Memorial Day Is an Excellent Opportunity to Focus on the Needs of Our Veterans in California

Via California Progress Report:

Memorial Day Is an Excellent Opportunity to Focus on the Needs of Our Veterans in California

By Mary Salas
Chair
Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee

This Memorial Day while you are enjoying a backyard BBQ take a moment to ponder this little known fact: on any given night in California over 50,000 veterans are homeless, while other veterans may be suffering from mental health issues or experiencing difficulty transitioning back to work. Among the many needs and challenges we face as a state, appropriate care for our veterans must be a priority.

California is home to more than 2.2 million veterans. While it is correct to note that the care of our veterans is primarily the responsibility of the federal government,
the ability of the federal government to honor this obligation has been called into question. Time and again we have seen inefficient delivery of veteran services and benefits and a failure to anticipate and plan for an increase in health care problems associated with veterans, particularly those returning from Iraq.

Many veterans are in need of mental health and suicide prevention counseling and treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury, the signature injuries from the Iraq War. There is also an estimated backlog of over 600,000 claims for federal benefit applications with the US Department of Veterans Affairs for disability compensation and pension payments. These can take months, if not years, to process.

Because less than 11 percent of eligible veterans in this state actually receive these payments (which ranks us 38th nationally in terms of participation), millions of dollars are not being paid to our resident veterans and therefore not being returned to our economy. If California could increase this rate to the national average of
slightly over 12%, more than $330 million could be returned to our veterans and our economy.

Unfortunately, our state and local governments are no position to help either, given the budget challenges we are currently facing. Nonetheless, more must be done to better use the resources we have.

The state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office indicates that approximately 144,000 military veterans in California who could be receiving comprehensive medical benefits from the US Veterans Administration (VA) health care system are enrolled instead in the state-funded Medi-Cal Program. The state could eventually save as much as $250 million annually from a voluntary shift of veterans from Medi-Cal into VA health care by implementing a data matching system which would identify veterans that are eligible to transfer to the VA.

California’s Department of Veterans Affairs administers a farm and home loan program that is restricted to serving only pre-1977 veterans and to lending for only single family mortgages. Meanwhile, thousands of veterans in need of transitional and multifamily housing receive little, if any, support. This program must be modernized to meet the needs of today’s veterans.

Regardless of how one feels about the Iraq war, we will all be forced to deal with its aftermath. Our state and local governments will be challenged to care for the veterans of past service as well as the soldiers returning from the Iraq war. These soldiers have sacrificed their welfare for ours. Let’s renew our commitment to these brave men and women as we commemorate Memorial Day.

Assembly Member Mary Salas was appointed Chair of the Committee on Veterans Affairs in 2007. Her father and six uncles all served in the armed forces. She represents the 79th California State Assembly District which includes the cities of Chula Vista, National City, Imperial Beach, Coronado, and portions of San Diego.

"It's a paradigm shifting election." An interview with Nick Leibham

I shared breakfast with Nick Leibham last week and discussed where he stands on a number of issues. I mostly just lobbed topics and let him talk; this is the relevant transcript edited to be a remotely reasonable length and minus fun stuff like us chatting with the waitress and our occasional divergence into non-relevant shop talk. Some parts I liked, some parts less so. But here it is. Note this is a contested primary.

Iraq

Each and every day we remain in Iraq we're compromising our national security further. It's a blood feud that goes back 1400 years between the Sunnis and Shiites. American military forces are not going to be able to sort this out for them and at the end of the day they've got to want peace; they've got to want their own stable form of government; they've got to want democracy more than the American Marine Corps wants it for them

The longer that we're there, the more strain it puts on our own men and women in uniform. They're going out on third, fourth, fifth tours of duty, and you read about it all the time of course because we're just miles away from Camp Pendleton

We need to come out and we need to set a date certain for when we are going to redeploy out of Iraq.

Military and Security

There’s one...threshold question that needs to be answered whenever even the thought of American military use is involved, and that is 'Is it in the interests of the United States of America; Is it in the national security interest?' Obviously the United States military has a role to play in ferreting out al Qaeda, in ferreting out terrorist organizations, in...making sure that our own interests abroad are taken care of.

But the United States military has no business in trying to create whole cloth [or] molding different societies. It's kind of antithetical- democracy can't be imposed at gunpoint.

They’ve got to figure it out for themselves. It can't be the United States government doing it for them.

