Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for another exciting evening of politics under the influence. This is your chance to hound Goldy about those “pressing projects”, and get an idea about how much venture capital you’ll invest. We meet at 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.
Drinking Liberally’s Seattle hosts are Nick Beaudrot of Electoral Math and HorsesAss contributer TheHim (also at Blog Reload and EFFin’ Unsound).
If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area, check out their Drinking Liberally; Jimmy will have the details.
The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 212 chapters in 44 states (plus DC). And if you don’t find a chapter near you…start one!
Might miss my second DL in a row tonight. I’m house-sitting for my sister, which includes keeping tabs on my 13-year-old nephew. And next week I’ll be, at best, late to the party due to the June meeting of the 43rd District Democrats.
Please, no sobbing… Or do I mean, no yawning?
Hi N,
Hey…bring the nephew along. I think we will be doing one of those libero-satanic indoctrination and programming ceremonies in the pit this evening….
I agree with Darryl. Introduce your nephew to the inner workings of the Progressive NEW Democrat Party of FUWA represented by their finest ‘Wipes members!
Army Reservists Ordered for Screening
WASHINGTON – For the first time since the Iraq war began, the Army is notifying thousands from a special category of reservists that they must report this summer for medical screening and other administrative tasks.
The decision to issue “muster” orders for 5,000 members of the Individual Ready Reserve, or IRR, is not a prelude to a new mobilization or deployment of reservists to Iraq, an Army spokesman said. Instead it is part of a new effort to fix an IRR call-up system that failed on multiple fronts early in the Iraq war.
One problem was that the Army simply could not contact many of its IRR members; it had allowed them to ignore the requirement that they notify the Army of a change in residence. Some turned out to be deceased; others were physically unfit for duty or faced personal problems that barred them from serving.
To correct that the Army is now requiring that they show up in person for what it calls a one-day “physical muster.” The idea is to ensure that when and if more IRR members are needed for Iraq or other active-duty deployments the Army will at least know which are fit for duty and where to find them.
The Army planned to announce the decision on Thursday.
Eventually all IRR members will get the order to report for screening; the first 5,000 are considered a test group.
IRR members are people who were honorably discharged after finishing their active-duty service but have not yet completed the eight-year commitment they made when they joined the Army. While in the IRR they are not required to train; they are not paid, and thus many believed they had no further active-duty obligation. Some are former officers who chose not to resign their commission and thus remained on the IRR rolls.
There are now about 78,000 members of the IRR, down from more than 110,000 three years ago.
An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, said the 5,000 who are receiving “muster” orders this month were picked at random, and they are not necessarily in line to get mobilized and sent to Iraq.
The first 5,000 will receive orders to report to one of four reserve centers — in Tacoma, Wash.; Fort Totten, N.Y.; Fort Meade, Md.; or Los Alamitos, Calif. — and will be paid a $176 stipend once they finish the one-day process, Gall said. All 5,000 live within a 50-mile radius of one of the reserve stations, he said.
The reporting is mandatory. It will begin in mid-July and run through August.
The last time the Army required IRR members to report to a reserve station for administrative processing was 2000, according to Raymond Gall, a spokesman for the Army’s Human Resources Command in St. Louis. After that the Army considered it too expensive to repeat, but the Iraq experience changed Army minds.
“The IRR pool is not in the kind of shape we would like it to be,” Gall said.
Prior to the Iraq war, IRR members were rarely called to active duty — and many believed they never would be called — but when the Army found itself stretched by unexpected combat demands in Iraq in the summer of 2004 it began issuing mobilization orders. Hundreds of surprised IRR members refused to report or simply ignored their mailed mobilization orders, and the Army realized it had lost control of the situation.
About 5,700 of the approximately 10,700 IRR members who have been sent mobilization orders over the past three years requested that their mobilization date be delayed or that they be exempt from service, and nearly 90 percent of those requests were granted by the Army, according to Army figures as of March 7.
There are now about 2,000 IRR members on active duty, mostly in Iraq.
[Quoted under Fair Use]
Tuor’s comments:
I have never copied an article here before, and I don’t intend to make a habit of it, but this is way too important to let slide under the radar, and no one else has mentioned it yet.
You guys were talking about the “back-door draft” before, and yes, what was happening with previous IRR call-ups (and to a lesser degree, Stop Loss) could be thought of that way, but only weakly. This is not weak. This is a major change of policy by the Pentagon. MAJOR CHANGE.
For many, many years, since long before I joined up in 1988, and probably since the Vietnam Conflict, those on IRR (Inactive Reserve) were essentially DONE with thier duty. The reason that, as the article stated, many believe(d) that they were out of the military is because that is how IRR was sold to them *by the military*. It has always been believed by everyone that the IRR would only be activated in the case of a MAJOR WAR. Iraq is not a major war. If we started fighting Russia or China, *that* would be a major war.
So, why this change? Why now? Well, obviously people are getting out. The drop in retention rates over time must be seriously hurting the Army. Soldiers are voting with their feet. Note the article talks about the drop in the number of IRR personnel. That is party because a lot of people who would normally be going to IRR are being held on AD.
Still, I can’t help but think that this has something to do with Bush’s desire to attack Iran, probably shortly before the next presidential election. Also, I think this is an exercise in incrimentalism in getting people to stop thinking they’re “out” when they join the IRR. Of course, the Recruiters and others will still try to sell it that way, but yes, this is very much a “back-door draft”.
So, I recommend that people pay attention to this. The military has to prepare before entering into a conflict, particularly if they’re going to be the aggressors. I think that what they’re doing here is one of those preparations. I think it may be a sign that we’re really going to attack Iran. It’s a bad precident all around.
