But strutting around talking about supporting veterans while spending a career in Washington voting against their interests? Not nearly good enough, in my book. America’s vets deserve better.

bring them home now.

Army of Dude on McCain Warning, this guy write is the way it is so if you are a little squeamish or easily upset be careful about reading his great posts.

Thanks Christy.

digg

Seconded.

Dugg — Christy – this is one of the ‘elephants in the room’. We’ll be living with this shame for decades.

Cindy up there bitching about Obama’s vote but not about fuck-face’s opposition to the GI Bill. Oh, forgot, they can afford to send him to school when he gets out.

Mornin’, Christy. Thanks for the vid. This song is what turned me on to the Dixie Chicks. Can’t listen to it without crying.

Morning Christy,
another linkalicious post from you
with a sweet song to listen to, too. Thanks.

Christy,
Watched the movie “Missing in America” this week with Danny Glover starring as one of the “lost souls” from the Vietnam war. All you could think at the end when he was visiting the memorial is “Why did we have to do it again? Why ruin so many young lives?”

It’s such a disgrace and just too sad. And John McCain doesn’t get it – in spite of his own suffering.

Here’s an Arlo song When A Soldier Makes it Home

That GI Bill vote really rankles with me. Still.

Great Post! I have a nephew going to school now. He had done some under the older GI Bill so I am wondering what he can get out of the new one. He burns through money kinda fast so I am hoping he will use whatever he gets wisely.

Halfway around the world tonight
In a strange and foreign land
A soldier packs his memories
As he leaves Afghanistan
And back home they don’t know too much
There’s just no way to tell
I guess you had to be there
For to know that war was hell

arlo

Someone from Biden’s family is serving in Bush’s war of choice.
Someone from Palin’s family is serving in Bush’s war of choice.

No one from Bush’s family is serving in Bush’s war of choice.

Biden needs to push back against this pustch

every vote to continue the wars has been an outrage. how sad is it that we have to argue about taking care of the vets when they come home when they shouldn’t have been sent to war in the first place?

Someone from Palin’s family is serving because it was better than going to jail

Doesn’t Bush have a nephew who is a JAG?

Yeah, don’t even get me started on the front end disagreements. But if they are going to be sent, then short-changing them on the back end is utterly unforgivable in my book…

easy,

“got in a little hometown jam
sent me off to Vietnam”

some of my best friends. . . .

OT On C-Span New poll – McShame plummeting

That’s a really good one. Thanks!

Yes, I read someplace that the he was convicted of dealing drugs and the judge gave him the option: Jail or military service.

Halfway around the world tonight
In a strange and foreign land
A soldier unpacks memories
He saved from Viet Nam
And back home they don’t know too much
There’s just no way to tell
I guess you had to be there
For to know that war was hell

Arlo a couple stanzas later

Christy, Any rumors on the McCain’s camp big surprise this morning?

Yes — just put an Oxdown diary up about it, actually:

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/574

Yea, interesting that at the time the 1st stanza was about the Russians!

What Raven said.

Some of ‘em came back on a cargo plane.

Got a linky?

Good Morning Christy and Firedogs,

April 10, 2008:

Kerry introduced The Military Family Homes Protection Act to expand the Service Member Civil Relief Act (SCRA) which provides returning soldiers with one year relief from increases in mortgage interest rates. It will also extend the existing protections from foreclosure from 90 days to nine months after active duty service members return home

this was folded in to the Foreclosure Protection Act passed

that McCain guy ? didn’t vote

Multi-blogging? Amazing woman, that you are.

And think of how many families have been thrown into upheaval and even destroyed by the misuse of the National Guard.

