Bush Budget Screws Troops

“It's clearly a budget.
It's got a lot of numbers in it.”
-G.W. Bush, 5/5/2000

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans' health care two years from now — even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.

After an increase sought for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly (by more than 10 percent in recent years) White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.

The proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends — its medical care budget has risen every year for two decades and 83 percent in the six years since Bush took office — sowing suspicion that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better.


(That's right - George proposes to balance the budget on the backs of the wounded troops that he sent off to war. But come on, his hands are tied. He can hardly repeal those massive tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans now, can he?) - DU

"Money trumps peace"

"Let's put it this way, money trumps peace, sometimes."
- George W. Bush
press conference - February 14, 2007






Uh yeah, well... OK then, as long as it's only, like, sometimes, and not, you know, like, all the time.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a man of principle as Preznit, rather than this spineless babbling imbecile?

Bush proclaims his legacy: "Compassionate Conservatism"

"I made a name by being compassionate."
- G. W. Bush

Key accomplishments in this area: a pilot program that houses 141 homeless veterans in Chicago, an extended web-based service referral system, and centers for faith-based and community initiatives that hosted 110 grant-writing workshops around the country.
- www.whitehouse.gov




(3,125 U.S. troops (and 60,000 Iraqi civilians) not available for comment.)

A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. In psychiatry, the definition is necessarily more precise and implies that the belief is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process).

Delusions typically occur in the context of neurological or mental illness, although they are not tied to any particular disease and have been found to occur in the context of many pathological states (both physical and mental). However, they are of particular diagnostic importance in psychotic disorders and particularly in schizophrenia.

- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bush asks for more reconstruction funds

Up to $12 billion dollars is missing in Baghdad.

The Federal Reserve Bank loaded pallets of cash onto giant transport planes, mostly $100 bills wrapped up in bricks, and flew them to Iraq.




"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?" asked Representative Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House of Representatives committee on oversight and government reform.

Indeed, who?

One chunk of the money -- $1.4 billion - was deposited into a local bank by Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq but could be tracked no further. The auditors reported that they were shown a deposit slip but could find no additional record to explain how the money was used or to prove that it remains in the bank.

News of the missing billions comes as the U.S. State Department's senior adviser on Iraq, David Satterfield, outlined the Bush administration's new plans at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. President Bush is requesting $1.2 billion in additional funding for Iraq reconstruction.

The GOP response to the House inquiry regarding the missing billion$ was immediate.

"We are in a war against terrorists; to have a blame meeting isn't, in my opinion, constructive," said Representative Dan Burton (R-Indiana)

(You tell 'em, Congressman Burton! Don't let those damn-dirty-dems audit the books! That would just encourage the terrorists! And congratulations on that 12 handicap!)

What Did Bush Know, and When Did He Know It?

Bush and Cheney Must Come Clean
















by Joe Conason

At long last, the fog of mystification generated by the Bush administration and the Washington media is lifting, so that everyone can see clearly why I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby is on trial and why his prosecution is important. Whether the jury eventually finds the former White House aide innocent or guilty of perjury, the evidence shows that his bosses George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have misled the public from the very beginning about the vengeful leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson’s C.I.A. identity.

The question that now hangs over the President and the Vice President is whether they lied to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald—the same crime for which their fall guy Scooter now faces possible imprisonment and disgrace. According to published reports, the special counsel interviewed both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney during the summer of 2004. The only way for them to dispel the suspicion that they may have lied to him is to permit full disclosure of those interviews.

Doubts about the candor of Messrs. Bush and Cheney date all the way back to September 2003, before the appointment of the special counsel, when the President supposedly declared his sincere determination to “get to the bottom of this.”

By “this,” he meant the apparent conspiracy among administration officials to reveal that Ms. Wilson was an undercover C.I.A. officer in an effort to discredit her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. A former U.S. ambassador and national-security official, Mr. Wilson had incurred the wrath of the Bush White House by revealing what he knew about the dubious justifications for the invasion of Iraq.

“There’s been nothing—absolutely nothing—brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement,” said Scott McClellan, then the Presidential press secretary, in attempting to cover Karl Rove and the rest of the White House staff with a blanket exoneration.

We have long since learned otherwise. We know, for instance, that Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby and former Presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer were all involved in leaking Ms. Wilson’s identity to the media. We also know that Mr. Libby, by his own testimony, learned about her C.I.A. identity from the Vice President. They had hoped to discredit Mr. Wilson by hinting at nepotism in his C.I.A.-sponsored trip to Niger to gather information about alleged uranium trading with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. (Actually, he undertook the difficult journey to that unprepossessing nation as a public service, without pay.) In short, we know that top officials in the Bush White House were behind the campaign to discredit the Wilsons.

