The term "stretched too thin" seems applicable here...

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Hala Gorani: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have undoubtedly put a severe strain on the American military, now there is word that the Pentagon is concerned about its ability to respond to additional potential crises. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is monitoring this and joins us now. Barbara, what is being said at the Pentagon regarding the possibility of responding to any third crisis that arises around the wolrd for the US military?

Barbara Starr: Well you know Holla, yes, yet again another indication on that question of just how stretched thin the US Military is right now -- Afghanistan, Iraq and a number of other commitments around the world. What is the indication? Well, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, has sent a classified report to the Secretary of Defense, and now to Capitol Hill, that says the risk is now "significant," that's the word, "significant," of the US Military being able to meet its obligation if in fact a third crisis now were to break out. This all has led under the law for the requirement now for Secretary Gates to come up with what they call a "mitigation plan" - once the risk is "significant" the Secretary must report to Congress on what he's doing about it.

Yep, even after Barack Obama became the first two-term president since Eisenhower to win more than 51% of the popular vote in two elections, giggling wingnuts like Erickson are still using the "Black Jimmy Carter" line. And despite the non-stop giddy SCANDAL! drumbeat by right-wingers, his approval rating is at 49%.

In comparison, after the actual scandals of Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, Abu Grhaib, FISA, the US Attorney firings, and Valerie Plame, George W. Bush spent his last three years in the 30s.

How quickly they forget.

The Obama administration on Friday lifted the covers on its compromise budget proposal for fiscal year 2014. While Obama's blueprint would slash the national debt by a projected $1.8 trillion over the next decade (bringing the total reductions since 2011 to $4.3 trillion) through painful changes to Social Security and Medicare, Republicans are predictably balking at Obama's call for $580 billion in new tax revenue. Despite the administration's up-front concessions on spending, GOP leaders including John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor continue to repeat their talking points that "the President got his tax hikes in January" and "the discussion about revenue is over."

But as a quick glance at U.S. budgets past and future shows, the discussion over tax revenue should be far from over. For starters, thanks to two wars, the new unfunded Medicare prescription drug program and the government responses to the 2008 financial meltdown, federal spending surged over the previous decade even as tax revenue as a percentage of the U.S. economy hit 60 year lows. And looking ahead, the U.S. Treasury will need to raise revenues higher than the historical average not just to fill the massive hole left by the Naughts, but to fund $2 trillion more in war-related spending, to address the aging of the U.S. population and to meet the public's demands for more, not less, spending across almost every area of government.

Here are 10 reasons why Uncle Sam needs more tax revenue. (Click a link to jump to the details for each.)

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During Monday night’s third and final presidential debate, Mitt Romney the hardline hawk turned tail and ran away from almost every foreign policy position he’s held for months. Monday’s Romney backed unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2014, after having previously declared the pull-out be “based upon the conditions on the ground determined by the generals.” The supporter of George W. Bush's war on Saddam Hussein now says, "We don't want another Iraq, we don't want another Afghanistan." He pledged to increase foreign aid, after having promised GOP primary voters he would start every country’s assistance “at zero.” And Romney’s bluster about a drawing a red line at Iran developing a “nuclear capability” just “one screwdriver's turn away from a nuclear weapon” was gone.

Of course, to keep the campaign’s focus on economic issues Romney’s strategy was to neutralize President Obama’s advantage on foreign policy and national security by seemingly adopting it lock, stock and not-so-smoking barrel. The only question left isn’t whether Romney's laughably long list of foreign policy flip-fops, flubs and follies shows his unworthiness to be Commander-in-Chief, but whether voters will punish him for it.

Romney Opposed U.S. Strikes Against Bin Laden in Pakistan. In December, Governor Romney brushed off Chuck Todd's suggestion that President Obama deserved credit for ordering the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden:

"I think in a setting like this one where Osama bin Laden was identified to be hiding in Pakistan, that it was entirely appropriate for this president to move in and to take him out," Romney replied, later adding that "In a similar circumstance, I think other presidents and other candidates, like myself, would do exactly the same thing."

