10/9/2025

 Thursday, October 9, 2025

D+337/262/-1209

1845 Anglican priest John Henry Newman left the Anglican Curch of England and was received into the Roman Catholic Church

1991 George H. W. Bush declared "total confidence" in nominee Clarence Thomas

2019 Turkey launched airstrikes on Kurdish forces in Northern Syria after US President Donald Trump announced the decision to pull back US forces

2023 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched an independent bid for the US Presidency

In bed at 9:25, up at 1:45, unable to sleep, with aching left ankle. I took an 8 hour Tylenol last night and applied some Diclofenac.  I took another Tylenol around 2 a.m., but I don't have much confidence in its pain-relieving quality.   

Meds, etc.  I took the last antibiotic last night.  Morning meds at 11 a.m.  

A little thrill.  At dusk, while watching the Brewers-Cubs game, I looked through my window at a large whitetail buck with a full rack of antlers looking back at me, less than 6 feet away, only the window separating us.  He was looking for some vittles from the bird feeders.

I'm feeling a little dirty after reading the long 'investigative reporting' on VA disability benefits in the October 6 /7 Washington Post, "How some veterans exploit $193 billion VA program, due to lax controls", by Craig Whitlock, Lisa Rein and Caitlin Gilbert.  Excerpts:

Taxpayers will spend roughly $193 billion this year for the Department of Veterans Affairs to compensate about 6.9 million disabled veterans on the presumption that their ability to work is impaired.

The easy-to-manipulate regulations have turned the disability program into a rich target for con artists, who are typically prosecuted only in the most egregious and flagrant cases.

Disability payments to veterans are tax-free and typically last for life. Last year, disabled vets received $25,046 on average, VA figures show. The money comes on top of free or subsidized medical care provided by VA.

VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz provided a statement. “The extraordinarily liberal Washington Post never met a government program it didn’t love — until now,” he wrote. “Unbelievably, the far-left Washington Post believes many Veterans don’t deserve the VA benefits they’ve earned. 

 The current disability program was designed 80 years ago to provide a safety net for unemployable veterans wounded or injured during World War II. Today, the vast majority of disabled veterans under age 65 still work and collect paychecks from full-time jobs, records show.

 According to the most recent available figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for disabled veterans last year was 4.1 percent, about the same as the population at large. In 2023, more than 100,000 disabled veterans — roughly 1 in 60 — reported an income of $250,000 or higher, according to a Post analysis of VA and census data. 8

Other public disability programs help only people who certify that they are incapacitated or severely impaired in their ability to work. The Social Security Administration, which provides disability aid to more than 15 million people, limits benefits to those who cannot hold a job or are unable to earn more than $19,440 a year.

The Post’s investigation found that Congress and VA have made it easier to cheat and take advantage of the system.

Authorities have known for years that some veterans who don’t genuinely need help are gaming the disability program, according to documents and interviews.

Embellished and bogus claims are clogging the system and making it harder for veterans with bona fide injuries to get the help they deserve, according to judges and prosecutors who have handled fraud cases. 

Veterans categorized as 100 percent disabled often still hold normal, full-time jobs. Most have an assortment of ailments — such as arthritis, diabetes, scars or a deviated septum — that by themselves are not incapacitating but that add up to a 100 percent rating under VA rules. 

Whether intended or not, the tone of this article tends to smear all VA disability pay recipients, of which I am one.  It clearly suggests that only those who are unable to work, whose income potential is diminished, or who were injured while serving and genuinely need help, should receive payments, something like SSI or SSDI.   Under the suggested eligibility standards, I would not be entitled to a disability rating or compensation, but those are not the VA standards.  Neither VA health care nor disability pay is based on need.  Neither is a welfare program, and veterans are not 'welfare queens.'  These programs were created by Congress as benefits available only to military veterans in fulfillment of Abraham Lincoln's call to the nation in his Second Inaugural, "to care for him who shall have borne the battle," those who, usually early in their lives, answered the call to military service with all the risks that entails.

I was 75 years old and retired before I enrolled in the VA health system.  As part of the enrollment, I was given a thorough physical examination by a government physician and was assigned a disability rating based on my diabetes and related medical problems, and on my exposure over many months in Vietnam to Agent Orange and other toxins. I didn't ask for a disability rating or disability pay, but was provided both.  The assignment of a disability rating is part of the enrollment process and determines whether a veteran will be charged co-pays for VA medical services.   I received no "injury" in Vietnam other than the toxic exposures.  My ability to earn an income as a lawyer and a law professor was not impaired by my medical problems.  Nonetheless, I surprisingly found myself entitled to a monthly disability check, which I gladly accepted, not because I needed it, but because Congress had provided it to me in return for my months of service in Vietnam.  I was not collecting on a commercial disability insurance policy, based on loss of income and earning capacity; I was receiving a government benefit based on service, not need.

Exact numbers are not available, but there are approximately 18 million living American military veterans, 9 million of whom are enrolled in the VA health system.  Only about half of those eligible to participate do so.  Of those who do, many like me enroll late in life, and others enroll at varying times after their discharge from service.  My father, who had severe PTSD after service on Iwo Jima in WWII, never took advantage of whatever services were available after the war.  He, my mother, my sister, and I all paid a price for that, but my point is that most veterans, for most of their lives, make no claim whatsoever for post-service medical care or disability pay from the VA, even though they are entitled to it.  I went almost 50 years after my discharge before enrolling with the VA.

