Hollow words---Shallow man!

[Gimpy]

On the very DAY that the republicans in the House of Representatives were committing unparalleled atrocities against sick & disabled veterans and their dependents by removing $1.8 billion from the 2004 VA budget for health care & benefits. A system ALREADY underfunded and breaking at the seams because the republican Congress has for AT LEAST a decade now been guilty of this underfunding.

George W. Bush had the unmitigated gall & unserving nerve to stand in front of the Korean War Memorial and make these statements! WHAT A F--KING HYPOCRITE!!!!

*********************************ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, July 25 ? President Bush made a five-minute visit to the Korean War Veterans Memorial on Friday, pausing at a low black granite wall engraved with the words ?Freedom is not free? that memorializes veterans of the war.

SUNDAY IS THE 50TH anniversary of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. It ended with the armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Koreas divided and technically in a state of war.
?This weekend we honor those who served in the cause of freedom in the Korean War,? Bush said, referring to the more than 36,000 Americans killed in the conflict.
Bush, accompanied by a National Park Service ranger, walked along a 164-feet black granite wall that has 2,500 images of the faces of U.S. troops. On his left were 19 stainless steel statues of advancing troops. He paused again at a black granite pool and a third time at a pole flying a U.S. flag and black-and-white POW/MIA flag.

He said the memorial is a reminder of the sacrifices being made today in the name of freedom. The Bush administration, along with Japan, South Korea and China, is using diplomacy to get North Korea to stop making nuclear weapons
?Our nation will be eternally grateful for the men and women who serve today, as we are for those who have served in the past,? Bush said.

? 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

*********************************

Yeah, he's so damn grateful he proposed a budget that was $1.8 billion less than what was needed which will cause LONGER waits for doctors apponitments (some places now up to a year), less $$$$ to hire new doctors, nurses, and technical personnel, less $$$$ for new equipment, less $$$$ to hire additional disability claims adjudicators, etc, etc.

The "man" has broken EVERY promise he made to veterans in his campaign. I hope all you folks that are getting that great "tax cut" are happy now! Now you see where it WENT!

:cd: :cd: :cd:

[BLUEHAWK]

Dubya is readin' the words that were put before him to read.

For that, he is responsible.

We gotta put the sock in the mouths of the American Enterprise Institute... it is THEY who are runnin' our government.

[Gimpy]

totally disagree with you!

It's the ultra-wing factions of the republican party that ARE running this country.

But, if Dubya can't be MAN enough to see the TRUTH. Then he's just a damn dumb as I originally suspected!

Like I said once before around here----"When your in the SEAT---You takes the HEAT!!!

His "actions" speak a LOT louder than his "WORDS"!

[HARDCORE]

"Hey Gimpy, why don't you say what you really feel?!" LOL

[Gimpy]

Yeah, I know. I REALLY gotta stop "beatin around the BUSH" and start telling it like it is, don't I? HAR--HAR!

[blues clues]

gimpy when you talk about these ulta-right-wing republicans the only come back they got is clinton as for myself what we need around here is a good bushhog are thats what we do around here to usely weeds and bushs, where is that johndear when you need it.

razz

[BLUEHAWK]

Folks, I swear to ya, the ultra right wing faction of this country is BEING run by the American Enterprise Institute.
Please, check it out.

[Gimpy]

Posted on Sun, Jul. 27, 2003

Bush, Republicans losing support of retired veterans
By STEVEN THOMMA
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - President Bush and his Republican Party are facing a political backlash from an unlikely group - retired veterans.

Normally Republican, many retired veterans are mad that Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress are blocking remedies to two problems with health and pension benefits. They say they feel particularly betrayed by Bush, who appealed to them in his 2000 campaign, and who vowed on the eve of his inauguration that "promises made to our veterans will be promises kept."

"He pats us on the back with his speeches and stabs us in the back with his actions," said Charles A. Carter of Shawnee, Okla., a retired Navy senior chief petty officer. "I will vote non-Republican in a heart beat if it continues as is."

"I feel betrayed," said Raymond C. Oden Jr., a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant now living in Abilene, Texas.

Many veterans say they will not vote for Bush or any Republican in 2004 and are considering voting for a Democrat for the first time. Others say they will sit out the election, angry with Bush and Republicans but unwilling to support Democrats, whom they say are no better at keeping promises to veterans. Some say they will still support Bush and his party despite their ire.

While there are no recent polls to measure veterans' political leanings, any significant erosion of support for Bush and Republicans could hurt in a close election. It could be particularly troublesome in states such as Florida that are politically divided and crowded with military retirees.

Registered Republican James Cook, who retired to Fort Walton Beach, Fla., after 24 years in the Air Force, said he is abandoning a party that he said abandoned him. "Bush is a liar," he said. "The Republicans in Congress, with very few exceptions, are gutless party lapdogs who listen to what puts money in their own pockets or what will get them re-elected."

Veterans have two gripes.

One is a longstanding complaint that some disabled vets, in effect, have to pay their own disability benefits out of their retirement pay through a law they call the Disabled Veterans Tax.

Since 1891, anyone retiring after a full military career has had their retirement pay reduced dollar for dollar for any Veterans Administration checks they get for a permanent service-related disability. However, a veteran who served a two-or-four-year tour does not have a similar reduction in Social Security or private pension.

A majority of members of Congress, from both parties, wants to change the law. A House proposal by Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., has 345 co-sponsors.

But it would cost as much as $5 billion a year to expand payments to 670,000 disabled veterans, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this month told lawmakers that the president would veto any bill including the change.

The proposal is stuck in committee. A recent effort to bring it to the full House of Representatives failed, in part because only one Republican signed the petition.

"The cost is exorbitant. And we are dealing with a limited budget," said Harald Stavenas, a spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee.

The second complaint is over medical care. After decades of promising free medical care for life to anyone who served for 20 years, the government in the 1990s abandoned the promise in favor of a new system called Tricare. The Tricare system provides medical care, but requires veterans to pay a deductible and does not cover dental, hearing or vision care.

A group of military retirees challenged the government in a class-action lawsuit, won a first round, then were seriously disappointed when Bush allowed the government to appeal. Government won the next legal round.

"I voted for the president because of the promises," said Floyd Sears, a retired Air Force master sergeant in Biloxi, Miss. "But as far as I can tell, he has done nothing. In fact, his actions have been detrimental to the veterans and retired veterans. I'm very disappointed about the broken promise on medical care."

Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said: "The Bush administration and the Republican Congress have taken and will continue to take steps to enhance benefits for our veterans."

Evidently not as promised by this administration and congress however.

*****************************

[BLUEHAWK]

Gimpy,
I have not one doubt about the proof you have posted.

Let me put this another way then.

The difficulty is not the Republican or Democrat parties.

In America we have an electoral college, gerrymandering, and closed primaries as you know.

Who, exactly, benefits from these? Who suffers from them?