Congressional and Governmental Tidbits

One of the first things the House of Representatives accomplished during its opening session was to make all future donations to presidential libraries publicly disclosed, along with another bill that would make it more difficult for former presidents to prevent documents from entering the public domain. In a bipartisan feeling, this could be aimed at both President Clinton and President Bush.

A Pentagon advisory group is releasing a report criticizing the way the Defense Department has not been keeping track of its nuclear weapons and related materials. This comes after a series of embarrassing events similar to Where's Waldo? involving the Air Force and some nuclear missiles.

The Department of Defense was instructed by Congress back in December of 2007 to revamp their appeals process for wounded vets who disagreed with their initial disability rating. A year and some change later they still haven't gotten around to creating a three member board to hear the appeals. Thousands of Iraqi and Afghani war vets have received inexplicably low disability ratings that affect a monthly paycheck.

And the US Army sent out 7,000 letters to families of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan with the salutation "Dear John Doe." Way to show sensitivity and support...

The Center for Disease Control, those friends who mailed to us the anthrax virus, is reporting that the teenage pregnancy rate has increased for the first time in 15 years. I guess Bristol Palin has become a role model...