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.

“Impeach Bush,” say two New Mexico lawmakers!!

This is the first legislative attempt, to my knowledge, suggesting that impeachment proceedings should proceed against U.S. President George E. Bush:

SANTA FE (AP) — Two New Mexico lawmakers have introduced a measure calling on Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

State Sens. John Grubesic of Santa Fe and Gerald Ortiz y Pino of Albuquerque, both Democrats, said the resolution is a serious effort to try to trigger impeachment proceedings.

New Mexico, where lawmakers are meeting until March 17, would be the first state to pass the resolution, they said.

The measure alleges that Bush and Cheney conspired with others to intentionally mislead Congress and the public about the threat posed by Iraq in order to justify the war.

It also cites the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program and alleges the torture of prisoners and the denial of constitutional rights to enemy combatants.

READ MORE HERE

While U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has said that “Iimpeachment is off the table,” these two New Mexico Lawmakers, are hoping to change some minds, perhaps Pelosi’s, over time.

After Congress impeached Clinton over his lying about his sex life, shouldn’t we begin to give some thought to doing the same to Bush who has lied about WMD, terrorist connections between Iraq and 9/11, that Congress had the same level of intel that the White House had prior to the Iraq invasion, that nobody could have anticipated that an insurgency could erupt from within Iraq, that the war would cost the U.S. a mere $50 Billion, that the oil revenues in Iraq were adequate to pay us back for the cost of the war, yada yada, ad nauseum, yada yada to as recently as two weeks ago Bush was claiming that the reason for the Iraq War [now Civil War] was that once Iran gets nuclear weapons, Saddam Hussein would have begun to obtain Nuclear weapons, too.

The last lie about Iranian nukes, therefore, Iraqi nukes simply falls flat on its face. Bush should be impeached for this one statement, alone. For this to be a valid reason for the war, we would have to have known about Iranian efforts to obtain nukes before the war. If we had truly known this for a fact at that time, then Iran would have been the natural target for a pre-emptive strike, rather than Iraq.

George W. Bush’s lying has gotten 3,000+ American troops killed, 600,000 Iraqi’s killed, cost the U.S. $800,000,000,000 (800 Billion $$$$$$) (8/10 of one Trillion dollars)!!!!!!! And this is not counting the estimated 1/2 trillion in cost to take care of the returning wounded and disabled U.S. troops over their lifetimes.

Seriously, George W. Bush has lied about some huge things that have had and will have some huge consequences in this, our real world.

If we fail to impeach Bush for his lies then we are saying that it is a hanging offense to lie about one’s private sex life (between consenting adults), but it is okay to cause a civil war, make up shit to get us into wars that will kill U.S. troops and Innocent Iraqi Citizens, and leave our children and grandchildren indebted to pay off our bills for a completely unnecessary war, and leave our military capacity so strained that we wouldn’t be able to fend off a serious attack in any major U.S. city.

Bush hasn’t the guts or the decency to raise taxes on his friends, the real beneficiaries of the war, to avoid draining the country’s wealth, driving us into bankruptcy, and handing our children and grandchildren over into financial slavery to pay for the Bush Follies.

George W. Bush is the liar of largest consequence the U.S. has ever known. We should give serious thought to his coming impeachment.

KEEP THE IMPEACHMENT TOOL VERY CLOSE AT HAND

If you haven’t looked at THE HUFFINGTON POST lately, you absolutely must do so. Arianna Huffington has put together a first rate newspaper. I read the site very often during the day. And occasionally I post a comment or two.

Today on Huffington Post, one of their posts pointed to an article in the NYTIMES: Leading Senator Assails Bush Over Iran Stance

The new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday sharply criticized the Bush administration’s increasingly combative stance toward Iran, saying that White House efforts to portray it as a growing threat are uncomfortably reminiscent of rhetoric about Iraq before the American invasion of 2003.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who took control of the committee this month, said that the administration was building a case against Tehran even as American intelligence agencies still know little about either Iran’s internal dynamics or its intentions in the Middle East.

“To be quite honest, I’m a little concerned that it’s Iraq again,” Senator Rockefeller said during an interview in his office. “This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre.”

I agree 100% with Rockefeller on this point. As of 2003 Iran was completely willing to help us stabilize Iraq, but the Bush Cabal turned them down, flat-out cold. And now Bush wants to invade Iran!!! Ya, right, we can see how well that has worked for us in Iraq.

My Huffington Post comment to the Rockefeller story went:

If the President so much as looks at Iran cross-eyed, then i believe we should put impeachment back on the table and start the proceedings immediately.

Quite a bit off topic, but on my mind lately, If we had put the trillion dollars that the iraq war will cost us into research on alternative energies, we wouldn’t have to think about the middle east in terms of “national interest” anymore. We could be oil independant of the entire middle east, and probably completely energy self sufficient in a few years.

Denny

If the White House Cabal keeps this up, we’ll be wishing for a coup by the U.S. military, as the impeachment process will move too slowly to avert the ensuing world war that will erupt as the major powers of the world converge on the middle east to protect their own national interests from usurption by the U.S. Iran knows that we haven’t the necessary troops to adequately do the job, and they are laughing at our saber-rattling.

