Tweet
It’s not only old women who are living too long and expecting too much from the federal government in their Social Security check every month. According to Obama’s Catfood Commission Chair Alan Simpson, veterans who expect their country to stand by them after poisoning them in-country during The American Troubles in Indochine are "not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess."
Digby’s got the AP story and has this to say about Alan Simpson’s new target, American veterans:
All those Iraq war vets had better shape up or ship out too. We can’t afford to keep supporting people with brain injuries and lost limbs forever. Get a job or be a man and relieve us of the burden of your care. (Oh right, there are no jobs. Well then I guess the decision’s been made, hasn’t it?)
Seriously, if poor, old, and sick people across the board would just do the right thing and die, we could reform the hell out all the "entitlements." Their selfishness is really brings down the country.
Joan McCarter at DailyKos also has the AP story, replete with lovely Simpson quotes about how we need more common sense in Washington about our obligations to Americans who served our country in uniform. She summarizes his superb comments about ‘irony’ this way:
Just like the irony of millions of Americans paying into Social Security on the promise that they would receive benefits back, while the rich get off the hook for repaying the fund they "borrowed" from for their tax cuts and wars. Disabled vets are just like seniors–those "lesser people" of Simpson’s, the ones who fought our wars. Those disabled vets that our own military poisoned while they were serving, can just shove it.
McCarter has a hope she’d like to share with the White House:
Maybe this attack from Simpson will be enough for President Obama to give Simpson the boot.
Okay, I’ll play: Maybe?
Oliver Willis suggests it’s time for Simpson to go:
Time to get rid of him from the social security panel…. Even if there’s no definitive agent orange connection, the idea that it is veterans who should sacrifice for this is moronic. Simpson may be a vet, but he’s also a former senator who is well off and doesn’t have to worry about such things.
Is there anything Alan Simpson can say that will cost him his job? And how do his fellow commissioners put up with this crap at meetings he chairs? Why haven’t they alerted us to the danger Alan Simpson presents to America’s financial future?
Time to can the whole catfood commission. Sovereign default is too risky to be in this man’s hands — and in the hands of people who’ve listened to this dangerous man all summer without speaking out.
67 Comments
I love Joan’s plea: Maybe?
Seniors.
Their kids.
Their kid’s kids.
Veterans of the Armed Services.
What’s next – wait, that only leaves… Rich People:
NOOOOOOOO!
Nothing Simpson can say will cost him his job. Now that he knows that, the rest of the Commission’s tenure should be very entertaining. I wonder if this AP reporter called Simpson after sundown….
The ex-Senator’s family needs to do him a favor and get him out of public life. It’s getting embarrassing.
Never.
Happen.
On another site, Obamatons were ranting against Simpson for embarassing Obama and demanding that Simpson resign.
I suggested that Simpson was a proxy for Obama, and that Obama selected him and could fire him anytime he wished. In a nutshell, Simpson was appointed to do Obama’s bidding, giving Obama a way to avoid culpability.
That brought out the name-callers, some who obviously didn’t know what proxy meant.
The reasonable people responded with minor variations of the “super-smart, compassionate Obama in the clutches of evil appointees and advisers” theory.
These are the same people who complain about the mindless sheep on the other side.
I was going to end this post with the line “Sometimes I think Obama could commit murder and they would rationalize it away” and then I realized, that he already has and they already are.
Wow, he actually said that. What would happen if Van Jones had said such a thing…or if there was an unfounded rumor he had signed a petition that said that?
wow — recommended and tweeted teddy
There is simply no reasoning with some people.
None whatsoever.
There is a big difference between Van Jones and Alan Simpson. One is that the dissatisfaction with Jones came from the right. There is also another.
Can you guess what it is?
Thanks!
Yes, it’s pretty obvious which half of his genes he identifies with.
By the way, nice article, rec’d of course.
Great graphic, Teddy. Label 535 cans and send them to Congress.
On Simpson being a vet. Someone who served in 1955-1956 might be a veteran by classification but he has zero idea of what war is like. Or what being a veteran of a war means. More like a paid vacation in Europe or Japan.
Look for my new cookbook that will be released for the holidays. Wonderful recipes for Fancy Feast, I especially like Fancy Feast with a bechamel sauce. If we can’t beat em we can always adapt.
