Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

Thank you jjorge, I appreciate knowing you can understand what I'm trying to say.

PDiddie,

George and I have different needs in this, I think. He doesn't see the need to defend his position. He's comfortable with it. Or that's my reading of it. And thank you as well. It's nice to be taken seriously, whether one agrees with me or not.

george,

My complaint with you has to do with my perception that you do not take me seriously. Your response to me reads like, "there, there, deary, you're just all worked about about nothing." Can you not see how condescending this is? If's fine if you don't want to try to take me seriously. That simply tells us where we both stand in relation to each other. But I do wish, I must admit, that you would simply say so, rather than behaving as if you have some God given ability to know truth and that my perceptions or concerns are simply "rants."

Can you not see that my arguments speak to yours and take yours into consideration and that your response to me is nothing other than a dismissal? Perhaps we could do it this way. Pretend, if you will for a moment, that I know something substantive and that it's true. Can you imagine that? That from my experience, I have something to tell you that you have no other way of knowing without researching it. If this were the case, would you be worried? These fanatics don't care about your religious faith anymore than they care about my beliefs or values. You stand to lose as much as I do.

I think Blatham is right. It doesn't matter if all the 40% are equally fanatical. There is a fanatical core driving this with an radical, coercive agenda and the rest of the 40% are people like you, happy to go along for the ride, wanting to be seduced, because it seems like it's the direction they want to be headed. But when you turn into a donkey, don't say I didn't try to warn you.

And as an addendum........please site for me george where I called you a fool. I think you are blind to something you should be willing to look at, but you are not a fool. This is what bothers me so much about your self imposed blinders.

Lola,

If I have appeared condescending it was unintended. Please accept my apologies. I do take you seriously and that is a part of the problem.

While in your last post you carefully restricted your criticisms to what you styled as Christian fanatics (and not mere conservatives), in other posts you have claimed these people comprise 40% of the electorate. Which is it? Are you alleging that 40% of the electorate behaves as you described earlier and is engaged in a conspiracy to destroy our freedoms? Frankly you are frequently rather sweeping in your anti Christian criticisms and accusations - it would be rather difficult to accuse you of any particular sensitivity to ideas that some non fanatic, serious, well-educated, and intelligent people take quite seriously.

I also believe it is literally true that you are every bit as fixed on this topic as are those unnamed individuals you accuse of obsession with Clinton/Monica. Moreover your own brand of intolerance, though differently directed, is no less intolerant than is that of those whom you criticize so avidly.

I have, without much success, been attempting to make the point with you and Blatham that those you criticize for their religious beliefs have the same political rights as you. Moreover the fact of a religious motivation for their ideas and political goals does not in any way make them invalid. Their ideas, just like those of everyone else, must be evaluated based on their intrinsic merit, or lack thereof.

The fool reference was to a remark by Blatham in a post above.

Jusat got back from a wonderful hike over the Dipsea trail to Stinson Beach. A clear brisk day - beautiful. Couldn't be sore at anyone, even if I tried.

From what little I know, a jackass is no fool.

george, george, george, what am I going to do with you? I don't think you read what I write. It seems to me that I have explained this so many times, I feel like I'm making everyone bored with one more explanation.

The 40% to which Blatham referred is, I believe 40% of Bush's supporters. A good percentage of that 40% of people who vote for Bush are Christian fanatics. The other percentage, of which you may count yourself, or you may not, I don't know, are people like you. These are people like you who find comfort in their faith. Their religious experience has been a positive one and they have never encountered the type of people I'm talking about. Or if they have, like you, they think of them as being in very small numbers and probably harmless. Now I hope we're clear on the 40% thing, although it was Blatham who brought the figure up again. I remember it from some other thread some time back, maybe Blatham will help us with this.

Those Christian fanatics who have organized this movement are not harmless. They have a specific agenda to dominate the private lives of the population of this United States. They are dangerous because they have systematically taken over local political organizations. They are the delegates to the Republican convention and have undue influence over the platform. In 1992, they went too far and lost the election for Bush the Senior because they were too public about their extreme ideas. Remember Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan speaking at the Repub convention? Remember that is when the tide turned toward Clinton?

