The site military.com has a piece by Larry Scott on the Bush Admin's hostility to the VA, and some speculation about what drives the hostility.
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,,77901,00.html

It's good to have a serious, committed, government with experienced, competent people in charge of the important functions that affect us all.  You can sleep easy when you have a cadre of such officials watching over you.

Wish we had some of them here.  From the front page of the 9/9/05 NY Times story titled Political Issues Snarled Plans For Troop aid:

"According to the administration's senior homeland security officals, the hurricane showed the failure of their plan to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated and unable to act quickly until reinforcements arrive on the scene."

That was some plan.  Maybe we should change "NRP" (National Response Plan) to "NUP" (National Unresponsive Plan).

They actually admit (anonymously of course) that they didn't anticipate that a hurricane might disrupt local emergency services.  Were they expecting a trained hurricane that would devestate everything except the emergency facilities and access roads?

Did they anticipate that the flood would involve significant wetness?  How about the loss of power producing significant dark after the sun went down?

We're now an embarrassment to ourselves, not just the rest of the world.

Roy Blunt, the man who will be the new Republican Majority leader paid 88,000 to fellow Tom Delay indictee Jim Ellis.

Blunt is temporarily(?) replacing DeLay as House majority leader.

Federal Election Commission records show Blunt's Rely on Your Beliefs Fund retains a firm owned by Jim Ellis, one of three political associates of DeLay who have been indicted.

They're accused of scheming to use corporate political donations illegally to support candidates in state elections.

The records showed Blunt's group paid Ellis about $88,000 for services.

Ellis analyzes House campaigns for Blunt's PAC, which supports Republican challengers and incumbents in House races.

The chain of corruption is like the tendrils of the octopus, it reaches into everything.

~A!

I am completely ripping off Richard Cranium over at AllSpinZone on this one, because there is very little I can add, but this need attention.

TO: Ms. Nancy Grace, Headline News / CNN Host

Dear Ms. Grace,

Latoyia Figueroa is still missing after 8 days. And as tragic as the Natalee Holloway case might be, Natalee doesn't have a seven year old child wondering where she is, nor was Natalee (to the best of our knowledge) 5 months pregnant.

Here's an overview of the important details in this ?missing woman? case:

1) Latoyia (we should only use her first name) is not white.
2) She does not have blonde hair.
3) She was not scheduled to get married last weekend.
4) She's from West Philadelphia.
5) There may actually be a lead or two in her case.
6) HER UNBORN BABY, HER UNBORN BABY, HER UNBORN BABY.
7) To the best of our knowledge, no one from Texas has yet offered to bring in cadaver dogs to search for Latoyia, nor have forensic dive teams volunteered to scour the Schuylkill or Delaware rivers.
8 ) Also to the best of our knowledge, the FBI hasn't been requested to participate in the investigation (even though Philly actually is in the US of A), nor have any DNA samples been rushed to Washington, DC.
9) HER UNBORN BABY, HER UNBORN BABY, HER UNBORN BABY.

I hope this enough for you to run with - certainly, the crackerjack CNN research team available to you can fill in any speculative details or obscure leads of prurient interest. While it's doubtful that Latoyia's family can offer $100 reward, much less $1 million (as has Natalee's), I'm sure they'd still have an undying gratitude for any of your viewers who could turn up a lead on Latoyia.

Lastly, I note that ?Natalee Holloway? rates ?about 5600? Google News hits, while ?Latoyia Figueroa? rates two. Here's hoping your show and CNN's website can contribute another hit for Latoyia.

I look forward to watching the show!

Sincerely,

Richard

~A!

It may just be that what he depicts matches up with my own expectations, but I found the following, apparently a blog by a guy recently recalled to active military duty, a really interesting window into the reality of Iraq for the on-the-ground American military. site, including some interesting comments & responses,  is here

This is some of the coolest stuff I have ever seen. "The ultimate hippie vacation!" oh, man, I wish I had seen that sooner, I'd love to be in the bus with that guy.

