The problem with the military is all those fags keep raping the ladies.

Uh-huh.

The American Family Association needs smarter bigots.

(h/t Karoli)

Seems kinda like a trend, doesn't it?

WASHINGTON — A soldier assigned to coordinate a sexual assault prevention program in Texas is under investigation for "abusive sexual contact" and other alleged misconduct and has been suspended from his duties, the Army announced Wednesday.

The announcement came just one week after an Air Force officer who headed a sexual assault prevention office was himself arrested on charges of groping a woman in a parking lot.

The two cases highlight a problem that is drawing increased scrutiny in the Congress and expressions of frustration from top Pentagon leaders. Pentagon press secretary George Little said after Wednesday's announcement that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is angry and disappointed at "these troubling allegations and the breakdown in discipline and standards they imply."

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During yesterday's Fox "news" Sunday, host Chris Wallace started off with the tearful soundbite of Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods killed in the Benghazi embassy attack last September, questioning why the White House appeared to be less honorable about the events surrounding his son's death, than his son was risking his life to save the 30 people in that embassy.

"My son violated his orders to protect the lives of at least 30 people. He risked his life to be a hero [sic]. I wish that the leadership in the White House had that same level of moral courage and heroism that my son displayed with his life."

Wallace, after arguing with Senate Intelligence Committee member Mark Udall (D-CO) over whether or not the embassy attacks (which took place over six weeks ago) are being "politicized", then asks Udall if drones reportedly in the area were armed and if so, might they have stopped the attack? (a supposition based on a supposition.)

Naturally, Udall explains that he can not reveal our defense capabilities on national TV, and should not be making guesses about what our drones can and can not do prior to completion of the investigation.

But on a personal note, can I just point out how distasteful this entire exchange is? First exploiting a fathers' grief to score cheap political points, then denying you're doing it, then accusing The President of the United States of failing to protect American citizens by not using using weapons that some drone may or may not of had that may or may not have even been in the area?

Every time I hear these Cretins run for the pitchforks and light the torches over whether or not President Obama is guilty of a "massive intelligence failure on September 11th that resulted in Americans losing their lives, and then tried to cover it up", I want to smack them across the head with a 2x4.

...but maybe that's just me.

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Fox & Friends are very concerned at the low rate of requests for absentee ballots by the military – which just so happens to largely vote Republican – and they were so eager to blame the Obama administration this morning, they didn't have time for facts indicating otherwise. They were assisted in that effort by Cleta Mitchell, a major Republican operative presented merely as an “election attorney.”

As a banner on the screen blared, “WHERE ARE THE BALLOTS?” Mitchell said:

I think this administration has made a calculated political decision, as it does with everything, that the majority of military voters are not gonna vote for this president for re-election and so the administration has not enforced the law and has not opened the military voting assistance centers in more than half of the military installations in the world and has spent zero effort trying to ensure that our military men and women have the right to vote protected and ensured during this election.

Steve Doocy: You know what, Cleta? I think you just included a little bit of news right there. You’ve done some research and you’ve discovered that the administration – despite the law being on the books, that they’ve got to open up these voter information centers – they haven’t spent any money opening them up in many cases?

Mitchell cited a report from the Department of Defense Inspector General’s office which found, she said, that “over half of the offices that were supposed to be opened could not even be contacted” and that military personnel were not being given voter information “in their packets.” That, she concluded, is “why the numbers are so down this year compared to two years ago and certainly compared to four years ago. It’s quite shocking, really.”

Doocy’s entire effort at balance seems to have been contacting a Pentagon spokesman for comment – and then letting the viewers know they shouldn’t trust it. Doocy’s voice was dripping with disdain as he reported the Pentagon explanation for the downturn: that in 2008 there were primaries for both parties, whereas this year there were only Republican primaries.

Had Doocy tried for any real balance, he might have provided the “we report, you decide” network’s viewers with the information, straight from the Department of Defense Inspector General’s report that Mitchell cited, that Congress did not authorize the funding needed for the installation voting assistance offices (IVAOs):

We concluded the Services had not established all the IVAOs as intended by the MOVE Act because, among other issues, the funding was not available. Officials pointed out the law did not authorize DoD additional funding for this initiative and estimated IVAO costs could exceed $15-20 million per year.

