Bill O'Reilly Insults Homeless Vets, Calls Them Junkies

For those of you who have been following the saga, Bill O'Reilly originally ripped into John Edwards for mentioning the plight of homeless veterans.  O'Reilly originally denied that there were any homeless vets at first, then when pressed said he'd get any homeless vets off the street if he knew of any.

But it seems now he's reneged on that deal, instead saying that he'd just pay for a homeless vet to travel to John Edwards' house.  Why won't Billo take them in?  Probably because he thinks they're crazy and on crack!

Go below the fold for the video...

This goes to show the double standard that the right has with regard to "supporting our troops".  If a liberal had said the things that Billo said, we'd be seeing round-the-clock news coverage bashing the liberal (and rightfully so).  But when you're a conservative, not only can you bash someone who is demanding that America really support our veterans (as opposed to just putting a yellow magnet on a car) you can say whatever you want about the people who defend our country and come out virtually unscathed.  

I'd call Bill O'Reilly a scumbag, but that'd be an insult to scumbags.

•  Tip jar

  by djtyg on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 12:48:50 PM PDT

  •  How mant times can a man turn his head and

    pretend he just doesn't see?

    http://www.tsrocks.com/...

    Thx for serving, Billo...NOT
    Are you the pimple on Limpballs backside?

    by deMemedeMedia on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:27:00 PM PDT

  •  Hope Billo doesn't see this article

    Why Does Johnny Come Marching Homeless?

    I mean, not because there are any homeless vets or anything....

    by Bailey on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:03:56 PM PDT

  •  Draft O'Reillys kids.

    Draft the Romney brood.
    Draft the twins.
    Time to give some neocons a reality check. Maybe they should experience a family member coming home to their attitude.

    by eastvan on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:07:14 PM PDT

•  Why Is It...

  ...that I have never, in my life, heard the term "class warfare" used for policies & language benefitting and advocating for the rich?

  by dyrrachium on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:02:22 PM PDT

  •  One time...

    Warren Buffet said "It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be."

    by djtyg on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:06:42 PM PDT

•  The convenient thing about O'Reilly is...

  ...that month after month he offends more and more blocs of Americans with his nasty-assed fabrications.  

  At the rate he's going, the day he dies will be enshrined as a national holiday and we'll all be off from work every year, dancing in the streets and swinging at the giant Brillohead pinatas that hold more of worth than O'Reilly's head ever has.

  by KateCrashes on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:06:32 PM PDT

  •  If everyone isn't doing that when he dies

    I know I will be.

    by dashat on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:21:34 PM PDT

  •  I don't want him to die.....

    I think it would be much more satisfying to see him live through twenty years of Democratic Party governance---and seeing faux reduced to doing what it does best---the Simpsons. Much more fitting punishment.

    by eastvan on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:17:15 PM PDT

•  Olbermann lit into Bill-O over this last night

  He once again named Bill-O one of his Worst Persons in the World, but also called wingers such as him hypocrites for being so callous toward our veterans. Keith even told that crowd to go to hell.

  by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:07:59 PM PDT

•  I guess Bill O'Reilly doesn't

  think that if 200,000 vets are homeless, not because of the economy but because of addiction and mental illness, that that isn't a crisis.

  I also guess that Bill O'Reilly thinks that if people aren't barefoot and eating shoe leather, they aren't really poor.

  I'd love for Bill O'Reilly go to a place like a village in Russia or China and have him say with ta straight face that because some villager has a color TV, a cheap DVD player and a hookup to a sattelite TV dish that that villager isn't poor.

  by calipygian on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:09:51 PM PDT

  •  How Bill-O perceives the homeless

    Ordinary homeless people are invisible to him. Homeless veterans are irritants because they upset his narrative.

    by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:12:59 PM PDT

    •  Even worse

      he doesn't seem to think that 200,000 mentally ill or drug addicted veterans on the street are a problem.

      by calipygian on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:15:07 PM PDT

      •  Exactly.

