Congressional Two Step

So the GOP is beginning to sing a new song about George W. Bush:

George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

I'd be lying if I didn't add that I hear a sizable group of Democratic party members on stage joining in on the chorus.

That's nice. Fine. Sing it. But don't expect me to buy it. You can't seriously believe that after 7 years of lock-step obedience to and empowerment of a war criminal posing as a leader, I or anyone else will believe that you have "had enough." Because if you want me to buy it, "show me the money." Start voting in ways that restore the constitutional rights that you helped him gut. Start voting in ways that end the unchecked, unfettered, unaudited waste of money occupying that war-torn country, Iraq. Stop the president from torturing people today the way he used to torture small animals as a disturbed child. Stop protecting the President with retroactive immunity from crimes he and his administration committed. On YOUR watch.

Go ahead. Defend the constitution. I dare you.

Because you know what, you have no credibility. This, "Bush killed the party" song sounds rather a lot like the current Democratic anthem, "We oppose you George W. Bush, we won't let you get away with it, we're going to stop you, just as soon as we are done doing your bidding", "One Step Up, Two Steps Back" song.

And another thing. The, "Well, Bush lied to us about Iraq. If I'd have known then what I know now" line... You know what? You must not be very smart, because I knew he was lying when he lied, but you didn't, and I'm not paid to provide him oversight, but you are. Convenient for you, no?

And in case I haven't been clear about how I feel about impeachment, I believe that taking impeachment "off the table" because it would be a "waste of time" is failing to protect the constitution for personal gain. The oath taken wasn't, "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States as long as it doesn't inconvenience my political career: So help me God."

Here's the oath taken by members of congress:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

So, it's kind of like you're putting your personal aspirations ahead of the Constitution, no?

"The current salary for all Senators and Members is $165,200. The salary for the Speaker is $212,100 and the salary for the Majority and Minority Leaders is $183,500."

Think you got your money's worth?

TAGS: Anti-Bush, Lies, GOP, Dem, Oath of Office

Lies, Damned Lies, and Dead Lies

Bush Lie Dispenser, originally uploaded by azrainman.

The Bush administration has presented you and me with some spectacularly false information. Consider this mini list of "untruths"...

• Saddam Hussein and Iraq were linked to the terrorist acts on 9/11/2001.
• Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
• The military conflict would be short (5 days, 5 weeks, maybe 5 months).
• The mission was accomplished.
• The war would pay for itself.

The complete list is so much longer. (That's 7 good Bush Lie links, not including Crooks and Liars, which tracks the whole crooked lot of them.) Most recently, there are these last two matters of Bush botched record keeping:

• The reported number of brain injuries linked to the conflict in Iraq.
• The number of US Iraq war/occupation deaths.
  

The number of brain injuries inflicted on US personnel affects the ultimate long term cost of the war and occupation, something I have been fretting over for a while now, and I'm not alone. Thus, the injury and cost untruths are intertwined.

The last item in the list is blood curdling, at least for me. In a recent edition of CounterPunch, Mike Whitney asserted that, "The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it."

Whitney tells the tale of CBS's Investigative Unit and its experience obtaining misinformation from the Department of Defense (DOD). Whitney's article reveals that CBS submitted a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the DOD for a story on military suicide. After a 4 month wait, CBS received a DOD document indicating, "that between 1995 and 2007-- there were 2,200 suicides among 'active duty' soldiers."

Trusting the DOD about as much as I do and realizing the DOD was only answering part of their question, CBS went on to collect veteran suicide data from 45 states and learned that in 2005 alone there were 120 suicides each week for a total of 6,256 suicides among those who had served in just that one year.

Active and retired military personnel, mostly young veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing themselves in record numbers. We can assume that "multiple-tours of duty" in a war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is entirely unaware and which the Pentagon is in total denial.

Adding these 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the 3,865 combat casualties "officially" reported by the DOD yields a sum of 10,121 military deaths. Furthermore, even a conservative "low-ball" estimate of 2004 and 2006 suicide figures indicates that US military casualties from the Iraq war and ongoing occupation now exceed 15,000.

That's right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that--as yet--has no legal or moral justification.

CBS interviewed the head of mental health at the Department of Veteran Affairs, Dr. Ira Katz, who attempted to minimize the suicide increase, but Whitney doesn't seem to buy it.

Maybe Katz is right...Maybe it's perfectly normal for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the battlefield. Maybe it's normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it's normal for politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put themselves in harm's-way for their country.

If you want to know my personal opinion (which is consistent with what some officials in a position to know have claimed), the Bush administration has not misled; it has not misinformed; it has not been mistaken. It has lied. They are crooks. They are liars. They are war criminals. And they provided incomplete information about the number of military suicides with the intent to mislead, as they have on every other matter.

