This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • This governing stuff is hard

    Last week, I wrote that the Obama Administration had decided to hike the inpatient fee for TRICARE recipients who were working age and using civilian hospitals. Of course we heard that the Administration was dumbstruck by the Defense Department’s announcement and we heard promises that the Administration would not let it fly.

    We waited. We waited. No news of the reversal – the Defense Department is an agency of the Executive Branch, so all it would take is the President telling them “no”, right? Still nothing.

    Today, the House-Senate conference for the 2010 Defense Appropriation Bill took action since the White House didn’t seem too eager to do the right thing according to the Stars and Stripes;

    The last decision made by House-Senate conferees negotiating final details on a fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill Tuesday was to insert language that will roll back an announced Oct. 1 increase in fees charged to TRICARE Standard beneficiaries for stays in civilian hospitals.

    The surprise fee increases, which were reported here last week, gave lawmakers a chance to ride to the rescue and, in effect, put a cherry atop the $680.2 billion defense policy bill, at least for working-age military retirees and their families who would have seen a $110-a-day bump in hospital bills.

    That was a fortuitous opportunity for the armed services committees because other pay and benefit initiatives in the bill are relatively modest compared to past years.

    Fortuitous? Screwing around with peoples’ health and welfare is fortuitous? No, actually, it looks like they were screwing around on purpose so they could seem to be doing something for military retirees. It seems it’s difficult to keep Obama’s campaign promises;

    Obama promised in his presidential campaign to extend concurrent receipt to all disabled military retirees. But White House budget officials were stunned to learn the cost — $45 billion over 10 years — and so lowered their first-term target to all Chapter 61 retirees, clearly an unpopular compromise.

    House-Senate Conferees also rejected two familiar Senate-passed initiatives as unfunded. One would have ended a reduction in Survivor Benefit Plan payments to 54,000 widows who also draw Dependency and Indemnity Compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

    The other provision tossed would have made 140,000 more reservists mobilized since Sept. 11, 2001, eligible for earlier reserve retirement. In 2007, Congress had lowered the age 60 start of reserve retired pay by three months for every 90 consecutive days that a Reserve or Guard members is called up for war or national emergency if they otherwise qualify for retirement. For lack of funds, Congress made the change applicable only for deployment time after Jan. 28, 2008. That restriction will remain.

    So they didn’t end the reduction from our military retired pay to pay for our own disability, they didn’t end the reduction in widows’ benefits (that their husbands earned for them) and they didn’t fix eligibility for Reserve soldiers who served in the war against terror. But they did fix the thing they inflicted on service members last week. What kind of childish bullshit are they trying to pull on us?

    I guess governing is harder than making campaign promises.

  • The political football in Afghanistan

    While real soldiers are fighting a real war in Afghanistan, politicians toss their fates around like a football. Leaving a meeting with the President at the White House on the subject, members of Congress made statements which don’t give me much confidence in their intentions. According to the Stars and Stripes, Harry Reid said that he “left the meeting believing that all lawmakers – regardless of party affiliation – will support Obama’s ultimate decision.” That kind of wording means that if some politicians don’t support the President’s decision, they’ll be ostracized.

    John Kerry, of course, sees the war as a political opportunity instead of the lives of troops;

    Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, D-Mass, said while the president deliberates his options lawmakers should be doing a “self-examination” of their own “to see how much they’re willing to put on the table, see what they’re willing to commit in terms of money and troops.” For his part, Kerry indicated he’d be reluctant to send more troops overseas without a clearer set of goals.

    In other words, disregard the future of the troops, think more about the political implications of your decisions. He’d be reluctant because he gets his votes in Back-assachusetts.

    John McCain isn’t inspiring me with confidence either;

    Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he sees parallels between the “surge” in troops for Iraq and the need for more Afghanistan forces now, adding he is confident that Obama understands the importance of the issue.

    “I believe the president will make the right decision,” McCain said.

    Why do you believe that, Senator? Because he’s made so many brilliant decisions so far?

    White House and Congressional officials did not offer any timeline for when a final announcement on strategy will be made, but said for now they’re willing to wait.

    How long? Do they realize that there are folks engaged in that theater right now? This isn’t a discussion about whether or not to apply military power – the military is currently engaged. It must be nice to sit back in the comfort of the Oval Office and contemplate some future act without BEING SHOT AT.

    The only realistic voice is, of course, House Majority Leader John Boehner;

    “He wants ample time to make a decision, and I support that,” Boehner said. “But we need to remember that every day that goes by, our troops that are there are in greater danger. We need to get this right.”