The White House cabal is talking pure trash. It’s time for the U.S. to take some serious steps to move us away from our middle east oil dependancy. If we had not offered such huge tax cuts to the wealthy, and had not obligated ourselves to the tune of a trillion dollars in Iraq, we could have made some major strides in the realm of alternative fuels.

I suggest that we keep the impeachment tool very close at hand. These guys’ entire foreign policy seems to revolve around oil profiteering, at the expense of all and anyone else. There’s no telling what they’ll try to pull in the next two years.

UPDATE: Schweitzer Hammers Bush on Iraq in Nat’l Dem Radio Address

David Sirota has an excellent blog posted on the Huffington Post about Brian Schweitzer, the Governor of Montana, delivering this week’s Democratic Radio Address. Gov. Schweitzer covers some of the same topics I’m covering in today’s blog. He agrees on the topic of alternative fuels. They are doing it in Montana, the Big Sky Country. Huffington Post has the text of his address.

We are doing it here in Texas also, to a limited amount, solar, wind and methane recovery. BUT, our own Repub. Governor is trying to fast track the permits to let the utility companies build 11 new coal-power plants USING THE OLD DIRTY COAL TECHNOLOGY!!! Repubs all need to have their heads examined. At the very least we should schedule them for MRI’s to see if they test positive for brain cells. This is absolutely brainless (or corrupt) on Perry’s part.

Update: George Bush on Tax Cut Claims – A Heckuva Claim

The Washington Post published a response on Jan 6, 2006 to Bush’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece (proclaiming how his tax cuts had bolstered the economy.) While I have called the President a pathological liar on this subject, the Post editorial is not so strident, but extremely unflattering to Bush, nonetheless:

…The claim about fueling record revenue is flat wrong, and it is shocking that the president should persist in making such errors. After all, tax cuts are the central plank of his domestic policy. How can he fail to understand the basic facts about them?

The Post editorial is spot on and I love their last paragraph, it’s so true:

Mr. Bush’s op-ed included nice statements about bipartisan cooperation. But the Democrats would be more likely to cooperate with the president if he stopped making things up.

They all but called Bush a liar – close enough for me.

In other news, albeit local, I had a terrific conservation today with a local media personality who is the brother of Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, whom I think is a great guy. I had no idea that there were only two degrees of separation between the governor and myself – small world these days. See ya, Rudy!! {;~)
Denny

BUSH IN W.S.J. OP-ED PIECE, IS LYING & WRONG

Bush is lying and wrong in his recent Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. WSJ readers should feel repulsed by his shameless self-promotion. And again, as in the past Bush trotted-out (and flogged) this tired little pony:

It is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues. Because revenues have grown and we’ve done a better job of holding the line on domestic spending, we met our goal of cutting the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule. By continuing these policies, we can balance the federal budget by 2012 while funding our priorities and making the tax cuts permanent. In early February, I will submit a budget that does exactly that. The bottom line is tax relief and spending restraint are good for the American worker, good for the American taxpayer, and good for the federal budget. Now is not the time to raise taxes on the American people. [emphasis mine]

He’s a lying, wrongheaded idiot if he actually believes what he’s saying in the piece. First, tax cuts have been good only for corporations and the wealthy, but not for American wage earners.

Second, and perhaps best: “Because revenues have grown and we’ve done a better job of holding the line on domestic spending, we met our goal of cutting the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule.” Now what deficit is he talking about here – the budget deficit? But wait, he had no budget deficit when he took over the office from (D) Bill Clinton. How can you divide zero by 2 and come up with a positive number? Bush is lying and blaming Clinton for Bush’s own increased budget deficit. “And we’ve done a better job of holding the line on domestic spending,” – that would be services to the people who need it the most – us, the American people.

That entire paragraph is rubbish. It doesn’t even rise to the level of good fairytales. The U.S. has a record national debt. The U.S. has a record trade deficit. The U.S. has an increasing budget deficit due to tax cuts on the incomes that can most afford the tax load – the wealthy. Bush’s economic policy is a recipe for disaster. We have a ticking bomb on our hands, not the kind planted by terrorists, but, far worse, it’s our looming inability to even make interest payments on the debt. Clinton left us with hope, which was squandered within Bush’s first year in office.

Under Clinton we were actually a pay as you go economy, and actually beginning to retire portions of the national debt – we were paying our bills and paying off old debt. Now, under the Bush Republicans we are doing neither.

Can you Grok it? We now have the largest national debt in the history of this country!!!! Bush cuts taxes on the wealthy and calls himself a hero to American wage earners who have not seen a minimum wage increase since 1994, under Clinton, as the national debt climbs higher and faster than under Ronald Reagan who at least claimed that he was at least racing to push the soviets into bankruptcy and collapse.

AND IT IS TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BALANCE THE BUDGET BY 2012 WITHOUT RAISING TAXES, EVEN BY CUTTING DOMESTIC SPENDING.

Bush is a pathological liar on the economy, pure and simple.

Bush claims he has an MBA from Yale. And Republicans claim that only their party can balance budgets and run businesses. This is so laughable that it makes me cry for the future of our country, the United States of America.

My thanks to THE HUFFINGTON POST for the heads up on the Bush Op-ed piece.