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

Category: Usual Suspects

  • Strandlof/Duncan out of jail

    Everyone’s favorite IVAW member/VoteVets blogger this year, Rick Strandlof-Duncan, is up for a breath of fresh air today according to the Denver Post;

    The man now known as the fake veteran for duping politicians, veterans and advocate groups into believing he’s a wounded Iraq veteran will be released from jail Tuesday after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor traffic citations.

    Judge Jonathan L. Walker sentenced Rick Strandlof to 20 days in jail with credit for time served and one year of unsupervised probation. Strandlof must also pay a $150 in court fines.

    Strandlof was being held on a $1,000 misdemeanor traffic warrant since his arrest May 12.

    Does this sound like contrition?

    In a previous interview with 9Wants to Know, Strandlof admitted he did not always tell the truth when he fought for veterans’ rights and claimed to have served three tours of duty in Iraq.

    “Always tell the truth”? How about “ever told the truth”? Even his name was a lie. He probably wasn’t even gay…well, until now.

    In another Denver Post story earlier in the week, they claimed he was still being investigated by the FBI;

    …while the FBI is investigating possible fraud, no charges have been filed.

    That’s probably because “his heart was in the right place” to use IVAW’s Garret Reppenhagen’s words;

    Besides, Duncan’s intentions seemed straightforward. He sent care packages to troops in Iraq. He stood up for homeless veterans in Colorado Springs. He advanced his anti-war politics by connecting with like-minded candidates.

    He even launched his own organization, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, which he said represented 32,000 veterans on a massive mailing list — though the only visible members seemed to be a cadre of local vets.

    He certainly talked the talk. Duncan mingled easily in the military milieu. And in some ways, he walked the walk.

    “It seems like his heart was in the right place,” said Reppenhagen, 33. “He was a really hard worker. He did a lot of good by raising a lot of awareness, but then you find out that he’s a fraud.”

    “Talked the talk”, “walked the walk”? Yeah, as long as it was anti-war gibberish, he fit right in with the rest of them. But, that’s the IVAW we’ve all come to know. And apparently the Colorado Springs justice system. Maybe there are two Americas.

    Even Common Ills, the anti-war blog can add two and two;

    This ain’t Hell, but you can see it from here is a right wing website and, if you click here, you will be taken to their post on Rick Duncan and see him at the top of the post wearing his Winter Soldier IVAW t-shirt. Scroll down and you will see his bio at the Iraq Veterans Against the War website. Scroll down just a bit further and you will see how they disappeared it after it turned out Rick Duncan was Rick Strandlof and not a veteran or ever a member of the military. Only members would have the ability to post to IVAW’s website. There’s your answer. He posted there and he posted that he was a member. So he’s a member.

    Thanks to Mr Wolf for the tip.

  • Politics threatens passage of war-funding bill

    Congress is back to the business of larding up the bill that’s supposed to be funding our troops in the field. Even the President is getting in on the act;

    President Barack Obama originally sought $83.4 billion for the two wars and more foreign aid for countries like Pakistan.

    But then he too sought more — $4 billion extra to combat H1N1 swine flu and $5 billion to back credit lines to the International Monetary Fund, which is trying to help developing countries weather the global economic downturn.

    Some Republicans were ready to go along with it until the IMF provision was added;

    Last month, 168 House Republicans supported the war-funding bill, but that was before the Senate inserted the IMF provision. The commitment reflects President Barack Obama’s promise at the April G-20 meeting of world leaders.

    To give the IMF this line of credit “to bail out the rest of the world, I mean, this is lunacy,” said House Republican leader John Boehner , R- Ohio .

    CNN reported a few hours ago that Congress decided to drop language that would release the so-called torture pictures from the bill;

    House Democratic leaders plan to drop a provision — backed by President Obama — from the $100 billion war funding bill that would bar the release of detainee photos, according to House Democratic congressional aides.

    But according to other sources, the BDS Left are revolting;

    President Barack Obama’s penchant for last-minute demands, and a rebellion by liberal allies over his efforts to block the release of detainee abuse photos, have combined to sidetrack his bill to pay for an expanded war in Afghanistan as well as continuing military operations in Iraq.

