While I respect Senator Murray and was happy she was picked to take over from Senator Akaka on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee her attack is another disconnect in what Agencies can do with what Congress, the peoples representatives, gives them as I wrote a short note to her yesterday. The Veterans Admin. has been underfunded, and in many times politically run, since Korea as they moved funds from the Korean Vets to our brother ‘Nam Vets and ignored what we were even telling the Country, i.e. PTSD, Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome and more. The Country hasn’t wanted to fund the results of their wars and Congress follows that bid especially the tax cutters of which just recently they extended the ‘Non Sacrifice’, especially for the wealthy many making wealth off these wars and readily pony up big campaign contributions, cuts now over the whole decade of these two conflicts. Look in the mirror Congress and remember who you work for and their bidding or lack of as there’s been No Demand Still for ‘Sacrifice’! The easy way out is blame the VA in these cases!
Tag: House Veterans Affairs Committee
Feb 09 2011
Want a Taste of the 112th Congress, i.e. House
I started a site, a couple of years back, to help keep track of the Veterans Administration as I was getting pounded by press release after press release as Gen Shinseki took the reigns and came out of the gate, All Positive Pro-Active Moves, and especially as he started filling his Administration with Pro-Active Vets and others, allot has been accomplished.
I also was following the Congressional Hearings, those two years and the two previous, both houses of Congress, as they to were finally tackling what wasn’t done in the 108th and 109th Congresses as the (T)’s waged two Wars of Choice but also kept to their long practice of ignoring veterans except at election time. One of the many positives out of the 110th and 111th Congresses was tghe fact that almost all their hearings were at least live streamed so America could watch and listen.
Well I give you the opening to the 112th Congressional House Veterans Affairs Committee, below.
Jan 28 2011
Sen. Murray: To Watch Repubs (T) “like a hawk”
So will I and many many Veterans Senator Murray, so will we!
The recent past is still fresh in the minds, the 108th and 109th Congresses and still ongoing two Wars of Choice, the ‘purple heart bandages’, the ‘magnetic ribbons’ {till they blew off} and lapel flag pins as well as the hate rhetoric which continues. The total lack of Demanding ‘Sacrifice’ from the Country especially in the just completed political campaign season as well as since the start of the 112th Congress. We will be watching, especially, the House, and your Senate colleagues “like a hawk” as well, we already started.
Oct 20 2010
Making Veterans a Priority 2007-2010
Yesterday I received an e-mail from the Communications Director of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Kristal DeKleer. Thank you Kristal for sending this out to the e-mail list, will be passing the information on as I’m sure others will as well.
Also yesterday I used the following in a few posts as related to recent Veterans Administration press releases:
Let me tell ya folks, if the so called repubs, still haven’t met one true one in a couple of decades, pick up Any Seats let alone take the House what Shinseki and his Great Admin have been doin will come to a Screeching Halt on many and curtailed on others! This is the Most Pro Active VA in my lifetime!
When they’ve had to re-act, what with trying to move everything into the 21st century as well as catch up to What Wasn’t Done Nor Mentioned As Two More Wars Were Waged, they’ve been Spot On and Quick, pretty much getting up to speed in a very short time span or getting rid of the contractors holding it back and bringing in new!
And I would suggest, strongly, that any and all Democratic Candidates running in this election download, print out, study them and start using the points made as this Op-Ed is suggesting as to the lack of mention in this election cycle.
Sep 15 2010
Under bush the republican Congresses and Two Wars
There’s another Very Important House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing taking place Today. As important as all that have in both the House and the Senate since the 110th Congress, covering issues that weren’t even mentioned nor as the many complaints rose, over a number of issues, were meaningful Congressional Investigations nor Hearings held, as two invasions and still ongoing occupations were started and only grew over these last close to a decade now!
