Motley Moose – Archive

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From Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station:

The simple truth of the matter is that if America actually cared about its veterans, cared enough to do more than slap a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of their SUVs and feign outrage on command, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?

From Jim Wright, USN retired (h/t Smartypants):

This is nothing new.

This kind of bureaucratic flimflam when it comes to taking care of veterans? It’s been going on for years, for decades, from one war to the next and all the timeless space in between. And it’s not confined to the Veterans Administration.

It’s been happening in Phoenix and San Diego and New York City and New Orleans and Biloxi and Anchorage and Washington D.C. and from sea to shining sea.

This latest thing? The appalling revelation that the Phoenix VA was cooking the books in order to meet impossible deadlines and levels of throughput? That administrators were hiding unacceptable delays in service and care in order to get themselves monetary bonuses and to pad their resumes? The fact that veterans died waiting for the care they faithfully earned and rightfully deserve? Yeah. That’s not outrage you see on our faces, and it sure isn’t surprise, it’s amused resignation.

We’re used to it.

We’re used to being disposable assets.

We’re used to being left to die by bureaucrats and politicians and the American public.

We’re used to being forgotten when the nation doesn’t need us anymore.

Oh, please, don’t bother. I’m not looking for sympathy or any more feigned outrage, I’ve had plenty.

There’s more …

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The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama commemorated Memorial Day by honoring the brave men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our country. As we stand with our veterans and military families this weekend, the President underscored our commitment to uphold our nation’s sacred trust with our veterans and ensure they get the benefits and opportunities they deserve and have earned.

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Today is the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech calling upon us to work with him to build a Great Society.

In that speech, President Johnson outlined the principles behind the programs he would later propose; programs  intended to lift Americans out of poverty, first by ending discrimination, then by putting a safety net under our elderly in the form of Medicare and finally, by launching programs intended to improve the well-being of all of our citizens. Some programs were resounding successes and some were unable to be implemented or were dismantled by Ronald Reagan and his demon spawn ideological progeny.

The paths could not be more clearly marked. We can be a Great Society or we can be the puny country that the Reagan Republicans, and now Ryan Republicans, want for us; a country  where George W. Bush’s have-mores hoard the wealth and despoil our natural resources: a path leading us to a country where the middle class is destroyed and our children are left with an earth that is uninhabitable.

A quick scan of right-wing opinion pieces shows that, to Republicans, championing the causes of minorities and the working poor is called “Democrats pandering”. That is because to them it would be pandering, an attempt to get people’s votes by pretending to care about them. To Democrats, civil rights and women’s reproductive rights and the rights of workers and LGBT rights are not poll-tested talking points … they are the core of our party and embedded as Democratic Party principles.

It is not pandering, it is who we are.

It is the promise of a Great Society, one that “rests on abundance and liberty for all” and “demands an end to poverty and racial injustice” with this reminder from LBJ: “we have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”

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Today, a new national monument will be established in New Mexico:

On Wednesday, President Obama will create his second national monument of the year, designating the Organ Mountains in New Mexico a protected area.

The Organ Mountains, located at the southern end of New Mexico, will be the 11th and largest national monument of Obama’s presidency. The White House says that the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument will create $7.4 million in new annual economic activity in the region, a finding that first appeared in a 2013 report. That report also found the monument would double the number of outdoor recreation and tourism jobs in the region and contribute $560,000 in state and local tax revenue.

The monument encompasses a total of 496,000 acres, land which contains Native American petroglyphs in its canyons and is one of the most botanically diverse mountain ranges in New Mexico, home to about 870 vascular (i.e. plants with roots, stems, and leaves) plant species and a recorded 210 species of birds. The monument’s designation will “preserve the prehistoric, historic and scientific values of the area for the benefit of all Americans,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. Cattle ranchers who grazed the land before it was designated a monument will still be able to graze there – a rule that’s typical of new monuments – but all drilling and fracking will be prohibited. The area may have some mineral resources, yet new mining is not allowed in areas designated as national monuments.

“This is land that is home to pronghorn and deer, as well as rare plants and animals – some found nowhere else in the world, including the Organ Mountains pincushion cactus,” New Mexico Senator Tom Udall (D) said in December.

From Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument

Las Cruces has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to protect some of our area’s most beautiful and significant public lands. These lands possess unique Pre-American, New Mexican, and American history including training sites for the Apollo Space Mission, the Butterfield Stagecoach Trail, Billy the Kid’s Outlaw Rock, Geronimo’s Cave, World War II Aerial Targets, and thousands of Native American Petroglyph’s and Pictographs. Protection of these lands will preserve natural treasures like the Organ Mountains and bring jobs and economic development to our region far into the future.

More good government …

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