    Murtha gets his fingers in the pie to buy some more votes back home;

    Democratic Representative John Murtha, who heads the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, managed to get $3.1 billion for eight C-17 and 11 C-130 military transport planes included. However, that has been pared back by four C-130s.

    The Pentagon did not request the aircraft but lawmakers want them to preserve jobs in their home states and Murtha disputes the military’s contention that they are not needed.

    Despite the fact that Democrats stalled for more than a year passing funding for the troops, they are now adopting the language of their former critics to plow some pork through Congress;

    “This is a dangerous game Republicans are playing by jeopardizing the well-being of our soldiers to score political points,” the aide said. “The supplemental will be passed, but they will have to answer for their actions if they oppose it.”

    Imagine the gall it takes to say that after Democrats spent two years trying to end the war by holding up funding.

  • 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…)

  • Remembering old IVAW friends

    Since TSO is getting threatening phone calls from one of our old friends from IVAW, I thought I’d bring back memories by telling you what Adam Kokesh has been up to lately. I know I’ve mentioned that he was contemplating running for a Congressional seat in New Mexico next year, so for some reason he won’t be writing on his “Revolutionary Patriot” blog anymore and he’s focusing on the run. Here’s his new website;

    kokesh-for-congress-6-09

    He seems to be toning down his image a bit. Probably a good idea. But I went through his “About Adam” page and I can’t seem to find anything about the IVAW. He’s not ashamed is he?

    He also mentions that he was promoted to sergeant – but he doesn’t mention that he was busted for smuggling an Iraqi pistol back from the war. He was a corporal when his term of service ended. We’ve already settled that.

    He mentions some activism;

    In addition to addressing the kind of suffering he experienced first-hand in Fallujah, he has organized to help veterans struggling with PTSD, railed against 4th Amendment violations, and stood up against the Federal Reserve.

    Yes, he organized veterans to hang out in the IVAW clubhouse on Princeton Place, take xanax and gin, store their urine in a refrigerator, and engage in paranoid rants at the police. But I don’t think any of that is usually accepted as treatment for PTSD. But here’s a screenshot of the xanax and gin rant for posterity;

    kokesh-xanax1

    He doesn’t mention that he dropped hate literature all over the GWU campus trying to frame a conservative student group. Of course, he skated on that charge. Just like he’s skated on all of his antics. Probably because of Daddy’s money.

    I don’t see any mention of Karaoke night with Code Pink, either. Or his arrest in DC for putting up posters after he was ordered not to put up posters by a DC cop.

    He does mention his discharge though – except that he says his discharge was “Honorable”, when actually it was “General under honorable conditions”.

    I’m beginning to think that Kokesh is embarrassed by the truth about his past.

  • 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.

  • Jon Soltz folds to MoveOn pressure

    In Politico this morning, Chris Frates ruminates over the cross-dressing nature of the various “activist groups” in Washington these days. Basically, since these organizations helped to get President Obama and the Democrat Congress elected, they’re reticent about criticizing their beneficiaries. I mean, Code Pink was all about ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama hasn’t changed from the Bush policy, and you hear nothing from them on that much anymore.

    Vote Vets’ former motor officer who fought his portion of the Iraq War from Kuwait Jon Soltz was featured in the article trying to weakly explain why veterans should be concerned about labor, environmental and energy policy;

    Labor law and climate change don’t immediately strike most folks as veterans’ issues, but VoteVets has found an angle.

    The group’s chairman, Jon Soltz, said the energy bill is relevant because it would help reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and keep U.S. troops out of Iraq and other oil-producing countries.

    Playing on more issues appeals to VoteVets because it keeps it in the bigger debates and offers a chance to expand its donor base.

    But it’s not abandoning its core constituency.

    Soltz said his group will also be getting more involved in the torture debate and will monitor the phasing out of the Iraq war and its effect on veterans.

    “To continue to stay relevant, you have to … find where your organization can make a difference,” Soltz said.

    Relevance. That’s not usually a word I’d associate with Vote Vets. In fact, the other day TSO discovered that Vote Vets and IAVA combined get less daily traffic on their web presence than This Ain’t Hell – a private blog on Yahoo servers that gets virtually no money that doesn’t come out of my pocket (because you cheap skates won’t even click the stupid Google ads). We don’t have Wesley Clark and Keith Olbermann stumping for us – although that may be to our advantage. It’s not that our traffic is so high – it’s that theirs is so low.

