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.

On McCain Trip to Iraq, Graham is Shocked by the Violence

Lindsey Graham was shocked by the violence during his recent trip to Iraq:

The first time I came here with Sen. McCain we went rug shopping. Yesterday, we moved around in a tank. It’s one of the most dangerous places on the planet.

I ask you, the reader, how did we, in three years time, go from “mission accomplished” to a civil war in Iraq that is threatening to break out into regional civil war? We all know pretty much who let this situation devolve into total chaos. Those folks should be brought to accountability, and I’m referring to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, for starters.

They went into Iraq with too few troops to secure the peace, the munitions, the peace, the militias, the peace, the explosives, the peace, and even our own weapons shipments to ourselves in Iraq!!

And now Laura Bush wants to blame G.W.’s low numbers on the media!! watch the video

It is not encouraging coverage for sure. There’s no doubt about it. But I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren’t covered. And I think that the drum beat in the country from the media, from the only way people know what is happening unless they happened to have a loved one deployed there, is discouraging.

Ha! What a total crock. The media and the Iraq Study Group have taken it on the chin for not leaving the secured “Green Zone” area of Baghdad -for hiring contract “stringers”, but Graham and McCain and company traveled in a tank! for protection. I am laughing out loud at Laura Bush’s whine about all the good things that are happening over there. Like? Like how could we know, because it’s too dangerous to go find any good news. I mean, who’s going to go out of the green zone to visit Iraqi retirement centers to see how the needlepoint and woodcarving classes are working out?

Or, maybe she meant good things happening in the U.S. Okay, yes then that’s true, there are good things happening. But most Americans are not so shallow as Laura and George, as to not pay some attention, and not to feel some grief and remorse that we’ve gotten 650,000 civilians killed in Iraq, to date, and the end is nowhere to be seen. And most of us also feel dismayed that we elected an individual who is so totally incompetant to the highest office in the land, the U.S. Presidency.

Her husband is a joke and she blames the media for not attending classes at retirement centers and daycare facilities. Ha! Laura, Honey, there’s a war going on out there, you should ask your husband what it’s all about and what his role was. (God, I’d like to eavesdrop on that conversation. It’d be funnier than your typical birds and bees talk.)

Peace Out, Denny

credits to: HUFFINGTON POST, THINK PROGRESS, & YAHOO NEWS

EDIT: Here’s more info on the Laura Bush interview, from Media Matters

By 2040 Greenhouse Gases … Open Arctic Sea in Summers

!!!! Alarm Bells – anyone hear them over the din of Limbaugh, FOX News, Coulter, DeLay, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, body counts, ….?
By 2040, Greenhouse Gases Could Lead to an Open Arctic Sea in Summers ANDREW C. REVKIN of the NY Times is writing about an article from the journal Geophysical Research Letters,

Basically, we’ll have shipping lanes from Atlantic to Pacific oceans north of Canada. Folks will be buying land in northern Canada, and building ports and fuelling stations up there, as the polar bears begin to run out of territory. The problem will continue to get worse as the darker colored ocean waters will absorb more heat than the white ice. Ironically, the winters will be colder, as blowing winds pick up more cold from the melted waters than from the frozen ice.

You really need to look at the map in the Times article to see how huge this summer ice melt will be. Almost the entire northern polar ice cap will be melted in the summer, leaving a small amount of summer ice to the north of Eastern Canada and Greenland.

Meanwhile, in my home state of Texas, we are being hijacked by the pinheaded Governor Rick Perry who is fast tracking the permits for 11 new coal-burning power plants. These are not the new, cleaner coal burners, he is letting them build 11 OLD TECHNOLOGY COAL PLANTS!!!!!!

With the foresight and intelligence of Rick Perry, I’m starting to think that he’s ready for the national scene in ‘08. Yeah, that’s the ticket, “PERRY FOR PREZ IN ‘08.” It would be a relief to get him out of Texas. Poor Washington.

If only we’d simply forgotten about Iraq after we’d finished up in Afghanistan, we could have gone to war against global warming.