The Washington Post article suggests that disability payments should be available only to those vets who suffer an 'injury' during service, one that affects their ability to work.   Many conditions that are compensable under the law don't fit neatly under the term 'injury.'  Many develop only long after military service is completed.  What "injury" did my father incur on Iwo Jima that affected him throughout the rest of his life?  Ditto all the other vets who suffer from PTSD or the pernicious medical effects of exposure to carcinogens, like the water at Camp Lejeune, or the defoliants in Vietnam, the burn pits in  Iraq and Afghanistan, or the depleted uranium in armor-piercing ammunition or vehicle armor?

The article says that veterans in the VA receive free or subsidized medical care.  Though that is generally true, most of the veterans that I regularly encounter at my VA medical center are elderly veterans of Vietnam and even Korea.  The costs of services provided to them are charged to Medicare and to their Medicare supplemental policies.  We veterans are encouraged to keep our Medicare supplemental policies in place because VA health care is a benefit program, not an insurance program.  If we need medical services away from VA provider facilities, we're on our own.  The premiums we pay for Medicare coverage and for Medicare supplemental protection directly subsidize the VA benefits.

Lastly, a political note.  The spokesman for the VA chastised the Washington Post for investigating fraudulent disability claims, calling it "the extraordinarily liberal Washington Post" and "the far-left Washington Post."  This article, slurring the VA and veterans receiving disability payments, in Jeff Bezos's personal newspaper, is an attack from the Right, not the Left.  The VA medical system is socialized medicine, i..e, government-provided health care.  Conservative powers have wanted to privatize it for decades, in large part because it works so well.  It can be challenging to get enrolled, but once enrolled, the veterans who use it are very satisfied with the care they receive.  Their/our satisfaction with it is anathema to opponents of government-financed and/or provided health care.  Bezos is a friend of and supporter of our current commander-in-chief, neither of them a veteran, and neither of them a supporter of the VA, notwithstanding Trump's protestations to the contrary.  Soon after he assumed office, he and his DOGE whiz kids proposed cutting the VA workforce by more than 80,000.  He installed far-right former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.  Bezos's Washington Post article is unmistakably part of the campaign to weaken and ultimately privatize the VA.  Don't believe what they say; watch what they do.

 Text exchange with SCK at 8:05 this morning:

Steven:  Those TXANG soldiers are downtown & Lincoln Park  photo ops. They're here to intimidate the libs.  they probably won't go south of Roosevelt Rd. But if another person gets killed by ICE who the fuck knows

They are here so a demented narcissist can show his deplorables how tough he is. And if he can incite violence, even better. We are never coming back from this.  Two people have been shot with live ammo by ICE. One man was killed trying to evade them. Another woman was injured following a bunch of them. In both instances, they fabricated & lied about the circumstances. AND THE MEDIA DID NOTHING

Charles Clausen:  We are of the same mind: he is doing everything he can to incite violence so he can use the Insurrection Act. I also agree that we will not come back from this. I’m despondent and feeling utterly despondent.  Utterly powerless.

Steven:  The good news is that enough people resisting this can make a difference in these public abductions/arrests/intimidations. Remember, Ceaucescu was all-powerful until Army units in Bucharest one by one stopped shooting protesters. Then they stopped protecting government buildings   But definitely many innocent Romanians had to die on the way there. Who knows how it will go here. Maybe child rape is the "turning point."

Charles Clausen:  But what worries me is that the Romanian security guys and their families were also suffering under Ceaucescu’s government and I don’t think that is true of these ICE guys, especially the new hires under the Big, Beautiful Budget Bill.  They know what ICE has been doing and they’re joining up anyway.  Plus, they’re only doing it to Brown people, not White people.  There’s an unmistakable scent of White Supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan with these guys.

Steven:  Someone spray-painted "Charlie was asking for it" a week ago on an old bank building. The same one had "Free Luigi" on it. That got covered up in a day or two by the city.

Charles Clausen:  I fear someone is going to shoot and maybe kill an ICEman.  Then Trump and the fascists will go nuts.

Steven:  I agree. We are not at the "Army stops shooting protesters" part. We are at the "State security agents abducting and murdering dissidents" stage. We have a hellish path ahead. 

1-800-GOT-JUNK.   We scheduled a pick-up for Monday afternoon between 1 and 3.  Bite the bullet time?  Marine uniforms?  Andy's chess table?  My mother's leather top drum table from 7307 S. Emerald? Text to Steve: "Hi, Steve.  We have 1-800-GOT-JUNK coming on Monday to remove a bunch of stuff from the basement and the garage.  Do you still think you would like to take that parquet inlaid chess table in the basement?  If so, I will save it for you.  If not, I think I’ll bite the bullet and let them take it.  It’ll be an emotional day for this old man, giving away that, and my 62-year-old Marine uniforms that I think you and Andy used to play around with, my mother’s leather top drum table that marked our emergence from the basement at 7303 S. Emerald to next door on the second floor of 7307 S. Emerald, etc., stuff I’ve held onto for a lifetime.  😢  I will be sure, however, to save my City of Chicago “Emerald Ave.” street sign you so thoughtfully gave me, one of my treasures.  Steve: " I will come get it!  Me: There is absolutely no hurry.  I just wanted to make sure you didn’t find out when you got home that, e.g., you don’t have room for it, etc.  Don’t worry, it’s safe!

One Art

          BY ELIZABETH BISHOP

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.