        That is a problem. The fact that we have 200,000 homeless vets on the streets for whatever reason is a problem. And the fact that we have so many vets returning after combat duty that are mentally ill and addicted is a fact. Time to wise up and start working on it.

        by Caoilainn on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:18:59 PM PDT

    •  Ah...the brutality

      of reality.

      by eastvan on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:18:27 PM PDT

•  I just don't understand him

  (thank goodness) Like it is okay if 200,000 US veterans are homeless because they are addicted or mentally ill? How does that even make any sense. I am having nasty flashbacks to the 80's when Reagan emptied the mental hospitals and homelessness soared.

  We still haven't recovered from that and now this yahoo says this? Oy.

  by Caoilainn on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:15:35 PM PDT

•  A lot of homeless vets ARE junkies

  A lot of right-wing pundits are junkies. There are junkies everywhere. I suspect, however, that a lot of homeless vets are junkies BECAUSE of their combat experience and lack of support when they returned. O'Reilly put up a straw man about vets being homeless because of the economy; Edwards never said that as far as I know. I continue to be amazed, although maybe I shouldn't be, at how inhuman some of these commentators are.

  by Lisa in Bama on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:17:31 PM PDT

  •  it's a twisted system as long as they are still

    using the VA won't help them and in order to get clean they need medical help  catch 22  I know many vets that have been denied help because they are still doing drugs which  they take to cope with PTSD it's a hamster wheel

    by testvet6778 on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:32:51 PM PDT

  •  Actually, Edwards does discuss the need for

    Vets to get job training and jobs when they return. The length of time that it takes a discharged military person to find a job is much longer than the rest of the population.

    "Sacred Contract"
    http://www.johnedwards.com/...

    The down turn in the economy will make this worse. Also, he address the issue of actived Guard/Reservists who 'take a pay cut' to serve. Those who have their own businesses return to '$$$ disasters'.

    by deMemedeMedia on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:52:52 PM PDT

•  Don't ever stop

  beating up on this guy dj.

  Keep up the good work!

  by Cordelia Lear on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:21:47 PM PDT

•  I want to see what percent of "poor" people

  who own a tv are addicted to drugs and we aren't talking poor pot heads... addicted to meth, heroin, crack.... give me those numbers brillo pad!

  by dashat on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:23:30 PM PDT

•  What a douche

  What a complete douche. Such an incipient ass.  

  by Bailey on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:28:33 PM PDT

  •  You are far too

    kind. Stop being so nice. He deserves much worse.

    by eastvan on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:09:28 PM PDT

•  Beyond Homelessness, Billo brings up "Mental

  Illness" and the total crap that the VA/DoD has been shoving up the Vet's arse for waaaaaaaaay too long.

  How much addiction can be traced to 'self-medication' because real mental health care has been denied or is out of reach. How about a big Shout Out to the Billo Reaganista Heroes that decided that people with mental illness got tossed to the curb if they "just didn't suck it up or didn't pull themselves up by the boot straps that you don't have"?

  The same Billo and the Buckos that will piss and moan because one of their rich bubbas looses his job for a "nappy headed ho'" comment, but think that the weakest deserve ridicule instead of a helping hand.

  A lot of people think that addiction needs to treated like a chronic illness.

  Billo, Buckos and the NOT Compassionate Conservatives.

  by deMemedeMedia on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 01:47:03 PM PDT

