BULLY BOY
PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID
TABLE
AS THE TCI WIRE NOTED WEDNESDAY MORNING OF THE CELEBRITY IN CHIEF'S DEBATE PERFORMANCE, "More importantly swing voters and undecideds had little to grab onto. If you're undecided at this point, presumably, the last four years have not pleased you. And that's why we see Barack as the loser. Last night, he yet again had a chance to present a vision or even a glimpse of four-more-years of Barack. He never did. He runs from his actual record and he won't talk about the future." OTHERS ARE PICKING UP ON THAT. A COLUMNIST FRIDAY NOTED BARRY O HAD NOTHING TO OFFER ABOUT THE NEXT FOUR YEARS. BBC NEWS NOTES THE OBVIOUS TODAY.
AND WHEN NOT NOTING THE LACK OF VISION, PEOPLE ARE NOTING BARRY O'S LIES, LIKE HERE FROM RUBEN NAVARRETTE:
During the second debate, Romney passed up multiple opportunities to slam Obama for stretching the truth. Such as when the president talked about so-called Dreamers -- undocumented students pursuing higher education -- deserving a "pathway to citizenship." Obama said he gave them that pathway "administratively."
Correction: Never happened. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is explicitly not a pathway to citizenship. It is temporary; applicants are given a two-year work visa but can still be deported at any time by immigration officials.
IN FAIRNESS TO BARRY O, HE IS A VERY BUSY MAN. AS CELEBRITY IN CHIEF, HE HAS MANY IMPORTANT DUTIES LIKE ADVISING JAY Z ON PARENTING (BARRY O BREAST FED HIS GIRLS UNTIL THEY EACH TURNED THREE), WEIGHING IN ON DIVA FEUDS, AND DOING CHATS ON BASIC CABLE.
OKAY, HE DIDN'T PROTECT THE AMERICANS IN BENGHAZI AND HE PROBABLY CAN'T PROTECT YOU OR THE COUNTRY. BUT ISN'T IT REASSURING IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES TO KNOW WHAT WHEN NICKI MINAJ IS CAUGHT BY CELL PHONE VIDEO CURSING OUT MARIAH CAREY, BARRY O WILL STEP IN AND VOUCH FOR MARIAH AND SAY HE'S EVEN GOT NICKI ON HIS IPOD?
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Starting with veterans, in the US veterans have struggled with many
issues they shouldn't have to. Some struggles may truly be a
surprise. Many struggles aren't. Many struggles are a sign that proper
planning was not done when the government sent people off to war. This
is a point US House Rep Bob Filner very skillfully made September 30, 2010:
Chair
Bob Filner: It struck me as I looked at a lot of the facts and data
that we-we see across our desks that, as a Congress, as a nation, we
really do not know the true costs of the wars we are fighting in Iraq
and Afghanistan. [. . .] We all look at the data that comes from these
wars. It struck me one day that the official data for, for example, the
wounded was around 45,000 for both wars. And yet we know that six or
seven hundred thousand of our veterans of these wars -- of which there
are over a million already -- have either filed claims for disability or
sought health care from the VA for injuries suffered at war -- 45,000
versus 800,000? This is not a rounding error. I think this is a
deliberate attempt to mask what is going on in terms of the actual
casualty figures. We know that there is a denial of PTSD -- Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's a 'weakness' among Marines and soldiers
to admit mental illness so we don't even have those figures until
maybe it's too late. We all know that women are participating in this
war at a degree never before seen in our nation's history and, yet, by
whatever estimate you look, whether it's half or two-thirds have
suffered sexual trauma. The true cost of war? We know that over 25,000
of our soldiers who were originally diagnosed with PTSD got their
diagnosis changed or their diagnosis was changed as they were -- had to
leave the armed forces, changed to "personality disorder." And not only
does that diagnosis beg the question of why we took people in with the
personality disorder, it means that there's a pre-existing condition and
we don't have to take care of them as a nation. Cost of war? There
have been months in these wars where the suicides of active duty have
exceeded the deaths in action. Why is that? When our veterans come home
from this war, we say we support troops, we support troops, we
support troops? 30% unemployment rate for returning Iraqi and
Afghanistan veterans. That's three times an already horrendous rate in
our nation. Guardsman find difficulty getting employment because they
may be deployed. Now a democracy has to go to war sometimes. But people
have to know in a democracy what is the cost. They have to be informed
of the true -- of the true nature -- not only in terms of the human
cost, the material cost, but the hidden cost that we don't know until
after the fact or don't recognize. We know -- Why is it that we don't
have the mental health care resources for those coming back? Is it
because we failed to understand the cost of serving our military
veterans is a fundamental cost of the war? Is it because we sent these
men and women into harms way without accounting for and providing the
resources necessary for their care if they're injured or wounded or
killed? Every vote that Congress has taken for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan has failed to take into account the actual cost of these
wars by ignoring what we will require to meet the needs of our men and
women in uniform who have been sent into harms way. This failure means
that soldiers who are sent to war on behalf of their nation do not know
if their nation will be there for them tomorrow.
