visited the mayor of the town, Mukaddes Kubilay. Turkish Kurdistan is an "open-air prison", she confided in me, he writes. She also told him of her attempt to name a traffic island after a Kurdish poet, Ehmede Xani, the last name spelled with letters, X, A,N, I. But because the letter X doesn't exist in the Turkish alphabet, and the Kurdish one is banned by law, yes, there are banned letters of an alphabet in this European wannabe country, -- hello Hitler, your dream of an intolerant Europe is finally becoming a reality these days, -- theTurkish authorities forced her to use the letter H instead. And yes, the Kurdish bard who wrote freely in Kurdish when Ottomans were calling the shots some three hundred years ago is now forced to speak Turkish, through translations if you will, with his kith and kin. I guess you should county our blessings and thank the Austrians for stopping the fathers of present day Turks from taking over Europe. Had they succeeded, in addition to reading Goethe, Moliere and Shakespeare in Turkish today, you would have had to say goodbye not only to the notorious letter, X, but also its wickedsisters, Q, and W, which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet.
My second story is a bit dated if you think yesterday's newspaper is old news. But I am a student of history and subscribe to the maxim of Nathaniel Hawthorne that, "Our past is a rough draft of our present and of our future." At the heart of my story lies the fate of a university student. Murat Aslan was his name. Kurdish was his mother tongue, but he also spokeTurkish. A native of Amed, my hometown, he lived with his parents. On June10, 1994, he was tasked with the payment of an electric bill in person. It was the last time people saw him alive. At the time, some people furtively approached his parents and told them that they saw him being forced into a white car against his will. Izzettin Aslan, Murat's father, went to the Turkish occupation forces for help. It was like asking a blind person for directions. None were offered. But what happened to Murat haunted the family. Every single one of them would have been happy if there had been some tell tale signs of deliberate absence from home. None existed. Who were the kidnappers? What did they want from him? People who knew Murat spoke of his love for life, his interest in politics, and his good looks that were the talk of all the ladies in the neighborhood. But the times were not a happy one for the Kurds. Turkey had a Yale educated female Prime Minister, Tansu Ciller, who often spoke of fire and brimstone. The Kurds, and especially the political ones, were the object of her deadly animus. Could it be that she was partly responsible for his death? The answer came ten years later. It was not what the family, or the Kurds, wanted or expected.
In March of 2004, two reporters of the Ulkede Ozgur Gundem interviewed a Kurdish turncoat, Abdulkadir Aygan, in Ankara, Turkey. What started as a casual talk turned into a long conversation that appeared in the pages of the daily from March 8 to March 15! In gruesome detail, the killer recounted the murder of 29 Kurds. He implicated 31 Turkish officials, some of them as high as the provincial governors, the literal sidekicks of the prime minister of Turkey in Kurdistan. Among the dead, there was the name of Murat Aslan. He had been, the eyewitnesses were correct, forced into a white car and taken to an outfit of the Turkish military called JITEM, which translates to something like, the Military Intelligence Service. There, he had undergone unspeakable tortures. I will spare you the details of how theTurks have perfected that heinous art. Suffice it to note that the prisoners of Guantánamo are very lucky not to have our masters as their guards. Again, going back to our story, Murat was then taken to the shore of a tributary ofthe Tigris River in the vicinity of Bezamir, a hamlet, in the province ofBotan, and executed in close range with a single shot to his head. Doused with gasoline, he was then burned on the spot. Unbeknownst to the turncoat and his murderer friends, a shepherd was watching the whole chilling scene from afar. A few days later, he mustered enough courage to visit what was left of the hapless stranger. All he saw was a pile of bones. He buriedthem on the spot and marked the place with a few white stones. Since no one knew the name of the hapless person, word got out that he must have been a righteous one. The villagers of the area began visiting the place as a tomb of a favorite of God. Some of the afflicted Kurds who have gone to the site have reported blessed recoveries, similar to those in Bible, after the visit.
One man who was reading this particular newspaper avidly was the father of the murdered Kurdish student, Izzettin Aslan. He visited the hamlet of Bezamir and talked to the villagers about the possibility of finding an eyewitness to the death of his missing son. Sure enough, the shepherd who had witnessed the whole thing was still alive. He accompanied the father to the gravesite. The search of ten years had come to an end on the side of atributary to the Tigris River. If life had been normal, Murat would havestared at his father's grave, a marked one back in Amed, but here he was, adad, miles away from home, staring at a plot of land that might still hold the remnants of his boy. What could one do under these circumstances? What would you do if you were that father? I don't know it for a fact, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he collapsed there and then. After the visit, he appealed to the Amed Bar Association for help. The Amed Bar put together a forensic and legal team to exhume the body. Not six feet, but one foot into the ground, the members of the team unearthed the bones. The skull, as the turncoat had said, carried the scar of a single bullet hole. The DNA tests proved beyond any doubt that he was indeed the son of Mrs. and Mr. Aslan. Guli, the mother of the Kurdish student, told a Kurdish reporter, "We suffered a lot. It is an unbearable pain. For ten years, tears never stopped rolling down our eyes. We could never forget it. We want our right."
What could possibly be the "right" compensation for the cold-blooded murderof one's son? Could it possibly involve an apology from the killers or their supporters in the Turkish government including the Yale educated prime minister who, according to some reports, has properties in the United States? Of the 31 people that were implicated with the confessions of this turncoat, can you guess how many were prosecuted? None! People, who are better versed in human nature than myself, often say, suffering leads to compassion. But compassion will only come to the Kurds if their pain is acknowledged. Treating them like beasts of prey will only lead torebellion. Or perhaps the Turks will come up with a new discovery, their contribution to the civilization if you will, of how to turn humans into zombies. And this may be the right time to ask, what is America's role in this blasphemous domination of one race over another? Aside from Woodrow Wilson, can someone stand up here and name me one American president who has stood up for the right of Kurdish people to self-determination? If the World Health Organization can muster enough strength to send in a delegation to rein in the health crisis in Kurdistan, why does its parent organization, the United Nations, stand by idly, in dereliction of it solemn obligations, and let the Turkish government experiment with the cultural genocide of 20 million Kurds? These are the cracks of our common humanity posing themselves as dilemmas of our times. Maybe one day we, too, will learn to live side by side as neighbors with equal rights the way they have learned to do in Europe. In the meantime, you can be sure of one thing: in spite of our bleak conditions, we are not accepting the yoke of our neighbors and will continue to fight for our inalienable rights for as long as we are part of this world.
I have tested your patience and made it to the end of my presentation. On the exact day in which Murat Aslan, the young Kurdish university student, was kidnapped, the residents of a small Czech village called Lidice were holding a memorial service for 340 men, women, and children that were murdered by the Nazis on June 10, 1942. Only 52 years separate these two events; but the mindsets that conceived them were one and the same. We abhor the authors of the first deed now, but have adjusted ourselves to live with the perpetrators of the second so to speak. How could that be? Perhaps one of you could explain this mystery to me. I sure would appreciate it if you could put my mind at ease.
As to what I think of the hanging of Saddam Hussein, let me answer you with a couple of questions of my own. Imagine if you will, Adolf Hitler didn'tcommit suicide, but was caught alive and tried at Nuremberg. Is it conceivable that he would have been tried only for the crime of Lidice and then hanged right after? Do you really think the Russians, the English, the French, the Poles, the Serbs, the Greeks, the Dutch, the Americans and even the surviving Jews would have allowed such a miscarriage of justice to take place? If my study of history has taught me one thing, it is that they would have demanded to know how and when the German monster ordered the death of their loved ones. That is what I wanted as well with the butcher of Baghdad and was shocked that he was sent to the gallows for the death of146 Shiites in Dujail. I wanted to hear him recount not just for me, but the whole world, how he murdered one in 20 Kurds, a quarter million of my compatriots that is to say, in Iraqi Kurdistan. I also wanted to heal, if one could be healed of these things, so that I could perhaps forgive the people that give birth to his likes. But the Arabs and the Americans had other plans. Whatever they were, they did not serve the cause of justice or that of peace or that of freedom or that of reconciliation between the Kurds and the Arabs. An opportunity was squandered. I felt sorry for the Middle East. Do I need to add that I felt the same for your country?
I have known Kani for several years now. He has come to SCSU and held discussions on what occurred in Iraqi controlles Kurdistan and other issues involving the Middle East. His speeches are always very moving.
Here is a speech Kani delivered recently.
Of Kurds and Avian Flu and More
World Affairs Councils of America National Conference
Washington, DC
Kani Xulam
February 3, 2007
(A shortened version of this statement was also delivered at the firstKurdish American Youth Organization (KAYO) conference at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee on February 10, 2007)
If I -- like the participants of this conference -- were a member of aWorld Affairs Council (WAC) and attended a workshop titled, "The Kurdish Dilemma" and found out that the speaker was a Kurdish activist, I would have, if I were you, been curious about what he thought of the hanging ofSaddam Hussein on December 30, 2006. Wouldn't you? Since my friend Barbara Propes, President of World Affairs Councils of America, has seen fit that yours truly be that speaker for this talk, I will indulge you with my answer, but, if you don't mind, not until I am done with my presentation. In the twenty minutes that I have between now and then, I would like to take you on a quick tour of a desolated part of Kurdistan, which is presently occupied and misruled by Turkey, a country that styles itself a democracyand has plenty of misguided friends the world over, including a few, I suspect, at this national gathering, who ardently and blindly promote the lie and shamelessly and inexplicably wear the titles of statesmen or mandarins or -- get ready for a shocker here -- lovers of humanity, and all, through and through, misnomers, if ever there were any.
These no friends of humanity, or Kurdish liberty if you are concerned about the purity of the English language, as I am, especially when I get a chance to read the likes of Chaucer or Milton or Dickens, are at best like whacky doctors who add to the misery of the world rather than eradicate it. They use not brutal facts or the reflections of sages, but fantasies of their delusional minds and want us to trust them the way babies trust their mothers. In this country, they occupy high places in all kinds of positions, span both parties, represent both sexes, and engage in absurdities like there is, surprise, surprise, a "freedom deficit" in the Middle East and, in the same breath, tell the Kurds to submit to the yoke ofArabs in Iraq, Turks in Turkey, Persians in Iran and Asad in Syria. Should I make you privy to a few specimens of this strange breed? George W. Bush. Lee Hamilton. James A. Baker, III. Condoleezza Rice. And, yes, even that one time president wannabe Howard Dean. With these captains at the helm of your ship of state, the Middle East will not, and let me underscore the word not, make any advances towards freedom -- that is, of course, if wemistakenly assume that the West alone can free the Middle East.
A cursory look at the recent history of the region makes it abundantly clear that, at least for those who have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that feel, the West, while holding onto one of the most precious blessings of humanity, liberty, has done more to deny it to the children of the Middle East than help them gain it. "What Went Wrong?" is the title of a book about the Middle East by Bernard Lewis, a confidante of Vice President DickCheney, but it could also be the subject of my presentation this morning. The sage of Princeton, to his eternal credit, predicted the implosions that are sweeping the region, but unfortunately, absolves the role of the Occident in their proliferations. God knows, and Mr. Lewis is quick to pointout as well, we have had an abundant crop in dictators, -- no place in theworld can compete with us in despots, -- from his favorite Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to the bloodthirsty butcher of Baghdad Saddam Hussein, but both, anda slew of no bodies in between, have had longer and better relations with the West than all their dissidents, including this scribe, put together. Why is that? While I am at it, let me also poke at the thousands of peace activists who descended on the National Mall in Washington, DC last week. Notwithstanding their heartfelt humanity that genuinely stirred me, I can'thelp but ask them, and forgive me for using you as a conduit, where was their righteous indignation when thousands of Kurds were gassed in broad daylight and the body parts of some of the hapless Kurds or Shiites we reserved as food to the pet lions of Uday Hussein?
I don't know how to put this for you but to state it the way it is and that is that I see a profound disconnect between the level of complaint that is out there in the media and the level of misery that is out there in the world. Make no mistake about it; this dysfunctional human family of ours is in dire need of therapy. In my work, as a Kurdish activist, I used to worry just about the Kurds; but these days, I have added you to my list. In the remaining time that I have, I would like to dwell on this dichotomy of our times with two stories from Turkish Kurdistan. And if I don't do a good job of it, please feel free to badger me with your questions afterwards.
The first story belongs to the Kocyigit family and their three kids, Fatma, Mehmet Ali and Hulya. About a year and a month ago, no one, outside of their little town, Bazid, had heard of them. On January 1, 2006, a tragedy struck their home without any warning. Fourteen-year-old Mehmet Ali died of mysterious symptoms. His death certificate noted a severe case of pneumonia. Then Fatma and Hulya followed suit. A panic spread over the tight community. People began wondering if a deadly virus had lodged itself in their midst. When word got out that the family had consumed one of their sick ducks for lunch, the alarm bells were sounded all the way in Geneva, Switzerland, at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO). Could it be that the avian flu, which had killed scores of people in Southeast Asia, had now relocated itself to Turkish Kurdistan? The initial reaction of the Turkish officials was that H5N1, the scientific name for the strain of flu, had nothing to do with their country. A local effort to cull and destroy all the fowl had the opposite effect. Kurds rushed to consume their domesticated birds rather than surrender them to the authorities. Within days, a delegation of the World Health Organization made it to the isolated town to rein in the situation. What looked, at first sight, like a simple health crisis, analyzed more closely, revealed a gaping hole in the façade known as the Turkish government! Those in the know couldn't help but notice that their intervention was like rushing food to the starving Jews of concentration camps in Europe, or Darfuris in Sudan, and "thanking" the governments that had no use or the worst of intentions for the affected populations.
I was in Washington, DC, when the reports of Mehmet Ali and his sisters appeared first in the wire reports and then on the television screens and newspapers. As someone who follows Turkey closely, I have learned to withhold judgment on the news emanating from that forsaken country, be it good or bad, for a while at least. It takes a trained sharp eye and a lot of practice to find truth among the pile of verbose declarations, bitter denunciations or outright denials that are the standard stock of the Turkish officials and are in turn repeated in the country's journals pretty much verbatim. And if the news has anything to do with the Kurds, it is better not to believe it at all, but if you have to make heads or tails of it, follow a simple rule of thumb: believe the opposite. Never in the historyof modern times has a country so thoroughly adopted the diction of George Orwell's scary book, 1984, as Turkey has, and, here is what makes my job one of the most mournful in the world, without a mutter or a murmur from the international community. Going back to our story, I knew something serious was afoot when the initial Turkish denials began to reflect the findings ofthe World Health Organization. In no time, in addition to the staff of theWorld Health Organization, scores of reporters descended on the stricken town and came face to face with a profound "Eureka" moment. The Kurds were not as alarmed as their visitors. For one thing, they were more afraid of the Turkish government than their chickens. There was also a "Eureka" moment for the Kurds. The outsiders, with their expensive camera recorders, cared more about what the infected Kurdish chicken might do to the world and not at all what the world could do for the terrorized Kurds in the occupied Kurdistan. The first, the chickens, had the potential to kill the Whitepeople, the preferred race; the second, the Kurds, could only wallow in their misery, just like Darfuris in Sudan, and it would be business as usual in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and Moscow.
Thirteen months have passed since that fateful day in which the first of four Kurdish children died and scores of others were hospitalized. Considering the ongoing ban on the Kurdish language in the public buildings throughout Turkey, I sometimes wonder, how did Mrs. Kocyigit, the mother of three Kurdish teens, seek help from the Turkish-only speaking doctors who staffed her local hospital? Did she feel like a cow with her three calves, with an indecipherable tongue as one high-ranking Turkish official called her language once back in 1991, visiting a veterinarian who was barred by law to decipher it? If you think this is like criminalizing an entire people, it is, and let me elaborate on it a bit with two tidbits from Bazid, the stricken Kurdish town, to underscore my point. A Canadian reporter, Caleb Lauer, visited the region one year after the event. He met with the families of the dead children and interviewed some of the grief-stricken residents. But he also checked his emails from time to time in the local Internet café and one day got the urge to visit a Kurdish website in theEnglish language. Do you know what he found on his monitor in a country that is on tenure track to join the European Union? "This site is listed as forbidden and has been blocked." He then visited the mayor of the town, Mukaddes Kubilay. Turkish Kurdistan is an "open-air prison", she confided in me, he writes. She also told him of her attempt to name a traffic island after a Kurdish poet, Ehmede Xani, the last name spelled with letters, X, A,N, I. But because the letter X doesn't exist in the Turkish alphabet, and the Kurdish one is banned by law, yes, there are banned letters of an alphabet in this European wannabe country, -- hello Hitler, your dream of an intolerant Europe is finally becoming a reality these days, -- theTurkish authorities forced her to use the letter H instead. And yes, the Kurdish bard who wrote freely in Kurdish when Ottomans were calling the shots some three hundred years ago is now forced to speak Turkish, through translations if you will, with his kith and kin. I guess you should county our blessings and thank the Austrians for stopping the fathers of present day Turks from taking over Europe. Had they succeeded, in addition to reading Goethe, Moliere and Shakespeare in Turkish today, you would have had to say goodbye not only to the notorious letter, X, but also its wickedsisters, Q, and W, which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet.
My second story is a bit dated if you think yesterday's newspaper is old news. But I am a student of history and subscribe to the maxim of Nathaniel Hawthorne that, "Our past is a rough draft of our present and of our future." At the heart of my story lies the fate of a university student. Murat Aslan was his name. Kurdish was his mother tongue, but he also spokeTurkish. A native of Amed, my hometown, he lived with his parents. On June10, 1994, he was tasked with the payment of an electric bill in person. It was the last time people saw him alive. At the time, some people furtively approached his parents and told them that they saw him being forced into a white car against his will. Izzettin Aslan, Murat's father, went to the Turkish occupation forces for help. It was like asking a blind person for directions. None were offered. But what happened to Murat haunted the family. Every single one of them would have been happy if there had been some tell tale signs of deliberate absence from home. None existed. Who were the kidnappers? What did they want from him? People who knew Murat spoke of his love for life, his interest in politics, and his good looks that were the talk of all the ladies in the neighborhood. But the times were not a happy one for the Kurds. Turkey had a Yale educated female Prime Minister, Tansu Ciller, who often spoke of fire and brimstone. The Kurds, and especially the political ones, were the object of her deadly animus. Could it be that she was partly responsible for his death? The answer came ten years later. It was not what the family, or the Kurds, wanted or expected.
In March of 2004, two reporters of the Ulkede Ozgur Gundem interviewed a Kurdish turncoat, Abdulkadir Aygan, in Ankara, Turkey. What started as a casual talk turned into a long conversation that appeared in the pages of the daily from March 8 to March 15! In gruesome detail, the killer recounted the murder of 29 Kurds. He implicated 31 Turkish officials, some of them as high as the provincial governors, the literal sidekicks of the prime minister of Turkey in Kurdistan. Among the dead, there was the name of Murat Aslan. He had been, the eyewitnesses were correct, forced into a white car and taken to an outfit of the Turkish military called JITEM, which translates to something like, the Military Intelligence Service. There, he had undergone unspeakable tortures. I will spare you the details of how theTurks have perfected that heinous art. Suffice it to note that the prisoners of Guantánamo are very lucky not to have our masters as their guards. Again, going back to our story, Murat was then taken to the shore of a tributary ofthe Tigris River in the vicinity of Bezamir, a hamlet, in the province ofBotan, and executed in close range with a single shot to his head. Doused with gasoline, he was then burned on the spot. Unbeknownst to the turncoat and his murderer friends, a shepherd was watching the whole chilling scene from afar. A few days later, he mustered enough courage to visit what was left of the hapless stranger. All he saw was a pile of bones. He buriedthem on the spot and marked the place with a few white stones. Since no one knew the name of the hapless person, word got out that he must have been a righteous one. The villagers of the area began visiting the place as a tomb of a favorite of God. Some of the afflicted Kurds who have gone to the site have reported blessed recoveries, similar to those in Bible, after the visit.
One man who was reading this particular newspaper avidly was the father of the murdered Kurdish student, Izzettin Aslan. He visited the hamlet of Bezamir and talked to the villagers about the possibility of finding an eyewitness to the death of his missing son. Sure enough, the shepherd who had witnessed the whole thing was still alive. He accompanied the father to the gravesite. The search of ten years had come to an end on the side of atributary to the Tigris River. If life had been normal, Murat would havestared at his father's grave, a marked one back in Amed, but here he was, adad, miles away from home, staring at a plot of land that might still hold the remnants of his boy. What could one do under these circumstances? What would you do if you were that father? I don't know it for a fact, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he collapsed there and then. After the visit, he appealed to the Amed Bar Association for help. The Amed Bar put together a forensic and legal team to exhume the body. Not six feet, but one foot into the ground, the members of the team unearthed the bones. The skull, as the turncoat had said, carried the scar of a single bullet hole. The DNA tests proved beyond any doubt that he was indeed the son of Mrs. and Mr. Aslan. Guli, the mother of the Kurdish student, told a Kurdish reporter, "We suffered a lot. It is an unbearable pain. For ten years, tears never stopped rolling down our eyes. We could never forget it. We want our right."
What could possibly be the "right" compensation for the cold-blooded murderof one's son? Could it possibly involve an apology from the killers or their supporters in the Turkish government including the Yale educated prime minister who, according to some reports, has properties in the United States? Of the 31 people that were implicated with the confessions of this turncoat, can you guess how many were prosecuted? None! People, who are better versed in human nature than myself, often say, suffering leads to compassion. But compassion will only come to the Kurds if their pain is acknowledged. Treating them like beasts of prey will only lead torebellion. Or perhaps the Turks will come up with a new discovery, their contribution to the civilization if you will, of how to turn humans into zombies. And this may be the right time to ask, what is America's role in this blasphemous domination of one race over another? Aside from Woodrow Wilson, can someone stand up here and name me one American president who has stood up for the right of Kurdish people to self-determination? If the World Health Organization can muster enough strength to send in a delegation to rein in the health crisis in Kurdistan, why does its parent organization, the United Nations, stand by idly, in dereliction of it solemn obligations, and let the Turkish government experiment with the cultural genocide of 20 million Kurds? These are the cracks of our common humanity posing themselves as dilemmas of our times. Maybe one day we, too, will learn to live side by side as neighbors with equal rights the way they have learned to do in Europe. In the meantime, you can be sure of one thing: in spite of our bleak conditions, we are not accepting the yoke of our neighbors and will continue to fight for our inalienable rights for as long as we are part of this world.
I have tested your patience and made it to the end of my presentation. On the exact day in which Murat Aslan, the young Kurdish university student, was kidnapped, the residents of a small Czech village called Lidice were holding a memorial service for 340 men, women, and children that were murdered by the Nazis on June 10, 1942. Only 52 years separate these two events; but the mindsets that conceived them were one and the same. We abhor the authors of the first deed now, but have adjusted ourselves to live with the perpetrators of the second so to speak. How could that be? Perhaps one of you could explain this mystery to me. I sure would appreciate it if you could put my mind at ease.
