South Carolina, more than some states of the union, has a cherished tradition of strongly honoring the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country. That tradition was born in the revolution and continues today in Iraq and Afghanistan. We honor our military and we make sure they are treated when they come home with the best of care and offered educational opportunities.
So why, given that long unbroken tradition, do we find that Representative Barrett has other ideas about honoring our Vets? StandUpForVets.org has recorded his voting record. You can find it. Go to their site and you will discover that this so-called Representative of the People has voted against the interest of South Carolina Vets in almost 60% of the votes he has cast on Veterans issues in Congress. [...]
I wish I was discussing ancient history due to the long history this nation has in abusing soldiers and veterans in human experimentation since WW2, the chemical weapons experiments in WW2 at Edgewood Arsenal, the Cold War human experiments at Fort Detrick (Operation White Coat) many projects at Edgewood Arsenal from 1955 thru 1975, Operation SHAD in the 1960's.
This week the VA Inspector General has released a report on the failures of VA doctors and researchers to properly document consent forms, and the deaths of patients involved in the research projects. Enough is enough when is accountability going to be demanded and veterans protected by the Veterans Administration rather than keep using and abusing them for medical research?
On Friday, in the House, Chet Edwards, D-TX read a statement opposing Republican tactics in adding on non-related items (off-shore drilling) to FY 2009 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, H.R. 6599.
"We believe that attaching them -- non-germane amendments -- to this critical veteran's bill could jeopardize its passage by unnecessarily delaying or even grinding debate completely to a halt. This is unacceptable."
Republican members booed Edwards' statement -- about 40 seconds into the video linked below.
Hippy dippy liberals and their families vote for Democrats. Straight laced, creased and pressed military types and their families vote for Republicans. African Americans vote for Democrats. The very religious vote for Republicans.
We hear about the Republican and Democratic Party "bases" all the time. Those are the voters we assume are sewn up, already cast, not up for grabs. So politicians go after the swing voters: the soccer moms, the security moms, the religious minorities. These voters are fought over with a backstabbing, mud slinging ferocity that can make Mean Girls look like Holly Golightly wannabes. It's almost expected, this battle.
As some of you know, Dr. Jerry Northington, DE-AL, is not only a veteran of the Vietnam War, but an individual who lives by the courage of his convictions against war. Jerry has marched against the war in Iraq, and has been an activist for peace, speaking at vigils and meet-ups, writing some of the most eloquent statements against the misguided war in Iraq that I've ever read.
It is through the true friendship and generosity of time and spirit that I know Jerry well. When I first learned of his candidacy for Congress in Delaware, I knew the meaning of "More and Better Dems." You see, Jerry means what he says and says what he means. He's as honest and principled a person as I've ever known, and when he takes a stand against something, it's more than words. He'll work tirelessly to effect change -- and he won't give up, no matter how difficult something might be, or how "unpopular" an idea may be.
A man of principle and reason, a courageous and truly compassionate individual: This, ladies and gentleman, is what I'd call a Fighting Dem. Why a Fighting Dem? I submit to you that Jerry Northington knows better than most what war is, and will fight to end it as our Democratic Representative AL (At Large) from the State of Delaware.
On this Sunday's version of This Week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi floated the name of Congressman Chet Edwards as a person from the chamber that she wishes to be considered for Vice President with Barack Obama. The window is closing on a selection as we are within one week of the start of the Beijing Games which abuts the start of the Democratic convention. Names are being floated obviously for some affect with Representative Edwards being the latest. What is interesting is that those being mentioned have ever conservative political leanings. Is a message being sent here?
Yesterday while flying home from Colorado, I shared my peanuts and struck up small talk with a young man sitting beside me. He was headed back East to visit family, was a fellow southerner who loved Colorado, he couldn't wait to get some real "sweet tea", and this past Friday had been his last day in the army after serving for 5 years in Special Forces.
Usually I try to avoid conversations with people on planes, preferring to bury my face in a book, but I was curious about meeting someone from the military community after spending this summer in a progressive Colorado mountain town with Obama signs everywhere; I had heard the Colorado Springs area was very conservative with its military presence, different from the rest of the state. By the time we landed in Atlanta, what had started as polite chat with a stranger turned into a deeply moving exchange that both surprised and saddened me, but gave me hope.
I'm tired of this.
It's time to end it.
We need only two lines to end it.
Obama acted to shield the wounded at Landstuhl from political exposure.
McCain is intentionally dragging them into the front line for his political benefit.
"LEAVE NO SOLDIER," Tells the story of two impassioned journeys by two communities of American War Veterans who have carried a Military Oath from the Battlefield
to the home front. The two groups are divided by their politics, but united in their devotion to dead comrades and their compassionate commitment
to "Leave No Fallen Soldier Behind".