To say that the "official" information provided by the Bush administration cannot be trusted is an understatement. And heaven knows, I wouldn't want to be accused of that. I'm just trying to figure out which one of them will blame the soldier suicide surge on the Democrats.

And by the way, it's not normal. You know what else isn't normal? Taking it lying down.

Take lying down~ to hear or yield without protest, contradiction, or resistance: I refuse to take such outrageous lies lying down.

Agitate. Find a way.

TAGS: Iraq, Casualties, Suicide, Bush, Lies, Brain Injury, War, Occupation

(The Face of a Thug) versus The Face of a Small Hero

Last week I wrote about Michele Malkin despicable tirade and the call-to-arms of her winged monkeys of spite in smearing 12 year-old Graeme Frost, quite aptly named I thought, 'The Face of a Thug.'

Monday, October 15th, Graeme's parents appeared on Keith Olbermann's program on MSNBC, 'Countdown.'

First - look at that face to the left.

As his mother points out in the video below, Graeme couldn't eat, couldn't talk, couldn't walk, couldn't sit up, could not hold his head up, could not swallow, and without CHIP he, most likely, would not be where he is today. And in relation to his sister, the prognosis was even more grim.

As the New York Times pointed out last week, Mitch McConnell's office was "poised to take on" this undeserving family.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

But what he also didn't divulge was this, " Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman acknowledged yesterday that he alerted reporters last week to questions bloggers raised about the financial circumstances of a 12-year-old boy Democrats had used to urge passage of an expanded children's health insurance program.

But Don Stewart, the Kentucky Republican's communications director, said he also wrote a follow-up e-mail later the same day that said a blogger he respected had determined that there was no story and that "the family is legit."

Why Mitch McConnell's interest? Because ole' Mitch has an alternative bill, and has labeled this particular bipartisan health care for kids as the first step towards providing universal health care in this country as it expands the income limits to include those caught being poverty-stricken and those who can afford private health care. Those who too poor to buy insurance, but too well off to qualify for Medicaid.

However as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman (Matthew Miller) put it: "spreading false rumors about a 12-year-old boy is despicable for any reason." And Mr. Miller is right on here as well, "No matter how McConnell's office spins it now, the e-mail makes clear that they were part of the campaign to smear a child who had the nerve to stand up and say children's health insurance shouldn't be cut."

Last night, Keith Olbermann had Graeme's parents on to discuss their coverage under S-CHIP in Maryland; they live in Baltimore. They also discuss the fallout from their decision to allow Graeme to be the face of what this legislation is about when he gave the Democratic response to Bush's Saturday radio address on September 29th. Graeme's father points out that "one of nails in the coffin" in his business folding was the exorbitant cost of the family's health insurance costs.



Then....today, there's this

The Louisville Courier-Journal has a story this morning on Mitch McConnell's statements to WHAS in Louisville. And just look at that headline - whoo-boy!

McConnell knew of e-mails about boy. Below is his flat out denial.

Now one of the most telling things I noticed was this below from McConnell's communications director, Don Stewart, who sent a 'follow-up e-mail last night (apparently, Oct 16th - Tuesday) to the Courier-Journal, in which he reiterated that McConnell's answer to WHAS that "there was 'no involvement whatsoever' " was accurate."

"The blogs started this story on Oct. 6 -- two days before I pointed it out and spiked it. This story started and ended in the blogs," Stewart wrote. "I told reporters there was 'no story.' I told Sen. McConnell that I spiked the story. That is 100 percent accurate."

Sooo, it's the fault of those damned blogs. But wait, Donnie - didn't you leak the info to 'a blog?' (Red State come to mind?) I'm sure there are some 'out there' and specifically in the U.S. Congress who undoubtedly think blogs and more specifically, liberal blogs, are a blight on the dissemination of their lies and tactics. Blogs play as important a role as pamphlets did in the time of the American Revolution. Blogs are dangerous.

Now - in the event you think your lying ears and eyes might be deceiving you when you see Mitch's lips moving, there's a transcript from the C-Journal's page - down just a bit, to the right.

THE INTERVIEW

 

Here is a transcript of WHAS reporter Mark Hebert's interview Friday with Sen. Mitch McConnell:

Hebert: Was there an indication that your office was trying to push reporters to go dig into this 12-year-old's background?

McConnell: No.

Hebert: Then what was the deal with the e-mail?

McConnell: What?

Hebert: What was the deal with the e-mail from your staffer?

McConnell: There was no involvement whatsoever.

Hebert: From your staff?

McConnell: None.

Over at The Gavel, there's a number of others who reveal how they were helped by the version of the CHIP program in their varied states. Being poor is not an easy task.

Oh and a bit of a reminder, Mitch is married to Elaine Chao, the Department of Labor secretary responsible for this.