Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Veterans, Abortion and Right Wing hypocrisy

Commentary By Ron Beasley



The right wingers are pro life until the baby is born but then it and it's family is on their own when it comes to medical care or proper diet or living conditions that would allow a life worth living - hypocrisy!  



Ron Basic The same can be said for the right wing support the troops meme.  They support the troops by sending them off to illegal and unnecessary wars then once they have served they are on their own - hypocrisy! An excellent article in the New York Times brings this front a center today.



Gen. Eric Shinseki was famously shunned by the Bush administration for daring to state the true costs of occupying Iraq. As President Obama�s secretary of veterans affairs, he is, thankfully, no less candid about the grinding problems veterans face at home. They lead the nation in depression, suicide, substance abuse and homelessness, according to data that Mr. Shineski is delivering in salvos in his current role.


About one-third of all adult homeless men are veterans, and an average night finds an estimated 131,000 of them from five decades bedding down on streets and in charity sanctuaries. About 3 in 100 of them are back from Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem of homelessness for Vietnam veterans is, shamefully, well known. But the men and women in this growing cohort took just 18 months to find rock bottom, compared with the five years-plus of the previous generation�s veterans.

I am a Vietnam era veteran and I did all right but many of my friends and relatives did not fair so well.  Many of them came back drug and or alcohol addicted and were never able to reenter society.  I thought it was bad then but it's must worse now.

General Shinseki has promised to galvanize the Department of Veterans
Affairs to lead a national drive to end veteran homelessness in the
next five years. Is that anywhere near possible? �Unless I put an
ambitious target on the table, I don�t know how we�ll start,� the
secretary told a forum of wounded veterans.

[.....]

We believe he has the mettle to pull this off. He will need a lot of
help from the White House, Congress and communities across the country.
The general-turned-secretary is appealing to thousands of worthy
organizations already in the field to double their efforts to help.

Our veterans shouldn�t be forced to battle on their own just to survive at home.




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2 comments:

  1. Steve HyndNovember 11, 2009 at 5:00 AM

    What were you thinking when that pic was taken, Ron? It looks like the cares of the world are on your shoulders and behind your eyes.
    My best wishes to you and you have my utmost respect, this and any day.
    Regards, Steve

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron BeasleyNovember 11, 2009 at 5:19 AM

    Steve
    This was taken on my second day in the Army. I had gone from a care free college student to a member of the Army overnight in the middle of a war no less. I suspect I was in shock.

    ReplyDelete

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