Bush Gives Purple Heart to Oklahoma Soldier
President Bush visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington today and awarded the Purple Heart to Sgt. 1st Class Andy Allen, from Elk City. A picture of Bush and Allen can be seen here.
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
Telling the Next of Kin
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have greatly increased the work of small units in the military services with very challenging duties _ notifying the next of kin about the death of a soldier.
At a House Armed Services subcommitee hearing this week, military officials who oversee the notification process told lawmakers that they strive to give as much information as possible as soon as possible about a soldier’s death and help family members through the painful next steps.
For the U.S. Army, which has sustained the most casualties since the wars began, casualty notification officers and casualty assistance officers are trained prior to the duty. Chaplains now participate in about three-fourths of the notifications.
The notification process has received some scrutiny since the 2004 death of U.S. Army Corp. Pat Tillman, the former NFL star who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Tillman’s family was first told that he died in an ambush, and a lengthy investigation was conducted to find out why the family was given erroneous information.
The Army has since taken several steps to avoid such missteps, including a requirement that all hostile deaths be investigated. And, when friendly fire is suspected, families must be told that the death is under investigation.
Brigadier Gen. Reuben D. Jones, adjutant general of the Army, told the subcommittee last week that, since Tillman’s death, the Army had conducted over 2,100 official casualty notifications. Of those, 16 were reported as possibly caused by friendly fire and later confirmed. Another 15 were initially reported as deaths by hostile fire but later corrected when officials learned that friendly fire was the possible cause.
“The Army’s goal is to be open and honest with the families of our fallen soldiers, to care for their well-being and to keep them informed of developments or changed circumstances,” Jones told the lawmakers. “We owe them nothing less.”
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
Ardmore Artist’s Work in U.S. Capitol
The U.S. Capitol has a lot of great artwork _ huge paintings depicting some of the most famous events in U.S. history, busts and statues of famous Americans and some of the flourishes in the House and Senate chambers _ some of it done by famous artists.
Down in the tunnel connecting the Capitol to House office buildings _ an essential passageway on hot, humid days like we’ve been experiencing here _ there is also some eyecatching artwork, this done by amateurs.
It is a display of student art from around the country, chosen each year to decorate the long wall in the tunnel.
This week, the most recent student winners of the Congressional Art Competition came to Washington to participate in the annual ribbon-cutting ceremony and reception, according to Rep. Tom Cole’s office.
Cole, R-Moore, congratulated a constituent of his, Alexa Healey, of Ardmore, whose picture of tennis shoes, called “Chucks,” will hang in the tunnel. The picture was chosen by a panel of judges in Norman.
“Oklahoma students are full of talent and dedication and it is an honor to serve them in Congress,” Cole said. “I am happy that Alexa and her family were able to make the trip to Washington to see her artwork showcased in the Capitol building. This is truly an accomplishment.”
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
Cherokees and Judiciary
The House bill introduced last week to sever relations with the Cherokee Nation over the freedman controversy has been assigned to two committees: the Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over Indian issues; and the Judiciary Committee, which deals generally with judicial and constitutional matters.
Members typically don’t want their bills double-assigned since it slows them down and makes them more vulnerable to major changes.
But in this case, getting the bill, HR 2824, assigned to the Judiciary Committee was actually part of Rep. Diane Watson’s strategy, according to one of her aides.
Though it won’t help the bill get passed _ and there is probably little chance that the bill would even clear the House, much less the Senate _ it greatly increases the chances of getting a public hearing to allow opponents of the Cherokee vote to air their concerns.
The Cherokee Nation voted in March to exclude from membership the descendants of freed black slaves who have no Indian blood. The tribe has temporarily suspended the policy as it undergoes legal and administrative reviews.
But Watson, D-California, said the policy clearly violates the post-Civil War treaty signed by the Cherokees, which owned slaves, with the United States to make freedmen members of the tribe.
Watson’s bill would cut off all federal funds to the Cherokees and suspend their authority to conduct gaming until all freedmen were restored full membership.
But she also included language that would allow freedmen to sue the Cherokees in federal court. As a sovereign nation, the Cherokees generally have to consent to be sued. The lawsuit provisions helped get the bill assigned to the Judiciary Committee.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is African-American, as are some of the most senior members. Watson is also African-American.
