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Some days, you see something that is beyond appalling.
Like this bit from CNN, about general dissatisfaction about the GI Bill. Now, the GI Bill I got was worse than they have now, and far worse than the original, but hey, it was still decent, and thanks to Massachusetts not charging veterans tuition at state schools, paid for a lot of college.
However, it could be better, and even though it won't benefit me personally, I'm really happy to see that Jim Webb introduced a bill, co-sponsored by 57 other Senators, including John Warner, that will make real improvements to the current Montgomery GI Bill, like:
- Paying tuition, room and board up to the most expensive in-state public school tuition in a vet's state
- A monthly stipend, tied to local housing rates
- Additional payments for tutoring
- Additional payments for licensing/certification costs
- Dollar-for-dollar matching of any voluntary additional contributions from vets to schools whose tuition is higher than the aforementioned in-state max
- 15, instead of 10 years to use this entitlement
Again, I won't get a dime from it, but I have friends who will. This is a good bill. Unlike bullshit parades and platitudes, this will actually help a lot of people out in meaningful ways, people who under the Mongomery G.I. Bill, which does not suck, might not have been able to follow their educational dream. This is the kind of bill that will do for this generation's vets what the original did for guys like John Warner.
So the sponsors are talking about adding it to the Iraq War Spending Bill. Makes sense, I mean, compared to what we're spending on that fucking quagmire, this is cheap, and it's a chance to do some actual good for the troops that have been getting so routinely fucked over by the very people who claim to support them the most.
Bush's response?
President Bush warned Tuesday at a Rose Garden news conference that he would veto any additions to the bill.Hey, you fucking Texan-wannabe pinhead ass-monkey, you fucking sign this bill. Period. I don't care if it's added onto the Iraq War Spending Bill, sent to you on its own, or tied onto a bill authorizing Papa Smurf, as the fucking Surgeon General, you shut up and you sign this bill. You put thousands of people in harms way based on lies and bullshit, totally ass-raped our military efforts in Afghanistan, and overstressed our military to where they're not letting people out when they were supposed to get out, the Army is damned near letting anyone with enough sanity and mobility to walk in and make a fucking mark on the contract, and you are pushing back at all on what would be the one truly good thing you might possibly do?
Have you no decency? At long last, will the rest of the country finally realize that for all your bluster about morality, decency, and righteousness, that you have absolutely not a shred of human decency, and all the moral fiber of a rabid weasel?
It is too late to do anything but wait for your too-long time in power to be over before the long, hard job of trying to fix the shit you've piled on the lower and middle class of the country that gave you everything, the people who do the actual work that you barely even notice as you ride around Crawford like the petty dictator you are. I can only hope that when you finally leave the office you've sullied, that you are forgotten and abandoned, and treated with the same barely disguised disdain that you leveled on all who were not in your inner circle.
I expected little from you, George W. Bush, but to fail on something as simple as this? Shame on you sir. Shame on you.
*****Update*****
Thanks to Dave Pooser for this link in the comments, with this bit from Sen. "I am the best candidate for the military"
and vet, McCain:
Disappointingly, Sen. John McCain, presumptive Republican candidate for president, so far declines to back the measure. He seems to be responding to concerns of the military brass that enhanced educational opportunities could negatively affect retention rates. Not only is it wrong to want people to stay in the military because they have no alternatives, but such thinking ignores the advantages enhanced educational benefits offer in recruitment. To meet recruitment goals, the military has offered bonuses and lowered some of its standards. Imagine being able instead to promise possible recruits a first-class college education.Dear Sen. McCain,
If it was possible to be more disgusted than by what the chimp is trying to pull, you have gone the extra mile. For you to offer anything but your fervent and complete support for this bill is beyond the pale of decency. For you to do anything but sign your name as a co-sponsor in letters bigger than Hancock's is unimaginable. There are not enough letters in "pathetic hypocritical suckup" to illustrate how far you have fallen in your attempt at one last bit of glory.
Of course, thanks to your trophy wife's riches and your government benefits from your years in the U.S. Senate, this will never be your personal problem ever again. But for you to backstab your own people, the veterans of war? To betray those who, like you before them voluntarily place themselves in harms way for no more reason than their country asked them to? For that sir, there can be no forgiveness, no restitution, no "making it better". For you to waffle even slightly in supporting this bill, you have lost any respect I have for you, which, once upon a time was enough for me to have been willing to vote for you instead of Al Gore.
You have betrayed every veteran everywhere, John McCain, and I would ask that you stop referring to yourself as a member of that group.
You no longer deserve that privilege.
Posted by John C. Welch at 22:02 | Permalink
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Comments
And John McCain, that maverick friend of the fighting man? He's opposing the bill too, apparently because giving the troops opportunities outside the service might make them less likely to re-up (click my name below for details). I'm really starting to believe that this election you can be a patriot or you can vote Republican, but not both.
Posted by:
Dave Pooser 
|
April 30, 2008 11:02 AM
Um, that's click the icon to the right of my name above. My bad.
Posted by:
Dave Pooser |
April 30, 2008 11:03 AM
Go Harry Mitchell, my Congressman and my high school teacher! The importance of this cannot be stressed enough. It's crap like this that sends me into a blind rage whenever some lackwit neo-conservative libertopian tries to equate "supporting the troops" with waving made in China plastic American flags. You want to support the troops. Up the funding to the VA and pass this bill.
Posted by:
Angry Drunk |
April 30, 2008 11:32 AM
The new bill's cost is estimated at $2 billion. House Democrats are discussing a proposal to add Webb's bill and other domestic priorities to the Iraq War Spending Bill, according to several Democratic leadership aides.
President Bush warned Tuesday at a Rose Garden news conference that he would veto any additions to the bill.
Funny how more context changes things, doesn't it?
I'm sure President Bush would happily sign Webb's bill into law by itself, or even attached by itself to the IWSB.
But using it as a (reverse) poison pill to get "other domestic priorities" added to a war spending bill?
Can't imagine why that evil bastard President might consider vetoing the whole thing. Or why he get the hyperbolic blame, rather than Democrats in Congress.
Posted by:
Sigivald |
April 30, 2008 3:08 PM
Sigvald,
Sorry, but after Monkey allowed any damned Republican bill to be tacked on to any other damned bill between 2001-2006? He didn't veto *shit* in that time period, and now all of a sudden, he's claiming fiscal restraint?
Bullshit. He didn't say "Oh, if it was *just that bill*" did he? No. No he did not. He said, "I'll veto *any* additions to the Iraq War Spending Bill". There's no exceptions in that, are there?
No, no there are not.
W. had a free fucking ride for 5 years attaching bullshit to bills left right and center *as long as it suited him* and I bet if the additional spending was to assist in drilling for oil in Alaska, he'd dislocate his fucking shoulder to sign it.
Spare me any assignment of morals or value to W. He's a fucking greedy, heartless scumbag whose message to anyone not in his income group is now, and always has been:
"Either weed my garden or shut up and fucking die. And stop insisting that you matter, because you don't."
He gets the blame because he threatened this bill with a veto. He wants to say that shit, he can just eat that shit too.
Posted by:
John Welch |
April 30, 2008 3:29 PM
