Monday, June 03, 2013

Veterans isues

Sandhya Somashekhar (Washington Post) reports, Barack's pushing gun control again and will, as an aside, note veterans in a speech today, "During his speech, Obama is expected to announce a series of 'summits' coordinated by Veterans Affairs health centers aimed at bolstering mental health services for veterans."  Oh, goody. Because what the country needs is more words from Barack and even less action, right?  From Kathleen Miller's "Obama Vow to Former Troops at Risk as Pentagon Weighs Vets' Cuts" (Bloomberg News):


 President Barack Obama directed the two agencies in 2009 to create a “seamless” electronic records system to track a soldier’s health from enlistment to burial.
[. . .]
Instead, the VA and Pentagon have engaged in what House lawmakers described as a “bureaucratic back and forth.” In a May 22 letter to Obama, 20 representatives led by Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and Mike Michaud, a Maine Democrat and the panel’s ranking minority member, asked the president to step in and end it. The claims delays, they said, may be impacting veterans’ health.
Their request came the same day that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the military would buy a separate system for health records. His plan immediately drew criticism from lawmakers and advocates who have pressured the two agencies to build a single system.

Meanwhile Iran's Press TV carries an article with the headline "25 signs that military veterans are being treated like absolute trash under the Obama administration:"

Why does the Obama administration treat our military veterans like human garbage? 



Every year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, Barack Obama and our other politicians make very nice speeches, but the truth about how they feel about our veterans can be seen in how they are treated every single day. 



In the United States today, there are well over half a million veterans that have been waiting for at least 125 days to have their benefit claims processed.  Many of them will ultimately have their claims sent back or denied just so a government employee somewhere can get a bigger bonus. 



Meanwhile, conditions at VA facilities all over the country are absolutely abysmal, and many veterans have to wait more than half a year just to get an appointment at one of those facilities.  Once you start looking into how this country really treats military veterans, it becomes easier to understand why 22 military veterans commit suicide in America every single day. 



Our vets have a higher rate of unemployment, a higher rate of poverty, a higher rate of homelessness, a higher rate of depression and a higher rate of divorce than the general population.  It is a crying shame.  One of the ways that any society is judged is by how it treats military veterans, and the truth is that America has failed miserably.  This has been particularly true since Barack Obama has been in the White House.


There's probably more truth in state media out of Iran than in Brandon Friedman's garbage for Time.  Friedman needs to get his tired ass to Congressional hearings.  The 'news' he's reporting is actually what I said would happen when the VA unveiled their new 'system.' The numbers are not honest.  What's going on is recategorizing.  I don't have time to spoon feed this morning and I'm real damn tired of people who are paid to do a job making asses out of themselves instead of doing their jobs.  Again, this has to do with new categories and when this was presented to Congress by the VA, I explained in that day's snapshot that this would happen but I believe I thought only the really stupid would fall for the shell game.  Brandon Friedman turns out to be the really stupid.

In the real world, Jason Miller (Federal News Radio) reports, "The Veterans Affairs Department is putting its systems and the data of tens of millions of veterans in jeopardy because of a lack of institutional control over its cybersecurity evaluation and approval process, according to a former high-ranking VA computer security official and multiple other current and former agency officials. "


The US Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring Hiring Our Heroes -- hiring fairs for veterans.  They will be going on around the country and lasting for some time.  Today we're noting the June Hiring Our Heroes job fairs:


June 4, 2013 – Philadelphia, PA
June 4, 2013 – Lake City, FL
June 5, 2013 – Buffalo, NY
June 6, 2013 – Orlando, FL
June 11, 2013 – Washington, DC
June 12, 2013 – Omaha, NE
June 12, 2013 – Albany, GA
June 13, 2013 – Orland Park, IL
June 14, 2013 – Ashland, KY
June 14, 2013 – Meadville, PA
June 17, 2013 – Atlanta, GA
June 18, 2013 – Green Bay, WI
June 19, 2013 – Rapid City, SD
June 20, 2013 – Memphis, TN
June 21, 2013 – Cleveland, OH
June 22, 2013 – Greater New York City
June 25, 2013 – Savannah, GA
June 26, 2013 – Tulsa, OK
June 27, 2013 – Collinsville, IL
June 27, 2013 – Lansing, MI
June 27, 2013 – Boston, MA

 To see job fairs in July and later, click here.

 Isaiah's latest goes up in a bit (one more entry, than Isaiah).  On this week's Law and Disorder Radio,  an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) topics addressed include Lynne Stewart, CCR business, Jeremy Hammond, Bradley Manning and since Ratner represent Julian Assange look for them to make it all about Julian as usual, then Ray McGovern chatters about how he's just not sure Barack is that sincere in his promises.  I'm just not sure that Ray McGovern is that naive. 

As we noted in Friday's snapshot, Monday on NPR's Here and Now, Slate's Emily Bazelon will be a guest to discuss the issues involved in Bradley's court-martial. That's today.  It should be interesting.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.



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