by TChris

For more than a hundred years, veterans desiring to pursue disability claims haven't been able to hire a lawyer to bring those claims -- unless they can find one who will work for $10 or less. The Department of Veterans Affairs' legislative director wants to keep it that way. He says a proposed change in the law, allowing lawyers to be paid for helping veterans win disability claims, "sends the wrong message to our brave troops fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere -- that they need to hire an attorney to obtain the benefits a grateful nation has provided." Of course, if DVA gratefully paid disability claims, disabled veterans wouldn't need lawyers, making it difficult to understand why DVA would oppose the change.

Here's why it might be helpful for a veteran to have a lawyer fighting to win benefits from DVA:

On Aug. 16, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims rendered a 31-page decision in a veteran appeal which determined that the Department of Veteran Affairs has been unlawfully denying presumptive disability compensation for exposure to Agent Orange for service members who served in the waters offshore of Vietnam and earned the Vietnam Service Medal.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

President Bush repeated today that:

"If we withdraw before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here,'' Bush said, attributing the line to Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Two things. Who's they? And did Abizaid really say that? I seriously doubt it. I think that is another Bush lie.

Why would the Al Sadr's Mehdi army follow "us" home? Or the Badr Brigade? Or the Sunni insurgents? Why would these "terrorists" follow us home? As I understand it, the violence in Iraq is sectarian in nature. Why some folks believe Iraq is in a civil war. So, according to Bush, the "terrorists" will interrupt the violence in Iraq in order to follow us home? Does that make sense?

Well, General John Abizaid DID say this (as I stated before, I do not believe Abizaid said what Bush says he said):

I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war," Gen. John Abizaid testified at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Bush is a moron and a liar. He is capable of saying stupidities like Bush's line. Abizaid, to now, has not shown himself to be that. I think Bush should stand bravely by his own stupidities without trying to foist them on General Abizaid.

Be careful what you do with your old cell phone when you upgrade to a new one. Even if you think you have deleted your e-mails and text messages, you haven't.

Selling your old phone once you upgrade to a fancier model can be like handing over your diaries. All sorts of sensitive information pile up inside our cell phones, and deleting it may be more difficult than you think.

A popular practice among sellers, resetting the phone, often means sensitive information appears to have been erased. But it can be resurrected using specialized yet inexpensive software found on the Internet.

Happily, I never caught the Crackberry addiction and don't even own one. Nor do I e-mail or text message on my cell phone. Even so, after reading this article, I'm glad I've never sold an old cell phone or computer. Better to dismantle them and destroy their innards.

by TChris

Christine Wilhelm drowned her son in a bathtub, and tried to drown her other son. Common sense might cause one to wonder whether this behavior was the product of mental illness, but it was only after Wilhelm's convictions were reversed last week (decision in pdf here) that the prosecutor, Patricia DeAngelis, said that she is "considering the possibility of giving a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity." What took so long?

Wilhelm has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic but DeAngelis had pressed for a 50 year to life prison sentence and denied her mental health treatment.

This columnist notes that many have criticized DeAngelis for "getting convictions at all costs."

Bump and Update: I've found 200 or so of your unposted comments. They are in the "junk comment" folder inside Movable Type, along with a few hundred spam comments for drugs and ringtones. I have to go through them individually to get them posted, but you should start seeing them soon.

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I know many of you are having problems posting comments. Even though I've opened them up to everyone with no typekey required, many people are still getting an erroneous message stating that your comments are being held for moderation. That's not the case, but I don't know how to fix it. I think I messed up the comment listing template while trying to fix the problem.

Crooks and Liars has the video of Keith Olbermann's commentary last night on Donald Rumsfeld.

Olbermann delivered this commentary with fire and passion while highlighting how Rumsfeld's comments echoes other times in our world's history when anyone who questioned the administration was coined as a traitor, unpatriotic, communist or any other colorful term. Luckily we pulled out of those times and we will pull out of these times.

