Congress Protects Insider Trading for: Congress

by Peter Gorenstein in TechTicker:

Even a cynic can find Washington's hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports [yesterday] a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.
That's right. Members of Congress are currently allowed to profit on insider trading!

The bill, which has been languishing in the House for four years, would require elected officials "to make their financial transactions public within 90 days of a purchase or sale" and "prohibit lawmakers from trading in financial markets based on nonpublic information they learn on the job," the WSJ reports.

It seems they're above the transparency they've been calling for on Wall Street.

This comes a day after the same newspaper reported several lawmakers profited by betting against the housing and stock market in 2008. And some did it using derivatives they've recently been railing against.

As our colleague Henry Blodget wrote Tuesday, "If you're going to complain about how awful short-selling is and how evil and venal people are for doing it, you should probably abstain from the practice yourself."

PTSD Continues as Veteran Bashing Grows

by Michael Leon

As the political fallout continues over Allen Breed's AP hit job published over the weekend asserting that U.S. veterans and reformist DVA elements effectively colluding to commit widespread fraud, we note that blaming veterans for illness and injury has a long tradition.

There is a wide political coalition of forces in American politics of several parties who are proficient at waving the flag and giving lip service to our veterans, while simultaneously shafting these very same veterans, even going to far as to bad mouth and dishonor them explicitly.

This obscene veteran-bashing tradition applies emphatically to Vietnam War-era veterans, many of whom U.S. Census enumerators count this year as they encounter them with non-permanent residences, living in non-sheltered areas, i.e., homeless.

To put it a different way, membership in the Republican and Democratic parties means nothing when it comes to veterans' advocacy. A Texas libertarian like Tom Dillman of the Veterans Today's community supports veterans every bit as much as our lefties here, though we agree about little else.

Veterans Today and mal contends will have more on this story in the following days.

[VT Senior Editor and General Manager's Note: Veterans Today's managing editor and staff writer, Mike Leon, broke the story on Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts and has done much of the original reporting identifying the nexus of veterans, the U.S. Attorneys Scandal and ideological antipathy toward delivering benefits to veterans generally. Leon says, "Roberts is the tip of a very deep iceberg composed of some cold characters, one of those characters is Renée L. Szybala, the Bush administration's national DVA Director of Compensation and Pension Services during the DVA targeting of Roberts." Szybala is number two at the U.S. VA Office of General Counsel (OGC) in charge of the Ethics office. Mike Bailey, Veterans Today staff writer, veteran of the Vietnam War Era, Gulf War One, U.S. Army, Infantry, SSG, and Operation Desert Storm Medical volunteer Edgewood Arsenal 1974 (Cold War Experiments), has reportedly told a VT colleague that he promised not to drop dead after hearing that Szybala is still at the VA and is number two at OGC Ethics.]

Paul Sullivan's people over at Veterans for Common Sense have a piece knocking down Allen Breed's AP article and it is printed below in its entirety.

Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) was formed in August 2002 as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization by war veterans who believe that we, the people of the United States of America, are most secure when our country is free, strong, and responsibly engaged with the world. Our mission, based on the pragmatic ideals of the American patriot Thomas Paine, is to raise the unique and powerful voices of veterans so that our military, veterans, freedom, and national security are protected and enhanced, for ourselves and for future generations.

PTSD Is Real, PTSD Fraud Is Not
Written by VCS
May 3, 2010, Washington, DC (VCS) - Last weekend, the Associated Press printed an incomplete and inaccurate article about veterans who file disability claims against the Veterans Affairs Department (VA) for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The AP wrote, “The problem: The [VA claims] system is dysfunctional, an open invitation to fraud. And the VA has proposed changes that could make deception even easier.”The AP is wrong, and VCS asked AP to correct the story.

Here are two very important facts the AP overlooked. If AP had included these two facts, then readers would understand more about VA and veterans suffering with PTSD after deploying to the brutal Iraq and Afghanistan wars, sometimes two or three times.

Fact Number One. There is no widespread fraud problem at VA. Out of more than one million claims per year, less than a score are ever investigated for fraud.Furthermore, in November 2005, VA auditors randomly selected 2,100 PTSD claims. After an exhaustive investigation, VA found zero cases of fraud. VA has extensive methods to prevent fraud, contrary to AP's baseless assertion.

