August 31, 2009 - Your weekly update features new examples of how your support for Veterans for Common Sense improves the lives of all of our veterans and protects the freedoms of all Americans. Your weekly update provides you with news and facts available only from VCS on issues you care deeply about. 

VCS wants to remind our members that we are largely member funded. Today is your last chance to help us meet our August fundraising goal. Please click here to make a gift to veterans today.

VA's new PTSD Regulations

Here's interesting news for all veterans regarding disability compensation claims filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Please read this August 26, New York Times article by James Dao about VA's new PTSD regulations.

Civil Liberties

At VCS, our goal has always been to force the former Bush Administration to reveal the facts about their brutal treatment of enemy prisoners of war. On August 30, Scott Shane at The New York Times profiled our ACLU - VCS lawsuit against the Department of Justice and other. Read about it here.

As a result of our landmark Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and lawsuit, Americans now know how Bush political appointees twisted both logic and law to dehumanize captured enemy soldiers by relabeling them as enemy combatants, quickly sliding down a slippery slope into the great abyss - a quagmire of void of legal and moral values and consumed with intense anger, violent revenge, international renditions, tortures, rapes, and deaths. Torture doesn't work, and torture undermines everyone's individual freedom.

VCS needs your help to keep up this important fight. Please, make a monthly, tax-deductible gift to Veterans for Common Sense now.

Gulf War Veterans

Veterans for Common Sense continues leading the fight to preserve and expand scientific research to understand and find treatments for the estimated 175,000 to 210,000 Gulf War veterans still suffering from multi-symptom illnesses linked with toxic exposures.

As reported by Kelly Kennedy in the Army Times, VCS thought the matter was resolved.

However, last week, VA unexpectedly - and we think without real justification - slashed essential research led by Dr. Robert Haley, according to an Associated Press article by Linda Steward Ball.

Take action today. VCS needs your help to save Dr. Haley's ground-breaking work at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (UTSW). Please pick up your phone and call your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators and request that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) work with UTSW so this vital research can continue. Leading the charge for veterans is Congress is U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

VA's Mistaken ALS Letter

On Friday evening, August 21, Gulf War veterans contacted Veterans for Common Sense about strange letters they received from VA informing them they were diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease. VCS sprung into action immediately, informing VA about the problem that evening. We continually updated our members about the situation through e-mails and postings at our web site.

Although VA made a very tragic and preventable mistake, VA was highly responsive to veterans' concerns relayed through VCS. In the end, VA appears to be doing right by our veterans.

Please, make a gift to veterans today so VCS can continue this important work.

Fox News Tells Lies

We all know the story about "The Emperor's New Clothes." Last week, Veterans for Common Sense stood up and called out FOX News and Michael Steele, the Chairman of the Republican Party, for telling lies about veterans and VA. At first, only Media Matters weighed in with a blistering review on August 26.

A few days later, VCS demanded an apology from both FOX News and the Republicans for their ludicrous lies - Steele claimed VA has a manual that "encourages" veterans to commit suicide.

Finally, a VCS Lawsuit Update

Support for our lawsuit keeps pouring in, and VCS thanks all of you who send us kind and thoughtful words of encouragement. Please read our lawsuit update.

And thanks to C-SPAN, you can now watch a video of our lawsuit appeal, held August 12 in San Francisco before a courtroom packed with veterans from all wars concerned about fixing VA for all veterans.

Remember, Veterans for Common Sense is largely member-funded. We need your help to keep up the good fight. Please make a donation for veterans today.