Daniel Cody - “Left on the Lake”

One final update to the story of Mitch Laputka and Rachel Anderson that I’ve following since last September. Original story here and a follow up here.
You may recall they were arrested for neglecting their toddler son by strapping himin a stroller for hours on end while they went out and “partied”. That resulted in the body of the toddler being covered with diaper rash, his body temperature was 12 degrees below normal and he stopped breathing, requiring 21 minutes of CPR to revive him when rescue personnel arrived.

Today, they were sentenced in Milwaukee County Court.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Jeff Wagner sent the mother, Rachel C. Anderson (21), to prison for three years and the father, Mitch Laputka (also 21) to prison for five years.

He also gave Anderson nine years of extended supervision and Laputka five years, ordering both to get a parole agent’s supervision for any visits with their child during the sentences.

I think the concern I and others had about the possibility of a light sentence has been addressed. Three and five years in state prison is a serious punishment, and even with good behavior, they’re both (rightfully) looking at doing a serious time.

Hopefully the child can get into a good foster or adoptive home and lead a much more fulfilling and moral life than either of his parents.

Well I have to admit I’ll miss having Rudy Giuliani on the Republican side of the race for President. I guess those campaign commercials with him in drag and talking up his pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-gun agenda will have to be shelved for the time being. All he can hope for now is a McCain victory and an appointment to the Cabinet where he can philander on the dime of all Americans instead of just residents of New York City.

Get ready for the McCain/Huckabee ticket conservatives! Liberals, get ready to watch right-wing talk show hosts gag on their own vitriol over the prospect of this happening.

I know that there are always ups and downs in the market, but how’s that plan to put our social security eggs in the baskets of companies like Merrill Lynch and Citibank like President Bush wanted look on days like today?

…or for that matter, the County’s public pension system?

The Journal Sentinel has an article in this morning’s paper about the candidates running for Milwaukee County Supervisor in the 15th district.

It’s encouraging to see the paper showing an active interest in the local races for office this spring at an early stage like this.

Daniel Cody says De Bruin has become too conservative for the 15th District on Milwaukee’s west side. Cody, a county Democratic Party official, said he’d be more vigorous. He favors “reinvesting in the parks system and revitalizing transit.” Cody said he might favor a sales tax increase for parks and transit if it also resulted in lower property taxes.

Just a quick thought about last night’s Republican primary in Michigan:

If only Mitt Romney’s father was a former Governor in the rest of the states that will decide the Republican nominee, he’d be in luck.

It seems you can’t open up a paper anymore without hearing about how “successful the surge” is in Iraq.

A year ago, the President outlined the goals of the surge:

“So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation’s political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq’s constitution.” - GWB, Jan 10, 2007

It’s now a year later and nearly 1,000 U.S. service personal have lost their lives since that speech. Has anything the President outlined a year ago actually happened?

I’ve gotten word that the campaign of Scott Walker will try to smear Lena Taylor’s campaign through one of Walkers most reliable water carriers, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in tomorrows edition of the paper.

Stay tuned.

Thank God this man won’t be our next President. If you have to fall back to ridiculous scare tactics like this in a vain attempt to reverse the downward spiral of your campaign for President, it’s beyond desperation time.

What’s the message here? Vote Rudy or die? And how is anyone supposed to get to the polls if they’re too frightened to crawl out from under their beds to vote?