Criticism of senator's war record rankles veterans
Military Times
By Leo Shane III, Staff writer
February 19, 2015
Mark Seavey, new media manager at the American Legion and an an expert in stolen valor cases, said he worries that criticisms like those leveled at Ernst confuse actual cases in which troops or imposters claim military honors they never earned. Ernst has not claimed any medals or campaign awards beyond her record.
Sen. Joni Ernst, on Capitol Hill with other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been criticized by some veterans for saying she is a combat veteran.
(Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Getty Images)
No one disputes that Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, served with the National Guard in a combat zone.
So the recent round of questions about whether she counts as a "combat veteran" has made more than a few former service members uncomfortable and upset.
But they aren't necessarily surprised.
"This kind of stuff has been going on for generations," said Phil Carter, director of veterans programs at the Center for a New American Security. "We've seen conversations about peacetime service as opposed to wartime service. We've seen veterans from different wars trade stories about who had it tougher.
"But so few people have an appreciation for what military service is that these arguments start to take on a controversial quality about what 'counts' as service."
Earlier this month, the Huffington Post questioned Ernst's characterization of herself as a "combat veteran," noting she had not been involved in a firefight during her 14-month Middle East deployment.
The Iowa Guard lieutenant colonel commanded the 1168th Transportation Company during the 2003-04 deployment, overseeing transportation runs in Kuwait and southern Iraq and running a protection detail in Kuwait. read more here
November 7, 2014 2:43 PM Iowa’s new senator-elect has other duties before she heads to Washington. Des Moines — A day after winning one of the most contested Senate seats in the country, Joni Ernst reported for duty at her National Guard base. Ernst, a lieutenant colonel, started two days of training with the 185th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion on Thursday.
Excuse me but after reading what John McCain wrote, I had to rush to the bathroom. Sorry but it was very hard to keep down much at all after this.
McCain: Clay Hunt Act addresses war's invisible wounds
Arizona Daily Star
Senator John McCain
February 4, 2015
Every day in America, approximately 22 U.S. military veterans commit suicide. That’s 8,000 veterans dying each year.
These heartbreaking facts only underscore the mismanagement of suicide prevention resources and mental health care treatment by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, a crisis exposed to the nation though the scandal of denied and delayed care that first began at the Phoenix VA last year.
I am proud that the U.S. Senate took an important step to improve suicide prevention services for our veterans by unanimously passing the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act this week. This bipartisan legislation, which I introduced along with Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., will enhance existing veteran suicide programs and offer new resources to help veterans receive the support and care they so desperately need.
The legislation, which had previously passed in the House and which the president is expected to sign, is named in honor of Clay Hunt, a Marine veteran who committed suicide after struggling with the invisible wounds of war. Clay, a Texas native, enlisted in the Marine Corps in May 2005 and deployed to Anbar province, near Fallujah, in January 2007. read more here if you have to
OK, had enough of that. Is this the same guy who denied there was a problem? Is this the same Senator who said that a suicide prevention bill was "over reach" and they didn't need something like it in Arizona?
It was about peer support for soldiers coming home. It was the Coleman Bean Act and it was blocked by Senator John McCain.
Rep. Holt: Sen. McCain Objected To My Military Suicide Prevention Bill
Amanda Terkel
HuffPost Reporting Become
WASHINGTON — In 2008, a young sergeant named Coleman S. Bean took his life. After completing his first tour of duty in Iraq, he had come home and been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nevertheless, he was deployed to Iraq a second time. Bean had sought treatment for PTSD but as a member of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), he found fewer resources available to him than to veterans and active-duty members.
In April, Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) introduced legislation named after the late soldier meant to provide more resources for suicide prevention to Reserve members. The House in May incorporated it into the National Defense Authorization Act for 2011, but it was stripped from the final version, and Holt is pointing the finger at the lead Republican negotiator on the Senate legislation, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
“Twice now, the Senate has stripped this legislation from our defense bill,” Holt told The Huffington Post Tuesday. “It’s hard to understand why. I know for a fact, because he told me, that Sen. McCain doesn’t support it. Whether he’s the only one, I don’t know. But there was no effort to try to improve the language or negotiate changes; it was just rejected, and I think that is not only bad policy, but it’s cruel. It’s cruel to the families that are struggling with catastrophic mental health problems.”
“He [McCain] said having these counselors check in with the Reservists every few months this way overreaching,” continued Holt, relaying a phone conversation he had had with the senator. “I asked him in what sense it was overreaching. Surely he didn’t think there wasn’t a problem, did he? I must say I don’t understand it.”
Who was Coleman Bean?
Coleman Bean was a lot of things to a lot of people. He was a son, a brother, a soldier, and to seemingly everyone who knew him, a good friend. He was someone they could count on to be there, in times of need and in happy times.
When he took his life on Sept. 6, he left those who knew him in shock. But he also left them with 25 years of cherished memories, the kind that could only come from a fun and thoughtful kid who became a loving, caring young man. It's Coleman's indelible character, and not the way he left, that his East Brunswick family — his parents Greg and Linda, younger brother Paddy and older brother Nick — will always hold on to.
Greg Bean, who is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers, knows how he'll recall his middle son. Most prominent in his mind is the memory of Coleman stopping by unannounced the night before he died.
"I was sitting here watching TV, and he poked his face in the dining room window and made a funny face at me," Greg recalled, adding that Coleman, living in South River after returning from his second tour in Iraq, had been dropping over for dinner often, knowing Greg was on leave from work and was cooking a lot.
"He came in and said, 'What'd you make for dinner?' I said, 'I didn't know you were coming, so I didn't make enough for you.' So he made a triple-decker peanut butter sandwich and chips, and sat here and talked baby talk to my new dog, who he had just fallen in love with. … But I'm going to remember that night, because he was just happy and joking, and we made plans to go to the movies the next day and to the gym together on Monday. … I've got a million memories; we went through pictures the other day, and all of them bring back lots and lots of memories, but the one I'm gonna keep with me is just the way he was the day before he died."
In the early hours of the next morning, the family would learn, Coleman got into a one-car accident in West Long Branch, was hospitalized briefly, returned home to his apartment in South River and shot himself. His family and friends would react with shock and sadness, and also with anger that he would leave them this way.
Greg Bean's anger is also directed at the U.S. Army. After Coleman returned from nearly a year in Iraq in 2004, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for issues including extreme anxiety attacks and depression. Despite the diagnosis, the Army sent him back to the war in 2007.
