On or about November 6, the Senate
held a hearing review on the
operations of the Court of Veterans
Appeals. It was a wonderful opportunity
for Activists to show themselves
and put on the most aggressive
Opposition EVER to the stinking
idea of forcing sick and injured
medical patients through a full
blown court system for their disability
pay without ever providing them
with free licensed lawyers.

One of the people who came
stumbling and bumbling through
was Joe Volante, who is the
legislative director of DAV's
Washington office.

I have looked over the written
statement they have filed, and
here is what I found.

Almost NO advocacy whatsoever for
the Veterans, only for the court
system itself.

The entire paper reads like a
recitation of a city phone book.
A long, list of statistics and
numbers regarding past caseloads
and current caseloads and how
things have changed and how they
haven't. What DAV doesn't grasp
is the whole time they reading
off that BORING list of relentless
numbers, there's not a single person
in the room who is listening to it.
They are all looking around out
the window, fudging for gum in
their pockets, checking their
cell phones for messages, flipping
through papers and pretending
to care, yawning, pouring a glass
of water, and just plain
gazing into each others eyes.

I sat through 2 full years of
VSO's doing this kind of thing
in Washington, and the reaction
to it never changes.

DAV does advocacy by boring
everyone to death who is in the
room. From dry statistics and
numbers it got even worse.

This was the grand slam time
to say into the microphrone:
Veterans do OPPOSE this illegal
monstrosity and we call for it's
immediate end and termination.
It never happened. In fact the
word OPPOSE was nowhere in the
speech.

No, what DAV was stunningly stupid
even by VSO standards. They proceded
to compliment the court system
for a job well done, made one single
reference to the fact that the
CVA would be better if it were an
Article III court instead of an
Article I, and then they proceded
to advocate for the hiring of more
judges at the CVA to slash and
burn even more cases than they
have in the past.

In short, what DAV did was to
advocate for the system and not
for the Veterans.

At a time when Vets For Justice
is advocating for a full and complete
end to the very concept of full
adverse court litigation on appeals,
often drawing an army of lawyers
from the Dept. of Justice if the
Veteran decides to go even further
and appeal at Federal Circuit; NO
the DAV stepped up to the microphone
and did the unthinkable and validated
the system and argued for more
judges.

How does THAT grab your
gunbelt ??

This could not get anymore freaking
NUTS than it already is.

Part of the discussion drifted
into the surprise the CVA has
at all of the appeals which
are filed from the Board (BVA).
Well DUH!! We told you so that
the cases are receiving nothing
more than falsified documents
as ruling papers, so WHY WOULDN'T
the Veterans be filing appeals on
them ?? What is about Falsified
Documents that the VSO's just don't
understand ??

Either way, to all of you who are
caught up in the 700,000 backlogged
cases, don't look for the DAV to
be your rescue anytime soon because
they are busy locking this entire
system into a brick wall that we
will NEVER come out from under.

This DAV speech of November 6 may
very well have been the greatest
single bungle against the interests
of Veterans for all time. Believe it.

It is one more notch on the log
that shows why VSO's absolutely
do have to get out of claims and
get out FAST, because they are killing
the rest of us with STUPID !!

[ the texts of the DAV speech is
still posted at the Senate Veterans
Committee hearing page for the
Court of Veterans Appeals for those
who wish to look at it while it is
still posted. ]

Geez, THANKS DAV for making sure this
stinking system lives on for all
eternity !! What's next, your advocacy
before the VA to take away all of
our medicines too????