Is McSFB’s mother the only person in the world he wouldn’t sell down the river for his ambition? Even if I were her I’d be watchin’ my back.

absofuckinglutely. but that doesn’t do anything for the ones who have died or who have lost a loved one.

while decent health care ought to be a right – to deny it to the people we’ve harmed is beyond the pale… and in this i include iraqis and afghanis – let’s not forget our responsibility to them is no less than our responsibility to our own.

he gets a pass doncha kno, he was a POW

mama makes regular glances over her shoulder :D

SOSOS………*yawn*

If that’s the best the mcpalin campaign can come up with, good forkin’ grief!

Well said.

Hi Christy. My condolences to you and your husband and the whole family.

Saw it on the TV

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

he had no table. why should any other vet get anything?

Thanks Christy! You have a great diary at Oxdown Gazette.

have a good one. take it easy.

I personally think that some of the problems Vets encounter relate to the hoops they have to jump in order to receive treatment. Often the military tries to move them very quickly out of the “active” status, which means they are left to fend for themselves within the VA system. While that system is basically a good one, most of our troops actually tend to come from rural areas, not the cities, where VA hospitals are usually located. That leaves too many Vets so far from needed services, especially when mental health services generally require weekly treatment at the very least. (put the cost of gas together with that)

Now think how different things would be if we had national health care. Vets would no longer have to prove that their problems were “combat related” in order to receive treatment. They could simply present themselves to their nearest mental health provider or community mental health center.

What disturbs me most about the plight of our Vets is that nearly all mental health providers would be pleased to assist. But most of us are “locked out” of that system. It makes no sense whatsoever!

It makes no sense that soldiers are theoretically provided with health care, but actually moved out of the system that is best equipped to provide their health care – once they are deemed, by the military, to no longer be “fit for duty.” At that point, they’re stuck with the VA system, but also stuck with trying to prove they are “disabled” or that any disability is due to their military service. Not only that, if someone’s mental health has deteriorated, they are the least capable of advocating for themselves!

This is a travesty!

If we just took the money and the already existing infrastructure and personnel from military health care, VA health care, the National Institutes of Health, national, and other community health services (and medical plans) sfunded by national, state, and local funds, and then put that together with Medicare, I guarantee you we would be well on the way to national health care in terms of funding and already existing structures. Take all the folks, like me, having to pay for their own health care (by buying a catastrophic policy for $4500, which allows me to pay the first $5000 myself!!!), and you’d probably be able to make up the rest of the money for national health care.

Against this, of course, are those insurance companies whose financial tentacles are so bound up with the current financial mess we see causing worldwide markets. Since they’re so good at causing a financial mess, naturally we should trust them with fixing heath care. NOT!

Sorry to have taken so much bandwidth here. But obviously this is an issue I have thought much about.

Our soldiers with PTSD are up against all this. And so am I!

40 for you

Here’s what McInsane has done for our Vets (and my brother-100% disabled Vet):

September 2007: McCain voted against the Webb amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments.

May 2006: McCain voted against an amendment that would provide $20 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care facilities.

April 2006: McCain was one of only 13 Senators to vote against $430,000,000 for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans.

March 2006: McCain voted against increasing Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.

March 2004: McCain once again voted for abusive tax loopholes over veterans when he voted against creating a reserve fund to allow for an increase in Veterans’ medical care by $1.8 billion by eliminating abusive tax loopholes. Jeez, McCain really loves those tax loopholes for corporations, since he voted for them over our veterans’ needs.

October 2003: McCain voted to table an amendment by Senator Dodd that called for an additional $322,000,000 for safety equipment for United States forces in Iraq and to reduce the amount provided for reconstruction in Iraq by $322,000,000.

April 2003: McCain urged other Senate members to table a vote (which never passed) to provide more than $1 billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq related to a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests.

August 2001: McCain voted against increasing the amount available for medical care for veterans by $650,000,000. To his credit, he also voted against the 2001 Bush tax cuts, which he now supports making permanent, despite the dire financial condition this country is in, and despite the fact that he indicated in 2001 that these tax cuts unfairly benefited the very wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

this could be a diary at Oxdown!