As it turns out, not so much. Throughout 2007 and 2008, then Senator Barack Obama declared "we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights." Like President Bush and John McCain, Mitt Romney opposed unilateral American action to kill the Al Qaeda chieftain and his henchmen:

"I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours... I don't think those kinds of comments help in this effort to draw more friends to our effort..."There is a war being waged by terrorists of different types and nature across the world," Romney said. "We want, as a civilized world, to participate with other nations in this civilized effort to help those nations reject the extreme with them."

Of course, Romney's confusion about whether or not to respect Pakistani sovereignty may have something to do with his past reversals about whether or not killing Osama Bin Laden even mattered. After insisting in late April 2007 that "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person," Romney under fire from the right reversed course just three days later and declared of Bin Laden, "He's going to pay, and he will die." (That also explains his ridiculous comment five years ago that "I want to double Guantanamo," and his plans now to revive the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture.)

Romney's comical past on Afghanistan and lack of policy specifics on its present largely explain why the GOP nominee was so noticeably silent on the topic at the Republican National Convention.

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Yeah, I think this vet choose exactly the right term: It's cheesy of Scott Brown to pretend his two weeks in Afghanistan are on a par with National Guard members who served a full tour of duty:

WASHINGTON -- The man who inspired Sen. Scott Brown to write a bill making it illegal to falsely claim military honors said he thinks the Massachusetts Republican is stretching the truth when he claims to have "served in Afghanistan."Brown made the Afghanistan declaration in his recent debate with his Democratic opponent for the Senate seat, Elizabeth Warren.

But Brown's service in Afghanistan was not combat. It was part of his annual two-week stint with the National Guard, in which he requested, in a highly unusual move, to serve in Afghanistan.

"It sounds to me like we just got another Blumenthal Connecticut, Mark Kirk type things there," said Vietnam veteran Doug Sterner, referring to exaggerated military claims two years ago by now-Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)"I thought it was seriously misleading," said Sterner, whose website outing heroes was the basis for Brown's "Stolen Valor" bill. Sterner's criticism echoes a Boston Globe editorial published Thursday morning.

"I think it does go to an issue of personal character and that concerns me," added Sterner, who earlier this year broke with Brown and has endorsed Warren.

Sterner said it wasn't that Brown's service was with the National Guard that's the problem. Scores of Guard members have been recipients of the Medal of Honor, he noted. Brown's mistake, he said, was implying that his service in Afghanistan was a real tour of duty.

"I would be the last person to denigrate anybody's National Guard service, but I thought the claim, putting himself on par with men and women who have done combat tours, often in excess of a year, 14 months, was a pretty cheesy thing to do," Sterner said.

He allowed that Brown can legitimately claim spending time in Afghanistan. But he said he also thought it broke the spirit of what Brown tried to with the Stolen Valor Act, which Brown himself said was aimed at stopping people from benefiting by swiping the real glory from others.

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[H/t Heather]

This week's In Memoriam, from ABC's This Week, observes the passing of five members American armed services who lost their lives in Afghanistan:

• Spc. Kyle Rookey, 23, U.S. Army, Oswego, NY
• SSG Jeremie S. Border, 28, U.S. Army, Mesquite, Texas
• SSG Jonathan P. Schmidt, 28, U.S. Army, Petersburg, VA
• LCpl Alec R. Terwiske, 21, U.S. Marines, Dubois, IN
• PFC Shane W. Cantu, 20, U.S. Army, Corunna, MI

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Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is one of the stupidest members of the House of Representatives, and here he proves it again by touting George W. Bush's awesome management of the war in Afghanistan.

To Gohmert, it's all Obama's fault that George W. Bush failed to achieve victory in Afghanistan after seven years (twice as long as World War Two!). And forget those those Republicans in Congress who voted to send more troops to Afghanistan after Bush's failure. Nevermind. The negro isn't cleaning up Bush's mess fast enough.