From the transcript:

Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat

Choose - 1. To select from a number of possible alternatives; decide on and pick out. 2. . . . To determine or decide: chose to fly rather than drive.

The Decider says he didn't decide to go to war in Iraq.

Around two "Friedmans" (6 month intervals, see generally atrios on "Friedmans") ago, Bush said much of what he repeated today:

We removed Saddam Hussein from power because he was a threat to our security. He had pursued and used weapons of mass destruction. He sponsored terrorists. He ordered his military to shoot at American and British pilots patrolling the no-fly zones. He invaded his neighbors. He fought a war against the United States and a broad coalition. He had declared that the United States of America was his enemy. . . . The United States did not choose war -- the choice was Saddam Hussein's. . . . Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat -- and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power. We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator; it is to leave a free and democratic Iraq in its place.

Of course Bush has been and continues to lie about Iraq. Bush chose this disastrous war. Bush chose to undermine the fight against terrorism. Bush chose to launch Iraq into chaos.

by TChris

Some cab drivers terrorize their passengers with bad driving, but what evidence does Conrad Burns have to support his latest whacky accusation?

At the campaign event with [Laura] Bush, Burns talked about the war on terrorism, saying a "faceless enemy" of terrorists "drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night."

Which cabbies are these, pray tell?

by TChris

Ken Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state who is running for governor, would probably prefer to destroy the ballots cast in Ohio for presidential candidates in 2004. Researchers who have recently obtained access to the ballots are questioning the integrity of the Ohio vote tabulation that he supervised.

After eight months inspecting 35,000 ballots from 75 rural and urban precincts, the critics say that they have found many with signs of tampering and that in some precincts the number of voters differs significantly from the certified results.

In Miami County, in southwestern Ohio, official tallies in one precinct recorded about 550 votes. Ballots and signature books indicated that 450 people voted.

Another problem:

The Wall St. Journal (free link) today examines whether bloggers should blog or not during holiday weekends like Labor Day.

In the height of summer-holiday season, bloggers face the inevitable question: to blog on break or put the blog on a break? Stepping away or bringing in a guest author often means accepting a decline in readership.

....Yet for the sliver of people whose livelihood depends on the blog -- whether they are conservative, liberal or don't care -- stepping away from the keyboard can be difficult. Unlike other jobs, where co-workers can fill in for an absent employee, blogs are usually a one-person show. A blogger's personality carries the site. When the host isn't there, readers tend to stray. August is a slow time for all blogs, but having an absent host makes the problem worse. Lose enough readers, and advertisers are sure to join the exodus.

John Amato of the incredibly popular Crooks and Liars tells the Journal:

Jonathon Edington, a 29 year old Connecticut patent lawyer, has been charged with stabbing his neighbor to death after receiving information from relatives that the neighbor molested his two year old daughter.

The police said the lawyer, Jonathon Edington, 29, repeatedly stabbed the neighbor, Barry James, 59, and then walked back home. Mr. James, whose mother found him bleeding to death just after 4:30 p.m. Monday, was taken to Bridgeport Hospital, where he was pronounced dead an hour later.

The Fairfield police charged Mr. Edington, who had no criminal record, with murder and burglary after officers said they found him in his kitchen later that afternoon, covered in blood.

Mickey Sherman, who is representing Mr. Edington said:

The Wall St. Journal (free link) reports that Bush is planning a series of speeches intended to increase support for the war in Iraq.

President Bush will launch another major public-relations offensive to strengthen support for the Iraq war -- this time likely emphasizing the high stakes and changing nature of the battle more than the progress being made. The series of speeches begins tomorrow at the annual American Legion convention in Utah and will continue through the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and on into the middle of next month.

The new campaign is aimed at framing the Iraq debate over what the White House considers the vital stakes involved in the war and reinforcing public sentiment that favors sticking it out. The speeches will be aimed at rebutting mounting public calls -- from Democrats and even a few Republicans -- for setting some kind of timetable for at least a limited troop withdrawal.

Part of the strategy is to use the speeches to increase Republican chances of victory in November: