Friday, February 6, 2004

Why does he hate our troops? The Pentagon's 2003 defense budget was $396 billion. That was more than the defense budgets of the next 25 countries COMBINED. What does our defense budget look like? According to the Center for Defense Information: If you converted the proposed $396 billion Pentagon budget into silver dollars and stacked them one on top of another, it would make a stack 690 thousand miles high. That's roughly three times the distance to the Moon, and enough to circle the Earth 27.5 times. So when I hear these facts, I can't help but think that our President should have enough money to spare for decent pay and medical care for troops and veterans. The President disagrees: The Bush Administration's 2004 budget proposed gutting Veterans Administration (VA) services, including health care funding. Proposed cuts included: denying at least 360,000 veterans access to health care; $250 annual premiums; increased pharmacy co-payments; a 30 percent increased primary care co-payments; and increased waiting time for a first medical appointment. [snip] The Bush Administration's budget proposal would have under-funded the VA by more than $2 billion. Bush's proposal would have cut the number of employees available to process disability claims, yet veterans already wait more than six months for a review of disability applications. The Bush plan for dealing with the waiting lists at VA clinics and hospitals is to reduce the number of veterans treated by the VA. [snip] An army of veterans twice the size of that involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom has lost health insurance benefits since Bush took office. As many as half a million vets are homeless. Seven VA hospitals are being closed as part of an effort to "restructure" the Department of Veterans Affairs. Meanwhile, veterans of the Iraq campaign can fall in line with over 250,000 veterans who are already waiting at least six months to see a doctor. The General Accounting Office estimates that 20 percent of Army Reserve and National Guard personnel have no health insurance at all. Although Bush did not hesitate to send Reservists and National Guardsmen to face death in Iraq, he has consistently opposed any attempt to extend full benefits to them. Bush tried to cut monthly imminent-danger pay and family separation allowance, and he called a proposed increase in the sum given to families of soldiers who die on active duty "wasteful and unnecessary." Additionally, Bush considered how much money the country would save (and how much more could be diverted to Bechtel and Halliburton contracts) if veterans could not even find out what their benefits are. Disabled American Veterans (DAV), an organization that since 1920 has helped U.S. combat casualties learn about the benefits they have earned and how to apply for them, has been obstructed in its efforts by Bush. Government military contractors, many of which have close ties to Cheney, Bush, and the Bush family, get rich at the taxpayer's expense, while troops and veterans get the shaft. Why does President Bush hate our troops and veterans? Postscript: Assuming Kerry wins the nomination, his status as a war veteran will be a significant advantage. He should press these points forcefully. A sign: wingnuts are already desperately trying to spin his veteran status, as my friend Steve Smith notes. 10:14:11 PM    comment [] Have you no sense of decency, sir? There reportedly are substantial breakthroughs in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. The evidence implicates the Vice President's office: Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said. According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. ... The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said. As Cal Pundit reminds us, Hannah was responsible for stovepiping INC intelligence (or "Chalaberish") to Cheney. And there is more on the Cheney-Scalia hunting trip: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia traveled as an official guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on a small government jet that served as Air Force Two when the pair came here last month to hunt ducks. The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney's upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney's bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force. According to those who met them at the small airstrip here, the justice and the vice president flew from Washington on Jan. 5 and were accompanied by a second, backup Air Force jet that carried staff and security aides to the vice president. Two military Black Hawk helicopters were brought in and hovered nearby as Cheney and Scalia were whisked away in a heavily guarded motorcade to a secluded, private hunting camp owned by an oil industry businessman. So let me get this straight ... Cheney invites Scalia to fly with him on his private jet with military escort -- all at taxpayers' expense, of course -- to join him on a duck hunting trip at a private camp owned by an oil industry businessman and Republican donor, right before the Supreme Court examines the Cheney energy task force case? You can't make stuff like this up. It's straight out of James Bond villain lore ... the mad billionaire whisking 007 away by helicopter to his island mansion, where he discusses his plans for world domination while feeding his pet tiger sharks. And let me take a crack at what Ann Coulter might say in response to the controversy: Democrats are crying in protest over Scalia's hunting trip with Cheney. You see, liberals want to outlaw duck hunting. They can't stand seeing two sportsmen enjoying themselves at the expense of poor, defenseless creatures. Yep, that's it. That's it exactly. Postscript: Josh Marshall adds some cautionary notes on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. 3:05:55 AM    comment [] AWOL Recap If you haven't read up on the whole Bush AWOL flap, Cal Pundit has an excellent summary and analysis of what we know. Postscript: And so does Eric Boehlert of Salon.com. 2:32:17 AM    comment [] Rummy Howler From the Washington Post: Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), the committee's ranking Democrat, asked Rumsfeld to explain a discrepancy between his public statement in late September 2002 that Hussein had "amassed large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons" and a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate drafted weeks earlier that "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons." "I'm sure I never saw that piece of intelligence," Rumsfeld responded. He said he and other administration officials drew their conclusions from broader assessments by the intelligence community. He never saw that "piece of intelligence"?! The conclusion of an intelligence estimate by the Defense Intelligence Agency? You know, the intelligence agency of the Department of Defense, the department that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld happens to run? What could be a broader assessment by the intelligence community than DIA's conclusion that "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons"? 2:18:16 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 David V. Johnson. Last update: 3/1/04; 1:36:02 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.