The Hollywood Liberal

A quarter of US war vets diagnosed with mental disorder: study

Raw Story
Excerpt:
A quarter of the Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans treated with US government-funded health care have been diagnosed with a mental disorder, according to a study published Monday.

And when psychosocial disorders such as domestic violence were included, the number of war veterans suffering from mental illnesses rose to 31 percent.

The instances of mental illness among recently discharged troops and members of the National Guard are significantly higher than those of a study published last year which examined active duty troops, the lead researcher told AFP.

The study comes just days after the Bush administration vowed a “comprehensive review” of veteran care following revelations that soldiers being treated at the renowned Walter Reed Army Medical Center were living in a building with mold-covered walls, infestations of mice and cockroaches, and holes in the ceiling.

That scandal exposed a broader problem with the under-funding of the VA system, said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

With a backlog of more than 860,000 medical claims and waiting times of up to a year for treatment, many of the troops coming home are not getting the help they need, Davis said.

And that includes treatment of mental disorders, which are a predictable result of the kinds of stresses troops face under combat, Davis said.

“War changes everybody and everybody is going to have to deal with it in one way or another,” Davis said.

HLs Take
Just one more cost of war that we will all have to deal with in the coming years. Veterans gone crazy from the war, with on one to help them out, so they will be forced into the streets. By then Bush will be chilling on his heavily guarded compound in Paraguay.

Attorney General Gonzales Should Resign or Be Removed from Office

People for The American Way
Excerpt:

PFAW petitions demand Gonzales’ departure as first step to restoring rule of law in administration marked by abuse of power, violations of Constitution

WASHINGTON, D.C.—People For the American Way, which two years ago helped lead opposition to the confirmation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, today called for his resignation or removal as the first step toward holding the White House and Department of Justice accountable to the rule of law, and urged Congress to expand its oversight of the administration.

“Each scandal sheds new light on the Bush administration’s abuse of power, violation of Americans’ civil liberties, and contempt for the Constitution,” said People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas. “Our nation’s top law enforcement official is in the middle of it, showing greater fidelity to the political interests of President Bush than to the public interest and the rule of law.”

Early last week, Congress heard testimony from eight U.S. attorneys who had been fired by the Bush administration, several of whom testified that their dismissals appeared politically motivated. Since then, news reports have linked that political pressure to the White House and President Bush himself. In addition, the Department of Justice’s inspector general recently issued a report finding that the F.B.I., which is part of the Justice Department, had violated the law and abused its authority under the Patriot Act to obtain personal information about American citizens.

HLs Take
Gonzalez says he will stay or go depending on what Bush wants. I guess that means his job is safe through ’09.

Collins and Chertoff Fight to Save the National ID

Cato Institute
Excerpt:
Bush administration officials and some Republican senators remain undeterred by the mounting opposition among state governments to a national ID measure and are looking to companies and organizations that will benefit from the ID scheme to persuade opponents beyond the Beltway to back down.
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, is the author of the latest effort to sell reluctant states on the REAL ID Act, the 2005 measure which would coerce states into issuing nationally standardized driver’s licenses and require them to enter information about their drivers in nationally accessible databases.

Despite Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s public insistence that the Act needs to be implemented rapidly, the administration, and Mr. Chertoff himself, appear happy to avoid an immediate confrontation with the states and to go along with Ms. Collins’ sales tactic. The Maine Senator introduced a bill, and pressed it as an amendment on the Senate floor, to extend the deadline for state compliance with the REAL ID Act, allowing companies in favor of the measure time to work in state capitols to calm the burgeoning rebellion.

Sen. Collins’ counter-rebellion role is laden with irony. The revolt, after all, started in her own New England state. In late January, George Smith, executive director of the Maine Sportsmen’s Alliance, stood to denounce the REAL ID Act at a community forum in Augusta. A Norman Rockwell painting come to life with the directness and accent of a lifelong Mainer, he said: “They had their Boston Tea Party. Let’s have a REAL ID Party!”
The next day, the Maine House and Senate passed a resolution to reject REAL ID by overwhelming margins.

Working with Sen. Collins, DHS has now moved the deadline for complying with REAL ID back more than a year and a half, from May 2008 to December 2009. DHS says it will start allocating Homeland Security Grant Program funds for REAL ID while implementation is delayed. That gives incentive to the ultimate recipients of the funds to start lobbying rebellious state lawmakers.

