'Traditional Family' Didn't Work for Payton Ettinger

How often have we heard that children need a 'traditional family' -- meaning a mother and father. That certainly didn't work for Payton Ettinger.

[Courtney G.] Tressler called police May 17 to say she had found her son, Payton Wesley Ettinger, dead four hours after feeding him and putting him in his crib for a nap, authorities said. A pathologist's report found the boy had virtually no food in his stomach or intestines when he died.

The pathologist found that the boy suffered from "profound malnutrition," had no body fat and that the "skin on his face was drawn tightly against his skull and face bones with obvious emaciation," according to a probable charge affidavit against Tressler.

Investigators said the boy had not seen a doctor since Nov. 3, 2006, when he weighed 16 pounds, 5 ounces as a 1-year-old, according to the affidavit.

Tressler told officers she had intended to take her son to a doctor May 15 after noticing he had lost weight but had delayed the trip for financial reasons. But investigators said in the affidavit that she visited a doctor twice on May 19 for her own medical reasons.

Clearly the mother didn't have his best interests at heart. What about Payton's father?

Payton Ettinger was unable to speak, walk or control most of his physical movements due to brain damage suffered during abuse by his father, police said. The boy's father, Martin Ettinger, is serving a 5-year prison sentence in Michigan after pleading guilty to battering his son so badly the child was confined to a crib and required constant care.

The next time some uninformed person tells you that children need to be in 'traditional families' instead of with loving same-sex couples or single mothers, tell them it didn't work for Payton Ettinger.

Adam Walsh: May He Rest in Peace

In 1984 I had an opportunity to meet John Walsh, father of Adam Walsh who was murdered in 1981. His son's death was still very raw, and he talked about his fear for his family. We were at a fundraising event for the advocacy he was doing on behalf of missing children, hosted by the radio station I worked for at the time.

John Walsh turned his tragedy into a mission that has led him to change laws, helping children and their families nationwide.

Maybe now that his sons case has been closed, the torture he has felt for the past 27 years can be put to rest. The Associated Press reports:

A serial killer who died more than a decade ago is the person who decapitated the 6-year-old son of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh in 1981, police in Florida said Tuesday. The announcement brought to a close a case that has vexed the Walsh family for more than two decades, launched the television show about the nation's most notorious criminals and inspired changes in how authorities search for missing children.

"Who could take a 6-year-old and murder and decapitate him? Who?" an emotional John Walsh said at Tuesday's news conference. "We needed to know. We needed to know. And today we know. The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey's over." [...]

Police named Ottis Toole, saying he was long the prime suspect in the case and that they had conclusively linked him to the killing. They declined to be specific about their evidence and did not note any DNA proof of the crime, but said an extensive review of the case file pointed only to Toole, as John Walsh long contended.

"Our agency has devoted an inordinate amount of time seeking leads to other potential perpetrators rather than emphasizing Ottis Toole as our primary suspect," said Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner, who launched a fresh review of the case after taking over the department last year. "Ottis Toole has continued to be our only real suspect."

Toole had twice confessed to killing the child, but later recanted. He claimed responsibility for hundreds of murders, but police determined most of the confessions were lies. Toole's niece told the boy's father, John Walsh, her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he killed Adam.

Wagner acknowledged numerous missteps in the investigation and apologized to the Walshes.

Adam was last seen at a Hollywood, FL, mall on July 27, 1981. Two weeks later his severed head was discovered in a canal 120 miles away. His body was never recovered.

The police have acknowledged they made crucial errors in their handling of the case, and John Walsh has harshly criticized them. But today, he had this to say:

The Walshes, who appeared Tuesday flanked by their other children, long ago derided the investigation as botched. Still, John Walsh praised the Hollywood police department for closing the case.

"This is not to look back and point fingers, but it is to let it rest," he said.

Wishing John Walsh and his family peace this holiday season.

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Bush Explains SCHIP Veto

Bush’s veto lies

In case you missed it, here is Eugene Robinson’s excellent op-ed on Bush’s veto of the SCHIP bill.