Look, there are legitimate criticisms of Obama's surge in Afghanistan. But "George Bush did it better" isn't one of them. And Since Obama's such an obvious bumbler who shouldn't be sending our troops to Disneyland, let alone a battle field, why did Gohmert vote against bringing the troops in Afghanistan home?

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I'm getting a little tired of the Royal Romneys. Between Ann Romney's imperious delivery of her pronouncement that "you people" have all the information Queen Ann deigns to divulge, and their bilious fundraising colleagues, I start contemplating the possibility of repatriation in the event of a 2012 bought election.

It was in that mood that these words reached my already-hotheaded ears. It seems that to the Romney campaign, "real people", (who one assumes would not be the same as "you people" although perhaps they would be the same if one is a Romney and therefore entitled to hover above the rest of us) do not care about Afghanistan. That's just something we don't worry our little heads about?

Also, it seems that asking a simple policy question is now an attack, causing Ms. Wall to burst forth in indignant anger:

Unfortunately it’s disappointing that the attacks, these recent attacks on all these issues outside of what the issues are relative to Mitt Romney are diverting away from what real Americans want to talk about. And real Americans want to talk about getting back to work.

You know what disappoints this "real American"? The idea that the Romney campaign thinks that people like me who deeply care about Afghanistan's future and our role in it (or not) aren't "real Americans."

After all, she had to say something, I guess, and she couldn't actually articulate Mitt Romney's policy on Afghanistan because (gasp!) it's unintelligible.

Some things should remain mysteries. Others should not, particularly when one expects to be elected President of the United States. Mitt's taxes point directly to how he would approach tax policy. Mitt's policy ideas on Afghanistan point directly to how he would approach foreign policy.

It just isn't enough to say he'd do it like George W. Bush did, but right now, that's all we've got to go on. He has Bush advisors and Bush money boys, so we should assume he would adopt Bush neocon policies. That would mean World War III. For starters.

At least, that's what this "real American" who is now not a "real American" by virtue of her concern about Afghanistan thinks. Take it for what it's worth.

Nothing says leadership more than bravely standing up against a concern that’s not actually a problem. We’ve had a one-sided battle with Sharia Law in the U.S. No one is fighting for replacing U.S. law with an Islamic moral code, but nonetheless Republicans are heroically fighting against it. Same with aborted fetuses in commercial food stuffs: Not something that’s ever happened but earlier this year Republican freshman Oklahoma state senator Ralph Shortey had the temerity to introduce a bill to outlaw it.

Republicans love what they call “simple solutions” but it’s really just the easiest possible answer to a trumped up crisis. In short: busy work. America needs to streamline for the challenges of the future so we can remain competitive (blah blah blah). Yet Republican offers are akin to organizing all the paperclips in the office by color and size.

Republicans and bureaucracy are, after all, frenemies. Sure they tell the media they despise bureaucracy but secretly love it when it makes them appear to be doing something. Even better if it keeps them from doing anything difficult.

For example: We’re in the middle of an obesity epidemic. It’s the number two leading cause of preventable death in this country. The Center for Disease Control estimates 112,000 American deaths a year due to obesity, this is down from their previous estimate of 365,000 deaths from poor nutrition and physical inactivity. The CDC reports in 2008 Americans forked over $147 billion in medical costs on obesity. We’re dying and going broke from being too fat.

But what are Republicans trying to warn us against? Terrorism. China. Russia. Obamacare. ACORN. The New Black Panthers. The Fed. All of which cumulatively killed no Americans last year.

It’s (ironically) lazy to try to and scare Americans about some elusive menace in order to avoid the reality that we’ve become the proverbial elephants in our own living rooms.

