More on Religious Accomodation

According to news reports, the Military will soon allow service members to sport turbans, beards, tattoos and piercings as part of an expanded accommodation of their religious or non-religious expression.

The Hill reports, "A new Pentagon policy states that military departments will accommodate religious requests from individual service members unless a request would interfere with military readiness, a mission, unit cohesion, or good order and discipline. 
This would include religious clothing, facial hair, religious tattoos and piercings."


The article concludes by quoting a Pentagon spokesman, "The Department of Defense places a high value on the rights of members of the military services to observe the tenets of their respective religions and the rights of others to their own religious beliefs,"  "including the right to hold no beliefs,"

The revised DoD Instruction R 1300.17 is available here. On my first reading, I found some revisions that seem to weaken the requirements of the Services to accommodate religious practice. Perhaps more on that later.

I suspect the Church of Body Modification will soon grow in membership.

But still no slack for the Little Sisters of the Poor...

Veteran's Day Aftermath

Been a while since my last post. Life and Facebook have sucked out time for more lengthy reflections.

However, the occasion of Veteran's Day has also brought together three articles that deserve greater analysis in juxtaposition.

Exhibit 1: Hagel Says Cuts to Pay and Benefits are Needed

There are a few things I know about Chuck Hagel: 1) He is a Viet Nam Veteran of not particularly distinguished service. 2) He was a undistinguished senator. During his confirmation hearings his colleagues questioned his intellectual capacity to perform the duties of Secretary of Defense. 3) He replaced Leon Panetta; who, although a former Clinton tool, appeared to take his responsibilities seriously.

From these facts, I quickly determined that Hagel had neither the capacity nor the inclination to do anything but to carry out Obama's instructions to "Fundamentally Transform" the U.S. Military.

Thus, we read this oxymoron: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Tuesday that troops and their families will be asked to sacrifice on pay and benefits to preserve readiness in an era of tighter budgets."

Will someone please explain to the Honorable Mr. Hagel that shredding pay and benefits affects morale, recruiting, retention - all of which are instrumental to... readiness?

"We will need to place more of an emphasis on civilian instruments of power," Hagel said.

Yeah, that worked so well for Jimmy Carter, and has really done outstanding things for the U.S. ability to positively influence events around the globe under Jimmy II. Benghazi is a great example. Syria is another. I could go on, but it seems like Chuck, Barry and Valerie are the only ones who don't get it.

The degree of difficulty in the task increased exponentially under the budget cuts, Hagel said. The Defense Department is "currently facing sequester-level cuts on the order of $500 billion over 10 years. This is in addition to the ten-year, $487 billion reduction in DoD's budget that is already underway."

I'd like to give Chuckie credit that this is merely the normal DoD ante into budget negotiations. But there is no report in the article that he is asking for relief, or that the inevitable damage to readiness will affect National Security. It could be that he doesn't get it. But I think his handlers have no desire to adequately fund our Military.

Exhibit 2: While Chuckie was telling current and future Servicemen that they and their families were about to take it in the shorts - take one for the Boeing, Lockheed, General Dynamics, team, that is; his boss was telling us how much he values the service of our Veterans:

"here at Arlington, and Section 60, we’ve ensured that you can continue to bring the small mementos of your love and affection to the final resting place of these American heroes."

Wow. That's some commitment. But that's not all!

"we join as one people to honor a debt we can never fully repay."

What debt cannot be repaid by a government that feels free to spend $1T more than it collects in taxes, that has no compunction to running up $17T in debt for things it thinks are important? According to Chuckie Hagel, it isn't important enough to spend money on adequate pay and benefits.

"In the life of our nation, across every generation, there are those who stand apart.  They step up, they raise their hands, they take that oath.  They put on the uniform and they put their lives on the line.  They do this so that the rest of us might live in a country and a world that is safer, freer, and more just.  This is the gift they’ve given us.  This is the debt that we owe them."

Oh. Sorry. This platitude is, well, lame. It could describe Barney Fife, or a bus driver, or the guy who feeds the lions at the zoo. Barry really can't relate to the men and women who commit themselves, for four years of forty, to the defense of their country; who accept the demanding training, deployments, deprivations, discipline, and danger. He said if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. More likely than any son of Barry's would ever look like Micheaux Sanders, who was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in Iraq. 

"And that’s why, as Commander-in-Chief, I’m going to keep making sure we’re providing unprecedented support to our veterans."

And that's why he's kept Eric Shinseki as head of the VA despite his presiding over the abject failure of the VA to improve its automation systems or to solve the growing backlog of Veterans' cases. You want unprecedented support? You want VA health care that is above average? You got it. Because for those of us who are ineligible to be maltreated by the VA, Obama promises,

"that veterans not covered by the VA can secure quality, affordable health insurance."

Feeling the love, Vets? As the news brings daily reports of the collapse of Obamacare under its own mal-design, mis-management and ill-conception, this line of the president's is more of a threat than a promise.

