A resolution introduced in the Senate on Thursday would create a computer network to allow the public to access research reports that Congress relies on to make decisions and write laws.

Senate Resolution 118, introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., would require the creation of a database where the public could search for Congressional Research Service reports. The resolution also would require the development of an index for the reports and issue briefs. Only those reports that are available to all members of Congress would be made available to the public. Classified and sensitive documents would be exempt.

Rest Here: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090501_4914.php?oref=rss?zone=NGpopular

Record Budget Enhances VA's Ability to Become a 21st Century Organization

WASHINGTON, May 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced President Obama's 2010 budget for VA. The budget emphasizes a Veteran-centric commitment to expanded services with a 15.5 percent increase over 2009, the largest percentage increase for VA requested by a president in more than 30 years.

"Our 2010 budget represents the President's vision for how VA will transform into a 21st Century organization that is Veteran-centric, results-driven, and forward-looking," Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said.

Rest Here: http://sev.prnewswire.com/aerospace-defense/20090507/DC1356107052009-1.html

When an improvised explosive device blew up in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, Derek McGinnis, a former Navy corpsman, lost the bottom half of his leg.

But during a session about the importance of dealing with pain management while working with veterans with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, McGinnis found that no one seemed to believe him when he spoke of the great pain he felt in his leg months later.

Rest Here: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/05/military_ptsd_ciav_conference_050709w/

They're not just talking about the ears. For those of us who watched the show in the 1960s (or during the countless reruns since), Nimoy's alter ego was the harbinger of a future in which logic would reign over emotion, and rational thought triumph over blind faith. He was a digital being in an analog world; the Pied Piper who led our generation into the Silicon Age.

Anyone who followed the early "Star Trek" with regularity knows how charismatic Spock was. If there were two characters I wanted to be as a young man, they were Spock -- and James Bond. Both displayed total self-confidence, and amazing problem-solving skills. Both traveled to exotic destinations, and were irresistible to women. And both shared a quality that my generation lacked completely: composure.

Rest Here: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2009/05/07/obama_spock/?source=newsletter

And Logic, except for the 'rushlicans', Will Succeed, we hope!! Sure beats cons and criminals backed up by huge amounts of incompetence and criminal arrogance!!

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), the chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, wrote to President Barack Obama supporting the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as a voter registration agency. The letter states: "The Veterans Voting Support Act, offered by Senator Feinstein and co-sponsored by myself and you-when you were in the Senate-would have required the Department of Veterans Affair to provide nonpartisan registration services to the veterans it serves. During the debate over the Veterans Voting Support Act, we heard from veterans groups, state election officials, disability advocates and voting rights organizations. They all urged a great role in voter registration for the VA. Many of those organizations supported an immediate 'designation' of the VA to register veterans.".....

Rest Here: http://www.ombwatch.org/node/9974


Veterans Administration Again Reverses Itself to Allow Some Voter Registration Drives

Over the past several months, support has been growing to allow voter registration efforts at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities. In a reverse of policy, the VA will no longer ban voter registration drives for veterans living at federally operated nursing homes, shelters for the homeless, and rehabilitation centers across the country. A week after this change, the House passed the Veterans Voter Support Act to legislatively protect such activity and to ensure that the VA allow voter registration drives by nonpartisan groups. However, the VA told a Senate committee that it opposes the legislation in its current form........

Rest Here: http://www.ombwatch.org/node/3791

Not all cybersecurity professionals view applying a Monroe Doctrine to cyberspace as plausible. Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said a cyber version of the doctrine, which viewed any European intervention in the United States' sphere of influence as an act of aggression, as a "chest-beating" statement on how the United States could react to a cyberattack.

"I don't think this is the right approach," he said. "It's a slogan, not strategic thought."

Rest Here: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090506_4087.php?oref=rss?zone=ngtoday

Kellogg Brown & Root, the Army's largest contractor in Iraq and frequent target of critics for its alleged wasteful management of a $31.7 billion logistics contract, came under renewed fire Monday from a special bipartisan oversight panel and the Pentagon's top auditor of defense contracts.

In testimony before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, Defense Contract Audit Agency director April Stephenson said KBR, working under a wartime logistics services contract called LOGCAP III, continually failed to seek out and track cost-efficient subcontractors, costing taxpayers millions of dollars. It also became the focus of the "vast majority" of 32 cases that have been referred to prosecutors for possible fraud charges, she said.

Commissioner Linda Gustitus asked a group of military contracting officials why the Army continued to contract with KBR despite the firm's failure to overhaul monitoring of subcontractors that administer the vast majority of its war-zone services.

Rest Here: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42649&dcn=e_ndw

REMEMBER: Under cheney/bush and the years of goper control of congress!!!!

If local organizations do not reach out proactively to the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments to become more engaged in treating the veterans returning to their communities, they can expect the veterans’ pain to affect their families, their ability to contribute to society, and even their ability to care for themselves, said Audrey Burnam, senior behavioral scientist at the Rand Corp. think tank.

Burnam said vets returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq represent a “historic opportunity” for communities to learn more about PTSD, educate others about the illness and come together to deal with it.

Burnam, who spoke at a Health Affairs Journal panel May 5 in Washington, is the lead author of a new Rand report, “Mental Health Care for Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans,” that makes a case for a broad reform of services that looks beyond VA.

THIS afternoon, Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve will announce the results of an unprecedented review of the capital position of the nation’s largest banks. This will be an important step forward in President Obama’s program to help repair the financial system, restore the flow of credit and put our nation on the path to economic recovery.

If local organizations do not reach out proactively to the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments to become more engaged in treating the veterans returning to their communities, they can expect the veterans' pain to affect their families, their ability to contribute to society, and even their ability to care for themselves, said Audrey Burnam, senior behavioral scientist at the Rand Corp. think tank.

Burnam said vets returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq represent a "historic opportunity" for communities to learn more about PTSD, educate others about the illness and come together to deal with it.

Burnam, who spoke at a Health Affairs Journal panel May 5 in Washington, is the lead author of a new Rand report, "Mental Health Care for Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans," that makes a case for a broad reform of services that looks beyond VA.

Rest Here: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/05/military_PTSD_communities_050509w/

How the boss absconded with your benefits.

john snow won't have to worry about his retirement. When he left the csx railroad to become George W. Bush's second treasury secretary, he took with him a $2.5 million annual pension. The figure was based on 44 years of employment at csx, never mind that Snow had been there for only 25 (during which, incidentally, he brutally cut safety and maintenance, to the point where a jury awarded a widow $50 million in punitive damages after a derailment—money paid by the taxpayers because of a little-known law that insulated Snow and his company from the costs of his egregious judgment). That kind of boost is unheard of for the rank and file, but not at all uncommon for corporate executives and owners.