Once again, the chickenhawks have other priorities

In a previous post, I mentioned Jack Flynn -- the Democratic challenger running against Sue Myrick in North Carolina's 9th District.

In his keynote speech at the recent 9th District Democratic Convention, Flynn described his recent visit to the US military hospital at Landstuhl, where he saw everything the Bush administration doesn’t want us to see -- like the young enlisted man who'd lost his right eye, his right arm, and his right leg.

As Flynn pointed out, the VA used to lead the way in state-of-the-art prosthetics -- but even as our troops are losing limbs in Iraq, Bush is cutting the VA's prosthetics budget. When the Supreme Court foisted Bush off on us back in December 2000, the VA's prosthetics budget was 75 percent larger than it is today.

And while we're on the subject, let's not forget that this trigger-happy administration has also cut hazardous duty pay for troops in the war zone as well as funds for educating the children of military personnel. (The nation can't afford such luxuries -- not when the wealthiest Americans are in dire need of a tax cut.)

During the 2000 campaign, Dick Cheney (the same guy who had five deferments and "other priorities" in the Vietnam era) told military personnel that "help is on the way."

If this is his idea of help, I'd hate to see what hindrance looks like.