Note to teabaggers: pay your taxes like a man

This is why:

Desperate veterans turn to suicide.

You break it, you buy it.

Several branches of the military are reporting significant spikes in the number of suicides committed by both active-duty troops and veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts are calling the number of military-related suicides sweeping the country an "epidemic."

Survivors of veterans who committed suicide are starting to file lawsuits, accusing the VA of medical malpractice. The agency also has come under attack by lawmakers and veterans' groups charging that it failed to treat injured veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The agency also has been accused of manipulating suicide statistics to downplay the problem and systematically misdiagnosing returning combat soldiers who suffer mental illness because their resources are tapped.

I wrote long ago about the cons deliberately mis-diagnosing PTSD in an attempt to deny services. Click on PTSD; I can't elaborate because I'm off to a seminar. On treating PTSD, as it happens. More later.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Pushing Fundie Sexist Christ-ist Propaganda Instead of Treating PTSD

This is infuriating.

I don't have time to address it fully now, but it's so wrong across so many dimensions . . . feh.

Brainwashing "Purpose-Driven Airmen."

Bushist Fascists to Vets: It's All In Your Heads, Suckers!

No purple hearts fer vets with post-traumatic stress disorder.

No wounds. No actual wounds, you see. It's sort of like waterboarding. No wounds there, either. No biggie.

Oh, except there are wounds generally speaking after one shoots oneself in the head in the process of committing suicide. So wouldn't that count? Wouldn't count if you just take pills, though. And what about wounds inflicted on other people by people with PTSD? Would those wounds count as wounds, ya think?

Suicide Attempts Jump for Vets by 500% In Five Years and Government Ignores It.

Bush
Vets with PTSD
Vets and suicide

Casualties of War

A Task

. by Czeslaw Milosz


In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life

Only if I brought myself to make a public confession

Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:


We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons

But pure and generous words were forbidden

Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one


Considered himself as a lost man.






.





This photograph says it all.
Osama lives, our young men and women die and suffer, Iraqis die and suffer.

Bushist fascism and the arrogant, Oedipal, sanctimonious hubris that fuels it continue to bring our country to its knees, leaving us fiscally bankrupt and morally bankrupt.


No one pays for these crimes.

So far.







I'm going on retreat for a while.

See you later.

Iraq War
Dirty Bush
Photograph by Nina Berman, from her excellent book, "Purple Hearts." I think this photo will become an emblematic photo of Bubble Boy's horrid Oedipal war. (Another was the Abu Ghraib hooded black figure with wires attached to his hands.)

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Huzzah! Bubble Boy Brings Back Burqas!

Bubble Boy Wastes Blood and Treasure to Install Medievalist Islamic Theocracy: Mainstream Media Mum

No Veteran Not Left Behind

We Can't Care for the Children We Already Have

Child Abuse Prevention Month

America, America: Torture for Fun

Bubble Boy's Oedipal War Broke 'Em, But Bubble Boy Won't Pay to Fix 'Em

More tales of incompetence and inexcusible stupidity about shabby, shoddy "treatment" for American troops with PTSD.

(Recommendations for fixing VA system, here. Earlier WaPo story here.)

The American military, led by raucous draft-dodger George W. Bush as its shining, sock-stuffed-codpiece commander, apparently just can't handle treating its own troops with PTSD now, even thought it's Bush's own Oedipal war that gave them their severe psychological injuries.

Every month, 20 to 40 soldiers are evacuated from Iraq because of mental problems, according to the Army. Most are sent to Walter Reed along with other war-wounded. For amputees, the nation's top Army hospital offers state-of-the-art prosthetics and physical rehab programs, and soon, a new $10 million amputee center with a rappelling wall and virtual reality center.

Nothing so gleaming exists for soldiers with diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder, who in the Army alone outnumber all of the war's amputees by 43 to 1. The Army has no PTSD center at Walter Reed, and its psychiatric treatment is weak compared with the best PTSD programs the government offers. Instead of receiving focused attention, soldiers with combat-stress disorders are mixed in with psych patients who have issues ranging from schizophrenia to marital strife.