VA’s investigation began when a reporter at the Chicago Sun Times observed that VA pays different average amounts in disability benefits based on a state-by-state comparison. The true culprit: poor leadership, staff shortages, and a lack of consistent training. VA Secretary Shinseki is taking bold steps to address these challenges, and he has broad support among veterans’ groups.

A few people opposed to healthcare and benefits for our veterans have attacked PTSD in the past. VA Watchdog wrote an op-ed about this, and Boston Review published a news article.

The AP article was a disservice to veterans as it may perpetuate stereotypes of veterans with PTSD as frauds, when the science shows they are not. At VCS we encourage our veterans with PTSD symptoms to seek care from VA. They may have to wait and wade through red tape, yet we are working hard to fix that, too.

Fact Number Two. The standards for reviewing PTSD claims won’t be “loosened” as AP asserted without attribution.

VA and independent scientists overwhelmingly agree, the diagnosis of PTSD is very real. Our goal at VCS is for the scientific evidence to match VA’s rules for obtaining disability benefits and healthcare.

Here’s what independent scientists found. In 2007 the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Science reviewed scores of peer-reviewed and published scientific studies and validated PTSD. In VCS July 2007 Congressional Testimony describing how the previous Administration fought against PTSD healthcare and benefits for our veterans.

PTSD is a very real and very serious problem increasing in scope the longer the current wars continue. The scientific challenges understanding PTSD are similar to the many years scientists and VA took to recognize disabilities associated with Agent Orange / dioxin poisoning among Vietnam War veterans. Science is now catching up.

This important regulatory victory for veterans, based on decades of peer-reviewed, published scientific research, represents a bold, pro-veteran improvement by VA Secretary Erik Shinseki to open the doors for benefits and treatment to hundreds of thousands of deserving veterans suffering years or decades with PTSD who earned and who need VA assistance.

In our view, PTSD is real, and charges of PTSD fraud are not.

U.S. Troops Are Technically War Criminals, Fearing Hostile VA

by Michael Leon

Just off the phone with a veteran who told me U.S. soldiers and Marines often take pictures in war zones [such as they are] of enemy dead in violation of various articles of the Geneva Conventions. Guys figure they'll have an easier time with the VA if they have pictures of the dead (if they make it out) that they can file with VA documents.

Veterans' fathers, their grandfathers (and women too) know the story about the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA), a predatory and dysfunctional agency that denied their family's health and lives.

We hope it's changing, but the VA ain't your friend, especially if you're a Vietnam-era veteran:

But the DVA does have it share of defenders: The kindest thing these defenders are called by veterans are "chickenhawks," "house cats," and "pukes."

One of the DVA's friends is AP national writer, Allen Breed.

Breed defends the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and the U.S. Dept of Justice (DOJ) who went after Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts in 2004 for blowing the whistle on the DVA's shredder-gate scandal in the most undiplomatic way possible: Repeated obscenities.

I broke the story on Roberts on few years' back; but Roberts is the tip of the iceberg of systemic mistreatment of our veterans.

Readers have seen saturation coverage of the deficiencies and hostilities of the DVA and embedded neocons in these pages.

Reviewing Allen Breed's national AP hit job on U. S. veterans and reformist elements at the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA), there is a danger in writing a follow-up piece asking for comment from veterans.

Namely, Breed's assertions that disability claims are being handled too "quickly, humanely, and mostly in the vets' favor" present a risk that veterans may just stroke out in righteous anger when asked their opinion of these statements. I don't want cause an activist veteran his or her life. Not kidding.

As axiomatic to veterans as the oath they swore to defend the U.S. Constitution is the reality that a veteran filing a disability benefit claim encounters the VA's 'deny-delay-and-hope-you-die' culture.

How bad is the disability claim process?

The long document that a claimant must fill out [over one-million claims were filed in 2009, predicted to grow by the 100,000s] will more than likely be denied or delayed by a some claims specialist at the Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA), like Mark Rogers quoted by writer Breed.

Rogers makes the absurd statement, unchallenged by any source Breed presents, that all a veteran has to do is "lie" and they can easily obtain "100 percent disability compensation."

Breed's editor has a nice shot of the VBA bureaucrat, posing before the camera like he's actually proud of the mess he's makes veterans slog through.

As Mike Bailey writes over at Kos, "I have spent years advocating for veterans and their families. I am used to the major news agencies that report just facts and leave opinion pieces to others to write, Reuters, AP even Bloomberg News, but this [Breed's] is the most opinionated piece I have ever seen from the AP."

