A seventy year old Utah woman was arrested for failing to give her name to an officer while he was writing a ticket to her for not watering her lawn!

When she turned to go inside to try to call her son or a lawyer the officer grabbed her and attempted to handcuff her. She then slipped and suffered scratches on her nose and arm.

She says she can’t afford to water her lawn and that sounds reasonable to me because she is probably on a fixed income and water doesn’t come cheap these days.

Failure to give your name for such a stupid ticket should not make you wind up in jail for an hour, especially if you are elderly.

This is an outrage and the officer should be fired for lack of common sense.

I hope she sues and wins enough money to water the entire city’s lawns for many years to come.

Today our granddaughter Kelsey turned nine years old. My husband and I sang “Happy Birthday” in off-key voices to her early this morning.

Kelsey was born early and tipped the scales at a bit under six pounds, and, we found out late on the night of her birth, had a serious problem with her stomach and had to have emergency surgery the next day.

I got to Florida, where they then lived, shortly after her birth. When I entered her mother’s room Kelsey was lying at the doorway waiting to be wheeled out by the nurse to what I thought was the nursery. It actually was to be NICU. She couldn’t hold down any food.

Because I thought there would be plenty of opportunities to hold her I resisted and instead talked to her in her bassinette, telling her how much Grandma loved her. She made tiny sounds.

What a head of hair that baby had!

The next days were pure hell for me as I watched this tiny little life lying in a bassinette with tubes going into every conceivable place and then some. I was unable to do anything but hold her hand and stroke her head. Of course I kissed her, and of course I prayed to God she would be OK. I can only begin to imagine how my son and daughter-in-law felt. Her IQ has since been tested and found to be 146.

They even tested her for Down’s Syndrome because she slept with her thumbs in a different position from most babies, and it was then that our son and I christened her “Special K”. Fortunately, her mother didn’t know what the reason was for the DNA tests, and I wasn’t sure my son did at first.

I wasn’t able to hold her until my next visit, which was when she was three months old.

Today she is an accomplished prize-winning figure skater, she is a prize-winning cheerleader for a youth football team, she does Tai Kwon Do, and is a beautiful, smart, and healthy nine year old.

Excuse me for the personal post, but I want to wish our second born granddaughter, and third born grandchild a very, very happy birthday today.

Wait until tomorrow.

Here’s an argument for a return to the kind of bipartisan foreign policy we had during WW II and the early Cold War years. Among their many points about what led to the collapse of bipartisanship, and what can be done, Charles Kupchan and Peter Trubowitz at Real Clear Politics say:

Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson once claimed that 80 percent of the job of foreign policy was “management of your domestic ability to have a policy.” He may have exaggerated, but he expressed an enduring truth: good policy requires good politics. Bringing ends and means back into balance would help restore the confidence of the American public in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. But implementing a strategic adjustment will require dampening polarization and building a stable consensus behind it. As Roosevelt demonstrated during World War II, sound leadership and tireless public diplomacy are prerequisites for fashioning bipartisan cooperation on foreign policy.

I’m not too sure about this. The extremities of WW II forced bipartisanship, as did the later bipolar world with its unprecedented “nuclear terror.” The Truman and Eisenhower era administrations worked hard, both openly and covertly, to convince Americans to be frightened of the Soviets and the “international communist conspiracy,” and this management of fear worked well enough to produce bipartisanship. The Bush administration is trying to push and manage fear of a “global network of terrorists,” but either its not working, or it’s too soon to tell.

It never ceases to amaze me how the same people that are outraged at the treatment of the fetus don’t seem to care about the children who have been born and are in need of health-care. I think we could at least give all children the same medical coverage that we give convicts in prison.
I guess the real care stops once a child is born and it ceases to be a political talking point or issue to raise money.
If you think that giving children health-care is going to mean rationing and price controls, please explain.

The fight over a popular health insurance program for children is intensifying, with President Bush now leading efforts to block a major expansion of the program, which is a top priority for Congressional Democrats.
The seemingly uncontroversial goal of insuring more children has become the focus of an ideological battle between the White House and Congress. The fight epitomizes fundamental disagreements over the future of the nation’s health care system and the role of government.

Democrats have proposed a major expansion of the program, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, to cover more youngsters with a substantial increase in federal spending.

Administration officials have denounced the Democratic proposal as a step toward government-run health care for all. They said it would speed the erosion of private insurance coverage. And they oppose two of the main ideas contemplated by Democrats to finance expanded coverage for children: an increase in the federal tobacco tax and cuts in Medicare payments to private insurance companies caring for the elderly.

White House objections to the Democratic plan are “philosophical and ideological,” said Allan B. Hubbard, assistant to the president for economic policy. In an interview, he said the Democrats’ proposal would move the nation toward “a single-payer health care system with rationing and price controls.”

Story

I’m so proud to live in a country where a smart strong woman can rise to the top and putting Dingell in his place just tickles the heck out of me.

In February, only a month after becoming speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi settled weeks of threats from Rep. John D. Dingell, her blustery Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, by putting in writing her assent to one of his big demands — Pelosi’s new Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming would not infringe on his power to write legislation as he saw fit.

Four months later, Dingell (D-Mich.) appeared in the speaker’s conference room to walk through a bill that would override California’s attempts to combat global warming by raising fuel efficiency standards, strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases and promote a controversial effort to turn coal into liquid fuel.

This time, Pelosi was in no mood to mollify Dingell. The bill he was sponsoring, she said, was unacceptable. The environmental costs would be too severe, the political costs for the Democratic caucus too high, she said.