That
pretty much says everything about the planning and the funding and how
both were lacking. Bob Filner was Chair of the House Veterans Affairs
Comittee at that time and credit to him and US House Reps Harry Teague,
Ciro Rodriguez, Jerry McNerney, Walter Jones, George Miller and Jim
Moran who all attended that hearing while almost everyone in the House
had already bolted and gone back to their districts to focus on their
re-election races. Bob Filner did a great job serving veterans as a
member of Congress. He's decided not to seek re-election to Congress
and instead is running for Mayor of San Diego.
He
will be missed in Congress. Veterans are fortunate to have other
champions in Congress. One of those is Senator Patty Murray whose
office issued the following yesterday:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Contact: Murray Press Office
(202) 224-2834
Sen. Murray Calls on Secretary Panetta to Provide Timeline for Promised Military Review of PTSD and Behavioral Health Diagnoses
In
the aftermath of the misdiagnoses of servicemembers in Washington
state, Murray calls on the Pentagon to move forward with nationwide
review of mental health diagnoses since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
began
Letter
also calls for information on efforts to collect missing unit military
records that could prove critical if certain health care problems arise
from service in Iraq or Afghanistan
(Washington
D.C.) -- Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate
Veterans' Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta requesting next steps and a timeline for the execution of a
critical military-wide review of PTSD and behavioral health diagnoses
made since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began. The review, which
Secretary Panetta promised following the misdiagnoses of severvicemembers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, has seemingly stalled since being announced on June 13th.
"The
Department must act with a sense of urgency in order to complete this
review and to act on its findings in coordinating with other ongoing
efforts to improve the disability evaluation system." Murray wrote to
Panetta. "Each of these efforts is vital in ensuring servicemembers
truly have a transparent, consistent, and expeditious disability
evaluation process."
"Senator
Murray's letter also addressed her concerns that records for military
units in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are often used to provide
information on potential health and exposure issues be carefully
identified, located, and collected.
The full text of Senator Murray's letter follows:
October 18, 2012
The Honorable Leon E. Panetta
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
Dear Secretary Panetta:
I
am writing to express my concern about two distinct issues, which taken
together impact the disability evaluation process for servicemembers
and veterans.
At
the outset, I very much appreciate your ongoing efforts to address
behavioral health diagnoses and care both within the Integrated
Disability Evaluation System and throughout the Department at large. In
June, as part of this ongoing effort, you announced a comprehensive
Department-wide review of mental health diagnoses. Shortly after the
announcement, I had the opportunity to meet with Under Secretary Conaton
to discuss some of the initial steps the Department had taken in
preparation for this review. However, it appears that progress on this
effort may have stalled. I am writing today to request the Department's
next steps and timeline for execution of this review.
The
Department must act with a sense of urgency in order to complete this
review and to act on its findings in coordinating with other ongoing
efforts to improve the disability evaluation system. Each of these
efforts is vital in ensuring servicemembers truly have a transparent,
consistent, adn expeditious disability evaluation process.
