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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (724890)2/10/2006 3:12:13 PM
From: goldworldnet  Respond to of 769670
 
LOL... apparently the dead ones love him too.

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To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (724890)2/10/2006 3:29:54 PM
From: CYBERKEN  Respond to of 769670
 
Patti Bin-Murray is loved by the subhuman Islamic enemy and a few anti-American queers in WA, and no one else.

Feingold couldn't get elected if Wisconsin cleaned up the crooked voting in that banana republic of a state...



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (724890)2/10/2006 3:47:22 PM
From: longnshort  Respond to of 769670
 
patty Murray, what a joke she is. She said sfter the tax cut. Don't give it to the people, they will just buy a TV or Air Conditioner. Only us in Congress know how to spend their money right. Scum of the earth



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (724890)2/10/2006 3:47:27 PM
From: longnshort  Respond to of 769670
 
patty Murray, what a joke she is. She said sfter the tax cut. Don't give it to the people, they will just buy a TV or Air Conditioner. Only us in Congress know how to spend their money right. Scum of the earth



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (724890)2/10/2006 4:49:42 PM
From: puborectalis  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 769670
 
Still Shortchanging the Troops
It's amazing how Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department can produce a $439 billion spending plan and still skimp on the one thing the American military desperately needs: expanded ground forces so the weakened and cannibalized Army can meet the requirements of Iraq without hurting its ability to respond to other threats.

While the Pentagon intends to increase pay and recruitment bonuses, no part of its nearly 7 percent budget increase is aimed at raising overall troop strength. Instead, a large chunk of this nearly $30 billion bonanza goes to buying more new weapons and postponing overdue cuts in wasteful Air Force and Navy projects unrelated to fighting terrorism.

The prospects for Iraq might be very different today if Mr. Rumsfeld had listened to some of his own senior generals and occupation officials and authorized significantly larger ground forces from the beginning. The early looting might have been contained before it shattered political confidence and vital infrastructure. The insurgency might never have gotten such a head start. The incineration tactics of Falluja and the Abu Ghraib nightmare might have been avoided. And the Army's downward spiral of readiness, recruitment and morale might never have begun. But the obstinate ideologues in Mr. Rumsfeld's Pentagon have never accepted the fact that the reality of Iraq did not fit their assumptions. The budget and the four-year plan released with it read almost as if the current conflict had never happened and could never happen again.

Instead of reallocating resources toward the real threats America faces, the military services continue to pour their money into fighting fictive superpowers in the wild blue yonder and on and below the seven seas. Pentagon budgeters showed themselves so pathetically unable to restrain spending on expensive ships and planes that they actually cut back, rather than increased, the overall size of the Army over the next few years to pay for it.

It would cost about $4 billion to $5 billion a year to give the Army 30,000 more troops, the minimum it needs to check its alarming slide. Instead the Pentagon chose to begin the construction of two unneeded new stealth destroyers, which will end up costing $2 billion to $3 billion each.

It also decided to splurge on a new nuclear attack submarine for $2.6 billion and to shell out $5.5 billion for separate Navy and Air Force versions of new stealth fighter jets, plus another $5.5 billion for yet a third version that either can use. In all, the Pentagon is asking for $84 billion to buy weapons systems (twice what it got in 1996) and $73 billion more for research and development.

This budget would be wasteful even under a worst-case assumption that had a second superpower arising within the lifespan of these weapons, turning hostile to America and arming itself to the teeth with the most advanced weapons. There's still unnecessary spending that could be used to repair the Army, which has been ground down at least as much by Pentagon miserliness as by Iraqi insurgents.

The military contractors are doing just fine. It's the troops in Iraq who need help from Washington.



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (724890)2/10/2006 5:18:41 PM
From: tonto  Respond to of 769670
 
Actually, most everyone I know here in Wisconsin dislikes Feingold. He is not a family man, at all. His personal life is a mess. Do not post about how we feel about that extremist.