Immigration

The most fundamental job of a nation is to protect its sovereignty, and when you can't secure your borders and ports you can't protect your sovereignty...As a nation we need to recognize that we are going to have to put a significant amount of money, time and effort into suring up our southern border.

As a former prosecutor...if you really want to dry up illegal immigration, you hold employers accountable, and I’ll be the only one up on stage that has ever prosecuted an employer for hiring illegal immigrants. After that's done, you get to other questions.

Health Care and SCHIP

We should be providing health care to kids and Brian Bilbray has staked out a position of essentially rabid ideology at the expense of some 10 million American kids...I think that it's a disgrace that he decided to stand on ideology and stand with the President as opposed to providing these kids with proper medical care. I think it's just very mean-spirited and worse, it's bad public policy.

My endpoint [on health care] is that every family should be able to see a family doctor of their choosing. The way in which we get there I think is going to be a battle royale come January 2009. And what is being pitched today out on the campaign trail- there isn't going to be even a shade of resemblance once this thing actually gets done.

There is a little bit of overlap between Democrats and Republicans on a few issues. One, I think all parties agree that you're going to have to see rapid and massive adoption of information technology and digital patient files. That will cut down on everything from medical errors to back office expense. And the estimates on what that would shave off- I've seen 10-12% of the total healthcare dollars. Secondly, another overlapping area is preventative care. There are certain areas of medicine where this makes a lot of sense. This makes a lot of sense in the area of inoculations...it makes a lot of sense as it concerns preventative screening for certain diseases. From a cost benefit analysis and a quality of years lived analysis.

You've got to have a very serious debate on how else you get there. we're the only westernized country in the world that tells the pres drug companies that they can charge anything they want and it doesn't matter...I think that's something that needs to be addressed.

What that final product is going to look like, I’m not exactly sure. But I know that...we need to look at that end goal...and say let's try to get there.

FISA

we spoke briefly about the general nature of modern privacy before FISA

What's much MUCH more disconcerting to me is the entire FISA bill...As somebody who has been a prosecutor and dealt with the 4th Amendment, I can tell you that this happened to have been the one amendment in the Bill of Rights that all the Founding Fathers could agree upon; that in order for the government intrusion there had to be probable cause signed off on by an independent magistrate that says you may have committed a crime. I find the entire FISA process to be constitutionally dubious. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be made constitutionally valid but I think that anytime you have wiretaps involved...that deals with an American citizen, you've gotta have a court sign off on it. The only question in my mind is whether or not that has to be done prior to there warrant being executed or whether or not there is some grace period. There is no doubt in my mind that the executive branch itself cannot act as both overseer and executioner (of warrants or wiretaps). That, I think, is constitutionally impermissible; I think it's a violation of the judiciary's proper role of interpreting laws.

As a former prosecutor [and] law clerk in the US Attorney's office in the Major Frauds and Economic Crimes section...I've never heard of anybody being given immunity when you don't know what they've done. It's not how the immunity process works. You don't say to somebody 'Whatever you've done, don't worry about it.'...It's unthinkable to me as a lawyer and as somebody who will have...sworn to uphold the Constitution that I could ever support that.

California Emissions and the Environment

I’m not a scientist, but from what I have read...the EPA seems to have made their decision to deny California its waiver based on faith based science. That’s not good enough. If it's warranted by the facts and the evidence, it should be granted. During the next administration, if it's a Democrat, I think we'll get a fair hearing. And if we don't, that's ripe for congressional action to clarify the rule. Because it's the congress that makes the laws, the executive branch simply carries out those laws.

The debate on the science (of global warming) is over. There is no doubt in any serious scientist's mind that global warming is happening. There is virtually no doubt that mankind is directly causing global warming. The only question at this point is 'What is the causal relationship and what are the consequences going forward?'

The role of government as it concerns energy and the environment I think is going to be crucial in the next 5, 10, 20 years. One of the things I very much hope to work on as a member of Congress...is pursuing and advocating for alternative energy in the areas of wind, solar, some biomass, hydrogen. And the role of the government here is to set high standards, it's to help foster innovation- especially in the very early stages of research and development- and then I think it's to turn it over to the market who does a great job of packaging this up...and if people can make a...fortune doing it, great. It makes good public policy, it's good politics, I think it's a good way to return some manufacturing to...the Americas.

It's also an issue of national security. We send hundreds of billions of dollars each year to...Middle Eastern regimes many of them hostile to our interests. We know...that some of that money ends up with Hezbollah; that it ends up with Hamas; some of it filters down and ends up with al Qaeda. We're funding both sides of the war in this particular time.

