This Should Make You Proud to be a Democrat!

[phuloi]

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003 4:38 p.m. EST
Dem Intel Committee Memo Reveals Anti-Bush Plot

A memo circulated among Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence shows the committee's minority plotting to use classified information against the White House in next year's presidential campaign.

The document, obtained and disclosed by nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity Tuesday afternoon, suggests that the top priority among senior Democrats entrusted with guarding the nation's security is instead driving the Bush administration from power based on claims it exaggerated intelligence on the threat posed by Iraq.

The memo as reported by Hannity reads as follows:

"We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows:

"1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard.

"For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman [Sen. Pat Roberts] has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.

"The fact that the chairman supports our investigations into these offices and cosigns our requests for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't know what we will find but our prospects for getting the access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the majority. [We can verbally mention some of the intriguing leads we are pursuing.]

"2) Assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it.

"In that regard we may have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims. We will contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified. Our additional views will also, among other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

"The Democrats will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of establishing an Independent Commission [i.e., the Corzine Amendment.]

"3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once.

"The best time to do so will probably be next year, either:

"A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report, thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public. Additional views on the interim report (1). The announcement of our independent investigation (2). And (3) additional views on the final investigation. Or:

"B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence.

"In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter footdragging on the part of the majority. For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman. We have independently submitted written requests to the DOD and we are preparing further independent requests for information.

"SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.

"The approach outlined above seems to offer the best prospect for exposing the administration's dubious motives." [End of Memo Excerpt.]

The revelation that Democrats are using the intelligence committee to conduct opposition research for the coming presidential campaign demands an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee, Hannity said.

[BLUEHAWK]

Griz -
Yup... nothing surprises me anymore from party-liners.

There are a few or three errant missiles way off course in the Prez bunch whose absence would not bother me one bit...but one of 'em is not the Prez. So, as long as he sees fit to put up with them, then that's his right.

Methinks the dems might stand a better chance of getting the top job back, if they really want it all that bad, if they'd calm down and support our people with more than hollow words. I also believe that they WAYYYYYY underestimate just how ticked off the rest of America is and will be about how their guy dishonored our nation... the backlash has just begun, and they seem to be the only ones who don't realize it.

SNAFU

[SuperScout]

Learned and full of pithiness that you are, certainly you're not surprised that the Democrats would stoop to such dastardly deeds as having a political agenda over and above the nation's security, now would you? I certainly wasn't surprised to read of this latest working of little minds. What this memo only serves to underscore and emphasize is the reason why the Dems lost Kentucky and Mississippi, why Zel Miller pronounced the Democrat party as being totally inept, and why he going to vote for George W. Bush next November.

[Gimpy]

DEMOCRAT! And, here's just a FEW reasons why! How can you guys look at yourselves in the mirror each morning when the things this author mentions in his article are going on by this administration?? How can y'all continue to ignore the FACTS that this administration has told lie after freakin lie to the military and military veterans???

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Republicans DO NOT support military veterans!
Here is what ONE Florida military veteran has to say about the current sad state of affairs regarding the Bush administrations lies and deception and the republicans in Congress breaking their promises to military families and military veterans.