Since that time, they have been led and advised by people like Ralph Reed and Karl Rove who have taught them to be more covert in their techniques. They had taught them when to be quiet and how to market their ideas so they seem to fit with a more mainstream Christian perspective. So reasonable people like you are not alarmed by them at all.

Am I making myself clear? I am not talking out of ignorance, george. I know these people and I know what they have been doing for a long time now. They have systematically taken over as local precinct chairs. They are dominate in many local Republican organizations because there is so little vigilance on this level. They started with school boards and have moved up from there. If you will look back at some of the articles I have posted, you can read about their techniques.

I'm not a raving nut. I am a reasonable person who is worried. Tonight, for instance, I had dinner with a few people like myself who have been raised or involved in these groups in the past. When I tell them how hard it is for some people to believe this is taking place, they all laugh and shake their heads. They don't laugh because it's funny, but rather that is seems to be such an impossibility to so many like you.

Take for instance this sentence from your post above:



You have repeated this point to me many, many times. And I have just as many times told you that I agree with you. They do have the same rights as anyone else. My point, and please don't make me write this in capital letters, is that they intend to take away our (including your) freedoms. I suggest that we try to stop them. You can try to stop them by working to defeat them within your party. Democrats can try to defeat them by voting the Democratic ticket. But however it's done, they should be defeated, because if they are not, you will not like the result.

Can you please tell me, if you will, what it is in what I've just written that prompts you to repeat the above sentence to me in spite of my clear agreement with you that they have their rights? They do have their rights and we have ours. I am suggesting, and here I go with the caps, sorry, THAT WE USE OUR RIGHTS TO EXPOSE THEIR ANTI-DEMOCRATIC INTENTIONS AND PREVENT THEM FROM CARRYING OUT THEIR POLITICAL AGENDA.

What is it, george about this that you do not understand? You may be correct that I am intolerant of these fanatical Christians. I am as intolerant of them as I am of the Taliban or of Saddam. You are equally intolerant of fanatics. What you don't seem to want to believe is that these folks are dangerous to your freedom. And it is this that I feel so annoyed with you about. I'm telling you that they are. And you could at least do me the courtesy to try to understand what I'm talking about rather than simply repeat back to me what you've already said, as if you haven't read what I wrote to you.

I haven't been on a nice walk, so I'm not is such a pleasant mood as you. But I'm glad you had an enjoyable afternoon.

P.S.

Unintentional condescension simply indicates how ego syntonic your condescending attitude is. I would be happier if you were aware of it and made a bit uncomfortable by it. I do believe you don't recognize it. (wink, wink)

Come on over here and I'll give you a little slap on the fanny and I'll change your mind with something that will be for your own good. :wink:

Every man needs a little slapping around from time to time to keep him in line.

antibush peeps, i need your help on this...

i compiled a list of things that bush did that i think should piss off most people including conservatives here...

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16736

IF YOU'RE DEDICATED TO BUSH LOSING, it would be worthwhile for a second person (one who isn't biased to all the issues and is pretty in tune with how american people think - a claim i wish i could make) to narrow the issues brought up here to the issues that are most likely to piss off most americans including conservatives, and list them including lots of supporting data for them. then i'll help design a series of posters, one highlighting each issue.

through help of insiders like jjorge, i think we can post copies of the posters on sites like blogforamerica so that people can print them out and put them up all over their neighborhood. this is the very essence of a grassroots movements.

as long as the issues brought up really do matter to the american people, and there is plenty of specific information on how bush opposes these issues, A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL BE TURNED AWAY FROM REELECTING BUSH.

Well Lola I do like you, mostly because you have spirit, character, and are what in Spanish is known as embra, (a bit quirky too, but who, worth knowing, isn't?).

"Ego syntonic condescension" -- is it fatal? How much time do I have? I'll confess that some who haven't liked me have found me a bit condescending and overbearing. Those are the usual criticisms, but I have made a lifetime of ignoring them. At the core I am a sweet and caring guy. And I am just as proficient in connecting to the janitor, as to the vice presidents at work. (Indeed sometimes better with the janitor.)

I can't and won't argue with the description you have given above concerning your position, as long as you will confine your opposition to the normal political process, and recognize that nutty Christians are not the only group of nutty people who would do away with our freedoms. I find the modern priesthood of political correctitude and university speech codes, and the like, every bit as threatening and obnoxious. I'm not sure I would put Ralph Reed in your nutty category either, but I won't fight over that issue.