As to what I think of the hanging of Saddam Hussein, let me answer you with a couple of questions of my own. Imagine if you will, Adolf Hitler didn'tcommit suicide, but was caught alive and tried at Nuremberg. Is it conceivable that he would have been tried only for the crime of Lidice and then hanged right after? Do you really think the Russians, the English, the French, the Poles, the Serbs, the Greeks, the Dutch, the Americans and even the surviving Jews would have allowed such a miscarriage of justice to take place? If my study of history has taught me one thing, it is that they would have demanded to know how and when the German monster ordered the death of their loved ones. That is what I wanted as well with the butcher of Baghdad and was shocked that he was sent to the gallows for the death of146 Shiites in Dujail. I wanted to hear him recount not just for me, but the whole world, how he murdered one in 20 Kurds, a quarter million of my compatriots that is to say, in Iraqi Kurdistan. I also wanted to heal, if one could be healed of these things, so that I could perhaps forgive the people that give birth to his likes. But the Arabs and the Americans had other plans. Whatever they were, they did not serve the cause of justice or that of peace or that of freedom or that of reconciliation between the Kurds and the Arabs. An opportunity was squandered. I felt sorry for the Middle East. Do I need to add that I felt the same for your country?
Pro-war rhetoric
Great commentary in the Strib today!
Chait sums up the story by closing strongly.
Of course, the right will continue to hijack "patriotism" and "support our troops" despite the fact that they have not had any semblance of a plan for Iraq over the past 4 years.
Chait sums up the story by closing strongly.
So, there you have it, the case for supporting Bush: Trust the commander in
chief, don't undermine the troops, withdrawal equals defeat. These aren't
arguments to support Bush's strategy, they're generic pro-war arguments. Change
a few details and these lines could support Napoleon's invasion of Russia or the
Crusader occupation of Jerusalem or almost any war. Generic pro-war arguments
may be trite, but that's what you turn to when you've given up on reality.
Of course, the right will continue to hijack "patriotism" and "support our troops" despite the fact that they have not had any semblance of a plan for Iraq over the past 4 years.
Al Franken interview at MN Campaign Report
Excellent interview Joe!
One of Franken's priorities!
After the Washington Post items, glad to see a policy maker addressing the issue.
One of Franken's priorities!
Veterans' health care. Regardless of what people want to do with our Iraq policy, everyone supports the troops over there. Me, I want to also support the troops when they get back here. Senator Coleman has a 40% rating from the Disabled American Veterans. That is really embarrassing. I'll fight to make sure we fully fund veterans' health care.
After the Washington Post items, glad to see a policy maker addressing the issue.
Jason Lewis was here...
Wright County Republican has a post up about the KTLK Jason Lewis event in Annandale this past weekend.
With WCR and Jason Lewis' irregard for RINO's, I wonder how certain GOPers who attended this event (and fit their definition of a RINO) fared?
With WCR and Jason Lewis' irregard for RINO's, I wonder how certain GOPers who attended this event (and fit their definition of a RINO) fared?
Another Washington Post piece on Veterans
H/T to Bluestem Prarie for this great piece of work !
Wow! One soldier spoke of taking 23 different pills a day.
Another generation of Veterans will be around sharing these stories for the next half century and beyond.
More of the hurry up and wait mentality. I think it's unconscionable that a Veteran would need to fight harder for their benefits than they did for this nation.
So the Veterans will continue to self medicate until they get the attention they deserve.
The process is so disturbing. Dell was rated at 0% by the Walter Army "doctors" and only after "a Congressional" was launched, they got 50%. That alone could make the 535 members of the US House and Senate very busy elected officials.
We know Congresswoman Bachmann will do nothing about this. Kline? Nothing.
Thank goodness we have people in Washington like Congressman Walz and Senator Klobuchar to work for our Veterans.
Mostly what the soldiers do together is wait: for appointments, evaluations,
signatures and lost paperwork to be found. It's like another wife told Annette
McLeod: "If Iraq don't kill you, Walter Reed will."
Wow! One soldier spoke of taking 23 different pills a day.
But at this bar, the soldier who orders a vodka tonic one night says to the bartender, "If I had two hands, I'd order two." The customers sitting around the tables are missing limbs, their ears are melted off, and their faces are tattooed purple by shrapnel patterns.
Most everyone has a story about the day they blew up: the sucking silence before immolation, how the mouth filled with tar, the lungs with gas.
"First thing I said was, '[Expletive], that was my good eye,' " a soldier with an eye patch tells an amputee in the bar.
The amputee peels his beer label. "I was awake through the whole thing," he says. "It was my first patrol. The second [expletive] day in Iraq and I get blown up."
When a smooth-cheeked soldier with no legs orders a fried chicken dinner and two bottles of grape soda to go, a kitchen worker comes out to his wheelchair and gently places the Styrofoam container on his lap.
A scrawny young soldier sits alone in his wheelchair at a nearby table, his eyes closed and his chin dropped to his chest, an empty Corona bottle in front of him.
Another generation of Veterans will be around sharing these stories for the next half century and beyond.
Some soldiers and Marines have been here for 18 months or longer. Doctor's appointments and evaluations are routinely dragged out and difficult to get. A board of physicians must review hundreds of pages of medical records to determine whether a soldier is fit to return to duty. If not, the Physical Evaluation Board must decide whether to assign a rating for disability compensation. For many, this is the start of a new and bitter battle.
More of the hurry up and wait mentality. I think it's unconscionable that a Veteran would need to fight harder for their benefits than they did for this nation.
While Mologne House has a full bar, there is not one counselor or psychologist assigned there to assist soldiers and families in crisis -- an idea proposed by Walter Reed social workers but rejected by the military command that runs the post.
So the Veterans will continue to self medicate until they get the attention they deserve.
Doctors have concluded that Dell was slow as a child and that his head injury on
the Iraqi border did not cause brain damage. "It is possible that pre-morbid
emotional difficulties and/or pre-morbid intellectual functioning may be contributing factors to his reported symptoms," a doctor wrote, withholding a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury.
Annette pushes for more brain testing and gets nowhere until someone gives her the name of a staffer for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. A few days later, Annette is called to a meeting with the command at Walter Reed. Dell is given a higher disability rating than expected -- 50 percent, which means he will receive half of his base pay until he is evaluated again in 18 months. He signs the
papers.
The process is so disturbing. Dell was rated at 0% by the Walter Army "doctors" and only after "a Congressional" was launched, they got 50%. That alone could make the 535 members of the US House and Senate very busy elected officials.
We know Congresswoman Bachmann will do nothing about this. Kline? Nothing.
Thank goodness we have people in Washington like Congressman Walz and Senator Klobuchar to work for our Veterans.
The GOP mantra "Support our Troops" does not extend to "Support our Veterans"
The Washington Post has an excellent article on what our nations Veterans experience while being treated for their injuries.
H/T to Bluestem Prarire for their posts on this story and others around Congressman Walz and his outstanding support for Veterans.
It's quite long...but excellent!
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some Marines -- have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have grown so exponentially -- they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17 to 1 -- that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.
Not all of the quarters are as bleak as Duncan's, but the despair of Building 18 symbolizes a larger problem in Walter Reed's treatment of the wounded, according to dozens of soldiers, family members, veterans aid groups, and current and former Walter Reed staff members interviewed by two Washington Post reporters, who spent more than four months visiting the outpatient world without the knowledge or permission of Walter Reed officials. Many agreed to be quoted by name; others said they feared Army retribution if they complained publicly.
While the hospital is a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles, with medical advances saving more soldiers than ever, the outpatients in the Other Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the real battlefields they faced overseas.
On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.
Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.
"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy transition should be doing it," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling."
Soldiers, family members, volunteers and caregivers who have tried to fix the system say each mishap seems trivial by itself, but the cumulative effect wears down the spirits of the wounded and can stall their recovery.
"It creates resentment and disenfranchisement," said Joe Wilson, a clinical social worker at Walter Reed. "These soldiers will withdraw and stay in their rooms. They will actively avoid the very treatment and services that are meant to be helpful."
Danny Soto, a national service officer for Disabled American Veterans who helps dozens of wounded service members each week at Walter Reed, said soldiers "get awesome medical care and their lives are being saved," but, "Then they get into the administrative part of it and they are like, 'You saved me for what?' The soldiers feel like they are not getting proper respect. This leads to anger."
This world is invisible to outsiders. Walter Reed occasionally showcases the heroism of these wounded soldiers and emphasizes that all is well under the circumstances. President Bush, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and members of Congress have promised the best care during their regular visits to the hospital's spit-polished amputee unit, Ward 57.
"We owe them all we can give them," Bush said during his last visit, a few days before Christmas. "Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their time in service."
Along with the government promises, the American public, determined not to repeat the divisive Vietnam experience, has embraced the soldiers even as the war grows more controversial at home. Walter Reed is awash in the generosity of volunteers, businesses and celebrities who donate money, plane tickets, telephone cards and steak dinners.
Yet at a deeper level, the soldiers say they feel alone and frustrated. Seventy-five percent of the troops polled by Walter Reed last March said their experience was "stressful." Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from prescription drugs and alcohol, which is sold on post, are part of the narrative here.
Vera Heron spent 15 frustrating months living on post to help care for her son. "It just absolutely took forever to get anything done," Heron said. "They do the paperwork, they lose the paperwork. Then they have to redo the paperwork. You are talking about guys and girls whose lives are disrupted for the rest of their lives, and they don't put any priority on it."
Family members who speak only Spanish have had to rely on Salvadoran housekeepers, a Cuban bus driver, the Panamanian bartender and a Mexican floor cleaner for help. Walter Reed maintains a list of bilingual staffers, but they are rarely called on, according to soldiers and families and Walter Reed staff members.
Evis Morales's severely wounded son was transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda for surgery shortly after she arrived at Walter Reed. She had checked into her government-paid room on post, but she slept in the lobby of the Bethesda hospital for two weeks because no one told her there is a free shuttle between the two facilities. "They just let me off the bus and said 'Bye-bye,' " recalled Morales, a Puerto Rico resident.
Morales found help after she ran out of money, when she called a hotline number and a Spanish-speaking operator happened to answer.
"If they can have Spanish-speaking recruits to convince my son to go into the Army, why can't they have Spanish-speaking translators when he's injured?" Morales asked. "It's so confusing, so disorienting."
Soldiers, wives, mothers, social workers and the heads of volunteer organizations have complained repeatedly to the military command about what one called "The Handbook No One Gets" that would explain life as an outpatient. Most soldiers polled in the March survey said they got their information from friends. Only 12 percent said any Army literature had been helpful.
"They've been behind from Day One," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who headed the House Government Reform Committee, which investigated problems at Walter Reed and other Army facilities. "Even the stuff they've fixed has only been patched."
Among the public, Davis said, "there's vast appreciation for soldiers, but there's a lack of focus on what happens to them" when they return. "It's awful."
Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, said in an interview last week that a major reason outpatients stay so long, a change from the days when injured soldiers were discharged as quickly as possible, is that the Army wants to be able to hang on to as many soldiers as it can, "because this is the first time this country has fought a war for so long with an all-volunteer force since the Revolution."
Acknowledging the problems with outpatient care, Weightman said Walter Reed has taken steps over the past year to improve conditions for the outpatient army, which at its peak in summer 2005 numbered nearly 900, not to mention the hundreds of family members who come to care for them. One platoon sergeant used to be in charge of 125 patients; now each one manages 30. Platoon sergeants with psychological problems are more carefully screened. And officials have increased the numbers of case managers and patient advocates to help with the complex disability benefit process, which Weightman called "one of the biggest sources of delay."
And to help steer the wounded and their families through the complicated bureaucracy, Weightman said, Walter Reed has recently begun holding twice-weekly informational meetings. "We felt we were pushing information out before, but the reality is, it was overwhelming," he said. "Is it fail-proof? No. But we've put more resources on it."
He said a 21,500-troop increase in Iraq has Walter Reed bracing for "potentially a lot more" casualties.
Bureaucratic Battles
The best known of the Army's medical centers, Walter Reed opened in 1909 with 10 patients. It has treated the wounded from every war since, and nearly one of every four service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The outpatients are assigned to one of five buildings attached to the post, including Building 18, just across from the front gates on Georgia Avenue. To accommodate the overflow, some are sent to nearby hotels and apartments. Living conditions range from the disrepair of Building 18 to the relative elegance of Mologne House, a hotel that opened on the post in 1998, when the typical guest was a visiting family member or a retiree on vacation.
The Pentagon has announced plans to close Walter Reed by 2011, but that hasn't stopped the flow of casualties. Three times a week, school buses painted white and fitted with stretchers and blackened windows stream down Georgia Avenue. Sirens blaring, they deliver soldiers groggy from a pain-relief cocktail at the end of their long trip from Iraq via Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and Andrews Air Force Base.
Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, 43, came in on one of those buses in November 2004 and spent several weeks on the fifth floor of Walter Reed's hospital. His eye and skull were shattered by an AK-47 round. His odyssey in the Other Walter Reed has lasted more than two years, but it began when someone handed him a map of the grounds and told him to find his room across post.
A reconnaissance and land-navigation expert, Shannon was so disoriented that he couldn't even find north. Holding the map, he stumbled around outside the hospital, sliding against walls and trying to keep himself upright, he said. He asked anyone he found for directions.
Shannon had led the 2nd Infantry Division's Ghost Recon Platoon until he was felled in a gun battle in Ramadi. He liked the solitary work of a sniper; "Lone Wolf" was his call name. But he did not expect to be left alone by the Army after such serious surgery and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. He had appointments during his first two weeks as an outpatient, then nothing.
"I thought, 'Shouldn't they contact me?' " he said. "I didn't understand the paperwork. I'd start calling phone numbers, asking if I had appointments. I finally ran across someone who said: 'I'm your case manager. Where have you been?'
"Well, I've been here! Jeez Louise, people, I'm your hospital patient!"
Like Shannon, many soldiers with impaired memory from brain injuries sat for weeks with no appointments and no help from the staff to arrange them. Many disappeared even longer. Some simply left for home.
One outpatient, a 57-year-old staff sergeant who had a heart attack in Afghanistan, was given 200 rooms to supervise at the end of 2005. He quickly discovered that some outpatients had left the post months earlier and would check in by phone. "We called them 'call-in patients,' " said Staff Sgt. Mike McCauley, whose dormant PTSD from Vietnam was triggered by what he saw on the job: so many young and wounded, and three bodies being carried from the hospital.
Life beyond the hospital bed is a frustrating mountain of paperwork. The typical soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands -- most of them off-post -- to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems are used to process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another. The Army's three personnel databases cannot read each other's files and can't interact with the separate pay system or the medical recordkeeping databases.
The disappearance of necessary forms and records is the most common reason soldiers languish at Walter Reed longer than they should, according to soldiers, family members and staffers. Sometimes the Army has no record that a soldier even served in Iraq. A combat medic who did three tours had to bring in letters and photos of herself in Iraq to show she that had been there, after a clerk couldn't find a record of her service.
Shannon, who wears an eye patch and a visible skull implant, said he had to prove he had served in Iraq when he tried to get a free uniform to replace the bloody one left behind on a medic's stretcher. When he finally tracked down the supply clerk, he discovered the problem: His name was mistakenly left off the "GWOT list" -- the list of "Global War on Terrorism" patients with priority funding from the Defense Department.
He brought his Purple Heart to the clerk to prove he was in Iraq.
Lost paperwork for new uniforms has forced some soldiers to attend their own Purple Heart ceremonies and the official birthday party for the Army in gym clothes, only to be chewed out by superiors.
The Army has tried to re-create the organization of a typical military unit at Walter Reed. Soldiers are assigned to one of two companies while they are outpatients -- the Medical Holding Company (Medhold) for active-duty soldiers and the Medical Holdover Company for Reserve and National Guard soldiers. The companies are broken into platoons that are led by platoon sergeants, the Army equivalent of a parent.
Under normal circumstances, good sergeants know everything about the soldiers under their charge: vices and talents, moods and bad habits, even family stresses.
At Walter Reed, however, outpatients have been drafted to serve as platoon sergeants and have struggled with their responsibilities. Sgt. David Thomas, a 42-year-old amputee with the Tennessee National Guard, said his platoon sergeant couldn't remember his name. "We wondered if he had mental problems," Thomas said. "Sometimes I'd wear my leg, other times I'd take my wheelchair. He would think I was a different person. We thought, 'My God, has this man lost it?' "
Civilian care coordinators and case managers are supposed to track injured soldiers and help them with appointments, but government investigators and soldiers complain that they are poorly trained and often do not understand the system.
One amputee, a senior enlisted man who asked not to be identified because he is back on active duty, said he received orders to report to a base in Germany as he sat drooling in his wheelchair in a haze of medication. "I went to Medhold many times in my wheelchair to fix it, but no one there could help me," he said.
Finally, his wife met an aide to then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who got the erroneous paperwork corrected with one phone call. When the aide called with the news, he told the soldier, "They don't even know you exist."
"They didn't know who I was or where I was," the soldier said. "And I was in contact with my platoon sergeant every day."
The lack of accountability weighed on Shannon. He hated the isolation of the younger troops. The Army's failure to account for them each day wore on him. When a 19-year-old soldier down the hall died, Shannon knew he had to take action.
The soldier, Cpl. Jeremy Harper, returned from Iraq with PTSD after seeing three buddies die. He kept his room dark, refused his combat medals and always seemed heavily medicated, said people who knew him. According to his mother, Harper was drunkenly wandering the lobby of the Mologne House on New Year's Eve 2004, looking for a ride home to West Virginia. The next morning he was found dead in his room. An autopsy showed alcohol poisoning, she said.
"I can't understand how they could have let kids under the age of 21 have liquor," said Victoria Harper, crying. "He was supposed to be right there at Walter Reed hospital. . . . I feel that they didn't take care of him or watch him as close as they should have."
The Army posthumously awarded Harper a Bronze Star for his actions in Iraq.
Shannon viewed Harper's death as symptomatic of a larger tragedy -- the Army had broken its covenant with its troops. "Somebody didn't take care of him," he would later say. "It makes me want to cry. "
Shannon and another soldier decided to keep tabs on the brain injury ward. "I'm a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, and I take care of people," he said. The two soldiers walked the ward every day with a list of names. If a name dropped off the large white board at the nurses' station, Shannon would hound the nurses to check their files and figure out where the soldier had gone.
Sometimes the patients had been transferred to another hospital. If they had been released to one of the residences on post, Shannon and his buddy would pester the front desk managers to make sure the new charges were indeed there. "But two out of 10, when I asked where they were, they'd just say, 'They're gone,' " Shannon said.
Even after Weightman and his commanders instituted new measures to keep better track of soldiers, two young men left post one night in November and died in a high-speed car crash in Virginia. The driver was supposed to be restricted to Walter Reed because he had tested positive for illegal drugs, Weightman said.
Part of the tension at Walter Reed comes from a setting that is both military and medical. Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, the squad leader who lost one leg and the use of his other in a grenade attack, said his recovery was made more difficult by a Marine liaison officer who had never seen combat but dogged him about having his mother in his room on post. The rules allowed her to be there, but the officer said she was taking up valuable bed space.
"When you join the Marine Corps, they tell you, you can forget about your mama. 'You have no mama. We are your mama,' " Groves said. "That training works in combat. It doesn't work when you are wounded."
Frustration at Every Turn
The frustrations of an outpatient's day begin before dawn. On a dark, rain-soaked morning this winter, Sgt. Archie Benware, 53, hobbled over to his National Guard platoon office at Walter Reed. Benware had done two tours in Iraq. His head had been crushed between two 2,100-pound concrete barriers in Ramadi, and now it was dented like a tin can. His legs were stiff from knee surgery. But here he was, trying to take care of business.
At the platoon office, he scanned the white board on the wall. Six soldiers were listed as AWOL. The platoon sergeant was nowhere to be found, leaving several soldiers stranded with their requests.
Benware walked around the corner to arrange a dental appointment -- his teeth were knocked out in the accident. He was told by a case manager that another case worker, not his doctor, would have to approve the procedure.
"Goddamn it, that's unbelievable!" snapped his wife, Barb, who accompanied him because he can no longer remember all of his appointments.
Not as unbelievable as the time he received a manila envelope containing the gynecological report of a young female soldier.
Next came 7 a.m. formation, one way Walter Reed tries to keep track of hundreds of wounded. Formation is also held to maintain some discipline. Soldiers limp to the old Red Cross building in rain, ice and snow. Army regulations say they can't use umbrellas, even here. A triple amputee has mastered the art of putting on his uniform by himself and rolling in just in time. Others are so gorked out on pills that they seem on the verge of nodding off.
"Fall in!" a platoon sergeant shouted at Friday formation. The noisy room of soldiers turned silent.
An Army chaplain opened with a verse from the Bible. "Why are we here?" she asked. She talked about heroes and service to country. "We were injured in many ways."
Someone announced free tickets to hockey games, a Ravens game, a movie screening, a dinner at McCormick and Schmick's, all compliments of local businesses.
Every formation includes a safety briefing. Usually it is a warning about mixing alcohol with meds, or driving too fast, or domestic abuse. "Do not beat your spouse or children. Do not let your spouse or children beat you," a sergeant said, to laughter. This morning's briefing included a warning about black ice, a particular menace to the amputees.
Dress warm, the sergeant said. "I see some guys rolling around in their wheelchairs in 30 degrees in T-shirts."
Soldiers hate formation for its petty condescension. They gutted out a year in the desert, and now they are being treated like children.
"I'm trying to think outside the box here, maybe moving formation to Wagner Gym," the commander said, addressing concerns that formation was too far from soldiers' quarters in the cold weather. "But guess what? Those are nice wood floors. They have to be covered by a tarp. There's a tarp that's got to be rolled out over the wooden floors. Then it has to be cleaned, with 400 soldiers stepping all over it. Then it's got to be rolled up."
"Now, who thinks Wagner Gym is a good idea?"
Explaining this strange world to family members is not easy. At an orientation for new arrivals, a staff sergeant walked them through the idiosyncrasies of Army financing. He said one relative could receive a 15-day advance on the $64 per diem either in cash or as an electronic transfer: "I highly recommend that you take the cash," he said. "There's no guarantee the transfer will get to your bank." The audience yawned.
Actually, he went on, relatives can collect only 80 percent of this advance, which comes to $51.20 a day. "The cashier has no change, so we drop to $50. We give you the rest" -- the $1.20 a day -- "when you leave."
