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Evening Open Thread: Troop Mental Health, "Screw 'em" |
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A study by the RAND Corporation has found that over 300,000 troops suffer mental health problems. According to the study:
Billed as the first large-scale nongovernmental survey of its kind, the study found that stress disorder and depression afflict 18.5 percent of the more than 1.5 million U.S. forces who have deployed to the two war zones.
This level of stress is also having a severe economic impact:
AND, a private research organization, estimated that stress and depression among returning soldiers cost $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment, mainly due to lost productivity, medical costs and a higher risk of suicide.
British PM Gordon Brown snubs Bush as he goes to meet up with all three presidential contenders before sitting down with Mr. 28%. Their relationship hasn't had the "chumminess" of the Bush-Blair lovefest.
Clinton's campaign is set to feel some backlash after her comments at a 1995 meeting at Camp David, debating whether Bill Clinton ought to cater to southern working class whites:
"Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."
The quote's been verified by three sources present at the time. I'm still wondering why actively hating on working class Americans isn't stirring the pot compared to Obama saying something effectively true about them.
I think Dick Cheney's response would be clear: "So?"