Bush slashes aid to poor to boost Iraq war chest

Bush slashes aid to poor to boost Iraq war chest!!!!!!!!!! If you read only one article about the Iraq Civil War today, it should be this, from the British paper The Guardian Unlimited.

In the run-up to the invasion in 2003, the Pentagon’s projected estimate of the total cost of the war was $50bn. A White House economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, was fired by President Bush when he suggested that the total cost would be $200bn.

The New York Times noted that the cost of the war would have paid for universal healthcare in the US, nursery education for all three and four-year-olds in the country, immunisation for children round the world against a host of diseases, and still leave about half of the money left over.

The Pentagon has long complained that it is overstretched. Mr Bush wants to raise its budget from $600.3bn to $624.6bn for 2008 – about 20% of the total budget.

You know, one should not post in one’s own blog/forum when one is so angry that they see a red tinge all about them. But I am breaking my own rule. Goddamit, this makes me so mad I could just spit.

At this juncture we are facing about $1.5 trillion in debt for Bush’s totally broken, lost mess in Iraq. This includes the approx $800 Billion already plus the $660 Billion that taking care of the returning veterans will cost us. (Care for U.S. veterans could cost $662 bln: Harvard study)

Question: Just how in the hell does that lying S.O.B., George W. Bush, expect us to believe that that he can balance the budget without raising taxes (on the wealthier classes)? Well, this is how, gentle readers – he is going to protect his wealthy cronies and cut benefits to middle and lower income working people and retirees. This is the “compassionate conservatism” for which Bush was revered by neocons and other conservatives. “Compassionate conservatism” was the first great lie of the Bush reign. Give tax breaks to the wealthy 1% and make the bottom classes pay for it? Why?!! I think this isn’t just merely mean, it’s pathologically sadistic.

Bush promises no tax increases!!!! Oh My, Yes! Let’s just cut expenditures to the poorest classes in America, and borrow the rest so our children’s children can pay for our ongoing nightmare. This is just one of many insane ideas he has had recently. Another example is his contempt for the ideas of the Iraq Study Group Report. He refuses to talk to either Iran or Syria about the mess, and the Syrian President has stated publicly that part of the problem is that Bush will not offer talks.

On top of all this, he went into Iraq with inadequate troops and equipment, and has stood by while the damned thing spun out of control and into a Civil War.

Stop me now, kind Folks. I told you that I shouldn’t post on my own blog when I’m seeing red because of anger. This turkey of a president that we have for the next two years leaves me seeing red, daily.

STATE OF THE UNION: Chill the Beer and Break out the Popcorn

Chill the beer and break out the popcorn. It’s that time of year again. I’m not referring to Martin Luther King Day, nope. President’s Day, nope. Ground Hog Day, nope. Nope, It’s time for our Dope’s annual State of the Union Address to Congress. Tuesday night. Be sure to tune in for the hilarity as MSNBC is doing all day coverage on Tuesday, pre, present, and post State of the Union Address!!!

You almost have to feel sorry for someone like Bush, who is so defeated, delusional, and in charge of a walking disaster in Iraq. He can’t, with honesty, say much of anything positive about his administration. Bush is our Dope, and we are stuck with him and his idiot cronies for another two years. You could feel pity for him in all of his mess, except that he is so willfully belligerent in his wrongness. He is in desperate need of good, accurate diplomatic advice, but he has only this carnival-esque coterie of an Administration to advise him now.

The Repub. Party has mucked-up the hunt for Bin Laden, Afghanistan, Iraq Civil War, the national debt, the trade deficit, energy policy – done nothing here, global warming, New Orleans, relations with every country in the world, threatening any country they feel like insulting on a particular day, ignoring the Iraq Study Group Report.

This State of the Union Address of 2007 will be fun to watch if only to glean more ammunition with which to embarrass Mr. Bush. If we are lucky we may hear a sentence or two that ring true, but not many. Politically, Bush cannot afford to be honest about anything for the sake of his Repub. party. He’s a salesman, for sure, and he’ll give it his best effort, but he won’t sell many of us. We’ve heard all of the lines and lies, been insulted when we disagreed or called his hand, and we’re sick of his unnecessary militarism.

I will throw myself on the floor laughing hysterically if he tries to tie Iraq to 9/11 one more time.

Bush is a Dope, but he’s our Dope, and we are stuck with him – as off he goes, wallowing around the world muddying all he touches for the next two years.

This may be the last good laugh this nation gets to enjoy for a long time to come, as we try to untangle Bush’s grotesque national and international messes.

So chill the beer and break out the popcorn.

WHITE HOUSE NEEDS LESSONS IN DIPLOMACY

I am not getting my hopes up that the ISG Report will get Bush 43 motivated to do anything that will lead to success in Iraq and the region. From David E. Sanger of the New York Times: Dueling Views on Diplomacy Pit Baker Against Rice. This article is a must read for its clues as to why we must talk with Syria and Iran. However, one day following the delivery of the Iraq Study Group Report, Bush has stated flatly that we will talk with neither Syria nor Iran.

The United States should engage Iran, Mr. Baker contended, if only to reveal its “rejectionist attitude”; it should try to “flip the Syrians”; and it should begin a renewed quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that, he maintained, would help convince Arab moderates that America was not all about invasions and regime change.

As to Baker’s and Bush’s diplomatic styles, Sanger quotes Dennis Ross:

“They start from completely different places,” said Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator who worked for Mr. Baker years ago and left the State Department early in the Bush administration. “Baker approaches everything with a negotiator’s mindset. That doesn’t mean every negotiation leads to a deal, but you engage your adversaries and use your leverage to change their behavior. This administration has never had a negotiator’s mind-set. It divides the world into friends and foes, and the foes are incorrigible and not redeemable. There has been more of an instinct toward regime change than to changing regime behavior.”

Absolutely true! When the neocons will accuse their own fellow Americans of being traitors and terrorists for disagreeing with the president or for asking the hard questions before the invasion, that’s hardcore fundamentalism at work. There is some kind of evil lurking in those people.

These two paragraphs are key to the depth of Baker’s wisdom, that sageness that one acquires in direct proportion to the amount of gray that one has in one’s hair. What a terrific panel.

CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante reports:

But this president may not be in much of a hurry to accept Baker’s ideas about that — or much else. Asked if Baker would help implement the report, a spokesman for Mr. Bush said, “Jim Baker can go back to his day job.”

This is worse than dumping cold water on this distinguished group that has travelled around the globe and spent almost a year of their lives in this service to their country. The President and the entire white House severely need of diplomacy lessons.

It’s too early to tell what effect the mentoring of the ISG Report will have on Bush 43, but sadly, I am not optimistic.