"He had gone to the V.A. and seen a bunch of people [at] the Lyons campus. … He was diagnosed with PTSD and some other troubling issues, just lingering issues from Iraq," his father said. "The problem is that the V.A. doesn't really have anything to do directly with the Army. When he got called back, the Army said, 'Well, we don't care what the V.A. says about you. If you want a deferment from that, you have to get it from an Army psychiatrist.' "
Coleman feared that if he went to an Army psychiatrist, he'd spend the next deployment cleaning latrines or some other unwanted duty.
"The fact that he was diagnosed with [PTSD] didn't have any impact on him being deployed a second time. I think that's wrong. I think that's horrible that a soldier could be seeing a Veterans Administration doctor and that carries no weight with our Army," Greg said.
Remembering a hero. Family and friends mourn the loss of Coleman Bean, 25, Brian Donahue, Sentinel Staff Writer, 9/17/2008
You can read the rest because the link is still active. Unfortunately the link John McCain has to history has been broken for many years.
By 2012 this was the news out of Arizona
"The rate of suicide among military veterans in Arizona is more than double the civilian rate. Advocates say veterans need more than benefits when returning from war. The average veteran suicide rate in Arizona from 2005 through 2011 is almost 43 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s according to data compiled by News21, a national reporting project based out of Arizona State University. And the rate should increase as more veterans return home."
So how is it that Clay Hunt mattered so many years after other veterans didn't?
This is from Barbara Boxer's website as a press release without any corrections done.
How important is this to her if she sends out a press release with all those errors? Lord knows I make a lot of mistakes too but since I am by myself and usually have my head exploding with frustration, it is a lot different than having staff to check.
Bill is Based on Successful California Program that Provides Homeless Veterans with Critical Household Items and Assistance to Help in Transition to Permanent Housing
Wednesday, January 21st 2015
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) today introduced the Homeless Veterans Welcome Home Act of 2015, legislation that would establish a national pilot program to provide furniture, household items, and other assistance to help homeless veterans as they transition into permanent housing.
“When many homeless veterans finally obtain permanent housing, they arrive with few or no possessions,” Senator Boxer said. “This grant program will assist veterans by providing them with basic household items – such as a bed or utensils– to help them successfully make the transition to civilian life.”
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), approximately 40,000 homeless veteran families receive permanent housing through VA housing assistance programs each year. However, most veterans who receive housing do not have the means to pay for critical household items and typically move into empty apartments. These veterans often have no means to cook or enjoy the basic comforts of a furnished home.
In 2012, the non-profit California Department of AMVETS partnered with the West Los Angeles VA to create an innovative “Welcome Home” program that provides homeless veterans transitioning into permanent housing with furniture, appliances, and other necessary household items. The program has since expanded to serve Long Beach, San Diego, Orange County and Fresno communities and has provided household items to over 1,450 formerly homeless veterans.
The Homeless Veterans Welcome Home Act of 2015 is modeled on this successful public-private partnership, and will help fill an important gap in our assistance to homeless veterans by addressing their immediate move-in needs.
Specifically, the Boxer-Feinstein bill would:
Establish a 3-year pilot program to award grants to eligible organizations to facilitate the delivery of furniture, household items and other assistance to homeless veterans who qualify for housing under the VA’s housing assistance programs.
Require the VA to prioritize communities with the greatest need of homeless services and fair geographic distribution when awarding grants.
Cap the maximum amount awarded per grant at $500,000, and the maximum amount of assistance provided to an eligible veteran at $2,500.
Authorize $5 million for 3 years to be appropriated for the program.
This bill is endorsed by the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), Disabled American Veterans (DAV), Swords to Plowshares, and the California Department of AMVETS.
Far from the first time Senator Boxer has introduced bills and far from the first time it has included errors as well as omissions.
In 2008 military suicides had her attention.
Bill Addresses Military Suicides
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
March 27, 2008
Last year, 121 soldiers committed suicide and another 2,100 attempted suicide, Boxer said on her Web site. She noted that the 2,100 attempted suicides represents a six-fold increase since 2002 (when the U.S. was not at war).
In addition to requiring a comprehensive database, the Boxer-Lieberman legislation (formally, The Armed Forces Suicide Prevention Act of 2008) would require the individual investigation of all suicides across the Armed Forces, and it would require the Pentagon to provide Congress with regular updates on military suicides.
A second bill, The Armed Forces Mental Health Professionals Recruitment and Retention Enhancement Act of 2008, would increase the number of uniformed mental health providers serving service members and their families. (Lieberman noted that the troops have a strong preference for uniformed, rather than civilian, providers.)
"This legislation will help ensure that the Defense Department and Congress are getting an adequate picture of the state of mental health within our Armed Forces," Boxer said in a news release.
Earlier that month she had this to say
“We have a big problem ... that is only going to get worseif we don’t do something big now,” Boxer said as she and military medical officials testified before the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee.
“We need to ensure we have adequate numbers of uniformed mental health providers who can train and deploy with our troops and be there when they are needed,” she said, noting that treatment does no good if it is not available quickly.
“When we do this right, it is going to help our military in the long run,” Boxer said.
And when will that be? After all the bills done the "big problem" became worse because the "something" they did right away and often repeated did not work and they just did it all again!
What kind of a game are they playing with the lives of our veterans and troops? We've heard it all so long now that the swan songs of members of congress have proven they are still tone deaf!
Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Bill is on hold and I am glad. When I read that Tom Coburn is holding it up, I had to leave the computer to fight the gag reflex. It isn't about what Coburn said but the simple fact I found myself agreeing with him and that left a lousy taste in my mouth. I just don't like politicians in general.
But Mr. Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican serving out his final days in the Senate before his retirement, said the bill wouldn’t accomplish much new.
“In almost every case, VA already has the tools and authorities it needs to address these problems,” he said in a statement listing his objections. “The department needs leadership, not another piece of ineffective legislation. Congress should be holding the VA accountable rather than adding to its list of poorly managed programs.”
The bill, largely driven by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, would require an annual outside review of suicide prevention programs to expand what works best for veterans and do away with ineffective programs. The bill also allows the VA to partner with mental health nonprofits, create a website to consolidate the VA’s mental health resources, and expand peer support networks.
Had this bill, or any of the others, come close to actually reducing suicides tied to the military, I'd be screaming "No amount of money is too much" to save their lives. But it isn't even going to come close to solving anything. We've had 40 years to learn that what works best is peer support but if their peers think PTSD is a sign of weakness, that support goes out the fucking door. Therapy works great but if they are not trained on trauma, especially combat trauma, that won't work as well. Drugs only numb but they are used all the time. Spiritual help works, especially with survivor guilt but then they turn around and shut up Chaplains sharing their own struggles with PTSD.
