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

Category: Congress sucks

  • John Kerry: Too early for surge

    john-kerry-crawl

    Fox News Channel writes that John Kerry, (who, by the way served in Vietnam, in case you hadn’t heard) has drawn on his vast experience as a combat commander and decided that the generals and planners on the ground in Afghanistan are wrong and it’s too soon to send more troops as those generals and planners have requested;

    In taped remarks to air Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kerry said it would be misguided to have a troop buildup to achieve a mission of “good governance” when the election is not yet finished.

    Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was in Kabul on Saturday.

    The Hill and CNN quote Kerry a bit differently;

    It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country

    John Kerry, while serving as a lieutenant in Vietnam, reportedly fired a 40-mike-mike grenade into a bag of rice which, in turn, propelled a few kernels into the fleeing young lieutenant’s buttocks which resulted in the award of one of his three Silver Stars Purple Hearts.

    And that’s the guy telling us how to deploy our forces these days.

    When would be a better time, Kerry? After next Fall’s election, maybe so your base doesn’t fall apart on you and the Republicans use your inability to make decisions in a timely manner against y’all?

    Who wants to be the last to die for John Kerry’s latest lies?

  • Beret saleman Shinseki in over his head

    It’s a good thing Eric Shinseki isn’t working for a Republican administration or he’d be tarred and feathered and tethered to a railroad tie in front of his Vermont Avenue office at this writing. Lucky for him, Congress and the media carry water for Democrats;

    “A plan was written, very quickly put together, uh, very short timelines,” declared VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to the US House Veterans Affairs Committee yesterday as to why the VA had screwed up the payments for veterans attempting to pursue higher education. “I’m looking at the certificates of eligibility uh being processed on 1 May and enrollments 6 July, checks having to flow through August. A very compressed time frame. And in order to do that, we essentially began as I arrived in January, uh, putting together the plan — reviewing the plan that was there and trying to validate it. I’ll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of people telling me this was simply not executable.”

    So, instead of warning people, or negotiating temporary agreements with schools, or…well, anything, Shinseki let the dates chug up on him and then pass. Shinseki made empty promises to veterans that he had no intention to keep. From Stars and Stripes;

    A number of “complications” caused the payment delays, Shinseki explained. One factor was VA officials underestimated the number of claim processors they needed by the Aug. 3 start date. Early estimates were based on processing time under the Montgomery GI Bill program, he said.

    But processing Mongomery GI Bill payments involves two to three steps and takes an average of 15 minutes versus nine steps and more than an hour to process a Post-9/11 GI Bill application, Shinseki explained. Unlike Montgomery GI Bill benefits, Post-9/11 payments vary by school location and other unique factors.

    Yeah, unique factors like having a blivet head for a DVA Secretary. The Congress members really wore his ass out for being an incompetent boob;

    Both Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., committee chairman, and [Steve Buyer, R-Ind.] praised Shinseki for integrity and candor in promptly revealing and addressing problems that have surfaced at VA since he took charge last February.

    “We think you’re doing a great job,” said Filner. “I know you were called a soldier’s soldier when you were in the Army. And now I’m calling you a veteran’s veteran.”

    CNN blames veterans for applying for the benefits they earned;

    The department became a victim of the success of its new education program for veterans who have served since September 2001. The claims became so backlogged that the VA was forced to issue more than $70 million in emergency funds to veterans who were still waiting for money for supplies and living needs, weeks into the school year.

    The truth is; Shinseki and his staff could have done almost anything to curtail these problems, but instead they just smiled and waved at TV cameras until veterans got fed up with the pleasantries and broken promises.

    The good news is that Congress finalized a bill to provide the DVA with funding for medical programs a year in advance. I’m betting that Shinseki will screw that up, too.

  • Who needs bullets during a war

    An article at the Washington Times reports that Congress stripped out $2.6 billion from the Defense budget to fund 778 pet projects (read that: earmarks). Money that should have gone to buying ammunition, fuel and training instead found it’s way into more critical areas;

    $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.

    While earmarks are hardly new in Washington, “in 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year,” said Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and oversight for both Republicans and Democrats.

    So while the Obama Administration diddles on whether to supply our toops engaged with an enemy in a far away land, the Congress is busy wrestling their money away from them to buy patronage here at home for their political aspirations next year.

    The Kennedy museum thingie – that was from John “who wants to be the last to die for a lie” Kerry.

    “Sen. Kennedy served on the Armed Services Committee for 27 years, where he fought to deliver top-of-the-line body armor and armored Humvees to protect our troops and save lives. Educating Americans about these battles is a core mission for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, which showcases one senator’s ability to make a difference,” Mr. Smith wrote in an e-mail. “This funding will help the Edward M. Kennedy Institute become one the nation’s pre-eminent civic educational institutions, and Sen. Kerry is proud to have worked with Chairman Inouye to make it possible.”

    Oh, and let’s make the military buy stuff thay don’t need;

    In addition to the $2.6 billion in earmarks, the bill includes $2.5 billion for 10 Boeing C-17 cargo planes that the military says it does not need, and $1.7 billion for an extra DDG-51 destroyer not requested in the Pentagon’s budget proposal.

