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

Category: VoteVets

  • Dicksmith hates Peace

    Of course you know by now that Brietbart launched “Big Peace” this weekend which brings together many of the big names in milbloggery to discuss our national security policy in a single forum from the “Been There, Done That” perspective. So, dicksmith at VetsVoice seems a little worried about it.

    Andrew Breitbart, who makes a habit of putting racist convicted criminals on the pay roll, launched his latest venture over the weekend. Called Big Peace, it is Breitbart’s attempt at some kind of national security/milblog. Or something. Truth be told, it’s not real coherent and seems to be just a bunch of crazies tossing around nutjob conspiracy theories about how the President supposedly hates America.

    The “racist, convicted criminal” is supposed to be James O’Keefe, the guy who busted ACORN last summer – to prove his point, dicksmith links to Crooks and Liars. Good reference there dicksmith.

    He goes on to criticize Breitbart and Frank Gaffney for being unreliable (yet he linked to Crooks and Liars). I remind dicksmith that VoteVets’ claim to fame is the speed with which Fact Check dot org slammed their body armor ad in the 2006 election when they targeted Senator George Allen of Virginia. See TSO’s blog post about VoteVets.

    dicksmith is fond of pointing out how effective that was in defeating Allen – with utter lies. If dicksmith wants to begin critiquing blogs, he should really try doing it from a blog which carries less luggage. I know you read this blog and that you steal my content, but there’s some free advice you can use, dickie, try attacking the content instead of the concept.

  • Republicans block Homeless Vet Bill

    Sometimes I just wonder about people. VetsVoice has a video up of Patty Murray doing her “for the children” line in regards to her bill, the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Children Act (S.1237).

    The title of the video is “Republican Senators Blocks Homeless Veterans Bill” and based on the title, dicksmith goes on a tear – obviously without watching the video.

    I never thought that the Party of No would use homeless Veterans and their children as a political football. Apparently, no matter what we owe to Veterans and their families, nothing is sacred to these disgusting Senate Republicans

    At about :40 into the video, put on YouTube by the DNC, by the way, Mitch McConnel explains why Republicans oppose the bill – they want it paid for up front instead of letting the Democrats make a promise they don’t intend to keep. Is there something wrong with that? Obviously, the Democrats were just making an empty gesture that they plan on reneging upon later if they object to funding it upfront.

    After watching this administration try to make service-connected military members pay for their own health care and leaving thousands of veteran college students hanging out to dry with no benefit checks for an entire semester, I think I’d ask for money upfront for homeless funding, too.

  • Jon Soltz is a mega-ritard

    I’m surprised that Jon Soltz doesn’t walk around with Depends. Seriously. I don’t think he has the brains to control his sphincter. Now, I think Stanley McChrystal needs to be punished for his bad judgment in the presence of a Rolling Stones pothead reporter, but you know what? I actually read the entire Rolling Stones article. Soltz clearly didn’t before he wrote about it.

    I get a lot of shit because I make fun of Soltz’ wartime experience (three months in a motorpool in Iraq or Kuwait…we don’t know which yet) but this crap he wrote in VetsVoice is precisely why he should never be allowed to call himself a combat soldier.

    I cannot fault McChrystal for believing in his strategy. That’s what you want out of a General – someone who gives the President strong advice, and believes what he says. But, what cannot be allowed to stand is when he believes in his strategy more than the command structure and order of the Armed Forces, and his duty to uphold it.

    Think about that for a minute – read it again. McCrystal can’t be allowed to believe more in his strategy than the people behind him telling him to work that strategy. People who aren’t on the ground, ticking off the casualties, counting the IED incidents, facing the soldiers who fight the battles. From Rolling Stone;

    “Sir, some of the guys here, sir, think we’re losing, sir,” says Hicks.

