Desk Warrior Republicans to fuck over the US Vets, again:

[Roshambo]

Nevermind about Social Security, many vets wouldn't even get to see retirement age. Now it seems that the vets are being sold out again, beyond the diminished benefits at VA hospitals around 2000.

If you happen to have the following disabilities, the current <s>jackass</s> <s>shithead</s> <s>waste of taxpayer money</s> <s>shitstain</s> <s>fuckwit</s> <s>future veteran sniping target*</s> chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, Rep. Steve Buyer, says that you should no longer receive medical benefits, even if you have a contract that states such. You know, because it's always convenient for Congress to have the military make promises and contracts, then Congress writes it out so that the VA doesn't have to uphold their end. The incompetence and abuse in this country is really starting to make me sick. Sick because I know people with the following, all service-connected, but whom were disabled in active duty and have a hard problem performing the work they were trained to do. Much less live in any form resembling what this shitstain of a politician enjoys every day.

Line snapback on ship, removing up to an entire leg.
Steam/electrical related injuries related to working on ship (happens a bit more frequently than some know)
Vehicular accidents or injury related to training mishaps.
Chemical irritation and/or burns from firefighting.
That nasty illness you developed due to the crappy galley food and parasitic infections that went unheeded for years on a shore command.

Basically, anything that isn't combat-related, despite how clueless this shit really is about how hazardous military life is inherently. The current requirements are an Honorable discharge and anything service-connected. Now, as this fellow would want it, any injury to be covered by the VA should be combat-related, and veterans as a whole shouldn't be able to take advantage of the programs that were created for them.

Check on this page for more info, including the March 4 entry from last year about what went on then.

That is the kind of treatment you can expect from your lawmakers for enlisting or honoring a commission. Oh, and the veteran service organizations have plenty of problems on their own and don't help much, which have become nothing but corrupted veteran unions that don't do shit but require the vet to pay money so the organization can put in a token nudge to get some VA employee to remember how to do their job. It doesn't help when our lawmakers conveniently make it so that the representatives cannot represent the vets.

Now, Rep. Buyer will limit VSO testimony to just the HCVA, thus eliminating access to the Senators who are directly involved in the VA budget process.

But, there is a political side to Rep. Buyer’s decision. By moving the testimony from March back to February, VSOs come to the table with only part of the information they need to adequately make recommendations on the VA budget.

During the Joint Committee hearings held in March, VSOs have had the VA’s budget request AND the White House’s response to that request (generally a lower dollar amount). And, there would be enough time to analyze both sets of figures and give testimony in the best interest of veterans.

But now, it gets even worse. The service organizations, for what little good they offered in the past, are now given a hush order by...guess who? Buyer. Probably because Congress doesn't like to divert funds and lie directly to the faces of the veterans while taking away what was promised and fought for, with the veteran's own injury and continued disability. I have a dark feeling that Congressmen are going to understand "combat situations" if they persist in this**, because I doubt any of these fat politicians have served except for a token couple, and if they persist in treating vets like this...I will leave it to the words of a previous secretary of the VA:

"History is littered with governments destabilized by masses of veterans who believed that they had been taken for fools by a society that grew rich and fat at the expense of their hardship and suffering."
Anthony J. Principi -- former Secretary of Veterans' Affairs

And guess who appointed Buyers into this position? DeLay! Could we at least get an appointment review board to investigate the further obvious buddy-appoints-buddy corruption in the US Government? That isn't so hard to ask...

Also, a good letter to read about the state of veteran affairs in 1999. Just think, it has gotten WORSE, and it used to be "free medical and dental for you and your family as long as you live", then to "for any injury received while on duty and related disabilities". Now it is "be a low-paid mercenary" to make some politician rich, as it has every time the Republicans get their hands on VA matters. Honestly, if this happens, it means we have no military - even a Private could tell you that common life in the military was pretty hazardous; if you are expected to live with that stump without recompense for the rest of your life simply because it was a service-related accident that happens often, then word of mouth is going to make it clear that military service is something you want to stay away from if you value your livelihood and overall health.

