By NanceGreggs
(… or why McCain needs one – same dif.)
I hope you have all seriously considered the things that Mr. Mission Accomplished has yet to do, and the dire consequences if he is forced to leave office in January 2009 before being allowed to complete his tasks.
Here are my Top Twenty Reasons why Bush should be allowed another term to finish what he’s started:
20. We are literally minutes away from complete victory in Iraq. I know we’ve been hearing this for five years, but this time it’s really true!!!
19. Sure we have millions of Americans who are homeless, bankrupt, uninsured – but do we have enough?
18. Bush has brought the economy to the edge of the cliff – shouldn’t he be allowed to kick it completely over the side before he leaves office?
17. The end of the Bush “presidency” will lead to massive job losses in the Burnable-Bush-Effigy industry, the “Impeach Now” sign-making business, and the “Off to the Hague” T-Shirt Manufacturers Union.
16. While most Bush inner-circle cronies have made their millions, some have not yet been awarded government consultancy contracts – can’t we wait until they get their fair share?
15. A new president might not award no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton. Just what is Dick Cheney supposed to live on should that happen? Is it really fitting that a former VP end his days subsisting on Caviar-Helper?
14. The cost of education will skyrocket due to US kids having to learn English as opposed to what’s been passed-off as English for the last seven years.
13. Comedians and monologue writers will no longer have easy access to jokes that virtually write themselves every time Bush opens his mouth.
12. There are still Iraqis who are alive – and they’re screwing up our ability to steal their oil.
11. US cities could be over-run by homeless billionaires if the tax-cuts aren’t made permanent.
10. Photographers could suffer serious injury if the carefully-staged photo-op, attended by hand-picked crowds, becomes a thing of the past.
9. Having to revert to the Constitution and the rule of law could adversely affect the livelihood of history revisionists.
8. Seeing a presidential approval rating that surpasses 20% might be too jarring a change for many citizens.
7. DC paper-shredders could find themselves on the unemployment line, along with IT workers with expertise in erasing WH emails, videotapes of interrogations, etc.
6. The great sport of waterboarding could lose its audience share.
5. Yes, we’ve pissed-off millions of people world-wide – shouldn’t we stay the course until every last person is pissed-off?
4. A new administration could decide that our vets actually deserve the very best of treatment upon their return – just where is that money supposed to come from?
3. All right, big deal, so we lost one US city due to failure to mitigate the damage caused by a natural disaster – don’t we have plenty of cities? Shouldn’t we be in a position to get rid of a few more before it’s too late?
2. Isn’t insisting on an AG who remembers stuff an affront to the memory-impaired everywhere?
And the Number One Reason for giving Bush a third term:
1. Sure, we as a nation are fucked – but shouldn’t we forge ahead until we are Unequivocally the NUMBER ONE most fucked-up nation EVER in the history of mankind?
Why should the Greatest Nation on Earth settle for being second best?
Posted in full with author's permission.
Originally posted at democraticunderground.com: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/356
Time and time again, we’ve seen troops and veterans suffering at the hands of an inept government bureaucracy. Wounded troops have been forced to repay their enlistment bonuses. Amputees fell through the cracks at Walter Reed. And 400,000 veterans are still waiting months (and even years) for their disability benefits.
Well, here we go again:
Christopher M. Simmance helped keep the peace as an American Soldier in the Middle East, but when he returned home and later suffered a breakdown, he was turned away from the VA hospital because the government didn’t acknowledge his overseas duty.
The whole story is here. Overall, at least 2,000 veterans across the country are struggling to correct mistakes on their military records - mistakes that have cost some of them their jobs and their health care coverage. The wait to correct these errors can stretch for as long as three years. In the meantime, the veteran is not eligible for any of the services or benefits to which they are entitled.
But the battles against the bureaucracy are not only fought by the wounded.
Army Sgt. Kendell Frederick, who had tried three times to file for citizenship, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq as he returned from submitting fingerprints for his application.
There are roughly 7,200 service members or veterans waiting on their citizenship applications, despite a 2002 pledge from the Bush administration to fast track paperwork for immigrant members of the U.S. military. They have to wait months, and sometimes years, for their applications to navigate lengthy background checks, misplaced paperwork, confusion about deployments, and a plethora of other bureaucratic obstacles.
Troops in Iraq getting shot at right now are also bearing the burden of bureaucracy. Our slow acquisitions process and the inadequate oversight of military procurement can have dire consequences for troops in theatre:
Casualties could have been reduced by half among Marines in Iraq if specially armored vehicles had been deployed more quickly in some cases.
That’s according to a new blockbuster report to the Pentagon.
This is just unacceptable. For every bureaucratic snafu and oversight failure, there are thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans paying the price-with their lives and limbs. That’s why Government Accountability is so important, and why we have included it as one of the five key areas of IAVA’s 2008 Legislative Agenda.
But accountability isn’t very popular in Washington right now. The fate of one of our successes from last year’s Legislative Agenda has just been thrown into jeopardy. The 2008 National Defense Authorization Act established a new Wartime Contracting Commission to investigate fraud and waste by defense contractors. But in his signing statement, President Bush has objected to this new “Truman Commission” on the grounds that it might tie his hands as Commander-in-Chief.
Senator Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran whose son served in Iraq, championed the new commission, and has sworn the commission will go forward. He rammed it home on the Senate floor stating:
“If the Administration would like to explain to us what their constitutional issue is with a piece of legislation that the President has just signed, we would be happy to hear that. In the meantime, we are moving forward with this Commission. It is vitally important to accountability in the government, and I’m very proud to have introduced it. We are marching forward.”
Troops and veterans will be marching alongside Senator Webb on this. And we need the American people to do the same.
Posted in full with author's permisssion.
Originally posted at iava.org: http://www.iava.org/blog/2008/02/28/troops-die-while-bureaucrats-blunder-the-fight-against-red-tape