    McChrystal nods. “Strength is leading when you just don’t want to lead,” he tells the men. “You’re leading by example. That’s what we do. Particularly when it’s really, really hard, and it hurts inside.” Then he spends 20 minutes talking about counterinsurgency, diagramming his concepts and principles on a whiteboard. He makes COIN seem like common sense, but he’s careful not to bullshit the men. “We are knee-deep in the decisive year,” he tells them.

    Is that dick Eikenberry going to do that? He wouldn’t do it for me when I was a buck-ass private. Eikenberry doesn’t even trust the military people in his embassy to carry their firearms.

    Soltz ticks off the complaints from the media that he certainly didn’t read in the article about McChrystal and his staff with absolutely no context of the events (VoteVets’ trademark, by the way). Of course the most damning is this one;

    McChrystal was disappointed with his first meeting with the President, and that he feels the President is uncomfortable and intimidated with military brass.

    He’s disappointed like the rest of us were when the President spent three months with his (pogue-ass) staff discussing Afghanistan and twenty minutes with McChrystal. The President has a paper-thin resume, and even less when it comes to military matters – just a tiny-bit less than Soltz himself. He should have blocked out more than 20 minutes for the commander of his forces in Afghanistan and the whole fucking world knows it…except Soltz.

    Now, I’ll admit that McChrystal should have kept his mouth shut, but I can name a whole shit load of generals that don’t have confidence in Obama and his band of Perrier-drinking intellectuals as far as this war goes, but if Soltz wants them all fired, the war is going to be fought by privates.

    I’ll bet Soltz drinks tea, too.

  • Love Myself More Than You

    For those of you who don’t know, Kayla Williams is one of the front page authors at VoteVets VetVoice blog. She was a soldier and wrote a book entitled “Love My Rifle More Than You” about her experiences in the Army and Iraq.

    I’d hinted that I was looking into Williams background in a post over a year ago (I wasn’t really, I just wanted to shake the bushes and see what fell out), but a couple of good friends warned me away from her because of some problem she had in regards to her civilian life. So anyway, I figured after several months of letting the subject cool down, I’d better look into this chick because she was so worried about me and my famous skill. I guessed that the best place to start is this book. Everyone was giving it rave reviews and praising Williams for her honesty – so what could it hurt, right?

    Well, I’ll tell you right up front that I couldn’t finish the book. It’s been sitting on my nightstand for three months haunting me after I spent another three months trying to slug my way through the book. Finally, last night I decided that the book is such a piece of shit, if it has any redeeming value in the last half, it’s not worth shoveling through the shit in the first half.

    It’s clear to me that Kayla Williams thinks very highly of herself – especially her tits, which get mentioned very often as well as her mind-numbing descriptions of her love life and, oh, how much the guys love her tits. Now we’ve never met, but I’ve seen pictures of Kayla Williams (you can Google her name and see the pictures yourself) and I’ll admit she’s not plain, but she’s not what I’d put in my “knock-out” category either, but it’s obvious from reading the book, she thinks she is definitely on the top of the heap.

    The book begins with her pot-smoking father and her stereo-typical Republican Victorian Age mother and the conflicts she faced in that relationship. One thing I’ve learned being a middle-aged man is that you’re only a victim of your parents if you want to be, and Kayla seemed bound and determined to make her parents the excuse for her bad behavior.

    After shacking up with several guys through college, she then joins the Army and complains that guys are always hitting on her. No shit? She’s laying out this tramp image in the book, I can only imagine what she talked about with her fellow soldiers. Now, I’ll admit that I’ve worked with very few women in my career, but I never hit on them and I tend to believe that most of the men in the Army are the same way. But, Williams seems determined to prove that all men are pigs – so we get all of these stories of guys hitting on her within the first moments of meeting her.

    Holy shit, if I’m reading a book about war, I don’t want to read about how her roommate’s ass and Williams’ tits combined in a single female form would make a perfect woman.

    In addition she was a soup sandwich as a soldier. You know how combat arms troops are always saying that pogues cry about the sand in their pussy? This bint actually whines in her book about having sand in her pussy. I don’t mean to be profane, but holy shit, how cliche can you get?