  • Like babes in the woods

    I’m pretty sure the Obama Administration knew about the problems with Iran before they took the reins nearly ten months ago. So what’s taking them so long to develop a policy and design those sanctions they were so adamant about last year during the campaign? From the Washington Times;

    “Even as the administration focuses on diplomacy, we have also been working with our colleagues across the U.S. government to develop a strategy for imposing substantial costs on the government of Iran if the president determines that is what is needed to affect Iranian policies,” said Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in prepared testimony on Capitol Hill.

    In other words, when they made the decision to impose sanctions, someone didn’t just walk over to the file cabinet a pull a file that they’d been working over the last year. In my head, the folder would have said “Plan B” on the jacket. I guess they really did plan on ignoring our foreign policy for the first year.

    So, they’re moving with all deliberate speed to impose sanctions, right? Hardly;

    Nonetheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said late Monday that Tehran’s concessions in Geneva had put sanctions on the back burner for the moment.

    “It buys time,” she said in an interview with CNN. “It buys time for us to consider carefully their response, the sincerity of their actions, and, you know, we’re moving simultaneously on the dual track.”

    “Buys time” for who? Buys time for the Iranians to build their nuclear weapon and avoid sanctions.

    It’s almost as if the Obama Administration is hoping that Israel will strike Iran. Then they can breathe a sigh of relief that they didn’t have to commit to anything concrete – and then spend the next ten years condemning Israel for acting unilaterally.

  • Our changing times

    US Obama Afghanistan

    This morning we awaken to the Washington Post’s Bruce Ackerman pronouncing that “Generals Shouldn’t Disagree in Public With the Commander in Chief“. Ackerman writes;

    As commanding general in Afghanistan, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements. Under law, he doesn’t have the right to attend the National Security Council as it decides our strategy. To the contrary, the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 explicitly names the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the National Security Council’s exclusive military adviser. If the president wanted McChrystal’s advice, he was perfectly free to ask him to accompany Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when the council held its first meeting on Afghanistan this week.

    That’s a little bit different than the article the Post ran in December 2006 when they proudly announced that “White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops” – no warning that generals shouldn’t publicly disagree with the president when the president is Bush.

    A senior administration official said it is “too simplistic” to say the surge question has broken down into a fight between the White House and the Pentagon, but the official acknowledged that the military has questioned the option. “Of course, military leadership is going to be focused on the mission — what you’re trying to accomplish, the ramifications it would have on broader issues in terms of manpower and strength and all that,” the official said.

    Leftist blogs have demanded McChrystal resign –

    General McChrystal’s breach has been bad enough to deserve peremptory dismissal

    And that’s what I think he should get — though I haven’t seen much protest or even much awareness of his breach of protocol.

    Others are predicting catastrophe;

    Indeed, we are already seeing the damage that can be done when even a sliver of daylight appears between the views of the President and his military commander.

    So in these changing times, Generals should now shut up and not advocate for the successful completion of their mission when just a scant few years ago they were celebrated as media stars when they publicly disagreed with the president. I wonder why things have changed.

  • Uh? We lost something?

    OK, so the Olympics are going to Brazil in 2016 – how many of you are going? Me, neither. It’s a coupla sports games – what do I care? But to read the blogs, we’ve lost everything. That pony-tailed bike riding guy says that this is proof that conservatives want America to fail. Huh? We’ve never lost a bid for the Olympics before? The doofuses at Think Progress say; “Mission Accomplished For Conservatives Who Rooted Against America “;

    Always looking for a way to bring down Obama, conservatives not only criticized the President’s 15-hour trip, but also spent this week denegrating Chicago, downplaying the Olympics, and rooting against America.

    They even made a video that “proves” we brought Obama down;

    Apparently the Olympic Committee watches our cable TV news programs.

    From Glen Thrush at Politico;

    Judging from the volume of exultant Tweets and press releases from Republicans today — you’d think they’d won a doubleheader, what with Chicago losing the Olympics and the unemployment numbers rising unexpectedly.

    You know who really lost today? Those folks we’ve sent to Afghanistan. Out of the 15 hours the President spent in Denmark, General McCrystal got 25 minutes with him. Imagine that; all of the time he spent on getting the Olympics brought to Chicago – seven years from now (apparently three years after Obama will be out office if he keeps acting like this) – he spent twenty five minutes with the guy fighting his war for him.

    dicksmith says that’s fine;

    When I was a buck sergeant, I didn’t meet regularly with my Battalion Commander to brief him on my mission. The intermediate leaders did that for me.

