The Enemy thinks the story of Jane Hamsher's broker is not an isolated one. That sound you hear isn't popcorn popping my friend, it is the sound of thoughtful, conservative brains exploding everywhere at once. Cognitive dissonance can only get you so far.
Phantom Arm. That's what I'm calling the reach-around that is this administration's treatment of wounded soldiers. Stories have been circulating in the press regarding the sub-standard care of wounded men and women as far back as 2003. Only now, it seems, has the outrage been 'discovered' and we see very high ranking officials committing very public seppuku on each others accusatory fingers.
The Enemy doesn't think the Department of Defense alone is to blame, even though it's the top brass issuing all the mia culpas. Veterans groups have said that the Bush
administration budget falls $2.2 billion short in veteran medical care
funding and $700 million short of funds needed to hire workers to
handle disability claims.
Is this not further evidence of a systemic failure? A failure that has characterized the entire Iraq debacle from the very beginning.
This army has struggled to remain standing under the trickle-down chaos of a woefully inept commander and chief and his criminally negligent secretary of defense. They are losing that struggle.
As you know, the Army has to go to war with the Administration it has. It's not the Administration it might want or wish to have at a later time. This is the same administration that once referred to the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan as "fungible assets"
Bush and Co are more than happy to have the public ire focus exclusively on the "Buck Stops Here" DoD, and the press seems, for the most part, all to willing to oblige.
Let's remember that this is the same administration that turned around and blamed the intelligence community when the WMD deceit was finally revealed for what it was. As it did then, this administration is relying on the professionalism and honor of others to keep a duty bound silence and take the fall graciously.
We, however, are under no such obligation. In fact, it is our duty to step-up and protect our soldiers from this rouge presidency.
Let's lay the blame where it ultimately belongs, shall we? Now more than ever the troops need our support.
And while we're allocating blame –– don't we all bear some responsibility in this. As the Husbandito asked last night, is it really so surprising? could a private citizen with an income comparable to army pay expect any better treatment under America's current "health care" system?
"The military tried to run military health care on the cheap –– like an HMO," said Paul Sullivan, who until March 2006 was a top project manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs in charge of data on returning veterans. "And the consequences are the medical catastrophe and the bureaucratic nightmare that we see right now."
Sound familiar? An HMO makes its profits by DENYING services. As much as possible, as long as possible. That is their philosophy and their modus operandi. And we, the American public has allowed this profit driven system to become the standard in health care.
Apply the same principle to the VA system and you have a recipe for disaster. A well managed health care operation is not one that provides barely acceptable quality of services on an ever shrinking budget.
The horror is that after 20 long years residing underground in these here United States, patiently awaiting a change in the legal weather, The Enemy's fate now lies with The Decider. I am depending on The Decider to grow some cajones and stand resolutely against the primitive, nativist, showboats currently moored in the Republican harbor.
On Wednesday, Congress took its first crack at immigration reform since the sound and fury of 2006. The Senate Judiciary Committee invited Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to testify on the issue.
Mr. Gutierrez and Mr. Chertoff enthusiastically talked up guest-worker programs, but pointedly left citizenship off the table. They could have been talking tactically, working at The Decider's behest to soothe the passions of reactionary Republicans. But there must be a limit to the accommodations given to anti-amnesty ideologues. If The Decider has the stomach to fight for the real reform he says he wants, he is hiding it well.
COME ON MAN!!, you've got nothing to lose. What possible strategic gain can be made by maneuvering around this issue? Your party already hates you, and it couldn't do any more damage to your reputation than you've already wrecked.
It's one of the last issues on which the public, by and large, agrees with you. Polls show that most Americans would let illegal immigrants get right with the law and become Americans, too, if they have clean records, learn English and pay back taxes and fines. Weighed against keeping the shadowy status quo or deporting 12 million people, a citizenship path strikes them as a proper blend of justice and common sense.
Did the last election clue you in to nothing? The American public has lost it's appetite for the right wing menu items. You owe the extremists in your party nothing and they sure as hell can't offer you anything in return.
It's over. Allow your last act to be one toward redemption and do the right thing. Achieve something in your Presidency. Don't pick this moment to hesitate, do what you do best man, and damn the torpedoes. The Enemy is depending on you.
The horror...oh, the horror. (may god have mercy on my soul).
The Enemy is trying not to be all 'Lil' Tinfoil Hat' and shrill about this, but think about it for a second. What exactly would it look like if the Escalator were quietly positioning for a move against Iran? What would the noise coming from the White House sound like as they carefully inserted the idea into the publics thinking (via the Dead End Faithful)...and how would events on the ground begin to unfold?...just asking.
