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

Category: Bloggers

  • The weekend teaser

    TSO just called and promised two very revealing posts for Monday morning. The folks at IVAW can rest easy, it ain’t them. Nope, TSO’s target is Jon Soltz and his band of political misfits. He has assured me his posts will include Wesley Clark, Beaker, Dicksmith, Kayla Williams and the whole cast of characters at Vote Vets.

    Jon Soltz has quickly become one of the most authoritative voices on veterans issues and military issues. He has been interviewed by national outlets such as the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Newsweek, among others, and in dozens of local outlets.

    They forgot to mention that he was interviewed by the Denver Post, too – in regards to the advertisement that Vote Vets bought and paid for starring Rick (Duncan) Strandlof. But, more about that on Monday.

  • Of Threats and Pseudonyms

    “KEEP MY NAME OFF YOUR BLOG OR WE SETTLE UP IN PERSON.”

    That was the call I got this morning, at work, at 10:04 am. The caller immediately hung up of course, being the coward he is. But, who could it be? My initial thought was it has to be Casey Affleck, pissed off that I didn’t IMDB his name the other day. Maybe it was Richard Gabriel, my favorite historian, pissed off that I once goofed on Candians. Nah, probably not him either. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Fred Downs. Well, I don’t know who it was, but I can guess. And I will, but first…

    I blog pseudonymously. I know, Shocker! My mother never yelled into the back yard “TSO [or the longer more pissed off Thus Spake Ortner]get your ass in here and clean your room!” Not once. Because that isn’t my name. When I started blogging every reader I had was in the 3rd Batt, 116th Infantry, and everyone both knew who I really was, and knew that Ortner was our Battalion Commander. Looking back now, I wish I chose another name, since I have come to peace with the BC, and he’s probably confused why I took his name.

    (more…)

  • VoteVets is a veterans’ organization, right?

    Looking for some laughs today, I cruised over to read some of Soltz and the gang to see what they think is important. I was justly rewarded. What with a war looming with North Korea and Iran, Israel changing some of their policies in regards to Palestinians, the president in Europe, Cuban spies arrested in DC, what is our buddy Dicksmith worried about? Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;

    Well, you know, I looked at the chart from Gallup that shows a shift in US public opinion, and my first thought was “So?” Since when do we ask the general population to write military policy?

    I’ll bet if we polled the general population on whether the UCMJ’s Article 15 or Captain’s Mast policy is fair, they’d probably disagree in large numbers. If we asked them if the Army should be able to punish people for the violation of the Army’s 670-1 Wear and Appearance regs, they’d probably tell us “no”.

    So why should VoteVets, ostensibly a veterans organization (the word “vets” is right there in their name) even care what what civilians think? Why don’t they commission a poll of veterans and active duty soldiers instead of parroting the MoveOn line? Well, probably because the polling data wouldn’t come out like they want it.

    Dicksmith continues;

    As you can see, repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (a discriminatory policy that has harmed unit cohesion, readiness and combat effectiveness) has broad support across every single ideological, partisan and geographic demographic with every demographic also trending toward increased support for the repeal.

    I wonder where he got the information that DADT has “harmed unit cohesion, readiness and combat effectiveness”. Like everything else they write over there, it probably has anal origins. He claims there’s “broad support across every single ideological, partisan and geographic demographic” – well, except veterans and the military.

    But see, just because he’s parroting the MoveOn line (more accurately, the Human Rights Campaign line) and he’s a veteran, dicksmith lends a measure of legitimacy to illegitimate data – and thus taking a little bit more credibility away from all veterans just to pay off Vote Vets’ pay masters on the Left.

    Notice, I’m not taking a stand on either side of the DADT issue. What I take issue with is the fact that a veterans’ organization doesn’t represent veterans at all. A group of people who should know better than to listen to polling in regards to military policy, don’t. Anyone who has spent more than a day in the military knows why we don’t ask society how to govern military members.