The crowd was anxious, exhausted. A child crawled on the floor. The sergeant plowed on. "You need to figure out how long your loved one is going to be an inpatient," he said, something even the doctors can't accurately predict from day to day. "Because if you sign up for the lodging advance," which is $150 a day, "and they get out the next day, you owe the government the advance back of $150 a day."
A case manager took the floor to remind everyone that soldiers are required to be in uniform most of the time, though some of the wounded are amputees or their legs are pinned together by bulky braces. "We have break-away clothing with Velcro!" she announced with a smile. "Welcome to Walter Reed!"
A Bleak Life in Building 18
"Building 18! There is a rodent infestation issue!" bellowed the commander to his troops one morning at formation. "It doesn't help when you live like a rodent! I can't believe people live like that! I was appalled by some of your rooms!"
Life in Building 18 is the bleakest homecoming for men and women whose government promised them good care in return for their sacrifices.
One case manager was so disgusted, she bought roach bombs for the rooms. Mouse traps are handed out. It doesn't help that soldiers there subsist on carry-out food because the hospital cafeteria is such a hike on cold nights. They make do with microwaves and hot plates.
Army officials say they "started an aggressive campaign to deal with the mice infestation" last October and that the problem is now at a "manageable level." They also say they will "review all outstanding work orders" in the next 30 days.
Soldiers discharged from the psychiatric ward are often assigned to Building 18. Buses and ambulances blare all night. While injured soldiers pull guard duty in the foyer, a broken garage door allows unmonitored entry from the rear. Struggling with schizophrenia, PTSD, paranoid delusional disorder and traumatic brain injury, soldiers feel especially vulnerable in that setting, just outside the post gates, on a street where drug dealers work the corner at night.
"I've been close to mortars. I've held my own pretty good," said Spec. George Romero, 25, who came back from Iraq with a psychological disorder. "But here . . . I think it has affected my ability to get over it . . . dealing with potential threats every day."
After Spec. Jeremy Duncan, 30, got out of the hospital and was assigned to Building 18, he had to navigate across the traffic of Georgia Avenue for appointments. Even after knee surgery, he had to limp back and forth on crutches and in pain. Over time, black mold invaded his room.
But Duncan would rather suffer with the mold than move to another room and share his convalescence in tight quarters with a wounded stranger. "I have mold on the walls, a hole in the shower ceiling, but . . . I don't want someone waking me up coming in."
Wilson, the clinical social worker at Walter Reed, was part of a staff team that recognized Building 18's toll on the wounded. He mapped out a plan and, in September, was given a $30,000 grant from the Commander's Initiative Account for improvements. He ordered some equipment, including a pool table and air hockey table, which have not yet arrived. A Psychiatry Department functionary held up the rest of the money because she feared that buying a lot of recreational equipment close to Christmas would trigger an audit, Wilson said.
In January, Wilson was told that the funds were no longer available and that he would have to submit a new request. "It's absurd," he said. "Seven months of work down the drain. I have nothing to show for this project. It's a great example of what we're up against."
A pool table and two flat-screen TVs were eventually donated from elsewhere.
But Wilson had had enough. Three weeks ago he turned in his resignation. "It's too difficult to get anything done with this broken-down bureaucracy," he said.
At town hall meetings, the soldiers of Building 18 keep pushing commanders to improve conditions. But some things have gotten worse. In December, a contracting dispute held up building repairs.
"I hate it," said Romero, who stays in his room all day. "There are cockroaches. The elevator doesn't work. The garage door doesn't work. Sometimes there's no heat, no water. . . . I told my platoon sergeant I want to leave. I told the town hall meeting. I talked to the doctors and medical staff. They just said you kind of got to get used to the outside world. . . . My platoon sergeant said, 'Suck it up!' "
H/T to Bluestem Prarire for their posts on this story and others around Congressman Walz and his outstanding support for Veterans.
It's quite long...but excellent!
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some Marines -- have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have grown so exponentially -- they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17 to 1 -- that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.
Not all of the quarters are as bleak as Duncan's, but the despair of Building 18 symbolizes a larger problem in Walter Reed's treatment of the wounded, according to dozens of soldiers, family members, veterans aid groups, and current and former Walter Reed staff members interviewed by two Washington Post reporters, who spent more than four months visiting the outpatient world without the knowledge or permission of Walter Reed officials. Many agreed to be quoted by name; others said they feared Army retribution if they complained publicly.
While the hospital is a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles, with medical advances saving more soldiers than ever, the outpatients in the Other Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the real battlefields they faced overseas.
On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.
Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.
"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy transition should be doing it," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling."
Soldiers, family members, volunteers and caregivers who have tried to fix the system say each mishap seems trivial by itself, but the cumulative effect wears down the spirits of the wounded and can stall their recovery.
"It creates resentment and disenfranchisement," said Joe Wilson, a clinical social worker at Walter Reed. "These soldiers will withdraw and stay in their rooms. They will actively avoid the very treatment and services that are meant to be helpful."
Danny Soto, a national service officer for Disabled American Veterans who helps dozens of wounded service members each week at Walter Reed, said soldiers "get awesome medical care and their lives are being saved," but, "Then they get into the administrative part of it and they are like, 'You saved me for what?' The soldiers feel like they are not getting proper respect. This leads to anger."
This world is invisible to outsiders. Walter Reed occasionally showcases the heroism of these wounded soldiers and emphasizes that all is well under the circumstances. President Bush, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and members of Congress have promised the best care during their regular visits to the hospital's spit-polished amputee unit, Ward 57.
"We owe them all we can give them," Bush said during his last visit, a few days before Christmas. "Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their time in service."
Along with the government promises, the American public, determined not to repeat the divisive Vietnam experience, has embraced the soldiers even as the war grows more controversial at home. Walter Reed is awash in the generosity of volunteers, businesses and celebrities who donate money, plane tickets, telephone cards and steak dinners.
Yet at a deeper level, the soldiers say they feel alone and frustrated. Seventy-five percent of the troops polled by Walter Reed last March said their experience was "stressful." Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from prescription drugs and alcohol, which is sold on post, are part of the narrative here.
Vera Heron spent 15 frustrating months living on post to help care for her son. "It just absolutely took forever to get anything done," Heron said. "They do the paperwork, they lose the paperwork. Then they have to redo the paperwork. You are talking about guys and girls whose lives are disrupted for the rest of their lives, and they don't put any priority on it."
Family members who speak only Spanish have had to rely on Salvadoran housekeepers, a Cuban bus driver, the Panamanian bartender and a Mexican floor cleaner for help. Walter Reed maintains a list of bilingual staffers, but they are rarely called on, according to soldiers and families and Walter Reed staff members.
Evis Morales's severely wounded son was transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda for surgery shortly after she arrived at Walter Reed. She had checked into her government-paid room on post, but she slept in the lobby of the Bethesda hospital for two weeks because no one told her there is a free shuttle between the two facilities. "They just let me off the bus and said 'Bye-bye,' " recalled Morales, a Puerto Rico resident.
Morales found help after she ran out of money, when she called a hotline number and a Spanish-speaking operator happened to answer.
"If they can have Spanish-speaking recruits to convince my son to go into the Army, why can't they have Spanish-speaking translators when he's injured?" Morales asked. "It's so confusing, so disorienting."
Soldiers, wives, mothers, social workers and the heads of volunteer organizations have complained repeatedly to the military command about what one called "The Handbook No One Gets" that would explain life as an outpatient. Most soldiers polled in the March survey said they got their information from friends. Only 12 percent said any Army literature had been helpful.
"They've been behind from Day One," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who headed the House Government Reform Committee, which investigated problems at Walter Reed and other Army facilities. "Even the stuff they've fixed has only been patched."
Among the public, Davis said, "there's vast appreciation for soldiers, but there's a lack of focus on what happens to them" when they return. "It's awful."
Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, said in an interview last week that a major reason outpatients stay so long, a change from the days when injured soldiers were discharged as quickly as possible, is that the Army wants to be able to hang on to as many soldiers as it can, "because this is the first time this country has fought a war for so long with an all-volunteer force since the Revolution."
Acknowledging the problems with outpatient care, Weightman said Walter Reed has taken steps over the past year to improve conditions for the outpatient army, which at its peak in summer 2005 numbered nearly 900, not to mention the hundreds of family members who come to care for them. One platoon sergeant used to be in charge of 125 patients; now each one manages 30. Platoon sergeants with psychological problems are more carefully screened. And officials have increased the numbers of case managers and patient advocates to help with the complex disability benefit process, which Weightman called "one of the biggest sources of delay."
And to help steer the wounded and their families through the complicated bureaucracy, Weightman said, Walter Reed has recently begun holding twice-weekly informational meetings. "We felt we were pushing information out before, but the reality is, it was overwhelming," he said. "Is it fail-proof? No. But we've put more resources on it."
He said a 21,500-troop increase in Iraq has Walter Reed bracing for "potentially a lot more" casualties.
Bureaucratic Battles
The best known of the Army's medical centers, Walter Reed opened in 1909 with 10 patients. It has treated the wounded from every war since, and nearly one of every four service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The outpatients are assigned to one of five buildings attached to the post, including Building 18, just across from the front gates on Georgia Avenue. To accommodate the overflow, some are sent to nearby hotels and apartments. Living conditions range from the disrepair of Building 18 to the relative elegance of Mologne House, a hotel that opened on the post in 1998, when the typical guest was a visiting family member or a retiree on vacation.
The Pentagon has announced plans to close Walter Reed by 2011, but that hasn't stopped the flow of casualties. Three times a week, school buses painted white and fitted with stretchers and blackened windows stream down Georgia Avenue. Sirens blaring, they deliver soldiers groggy from a pain-relief cocktail at the end of their long trip from Iraq via Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and Andrews Air Force Base.
Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, 43, came in on one of those buses in November 2004 and spent several weeks on the fifth floor of Walter Reed's hospital. His eye and skull were shattered by an AK-47 round. His odyssey in the Other Walter Reed has lasted more than two years, but it began when someone handed him a map of the grounds and told him to find his room across post.
A reconnaissance and land-navigation expert, Shannon was so disoriented that he couldn't even find north. Holding the map, he stumbled around outside the hospital, sliding against walls and trying to keep himself upright, he said. He asked anyone he found for directions.
Shannon had led the 2nd Infantry Division's Ghost Recon Platoon until he was felled in a gun battle in Ramadi. He liked the solitary work of a sniper; "Lone Wolf" was his call name. But he did not expect to be left alone by the Army after such serious surgery and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. He had appointments during his first two weeks as an outpatient, then nothing.
"I thought, 'Shouldn't they contact me?' " he said. "I didn't understand the paperwork. I'd start calling phone numbers, asking if I had appointments. I finally ran across someone who said: 'I'm your case manager. Where have you been?'
"Well, I've been here! Jeez Louise, people, I'm your hospital patient!"
Like Shannon, many soldiers with impaired memory from brain injuries sat for weeks with no appointments and no help from the staff to arrange them. Many disappeared even longer. Some simply left for home.
One outpatient, a 57-year-old staff sergeant who had a heart attack in Afghanistan, was given 200 rooms to supervise at the end of 2005. He quickly discovered that some outpatients had left the post months earlier and would check in by phone. "We called them 'call-in patients,' " said Staff Sgt. Mike McCauley, whose dormant PTSD from Vietnam was triggered by what he saw on the job: so many young and wounded, and three bodies being carried from the hospital.
Life beyond the hospital bed is a frustrating mountain of paperwork. The typical soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands -- most of them off-post -- to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems are used to process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another. The Army's three personnel databases cannot read each other's files and can't interact with the separate pay system or the medical recordkeeping databases.
The disappearance of necessary forms and records is the most common reason soldiers languish at Walter Reed longer than they should, according to soldiers, family members and staffers. Sometimes the Army has no record that a soldier even served in Iraq. A combat medic who did three tours had to bring in letters and photos of herself in Iraq to show she that had been there, after a clerk couldn't find a record of her service.
Shannon, who wears an eye patch and a visible skull implant, said he had to prove he had served in Iraq when he tried to get a free uniform to replace the bloody one left behind on a medic's stretcher. When he finally tracked down the supply clerk, he discovered the problem: His name was mistakenly left off the "GWOT list" -- the list of "Global War on Terrorism" patients with priority funding from the Defense Department.
He brought his Purple Heart to the clerk to prove he was in Iraq.
Lost paperwork for new uniforms has forced some soldiers to attend their own Purple Heart ceremonies and the official birthday party for the Army in gym clothes, only to be chewed out by superiors.
The Army has tried to re-create the organization of a typical military unit at Walter Reed. Soldiers are assigned to one of two companies while they are outpatients -- the Medical Holding Company (Medhold) for active-duty soldiers and the Medical Holdover Company for Reserve and National Guard soldiers. The companies are broken into platoons that are led by platoon sergeants, the Army equivalent of a parent.
Under normal circumstances, good sergeants know everything about the soldiers under their charge: vices and talents, moods and bad habits, even family stresses.
At Walter Reed, however, outpatients have been drafted to serve as platoon sergeants and have struggled with their responsibilities. Sgt. David Thomas, a 42-year-old amputee with the Tennessee National Guard, said his platoon sergeant couldn't remember his name. "We wondered if he had mental problems," Thomas said. "Sometimes I'd wear my leg, other times I'd take my wheelchair. He would think I was a different person. We thought, 'My God, has this man lost it?' "
Civilian care coordinators and case managers are supposed to track injured soldiers and help them with appointments, but government investigators and soldiers complain that they are poorly trained and often do not understand the system.
One amputee, a senior enlisted man who asked not to be identified because he is back on active duty, said he received orders to report to a base in Germany as he sat drooling in his wheelchair in a haze of medication. "I went to Medhold many times in my wheelchair to fix it, but no one there could help me," he said.
Finally, his wife met an aide to then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who got the erroneous paperwork corrected with one phone call. When the aide called with the news, he told the soldier, "They don't even know you exist."
"They didn't know who I was or where I was," the soldier said. "And I was in contact with my platoon sergeant every day."
The lack of accountability weighed on Shannon. He hated the isolation of the younger troops. The Army's failure to account for them each day wore on him. When a 19-year-old soldier down the hall died, Shannon knew he had to take action.
The soldier, Cpl. Jeremy Harper, returned from Iraq with PTSD after seeing three buddies die. He kept his room dark, refused his combat medals and always seemed heavily medicated, said people who knew him. According to his mother, Harper was drunkenly wandering the lobby of the Mologne House on New Year's Eve 2004, looking for a ride home to West Virginia. The next morning he was found dead in his room. An autopsy showed alcohol poisoning, she said.
"I can't understand how they could have let kids under the age of 21 have liquor," said Victoria Harper, crying. "He was supposed to be right there at Walter Reed hospital. . . . I feel that they didn't take care of him or watch him as close as they should have."
The Army posthumously awarded Harper a Bronze Star for his actions in Iraq.
Shannon viewed Harper's death as symptomatic of a larger tragedy -- the Army had broken its covenant with its troops. "Somebody didn't take care of him," he would later say. "It makes me want to cry. "
Shannon and another soldier decided to keep tabs on the brain injury ward. "I'm a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, and I take care of people," he said. The two soldiers walked the ward every day with a list of names. If a name dropped off the large white board at the nurses' station, Shannon would hound the nurses to check their files and figure out where the soldier had gone.
Sometimes the patients had been transferred to another hospital. If they had been released to one of the residences on post, Shannon and his buddy would pester the front desk managers to make sure the new charges were indeed there. "But two out of 10, when I asked where they were, they'd just say, 'They're gone,' " Shannon said.
Even after Weightman and his commanders instituted new measures to keep better track of soldiers, two young men left post one night in November and died in a high-speed car crash in Virginia. The driver was supposed to be restricted to Walter Reed because he had tested positive for illegal drugs, Weightman said.
Part of the tension at Walter Reed comes from a setting that is both military and medical. Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, the squad leader who lost one leg and the use of his other in a grenade attack, said his recovery was made more difficult by a Marine liaison officer who had never seen combat but dogged him about having his mother in his room on post. The rules allowed her to be there, but the officer said she was taking up valuable bed space.
"When you join the Marine Corps, they tell you, you can forget about your mama. 'You have no mama. We are your mama,' " Groves said. "That training works in combat. It doesn't work when you are wounded."
Frustration at Every Turn
The frustrations of an outpatient's day begin before dawn. On a dark, rain-soaked morning this winter, Sgt. Archie Benware, 53, hobbled over to his National Guard platoon office at Walter Reed. Benware had done two tours in Iraq. His head had been crushed between two 2,100-pound concrete barriers in Ramadi, and now it was dented like a tin can. His legs were stiff from knee surgery. But here he was, trying to take care of business.
At the platoon office, he scanned the white board on the wall. Six soldiers were listed as AWOL. The platoon sergeant was nowhere to be found, leaving several soldiers stranded with their requests.
Benware walked around the corner to arrange a dental appointment -- his teeth were knocked out in the accident. He was told by a case manager that another case worker, not his doctor, would have to approve the procedure.
"Goddamn it, that's unbelievable!" snapped his wife, Barb, who accompanied him because he can no longer remember all of his appointments.
Not as unbelievable as the time he received a manila envelope containing the gynecological report of a young female soldier.
Next came 7 a.m. formation, one way Walter Reed tries to keep track of hundreds of wounded. Formation is also held to maintain some discipline. Soldiers limp to the old Red Cross building in rain, ice and snow. Army regulations say they can't use umbrellas, even here. A triple amputee has mastered the art of putting on his uniform by himself and rolling in just in time. Others are so gorked out on pills that they seem on the verge of nodding off.
"Fall in!" a platoon sergeant shouted at Friday formation. The noisy room of soldiers turned silent.
An Army chaplain opened with a verse from the Bible. "Why are we here?" she asked. She talked about heroes and service to country. "We were injured in many ways."
Someone announced free tickets to hockey games, a Ravens game, a movie screening, a dinner at McCormick and Schmick's, all compliments of local businesses.
Every formation includes a safety briefing. Usually it is a warning about mixing alcohol with meds, or driving too fast, or domestic abuse. "Do not beat your spouse or children. Do not let your spouse or children beat you," a sergeant said, to laughter. This morning's briefing included a warning about black ice, a particular menace to the amputees.
Dress warm, the sergeant said. "I see some guys rolling around in their wheelchairs in 30 degrees in T-shirts."
Soldiers hate formation for its petty condescension. They gutted out a year in the desert, and now they are being treated like children.
"I'm trying to think outside the box here, maybe moving formation to Wagner Gym," the commander said, addressing concerns that formation was too far from soldiers' quarters in the cold weather. "But guess what? Those are nice wood floors. They have to be covered by a tarp. There's a tarp that's got to be rolled out over the wooden floors. Then it has to be cleaned, with 400 soldiers stepping all over it. Then it's got to be rolled up."
"Now, who thinks Wagner Gym is a good idea?"
Explaining this strange world to family members is not easy. At an orientation for new arrivals, a staff sergeant walked them through the idiosyncrasies of Army financing. He said one relative could receive a 15-day advance on the $64 per diem either in cash or as an electronic transfer: "I highly recommend that you take the cash," he said. "There's no guarantee the transfer will get to your bank." The audience yawned.
Actually, he went on, relatives can collect only 80 percent of this advance, which comes to $51.20 a day. "The cashier has no change, so we drop to $50. We give you the rest" -- the $1.20 a day -- "when you leave."
The crowd was anxious, exhausted. A child crawled on the floor. The sergeant plowed on. "You need to figure out how long your loved one is going to be an inpatient," he said, something even the doctors can't accurately predict from day to day. "Because if you sign up for the lodging advance," which is $150 a day, "and they get out the next day, you owe the government the advance back of $150 a day."
A case manager took the floor to remind everyone that soldiers are required to be in uniform most of the time, though some of the wounded are amputees or their legs are pinned together by bulky braces. "We have break-away clothing with Velcro!" she announced with a smile. "Welcome to Walter Reed!"
A Bleak Life in Building 18
"Building 18! There is a rodent infestation issue!" bellowed the commander to his troops one morning at formation. "It doesn't help when you live like a rodent! I can't believe people live like that! I was appalled by some of your rooms!"
Life in Building 18 is the bleakest homecoming for men and women whose government promised them good care in return for their sacrifices.
One case manager was so disgusted, she bought roach bombs for the rooms. Mouse traps are handed out. It doesn't help that soldiers there subsist on carry-out food because the hospital cafeteria is such a hike on cold nights. They make do with microwaves and hot plates.
Army officials say they "started an aggressive campaign to deal with the mice infestation" last October and that the problem is now at a "manageable level." They also say they will "review all outstanding work orders" in the next 30 days.
Soldiers discharged from the psychiatric ward are often assigned to Building 18. Buses and ambulances blare all night. While injured soldiers pull guard duty in the foyer, a broken garage door allows unmonitored entry from the rear. Struggling with schizophrenia, PTSD, paranoid delusional disorder and traumatic brain injury, soldiers feel especially vulnerable in that setting, just outside the post gates, on a street where drug dealers work the corner at night.
"I've been close to mortars. I've held my own pretty good," said Spec. George Romero, 25, who came back from Iraq with a psychological disorder. "But here . . . I think it has affected my ability to get over it . . . dealing with potential threats every day."
After Spec. Jeremy Duncan, 30, got out of the hospital and was assigned to Building 18, he had to navigate across the traffic of Georgia Avenue for appointments. Even after knee surgery, he had to limp back and forth on crutches and in pain. Over time, black mold invaded his room.
But Duncan would rather suffer with the mold than move to another room and share his convalescence in tight quarters with a wounded stranger. "I have mold on the walls, a hole in the shower ceiling, but . . . I don't want someone waking me up coming in."
Wilson, the clinical social worker at Walter Reed, was part of a staff team that recognized Building 18's toll on the wounded. He mapped out a plan and, in September, was given a $30,000 grant from the Commander's Initiative Account for improvements. He ordered some equipment, including a pool table and air hockey table, which have not yet arrived. A Psychiatry Department functionary held up the rest of the money because she feared that buying a lot of recreational equipment close to Christmas would trigger an audit, Wilson said.
In January, Wilson was told that the funds were no longer available and that he would have to submit a new request. "It's absurd," he said. "Seven months of work down the drain. I have nothing to show for this project. It's a great example of what we're up against."
A pool table and two flat-screen TVs were eventually donated from elsewhere.
But Wilson had had enough. Three weeks ago he turned in his resignation. "It's too difficult to get anything done with this broken-down bureaucracy," he said.
At town hall meetings, the soldiers of Building 18 keep pushing commanders to improve conditions. But some things have gotten worse. In December, a contracting dispute held up building repairs.