Both parties are rather fucked, politically, but it's been the Republicans that have consistently fucked over the vets to divert funds to those who pay them, and further get rich. Correction, they get richer.

* - Seriously, enough vets know of this asshole, and there are plenty who have been affected by military life and have done stuff like this.

** - Again, this.

Remember when reading this, according to the VA, about one third of the homeless in the US are veterans.

 

[SuAside]

i know mercenary firms that offer better medical coverage & pensions than that... 'nuf said

 

[4too]

Different Day, Same Shine-o-la

Different Day, Same Shine-o-la




Rosh:

... The incompetence and abuse in this country ...

Sad fact.
It is tradition.
A genuine blue blooded career path, gilded and glorified by the honorary amongst thieves.


Was Culture-i-zed in Virginia Public schools, so you can scoop out how pureed to pabulum, that status quo propaganda, the history, was.

Had so much hero worship of Fame Benighted VIRGINIANS, that the shadow dimmed the halo of Baby Jesus, AND, behold, a mighty, oozing, Great Dismal Swamp, of factoids ...

Fo' instance ,,,

During the Harding Administration, THAT Republican run VA ''lost'' 24 MILLION DOLLARS!
Gone.
Tea Pot Dome Scandal be damned, 24 million sponged up by the bureaucratic limbo, or libido, [Harding's whores on a half shell.] 24 million in the 1920's!
Gone.

Besides the Great Depression, wonder what ELSE helped ferment a 'Bonus March' by WW1 veterans in the early 1930's. This 'riot' is only of historical notice because General Douglas MacArthur, A GREAT VIRGINIAN, fixed bayonets and ran the ramble out of D.C.

Perhaps this factoid of Prohibition Era Graft was a mid 20th Century Southern Dixi-crat mud sling at those [still] Re-constructionist Republicans, before ''BLACK FEAR'' terrified the White Right into the circled station wagon suburbs and a warm and fuzzy racist equilibrium.

So what I mean to convey is that milking, miss appropriating, short sheeting the VA is an American political tradition.
Now that there is a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress it is easy to see who is looting who.

The apologists, the spit in your face media celebrities have declared ''there is no class war''.
Why?
Because THEY WON?
The holy roller status quo has DEFEATED the populist call for a government that serves all the people?
That's what the corporate media talking bimbos say.
More tax dollars that won't be 'taxed'? Returned? Saved? Or be milked into pork barrel feeding troughs?
Always be death.
Always be taxes.
Always to be courtiers and lobbyists to share the wealth amongst those that have the grease to exploit the opportunity of any governed coffer..
Takes money, TO TAKE, the money.

The brazen lies of our leaders, no matter how well wrapped in the flag, and WELL HUNG on a CROSS, may reheat the populist fire, yet another 'class' war. Once ''the CULTURE WARS'' has lost it's shine, the naked hate speak exposed as just another bloody shirt waving lie. Maybe some genius will repaint an old band wagon and hitch up the tried and true apocalyptic horses. War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. Great, a country forever guided by crisis management, whether it's as FOREVER as a nuclear threat or as mundane as a squeaky wheel. Break down maintenance.
Waiting at the station for the next train wreak, or collapsing office tower ...
Not the academic dialectic 'class war', or the 'Marxist' neo elitist simpering. but the simple migrating of voting demographics in our pitiful political pantomime of ''balance of power''.


Lot of local problems getting to vote these times, so maybe there will never be another populist backlash as in the Depression 1930's.
""The American Century"" now that has an Imperial Rome flavor.
LET the Bud beer flow and the Steeler Super Bowls kick off, hoard up the bread and circuses for the looming dark age.


For the literary present, those lingering ''on topic''. please source this Kipling's poem. Pardon me if a pop up gets through your browser.

http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Tommy.htm



4too

 

[Carib FMJ]

Damn... and I am about to sell my soul for six years for enlistment? And those bastards are going to cut a vets right to medical care down to the bone?