Iran shot down American fighter jet UPDATE: **second jet down**

Trump and Hegseth have been puffing their chests and proclaiming America has totally dominated Iran and "obliterated" all their military capabilities. Iran begs to differ.

Thoughts and prayers.

Apparently this is the fourth F-15E to be shot down, but the previous three were due to friendly fire.  

Also, Trump and Hegseth don't care.  Only insofar as their popularity is concerned, that is.

UPDATE 08:50 pm:

According to The New York Times, citing anonymous sources familiar with the situation, an Air Force combat plane crashed in the Persian Gulf, and the sole pilot was rescued. The A-10 Warthog attack went down near the Strait of Hormuz around the same time a previously reported F-15 fighter jet over Iran went down.

NBC News reported, soon after, that the A-10 had been involved in the rescue mission of the F-15 crew and after being hit “made it to Kuwaiti air space, where the pilot ejected and the aircraft crashed, the official said. The pilot is safe and the A-10 is down in Kuwait, according to the official.”

  Yahoo

UPDATE 04/04/2026:

 

UPDATE 04/05/2026:

Sometimes you have to wonder if humanity is worth saving anyway.

Hey MAGA, support our troops

 

Veterans answering the call

 

Disgraceful

 

Reuters: “The US Air Force is denying early retirement to all transgender service members with between 15-18 years of military service, opting instead to force them out with no retirement benefits. These longer-serving transgender service members will have the same choice as more junior ones: quit or be forced out. Multiple service members had already been approved for early retirement, but those approvals were rescinded.”

  Meidas Touch

Tesla chainsaw massacre continues without Elon

 

Cutting even more veterans

 

Trump's war on the opposition

Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.

[...]

Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.

[...]

Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment.

  The Guardian

Nuts. Of course it could be that some idiot carelessly left out a part while copying. Couldn't it? It's hard to know what's incompetence and what's intention in the Trump regime.

Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”. Now, several of those items – including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” – have been removed from that list.

[...]

Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation”.

[...]

Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show. The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.

I guess it couldn't.

In making the changes, VA officials cite the president’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.

Transgender. How do marital and political status fit into that?

They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration. He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”.

[...]

In an emailed response to questions, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, did not dispute that the new rules allowed doctors to refuse to treat veteran patients based on their beliefs or that physicians could be dismissed based on their marital status or political affiliation, but said “all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”.

Sure. I have complete confidence.

He said the rule changes were nothing more than “a formality”, but confirmed that they were made to comply with Trump’s executive order. Kasperowicz also said the revisions were necessary to “ensure VA policy comports with federal law”. He did not say which federal law or laws required these changes.

Did you ask him? He doesn't know.

In interviews, veterans said the impact of the new policy would probably fall hardest on female veterans, LGBTQ+ veterans and those who live in rural areas where there are fewer doctors overall.

[...]

Under the new policy, some may have to register at a hospital in another region and travel more than a hundred miles to see a doctor. It “could have a huge ripple effect”, she said.

[...]

The changes are part of a larger attack on the independence of medicine and science by the Trump administration, Caplan said, which has included restrictions and cuts at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, last week fired every member of a key panel that advises the government on vaccines. The Guardian has earlier reported on a VA edict forbidding agency researchers from publishing in scientific journals without clearance from the agency’s political appointees.

Trump 2.0 - Silence is mandatory

 

Support our troops

 This is gonna land very, very hard in MAGAland.

An internal memo from the new Secretary of the VA obtained by Military.com shows that the agency intends to fire more than 83,000 employees.

  Meidas Touch

If that were the ONLY segment of the MAGA population that will be suffering under Trump 2.0, it would be bad enough.

Support our troops

 Used to be the Republican battle cry, insinuating that "the libs" don't.

"Support our troops"

 

It will hurt them, but it will take a while for them to realize it's happening.  They only watch Fox News.

Unconscionable, but unsurprising

 

Trump 2.0 - Burn it all down

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced major layoffs on Thursday, a move condemned by Democratic lawmakers, veterans and experts. As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk look to slash the federal government, the layoffs — amounting to more than 1,000 people — will reportedly save the department more than $98 million annually, according to a press release.

[...]

Veteran Scott Peoples told ABC11 he was bothered by "just the way they've gone about it and just taking a wrecking ball to the federal government and creating chaos everywhere and not having a plan of maybe phasing out certain jobs or letting people know.”

Veterans have supported Trump, with about 60 percent backing him in 2024.

  MSN

I imagine buyer's remorse is starting to take hold.

But wait! That's not all...