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"Republicans DO NOT support Soldiers and Veterans." No, clearly not all of them, but certainly the majority of Republicans now in office do not support soldiers and veterans. This idea dawned on me when I say a homeless man sitting on the side of the road with a sign that said "Homeless Vet." It was far from the first time I've seen such a thing. In Tallahassee alone, I've seen such signs at least a dozen times that I can remember in my lifetime. And just to show that this isn't just some fluke or that I'm imagining such things, the homeless shelter in Tallahassee has special services just for veterans. And the problem is a local one, it's a national one. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that on any given night, there are 275,000 homeless veterans and that over the year, more than 500,000 veterans experience periods of homelessness. Almost one-fourth of all homeless people are veterans and veterans are twice as likely to become homeless as are non-veterans.
Now what does that have to do with Republicans? A number of things. The biggest is that everyone seems to think that Republicans love veterans and do whatever they can for our vets and soldiers while the Democrats hate those who have served their country and don't do anything for them. This is, of course, ridiculously wrong. I'm not going to get into how good or bad Democrats are on this issue other than to say that they are better than the Republicans.
What have the Republicans done that is so bad? The Republicans have had partial or total control of the federal government since 1994, holding the House of Representatives the entire time, the Senate all but a year and a half and the White House since 2001. During this time, the federal government had huge budget surpluses (on paper). This means that they could've easily gotten any programs to help veterans and soldiers passed. They could've increased funding for veteran's programs and they could've improved the quality of life for active soldiers who are in harm's way. Have they done so? Clearly not.
Starting with the homeless vets, because this seems to me to be the biggest problem, there is absolutely no reason that America, with the biggest economy in the world, should have even one person who served his or her country be without a home. This is morally wrong and should be instantly corrected. Creating housing for 275,000 people is not even that difficult or expensive. It seems that we can spend $20 billion constructing entire communities in Iraq (fully SEVEN planned communties with shopping centers, hospitals, health care facilities, gas stations, etc.) But what would Republicans rather spend money on? Needless B-2 bombers and huge tax cuts for the rich, and the afformentioned Iraq "reconstruction". Three-fourths of these homeless veterans have mental health or substance abuse problems, many of which are directly attributable to their military service. What have the Republicans (and to be fair, in some cases, the Clinton administration as well) done to help these needy veterans? Definitely not enough. Needs for mental health care for veterans has risen by 26% since 1995, but funding for the programs has only increased 9%. These are people who served their country, many who served in combat, and they are people that can't help themselves. It is immoral that even one of these people goes without the help they need.
And it isn't just homeless veterans who are receiving the short end of the budget stick because of Republicans, it's all veterans. In 2003, the Republican House cut the budget for veterans health care by $844 million and other programs by another $463 million. "This could mean the loss of 19,000 nurses, equating to the loss of 6.6 million outpatient visits or more than three-quarters of a million hospital bed days. But that is not all of the devastation that will be caused by the proposed cuts. Congress will be reaching into the pockets of our nation?s service-connected veterans, including combat disabled veterans, and robbing them and their survivors of a portion of their compensation. Ninety percent of VA?s mandatory spending is from cash payments to service-connected disabled veterans, low-income wartime veterans, and their survivors," said Edward Heath, National Commander of the Disabled American Veterans. House Democrat Lane Evans (IL) explained why we got these cuts: "These cuts must be made, so that our government can afford to provide a tax cut which will benefit only the wealthiest Americans, many of who never served in the military. This is utterly humiliating to every veteran and every active duty service person. While our nations leaders are still wageing war with the sons and daughters of yesterdays warriors, the Republicans are stabbing veterans of earlier wars in the back."
The budget that the president pushed for 2004 included a $28.8 billion dollar CUT in funding for veterans programs. The budget was opposed by Democrats and veterans groups. Virtually every Republican in Congress favored the bill. It took a public campaign by veterans groups to get the cut scaled down to only a $6.2 billion dollar cut. The overall Veterans Administration budget wil rise $3.4 billion in 2004, below the $4.5 veterans advocates say is needed. Republicans cut $5.1 billion in VA medical care by not allowing "Priority 8" veterans to enroll in the medical program. He also instituted a enrollment fee for "Priority 7 and 8" veterans in medical programs, "saving" another $1.3 billion.
By 2013, the Republican House Budget proposal would have cut almost $30 billion from veterans programs. A Democratic motion killed the cuts, but the Veterans' Affairs Committee has been directed by the Republican leadership to still find $3.9 billion in cuts to veterans' programs. In a moment of actual care for our veterans, the Congress in 2002 wanted to eliminate an old rule that cut retirement benefits for veterans with disabilities if they received disability pay. President Bush opposed getting rid of the rule, hoping to deny benefits to 600,000 disabled veteran retirees.
Bush's 2004 budget proposal cut $206 million from the Impact Aid program that helps make sure children of those fighting overseas receive quality education. The new Republican tax refund also made a point to exclude some military families by not allowing combat pay to be included in the income that can go toward claiming the credit. Many of those who don't get to claim the extra income won't get the tax credit. Additionally Bush sought to cut $150 million from aid to schools that attended by the children of enlistees and further cuts to VA budgets.
The U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by Republican appointees, rejected a lawsuit by Korean and World War II veterans who had been denied health care promised to them by military recruiters. The promised health care, which was not delivered, would have gone to as many as 1.5 million people and totaled $15 billion in benefits. The Court ruling means these veterans won't get any of this money. "It is not enough to hold parades or tie yellow ribbons," the court was told by the Military Officers Association of America, one of the groups supporting veterans in the case. "We must honor their commitment and sacrifice by assuring that the government honors its commitments to them." The Republican Court didn't listen, despite the fact that the military basically lied to these soldiers to get them into the wars they fought on our behalf.
None of this is new, Republicans have been attacking the budgets for veterans since at least the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan issued a proposal to cut 20,000 medical personnel in the VA and proposed to scrap a counseling program for veterans, during the middle of a surge of Vietnam veterans suicide attempts. The first President Bush cancelled burial benefits for veterans and cut $600 million from the VA.
The theoretical reason that Republicans give for these cuts is to cut fraud, waste and abuse. Joe Fox of Paralyzed Veterans of Americans said "the reduction will slam the poorest disabled veterans and cut GI Bill benefits for soldiers who are currently serving in Iraq." It could also eliminate 9000 doctors from an already taxed system. Fox said it was "an in-your-face insult to the veterans of this country."
And all this is coming at a critical time. The group Disabled American Veterans says that the VA is already facing a $2 billion shortfall. "Pressures on the VA health care system have escalated to a critical point that can no longer be ignored by our government," said Joe Violante, legislative director for the Disabled American Veterans.
Due to a shortage of funding there is a backlog in claims from Gulf War veterans of almost 500,000 (a third of veterans of that war) and another 500,000 compensation and pension cases backlogged. Also because of budget cuts, the VA has had to treat more than 1.4 million additional veterans in the last seven years with 20,000 fewer staff employees. According to VAIW this means hardships for any veterans who need new benefits in the future: "Some will have to stand in line, others will be refused, and still others may face new $250 enrollment fees," and "a quarter-million vets [will have] to wait up to 10 months for specialized treatment and surgery." This has also meant that clinics and hospitals have had to stop accepting new patients and that veterans whose income is more than $35,000 have been cut off from all health benefits (about 164,000 vets).
The cuts a particularly devastating because soldiers are amongst the lowest paid people in our society. Take an example like Pat Tillman. Tillman was a safety for the Arizona Cardinals set to make $3.6 million over three years who quit the NFL to serve his country in the Army. His reward? $13,000 a year. Most employees in fast food joints who work full time make more than this. And there are more than two thousand active soldiers and their families that currently have to accept food stamps in order feed themselves.
It isn't just military salaries that are insulting: "[Base housing is] in poor condition," Army General Robert L. Van Antwerp testified before Congress. "Much of the housing is old and built to standards that met lifestyles of 30 to 50 years ago. On-base housing is still preferred by many soldiers, with waiting times averaging 10 to 15 months."
And it's not like would couldn't afford to make soldiers amongst the highest paid in society, like they should be. It would only take $75 billion to raise every soldier's salary to more than $50,000 a year, the least we could do for those who put their lives on the line for Americans. Republican President Bush, however, suggested only a 2% raise for low-ranking soldiers in his 2003 budget. At least we have those tax cuts for rich people.
It isn't just monetarily that Republicans are insulting our soldiers and veterans. Republican Larry Craig of Idaho decided by himself to block 850 Air Force promotions in order to get four C-130 cargo planes for his home state. Craig's stance is basically no planes, no promotions. Republican Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said that drafted soldiers offer "no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time." Hitler would probably disagree. Republican matriarch Barbara Bush recently said "But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" At the top of the heap, Republican President Bush didn't even have the decency to accept a petition from a group of veterans who opposed the war.