For a benefits process that hums along so "quickly [and] humanely," there sure seems like a lot of suicides; see the Unseen Enemy: Corps had military’s highest rate in 2009.

Speaking of unseen enemies, they're not just embedded bureaucrats at the VBA, or pencil-necks at the the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the enemy of the veteran is in the press as well.

Writes Breed, "No one knows the full extent of PTSD fraud. But there have been some hints."

Here's a hint for you, Breed: Our sworn veterans deserve the benefit of the doubt and one hell of a lot more than that.

AP: VA Makes It's too Easy for Veterans to File Claims ... Seriously

By Michael Leon

As PTSD claims soar, the systemic problem at the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs is the ease with which veterans file for disability benefit claims, in the view of Allen Breed, a national writer for the Associated Press. This is a hit job on veterans and the progress being contemplated by some at the DVA to help veterans.

Do you have that? Things are too easy for veterans dealing with the VA now, asserts the AP's Breed.

Moved by a huge tide of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress, Congress has pressured the Department of Veterans Affairs to settle their disability claims — quickly, humanely, and mostly in the vets' favor.

Continues Breed in his piece, PTSD cases rise and rules for claims ease, VA warned that more frauds will slip through: "The problem: The system is dysfunctional, an open invitation to fraud. And the VA has proposed changes that could make deception even easier."

That's the issue and it's political.

No deny-delay-and-hope-you-die culture at the DVA, just too many veterans taking advantage of "profitably working the levers of sympathy for the wounded and obligation to the troops, and exploiting the sheer difficulty of nailing a surefire diagnosis of a condition that is notoriously hard to define."

No years waiting on a claim, it's the ease with which veterans navigate the system now that is the real issue. This is just crazy.

Stated Atty Robert Walsh at oral arguments in a federal criminal case cooked up by the VA and DOJ in October 2007:

... (I)t's a total distortion in this record, and any suggestion that any veteran can just walk into the V.A., file a claim and say, you know, a peace time Veteran, that I was here in the states and I was sexually assaulted, and it's stressful, give me money. And the (VA’s) answer is, did you tell the chaplain, did you go to the hospital, did you confide in a family member, do you have a contemporaneous letter, do you have documentation? ‘No, I was embarrassed’. Then the claim fails. Your own statement, no matter how compelling the argument, how tragic the circumstances, is not going to be the basis of an award of PTSD.

Breed disagrees.

No "system stack[ed] deck against injured soldiers by forcing them to prove they have post-traumatic stress disorder [PTST]…,’ (Marine Corp Times (Kelly Kennedy, April 5, 2007)).

PTSD

The only reason that PTSD is "hard to define" is the DVA's contrived definition and the VA's systemic barriers to proving its existence in our veterans.

This is axiomatic to any veteran's advocate, but evidentally eludes Breed. He did not talk to Paul Sullivan at Veterans for Common Sense or any other veteran in these pages who could have set him straight.

Let's get back to Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts targeted by the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, who became the central figure in an Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).

Breed quotes the prosecution approvingly, taking the VA's and CAVC's positions at face value as though these institution have a shred of credibility.

The basis of the prosecution: Holland and Roberts were not friends (an assertion knocked down) it was divined 35 years by VA cops after the death of Roberts' friend and fellow airman.

The VA cop Raymond Vasil of a VA regional Inspector General's office found that Navy veterans could not recall the presence of a given person 35 years later as another man lay being slowly crushed to death. No kidding.

Navy veteran Keith Roberts filed a claim, several claims as he learned how, and then listened to his veteran service officer and asked for retroactive awarding of his benefits to his discharge.

Roberts often screamed at the Milwaukee VA regional office that they were illegaly altering his C-File. He was right. But they turned around and charged him with fraud.

The case had drew the attention of Harper's magazine contributor and human rights attorney, Scott Horton, after the U.S. Attorneys' scandal broke during the Bush adminstration:

(T)ake a look at another prosecution brought in Wisconsin against a wounded vet, whose claims for benefits was turned into a criminal prosecution for wire fraud. As Wisconsin Public Radio reports,Keith Roberts, a Navy veteran got into the U.S. attorney’s crosshairs by filing a claim for benefits related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosed as occurring because he witnessed and tried to prevent his friend from being crushed to death by a C-54 airplane while stationed at a Naval air base in Naples, Italy 1969, and unrelated assault by the Navy Shore Patrol—granted and then denied, has not yet been decided by the CAVC. But the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) after being accused of fraud in 2003 by Roberts ignored the CAVC process and investigated and asked that Roberts be prosecuted for fraud by the US Attorney’s office.