I doubt Obama will remove him. I think we ought to keep Simpson talking. Send some more emails from different strata of the population that need the programs they have. He is generating more ill will toward and drawing more attention to the nefarious shenanigans of the deficit commission than any progressive group has been able to muster thus far. If he keeps talking, he’s going to offend just about everyone, so keep him talking and insulting and telling people to get off his lawn. In doing so, he may generate enough outrage to discredit anything that comes out of the process.
I worked up a little something on this too:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/09/01/alan-simpson-condemns-disabled-vets-for-breathing-agent-orange/
Republics are unable to feel embarrassment.
I agree. Simpson’s co-head of the commish to do exactly what he’s doing.
Thinking the goal might be that Simpson’s advance comments are to lower expectations, so all the have-nots are thankful when the final cuts are published & they aren’t as bad as they might have been.
That said, what an execrable POS.
My husband and I are Air Force retirees. A year or so ago, he mentioned a concern about our retirement pay, because you have people in charge that don’t care their obligations, just how much money they can get.
Since we had a “C-in-C” that wasn’t man enough to go to a military funeral, is it any surprise to have a political party that plan on dumping seniors and vets when it might make there corporate overlords pay something. Just wish the other party wasn’t as concerned about those same corporate overlords.
Wish you weren’t right.
I can only hope that they get to the same level of over-reach that the TeaBaggers have and they get people so appalled they don’t dare rip out our social support.
Having said that, my husband has been out with a lot of people that listen to Fox News, Rush and Glen exclusively and they are scary. They have not one tiny clue, they are being led around like cattle going to the slaughter house.
I think, with the possible exception of WWII, it is traditional in the U.S. to forget about the vets as soon as the war is over. (Not that I know a lot about this subject; just some anecdotes I’ve picked up from reading on other subjects.) If so, it wouldn’t be unusual for vets to be a target of the commish. One of the (several) prime reasons why military has become more privatized is to avoid paying benefits, including retirement.
Good Point. From what little I know of the rest of them (who’s the other assclown with the round glasses?) they’re all on the same page.
All ove the MSM, cuts to social security and raising the retirement age take huge precedence over simply raising the cap on taxable wages. Raising the cap is only suggested by unserious people who are ridiculed and shouted down by so-called liberal jackasses like Countdown sub Lawrence O’Donnell.
I predict that O’Donnell’s new show will flop big time and quickly.
Another Chris-Mathews-status-quo-beltway type will not satisfy MSNBC’s late night liberal viewers.
Rachel’s warmongering and unfettered Blue Dim support is becoming very tiring.
I am going to wait to see Simpson going against John McCain on this.
Multi-millionaire McCain who has no problem collecting his benefits from serving, and being imprisoned in Vietnam.
If McCain doesn’t show the absolute height of arrogance of the rich on this, I don’t know who does.
Rather than criticizing or hoping, I find it more productive to look at evidence and try to deduce what it means. That does not guaranty understanding the motives (who can read someone else’s mind, and prez keep their motives & agendas as hidden as they can). Nor does it mean that even if you guess the motive accurately, the behavior will have its intended influence. Simpson’s so extreme, it could backfire.
Ask them why they let an Australian Billionaire and A Saudi Oil Sheik tell them what to think.
Yep. All he has to say is… “There is nothing wrong with social security. It does not contribute to our deficit problems. In fact, given the severe economic crisis and the enormous increases in productivity over the past several decades, we should lower the age of eligibility. That will give older workers an option to leave the job market if they wish, opening up jobs for unemployed young people in need of work”.
I guarantee you Teddy, if any such sacrilege passed that old coot’s lips he’d be out faster than Shirley Sherrod.
eCAHNomics,
I entered the Air Force in 1973, when it was still fashionable to demean our military. The one thing now I see differently that back then, is the realization that our military personnel follow the policies of the President and the Congress. The one big difference is pretty much every group, except the most fringe elements, agreed on supporting our troops. Both Liberals and Progressives get furious about the Westbo “Baptist” Church and their shenanigans. The real key to this discussion is if the conservative groups start slamming Simpson for his comments. I suspect most don’t even know he said that.
