Last week, I shared a tragic story of a veteran who committed suicide less than three hours after being assessed as a "low risk" patient, and was released from VA care. The carelessness of his assessment was largely due to a standardized questionnaire that was used to identify high risk patients. This is a serious oversight, especially when you consider the statistic that by the end of the day, 18 veterans will have taken their own lives.

Since these troops make it home from Iraq, Afghanistan or other battlefields alive, they are not counted as casualties of war. In 2007, 6,256 veterans committed suicide. That's about two thousand more than the number of troops who died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. And yet, these deaths are not counted among the war casualties.

There have been a lot of incidents of appallingly bad journalism over the past eight years: those relentlessly focused on trivialities, stories inventing fake scandals out of whole cloth, the ones amplifying Bush lies and cheerleading for war.  Yet for some reason, this story by Dan Eggen and Paul Kane in Sunday's Washington Post strikes me as the most unbelievable, factually incorrect and just plain stupidest article of the Bush era.

Headline:

Recent Political Wins Smell of Compromise

Lately, President Employs a Little-Used Tool

I don't know if you're aware of it, but getting full immunity for lawbreaking, expanded unchecked surveillance powers, and no-strings funding for endless war in Iraq is the result of compromise!

This is a weekly diary diary I do over at the EENR blog, and since some of you may be interested in it, I figured I'd post it over here once and let you know that it gets posted at 11:30am Eastern/8:30am Pacific every Monday morning on the EENR. Here is today's edition in full:

(photo by Cam in Van on Flickr)

Hey there all you folks out there on the EENR this Monday! This is the Critter Watch, and we do it because, of course, we all know that we have to keep a close eye on those Congress Critters of ours; you never know what they'll vote for sell auction off give away next. For more, scroll down and bring tissues...

Today is not the kind of day that makes me optimistic about the political realities in this country.  The one bright spot was the 25 Obama bumper stickers that arrived.  I ran out and pasted one on on my pickup truck.  No not a hybrid a 2000 Toyota Tacoma.  I put about 1,500 miles a year on it so I'm not even going to blink an eye at any self-righteous comments.  How's this for a headline?  SENATORS WARNER AND WEBB INTRODUCE NATURAL-GAS EXPLORATION BILL.  Interesting rationale:

Senator John Warner (R-Va.) and Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced legislation today that would allow the Commonwealth of Virginia to explore for natural gas off its shores, empowering Virginia – not Washington – to make decisions regarding its own coastline.

 That's just one of the things that got to me today.  I keep looking for signs of coming change, but...well look below and I'll explain.

UPDATE: The best information I have is the Rules Committee is acting on the FISA bill right now, and they're waiving the requirements that would conceivably allow them to act on both war funding and FISA as soon as tomorrow.  However, war funding may happen tonight, with FISA tomorrow.  I apologize for trying to get this information out swiftly.  It's still possible but not a done deal.

Here it is.  The final indignity.  Funding for endless war AND etching out the 4th Amendment will be combined into the same bill to force enough compliance from Bush Dogs to get this bill passed.  "By any means necessary" for Hoyer and his corporate lobbying buddies.

The House Rules Committee is meeting at this hour on the "FISA Amedments Act."  Later today, they'll be meeting on a technical fix that allows them to waive PAYGO rules and waive consideration of a bill within 24 hours of its rules being set.

The plan is to put the two together.

This year, the United States government is scheduled to spend more than $622 billion dollars on the military budget, which includes an additional $171 billion dollars for the occupation of Iraq.  In comparison, the US will only spend $56 billion dollars this year on education and only $3.4 billion on energy development.  At the current rate of spending it will take 183 years of alternative energy development to match one year of spending on the war in Iraq, and eleven years of funding education for our children will still not match even one year of spending on this war.  We have seriously misplaced our priorities, and it driving us further into debt, an estimated $9.357 trillion dollars this year.  

On the USA TODAY’s website today they have two very important stories being told about our military troops.  

The first being that of, "Age, mold assail military barracks".  They tell the story of our soldiers fight to keep mold out of their showers during the summers and keeping the heating system working properly in their barracks across America.  Some barracks had to be closed down because they were falling apart.  Some of these buildings are a century old.  Maintenance budgets being limited causes even more grief.

ABC:

Bush details $70 billion war funding request for 2009
Bush sends Congress details of $70 billion war request for 2009
By ANDREW TAYLOR
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Bush sent lawmakers a $70 billion request Friday to fund U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring, which would give the next president breathing room to make his or her own war policy.

Friday's request fills in the details of the $70 billion placeholder that the White House asked for when it sent its budget to Congress in February. The money is for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.

$70 billion? What happened to the $108 billion figure from the other day?

Confused? Here's the scoop:

The $108 billion is the figure Bush demands for supplemental spending. That is, spending on top of what was budgeted for fiscal year 2008 (FY08).

The $70 billion is the figure Bush demands be put in the fiscal year 2009 budget. FY09, as the article mentions, begins on October 1, 2008 -- 112 days before Bush's term ends.

And as we discussed the other day, it looks like Congressional Democrats would like to add extra money -- probably that $70 billion or so -- to the supplemental. Why?

Democratic leaders say they're likely to add the $70 billion for next year to that measure, which would allow them to avoid a politically painful vote on war funding in the heat of campaigning for the November elections.