Even though Walter Reed maintains the largest psychiatric department in the Army, it lacks enough psychiatrists and clinicians to properly treat the growing number of soldiers returning with combat stress. Earlier this year, the head of psychiatry sent out an "SOS" memo desperately seeking more clinical help.

Individual therapy with a trained clinician, a key element in recovery from PTSD, is infrequent, and targeted group therapy is offered only twice a week.

Here's the real deall:

1. Assess.
Assess symptomatology, and the level of risk to self and others.
2. Refer In or Out, then Treat.
High-risk patients (dangerous to self/others) go inpatient, receive individual counseling at least twice a week, med eval, groups with possible referral for psych eval. They stay inpatient until they are stabilized.
3. Assess again, Refer Again.
Patients assessed as suitable for outpatient treatment get individual sessions, twice a week to start if they're very symptomatic, once a week if that will suffice. Med eval referrals made by clinician as needed. Work toward stabilization of symptoms.
4. Add Groups. (Maybe.)
Once a patient is doing well (symptoms less severe/less frequent), add group treatment -- down the line. Don't start out with group treatment.


Earlier in this series, the writers suggested that "more research" needs to be done on PTSD before treatment can begin.
This is total bullshit. Effective treatments already exist, the military just is not using them.

If the military's not prepared to treat their own wounded, they need to refer their wounded troops for treatment to experienced trauma-trained clinicians.

They're ready, willing, and able.

Get it done. Make it happen.

Get it done.


vets with PTSD
support the troops

Power & Control Abuser Bush Insults Senator Webb & His Marine Son (Then WH Spreads That Smear All Around Like Bushist Fascist Holiday Cheer)

It was bad enough when Bubble Boy was caught talking with his mouth full.

It was worse when he was caught chewing with his mouth open. Feh.

It was even worse when he was caught sexually harrassing the female Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. (As if she were his pet cow, he came up on her from behind, touching her, touching her without permission, then flounced off as if nothing had happened, to minimize his invasion of another person's physical boundaries. When was the last time Bush gave Poison Putin an unwanted touch? Or Kofi Annan? Ahmadinejad?)

The worst of all was when was Bush was caught -- without any WMDs.
600K dead, no WMDs, oops, sorry.

Bush is always getting caught with his pants down, one way or another, is he not?

This time, Bush was caught trying to exert power and control over the free speech of a newly-elected Senator, one whose own son is now serving in Iraq.

(Unlike Preznit Toad-Exploder's two adult daughters, neither of whom is serving in Iraq, and both of whom remain unemployed slackers at age 25, never having had a real job in their whole lives, just like their bio dad, Dubya.)

It's not pretty.

"How's your boy?" Bush asks, referring to Senator Webb's adult son, a Marine who is now serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get 'em out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responds.

"That's not what I asked you!" Bush snaps. "I said, how's your boy?"


From The Hill:

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

"I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing," Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but . . . didn’t. . .

A White House spokeswoman declined to give Bush’s version of the conversation.

The horror! The horror!

Sieg heil, we are sorry, we know we must all obey dear fearless leader Preznit Snippy and endure all his divine tyrant temper tantrums and all his unchecked divine megalomania, because he "is" so importantly, our great divine Deciderer, Our Sole Preznit Toad-Exploder. (Depending upon what "is," is.)

Although we are those who must shed our blood to defend free speech, we know we must never ever seek to exercise it, particularly not when we are In The Presence, nor may we ever deviate from the Divine Script.

Next, shall we not be much more careful to be shuffling out of His Presence backwards, whilst bowing? Why, we must ask Helen Mirren what is to be done!

Why, oh why, aren't we treating George Bush properly, as King-Emperor, right now, why, O you librul traitors, why, eh?

Oh, and please spread this story around, media whore media, at closet cupcake Karl Rove's behest, so everyone knows that punishment follows lese majeste.

