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

Category: Congress sucks

  • Senate cuts focuses on personnel and weapons

    The Air Force Times reports that the Senate Armed Services Committee has focused their spending axes on personnel and weapons budget cuts…because, ya know, who needs people or weapons to fight wars when we have such a brainiac in the White House with all of that “smart diplomacy” he’s got goin’ for him.

    A detailed list of savings released by the armed services committee Wednesday morning shows the committee reduced personnel funding by $100.6 million, partly by cutting unspent balances from previous years, and partly from new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office of how much would be saved with a change in hostile fire pay included in the bill.

    The measure, proposed by personnel panel chairman Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., would change hostile fire pay from a monthly rate to a daily rate.

    The revised bill also would trim $330 million from the defense health-care account. The cut may not affect patients, however, because it is based on new assumptions on private-sector health-care expenses, the committee said.

    I wonder if anyone thought that paying hostile fire pay by the day would create an accounting nightmare that might cost more to enforce than the savings? Nothing makes me feel confident about their healthcare cuts for patients when they use the phrase “…based on new assumptions….” Especially since doctors aren’t allowed to make assumptions on their patients.

    Here’s a history lesson for the Senators; In 1950, President Truman decided that he wanted to intervene in the invasion of South Korea by North Korea so he sent the only troops he had available to do the job – the 1/21st Infantry of the 24th Infantry Division, commanded by Lt. Col. Charles B. Smith, which had been on occupation duty in Japan for five years. The Battalion’s understrength manpower of less than 500 Americans faced 4000 North Koreans and their tanks, who despite the infantry battalion’s best efforts, rolled right through the US forces in a few hours.

    The Army had been slashed to shreds after winning the war against Hitler and Tojo. The infantrymen arrived in Korea with their anemic numbers and only nine rounds for their bazookas to fight off a Korean Division.

    The phrase “Task force Smith” has driven our foreign and military policy for over half-a-century, but these clowns think they’re immune to the lessons of history. Who among my readers is willing to be the first to die so Congress can learn this lesson again?

  • Panetta warns Congress of impact of DoD cuts

    Several of you have sent me links to Leon Panetta’s warnings to Congress about looming Defense spending cuts.

    Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Congress on Monday that deeper defense cuts would leave the military with the smallest ground force since 1940, lead to possible months-long furloughs of civilian employees and force the Pentagon to recalibrate its national security strategy to accept “substantial risk.”

    Panetta needs to warn them that their political careers are at stake instead, because obviously, they don’t care about the national security implications of their ill-considered actions. Defense cuts are Congress’ way to vote “present” on budget cutting. There’s no political repercussions to cutting Defense because there’s no real constituency. It’s gutless and cowardly to not make cuts where cuts are truly needed.

    Of course, there will be thousands of American deaths before Congress pays a political price for their cowardice.

  • Hey, dicksmith, what’s up with Harry Reid?

    Yesterday, we wrote about VetVoice and Votevets complaining that the new Republican Congress hasn’t been able to create favorable employment conditions for veterans. Right after I wrote that TSO found an instance that the new Congress had indeed passed a bill to improve the employability of veterans in the form of the “Veterans Opportunity To Work Act” almost a month ago;

    The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Veterans Opportunity to Work Act Wednesday evening.

    The House legislation, passed by 400 lawmakers, wouldn’t actually create jobs. Rather, it would overhaul the military’s Transition Assistance Program, creating a job retraining program for older veterans who have been unemployed for 26 weeks or more.

    However, Harry Reid is holding up a vote in the Senate. Harry Reid, a draft dodger to whom VoteVets contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars because of his supposed support for veterans wants to attach a tax break for employers who hire veterans…a good idea, but since the House hasn’t voted on it yet, that move would delay activation of the other provisions of the bill.

    But my point is that if VoteVets is so concerned about Congressional inaction, why aren’t they trying to influence “their” candidate to pass the bill as it is and get immediate relief for veterans instead allowing Harry Reid to dick around with popular legislation that’s just sitting on his desk?

  • McCain & Levin support higher costs for your free healthcare

    ROS sends a link from PNJ.com which reports that either way veterans voted in 2008, we were screwed. Apparently, the guy who lost the election, a veteran, I’ve heard, has sold veterans down the river like a real maverick.

    Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John McCain, R-Ariz., its ranking Republican, endorse President Obama’s call to establish next year a $200 enrollment fee on TRICARE for Life, the prized supplement to Medicare for 2.1 million elderly military retirees, their spouses and survivors.

    Isn’t that great? When the Senate decides to be nopartisan, it’s to screw the shit out of veterans? But that’s not the extent of it;

    The first-ever TFL fee would climb to $295 in 2013 and, under the president’s plan, would be raised annually thereafter to keep pace with health care inflation.

    That’s not the end of it, either;

    Levin and McCain also back, with caveats, Obama’s other cost-saving initiative for TRICARE — charging sharply higher co-payments on drug prescriptions filled through the TRICARE network of retail pharmacies.