Then there is the great moral calling of our time which is addressing the global warming problem itself...There is no doubt that our kids will bear the full brunt of this, and we need to figure out now a way to mitigate it because to do anything other than that is nothing short of...long-term child abuse.

Economy

Two prime reasons (for the current economic situation). One, it has been fiscal insanity on the part of the Bush administration...We see that in everything from the weakness of the dollar which hits you...at the pump and in the grocery aisle, to being able to sure up many of those social programs which we know have a pending disaster: Medicare, Social Security, our infrastructure, etc. Secondly, the war. You cannot talk about anything else in this campaign until you address the war.

We are spending- the estimates are- $10-12 billion a month. We have direct outlays to Iraq...upwards and including $500 billion. For one single solitary day of war making in Iraq, we could have sent 160,000 low-income students to college for a year. For 3 1/2 months of war in Iraq we could have provided healthcare coverage to those 10 million...American kids for 5 years under SCHIP. Until we end that, again, we are committing long term fiscal child abuse. Because we're not paying for it...we're borrowing money from...foreign creditors to finance this thing. It's completely and totally irresponsible and it must end.

There’s some middle class tax cuts that...we should retain. We should retain the 15% capital gains rate as opposed to seeing it revert back to 20%. More than 50 million Americans at this point have 401Ks; hat benefits them greatly. We need to once and for all end the AMT. These last couple years it has snagged a whole cross section of our population that it was never meant to hit, and the doubling of the child tax credit is a positive thing. It's a positive thing for San Diego families and San Diego parents. Of course, the recklessness as it concerns the Bush giveaways in terms of the top 1%- no. That's fiscal insanity and I will be a voice to end it.

Most interesting for me was an interlude about halfway through the interview where we lapsed into discussing this year's election in an historical context:

We win this fight because their platform is old and it's worn out...The Reagan Revolution...which started really in 1964 with Goldwater's defeat...it culminated in 1980 and 1994 and the end of the Bush years are a bookend. It's tired, it's played out, and it no longer offers up a positive agenda for America. This isn't just a change election in the sense of Democrats or Republicans. This is a paradigm shifting election and Democrats can capture that...they've got a lot of work to do but we can capture it and I think the pendulum is swinging our way.

Cross posted from Calitics

Gore Vidal to Attend Peace Rally and March

Legendary essayist and author Gore Vidal will be in San Diego tomorrow to attend Peace rally marking the 5th anniversary of the disaster was in Iraq. Theme of the rally "Costs of The War" which has now surpassed a half a trillion dollars and nearly 4000 American servicemembers deaths.

The event is being sponsored by the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice. The first rally is scheduled for noon at Fairmount and University avenues in City Heights. [Map] At 1 p.m., protesters will march to Teralta Park, 40th Street at Orange Avenue [Map], where the second rally will go from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Thursday - Quick Hits

With their arrogance showing, Blackwater claims vote results doesn't change their plans one bit. UT

Victory for the environmental community. Sea World becomes the first group in the United States to apply for a water-quality discharge permit for conducting fireworks over water. UT

La Mesa has hired a consultant to try to attract more business for city. UT

Solana Beach and developer are at odds over train station project. UT

Stepping up and trying to do something that is right, an addiction treatment center is offering free services for Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. UT

The Coastal Commission kills the extra per room fee for controversial Oceanside beach resort. NCTimes

Blackwater Parachutes into San Diego State's Halftime

On Saturday night, the San Diego State Aztecs hosted BYU to close out their regular football season. The game was the 3rd Annual Fleet Week-sponsored game, rescheduled from October 27 because of wildfires. The Fleet Week Foundation describes the game like this:

San Diego State University plays in this third annual Fleet Week Football Classic. Pregame and half-time shows will feature flyovers, parachutists, the Navy Region South West and SDSU bands, and a tribute to our wounded warriors at Balboa Hospital and Camp Pendleton as well as a tribute to members of the Legion of Valor.

The festivities have a wide range of public and private sponsors and it's fun for the whole family right? Well, for at least the second year in a row (probably all three), the halftime show included an American flag being parachuted onto the field by members of a nation parachutist team...who happen to work for Blackwater and use parachutes emblazoned with the Blackwater logo.