"I hate it," said Romero, who stays in his room all day. "There are cockroaches. The elevator doesn't work. The garage door doesn't work. Sometimes there's no heat, no water. . . . I told my platoon sergeant I want to leave. I told the town hall meeting. I talked to the doctors and medical staff. They just said you kind of got to get used to the outside world. . . . My platoon sergeant said, 'Suck it up!' "
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Mac Hammond LTE's in the Startribune
The Strib had some interesting LTE's today, some defending Hammond and others taking him to task.
Mr Johnson from Big Lake stated in his LTE that the people were after Hammond because of how much money he makes. I disagree. It's not about how much money he's making, it's about how someone with no religious training at all (Bachelors degree in English from VMI) twists biblical passages in order to benefit his ventures. I honestly could care less about how much money Hammond makes. Let's examine the use of his pulpit for political purposes. Let's examine the allegations that he forces LWCC employee's to tithe and maniuplates bible passages to guilt the remainder of his congregation to do so.
One LTE calls those of us who embrace being liberal and the concept of accountability as "anti-God". I love how conservatives, the religious right, loves to hijack the morality/religion/faith areas in our lives when in fact, those that preach so high and mighty on these issues, seem to fall from grace very quickly.
Ted Haggard anyone?
Two LTE's go another way with Hammond though.
and
Sounds like the drumbeat of war that got us into Iraq.
Mr Johnson from Big Lake stated in his LTE that the people were after Hammond because of how much money he makes. I disagree. It's not about how much money he's making, it's about how someone with no religious training at all (Bachelors degree in English from VMI) twists biblical passages in order to benefit his ventures. I honestly could care less about how much money Hammond makes. Let's examine the use of his pulpit for political purposes. Let's examine the allegations that he forces LWCC employee's to tithe and maniuplates bible passages to guilt the remainder of his congregation to do so.
One LTE calls those of us who embrace being liberal and the concept of accountability as "anti-God". I love how conservatives, the religious right, loves to hijack the morality/religion/faith areas in our lives when in fact, those that preach so high and mighty on these issues, seem to fall from grace very quickly.
Ted Haggard anyone?
Two LTE's go another way with Hammond though.
Nothing illustrated the poverty of the "Prosperity Gospel" more clearly than
Mac Hammond's own dismissive remark, "It's impossible to bless someone else or be a blessing if you have nothing to bless them with."
This must come as a big shock to the millions of faithful around the world who
venerate Mother Teresa as a model of Christian love.
and
As a semi-regular viewer of Mac Hammond's televised Sunday services, I am more
concerned by his politics than his finances. Three weeks ago, he told us to "wake up, (Iraq) had WMDs, they just sent them to Syria before we got there."
Then we learned that the time for diplomacy with Iran is over. The United States
should preemptively strike before Iran kills us first. And the congregation shouted "Amen!"
Sounds like the drumbeat of war that got us into Iraq.
A powerful Strib piece on Vets
Sadly enough, another story of the suicide of a Veteran from our Senate District...
While the story differs significantly from the recent suicide of Jonathan Schulze, the end result is equally as disturbing and sheds significant light on the reality of Veterans and suicide.
It also reminds me of my own time on active duty and how we were conditioned in basic training. In basic training, our drill sergeants broke us down, stipped us of our civilian identities, and built us back up as Infantrymen, soldiers ready to close with and destroy our enemy.
We never complained about how we felt. No matter how sore our backs, feet, knees and other areas felt, we drove on the accomplish our missions. We had faith in our leaders and the system to ensure that we were taken care of. Whether that is right or wrong is up for debate, but that was reality.
So for Fickel to tell his loved ones he was a tough Marine when in fact he needed help, is reality in the military.
Much of the discussion that has taken place recently is in reaction to events that have occurred to Veterans recently. Unfortunately, these issues are common amongst Veterans for decades upon decades. We just seem to forget about it until it happens in our backyard again.
To remind you, if we listed the names of our Vietnam Veterans that have committed suicide, the wall in Washington would have to be more than 4 times the size it is now.
If you have been there, visualize that...
Training programs for some of these areas were required on an annual basis. However, as a former Infantry platoon sergeant, I know few of my soldiers took any of this training seriously. Oftentimes, an hour long block of instruction would end in 15-20 minutes with no questions.
After an event, DUI, Suicide, Domestic Violence, etc, we would get even more of these "training sessions".
Hence my discussion of being reactive versus proactive.
We must create better programs to reach out to our Vets and ensure that the resources are there for their health and welfare. We need proactive programs and elected officials who will ensure that our Veterans are taken care of.
While the story differs significantly from the recent suicide of Jonathan Schulze, the end result is equally as disturbing and sheds significant light on the reality of Veterans and suicide.
Family members worried that his war experiences haunted him and urged him to get help.This is the case with a majority of Veterans. It reminds me of a movie I discussed with students when I spoke on Veterans Issues. The movie "Tough Guise" shows the macho nature behind images portrayed in mainstream media. Young men talk of the pressures to maintain the "macho guise".
"We tried," said his stepfather, Mitch Aanden. "He said, 'No, I'm tough. I am a Marine.'"
It also reminds me of my own time on active duty and how we were conditioned in basic training. In basic training, our drill sergeants broke us down, stipped us of our civilian identities, and built us back up as Infantrymen, soldiers ready to close with and destroy our enemy.
We never complained about how we felt. No matter how sore our backs, feet, knees and other areas felt, we drove on the accomplish our missions. We had faith in our leaders and the system to ensure that we were taken care of. Whether that is right or wrong is up for debate, but that was reality.
So for Fickel to tell his loved ones he was a tough Marine when in fact he needed help, is reality in the military.
Much of the discussion that has taken place recently is in reaction to events that have occurred to Veterans recently. Unfortunately, these issues are common amongst Veterans for decades upon decades. We just seem to forget about it until it happens in our backyard again.
To remind you, if we listed the names of our Vietnam Veterans that have committed suicide, the wall in Washington would have to be more than 4 times the size it is now.
If you have been there, visualize that...
Training programs for some of these areas were required on an annual basis. However, as a former Infantry platoon sergeant, I know few of my soldiers took any of this training seriously. Oftentimes, an hour long block of instruction would end in 15-20 minutes with no questions.
After an event, DUI, Suicide, Domestic Violence, etc, we would get even more of these "training sessions".
Hence my discussion of being reactive versus proactive.
We must create better programs to reach out to our Vets and ensure that the resources are there for their health and welfare. We need proactive programs and elected officials who will ensure that our Veterans are taken care of.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Bachmann fails to follow through on fiscal conservative campaign rhetoric
We all know Congresswoman Bachmann voted against accountabilty by voting against the "Iraq resolution" in Washington yesterday. While I am not pleased with the Congresswoman's vote, I am not in the least bit surprised.
Bachmann coins herself as a fiscal conservative. She championed a "Taxpayers Bill of Rights" that have destroyed public education in Colorado but recieved little traction here in Minnesota.
We know Congresswoman Bachmann does not support any reduction in the monies pouring into Iraq. I understand her rationale, but do not trust it.
From her campaign website, she states, "I will work tirelessly to put hard earned money back in taxpayers' pockets - where it belongs - not in the hands of Washington bureaucrats."
What about the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse that has occurred in Iraq?
Bloomberg reports!
Representative Henry Waxman, kicking off hearings on government contracting, questioned former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer today on what happened to as much as $12 billion in unaccounted-for cash spent when he was in charge of rebuilding Iraq.
$12 billion is missing? What?
Tax cuts for the rich and billions for corporations without any sort of accountability?
Where are the values that these Republicans ran on? Just curious if it's just a campaign thing...
Bachmann coins herself as a fiscal conservative. She championed a "Taxpayers Bill of Rights" that have destroyed public education in Colorado but recieved little traction here in Minnesota.
We know Congresswoman Bachmann does not support any reduction in the monies pouring into Iraq. I understand her rationale, but do not trust it.
From her campaign website, she states, "I will work tirelessly to put hard earned money back in taxpayers' pockets - where it belongs - not in the hands of Washington bureaucrats."
What about the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse that has occurred in Iraq?
Bloomberg reports!
Representative Henry Waxman, kicking off hearings on government contracting, questioned former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer today on what happened to as much as $12 billion in unaccounted-for cash spent when he was in charge of rebuilding Iraq.
$12 billion is missing? What?
Waxman's report said as much as $12.7 billion in cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, sent to Iraq during Bremer's watch between May 2003 and JuneMore than a billion dollars a month came up missing? Where was the oversight? Accountability?
2004, was unaccounted for.
Tax cuts for the rich and billions for corporations without any sort of accountability?
Where are the values that these Republicans ran on? Just curious if it's just a campaign thing...
Friday, February 16, 2007
Pipeline is approved...
...for now.
SC Times has another story.
Sure wish the story covered the "several conditions".
The fight is not over...looks like a date with a Minnesota Court of Appeals is coming.
SC Times has another story.
The PUC heard public testimony at a hearing Tuesday, then deliberated for several hours Thursday before voting 4-0 in favor of the project and the proposed route, executive secretary Burl Haar said. The commission added several conditions to the permit to address landowners' concerns, he said.
Sure wish the story covered the "several conditions".
Individual landowners also may decide to file lawsuits to try to stop the project, said Bob Schestak, a vocal opponent of the pipeline, which would cross land he owns near Swanville.
Schestak maintains that the PUC's decision in favor of the pipeline expansion was based largely on data supplied by the pipeline company, not on objective market analysis.
"It's a travesty that they could go through this whole thing without looking at that part of it," he said.
The fight is not over...looks like a date with a Minnesota Court of Appeals is coming.
Al Franken at Wonkette
With Congresswoman Bachmann stalking the White House, a possible VP candidate in the state, and now Al Franken running for US Senate, we should expect a lot of attention from Wonkette.
They wrote about Franken yesterday.
Even Andy at Residual Forces sees the GOP attempt at humor and early attempt at smearing Franken as a bad sign.
I agree.
One of many great comments at Wonkette.
Ditto.
There was also a good LTE in the Strib today as well.
It's going to be a fun 20 months!
They wrote about Franken yesterday.
The Minnesota Republican Party, desperate to hold on to Norm Coleman’s Senate seat, is banking on one thing: the inability of Minnesotans to understand the concept of “a joke.”
Even Andy at Residual Forces sees the GOP attempt at humor and early attempt at smearing Franken as a bad sign.
I agree.
One of many great comments at Wonkette.
Prominently denouncing Franken for once calling Norm Coleman a Bush Administration "Butt Boy" serves only to link the two terms forever in peoples'
minds.
Norm Coleman = Butt Boy.
Minnesota 'Publicans are complete idiots.
Ditto.
There was also a good LTE in the Strib today as well.
Tough and principled
I'd rather have a Senate candidate who can tell a joke than have a president who is a joke. The high-powered attacks on Al Franken reflect the potency of his candidacy.
Franken's effectively combative nature reminds me of Paul Wellstone, who spoke truth to power and guided his life by principles and not PAC contributions. We will judge Franken by what he says and does in the next year, not by the Swift-boating type of attacks launched by Republican operatives whose only goal is destruction.
RICHARD BREITMAN, MINNEAPOLIS
It's going to be a fun 20 months!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Congress debates Iraq
With Congress debating Iraq as we speak, I think it's important to revisit the words of Paul Wellstone in his final speech on the floor of the Senate.
This is very long but I would encourage everyone to read it once, it is a powerful speech that predicted events in Iraq.
October 3, 2002
Mr. President, as we turn later today to address our policy on Iraq, I want to take a few minutes to outline my views. The situation remains fluid, and Administration officials are engaged in negotiations at the United Nations over what approach we ought to take, with our allies, to disarm the brutal and dictatorial Iraqi regime.
Our debate here is critical because the administration seeks our authorization now for military action including possibly unprecedented, pre-emptive, go-it-alone military action in Iraq, even as it seeks to garner support from our allies on a tough new UN disarmament resolution.
Let me be clear: Saddam Hussein is a brutal, ruthless dictator who has repressed his own people, attacked his neighbors, and remains an international outlaw. The world would be a much better place if he were gone and the regime in Iraq were changed. That's why the U.S. should unite the world against Saddam, and not allow him to unite forces against us.
A go-it-alone approach, allowing for a ground invasion of Iraq without the support of other countries, could give Saddam exactly that chance. A pre-emptive go-it-alone strategy towards Iraq is wrong. I oppose it.
I support ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction through unfettered U.N. inspections, which should begin as soon as possible. Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, is likely to succeed. Our primary focus now must be on Iraq's verifiable disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. This will help maintain international support, and could even eventually result in Saddam's loss of power.
Of course, I would welcome this, as would most of our allies. The president has helped to direct intense new multilateral pressure on Saddam Hussein to allow U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors back in to Iraq to conduct their assessment of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Saddam clearly has felt that heat, and it suggests what might be accomplished through collective action. I am not naive about this process, and much work lies ahead. But we cannot dismiss out-of-hand Saddam's late and reluctant commitment to comply with U.N. disarmament arrangements, or the agreement struck Tuesday to begin to implement it. We should use the gathering international resolve to collectively confront his regime by building on these efforts through a new U.N. disarmament resolution.
This debate must include all Americans, because our decisions finally must have the informed consent of the American people, who will be asked to bear the costs, in blood and treasure, of our decisions. When the lives of the sons and daughters of average Americans could be risked and lost, their voices must be heard by Congress before we make decisions about military action.
Right now, despite a desire to support our president, I believe many Americans still have profound questions about the wisdom of relying too heavily on a pre-emptive, go-it-alone military approach.
Acting now on our own might be a sign of our power. Acting sensibly and in a measured way in concert with our allies, with bipartisan Congressional support, would be a sign of our strength.
It would also be a sign of the wisdom of our founders, who lodged in the President the power to command U.S. armed forces, and in Congress the power to make war, ensuring a balance of powers between co-equal branches of government. Our Constitution lodges the power to weigh the causes for war and the ability to declare war in Congress precisely to ensure that the American people and those who represent them will be consulted before military action is taken.
The Senate has a grave duty to insist on a full debate that examines for all Americans the full range of options before us, and weighs those options, together with their risks and costs. Such a debate should be energized by the real spirit of September 11: a debate which places a priority not on unanimity, but on the unity of a people determined to forcefully confront and defeat terrorism and to defend our values.
I have supported internationally sanctioned coalition military action in Bosnia, in Kosovo and Serbia, and in Afghanistan. Even so, in recent weeks, I and others including major Republican policymakers like former Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker, my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee Senator Hagel, Bush Mideast Envoy General Anthony Zinni and other leading US military leaders have raised serious questions about the approach the Administration is taking on Iraq.
There have been questions raised about the nature and urgency of Iraq's threat, our response to that threat, and against whom, exactly that threat is directed. What is the best course of action that the U.S. could take to address the threat? What are the economic, political, and national security consequences of possible U.S. or U.S.-British invasion of Iraq? There have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions abroad, including its effects on the continuing war on terrorism, our ongoing efforts to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, and efforts to calm the intensifying Middle East crisis, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions here at home.
Of first and greatest concern, obviously, are the questions raised about the possible loss of life that could result from our actions. The United States could send tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, and in so doing we could risk countless lives, of U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis. There are other questions, about the impact of an attack in relation to our economy. The United States could face soaring oil prices and could spend billions both on a war and on a years-long effort to stabilize Iraq after an invasion. The resolution we will be debating today would explicitly authorize a go-it-alone approach.
I believe an international approach is essential. In my view, our policy should have four key elements. First and foremost, the United States must work with our allies to deal with Iraq. We should not go it alone or virtually alone with a pre-emptive ground invasion. Most critically, acting alone could jeopardize our top national security priority, the continuing war on terror. The intense cooperation of other nations in matters related to intelligence-sharing, security, political and economic cooperation, law enforcement and financial surveillance, and other areas has been crucial to this fight, and enables us to wage it effectively with our allies. Over the past year, this cooperation has been our most successful weapon against terror networks. That -- not attacking Iraq should be the main focus of our efforts in the war on terror.
We have succeeded in destroying some Al Qaida forces, but many of its operatives have scattered, their will to kill Americans still strong. The United States has relied heavily on alliances with nearly 100 countries in a coalition against terror for critical intelligence to protect Americans from possible future attacks. Acting with the support of allies, including hopefully Arab and Muslim allies, would limit possible damage to that coalition and our anti-terrorism efforts. But as General Wes Clark, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe has recently noted, a premature go-it-alone invasion of Iraq "would super-charge recruiting for Al Qaida."
Second, our efforts should have the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein of all of his weapons of mass destruction. Iraq agreed to destroy its weapons of mass destruction at the end of the Persian Gulf War and to verification by the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that this had been done. According to the U.N. and IAEA, and undisputed by the administration, inspections during the 1990's neutralized a substantial portion of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and getting inspectors back in to finish the job is critical. The prompt resumption of inspections and disarmament, under an expedited timetable and with unfettered access in Iraq, is imperative.
Third, weapons inspections should be enforceable. If efforts by U.N. weapons inspectors are tried and fail, a range of potential U.N.-sanctioned means, including proportionate military force, should be considered. I have no doubt that Congress would act swiftly to authorize force in such circumstances. This does not mean giving the U.N. a veto over U.S. actions. No one wants to do that. It simply means, as Chairman Levin has observed, that Saddam is a world problem and should be addressed in the world arena.
Finally, our approach toward Iraq must be consistent with international law and the framework of collective security developed over the last 50 years or more. It should be sanctioned by the Security Council under the U.N. Charter, to which we are a party and by which we are legally bound. Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, can succeed. Our response will be far more effective if Saddam sees the whole world arrayed against him.
We should act forcefully, resolutely, sensibly with our allies, and not alone, to disarm Saddam. Authorizing the pre-emptive, go-it-alone use of force now, right in the midst of continuing efforts to enlist the world community to back a tough new disarmament resolution on Iraq, could be a costly mistake for our country.
We need Congress to have it conscience restored.
This is very long but I would encourage everyone to read it once, it is a powerful speech that predicted events in Iraq.
October 3, 2002
Mr. President, as we turn later today to address our policy on Iraq, I want to take a few minutes to outline my views. The situation remains fluid, and Administration officials are engaged in negotiations at the United Nations over what approach we ought to take, with our allies, to disarm the brutal and dictatorial Iraqi regime.
Our debate here is critical because the administration seeks our authorization now for military action including possibly unprecedented, pre-emptive, go-it-alone military action in Iraq, even as it seeks to garner support from our allies on a tough new UN disarmament resolution.
Let me be clear: Saddam Hussein is a brutal, ruthless dictator who has repressed his own people, attacked his neighbors, and remains an international outlaw. The world would be a much better place if he were gone and the regime in Iraq were changed. That's why the U.S. should unite the world against Saddam, and not allow him to unite forces against us.
A go-it-alone approach, allowing for a ground invasion of Iraq without the support of other countries, could give Saddam exactly that chance. A pre-emptive go-it-alone strategy towards Iraq is wrong. I oppose it.
I support ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction through unfettered U.N. inspections, which should begin as soon as possible. Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, is likely to succeed. Our primary focus now must be on Iraq's verifiable disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. This will help maintain international support, and could even eventually result in Saddam's loss of power.
Of course, I would welcome this, as would most of our allies. The president has helped to direct intense new multilateral pressure on Saddam Hussein to allow U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors back in to Iraq to conduct their assessment of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Saddam clearly has felt that heat, and it suggests what might be accomplished through collective action. I am not naive about this process, and much work lies ahead. But we cannot dismiss out-of-hand Saddam's late and reluctant commitment to comply with U.N. disarmament arrangements, or the agreement struck Tuesday to begin to implement it. We should use the gathering international resolve to collectively confront his regime by building on these efforts through a new U.N. disarmament resolution.
This debate must include all Americans, because our decisions finally must have the informed consent of the American people, who will be asked to bear the costs, in blood and treasure, of our decisions. When the lives of the sons and daughters of average Americans could be risked and lost, their voices must be heard by Congress before we make decisions about military action.
Right now, despite a desire to support our president, I believe many Americans still have profound questions about the wisdom of relying too heavily on a pre-emptive, go-it-alone military approach.
Acting now on our own might be a sign of our power. Acting sensibly and in a measured way in concert with our allies, with bipartisan Congressional support, would be a sign of our strength.
It would also be a sign of the wisdom of our founders, who lodged in the President the power to command U.S. armed forces, and in Congress the power to make war, ensuring a balance of powers between co-equal branches of government. Our Constitution lodges the power to weigh the causes for war and the ability to declare war in Congress precisely to ensure that the American people and those who represent them will be consulted before military action is taken.
The Senate has a grave duty to insist on a full debate that examines for all Americans the full range of options before us, and weighs those options, together with their risks and costs. Such a debate should be energized by the real spirit of September 11: a debate which places a priority not on unanimity, but on the unity of a people determined to forcefully confront and defeat terrorism and to defend our values.
I have supported internationally sanctioned coalition military action in Bosnia, in Kosovo and Serbia, and in Afghanistan. Even so, in recent weeks, I and others including major Republican policymakers like former Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker, my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee Senator Hagel, Bush Mideast Envoy General Anthony Zinni and other leading US military leaders have raised serious questions about the approach the Administration is taking on Iraq.
There have been questions raised about the nature and urgency of Iraq's threat, our response to that threat, and against whom, exactly that threat is directed. What is the best course of action that the U.S. could take to address the threat? What are the economic, political, and national security consequences of possible U.S. or U.S.-British invasion of Iraq? There have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions abroad, including its effects on the continuing war on terrorism, our ongoing efforts to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, and efforts to calm the intensifying Middle East crisis, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions here at home.
Of first and greatest concern, obviously, are the questions raised about the possible loss of life that could result from our actions. The United States could send tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, and in so doing we could risk countless lives, of U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis. There are other questions, about the impact of an attack in relation to our economy. The United States could face soaring oil prices and could spend billions both on a war and on a years-long effort to stabilize Iraq after an invasion. The resolution we will be debating today would explicitly authorize a go-it-alone approach.
I believe an international approach is essential. In my view, our policy should have four key elements. First and foremost, the United States must work with our allies to deal with Iraq. We should not go it alone or virtually alone with a pre-emptive ground invasion. Most critically, acting alone could jeopardize our top national security priority, the continuing war on terror. The intense cooperation of other nations in matters related to intelligence-sharing, security, political and economic cooperation, law enforcement and financial surveillance, and other areas has been crucial to this fight, and enables us to wage it effectively with our allies. Over the past year, this cooperation has been our most successful weapon against terror networks. That -- not attacking Iraq should be the main focus of our efforts in the war on terror.
We have succeeded in destroying some Al Qaida forces, but many of its operatives have scattered, their will to kill Americans still strong. The United States has relied heavily on alliances with nearly 100 countries in a coalition against terror for critical intelligence to protect Americans from possible future attacks. Acting with the support of allies, including hopefully Arab and Muslim allies, would limit possible damage to that coalition and our anti-terrorism efforts. But as General Wes Clark, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe has recently noted, a premature go-it-alone invasion of Iraq "would super-charge recruiting for Al Qaida."
