20200303 SEN Blumenthal
20200303 Sen. Blumenthal call DOL VETS
[00:00:00] I'm recording. Um, Senator Blumenthal serves on both the Senate, VA, and Judiciary Committees. Um, the Senate and the House both receive a, uh, an annual report from the Department of Labor's Veterans Educational Training Services. As part of that annual report, um, DOL is required by law Title 38, section 42 12, subsection C.
They're required to report the number of complaints by protected Veterans of Employment Discrimination DOL has for the years that those reports were made available online from 2012 to 2018. The Department of Labor has been misreporting the number of complaints by protected veterans of employment discrimination.
In fact, what they're doing is they're saying that less than one third of the actual complaints. Are taking place. They're [00:01:00] understating the problem of, uh, veterans reporting employment discrimination. Um, I am emailing the staff on the cer, the Senate and House VA committees, and I'm asking each congress person to pull their head outta the sand and start doing something to make sure that the different agencies that are required to protect veterans, uh, start doing that.
And because Senator Blumenthal is also on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Blumenthal should know that 10 years ago, the Senate unanimously passed as part of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. A little known amendment called the Soldiers Amendment. There's, it was introduced by Jeff Sessions, and the explicit intent of that amendment was to put military families on equal footing with other protected classes.
To this day, the DOJ has refused to enforce that law. [00:02:00] It's, uh, title 18, section 1389. The judiciary committee has jurisdiction over protected classes because it's a, it's a judicial standard, essentially. DOJ has not done that. There's a letter from the house from five. Uh, house members including two veterans, max Rose and Gil Cisneros, asking the DOJ, uh, asking AG Barr and FBI Director Wray, why they're not enforcing hate crimes.
Protections for veteran for, I'm sorry, military families. So, because I don't have any contact information for Senator Blumenthal's staff member who goes to the VA, and I've still been unsuccessful in getting any contact information for a representative of his to the judiciary committee. I'm recording this and if I need to in the future, I will release it to make sure that nobody, including Senator Blumenthal can deny that they knew that this was a problem.[00:03:00]
Senator Blumenthal's Office: Yes, sir. Um, can I just have an email so that the appropriate person can email you back, sir?
Logan M. Isaac: Uh, no. You can find this online at gijustice.com. If there's some concern about the security or the safety of emails, it seems duplicitous to ask for mine when in fact, one is not being given to me.
Senator Blumenthal's Office: Okay, sir. Well, thank you for your service, sir.
Logan M. Isaac: I, I don't need any more.
Senator Blumenthal's Office: I will,
Logan M. Isaac: I don't need to be thanked. I need somebody like Senator Blumenthal to finally have my back. He's the only enlisted member that I know of in Congress, and he is acting more like an officer by distancing himself from the rank and file like me. And there's, there's not gonna be any more, there's no excuse for that.
So if Blumenthal doesn't wanna be in touch with, uh, you know, back broken grunts like me, then I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that he's treated no [00:04:00] differently. If and when this finally comes out and people start asking questions. Why hasn't Congress done something and in particular, why haven't veterans in Congress done something?
Senator Blumenthal's Office: Yes, sir. So I will, I will pass along your message to the appropriate party, sir.
Logan M. Isaac: Okay. Cool.
Senator Blumenthal's Office: All right. Have a good rest of your day, sir.
Logan M. Isaac: Thank you.