    And then there was a dust-up between Williams and a female sergeant, SSG Moss, Williams thought her squad leader was a buffoon. OK, most of us do, but apparently, women deal with this with little fits and getting into a snit. Williams wouldn’t obey her squad leader without a sneer, or little display of anger, or a smart alecky comment. So SSG Moss finally breaks down and cries – a staff sergeant in the US Army cries because a subordinate is mean to her. This isn’t a book about war, it’s pilot episode of another bad Lifetime Channel series for women. There wasn’t even a hot lesbian story about them making up. WTH?

    So, do you see the pattern here? Everyone in the Army is screwed up…except Kayla Williams. All of the men and anyone else who happens to be in charge of Kayla Williams. See, that’s the problem when a private writes a book about the military – privates only see the little picture right in front of their goofy faces, they can’t see why the decisions are being made, so they make everyone look like idiots because the leaders don’t make the decisions that Joe thinks are the proper decisions. I guess they think privates should be in charge.

    I apologize for not finishing the book for you – but hardly any of you pay me money, and I’m not reading the rest of this piece of shit. Besides, nothing pisses me off more than listening to privates whining and in this case, I paid to read a private whining almost endlessly.

  • Jon Soltz; Republicans should be less partisan, like me

    Well, last week, while the Blumenthal disgrace headed every news source, every milblog, every military professional journal, one voice was oddly absent. That was the voice of Jon Soltz, chairman and founder of VoteVets. Politico explained why Soltz was silent;

    A spokesman for the left-leaning VoteVets group said Jon Soltz, the group’s chairman, was unavailable for comment on the matter because he’s on active duty and isn’t allowed to talk about politics.

    Like TSO said yesterday in an email to me, we can all assume that Soltz was at his annual training (AT) with his reserve unit last week. But then this morning I see he took time out of his busy life to threaten Republicans just yesterday.

    Last week he couldn’t comment because he was on active duty. he suddenly doesn’t have that problem this week. Funny how that works, ain’t it?

    At about 2:15 into the video, Soltz drags out VoteVets old charge of Republicans voting against body armor for the troops…again. TSO dealt with that last year with a link to Fact Check.org.

    A new ad claims Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia “voted against giving our troops” modern body armor. He did no such thing. The ad cites a vote on an appropriations amendment that had nothing whatever to do with body armor.

    The ad also claims troops were sent to Iraq with flak vests “left over from the Vietnam war,” another falsehood. The ad actually shows an improved vest that wasn’t available until the 1980’s.

    So Soltz wants to drag that tired old crap out again, I guess we’re fine with that.

    But does anyone think that the reason Soltz didn’t comment on Blumenthal really has to do with his AT at this point? And since when has Soltz’ status in the military ever affected him expressing his opinion? Soltz and the other cumbubbles at VoteVets haven’t even mentioned Blumenthal – just like they never mentioned phony Marine Rick Duncan/Strandlof when he was found to have never served yet made political ads with VoteVets money saying Duncan did serve.

    How does VoteVets serve Iraq/Aghanistan veterans with mealy-mouth, double-dealing about “clean energy”, with constant crybaby yammering about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, when they’re always talking about social justice issues that really don’t have anything to do with veterans?

    And where was Soltz’ outrage when Democrats were trying to end the war in Iraq while the troops were deployed by cutting off ALL money to them?

  • Webb to vote ‘no’ on DADT compromise

    Apparently Senator James Webb has decided to vote against the Congressioanl compromise bill to overturn the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy currently keeping gay military members in the closet. He reasons;

    The White House and Secretary Gates both said today that, ideally, the Defense Department should complete this review before legislative action is taken. There is no question that a review of the policy is necessary and important. I see no reason for the political process to pre-empt it.”

    The White House and Congress have been shoving their POS bill around hoping that they can make it appear as if they’re actually doing something for their base besides posturing. Now Webb stands in their way to pass anything they can use as a banner before the election.