Second, our efforts should have the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein of all of his weapons of mass destruction. Iraq agreed to destroy its weapons of mass destruction at the end of the Persian Gulf War and to verification by the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that this had been done. According to the U.N. and IAEA, and undisputed by the administration, inspections during the 1990's neutralized a substantial portion of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and getting inspectors back in to finish the job is critical. The prompt resumption of inspections and disarmament, under an expedited timetable and with unfettered access in Iraq, is imperative.
Third, weapons inspections should be enforceable. If efforts by U.N. weapons inspectors are tried and fail, a range of potential U.N.-sanctioned means, including proportionate military force, should be considered. I have no doubt that Congress would act swiftly to authorize force in such circumstances. This does not mean giving the U.N. a veto over U.S. actions. No one wants to do that. It simply means, as Chairman Levin has observed, that Saddam is a world problem and should be addressed in the world arena.
Finally, our approach toward Iraq must be consistent with international law and the framework of collective security developed over the last 50 years or more. It should be sanctioned by the Security Council under the U.N. Charter, to which we are a party and by which we are legally bound. Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, can succeed. Our response will be far more effective if Saddam sees the whole world arrayed against him.
We should act forcefully, resolutely, sensibly with our allies, and not alone, to disarm Saddam. Authorizing the pre-emptive, go-it-alone use of force now, right in the midst of continuing efforts to enlist the world community to back a tough new disarmament resolution on Iraq, could be a costly mistake for our country.
We need Congress to have it conscience restored.
Pioneer Press on the MinnCan pipeline
The Pioneer Press also is carrying a piece on the pipeline today. It's not as hard hitting as the Startribune piece though.
Check out the Strib piece for the coercive nature that assisted the company in obtaining 70%.
Since 1989, the Statutes surrounding these issues were relaxed to allow a more streamlined process.
Frankly, its a classic case of handing the keys of the asylum to the inmates.
I am troubled by how much the Administrative Law judges have witnessed and are still allowing this pipeline to go forward. The Strib piece outlines the use of coercive tactics and now the Pioneer Press talks about the streamlined environmental process the company was able to use.
They checked off on this project themselves.
I have contacted my locally elected officials and have gotten a few responses. I will be meeting with some of them in the coming week or so and I will ask for some sort of legislative oversight on the issue.
I'd love for this project to have to go before a few House and Senate committee's.
"The offers … are so ridiculously low, it's pitiful," said Joyce H. Osborn, a Burnsville real estate broker who owns 105 acres in Scott County. "It's a real mess."
Some homeowners have tried in vain to persuade the company to buy their properties outright, rather than purchase easements they fear will lower their land's potential selling price.
Officials with the company say their representatives have made fair offers that more than 70 percent of landowners have accepted. If the commission approves the pipeline, the company could attempt to seize easement rights from the remaining landowners through eminent domain proceedings.
Check out the Strib piece for the coercive nature that assisted the company in obtaining 70%.
Since 1989, the Statutes surrounding these issues were relaxed to allow a more streamlined process.
MPIRG and other critics note that the project's "environmental review document" was largely written by Minnesota Pipeline Co. itself and later approved by the commission's staff.
"Several members of the public were critical of this method … because the analysis was not conducted by an independent entity, but by the company," wrote Administrative Law Judge Beverly Heydinger in Nov. 17 findings supporting the need for a new pipeline.
Frankly, its a classic case of handing the keys of the asylum to the inmates.
I am troubled by how much the Administrative Law judges have witnessed and are still allowing this pipeline to go forward. The Strib piece outlines the use of coercive tactics and now the Pioneer Press talks about the streamlined environmental process the company was able to use.
They checked off on this project themselves.
I have contacted my locally elected officials and have gotten a few responses. I will be meeting with some of them in the coming week or so and I will ask for some sort of legislative oversight on the issue.
I'd love for this project to have to go before a few House and Senate committee's.
Pipeline makes the SC Times
Although the story is rather bland.
It does not share the same stories of our farmers agonzing over the coercive tactics used by agents for the MinnCan pipeline.
I wonder what Koch Industries Execs think about this blatant misue of power?
It does not share the same stories of our farmers agonzing over the coercive tactics used by agents for the MinnCan pipeline.
I wonder what Koch Industries Execs think about this blatant misue of power?
Minncan Pipeline Agents Used Coercive tactics
What else could we expect from the company of Anna Nicole Smiths deceased husband, Koch Industries?
The Strib reports today on the Public Utilities Commission will most likely vote to approve the Minncan pipeline cutting a swath through the heart of rural Central Minnesota.
Let's look at that again. Agents for the Minncan pipeline threatened farmers that they would force the pipeline through their property if they did not sign easement agreements. An administrative law judge even stated that the landowners were sometimes treated poorly in the process. Yet, they are going to approve this thing?
Where is the justice behind this.
More to come in the morning...
I have written and called all my locally elected officials and it's about time to start holding people accountable.
The Strib reports today on the Public Utilities Commission will most likely vote to approve the Minncan pipeline cutting a swath through the heart of rural Central Minnesota.
Jonathon Posusta, who grows 230 acres of corn and soybeans on a century-old family farm near Lester Prairie, broke down several times as he testified that agents representing the pipeline project threatened some of his neighbors, telling them that they would force the pipeline across their land if they didn't sign easement agreements.
An administrative law judge who recommended in November that the state approve the pipeline agreed with Posusta that landowners were sometimes treated poorly by the process. Judge Beverly Jones Heydinger, who oversaw a series of public hearings last fall concerning the pipeline, said some landowners were not told that the original pipeline route had changed, moving the planned path onto their properties, despite initial assurances that it would not cross their land, she noted.
"The pipeline threatens our family and our livelihood," Posusta told the PUC. "The possibility of a leak or spill would always be there. A leak or spill would cause irreversible damage to our farm and our home."
Let's look at that again. Agents for the Minncan pipeline threatened farmers that they would force the pipeline through their property if they did not sign easement agreements. An administrative law judge even stated that the landowners were sometimes treated poorly in the process. Yet, they are going to approve this thing?
Where is the justice behind this.
More to come in the morning...
I have written and called all my locally elected officials and it's about time to start holding people accountable.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Higher Education in the spotlight
Posting from an outpost in Meeker County today...
Students from across the state made their way to the capitol to make their voices heard on higher education issues. I have been to several of these rallies over the years and have always had a very good time. The efforts of our college students, advocating for their peers is a powerful experience. Organizations like the Minnesota State University Student Association (MSUSA) and the Minnesota State College Student Association (MSCSA) provide the campuses across the state with the staffing and subject matter expertise to make their stories resonate at the capitol.
The Startribune covered the event at the capitol today.
D.J. Danielson has piled up $21,000 in debt as a Winona State University student. Kara Brockett: $25,000 at Southwest Minnesota State University. Rick Howden, a Winona State senior, will graduate this year with $48,000 in loans to pay back.
Think about that. All that debt at a public institution. Access to affordable and quality public higher education is a must in order for our society to remain competitive on a global scale.
Great job at the rally and keep up the fight!
Update
We also got to see Justin McMartin, MSUSA Chair and Ezra Kazee from Winona on Channel 5.
Keep up the fire guys!
Students from across the state made their way to the capitol to make their voices heard on higher education issues. I have been to several of these rallies over the years and have always had a very good time. The efforts of our college students, advocating for their peers is a powerful experience. Organizations like the Minnesota State University Student Association (MSUSA) and the Minnesota State College Student Association (MSCSA) provide the campuses across the state with the staffing and subject matter expertise to make their stories resonate at the capitol.
The Startribune covered the event at the capitol today.
D.J. Danielson has piled up $21,000 in debt as a Winona State University student. Kara Brockett: $25,000 at Southwest Minnesota State University. Rick Howden, a Winona State senior, will graduate this year with $48,000 in loans to pay back.
Think about that. All that debt at a public institution. Access to affordable and quality public higher education is a must in order for our society to remain competitive on a global scale.
Great job at the rally and keep up the fight!
Update
We also got to see Justin McMartin, MSUSA Chair and Ezra Kazee from Winona on Channel 5.
Keep up the fire guys!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
An Anna Nicole Smith connection to the pipeline?
Oh wow do I suck! I cannot believe I failed to stumble across this beforehand.
We all know that Koch Industries is working hard to build the MinnCan pipeline through the heart of Minnesota.
What most of us probably do not know, is that Anna Nicole Smith's former husband was a co-founder of Koch Industries.
All joking aside, it adds another element to my previous post and ties things together in a neat little bow heh!
We all know that Koch Industries is working hard to build the MinnCan pipeline through the heart of Minnesota.
What most of us probably do not know, is that Anna Nicole Smith's former husband was a co-founder of Koch Industries.
All joking aside, it adds another element to my previous post and ties things together in a neat little bow heh!
Jackpot! Pot, Strippers, Smoking Bans, and Pipelines
You could classify this one as a rant. Just like the pull of a slot machine that comes up "Cherry, Cherry, Cherry", my blogging slot machine came up Strip Bars, Smoking Ban, and Pipeline last night as I was driving around the cities.
We just added the pot for more fun.
What provoked this rant? Pondering the smoking ban again.
I'll start by stating that I actually have a tremendous amount of respect for Rep. Tom Emmer and those who see the smoking ban as an infringement on the rights of individual business owners. While I do not necessarily agree, the passion and logic that is used in your argument is remarkable. I respect those that passionately fight for what they believe in.
People on both sides of the aisle fall prey to slick lobbying and do not remain true to their conscience, their true political ideology. That's why we have moderates, the "DINO's and RINO's". I would label people of Tom Emmer's ilk to be Reagan Conservatives.
Call me a Wellstone Liberal.
So, if in fact the smoking ban issue is really around the rights of business owners and their ability to self determine what their business does, then conceptually, why the need to be so harsh on strip bars?
I caveat this discussion by stating that I do not support this adult oriented industry. Besides being very degrading to women, they also exacerbate the body image issues that inundate our society today. I do not defend the business, other than to say it is a legal business around the world.
Shady, but still legal.
Last year, Senator Steve Dille offered SF 3394, an act to significantly regulate adult businesses. Now lets be real here. The bill was written to put a strip bar out of business in Eden Valley. It has closed other bars as well.
It was strongly supported in both the House and Senate, sponsored in the House by Rep Dean Urdahl, and ironically, Rep Emmer sat on the conference committee for this bill.
I would have voted for this bill.
But for me, it raises the question of consistency for the Republicans who espouse the edict that bans on smoking or other things looked down upon in society impact the rights of an individual business.
They come out and say, "open a non-smoking bar" and "create the competition". Let the market dictate what people want.
I would have argued the same fate for a bar in Eden Valley. The market probably would have forced it's closure anyway, but the Republicans set the precedence for putting businesses on their rear end with a bill last year to heavily regulate adult oriented businesses.
Bar owners who support smoking should have seen this one coming.
I know the morality debate on the issue as well, but I firmly believe you cannot legislate morality. Just like you cannot deploy a democracy.
The slope got a lot slipperier. The slide will be tough to stop.
So, as I shared previously, while Senator Dille is a supporter of a smoking ban he also supports the medicinal use of marijauna.
Let me say that again. Senator Dille wrote bills to close strip clubs, supports the smoking ban, but wants you to toke up, for medicinal uses only.
If you thought the effects of second hand smoke had a lot of controversy, do a search for the effects of medicinal marijuana.
Wow.
I'm still waiting for the bill to make every Minnesotan a "happily married millionaire".
Surely by now, you are asking how in the hell is he going to tie the MinnCan pipeline controversy to all this.
Two words...Local Control.
Senator Dille has told us during his fights for large corporate feedlots in the our Senate District that this "not in my backyard" mentality kills business. Someone has to live by the nuclear power plant, the football stadium, the jail, and the hog farm. Basically, stop complaining and deal with it.
That will be his argument for the pipeline. Someone has to live by it, stop complaining and just deal with it.
Pipelines do spill though. Remember what happened in Little Falls this past summer where more than 134,000 gallons of oil spewed from the pipeline. Check out Rep. Jim Oberstar's press release.
The contaminated soil ranged from 6 to 18 inches deep.
Speaking of the size of the landfill for the contaminated soil,
Koch Industries will also run the pipeline through our backyards. What would 134,000 gallons of oil do to fertile farmland in Central Minnesota?
If farmers do not agree to less than market prices for their land, Koch Industries can use eminent domain to condemn the property for the pipeline.
One oil spill will condemn the land for the rest of our lives.
We can legislate bans on smoking.
We can legislate against adult oriented businesses, under the guise of local control.
We can legislate against the MinnCan project as well.
Why the rant? Why so much? I want consistency in our elected officials. If we truly support a businesspersons rights, then support all businesspersons rights. When we pick and choose which businesses obtain support, we create the slippery slope we sit upon right now.
Write your elected leaders. Tell them what you think.
On a lighter note, Nolan...you know what song sparked this blog posting!
We just added the pot for more fun.
What provoked this rant? Pondering the smoking ban again.
I'll start by stating that I actually have a tremendous amount of respect for Rep. Tom Emmer and those who see the smoking ban as an infringement on the rights of individual business owners. While I do not necessarily agree, the passion and logic that is used in your argument is remarkable. I respect those that passionately fight for what they believe in.
People on both sides of the aisle fall prey to slick lobbying and do not remain true to their conscience, their true political ideology. That's why we have moderates, the "DINO's and RINO's". I would label people of Tom Emmer's ilk to be Reagan Conservatives.
Call me a Wellstone Liberal.
So, if in fact the smoking ban issue is really around the rights of business owners and their ability to self determine what their business does, then conceptually, why the need to be so harsh on strip bars?
I caveat this discussion by stating that I do not support this adult oriented industry. Besides being very degrading to women, they also exacerbate the body image issues that inundate our society today. I do not defend the business, other than to say it is a legal business around the world.
Shady, but still legal.
Last year, Senator Steve Dille offered SF 3394, an act to significantly regulate adult businesses. Now lets be real here. The bill was written to put a strip bar out of business in Eden Valley. It has closed other bars as well.
It was strongly supported in both the House and Senate, sponsored in the House by Rep Dean Urdahl, and ironically, Rep Emmer sat on the conference committee for this bill.
I would have voted for this bill.
But for me, it raises the question of consistency for the Republicans who espouse the edict that bans on smoking or other things looked down upon in society impact the rights of an individual business.
They come out and say, "open a non-smoking bar" and "create the competition". Let the market dictate what people want.
I would have argued the same fate for a bar in Eden Valley. The market probably would have forced it's closure anyway, but the Republicans set the precedence for putting businesses on their rear end with a bill last year to heavily regulate adult oriented businesses.
Bar owners who support smoking should have seen this one coming.
I know the morality debate on the issue as well, but I firmly believe you cannot legislate morality. Just like you cannot deploy a democracy.
The slope got a lot slipperier. The slide will be tough to stop.
So, as I shared previously, while Senator Dille is a supporter of a smoking ban he also supports the medicinal use of marijauna.
Let me say that again. Senator Dille wrote bills to close strip clubs, supports the smoking ban, but wants you to toke up, for medicinal uses only.
If you thought the effects of second hand smoke had a lot of controversy, do a search for the effects of medicinal marijuana.
Wow.
I'm still waiting for the bill to make every Minnesotan a "happily married millionaire".
Surely by now, you are asking how in the hell is he going to tie the MinnCan pipeline controversy to all this.
Two words...Local Control.
Senator Dille has told us during his fights for large corporate feedlots in the our Senate District that this "not in my backyard" mentality kills business. Someone has to live by the nuclear power plant, the football stadium, the jail, and the hog farm. Basically, stop complaining and deal with it.
That will be his argument for the pipeline. Someone has to live by it, stop complaining and just deal with it.
Pipelines do spill though. Remember what happened in Little Falls this past summer where more than 134,000 gallons of oil spewed from the pipeline. Check out Rep. Jim Oberstar's press release.
The contaminated soil ranged from 6 to 18 inches deep.
Speaking of the size of the landfill for the contaminated soil,
"It’s the fourth largest landfill in the state." He further pointed out that, to receive the contaminated soil, a thick heavy plastic liner has been put down, covered with dense clay. The restoration phase will follow the recovery phase. This could take years and will include having fresh soil brought in. Studies will also continue. The site is on property owned by Robert and Cindy Poppen. Their complete 75 acres have since been purchased by the Minnesota Pipeline Company, operators of the pipeline.
Koch Industries will also run the pipeline through our backyards. What would 134,000 gallons of oil do to fertile farmland in Central Minnesota?
If farmers do not agree to less than market prices for their land, Koch Industries can use eminent domain to condemn the property for the pipeline.
One oil spill will condemn the land for the rest of our lives.
We can legislate bans on smoking.
We can legislate against adult oriented businesses, under the guise of local control.
We can legislate against the MinnCan project as well.
Why the rant? Why so much? I want consistency in our elected officials. If we truly support a businesspersons rights, then support all businesspersons rights. When we pick and choose which businesses obtain support, we create the slippery slope we sit upon right now.
Write your elected leaders. Tell them what you think.
On a lighter note, Nolan...you know what song sparked this blog posting!
Mac Hammond hits the Strib again!
Doug Grow covers the story from a different perspective. He interviews a 70 year old former Dominican priest.
I thought the story of the 70 year old former Dominican priest was the absolute best way to contrast the "Winner's Minute" ways of Mac Hammond.
"God says if you base your life on his covenant, these blessings are gonna overtake you," the pastor told his congregation.
He has been overtaken by a Porsche, a Lexus, a couple of homes in Florida, a "retreat" up north, a couple of motorcycles and some sweetheart loan and lease arrangements with his church.
I thought the story of the 70 year old former Dominican priest was the absolute best way to contrast the "Winner's Minute" ways of Mac Hammond.
Monday, February 12, 2007
This is our Powerline! MinnCan pipeline thoughts
Seems to me that the mainstream media have passed on this story. It would appear as though this story have not been covered since November!
According to MPIRG, the Public Utilities Commission will hear testimony tomorrow, Feb 13th, about the proposed pipeline.
Why do we need a new pipeline?
The MinnCan Project is a proposed $300 million crude oil pipeline built by the Minnesota Pipeline Company which is solely owned by Koch Oil. Koch Industries also owns and operates Flint Hills Resources, one of the two refineries south of the Twin Cities. Marathon Petroleum is the other refinery. This proposed project, if completed in 2008, would transport up to 165,000 barrels of crude oil per day at a pressure of 1462 pounds per square inch (psi) through a 24-inch pipe. 200 miles of the 300 mile project would be constructed through a new easement. This would affect thousands of Minnesota property owners, damage over 4000 acres of Minnesota forests, wetlands, agricultural and developed land, a Vietnam Veteran Memorial and 23 organic farms, including an organic dairy farm.
What could happen?
Pipeline construction involves a 100 foot construction right of way. The permanent easement is maintained at 50 feet. Construction will damage agricultural lands, clear-cut woodlands, and disrupt wetlands. Pipeline construction is exempt from compliance with the Minnesota Wetlands Conservation Act. The right of way will be maintained clear by cutting or with chemicals.
In the early 1980's Paul Wellstone co-wrote a book, with Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, titled 'Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War.' The book traced the frustrating, sometimes violent controversy that enveloped Minnesota's heartland over a seven-year period that pitted farmers against large corporate power companies and a government bureaucracy that tried to install a power line on the farmer's land.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is our Powerline.
It runs through hundreds of miles of farm land, nearly two dozen organic farms. In a time where we do not have a well defined energy policy, adding another pipeline is merely a bandaid solution. Instead of continuing our addiction to petroleum, which will be further fueled by another pipeline, we need to embrace renewable energy sources and other methods in our transition towards energy independence. Both Bush and Pawlenty have stated such in their "State of the ___" addresses.
We must reject these business practices. We must stand up and show policy makers and big business that clean air, clean water, and a sound energy policy, that places people over the profits of big polluters, is what we want.
Paul is gone, he can't bail us out on this one. We need to do this ourselves.
According to MPIRG, the Public Utilities Commission will hear testimony tomorrow, Feb 13th, about the proposed pipeline.
Why do we need a new pipeline?
The MinnCan Project is a proposed $300 million crude oil pipeline built by the Minnesota Pipeline Company which is solely owned by Koch Oil. Koch Industries also owns and operates Flint Hills Resources, one of the two refineries south of the Twin Cities. Marathon Petroleum is the other refinery. This proposed project, if completed in 2008, would transport up to 165,000 barrels of crude oil per day at a pressure of 1462 pounds per square inch (psi) through a 24-inch pipe. 200 miles of the 300 mile project would be constructed through a new easement. This would affect thousands of Minnesota property owners, damage over 4000 acres of Minnesota forests, wetlands, agricultural and developed land, a Vietnam Veteran Memorial and 23 organic farms, including an organic dairy farm.
What could happen?
Pipeline construction involves a 100 foot construction right of way. The permanent easement is maintained at 50 feet. Construction will damage agricultural lands, clear-cut woodlands, and disrupt wetlands. Pipeline construction is exempt from compliance with the Minnesota Wetlands Conservation Act. The right of way will be maintained clear by cutting or with chemicals.
In the early 1980's Paul Wellstone co-wrote a book, with Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, titled 'Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War.' The book traced the frustrating, sometimes violent controversy that enveloped Minnesota's heartland over a seven-year period that pitted farmers against large corporate power companies and a government bureaucracy that tried to install a power line on the farmer's land.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is our Powerline.
It runs through hundreds of miles of farm land, nearly two dozen organic farms. In a time where we do not have a well defined energy policy, adding another pipeline is merely a bandaid solution. Instead of continuing our addiction to petroleum, which will be further fueled by another pipeline, we need to embrace renewable energy sources and other methods in our transition towards energy independence. Both Bush and Pawlenty have stated such in their "State of the ___" addresses.
We must reject these business practices. We must stand up and show policy makers and big business that clean air, clean water, and a sound energy policy, that places people over the profits of big polluters, is what we want.
Paul is gone, he can't bail us out on this one. We need to do this ourselves.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
"Freedom to Breathe Act"
Over the past several weeks, I have heard many state that the bill provides an exemption for smoking at the American Indian casino's.
Former Speaker Steve Swiggum states the following in a LTE to the Annandale Advocate.
Instead of promoting the intellectual dishonesty behind such a statement let's take a look at the actual piece of legislation. I will not dispute the fact that the Minnesota tribes provide a disproportionate amount of money to Democrats. I will point out though, that Senator Dille and Representative Urdahl did take significant amounts of money from the same groups Swiggum opines about.
