Saving Soldiers' JobsBy Amy R. Gershkoff
Saturday, August 4, 2007; A15
For tens of thousands of members of the National Guard and reserves who are called up to serve in Iraq, returning home safely may be the beginning -- not the end -- of their worst nightmare. Reservists lucky enough to make it home often find their civilian jobs gone and face unsympathetic employers and a government that has restricted access to civilian job-loss reports rather than prosecuting offending employers.
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects members of the guard and reserves from job loss, demotion, loss of seniority and loss of benefits when they are called to active duty.
The act is supposed to protect reservists' civilian jobs for up to five years of military service. But the government has made it difficult for veterans to enforce their legal rights. Service members who return to find their civilian jobs gone also find that the burden is on them to prove that their jobs were taken away as a result of their military service and that there is no other reason that they could have been fired.
This onerous burden of proof discourages many from filing formal complaints.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080301689_pf.htmlWithout a Country: Iraq War Vet Gets Deportation PapersAn Iraq war veteran who grew up in the United States says the country he fought for now wants to send him back to Mexico.
He went to war a soldier but somehow returned as an illegal immigrant. He spent 12 months in Iraq fighting for our freedom but then, just a few months after returning home, Castaneda received a deportation letter.
His parents brought him to the United States from Mexico illegally when Orlando was just three years old. He filled out all the required paperwork and was even told his military service would put his application for citizenship on the fast track.
But somewhere along the line, immigration officials speculate there was a mixup or burp in the system leaving him and his American family in a state of limbo.
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d8b6f86c-53ed-479a-ba60-fdf1a92fecaeBush Administration Killed Increased Highway Repairs In 2004The Republicans have no problem rubber-stamping $144 billion a year into a failed war in Iraq and Afghanistan without demanding results. But if we committed that same $12 billion a month out of a $2 trillion federal budget, and paid for it with a gas tax increase, we could address our infrastructure needs by the end of the next president’s first term. And we would create millions of good paying jobs at the same time and do our economy a world of good, especially if we married it to a redirection of oil and gas subsidies and a gas tax increase towards development of a domestic, sustainable energy industry.
But for the sake of four cents a gallon back in 2004, the Bush Administration said no additional money would be provided for roads and bridges. Yet we pour billions of borrowed money into Iraq every month.
When a bipartisan majority in Congress suggested increasing the federal excise tax on gasoline back in 2004 for the first time since 1993 to pay for road and bridge projects, the White House threatened to veto the measure because it contained a tax increase. At the time, the White House said they would not support any increase in federal gas taxes to pay for road improvements, and then said that highway needs must be met solely through the existing, woeful level of funding in the highway fund and not the general fund, a position that by all accounts within Congress and among transportation experts shortchanged our true needs to the tune of several hundred billion dollars.
But the White House says "let's not politicize this", like they did to cover up their negligence after Katrina.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/010765.php
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