Number of homeless Iraq, Afghan vets doubles under Obama Puppet Masters' watch

[enhanced_deficit]

While neocons pup McCain hobnobs with AlQaeda in Syria on Memorial day, this is one of the headlines for US homeless veterans:

[h=1]Homeless veterans get free Memorial Day haircuts[/h]Published On: May 27 2013 06:34:31 PM CDT


http://www.ksat.com/news/homeless-v...cuts/-/478452/20320722/-/l7vj3gz/-/index.html

Not to mind tax payers money being spent on golfing games, food tasters or vacations for Obama/his daughters, this is another side of America about its "heroes" :

Number of homeless Iraq, Afghan vets doubles

11:29 AM, Mar. 29, 2013

The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are homeless or at risk of losing a roof over their heads has more than doubled in the past two years, according to government data.

http://www.armytimes.com/article/20121226/NEWS/212260303/Number-homeless-Iraq-Afghan-vets-doubles



In the commander-in-chief ( or puppet-in-chief ) news under whose watch homeless Iraq/Afghan war vets numbers have doubled:

Secret Service sued by group seeking Obama's $4 million Hawaiian vacation costs

Washington Examiner-May 14, 2013
As if begging to be audited, the conservative public watchdog Judicial Watch Tuesday stepped up its assault on the the luxury vacations of the ...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/secre...llion-hawaiian-vacation-costs/article/2529616

 

[Zippyjuan]

What can or should a president do about homeless people?

 

[Lucille]

What can or should a president do about homeless people?

Don't you mean "homeless veterans?"

Fund the VA rather than spending billions on corporate welfare and aid to rich dictators all over the planet, clawback the bailouts and prosecute the banksters and their partners in crime in govt, end the wars, End the Fed, repeal Amendment XVI, shut down the regulatory agencies, and then resign.

 

[torchbearer]

What can or should a president do about homeless people?

homeless people? or homeless ex-cannon fodder for Obama's sick corporate puppet masters?
they use up their live stock and then leave them hanging out to dry.
at the very least, we should have a military commercial pumping out the truth of how vets are treated by the government so eager to sign them up at the high schools around the country.

 

[jkr]

WELL
we got SIX MILLION UNOCCUPIED HOUSES on the fed's books...MAYBE THEY CAN STAY THERE...

 

[Zippyjuan]

Congress writes the budgets.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/veterans-budget-2014_n_3023036.html

WASHINGTON -- Despite growing pressure for budget cuts, the Obama administration next week will propose spending $63.5 billion for veterans services in fiscal 2014, asking for a 4 percent increase over current spending.

At present, even with much of the system bogged down in paper, VA claims adjusters are completing 1 million claims a year, Shinseki said.

"We're glad to see the increase in the budget," said Paul Reickhoff, chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. But he was highly skeptical of the VA claims that it is making progress on reducing the backlog of veterans claims for benefits. "The customers on the ground, our members, don't see it," he said.

The proposed budget increases for 2014 include nearly $7 billion for mental health services such as treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and providing such service for veterans families. It also includes medical and rehabilitation services for the 50,000 American military personnel wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"We've been at war for 10 years and we have far more complex injuries to deal with," said Shinseki, himself a veteran wounded in the Vietnam War. Taking care of these wounded veterans, he said, "is going to go on for years."

Shinseki turned aside a question about what the White House Office of Management and Budget, which has approval authority over agency budget requests, had rejected out of his budget proposals."You could always use more money," he said. But he added that President Obama has been a strong advocate for veterans, and his budget requests have increased every year.

 

[Lucille]

Related:

This Memorial Day, we also must continue our work to prevent suicides among those who served. The numbers are sobering: according to Army reporting, 109 active-duty and reserve servicemen and women have taken their own lives this year. Among all veterans, 22 veterans commit suicide every day. That's 22 veterans. Every day.

US Doesn't Take Care of Its Veterans Now; It Has No Business Making New Ones
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/comm...eterans-now-it-has-no-business-makng-new-ones

Facts: Average wait time for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans filing their first claim to receive the benefits they earned: between 316 and 327 days. Those filing for the first time in big cities wait up to twice as long: 642 days in New York, 619 days in Los Angeles, and 542 days in Chicago.

The ranks of veterans waiting more than a year for their benefits grew from 11,000 in 2009 to 245,000 in December, an increase of more than 2,000%. The VA expected the number of veterans waiting - currently about 900,000 - to continue to increase throughout 2013 and top a million by the end of this past March.

There are, on average, 22 veteran suicides a day. "I'm not surprised at the number of us that kill ourselves," Lincoln Capstick, an unemployed Iraq War veteran in Indiana where the average wait on new claims is 612 days, said to Time Magazine.

Also related:

VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm Over Vets’ Illnesses
Epidemiologist says VA hid and manipulated data regarding burn pits and Gulf War syndrome.
http://www.theamericanconservative....blower-ignites-firestorm-over-vets-illnesses/

But Dr. Steven S. Coughlin’s charges that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials hid, manipulated, and even lied about research pertaining to Gulf War Illness (GWI) and health problems plaguing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are still causing fallout a month after his stunning testimony before a key House subcommittee.
[...]
Suicidal vets ignored

Coughlin said that in both the Gulf War and New Gen studies, thousands of veterans reported they had suicidal thoughts in the previous two weeks and “would be better off dead.” Coughlin said there was no protocol in place to offer these vets clinical assistance, and as a result only a “small percentage” got follow-up calls from mental-health specialists.

Coughlin fought for that, and “only after my supervisors threatened to remove me from the study and attempted disciplinary action against me” was he able to secure help for 1,331 vets in the Gulf War study. But he was not been so successful with the New Gen vets, some 2,000 of whom expressed suicidal thoughts. Only a small percentage of those veterans ever got assistance, he said, insisting, “some of those veterans are now homeless or deceased.”