H.F. No. 305, 1st Engrossment - 85th Legislative Session (2007-2008) Posted on Feb 05, 2007
1.1 A bill for an act
1.2 relating to health; establishing the Freedom to Breathe Act of 2007; establishing
1.3 public policy to protect employees and the general public from the known
1.4 hazards of secondhand smoke; requiring persons to refrain from smoking in
1.5 certain areas;amending Minnesota Statutes 2006, sections 144.412; 144.413,
1.6 subdivisions 2, 4, by adding subdivisions; 144.414; 144.416; 144.417; proposing
1.7 coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 144; repealing Minnesota
1.8 Statutes 2006, section 144.415.
1.9 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
1.10 Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.412, is amended to read:
1.11 144.412 PUBLIC POLICY.
1.12 The purpose of sections 144.411 to 144.417 is to protect the public health, comfort
1.13 and environment by prohibiting smoking in areas where children or ill or injured persons
1.14 are present, and employees and the general public from the known hazards of secondhand
1.15 smoke by limiting eliminating smoking in public places, places of employment, public
1.16 transportation, and at public meetings to designated smoking areas.
1.17 Sec. 2. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, is amended by adding a subdivision
1.18 to read:
1.19 Subd. 1a. Indoor area. "Indoor area" means all space between a floor and a ceiling
1.20 that is bounded on two or more sides by walls, whether temporary or permanent, or by
1.21 doorways and windows, whether open or closed. A wall includes any retractable divider,
1.22 garage door, or other physical barrier that substantially encloses a side.
1.23 Sec. 3. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, is amended by adding a subdivision
1.24 to read:
2.1 Subd. 1b. Place of employment. "Place of employment" means any indoor area
2.2 at which two or more individuals perform any type of a service for consideration of
2.3 payment under any type of contractual relationship, including, but not limited to, an
2.4 employment relationship with or for a private corporation, partnership, individual, or
2.5 government agency. Place of employment includes any indoor area where two or more
2.6 individuals gratuitously perform services for which individuals are ordinarily paid. A
2.7 place of employment includes, but is not limited to, public conveyances, factories,
2.8 warehouses, offices, retail stores, restaurants, bars, banquet facilities, theaters, food stores,
2.9 banks, financial institutions, employee cafeterias, lounges, auditoriums, gymnasiums,
2.10 restrooms, elevators, hallways, museums, libraries, bowling establishments, employee
2.11 medical facilities, and rooms or areas containing photocopying equipment or other office
2.12 equipment used in common. Vehicles used in whole or in part for work purposes are
2.13 places of employment during hours of operation if more than one person is present. An
2.14 area in which work is performed in a private residence is a place of employment during
2.15 hours of operation if:
2.16 (1) the homeowner uses the area exclusively and regularly as a principal place of
2.17 business and has one or more on-site employees; or
2.18 (2) the homeowner uses the area exclusively and regularly as a place to meet or deal
2.19 with patients, clients, or customers in the normal course of the homeowner's trade or
2.20 business.
2.21 Sec. 4. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, subdivision 2, is amended to read:
2.22 Subd. 2. Public place. "Public place" means any enclosed, indoor area used by the
2.23 general public or serving as a place of work, including, but not limited to, restaurants,;
2.24 bars; any other food or liquor establishment; retail stores, offices and other commercial
2.25 establishments, public conveyances,; educational facilities other than public schools,
2.26 as defined in section 120A.05, subdivisions 9, 11, and 13,; hospitals,; nursing homes,;
2.27 auditoriums,; arenas,; meeting rooms,; and common areas of rental apartment buildings,
2.28 but excluding private, enclosed offices occupied exclusively by smokers even though
2.29 such offices may be visited by nonsmokers.
2.30 Sec. 5. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, subdivision 4, is amended to read:
2.31 Subd. 4. Smoking. "Smoking" means inhaling or exhaling smoke from any lighted
2.32 cigar, cigarette, pipe, or any other lighted tobacco or plant product. Smoking also includes
2.33 carrying a lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe, or any other lighted smoking equipment tobacco
2.34 or plant product intended for inhalation.
3.1 Sec. 6. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, is amended by adding a subdivision
3.2 to read:
3.3 Subd. 5. Public transportation. "Public transportation" means public means of
3.4 transportation, including light and commuter rail transit; buses; enclosed bus and transit
3.5 stops; taxis, vans, limousines, and other for-hire vehicles other than those being operated
3.6 by the lessee; and ticketing, boarding, and waiting areas in public transportation terminals.
3.7 Sec. 7. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.414, is amended to read:
3.8 144.414 PROHIBITIONS.
3.9 Subdivision 1. Public places, places of employment, public transportation, and
3.10 public meetings. Smoking shall not be permitted in and no person shall smoke in a public
3.11 place or, at a public meeting except in designated smoking areas. This prohibition does
3.12 not apply in cases in which an entire room or hall is used for a private social function
3.13 and seating arrangements are under the control of the sponsor of the function and not of
3.14 the proprietor or person in charge of the place. Furthermore, this prohibition shall not
3.15 apply to places of work not usually frequented by the general public, except that the state
3.16 commissioner of health shall establish rules to restrict or prohibit smoking in factories,
3.17 warehouses, and those places of work where the close proximity of workers or the
3.18 inadequacy of ventilation causes smoke pollution detrimental to the health and comfort of
3.19 nonsmoking employees, in a place of employment, or in public transportation, except as
3.20 provided in this section or section 144.4167.
3.21 Subd. 2. Day care premises. Smoking is prohibited in a day care center licensed
3.22 under Minnesota Rules, parts 9503.0005 to 9503.0175, or in a family home or in a
3.23 group family day care provider home licensed under Minnesota Rules, parts 9502.0300
3.24 to 9502.0445, during its hours of operation. The proprietor of a family home or group
3.25 family day care provider must disclose to parents or guardians of children cared for on the
3.26 premises if the proprietor permits smoking outside of its hours of operation. Disclosure
3.27 must include posting on the premises a conspicuous written notice and orally informing
3.28 parents or guardians.
3.29 Subd. 3. Health care facilities and clinics. (a) Smoking is prohibited in any area of
3.30 a hospital, health care clinic, doctor's office, licensed residential facility for children, or
3.31 other health care-related facility, other than except that a patient or resident in a nursing
3.32 home, boarding care facility, or licensed residential facility, except as allowed in this
3.33 subdivision for adults may smoke in a designated separate, enclosed room if the room has
3.34 a separate ventilation system from the rest of the facility.
4.1 (b) Smoking by participants in peer reviewed scientific studies related to the health
4.2 effects of smoking may be allowed in a separated room ventilated at a rate of 60 cubic
4.3 feet per minute per person pursuant to a policy that is approved by the commissioner and
4.4 is established by the administrator of the program to minimize exposure of nonsmokers
4.5 to smoke.
4.6 Subd. 4. Public transportation vehicles. Smoking is prohibited in public
4.7 transportation vehicles except that the driver of a public transportation vehicle may smoke
4.8 when the vehicle is being used for personal use. For purposes of this subdivision, "personal
4.9 use" means that the public transportation vehicle is being used by the driver for private
4.10 purposes and no for-hire passengers are present. If a driver smokes under this subdivision,
4.11 the driver must post a conspicuous sign inside the vehicle to inform passengers.
4.12 Sec. 8. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.416, is amended to read:
4.13 144.416 RESPONSIBILITIES OF PROPRIETORS.
4.14 (a) The proprietor or other person in charge, firm, limited liability company,
4.15 corporation, or other entity that owns, leases, manages, operates, or otherwise controls the
4.16 use of a public place, public transportation, place of employment, or public meeting shall
4.17 make reasonable efforts to prevent smoking in the public place, public transportation,
4.18 place of employment, or public meeting by:
4.19 (a) (1) posting appropriate signs;
4.20 (b) arranging seating to provide a smoke-free area;
4.21 (c) asking smokers to refrain from smoking upon request of a client or employee
4.22 suffering discomfort from the smoke; or
4.23 (d) or by any other means which may be appropriate; and
4.24 (2) asking any person who smokes in an area where smoking is prohibited to refrain
4.25 from smoking and, if the person does not refrain from smoking after being asked to do so,
4.26 asking the person to leave. If the person refuses to leave, the proprietor, person, or entity
4.27 in charge shall handle the situation consistent with lawful methods for handling other
4.28 persons acting in a disorderly manner or as a trespasser.
4.29 (b) The proprietor or other person or entity in charge of a public place, public
4.30 meeting, public transportation, or place of employment must not provide smoking
4.31 equipment, including ashtrays or matches, in areas where smoking is prohibited. Nothing
4.32 in this section prohibits the proprietor or other person or entity in charge from taking more
4.33 stringent measures than those under sections 144.414 to 144.417 to protect individuals
4.34 from secondhand smoke. The proprietor or other person or entity in charge of a restaurant
4.35 or bar may not serve an individual who is in violation of sections 144.411 to 144.417.
5.1 Sec. 9. [144.4167] PERMITTED SMOKING.
5.2 Subdivision 1. Scientific study participants. Smoking by participants in peer
5.3 reviewed scientific studies related to the health effects of smoking may be allowed in a
5.4 separated room ventilated at a rate of 60 cubic feet per minute per person pursuant to a 5.5 policy that is approved by the commissioner and is established by the administrator of the 5.6 program to minimize exposure of nonsmokers to smoke.
5.7 Subd. 2. Traditional Native American ceremonies. Sections 144.414 to 144.417
5.8 do not prohibit smoking by a Native American as part of a traditional Native American
5.9 spiritual or cultural ceremony. For purposes of this section, a Native American is a person 5.10 who is a member of an Indian tribe as defined in section 260.755, subdivision 12.
5.11 Subd. 3. Private places. Except as provided in section 144.414, subdivision 2,
5.12 nothing in sections 144.411 to 144.417 prohibits smoking in:
5.13 (1) private homes, private residences, or private automobiles when they are not in
5.14 use as a place of employment, as defined in section 144.413, subdivision 1b; or
5.15 (2) a hotel or motel sleeping room rented to one or more guests.
5.16 Subd. 4. Tobacco products shop. Sections 144.414 to 144.417 do not prohibit the
5.17 lighting of tobacco in a tobacco products shop by a customer or potential customer for
5.18 the specific purpose of sampling tobacco products prior to purchase. For the purposes of
5.19 this subdivision, a tobacco products shop is a retail business that earns at least 90 percent
5.20 of its gross receipts from the sale of tobacco products and paraphernalia associated with
5.21 tobacco use.
5.22 Sec. 10. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.417, is amended to read:
5.23 144.417 COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH, ENFORCEMENT, PENALTIES.
5.24 Subdivision 1. Rules. (a) The state commissioner of health shall adopt rules
5.25 necessary and reasonable to implement the provisions of sections 144.411 to 144.417,
5.26 except as provided for in section 144.414.
5.27 (b) Rules implementing sections 144.411 to 144.417 adopted after January 1, 2002,
5.28 may not take effect until approved by a law enacted after January 1, 2002. This paragraph
5.29 does not apply to a rule or severable portion of a rule governing smoking in office
5.30 buildings, factories, warehouses, or similar places of work, or in health care facilities. This
5.31 paragraph does not apply to a rule changing the definition of "restaurant" to make it the
5.32 same as the definition in section 157.15, subdivision 12.
5.33 Subd. 2. Penalties Violations. Any person who violates section 144.414 or
5.34 144.4165 is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.(a) Any proprietor, person, or entity that owns,
5.35 leases, manages, operates, or otherwise controls the use of an area in which smoking is
6.1 prohibited under sections 144.414 to 144.417, and that knowingly fails to comply with
6.2 sections 144.414 to 144.417, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
6.3 (b) Any person who smokes in an area where smoking is prohibited or restricted
6.4 under sections 144.414 to 144.417 is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.
6.5 (c) A proprietor, person, or entity in charge of a public place, public meeting, place
6.6 of employment, or public transportation must not retaliate or take adverse action against
6.7 an employee or anyone else who, in good faith, reports a violation of sections 144.414 to
6.8 144.417 to the proprietor or person in charge of the public place, public meeting, place of
6.9 employment, or public transportation, or to the commissioner of health or other designee
6.10 responsible for enforcing sections 144.414 to 144.417.
6.11 (d) No person or employer shall discharge, refuse to hire, penalize, discriminate
6.12 against, or in any manner retaliate against any employee, applicant for employment, or
6.13 customer because the employee, applicant, or customer exercises any right to a smoke-free
6.14 environment provided by sections 144.414 to 144.417 or other law.
6.15 Subd. 3. Injunction. The state commissioner of health, a board of health as defined
6.16 in section 145A.02, subdivision 2, or any affected party may institute an action in any
6.17 court with jurisdiction to enjoin repeated violations of section 144.416 or 144.4165
6.18 sections 144.414 to 144.417.
6.19 Sec. 11. FREEDOM TO BREATHE ACT.
6.20 This act shall be referred to as the "Freedom to Breathe Act of 2007."
6.21 Sec. 12. REPEALER.
6.22 Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.415, is repealed.
Perhaps I missed it, it does happen. Where specifically does it state that the Native American casino's are exempted?
We do know that the tribes only have to comply with Federal law and that chances are, they would choose to not abide by the law.
That could happen.
Again, it's intellectual honesty. Quit pointing the finger at the opposite party and hurl lies about what is and what is not in legislation.
An exemption for casino's is not in the bill. Stop saying the DFLers have put in an exemption, it's simply not true.
Former Speaker Steve Swiggum states the following in a LTE to the Annandale Advocate.
Under this proposal - which is being pushed by Democrats - tribal casinos would be exempt from following this statewide mandate. Oddly enough, Minnesota tribes are among the largest campaign contributors to Democratic lawmakers. According to a recent campaign finance report, Minnesota tribes put more than $1.2 million in the DFL's campaign coffers through contributions and disbursements during the last election cycle. Not surprisingly, they are allowed to maintain their smoking privileges under this plan.
Instead of promoting the intellectual dishonesty behind such a statement let's take a look at the actual piece of legislation. I will not dispute the fact that the Minnesota tribes provide a disproportionate amount of money to Democrats. I will point out though, that Senator Dille and Representative Urdahl did take significant amounts of money from the same groups Swiggum opines about.
H.F. No. 305, 1st Engrossment - 85th Legislative Session (2007-2008) Posted on Feb 05, 2007
1.1 A bill for an act
1.2 relating to health; establishing the Freedom to Breathe Act of 2007; establishing
1.3 public policy to protect employees and the general public from the known
1.4 hazards of secondhand smoke; requiring persons to refrain from smoking in
1.5 certain areas;amending Minnesota Statutes 2006, sections 144.412; 144.413,
1.6 subdivisions 2, 4, by adding subdivisions; 144.414; 144.416; 144.417; proposing
1.7 coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 144; repealing Minnesota
1.8 Statutes 2006, section 144.415.
1.9 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
1.10 Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.412, is amended to read:
1.11 144.412 PUBLIC POLICY.
1.12 The purpose of sections 144.411 to 144.417 is to protect the public health, comfort
1.13 and environment by prohibiting smoking in areas where children or ill or injured persons
1.14 are present, and employees and the general public from the known hazards of secondhand
1.15 smoke by limiting eliminating smoking in public places, places of employment, public
1.16 transportation, and at public meetings to designated smoking areas.
1.17 Sec. 2. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, is amended by adding a subdivision
1.18 to read:
1.19 Subd. 1a. Indoor area. "Indoor area" means all space between a floor and a ceiling
1.20 that is bounded on two or more sides by walls, whether temporary or permanent, or by
1.21 doorways and windows, whether open or closed. A wall includes any retractable divider,
1.22 garage door, or other physical barrier that substantially encloses a side.
1.23 Sec. 3. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, is amended by adding a subdivision
1.24 to read:
2.1 Subd. 1b. Place of employment. "Place of employment" means any indoor area
2.2 at which two or more individuals perform any type of a service for consideration of
2.3 payment under any type of contractual relationship, including, but not limited to, an
2.4 employment relationship with or for a private corporation, partnership, individual, or
2.5 government agency. Place of employment includes any indoor area where two or more
2.6 individuals gratuitously perform services for which individuals are ordinarily paid. A
2.7 place of employment includes, but is not limited to, public conveyances, factories,
2.8 warehouses, offices, retail stores, restaurants, bars, banquet facilities, theaters, food stores,
2.9 banks, financial institutions, employee cafeterias, lounges, auditoriums, gymnasiums,
2.10 restrooms, elevators, hallways, museums, libraries, bowling establishments, employee
2.11 medical facilities, and rooms or areas containing photocopying equipment or other office
2.12 equipment used in common. Vehicles used in whole or in part for work purposes are
2.13 places of employment during hours of operation if more than one person is present. An
2.14 area in which work is performed in a private residence is a place of employment during
2.15 hours of operation if:
2.16 (1) the homeowner uses the area exclusively and regularly as a principal place of
2.17 business and has one or more on-site employees; or
2.18 (2) the homeowner uses the area exclusively and regularly as a place to meet or deal
2.19 with patients, clients, or customers in the normal course of the homeowner's trade or
2.20 business.
2.21 Sec. 4. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, subdivision 2, is amended to read:
2.22 Subd. 2. Public place. "Public place" means any enclosed, indoor area used by the
2.23 general public or serving as a place of work, including, but not limited to, restaurants,;
2.24 bars; any other food or liquor establishment; retail stores, offices and other commercial
2.25 establishments, public conveyances,; educational facilities other than public schools,
2.26 as defined in section 120A.05, subdivisions 9, 11, and 13,; hospitals,; nursing homes,;
2.27 auditoriums,; arenas,; meeting rooms,; and common areas of rental apartment buildings,
2.28 but excluding private, enclosed offices occupied exclusively by smokers even though
2.29 such offices may be visited by nonsmokers.
2.30 Sec. 5. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, subdivision 4, is amended to read:
2.31 Subd. 4. Smoking. "Smoking" means inhaling or exhaling smoke from any lighted
2.32 cigar, cigarette, pipe, or any other lighted tobacco or plant product. Smoking also includes
2.33 carrying a lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe, or any other lighted smoking equipment tobacco
2.34 or plant product intended for inhalation.
3.1 Sec. 6. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.413, is amended by adding a subdivision
3.2 to read:
3.3 Subd. 5. Public transportation. "Public transportation" means public means of
3.4 transportation, including light and commuter rail transit; buses; enclosed bus and transit
3.5 stops; taxis, vans, limousines, and other for-hire vehicles other than those being operated
3.6 by the lessee; and ticketing, boarding, and waiting areas in public transportation terminals.
3.7 Sec. 7. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.414, is amended to read:
3.8 144.414 PROHIBITIONS.
3.9 Subdivision 1. Public places, places of employment, public transportation, and
3.10 public meetings. Smoking shall not be permitted in and no person shall smoke in a public
3.11 place or, at a public meeting except in designated smoking areas. This prohibition does
3.12 not apply in cases in which an entire room or hall is used for a private social function
3.13 and seating arrangements are under the control of the sponsor of the function and not of
3.14 the proprietor or person in charge of the place. Furthermore, this prohibition shall not
3.15 apply to places of work not usually frequented by the general public, except that the state
3.16 commissioner of health shall establish rules to restrict or prohibit smoking in factories,
3.17 warehouses, and those places of work where the close proximity of workers or the
3.18 inadequacy of ventilation causes smoke pollution detrimental to the health and comfort of
3.19 nonsmoking employees, in a place of employment, or in public transportation, except as
3.20 provided in this section or section 144.4167.
3.21 Subd. 2. Day care premises. Smoking is prohibited in a day care center licensed
3.22 under Minnesota Rules, parts 9503.0005 to 9503.0175, or in a family home or in a
3.23 group family day care provider home licensed under Minnesota Rules, parts 9502.0300
3.24 to 9502.0445, during its hours of operation. The proprietor of a family home or group
3.25 family day care provider must disclose to parents or guardians of children cared for on the
3.26 premises if the proprietor permits smoking outside of its hours of operation. Disclosure
3.27 must include posting on the premises a conspicuous written notice and orally informing
3.28 parents or guardians.
3.29 Subd. 3. Health care facilities and clinics. (a) Smoking is prohibited in any area of
3.30 a hospital, health care clinic, doctor's office, licensed residential facility for children, or
3.31 other health care-related facility, other than except that a patient or resident in a nursing
3.32 home, boarding care facility, or licensed residential facility, except as allowed in this
3.33 subdivision for adults may smoke in a designated separate, enclosed room if the room has
3.34 a separate ventilation system from the rest of the facility.
4.1 (b) Smoking by participants in peer reviewed scientific studies related to the health
4.2 effects of smoking may be allowed in a separated room ventilated at a rate of 60 cubic
4.3 feet per minute per person pursuant to a policy that is approved by the commissioner and
4.4 is established by the administrator of the program to minimize exposure of nonsmokers
4.5 to smoke.
4.6 Subd. 4. Public transportation vehicles. Smoking is prohibited in public
4.7 transportation vehicles except that the driver of a public transportation vehicle may smoke
4.8 when the vehicle is being used for personal use. For purposes of this subdivision, "personal
4.9 use" means that the public transportation vehicle is being used by the driver for private
4.10 purposes and no for-hire passengers are present. If a driver smokes under this subdivision,
4.11 the driver must post a conspicuous sign inside the vehicle to inform passengers.
4.12 Sec. 8. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.416, is amended to read:
4.13 144.416 RESPONSIBILITIES OF PROPRIETORS.
4.14 (a) The proprietor or other person in charge, firm, limited liability company,
4.15 corporation, or other entity that owns, leases, manages, operates, or otherwise controls the
4.16 use of a public place, public transportation, place of employment, or public meeting shall
4.17 make reasonable efforts to prevent smoking in the public place, public transportation,
4.18 place of employment, or public meeting by:
4.19 (a) (1) posting appropriate signs;
4.20 (b) arranging seating to provide a smoke-free area;
4.21 (c) asking smokers to refrain from smoking upon request of a client or employee
4.22 suffering discomfort from the smoke; or
4.23 (d) or by any other means which may be appropriate; and
4.24 (2) asking any person who smokes in an area where smoking is prohibited to refrain
4.25 from smoking and, if the person does not refrain from smoking after being asked to do so,
4.26 asking the person to leave. If the person refuses to leave, the proprietor, person, or entity
4.27 in charge shall handle the situation consistent with lawful methods for handling other
4.28 persons acting in a disorderly manner or as a trespasser.
4.29 (b) The proprietor or other person or entity in charge of a public place, public
4.30 meeting, public transportation, or place of employment must not provide smoking
4.31 equipment, including ashtrays or matches, in areas where smoking is prohibited. Nothing
4.32 in this section prohibits the proprietor or other person or entity in charge from taking more
4.33 stringent measures than those under sections 144.414 to 144.417 to protect individuals
4.34 from secondhand smoke. The proprietor or other person or entity in charge of a restaurant
4.35 or bar may not serve an individual who is in violation of sections 144.411 to 144.417.