I do note that evangelical Protestantism has been a part of American life for at least two centuries, and it hasn't taken over yet. Certainly the 'Know Nothings' of the 1870s appeared to be a threat, but just a few decades later the Irish, Jewish, and Italian immigrants had displaced them from political power. I think you are afraid of a paper tiger. I will admit I haven't had much direct contact with what concerns you so - I may be wrong, and I will make allowance for that. (How's that? Am I not truly the very model of a modern major generalist?)

I also believe that in other, perhaps less carefully phrased, posts you have left me the strong impression that your opposition and willingness to act on it went much farther than you described above. Now that I am better informed, I will remember.

Watch what you say about Pat Buchannan - we went to the same high school (Gonzaga in Washington) and his younger brothers were in my class. (By the way, he was an aggressive jerk then.)

I do like your spirit, but the slapping bit isn't my cup of tea - don't try it. I don't need it and I don't do it. But I will let you fool with my cigar!

george,

Sometimes, I'm too subtle. The fanny slapping bit was a reference to the Tailhook thing. I have agreed with you about this incident, and I was making a joke, intending to illustrate my point. I think I missed the target. But I still think it was funny. And no cigar........

As if we needed another reason to replace Bush.

Commentary > Opinion
from the January 06, 2004 edition

Politics in the lab hits US scientific integrity

By Barton Reppert

GAITHERSBURG, MD. – In theory, science is supposed to be cold, analytical, dispassionate - and studiously apolitical. But in the real world of competing demands for federal research dollars, savvy scientists of all disciplines - from cognitive psychologists running rats through mazes to nuclear physicists operating massive particle accelerators - recognize that a certain amount of political meddling in their research by policymakers in the executive branch and Congress is to be expected. However, there are limits - limits the Bush administration has frequently disregarded by imposing stringent political controls on a broad variety of federal scientific programs and activities. This has raised acute concern in the American scientific community that the administration's drive to stamp its conservative values on science isn't just affecting policy decisions, but undermining the integrity of the US research infrastructure itself.
Playing politics with science is nothing new in Washington, of course. President Nixon shut down his White House science office because he didn't like the advice he was getting on arms control and the supersonic transport. Nevertheless, several science-policy experts argue that no presidency has been more calculating and ideological than the Bush administration in setting political parameters for science. President Bush's blunt rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and his decision restricting stem-cell research are only the most obvious and widely publicized examples of what has become a broader pattern across the administration.
At the same time, the president's chief science adviser, atomic physicist John Marburger, who is largely well-regarded in the scientific community, reportedly has very little substantive access to Bush and his senior aides, and his office has been moved out of the White House complex.
Some examples of the Bush administration's interference with science include:
• The removal from a National Cancer Institute website of a scientific analysis concluding that abortions do not increase a woman's risk of breast cancer. That move, in November 2002, contradicted the broad medical consensus, and members of Congress protested the change. In response, the NCI updated its website to include the conclusion of a panel of experts that induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.
• Dropping a leading addiction expert from the University of New Mexico, Dr. William Miller, from consideration for membership on the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse after an administration aide quizzed him about whether he opposed abortion ("no") and had voted for Bush ("no").
• The elimination of the section on global warming in a comprehensive Environmental Protection Agency report on the environment last June. EPA officials decided to eliminate the section on climate change after an earlier draft prompted the White House to demand major revisions.
The politicization of US science has drawn close attention from leading scientific journals. Bush administration interference with federal scientific advisory committees as well as peer-review panels for research grants is an "epidemic of politics," editorialized Science, the influential weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "What is unusual about the current epidemic is not that the Bush administration examines candidates for compatibility with its 'values.' It's how deep the practice cuts, in particular, the way it now invades areas once immune to this kind of manipulation," wrote editor in chief Donald Kennedy.
Prominent Democrats in Congress have expressed frustration over the mixing of politics with science.
"I think what they've done is unprecedented," says Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California, ranking minority member of the House Government Reform Committee. "Even prominent Republicans who served under Presidents Reagan, Ford, and Nixon are alarmed.... Leading scientists both inside and outside the administration have said politics is getting into previously protected areas."
Mr. Waxman's committee issued a report in August concluding that the administration's political interference with science has led to "misleading statements by the president, inaccurate responses to Congress, altered websites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous international communications, and the gagging of scientists."
The report - which can be seen at www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience - alleges abuses in 21 areas ranging from abstinence-only sex education to breast cancer, drinking water, food safety, global warming, prescription-drug advertising, stem-cell research, and workplace safety.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan dismissed the report as "riddled with distortions, inaccuracies, and omissions." And, he said, "This administration looks at the facts, and reviews the best available science based on what's right for the American people. The only one who is playing politics about science is Congressman Waxman."
Several senior-science policy specialists say that while the Waxman report has a partisan tone, most of its major points are well taken. Neal Lane, who served as director of the National Science Foundation and then as presidential science adviser during the Clinton administration, observed: "It's always the case in the White House ... that science is one of a number of sets of issues that a president, a political policymaker, has to consider when they're making decisions. Sometimes the decision goes in a way that the science would not suggest. But there's such a long list of egregious actions taken by this administration that I think it essentially gives a false impression of what the science really is and strongly suggests the administration simply doesn't care to find out."
Prof. Lewis Branscomb, a science policy expert at Harvard and former director of the National Bureau of Standards under Nixon, notes that on the question of stacking federal scientific advisory committees, "I'm not aware that [Nixon] ever hand-picked ideologues to serve on advisory committees, or dismissed from advisory committees very well-qualified people if he didn't like their views.... What's going on now is in many ways more insidious. It happens behind the curtain. I don't think we've had this kind of cynicism with respect to objective scientific advice since I've been watching government, which is quite a long time."
Perhaps the corrosive issue of political interference with science won't be crucial to Bush's reelection chances, but by undercutting the integrity of the scientific community, it may be crucial to the long-term quality of life not just in the US, but also in other countries around the world.