Here's a thought. How about "Stop Passing PTSD-Suicide Bills Without Knowing Cost" since all that billions a year have produced are higher suicides in the military and among the veteran population? How much time are they supposed to get to figure that out? How many more lives have to be lost after a decade of attempts to prevent suicides?
This part really got to me and actually proves the point of a clueless congress.
Saul Levin, CEO of the American Psychiatric Association, said, “Hundreds of additional lives will be lost” if lawmakers wait until the next Congress to put these reforms into place.
There seems to be reluctance and inconsistency among the CSF promoters in acknowledging that CSF is "research" and therefore should entail certain protections routinely granted to those who participate in research studies. Seligman explained to the APA's Monitor on Psychology, "This is the largest study - 1.1 million soldiers - psychology has ever been involved in" (a "study" is a common synonym for "research project"). But when asked during an NPR interview whether CSF would be "the largest-ever experiment," Brig. Gen. Cornum, who oversees the program, responded, "Well, we're not describing it as an experiment. We're describing it as training." Despite the fact that CSF is incontrovertibly a research study, standard and important questions about experimental interventions like CSF are neither asked nor answered in the special issue. This neglect is all the more troubling given that the program is so massive and expensive, and the stakes are so high.
The biggest part of the problem rests on this same group backing up Comprehensive Soldier Fitness. It was a research project sold to the military for soldiers even though they were just studying kids and their sense of self worth. How did they actually expect it to work on soldiers in combat?
"Regardless of how one evaluates prior PRP research, PRP's effects when targeting middle-school students, college students, and adult groups can hardly be considered generalizable to the challenges and experiences that routinely face our soldiers in combat, including those that regularly trigger PTSD."
In 2009, the evidence was already gathered to the point where this was predicted to increase suicides if it was pushed on soldiers. It was easy to see it. It was more of the same the soldiers were already complaining about. It was yet one more way of feeding the stigma by telling them they would be able to train their brains to be resilient. It was obvious that they would translate this into not training right and being mentally weak. Who predicted it? I did. That was just from talking to them and reading the reports. Members of congress could have done the same basic research before they shoved it down the throats of the troops.
Congress had the same ability to take the data coming in after this clusterfuck was pushed and suicides went up at the same time the number of enlisted went down.
What makes all of this even worse is when troops become veterans, the military stops counting them even though they are paying the price for what the military failed to do.
Top that off with the fact that this program isn't even good enough to keep "non-deployed" from committing suicide and you get the drift of what is behind all of this.
Sullivan’s Family Company Price-Gouged the Veterans Administration
Alaska Native News
Staff
Nov 26, 2014
ANCHORAGE – Dan Sullivan’s family company RPM attempted to rip off taxpayers by over-charging for roofing materials, including on Veterans Administration facilities. After a whistleblower reported RPM for price-gouging, the Department of Justice charged RPM under the False Claims Act and won a $65 million settlement.
Sullivan’s family, which owns RPM, has pumped nearly a million dollars into his campaign, raising questions about whether the company expects Sullivan to defend its practice of ripping off taxpayers. Sullivan has not commented on RPM’s False Claims Act settlement or criticized his family company’s decision to rip off the Veterans Administration. [Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8/29/13].
“Other contractors who are considering bilking the government should take heed: False and fraudulent claims on the U.S. Treasury will not be tolerated,” said the prosecutor who won the settlement [Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8/29/13].
“A growing number of Alaskans are concluding that Sullivan is just in this to promote his own interests and the interests of his family’s multi-billion dollar business from Ohio,” said Mike Wenstrup, Executive Director of the Alaska Democratic Party. “Whether its RPM’s price-gouging his brother’s fish farming company, Dan Sullivan’s family would profit at the expense of Alaskans.” read more here
Schumer: NY needs to fill gaps in screening military for suicide risk
CNY Centeral
by Laura Hand
Posted: 1 hr, 40 mins ago
For New York military alone, 1,500 members of the military have committed suicide in the last ten years, with 500 more guard and reserves.
SYRACUSE -- On Monday, you may have seen something you don’t normally see, a military vehicle on the streets of Syracuse.
This particular vehicle belongs to the Marine reserve unit in Syracuse, and the Marines were at Syracuse City Hall Monday morning to raise the Corps flag, as they celebrate the Marine's 239th birthday.
It’s an annual event at City Hall, but Monday the Marines were joined by Senator Chuck Schumer, who was in town talking about a growing concern for our military and veterans.
“The suicide rate among veterans and the military is going up,” he says. read more here
Senator Soldier: A Day After Winning, Joni Ernst Is Back In Fatigues
Iowa’s new senator-elect has other duties before she heads to Washington
National Review
By Benny Johnson
November 7, 2014
Des Moines — A day after winning one of the most contested Senate seats in the country, Joni Ernst reported for duty at her National Guard base. Ernst, a lieutenant colonel, started two days of training with the 185th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion on Thursday.
“Not many folks know she is in uniform on Thursday and Friday,” Ernst’s husband Gail tells National Review Online, “She does it without fanfare.”
A spokesman for the Iowa National Guard, Greg Hapgood, says soldiers don’t “punch the clock.” “We serve regardless of our situations and Colonel Ernst doesn’t want to be treated any differently.”
Ernst, a ferocious campaigner, had just finished a 24-hour straight campaign sweep of Iowa two days before reporting for duty. Her victory in the race also sealed the Senate for the GOP majority.
read more here
It really doesn't matter who, which party, wins the elections tomorrow because from what most of us have seen, it will be more of the same. The same distractions and pretending politicians care about any of us. Frankly, the way we act after they win, we deserve what they do once they get in. We never hold them accountable because we fall into the same trap year after year.
The best way to prove this is the way things turned out for our veterans and the uproar over what the VA was not doing. It made my head explode reading reports as if it never happened before. No one seemed interested in how it got so bad when they were screaming for heads to roll. No one was putting any blame on members of congress, who actually had the responsibility to watch what the VA was doing.
Veterans groups maintain that the backlog amounts to official negligence. Since the launch of the Iraq war more than four years ago, the number of people charged with reviewing and approving veterans' disability claims has actually dropped. According to the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA employed 1,392 Veterans Service Representatives in June 2007 compared to 1,516 in January 2003.
But hey, why talk about how long things have been rotten for our veterans when some get to play political games of whining now? Why should we be reminded of how long all of this has been going on? Because we are doomed to repeat all of it until the next election cycle comes around and politicians get to complain about the other side not doing anything.