Also not reported on Fox & Friends? The Department of Defense thinks other strategies would be better and more cost-effective:

DoD officials also posed concerns about IVAO effectiveness. They noted that younger military personnel were the biggest DoD military population segment and emphasized that IVAOs were likely not the most cost effective way to reach out to them given their familiarity and general preference for communicating via on-line social media and obtaining information from internet websites. They suggested assistance might be provided more effectively and efficiently by targeted advertising, itechnology, like Twitter and Facebook, and online tools, supplemented by well-trained unit voting assistance officers, who are already in place.

Moreover, FVAP officials indicated that investing in intuitive, easy-to-use web-based tools, rather than IVAOs—could substantially reduce cost and improve voting assistance. The FVAP will specifically address that approach in its pending report to Congress, and DoDIG will focus on this option during our on-going assessment and reporting.

Furthermore, the executive director of the Military Voter Protection Project whose statistics Doocy cited at the beginning of the segment, has said, "I simply don't see any politics at play" in voter assistance programs.”

But why go for facts and information when you can promote Republican talking points? Instead of interrupting Mitchell with challenges, Doocy nodded in agreement as she characterized Obama administration efforts to protect voting rights in Florida as an effort to combat “the law against illegal immigration voting, illegal alien voting.”

Doocy even took it a step further by bringing up the falsehood that the Obama administration wants to “block early voting for military members” in Ohio.

At the end, Doocy gave out web addresses where military personnel can get absentee ballots, shook his head with disapproval and said, “Too bad it’s gotten to that.”

By the way, one of the sites given by Doocy was incorrect and he later corrected it. It should have said FVAP.gov, not .org.

Laura's beginning to dominate my SRWT series, and today, she tickles two right-wing erogenous zones with one tweet: Obama hates the military (and by extension, America)—and just loves him some homos.

Wingnuts pulled the same stunt on June 6 two years ago ("Obama snubbed the Greatest Generation!")—but of course, it turns out that George W. Bush blew off D-Day quite often.

Bush administration commemorated D-Day in 2001 and 2004, but spent others in meetings and at least one concert. White House archives of June 6 for each year President Bush was in office only show Bush commemorating D-Day in 2001 and 2004.

IOKIYAR (It's OK If You're a Republican), as always.

Paul Ryan may want to be Vice President, but he's not endearing the military to him with this kind of talk.

From National Journal:

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., claimed Thursday that senior U.S. military officials and commanders were being dishonest in their budget requests to Congress.

“We don’t believe the generals are giving us their true budget,” Ryan said at the National Journal Live Budget Policy summit, adding, “I think there’s a lot of budget smoke and mirrors in the Pentagon’s budget.”

Ryan's comment referred to a common Republican complaint that the defense request -- which is strongly supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- was not "strategy-driven," and was based instead on an artificial spending cap. The chiefs, in testimony and public remarks since early February, have said they carefully built a strategy and a budget to meet the required limits of the Budget Control Act that Congress passed last year and endorsed the fiscal 2013 request.

I think Paul Ryan is one of the nastiest and most cynical politicians on the planet, and this just proves it. Because the military actually honored the Congressional mandate to cut or be sequestered, Ryan calls them liars?

May I take this opportunity to ask you to support Blue America and Rob Zerban's campaign to send Paul Ryan back home and out of Congress forever, please? Paul Ryan's lack of respect for everyone, including a military that is making the effort to reduce defense spending is contemptible.

The Iowa Straw Poll last weekend is to election season what Labor Day is to Fall; it’s official now – the season has begun!

I don’t care about the “viability” of candidates. I am not a prognosticator. Well, if I were, I’d be a very bad one. I said former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was most likely to get the nomination because his name is the easiest to make puns with (i.e. Pawlenty of Votes!) and he was the first one to drop out of the race. Plus, I’ve yet to see anyone (besides me) make ANY puns with his name. Pawlenty of wrong guesses!

But I’m also not interested in “who could go all the way.” I’m interested in this moment in time. And if you look at the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney – he’s perfect for the current Republican Party.

The first reason is he has five gorgeous able-bodied adult sons who’ve never spent a day in the military. Actually, none of the as-yet announced Republican candidates have children serving in the military. We’ve been in two wars now for nearly a decade each and yet the all-volunteer force is entirely made up of Americans not spawned from GOP candidates. For the last 30 years at least, the Republicans have been relentlessly, uniformly hawkish – but mostly with other peoples’ children. This disconnect was made evident in the ’08 election when soldiers donated money to candidate Barack Obama 6-1 over Senator John McCain.