    Soltz forgot to mention that he really doesn’t have control over the direction his organization takes. He takes his marching orders from MoveOn.org which takes it’s orders from the DNC. That’s why John Bruhn left Vote Vets two years ago – they are too partisan.

    Yeah, Soltz is making a stretch. He’s not trying to keep Vote Vets relevant in the veteran community, he’s trying to keep it relevant in the MoveOn community. Veterans don’t care about environmental, labor and energy policy to the extent that Soltz tries to make it seem – otherwise we wouldn’t have Soltz trying to explain to us why we should care. Remember in the article that Soltz wrote yesterday about former Vice President Cheney also included an explanation about why veterans should care about the Democrat witch hunt in Congress.

    We veterans know what our concerns are, we don’t need someone to tell us what we should care about – we need someone who’ll represent our concerns.

    Notice how everyone we criticize usually shows up here to explain themselves? Ever seen any of the Vote Vets weasels do that? Nope, because they’re so intellectually shallow, their positions won’t stand up under the slightest bit of scrutiny – and they know it.

    Vote Vets is too concerned about the past administration than the future of veterans – because their MoveOn masters have told them that’s how it’s going to be.

  • Carl Webb; the IVAW deserter who didn’t desert

    As most of my regular readers know, there’s turmoil churning around the ranks in the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Although it’s a result of many things, the most contentious point of the turmoil is between the regular patriotic members who merely oppose the war and the members who want the IVAW to become a tool of the International Socialist Organization – just a facade of veterans to lend some legitimacy to the entire socialist movement. The most vile and despicable member of IVAW, Carl Webb, belongs to that second group.

    Earlier this month, TSO wrote about Webb when Casey Porter resigned from IVAW and brought our attention to Webb. Since then, Kris Goldsmith resigned and this stirred Webb up again. He bragged on his own Facebook page that he forced another resignation of a “conservative” from IVAW;
    (more…)

  • Information on Doug Zachary needed

    While we’re all waiting for the newest Carl Webb post to publish tomorrow morning (it’s all about the traffic, folks), I thought I’d put out a call for some information on our next target who will be Doug Zachary, the president of the Austin Chapter of the Geezers for Sitting On Our Hands (Vets For Peace to some).

    Here’s a picture I found that I had of ol’ Doug when he was at the VFP’s National Archives camp out last year;

    I’d just discovered who he was yesterday after watching a video on Austin public access channel that he did with a Code Pink crone (please don’t watch the video unless you have trouble sleeping). Then this morning, one of our new readers, Debbie, verified it for me.

    I’d talked on the phone for an hour yesterday with another recent IVAW refugee who told me some things about Zachary that made me think of Ward Reilly. Here’s what I know so far;

    Zachary was in the Marine Corps from 1968 – 1970 and somehow avoided Vietnam Those of you were in the service at the time know how hard that would have been to pull off.

    Publicly, Zachary says that he was a conscientious objector, but privately he brags that he was just a derelict that the Marines finally booted out because they were tired of his antics. Several former members of IVAW have told me that they suspect he steals from every cause he touches. He doesn’t seem interested in many of IVAW and VFP’s projects until he smells a fund-raising opportunity that he can loot.

    A few of the folks at the “Under the Hood” cafe in Killeen, TX tell me that he has insinuated himself into their projects without invitation as soon as they became successful and Zachary smelled money. It sounds like Ward Reilly cloned. Remember Reilly looted the VFP’s funds meant for Katrina victims. Well, it seems that Zachary is similarly motivated.

    Another IVAW refugee told me that they think that Zachary is violent and that’s why no one in VFP, VVAW or IVAW will confront him on his malfeasance. I’ve found evidence of his violence, actually, which I’ll save for the final edit of the story.

    So, since Zachary doesn’t have the large presence on the internet that others we’ve investigated here, anyone that has more information, preferably something that can be corroborated, or if you want to corroborate what I’ve I’ve already discovered, drop me a note. Apparently, Zachary has no friends in IVAW, or VFP, for that matter and we’ll probably be doing a favor for the troops by rolling up this clown – who, by the way, seems to be a Carl Webb acolyte – well, until tomorrow when he learns the truth about Webb.