There are two points for discussion this morning and both items are not shocking.
1. The Ohio Republican scandal associated with the the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation continues. The Dispatch has more ugly details from the Taft administration and the OBWC. Here are some excerpts from the Dispatch article:
Clarke T. Blizzard showered a former top official at the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation with tickets and gifts, including $2,300 cash to his former girlfriend and more than $9,000 for his son’s college tuition, authorities said yesterday.
In return, companies that Blizzard represented received or kept hundreds of millions of dollars in bureau investment business and more than $2.5 million in fees and commissions, according to a bill of information filed in Cleveland federal court.
Blizzard was charged with one count of conspiring to bribe Terrence W. Gasper, the bureau’s former chief financial officer. A bill of information typically means the defendant has agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.
Blizzard, 53, a Florida resident, also is expected to face one felony charge of money-laundering in state court, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said.
In all, Blizzard is accused of paying more than $20,000 to Gasper or those close to him from 1998 to 2004 — including a $9,005 tuition payment in 2004 for Gasper’s son and a check for $2,300 in 2002 to Gasper’s girlfriend at the time.
Blizzard also provided sports tickets, theater tickets and a fishing trip in return for Gasper steering agency dollars to businesses affiliated with Blizzard, said U.S. Attorney Greg White in Cleveland.
The charges are the latest in the investigation by a federalstate task force into bureau investments and other matters that started in 2005 with coin dealer Thomas W. Noe.
In all, 12 individuals, including Noe, Gasper and former Gov. Bob Taft, have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to various charges, and authorities said yesterday that the investigation continues.......
So many dirty Republicans, so few clean ones!
2. President Bush and his administration are so focused on proving their Iraq war policy a success, they are now sacrificing our men and women without enough training and equipment. Here are some excerpts from the Dispatch article:
Soldiers of the 1 st Brigade, 3 rd Infantry Division had so little time between deployments to Iraq that they had to cram more than a year’s worth of training into four months.
Some had only a few days to learn how to fire their new rifles before they deployed to Iraq — for the third time — last month. They had no access to the heavily armored vehicles they will be using in Iraq, so they trained on old military trucks instead.
And some soldiers were assigned to the brigade so late that they had no time to train in the United States at all. Instead of the yearlong training recommended before deployment, they prepared for war during the two weeks they spent in Kuwait, en route to Anbar, Iraq’s deadliest province.
As the Pentagon prepares to boost troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 people and Congress debates nonbinding resolutions on that surge, such logistical and training hurdles are emblematic of the struggles besieging a military strained by unexpectedly long and grueling commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It’s happening just about to all the units now," said Law- rence Korb, who oversaw military manpower and logistics as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "No unit is completely combat ready."
Lawmakers consider the situation so serious that they plan to question Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about troop readiness on Wednesday, when the officials are scheduled to testify before the House Armed Services Committee, said a spokeswoman for Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas.
The lack of overall preparedness, in terms of both training and key equipment, is underscored by a recent Pentagon survey, statements by military leaders and interviews with defense experts.
"A typical soldier shows up in Iraq without the knowledge of the language, without the knowledge of the people," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, in Arlington, Va. "If he also isn’t experienced with his unit or with his weapon, that maximizes the potential for disaster."
A survey conducted by the Defense Department inspector general’s office last spring found that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan lack sufficient armored vehicles, heavy weapons such as artillery or large machine guns, devices designed to jam signals used to detonate roadside bombs, and communications equipment. As a result, they are sometimes forced to put off operations while they wait for equipment, according to the classified report, a summary of which the Defense Department made public last week.....
Looks like this Republican administration and the Republican Senators and Congress Members are using our Soldiers and Marines as cannon fodder. After you read this definition of "cannon fodder" from Wikipedia, I am sure you'll agree with me:
Cannon fodder is an informal term for military personnel who are regarded or treated as expendable in the face of enemy fire. The term is generally used in situations where soldiers are forced to fight against hopeless odds, such as occurred during trench warfare in World War I.
