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

Category: VoteVets

  • Of Gitmo alum and VoteVets

    Apparently the Taliban has chosen the man to take the place of captured Taliban #2 leader Baradar and he’s a graduate of the Guantanamo School for Wayward Boys;

    A man freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials say.

    Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, said the officials, interviewed last week by The Associated Press.

    Now, to me, it proves that we should stop releasing these peckerheads until the Taliban’s tendency to kill innocent people as well as our troops ends. But to dicksmith at VoteVets, the contrary makes more sense;

    The torture enthusiasts and Liz Cheneys of the world will tell you that this proves that we MUST keep GITMO open. But really does that make sense? A Bush Administration system that is so flawed that it has returned high level Taliban commanders to the battlefield should be maintained?

    Here’s another option: civilian courts have successfully prosecuted and convicted over 300 terrorists, none of which have ever returned to the battlefield.

    The Obama Administration is currently navel-gazing about their decision to send Khalid Sheik Mohammad to trial in New York, yet the reprobates at VoteVets haven’t yet arrived at the common sense Bush policy of warehousing these bloodthirsty freaks. I have yet to hear what we do with them after their term in prison ends. Turn them loose on our streets and keep our collective fingers crossed that they learned their lessons? I wonder if dicksmith has thought through completely.

  • VoteVets; Ya know what this war needs? A clean energy program.

    TSO Sent me a link to this mess. VoteVets has just discarded any semblence of concern for the troops and swallowed hook, line and sinker MoveOn’s talking points. Instead of demanding that we drill and process our own oil reserves, somehow Jon Soltz is convinced that we need to put all of our energies into developing unicorn shit as an energy source. Because it will save troops lives;

    Of course, veteran Chris Miller doesn’t say unicorn shit should be used as an alternative fuel – but what else could he be talking about? What other energy source is more close to being marketed and can be rolled out in enough time and quantity to drive down the price of oil so the Iranians can no longer afford to make IEDs.

    The link between oil money and those who harm our troops is clear. We need Congress to pass Clean Energy legislation now, which would cut our oil imports in half, and deal a real blow to those who support terror.

    Yes, once unicorn shit is a viable energy source and everyone is driving the special cars, some time around this Saturday, we’ll stop Iran cold, won’t we?

    Soltz spent a million bucks on that ad run. Can you believe it? That’s how VoteVets represents the troops – spending money to advertise for an energy source that doesn’t exist and won’t impact the troops for at least another 20 years. He should have stuck to the repeal of DADT – it’s an equally useless issue, but at least it wouldn’t make Soltz look so stupid.

  • And another one’s gone

    I wrote about NY Congressman Eric Massa (D-29) last year when he told local media “I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful. I will vote against their opinion if I actually believe it will help them.”

    Well it seems the little turd is floating out of the bowl;

    Rep. Eric Massa is poised to announce this afternoon that he will not seek re-election in the 29th Congressional District this fall as planned, a Democratic source confirms.

    The freshman congressman is going to make his announcement at 3 p.m., according to the source. It’s unclear if that event is taking place in the district or in Wahsington, D.C. A call to Massa’s spokesman has so far not been returned.

    UPDATE: Massa’s office says he will be speaking with the press on a “very important” conference call at 3:30 p.m. He’s in Washington.

    Rumors are that he’s been accused of sexually harassing a male staff member;

    According to several House aides on both sides of the aisle, the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer.

    Massa told POLITICO Wednesday afternoon that no one has brought allegations of misconduct to him.

    Asked about the sexual harassment allegations, Massa said: “When someone makes a decision to leave Congress, everybody says everything. I have health issues. I’ll talk about it [later].”

    Health issues like getting a man’s belt buckle imprinted on his giant-ass forehead. I don’t care why he’s leaving, just that he’ll be gone. He was such an pompous, arrogant ritard, he’s virtually insured there will never ever be a Democrat in that seat.

    Thanks for your service now go the fuck away, Ric, ya little homo.

    UPDATED: COB6 emailed me that bone smuggler Massa was one of the Vote Vets-sponsored candidates in the last election. Wesley Clark even stumped for him in New York. Is that egg on your face?

