{"id":5860,"date":"2005-11-17T11:03:47","date_gmt":"2005-11-17T16:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5860"},"modified":"2005-11-17T11:03:47","modified_gmt":"2005-11-17T16:03:47","slug":"if-the-gop-veterans-affairs-committee-wont-listen-dems-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/if-the-gop-veterans-affairs-committee-wont-listen-dems-will\/","title":{"rendered":"If the GOP Veterans&#8217; Affairs Committee won&#8217;t listen, Dems will"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>House Veterans&#8217; Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) recently announced that, for the first time in six decades, there would be no joint session of the House and Senate Veterans&#8217; Affairs Committees to hear concerns directly from organizations representing those who&#8217;ve served. The announcement was <a href=\"http:\/\/releases.usnewswire.com\/GetRelease.asp?id=56522\">not well received<\/a>. Disabled American Veterans National Commander Paul W. Jackson said, &#8220;The tradition of legislative presentations by veterans service organizations dates back to at least the 1950s. And the timing of this announcement &#8212; just before Veterans Day &#8212; could not have been worse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Similar comments came from the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and others. Of course, it&#8217;s not just veterans&#8217; groups. Congressional Dems are weighing in &#8212; and they&#8217;re <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehill.com\/thehill\/export\/TheHill\/News\/TheExecutive\/111705_vets.html\">making threats<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Democrats on the House Veterans&#8217; Affairs Committee are openly rebelling against Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) over his cancellation of Congress&#8217;s annual joint hearings with veterans groups, spurring lawmakers and lobbyists to consider breakaway hearings of their own. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Democrats on Buyer&#8217;s committee responded this week with a strongly worded letter, asking the chairman to reinstate the annual joint hearings or risk the embarrassment of hearings led by the minority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good for them. The Dems basically said if the GOP won&#8217;t give the veterans&#8217; groups a chance to share their concerns directly with lawmakers, then the Dems will. Dems practically dared Buyer, saying he&#8217;s welcome to personally &#8220;withdraw&#8221; from the hearings, but Dems will be there, veterans will be there, and chances are, a few reporters might show up too.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Senate Republicans are already distancing themselves from Buyer&#8217;s move. Senate Veterans&#8217; Affairs Chairman Larry Craig (R-Idaho) said yesterday, &#8220;I did not join [Buyer] in what he proposed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>How soon until Buyer flip-flops his way back to endorsing the same joint hearing the committees have held for decades? It should happen any minute now. Good things happen when Dems play hardball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House Veterans&#8217; Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) recently announced that, for the first time in six decades, there would be no joint session of the House and Senate Veterans&#8217; Affairs Committees to hear concerns directly from organizations representing those who&#8217;ve served. The announcement was not well received. Disabled American Veterans National Commander Paul W. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}