Where does that leave the President and the Vice President? Over the past several days, the outlines of Mr. Cheney’s role in the nasty attack on the Wilsons and the subsequent cover-up have become increasingly plain. He not only oversaw the activities of his chief of staff, but went so far as to order Mr. McClellan to “clear” Mr. Libby in a press briefing.

That incident came up during the testimony of David Addington, who now holds Mr. Libby’s old job as Vice Presidential chief of staff and was formerly counsel to the Vice President. The defense brought into evidence a note written by Mr. Cheney himself, explaining why he insisted that the White House press staff defend Mr. Libby just as vigorously as Mr. Rove, whom the Vice President seems to have blamed for the exposure of the conspiracy.

The angry note said, “not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.” Although Mr. Cheney had crossed out the words “this Pres.” and replaced them with the phrase “that was,” the reference to Mr. Bush remains perfectly legible—and deeply incriminating.

According to published reports, the special prosecutor conducted interviews of the President and the Vice President during the summer of 2004. Those reports indicate that Mr. Bush, accompanied by private counsel, wasn’t placed under oath during his interview. But even if neither he nor Mr. Cheney was sworn during those encounters, that wouldn’t excuse them from telling the truth. To do otherwise would expose them to prosecution for making false statements to federal investigators—a felony—as well as possible counts of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

Did the President ask Mr. Libby to take the fall for others in the White House? Did the President know the extent of the Vice President’s involvement in the effort to ruin the Wilsons? When did he learn what Messrs. Cheney, Libby, Rove and Fleischer had done to advance that scheme?

Most important, did Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney tell the truth when Mr. Fitzgerald and his investigators interrogated them about those issues? That is the inescapable question at the bottom of this case—and sooner or later, the Congress and the press must demand answers.

Insane President sez: "More Guns, Less Butter!"

President Bush said on Saturday that his upcoming budget proposal would emphasize restraint on domestic spending while putting defense and war costs for Iraq and Afghanistan as the top priority.

The Pentagon budget, including a detailed request for war funding in 2008, will hit $623 billion, according to a senior Defense official. That total includes $481 billion for the military's normal annual budget, a 10% increase over this year's spending.

At the same time, Bush will ask for substantial cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, the government's main healthcare programs.

The current United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next fourteen biggest spenders combined, and nearly seven times larger than the official budget of second-place spender China.





















Meanwhile, Forty-seven million Americans are without health insurance, dependent on the emergency room, or getting no care at all, and millions of older Americans are confronting a break in their Medicare drug coverage that will require them to pay the full cost of their prescriptions or face the painful prospect of going without.

"Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat," said a Whitehouse spokesperson. "We can do without butter, but despite all our love of peace, not without arms."

Impeach, Impeach, Impeach

"Imagine if Roosevelt had lied about who attacked us at Pearl Harbor and brought us to war with China instead of Japan. Would that not be an impeachable offense?"




one of these things is not like the others.
one of these things is not the same.

Every single day the US puts out another statement about how Iran is helping in attacks against US troops in Iraq. This is nothing but complete lies. The same type of lies we heard before the Iraq War. The Iranians support the Shiites in Iraq. The insurgents laying down the IEDs against our troops and that are doing a great majority of the attacks against us are - Sunnis!

The Iranians would never support the Sunnis. The Shiite militias are mainly killing Sunnis now, not US troops. This is so obvious, but unfortunately these new set of lies are challenged by so few people, just like in the lead up to the Iraq War. People are more skeptical now, but not nearly skeptical enough as the war machine revs up again.

The LA Times at least has written an excellent piece explaining why these charges against Iran are lies. The Bush administration also warns of Iranian WMD, when every expert in the field says they wouldn't even have the capacity for a nuclear weapon another five to ten years. Gee, where have I heard lies about WMD before?

The lies that this administration clearly told about Iraq is more than enough to impeach the president and the vice president. They purposely lied during the State of the Union speech, they lied that they knew where the weapons of mass destruction were and they lied that they were certain that Saddam had them. Certain! Really, then where are they?!

They repeatedly insinuated and outright claimed that Iraq was complicit in the attacks against us on 9/11. That is a grotesque lie. Imagine if Roosevelt had lied about who attacked us at Pearl Harbor and brought us to war with China instead of Japan. Would that not be an impeachable offense?

If you insist on a violation of law for impeachment, not just gross violation of the public trust, then the Bush administration can accommodate you there as well. They brag about how they have been in violation of a federal law for five years now. They broke the FISA law - and they admit it. Mission accomplished. Bush and Cheney are felons according to the law. Will you impeach them already?

Why do I care so much to impeach these guys? Because, unlike conventional wisdom, I don't think we are going to be able to run out the clock on them. They are going to do something even more hideous before the next two years are up. Every week, Michael Hirsh from Newsweek comes on our show and tells us we have no choice but to hold our nose for two years and wait out this administration.