“Why haven’t they alerted us ….”
No doubt they agree with him. They’re just more circumspect about shooting off their mouths.
Considering what he says in public, I suspect what he says when he thinks no one is listening is not fit for print.
MCain is practical. $1300 a month pays one or two of McCain’s electric bills. /s
Agree with your last sentence. I think the only folks watching the commish are on the left.
They are so brainwashed I’m not sure they would even get the comment when it was said.
Simpson only needs a wife with tall blue hair and a shirt with a zig-zag stripe on it to make him the cartoon character he really is. Someone get him a can of beer and put him out to pasture in his beloved Wyoming Uranium fields.
I can’t believe that after this Obama will allow him to stay, but then so many of those yellow “support our troops” ribbons have somehow “fallen” off the BMW X5′s and ML320′s that there is no impetus among BHO’s Money Givers to give Simpson the boot.
And sadly, BHO’s manhood is being held in a blind trust for him while he’s in the Oval Office.
McCain wont necessarily oppose Simpson on this – he is after all the “highly decorated veteran” who voted against the new GI Bill – while running around the country campaigning for POTUS on his military hero cred
Simpson seems senile or with some sort of dementia. He is as old as dirt. He was always an asshole, but this recent run of outrageousness seems beyond his past normal (for him) malice. I always thought he left the Senate because he had a personality disorder and had burned too many bridges even for that self absorbed group. This is not a wise and learned elder statesman working for the betterment of the country, but a mean,crazy old reprobate warped with grudges. No one should trust him because he simply isn’t all there whether one agrees with him or not.
First they came for the immigrants,
And then they came for the Moslems,
And then they came for the food stamp families,
And then they came for the seniors,
And then they came for the vets,
And…. startin’ to get down there, now isn’t it?
oh, and fyi- no one has thrown down more obstacles to Shinseki’s expanded AO criteria than Jim Combat Boots Webb. Concern trolling moves to block passage out of committee, and blocking funds once passed – VA Chair Akaka to hold ‘clarification’ hearing with Shinseki in 9/23
OT LOL
cnbc talking about McDonalds, which is apparently eating BK’s & Wendys’ lunches. One anchor (male) sez to the to the other anchor (female): McDonalds has great management. They deserve an award. She responds: Just don’t eat the food. It’s not healthy.
Bet she got a lot of yelling in her earpiece from management over that one! Think it’s not acceptable to diss the product of such an impt corp on cnbc.
Very interesting. Thanks.
An unscripted zinger. Ouch. McD is will surely raise hell about that. Effectively clobbering their free commercial. That’s apparently one of the downsides to hiring all those health-conscious or at least figure-conscious beauties for tv consumption.
They’ll never hear it on Fox.
Think I’ve never heard anything like that on cnbc before, and I used to watch a lot. (Went back to watching a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to see how the MOTU’s are talking about the possibility of a double-dip.) So I just had to share.
ISM report better than expected, which is what I was waiting for, so I’m off for now. BBL.
Might want to think that over a bit.
One only look at the posters, etc. at many of the tea party events.
I guess we’re just going to have to call him
Alan “Death Panelist” Simpson, Chair of the Catfood Commission
Please, anyone, feel free to use that for a post…
I like that, may I copy it, please?
Copy, adapt, add, spread….
Thank you, I will.
Off to help a friend paint a rental house. Wish my shoulder good luck! >g
Simpson sounds harsh, but he’s speaking from experience.
He obviously has a traumatic brain injury and pretty much all of america except the mega rich agree by now that it would be best for everyone if that mentally impaired greedy taxpayer money stealing asshole would do the decent thing and die for the good of the country.
So please Allen, do the right thing [edited by mod]
[modnote: no violence, real or imaginary.]
That was a good one, PS.
OT– Disaster capitalist alert– watch your wallets and the markets this week folks as Earl is NYC/East Coast bound (e.g., here, here and here).
We all understand that Simpson is a POS. It may also be true that he’s actually drifting off into clinical dementia. Whatever the case, however, it’s clear that he needs to go. Will this WH do the right thing and whack him out? Um…I’m guessing not.
Given how “patriotic” the right is about the military, I’m thinking this point could get some traction from their end of the spectrum, too. Jane has proven that the way to really get things done is to form coalitions. (Strange bedfellows, etc.) This doesn’t mean an alliance is automatically formed on every friggin’ thing, forever and ever, amen. It does mean that a battle (when picked appropriately) can be won here and there. Moreover, such issues tend to open a door for increased dialogue wherein actual factual things (as opposed to complete bullshit) can be discussed. Whether it will do any good in the long run is another matter. I certainly don’t see how it can hurt, however.
Thanks for this post, Teddy. And thanks for letting me ventilate my mindless puerilities.
I am not so sure.
Kicking hippies is one thing, the Veal Pen snickers.
But start kicking Vets?
I think that crosses the line even in Washington.
And that’s exactly why I’m suggesting that this thing might get some traction on the right. And once that happens, the agenda of the Catfood Commission starts showing up on the wingnut radar, too. As I see it, a squeeze play might be very effective here.
Question.
What does Oliver Willis and all the Kossacks have to say about the man who appointed Alan Simpson?
After scanning the archives of both sites the findings are rather slim – to say the least – on that topic.
I’m not surprised people like Alan Simpson are out there, but should they be chairing such an important commission?
Setting aside the real purpose of the commission, two things are abundantly clear:
1 Obama should take the hit for having appointed Alan Simpson, and
2 Obama’s to blame for not having fired him already.
Excellent post.
This is rethuglician wide. Not just simpson. And yet, veterans in large numbers still believe that rethugs are pro veteran and democrats are anti veteran. The new GI bill and the increase in Vet benefits thru agent orange means nothing. We as a country are going to be so fucked this Nov due to democrats and independents sitting on their hands and letting the crazy people take charge.
I don’t even want Simpson to go. Firing him, and replacing him with someone just as thoroughly determined to gut SS may give people the impression that Obama is suddenly on the right side of this issue.
No, let Simpson continue to be the poster boy for exactly what Obama is out to accomplish with his Cat Food Commission.
I Volunteered to serve 2 years in Vietnam fighting for my Country. During that time we grunts were bathed in Agent Orange monthly. The stuff wafted through our barracks in and on everything including us. I am one of those soldiers who isn’t helping save the Deficit! I like so many of my comrades developed Diabetes which does not run in my family. I was never over weight. In 2002 I suffered a Heart attack, during the Stent Operation I suffered a stroke which paralyzed my right side. I am living on my Pension and SS disability. I would like Simpson to come and face me, Man to Man. I would like to ask him what more we Veterans have to give up for our country. Would being homeless and living in poverty with no health care satisfy him. What does he want from us?
Is there anything Alan Simpson can say that will cost him his job?
(1) We should allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. So what if some of them have to move out of their 50-room mansions and into 40-room mansions? So what if they have to reduce their domestic staff by half? Heck, all that many of them did to earn their millions was to inherit it.
(2) We should demand the immediate return of bailout money from the companies who put that money right into the speculative market and into generous bonus packages for their CEOs. We’ve got too many greedy Gilded-Agers sucking off the golden tit.
(3) Instead of spending more than the rest of the world combined does on the military, maybe we could spend as much as 50% of the world combined, or even 75%. Some of that money goes into experimental projects that won’t ever amount to practical battlefield use anyway. (Oh, and the perpetual war thing is maybe not such a good idea. Perhaps diplomacy would be a little cheaper.) Those greedy military-industrialists have been sucking off the uranium-coated tit for too long.
And how do his fellow commissioners put up with this crap at meetings he chairs?
Birds of a feather….
Obama just fires black people
You’re right side is paralyzed, but there’s probably more “man” in your right pinky than his entire body, he knows it, and he knows you could take him out :D
Here are the people you don’t want to piss off and steal from:
1) A soldier
2) An army
3) Enough retired soldiers to form their own army
These guys are used to marches where women in pink do goofy crap to get attention….
I don’t think they’re used to marches in the dead of night with people wearing camo advancing on their mansions with artillery support.
So sorry.
That war was hideous and hideously prosecuted and one of the reasons JFK was murdered IMO
Exactly right. If there’s one group I wouldn’t want to piss off it’s Vietnam vets with health issues who are pissed at being fucked over for their entire lives but have just enough energy left to do, one last time, what they were trained to do. And have nothing really to lose.
I am a disappointed by this post. I was outraged by what I thought was a direct paraphrasing of Simpson by Digby, so I clicked through the links until I got to the original Boston.com/AP story:
While I find Simpson’s comment about veterans ham-handed and lunkheaded:
…and shows this guy has very little respect for veterans who have served their country and deserve health care for WHATEVER REASON and not just service-related injuries, it also shows that this insensitive clod has no business co-chairing ANYTHING, let alone Obama’s deficit commission.
However, I think you mislead the reader by using an opinion quote by Digby to imply that Simpson actually said something like “all those Iraq war vets had better shape up or ship out too. We can’t afford to keep supporting people with brain injuries and lost limbs forever.”
I think this misrepresents what the story was about: that the commission is questioning whether the government should be paying out benefits to Viet Nam vets for diabetes simply because there might be a causality link between Agent Orange and diabetes. The article states:
He’s not saying that ALL veterans shouldn’t receive health care for whatever reason, but questioning whether we should be giving free health care to veterans for diabetes when there isn’t definitive proof that Agent Orange causes diabetes. There is a big difference between these two issues.
I expect more from progressives.
“”The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.”; #1, the first part of the statement is ABSOLUTELY false; The vets who fought ,died,were maimed or addicted DID NOT ‘save this country’.
Their lives and tribulations were a complete waste of human resources by a government that couldn’t admit it’s mistakes and lies until many years later.
Agent orange and the Vietnamese.
“Vietnamese victims class action lawsuit in US Courts
On January 31, 2004, a victim’s rights group, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA), filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, against several U.S. companies for liability in causing personal injury, by developing and producing the chemical. Dow Chemical and Monsanto were the two largest producers of Agent Orange for the U.S. military and were named in the suit along with the dozens of other companies (Diamond Shamrock, Uniroyal, Thompson Chemicals, Hercules, etc.). On March 10, 2005, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York – who had presided over the 1984 US veterans class action lawsuit – dismissed the lawsuit ruling that there was no legal basis for the plaintiffs’ claims. He concluded that Agent Orange was not considered a poison under international law at the time of its use by the U.S.; that the U.S. was not prohibited from using it as a herbicide; and that the companies which produced the substance were not liable for the method of its use by the government. The U.S. government was not a party in the lawsuit, due to sovereign immunity, and the court ruled that the chemical companies, as contractors of the US government, shared the same immunity. The case was appealed and heard by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on June 18, 2007. The Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of the case stating that the herbicides used during the war were not intended to be used to poison humans and therefore did not violate international law.[43] The US Supreme Court declined to consider the case.
Three judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan heard the Appeals case on June 18, 2007. They upheld Weinstein’s ruling to dismiss the case. They ruled that though the herbicides contained a dioxin (a known poison) they were not intended to be used as a poison on humans. Therefore they were not considered a chemical weapon and thus not a violation of international law. A further review of the case by the whole panel of judges of the Court of Appeals also confirmed this decision. The lawyers for the Vietnamese filed a petition to the US Supreme Court to hear the case. On March 2, 2009, the Supreme Court denied certiorari and refused to reconsider the ruling of the Court of Appeals.[44]”
And we are seeing the same kind of bullshit about Depleted uranium and vaccines now regarding our vets and the victims of an illegal war.
Those in ‘power’ have been screwing over those that fight for those in power ever since the Revolutionary War if one bothers to investigate; amazes me that anyone is willing to give their life for such people.
And ,fwiw,I’m a vietnam era vet. And while I can’t advocate violence on this site, when it comes to people like Simpson, I sure can think it. AND such wouldn’t even be an issue is there was universal healthcare, such as Medicare for All.
Is it for freedom?
What difference does it make if it’s for diabetes, shingles, or hangnails – they either have health coverage or they don’t. From what I’ve been reading, vets are not getting great health care and that’s terrible.
If I have to read one more idiotic thing that Alan Simpson has said, I’ll probably have a stroke and not be around to collect my social security. Maybe that’s what he has in mind.
Vets get little enough from the military these days.