Alaska State Legislator's Indicted and Arrested

  More Republicans come under the guns of the F.B.I. as two were snagged up in Alaska today.

Anchorage Daily News has the complete rundown.

Former Alaska state legislators Pete Kott and Bruce Weyhrauch have been indicted by a federal grand jury on several counts of extortion, bribery, wire fraud and mail fraud.

Kott was arrested at home in Juneau around 9 a.m. Friday, a spokesman for the FBI said. Weyhrauch was arrested later in the morning.

FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez would not say if additional arrests are coming. “It’s a continuing investigation,” he said.

Some of the charges against Kott and Weyhrauch involve the Legislature’s consideration last year of a natural gas pipeline and a petroleum production tax proposed by former Gov. Frank Murkowski. Kott, a former House speaker from Eagle River, is accused of seeking and accepting bribes to push positions favored by executives of a company that is not named in the indictment. Weyhrauch traded votes for the promise of a job, according to the charges.

   Things are just peachy for the Republican party these days! This current administration and its side-kicks are apparently going for the all-time record for corruption and criminal activities as the list gets longer almost everyday.

Tags: Alaska legislators Pete Kott Bruce Weyhrauch corruption

Support Our Troops At Home

Save The Troops.

by georgia10    Daily Kos   

 Fri May 04, 2007

What no war-cheerleading Republican dare address:

WASHINGTON - The military is putting already-strained troops at greater risk of mental health problems because of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pentagon panel said Thursday in warning of an overburdened health system.

Issuing an urgent warning, the Defense Department's Task Force on Mental Health chaired by Navy Surgeon General Donald Arthur said more than one-third of troops and veterans currently suffer from problems such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

With an escalating Iraq war, those numbers are expected to worsen, and current staffing and money for military health care won't be able to meet the need, the group said in a preliminary report released Thursday. [...]

The task force found 38 percent of Soldiers and 31 percent of Marines report psychological concerns such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from deployment.

Among members of the National Guard, the figure is much higher - 49 percent - with numbers expected to grow because of repeated deployments.

You cannot support this war and "support the troops," whatever that hollowed-out, abused phrase means anymore.

Congress has an obligation to save the troops from a president blinded by ego. It must bring them home.  It must begin the long process of fighting that other aftermath of this war which is  silently being fought by these brave men and women right here, on American soil.

It must bring them home. And help them heal.

Tags: Iraq troops health care mental health