  • Those who misquote Santayana are condemned to derision

    TSO sent me a sweet new link to the latest Jon Soltz missive at Vote Vets celebrating Bush Derangement syndrome. Soltz is worried that there still might be a Muslim or two in the wilds of Afghanistan contemplating martyrdom because Dick Cheney knows stuff he ain’t talking about;

    Did Dick Cheney knowingly send intelligence officials to Congress to mislead them about the use of waterboarding? Did the Vice President himself?

    We simply don’t know. But we need to know, in light of the explosive report in the Washington Post today, that the Vice President took a very personal role in some Congressional briefings.

    “We don’t know, so he must be guilty”. Of course, this is Soltz and the veteran arm of MoveOn.org blowing a smoke screen up our collective ass for Nancy Pelosi. In fact, if you think this isn’t a veteran issue, Soltz explains in his typical motor pool officer whiny voice;

    Now, why would veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan care about this? Isn’t this a political issue? Maybe, but it has far reaching implications for our troops in the field.

    First – we absolutely have to send the message to the Muslim world that to the degree that we did torture, we fully investigated how those tactics came to be employed (including how it may have been hidden at the time), and held accountable those who were at fault.

    To be clear, President Obama is making great progress by ending the use of torture, and moving to close the detainee facility at Guantanamo. But, it makes it harder for our troops to win hearts and minds, and still serves as a great terrorist recruiting tool, if there is word out there that the United States tortured, and let people responsible walk, without accountability.

    Um, Jon, m’boy, our enemy doesn’t give a rat’s furry ass if we punish people or not. In fact, they don’t even care if it happened or not (remember the flushed Koran story?). There aren’t any folks sitting around the hookah when one suddenly jumps up and screams “I’m so pissed that Dick Cheney didn’t get punished, I’m going to blow myself up, dammit!” Grab a bit of reality, here, Jon.

    Those three months you spent in Kuwait dispatching deuce-and-a-halfs didn’t give you any special insight into the Arab mind.

    But the best part of the whole thing comes at the end of his fist-clenched rant. I had to screen capture it before the whiny little pseudo-intellectual brat changes it;

    The actual quote from Santayana is; Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Solz has not only misquoted Santayana, he’s also changed the meaning of the entire phrase. From some pointy-headed librarian;

    Contemporary Hispanic Biography [1] said that “students of Santayana’s work complain that the maxim has been taken out of context: Originally it formed part of a theory about how knowledge is acquired rather than being a moral exhortation to pay attention to history, and it has a didactic quality that is foreign to the subtle, paradoxical, and occasionally humorous quality of Santayana’s thought.”

    Now, this may seem like nit-picking to many of you, But remember VoteVets wasting column inches and an appearance on Keith Olbermann’s comedy show over Vets For Freedom’s Pete Hegseth who made the mistake of saying it’d been seven years since the invasion of Hussein’s Iraq instead of six – yeah, it’s just like that.

    Oh, so now I see that TSO wrote a post about it, too. Jeez, why’d he send me link? Well, I’m not wasting this research.

  • Recruiting office shooting

    Laughing Wolf at Blackfive writes that one recruiter was killed and another seriously wounded in Little Rock. Fox reports that the gunman was apprehended along with his “assault rifle” – whatever that means anymore.

    Notice how, unlike some bloggers on the Left jumped to conclusions over yesterday’s shooting, I’m not speculating on the motivations of this shooter or his relationship to any other group of recruiter-haters until the facts are in – I caution commenters here to do the same.

    Added: From Associated Press;

    Recruiting commander Lt. Col Thomas F. Artis says the victims had just completed basic training and were spending two weeks in Little Rock to recruit in their home area, showing the difference that less than two months of training made in their lives.

    From Star Tribune;

    Hastings said he did not know whether the recruiting office was specifically targeted or was randomly chosen.

    Hastings said shortly after noon that investigators had not yet questioned the suspect and that police were still processing evidence from the crime scene.

    From Navy Times;

    Neither the victims nor suspects were named by authorities.

    A photo of the suspect from KATV (Thanks to GI Jane);

    Eyewitness interview;

    The scene;

    UPDATE: The soldier that was killed was 23-year-old William Long of Conway, AR.

    FOX16 has also learned detectives served a search warrant at the Bristol Park apartments on Mara Lynn. Police say they’ve seized some evidence related to today’s shooting.