5.1 Sec. 9. [144.4167] PERMITTED SMOKING.
5.2 Subdivision 1. Scientific study participants. Smoking by participants in peer
5.3 reviewed scientific studies related to the health effects of smoking may be allowed in a
5.4 separated room ventilated at a rate of 60 cubic feet per minute per person pursuant to a 5.5 policy that is approved by the commissioner and is established by the administrator of the 5.6 program to minimize exposure of nonsmokers to smoke.
5.7 Subd. 2. Traditional Native American ceremonies. Sections 144.414 to 144.417
5.8 do not prohibit smoking by a Native American as part of a traditional Native American
5.9 spiritual or cultural ceremony. For purposes of this section, a Native American is a person 5.10 who is a member of an Indian tribe as defined in section 260.755, subdivision 12.
5.11 Subd. 3. Private places. Except as provided in section 144.414, subdivision 2,
5.12 nothing in sections 144.411 to 144.417 prohibits smoking in:
5.13 (1) private homes, private residences, or private automobiles when they are not in
5.14 use as a place of employment, as defined in section 144.413, subdivision 1b; or
5.15 (2) a hotel or motel sleeping room rented to one or more guests.
5.16 Subd. 4. Tobacco products shop. Sections 144.414 to 144.417 do not prohibit the
5.17 lighting of tobacco in a tobacco products shop by a customer or potential customer for
5.18 the specific purpose of sampling tobacco products prior to purchase. For the purposes of
5.19 this subdivision, a tobacco products shop is a retail business that earns at least 90 percent
5.20 of its gross receipts from the sale of tobacco products and paraphernalia associated with
5.21 tobacco use.
5.22 Sec. 10. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.417, is amended to read:
5.23 144.417 COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH, ENFORCEMENT, PENALTIES.
5.24 Subdivision 1. Rules. (a) The state commissioner of health shall adopt rules
5.25 necessary and reasonable to implement the provisions of sections 144.411 to 144.417,
5.26 except as provided for in section 144.414.
5.27 (b) Rules implementing sections 144.411 to 144.417 adopted after January 1, 2002,
5.28 may not take effect until approved by a law enacted after January 1, 2002. This paragraph
5.29 does not apply to a rule or severable portion of a rule governing smoking in office
5.30 buildings, factories, warehouses, or similar places of work, or in health care facilities. This
5.31 paragraph does not apply to a rule changing the definition of "restaurant" to make it the
5.32 same as the definition in section 157.15, subdivision 12.
5.33 Subd. 2. Penalties Violations. Any person who violates section 144.414 or
5.34 144.4165 is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.(a) Any proprietor, person, or entity that owns,
5.35 leases, manages, operates, or otherwise controls the use of an area in which smoking is
6.1 prohibited under sections 144.414 to 144.417, and that knowingly fails to comply with
6.2 sections 144.414 to 144.417, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
6.3 (b) Any person who smokes in an area where smoking is prohibited or restricted
6.4 under sections 144.414 to 144.417 is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.
6.5 (c) A proprietor, person, or entity in charge of a public place, public meeting, place
6.6 of employment, or public transportation must not retaliate or take adverse action against
6.7 an employee or anyone else who, in good faith, reports a violation of sections 144.414 to
6.8 144.417 to the proprietor or person in charge of the public place, public meeting, place of
6.9 employment, or public transportation, or to the commissioner of health or other designee
6.10 responsible for enforcing sections 144.414 to 144.417.
6.11 (d) No person or employer shall discharge, refuse to hire, penalize, discriminate
6.12 against, or in any manner retaliate against any employee, applicant for employment, or
6.13 customer because the employee, applicant, or customer exercises any right to a smoke-free
6.14 environment provided by sections 144.414 to 144.417 or other law.
6.15 Subd. 3. Injunction. The state commissioner of health, a board of health as defined
6.16 in section 145A.02, subdivision 2, or any affected party may institute an action in any
6.17 court with jurisdiction to enjoin repeated violations of section 144.416 or 144.4165
6.18 sections 144.414 to 144.417.
6.19 Sec. 11. FREEDOM TO BREATHE ACT.
6.20 This act shall be referred to as the "Freedom to Breathe Act of 2007."
6.21 Sec. 12. REPEALER.
6.22 Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 144.415, is repealed.
Perhaps I missed it, it does happen. Where specifically does it state that the Native American casino's are exempted?
We do know that the tribes only have to comply with Federal law and that chances are, they would choose to not abide by the law.
That could happen.
Again, it's intellectual honesty. Quit pointing the finger at the opposite party and hurl lies about what is and what is not in legislation.
An exemption for casino's is not in the bill. Stop saying the DFLers have put in an exemption, it's simply not true.
INS shooting case in Texas
I have heard a lot about this case listening to Glenn Beck on KTLK and other right leaning radio shows. I don't recall this getting much discussion on the left leaning blogs but I do think the case merits discussion.
From a Los Angeles CBS affiliate.
Simply put, justice was not served in this case.
Should the Homeland Security/INS agents shot the suspect in this case? I think it's debatable. They should not have attempted to cover up the events around the case though, as has been reported.
The perp in this case is suing the US Government for $5 million? Meanwhile, the officers in this case stand to serve at least a decade in prison? For shooting an illegal immigrant in the buttocks who was smuggling 750 pounds of pot across the border?
That is insane!
It gets better. Seems like some of those involved in the investigation have ties to the pot smuggler.
Some conservatives have even used the dreaded "I" word in conjunction with President Bush, to describe their abhorrence to what has happened.
Yes, Republicans have started impeachment talk!
Wow! Unbelievable.
Again, I do not condone any sort of cover-up. While the agents supposedly removed some evidence from the scene, it would appear as though some higher up in the INS or Homeland Security have something at stake here. Reports also have come out stating that one of the former officers has been attacked in prison.
So, they put officers who shot a drug running and illegal immigrant in the buttocks, and they get more than a decade in prison, in general population, where when it's uncovered that they are former border agents, their lives will be in even greater peril?
It's not a liberal thought nor a conservative thought that something is seriously wrong here. It's neither a Democrat nor a Republican thought that this is wrong.
In the Army, we had a saying when it came to the ridiculous Rules of Engagement we had to abide by at times.
"It's better to be carried by 6 than tried by 12".
We knew that justice in the military is flawed. No one can understand what happens "downrange" as many put it.
At the most, these officers should be fired, at the most. To serve a decade or more in prison for these offenses is ridiculous.
From a Los Angeles CBS affiliate.
Jose Alonso Compean, 30, and Ignacio Ramos, 35, both of El Paso, Texas, were convicted with assault with a deadly weapon and other counts in the shooting of Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila.
Aldrete-Davila was allegedly trying to smuggle about 750 pounds of marijuana across the border in a van on Feb. 17, 2005 when he was spotted by one of the agents. As he ran back across the border, he was shot in the buttocks.
No weapon was found at the scene and Aldrete-Davila was not caught at the time. The government granted the suspected drug smuggler immunity to testify against the two agents.
Ramos is serving an 11-year sentence in a federal prison in Florida, where Hernandez said he was recently assaulted by at least four individuals. The assault renewed calls for a pardon. Compean was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Simply put, justice was not served in this case.
Should the Homeland Security/INS agents shot the suspect in this case? I think it's debatable. They should not have attempted to cover up the events around the case though, as has been reported.
The perp in this case is suing the US Government for $5 million? Meanwhile, the officers in this case stand to serve at least a decade in prison? For shooting an illegal immigrant in the buttocks who was smuggling 750 pounds of pot across the border?
That is insane!
It gets better. Seems like some of those involved in the investigation have ties to the pot smuggler.
Some conservatives have even used the dreaded "I" word in conjunction with President Bush, to describe their abhorrence to what has happened.
Yes, Republicans have started impeachment talk!
Bush faces increasing demands from House Republicans and others that he pardon Ramos and Compean, who were sentenced in October to 11 and 12 years, respectively, after being convicted of violating the trafficker's civil rights and tampering with evidence for picking up their shell casings and not reporting the shooting.
"The president has lost my respect because he will not step forward and do what's right," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., went a step further, saying Bush would face dire consequences if Compean or Ramos is killed while in prison. If that happens, he said, "There's going to be some kind of impeachment talk on Capitol Hill."
Last month, Bush said in response to passions about the case and the pardon request that he would take a hard look at the case.
Wow! Unbelievable.
Again, I do not condone any sort of cover-up. While the agents supposedly removed some evidence from the scene, it would appear as though some higher up in the INS or Homeland Security have something at stake here. Reports also have come out stating that one of the former officers has been attacked in prison.
So, they put officers who shot a drug running and illegal immigrant in the buttocks, and they get more than a decade in prison, in general population, where when it's uncovered that they are former border agents, their lives will be in even greater peril?
It's not a liberal thought nor a conservative thought that something is seriously wrong here. It's neither a Democrat nor a Republican thought that this is wrong.
In the Army, we had a saying when it came to the ridiculous Rules of Engagement we had to abide by at times.
"It's better to be carried by 6 than tried by 12".
We knew that justice in the military is flawed. No one can understand what happens "downrange" as many put it.
At the most, these officers should be fired, at the most. To serve a decade or more in prison for these offenses is ridiculous.
Mac Hammond in the Strib
Months ago, the City Pages ran a great story on Mac Hammond and the Living World Christian Center, chronicling what is really going on at the LWCC. Pressure to continue to give beyond one's means was prevalent, as well as an air of superiority.
Today, the Startribune picked up the story. Similar to the response at the City Pages, I would expect to see some interesting LTE's to the Strib in the coming weeks.
Hammond is also under fire for his public support of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, whom he publically supported at a church service this past fall. In fact, Hammond stated that he was going to vote for Bachmann. Unfortunately, he was not aware that he didn't even reside in Bachmann's district.
We have reported on Hammond's troubles previously.
Joe over at Minnesota Campaign Report has a great post up about the Strib story and his previous writings on Hammond as well!
I am looking forward to seeing how this story moves now that "main stream media" sources have picked up on it.
Today, the Startribune picked up the story. Similar to the response at the City Pages, I would expect to see some interesting LTE's to the Strib in the coming weeks.
Last week, a Washington watchdog group filed a formal complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against Hammond's Living Word Christian Center, which now has nearly 10,000 members, broadcasts weekly services to local and national television audience, and runs an array of businesses.
The group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says the church gave loans to Hammond at favorable rates and created a sweetheart deal on a plane lease, possibly violating federal tax law that forbids insiders from benefiting from a charitable organization. But church officials said they are confident that they are complying with tax laws.
Meanwhile, some religious leaders and fellow evangelical ministers are criticizing Hammond's unapologetic embrace of wealth -- from his two planes to his luxury cars and high-end condos. In recent weeks, Hammond also has angered Muslims for controversial remarks about Islam.
Hammond is also under fire for his public support of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, whom he publically supported at a church service this past fall. In fact, Hammond stated that he was going to vote for Bachmann. Unfortunately, he was not aware that he didn't even reside in Bachmann's district.
We have reported on Hammond's troubles previously.
Joe over at Minnesota Campaign Report has a great post up about the Strib story and his previous writings on Hammond as well!
I am looking forward to seeing how this story moves now that "main stream media" sources have picked up on it.
Incredibly wrong: Bachmann and the "surge"
Congresswoman Bachmann is expected to vote on a resolution opposing the increase in US Forces in Iraq, debate is expected to occur on the floor of the House this week, with a possible vote the following week.
The SC Times has a story discussing Bachmann and Senator Klobuchar's stances as we move closer to debate and a vote.
Bachmann starts off with an old Congressman Kennedy line,
Congressman Kennedy used that gem on us a few dozen times, especially around higher education bills. Truth be told, his position was defined well before we even attempted to lobby our elected official.
We all know Bachmann has taken on Congressman Kennedy's role as the Presidential lap dog.
"I support the effort that is going on and I support the funding for it," she said. "I think it's very disingenuous on the part of the Democrats. They are sending a message of low morale to the troops."
Democrats are sending a message of low morale to the troops? Wow.
Multiple deployments since March of 2003, and really well beforehand, combined with equipment issues, rules of engagement micromanagement, increased suicide rates, increased Post Traumatic Stress Disorder rates, and at times, difficult to access benefits, have left our soldiers and Veterans "peachy keen" heh?
It's actually Democrats who have brought forth legislation to stop the madness and are accused of building low morale.
Hmmm, seems typical of the right wing spin machine. Things get a little dicey, start the patriotism and "who supports the troops" spin.
We also all recognize the GOP penchant for ignoring the subject matter experts on Iraq and the "Global War on Terror". Most of the Generals and subordinate commanders have not supported an increase in forces.
Recall that General Shinseki stated on the record that it would take a couple of hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq.
His recommendation was not seriously considered.
Defense Secretary William Gates and General Peter Pace seem to have a different opinion on morale than GOPers like Bachmann.
What?
Did I read that right?
Two of the top military leaders in the nation state that discussing Iraq will not hurt the morale of our soldiers?
It's pretty common that the morale of soldiers really is not impacted by debate that goes on here in the United States.
With a little over a year til the next election cycle begins, I continue to hope that Congresswoman Bachmann continues on her path of 100% support of a President the people support at a rate of 30%. As she continues to hurl right wing rhetoric in a feeble attempt to defend her position, we will continue to do our best to expose Bachmann for what she really is.
And at this point, she is incredibly wrong on Iraq and the troop surge.
The SC Times has a story discussing Bachmann and Senator Klobuchar's stances as we move closer to debate and a vote.
Bachmann starts off with an old Congressman Kennedy line,
"wait until she sees the bill's language to decide how she'll vote, but she left
no doubt that she opposes its aims."
Congressman Kennedy used that gem on us a few dozen times, especially around higher education bills. Truth be told, his position was defined well before we even attempted to lobby our elected official.
We all know Bachmann has taken on Congressman Kennedy's role as the Presidential lap dog.
"I support the effort that is going on and I support the funding for it," she said. "I think it's very disingenuous on the part of the Democrats. They are sending a message of low morale to the troops."
Democrats are sending a message of low morale to the troops? Wow.
Multiple deployments since March of 2003, and really well beforehand, combined with equipment issues, rules of engagement micromanagement, increased suicide rates, increased Post Traumatic Stress Disorder rates, and at times, difficult to access benefits, have left our soldiers and Veterans "peachy keen" heh?
It's actually Democrats who have brought forth legislation to stop the madness and are accused of building low morale.
Hmmm, seems typical of the right wing spin machine. Things get a little dicey, start the patriotism and "who supports the troops" spin.
We also all recognize the GOP penchant for ignoring the subject matter experts on Iraq and the "Global War on Terror". Most of the Generals and subordinate commanders have not supported an increase in forces.
Recall that General Shinseki stated on the record that it would take a couple of hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq.
His recommendation was not seriously considered.
Defense Secretary William Gates and General Peter Pace seem to have a different opinion on morale than GOPers like Bachmann.
Pace and Gates said they did not think debate in Congress would hurt the morale
of troops in combat, undercutting an assertion by many congressional Republicans
that members opposing the war were undermining the fighting forces there.
What?
Did I read that right?
Two of the top military leaders in the nation state that discussing Iraq will not hurt the morale of our soldiers?
It's pretty common that the morale of soldiers really is not impacted by debate that goes on here in the United States.
With a little over a year til the next election cycle begins, I continue to hope that Congresswoman Bachmann continues on her path of 100% support of a President the people support at a rate of 30%. As she continues to hurl right wing rhetoric in a feeble attempt to defend her position, we will continue to do our best to expose Bachmann for what she really is.
And at this point, she is incredibly wrong on Iraq and the troop surge.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
A member of the Emmer clan rants!
Drew Emmer over at Wright County Republican, which must be an offshoot of the Jason Lewis progrum at KTLK, rants about DFL bills.
There are 37 bills that Emmer critiques in his rant. He calls the rant "Who voted for these idiots?"
What he fails to point out to his readers is the fact that many of these bills are co-sponsored by Republicans as well, but his analysis fails to criticize them.
I guess Mr Emmer, kin of Mr. Individual Rights, thinks people ought to have the right to smoke but not have the right of access to basic and affordable health care. HF 683
He is anti-worker. He does not support a workers right to have a written job description, a description of their salary, and a bathroom break. HF 643
He fails to see the vision of Governor Pawlenty, whereas the Governor wants Chinese and other languages to be taught to our students, a bill put forth requires language immersion in the summer. HF 623
Agricultural fertilizer research and education council and program established. Rep Bud Heidgerken (R) is a sponsor. HF 652
Greenhouse motor vehicle emissions reduction initiative enacted, statewide transportation plan modified to reflect environmental impacts, and money appropriated. Rep Jim Abeler (R) is a co sponsor. HF 639
Upsala regional community center funding provided, bonds issued, and money appropriated. Rep Bud Heidgerken (R) is a co-sponsor. HF 757
Adult dependents private health care coverage expanded by including those not enrolled as full-time students. Co- sponsored by Rep Jim Abeler (R). HF 475
State Patient Handling Act adopted, programs and committees established, grant funding provided, funds transferred to the assigned risk safety account, and money appropriated. Co-sponsored by Rep Jim Abeler (R). HF 712
Changing the requirements for in state resident tuition. Co-sponsored by Rep's Jim Abeler, Randy Demmer, Ron Erhart, all (R). HF 722
A bill that penalizes businesses that engage in price gouging. HF 740
Minnesota Wireless Telephone Consumer Protection Act adopted. Co sponsored by Rep Abeler (R). HF 635
The National Volleyball Center to be built in Rochester. He ripped Rep Kim Norton for her sponsoring of the bill but fails to criticize Rep Laura Brod, Steve Swiggun (former Speaker of the House), Denny McNamara and Randy Demmer. HF 624 In fact, this bill has more GOP sponsors than DFL.
Medical use of marijuana. Rep Tom Hackbarth is a sponsor as well as former Speaker Steve Swiggum, and Chris DeLaForest, all (R). HF 655 I don't support the bill, but Steve Dille does on the Senate side.
Renewable energy objective and state economic benefit strategy required. Supported by Rep Dennis Ozment. HF 660
Dairy animal revolving loan program established, and money appropriated. Supported by Rep's Heidgerken, Urdahl, Shimanski, and Demmer, all (R). HF 666
No criticism of Demmer, Brod, Swiggum, Urdahl, Shimanski or Abeler though, as they signed onto this legislation?
As session moves on, can we expect an update on more GOPers who sign onto these bills? I'll do my best to expose the GOPers who sponsor bills that some view as "idiotic".
Speaking of which, wanna see how much work Tom Emmer has gotten done in St Paul?
8 Bills, 3 the chief author of and 5 sponsored.
Don't work too hard, that per diem raise was nice though.
There are 37 bills that Emmer critiques in his rant. He calls the rant "Who voted for these idiots?"
What he fails to point out to his readers is the fact that many of these bills are co-sponsored by Republicans as well, but his analysis fails to criticize them.
I guess Mr Emmer, kin of Mr. Individual Rights, thinks people ought to have the right to smoke but not have the right of access to basic and affordable health care. HF 683
He is anti-worker. He does not support a workers right to have a written job description, a description of their salary, and a bathroom break. HF 643
He fails to see the vision of Governor Pawlenty, whereas the Governor wants Chinese and other languages to be taught to our students, a bill put forth requires language immersion in the summer. HF 623
Agricultural fertilizer research and education council and program established. Rep Bud Heidgerken (R) is a sponsor. HF 652
Greenhouse motor vehicle emissions reduction initiative enacted, statewide transportation plan modified to reflect environmental impacts, and money appropriated. Rep Jim Abeler (R) is a co sponsor. HF 639
Upsala regional community center funding provided, bonds issued, and money appropriated. Rep Bud Heidgerken (R) is a co-sponsor. HF 757
Adult dependents private health care coverage expanded by including those not enrolled as full-time students. Co- sponsored by Rep Jim Abeler (R). HF 475
State Patient Handling Act adopted, programs and committees established, grant funding provided, funds transferred to the assigned risk safety account, and money appropriated. Co-sponsored by Rep Jim Abeler (R). HF 712
Changing the requirements for in state resident tuition. Co-sponsored by Rep's Jim Abeler, Randy Demmer, Ron Erhart, all (R). HF 722
A bill that penalizes businesses that engage in price gouging. HF 740
Minnesota Wireless Telephone Consumer Protection Act adopted. Co sponsored by Rep Abeler (R). HF 635
The National Volleyball Center to be built in Rochester. He ripped Rep Kim Norton for her sponsoring of the bill but fails to criticize Rep Laura Brod, Steve Swiggun (former Speaker of the House), Denny McNamara and Randy Demmer. HF 624 In fact, this bill has more GOP sponsors than DFL.
Medical use of marijuana. Rep Tom Hackbarth is a sponsor as well as former Speaker Steve Swiggum, and Chris DeLaForest, all (R). HF 655 I don't support the bill, but Steve Dille does on the Senate side.
Renewable energy objective and state economic benefit strategy required. Supported by Rep Dennis Ozment. HF 660
Dairy animal revolving loan program established, and money appropriated. Supported by Rep's Heidgerken, Urdahl, Shimanski, and Demmer, all (R). HF 666
No criticism of Demmer, Brod, Swiggum, Urdahl, Shimanski or Abeler though, as they signed onto this legislation?
As session moves on, can we expect an update on more GOPers who sign onto these bills? I'll do my best to expose the GOPers who sponsor bills that some view as "idiotic".
Speaking of which, wanna see how much work Tom Emmer has gotten done in St Paul?
8 Bills, 3 the chief author of and 5 sponsored.
Don't work too hard, that per diem raise was nice though.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Mark Olson trial
The SC Times reports that Rep Olson will stand trial for domestic assault.
Avidor at Dump Mark Olson has jumped right on this!
State Rep. Mark Olson will stand trial May 7 on two misdemeanor counts of domestic assault.
Avidor at Dump Mark Olson has jumped right on this!
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Wonkette hits Bachmann again
Seems our esteemed Congresswoman does not like the fact that Congressional leaders want to work 5 days a week.
Wonkette opines from here.
Bachmann had it pretty easy in the Minnesota Senate. The chances for a Tuesday Night Takedown increase for Bachmann if she has to work 5 days a week! Could not resist that one...
Others do not agree with the Congresswoman though.
I always love the comments on Wonkette.
Ditto! I have been to one or two of these swanky fundraisers as well. It's not hard work!
Wonkette opines from here.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., offered the same quip. “We’re stretching three-day weeks into five days,” she said. “I think the American people would be outraged if they knew we were flying in here to wish people happy birthday. It takes us away from valuable work in the district,” she said Monday, after voting to wish two folks a happy birthday.