Conyers authored a bill earlier this year that would allow victims and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa race riots to sue the city and state for damages. A Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on that bill in April.
Conyers is co-sponsoring Watson’s legislation on the Cherokees.
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
Coburn Coming Back
Sen. Tom Coburn is expected to return to Washington today after a week of rest and recovery from surgery to remove a benign tumor in his pituitary gland.
Coburn, R-Muskogee, had the surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota on June 13th, then went back to Muskogee to recover.
Aaron Cooper, a Coburn spokesman, said the 59-year-old senator is doing “great.”
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
Boxer’s Gift to Inhofe
Sen. Barbara Boxer gave her good friend Sen. Jim Inhofe a gift on Thursday before commencing a hearing on global warming _ an issue that has divided the two lawmakers for years.
Boxer, a California Democrat, presented Inhofe, R-Tulsa, with a little stuffed polar bear (it looked like a Beanie Baby from the press seats).
The polar bear, of course, is considered to be in some danger of extinction this century because of global warming and the melting ice of its habitat.
Inhofe, perhaps the country’s best known global warming skeptic told Boxer, “In the last 50 years, the polar bear population has doubled.”
“I knew you’d use that as an opportunity to state your views on the polar bear,” Boxer replied.
Boxer, who replaced Inhofe as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee when Democrats won control of the Senate, said Inhofe had given her a gift earlier this year _ a global warming coffee mug that shows a map of the world.
When filled with hot coffee, “the coasts disappear,” Boxer said.
Inhofe described his gift as “useful.”
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
A Wounded Hero and Hero Miles
Paul Vincent is returning to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Thursday to see his son, Shane, of Sapulpa, who was severely wounded by an IED explosion outside Baghdad last month.
Shane’s back is broken and he suffered numerous other injuries after the 1,000-pound bomb exploded under the rear of the Humvee he was driving. The explosion killed another man in the vehicle, while a third was relatively unharmed.
Shane, 22, has been at Walter Reed since the Memorial Day weekend, undergoing a series of surgeries. Paul Vincent said his son does have feeling in his legs. He is talking, his father said, though he is under heavy sedation and not entirely lucid.
Shane’s wife and mother have been with him since he was sent here. Paul Vincent had nothing but praise for Walter Reed’s medical staff and for the accommodations made for the family.
Many families face serious financial problems in traveling here and staying with their wounded children and spouses.
One of the programs that’s helping _ and that Paul Vincent is benefiting from this week _ provides air travel for families using frequent flyer miles donated by people.
That program is called Operation Hero Miles and information about it is available here.
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
What the Audits Show
The Federal Election Commission has posted a copy of the audit done on the 2003-2004 reelection campaign of former U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, a Republican.
The audit is available here.
Readers can make up their own minds about some of Istook’s expenses that the FEC determined to be personal, rather than campaign-related.
For instance, Istook said he accidentally used his campaign credit card for some expenses that were clearly not for the campaign, including jewelry and groceries. Which raises the questions: How many times can that mistake happen and, if it did happen, why wasn’t it caught by Istook or the campaign before the FEC had to step in?
But it’s the totality of the problems found by the FEC that is _ truly _ extraordinary, particularly for someone who had been in Congress for so long (his first race was in 1992). The FEC sends letters to hundreds of campaigns noting problems with their reports on donations and expenditures, giving campaigns the chance to correct them. But audits are highly unusual.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, was running for the Senate for the first time in 2004, but he had been in the House for six years and, presumably, knew something about the obligations for reporting donations.
But his 2004 campaign finance reporting was also a mess and the FEC audited it as well. The results of his audit are available here.
The most glaring findings in the Coburn audit are those involving a lack of reporting; that is, the Coburn campaign didn’t supply the necessary information about the people giving him money or even that money was donated, at least under the legal deadlines.
More than $350,000 in donations that rolled in during the last days before the election were supposed to be reported immediately. They weren’t. And the transparency that is an important objective of campaign finance laws wasn’t provided.