•  I actually work with homeless vets

  I am a person who actually works with homeless vets.  I work in a VA hospital, and we have programs for the homeless as well.  Our pharmacy actually distributes a flyer about refills that says, "All refills will be by mail order.  Exceptions made only for homeless vets" - now that's government compassion.  If you dont' have an address, you don't have to get your meds through the mail order program.  I have complained about the harshness of the flyer many times.  ANyway, these folks are quite real to me because I see them every day.  And substance abuse does play a part in it because they can't go into a shelter if they are going to continue to drink alcohol and use drugs.  Also they are not allowed to take weapons into the homeless facility, and a lot of these guys don't want to give up their guns and knives - they would rather camp in the forest or live in their car.  Maybe we should get an armory where they could check their weapons in and get them back once they get an apartment.  With my patients the big issue is the long wait for benefits after they are discharged.  There is a gap of about a year between discharge from the military and getting all the benefits squared away, and in that interval, they don't have much to live on.  Add to that the fact that they are not used to paying for the necessities of life like rent and food and utilities - these things are covered in the military and the paycheck can go entirely to discretionary spending or to savings or paying off debts.  Anyway, the only point I wanted to make is that all these folks who are fussing about homeless veterans probably don't know any personally and are using their existence or their plight to further their own careers and interest.

  by ArmyGirl on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:07:00 PM PDT

  •  ArmyGirl, experiences from the late 1970s

    as a vet trying to get through the VA maze suggest to me that the cosmetic "reforms" following the "discovery" of the shoddy treatment the VA metes out -- with the full cooperation and approval of the GOP -- have not only not improved the situation for men and women who offered their lives, gave their bodies and hearts and souls and sweat and blood and tears for a highly ungrateful nation, but have actually increased the suffering of the majority of the veterans whose care is in the hands of a vengeful bureaucracy.

    Do you know why those men and women don't want to give up their weapons? You dismiss their concerns so lightly -- "they can't get into a shelter." Experience suggests to me that a shelter isn't the ultimate goal for these men and women anyway, and a program aimed at getting them into what should be an emergency stopgap isn't in the best interests of the veterans.

    Those cars and camps in the woods are defensible spaces where privacy and dignity, and whatever solace a vet can find in peace, quiet, and self-medication are not such horrid alternatives compared with crowded "shelters," where hygiene is questionable if it exists at all and one not only does not know who is in the next pallet or cot but dares not trust whoever may be in that next pallet or cot. Dares not.

    Defending the VA and its failures by blaming the vets for taking what measures they can to protect themselves against an ungrateful nation is no help to the veterans IMNVHO.

    by BlackSheep1 on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:30:43 PM PDT

    •  the dom

      The specific shelter I am referring to is our own "domicillary."  It is a shelter on the VA hospital grounds where the homeless vets can stay until they move on to a house in the community and eventually get on their feet.  It is much nicer than homeless shelters that are for the general public.  At least in this shelter, they are with other veterans, four to a room.  But in order to get in, they have to be off alcohol and ilicit drugs, and they can't take their weapon with them.  I don't find these rules unreasonable.

      I don't know that I am defending the VA exactly.  I am often apalled by how little they have for the vets in terms of specialty care and how limited the formulary (pharmacy) is.  They want us to use 30 year old drugs that are cheap rather than more modern meds like celebrex, lyrica, modafinil, etc.  

      I am a war veteran myself, with a 90 percent disability rating.  I do agree with you that the nation is ungrateful for what veterans have offerred.  But I think much of your hostility toward me is undeserved.

      by ArmyGirl on Sun Jan 20, 2008 at 12:12:36 AM PDT

•  At It Again Heh ?

  People like Borilley should be sent to fight our wars . But then , we would never have a chance at winning them .

  by ArtfromMI on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:12:16 PM PDT

•  I emailed Orally

  and told him what I thought of him. I am one of those vets that if I wasn't living with my sister I could be homeless. My disability check doesn't even come close to providing for an apartment, utilities and food.   If he had wanted to he could have gotten the information about how many homeless vets there really are by just going onto the VA internet sites. He attacked Senator Edwards for doing his job- getting information from a reliable source.
  Unfortunately Bill is like Bush..if you point out they are wrong they act like you are an idiot and how could YOU be so wrong..then they smirk and laugh.

  by shanti2 on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 02:46:21 PM PDT