    So I’m wondering what dicksmith will say. At Vets Voice, he’s been regularly beating up on Republicans who’ve spoken out against repealing DADT before the Pentagon has finished it’s study. I can only imagine how deafening is the silence in dicksmith’s dorm room right now since dicksmith has to change his Depends every time someone mentions Webb. Imagine – Webb agrees with Scott Brown.

  • That partisan Vote Vets

    If any of you have been following VetsVoice, the blog of VoteVets, you’ll know that hardly a day goes by that dicksmith doesn’t mention someone who is either “for” or “against” the repeal of the military policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. For example, yesterday he ran a quote from the superintendent of the Naval Academy.

    But you know what? When the military bloggers released a joint letter the other day, even though the Huffington Post thought it was worth a mention, Vets’ Voice remained silent. I suspect more people paid attention to that letter than paid attention to the superintendent of the Naval Academy.

    Why would VoteVets ignore the military blogs? Well, because VoteVets is trying to remain the sole voice of veterans – regardless of the fact that they speak for no one but themselves.

    Take their stupid Clean Energy Bill ad that tries (and fails) to tie the President’s Clean Energy Bill to the war against terror. It’s pure partisan politics, conceived in that tiny brain rattling around in Jon Soltz otherwise empty head.

    Admitting that the independent Military Blogs have a larger voice and more influence in the community hurts their feelings over there at VoteVets, so they keep quiet when the blogs make a media splash.

    dicksmith wants to maintain the image that the blogs are hawkish, pro-war, anti-troops and conservative.

    I remember when Rick Strandlof was busted and it was discovered that he was a member and diarist of VoteVets and they were being counseled by their readers to make a statement. Brandon “Beeker” Friedman resisted issuing an explanation and their readership and membership fell off proportionately because of his cowardice.

    dicksmith ignores the military blogs at his own editorial peril.

  • The Pentagon is not your friend

    The other day, I wrote about “the military’s greatest advocate”, Virginia Senator James Webb and his hearings seeking a freeze on military pay and compensation. Today, the Washington Post reports that he has some fellow travelers in that regard.

    Congress has been so determined to take care of troops and their families that for several years running it has overruled the Pentagon and mandated more-generous pay raises than requested by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. It has also rejected attempts by the Pentagon to slow soaring health-care costs — which Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said are “eating us alive” — by raising co-pays or premiums.

    Now, Pentagon officials see fiscal calamity.

    In the midst of two long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials are increasingly worried that the government’s generosity is unsustainable and that it will leave them with less money to buy weapons and take care of equipment.

    Yeah, now there’s a problem. After a year of spending as much money as fast as they can to shove a liberal agenda down America’s throat, suddenly we can’t pay for the actual things government should do – like provide for the common defense. And what’s first on the chopping block? Military compensation. I don’t see anyone mentioning how we spend too much money on medicare or food stamps. There’s no mention of the bloated federal bureaucracy regarding the useless-ass Education Department. No one is suggesting that we slash the redundancy in the Commerce Department, or the utter idiocy of the EPA.

    Nope they head straight for the pocketbooks of the troops and their families.

    Well, actually, they targeted military retirees and Social Security recipients this year when there was no cost of living increase for those groups this year, which means when the “Obama tax cut” expired, military retirees and Social Security recipients actually experienced a drop in their pay. So the military is next. Can’t cut the pay of bureaucrats or welfare recipients can we? Nope, they complain, whereas the military doesn’t and seniors are so senile, they won’t even notice.

    I warned back in 2008 that Obama would slash military compensation, but nimrods like IAVA and Vote Vets declared that in the first year of his administration, Obama has been better to veterans than any other president, and I’ll concede that – but just like his “tax cut” last year, it was smoke and mirrors. We were set up, we got complacent and now we’re going to get screwed. And IAVA and VoteVets will still rest their support of Obama on his first year in office.