It isn't just Republicans complaining about Democrats because back in 2007, it was the other way around.
This is one massive political coverup with the media leading the charges avoiding truth. First start with the simple fact that since 2010, nothing has come out of the congress. Why? Well Republicans control the House of Representatives trying to do what they want but they also control the Senate.
Sure you may think that since Democrats are the majority of the Senate they do, but they do not hold the supermajority limiting what they can bring up for votes when Republicans refuse to allow anything they don't want. Forget about up or down votes they used to whine about when it was a Republican president in the chair.
To think the majority of voters get what they want is a delusion. Mitch McConnell vowed in 2010 it was their number one job to make Obama a one term president, so that pretty much ensured that whatever voters thought they would get wouldn't happen.
Look up the worst congress ever and you'll find the last 4 years top the charts. None of them earned the votes they want us to give them again. Much like the years spent "addressing veterans issues" made headlines and reporters decided to give up doing investigations or even basic research to figure out what happened before to make it all this bad. The trouble is Congress controls the money spent on the whole shabang including what is done for veterans as well as what they allow to be done to veterans. Nice little game they play especially when you consider most of them were in the same chairs when shit stuck to the wall stinking up the claims coming out of their overused mouths.
Tracking all these reports all these years have left me with very little confidence and as for trust, it has turned into disdain.
I have a unique seat in all of this and remember what happened, when and why, so when you read Wounded Times, especially if you read it from the beginning, you understand the anger.
City Rallies for 300,000 Homeless Vets; VA Funds Only 12,000 Beds came out in 2008 and Obama made a promice to make things right for homeless veterans. But why talk about something that Obama pushed for making right when everyone gets to complain about what he got wrong? After all, when you read the news about two wars being started and less people working for the VA to care for them, it is easy to see a congressional coverup.
Obama made a lot of promises but the one that gets my skin crawling is the promise he made to reduce military suicides within the military and in the veterans community. Both went up but no one was held accountable and there is no indication anyone ever will be.
PTSD is tied to suicides as well as veterans living on the streets. Nothing new here despite the decades of addressing the needs of our veterans by members of congress going all the way back to 1946 when the first Veterans Affairs Committee was seated in the House. Pretty disgusting when you think about how bad it still is.
The American people are suffering from amnesia. Veterans are suffering because no one wants to remember that none of this is new to them. They came home from different wars with the same issues today's veterans have. When you consider we have military families of food stamps, what McConnell promised is equivalent to treason especially when there were two wars being fought with multiple deployments piling on hardship after hardship onto the shoulders of the military folks risking their lives while politicians got to claim they cared.
Years ago I was contacted by Dan Lohaus about his film When I Came Home. I was working for a church and figured it was the best place to let folks know about the crisis veterans were facing, much like Vietnam veterans faced when I visited the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans years before. I was wrong.
The board had to approve showing the film, so I gave my reasons for wanting to show it then got shocked with all the rants about fake homeless veterans and the view that the real homeless veterans wanted to be that way. In other words, either they used it to get money or chose it to be that way. I wasn't ready for that reaction but the Pastor took control and supported what I was saying. Then, thank God, they were willing to listen especially when it was pointed out that Christ and his followers were also homeless wandering around to spread their message of taking care of those in need with love while depending on the kindness of strangers to take care of their own need for shelter and food.
How could anyone hold onto hope of getting help when they were beaten down too many time? How could any veteran face being sent away from the people they turned to and then find any shred of hope within them to ask one more time, believe they mattered one more time or find reason to believe they were worthy of a helping hand? They couldn't.
The homeless veterans population has been reduced but troubling numbers show a rise again at the same time all the bad stuff they have to deal with has also gone up. We have veterans courts now yet far too many end up incarcerated. We have more treatment facilities for substance abuse yet far too many are given medications for PTSD with terrible side effects so they choose not to take them seeking illegal drugs and alcohol to take the sting out of their minds.
More and more charities pop up all over the country and community after community come together to prove the claim this nation cares for those who risk their lives to retain our freedom, yet far too many never hold the people they elect accountable for anything they end up doing or not doing.
Tuesday the American people have a chance to change the way things are in this country but the trouble is, the change involves the same folks that got us into this mess already. None of them show any indication they plan on doing anything differently. Why don't we vote for patriots instead of politicians this time around? Why not look up the records of the folks wanting to be re-elected and actually know what they've done before before we give them a chance to do it again? How about we vote for facts instead of party?
The rating for members of congress remains at an all time low but how low do they have to go before they get voted out? When do they cross the line so far they end up on the unemployment line? When do we actually use the only power we have to make a difference?
When I was young I wanted to change the world. My Mom sat me down and told me I was fighting too many of them so I was doomed to lose all of fights I took on. Then I found a cause to fight for with everything I had within me. My cause is veterans. I don't care much for politicians but they make the rules and they are in control over the military as well as what happens to our veterans. To tell the truth few have lived up to the speeches they give veterans groups while seeking their support and even less actually earned it.
We can't stop doing our part just because the election is over. We let both parties fall flat on their faces as soon as they got our votes, holding none of them accountable for anything.
Most of us complain about the military reducing the number of military folks yet few remember that it was sequestration that caused it because the Republicans want the budget they wanted and the Democrats didn't, so they came up with something so reprehensible no one would let it happen. It did. They did nothing about it to increase the DOD budget to let these fine folks back to work and prevent deployed soldiers from getting layoff notices. They didn't do anything about military families on food stamps either.
We let members of congress pull a fast one on us. We can't let that happen again especially knowing that the same folks claiming they knew nothing were part of the problem. Do something more than just vote this time or we're going to let veterans suffer for what we fail to do for them.
Blumenthal, Murphy meet with VA, mental health officials in West Haven on vet suicides
New Haven Register
By Mark Zaretsky
POSTED: 09/26/14
WEST HAVEN
And veterans “are twice as likely to take their lives” compared to “non-vets of the same age,” Blumenthal said. “Quite frankly, this nation needs to do better.”
Major J. Alvarado, director of the Connecticut Army National Guard Medical Detachment’s Behavioral Health Team (back to camera), talks about veterans’ suicides to, from left, VA Connecticut Healthcare System Director Gerald Culliton, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Mark Zaretsky — New Haven Register
Connecticut has one of the lowest rates of veterans committing suicide in the nation, “but any number above zero is unacceptable,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., joined by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and a host of VA officials Friday at a roundtable on the subject.
But for reasons we don’t yet know, “there is a problem with suicide in our military” that goes beyond just veterans, said Blumenthal, a member of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Veterans Affairs.
How big a problem?