Well, Karl, you know, sometimes what follows that kind of Bush's War on Democracy Bushist fascist stuff is like, other stuff, like, well, tar & feathers, & offering indictments.

Probably not therapy.


Bush and Webb
Bush rude to Sen. Webb
Iraq War

Update: here's George Will, being stupid and defending the indefensible Bush. One was deeply touched when Will read the riot act to Cheney, after the VP told Senator Jeffords to go fuck himself, was one not?
Update 2: WH deliberately pushed Webb smear, from Editor & Publisher, via RawStory, here.

RUMMY: NO IRAQ PLAN BEYOND THE CAKEWALK

Guess what, boys and girls?

There's more Bushist fascist dirty laundry heading your way, and it's chock-full of stinky skid marks.

Secretary of Defense, Donald "Psycho" Rumsfeld didn't just have a really BAD plan for post-war Iraq, he had ZERO plan.

Because it was going to be a CAKEWALK. Got that?

Psycho Rummy PURPOSELY ordered the U.S. military NOT TO MAKE ANY POST-WAR PLANS.

Oh, my, boys and girls.

Can you say "criminal negligence"?

Can you say "unimaginable frickin' hubris"?

Can you say "impeachable offenses all over the frickin' place"?

[B]efore the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said in an interview.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said ''he would fire the next person'' who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

Well, Rummy sure fired Shinseki.

Scheid said the planners continued to try ''to write what was called Phase 4,'' or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like security, stability and reconstruction.

Even if the troops didn't stay, ''at least we have to plan for it,'' Scheid said.

''I remember the secretary of Defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,'' Scheid said.

''We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

''He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war.''

They got around that for a while, didn't they?

Full story here.

Oh, and how about the Senate finally figuring out that the evidence showed no linkage between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and sort of coming clean about it, having cleverly kept these inconvenient truths hidden during the last presidential election, here.

And here. GOP strategies to cling to power by smearing Dems, here.


There's just not enough contempt in the whole universe to heap on these immoral, sadistic liars.

There isn't.

Rumsfeld made no postwar plan
Dirty Bush
Bushist fascists

Dirty Bush Screws the Troops. Again.

What's dirty Bush done this time?

He's cut in half funding for treatment of war-related brain injuries and research on war-related brain injuries.

You know, the kind of war-related brain injuries one might get while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. IEDS, gunshot wounds, that kind of thing.

Please keep in mind Preznit Toad-Exploder's previous record of supporting the troops:

issuing crappy body armor to save money
giving a hard time to troops who buy their own body armor because the DOD doesn't want to be caught being cheap shits
putting crappy armor on tanks to save money
denying treatment to vets with PTSD to save money
putting out anti-PTSD propaganda to save money
undertreating vets with PTSD to save money

Heckuva job.



Full story here.


2006--GET THE SNAKES OFF THE PLANE.

Iraq Veterans
Bush cuts funding for vets
Dirty Bush
Snakes on a plane

Neck Deep in the Big Muddy, And the Big Fool Said To Push On

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

(Pete Seeger)

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Lou-zianna,
One night by the light of the moon.

The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.

We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.


The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"

"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."

We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."

"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie!"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."

We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.


All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.

Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.


Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.

But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.


Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep!
Neck deep!
Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head! We're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!


(Tomorrow marks our first blogiversary. We're celebrating with song today. Who knows what we shall celebrate with tomorrow?)


More here.

Rumsfeld
Iraq War
Bush
Geneva Conventions

First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You, Part Three: Haditha Massacre Version

Video photo: Bodies of Haditha massacre victims are loaded onto trucks (Hammurabi Human Rights Group)

MARINES WITNESS MASSACRE AFTERMATH
Receive sub-standard care for PTSD

Via Raw Story/AP:

HANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Two Marines were severely traumatized when told to photograph the corpses of men, women and children after members of their unit allegedly killed as many as two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians, their families said Monday.

Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, both members of the Marine unit based at Camp Pendleton, photographed the scene in the western Iraqi city of Haditha with personal cameras they happened to be carrying the day of the attack.

Briones later had his camera confiscated by Navy investigators, his mother said, while Wright's parents said their son was cooperating with the Navy investigation, but declined to comment further.

"It was horrific. It was a terrible scene," Briones' mother, Susie, said in a tearful interview Monday with The Associated Press at her home in California's San Joaquin Valley.

She called the incident a "massacre" and said the military had done little to help her son, who goes by his middle name, deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I know Ryan is going through some major trauma right now," said Susie Briones, 40, an academic adviser at a community college. "It was very traumatic for all of the soldiers involved with this thing. . . ." Lance Cpl. Briones told his mother he saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis.

Susie Briones got a panicked call that day from her son, who said he did not see the shootings but was told by his supervisors to go into the houses and remove the bodies. He brought along a digital camera that his mother had given him before he left for Iraq. One of the bodies was a little girl who had been shot in the head, Susie Briones said. "He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."

Briones' best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, had been killed earlier that day by the roadside bomb. He was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians, his mother said.

Ryan Briones told the Los Angeles Times that he'd been interrogated twice by Navy investigators while in Iraq. He turned over his digital camera but did not know what happened to it after that.

"They wanted to know if the bodies had been moved or tampered with," said Briones, who has not been interviewed by Navy investigators since he returned from Iraq in April.

Susie Briones said her son has been seeing a private psychiatrist and been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder since his return. She criticized his military care, saying all his military doctors did was give him sleeping pills and antidepressants.

Wright also photographed the scene, according to his parents, Frederick and Patty Wright. They said their son was an innocent victim who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. . . Wright told his parents about the incident soon after it happened. He was distressed, and they reassured him the incident would be investigated and that it wasn't his fault.

The Wrights said Naval Criminal Investigative Service had "all his information," but did not give further details. They declined to say whether he witnessed the killings or what he thought of the allegations against other members of his unit.

He was under so much pressure because of the investigation that he had consulted with an attorney, they said. . .On Monday, both Marines were back at Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, where base officials said several members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division were being confined during the investigations. . .Nicholas Grey, a second lieutenant in the Marine Reserves based at Camp Pendleton, said the case will result in a loss of credibility for the Marines and increase Iraqi anger.

"It will make it a lot harder for the Marines," he said.

Yes, it will.

So, shrieky Bushists who disbelieve in alleviating human suffering, doesn't this story just warm the cockles of your heart? Isn't it rich? Isn't it interesting how quickly this version of the AP story disappeared from the internet? Are we getting ready to slag the so-called "trauma industry" again? Nothing to see here. Move along.


Original Time article here.

Haditha
Haditha massacre
Vets
PTSD

First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You. It's Hard Work. Still.

This is a picture of Specialist Doug Barber. He acquired PTSD as a result of his participation in the Iraq War.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is an eminently treatable psychiatric condition, one requiring individual therapy once or twice a week until symptoms--hyperarousal (anxiety, panic, hypervigilance, outbursts of rage, irritability, insomnia, etc.); numbing/avoidance; intrusive thoughts (flashbacks, nightmares)--subside. Individualized medication regimes can also be helpful.

Preznit Toad-Exploder's VA knew full well what was wrong with Doug Barber, yet denied him benefits and proper treatment for two years.

In response to this soldier's request for emergency crisis treatment, according to Jay Shaft, the VA gave him a counseling appointment every three months and threw meds at him without proper supervision and follow-up.

On January 18, 2006, Specialist Doug Barber, who had PTSD, an eminently treatable psychiatric condition, committed suicide.

We've previously mentioned the Bush regime's vicious cheapskate policy on PTSD here, here, and here.


Asserting that people with PTSD don't have PTSD, reclassifying diagnoses, stringing patients along on meds only, or groups, or whatever they can get away with--that's how Bubble Boy's VA balances their budgets.

Deny people with PTSD treatment for long enough, they just kill themselves. Saves a bundle, eh?