Well, McCain STILL wins the “worst senate attendance record” contest – Tim Johnson, even with his brain hemorrhage, has cast more votes than McCain(344 to 235). McCain has missed over 64% of the votes.
http://projects.washingtonpost…..e-missers/
And here are all the votes he missed: http://projects.washingtonpost…..es/missed/

Well, McCain lost George Will a while back. From Will’s column today:

…

In the closing days of his 10-year quest for the presidency, McCain finds it galling that Barack Obama is winning the first serious campaign he has ever run against a Republican. Before Tuesday night’s uneventful event, gall was fueling what might be the McCain-Palin campaign’s closing argument. It is less that Obama has bad ideas than that Obama is a bad person.

This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza say, is demonstrated by bad associations Obama had in Chicago, such as with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts — telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans’ accounts have recently shed. In this context, the McCain-Palin campaign’s attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama’s Chicago associations seems surreal — or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, “like being savaged by a dead sheep.”

…

thank you. bandwidth well used.

do you have link for that so I can read more?

When confronted about these votes and stands by a vet who got thru, McHypocrit stated that he didn’t know what thr vet was talking about and that he was supported by the vet groups. lie much McButthead

Hi Elliott @52,

I have the links at home (links to ALL the roll call votes). Can send tonight.
posting from work via remote email access ;o –. I sent over 150 letters with this info to local newspapers near military bases in NC, VA, GA, FL, MO.

Feel free to post it there. Not sure what it is.

Christy,
We’ve allowed our best to be used up and discarded like material in a factory of death.
Pick a number, $ 2 billion a week at cost + 10% profit ,there’s creeps in this country making $200,000,000. a week on this whatever it is we are calling it. The troops deserve to be made whole from these obscene profits.
Where is the zero tolerance party when it comes to issues of life and death.
One of my bumper stickers is :
Honor the dead
Heal the wounded
End the war
Peace to those who served with such valor and a curse and plague upon those who started and supported this mess.

Link
http://votevets.org/news/archive

Enough of this boring talk about veterans, let’s bash Obama.

Thanks, much. It’s been a rough year for us, but family pulls together and heals and we will, too. This morning, I’m just grateful The Peanut has passed out of the barfing stage and only has a mild fever…thank goodness for small favors…

McShame was a POW and a hero /s
http://www.truthdig.com/report…..dy_at_sea/

dday on the presidential debate:

Both candidates remain out to lunch on Afghanistan and were totally non-responsive on the plain fact that our presence there has become toxic.

I would say one more thing about treating Vets with PTSD. We either need laws which hold providers blameless if Vets they are treating commit suicide. Or we need a reliable system to hospitalize them when suicidal. Or both. Currently mental health providers are “on the line” with anyone who is suicidal. Insurances don’t want to “waste” their money on something like that. And do they actually want such people to no longer be on their rolls anyway? (hate to ask that question, but indeed it must be asked…) And the VA system is way too stretched to provide that everywhere it’s needed. Local facilities are also too limited.

Mental health providers today have very little of a “safety net” between their own ability to help someone hang on to slender threads and the patient’s anguish and frustration level.

I can verify from my own experience that coping with the suicide of a patient due to PTSD is personally and professionally very difficult to bear. It never goes away. You’re never the same again. And it leads to shying away from that kind of work in the future.

Not today. My hope is that today Biden or Barack will talk about job creation not only for the unemployed here but for the returning soldiers from Iraq next year.

see 61

Hugs to you, Mr. Reddhead and The Peanut. Oh, to be sick now. Peaceful thoughts.

second that.

Yeah…but he doesn’t like to talk about it. He doesn’t believe that it is something that one should try to take advantage of.

2006 Defense Appropriations Bill (Warner) included provisions to protect military families against Predatory Lending

1 in 5 Military Families were targeted by the Payday Loans Industry – charging them more than 36% interest

oh and that McCain fella ? argued and lobbied against these protections

btw, forgot to mention — we have a great chat coming up this afternoon with a couple of folks from Election Protection. I think it will be something folks will really enjoy — it will be at noon PT/3 pm ET.

