Disgraceful Treatment of Veterans By Bush Administration

Bush's Veterans Administration is banning voter registration at federally run nursing homes, Veterans Administration hospitals, shelters, and rehab hospitals. This is the ultimate insult, to those who served their country to ensure democracy and are now disabled as a result, to be deprived of the franchise. A complete disgrace, but what can you expect from a bunch of constitution-hating chickenhawks?

NYTimes: V.A. Ban on Voter Drives Is Criticized

Despicable Treatment of Disabled Vets

The Ground Truth (2006)

By the Bush Administration, of course. They ordered the VA to stop helping disabled veterans with their paperwork applying for disability benefits, because too many veterans were getting the disability payments they deserved. Despicable, but entirely predictable from the shallow chickenhawks sending others to die, for profit, for legacy, for ideology, but for no good reason.

NPR: Army Blocks Disability Paperwork Aid at Fort Drum

Army officials in upstate New York instructed representatives from the Department of Veterans Affairs not to help disabled soldiers at Fort Drum Army base with their military disability paperwork last year. That paperwork can be crucial because it helps determine whether soldiers will get annual disability payments and health care after they're discharged.

Now soldiers at Fort Drum say they feel betrayed by the institutions that are supposed to support them. The soldiers want to know why the Army would want to stop them from getting help with their disability paperwork and why the VA— whose mission is to help veterans — would agree to the Army's request.

'A Worn Pair of Boots'

One disabled soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he fears retaliation from the military, says it feels like a slap in the face.

"To be tossed aside like a worn-out pair of boots is pretty disheartening," the soldier says. "I always believed the Army would take care of me if I did the best I could, and I've done that."

At a restaurant near Fort Drum, the soldier described his first briefing with the VA office on base. According to the soldier, the VA official told a classroom full of injured troops, "We cannot help you review the narrative summaries of your medical problems." The official said the VA used to help soldiers with the paperwork, but Army officials saw soldiers from Fort Drum getting higher disability ratings with the VA's help than soldiers from other bases. The Army told the VA to stop helping Fort Drum soldiers describe their army injuries, and the VA did as it was told.

hat tip to Jimstaro at dailykos.

Running Republican Chickenhawks

Excellent article in Salon about Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney and how they avoided service in Vietnam. Typical Republican chickenhawks, they talk big, but they and their children are never the ones to go fight their big, important wars.

salon.com: Rudy and Romney: Artful dodgers
When the most belligerent Republicans start to beat the war drums, it's important to look at what they're trying to hide.

As the great tabloid columnist Jimmy Breslin noted 20 years later, during the former prosecutor's first campaign for mayor: "Giuliani did not attend the war in Vietnam because federal Judge Lloyd MacMahon [sic] wrote a letter to the draft board in 1969 and got him out. Giuliani was a law clerk for MacMahon, who at the time was hearing Selective Service cases. MacMahon's letter to Giuliani's draft board stated that Giuliani was so necessary as a law clerk that he could not be allowed to get shot at in Vietnam."

[]

Like Giuliani and millions of other young American men at the time, Romney started out with student deferments. But he left Stanford after only two semesters in 1966 and would have become eligible for the draft -- except that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Michigan, his home state, provided him with a fresh deferment as a missionary. According to an excellent investigative series that appeared last month in the Boston Globe, that deferment, which described Romney as a "minister of religion or divinity student," protected him from the draft between July 1966 and February 1969, when he enrolled in Brigham Young University to complete his undergraduate degree. Mormons in each state could select a limited number of young men upon whom to confer missionary status during the Vietnam years, and Romney was fortunate enough to be chosen. (Coincidentally, or possibly not, Mitt's father, George W. Romney, was governor of Michigan at the time.)

No wonder they both supported Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby. They don't believe Republicans are subject to the same rules as the rest of us.

Opening Day

"People will come."
Boston Red Sox at Kansas City Royals, ESPN, 4:00 p.m. EST

Chickenhawk George W. Bush, our vaunted Coward in Chief, too scared (of being booed) to throw out first ball at opening day games for the second year in a row. Should make all those Rethugs wearing "W" caps at Washington Nationals games proud.

