I Don’t Hate America!

I ran across this video and couldn’t help but share.

Conventional wisdom would say that Ron Paul would win an award for “Most Desperate Candidate” considering the lengths his supporters go to suck up every millisecond of attention possible.

Today however video from Veracifier shows Paul being upstaged by Duncan Hunter, interupting MSNBC programming to let everyone know he got a single delegate in Wyoming.

Get the stage ready for him in St. Paul this fall!

Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kline has arrived in Iraq for the fifth time since the war started.  From the Star Tribune’s Kevin Diaz:

WASHINGTON - Minnesota Republican John Kline, one of the strongest congressional supporters of the U.S. war effort, arrived in Iraq Friday, beginning his fifth visit since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The trip, coming as Congress debates the future of U.S. troop deployments in Iraq, will also include a stop in Afghanistan. Kline is part of a congressional delegation made up of three Republicans and three Democrats. The group is being led by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii.

In an interview before he left Washington, Kline said he was encouraged by reports of progress given to Congress last week by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. But, he added, he wanted to see the latest conditions for himself.

“I’d like to see with my own eyes what progress has been made — or the lack of progress,” he said.

Kline, a retired Marine colonel, said he’s particularly interested in assessing the morale of U.S. troops, which is critical to military reenlistment rates. “I want to know what the soldiers and Marines feel about their mission,” he said.

He also said it will be important to meet with regional Iraqi leaders to assess the prospects of national reconciliation for the central Iraqi government.

Almost unwavering from George W. Bush’s Iraq policy.  “The surge is clearly working,” is what Kline will likely say upon returning.  Or if that quote has a “but” following it, his visit might bring back evidence of how salvageable things really are over there.

Meanwhile, anger is growing among Republicans, specifically House Armed Services Committee members Kline and ranking member Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California) and the amount of corruption surrounding military contracts in Iraq.  The investigated contracts in these situations alone ring to the tune of $6 billion for “essential supplies” and $88 billion for body armor.  Some of the story from the New York Times:

Representatives from both parties pummeled the panel with angry questions and comments, assailing the Pentagon for having failed to overhaul the procurement system more than two years after Congress had identified serious problems in defense contracting and passed legislation aimed at helping the Pentagon correct them.

Someone refresh my memory: how much were those cases of Coca Cola being sold for?

The lawmakers also challenged assertions by the Pentagon officials that the corruption being uncovered was the work of a few isolated individuals. Several committee members suggested that the abuses were far more systemic.

“The problems were so severe that I fear they could represent a culture of corruption,” said Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri, the chairman of the committee. “I am extremely disappointed to learn that so many individuals violated their integrity and undermined the oaths they made to this country.”

Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and retired Marine colonel, said he was “doubly, triply, quadruply appalled” at the “clear breakdown in leadership” that allowed some Army contracting officers to corrupt the procurement system. He said it was inexcusable that it took so long for the Army to put adequate checks in place.

Pentagon officials did not dispute the seriousness of the problems. However, they took issue with lawmakers’ characterizations of their scope. “I think it’s isolated incidents,” said Thomas F. Gimble, the principal deputy Pentagon inspector general. “The real issue is a lack of control, a lack of integrity and lots of opportunity and lots of money.”

With the no-bid contracts over in Iraq, isn’t it inexcusable of Kline to take so long to start an accountability process?

As of Sept. 12, the Army reported that it had 78 cases of fraud and corruption under investigation, had obtained 20 criminal indictments, and had uncovered over $15 million in bribes.

Lawmakers scolded the Pentagon for just recently ordering the creation of a special contracting corps of experienced procurement specialists — authorized in the legislation two years ago — to bolster purchasing teams in the most active combat zones, and to report directly to a regional military commander.

“That it’s taken two years to do this is an indication of a system that’s quite slow,” said Representative Duncan Hunter of California, the senior Republican on the committee. “That’s half the time it took to win World War II.”