The suicide rate among present and former members of the military “is twice as high” as the rate among people who have never served in the military, he said. read more here
Senator Coburn is just too funny for words. He has up a video of a phone and a message from the VA saying their office hours are over. OK. The point was what? He showed a woman leaving the office as if that was supposed to mean anything?
I left this comment.
Really odd since Senator Coburn didn't seem to mention how long he has been in the Senate and the job of the Senate along with the House is to insure that the VA had been taking care of veterans. CSPAN still has all the hearings up on their site. He also didn't mention how none of these problems are new since they have been documented for decades and topics of many hearings our elected politicians have held. The House Veterans Affairs Committee was first seated in 1946. Almost 70 years later,,,,,well, here we are. The veterans community has very different discussions than the rest of the population and this dear friends is what we talk about. Nothing new to see and that is the worst part of all.
Senator Tom Coburn forgets he was part of the problem. He should have put up the Hogan's Heroes video on Sgt. Schultz saying "I know nothing. I was not here. I did not even get up this morning."
Isn't that what our elected officials were supposed to be taking care of all these years? My God! Where do these people get the nerve to look veterans in the eye and pretend they are shocked by all of this? Veterans call their offices all the time and complain. It is something they have known all along.
This is the headline over on the Washington Examiner.
I'll admit I didn't finishing reading this since it started out with this;
Underworked doctors, crooked contracting officers, criminals, perverts and cheats are all part of the broken culture that rewards failure and punishes honest employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a report released Tuesday by Sen. Tom Coburn.
"This investigation found the problems at the VA are far deeper than just scheduling. Over the past decade,more than 1,000 veterans may have died as a result of VA’s misconduct and the VA has paid out nearly $1 billion to veterans and their families for its medical malpractice," Coburn said in a statement about the report.
The Oklahoma Republican, himself a physician, did not spare his fellow senators, who he said are often more concerned with the good publicity that comes from a ribbon-cutting ceremony than they are about holding VA accountable.
Not even close!
With over 22,000 post on this site, there are far too many over the last 7 years proving Congress had no intentions of fixing anything. I did a top ten countdown just from 2008 of VA scandals and those were just the ones I could think of were at the top of the list.
Senator Tom Coburn has been in all of this up to his eyeballs.
Here's a blast from the past and took place in 2009.
Senator Tom Coburn blocks bill for veterans
On the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th month, we honor all of America’s veterans. Today, because of you, we’re calling on one Senator to use today to truly honor veterans by ending his hold on a veterans spending bill.
Earlier in the week, I urged you to sign our petition calling on my Senator Tom Coburn to end his hold of S. 1963, "The Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009." Within hours, over 10,000 of you signed.
Today, we’re turning over 13,000 signatures to the Senator.
The petition was covered by the Military Times newspapers, which you can read here (Coburn blocking bill).
By blocking this bill Sen. Coburn is denying veterans a myriad of benefits and services: Caregiver assistance to our most wounded veterans, who often need assistance to do some of the smallest tasks; Funding for such issues as mental health care for women who suffered military sexual trauma, women’s health care needs and medical services for newborn children; Aid for rural veteran health care issues; Mental health care; and, Programs to help ease the burden of veteran homelessness.
On this veterans day, I’d urge Senator Coburn to think about the thousands and thousands of veterans he’s hurting by playing politics with veterans care. The best thing he can do to honor veterans today is to release his hold on this bill. Because of you, the pressure is on him to do so. Today, we honor all of America’s veterans. Now it’s time for Senator Coburn to join us.
Sincerely,Miranda Norman
Iraq War Veteran
Oklahoma State Captain, VoteVets.org
And Jon, Peter, Brian, Richard, and the entire VoteVets.org team
This is from his own site. Prepare to have a sick feeling in your stomach.
Dr. Coburn Challenges Senators to Make Sacrifices for Veterans Health Care
November 9, 2009
“Our nation’s veterans have made tremendous sacrifices in defense of our freedoms. The least Senators should do is make the easy sacrifice of eliminating a small amount of wasteful spending to improve veterans’ health care. Leadership, after all, is making sacrifices and hard choices. Veterans and every family in America make hard choices every day between competing financial priorities. It’s time for politicians in Washington to do the same,” Dr. Coburn said.......
“The American people and our veterans understand that our spending problem has become a national security problem. We are borrowing massive sums from potential adversaries and are watching the value of the dollar decline because other nation’s doubt our ability and willingness to pay off our $12 trillion debt. If we don’t start making hard choices we may not have a country left to defend,” Dr. Coburn said.
As for veterans dying waiting for care we have this reminder
Oklahoma veterans and active-duty military personnel are killing themselves at twice the rate of civilians, despite increased efforts to address the problem.
The 2011 suicide rate for soldiers was about 44 per 100,000 population, according to an Oklahoma Watch analysis of Oklahoma State Department of Health data. This rate includes active-duty military as well as veterans from the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea and World War II. The civilian rate for people over the age of 18 was about 22 per 100,000.
In 2011, 141 of the state’s 684 suicides were veterans, according to state health department records.
The veteran suicide rate in Oklahoma is down from a peak of about 46 in 2008, but researchers said that year had increased suicides due to the Great Recession. The rate dropped to about 39 in 2009 and has since climbed back up.
There is also this from 2012
Senators holding up a vote on a veterans jobs bill came under blistering criticism Thursday afternoon during a phone-in press conference with Senate Veterans Affairs Chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray and Sen. Ben Nelson, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The legislation, which is largely made up of provisions originated by or co-sponsored by GOP Senators, is currently being held up by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who says he will filibuster the bill until a doctor jailed in Pakistan for helping the U.S. locate Osama bin Laden is freed.
But other Republicans have offered different reasons for not letting the bill go to a vote, said Murray. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., justified not voting on the bill because the House of Representatives would block it, according to Murray.
This could go on and on and on since Coburn has been in the seat long enough to know better. Too bad he is just like the rest of them using the Sgt. Schultz excuse.
Paralyzed veteran defends Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) in new ad
Washington Post
BY SEAN SULLIVAN
June 19, 2014
Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) released a new TV Thursday in which a retired soldier who served under Walsh's command in Iraq defends his military record against Republican attacks that note Walsh was reprimanded by the U.S. Army.
In the commercial shared with Post Politics, retired Staff Sgt. John Bennett, who was paralyzed from the waist down after taking sniper fire, vouches for Walsh, who he says "went to bat for us."
Walsh is a former adjutant general of the Montana National Guard who led more than 700 soldiers in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. Bennett served under his command in Iraq. read more here
Tom Coburn pretends all the trouble veterans face is a shock. So did Jeff Miller of Florida. Now, Lindsey Graham pretends to be shocked.