    No wonder dicksmith has been pushing for the repeal of DADT.

    Yup, he announced his “retirement” while I was writing this. I hope his wife slaps the living shit out of him every-damn-day.

  • dicksmith: Santorum is a meany

    At VoteVets this morning, our favorite blogger at VetsVoice, dicksmith, says Rick Santorum is a big meany for things he said at CPAC about the military leadership in regards to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;

    Some people say: whatever the generals say. I’m not too sure that we haven’t so indoctrinated the officer corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decision.”

    Wow. That’s a fairly radical statement, far more bizarre than anything you’d ever hear from VoteVets, where we, you know, have respect for our military leaders.

    Yeah, VoteVets would never accuse the military of choosing the politically expedient option. Well, except this one time when Jon Soltz accused General Petreaus of doing exactly that;

    General Petraeus was given an order – find a military solution for Iraq where there is none, and without concern for troop overextension or the larger war on terror. General Petraeus followed his orders, giving the president what he wanted to hear, and now the president will hide behind that to justify his failure as a commander in chief.

    So when Soltz says that Petreaus has been brainwashed, that’s OK. What about when VoteVets’ parent organization ran this ad;

    generalbetrayusad

    I don’t remember a hue and cry from Vote Vets. I guess only some issues get their dander up.

    dicksmith also disinters that fossilized term “chickenhawk” in refering to Santorum’s opinion on DADT. I wonder if, in this case, whether dicksmith is saying that Santorum has never served in the mlitary, or he has never serviced another man because clearly, this particular debate is not about the war, and the chicken thing doesn’t apply.

    I don’t know, it all so confusing.

  • Interrogator Camerino plays lawyer, fails

    Late last week, the Justice Department announced that it probably didn’t have a reason to prosecute the White House legal team upon whose opinion the Bush Administration built their interrogation policy. As lawyers argue from their particular point of view, DOJ’s mind seems to be made up. This from the Washington Post;

    “When you combine all this with the threat reports that were being done and everything, I don’t know whether anyone crossed the line,” former department lawyer Jack Goldsmith said. “I certainly couldn’t say that myself. I don’t even know what the standard is.”

    Of course, since at least some of the discussion is about interrogation, Anthony Camerino, formerly known as Matthew Alexander, thinks he has something important to say on VoteVets and the Huffington Post;

    When I took the oath as a military officer, I don’t remember any mention of sunny or dark days. I swore to support and defend the Constitution and to faithfully discharge my duties on all days. Isn’t this the essential element of leadership? A ship doesn’t need steering when the river is its steady guide.

    What part of the Constitution covers interrogations, Tony? And since when have you become a lawyer? Because countless lawyers can’t agree with each other, why does a interrogator suddenly think he has the education to make policy for the administration? Getting paid by the George Soros Foundation and the ACLU doesn’t make you a legal expert.

    Camerino’s opinion is based purely on his pocketbook. Camerino gets paid to have the opinion that what the Bush Administration engaged in was torture. How else could a major in the Air Force afford to pay cash for a $300k condo on Capitol Hill? I also wonder how, if he disagrees so vehemently with the government, he’s accepting a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and planning to deploy to conduct interrogations this summer.

    I also have problems with the Air Force for those exact same reasons. Do they think so little of the troops on the ground, that they’d put a Soros-funded, ACLU-trained pseudo-lawyer to be in charge of a unit of interrogators? The man is obviously a self-serving boob, so what scares the Air Force?

  • Guantanamo’s last holdouts

    soltz-camerino-filner

    While Anthony Camerino and some guy who looks like Michael Scott from “The Office” were in the office of Bob Filner the other day trying to get Guantanamo Bay detainee facility shut down, look what the Obama Administration announced according to the New York Times;

    The Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release, an administration official said on Thursday.

    However, the administration has decided that nearly 40 other detainees should be prosecuted for terrorism or related war crimes. And the remaining prisoners, about 110 men, should be repatriated or transferred to other countries for possible release, the official said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the numbers.