The prosecution smacks of retaliation and a plan to suppress veterans claims—Roberts was prosecuted for tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits, which VA resisted and which is still in the benefits review process. It may be that the veteran is making claims which shouldn't’t be granted, but the decision to resist them by a criminal complaint is very heavy handed. What happens if the Veterans’ Appeals process rules for Roberts? As I read these papers, that seems possible. ...

Who knows? Roberts's case now is being appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and we can expect a decision in a few years.

In reading Breed's piece, a rare national piece on the processes at the VA, I cannot for the life of me believe he reports that VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki is making things too easy by proposing new rules.

Breed cites the Board of Veterans Appeals and CAVC on decisions made against veterans without comment and context.

This is like asking Karl Rove for his objective opinion of President Obama's performance. Did Breed talk to any member of the CAVC bar board off-the-record on the opinion?

And of course, Breed essentially takes the position of the chickenhawks at the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) Dr. Sally Satel that ridicules veterans diagnosed with PTSD, a view that has permeated the Dept of Veterans Affairs, though the proposed changes are bemoaned by Breed's sources.

See the Post: "Psychiatrist Sally Satel, who is affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said an underground network advises veterans where to go for the best chance of being declared disabled. The institute organized a recent meeting to discuss PTSD among veterans."

Don't you think it's odd that VA investigators ordered by top VA officials pulled this prosecution?
Why not mention the political environment?

Roberts was targeted by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, and became the central figure in this Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).

Veterans’ advocates know well Roberts is a victim of a vigorous attempt to marginalize, investigate, and prosecute veterans receiving disability benefits in an aborted attempt to fabricate a fraud crisis among veterans who were injured and traumatized during their service to their country.

As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars produce 100,000s more wounded veterans—a phenomenon that is was the subject of an unprecedented class action law suit by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan against the VA [dismissed but its allegations found as fact}—advocates allege that Roberts’ extraordinary prosecution was part of the Bush administration’s priorities to discourage VA disability benefits claims, especially among Vietnam-era veterans, serving to carry out the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)/Bush policy that demeans veterans for seeking help with PTSD in what the AEI derisively brands a “culture of trauma.”

The Pentagon has gone so far as to blame veterans “personality disorders” and lack of faith in God for veterans suffering after service. [A VA May 1, 2008 e-mail obtained via FOIA request reveals, that because of “compensation seeking veterans,” VA staff should “refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out” and they should “R/O [rule out] PTSD” and consider a diagnosis of “Adjustment Disorder” instead.

One administration initiative to investigate 72,000 cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was halted in 2005 after a storm of outrage from veterans’ groups and Democrats, inlcuding the Senator Obama.

Here's how Breed concludes his piece without casting a single doubt on the Roberts prosecution, ignoring why he was a political target, or even quoting a knockdown from one source on his thesis that the VA is taking it too easy on veterans now-a-days:

But investigators later determined that Roberts didn't even participate in the rescue effort and was not as close to Holland as he'd claimed. The Board of Veterans Appeals said the VA's regional office "simply conceded" Roberts' claims "without obtaining credible supporting evidence."

After losing his benefits, Roberts was convicted of wire fraud, sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay $262,943.52 in restitution. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims concluded in a 45-page ruling that Roberts "committed fraud in securing VA benefits for his PTSD" and affirmed the BVA's decision to sever them.

In a recent telephone interview, the 62-year-old veteran denied that he lied, but argued that under VA rules, he could have PTSD from merely being "vicariously aware of the situation."

When asked whether the new rule would throw open the doors to more fraud, Shinseki stressed the need for more research into PTSD and traumatic brain injury, the war on terror's other "signature" wound.

"I know if we take your temperature and you're registering at 102 degrees, you've got a fever, and there are ways to cope with that," the VA secretary told the AP. "PTSD and TBI are in need of the same kind of metrics."
___

AP Writer Kimberly Hefling in Washington, D.C., also contributed to this report. Allen G. Breed, a national writer for The Associated Press based in Raleigh, N.C., can be reached at features@ap.org.

- elements of this story were previously published -