Sen. Lindsey Graham discusses VA health care overhaul but did he mention how long he's been in the Senate? Did he mention how many hearings, how many times in all those years he has known about the problems from news reports along with veterans calling his office trying to get some help?
About Senator Graham
Biography
In the United States Senate, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham has earned a reputation as a conservative, a problem-solver, and a leader who gets things done.
Graham is widely viewed as one of the strongest proponents of a robust national defense and a great friend to our men and women serving in uniform. A frequent visitor to Afghanistan for on-the-ground assessments, Graham has consistently pushed for outcomes in the War on Terror which defend our own long-term national security interests.
Closer to home, Graham has been a leader in cutting spending, reforming entitlements, and getting government out of the way so businesses can create jobs. He has repeatedly voted against Obamacare, opposed Dodd-Frank, and fought President Obama's wasteful stimulus bill. For his work, a prominent national conservative organization honored him as a Taxpayer Hero who puts "the interests of the taxpayer ahead of politics by consistently voting to cut wasteful spending, reduce the tax burden, and make government more accountable to taxpayers."
Graham was elected to the Senate in 2002 and re-elected in 2008, garnering over one million votes and becoming the top vote-getter in South Carolina's history.
He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as the first Republican from the Third Congressional District of South Carolina since 1877.
Prior to his service in the House, Graham compiled a distinguished record in the United States Air Force as he logged six-and-a-half years of service on active duty as an Air Force lawyer. From 1984-1988, he was assigned overseas and served at Rhein-Main Air Force Base in Germany.
Upon leaving active duty Air Force in 1989, Graham joined the South Carolina Air National Guard where he served until 1995. During the first Gulf War in the early 90's, Graham was called to active duty and served state-side at McEntire Air National Guard Base as Staff Judge Advocate where he prepared members for deployment to the Gulf region.
Graham continues to serve his country in the U.S. Air Force Reserves and is one of only two U.S. Senators currently serving in the Guard or Reserves. He is a colonel and is assigned as a Senior Instructor at the Air Force JAG School.
What got done for other Gulf War Veterans? Most have been forgotten about in all of this. It has been on crisis after another while politicians get to talk to the press.
That's the biggest problem in Washington. They all use the Sgt. Schultz excuse and veterans are fed up!
Senator Tom Coburn seems to forget that since 2004, he was part of the problem and not the solution. Coburn was complaining about the problems caused by the VA. The problem is, he was in office when it went from bad to worse. Every member of congress is responsible for what happened to our veterans. They want to use the Sgt. Schultz excuse. "I knew nothing."
"I know nothing, I was not here - I did not even get up this morning!"
It is unacceptable that the men and women who bravely fought for our freedom are losing their lives, not at the hands of terrorists or enemy combatants, but from neglect by the very government agency established to take care of them. (Senator Tom Coburn)
(WASHINGTON) -- In this week's Republican address, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn calls on President Obama to nominate a new Veterans Affairs Secretary to address what he deems "the myriad failings" at the agency.
Acknowledging the recent VA scandal dealing with long wait times and delays, Coburn says, "Veterans who have survived war should no longer have to do battle with bureaucracy to access the best possible care. It’s time to give our combat-impacted veterans the very best care that they have earned and deserve.”
Citing a bipartisan bill recently approved by the Senate, Coburn says passage of the legislation empowering veterans is just the beginning. The lawmaker adds that he will release an oversight report next week that "exposes a culture within the VA where vets are not always a priority and in which administrators manipulate both data and employees to give the appearance that all is well."
Wow sounded like he was really serious but the agency he should have been nailing was the Senate and the House considering they had control over the VA and the budget and held all the hearings year after year. He has been in his Senate office since 2004 but in political office since 1995.
Prior to his election to the Senate, Dr. Coburn represented Oklahoma's Second Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 through 2001. He was first elected in 1994, then re-elected in 1996 and 1998, becoming the first Republican to hold the seat for consecutive terms. Dr. Coburn retired from Congress in 2001, fulfilling his pledge to serve no more than three terms in the House.
Here is another part of his bio.
Dr. Coburn's priorities in the Senate include reducing wasteful spending, protecting your liberty, balancing the budget, improving health care access and affordability, protecting the sanctity of all human life - including the unborn - and representing traditional, Oklahoma values. As a citizen legislator, Dr. Coburn has pledged to serve no more than two terms in the Senate and to continue to care for patients. He is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Dr. Coburn also serves as Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
In all those years one thing is clear. He knew about the problems veterans were facing at least in his home state of Oklahoma. Veterans do not suffer quietly. They complain. First they fight for themselves but then when they get the run around, they call the people elected to serve them. Veterans call and the staffer takes the call, figures out what to do and then report to their boss, in this case, Coburn.
Nothing that happened in all these years should have surprised Coburn.
In letters to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and Congressman James Lankford, state Rep. Anastasia A. Pittman has requested a federal investigation of employment practices, alleged civil rights violations and patient care at the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The center is in Pittman’s legislative district.
Nearly three months after an 85-year-old veteran died after being scalded in a whirlpool bath at the Claremore Veterans Center, the executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs has retired and the administrator of the center abruptly resigned.
A veterans affairs official said executive director Martha Spears retired Friday, citing her husband's ongoing medical issues. Claremore Veterans Center administrator Cynthia Adams did not give a reason for her resignation, said Larry Jordan, administrative programs officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Claremore division.
Coburn would have known about the VA claims problems too,
An Oklahoma veteran is enjoying a long overdue payday. The former soldier, from Tulsa, finally received $600,000 in back benefits that he was never paid because of a paperwork error.
The veteran wants to keep his privacy about the money, so we won't use his name.
The 2011 suicide rate for soldiers was about 44 per 100,000 population, according to an Oklahoma Watch analysis of Oklahoma State Department of Health data. This rate includes active-duty military as well as veterans from the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea and World War II. The civilian rate for people over the age of 18 was about 22 per 100,000.
In 2011, 141 of the state’s 684 suicides were veterans, according to state health department records.
The veteran suicide rate in Oklahoma is down from a peak of about 46 in 2008, but researchers said that year had increased suicides due to the Great Recession. The rate dropped to about 39 in 2009 and has since climbed back up.
But why remember all that? Why remember all the bills that were passed to "address the problems in the VA" when they had the umteenth chance to fix it once and for all? Why acknowledge what he knew when he knew it when he gets to pretend, he wasn't even there?