Check out the ebay auction for "the ultimate hippie vacation". It kind of leaves you with that "is this real?" feeling.

~A!

Well, turns out no gay majority leader. That sucks, because there could have finally been some real progress in the GOP.

Raw Story is reporting that Dreier, previously thought a shoe-in for the post, is most likely being denied because... well, because he's gay.

It now seems Roy Blunt, of nobody-knows-who-the-hell-I-am fame, will now be taking over Delay's post.

With the stepping down of Delay, the GOP needs a new leader. Speaker Hastert thinks David Dreier is just the man for the job, and I couldn't agree more.

After all, to see the GOP stand up for gay rights is this way is the greatest acheivement we could have ever hoped for.

The AP is now reporting that "A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep.Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader."

A previous diary entry (Abramoff--Very Bush in the Worst Sense, 8/9) talked about the fact that an investigation of Jack Abramoff's work in Guam had been suspiciously killed by the Bush admin just before it got to the substance.  Today, the NY Times reports that there is a new investigation into the killing of the previous investigation. story here

It's notoriously difficult to predict where such an investigation might end up, but this one still seems to have the potential to reach the White House, given the tentacles that Abramoff had at the time.

Excerpts:
...
The Justice Department's inspector general and the F.B.I. are looking into the demotion of a veteran federal prosecutor whose reassignment nearly three years ago shut down a criminal investigation of the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, current and former department officials report.

They said investigators had questioned whether the demotion of the prosecutor, Frederick A. Black, in November 2002 was related to his alert to Justice Department officials days earlier that he was investigating Mr. Abramoff. The lobbyist is a major Republican Party fund-raiser and a close friend of several Congressional leaders.

Colleagues said the demotion of Mr. Black, the acting United States attorney in Guam, and a subsequent order barring him from pursuing public corruption cases brought an end to his inquiry into Mr. Abramoff's lobbying work for some Guam judges.

Colleagues of Mr. Black, who had run the federal prosecutor's office in Guam for 12 years, spoke on condition of anonymity because of Justice Department rules that bar employees from talking to reporters. They said F.B.I. agents questioned several people in Guam and Washington this summer about whether Mr. Abramoff or his friends in the Bush administration had pushed for Mr. Black's removal. Mr. Abramoff's internal e-mail messages show that he boasted to clients about what he described as his close ties to John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, and others at the department.

...
A spokesman for Mr. Abramoff said he had "no recollection of being investigated in Guam in 2002" but would have cooperated if he had been aware of any inquiry at the time. Mr. Abramoff had a lucrative lobbying practice on Guam and the neighboring Northern Mariana Islands, another American territory; his lobbying clients paid for luxurious trips to the islands for several members of Congress.

Justice Department officials said they knew of no evidence to suggest that Mr. Ashcroft was involved in the decision to reassign Mr. Black. A spokesman for Mr. Ashcroft said the former attorney general and his aides at the Justice Department had done nothing to assist Mr. Abramoff and his clients and had had no significant contact with him.

Reached in Guam, Mr. Black, who continues to work as an assistant United States attorney, declined to answer questions about his 2002 reassignment.

...
Colleagues said they recalled that Mr. Black was distressed when he was notified by the department in November 2002 that he was being replaced.

The announcement came only days after Mr. Black had notified the department's public integrity division in Washington, by telephone and e-mail communication, that he had opened a criminal investigation into Mr. Abramoff's lobbying activities for the Guam judges, the colleague said. The judges had sought Mr. Abramoff's help in blocking a bill in Congress to restructure the island's courts.

The colleagues said that Mr. Black was also surprised when his newly arrived bosses in Guam blocked him from involvement in public corruption cases in 2003. Justice Department officials said Mr. Black was asked instead to focus on terrorism investigations, which had taken on new emphasis after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Whatever the motivation in replacing Fred, his demotion meant that the investigation of Abramoff died," said a former colleague in Guam.

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