One of the clearest ways you can insult or show your contempt for someone is to either kill them or put them in situations where they might lose their lives.
The soldiers in Iraq are ill-equipped, undermanned and are often placed in situations they have no training for. Don't believe me? Just ask retired Army Col. David Hackworth about the bullshit going on with our troops in Iraq. More and more of them are becoming disillusioned with why they are there:

"What are we getting into here?" asked a sergeant with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division who is stationed near Baqubah, a city 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. "The war is supposed to be over, but every day we hear of another soldier getting killed. Is it worth it? Saddam isn't in power anymore. The locals want us to leave. Why are we still here?"

"The way it seemed is, once Iraqis got over being grateful for getting rid of Saddam, they found out quickly they don't want the Americans, either," said Sgt. Nestor Torres, a military policeman with the 3rd Infantry Division in the restive town of Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad. "Everyone is blending in with everyone else, so you can't tell the friendly ones from the hostile."

"I don't know why they're keeping us around here," said Cpl. Anthony Arteaga, 25, of Hammond, La., who is assigned to the 588th Engineer Battalion. "We're not peacekeepers. We're heavy-combat engineers."

"It's getting really frustrating," Sullivan said. "We took the city, but what was it for? We took one bad guy out, but now there are lots of bad guys here."

At a checkpoint on the outskirts of Baghdad set up to search for illegal weapons, a soldier sweating in the 110-degree heat told a reporter, "Tell President Bush to bring us home."

On a skylight atop Fallujah's city hall, a soldier has scrawled in the dust: "I'll kill for a ticket home."