Put on your heels and lipstick and have at it.

-G

From Trthdig: “Not long after McCain left, the Forrestal set off without him on its somber voyage to Subic Bay in the Philippines, where it would undergo initial repairs. He rejoined the ship a week later when it was docked at Subic Bay. There he gave an official statement and asked for a transfer to the aircraft carrier Oriskany.” There’s a reason for that: McCain had run out on the other members of his crew; two of the people who worked with him(his parachute rigger for one) had been killed in the fire; he had not acquitted himself well in terms of providing any aid to other members of the crew(except for helping to heave a couple of bombs overboard) and he had spent the rest of the terrible day downstairs watching the whole thing on TV. He then hitched a ride with a NY Times reporter on a helicopter to get away to Saigon. He’d behaved …like just the person he was and is – emotional, undisciplined, and frankly a coward. He knew that there was no way for him to still stay on the Forrestal – he’d be shunned by the rest of the crew.

Exactly – a coward elitist

LCDR Fred D. White, waiting to launch in Aircraft No. 405, leaped out of his burning Skyhawk but was killed instantly (along with many firefighters) by the cooking off of the first bomb. LCDR Herbert A. Hope of VA-46 (and operations officer of CVW-17) jumped out of the cockpit of his Skyhawk between explosions, rolled off the flight deck and into the starboard man-overboard net. Making his way down below to the hangar deck, he took command of a firefighting team. ”The port quarter of the flight deck where I was”, he recalled, ”is no longer there.”[3] With his aircraft surrounded by flames, McCain escaped by climbing out of the cockpit, walking down the nose and jumping off the refueling probe.

The excellent ads that the VoteVets organization has produced are getting lots of airplay here in eastern NC.
People are pissed — starting with Rep. “Freedom Fries” — Walter Jones, a Republican. Never thought I would come to like/respect him.

It’s almost too painful to watch the local news, whether it’s about deployments from the many military bases here or the violence against women who live/work on those bases.

So much sadness, so little help/concern from the current administration.

… because people forget. They forget the horrors that Veterans experienced in both World Wars and in Korea/Vietnam. They forget that during the first Gulf War, the families of Soldiers were being evicted because they couldn’t pay their mortgage. They forget that as this War began, Bush & Cheney went up to the Hill to reduce the $$$ paid to soldiers.

It is time for Americans to pay an active role in shaping their government, not just pay lip service once every 4 years.

McCain has been supremely lucky that there is no such thing as “Forrestal Veterans for Truth”..

it looks to me like the vets and soldiers are gonna be voting obama

I wonder how they plan on keeping the soldiers from voting this election

All soldiers of all wars of all countries have been treated like dirt. It’s SOP. Don’t call ‘em grunts for no reason. Matter of relative power. Govts & officiers have it all, troops have none. The only exception I can think of is GI Bill of Rights after WWII, and that happened probably because they were such a large percent of the population and pols needed their votes.

Our Veterans get treated very well, as a matter of conscience, not because it is politically expedient.

If the citizenry don’t demand change and work for it, the politicians are going to keep doing what has been done.

Taxpayers Putting on the Ritz
Lisa D

Part of the rethug game plan has been is to destroy all government agencies and this includes the VA. I used the VA facility in SD because it was the best care available, Doubt I could even get in now though thanks to Bush. I have a 30% disab.

George P. Bush, son of JEB, joined the Naval Reserve as an Intelligence officer in 2007. He is an attourney, but not a JAG. He serves two weeks active duty a year. It’s doubtful that he’ll ever be called up, but when he runs for office, his claims of serving will be as true as his uncle’s were.

Christy, my deepest condolences to you and your family.

Dig you mean jagoff?
That’s a middle name in the Bush family, like Walker.