My
second concern relates to the ability of the Department, and
specifically the Army, to identify and account for many records for
units that served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lack of access to
documentation of the locations and fucntions of specific military units
interferes with the ability of both servicemembers and veterans to
obtain evidence of military service that may result in adverse health
conditions now or in the future. As we have learned from prior
conflicts, this lack of documentation all too often leads to hardship
for veterans in establishing a relationship between miltiary service and
a specific medical condition.
The
lack of accessible documents may also impede future research efforts if
health care problems arise from service in Iraq or Afghanistan. For
these reasons, I would like to know the current status of efforts to
identify, locate and collect records for units that served in Iraq and
Afghanistan. I also urge you to take all necessary steps to ensure unit
records are properly archived and accessible.
I
appreciate your attention to these requests and look forward to our
continued work together to strengthen both the disability evaluation
system and behavioral health diagnoses and care and to ensure our
servicemembers and veterans have access to critical military documents.
Sincerely,
Patt Murray
Chairman
###
To
tie the two together -- because this is really not new -- Bob Filner
was speaking of a policy to change a diganoses from PTSD to "personality
disorder" because someone was deciding the government shouldn't pay
what the government owed. Someone was deciding that the role of
government was to get over on veterans, not to deliver to veterans what
had been promised.
And you'd think the shame of doing that
would stop it. You'd think they'd stop changing diagnoses. But people
continue to do that. This year, Senator Murray's found it happening in
her home state of Washington. She's repeatedly attempted to get
answers -- not just as Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee
(though she's repeatedly asked for answers in that role) but also, for
example, using
her position as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee to
question Army Secretary John McHugh about the changing diagnoses.
There
is no excuse for diagnoses to have ever been changed. There's even
less excuse for refusing to start the promised review of changed
diagnoses. To be clear, there's even less excuse for Leon Panetta to
avoid starting the promised review. Leon is Secretary of Defense. I
like him, I've known him for years -- since he was in Congress. I like
Leon. But that doesn't change the fact that as Secretary of Defense it
reflects poorly on him that the review has not started. It doesn't
change the fact that he needs to do his job. I didn't care for Robert
Gates and was appalled to see the press fawn over him (in the months
long farewell tour coverage as well as in that awful farewell press
conference that immediately went off the record so the press could hug
him and get their photos taken with him -- as someone in the
entertainment industry, I'm used to excited fans, but this was a press
acting like teeny boppers mooning over some heart throb of the
moment). The fact that I like Leon doesn't mean that I don't think he
should be evaluated when he leaves office. There are not two standards
here. Gates should have been evaluated on key issues (instead, he was
only evaluated on granting press access) such as military suicides and
military sexual assaults. Those were two key problems in the military
and he should have been evaluated on how he addressed those (and other
key problems). Leon should be judged by those and also by issues like
this scandal and the failure to launch a review in a timely manner.
Leon Panetta needs to provide an answer to Senator Murray -- more than
that, he needs to launch the promised review.
The Paterson Press notes
another need, in Paterson, New Jersey, the Paterson Veterans Council
wants to inscribe the names of three local Iraq War veterans who died
while serving in Iraq on the Veterans Memorial Park monument. The three
fallen are Spc Gil Mercado, Spc Farid Elazzouzi and Sgt Christian
Bueno-Galdos. The Paterson Veterans Council is staging a beefsteak
dinner November 5th as a fundraiser: "Donations to the Nov. 5 beefsteak are tax-deductible and can be made to the Paterson Veterans Council, 296 Maitland Ave., Paterson, NJ 07502. For information, call Tony Vancheri at 973-303-3523."
"It's eight years [since her son died at the age of 21 while serving in Iraq] and it still hurts," England's Sue Smith explains
today as the British courts tell four families of the British fallen
they have permission to sue the Military of Defence over deaths that
could have been preventable. Steve Anderson (Independent of London) reports,
"Relatives had argued that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) failed to
provide armoured vehicles or equipment which could have saved lives and
should pay compensation." ITV explains,
"They were nicknamed mobile coffins and, in 2006, Private Lee Ellis
died when one of them was blown up by a roadside bombing." Sue Smith
is the mother of Private Phillip Hewett who died serving in Iraq from a
roadside bombing while in a Snatch Land Rover. She tells Channel 4 (link is video and text):
Sue
Smith: This is a case of an employer owing his staff the right duty of
care. Take away the uniform and everything else and it's simply a man
or a woman doing their job and they should be respected for doing that
job the same as anybody else. [. . .] I think it's despicable. They
knew the vehicles were no good but it's also this dismissive attitude of
it doesn't matter, they're like action men, if we break them, we can
throw them in a junk pile and nobody can do anything about it. And if
they're really badly broken, they can be buried. Well, it doesn't work
like that.