The CHB (Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe) sez the Red Sawx have become international rock stars. I wonder if he talked to Tony Massarotti at the Herald before he filed it? Because Tony wrote the exact same story in the Herald. Having the Herald and the Globe agreeing is like the planets colliding.

Everybody loves Big Papi. (Boston Herald version.)

Cheney is a Synonym for Warmongering Chickenhawk Moron

Sorry for lack of posts, I went to a family wedding this weekend and now am laboring to glaze my work for a sodafiring Friday.

For entertainment today, I recommend reading Liz Cheney's (yes, daughter of Dick) op-ed in today's Washington Post. Then read the hundreds of comments. 46 pages of 'em right now. Here's mine (page 22):

Fact-free BS masquerading as opinion in the WaPo. First off, Lieberman isn't a Democrat -- he's a member of the Lieberman for Connecticut Party. Second, winning is no longer an option. The time for winning was when we invaded Iraq, based on lies, with a too-small force and a ridiculous strategy conceived by the stupidest foreign policy team in the history of the United States. We're just enjoying the fruits of being greeted as liberators, like your idiot father said. Why is the Post letting the idiots who got us into this mess tell us how to get out? Why not give a column to someone smart, oh, someone like Scott Ritter, or Al Gore, or a liberal blogger, or any of the smart people who said, there are no WMD, this whole thing is being made up by Cheney and PNAC, the British tried this 80 years ago and it didn't work, why don't we stick with the real problem which is Al Qaeda and bin Laden and forget about secular Hussein? Oh, that would hurt your cocktail party reputation. Got to stay in the Kewl Kids Klub. Thanks for nothing, WaPo.

I've Got an ActBlue Page

Main St USA is the name of my ActBlue page. I've got five candidates so far, and if there's someone you think I should add, send me an email (edwardssupporter@aol.com) or tell me about your candidate and your argument as to why I should support her, or him, in the comments section.

Here are my 5:

(1) Kirsten Gillibrand: Running for the NY-20 Congressional seat (my mom's district); David Boies' partner, smart lawyer, and running against the evil oaf, incumbent John Sweeney, the jerk who led the Brooks Brother riot in Dade County during the 2000 Florida vote counting fiasco, and more recently a Jack Abramoff bagman, working hard to keep sweatshops open in the Marianas Islands.

(2) John Bonifaz: Running to be Secretary of State in Massachusetts. When John Kerry took his millions and his promise to fight for every vote and left Ohio in 2004, John Bonifaz bought a plane ticket and went to Ohio and led the fight to have all the votes counted. Running against incumbent Bill Galvin, our comical Secretary of State who never saw a TV camera he didn't ham up to.

(3) Eric Massa: Running for the NY-29 Congressional seat, western New York where many friends and relatives live. One of the Fighting Dems, the large group of military veterans running to bring a realistic view of the military into government. Had enough chickenhawk leadership yet? Vote for the Fighting Dems. Oh, and Massa's opponent is a real piece of work, the Shotgun Senator (when he was in the NY State Senate, he fired a shotgun at his now ex-wife), incumbent Randy Kuhl.

(4) Jon Tester: Running for the Montana Senate seat against incumbent Conrad Burns, Abramoff bagman, and the Senator most famous recently for accosting a group of firefighters from Virginia in the Billings, Montana airport and accusing them of doing a poor job. Tester is a rancher, a gun owner, and a progressive.

(5) Joe Sestak: Running for the PA-07 seat currently held by Curt Weldon, one of the dumbest wingnuts in Congress (he keeps issuing statements saying we've found the WMDs in Iraq. Right.) Sestak is a retired 31-year Navy veteran with a Doctorate in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University. Weldon, on the other hand, is a typical corrupt Republican; his 29-year-old daughter is a lobbyist trading on Daddy's contacts. Plus he publicly criticized Sestak's choice of cancer treatment for his 5-year-old daughter. Yucch.

Recuse, Antonin

WaPo: Retired Generals Want Scalia Off Gitmo Case

Hamdan's lawyers have not called for Scalia to step aside. Instead, five retired generals who support Hamdan's arguments sent a letter late Monday to the court with the request that Scalia withdraw from participating in the case. They say Scalia appears to have prejudged the case.

