I am not a nice person and this time Chuck has pizzed me off royally, he is grandstanding based on a statement from Chief Justice John Roberts that I noted in this diary from Feb 24 (my mom and dads birthday)
ROBERTS: Well that's really startling, isn't it? In litigating with veterans, the government more often than not takes a position that is substantially unjustified?
From my friend Larry Scott at VA Watchdog.org he wrote an article about Chuck Grassley attacking the Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to explain why so many veterans’ benefit claims are wrongly denied, resulting in a high rate of reversal on appeal.
While it is in Senator Grassleys right to ask questions of Cabinet Secretarys and anyone else who works for the federal government as an elected official, my question is why now?
Senator Grassley has been a Senator since 1981 so for 29 years he has been hearing from veterans in his own state on how bad the VARO is in making rating decisions and screwing the veterans out of benefits they and their families deserve. Where has his outrage been for the past 3 decades?
From wiki...(I know) but this stat leaped out at me
Senator Grassley has the third-worst voting record in the entire US Congress (both House and Senate combined) on veterans issues, according to the Disabled American Veterans, earning a 40 rating. Only 2 senators, both Republicans, have lower ratings.[17] the 3rd worst record on veterans issues, so who is he fooling now? Why the outrage, veterans getting screwed by the VA has been fine with him for his entire career, his voting record speaks for itself.
In his letter to Secretary Shinseki he wrote this:
Veterans who are wrongly denied benefits often suffer significant harm, Grassley said, even if they eventually prevail. So does the taxpayer, he added, because when the government loses on appeal, it must not only pay the benefits in question, it also must cover the veteran’s attorneys fees when the court finds the government’s position to be unjustified.
My attorney was never paid by the VA despite the decade long fight they created by refusing to admit I was ever used in the human experimentation program Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. v. Central Intelligence Agency, et al. in fact the government never admitted at any point that the exposures may have been either totally or partially responsible for my many medical issues. They deny the Edgewood Experience harmed anyone, that is one of the major reasons for the lawsuit against the Army, DOD and the CIA.
The Federal Judge has found enough evidence to allow the case to proceed to trial despite the governments lawyers throwing everything but the kitchen sink at her in their attempts to get the case dismissed, wrong venue, stattuete of limitations, state secrets, etc, the only thing the Judge refused to hear was anything related to the "Feres Doctrine" since we are not asking for monetary compensations that is a moot point anyway.
I am glad to see that the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS has seen how badly the non adversarial Veteran Affairs lawyers treat this nations veterans in their attempts to getthe nation to keep the "PROMISE" 50% or 70% .
ROBERTS: Well that's really startling, isn't it? In litigating with veterans, the government more often than not takes a position that is substantially unjustified?
YANG: It is an unfortunate number, Your Honor. And it is -- it's accurate.
So what this tells me is that for the past 100 years that our Service Organizations have proudly stood before Congress year in and year out and justified their existence in "caring" for our nations veterans, and that they alone will see to it that the disabled military members will get the benefits they are entitled to due to injuries or medical issues like PTSD, heart attacks, Malaria etc from the Veterans Administration who proudly proclaims President Abraham Lincolns words:
to care for him who shall have borne the battle
and for his widow, and his orphan,
these words come from the Abraham Lincoln Second Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1865
Fellow-Countrymen:
AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 1
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. 2
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 3
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 4
Senator Grassley I am sorry you are the last person I want speaking in my defense against the VA, you have failed for the last 30 years to help this nations veterans, you have voted against us, time and time again, you demand we be ready to fight with the cheapest equipment people like you, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney can get away with and force the nations young men and women to go in harms way to do your bidding, and when they come home damaged you fail in keeping the PROMISE, why?
It's the sorry SOBs like you and and the others I named that should be demanding better equipment, better benefits, better life insurance for disabled veterans how far do you think that 10,000 dollar WW2 era policy is going to carry my wife and kids when I pass away from my service connected disabilities, their is a bill in the house to raise the 10,000 to 100,000. put your energy into passing this into law and help this nations disabled veterans, instead of show boating on Justice Roberts observations on an issue you could really care less about, do a Harry Truman put your money where your mouth is, and actually help the nations 100% disabled veterans get decent life insurance.
If you can't do that go crawl back in your worm hole.