Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt's (OH-2) vicious attack on decorated war hero, Rep. Murtha, will go down in history as one of the stupidest things ever done on the floor of the House of Representatives. Howard Fineman of Newsweek (He was on MSNBC's Countdown tonight) said that now Republicans want to go after Rep. Murtha on some ethics violations. The person leading the charge is Rep. Joe Wilson
(SC-R) who is part of the Tom DeLay machine. Fineman said it is clearly retaliation against Murtha.
Bob Ney and the Culture of Corruption
From The Columbus Dispatch---Republican Rep. Bob Ney (OH-18) was fined: The Federal Election Commission fined Rep. Bob Ney’s re-election committee $2,000 yesterday for not initially reporting $83,000 in payments to a political consulting firm.
The commission and the Ney campaign agreed to the fine after campaign officials acknowledged that two wire transfers of $83,000 to the consulting company were not recorded on the campaign’s manual check register. The campaign said that because the check register did not note the wire transfer, the campaign did not include them in a report filed in October 2004.
Hey, Ney! Enough of the cheating! The people of Ohio's 18th congressional district are sick of the lying and the backroom politics!
From the Washington Post: The Army has suspended plans to expand an unwieldy, 16-month-old program to call up inactive soldiers for military duty, after thousands have requested delays or exemptions or failed to show up.
Despite intense pressure to fill manpower gaps, Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey said the Army has no plans for any further call-up of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) beyond the current level of about 6,500 soldiers. The IRR is a pool of about 115,000 trained soldiers who have left active-duty or reserve units for civilian life, but remain subject to call-up for a set period...
It is time to listen to Rep. Murtha and others who have served in battle. It is time to stop the continuous call ups. Many of our service people are in Iraq on their third tour of duty. Can you imagine how their families are holding up under all this stress?
Last night on WBNS-TV here in Columbus, Ohio, there was a lighting ceremony at the Columbus Zoo. There were two little boys who wanted to say something to their uncle who was leaving for his third tour of duty in Iraq. This is what they said, "Good luck, Uncle ___. We hope you don't die." Doesn't that say it all?
How Wal-Mart is Hurting the USA
From The Morning Call: ----Federal, state and local law enforcement officers raided a Wal-Mart distribution center construction site Thursday in Schuylkill County and arrested more than 100 people they said were illegal immigrants.
More than 50 federal immigration agents and state and local officials with federal search warrants arrived about 8 a.m. at High Ridge Industrial Park in Butler Township, county Sheriff Francis V. McAndrew said....
McAndrew said he knows of other pockets of suspected illegal immigrants in the county and that his office ''will be getting to them.''
He said that after being tipped off, he inspected the Wal-Mart site. ''There were a considerable amount of illegal aliens from what I was seeing,'' he said.
McAndrew said he contacted U.S. Rep. Tim Holden, D-17th District, who put him in touch with federal immigration agents. Those agents got the search warrant that was executed Thursday.
The sting comes a month after Wal-Mart ceased construction of seven North Dakota stores to check for illegal workers after two illegal immigrants were charged with molesting two girls.
In 2003, a raid of 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states led to the arrests of 245 illegal workers. An affidavit related to that case claims that two senior Wal-Mart executives knew cleaning contractors were hiring illegal immigrants. Wal-Mart says that no senior official had any such knowledge.
What is it with Wal-Mart? They don't treat their employees with respect and they won't even hire American workers to build their stores. How many times will Wal-Mart use the line, "We didn't know." Enough!
Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner said the following about Vice President Dick Cheney: "I'm embarrassed the United States has a vice president for torture. "He condones torture, what else is he?"
