Are you nuts? Why does anyone still listen to this idiot?

I love my family, but I really wish they would stop sending me this kind of drivel. It drives me nuts and sends me spinning off topic in an apoplectic rage that demands I sned an immediate factual slapdown. Here's what I was sent. . .

"Love him or loathe him, he nailed this one right on the head..........

By Rush Limbaugh:

I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving our country in Uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11. Well, I can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the
entitlement mentality of this country. If you lost a family member in the September 11 attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million.


If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable.

Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people who are getting an average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it's not enough. Their deaths were tragic, but for most, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Soldiers put themselves in harms way FOR ALL OF US, and they and their families know the dangers.

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11 families are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation as well.

You see where this is going, don't you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over 50 years of entitlement politics in this country. It's just really sad. Every time a pay raise comes up for the military, they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low-rent housing. Make sense?

However, our own U S. Congress voted themselves a raise. Many of you don't know that they only have to be in Congress one time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month. And most are now equal to being millionaires plus. They do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system.

If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7, they may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed them in harm's way receives a pension of $15,000 per month.

I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

"When do we finally do something about this?" If this doesn't seem fair to you, it is time to forward this to as many people as you can."

Here is my response. . .

Dear Mr. Grothaus,

I received your email regarding the "entitlement mentality" of American society. These words coming out of Rush LImbaugh's mouth is nothing short of hypocrisy. Limbaugh is a Republican mouthpiece of the lowest order, his lies for the right only rivaled by the ridiculously named "fair and balanced" Fox network. For years, the Republican majority has resisted increasing benefits for the men and women of the U.S. military. Even now as the Bush administration profligately wastes the lives of our fighting men and women in a failed invasion and occupation of a country that clearly had no weapons of mass destruction and no connection whatsoever to the attacks of 9/11, the Republicans, who, in case you have conveniently forgotten, control all the mechanisms of our government including the purse strings have failed to extend adequate compensation to our troops over, I might add, the loud and frequent protests of the Democratic minority.

As for the vast amounts of money paid to the widows and orphans of the 9/11 attacks, remember two things. First, the government of the United States failed the people of New York and Washington D.C. at every turn. While the attacks may ultimately still have occurred, the signs and warnings were loud and plentiful. FBI agents around the nation were sending reports of young Arab men were signing up for lessons in how to pilot large commercial jets but had no desire to learn how to land them. WARNING! Intelligence briefings skittered across the Presidents desk and were also ignored. Remember this little nugget; "Bin Laden determined to use planes to strike in the US." WARNING! Outgoing Clinton intelligence staffers told incoming Bush counterparts that the most important threat to the US was Al Qaeda, yet every report coming out of the White House, from career counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to Reporter Bob Woodward show that George Bush could care less as he went about planning his little war in Iraq. WARNING! DANGER! Limbaugh also conveniently forgets the fact that everyone and their brother knew that the police and fire communications systems were not able to communicate back and forth, and that the New York City emergency operations center was built into the number one terrorist target in the city, The World Trade Center, a complex that had already been attacked by Muslim extremists once before.

So what is Limbaugh saying. Is he saying that the survivors of 9/11 don't deserve this level of compensation or that our soldiers deserve the same. Since he calls it an "entitlement mentality," he obviously believes that no one except fat, bloated, corporate head honchos and intellectually stunted, drug riddled radio hosts deserve such grandiose levels of compensation for their socially redeeming work and to hell with the men and women dying in the sand for George Bush and Dick Cheney's corporate buddies profit margins. And if they leave behind widows and orphans, let them seek out welfare. Oh wait we want to eliminate that too.

If you really give a damn about our service men and women, quit listening to Limbaugh and his EIB (Extremely Ignorant Blowhard) network and find out who is actually stopping our soldiers and their families from getting the benefits that they not only deserve, but were actually promised when they signed up.

Greg Colvin
Publisher/Editor
"The Alarm"