Jeremiah A. Denton Jr., Vietnam POW and U.S. senator, dies
Washington Post
By Emily Langer
Updated: Friday, March 28, 2014
Jeremiah A. Denton Jr., a retired Navy rear admiral and former U.S. senator who survived nearly eight years of captivity in North Vietnamese prisons, and whose public acts of defiance and patriotism came to embody the sacrifices of American POWs in Vietnam, died March 28 at a hospice in Virginia Beach. He was 89.
The cause was complications from a heart ailment, said his son Jim Denton. Adm. Denton was a native of Alabama, where in 1980 he became the state’s first Republican to win election to the Senate since Reconstruction. read more here
Denton is featured in Two Men, Two Fates about Vietnam POWs on Stars and Stripes.
More than 700 servicemembers became prisoners of war in Vietnam.
None endured longer than Floyd James Thompson and Everett Alvarez Jr.
The two men represent the extremes of the POW experience -- in captivity and in life.
By Chris Carroll
The crisis for veterans is not new
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 27, 2014
The crisis for veterans is not new and apparently are not even worthy of the news reporting facts instead of claims made year after year.
There are so many reports on PTSD and suicides tied to the military that it is hard to keep up with all they get wrong.
First, what Senator Walsh got right was that the VA covers veterans for the first 5 years after leaving the military. The second thing he got right is most of the time symptoms of PTSD are often not acknowledged until many years later.
The rest of the claims in this article are pretty much wrong.
Calling suicide among veterans a crisis, Sen. Walsh proposes reforms
Billings Gazette
By Tom Lutey
March 26, 2014
Calling the high suicide rate among America’s combat veterans unacceptable, U.S. Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., on Wednesday laid out a plan to deal with the crisis.
“Our men and women have given a life commitment to serve our country and we need to make sure we’re taking care of them for the rest of their lives,” Walsh told The Gazette.
Roughly 22 veterans across the country commit suicide daily, according to the Veterans Administration. As a percentage, the rate is double that of the general population. Montana’s suicide rate among veterans was the highest per capita in the nation.
Walsh, a former Montana National Guard adjutant general, said undiagnosed combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries play major roles in the crisis. In some cases, it may take months for symptoms to emerge. By that time, veterans are often disconnected from their combat units and military personnel who might otherwise recognize symptoms.
In some cases, veterans struggling with PTSD or a combat-related brain injury end up receiving a wrongful discharge, meaning from the military’s point of view they suffer from a personality disorder. With that type of discharge, veterans lose their benefits, including care for combat-related mental health issues.
Walsh is proposing a seven-point plan for addressing the suicide crisis, beginning with a review of wrongful discharges, which may number more than 31,000 since the beginning of the Afghan War. read more here
The crisis for veterans is not new. It has been going on for far too long. Chris Dana committed suicide at the age of 23 with a .22 caliber rifle.
As Gary Dana was collecting his dead son's belongings, he found a letter indicating that the National Guard was discharging his son under what are known as other-than-honorable conditions. The move was due to his skipping drills, which his family said was brought on by the mental strain of his service in Iraq.
The letter was in the trash, near a Wal-Mart receipt for .22-caliber rifle shells.
All across America, veterans such as Chris Dana are slipping through the cracks, left to languish by their military units and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA's ability to provide adequate care for veterans with mental ailments has come under increasing scrutiny, and the agency says it's scrambling to boost its resources to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder, prevent suicides and help veterans cope. It's added more mental health counselors and started more suicide-prevention programs.
But the experience in Montana, which by some measures does more than any other state to support America's wars, shows how far the military and the VA have to go.
By September of 2007 TriWest and Montana Veterans Administration had a PTSD video conference.
"Family practitioners and community-based health care providers are integral in helping Montana's returning National Guard troops cope with the emotional and mental health issues resulting from serving in combat," explained David J. McIntyre, President and Chief Executive Officer of TriWest Healthcare Alliance. "This video conference is the first of its kind to combine the resources of the VA and TriWest to reach rural providers caring for these service members as they reintegrate into mainstream civilian life."
When the battalion's tour of duty ended in late 2005 after 18 months away from home, Specialist Dana was rapidly processed through Department of Defense demobilization facilities to expedite his return home and reintegration into civilian environment. This expedited approach is standard operational procedure for Reserve Component (National Guard and Reserve) units whose tour of duty supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom has ended.
However. Chris Dana's suicide-as well as the many others that have occurred nationwide in the aftermath of National Guard and Reserve combat veterans' return to mainstream civilian life-has prompted Montana's critical assessment of the PDHRA program's effectiveness in reintegrating combat veterans into civilian society.
At the time, President Obama was still a US Senator and on the Veterans Affairs Committee. While running for office, he traveled to the Montana National Guards and met with Matt Kuntz, Dana's stepbrother, because of the efforts of the Montana National Guards leaders on military suicides.
"He (Obama) told me he understood why we need to have additional screenings for PTSD," said Matt Kuntz, Dana's stepbrother, who was among a small group invited to meet with Obama on Wednesday in Billings. "And he told me when he is elected president, he will implement Montana's pilot program nationwide."
Kuntz, who recently gave up his job as a lawyer in Helena to advocate for the mentally ill and their families, said he was invited to brief Obama on how Montana had become a national model for assessing the mental health of its combat vets.
Besides the additional screenings, the Montana National Guard has developed crisis response teams that include a chaplain to investigate behavioral problems among its troops, and TriWest Healthcare pays to have four part-time counselors on hand to talk with soldiers and airmen during weekend drills.
After the briefing, Obama spent about 20 minutes telling several hundred veterans and their families that, if elected as president, he will be committed to meeting their needs.
Despite Obama becoming President and keeping his promise to expand what the Montana National Guard was doing, apparently the screenings were flawed to the point where far too many were still being discharged instead of being helped.
Every year there were more and more less than honorable discharges, as Senator Walsh pointed out however, he is far from the true numbers of abandoned troops.
In the House Minnesota Rep. Tim Walz, a retired Minnesota Army National Guard Command Sergeant Major, wrote a bill to address 31,000 less than honorable discharges in March of 2013.
By May the Huffington Post had this Disposable Soldiers report Colorado Senator Michael Bennet introduced a bill that would have the Government Accountability Office look into these discharges in November of 2013.
Associated Press reported in February of 2013 that there were 11,000 of these discharges from the Army in 2013.
Wanting to do something, our elected officials do anything instead of figuring out what has been wrong all this time.
Saying military/veteran families are tired of excuses is not enough. As more "efforts" are done while more graves are filled, they are losing hope that other families will not have to endure the same heartbreak.