So, Hagel promises to cut pay and benefits for those serving in the Military while Obama promises to inflict Obamacare on Veterans. Some thanks.

Actually, Obama never thanked Veterans on Veteran's day. Do a word find on the transcript of his speach and discover that the word "thank" is used four times: He thanks the sycophants and props trucked in for the benefit of the TV cameras twice at the beginning of his speech. He thanks Eric (black beret, tanks are archaic, ballooning VA backlog) Shinseki and he thanks his audience once again at the end.

But then, that is actually to be expected that he would refrain from thanking Veterans. Justin Doolittle (fitting name) writes in the Progressive magazine, The Nation:  

Stop thanking the troops for me: No, they don’t “protect our freedoms!”

Well, apparently Obama and his administration have taken Doolittle's advice.

No escaping the MiniTru

The piling-on of the media on Paul Ryan has spread further than I expected.

An on-line news site serving the US Military, DoD Buzz has gone all CNN, using biased sources in a 'news' article that reads like an Obama campaign talking point paper:

The lede almost seems relatively innocuous: "The military is so far off the radar for this presidential election that Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his vice presidential pick, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, didn’t mention Afghanistan once during their 60 Minutes interview Sunday night."

Of course, the subtle impression the article plants is that Romney and Ryan are hiding their views on the war against Islamist terror organizations. What are they hiding, we are led to wonder. Also, the two aren't thinking about National Security, the readiness of our Armed Forces or the welfare of our veterans.

Although there is nothing in the article - or in anything I've ever heard either of them say - that would support those sorts of inferences.

The most likely reason they didn't address Afghanistan?

"CBS Face the Nation anchor Bob Schieffer never even asked the Republican running mates a direct question about their thoughts on Afghanistan."

Oh. That might be it...

And the Democrat talking points continue, unquestioned and without nuance:

"Pundits have leaped over their desks talking about Ryan’s plans to cut Medicare and what it means to independent elderly voters."

Pundits have lept over their desks, screaming in unison the lyrics handed to them about the Obama's campaign false allegation that Ryan plans to cut Medicare and hurt independent elderly voters (read retired military).

So, what do Veterans groups think of Mr. Ryan? the reporter tells us:

"What veteran groups have noticed is a noticeable lack of the word “veteran” throughout Paul’s lengthy document."

Which Veterans groups?

" Jon Soltz, head of VoteVets​.org was not impressed with Romney’s selection, according to a Politico report.

“In his first presidential-level decision, Mitt Romney picks a guy who would slash veterans care by tens of billions and whose budget didn’t even use the word ‘veteran?’ Paul Ryan sees veterans as numbers, not as people,” Soltz told Politico."

Well, DoD Buzz went to a secondary source for their selected Veterans group. That's investigative journalism!

So, you ask, which one is it? VFW, American Legion? VVA? Nah, too obvious. Maybe they're just passing on Politico's biased sources, but the way they wrote the story leads to the conclusion that 'Veterans groups" including those major ones, have problems with Ryan.

And they have the quote to prove it!

So, is VoteVets and Jon Soltz a good representation of Military personnel and Veterans?

No. And it isn't any secret to the readers of DoD Buzz, judging from the comment thread:

"DoDBuzz should commit an act of journalism here instead of serving as a conduit for Jon Solz's White-House issued talking points and rehashing the old Ryan-Dempsey joust (which I'd chalk up to Ryan, incidentally). VFW Exec Director Bob Wallace's quote provides the requisite fig leaf for balance. Veteran voters can see right through this cheap "Chickenhawk" smear job. "

"Equating VoteVets with the VFW is a canard. Vote Vets is a liberal hack job. 90% of their board of advisors are left leaning registered democrats. Rep Gary Peters MI-D called VoteVets, "The largest progressive group of veterans in America, VoteVets.org PAC, with over 220,000 supporters" http://votevets.org/news/releases?id=0501 The VFW is apolitical and has 2.1 MILLION members. Why even mention VoteVets? "

And they said it better than I ever could.

And they are right. Here is a bit from Jon Solz' wiki page: Soltz volunteered for the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004. ...He has been a frequent contributor to numerous shows, including Countdown with Keith Olbermann[1] and the Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC. He has been interviewed by the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Newsweek.[1] He has appeared on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, ABC News, Nightline, Air America Radio, The Ed Schultz Show, and The Bill Press Show.[1]


And here are the top recipients of votevets PAC money according to OpenSecrets.org:
•VoteVets.org to Chris Carney (D) in 2010


•VoteVets.org to John A. Boccieri (D) in 2010

•VoteVets.org to Joseph A. Sestak, Jr (D) in 2010

•VoteVets.org to Patrick J. Murphy (D) in 2010

•VoteVets.org to Timothy J. Walz (D) in 2010

Open Secrets' profile of VoteVet is only surprising, apparently, to DoD Buzz:
"VoteVets.org is a liberal-leaning PAC which contains several affiliated VoteVet.org organzations. The group has raised money primarily in support of Democratic candidates and against Republican candidates."