Illegal immigration? Republicans say to secure the border—build a fence—arrest anyone who even looks illegal. Mitt Romney said Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 should be a model for the nation. Which would be something if Mexicans were still coming into the U.S. They’re not. Immigration from Mexico is now net zero. That is actually a way bigger problem than undocumented workers (whom we love in boom times for a way to circumvent the minimum wage and exploit a non-litigious underclass). It’s the fact we are no longer an attractive enough country to motivate Mexicans to come here.

But as we saw last week with the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s law, governor Jan Brewer’s just doubled down on a non-problem, “We cannot forget that we are here today because the federal government has failed the American people regarding immigration policy, has failed to protect its citizens, has failed to preserve the rule of law and has failed to secure our borders.”

For a party that likes to peddle free market and common sense they sure get a lot of traction ginning up irrational fears.

Our energy plan is stuck firmly in the last century, but that’s not the point the presumptive Republican nominee decided to make. In March Mitt Romney told Fox News President Obama "has done everything in his power to make it harder for us to get oil and natural gas in this country, driving up the price of those commodities in the case of gasoline." Gas prices were the thing Republicans were going to fix by paying attention to them! With little fanfare, gas prices are down now by the way. Production has increased overall under the Obama administration. Republicans managed to sound the alarm and assign blame for a symptom while steadfastly avoiding the cause entirely.

Think I’m way off here? Remember this is the party that in the wake of September 11th—an attack by citizens of Saudi Arabia, organized in Afghanistan by a leader hanging out in Lebanon—decided to invade (wait for it) Iraq.

Because things indirectly involved with real problems hate us for our freedoms.

Cross posted at TinaDupuy.com

Dozens of electrical workers and members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers are providing essential services in the war zone in Afghanistan and Americans know very little about the conditions they live and work in. The primary job the electricians perform is to make military bases in Afghanistan safer for U.S. and allied troops. In performing their job, they ride along with troops and face many of the same dangers that troops face. Housing conditions are very basic and far from living at home in the U.S. and violence is a constant fear. Like the soldiers fighting in combat, the electricians often forge close friendships over months and years with people lost in combat or who face severe injury and disability. With little to no training on dealing with the conditions of war, they work on a daily basis to make sure the troops can do their job in as safe an environment as possible, which they say is the most rewarding aspect of the job. And the troops are much more appreciative of the work that they do that people back home are, since things as simple as lighting in the dark are much more important in a war zone.

IBEW chronicles some of these stories on their website:

When the Air Force needs large construction work done quickly in and around combat zones, the men and women of RED HORSE ride in.

Members of the construction squad formally called "Rapid Engineers Deployable: Heavy Operations Repair Squadron Engineers" handle upgrades on airfields, drill wells, and complete large projects involving demolition and construction—all to ensure that U.S. troops have the infrastructure to do their jobs in Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding countries.

Allentown, Pa., Local 375 member Bruce Snyder served as superintendent of the 1st Expeditionary RED HORSE's electrical division in Afghanistan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. There, he and fellow IBEW members joined other skilled trades workers to construct and electrify medical stations, communications centers and other structures.

"We take pride in being able to build anything the Air Force needs here," said Snyder, who joined the National Guard after four years of active duty in 1986. "IBEW members are a valuable part of this effort, and we don't take our responsibilities lightly."

Fellow RED HORSE member Gavin Fisher, a reservist and meter reader with Reading, Pa., Local 777, worked with Snyder as part of a convoy team to deliver bulldozers and heavy equipment to construction sites in the Kandahar province of southern Afghanistan.

"It was tough work, and you always had to keep your eyes open," said Fisher, 27, who is looking to become a lineman with Metropolitan Edison Co.

A typical RED HORSE squadron is made up of more than 400 servicemen and women, including members of the carpenters, masons, sheet metal workers, plumbers and various other trades. Squad members stay on the move, often connecting with other RED HORSE groups at various sites.

"I met many of my fellow members from around the nation doing similar work," said Snyder, who returned home last spring. "It was always a thrill to get to a new place and ask around if anyone was IBEW."