The retired generals said Scalia's speech in Switzerland "give rise to the unfortunate appearance that ... the justice had made up his mind about the merits" of Hamdan's arguments.

In the speech, first reported by Newsweek, Scalia repeated his views from 2004 that enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should not have access to U.S. courts and traditional legal rights.

[]

The letter came from five retired generals and admirals: Navy Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter; Navy Rear Adm. John D. Hutson; Vice Adm. Lee F. Gunn; Marine Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms; and Army Brig. Gen. James P. Cullen.

I doubt this show of military might and right will influence chickenhawk Scalia. (Originally I typed 'chickhawk' Scalia, one of the funniest typos ever.)

In today's print edition, WaPo:

Scalia's Recusal Sought in Key Detainee Case
Retired Officers Say Justice's Impartiality Is in Question After Remarks on Combatants

In a letter delivered to the court late yesterday, a lawyer for the retired officers cited news reports of Scalia's March 8 remarks to an audience at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland. Scalia reportedly said it was "crazy" to suggest that combatants captured fighting the United States should receive a "full jury trial," and dismissed suggestions that the Geneva Conventions might apply to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Scalia's remarks "give rise to the unfortunate appearance that, even before briefing was complete, he had already made up his mind" about issues in the case, the lawyer, David H. Remes, wrote. Noting that Scalia reportedly had discussed the rights of accused terrorists in the context of his son Matthew's recent tour as an Army officer in Iraq, Remes wrote that this creates an appearance of "personal bias arising from his son's military service."

[]

In his letter to the court, Remes said Scalia's reported reference to the Geneva Conventions was of particular concern to the retired officers as it is directly at issue in the case. Their brief supports the view of the petitioner, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, that the conventions apply to him and could entitle him to a court-martial trial like that which U.S. soldiers receive.

Other calls for Scalia's recusal came yesterday from the Center for Constitutional Rights, a civil rights organization that supports the challenge to the military commissions, and from Rep. John D. Conyers (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Previous posts: Ethics, Schmethics (March 27, 2006)

Scalia: 'Flipping a middle finger to his critics' (March 27, 2006)

Brought To You By The Bushco Cretins

1. Our government refuses to give one dime to any world organization that teaches contraception, gives out condoms, or mentions abortions, resulting in horrors like this:

feministing: 90 African women die every day from unsafe abortions

90 percent of the abortions in Africa are done using terrifying methods: “inserting sharp objects into the uterus, flushing the vagina with caustic liquids, throwing oneself from high places or repeated blows to the abdomen.”

Just horrible.

2. The chickenhawks running our government may have yellow ribbons on the bumpers of their Hummers, but they don't really give a shit about the troops. Otherwise they'd make sure they had proper body armor, wouldn't let Halliburton give them dirty water to drink, and for damn sure they wouldn't be taking back the signing bonuses of Purple Heart winners:


dailykos: Purple Heart recipient forced to repay signing bonus

Iraq War veteran who received Purple Heart says Army is making him repay money

When Fontana resident and 2001 Fontana A.B. Miller High School graduate Kevin Stonestreet joined the U.S. Army in the summer of 2001 as a member of the infantry, he was given a $20,000 bonus to be paid out over his six-year enlistment.

However, when Stonestreet was honorably discharged from the Army in 2005, he found out he needed to repay $3,800 of that bonus because he did not complete his six years.

But Stonestreet, who is now 23, said he was kicked out of the Army because he was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression from serving in Iraq.

In addition, Stonestreet, who was awarded the Purple Heart and was considered for the Bronze Star for bravery in combat, said the amount he was to pay back was originally $6,000, but the government repossessed his final paycheck of $2,200.

"They were nice enough to take out the $170 for my child support," Stonestreet said, laughingly.

Stonestreet is represented by Congressman Joe Baca -- a Democrat -- whose office hasn't managed to return Stonestreet's calls yet. Let's give him a ring on Monday, shall we? (909)885-2222


3. And, finally, the party that hates government regulation is a danger to all American workers.

Confined Spaces: Just Another Day In The American Workplace (go to Confined Spaces for links)

There are no good days in the American workplace.