    Updated again: Eagle-eyed readers (1stCavRVN11B, John H and mtngrandpa) in the comments section noticed that the shooter is a Muslim convert;

    A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military shot two soldiers outside an Arkansas recruiting station, killing one of the soldiers, police said Monday.

    “This individual appears to have been upset with the military, the Army in particular, and that’s why he did what he did,” Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said in a phone interview.

    “He has converted to Muslim here in the past few years,” Hastings said. “To be honest we’re not completely clear on what he was upset about. He had never been in the military.”

    Hastings identified the man in custody as Carlos Bledsoe, 24, of Little Rock, who was going by the name of Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad. He did not have further details. The names of the soldiers were not released, nor was the condition of the wounded soldier.

    See how we did that without jumping to conclusions, Andrew Sullivan? That’s how civilized people act.

  • Rolling Thunder

    I know I let y’all down this year since I’m running on one leg this Memorial Day and can’t get out to get you original reportage, but luckily, Uncle Jimbo is in town this year to fill in. Here’s his video of Rolling Thunder 2009 this morning;

    Here’s my coverage of last year’s event, and from 2007.

  • The Warrior Legacy Foundation

    How many times have you guys and gals read from all three of us here that aside from a very few VSOs, no one is really looking out for veterans and our troops in the field beyond their short-term political goals? We’ve all railed and commiserated about the so-called non-partisan veteran groups which have clearly chosen their political party.

    Now it seems that none other than Blackfive Himself, Matt Burden, has taken up the challenge to fill that gap with his latest creation; The Warrior Legacy Foundation.

    I won’t slobber all over Blackfive trying to sell this to you (Lord knows, I slobber all over him enough when he’s buying the beer), Matt explains better what is behind his vision of the Foundation than I ever could. And, oh, by the way, The Warrior Legacy Foundation is under the direction of a homeboy of mine you might have heard of before; David Bellavia.

    You’ve all asked me from time-to-time what we can do about the piss-poor treatment veterans get from all politicians, and I’ve never been able to give any of you a satisfying answer – until now. If anyone can pull this off, it’s the folks at the Blackfive Empire – and you know I don’t ask you to do anything until I’ve done it myself.

    So go over, sign up and flip a saw buck or two or three in the jar and let’s get this show on the road.

  • Biden is the smartest guy in the Democrat Party; proof

    Yesterday, I wrote a short screed about Joe Biden being a boastful braggart, like he usually is and telling the people at his table at the Gridiron Dinner how Dick Cheney’s “undisclosed location” was in a bunker beneath the VP’s living quarters at the US Naval Observatory in Northwest DC. Of course, the Left immediately discovered my post, especially since I disparaged the whole party by claiming that they’re dumber than Joe Biden. I can’t blame them, I’d be upset at that discovery, too, if I were a Democrat.

    So immediately, the first nutroot to weigh in was my old buddy TBogg at Firedog Lake who admits that we have an actual braintrust here at This Ain’t Hell, a fact that must really grate on TBogg. But not understanding the difference between speculation and confirmation, TBogg posts a Washington Post article from seven years ago in which author Nakamura guesses that there’s some construction going on under the Naval Observatory. Good catch, TBogg, but I don’t believe anyone actually knew what was going on there until Biden admitted it. Kind of like we didn’t know there weren’t WMDs in Iraq at the time of the invasion until we got there and looked around. See how that works?

    And then I got a link from the Village Voice. Somehow, my post was lumped in with WHOLE bunch of reaction from the Right on the President’s speech at Notre Dame yesterday as proof that we (The Right) make mountains of molehills. Kinda like the mountain that the Left made a mountain of out of the waterboarding issue.

    But, I don’t think comparing my post to the anti-abortion issue is quite fair, since I’m just talking about how stupid Democrats are for selecting Joe Biden while the abortion issue is about saving millions of innocent lives. But, since Joe Biden is the smartest Democrat, I wouldn’t expect the nutroots to understand without getting Biden’s opinion first.

    If my post about Biden didn’t ring true to the nutroots, they would have ignored it, like usual.