Sort of like waiting for someone to bleed to death so as not to pay for a surgeon.










Iraq War
Bush
PTSD
VA
Iraq vets

Bubble Boy Brings Home Heroes' Corpses as Excess Baggage

Just how nauseated can one get?

.







"Family Upset Over Marine's Body Arriving As Freight

Marine Bodies Sent To Families On Commercial Airliners

SAN DIEGO -- There's controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.
Click here to find out more!

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.

"When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made," said John Holley.

John and Stacey Holley, who were both in the Army, made some calls, and with the help of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Matthew was greeted with honor and respect.

"Our familiarity with military protocol and things of that sort allowed us to kind of put our foot down -- we're not sure other parents have that same knowledge," said Stacey Holley.

The Holleys now want to make sure every fallen hero gets the proper welcome.

The bodies of dead service members arrive at Dover Air Force Base.

From that point, they are sent to their families on commercial airliners.

Reporters from 10News called the Defense Department for an explanation. A representative said she did not know why this is happening."


Why is this happening?

Because Bubble Boy started a war based on an Oedipal feud with his own Dad.

Because Preznit Toad-Exploder can't face the fact that he's killing thousands of his own people and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Because Preznit lacks the cojones to take responsibility for his bringing moral and fiscal bankruptcy to America.



Gee. Who was our last peace and prosperity president? Oh, that would be Clinton, would it not?

War and Poverty Preznits are so much more -- deep. Are they not?



.

No Veteran Not Left Behind

Compassion, compassion, compassion.

That's what the Dalai Lama said.

Conservative, conservative, conservative.

That's what the black-heart neo-cons said.

If one scrolls below at No Blood for Hubris, one can see the charming stories such as, "First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You," parts one and two, in which the tale of the notorious non-combatant Daddy's-Friends-Got-Me-Into-The-National-Guards-man and current president Bubble Boy, whose government looks for, and then creates ways to deny mental health treatment to veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder (they do this by deciding, hey! dude! Your flashbacks aren't soooo bad, after all! Adios, amigo! See ya!)

Now, these cuddly neo-cons are doing it again--only it's arguably even more perverse.

Take a gander, but keep a tight fist on your vomit bag:

For Injured U.S. Troops, 'Financial Friendly Fire'

Flaws in Pay System Lead to Dunning, Credit Trouble

By Donna St. George

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 14, 2005; Page A01

His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life's possibilities.

The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate -- downgrading it because he was out of the war zone -- or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.

At his home near Middletown, N.Y., Robert Loria plays a keyboard. He lost his left hand in a bombing in Iraq. (Dominick Fiorille - Middletown Times Herald Record) 'His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life\'s possibilities.'

But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing.

"I was shocked," recalled Loria, now 28 and medically retired from the Army. "After everything that went on, they still had the nerve to ask me for money."

Although Loria's problems may be striking on their own, the Army has recently identified 331 other soldiers who have been hit with military debt after being wounded at war. The new analysis comes as the United States has more wounded troops than at any time since the Vietnam War, with thousands suffering serious injury in Iraq or Afghanistan."


I've asked it before, now I'm asking it again: what is frickin' wrong with these people?

Why have they no shame?

Why have they no care, no compassion, no sense of responsibility toward the post-born?

Why is it that only sentimentalist tales of lonely, sightless, womb-encased embryoes, quite unable to live on their own, are able to inspire any kind of fellow-feeling in them, if you can call it that?

Why have these people only charred, black hearts?

Just asking.


Veterans
Bush

Bubble Boy Deja Vu--MIA All Over Again!!

On Monday before Hurricane Katrina, Boy George, Dirty Bush, just had to go to Rancho Cucamonga. On Tuesday, after the hurricane, he had to go to San Diego.

On both days, he had to not go to New Orleans.

That's 'cause Bubble Boy's trying to complete this five-week lap of a tough, compulsory, multiple-vacation-per-year performance schedule. Having vacations is--well, it's hard work.