Still, it seems like some days are worse than others. This is a small sampling of what arrived in my in-box today:

OSHA investigates Metro East man's workplace death

SAUGET, Ill. Federal workplace-safety officials are investigating a man's death while he worked at a Metro East plant.
Police say 27-year-old J-D Croom of Cahokia died yesterday when he was sucked into a large machine at the Mid-America Fiber Company plant in Sauget.

Worker Dies After He Is Pulled Into Machine

NEW HAVEN -- A worker died after he was pulled into a machine at a scrap metal yard Wednesday, police said.

The accident occurred at about 4:15 p.m. at Regan Metal Corp., 69 Poplar St., police said. Richard Larson, 54, of Kensington, was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:45 p.m., Sgt. Robert Dudley said.

Police said Larson was loading metal into a machine that coils the metal. His work glove apparently got caught in the machine when he went to adjust a bar, and the machine pulled him in, Sgt. Andrew Muro said.

OSHA is to review fatal work accident

BRUNSWICK HILLS TWP. - The federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration is expected to probe Tuesday's death of a delivery man crushed by about a ton of granite slabs.

Owatonna man killed in job accident

OWATONNA, Minn. — A 25-year-old Owatonna man died in a workplace accident, police said Wednesday.

Patrick Donahue was pinned under a crate that weighed nearly a ton while working in the shipping area at Viracon Inc., an architectural glass fabricator based in Owatonna.

White Mills Man Dies In Construction Accident

(RADCLIFF, Ky.) -- A construction worker died on Thursday morning when the trench he was working in collapsed on top of him.

Tommy Hensley, 42, was standing about eight feet deep in the trench in a new construction site off Hill Street when the sides of the trench caved in, Radcliff Police spokesman Bryce Shumate said.

Days like this always bring to mind the wise words of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY):

Cooperation, not confrontation is essential in making our workplaces safer. The notion that employers care little about worker safety, or are prepared to sacrifice worker health in the pursuit of profit is a dangerous myth.

In fact, most employers are concerned for the welfare of their employees and are fully prepared to comply with laws aimed at enhancing their safety on the job.

Chickenhawks Prepare to Dismantle Veterans Administration

From military.com

Dismantling VA

The Senator's aide chuckled rather loudly and said, "What VA? By the time this administration is done there won't be a VA." Our conversation had begun with a discussion of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA's) healthcare budget, and quickly came down to a single, simple point. VA is being dismantled.

Three reasons why the administration would want to dismantle VA immediately come to mind:

VA is a large-scale, publicly funded healthcare system that works: VA works so well it has been used as a model to push the case for nationalized healthcare; something that strikes fear in the heart of every Republican.

Recent studies by the Rand Corporation and the University of Michigan , working with UCLA, prove the point that VA is efficient and provides healthcare that meets the highest standards. If it can work for millions of veterans, it can work for millions of Americans. That concept is antithetical to current administration thinking.

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina we learned that VA was the ONLY healthcare organization that managed to save ALL patient records. This is because VA uses a computerized system that was backed-up on a regional level and put back online in a matter of hours. Now that system is under attack by Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs . Rep. Buyer wants to eliminate regional control of the system under the guise of saving money.

VA is ripe for privatization: And that spells profits for private corporations. The latest move in this direction happened last week on Capitol Hill where the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs approved S. 1182 (see Sec. 10) which would spend money from VA's healthcare budget to study outsourcing jobs of VA healthcare workers. The study, with VA healthcare funds going to private consultants, could cost over $140 million and lead to the loss of up to 36,000 VA jobs. Democrats opposed it, but Republicans pushed it through.

VA is part of BIG government: And that's something this administration abhors. GOP strategist Grover Norquist says he wants the government shrunk down so he can “drown it in the bathtub.” The problem with this is that smaller government means fewer services as well as the much-touted lower taxes. And the jobs that are spared are outsourced and cost more to maintain because private corporations have to build in a profit margin.

So, while the concept of smaller government appeals to many, the economics fall into the “voodoo” category, and the social ramifications spell disaster for those who need the programs that are cut back or eliminated. In fact, smaller government gives less but costs more per person served. And I should remind Grover that 24.6 million veterans won't fit in a bathtub and the ones that do surely WILL drown.