Bachmann had it pretty easy in the Minnesota Senate. The chances for a Tuesday Night Takedown increase for Bachmann if she has to work 5 days a week! Could not resist that one...
Others do not agree with the Congresswoman though.
There are plenty of members, though, who publicly back the new schedule. "I lived through lots of years with a five-day workweek. I've been here when there was a seven-day workweek. If there's work to do, we've got to work. Bring it on," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.
"That's what I signed up for," said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. "We shouldn't complain about a little inconvenience. I got a lot of people in my state working two five-day weeks," he added, referring to constituents with two or more jobs.
Ted Stevens is right. Ted fucking Stevens. Also, props to Tester for not being a little bitch like Jim Webb. I liked how the writer pointed out that "he enjoys one of the easiest commutes to the Capitol from his home in Northern Virginia."
I always love the comments on Wonkette.
If U.S. Representatives and Senators cannot work five days a week in the job that taxpayers support--as well as supporting, in a way, their cushy little perk-filled party-and-dinner-and-reception lifestyle that 99 percent of the population doesn't get to enjoy--then they can resign, effective immediately.
That may not be funny, but it's true.
Isn't it interesting that those lazy legislators can somehow remain in D.C. when there's one of those fancy dinners that we don't get to enjoy? There they are, on a Friday or Saturday night, holding their little drinks and enjoying the free food. Gosh! Aren't you missing "important work" back in your district? No! I have a party and dinner to go to!
Really: If you can't work five days a week, then get out of office, now.
It's that simple.
Ditto! I have been to one or two of these swanky fundraisers as well. It's not hard work!
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Bluestem Prairie on the Seifert rant!
Ollie Ox at Bluestem Prairie has a great post on the Seifert rant.
I think we all recall the inactivity of GOP controlled Houses in the past as well. I know firsthand that the GOP controlled House did not actively seek the input of college students in the House Higher Education Finance Committee. This year, students from the U of M, MnSCU 4 years, MnSCU 2 years, and Private Colleges each got hearing in which they were able to testify.
Perhaps obtaining as much info as you can before making decisions is a bad thing? Seems so in Marty's eyes...
I think we all recall the inactivity of GOP controlled Houses in the past as well. I know firsthand that the GOP controlled House did not actively seek the input of college students in the House Higher Education Finance Committee. This year, students from the U of M, MnSCU 4 years, MnSCU 2 years, and Private Colleges each got hearing in which they were able to testify.
Perhaps obtaining as much info as you can before making decisions is a bad thing? Seems so in Marty's eyes...
Insane SC Times VA letter
Mr Mills owes me a keyboard, as I spit coffee all over it reading his opinion at the SC Times.
True, I had my share of soldiers who simply washed out.
You cite 2 examples and determine that the VA is just fine because they had no problems, that you heard of.
Wow.
I heard hundreds of complaints from Vets just in the past 6 months.
When we sign our contracts to serve this nation, we give up a lot. We lose our rights to express ourselves without fear of reprisal, we work on average 60 hours a week, are paid below average wages, and are away from our families the majority of the time.
Because of these sacrifices, the benefits for Veterans are very good. Access to health care, education, and retirement benefits, as well as VA mortgage assistance, are meant to be great.
When so many have given so much to this nation we cannot afford to let them (the Veterans) down.
With a 10% increase in Veterans seeking medical attention from the VA, in light of scant increases by the Bush Administration and the closing of VA hospitals across the US, we must ask why? Why in a $3 trillion budget can't our Veterans get the services they were promised?
Bottomline, it does not matter if you were a good soldier or a bad soldier. If you served this nation honorably, you should receive your benefits.
Some guys make good soldiers; some don't.
True, I had my share of soldiers who simply washed out.
You cite 2 examples and determine that the VA is just fine because they had no problems, that you heard of.
Wow.
I heard hundreds of complaints from Vets just in the past 6 months.
When we sign our contracts to serve this nation, we give up a lot. We lose our rights to express ourselves without fear of reprisal, we work on average 60 hours a week, are paid below average wages, and are away from our families the majority of the time.
Because of these sacrifices, the benefits for Veterans are very good. Access to health care, education, and retirement benefits, as well as VA mortgage assistance, are meant to be great.
When so many have given so much to this nation we cannot afford to let them (the Veterans) down.
With a 10% increase in Veterans seeking medical attention from the VA, in light of scant increases by the Bush Administration and the closing of VA hospitals across the US, we must ask why? Why in a $3 trillion budget can't our Veterans get the services they were promised?
Bottomline, it does not matter if you were a good soldier or a bad soldier. If you served this nation honorably, you should receive your benefits.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Mighty Marty writes, when he should legislate.
GOP bloggers are applauding the work of Rep. Marty Seifert, after he ranted on 70 some odd things the DFL messed up in the first month of session.
It's a good thing Minnesota Republican Watch is back up and running!
Check out this, this, and this.
As well as this and this.
All this whining from the GOP minority leader. No one likes a whiny leader.
I guess Rep Seifert is anti...
Standards in health and physical education classes.
Saving money and finding a better way to help businesses.
Perhaps, now this may be a stretch, Rep Seifert should work on the important legislative issues and work to build a consensus, as opposed to pushing sides further apart with his incessant whining.
It's too bad too. I lobbied Marty on several higher ed bills in the past few years. He seemed to be a nice level headed leader, and now...
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This, GOPers, is YOUR House minority leader. With more gems like this, the gap in 08 will be bigger for the GOP to overcome.
It's a good thing Minnesota Republican Watch is back up and running!
Check out this, this, and this.
As well as this and this.
All this whining from the GOP minority leader. No one likes a whiny leader.
I guess Rep Seifert is anti...
Standards in health and physical education classes.
Saving money and finding a better way to help businesses.
Perhaps, now this may be a stretch, Rep Seifert should work on the important legislative issues and work to build a consensus, as opposed to pushing sides further apart with his incessant whining.
It's too bad too. I lobbied Marty on several higher ed bills in the past few years. He seemed to be a nice level headed leader, and now...
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This, GOPers, is YOUR House minority leader. With more gems like this, the gap in 08 will be bigger for the GOP to overcome.
Washington Post piece on Iraq
As the Chickenhawks in the US Senate refuse to debate the ongoing Civil War in Iraq, the Washington Post has an interesting story on what's going on in Iraq now.
Our military is not designed to be a police force. Having spoken to a local Iraqi War Vet recently, the Rules of Engagement (ROE) hinder our forces and in fact, put them in harms way. It is hauntingly similar to Vietnam. While the President eluded to lifting ROE restrictions, why did it take 4 years to do this? What changed?
The biggest thing that has changed is the political landscape in Washington. Democrats in the US House have tremendous power to impose it's will with regards to Iraq, they control the purse strings per se. The US Senate is still too close to call, although if we keep fumbling around Iraq, the 08 election will continue to be a Democratic onslaught. The President is now a lame duck and cannot push his agenda. He will use the power of the veto and force Congress to override it, while putting more and more Americans in harms way.
Multiple and long deployments have taken their toll on our soldiers. The problem is exacerbated by the not having a clearly defined objective.
We "liberated" Iraq, killing more than a half million civilians in the process.
Saddam Hussein has been captured, tried, and executed for his crimes against humanity.
There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Now, we are police officers without a clear objective.
If we truly are fighting a global war on terror why are we in Iraq? Mr. 3000 has stated time and time again that "our biggest threat is al-Qaeda".
Where is al-Qaeda the strongest? Where is it based out of? Pakistan.
$400 a minute, since the birth of Christ is being spent on this 'war".
A half trillion dollars is gone and we have a lack of government accountability on where the money is going.
Our nation is viewed, by nations around the world, as the "biggest threat to world peace".
We have spent more than a billion dollars on survivors benefits to our soldiers families.
More than 22,000 have been seriously wounded in Iraq.
More come back everyday with the hidden scars of war, struggle to overcome PTSD and other mental ailments and succumb to it's power.
And more than 3100 have been killed.
All the while, our nation tries a man who refused to deploy, questioning the legality of the order.
The time has come for the madness to end.
The American and Iraqi plan to pacify the capital rests on the assumption that U.S. troops can win the trust of a wary population by protecting civilians trapped amid sectarian warfare. Each day, U.S. soldiers go door-to-door in the city, searching bedrooms and bathrooms, cabinets and closets, for unauthorized weapons. The operations also offer a chance to cultivate Iraqis as sources of information about the violence entangling their neighborhoods.
"I don't think the infantry or pretty much anyone in the United States Army are properly trained to deal with the guerrilla tactics these guys use against us," said Spec. Jeffrey Steele, 22. "This is a policing thing, you know. It needs more investigation into how these guys work, where they're located. I don't think we can do any better."
Our military is not designed to be a police force. Having spoken to a local Iraqi War Vet recently, the Rules of Engagement (ROE) hinder our forces and in fact, put them in harms way. It is hauntingly similar to Vietnam. While the President eluded to lifting ROE restrictions, why did it take 4 years to do this? What changed?
The biggest thing that has changed is the political landscape in Washington. Democrats in the US House have tremendous power to impose it's will with regards to Iraq, they control the purse strings per se. The US Senate is still too close to call, although if we keep fumbling around Iraq, the 08 election will continue to be a Democratic onslaught. The President is now a lame duck and cannot push his agenda. He will use the power of the veto and force Congress to override it, while putting more and more Americans in harms way.
After the patrol on Thursday, Sgt. Michael Hiler, 26, stepped down from his Humvee and described the day's effort as "stupid." "We should have pulled out a long time ago," Hiler said. "It's going to take the hand of God to change anything about what we do here, which is nothing. This country's going to fall apart sooner or later, and at this point I say, 'Good riddance.' "
Multiple and long deployments have taken their toll on our soldiers. The problem is exacerbated by the not having a clearly defined objective.
We "liberated" Iraq, killing more than a half million civilians in the process.
Saddam Hussein has been captured, tried, and executed for his crimes against humanity.
There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Now, we are police officers without a clear objective.
If we truly are fighting a global war on terror why are we in Iraq? Mr. 3000 has stated time and time again that "our biggest threat is al-Qaeda".
Where is al-Qaeda the strongest? Where is it based out of? Pakistan.
$400 a minute, since the birth of Christ is being spent on this 'war".
A half trillion dollars is gone and we have a lack of government accountability on where the money is going.
Our nation is viewed, by nations around the world, as the "biggest threat to world peace".
We have spent more than a billion dollars on survivors benefits to our soldiers families.
More than 22,000 have been seriously wounded in Iraq.
More come back everyday with the hidden scars of war, struggle to overcome PTSD and other mental ailments and succumb to it's power.
And more than 3100 have been killed.
All the while, our nation tries a man who refused to deploy, questioning the legality of the order.
The time has come for the madness to end.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Camp Wellstone!
Minnesota Campaign Report has a great story on Camp Wellstone!
I attended Camp Wellstone about a year ago now, in Minneapolis. While hesitant at first, people like Bill Lofy and Peggy Flanagan calmed my nerves and pumped us up.
From mid Friday afternoon, until early Sunday afternoon, I was engaged by progressives alike, talking about ways to reach voters and hone our newly formed skills on the campaign trails of Minnesota. It was a powerful experience to say the least.
It was not about liberal politics. It was not about being a Democrat, a Republican, or any other political persusasion.
Camp Wellstone was a place where progressives learn tactics, tecniques and procedures to engage voters and ultimately, win elections.
I attended Camp Wellstone about a year ago now, in Minneapolis. While hesitant at first, people like Bill Lofy and Peggy Flanagan calmed my nerves and pumped us up.
From mid Friday afternoon, until early Sunday afternoon, I was engaged by progressives alike, talking about ways to reach voters and hone our newly formed skills on the campaign trails of Minnesota. It was a powerful experience to say the least.
It was not about liberal politics. It was not about being a Democrat, a Republican, or any other political persusasion.
Camp Wellstone was a place where progressives learn tactics, tecniques and procedures to engage voters and ultimately, win elections.
School funding issues
The funding of our schools and the levies that have failed in recent years, is getting greater attention in the local media.
Last week, the McLeod County Chronicle had editorials that discussed the plight of the Glencoe Silver Lake School district, and even covered the first open meeting that discussed the possibility of a merger or merging of services with McLeod West.
Mr Glennie cuts to the chase and states that the school board must simply tell the voters what is needed to maintain high quality education in the GSL district.
The Dassel Cokato School District, also facing budgetary issues, held a public forum to discuss the budgetary issues. It was a well attended event within the community and administrators, teachers, parents, and citizens alike shared their views on the situation.
The PTA asked for feedback and detailed questions so that they can research these issues and provide the public with quality and factual information on school levies and the impact on the DC district.
Perhaps forums such as this could enlighten voters in the GSL district as to the impact of cuts to their schools. I'll keep my eyes and ears open, I'd love to attend an event such as this.
Have Urdahl, Dille or Shimanski offered any bills yet for some financial relief in our schools?
Last week, the McLeod County Chronicle had editorials that discussed the plight of the Glencoe Silver Lake School district, and even covered the first open meeting that discussed the possibility of a merger or merging of services with McLeod West.
Mr Glennie cuts to the chase and states that the school board must simply tell the voters what is needed to maintain high quality education in the GSL district.
The Dassel Cokato School District, also facing budgetary issues, held a public forum to discuss the budgetary issues. It was a well attended event within the community and administrators, teachers, parents, and citizens alike shared their views on the situation.
The PTA asked for feedback and detailed questions so that they can research these issues and provide the public with quality and factual information on school levies and the impact on the DC district.
Perhaps forums such as this could enlighten voters in the GSL district as to the impact of cuts to their schools. I'll keep my eyes and ears open, I'd love to attend an event such as this.
Have Urdahl, Dille or Shimanski offered any bills yet for some financial relief in our schools?
Campaign spending
Coming out of a campaign cycle recently. Minnesota Campaign Report has some great analysis of the spending for the US Senate race and the Congressional races.
From the periphery, Patty Wetterling out raised EVERY Congressional candidate in the state. Devling into the numbers deeper though, the 6th CD race proved to be as fiercly fought for as we had envisioned.
Bachmann had a sizable edge with regards to the pool of base voters in the 6th, estimated at a 10% advantage. The fight for the "middle 30%" was a spendy fight. Both campaigns spent significantly to gain the marginal votes.
I urge you to go to MCR for their work on this, the Daily Kos picked up on this as well.
Great work Joe.
From the periphery, Patty Wetterling out raised EVERY Congressional candidate in the state. Devling into the numbers deeper though, the 6th CD race proved to be as fiercly fought for as we had envisioned.
Bachmann had a sizable edge with regards to the pool of base voters in the 6th, estimated at a 10% advantage. The fight for the "middle 30%" was a spendy fight. Both campaigns spent significantly to gain the marginal votes.
I urge you to go to MCR for their work on this, the Daily Kos picked up on this as well.
Great work Joe.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Global Warming protest?
Nope, I am not outside the paper in Cokato protesting Global Warming...
It's too frickin cold to protest! Although I have picketed in colder weather!
It's too frickin cold to protest! Although I have picketed in colder weather!
SC Times Opinion on Veterans Issues
Here is the opinion of the SC Times, published today.
It was fitting that Governor Pawlenty annouced a plan for increased Veterans benefits days after this death. Some of us have seen these issues coming for quite some time now and talked about them significantly during our recent election cycle.
The young Marine was orignially from Stewart, MN. From Stewart, it is quite a drive to St Cloud or the Twin Cities, to get VA mental health care. With more and more of our citizen soldiers standing up and fighting for this nation, we must do more for them.
Locally accessible benefits. First off, he should not have been denied coverage at a VA facility. However, we can work to make access easier. Our county VA counselors are great at their work, strong advocates for our Vets. But even they are not enough. Being able to access benefits at a local hospital or a clinic is key.
The Governor annouced a plan to at least take steps in this direction. He is starting with small steps, which is understandable. I just hope that more Vets do not fall between the cracks as we politicize their health and welfare.
Might it consider putting — or redirecting — resources toward helping veterans, especially from state Guard and Reserve units, cope with mental health issues Schulze's family said he faced?
It was fitting that Governor Pawlenty annouced a plan for increased Veterans benefits days after this death. Some of us have seen these issues coming for quite some time now and talked about them significantly during our recent election cycle.
The young Marine was orignially from Stewart, MN. From Stewart, it is quite a drive to St Cloud or the Twin Cities, to get VA mental health care. With more and more of our citizen soldiers standing up and fighting for this nation, we must do more for them.
Locally accessible benefits. First off, he should not have been denied coverage at a VA facility. However, we can work to make access easier. Our county VA counselors are great at their work, strong advocates for our Vets. But even they are not enough. Being able to access benefits at a local hospital or a clinic is key.
The Governor annouced a plan to at least take steps in this direction. He is starting with small steps, which is understandable. I just hope that more Vets do not fall between the cracks as we politicize their health and welfare.
Warming houses closed?
I know why they did it, but this sentence seems a bit off to me.
I know they don't want people to go out in these areas, but is it really smart to close the warming houses?
Warming houses at all St. Cloud ice rinks and the Riverside Park sledding hill
have been closed due to extreme cold.
I know they don't want people to go out in these areas, but is it really smart to close the warming houses?
LTE's from the Strib
Here are some of the LTE's from the Strib, commenting on the death of a young Marine.
The Mental Health Bill that Ramstad is co-sponsoring, if I am not mistaken, is the bill Paul Wellstone was working on in the Senate years ago. The mental health care of not only Veterans, but all American's is an issue that goes unresolved from campaign to campaign.
A comment about the VA budget. In fact, the VA has seen budget increases the past several years. Unfortunatelt, these increases have been lower than inflation AND are swallowed up by a 1.2 million patient increase since 2005, a 10% increase in patient coverage.
Obviously more appropriations are in order to have a high quality VA. Beyond budget increases though, we must have a public that is mindful of these issues. We must elect political leaders who do not pay lip service to these important issues.
Where is Congresswoman Bachmann? She touts regualrly her support of our troops. The VA Hospital in question is in her district. A comment would be nice.
AFTER IRAQ, HE WAS IGNORED
Where are the funds?
The story of Jonathan Schulze ("This Marine's death came after he served," Jan. 27) is deeply disturbing and unforgivable.
The veterans of Vietnam taught us the lessons of post-traumatic stress disorder. How this young man could have been so poorly served by the mental health system, especially Veterans Affairs hospitals in two separate cities, is unconscionable.
How is it that we can afford a war in Iraq and yet not be prepared on our own shores to take care of the courageous soldiers who return? Where are the funds to properly staff our hospitals? Where are the funds to train and prepare the soldiers and their families for the psychological wounds that come with the devastation of war?
While God may have answered Jonathan's prayers bringing him home alive, his country failed him by being unable to address his needs once he returned.
BARBARA LEVIN KRUPP, GOLDEN VALLEY
Prepare now for return
The death of Marine Jonathan Schulze is sad and tragic. This summer 2,600 or so Minnesota National Guard troops will be returning from a two-year deployment. Will Veterans Affairs be prepared to handle their needs? These brave men and women have gone and done their duty at great sacrifice to themselves and their families. I hope our elected officials will ensure the VA has the resources to assist our soldiers as needed. They deserve nothing less.
BRIAN ORTLOFF, HUTCHINSON, MINN.
Mental health parity
If Jonathan Schulze had shown up at the VA bleeding profusely, he would have been admitted.
Depression is a treatable disease, not a character flaw. I blame elected officials with puffed-up empty promises about supporting our troops; I blame a health care system that puts the almighty dollar first; I blame an American public that prefers to focus on gay marriage rather than veterans benefits.
Jim Ramstad is cosponsoring the mental health parity bill that will treat mental health issues like other diseases. It also will improve veterans' mental health care.
Perhaps in the meantime, Halliburton can make a generous contribution to the VA to help free up the waiting list. Our soldiers deserve better.
JENNIFER DOYLE, EDEN PRAIRIE
The Mental Health Bill that Ramstad is co-sponsoring, if I am not mistaken, is the bill Paul Wellstone was working on in the Senate years ago. The mental health care of not only Veterans, but all American's is an issue that goes unresolved from campaign to campaign.
A comment about the VA budget. In fact, the VA has seen budget increases the past several years. Unfortunatelt, these increases have been lower than inflation AND are swallowed up by a 1.2 million patient increase since 2005, a 10% increase in patient coverage.
Obviously more appropriations are in order to have a high quality VA. Beyond budget increases though, we must have a public that is mindful of these issues. We must elect political leaders who do not pay lip service to these important issues.
Where is Congresswoman Bachmann? She touts regualrly her support of our troops. The VA Hospital in question is in her district. A comment would be nice.
VA investigation coming...
From the Startribune
Finally, Congressman Kline and I agree on something.
Although, Congresswoman Bachmann has been notably silent on the issue.
Congressman Walz displayed his grasp of the situation, which I fully expected as he is a retired CSM from the National Guard.
Exactly, according to most reports, this young Marine reached out for help and was met with a cold shoulder and an excuse.
I am anxiously awaiting the report of this investigation and the improvements that will be made at VA Hospitals across the nation. Suicide amongst veterans is an issue that gets swept under the proverbial rug in society.
Imagine the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Some 58,000 brave souls have their names etched in stone, forever enshrined in this moving tribute to Vietnam Veterans. If we accounted for the suicides of Vietnam Vets, the wall would have to be more than 4 times the size it is today.
Think about it...
Finally, Congressman Kline and I agree on something.
"It's just unconscionable that you have a man that's identified by the system,
yet he gets to the point where he commits suicide," said Kline, a Marine veteran
who represents the district where Schulze lived.
Although, Congresswoman Bachmann has been notably silent on the issue.
Congressman Walz displayed his grasp of the situation, which I fully expected as he is a retired CSM from the National Guard.
"The hidden costs of this war are not being addressed," said Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a member of the U.S. House Veterans' Affairs Committee and a veteran. "I've been deeply concerned. I think there's been almost nothing done to prepare for this."
Schulze's death, Walz said, points to a looming problem as more veterans return to Minnesota from Iraq. "I'm anguished over this," he said of Schulze's death. "What's heartbreaking is that Jonathan had the foresight to reach out."
Exactly, according to most reports, this young Marine reached out for help and was met with a cold shoulder and an excuse.
I am anxiously awaiting the report of this investigation and the improvements that will be made at VA Hospitals across the nation. Suicide amongst veterans is an issue that gets swept under the proverbial rug in society.
Imagine the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Some 58,000 brave souls have their names etched in stone, forever enshrined in this moving tribute to Vietnam Veterans. If we accounted for the suicides of Vietnam Vets, the wall would have to be more than 4 times the size it is today.
Think about it...
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