Collateral Consequences: Veterans – Equal Pay – Jobs

Posted on May 19, 2014 Updated on May 19, 2014

Believing…

NY Times Editor Jill Abramson is the only woman cheated by the Republican vote against The Paycheck Fairness Act;  Return of segregation and voting restrictions are southern phenomenon only;  Veterans are the only American citizens being ignored to death;  Families buying corporate owned bottled water to replace their employer’s Coal Ash deposits into their children’s drinking and bathing water isn’t sacrificing the health of all Americans;  Having a job frees us to ignore equal economic opportunity, separate but unequal, Support Our Troops, western droughts & eastern floods – then The Program is Addington’s plum.

However, it wasn’t the butler in the parlor with a candlestick, nor educators and First Responders who failed to protect our shores from a decade of war dead & wounded, Too Big to Fail and the MERS Virus: It was corporate lawyers, bankers and Koch heads in secret top floor rooms.

Who are the bad guys responsible for Veteran deaths? Eric Shinseki, Dr. Robert Petzel, Phoenix Director Sharon Helman or does neglect infect through laziness from the ground up?

As a veteran, and human being, I’m appalled at an alleged 167 deaths of veterans because of a delay in treatment to any patient, but though in need of repair, it isn’t the VA system that’s broken, it’s Congress’ systematic failure to finance military and civilian services.

Mad as Hell, like Gonzales’ Can’t Recall fifty times defense, grants only temporary stay from accessory to medical negligence or vehicular attempted murder of the Middle Class.

So before pouring GM gloating over chumps champagne, celebrating chump change 35 million value put on endangered American lives, let’s recapture our moral backbone and insist Eric Holder finally lawyer up against The Program:  Grand Jury investigations, indictments, trial by jury and privatized prison black time for white collar criminals.

In service to the under-served 99%:

The Good: 1952 National Security Agency created because of Pearl Harbor

• Thomas Drake NSA Senior Executive (2001-08) discovers, before 9/11 NSA had capture/discern/discriminate global phone and email communications capability, using a program created by
• William Binney NSA technical director (1965-01) — Thin Thread, programed with protections preventing spying on Americans

• Edward Loomis NSA (1964-01), “Let us allow collection between U. S. to foreign, foreign to U. S. against the terrorism problem.”

Note: it’s not the plan as much as the president assuming the power to program the plan

• Jack Goldsmith Legal Counsel Office Head (2003-04) withdraws legal approval for spying on emails of millions
• James B. Comey (2004) led DOJ resignation of two dozen executives, including Goldsmith and FBI Director Robert Mueller (2001-13)

The Bad: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created in 1978 (in a bank vault), because during 1970s, Nixon’s NSA repeatedly violated our Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

FISA, legally limits administrations believing, as Nixon when the president does it that means that it is not illegal, by requiring warrants to spy on Americans.

If, like Bush/Cheney administration, you didn’t go through FISA and get a warrant, you’ve committed a federal felony.

• Vito Potenza NSA Deputy General Counsel (1993-06)
• Robert Deitz NSA General Counsel (1998-06)

• Alberto Gonzales White House Counsel (2001-05)
• Andrew Card, Bush White House Chief of Staff (2001-06)

Maureen Baginski, third highest ranking official at NSA, we’ve gone with another program: The Bush/Cheney/Addington administration corrupted American protected surveillance Thin Thread, into The Program.

The Ugly: October 26, 2001, Patriot Act created – With Cheney in his ear, GW Bush assumed extra-constitutional authority, telling NSA, I want you to go develop a program; we’ve got the lawyers working on it; but you have my order; we’re going to do this.

• Porter Goss, Chair of House Intelligence Committee (1997-04) CIA Director (2004-06)

• General Michael Hayden, NSA Director (1999-05) (CIA: We kill people based on metadata)

• David Addington, Dick Cheney Attorney (2005—2009) authored The Program — the creation of a whole new surveillance program without warrants, looking for unknown terrorists by spying on Liberal, Independent and Conservative American men, women, students, teenagers, of every color and religion – equality at last.

The Program authorized by President George W. Bush on October 4, 2001 isn’t old news but, Why We Did It, at the expense of military youth, Veterans, Women, the Middle Class, Retirees and JOBS.

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