    So where are the mobs in the street vocally condemning the president for continuing the Bush policy of holding criminals without trials? The only people concerned about it are leftovers from the last decade who don’t know anything else. Do you honestly think that this administration would do something that really that unpopular? Where are the active duty troops that are worried they’re going to be killed by new recruits who fill the ranks of the Taliban and al Qaeda because of the continued operations at Guantanamo?

    Of course, Air Force Major (promotable) Anthony Camerino still clings to the atrocities of Guantanamo – that’s his only claim to fame. He’s stuck in the aughts. So is Soltz and his crowd – they have to stay in business and raise money without pissing off their MoveOn masters in regards to their President. Anything they can do to keep Bush Derangement Syndrome on life support helps them.

    But on my last foray to VoteVets, they had the guts to call me a “troll with a political agenda”. And the Bush detainee program is beginning to look like the only viable solution to a complicated problem. Camerino and Soltz are just wrong.

  • For anyone under the mistaken impression that IVAW and VoteVets are Veterans Organizations

    From House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner comes this via email:

    Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, January 20, 2010, with both Democratic and Republican Members of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in attendance, Chairman Bob Filner held a meeting with 40 veterans service organizations to discuss priorities for the second session of the 111th Congress.

    “Today’s roundtable marks the second time during the 111th Congress that this Committee has met with veterans’ advocates to discuss the important issues facing our Nation’s veterans and plan how best to solve these problems,” said Chairman Filner. “The purpose of today’s meeting is to build upon the successes of the first session and collaborate on how we can better serve our veterans and wounded warriors going forward.”

    Just want to first thank the Chairman for having the organizations in to discuss the issues facing veterans. More importantly, I wanted to show you the list of 40 Veterans Service Organizations that were in attendance. You know how IVAW and VoteVets claim to represent veterans on Capitol Hill? Well, I would love for one of them to explain why these organizations were invited and they were not. If you think VoteVets and IVAW are representing you on the Hill, you should ask them when and where they are doing so. VoteVets is up there right now advocating closing Gitmo and bringing those terrorists into the states, but they were apparently too busy to go to a meeting to discuss issues facing our returning brothers and sisters.

    After the fold, the list of 40 organizations that *ARE* looking out for you and yours.
    (more…)

  • Dicksmith still as asinine as ever, takes on the Kiss Army

    kiss_army_form1

    I don’t know what institution of higher learning let dicksmith in, but he really doesn’t bring credit to them at all. The man is either retarded or an out and out liar. Maybe both. Him trying to form a rational thought is like watching a dog try to play a ukulele. He’s like Southern Dem, minus the fact that SD is just a character. Right now he’s probably wearing his che gueverra hat and wondering how to get his head in the peanut butter jar to get to the food.

    His latest bit of jackassery is to go after Senator Burr for a fundraising letter. Yup, a fundraising letter. I know you guys usually ignore the in-depth stuff I do on votes, so I will just make this one quick. Burr’s fundraiser is to solicit funds, and based on your amount, you can earn a “rank” in “Burr’s Brigade.” Now, it seems stupid to me, but dicksmith totally has his panties in a bunch about it.

    He begins:

    North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr has never served a day in uniform in his life. But that didn’t stop him from selling military rank to attempt to raise money for his campaign.

    First off, Burr turned 18 at the end of 1973, and graduated high school in 1974. Not only was the military decreasing in size, but you might remember that we were coming out of a war, and it wasn’t the best of times for our military. Had Burr gone in, he would have served in a peacetime military, and dick would have screeched about how he never served in combat. Instead Burr attended Wake Forest where he played football and got a degree. He went on to work for a company selling lawn equipment. In short, he actually worked for a living and increased the tax base of America. Only in dicksmith’s world is this a bad thing.

    Second…hey dipshit, he is not “selling military rank.” There is no military unit known as “Burr’s Bridgade.” If you pay the money to be a Colonel in Burr’s Brigade, it is still not acceptable to send Burr’s Brigade Corporals off to get a box of grid squares, or a can of squelch for the Prick E6. Burr’s Brigade is on par with the KISS army. Or a 13 year old who achieved the rank of Major on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare telling his mom to get down and give him 25. I wonder if dicksmith thinks Hogwarts is real.