N – While you take him talk about marriage:
http://tinyurl.com/2ey88h
“The words “natural family,” “marriage” and “union of a man and a woman” can be punished as “hate speech” in government workplaces, according to a lawsuit that is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Tell your nephew the outcome of Progressive politics and “reasoning”!
So even though it’s a lawsuit and it’s registered in the SCOTUS, because it was from the WA Times – Cluelessman masquerading as Yos Lib Bro (YO had sisters), will scoff at it.
Here’s a topic for tonight at Drinking Libtardly:
Dan Rather taking on Katy Couric. How can that mean old gruff man complain about the way she delivers the news? I guess he pines for the day fake news could be delivered with a straight face!
Puddy,
If you read some of the court documents instead of relying on a wingnut daily, you would discover that the supervisors removed signs from a bulletin board in a workplace environment for being “disruptive” (not for being “hate speech”).
The sign said:
The supervisors considered the homophobic nature of the sign (not to mention, its message essentially a call for eliminating homosexuals from the work environment, i.e. “preserving ‘integrity'”) to be inappropriate in a work place.
(Of course, maybe they just thought the a-grammatical second sentence set a horrible example for other employees.)
Now, consider this slightly modified version of the sign.
If you actually had an employer (I mean, instead of being self-employed), Puddy, mightn’t you have issues with such a sign being displayed in your work environment?
4 One can’t help but expect that those personnel who appear to be in strapping good shape and otherwise eminently eligible will be subject to no small amoung of arm twisting to return to active duty.
7 You mean, as opposed to a sarcastic smirk, like Couric does now?
Roger Rabbit rarely attends DL because Mrs. Rabbit always has “chores” for him to do at home.
@7 You want to see fake news, turn on Fox. The allegedly fake documents that ended Rather’s broadcasting career have never been proved to be inauthentic, and the military clerk who prepared the originals has publicly stated they are substantively accurate. The only thing “fake” about them is the right’s lame attempts to deny the truth about Bush’s military “service.” The guy was a shirker, period.
@4 IRR reservists are finding out, as is everyone else, that with the Busheviks in power, everything is “in play” — including not only traditional understandings, but also laws, and the Constitution itself … not to mention truth itself and the most basic precepts of civilized conduct.
@4 (continued) Hitler sent children and old men into battle; why does anyone doubt Republicans wouldn’t do the same? If Bush needed troops to invade Iran, do you think he’d be above recalling Gulf and even Vietnam veterans?
14 Ah yes…I can remember one episode of “The Twentieth Century” in which Uncle Walter spoke of some of the people the Nazis were sending into battle towards the end were referred to by our guys as “the ulzer corps”.
Here’s a subject for the crew at DL – why did Puffybutt mary a Muslim and why does she always want to suck my dick?
America Has Talent show 8:35-8:40 PM last night. You would see three members of Stupidman’s family.
Nuff SAID!
Darryl: I don’t have your “copious free time” to sit at my computer and do nothing “PRODUCTIVE” all day.
Besides Darryl, where is the “homophobic” reference?
Roger said:
“The allegedly fake documents that ended Rather’s broadcasting career have never been proved to be inauthentic, and the military clerk who prepared the originals has publicly stated they are substantively accurate.”
=====
Roger, I read those docs. I was in the AF and an aviator for 20 years and wrote lots and lots of stuff. When I read those letters, my main thought was that whoever wrote them was NOT an Air Force member and didn’t write in the Air Force “style.” He or she certainly was NOT an Air Force aviator! Call it anecdotal evidence if you want, but the letters appeared phony to me. You might argue that the facts in them are correct, regardless of who or how they were written, and, therefore, they’re legit. Well, Mr. Attorney, would that logic hold up in a court of law?
Here’s my take: if it doesnt’t walk like a duck and doesn’t talk like a duck, it’s probably not a duck.
I do commend Dan Rather for actually appeaing on Fox News, however. Since Fox News gets criticized a lot, it’s good to see Mr. Rather attempting to be fair and balanced.
You got to love the right wing’s ability to tell you that because a so-called liberal called the sky blue – it’s a conspiracy. Then you get all sorts of back and forth over whether or not the source is liberal and you get to ignore the fact that the sky is indeed blue.
Think what you want about Rather – facts are facts…
1) George Bush’s papa used his influence to get W into the NG instead of Nam
2) George Bush skipped ahead of 125,000 other people on that list
3) George Bush did not fulfil his obligations to the Guard and in fact was AWOL or something akin to it
4) Jane Fonda saw more of Nam than W.
20 I love that last line!
RightEquals,
The letter was a fake. Let’s suppose you’re being charged with a crime, and you, in fact, know you’re guilty. If the prosecuting attorney uses a false document to attempt to get a guilty verdict against you, then are you going to accept that and take you punishment? I think not. You’ll have your attorney point out to the court that the prosecuting attorney is using evidence that is fabricated. You’d no more stand for being railroaded by an over-eager prosecutor than you’d stand for getting a Tabasco enema on the courthouse steps at high noon on the Fourth of July!
The idea of evidence being thrown out because it’s from the proverbial poison tree applies throughout the our society. You don’t get to decide when to suspend the rules to suit your political agenda. That was Dan Rather’s big sin, and he’s doing a mea culpa for the rest of his life about it. Rather walked into this mess with his eyes wide shut and deserves every bit of condemnation he’s getting for being a sloppy, agenda-driven hack. Think about it: his shenanaigans helped GWB get re-elected.
RightEquals said:
“Think what you want about Rather – facts are facts…
1) George Bush’s papa used his influence to get W into the NG instead of Nam
2) George Bush skipped ahead of 125,000 other people on that list
3) George Bush did not fulfil his obligations to the Guard and in fact was AWOL or something akin to it
====
Probably true, RightEquals, but the letter we’re talking about didn’t prove it because it was a phony. It helped the Republicans to win in 2004.