An MCM Open Thread
This has been a busy couple of weeks for the Military Community Members of DailyKos.
We have asked members to schedule district meetings with their congressman in hopes of turning the tide on attacks on military benefits.
In How Completely Useless DailyKos Is, a great diary by allergywomen, we learned how she was able to get her Tea Party Representative to listen when it came to a veteran's issue.
We learned that the cuts to our retirement aren't only bad, they're are huge, in brooklynbadboy's diary, Military pension reform means an 85% cut for career veterans.
Susan from 29 brought us New Front in the War on Vets, an update on the contamination of water at Camp Lejeune and the proposed cuts to commissary benefits that would pay for the health care costs of those suffering from the contamination.
In the comments of Susan from 29's diary, we learn about an older and much ignored issue from Anna M,
Fort McClellan was home to the Army's Chemical School, and Basic Training for thousands (myself included), and a major toxic dump site. PCBs and Agent Orange among others. A lot of women (WACs) went through training there.
H.R. 2052: Fort McClellan Health Registry Act needs more co-sponsors in order to gain the attention in deserves. It is both a veteran's issue and a women's rights issue and targeting the correct Representatives could make all the difference in the world.
And, just yesterday, HoundDog let us know that we may be keeping troops in Afghanistan until 2024, with little to no debate in Congress.
Basically, we have a lot of reasons to contact our entire Congressional Delegation, but for some of these issues, it would be better to target our message to specific members of Congress. To do this, I need to know where our Congressional Influence lies - we can never tell when YOUR Representative or Senator may be the most important one we need to contact.
Are you willing to help us out? You don't need to belong to the MCM, you just need to be willing to contact a congressman when we ask for help... it will always be about a military community issue.
We are asking you to take this short survey and help us determine where our political influence lies. It could make the difference between blindly stabbing in the dark and seeing the whites of our enemies eyes. Not that they are always enemies mind you... a lot of times we will be asking for the help of our friends as well.