Despite 'The Enemy's' feelings about the current state of the anti-war movement in this country, and specifically the sad remains of the American Left...The Enemy is hoping for a HUGE turn out today. The Enemy would be there if he could.
The Republicans (and the Democrats) face a dilemma with regard to immigration that will require painful, high-risk decisions between incompatible forces within their existing constituencies. Clearly, neither party has found a credible answer. The Republicans are forced to choose between the demand from their corporate financiers and Chamber of Commerce whores that unlimited access to cheap illegal immigrant labor be maintained and the xenophobic/nationalist core of their "conservative" blue collar base that the foreigner's be kept out of the country and their manufacturing jobs be kept in. There is no compromise position to satisfy both. One or the other will have to be thrown under the bus. At the same time, the Republican Party needs both constituencies to maintain the illusion of political viability.
meanwhile...back on the ranch
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a longtime critic of Bush's position on immigration, slammed the president's State of the Union remarks in a statement released Tuesday.
Suggesting that Bush tried to "guarantee a Congress sympathetic to his 'amnesty for all' plan" during the 2006 elections, Tancredo said the new Democrat-controlled Congress "seem[s] hell-bent on cramming this mass amnesty down the throats of the American people whether they want it or not."
Tancredo also questioned Bush's pledge for increased enforcement of immigration laws, saying that "one or two high-profile raids are not proof of a commitment." He was referring to the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on six meat-packing plants that resulted in more than 1,200 arrests and 148 charges related to identity theft.
When scanning the political horizon for clues to any future Presidential immigration moves, The Enemy finds it interesting that Bush just installed Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, who came to America as a Cuban refugee, to become the public face of the Republican Party in charge of fundraising, press appearances and coordination with Congress. Martinez will be Replacing Ken "I am most definitely not the gay" Mehlman.
The significance of the appointment is not lost on anti-immigrant groups.
Martinez's election signals a clear intent by Republicans to make inroads among the nation's Hispanic voters in 2008. It is also a defensive move against those Republicans who have advocated a far more punitive immigration policy than President Bush supports. Outside the hotel, protesters from Team America, a political action committee founded by anti-immigration activist Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., held signs that read "Nay to Mel."
"While I don't want to make race an issue, it's really clear that they chose him because he is Hispanic," complained Marcus Epstein, Team America's executive director.
Inside the hall, Martinez addressed the significance of his election. "Our party is not a party of racists," Martinez said in a bilingual press conference Friday, after he was elected. "Nuestro partido no es un partido racista."
For most of the speech The Enemy was fixated on Nancy Pelosoi. She sat back there looking like she'd just scored the best table at Applebees. Scanning the room with agitated glee, hoping her favorite server was working today. Nancy was ready to order.
Then this caught the Enemy's attention;
Extending hope and opportunity in our country requires an immigration system worthy of America - with laws that are fair and borders that are secure. When laws and borders are routinely violated, this harms the interests of our country. To secure our border, we are doubling the size of the Border Patrol - and funding new infrastructure and technology.
Yet even with all these steps, we cannot fully secure the border unless we take pressure off the border - and that requires a temporary worker program. We should establish a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis. As a result, they won't have to try to sneak in - and that will leave border agents free to chase down drug smugglers, and criminals, and terrorists. We will enforce our immigration laws at the worksite, and give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers - so there is no excuse left for violating the law. We need to uphold the great tradition of the melting pot that welcomes and assimilates new arrivals. And we need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country - animosity and without amnesty.
That last part,"without animosity and without amnesty",the Husbandito gasped and shot me a despairing glance. No amnesty.
The Enemy, however, didn't hear it that way, and a quick survey of the internets indicates that The Enemy is not alone. The reaction from immigration reform advocates is generally split between those who find it significant that he mentioned the contentious issue at all, and those who are disappointed that he didn't go further.
More telling perhaps is that the anti-immigration voices are generally peeyaased!. It seems they heard what The Enemy heard:
"...no I'm not dropping the the subject, and stop calling it amnesty, you make it sound bad when you call it amnesty."
Some might argue that, as much as he might have wanted to, the Escalator couldn't have skipped the issue given all it's recent heat. Really? Wave b-bye marriage amendment,b-bye New Orleans recovery. He could have easily left the 800 pound gorilla unmolested and most Republicans would have been grateful for the small blessing.