I mean, it's hard trying to forget about Cindy Sheehan. It's hard trying to forget about having successfully created an Islamic State. It's hard going to barbeques filled with Fourth Estate Propaganda Stenographers, and it's real hard clearin' that brush.

It's hard trying to pump some empathy out of a charred, black heart. Pumpin' oil out of that charred, black heart, that might work, mm-hm.

It's just SO parallel with the tsunami thing, Bubble Boy's total utter lack of empathy thing.

When there was that tsunami thing, there was that stunning lack-of-any-empathic-sympathy-thing thing.

Remember that? Hundreds of thousands dead, and Bush responds as if he were popping a zit or adjusting his jock strap. Took his handlers three, four days to beat some pretense of empathy into him, and it didn't really take, did it?

With the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Bubble Boy Bush's response once again is--disaster.

Mr. President Heart-of-Darkness is, empathetically speaking, Missing in Action, once again.

Does Bubble Boy feel guilty for having sent all those National Guard people away from their state into the deserts of Iraq? Nah.

Does he feel guilty for having slashed FEMA funding to protect New Orleans from disasters just like the one that just happened? Nah.

Does he think going back to Washington will make him look like he's leaderish? Sorta, but mostly Bubble Boy desperately needed an excuse permanently to end his miserable 2005 Crawford vacation and make Cindy Sheehan and her Cindy-Sheehan-thing thing GO AWAY.

Bubble Boy said it at Harvard, his professor Professor Tsurumi, recalled it, and here it is: poor people are poor because they're lazy.

Wooh-hooh!

If they die because they're poor and therefore lack cars, money, resources, highground property, etc., in order to escape hurricanes like in New Orleans and Mississippi, it's their own damn fault, mm-hm.

Hey. Don't get all snivelly-liberal about it, dudes and dudettes. GOD smote the poor in New Orleans, not Bubble Boy. So don't expect Bubble Boy to feel bad about it.

Our Bubble Boy?

Shee-it. Nah. He don' feel bad about nothin'.

Bubble Boy: Sending Our Kids to Die For His Right to Remain A Maroon!

Well, not just for Bubble Boy's right to remain a maroon*. It's really about fighting for all his Bubble Boy-ist maroons' right to retain their maroon-ness.

It's the big-time Dirty Bush trifecta for America: fighting to bring us fiscal bankruptcy, moral bankruptcy, and the right to remain an unregenerate maroon!

You've got to admit, he's as good at doing the true trifecta as he is at clearing brush and raising money.

Number one--there's no money left for anything, really. They spent it all on tax cuts and the Bubble Boy's war. There being no money left was Bubble Boy's Grover-Norquistian plan. Starve the beast. Help government shrivel away and DIE. And it's really working! They're dismantling military bases left and right--mostly in blue states, as punishment for not being red states.

There's no money left for helping with hurricanes like Katrina, there's no money left to treat all the veterans their evil maroon war gave PTSD to, there's no money to inspect air travelers' luggage, there's no money to protect city subways, they're shutting down Walter Reed--who needs hospitals when people can just pray?

Number two--bringing us moral bankruptcy. Rumsfeld gives orders to torture prisoners, but they need to frame it like it isn't torture, but of course, it is. Rummy tells the military, the military tries to object, Rummy tells the military to shut the fuck up. Rummy sends the Gitmo Guy to Abu Ghraib, and "contractors" -- that would be mercenaries -- come in and tell the grunts what kind of torture they want, and against whom. Then the grunts get caught, the mercenaries vanish, the grunts go to jail. Perfecta trifecta. The photos come out, & recruiting for Al Qaeda triples.

Don't forget--the best photos are still to come! Yes, yes, we're SO a Christian nation, big-time! Who would Jesus NOT torture? Who would Jesus NOT assassinate?

