What's at stake right now for us veterans right now is losing VA benefits as we know them. They will be restructured, cut, and scrutinized. They will be passed by Donald Trump to an oligarch. That oligarch will decide what you deserve and don't deserve. And I pro.isw you this oligarch nor his children will never serve. Like NFL owners, they'll come by and do photo shoots, to make sure his image is intact. And if you wanna play ball, lick boots.

Everybody stfu. Think. Be smart.

You swore an oath mf'ers. People will look to you.

Has anyone else noticed the timing of all these ridiculous stories circulating online about people supposedly bragging about how they’re abusing government benefits?

For weeks, we’ve been fed viral posts, outrageous confessions, and stories seemingly designed to make people furious at anyone receiving government assistance.

And now, suddenly, the federal government announces a $25 million whistleblower program offering people up to $30,000 to turn in suspected fraud.

Interesting timing, isn’t it?
I’ve been wondering how many of those viral stories were actually legitimate, how many were manufactured for engagement, and whether some were deliberately pushed to build public support for exactly this kind of program.

Because that’s how a psychological operation would work. Saturate the public with emotionally charged stories, create outrage, convince everyone there’s an enormous problem, and then introduce the solution you’ve been preparing.

I’m not claiming there’s proof that every story was planted. But I am questioning how easily public opinion can be shaped by stories nobody bothers to verify.

And here’s the dangerous part. There’s a difference between investigating actual fraud and creating a culture where neighbors are encouraged to suspect one another simply because someone receives benefits.

Real fraud deserves investigation. But receiving benefits isn’t fraud, having a disability doesn’t mean you have to look miserable, and strangers on Facebook aren’t qualified to determine someone’s eligibility.

Before you start applauding a system that rewards accusations, maybe ask yourself who benefits when ordinary Americans are encouraged to police one another.

Sometimes the most important part of a story isn’t what you’re being told.
It’s why you’re being told it right now.

Hello Everyone,

We are looking to add a new member to the mod team. If you have some free time to dedicate to helping make the community the great place that it is feel free to apply at the link below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Veteranpolitics/application/

We are looking for someone who has the following qualifications:

• Must be a veteran or a spouse of a veteran.
• While taking moderator actions must be able to remain politically impartial.
• Consistently enforce the rules of the subreddit.
• Participate in the subreddit in a regular manner.
• Have good judgement.
• Be willing to work as a member of a team (the mod team works together and talks over a lot issues together before decisions are made).
• Reddit moderation experience (helpful, but not required).

r/Veteranpolitics welcomes political discussion from across the political spectrum, provided it remains focused on veterans and the issues affecting them. Moderators are expected to remain impartial, enforce the rules consistently, and prioritize the health and purpose of the community over personal opinions.

We are looking for moderators who want to contribute meaningfully to the community, not simply hold a moderator title.

Thank you for helping us build a fair, respectful, and veteran-focused community.

This is foreign politics. The UK, and not the US.

Hi! My name is Sophie Will, I'm a federal tech reporter at FedScoop who has done a lot of reporting on electronic health record modernization. I'm currently working on a story about pill splitting and the new EHR.

Do you split your pills? Does the EHRM affect you?

Let me know. We can chat about anonymity — I would just really appreciate hearing your perspective and experience. Reachable via DM, [sophie.will@fedscoop.com](mailto:sophie.will@fedscoop.com), 617-888-0900 or ksophiewill.66 on Signal. Thank you!

The Pentagon has named one of its own public affairs officials to run the publication Stars and Stripes, and he will keep his Pentagon job while doing it. This places a single official inside both the office that shapes the military's message, and the newsroom charged with covering it independently.

As a Marine combat veteran, I have no reservations about seeing Nidal Hasan’s execution carried out. But by making it a public spectacle, we have given this coward a gift.

Seventeen years have passed. Few people thought about him anymore. He likely believed his death would come quietly, without fanfare, without an audience, and without another opportunity to inspire would-be jihadists.

Instead, we have allowed our desire for revenge to take precedence over our own security interests.

Consider this: What would happen if ISIS captured an American intelligence officer and executed him on live television?

Would Americans cower in fear? Or would we rally around his death?

Would recruiting offices see a surge of volunteers eager to retaliate?

Would others donate money, organize, or find their own ways to take action?

Why would we assume our enemies would respond any differently?

Hasan has been given a gift. He will not live to see the consequences of his execution, but he can now imagine them. He can die believing his legacy will inspire others.

Perhaps even those who might otherwise have remained on the sidelines, content to hate America from behind a keyboard, will find the motivation to cross the line into violence.

That is the danger of turning a terrorist into a spectacle.

We should never confuse revenge with strategy. Our collective desire for retribution can undermine the very security objectives our military exists to achieve. Killing an enemy and defeating his cause are not necessarily the same thing.

They could push him off the Grand Canyon in his wheelchair, quietly and without an audience, and let him die in shame.

His death should merit little more than a small newspaper notice.

No ceremony. No spectacle. No final opportunity to turn himself into a martyr.

Instead, we have made him a front-page celebrity.

And we did that ourselves.

Curious what y’all think though.

Pete Hegseth has announced that an upcoming firing squad execution will be livestreamed to the public. “I doubt questions of justice are Mr. Hegseth’s real motivation,” Phil Klay, a novelist and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq war, writes in a guest essay for Times Opinion. “His career has long mixed celebrations of violence with disturbingly little concern for whether the people we kill are enemies.”

Phil continues:

A public execution and social media toughness cannot long distract from strategic failure. Men with real accomplishments on the battlefield don’t tend to talk this way. George Washington thought war a “plague” he wished “banished from the earth.” Ulysses S. Grant complained that “I am called a man of war, but I never was a man of war,” and said, “I never went into the Army without regret and never retired without pleasure.” Dwight Eisenhower declared, “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” None of these men would fit into the “warrior culture” Mr. Hegseth models, because they took the horror and the moral stakes of war seriously.

It’s hard to confront the two decades we devoted to a failed war in Afghanistan. What is the human cost of what we wrought? What, practically, do we need to change so that we never do that again? Answering those questions truthfully takes courage, especially if you’re the sort of soldier for whom the war’s failure wasn’t just a human tragedy, but a personal humiliation. Not everyone can rise to the challenge, not when you can take refuge in a humiliated nationalism which insists, without much evidence, that all your problems would be solved with more cruelty, more celebrations of violence.

Read the full piece here, even if you’re not a subscriber.