    So just remember that when our elected officials praise ou service on friday. they mean it so much that they don’t mind fucking the living shit out of us while they protect their own retirement packages, and those of their bloated staffs.

  • Congress told that White House plans will decimate Corps

    The Washington Times reports that the assistant commadant of the Marine Corps told Congress yesterday that plans to cut the force to 150,000 Marines will seriously impact their ability to accomplish an assigned mission;

    “A hundred and fifty thousand would put us below the level that’s necessary to support a single contingency,” said Gen. Joseph Dunford, who as assistant commandant is the nation’s No. 2 Marine.

    Furthermore, the Marines, known as America’s 911 response force, would be limited in carrying out an array of special missions.

    “We will not be there to deter our potential adversaries,” he told the House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness. “We won’t be there to assure our potential friends or to assure our allies. And we certainly won’t be there to contain small crises before they become major conflagrations.”

    I don’t know why the General thinks that the USMC’s ability to fight the next war is important at all to either Congress or the White House, or even the Defense Department. They’re looking for ways to cutspending in a way that doesn’t directly affect the idiot voters who don’t see the need for a strong military.

    I commend the general for telling it like it is, speaking truth to power, but he might as well go piss up a rope.

  • Congress ready to screw veterans

    ROS sends us a link from the Army Times which quotes a bi-partisan letter from the House and Senate Veterans’ affairs committees that says veterans are the most vulnerable to massive government cuts…and we’re already bent over a greased up;

    “We believe no constituency better understands the challenge America faces, and no constituency is better suited to, again, lead by example by putting country first,” says a rare joint letter signed by the four top Democratic and Republican members of the veterans’ committees.

    Yeah, and no other cstituency has tken it so far up the ass every fucking time the government comes looking for spending cuts EVERY FUCKING TIME! And do you know why we’re supposed to just take it up the ass again? So the Congress desn’t have to do the tough work of actually cutting across the board spending in federal government.

    The top leaders of the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees are willing to cut funding for the Veterans Affairs Department in hopes of averting across-the-board cuts in federal spending.

    So veterans should take it in the ass so Congress doesn’t have to cut their staffs, cut their own benefit packages, cut the largesse of government offices and buy some more $16 muffins for the Justice Department so they can coordinate their purchases of firearms for the drug cartels.

  • JJ, Jr’s extra-constitutional remedies

    It’s funny how when Democrats can’t get what they want, it’s always the process that’s at fault, it’s never that they haven’t made their case to the public, or that they might be wrong completely on a cerain subject, but it’s always the process that’s against them. Jesse Jackson, Junior reaches that conclusion in an interview with the Daily Caller sent to us by DaveO;

    Jackson added that his $804 billion stimulus plan is the only way to solve the unemployment crisis. “I support the jobs plan. I support the president’s re-election. I support Barack Obama,” he said. “But at this hour, we need a plan that meets the size and scope of the problem to put the American people to work.”

    “We’ve got to go further. I support what [Obama] does. Clearly, Republicans are not going to be for it but if the administration can handle administratively what can be done, we should pursue it. And if there are extra-constitutional opportunities that allow the president administratively to put the people to work, he should pursue every single one of them,” Jackson suggested.

    He calls for “exra-consttutional” remedies, but what he really means is “unconstitutional”actions by the president. Since the Congress controls the purse strings of government (poorly), Jackson recommends that Obama just seize the Treasury and spend as he wishes without the consent of the People (which is what Congress is supposed to be).

    Jaxkspn claims Congress is in rebellion and he suggests they shoudl be dissolved as a result. Rebellion against who? They were elected to stop reckless spending by this administration, and thy’re only doing that which got them elected. Maybe Democrats should order Republican voters shot so the process will finally work in their favor.

  • Smoke up my butt

    The Organizing for America/Obama 2012 campaign sent me an email yesterday complaining that the Congress won’t vote on the President’s jobs bill;

    Jonn —

    President Obama is in Dallas today urging Americans who support the American Jobs Act to demand that Congress pass it already.

    Though it’s been nearly a month since he laid out this plan, House Republicans haven’t acted to pass it. And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is out there actually bragging that they won’t even put the jobs package up for a vote — ever.

    It’s not clear which part of the bill they now object to: building roads, hiring teachers, getting veterans back to work. They’re willing to block the American Jobs Act — and they think you won’t do anything about it.

    But here’s something you can do: Find Republican members of Congress on Twitter, call them out, and demand they pass this bill.

    So it’s Republicans fault, huh? Well not according to this article from The Hill;

    In a lively spat on the Senate floor Tuesday, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) attempted call up President Obama’s jobs plan for an immediate vote in the upper chamber.

    However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who supports the legislation, blocked the vote.

    So, that little story runs counter to what the Obamabots are being told. I get the feeling that the Democrats are blocking a vote just so they can have an issue in November. So all of you unemployed people are being used as pawns…you’re not getting any help from the Democrats.