He claimed the Inspector General’s Office would not take on the case. He quit and brought his concerns to the Office of Research Oversight and to Congress. Both are investigating his charges today.

He said it was his ethical duty to push, even if it cost him his job. (He’s now an adjunct professor at Emory University, and still looking for a full-time position.) “The only reason I testified was to help out the veterans,” he told The American Conservative. “As principal investigator for the study I heard from hundreds of veterans, I talked to them daily for months. I was happy to help out.”

Coughlin says this is an issue that affects all Americans: after $120 million in taxpayer dollars spent on research over that last 10 years, the VA is no closer to targeted treatment for GWI than it was in the 1990s.

Capt. Mark Lyles, a Navy scientist who’s been working on research based on a theory that a highly toxic “stew” of heavy metals found in the Iraqi dust is making veterans sick, says he is “not surprised” to hear of inside data manipulation and research bias.

“I’ve had meetings with the VA and their epidemiology people and basically was shocked at their lack of concern for the data I was presenting,” he says. “You have to realize the cost associated with a real pathology. A psychosomatic [illness] can be treated, thus cured. At the very least we can put you on some pills and ‘fix’ your problem. If there is an environmental toxin or exposure that is the cause of this, and they produce permanent neurological damage, than that is forever.”

Paul Sullivan, director of veteran outreach at the law firm of Bergmann & Moore, notes that research is the first step towards getting new regulations, which are required for expanding eligibility for service-connected healthcare and disability claims. Coughlin’s “substantiated charges,” says Sullivan, show the VA is undermining the process to avoid the burden of lifetime costs on the system.

“The only way to block claims is to block the research,” charges Sullivan. “That is the shameful tragedy of the VA’s actions, as described by Dr. Coughlin.”

 

[Zippyjuan]

I certainly did not mean that we treat our veterans properly- we don't. But aside from reducing the numbers of people in the military (or increasing them), the President personally cannot do anything about the problem. And if we reduce the numbers in the military that will likely increase the numbers unable to find jobs and ending up possibly homeless.

I was asking what a solution would be. Bigger government spending? Would there be a "free market" solution to the problem? Private charities?

 

[Lucille]

I certainly did not mean that we treat our veterans properly- we don't. But aside from reducing the numbers of people in the military (or increasing them), the President personally cannot do anything about the problem. And if we reduce the numbers in the military that will likely increase the numbers unable to find jobs and ending up possibly homeless.

I was asking what a solution would be. Bigger government spending? Would there be a "free market" solution to the problem? Private charities?

Some of us here already gave you solutions. You ignored them in favor of defending the regime, and then tried to play gotcha with libertarians here (again).

 

[enhanced_deficit]

What can or should a president do about homeless people?

He can start by diverting millions spent on his/daughters food tasters/vacations/concerts etc and spend more time with homeless vets to study the causes and find solutions. Next cut off all aid to mideast perpetual welfare states and divert that money of 100s of billions to care for vets that are homeless now and whom he used as fodder of wars he escalated without any clear purpose. Later on he could volunteer to be tried for war crimes he is suspected of but at least he can try do some good in the meantime

You cannot say he cannot do anything and is totally powerless to address war heroes homeless issue.. even if he is a puppet of neecons.

 

[kcchiefs6465]

Some of us here already gave you solutions. You ignored them in favor of defending the regime, and then tried to play gotcha with libertarians here (again).

Must spread some rep around.

I'd say a pretty big step to reducing the number of homeless veterans is to quit spreading them out in pointless, aggressive wars around the world.

Now I can't say for certain, but I'd think that might just do the trick.

With your above suggestions it wouldn't be an issue at all. Makes you kinda think that they don't really care about the troops. They just need flesh and bones to operate their weapons systems. Once you are no longer able to do that, you might as well start flying a sign. Sadly many soldiers simply kill themselves instead of putting up with it.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

WELL
we got SIX MILLION UNOCCUPIED HOUSES on the fed's books...MAYBE THEY CAN STAY THERE...

Can't do that. They must stay in the paying market place to increase demand. Giving them a place to live would take them out of the market for housing. Can't have that. Didn't you ever take Market Manipulation 101? I hear Alan Greenspan may be a visiting professor in the program.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Obviously, the problem is that these lazy veterans won't take jobs; those jobs Americans won't do.

If only the government could stack them like cord-wood in a warehouse until they are needed again.

 

[kcchiefs6465]

If only the government could stack them like cord-wood in a warehouse until they are needed again.

Plus rep.

No worries. There's another generation being primed. We are a throw away culture, you know?

 

[bolil]

Congress writes the budgets.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/veterans-budget-2014_n_3023036.html

rubber stamps the budget.* FIFY.

 

[bolil]

Obviously, the problem is that these lazy veterans won't take jobs; those jobs Americans won't do.

If only the government could stack them like cord-wood in a warehouse until they are needed again.

Maybe that is precisely what they are doing, by leaving them on the street they don't even need to pay for storage...

 

[oyarde]

What can or should a president do about homeless people?

Not constantly hinder economic growth by trying to snatch health care , destroying job growth.

 

[Keith and stuff]

If your thread title wasn't a joke, you might have serious issues.

I agree with you on the homeless Vet issue. Hopefully they all find homes.

 

[enhanced_deficit]

Related:



US Doesn't Take Care of Its Veterans Now; It Has No Business Making New Ones
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/comm...eterans-now-it-has-no-business-makng-new-ones



Also related:

VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm Over Vets’ Illnesses
Epidemiologist says VA hid and manipulated data regarding burn pits and Gulf War syndrome.
http://www.theamericanconservative....blower-ignites-firestorm-over-vets-illnesses/

Informative and sad news to read.