    Then dicksmith says “What makes this even more offensive is Senator Burr’s actual voting record in supporting the military.” I know you guys hate when I go into the nitty gritty of each vote, because it is obvious to anyone who is not a re-tard that the votes are never what dicksmith claims. I’ll pull out just two and run with those.

    Burr Voted against Pay Raises and Body Armor for Our troops. Burr voted against funding for body armor, armored vehicles and equipment needed to keep our troops safe. Burr also voted against providing our military men and women a well-deserved pay increase.[Vote 384, 12/19/09]

    I’ll just let the Senator respond to this one:

    I have always been proud to vote for the funding of our troops and our national defense. However, I am disappointed that this year, the defense funding bill is filled with spending that is unrelated and not offset through savings elsewhere in the government. I cannot support a funding bill that spends $18 billion on unrelated spending that is not paid for.

    Additionally, this bill shortchanges our troops, including thousands from North Carolina, by not providing any funding for the surge into Afghanistan. I support the President’s strategy, but we must provide our troops with the resources they need to complete their mission. In a time of war, for Congress to ignore this funding shows a disregard for the servicemen and women who are away from their families this holiday season fighting on our behalf. I am also disappointed that Congress decided to devote resources to buying planes for junkets rather than fund our troops in the surge.

    Yeah, sure sounds like he hates the troops, eh? How ’bout we turn this around dick, explain to us why the $18 billion of pork in the bill is not more offensive and harmful to troops and veterans than a fahkin’ fundraising letter.

    Voted against the GI Bill. Burr was part of a small group that worked to oppose the new GI Bill that would make college affordable to veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Burr argued that the new GI Bill was “too generous and would draw troops away from re-enlisting.” This argument and Senator Burr’s alternative bill was defeated in a bipartisan vote with veteran’s organizations arguing that “patriotic troops would continue to serve their county, and that a new benefit would encourage thousands of college-bound young people to join the military.” [Vote 161, 6/26/08; Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of American, 2008 Congressional Report Card]

    This one has so much shit wrong with it I don’t even know where to start. First off, that quote. Quotation marks around a series of words usually means that those words were used by the person to whom they are ascribed. Show me where Burr ever said that. Go ahead, I will wait. The only source for that quote is….VoteVets. I found no reference whatsoever to Burr saying it was too generous. In point of fact, the bill that Burr was supporting would actually have been more expensive. And the “draw troops away from re-enlisting” is exactly what the Pentagon said. So, dicksmith would have the politicians who didn’t serve listen to the Pentagon when he wants, but when they say shit opposed to dicksmith’s position, he wants them to ignore them. Apparently one needs a ouija board to figure it out, because VoteVets never testifies on this stuff so who knows.

    I do love that dicksmith gives me another excuse to link to the shittastic IAVA scorecard though. I continue to maintain that IAVA serves a purpose on some issues like the GI Bill, but this scorecard was the most dishonest one I’ve ever seen. None of the votes where what they claimed they were, and idiots like dicksmith keep citing to them. Then again, dicksmith isn’t capable of actually researching anything on his own, so maybe this will cut down on his owies. The dude should be required to wear a hockey helmet when he tries to think through stuff.

    Anyway, let’s finish up this political ride on the short bus:

    Astonishing. The idea that any United States Senator, much less one who has never served and has such an appalling record of short-changing service members, would feel that military rank can be bought and sold to fill campaign coffers is sickening. The actions of Senator Burr disrespect every brave American who has ever had the honor of wearing the ranks Senator Burr is hawking for as little as $25.

    The fact that dicksmith can’t differentiate between “military rank can be bought and sold” and nominal titles in the “Burr Brigade” is what is astonishing. When are you going after COD: Modern Warfare and the KISS Army Dick? If he really feels like he is being disrespected by this mailing, then for his sake I hope the Obamacare bill goes through and he can find someone to fix his cranial rectal insertion problems.

    dicksmith