It wasn’t only with the do nothing politicians, it also came from those that supported them and these wars. As they slapped magnetic ribbons on their vehicles, quickly to disappear and not be replaced and claimed they were the true patriots who really supported the troops. It’s carried into the last couple of years under a label that shows the total hypocrisy of these same citizens, the so called TEA Party, outraged at everything Government with no mention of their own complicity. They use the Military and Veterans in their false patriotism, in word and symbol, but Never Once Demading that they even start ‘Sacrificing’ themselves after all these years, quite the opposite is their stand!
Jun 05 2009
Crisis at the VA as Benefits Claims Backlog Nearly Tops One Million
Crisis at the VA as Benefits Claims Backlog Nearly Tops One Million
by Jason Leopold, June 5, 2009
During the past four months, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) backlog of unfinished disability claims grew by more than 100,000, adding to an already mountainous backlog that is now close to topping one million.
The VA’s claims backlog, which includes all benefits claims and all appeals at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and the Board of Veterans Appeals at VA, was 803,000 on January 5, 2009. The backlog hit 915,000 on May 4, 2009, a staggering 14 percent increase in four months.
The issue has become so dire that veterans now wait an average of six months to receive disability benefits and as long as four years for their appeals to be heard in cases where their benefits were denied.
Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota), a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said during a hearing in March that the VA is “almost criminally behind in processing claims.”
Overhauling the VA represents one of the most daunting challenges facing the Obama administration after years of mismanagement and neglect by the Bush administration, which stacked the agency with political cronies and kept the agency underfunded, wrapped in bureaucratic red tape and placed the interests of veterans last on a list of priorities.
Indeed, one of the VA’s biggest failures during the Bush administration’s tenure was its inability to fully implement critical components of the Mental Health Strategic Plan (MHSP) at regional offices throughout the country.
The MHSP, unveiled in 2004, would have provided veterans who show signs of being at risk of suicide or are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with immediate mental health care and eliminated the waiting period for receiving treatment.
But according to a November 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), spending for the program was substantially less than what the VA had proposed – leaving untreated tens of thousands of veterans who were at risk of suicide.
Feb 06 2008
“Veterans – all their benefits are mere gratuities,”
WTF are this Gang Of Criminals, Thieves, War Mongers, War Profitteers, Twisted Ideologies, that this Country REFUSES doing anything about, Thinking?
Veterans not entitled to mental health care, U.S. lawyers argue
They took Complete Advantage over an Extremely Tragic Event, that they should have Stopped in it’s Tracks, Unless, if they paid one little iota to the Intelligence given to them, and Invaded a Country, Destroyed and Killed, that had Absolutely Nothing To Do With the Extremely Tragic Event, 9/11!
So many Lies in justification, when one would fall another would quickly rise, from their spin meisters, So Many Lies!
Dec 28 2007
So This Was Christmas
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
A song I kept hearing, over and over each day almost hourly, as my coworkers wanted to listen to Christmas music at the jobsite, so we switched channels, and the canned programming played this a number of times. I kept wondering if there was a message there or if whoever made up the program list really knew what the song was about, or if it was just about Lennon singing about Christmas, much like the Reagan campaign took to ‘Born in the USA’ as their own, remember that, nobody apparently knowing the words to!
Dec 13 2007
Congress Vows Action On Vets’ Suicides
This is a Quick posting as I just Uploaded the Video’s and am running around getting ready for work.
Congress Vows Action On Vets’ Suicides
‘Make VA go to the soldier’
Dec 12 2007
Mental Health Care for Our Combat Veterans
Tomorrow December 12, 2007, there’s a hearing on Stopping Suicide and Ending Homelessness: Mental Health Challenges Within the Department of Veterans Affairs by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee,
Ilona Meagher, of PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within and author of Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America’s Returning Troops, is scheduled to be one of the ones to testify at this Congressional hearing, as many already know. If you have the chance, and C-Span carries this hearing please watch! Ilona has a short send off post at her site, seems though she’s caught in the Mid West ice storm, here’s hoping this Important New Voice on PTSD can make it to DC!