For those who managed to view
the live video feed on the Internet
of the new VA Secretary's confirmation
hearing at the Senate, already knows
what a bore this really was. The
better part of it was filled with
BlowHard and Parrot-Head, with long
lingering moments of stuttering
and finger fidgeting, questions
that are older than the hills and
answers not exactly speaking to the
questions.

On the fair side, Dr. James Peake
is a doctor first and for sure,
a Senate confirmation hearing is
an intimidating process. But for
those of us chickens who are members
of the barn, as a former Army General
there was little show for spunk,
spirit, or a taking-charge persona
coming from this nominee.

The Associated Press did file
their stories from location, and
in those releases, even the most
aggressive contender in this scenario,
Senator Patty Murray, does expect
Peake to be confirmed.

I for one say, that when the day
comes that PTSD is completely off
the table as a routine disease
with it's revised DSM profile fully
in place, both the House and Senate
will be at a complete LOSS to have
anything at all to talk about
in hearings pertaining to Veterans.
That is my prediction to you.

They talk about PTSD as if it's
a brand new issue, just arriving
here last week, and that the VA
is not doing a single thing about
it in the patient population.
There lies the public deception
on these hearings.

Then there is Senator Bob Dole.
Does anybody fully understand why
he keeps showing up at all of these
Senate hearings?? Blah Blah down
memory lane from the 1940's,
stutter, stammer, and more Blah
Blah on his personal recollections
of days gone by. What does any
of THIS have to do with whether
or not Dr. James Peake should or
should not be confirmed as the
next VA Secretary? Senator Bob
Dole really does need to move on
and leave the Senate and find
other things to do with his life.

Out of the entire hearing, nearly
50% was BlowHard, grandstanding,
Parrot-Head, and comments that
brought nothing to the table on
the VA crisis itself.

There was one fleeting of moment
of promise -- in Dr. Peake's opening
statement he made a compelling
remark: "Veterans should not need
a lawyer to know about their VA benefits
or have to have a lawyer to GET those
benefits." This was the one loaded
remark that could have stood the
relentless follow up of questions
about how he planned to take that
statement to the next level on
implementation for the Veterans.

Instead, there was only on retort
to the phrase, and then that was
not even phrased as a question, but
instead, put down and challenged
by Senator Jim Webb who sought to
smooth over the phrase's implied
meaning. Webb quickly injected a
rescue comment about DAV and VSO's
being the focus of claims and not
lawyers.

Then there was a bungle by Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison who is apparently
floating a Senate Bill to HIRE
some 1,800 more VA Raters to sabotage
our cases even faster than they are
sabotaged now. Veterans are warned
to NOT support this Bill.

Our Vets for Justice advocacy takes
a completely different strategy and
that is to reduce or even remove
the idea of LITIGATING claims
altogether. We would rather you support
that strategy instead.

The VSO's have established themselves
as a Cottage Industry of
fools and the unqualified who are unoversighted
and who hang, hang, hang, and hang
to the idea of keeping Veterans claims
locked into a lifetime, court-driven
litigating process. We are opposed
to that and working overtime to bring
it to a decisive end.

And to hire VA Raters without ever
changing the PROCESS itself, is only
a fast-lane highway to the same
disasters we have always been getting
from VA Raters.

There is one consistent pattern that
crosses over between DOD and VA that
the Senate just does not grasp as
a problem worth defining. At the
VA, claims are denied until the
Veterans die. At the DOD, the troops
are forced into revolving door deployments
until they ultimately crack from the
strain and then are treated as
"misconduct" cases. When you put
these 2 things together on the same
table and look at them in the same
moment in time, it is clear that
these are not "coincidences" of systems,
but carefully orchestrated events
to torture, punish, and sabotage
Veterans into an early grave. Thus
the name I have given it: Murder Factory !

Wherever the opportunity presents
itself to torture and abuse Veterans,
either in one agency or the other,
then there lies the conspiracy policies
to drive Veterans into an early death.
Believe it !! Just when they fix
the entire agency response to PTSD,
they turn around and impose revolving
door deployments so there ya go.
These are strategies of sabotage
and cruelty aimed at the troops
and the veterans.

There is only one reason why PTSD
itself is talked about over, and over,
and over, and over again at these
hearings --- and that is so they can
all avoid talking about all the other
1 million problems at the VA agency.
By it's very overuse, PTSD is used
as a stalling tool to hold
all other topics of crisis at bay.
It is a strategy of hearing "omission"
and this is exactly why Veterans
really do need to get off that whole
PTSD train.

There is also an element of deception
in these hearings where the Senate
looks to the VA who looks to the Senate
for all solutions to the Veterans
crisis. The question becomes just
how many times do we all have to sit
through this nursery school handoff
of Ring-Around-The-Rosey before somebody
just gets out of their chair and says,
Hey, I've got a plan and this is what
I'm gonna do with it ??

Public Comment is blocked from both
the House and the Senate, and the
handpicked SuckUps and BlowHards
who are asked to attend hearings
as Panelists, are the very ones
who are CLUELESS on
what to do for a plan of action.

So by it's very policy of not
holding Public Comment periods,
the House and Senate spins it's
own wheels with one hearing after
another which amounts to Nonsense To
Nowhere.

The Senator from Montana gave direct
questions about Dr. Peake's potential
strategies in dealing with Veterans
living in rural communities. There
was little that was answered to
anybody's satisfaction on that.

The confirmation process is by it's
very nature, self-dooming in the
sense they are all gathered to ask
the nominee questions about his
ability to do the job, in a job
he has not yet filled. Many of
the questions were misfires on their
own since the only way Dr. Peake
could answer them would be to have
full access to the inner workings
of the VA agency itself.

There is also an annoying feature
to these hearings where some 15
of them all take turns, and then
all 15 felt the need to recite
Dr. Peake's resume and war record.
Is THAT really necessary -- to tie
up everyone's time who is either
in the audience or watching on
the Internet to have 15 people
recite the same resume over and
over again ?? Another stalling
tactic, I presume, to bleed off
time so that nobody would really
have to talk on the more ridiculous
features of the VA claims crisis.

There was nothing very original
and nothing very revealing either
coming out of this VA confirmation
hearing for Secretary. It was routine,
it was softball, and it was a bore
in the end with more stuttering and
stammering than anything else and
an information ride that led down
the road of Nothingness.

Dr. Peake will likely be confirmed,
not because he is the best available
choice across the government to put
into that role, but because he is
likely the ONLY qualified
nominee and medical doctor that we
will likely get out of this Bush
administration, until the next
2008 election. He appears to be a good
guy, but appears weak and nervous
at times, and does not come across
as having a military General's persona
and how this all plays in his
effort to RECONCILE the differences
between the Dole-Shalala Commission
report and the VDBC Commission report
remains to be seen. Don't hold your
breath on this guy being a panacea
on anything at all, but only being
an "endorser" of Bills of interest
to us coming from the House and Senate.

If you don't mind sitting through
2 hours of BlowHard and Parrot Head,
followed by a half hour of real
and valid discussions on pressing
national Veterans issues of today,
here is the LINK into the Senate
video feed so you can play it back
to your hearts content. Go ahead,
see if I'm wrong. I dare ya.

http://switchboard.real.com/player/email.html?PV=6.0.12...th%5F12%5F5%5F07.ram

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah
stutter, stammer, Blah Blah Blah
stammer stutter finger fidget Blah
Blah Blah.

Go ahead, see if I'm right.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: McClellanVet,