    What’s it costing the military to pay for politicians’ patronage?

    “Air Force and Navy combat pilots training to deploy are getting about half of the flying hours they got at the end of the Vietnam War,” he wrote in his analysis. “Army tank crews get less in tank training today than they did during the low-readiness Clinton years.”

    Yeah, Republicans did the same thing while they ran Congress – and they lost public and political support because of it. I haven’t given a penny to Republicans since 2004. Will Democrats do the same to their politicians? Fat chance.

  • Thy name is partisanship

    The Congressional Black Caucus wrote a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi today in defense of Charlie “Taxes? What taxes?” Rangel according to The Hill;

    “As members of the Congressional Black Caucus, we support our colleague, Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and condemn partisan attempts to ignore the well-established, bipartisan ethics process,” they wrote.

    “Partisan”? Really? The investigation into Rangel’s serial tax avoidance has gone on for 16 months. Partisanship is the only thing protecting him. Partisans are the only people who are protecting his bloated ass from being booted from the Ways and Means Committee. How many Republicans signed that letter? How many Republicans have been admitted into the CBC over the years?

    “Charlie Rangel’s work on these issues is critically important, and we are proud of the thoughtful leadership he provides to the House,” they added. “He has our full support for his work as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means while a bipartisan ethics review is pending.”

    “Thoughtful leadership”? Seriously? Is that the same language they used for Tom Delay during his ethics investigations? No, he was a Republican.

    That’s what partisanship looks like.

  • 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.

  • Dump Rangel Resolution

    Texas Republican John Carter is is introducing a bill to remove Charles Rangel from his chair at the Ways and Means Committee. Carter wrote at Redstate this morning;

    So last week, I said I would give Mr. Rangel until this week to voluntarily resign the chairmanship of Ways and Means, or I would introduce a Privileged Resolution to force his removal. Mr. Rangel has not stepped down, so I have introduced this resolution.

    And Democrats continue to support him. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer already has said he’ll move to block this attempt.

    Mr. Rangel’s list of violations continues to grow. You or I would have paid tens of thousands of dollars in interest and penalties had we committed similar tax evasions. Rangel apparently is immune from penalties, which is unethical, but especially unscrupulous when you consider his powerful Chairman position.

    The full text of the bill can be found here.

    Michelle Malkin quotes Maxine Waters’ “so what?” answer. Actrually Waters admits than many members of Congress are as corrupt as Rangel – but not in those words. All the more reason to clean out the stalls next year.

    Of course, the Democrats won’t hear about it (Politico)

    He’s getting backing from Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who support his wait and see approach.

    “We will await that report,” Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland said Wednesday. “Prior to that, any actions making reference to Chairman Rangel would be premature.”

    Democrats can wait up to two days to hold a roll call on the resolution, but it appears likely a procedural vote effectively killing it is likely to be held today.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28030.html#ixzz0TGsrK2SD

    Newsday reports that accidental Governor Paterson is eying Rangel’s seat – in a manner of speaking.

  • 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.

  • Kerry prepares for cut and run in Afghanistan

    Probably the last person I’d ever ask about military issues, John Kerry (lied, while better men died), has a blueprint for cut and run in Afghanistan in this morning’s Wall Street Journal entitled “Testing Afghanistan Assumptions“. Of course, as is his MO, be compares Afghanistan to Vietnam. Except Afghanistan isn’t anything like Vietnam, except in the mind of John Kerry who wants to remind us that he spent three months in Vietnam once.

    [O]ne of the lessons from Vietnam—applied in the first Gulf War and sadly forgotten for too long in Iraq—is that we should not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we maintain the consent of the American people. Otherwise, we risk bringing our troops home from a mission unachieved or poorly conceived. Gen. McChrystal offers no timetable or exit strategy, beyond warning that the next 12 months are critical. I agree that time is running out and that troops are dying without a sustainable strategy for victory. But we cannot rush to judgment.

    Timetabled withdrawals seem to be the Left’s way of saying that they don’t understand “exit strategies”. You think they would have learned their lesson when, in 1995, then-President promised the American people that we’d be out of Bosnia by October 1996. of course, we still have troops in Bosnia. The Democrats don’t understand victory – they seem to think that by just announcing an end date, all parties will comply. Kerry is no different. Kerry doesn’t bother in his missive to examine what would happen if we did withdraw. He’d rather pontificate about the judicious use of force – ignoring the indisputable fact that war and victory are necessary regardless of the cost. Navel-gazing in Congress will only result in more needless deaths among US forces while Kerry and his useless pals try to appear as if they know something about war and strategy;

    Mr. Obama promises not to send more troops to Afghanistan until he has absolute clarity on what the strategy will be. He is right to take the time he needs to define the mission. We should all follow his lead and debate all of the options. It may be that Gen. McChrystal has provided the road map to victory. Or it may be that some other strategy would work better, with fewer risks. We can’t know until we test every assumption and examine every option.

    In other words, Kerry, Congress and Obama is more than willing to let more US soldiers die while they campaign for the 2010 elections and stroke their anti-war base. This is what we get when Democrats have both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue – 535 armchair generals.