McCain Doesn’t Want to Give Veterans Increased Education Benefits

Apparently, John McCain wants you to support the troops – but not too much. Wear your flag pins and display those yellow ribbons on your vehicles with pride. But don’t actually give the troops the education benefits they were promised before joining the armed forces. That would be wrong, apparently. See, a bill was recently introduced in the Senate that would expand education benefits for veterans. It’s the least we owe them for their service, right? Well, McCain quotes a study that was done on the bill that claims retention rates would decrease by 16% if soldiers were offered more money for college. The funny thing is, he failed to read the quote in the same study that showed that recruitment rates would simultaneously increase – by 16%. Now, we all know that Senator McCain is no mathematician, and I’m not either, but last time I checked, 16 minus 16 equals…. Zero.

From Yahoo News:

McCain, the all-but-nominated Republican presidential candidate, opposes a Democratic-backed bill that would significantly expand the breadth of education benefits for veterans, first adopted for those returning from World War II. Democrats want the proposal included in a war spending bill the Senate is scheduled to vote on this week.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, also veterans of Vietnam, would guarantee full tuition payments to veterans at any public school in their home state. Its expected cost is $52 billion over 10 years.

McCain says the legislation is too expensive and has proposed his own version, which would increase the monthly benefit available to most veterans to $1,500 from $1,100. It would not offer the equivalent of a full scholarship.

As Jon Stewart noted on the Daily Show last night, “Where did potential soldiers get the idea that the military was some kind of ‘fast-track to college’ in the first place?” Oh, right, it could be all those ads the military runs where grateful soldiers talk about the military being the only reason they were able to attend college. Nice blunder, McCain – especially when your military record was probably the biggest benefit you had on your side.

Check out a clip from last night’s Daily Show here.

Link [Yahoo News] + [Comedy Central]

Un-Effing-Believable: Military Contractor Used Armored Vehicles to Transport Hookers

Perhaps I’m still a bit naïve, but I find this news so crazy I can hardly believe it’s real. The Huffington Post is reporting that testimony from a panel of whistleblowers in the Senate yesterday revealed a shocking bit of info about DynCorp, a military contractor. Seems that a DynCorp manager used an armored car to transport prostitutes to hotels that the company operates. As the car was occupied by hookers, a DynCorp employee had to go without the armored protection and was killed as a result.

From The Huffington Post:

Naturally, this will lead many to question whether its appropriate for DynCorp to be awarded with future military contracts, but the more fitting question is whether or not DynCorp should have been awarded a contract in Iraq in the first place. Because, you see, this is not the first time DynCorp employees have been implicated in running prostitution rings abroad.

In 2002, DynCorp workers were involved in a Bosnia sex-slave trade, and due to some complicated loopholes, these people are able to get away with it. Some of the girls involved were as young as 12. The DynCorp employees escaped prosecution for crimes such as these made overseas, practically giving them free license to do whatever the hell they please.

These are the shady criminals America has doing its bidding in Iraq. Does anyone else feel the need to take a shower right about now?

Link [Huffington Post]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

The March of Incompetence: Climate Change Denier James Inhofe Also Hates the Troops

Scott Herring is a new writer here at EarthFirst and a published author, blogger, and professor from the University of California, Davis.

The US Senate is an intellectual landfill. Really–I can’t say it too strongly. It seems like the higher you go in the federal government, the more rubbishy things get.

Take Oklahoma Republican Senator and well known Climate Change denier James Inhofe as an example. Inhofe is wildly hawkish, but as the Huffington Post reports,

“he has consistently voted against health care for the troops and their families, against pay protection for reservists, and against an increase in the death gratuity payments (now $12,000) for the families of military personnel killed in battle. And on top of all that Inhofe has also voted consistently against repealing the heinous ‘disabled veterans tax,’ which penalizes disabled veterans who receive both disability pay and retired pay.”

Armies fall apart when the soldiers aren’t treated well. Just a few years ago, the GOP dominated the political world, with majorities seemingly everywhere except the Berkeley city council, and it is now well on its way to being thrown out of power entirely. Republicans won their dominance because people thought they were good on national defense. Their sickly incompetence on this same issue has in turn done them in.

Link [Huffington Post]

The War on Iraq is Costing $4,000 a Second, or About $120,000 in the Time It Took to Write This Headline

We’re spending over $4,000 A SECOND on the clusterfuck that is Iraq. Is anyone else pissed off about that? What. The. Fuck. How many better ways could we be spending that? How have Bush and Cheney not been impeached yet? Grrr….

Check out the entire Tom Tomorrow comic over at Salon.

Link [Tom Tomorrow on Salon]