Poor Colin's out of the loop again:



-- Secretary of State Colin Powell, January 2004




-- RNC TV ad, 11/21/03

All this happened under Bush's watch:
"THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MINUTE''

FREE MARKET

A car company can move its factories to Mexico and claim it's a free
market.

A toy company can out-source to a Chinese sub-contractor and claim it's
a free market.

A major bank can incorporate in Bermuda to avoid taxes and claim it's a
free market.

BUT, heaven help the elderly who dare to buy their prescription drugs
from a Canadian pharmacy.

CI - Yes, the administration is wrong on the prescription drug issue. What's that, 1 out of 4 of the things you listed? I assume their argument is that without Americans paying higher prices to prop up profits, drug research will suffer. Frankly, I don't buy it, and even if it is true, I don't believe in doing the wrong thing even for a good reason.

Competition from foreign pharmacies would likely force American drug prices to fall. That's the way free markets are supposed to work, and Republicans are supposed to be for free markets. They seem very much in the wrong on this one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/politics/07CND-FUND.html?hp

I was watching Lou Dobbs on CNN tonight and listening to a whole lot of Republican gnashing-of-teeth about the proposed immigration legislation.

Lou has talked a lot also about issues real Republicans (not this weird neoconservative mutant kind we're plagued with lately) seem to be concerned about: the PATRIOT Act, huge budget deficits, etc.

Which made me wonder:

Why isn't one of these real Republicans challenging Bush for the nomination?

Absent that, why don't the Libertarians run a candidate on these issues? That person is certain to peel off thousands of Republicans, ones like Kevin Phillips:



Kevin Phillips ain't no lefty. He's a former Nixon staffer and authored "The Emerging Republican Majority" back then. He hasn't had any transformation that has turned him into a -- God forbid! -- Democrat. He voted for Reagan twice and would have eagerly voted for John McCain.

He hasn't stopped being Republican. It's just that he's appalled at what the Republican Party has become under the Bush dynasty.

In his latest book, "American Dynasty:Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush" Phillips weaves evidence of the Bush family's dynastic sense of entitlement -- and corruption.

"Few have looked at the facts of the family's rise, but just as important, commentators have neglected the thread -- not the mere occasion -- of special interests, biases, scandals (especially those related to arms dealing), and blatant business cronyism" Phillips writes in the preface. "The evidence that accumulates over four generations [of the Bush family dynasty] is really quite damning."

"Three generations of immersion in the culture of secrecy...deceit and disinformation have become Bush political hallmarks."

