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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VCS Dec 29 Update: Torture and More
Written by VCS
Tuesday, 29 December 2009 13:36
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This week’s update shines a bright spotlight on torture, one of the darkest chapters in our U.S. history. Plus we ask for your views on two important VCS advocacy efforts. December 29, 2009 (VCS) - Starting with our participation in the landmark lawsuit to exposure the pro-torture policies during the Bush Era, Veterans for Common Sense has been fighting against torture and for our freedom. This week's update also asks you to send in your views about what we should tell reporters and Congress about the issues we care about. VCS Solicits Your Views First, VCS speaks with reporters nearly every day. In January, VCS will be meeting with dozens of reporters to promote coverage of the needs and concerns of our service members, veterans, and families. If you had the chance to tell a room full of national and local TV, radio, and newspaper reporters about VA (both the good and the bad), then what would you say? And if you could tell them what they are missing, then what would you share? Second, in February, VCS is scheduled to testify twice before Congress about VA’s budget and about Gulf War illness. What do you think VCS should tell Congress about these important issues? Setting History Straight: Bush Ordered Torture After 9/11, former President George W. Bush ordered torture. In January 2009, Bush confirmed this to FOX news. The headline at Think Progress is very clear: “Bush: I Personally Authorized Torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.” In 2002, when reports of torture in Afghanistan were first surfacing, VCS recognized that Bush’s pro-torture policy endangered our troops by placing them at higher risk when they are captured. VCS then joined forces with the ACLU to force the release of torture documents. Read the archive of outrageous Bush-era torture documents can be found at the ACLU’s web site. VCS Supports Our Constitution and Rule of Law Reasonable people agree that when former President George W. Bush began the Iraq War under false pretenses and when he ordered torture, Bush recklessly endangered our troops and our national security. We are now fighting two major wars, with more than 5,000 U.S. troops killed, and 480,000 new Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran patients treated at VA hospitals and clinics, with a financial cost in the trillions of dollars. In Iraq and Afghanistan, up to one million are dead, and millions more are refugees within their borders or in other nations, and both nations lay mostly in ruins. Problem Remains: Obama Continues Two Bush Policies We remain disappointed that President Obama would conceal Bush-era documents and deny access to our courts for torture survivors. Like an untreated and decaying tooth cavity, the torture pictures will eventually leak and cause more serious damage later. The best common sense solution, for our nation and the torture survivors, is to release the pictures to the courts and survivors so all may see and judge the Bush Administration. |