Tracking these reports for Wounded Times for almost 7 years, everyday, regretfully I surrendered the hope that all we had to do was help veterans become aware of what they needed and why they needed it. All of that, while a start to save their lives is wonderful, the deplorable fact is, the help they are getting has been abysmal and no one is doing anything about it.
Reporters just keep repeating what they are told and fail to discover the facts. The article by the Billings Gazette offers false hope as well as false information. How could they report "which may number more than 31,000" since the start of two wars when last year alone there were 11,000 from the Army itself?
The troops and veterans deserve facts if nothing else.
Using autopsy results, toxicology reports, inquests and accident reports from more than 50 agencies throughout the state, the Statesman determined the causes of death for 266 Texas veterans who served in operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and were receiving Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefits when they died. It was the first time a comprehensive view of how recent Texas veterans are dying has been produced.
VA: We budgeted before DOD; troop reductions not accounted for
Stars and Stripes
Published: March 13, 2014
Lawmakers fear that the Veterans Affairs department might not be asking for enough money to meet its needs, the National Journal reported Thursday.
The VA is seeking $163.9 billion — a 6.5 percent increase over fiscal 2014 — but face complaints of deficient veterans’ health centers, long claims backlogs, and questionable treatment for Iraq and Afghanistan vets who are readily prescribed heaps of drugs to deal with serious post-traumatic stress disorder.
At a Veterans Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday on its fiscal 2015 budget request, senators from both parties took turns raising worries that the VA is not equipped to handle the veterans’ needs back in their states, particularly when the wind-down of the Afghanistan war is sending a growing influx of servicemen and women into the VA system, the Journal wrote.
“As I understand it, the VA anticipates seeing an increase of approximately 100,000 new patients in the coming year,” said committee chairman Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent. “But I am concerned whether the 3 percent increase in medical care that is in the budget will be sufficient to care for these new users, existing users, will span veterans services, and keep pace with all of the issues we have here. Is that enough money? It sounds to me like it’s not.”
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, told the panel that the VA tried to ask for what it anticipates needing for 2015, but he admitted that the request was put together before the Defense Department announced its latest plans to reduce troop size. read more here
Shinseki: Advance Funding Won't Solve VA Problems
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
Mar 13, 2014
Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Wednesday told a Senate panel that advance funding for all VA operations would not solve all the department problems in the event of another government shutdown.
Shinseki told lawmakers previously that he could not say whether advance funding – which the VA now gets for health care programs – would be a good idea. He told the House Veterans Affairs Committee last year the administration would have to look at the impact on other federal departments.
On Wednesday, he told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that advance funding has worked out for VA patients and employees and would seem “to make sense for our other accounts [operations].”
But then he indicated that advance funding probably would not help since other agencies that the VA must deal with do not have the same kind of protection.
“In the case of veteran benefits, we can’t process a claim within our own confines,” he said. “To process a claim, we have to go to Social Security to validate other disabilities, go to the IRS to validate ... threshold income requirements. We deal with [the Defense Department]. We deal with the Department of Education [for] the GI Bill, the Department of Labor on employability issues.”
“The best way for us to be meeting our full mission would be to have a budget for the federal government every year,” he said. “That would make all of our work much easier.” read more here
The Department of Defense hit troops hard because of budget cuts but managed to pull this off?
Senators: DOD ordered $754 million in unnecessary parts last year
Stars and Stripes
By Erik Slavin
Published: March 12, 2014
The Senate wants answers from Pentagon officials on why the Defense Department spent more than $754 million last fiscal year on parts it didn’t need.
The Pentagon reduced its “on-order excess inventory” from $1.3 billion in 2009 to $609 million in 2011, but has since regressed, according to a March 11 memo signed by Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
“These facts are troubling reminders that the DOD still has a lot of work ahead in its efforts to avoid wasteful spending by better aligning inventory with demand,” the memo stated.
On-order excess parts are “already purchased but likely to be excess due to changes in requirements,” according to the 2013 General Accountability Office’s High Risk Report.
The same report notes that in September 2011, even as DOD was cutting the excess items it was ordering, the department still had $9.2 billion worth of excess inventory in stock. read more here
Senate approves McCaskill sex assault bill
Army Times
By Leo Shane III
Staff writer
March 10, 2014
The Senate on Monday finalized plans for broad reforms in how sexual assault cases are handled in the military, just days after a bitter floor fight over a larger overhaul of the entire military justice system.
The new measure, sponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., passed unanimously, disguising deep rifts within the chamber over how best to protect victims and punish sex offenders.
It halts — for now — a months-long fight between two top female Democrats in the Senate on this issue, one that McCaskill complained painted her as soft on military leaders despite her insistence on tougher rules for the services.
“The argument was posed as victims versus commanders and whose side are you on,” she told reporters last week. “It’s not that simple.”
Under the Senate-passed bill, military commanders no longer would be able to overturn jury convictions; the statute of limitations for military rapes would be erased; and victims would receive their own independent counsel in sex crimes cases.
The bill also would require civilian review if a commander declines to prosecute a sexual assault case; require dishonorable discharges for troops convicted of such crimes; and create harsh punishments for anyone who retaliates against victims who report rapes and assaults.
And it dumps the so-called “good soldier” defense, which allowed lawyers to cite service members’ past exemplary service as evidence that they would not commit violent crimes. read more here
This is funny and sickening at the same time. Why? Because it is all true. But this wasn't just about voting against veterans.
Jon Stewart Is Shocked (But Not Surprised) By GOP Killing Veterans Bill
The Huffington Post
by Ross Luippold
Posted: 03/06/2014
When a bill came up for vote that would have expanded health care and education for veterans, we knew two things would happen next. First, Republicans would block the bill, because that's kind of their thing. Then, Jon Stewart would deliver a passionate monologue explaining just how disgraceful this is.
read more here
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 113th Congress - 2nd Session as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Vote Summary
Question: On the Motion (Motion to Waive All Applicable Budgetary Discipline Re: S.1982 )
Vote Number: 46
Vote Date: February 27, 2014, 02:26 PM
Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Motion Rejected
Measure Number: S. 1982 (Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 ) Measure Title: A bill to improve the provision of medical services and benefits to veterans, and for other purposes.
Vote Counts:
YEAs 56
NAYs 41
Not Voting 3
It isn't the first time. It happened last year too.
"Americans don't trust us," said Sen.Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. "And why should Americans trust us when we keep using gimmicks and budget sleight of hand to hide more spending and drive the country further into debt."
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs I have just added in these "Nay" votes population by state as of 9-30-13