Dems don't want to be facing, well, you, just as they're voting on another $70 billion (on top of the $108 Bush is going to force out of them) for the war they're campaigning on ending. And they don't want the next president, assuming it's a Democrat, to have to do the same in his or her first months in office.

And so George W. Bush will put on his oversized foam rubber "fiscal conservative" cowboy hat for a while, and pretend it makes sense to draw the line on the supplemental at $108 billion and not a penny more (or he'll veto it, he says), even though he's about to ask for another $70 billion a few weeks later.

Take a good look at that situation, though.

What's more absurd, Democrats who want to end the war voting to front him (and the next president) an extra $70 billion more than he wants? Or Bush's ridiculous notion that it's somehow fiscally conservative to "budget" $70 billion for the war in FY09, when he's right now demanding nearly 55% more than that in supplemental FY08 spending.

What a friggin' crock.

Whatever happened to Colin Powell's Pottery Barn Rule: "You break it, you buy it"?

Iraq's Financial Free Ride May End

By ANNE FLAHERTY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iraq's financial free ride may be over. After five years, Republicans and Democrats seem to have found common ground on at least one aspect of the war. From the fiercest war foes to the most steadfast Bush supporters, they are looking at Iraq's surging oil income and saying Baghdad should start picking up the tab, particularly for rebuilding hospitals, roads, power lines and the rest of the shattered country.

"I think the American people are growing weary not only of the war, but they are looking at why Baghdad can't pay more of these costs. And the answer is they can," says Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Ben Nelson, of course, was one of the bright lights who voted to invade Iraq in the first place.

The big news about General Petraeus’ testimony before Congress came not from the General himself (what should we expect from someone hand-picked by President Bush) but from the Senators who grilled him. Each of the three contenders for President -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain -- was critical of current policy. But they all also spoke out against removing all US troops from Iraq.

A single act of bold leadership
by Senator Clinton or Senator Obama
could be instrumental in ending this war.

If Senator Clinton and Senator Obama aren't willing to use the power they have now as U.S. Senators to end the war, what makes anyone think they will exercise bold leadership on January 20, 2009 ?

If they fail to take action to stop funding the war that is killing our troops and the Iraqi people, we can only conclude that when their campaigns talk about ending the war, they are just using the memory of the fallen, the sacrifices of our troops, and the grief and pain of our families, for political gain.

Of course it's only to be expected from our felon-in-chief: his minions at the Pentagon are planning to make sure whoever takes over the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, will have to ask congress immediately for off-budget funding for the WARS in Iraq and Afghanistan. EVEN IF that new commander-in-chief intends to withdraw our troops from Irag immediately.

According to a story on All Things Considered this evening, the Pentagon's budget (some $500 billion -- more than the whole rest of the world spends on military matters) does not include any war funding. So there's a second request for $70b to fund the wars. Only that's not all: the $70b for the war represents only 25% of what will be "needed" for the coming fiscal year. So the real total (right now at least) is a whopping $280b. Bringing the total defense appropriation request up to $750b. For ONE YEAR. That's 3/4 of a trillion, folks.

There's more....

I know with all of the candidate diaries and mud slinging going around this may not be as exciting of a topic. But I believe this is very important to all of us and is one of the driving factors of the Democratic party's current success with their message. The ongoing discussion to end the war.

At a rally in Nashua on Sunday, where Mrs. Clinton spoke to a crowd that was about the same size as Mr. Obama’s one day earlier in the same school gymnasium, she raised questions about his voting record on Iraq.

Follow me to never-never land....

The Center for Arms Control and Non Proliferation, an arms control policy organization in D.C., presents the costs of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in U.S. taxpayers' dollars, U.S. lives, and the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians. You can check it out here: here:http://youtube.com/watch?v=_B3QBp1MimM.

In an FU to the troops and Congress, Buch has announced his intention to veto the defense policy bill:

Bush's action, which apparently caught congressional leaders off guard, centers on one provision in the legislation dealing with Iraqi assets. The legislation would permit plaintiffs' lawyers immediately to freeze Iraqi funds and would expose Iraq to "massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

"The new democratic government of Iraq, during this crucial period of reconstruction, cannot afford to have its funds entangled in such lawsuits in the United States," Stanzel said in a statement.

"Hope the members of Congress enjoy their holiday break. I intend to enjoy mine."

So said the President during his "year-end" press conference on the 20th.
 
Well, that is what I read he said.  I was not able to actually watch the press conference, so I read the transcript.
 
And then I read it again.

President Bush spoke of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan briefly, saying that "[t]hese brave men and women are risking their lives to protect us and they deserve the full support of the U.S. government."  
He made two other statements expressing that he was grateful and "glad" that the troops were funded (without artificial timetables for withdrawals) by Congress.

Then the President proceeded to go into his priorities for 2008:  not raising taxes.  In fact, he talked about not raising taxes nine times, using the word "tax" (or some variation thereof) 29 times.

Liz Kimmerly, Online Director for Steve Novick blogs about today's PolitickerOR blog entry "Novick tries to capture voters disappointed in a "wrong track'".  Steve Novick is a committed progressive Democrat taking on Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate. You can find out more about the fighter with the hard left hook at his website and help support his campaign at ActBlue.

"We are at a crossroads, but we are not at a dead end..."

"The key," he said, "is to tell voters the truth."
-Steve Novick in an interview with PolitickerOr.com