Those of us who opposed the war from the beginning said all along that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home. Based on the Republican record of punishing veterans, soldiers and their families, I would add to that that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home and vote Democratic in 2004. Amen!!!

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AMEN is RIGHT...........VOTE THEM OUT THE DOOR IN 2004!!!!!

VOTE DEMOCRATIC.

[sfc_darrel]

The best thing for our troops is not to bring them home.

It is to give them the support to win this war and keep our country safe.

That is why they volunteered. If it's not, they had no business volunteering in the first place.

[SuperScout]

G-I-M-P-Y,
T-h-e-r-e w-a-s a p-e-r-i-o-d o-f 4-0 y-e-a-r-s, 4-0 years, when your party was in total control, able to pass any law, correct any shortcoming, solve any problem, enact any benefit AND YET THEY DID NOT DO IT! Where was all your whining and bellyaching then? Yours is nothing more than a continual story of sore loser. You've posted the same story of baloney several times, and I dispute most of the crap about homeless veterans. Most of the so called veterans are dopers and drunks just out panhandling, and playing the sympathy card for a handout. The quote allegedly made by Mrs. Barbara Bush has been discredited, and only a lying scumbag would reprint it. Trying to demean an honorable lady to make an invalid point has to rank as the nadir of decency.

The problems with benefits will be fixed - you have my word on it - but it will take some time. Peoples' priorities vary and differ, just like opinions.

Bring our troops home? Cut and run? You sound like the sorry bunch of whiners and quitters we had here in the Texas legislature - a bunch of prima donnas and spoiled brats who couldn't get their way, so they went AWOL. What would that solve? Nothing, but it would embolden every other terrorists to attack us and every ally from now until Doomsday. And let me hasten to remind you and anybody else that I have two sons on active duty with the Army, one scheduled for a rotation to Iraq in March, so my investment in this matter is substantially greater than most.

And here's more info on the REAAL topic at hand, how the Dems are pimping themselves for political gain over the security of the nation:

Intel Chair Roberts: Dem Memo May Have Compromised Terror War

Calling plans by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee to politicize Iraq war intelligence "personally insulting" and "a slap in the face," Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said late Tuesday that Democrat members of his panel may have compromised the global war on terrorism.

Referring to a memo revealing the Democratic plot obtained Tuesday afternoon by radio host Sean Hannity, Roberts told the Fox News Channel that the document may have "all sorts of repercussions for intelligence agencies all throughout the world and certainly does a disservice in regards to the war against terrorism."

"We're the ones that have the oversight responsibility on the nation's intelligence and how it applies to our national security," the Republican chairman added, suggesting that his Democrat colleagues were playing with fire by taking advantage of their access to classified information for naked partisan political purposes.

The memo shows Democrats on the Intelligence Committee who have been entrusted with guarding some of the nation's most sensitive national security information planning instead to use materials in their possession to attack the Bush White House.

Democrat committee members are urged to "pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials."

In what may turn out to be the most damaging revelation, the document appears to suggest that concerns about "intelligence issues" may have to take a back seat to the effort to expose alleged administration dissembling on the threat posed by Iraq.

"Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq," the memo notes, before adding, "we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war."

After the Intelligence Committee exposes what the memo describes as "the administration's dubious motives," the document's as yet unidentified author argues, "Democrats will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of establishing an Independent Commission.

"We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once."

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., tried to explain the damaging memo by saying it was a draft copy composed by a committee staffer who had thrown it in the garbage.

Reacting to Rockefeller's alibi, Roberts told Fox's "Hannity & Colmes," "I don't find that very plausible."

[So party politics are more important than national security? Hope that makes those who believe it feel warm and fuzzy all over.]

[Gimpy]

Two words...............Horse....Shit!!

Nuff said!

[BLUEHAWK]

Gimpy -

Let's win the damn war FIRST.

I ain't gonna stand for our boys and girls gettin' caught between pages of words one god damn more time in this life, so help me Blessed Jesus!

Been the frick there and done the frick that, and barechested in a freezin' rain ain't doin' it NO damn more!!!!

If a Dem was Prez this very day I'd be sayin' the very same thing!

[hooah]

I would never be proud to be democratic...
not in a million years!

[phuloi]

If you can,please respond to the original post-The memo that came out of the (previously) non partisan Senate Select Commitee on Intelligence.

I didn`t think so.
As I noted in another thread,you people are doing more to re=elect President Bush than we Republicans are,and I say again.....Keep up the good work.The American people are not as dumb and naive as you may think,and simply will not put up with your continued HORSE SHIT!