Number three--puffing up with MAROON PRIDE! Sending our (well, really, YOUR) children to die so WE can continue to be maroons, act like maroons, make stupid decisions like maroons, lie through our teeths like maroons, poison our very own air and water and food like maroons, make fun of smart people like maroons do, big-time name-call all non-maroons, and then, oops, now post-Cindy we're starting to come apart at the seams, like maroons in despair.

Oh, dear. It's getting SO hard to keep that maroon pride going. There are these maroon mood swings that make aides wonder if they need to call the little men in white coats, there's a suddenly chain-smoking ex-librarian, there are temper tantrums, there's intermittent explosive-type events, oopsie, there is gnashing of teeth and stomping of feet, and minions trying to cover it all up.

Yes, of course Bubble Boy is upset. He's losing the war he wanted to win so he could be a war president!!

Chokes on pretzels, falls off Segways, starts wars to compete with his Daddy, but it turns out after all, that Father knew best. Oh, my. What a maroon.



Bush, idiot
worst president ever
Dirty Bush
Iraq War


(N.B. "What a ma-ROON!" reprises Bugs Bunny's classic phrase conferring moron stature on him or her to whom said phrase is directed. Bugs Bunny is, well, Bugs Bunny.)

Dirty Bush to Vets, Part Deux: First, We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You. It's Hard Work.

Here, the story of Sgt. Daniel Cotnoir, a returned Iraq vet whose Iraq assignment was re-assembling the body parts of bombically disassembled humans. Think about that for a moment, or two. He came under psychological fire now that he's back home.

Will this returned soldier be able to meet the magic stress test so he can receive benefits due to a psychologically-maimed troop? Or will he be one of those veterans fobbed off onto the penal system, or else systematically down-graded to a lesser diagnosis in order to save the Bushist government more money?

See below.

Tell me again, Dirty Bush, why isn't there enough money to care for our soldiers? There's plenty of money for drilling offshore oil, and Alaska oil, and suchlike.

Just wondering.



Bush
Vets
Vets with PTSD
worst president ever

Dirty Bush to Vets: First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You

No surprises, really. An administration that cuts taxes for rich folks and cuts corners for regular military folks, letting troops risking their lives go into battle without armor. Body armor, armor for vehicles; hey, dudes, you know, you have to invade countries that didn't invade you with the armor you have, not the armor you wish you had.

Now, finally cognizant that they've pissed away the Clinton surplus with their psychotic tax-cuts and no-tax-just-spendism, the Dirty Bushists are trying to balance the budget on the backs of psych-maimed vets.

Wow. Nice one.

Here's the technique: you take "another look" at your current military veterans who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic-stress disorder (you know, that thing that often happens when a guy or gal spends a lot of time watching buddies explode into masses of blood and guts, watching innocent civilians explode into shreds and piles of blood and guts, eye-witnessing various categories of human beings being slaughtered freely so they leave little indelible pieces of their brain and skin on your uniform and on your mind-stream, and so on).

Next, you try to CUT OFF as many of these suffering vets as possible from benefits, such as receiving disability pay and receiving standard of care psychological treatment for PTSD (you know, the kind of treatment which could cure their suffering).

How do you cut them off from benefits? Why, you cleverly "un-diagnose" them. You just move them from one column to the next. You say, your symptoms, debilitating as they are, just AREN'T enough as of today, so we now say, you're fine, just fine, we just don't give a shit. We don't care.

[post-Cindy-at-Crawford update: aha. A true Bushist leitmotif: We don't care! We don't care! We don't care! And, you know, they actually don't!]

Deal with it, major dudes. Commit suicide, homicide, who cares, tough nuts, it's all your fault if you're all fucked up now. Once you're dead, or in jail, we don't have to pay for your psychotherapy anymore. Heh, heh.

Isn't that charming? Isn't that just the way to save a buck?

There's more at Salon:


"Outraged vets say . . . plan is a callous attempt to cuts the costs of an increasingly expensive war."


Easy to sum up the Dirty Bushists: heartless, brainless, soulless.






Bush
Vets with PTSD
Vets
Rumsfeld