Pretty harsh stuff, especially coming from a GOPer.

The crap sure seems to be piling up for Bush...

It would seem that what's piling up is Bush's approval and The Opposition's frustration..

timber, you're not a fire-and-brimstone born-again evangelical fundamentalist Republican.

Why did you let those freaks take over your party? :wink:

Bush is pandering to them as much as he's pandering to the CEO's who are raising millions for him. Since there's so much money involved, that at least makes a sort of sense...

I'm noticing, with the coverage of Bush's immigration reform proposal, that every report on it includes the line that it's being done with one eye on the Hispanic vote. "Hispandering", someone else called it.

Certainly a vote for the Republicans is a vote for cheap labor. No disguising that any more.

The New York Times reported that Bush's new budget is being formulated with key electoral states in mind (Ralph Hall, the Congress' oldest Representative and most conservative Democrat, changed parties this week because he said that Tom DeLay told him his district would be zero-summed).

The anticipated 'handoff' of sovereignty to Iraq by June (never mind the fact that troops have been put on another stop-loss program) has been reported as a means to avoid charges of 'quagmire in Iraq'.

These are political realities, but it seems a little crass to me that news outlets are reporting this stuff straight-up, with no hint of the cynicism that such moves indicate.

Sad thing is, the ADHD Americans reflected in the polls you cite ad nauseum won't even notice that they're being manipulated yet again.

The polls coming out tomorrow, and next week, and constantly until Election Day, will mean something entirely different to you and me and everybody else on both sides.

Bush is still the worst President in history and needs to be ejected from the White House (thus the topic of this thread).

I'm not looking for your agreement (and you certainly shouldn't expect that those who agree with me will stay home on Election Day because of some poll).

Yesterday I heard this report on All Things Considered:

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/

It said that while we're told, through the press, about the 400 service men and women who have been killed in the war, there is no information being released and therefore not reported about the 9,000 or so military men and women who have been so seriously injured they were shipped out. The reporter tells of his efforts to gather the statistics on this population of injured, but was thwarted on every turn. Rumsfeld's office's response was that there were no statistics on the injured. And of course there are those stats, but where are they? No one knows what percentage of those injured are injured for life. This story is hard to cover because the stats are being with held. I wonder why? If people knew these stats, if the figure were more widely known, the public would be less supportive of GW and his war mongering. And those polls that Timber is so proud of when they're in GW's favor and so dismissive of when they are not would look very different indeed. Yet again another reason to get rid or GW.

Listened to it on the way to karate last night. There was a similar report on NOW a few weeks ago.
NOW with Bill Moyers

ANNOUNCER: From our studios in New York, Bill Moyers.

MOYERS: Welcome to NOW.

For the wounded, war never ends. The scars remain even when the wounds heal. So, in Shakespeare's OTHELLO, Iago asks Cassio, "What? Are you hurt, Lieutenant?" And the soldier answers, "Aye, past all surgery."

Our veterans hospitals and nursing homes overflow with such casualties. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan. They keep coming back, and even when the surgery's done, things are never the same, never quite right again.

In Iraq, for every soldier killed, seven are wounded ?- 1,300 since May 1. That's twice as many as were wounded during the war itself.

THE NEW REPUBLIC reports that nearly every night, under the cover of darkness, ambulances meet C-17 and C-141 transport planes flying into Andrews Air Force Base to ferry the wounded to military facilities. The government hasn't wanted us to see them.

But that's beginning to change as the numbers mount, and as journalists keep insisting on knowing who are these wounded and what's happening to them. We have our own report. Here's NOW's David Brancaccio and producer Dan Klein.

BRANCACCIO: Homecoming in Fort Wayne, Indiana last month for the National Guard's 293rd Infantry regiment.

20 miles south, in the town of Bluffton, another young vet from the 101st Airborne came home to a different kind of reception ?- one that was to leave him and his family nearly destitute.

Jason Stiffler followed a boyhood dream into the army at the age of 18. He was eager to defend his country. In return, he assumed it would take care of him.

JASON STIFFLER: I mean that was part of the agreement that we made on March 23rd, 01 which was when I signed up. I specifically remember that day it was the first thing I asked. If anything happens to me, will I be taken care of?" "Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just sign right here."