Mike Johnson trying to keep his job

The "party of law and order" is cutting funds for the agencies of law and order.

If they get Trump back in office, they'll be returning funding to DOJ, ATF, and FBI immediately after he culls and replaces anyone he thinks is not going to use their position for his "retribution".

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 03/07/2024:

thread

Support our troops

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Task Force Butler

IRAQ WAR VETERAN Kris Goldsmith believes “patriot” and “anti-fascist” should be synonymous — and he’s turning that belief into action with the new Task Force Butler. The nonprofit’s tagline gets right to the point: “We are American veterans who hunt neo-Nazis.”

Goldsmith has seen first hand how fascist and militia groups subvert the trappings of patriotism to ensare veterans in right-wing extremism, and he stood up Task Force Butler as a competing force for good. The group draws its name and inspiration from a larger-than-life Marine, Maj. Gen Smedley Butler, who foiled an attempted fascist coup against the New Deal government of FDR in the 1930s.

[...]

[T]he horrors of the Iraq War left him with crippling, undiagnosed PTSD. A suicide attempt on the eve of being re-deployed in 2007 got Goldsmith booted from the service with a less-than-honorable discharge.

  Rolling Stone

And don't think that isn't used to discredit him by the right wing.

Goldsmith has been sued, and doxxed by white supremacists. On the day of his interview with Rolling Stone, he called to move our phone call up by several hours. “I have to fly to Asheville to deal with a little Nazi problem,” Goldsmith told me. A local fascist, having identified the home where Goldsmith grew up, has been dropping hate packages on his mother’s porch, including “gift bag” containing a printout of Mein Kampf.

[...]

Goldsmith entered a dark spiral, which included sinking down rabbit holes of online extremism. With his one remaining lifeline — healthcare through the V.A. — Goldsmith clawed his way back to the surface. He became a veterans advocate, earned a degree from Columbia, and (four appeals later) finally got an upgrade to an honorable discharge. Along the way, helped secure congressional reforms in 2017 that enable thousands of other vets get medical help and challenge their own “bad paper.”

During the Trump years, Goldsmith worked as chief investigator for Vietnam Veterans of America where he exposed a sophisticated Russian op that targeted U.S. veterans on Facebook to sow racial and political division.

[...]

Task Force Butler’s work centers on exposing the inner workings and public wrongdoing of neo-fascist groups through deep-dive intelligence reports that can give prosecutors the evidence they need go after the hatemongers in court.

From the interview...

My grandparent’s generation served in World War II. They were all anti-fascists. My grandmother’s brother, who died in France, he was an anti-fascist. And really, what the current “antifa panic” boils down to is a right-wing ecosystem that is trying to perpetuate fascism, and racism, and xenophobia and anti-semitism — who have an incentive to see these problems brew in the United States.

[...]

As veterans we have sworn an oath to our Constitution — and actually understand it; not like the Oath Keepers, right? We’re the real keepers of that oath.

[...]

Most of my guys are anonymous. I’m the only face of it, basically. So not everybody’s getting Nazis visiting their mom’s houses.

[...]

It’s only two dozen volunteers. It’s demanding job; it can be a stressful job: staring at the worst-of-the-worst on the Internet all day. But the veterans who have come to us gain a lot of satisfaction out of the mission. We share a bond — to counter fascism, which we all believe is the single greatest threat to Americans’ freedom, and lives, now in 2023.

GOP looks quite foolish - Part whatever

After making fools of themselves blocking it just a few days ago.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Republicans only hurt themselves with veterans stunt

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fucking GOP

Who were the other Senators who scuttled the bill?

They don't care about people.  They only care about power.  

A surprise deal on health care and environmental policies announced by Senate Democratic leaders Wednesday afternoon produced an unexpected casualty: the comprehensive toxic exposure legislation veterans advocates expected to pass this week.

The Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — better known as the PACT Act — had been up for a procedural vote in the chamber with an expectation of final passage before the end of the week.

The measure is the culmination of years of work by advocates to improve health care and benefits for veterans suffering injuries from burn pit smoke, Agent Orange spraying and other military contaminant exposure.

[...]

The measure passed the Senate by a comfortable 84-14 vote in early June, and by a 342-88 vote in the House two weeks ago with significant Republican support.

But on Wednesday, after technical corrections sent the measure back to the Senate for another procedural vote, 41 Senate Republicans blocked the measure, leaving its future uncertain.

[...]

Eight Senate Republicans — including Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Jerry Moran, R-Kansas — voted for moving ahead with the bill.