Dems abandon war authority provision

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders are stripping from a military spending bill for the war in Iraq a requirement that President Bush gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and other leaders agreed to remove the requirement concerning Iran after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel, officials said Monday.

AIPAC- The One Thing Both Parties Can Agree On.

AP
Excerpt:
AIPAC opens their annual policy conference in Washington DC on Sunday. Among the speakers at the conference will be Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi and you can guarantee both their hands will be extended looking for cash. “Yes, we support the genocide Israel is conducting in the middle east, now pay me!” “Yes, we approve of Israel not honoring any of the U.N. resolutions passed against them, now pay me!” “Yes, we will sacrifice America’s sons and daughters in the interest of advancing Israels world views, now pay me!”

How can it be legal for a foreign government to have this much influence over our domestic politics?

HLs Take
How can it be legal? easy, money money money.

Here is our latest NBC News Raw Video Blog. We appear every Monday on NBC’s News Raw, with an update of whats been happeneing, and whats coming up. Check out the latest.

Chavez embarks on anti-Bush tour in Latin America

Reuters
Excerpt:
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday attacked U.S. President George W. Bush’s anti-poverty and energy plans for Latin America, as the two ideological opponents embarked on rival tours in the region.

“He’s a symbol of domination and we are a cry of rebellion against the domination … he’s trying to trick our people to divide us,” Chavez told reporters before he met with fellow leftist President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina.

Chavez, Washington’s leading critic in the region, plans to lead thousands of supporters on Friday evening in a soccer stadium rally in Buenos Aires coinciding with Bush’s arrival in neighboring Uruguay.

H.L.s Take
Bush will be greeted by throngs of protesters at every stop of his tour, and Chavez will be greeted with throngs of people who will be applauding every thing he says. Kind of maked you wonder why the Media hates Chavez so much, and loves Bush so much.

Gingrich tells Christian group of affair

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

“The honest answer is yes,” Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. “There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There’s certainly times when I’ve fallen short of God’s standards.”

Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton’s infidelity.

HLs Take
Not a hypocrite he says. OK lets go to the big book (the dictionary) and see what they say:

Hypocrite
Pronunciation:
\ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English ypocrite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrita, from Greek hypokritēs actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai
Date:
13th century

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion 2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
— hypocrite adjective

Uh, yeah Newt, you are.

In this video a former Air Force Col. Tells of US Troops already coming into Iran for a possible invasion. Check out how CNNs Wolf “The Whore” Blitzer tries to shoot down everything the Colonel says and tries to whitewash the situation. Classic.

Baghdad Students Thwart US Raid

IraqSlogger.com
Excerpt:
Students at Baghdad’s Mustansariya University frustrated a US raid on Thursday with a large protest, Aswat al-Iraq reports in Arabic.

“The American forces tried this morning to raid Mustansiriya University in the East of Baghdad, but the students made a massive demonstration protesting the trespassing of these forces on the university campus,” a student told the news agency, adding that the action “forced these forces to withdraw from the university.”

“The students were upset at the clear violation of the university campus,” he continued, “which is no longer a sanctuary after the explosions that targeted it and the attempts of the American forces to enter it.”

Mustansiriya University is the second largest university in Iraq, after Baghdad University, and was the site last month of a suicide bombing which killed and injured dozens of its students.

Dems Must Embrace Their Power THey Have NOW to End The War: but First Must Overcome Their Fear

OP-ED News
Excerpt:

The Republicans are very smart. They know that the Democrats have the power to stop the war.
Yes, The Democrats have the power and the votes right now to stop the war. They don’t need Republican help. They don’t need Joe Lieberman. They don’t even need all the bluedog dems.
The problem is the Republicans have, brilliantly, made the Democratic leadership afraid to use their power. They have framed the use of that power as anti soldier, anti-troops.
The Democrats have the votes now to cut off funding for the war. This will not suddenly stop shipments of food or ammo to soldiers in Iraq. THe military has billions, maybe even trillions of dollars in “black money pots” stashed all over the planet, hidden from congress.
The pentagon could probably run the war for another year or two, without another nickel.
But a refusal to further fund the war unless the troops are withdrawn would cause a confrontation between congress and the president. It would cause a confrontation that would force the Pentagon to re-evaluate their relationship with the commander and chief and the congress