The second is Romney’s hard turn (read: total flip-flop) on women’s reproductive freedoms. When Romney ran against Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, unprompted he offered, “Many, many years ago, I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that.” Of course, he wavered on that. His “family relative” was Ann Keenan, who died from an infection due to her illegal abortion in 1963 when Romney was 16. Now at 64, Romney toes the party line on abortion: He’s against it. He’s now against the law that could have saved his relative’s life.

But this is consistent with the Republican Party of today. The man known as “Mr. Conservative” himself – 1964’s Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater was not pro-life. His wife Margaret Goldwater helped found the first Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930s. If ever there was an issue (or an area) for government to get out of – it’s a uterus. But as much as current Republicans like to bark that government is getting too intrusive – Romney and his ilk want the government to tell women what to do.

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On Memorial Day, we'll let the president's words speak for themselves.

But this passage was especially eloquent:

That’s what we memorialize today. That spirit that says, send me, no matter the mission. Send me, no matter the risk. Send me, no matter how great the sacrifice I am called to make. The patriots we memorialize today sacrificed not only all they had but all they would ever know. They gave of themselves until they had nothing more to give. It’s natural, when we lose someone we care about, to ask why it had to be them. Why my son, why my sister, why my friend, why not me?

These are questions that cannot be answered by us. But on this day we remember that it is on our behalf that they gave our lives -- they gave their lives. We remember that it is their courage, their unselfishness, their devotion to duty that has sustained this country through all its trials and will sustain us through all the trials to come. We remember that the blessings we enjoy as Americans came at a dear cost; that our very presence here today, as free people in a free society, bears testimony to their enduring legacy.

Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay. But we can honor their sacrifice, and we must. We must honor it in our own lives by holding their memories close to our hearts, and heeding the example they set. And we must honor it as a nation by keeping our sacred trust with all who wear America’s uniform, and the families who love them; by never giving up the search for those who’ve gone missing under our country’s flag or are held as prisoners of war; by serving our patriots as well as they serve us -- from the moment they enter the military, to the moment they leave it, to the moment they are laid to rest.

Full transcript below:

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Gee, it sounds like a match made in Tea Party Heaven: Sarah Palin and Jerry Boykin, appearing on the same stage to deliver a good ol' fashioned right-wing fundamentalist "Tribute to the Troops":

Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker for Tribute to the Troops, a military and veterans appreciation rally at Colorado Christian University on May 2, 2011.

Boykin will speak on "Our Debt of Gratitude". Not sure what that means -- but since it's coming from the guy who brought you both Abu Ghraib and Waco, it could be anything.

As Kyle at RightWingWatch observes:

Since leaving the military, Boykin has joined up with self-proclaimed prophet Rick Joyner and become the Religious Right's resident "expert" on all things Islam and a leading member of the Religious Right's Spartan-like army. He is also the man who exposed the fact that President Obama is a Marxist who intends to use the health care reform legislation to build an army of Brownshirts loyal only to him ...

Indeed, it was while elucidating on this charge that it became clear that Boykin is a direct military descendant of Gen. Jack D. Ripper himself:

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And of course, his "expertise" at all things Islam meant that he was the go-to guy when Glenn Beck was expounding on the looming "Caliphate" in the Middle East.

More recently, he's been declaring "Molon Labe" to the dirty America-hating secret-Muslim libruls who he's convinced are coming to take his "rights" away.

Combined with Palin's presence ... well, let's just hope that the critical mass of wingnuttery coming together in one place like that doesn't open a hole in the space-time continuum.

Oh, my mistake. I inadvertently placed this two-year-old video of Sen. John McCain and his Republican buddies (Senators Joseph Lieberman, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham) going to stroke Qadaffi's - ah, ego - to get him to purchase US military systems for his country. I really like the little bow that McCain gives to Qadaffi. He must have had a stroke and forgotten this visit when he  recently traveled to Libya to tell the rag-tag Rebel Alliance how great they were, and how THEY should be getting America's weapons. Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham calls for increased NATO bombing of Tripoli on CNN's "State of the Union."

Oh, but I forgot, it's the retired generals and admirals who are the problem in the defense industry...  at least I don't see them selling weapons to both sides of a conflict. Hat tip to Steve Benen.