To say that George W. Bush spends money like a drunken sailor is to insult every gin-soaked patron of every dockside dive in every dubious port of call. If Bush gets his way, the cost of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will soon reach a mind-blowing $600 billion. Despite turning a budget surplus into a huge deficit, the man still hasn’t met a tax cut he doesn’t like. And when the Republicans were in charge of Congress, Bush might as well have signed their pork-stuffed spending bills with a one-word rubber stamp: “Whatever.”

So for Bush to get religion on fiscal responsibility at this late date is, well, a joke. And for him to make his stand on a measure that would have provided health insurance to needy children is a punch line that hasn’t left many Republicans laughing.

Bush a Fiscal Conservative?

Who does Bush think he's kidding? No one should ever believe this president is fiscally responsible. He took a budget surplus and devolved it into the LARGEST DEFICIT IN US HISTORY.

He has flushed away more than half a trillion dollars in Iraq, yet he decides to draw a line in the sand when it comes to extending health care to children of 'working poor' families.

Even George Bush knows this was an embarrassing veto. How do I know that? Because all his other veto's were done with camera's flashing. This one took place in the shadows, behind closed doors -- where HE belongs.

Dan Froomkin writes:

The three previous times President Bush vetoed a bill, he did so in public.

In July 2006 and this past June, he surrounded himself with supportive anti-abortion activists who welcomed his veto of stem-cell legislation. In May, when he vetoed legislation that would have established a timeline for troop withdrawal from Iraq, he did so in a televised address that rallied his fellow Republicans.

But this morning's veto of a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance came behind closed doors, with no fanfare or visuals.

Who, after all, would have cheered him this time?

Exactly!

And hopefully this stupid move will translate to more Republicans sent packing in the 2008 election, since they are preventing an override vote.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll taken last week found that 72 percent of Americans supported the legislation. [...]

"With Democrats eager to tar the White House as insensitive to children, many observers think the President couldn't have picked a worse fight with which to prove his credentials. But regardless of the immediate political cost over a possible veto of SCHIP, these are fights the President welcomes in his last 16 months in office. After the largest expansion of government since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society four decades ago, he is bending over backward to show committed budget hawks that he is really one of them. Earlier this week the White House went so far as to say that the President was making a stand on SCHIP because it was a 'philosophic issue.'

Give me a break.

If Republicans were smart, they would tell this president "No Deal" and override this terribly mean-spirited veto.

Bush hates children

In commenting on the abysmal response of the federal government to hurricane Katrina, Kanya West said George Bush "hates Black people." Well, given what he has stated are his intentions regarding funding for children's heath insurance the same could be said -- George Bush "hates children."

The New York Times reports:

The White House said on Saturday that President Bush would veto a bipartisan plan to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, drafted over the last six months by senior members of the Senate Finance Committee.

The vow puts Mr. Bush at odds with the Democratic majority in Congress, with a substantial number of Republican lawmakers and with many governors of both parties, who want to expand the popular program to cover some of the nation’s eight million uninsured children.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said: “The president’s senior advisers will certainly recommend a veto of this proposal. And there is no question that the president would veto it.”

The program, which insured 7.4 million people at some time in the last year, is set to expire Sept. 30.

So why does the president intend to veto the bill? It can't be because we lack the money to pay for it ... we certainly have no problem finding trillions of dollars for an obscene war. Could it be that Bush is receiving some sort of kick-back from the tobacco industry, who would see increased taxes on cigarettes to help pay for the coverage? Taxing cigarettes seems like and EXCELLENT idea to me. Why not ask people to pay a luxury tax on an item they definitely don't "need."

Or, could it be that the bill failed to include kick-backs to one of the presidents OTHER favorite corporations -- the health insurance industry.

“The proposal would dramatically expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, adding nonpoor children to the program, and more than doubling the level of spending,” Mr. Fratto said. “This will have the effect of encouraging many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program.”

In addition, Mr. Fratto said, the Senate plan does not include any of Mr. Bush’s proposals to change the tax treatment of health insurance, in an effort to make it more affordable for millions of Americans.

God forbid that insurance companies lose even a fraction of the money they gouge from consumers every year. Anyone who believes, as the president seems to, that giving tax breaks to insurance companies will be an incentive for them to reduce the cost of health insurance is living in a dream land! Those greedy bas**** will simply pocket the money.