Coburn’s campaign was fined about $31,000 for his problems. It’s not clear yet how much, if anything, Istook will be fined.
Candidates generally have staff, using software specifically designed for FEC forms, fill out the campaign reports. And that was the case with Istook and Coburn.
Both have accepted responsibility for the mistakes, acknowledging that the buck stops with them.
Coburn had inexperienced people performing crucial functions on his campaign, and he paid for it. Istook’s people had been around for previous elections cycles, including his former campaign manager, Kyle Loveless. According to the audit, Loveless also had to reimburse the campaign for expenses that were deemed to be personal.
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
Scooter and Stipe
Three years ago, former Oklahoma state Senator Gene Stipe stood in the same courthouse in Washington as Scooter Libby did on Tuesday, facing sentencing for similar federal offenses.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, got 30 months in prison. Stipe got no prison time.
The crux of the case against both was that they lied and obstructed a federal investigation into wrongdoing.
Stipe lied to the Federal Election Commission regarding his schemes to funnel illegal money into a 1998 congressional campaign. He was charged with perjury, conspiracy to obstruct an investigation and conspiracy to violate federal election laws. Stipe ultimately pleaded guilty to the charges.
Libby lied to a grand jury and the FBI during an investigation of the leak of the name of former CIA agent Valerie Plame. His case went to a jury and he was convicted of obstructing justice, perjury and lying to the FBI.
Both cases were prosecuted by the Justice Department and heard by U.S. District Court judges in the courthouse a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. In both cases, prosecutors sought jail time.
The judges in both cases received letters from prominent people vouching for them. In Libby’s case, it was people like former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Stipe got letters from people like University of Oklahoma President David Boren and Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole.
Stipe could have been sentenced to one year in prison, but U.S. District Judge James Robertson said he had to consider Stipe’s age _ he was 77 when he was sentenced in 2004 _ and his health and the fact that the case took so long to finish (it started in 1998 but, because Stipe and his associates lied, it took awhile to discern the truth).
“I’m not going to send Mr. Stipe to prison,” Robertson said then. “It makes no sense to me as a matter of deterrent. It makes no sense to me as a matter of public policy.”
But, in sentencing Libby, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton saw prison time as the right punishment for someone who was so involved in public policy and obstructed the judicial process.
According to the Associated Press, Walton said Tuesday, “People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem.”
Stipe was probably lucky he didn’t have Walton for a judge.
However, Stipe’s luck may have run out. According to a stories by Oklahoman reporter Anthony Thornton, Stipe’s alleged involvement in a number of improper activities since his sentencing could mean his probation is revoked and another sentence is handed down, this time in federal court in Muskogee.
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
More on Passports
Members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation have been dealing with hundreds of constituents whose passport applications have been delayed by the backlog created by new requirements for traveling by air to Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Jim Luetkemeyer, press secretary for Rep. Frank Lucas, passed on this information, which may help some people, though caution is urged.
A member of Lucas’ staff attended a conference recently in San Diego, where the passport issue came up, and she learned that people whose passports have been delayed can board flights if they have documentation (such as a receipt for a passport fee) showing they tried to obtain a passport.
Luetkemeyer provided a link to a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol web page that seems to confirm that. It says in part:
“Although the requirement is now in effect for all international air travelers to have a passport for travel into and out of the U.S., we are aware that some travelers have not been able to obtain passports because of delayed processing times in both Canada and the U.S. CBP has informed airlines that travelers with sufficient documentation to provide evidence of a good faith effort to obtain a passport in a timely fashion, (i.e. a receipt from an issuing agency) can be brought to the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda, where we will determine their admissibility on a case by case basis.
“Only travelers who have made an effort to obtain passports in a timely fashion should contact airlines about being allowed to board under these guidelines. Travelers who have been negligent in obtaining required documents should not expect to be accomodated. Travelers to and from other destinations previously requiring a passport for travel are not eligible for this accomodation.”
To see the advisory, you can go to www.cbp.gov, then click on the Travel bar at the top, then go to the question about whether you need a passport to travel within the western hemisphere.
According to congressional staff members, there are a lot of frantic people in the state whose long-planned trips have been affected by the new policy and the problems with getting passports processed.
Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