BRANCACCIO: in January of 2002, Private First Class Stiffler was ordered to Afghanistan, leaving his wife Jacki and a son, Jason Jr. behind.

One night in April, he was manning a watchtower like this one at the Kandahar airport. That's when his memory goes dark.

JASON STIFFLER: I really don't know what happened.

BRANCACCIO: The tower collapsed. It's still unclear whether it was due to an engineering failure, an attack, or friendly fire. What is certain is that Jason Stiffler fell about 25 feet, suffering seizures at the scene. Eventually, he went into a coma.

BRANCACCIO: What kind of injuries did you end up with?

JASON STIFFLER: Spinal cord injury, head injury. Paralysis. I was a quadriplegic. I couldn't move anything from my neck down.

BRANCACCIO: At the Intensive Care Unit of the Army Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, a hopeful sign: Stiffler regained some feeling in his arms.

Next came six hard months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Arduous physical therapy helped him achieve limited use of his legs.

A year ago October, he was released from Walter Reed, and placed on the army's temporary duty list. He was now eligible for medical care and payments from the system the government has set up to help care for wounded vets like him for the rest of their lives, the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Abraham Lincoln supplied its motto: "To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan."

The Stifflers say they waited for a promised phone call from the VA that never came. With his physical and mental condition deteriorating, Jason visited the regional VA hospital in Fort Wayne. The hospital had no record of who he was and was able to offer only limited help.

JACKI STIFFLER: They were supposed to make him appointments for the physical therapy. And they were supposed to have him, you know, set and everything after he got out of the Army, to go to the VA. No, none of that was done.

BRANCACCIO: Jason Stiffler, badly wounded veteran of America's war on terror, was on his own.

JASON STIFFLER: There was a timeframe where I wasn't getting paid nothing.

BRANCACCIO: How did you make ends meet during that time?

JASON STIFFLER: Well, you know what they told us what they told us? Churches.

JACKI STIFFLER: Churches.

JASON STIFFLER: Family, friends, welfare.

BRANCACCIO: With Jack pregnant with their second child, and working nights at a low wage job, the Stifflers went on public assistance. It was seven months since he had returned from Afghanistan.

JASON STIFFLER: My car got taken away several times. 'Cause how am I gonna pay the bill? Pay the rent? Pay for gas? Pay for formula? Pay for food?

BRANCACCIO: And with no physical therapy or medical attention, Stiffler was losing the strength he had gained in his legs at Walter Reed. He also suffered from post-traumatic stress. Jacki Stiffler found him on the kitchen floor one night, a wild look in his eyes, pointing his crutch as if it were a gun ?- a flashback to his combat experience.

JACKI STIFFLER: I had to quit my job because of him going into a flashback. And he was with one of my kids. And I came home at two o'clock in the morning because I worked thirds. I came home early and he was in a flashback and thank God my son was sleeping. But after that I just… I couldn't work no more.

BRITTON: When we got to Jason and Jacki the first time, Smitty and I walked in, they had an eviction notice on their door.

BRANCACCIO: David Britton lives 20 miles from the Stifflers. He is a Vietnam-era vet who works on a General Motors assembly line in Indiana. When he heard about Jason Stiffler, he knew he had to do something.

BRITTON: We actually talked to their landlord that day. Well, their landlord knew that for them to get help they had to have the paper trail. So they were helping them, even though here's an eviction notice. That's when I started really getting very concerned.

BRANCACCIO: Britton runs his union's veterans committee. The Stifflers had never been union members or worked on the line. "No matter," said Britton and his colleagues. UAW Local 2209 ran swap meets and raffles to raise money for them, and brought food and toys at the holidays.

So here's the question: how can a severely wounded and disabled American serviceman reach such a state that he has to depend on the charity of strangers to survive?

The thing is, the VA has an annual budget of 60 billion dollars. It's the second largest agency in the federal government ?- only the Department of Defense is bigger. All the more troubling then that the military's neglect of Jason Stiffler is no isolated case.

And it's not always the VA that's at fault. Here at Fort Stewart, Georgia, reservists and national guard units on active duty were the subject a recent press report shedding light on shameful conditions for hundreds of the wounded and injured.

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL reported last month that at Fort Stewart, about 600 "sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses."

UPI has also reported that sick and wounded GI's at Fort Knox were waiting weeks, even months, for medical attention. They were housed "…in Spartan, dilapidated World War II-era barracks with leaking roofs, animal infestations, and no air conditioning in the Kentucky heat."

