Dole-Shalala Commission Issues Final Report

Hopefully these recommendations will not sit on a shelf like the 9/11 Commission report.

From Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

WASHINGTON (AP) – A presidential commission on Wednesday urged broad changes to veterans’ care that would boost benefits for family members helping the wounded, establish an easy-to-use Web site for medical records and overhaul the way disability pay is awarded.

The nine-member panel, led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and Donna Shalala, health and human services secretary during the Clinton administration, also recommended stronger partnerships between the Pentagon and the private sector to boost treatment for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Gone will be the days of injured soldiers telling the same information to doctors over and over again,” said Shalala, who said the proposals seek to provide more customized, personalized care to injured Iraq war veterans.

She called the report a set of recommendations that could be implemented right away. About six of the 35 proposals require legislation, while the rest call for action primarily by the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs.

Among the recommendations was an indirect rebuke of the VA – a call for Congress to “enable all veterans who have been deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq who need post-traumatic stress disorder care to receive it from the VA.”

Only recently, the VA has taken steps to add mental health counselors and 24-hour suicide prevention services at all facilities, following high-profile incidents of suicides involving veterans. In the past, the VA had failed to use all the money for mental health that was allotted to it.

Here are some of the recommendations:

• Boost staff and money for Walter Reed until it closes in the coming years. Also urges Pentagon to work with the VA to create “integrated care teams” of doctors and nurses to see injured troops through their recovery.

• Restructure the disability pay systems to give the VA more responsibility for awarding benefits.

• Require comprehensive training programs in post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries for military leaders, VA and Pentagon personnel.

• Create a “My eBenefits” Web site, developed jointly by the VA and Pentagon, that would allow service members and doctors to access private medical information as the injured move from facility to facility to receive treatment.

• Provide better family support, because one-third of injured Iraq war veterans reported that a family member or close friend had to relocate to care for them. It calls for training and counseling for families of service members who require long-term care and improved family leave and insurance benefits for family members

Judiciary Committee Passes Contempt Resolution

UPDATE FROM CNN
The panel’s decision now goes to the House floor for a vote.

The full House is unlikely to take up the issue before the August recess, a Democratic leadership aide told CNN.

The Committee has approved the report recommending to the House that Miers and Bolten be cited for Contempt of Congress.

Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sánchez gives opening remarks:

Rep. Adam Schiff (CA-29) speaks on the contempt that Miers and Bolton have, in fact, shown for the Congress, and rebuts opposition criticisms:

Report Suggests Laws Broken in Attorney Firings

I think there’s a good chance Miers is going to jail.

House Democrats, preparing for a vote today on contempt citations against President Bush’s chief of staff and former counsel, produced a report yesterday that for the first time alleges specific ways that several administration officials may have broken the law during the multiple firings of U.S. attorneys.

The report says that Congress’s seven-month investigation into the firings raises “serious concerns” that senior White House and Justice Department aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year may have obstructed justice and violated federal statutes that protect civil service employees, prohibit political retaliation against government officials and cover presidential records.

The investigation “has uncovered serious evidence of wrongdoing by the department and White House staff,” Conyers says.

The memorandum says the probe has turned up evidence that some of the U.S. attorneys were improperly selected for firing because of their handling of vote fraud allegations, public corruption cases or other cases that could affect close elections. It also says that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senior Justice aides “appear to have made false or misleading statements to Congress, many of which sought to minimize the role of White House personnel.”

In addition, the memorandum asserts repeatedly that the president’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, was the first administration official to broach the idea of firing U.S. attorneys shortly after the 2004 election — an assertion the White House has said is not true.

In one of more than 300 footnotes, the Democrats point to a Jan. 6, 2005, e-mail from an assistant White House counsel that says that Rove “stopped by to ask . . . how we planned to proceed regarding U.S. attorneys, whether we were going to allow them to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc.”

Last week, White House officials vowed that if the full House holds the two officials in contempt, they would block lawmakers’ ability to bring the charges before a federal judge by preventing any U.S. attorney from pursuing such a case. The administration cited a 1984 Justice Department legal opinion, never adjudicated in the courts, that said that a federal prosecutor cannot be compelled to bring a case seeking to override a president’s executive privilege claim.

In the memorandum, the Democrats provide the first legal justification for countering the White House’s view, saying that the 1984 legal opinion “does not apply here.” For one thing, the Democrats contend, Bush has not invoked the privilege properly because he has not furnished a signed statement or “privilege logs” specifying the documents being withheld. In addition, the memo says, “there is not the slightest indication” the 1984 opinion would apply to a former executive branch official, such as Miers.