In 2006, when my disgust with the Bush administration knew no bounds and during the runup to the elections, Neil Young came out with his Living With War CD. As he has done so many times before, he put my feelings to words and music. That CD became my soundtrack and inspired me work hard to elect Democrats in the fall elections. That summer Neil took to the road with his old bandmates Crosby, Stills and Nash for the Freedom of Speech tour. I was lucky enough to have great seats for their show at Red Rocks, outside of Denver. What a show!
While at Red Rocks, where I was sitting next to the mixing board and cameras, I learned that the show was being taped for a DVD. Neil Young has released a film of that tour, CSNY: Deja Vu. I took my son to see it last night. The published reviews of the show were mildly positive. I saw it with different eyes than the other reviewers, as someone who was inspired by Neil's music on Living with War and as a long time fan of the whole group. The film is a reflection of the tour and the audience's reaction to the group and their message - positive and negative. To me it was a touching and sometimes emotional film that energizes me about what we need to do in the fall.
Actually the number is probably higher - 22,000 identified themselves explicitly as vets. Over 55,000 called the special line set up through the VA in its first year of operation. Some are friends and family of vets, which makes sense, as watching someone close struggle with PTSD or worse must be unbearable. These statistics are gruesome.
Calls to the VA’s hotline more than doubled this calendar year going from a total of about 21,000 in January to more than 55,000 by the end of June, averaging about 250 calls a day.
Last week, I shared a tragic story of a veteran who committed suicide less than three hours after being assessed as a "low risk" patient, and was released from VA care. The carelessness of his assessment was largely due to a standardized questionnaire that was used to identify high risk patients. This is a serious oversight, especially when you consider the statistic that by the end of the day, 18 veterans will have taken their own lives.
Since these troops make it home from Iraq, Afghanistan or other battlefields alive, they are not counted as casualties of war. In 2007, 6,256 veterans committed suicide. That's about two thousand more than the number of troops who died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. And yet, these deaths are not counted among the war casualties.
OK, I'm just throwing this idea out there for free use by the Obama campaign. Consider this public domain.
On MSNBC today, I heard Tony Blankley speak some rare words of wisdom. He said that in hardball politics, "if you are explaining you are losing". So I don't think the Obama campaign should use explanations to respond to McCain's offensive new ad:
Instead, they should turn the tables using mockery. Force McCain to explain himself.
Last week Dr. Benjamin Brewer, who writes "The Doctor's Office" column for the Wall Street Journal, put a face on a disturbing trend in U.S. health care. A lack of insurance and high health care costs are forcing many Americans to miss out on preventive care: people are skipping check-ups, discontinuing medication, even refusing annual screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies.
For example, a patient of Dr. Brewer's had quit smoking in order to afford gas for his 40-mile commute to work. Unfortunately, he still developed pneumonia. The patient refused to let an ER doctor admit him, in fear of the costs, and he decided not to fill an antibiotic prescription, because his insurance had a $50 drug co-pay, which he said he simply couldn't afford.
What in the world is this senile old man thinking with this idea? He wants to put all veterans into ER's across the country and out of the Veterans Hospitals why? Is there money in it for his republican friends in the health care industry or does he truly have NO repsect for service connected medical problems. Most healthcare at the VA is not for "serious combat wounds" it is like any other hospital, men and women have normal health problems and the government is responsible for the total health care of veterans rated 50% and higher, if you are rated 100% then you are even entitled to that famous VA dental care, the former VA Secretary Nicholson tried to pass off as an excuse to Bob Woodruff last year in that messed up interview.
Senator McCain is ranting about Senator Obama not caring about veterans, well what if the hell is this? Is this "caring" for disabled veterans? I don't think so.....
During a March 2005 Senate budget debate, McCain voted to kill an amendment that would have "increase[d] veterans medical care by $2.8 billion in 2006." That amendment lacked an assured funding stream, but lest one mistake this incident for a maverick's stance against budget-busting, there's more. Just a year later McCain voted against an amendment that would have "increase[d] Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes." Two days after it failed, he voted to kill "an assured stream of funding for veterans' health care that [would] take into account the annual changes in the veterans' population and inflation to be paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top rate for income over $1 million, closing corporate tax loopholes and delaying tax cuts for the wealthy." That amendment died quietly, forty-six to fifty-four.
A couple weeks ago, over at the Progressive Future headquarters, a couple of us started wondering out loud how much of of our taxes went to fund the Iraq War. My colleague did a little research and found a formula for how to figure this out. After discovering that in 2007, I paid for $204 of war, my first thought was, "Dang. That money could have gone to pay a month of my health care premium."
So then, as a fun little game (yes, we over at Progressive Future have an interesting take on what's fun), we decided to make an internet tool that would not only calculate someone's contribution to the war from their 2007 income, but would also tell that person how many days that money could have covered their health care, education, powered their home with renewable energy, or paid for a veteran to receive higher education.
Turns out, any of those last four options would be the more lucrative investment (for those of us who aren't Dick Cheney).
