Well with much waiting for anything
significant at all to come out of
the all new Democrat leadership,
it can be really said at this point
that the 2 new Democrat chairmen of
the House and Senate Veterans Affairs
Committees have come charging out
of the gate with bad showings to
mark their first races for Veterans.

While the House's Filner was
pushing through an unpopular
Bill and related vote for
foreign Phillipino veterans
who do not even live here in
the US (believed to be the
brainchild of Senate Chairman
Daniel Akaka of Hawaii),
over in the Senate, Chairman
Daniel Akaka was busy finding
all the places to cut the existing
VA and Veterans assistance budget
by $1 billion to pay for the
Phillipino's Bill.

Go Figure.

Which brings me to Senate Bill
S. 2026 --- http://www.senate.gov
click on Bills and Legislation
on the top tabs, then select
the highlighted word THOMAS
in the first few paragraphs.
Enter in the search form,
S. 2026 and you can call up
the language for yourself.

Yes it's the Agent Orange
Equitable Compensation Act of
which the title has absolutely
nothing to do with the content
of the Bill.

This is a deceptive play upon
Veterans who can't read, and
it is apparently stacked up
that way so that Akaka can
only reference the matter by
title in his future reelection
campaigns without any voters
bothering to check and see
what the Bill actually does.

The title would be more accurate
and descriptive if it were changed
to the Screw You Agent Orange
Veterans Act of the United States
and laughingly, you can all judge
for yourselves when I tell what
this Bill does.

At the very beginning of the Bill's
language, Akaka attempts to set
a date on all Agent Orange claims
qualifying, something that really
has not been done up until now.
It uses the passage date of the
related VA agent orange presumptive
statute, 38 USCA 1116 --- in other
words, any Agent Orange claim
which originates PRIOR to 38
USCA 1116 would be reversed,
denied, and blocked out for
Presumptive statusing claims
at the VA. Yup, it's hard to believe
but that is exactly what it does.

Second, it attempts to reiterate
unnecessarily, and write into
stone, as they say, the
EXCLUSION clause of 38 USCA 1116
which blocks out all Agent Orange
claims from those who failed to
serve on the LAND of Vietnam.
(air and seaways etc.) which
most of us have taken to mean
the BlueWater Navy Veterans.

Let's get real. 1116 never should
have been allowed to pass the
way it is currently written and
you can all blame your bungling
national VSO's for that. Veterans
Service Organizations are great for
falling asleep at the wheel while
controversial legislation is making
it's way through Congress and then
come flying in after the vote is
taken to scream and stamp their feet.

38 USCA 1116 flat out, was a badly
designed Bill and when it was
moving through the system, a
huge Veterans lobby should have been
unleashed to strike out the Exclusion
clause which limits Vietnam AO claims
to land only. It would be worth
pursuing even now to REPEAL
that part of the statute and eliminate
the entire phrasing.

Nonetheless, Senator Daniel Akaka
should not be trying to jam this
down the throat of BlueWater Veterans
after their stunning court victory
in HAAS which took issue
with the lawfulness and constitutionality
of the way 1116 was drafted, with
particular emphasis on the Exclusion
clause.

It seems like even when the
BlueWater Veterans win, they lose.

The motives behind S. 2026 is
timed to coincide with the equally
bungled Phillipino vote over in
the House. So this once again
appears to be the grand jerk-around
by the system, right out in the open,
to slap on yet another hate-crime
to sick and injured Veterans with
nobody really catching on to what
the truth really is about this Bill.

Veterans would do well to OPPOSE
S. 2026 and you can send your
letters to http://www.senate.gov
select Senate Veterans Affairs
Committee, and then click on
Contact the Committee in the
left hand margin.

Senator Akaka, your Bill is Ka-Ka
to us and we want no part of it.
It seems a little"subversive" to
those of us born and raised here
in America. Send S. 2026 and all
the mean spiritedness that it holds
straight to the dumpster where it
belongs with the other Ka-Ka.