  Military Times

And why did those SOBs block the bill?

The legislation, known as the Honoring Our PACT Act (Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act), would expand treatment eligibility, and it has plenty of champions on Capitol Hill. Indeed, it cleared the House yesterday — though it did not pass unanimously.

The final tally was 256 to 174, with 34 Republicans voting with all House Democrats in support of the bill. That means, of course, that 174 GOP lawmakers voted against the legislation — roughly 82 percent of the House Republican conference. That includes every member of the House GOP leadership team, each of whom knew the bill would pass, but opposed it anyway.

[...]

The Washington Post reported:

Republicans who voted in opposition argued that the measure, which has a $300 billion price tag over 10 years, would add too much to the country’s deficit and exacerbate backlogs at VA.

Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, who’s both a physician and a military veteran, argued, “We are not doing right by our veterans by being fiscally irresponsible in their name.”

In other words, the House GOP minority believes Democrats wrote a bill that’s too generous when it comes to veterans’ care.

  MSNBC

Three of the region’s four U.S. senators decided Wednesday to hold sick veterans hostage to their own anger. It’s appalling and childish. The senators — Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Roger Marshall of Kansas — voted against blocking a filibuster of the PACT Act, a measure designed to provide funding to treat veterans exposed to toxins and burn pits.

[...]

The three senators voted for a virtually identical bill in June, which passed overwhelmingly. Blunt even bragged about it.

[...]

Senate Republicans were furious at a budget deal, announced just moments earlier, between Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin agreed to support a budget bill raising corporate taxes to pay for deficit reduction and climate change mitigation. The tax and budget bill would need a simple majority to pass, not 60 votes. That made Republicans mad.

[...]

The vote to end the filibuster was 55 yes to 42 no (Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer switched his vote to “no” in order to bring the measure back later.) In the Senate, of course, it takes 60 votes to open a can of bean soup, so the bill remains unpassed, while veterans suffer and die.

[...]

In a fit of pique over an unrelated compromise, Senate Republicans punished veterans struggling to breathe.

[...]

Comedian and activist Jon Stewart, who came to Kansas City this summer to urge progress on the PACT proposal, was equally furious. “Not one of these stab vets in the back senators should get to leave for the Summer til this s*** is fixed,” he tweeted. “Not one.”

[...]

Sens. Blunt and Marshall should be disinvited from any Veterans Day service or Memorial Day observance until the PACT Act is signed into law.

Josh Hawley? No need to worry. If he sees an upset veteran approaching, he’ll run the other way.

  Kansas City Star

And it's not just the veterans they're dumping on. They're talking about scuttling other progress.

“I just think the timing could not have been worse and it came totally out of the blue,” [Republican Susan Collins] the Maine senator told HuffPost Thursday about Senate Democrats’ unveiling of their bill to raise taxes on some companies, boost IRS enforcement and spend the resulting money to fund anti-climate change efforts.

[...]

Collins [also] warned that the manner in which that victory was secured, where it appeared Democrats kept Manchin and Schumer’s negotiations under wraps until a separate bipartisan computer chip production incentive bill was passed by the Senate, hurt the effort to gather support among Republicans to bring the gay marriage bill to the floor.

“After we just had worked together successfully on gun safety legislation, on the CHIPs bill, it was a very unfortunate move that destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are under way,” she said.

[...]

The news that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) had arrived at an agreement broke like a thunderclap over official Washington early Wednesday night. The bill still faces hurdles, including ensuring all Senate Democrats are on board and will be available to vote on it when it comes to the floor. But if Democrats pull it off, it could be a big political victory for the party and the White House.

  HuffPo

We're looking at you, Kyrsten Sinema. I think she's taking the opportunity to steal Manchin's position as the most powerful Senator in Congress. 

Republicans are so mad Mitch McConnell got played.

The key point, Lemire stressed, [...] is that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) got tricked into giving up all his leverage.

[...]

"It doesn't happen often, but Mitch McConnell appears to publicly have been played," said Lemire. "A couple weeks ago Senator Manchin suggested there's no deal for reconciliation, so McConnell gave the okay for the CHIPS bill. House Republicans said they'd support it, too. The White House has given its blessing, now we see McConnell and other Senate Republicans going across to their colleagues in the House, you have to oppose something you previously just a few days ago were for and also have to explain that vote if this bill goes down, seem to be beneficial to China. It's a spiteful action."

  Raw Story

Get rid of the filibuster.  And get rid of the Republicans in Congress.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:  Freely admitted.

UPDATE 8/3:

Veterans' price is high