Along with the family of
Philip Hewett, the family of Cpl Stephen Allbutt, Private Lee Ellis and
Lance Cpl Kirk Redpath have been granted permission to file suit. The
Allbutt family attorney Shubhaa Srinivasnh tells the Telegraph of London
that it's a "landmark" decision and, "We maintain that the MoD's
position has been morally and legally indefensible, as they owe a duty
of care to those who fight on behalf of this country." Ann Salter (International Business Times -- link is text and video) hails
the verdict as "historic" and notes the families can now "sue the
Ministry of Defence for negligence and inadequate equipment" as a result
of the ruling made by the London Court of Appeals. BBC News' Nick Childs speaks with Sue Smith (link is video). Excerpt.
Nick
Childs: Why are you trying to go through the UN Convention on Human
Rights to deal with this - this issue? When the court of appeal has
said these claims can be pursued in terms of care and negligance through
the courts here?
Sue
Smith: The negligance is for wives or dependants because that's a
compensation claim. I'm not claiming compensation. I'm claiming that
the soldiers have a right to life which is something that the MoD seemed
to say that if they're on exercise or anything like that abroad,
they're not covered by that.
[. . . ]
Nick Childs: How have you felt about the Ministry of Defence as you've gone through this-this legal proces.?
Sue
Smith: Well they're just pen pushers as far as I'm concerned. They've
got no idea. They're not living in this world. They're not the ones
going out in substandard vehicles -- or were. I'm not sure what they're
doing now. But at the end of the day, they're people that are arguing
who haven't actually lived the life that we're living. They've got no
idea. So how can they sit there and say that these boys have no right
to life? They're not the ones sitting in the back of the vehicle that
might blow up at any moment.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"The news is fake, your wasted tax dollars are real (Ava and C.I.)"
"State of the political crisis in Iraq"
"Wild Rice and Mushroom casserole"
"3rd Party voters, read this"
"Benghazi, the election and more"
"Preparing to bail on the SS Stein"
"Movies, Benghazi and more"
"After the secret is out"
"book 'em friday: new barbra bio delivers!"
"thoughts on the election"
"More truth about the attack emerges"
"The Jewish Stooge: Jon Stewart"
"Horrifyingly Mad"
"Piss on Mike Thompson"
"William J. Mann's Hello, Gorgeous"
"I believe there's been enough focus on Stevens"
"Diamonds Are Forever"
"That's not the party I signed up for"
"The Cult of St. Barack"
"Michael O'Hanlon's a crook"|
"Afghanistan and those who provide cover for Barack"
"Nikita"
"Two tie for village idiot"
"THIS JUST IN! WHO'S CLOWING WHO?"
"The news is fake, your wasted tax dollars are real (Ava and C.I.)"
"State of the political crisis in Iraq"
"Wild Rice and Mushroom casserole"
"3rd Party voters, read this"
"Benghazi, the election and more"
"Preparing to bail on the SS Stein"
"Movies, Benghazi and more"
"After the secret is out"
"book 'em friday: new barbra bio delivers!"
"thoughts on the election"
"More truth about the attack emerges"
"The Jewish Stooge: Jon Stewart"
"Horrifyingly Mad"
"Piss on Mike Thompson"
"William J. Mann's Hello, Gorgeous"
"I believe there's been enough focus on Stevens"
"Diamonds Are Forever"
"That's not the party I signed up for"
"The Cult of St. Barack"
"Michael O'Hanlon's a crook"|
"Afghanistan and those who provide cover for Barack"
"Nikita"
"Two tie for village idiot"
"THIS JUST IN! WHO'S CLOWING WHO?"
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