But that's not true. If our legislators were truly courageous, they would have a choice. That choice is impeachment. It is completely warranted and completely necessary.

Look, for me this is not a political thing. I don't give a damn which party is in power, as long as they do reasonable things. I thought George H. W. Bush was an excellent foreign policy president. I voted against Bill Clinton twice, but came to regret it because I thought he also did an excellent job in foreign policy.

I thought the Clinton impeachment proceedings were hideous and ridiculous. It is part of what drove me away from the Republican Party. But this is not the same. This is clearly not some sort of silly political vendetta; this is a matter of grave national importance. If you can't see the difference there, you are being willfully ignorant to the facts.

Most likely, my warnings here and the warnings of many others will be disregarded. We will be branded as the extremists, as the real extremists prepare for another horrible war. As the real extremists continue to trample upon our constitution (it makes my blood boil every time I think about the Military Commissions Act and how twelve unprincipled, pathetically weak Democratic Senators and every so-called moderate Republican, like Chuck Hagel, voted for that atrocity). As the real extremists continue to break the law and spy on American citizens without court orders. As the real extremists ignore Congress altogether with their so-called signing statements and authorize torture.

And all of this we might be able to bear, as we have gotten used to the lawlessness and the grotesqueries of this administration. But if they start another war with Iran, they will take all of this to another level. And then we, the alarmists, will be proven right - once again. And for our correct assessment, we will, once again, be ignored and marginalized.

Then in 2008 when the Republicans are run out of town en masse and the party is nearly finished historically, people will say, "Why didn't someone warn us?" Well, I'm warning you now. Impeachment isn't for the sake of the Democrats. They stand to gain nearly universal power if this administration actually starts a disastrous war with Iran. Nobody will vote for a Republican on the national level for another twenty years.

It's the Republicans who have to realize that this administration threatens their very existence. A war with Iran? Gas prices at ten dollars a gallon, bombings all over the world, our troops trapped in the Middle East, trillions wasted. How on God's green earth do you think you're going to recover from that?

There are only two possible answers. No, the war with Iran will go great. If you think that, you are so irrational that talking to you is a waste of time anyway. Or no, Bush and Cheney aren't that crazy. Do you really want to take your chances on that? Every single thing they have done so far indicates they are that crazy! And that's what you're betting your whole party on? That Dick Cheney and George Bush will be restrained? Good luck.

Please, either for your own political advantage or for the antiquated idea of actually helping the country, remove these guys from power before they do more damage. Otherwise, we will all live to regret it.

Cenk Uygur is co-host of The Young Turks, the new morning show for Air America Radio, 6-9AM ET.

Scientists offered $10,000 to dispute climate study

"The American Enterprise Institute is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."
- Ben Stewart, Greenpeace

Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Guardian

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.

"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."

One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. "You wouldn't know if some of the other authors might say nothing's going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault," said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university.

The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April. It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC is the world's leading authority on climate change and its latest report will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress, more convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already warming due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would lead to unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.

Emboldening The Enemy For Dummies

(the folllowing are to be construed as "emboldening the enemy")

"It’s pretty clear that a resolution that in effect says that the general going out to take command of the arena shouldn’t have the resources he thinks he needs to be successful certainly emboldens the enemy and our adversaries."
-Defense Secretary Robert Gates

"All of the options that are being talked about on the Hill will embolden terrorists in every part of the world."
-Rep. John Boehner

"I fear that while this resolution is non-binding and, therefore, will not affect the implementation of the plan, it will do two things that can be harmful, which is that it will discourage our troops, who we're asking to carry out this new plan, and it will encourage the enemy..."
-Joe Lieberman



"Bring 'em on"

"There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on," Bush said. "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."
- President George W. Bush - 7/2/2003

(not to be construed as "emboldening the enemy")

Who Gives a Fuck What the "Enemy" Feels?

Has anyone come up with a compelling, legitimate reason as to why terrorists, insurgents, and vaguely-defined enemies should dictate how the United States acts and reacts in the Iraq War?



'Cause, like, now that the word "embolden" has become such a big goddamn part of the talking point vocabulary of war hawks and Lieber-men, it sure seems like we're all supposed to worry what the "enemy" will feel if we don't act the way they think we should act.

Should it be the policy of the U.S. to check with the enemy to make sure they're cool with what we're doing? 'Cause, while the Rude Pundit ain't one of your Heritage/AEI-approved "experts" in geopolitical paradigms, it sure seems like if you're so worried that you're gonna give the enemy a reacharound with your exercise of your so-called democratic institutions, you probably oughta be more worried about your own country than about the happy, dancing enemy.

Because, like, as Joe Biden and Sam Brownback (for fuck's sake) pointed out this weekend, what the fuck does "emboldened" look like if it doesn't look like what's going on now in Iraq?


- by Rude Pundit