From Think Progress:


On Tuesday — three days before Veterans Day — House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-IN) announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, “veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees.” Remember that Buyer was handpicked by criminally-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) to replace former veterans committee chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who had been extremely vocal about the consistent underfunding of veterans causes.

The Disabled American Veterans, the “official voice of America’s service-connected disabled veterans,” just issued a scathing release calling the move “an insult to all who have fought, sacrificed and died to defend the Constitution.” The timing, they said, “could not have been worse.”

Read the full release here. (More from The Hill.)


Tell me again why veterans were so supportive of conservatives and this president in the last election? This administration has a track record of shafting veterans, especially when it comes to VA benefits. Now, conservatives on Capitol Hill have slammed the door in their face — again. Disgraceful.

Keep in mind that this administration, the GOP and its many propagandist voices in right-wing talk radio and cable news continually talk about how liberals and Democrats don't support the troops. The more I look, the more I see the pot calling the kettle black. Go back and look who has been cutting back benefits and who is refusing to make sure our current generation of disabled veterans (from a voluntary, pre-emptive war) is properly taken care of. Once again, with the GOP, it's all hot air.