Archive for military benefits

What Chuck Hagel would have to promise LGBT group if nominated for Secretary of Defense

chuck hagel

There have been reports galore, starting with this one from Josh Rogin, that Chuck Hagel is expected to be the president’s nominee for Secretary of Defense. Or is he… ?

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However, as Rachel Maddow notes, despite his apologies, he has some work to do to prove his sincerity to the gay community. Back in 1998 he referred to a Clinton nominee as “aggressively gay.” Barney Frank outright opposes the nomination.

Hagel now says he is “committed to LGBT military families.” So, they’re asking him to put his money where his mouth is. If he is nominated and confirmed, per my pal Chris Geidner at BuzzFeed, OutServe-SLDN’s Allyson Robinson says Hagel “should immediately extend, via secretarial directive, all benefits available to married same-sex military couples and families.”

Seconded.

Here’s Part Two of Rachel’s two-parter about Hagel:

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VIDEO: President Obama at Fort Stewart, Georgia on Protecting Military from Education Fraud

ICYMI.

Live Streaming Video- President Obama Speaks to Military at Fort Stewart, Georgia 12:35p EST

Vets group suspends campus chapters at for-profits

This is really a huge thing. For profit “Universities” and “Colleges” pimp to veterans that they’ll take your G.I. Bill money and make it “easy”, but all they’re doing is taking advantage of any little crack they can burrow into. They need to be eradicated. Good on the VA groups that have smartened up.

A leading student veterans group is suspending chapters at 40 for-profit colleges, saying it’s concerned they’ve been set up by the colleges as shell organizations to help them appeal to veteran students who carry lucrative government tuition benefits.

The schools may be creating what are essentially fake SVA chapters to help them qualify for lists of “military friendly” or “veterans friendly” colleges that are proliferating in guidebooks and online, Student Veterans of America executive director Michael Dakduk said Thursday. On some lists, the existence of an SVA chapter at a school figures into the formula.

The organization, which has 417 campus chapters, said it would not name the for-profit schools while it investigated further. But Dakduk said that during recent membership renewals, SVA discovered numerous chapters listing as contacts people SVA later identified as school employees, not student veterans, and that chapter websites simply redirected anyone interested to the colleges’ pages.