Dismantling and privatizing VA is a big job. But the administration has enlisted like minds to sell the concept to the public.

From the New Hampshire Gazette: Chickenhawks

Chickenhawk n. A person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically when that lack of experience came in spite of ample opportunity in that person’s youth.

Here are the resumes of the brave leaders who have us quagmired in Iraq, while at the very same time getting ready to gut benefits and services for soldiers who have fought their illegal war:

Chickenhawks:
Chickenhawk Headquarters

Name: George W. Bush (R-TX)
Born: 1946
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: You know when a guy walks away from a National Guard obligation during wartime and gets away with it, he must come from "a good family." Not that his daddy had anything to do with his getting a Guard slot in the first place - oh, no ...

Name: Richard "Dick" Cheney (R-WY)
Born: 1942
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: Says he had "other priorities." You bet he had other priorities. Imagine how early in life you must begin scheming to get away with what this guy has. He was too busy thinking about Halliburton to go fight Charlie.

Name: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Born: 1950±
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff. He’s had a string of no-doubt well-paying government jobs in State and Defense. He’s also practiced law. In fact, he was Marc Rich’s lawyer for years. Yes — the Marc Rich whose pardon from President Clinton was excoriated by so many high and mighty Republicans. Maybe if Scooter had been a better lawyer, his client wouldn’t have needed that pardon. Speaking of legal questions, “Scooter” is alleged by some to have traded energy stocks while helping his buddy Dick Cheney cook up a new energy policy in secret. He’s also suspected of having inserted the bogus “Niger yellowcake” reference into the President’s State of the Union address. As if all that weren’t enough, he’s also a top suspect in the outing of CIA operative Valeria Plame. Clearly “Scooter” is a ballsy kind of guy, so it’s a complete mystery to us why, when he graduated from Phillips Andover in 1968, he didn’t enlist in the Marines or go Airborne instead of going to Yale.

Name: Karl Rove
Born: 1950
Employer: Baal
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: This little cherub was born on Christmas Day, 1950. Karl “Bush’s Brain” Rove ran George W.’s campaign, right down to the tiny detail of deciding Bush was going to run. The hardest part was convincing a horde of Republican skeptics that it could be done.

He is said to have said of his boss, he’s "the kind of candidate and officeholder political hacks like me wait a lifetime to be associated with."

Now Karl’s Senior White House advisor. If he really is “Bush’s Brain,” and if the fondest wishes of former US Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV come true, one fine day Karl will be “frogmarched out of the White House in mandcuffs.”

Will history record that event as “Bush’s Lobotomy?”

Name: Donald "The Don" Rumsfeld
Born: 1932
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Korea
Notes: When the shooting started in Korea Rummy here was either 18, or about to turn 18. Not to worry for him, though — he spent the war at Princeton, wearing a ROTC uniform. Once the war was over he flew jets for the Navy for a few years. Defenders of Rumsfeld will say he’s no chickenhawk — he served, and it’s not his fault the war ended before he got his commission. To which others answer, “plenty of farmers and mechanics and kids just out of high school served. Anyone as full of whatever that stuffing in him is, could have tried out for a battlefield commission.”

Name: Paul Wolfowitz
Born: 1943
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: Deputy Secretary for Defense - yet another Bush administration man in the Pentagon who has no idea what it's like to wear a uniform. He got a BA at Cornell in 1965. Maybe if we'd had a guy as bright as he thinks he is in Vietnam, it would have turned out differently.

Bastards.

Chickenhawk Alert

Ship Young Pataki Straight to Iraq

[G]overnor [Pataki], who proudly announced last week that his son has been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marines, also noted that Teddy Pataki hopes to defer his military service for three years until he finishes law school.

**********

At the Republican National Convention last year, Gov. Pataki praised President George W. Bush for having the courage to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. And just as Bush did in his speech Tuesday night, the governor strove mightily to link Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But with the daily war toll mounting, why wouldn't his son want to put off serving for a while?

Because George Pataki is a hypocrite. Praising the war on one hand, shielding his own family with the other. Sending poor New Yorkers in his son's place.

Hey Teddy Pataki: You signed up for the Marine Officer Training program. The Marines need you. It's time for you to perform your side of the contract.

You don't need to go law school to figure this one out.