IF ONLY WE’D DEVELOPED AN ENERGY POLICY IN THE 70′S.

If only we’d been as smart as Brazil. They were quick to react to the oil embargoes of the early 70’s, and started on a national program to convert their vehicles to ethanol. By last year the transition was complete. Every vehicle in Brazil runs on ethanol produced from sugar cane, which has a higher per acre yield than corn. In fact, Brazil is now an exporter of ethanol.

If only, … aaaahhhhh, But no, the U.S. is still dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and getting worse, and soon to be competing with a China on the fast track to consumerism and demands for more oil. So we are trying to permanantly embed ourselves in the Middle East to bring democracy to the region, rid it of WMD, kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people so that we preserve our own national interests over there. Can you spell oil with me kids, O-I-L. Very Good!

My how the time flies when I’m off on a good rant. Thank God and Little George Bush that we’re winning in Iraq!!! We’re winning? Right? Little George????

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.

IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT IS RELEASED

Okay here’s my initial thoughts, having downloaded the IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT, but not read it, having watched the late morning news, and having watched the Press Conference with Tony Snow. By the way you can download the report, free at the Baker Institute.org – ISG Report Or visit their homepage – BAKER INSTITUTE HOME.

I saw almost none of the presentation to the President, but did see the Tony Snow press conf. He was his typical smug, ape-ish self, stiffarming, denying, and evading nearly every question asked. Judging from Snow, the Bush White House may still be in denial as the the dire situation in Iraq. Snow: “The President believes in the transformational power of liberty.” This is Ideological-Speak for “Hopefully we can find our way through all of this to stay the course.”

Bush is a strongwilled individualist, too much so to rethink this whole scheme of things. Too, putting yourself in Bush’s shoes, this mess is so humiliating and embarassing that it is going to keep him trapped in an angry and defensive mode of thinking. His presidency is not only lameduck, its thought processes are essentially shutdown. This is an embarassment to the United States, that we have one individual so hopelessly out of touch and yet in charge. Hopefully, with some time, he can figure his way out of this funk and move into a mode of dynamic leadership, leading the U.S. into a new diplomatic mode.

Again I’ll say that Snow was definitely stiff-arming the press, as expected, for a President in denial, “We have not been saying, ‘Stay the Course,’ for several months now.” I laughed aloud at this from Snow. They appear to have been living in a parallel universe for some time now. It has been less than one month since we’ve heard, “Stay the Course.” In fact we heard it multiple times from Bush himself only last week on his “diplomatic” trip to the Middle East.

I think it would be helpful to the President for him to stand before the American People in something of an early State of the Union Address on Iraq, and speak some pragmatic, non-ideological truth, apologize, and ask for national cooperation as we try to fix Iraq for the Iraqi People. There is a short window for Bush to seize the day on this mess. Perhaps extend the Iraq Study Group one year at a time, and use some or all of the members as a governing board to oversee the task. He can still pull this thing out of the fire and be a President with an important legacy.

But this President is not a dynamic leader. He’s a Lone Ranger, a unilateralist, a “my way or the highway” cowboy from Texas. Initially, two generals sugested that we need 500,000 troops to invade Iraq. One was fired and one was completely ignored.

Bush will adhere to ideology and refuse a change of course in regards to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Iraq mess, and probably won’t attempt diplomatic talks with either Iran or Syria.

Based upon Bush’s history as an ideologue, and upon his inept grasp of reality, I am only mildly hopefully for our success in Iraq, or in the recovery of Bush’s administration. This is a failed administration whose only note of accomplishment is the stock market, but this comes at the expense of: 1. a record national debt 2. record national personal debt 3. record trade deficit 4. immigration problems 5. a failed war on terror 6. a failed war in Iraq 6. Bin Laden is still on the loose 7. Al Qaeda is growing 8. global warming 9. American jobs and wages

And finally, short of a totally self-reinvented George W. Bush, we are in dire need of a regime change in the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. We don’t have the luxury of waiting two years for a new administration. Iraq demands our immediate attention, as do other serious problems.

Please, please, please Mr. President, please prove me wrong.