One corporal back from Iraq said, "it doesn't make any sense to go over there and risk your life and come back to this... it ain't fair and it ain't right."

At both bases, the Defense Department rushed in with money and medical personnel after the critical reports appeared.

BISEL: The system's broke flat. The system is there, it's in place, and the system will work for you if you know who to get a hold of. You got to know who to make mad to get the system to work.

BRANCACCIO: Billy Bisel is another Indiana veteran of the Afghanistan war. One day he came under mortar fire and dived for cover, breaking a bone in his neck and cracking a disc. Two surgeries later, he had a steel plate in his neck, and hands so numb he couldn't work his former jobs as a carpenter and welder.

When we met him, he and his wife and two children were living on $450 a month, plus, he says, a one-time after-tax severance from the army of about $7800, money eaten up all too quickly by expenses he incurred moving back to Indiana and just trying to keep up with his rent.

He tried to get a permanent rating from the Veterans Administration that would, he hoped, improve his benefits.

BISEL: I started calling to find out who I needed to talk to when I got home. All right, I was told that I needed to shut up and wait.

BRANCACCIO: They didn't say, "Shut up."

BISEL: Yes, they did.

BRANCACCIO: They said, "Shut up"?

BISEL: Literally. Yes. I needed to quit bitchin', I needed to quit complainin', I needed to just go home and wait until the paperwork comes in.

BRANCACCIO: 19 months after he got back from Afghanistan, Billy Bisel was still waiting.

In Washington, there's a Congressman trying to do something to change the system. New Jersey Republican Chris Smith was never a soldier, but he's fought hard on their behalf, sponsoring legislation to combat homelessness among vets, and to increase funding for the GI bill. Now he's trying to fix the plight of the wounded.

REP. SMITH: It's unacceptable. And the challenge that we have now is to ensure that this kind of mistake of not adequately caring for an individual who has served our country never happens again.

BRANCACCIO: Smith's battle includes pushing for better communication between Defense, the DOD, and Veterans Affairs, the VA.

REP. SMITH: When I was first elected 23 years ago, we passed a bill. It wasn't my bill but it was a very good bill. Sonny Montgomery and others worked on it, on DOD/VA sharing. When we went back and looked at it over the course of these years, there was almost no sharing. There was like a wall, a line of demarcation between the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration, that really was counterproductive.

BRANCACCIO: There are more problems and they are extreme. For example, according to a report by the American Legion, the average time a vet has to wait to get a medical appointment at a VA facility is seven months.

REP. SMITH: Right now there are major gaps, computers that don't talk to computers. Missing assessments and medical histories. So that the veteran, unless he or she are really briefed and very effectively briefed, they come out and they go from a situation where they were, you know, part of the military 24/7 to being on their own without a clue, in many cases, as to where do they go if they do need some healthcare or something for treatment.

BRANCACCIO: In August, the WALL STREET JOURNAL ran an article laying bare the problem of wounded and neglected vets ?- a piece that featured Jason Stiffler.

It prompted a letter to the editor, calling the article "a wake up call." It was signed Anthony J. Principi, Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

PRINCIPI: It's a great cause to take care of them. And it hurts like hell when we fail.

BRANCACCIO: A cabinet-level official, Principi is not shy about admitting his department's shortcomings.

PRINCIPI: We're getting there but we're not…it's not seamless. One of our great challenges, we have information technology systems that are not compatible. I think the VA has world's finest computerized patient record system. But unfortunately the Defense Department has a different computerized system. And they don't really talk to one another.

BRANCACCIO: Can you pick up the phone and talk to Secretary Rumsfeld? Is there a system set up?

PRINCIPI: There is a system, and it's called the President of the United States who is pretty adamant about Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary Principi breaking down the barriers between the two departments. I mean, on more than one occasion at a cabinet meeting, the President, somewhat off the cuff, will say to Don Rumsfeld, "How are you and Principi working? Are you two making progress?"

BRANCACCIO: Help us understand really this dual system. A soldier comes back and will probably still be in the other system ?- the Pentagon system, the military system. You have a separate system altogether.