    Regardless, this is a good thing:

    Imagine that – VoteVets agreeing with every.single.thing.the.President.does. Um, dicksmith, did your Battalion commander send you to another country to fight a war by yourself? We’re talking about a guy who is trying to convince the President to give our troops more resources. The same President who has spent the last five days talking to people who AREN’T commanders in Afghanistan about those resources.

    All of you folks who are so enamored with the President, listen to yourselves. Seriously.

  • …And so it begins

    The Stars and Stripes reports that Tricare has hiked their inpatient fee nearly 21% for retirees under 65 using civilian hospitals;

    TRICARE Standard is the military’s fee-for-service insurance option. The inpatient cost share for retirees under age 65 and their family members was increased to $645 a day from $535. The actual formula for beneficiaries is $645 a day, or 25 percent of total hospital charges, whichever is less.

    Families of active duty members who use Standard for civilian hospital stays will see a more modest increase in their daily charge, from $15.65 a day to $16.30, or $25 per admission, whichever is greater.

    The increase for retirees stunned and angered at least one service association.

    “This shocking announcement is extremely disappointing, given your public assurances earlier this year that the Defense Department would not be proposing any TRICARE fee increases for [fiscal] 2010,” retired Navy Vice Adm. Norbert R. Ryan Jr., president of the Military Officers Association of America told Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Ryan’s protest letter was sent hours after TRICARE officials unveiled their new inpatient fees for Standard.

    That’s how it begins every time. It’s always veteran health care that suffers first. Now where are the trolls that always tell me that I’m just scaring veterans?

  • Kerry blocks DeMint’s Honduras mission

    Senator Jim DeMint thought it might be a good idea for someone to go to Honduras and gather some actual facts about the situation there rather than sit back in Washington and make grand pronouncements. Well, John Kerry, who happens to be the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says “nope” according to The Hill and DeMint’s office;

    “No U.S. Senator has yet been to Honduras to assess facts of crisis. [Kerry] & Obama admin using bullying tactics to hide truth,” DeMint, who also sits on the Foreign Relations panel, said on Twitter after he heard the trip would not occur.

    “@JohnKerry (Foreign Rel. chair) trying to hide truth to protect Zelaya, blocking our fact-finding trip to Honduras at last minute,” DeMint also tweeted late Thursday afternoon.

    DeMint’s office followed with a statement. “These bullying tactics by the Obama administration and Senator Kerry must stop, and we must be allowed to get to the truth in Honduras. Not a single U.S. Senator has traveled to Honduras to learn the facts on the ground.

    The first thing that came to my mind was Kerry’s little foray to Nicaragua along with phony soldier Tom Harkin in 1985. At the time Kerry said;

    “We believe this is a wonderful opening for a peaceful settlement without having to militarize the region. The real issue is: Is this administration going to overthrow the government of the Sandinistas no matter what they do?”

    My how things have changed, huh? Well, not really – Kerry is still supporting the communists over democratic opponents.

  • Puerto Ricans want free health care

    As I wrote earlier, I bumped into a rally outside of the Senate offices on Capitol Hill this morning. The rally was largely Puerto Ricans who were upset that they are being left out of the Federal health care reform. They complained that they were being treated like second class citizens because they weren’t being included in the massive government plan. Here’s the video I took of one gentleman’s speech – in Spanish and then English;

    They were careful to say that they were only interested in government health care for LEGAL US citizens, that they didn’t want to be treated like second class citizens. Well, that’s all well and good – I can appreciate that. However, Puerto Ricans who still live on the island are treated better than US citizens.

    Puerto Ricans pay their Social Security taxes (payroll tax) and their local taxes, like we all pay. However, they don’t pay income tax. They have a State healthcare system, like the rest of the US and they get Federal money from the US government. Just the other day, Puerto Rico asked for a federal bailout for their $3.2b deficit. Their economy has been in free fall since they forced the Navy to close their Vieques gunnery range and the military closed most of their facilities.

    Try as I might, I can’t find a good solid number on how much we already spend on Puerto Rico to keep it as a territory, but if it’s more than a dollar, it’s too much.

    But what really ges me about the video is that the guy gives the speech in Spanish. And then one guy yells out “Viva Puerto Rico” and everyone joins in the chant. They want US taxpayer dollars, but they can’t say it in English? They can’t even chant “Viva Estados Unidos”? They have a word for that in Spanish – “ingraciados”.

    Yeah, I’m probably a racist – I’m watching Telemundo while I type this post.