The President has requested a $37.5 billion “emergency” war supplemental – $32 billion of which is earmarked for Obama’s Folly in Afghanistan (which will bring the Afghanistan War spending for this fiscal year up to $99 billion). Two reports – from the Congressional Research Service and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction – make you kind of wonder just why we’re throwing all this money down the Afghan rabbit hole instead of, oh, I dunno, plugging the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico or maybe rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina (I mean, it’s only been 5 years now), or, hey, how about single payer healthcare, building high speed rail, or fixing every crappy bridge and highway in the country?
According to the reports, there’s no exit strategy, we’re not making our timeframes for withdrawing troops, and the “surge” has been quite as wonderful as Saint Stanley McChrystal led us (or some of us, anyway) to believe it would be.
There’s also the matter of seemingly unrealistic goals for training Afghan security forces, poor planning of infrastructure projects, pervasive corruption within the Afghan government and the lack of contracting oversight. Finally there’s the concern that some of the individual funding requests seem inflated, in certain areas the Pentagon isn’t spending the money it already has and billions of dollars in requests don’t appear to genuinely qualify as emergency spending — the only thing Obama vowed he would ever use an emergency spending bill for again.
I predict the supplemental will pass overwhelmingly. I mean, you gotta support the troops, right?
It was too goddamn hot yesterday, it’s gonna be too damn hot today, and it’ll be too dam hot again tomorrow. Expect much whining from me.
Supporting the troops appears to mean putting them in harms way and maintaining the funding to keep them there,
Supporting the troops does not mean increasing their pay or benefits. That is called being fiscally imprudent.
Supporting the troops never means raising taxes to do so.
OK, so I guess this is why they need Universal Health Care in Canada.
Eating poutine. There has to be a Lindsay Lohan punchline in there somewhere.
Or at least a Treme punchline.
More of the Salahi party-crashers on the tube. Why doesn’t media-slut Matt Lauer just say “WTF is wrong with you two people?”
Good grief, just seeing that poutine stuff requires a doctor. Ugh!
Noodles
The hard news from Media Matters
Washington Post’s leg-crossing column: Superficial and False
Whether rich or poor, residents of the United States or China, illiterate or college graduates, parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain, according to a 20-year study led by Mariah Evans, University of Nevada, Reno associate professor of sociology and resource economics.
http://www.unr.edu/nevadanews/templates/details.aspx?articleid=5450&zoneid=8
No chicken costumes allowed within 100 feet of polling places in Nevada.
Other than when Congress declared war on Germany after Germany declared war on us, we never declared war on Germany after Germany declared war on us.
At least, that’s what JD Hayworth thinks. I don’t think his folks had enough books around the house.
I don’t think his folks had enough oxygen around the house. That boy ain’t right.
So, is this incompetence or being intentionally “stupid” so that nobody can actually revoke any permits or even put an end to business as usual in the name of the almighty buck?
Olbermann reported that Glen Beck had made the statement that we never declared war on Germany. I guess JD Hayworth, true to the no fact checking rule, has repeated it. No doubt Shrieking Sarah will be next.
Fortunately, Obama is sending more troops to the Mexican border. I guess that’s to repel the expected Mexican invasion.
I say we appease them by letting them have Texas and Arizona (sorry, KP).
vern- thanks for the Chris Matthews interview with Andrew Romanoff. He was an excellent State Senate leader of Colorado with genuine admiration from both sides of the aisle when he had to leave due to term limits.
The appointment of Bennett, someone no one had heard of apparently except for the governor, was mandated by the Obamites in Washington and most dems here were outraged. Dems here take pride in the true spirit of independence and greatly resent taking orders from the far east ( no disrespect to any New Yorkers- I’m married to one).
Andrew does need to work on his tee-vee presence a little but he didn’t let Matthews overwhelm him
Figured someone else might post this one.