The two episodes with Dingell illustrate Pelosi’s evolution from a somewhat tentative political figure reliant on a small circle of advisers to the undisputed leader of the House’s fractious Democratic majority.

“Nancy now represents the majority of this caucus, overwhelmingly,” said Barney Frank (Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

But if Pelosi has succeeded in uniting her party during her initial months as speaker, she and the rest of the leadership have yet to convince the nation that the Democrats can govern.

Pelosi, of California, has succeeded in getting all of her opening agenda through the House. But few of the initiatives have made it to the president, and only one has become law: an increase in the minimum wage.

The obstacle has been the Senate, where Democrats hold only a one-seat advantage. But that failure has colored all of Congress, including Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership

Story

I wonder if this guy will get a commutation? You never know.
This was probably overshadowed by Libby.

June 26, 2007
J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary at the Interior Department, has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and must pay a $30,000 fine after pleading guilty to obstructing a congressional inquiry into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

“In pleading guilty, Griles admitted that he knowingly and willfully lied and concealed material information from senators and Senate investigators about the unique relationship that he had with Abramoff immediately prior to and during his tenure as DOI Deputy Secretary,” according to a Department of Justice statement.

Abramoff and lobbyist Michael Scanlon have pleaded guilty to bilking two Indian tribes out of millions of dollars for their lobbying work.

The links between Griles and Abramoff focus on Italia Federici, the president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA). Abramoff had directed his tribal clients to donate as much as $250,000 to CREA to help the Interior Department with several projects and studies. It is unclear if those projects ever existed.

Story

Why are they so afraid to testify? If you have nothing to hide, do it and get it over with. It’s not going to go away.
Like a lot of people say about wiretaps. If you have nothing to hide, what is your problem.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he expects a former Bush aide to testify before Congress this week about the firings of federal prosecutors despite White House objections.

Sen. Patrick Leahy’s committee has subpoenaed Sara Taylor, a former White House political director, as part of its investigation into whether the Bush administration improperly ordered the U.S. attorneys dismissed. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Taylor’s lawyer said she is willing to talk but does not want to defy President Bush, who has rejected subpoenas for documents from Taylor and for her testimony. Lawyer W. Neil Eggleston said Taylor expects a letter from White House lawyer Fred Fielding directing her not to comply on the basis of executive privilege.

“In our view, it is unfair to Ms. Taylor that this constitutional struggle might be played out with her as the object of an unseemly tug of war,” Eggleston wrote House and Senate Judiciary committee leaders and Fielding over the weekend.

Story

I can certainly sympathize with these people, as they are complaining about the long campaign season we entered into right after the last election.

It is not unusual for Americans to profess irritation at campaigns that they say start too soon. But the sentiment this year appears notably different — and in some ways more complex — than in the past, reflecting the early start to the race, its intensity and, perhaps most of all, a sense in both parties that the country is ready to move beyond the Bush administration.

In interview after interview, voters said they felt overwhelmed by the battle for their attention: the speeches, the attacks, the unceasing news coverage of celebrity candidates, and a fund-raising free-for-all that many described as unseemly.

I’m not sure everyone who already has campaign fatigue feels the same about being excited about the election because it means the end of the Bush presidency, but I know I’m just fed up with all the campaigning 16 months before the general election and a primary season that began a full year before the first caucus or primary will be held.

I live in South Carolina, which is an early primary state, and even though I don’t watch local news much I’m already tired of the campaign.

Maybe it’s because I read so much about it in order to post about it. Maybe I should quit posting about it until something newsworthy happens.

If people are exposed to this day in and day out for almost two years I wonder if it will increase or decrease voters’ intentions to vote.

For people who are strongly interested in politics it will make no difference as they will vote anyway. For others, it may turn them away from the polling places while even others may be persuaded to vote.

Having candidates marching up and down Main Street U.S.A. and holding rallies in the town parks in July of the year preceding the election just doesn’t sound American to me.

Who was the first announced candidate? If anyone can remember who it is let’s put it in the comments and we’ll all pay him or her a visit to put a sock in his or her mouth until September of this year.

The less famous cousin of “Anonymous Sources”, named “Anonymous Officials” and another one named “Anonymous Senior Official” have told the New York Times there is an “ongoing discussion” in the White House as to strategy to stop more Republican senators from defecting from their support for the war in Iraq.

According to the “Anonymous” family, the discussion centers around when the president should announce a pullback of forces in the dangerous Baghdad area as part of the surge.

White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

Mr. Bush and his aides once thought they could wait to begin those discussions until after Sept. 15, when the top field commander and the new American ambassador to Baghdad are scheduled to report on the effectiveness of the troop increase that the president announced in January. But suddenly, some of Mr. Bush’s aides acknowledge, it appears that forces are combining against him just as the Senate prepares this week to begin what promises to be a contentious debate on the war’s future and financing.

Four more Republican senators have recently declared that they can no longer support Mr. Bush’s strategy, including senior lawmakers who until now had expressed their doubts only privately. As a result, some aides are now telling Mr. Bush that if he wants to forestall more defections, it would be wiser to announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for American troops that would allow for a staged pullback, a strategy that he rejected in December as a prescription for defeat when it was proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

I don’t know what the thinking is in high government and it gives me a headache just imagining what stress everyone has on him/her trying to figure out how to accomplish what they want to accomplish while knowing Congress is breathing down their necks for a withdrawal date.

I am not doubting the truthfulness of this story, but I just get tired of people in high places running their mouths off to newspaper reporters, but don’t want their names attached to the report. Such is life in Washington DC.

We’ll see what we’ll see.