PRINCIPI: Don Rumsfeld and I care for the same people at different points in their lives. While they're on active duty, they are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense. So when they return from combat, those that are wounded may go into a military hospital. I now have full-time coordinators from my department in military hospitals to ensure that when they're discharged ?- because the nature of their disability precludes them from remaining on active duty ?- that when they go back home that they're cared for.

BRANCACCIO: It's an important first step toward making the system work, one taken after the negative media attention.

One of the fulltime VA benefits coordinators is former army infantryman Chris Reid. Reid has a prosthetic right arm and right leg, terrible souvenirs of a firefight in Somalia in 1993.

Now he works at Walter Reed helping other wounded soldiers make the transition back to civilian life.

REID: Yesterday I came by. We filled the paperwork out so that is downtown being processed. Concerning his benefit and that should be done soon.

I think everyone would agree with me to make sure all our young men and women are taken care of concerning benefit both dual with VA and DOD and let them be briefed on those benefits that's available to them. Because if they're not told about it, then they end up going home and out in the wilderness lost and not being aware. And hear about it by word of mouth.

BRANCACCIO: 23-year-old Roy Gray was delivering food to his buddies in Iraq when mortar fire hit his truck. Shrapnel pierced his left thigh ?- he almost bled to death.

GRAY: I look up and I see my leg and I didn't know if it was still attached. Or what was going on. It was like crooked, every which way but right.

BRANCACCIO: The wards of Walter Reed are peopled with vets with life-altering injuries, many of the kind that would have resulted in death in earlier wars. But American fighting men and women are surviving terrible wounds like never before, thanks to faster evacuation procedures, better equipment and medicine. In fact, quality of treatment is not the issue here, either at military or VA hospitals.

WHITE: If you look at the doctors and the nurses and the staff people in a VA hospital, they provide excellent quality care.

BRANCACCIO: Todd White won four medals serving in the Vietnam War. He's now the National Vice Commander of the American Legion, the country's largest veterans' organization. He also volunteers at veterans hospitals where he's seen the care close up.

WHITE: The problem has always been trying to get that veteran in there to finally begin accept… or getting this quality care. And yes, it's a bureaucratic nightmare and it's unfortunate.

BRANCACCIO: Funding is also an issue, according to a coalition of veterans groups. It has calculated that next year, the VA will fall 1.8 billion dollars short of meeting the medical needs of veterans if Congress approves the current plan.

REP. SMITH: There's been chronic underfunding for years. And if you bleed a system long enough, and starve it long enough, you begin to have problems with infrastructure. Buildings begin to crumble. And we have an infrastructure, a bill that we're trying to get passed that would provide, you know, about $500 million each year to fix and repair a crumbling infrastructure that, you know, needs to be repaired. It's worth saving.

BRANCACCIO: After Jason Stiffler's story became front page news, his rating from the VA came through at 100% disability. He and his family, which now includes a baby daughter, Angel, receive $2900 a month from the VA. He credits the media attention.

So does Billy Bisel. After an article in the FORT WAYNE JOURNAL GAZETTE about his case, Bisel heard from the VA and the very day we showed up with our camera, a letter arrived with his permanent disability rating, which increased his payment from $450 to $1400 a month.

For Congressman Chris Smith, doing right by America's veterans is simply a matter of justice.

REP. SMITH: I think the biggest risk is the moral obligation and the sacred duty that we have to care for, as Lincoln said, for him who was born this nation's battle, and for his widow, and for his orphan. That is a sacred obligation that we can't ever lower our guard, or diminish our response, even one iota.

BRANCACCIO: Smith recently held a hearing, the sixth one in less than two years, he says, about trying to improve conditions for the sick and injured leaving military service.

One captain in the army reserve who has served for 10 years spoke up to question whether the military was making good on its promises to new recruits. Her name? Arvilla Stiffler, Jason Stiffler's mother.

ARVILLA STIFFLER [at hearing]: As a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves and after witnessing my son's journey, I feel if recruiters would inform new recruits the consequences if injured included an expectation to become frustrated with a system that leaves you below the poverty line, forces you on food stamps and into a welfare system and lastly will make you wait long periods of time to receive medical care, I ask you would you sign up?

JASON STIFFLER: I was defending our country cause of September 11th. So why should I have to? Why should any soldier, at that matter? If they're gonna send us over there they should take care of us. [/quote]