When it comes to making profoundly stupid bureaucratic decisions, the Department of Veterans Affairs is often in a class by itself. When VA bureaucrats aren't losing laptops with millions of veterans' personal data or forgetting to include Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in their budget calculations, they are giving themselves obscene raises. For all the hard working doctors and nurses in VA hospitals and clinics across the country, it's a real shame that some top level VA officials are dragging the VA name through the mud.
Today we have one more bureaucratic blunder to add to the list. The VA has banned voter registration at veterans' nursing homes and homeless shelters. The irony is almost too great. Disabled veterans, who have made such tremendous sacrifices in defense of democracy, are now being denied assistance in voting.
The VA is claiming that voter registration drives are partisan, and would interfere with the functioning of their facilities. But hundreds of nonpartisan organizations regularly participate in voter registration drives -everyone from the League of Women Voters to the Elks Club. Helping people vote is a civic duty, not a partisan activity.
And if voter registration drives interfere with an institution's functioning, someone should tell the Texas Hospital Association and the American Medical Student Association, both of whom run voter registration campaigns at hospitals and clinics. The "Rx: Vote Campaign," run by the National Physicians Alliance, argues:
"Without exercising the right to vote, patients and those who care for them lack the power to improve the health of their communities. As a result, patients' health, and the health of our democracy, suffer. The nation's community health centers, clinics, and hospitals have a unique ability and responsibility to empower patients to participate in the democratic process."
If doctors believe voter registration drives can and should be happening at their hospitals, why can't the VA accept voter registration at their facilities?
The VA doesn't have a leg to stand on morally or legally. But if the VA refuses to budge, Congress will have to act quickly to overrule the VA, before veterans start missing their states' voter registration deadlines.
It should not take an act of Congress for the VA to admit they made a mistake. But until they do, hospitalized veterans like Martin O'Nieal, "a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy," will have to struggle to exercise the very rights they helped defend on the field of battle.
How can you help protect the voting rights of our veterans? Keep an eye on IAVA.org. In the meantime, make sure that you are registered to vote. It only takes a second.
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It's a damned shame that it is ok for these young men and women to fight, lose their limbs (sometimes their minds) yet it's not ok for them to vote to change this war mongering policy!
Isn't democray great??
it's total fraud. Keep your weapons polished and you powder dry just in case they try the big lie.
Again!
However, like anything else...how many Vets are there who are unable to vote and some doctor, nurse or other employee would be voting for them and using their own opinion to vote.
If people were honest, this would be a much better world.
I agree about the laptops missing. Who is responsible for this. It also happened in the Immigration
system. Several laptops missing.
Somebody needs to be held accountable. But good luck in trying to make that happen. If they did find the one who did it, it would take 10 years for a trial and many $'s. Then they would get a slap on the wrist and probation for about 6 months.
So much for freedom in America. Criminals are the ones with freedom to do whatever. The victims usually falls by the wayside.
God bless our Veterans...They paid a much bigger price than a lot of people in this country with opinions, and they don't get the attention they need and deserve.
Democrats and Republicans should act together to get them registered and voting. No party affiliation should block these individuals from having the right to vote.
Imagine the solidarity it would represent having both parties working together for this cause!
Is there nothing we can do to bring this to the attention of the masses and get this issue raised broadly in the MSM? Can we get a non-profit started? This is so important, and so disgusting, there has to be a way to get the low-information voters informed.
Thanks again.
administrations can be stopped from doing this to the vets and all the rest of us "common folk". But it will take one hell of a lot of guts,blood and time. Will it happen I do not believe so. The American people as well as the rest of the people on this planet no longer have the courage. God Bless us all.
the reason the veterans' votes are being suppressed is BECAUSE the recruiters are non-partisan. if potential voters were required to declare their loyalty to the GOP, they'd be signed on in a millisecond.
Thanks for bringing attention to this issue.
Without a doubt disabled Vets have sacrificed much and deserve the respect of their countrymen. I agree it was an idiotic decison by the top VA suits - probably Bush types.
However, the contention that their sacrifices were make in "defense of democracy" is untrue. Wars are fought to make the rich richer. Those who have lost life and limb in Iraq did so based on a pack of Bush/Cheney lies. The truth is they sacrificed themselves so that Cheney and Halliburton could make untold Billions. Do not insult them by further lies - not one American soldier is in Iraq to "defend democracy." They give of themselves to defend Oil corporation profits, and profits of the arms dealers and war mongers.
True justice for America's disabled vets from the Iraq war would be an Impeached Bush and Cheney danglng from the end of rope for treason. And lying "yes men" like General Betrayus in Prison for lying to Congress and the American people.
Honor the vets by being honest about what they are doing in Iraq and who is profiting from their sacrifices. You can bet the Bush criminals do not want wounded Iraq vets voting in the next election.
Additionally, it should be ILLEGAL.
My,my how McCain has changed in 40 years!
As they say, Power corrupts and total power totally corrupts.
A military vet from a family of military heroes.