What's New
| VA Secretary Pressed by Senator on High Percentage of Wrongly Denied Benefit Claims |
March 16, 2010, Washington, DC (CQ Politics) - A leading Republican senator on Tuesday asked 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. |
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| Profile of New Veterans' Courts in New York Times |
Defendants Fresh From War Find Service Counts in Court - VCS Supports Veterans' Courts March 15, 2010, Charleston, West Virginia (New York Times) — When Judge Robert C. Chambers handed down Timothy Oldani’s federal sentence for selling stolen military equipment on eBay, he gave the former Marine a break. |
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| Presdent Obama Donated $250,000 of Nobel Prize Money to Fisher House |
March 11, 2010, Washington, DC (New York Times) - President Obama made good on his promise to give his $1.4 million Nobel Prize money to charity, releasing the names on Thursday of the organizations that will benefit. |
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| Philanthropist Bobby Willis to Build New $3.3 Billion Hospital for VA in Farmington, NM for Rural and Native American Veterans |
Proposed state-of-the-art Kirtland veterans clinic could provide as many as 8,000 jobs March 14, 2010, Farmington, New Mexico (Farmington Daily Times) — A proposed veterans complex in Kirtland centered around a new hospital, backed by a wealthy entrepreneur and costing an estimated $3.3 billion promises to bring state-of-the-art medicine and other benefits to veterans, as well as 8,000 jobs to the local economy. |
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| Dr. Haley at UTSW Presents Compelling Brain Images Showing Gulf War Illness |
VCS Asks VA: Since UTSW Research Remains Vital to Understanding Gulf War Illness, Then Why Did a Handful of VA Staff in Washington Impede UTSW Contract and Then End Funding for UTSW? March 9, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah (Science News) - Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images – various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements – that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome. |
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Editorial Column: Promises Broken on Torture, Transparency
Written by San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, 14 August 2009 09:03
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August 14, 2009 - The Obama administration has chosen to pursue some of the Bush administration's policies on torture and transparency. Right now the administration is fighting - in three courts, no less - to conceal information about the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner.
The prisoner's name is Binyam Mohamed. A 30-year-old Ethiopian refugee and British resident, he was allegedly carrying a false passport when he was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. Mohamed claims he was tortured over the course of two years - in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before being transferred for more rough stuff in Guantanamo Bay. Rather than taking on the U.S. government directly, Mohamed's lawyers decided to sue Jeppesen Dataplan, a San Jose subsidiary of Boeing, for its alleged role in transporting Mohamed at the direction of the CIA. The Obama administration has endorsed the Bush administration's original arguments in the case, claiming that it poses a threat to national security. The administration even threatened Mohamed's lawyers with jail time after they wrote a letter asking Obama to release evidence of their client's treatment. The case has caused a minor scandal in the United Kingdom, where it appears that British intelligence service agents sat on their hands while Mohamed was allegedly being tortured in Morocco - at the request of the United States. And last month, a British government lawyer said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton threatened to curtail the U.S. intelligence-sharing program with Britain if it released details about Mohamed's treatment. We've yet to see any evidence that any of this has improved safety for Americans or the British. Obama campaigned on a promise to end the Bush administration's dangerous and reprehensible policies on torture. He should keep his word.
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