Check It Out for Friday, June 5th
Jason Leopold at The Public Record weighs in on the crisis at the VA as benefits backlog is close to 1 million.
"During the past four months, the Department of Veterans Affairs backlog of unfinished disability claims grew by more than 100,000, adding to an already mountainous backlog that is now close to topping one million.
"The VA's claims backlog, which includes all benefits claims and all appeals at the Veterans Benefits Administration and the Board of Veterans Appeals at VA, was 803,000 on Jan. 5, 2009. The backlog hit 915,000 on May 4, 2009, a staggering 14 percent increase in four months.
"The issue has become so dire that veterans now wait an average of six months to receive disability benefits and as long as four years for their appeals to be heard in cases where their benefits were denied.
"Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said during a hearing in March that the VA is 'almost criminally behind in processing claims.'
"Overhauling the VA represents one of the most daunting challenges facing the Obama administration after years of mismanagement and neglect by the Bush administration who stacked the agency with political cronies that kept the agency underfunded, wrapped in bureaucratic red tape and placed the interests of veterans last on a list of priorities.
"Indeed, one of the VA’s biggest failures during the Bush administration’s tenure was its inability to fully implement critical components of the Mental Health Strategic Plan (MHSP) at regional offices throughout the country.
"The MHSP, unveiled in 2004, would have provided veterans who show signs of suicide or are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder with immediate mental health care and eliminated the waiting period for receiving treatment.
"But according to a November 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), spending for the program was substantially less than what the VA had proposed - leaving untreated tens of thousands of veterans who were at risk of suicide.
"Although President Obama has proposed increasing the VA’s budget by 10 percent to $15 billion and as much as $113 billion for fiscal year 2010 as a way of meeting these challenges, the administration still lacks the manpower, data, and analysis to properly plan for the funding increase, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.
"Two years ago, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth sued the VA alleging some war veterans were turned away from VA hospitals after they sought care for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and later committed suicide.
"The veterans groups sought a preliminary injunction to force the VA to immediately treat war veterans who showed signs of or were already suffering from PTSD. In addition, they wanted a federal judge to force the VA to overhaul its internal systems that handle benefits claims and medical services.
"But U.S District Court Judge Samuel Conti ruled last summer that he lacked the legal authority to implement those measures. However, Conti did say in an 82-page ruling that it was 'clear to the court' that 'the VA may not be meeting all of the needs of the nation’s veterans.'
"In addition, Hall and House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Filner introduced and passed a comprehensive package of pilot programs to start repairing VA's broken claims system.
"But without immediate intervention by Shinseki on the benefits claims backlog, the VA will continue to be mired in controversy."
Farrah Hassan writes a commentary at the Institute for Policy Studies about her, a Syrian-American's, reaction to Obama's Cairo speech.
"When Obama shifted his positive, reaffirming words regarding Islam’s contributions to civilization, including “It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries,” to remind the world that “al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans” on 9/11, I too reverted back to that day. I still recall looking at my mother in the eye, and thinking, “Life has just become more complicated if you’re a Muslim” — or even look like one. President George W. Bush’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, under the “War on Terror,” ensued. And Obama has magnified the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In his speech, he cited “violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.” A total of 21,000 additional U.S. troops will be deployed to Afghanistan to provide security ahead of the presidential elections scheduled in August. He conceded that “military power alone is not going to solve the problems” and mentioned plans on investing $1.5 billion a year in Pakistan for schools and hospitals and refugee assistance, and “more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy.” The $97 billion supplemental budget for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — which awaits final congressional approval — however, would allocate more money for military spending than on civilian needs.
"Then, as Obama delved into the challenges confronting Islam and the West, starting off with the need to confront “violent extremism in all of its forms,” I revisited being in Damascus in the Summer of 2006, as war waged between Israel and Hezbollah in nearby Lebanon, when an initial 100,000 Lebanese fled to Syria for relief. During the war, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice equated the war to symbolizing the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” At a shelter where I helped serve food, a Lebanese woman fleeing the war with her family said, “I hope my children will not grow up to hate America.”
"But what about lifting the veil on the reality of U.S. policy on the ground? In speaking about Afghanistan, Obama justified the widening of the war and emphasized, “We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military — we seek no military bases there.” He failed to acknowledge the growing civilian casualties due to increased U.S. drone attacks ostensibly aimed at dismantling the Taliban — a reality that only increases the risk of blowback against the United States, as opposed to winning the hearts and minds of Afghans, of Muslims, alike. Indeed, a military investigation concluded the U.S. made mistakes after the May 4 airstrikes in the western province of Farah that killed dozens of civilians
"On a larger level, he portrayed the context for discord between Islam and the West rooted solely in the acts of violent extremists, instead of pointing to the need to shatter structures harder to break, but that would yield change — war and occupation, political, social and economic inequities.
Christopher Hayes at The Nation on naming the enemy or community and grass roots organizers homing in on corporate power.
"Every spring National People's Action brings hundreds of community organizers and grassroots leaders from across the country to Washington for its annual conference. And every year the event culminates in a hotly anticipated and meticulously planned direct action. In 2004 organizers bused hundreds of people to Karl Rove's Georgetown home, where they demanded he use his power to push Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented students to qualify for financial aid. George Goehl, who runs NPA, wasn't on staff at the time, but he describes the logic this way: "Rove was the most powerful person in the administration there was a way to get access to."
"This year NPA opted to target someone you've almost certainly never heard of: Ed Yingling, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association. The ABA has been the chief obstacle to a proposed bankruptcy reform bill that would let judges modify mortgages, thereby allowing an estimated 600,000 people who face foreclosure to stay in their homes. The opposition from the banking lobby has been so fierce that the Senate's chief proponent of the bill, Dick Durbin, more or less gave up on negotiating with his colleagues across the aisle, opting instead to negotiate directly with representatives of the banks, as if they were some heretofore undiscovered fourth branch of government. (In April the bill went down to defeat, prompting Durbin to observe that the banks "frankly, own the place.")
"This is Community Organizing 101: you figure out who's got the power; then you confront them. When the City of Chicago was failing to collect garbage properly in a poor neighborhood on the South Side, Saul Alinsky didn't have neighborhood residents protest the garbage men or the offices of Streets and Sanitation. He had residents collect their trash and dump it on the lawn of the local alderman. Services quickly improved.
" 'Most Republicans aren't waking up every day thinking, How do we kill banking regulation?' says Goehl. 'Most people who listen to Rush Limbaugh aren't waking up thinking about how do we kill banking regulation. But the people with the deep pockets who have power in DC are thinking that.'
" ' I sometimes get frustrated because it seems like the left isn't focused on corporate power. We like to talk about the Sarah Palins and Rush Limbaughs, and meanwhile the American Bankers Association is one of the main entities running the country.'
" 'And while most of us can name the latest moronic utterance from Limbaugh or Michael Steele or Newt Gingrich, the Ed Yinglings of the world remain comfortably anonymous' "
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