Attached is the promotional video from last year's (2006) Fleet Week. You can skip ahead to the 2:43 mark to see the Blackwater parachutist bringing in the giant American flag. If you want, you can also zip over to about the 3:09 mark to see the flag being dragged across the field during landing.

Fleet Week events, which go on year round, are to honor veterans. I've attended several of them and in my experience they've been good opportunities to pay tribute to veterans. So I have a hard time understanding how Blackwater fits into the puzzle. They consistently undermine the work being done by our armed forces around the world and especially in Iraq. It seems a particularly unfortunate inclusion in the festivities; made all the more uncomfortable given that the Blackwater recall election culminates on Tuesday (12/11).

I spoke with Steve Becvar of the SDSU Athletic Foundation, which was involved in planning the event. He explained that this is the third year that Blackwater-affiliated parachutists had played a role in the Fleet Week game. He emphasized that the school was not seeking to make any sort of political point, simply to partner with the Fleet Week Foundation to honor veterans.

But despite what may well have been the best intentions of event organizers, Blackwater has NO business honoring veterans. Blackwater profits from war and has a vested interest in prolonging any military struggle as long as it increases revenue. They are, in fact, naturally at odds with everything that our veterans should be honored for. They dishonor the flag and all the people who have bled for it whenever they or their representatives try to wrap themselves or the Blackwater logo in the American flag.

Blackwater knows what it does. And they know that they're nothing next to the members of the actual military. Past that, they know that their only hope for success or survival is to blur the distinction between their criminal behavior and the valor of American servicemen and women. As the Potrero vote peaks, I hope San Diegans and Americans everywhere refuse to be tricked. Blackwater is hoping for honor by osmosis, but they end up literally and figuratively dragging the reputations of our soldiers through the mud.

If people wanted yet ANOTHER reason to resist at every opportunity Blackwater's plans for a training facility in Potrero, here you go. They've taken advantage of SDSU and the Fleet Week Foundation to undermine what otherwise could have been a wonderful evening for veterans. But Blackwater doesn't serve the United States or its ideals. Blackwater serves the dollar. And they have no business being remotely affiliated with veterans or current servicemembers.

So from San Diego to Blackwater: Get out and stay out.

Cross posted from Calitics

Hey, O'Reilly ... its call the Gaslamp District!

Via Altercation: Victor S. Navasky the publisher of The Nation has embark on a project to collect quotations from experts regarding the invasion of Iraq who turned out to be wrong which will later be published. This quotation from Bill O'Reilly caught my attention:

"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?"
-- Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel, January 29, 2003. [Link]

Memo to Bill O'Reily, you were wrong on two counts!

When Will The Mission End?

I haven't been doing much blogging lately because for the past two days I've been watching the Petraeus and Crocker "song and dance" routine before Congress on CSPAN. What really frustrates me is the disingenuousness that has been exhibited by the both of them in their appearances before the respective committees. Behind all of the charts and statistics discussed as to whether or not progress is being made by the surge, what is lost is that we are after all talking about people who have been injured or killed in Iraq.


I was thinking about that this evening after reading Greg Mitchell's column in Editor and Publisher. Back on August 19th, seven active-duty soldiers serving a 15-month tour with the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times titled "The War As We Saw It." The Op-Ed was very skeptical of the U.S. mission in Iraq and whether our aims could be achieved. It ended with with a rather ominous stated "We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."[Link]

As the E & P column discussed, two of the seven soldiers who had authored the Op-Ed last month--a Sgt. Omar Mora of Texas and a Sgt. Yance T. Gray of Montana, died on Monday in a vehicle accident in Western Bagdad. This was about the same time that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker began their "song and dance" to Congress in order to maintain the surge through next summer.

Dick Cheney is Psychic, He Just Forgot

A friend recently sent me a video from 1994 of the Vice President offering his opinion of what would happen if the United States were to take out Saddam Hussein.

Apparently Dick Cheney is psychic (see video below). Nine years before the invasion of Iraq, he was able to correctly predict the quagmire the United States now faces in Iraq.

I guess he just had the Alberto Gonzales syndrome, and could not remember his own prediction.

It's too bad the mainstream US media couldn't do a little research and uncover the Vice President's vision of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

CNN's Anderson Cooper at least spoke to Sharif Ali Bin Al-Hussein and Faisal Qaragholi from the Iraqi National Congress. In each interview, Cooper asked the men their thoughts of a post-Saddam Iraq.

Good job, pretty boy. Maybe you should have asked a few follow up questions, or searched the archives of Operation Desert Storm.