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Keyword: va

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  • The VA Bureaucracy on Trial

    06/09/2014 5:36:57 AM PDT · by Servant of the Cross · 8 replies
    National Review ^ | 6/9/2014 | Lee Habeeb
    When Woodward and Bernstein did their groundbreaking reporting in the 1970s, they uncovered abuse of power and corruption that led to the resignation of the nation’s highest elected official. It was what a free press can and should do: keep government honest. But Watergate was ultimately a story about one man and one administration. The VA story is about something much larger: systemic corruption at one of our biggest federal agencies. The Department of Veterans Affairs employs more than 300,000 people and has an annual budget that’s increased from $98 billion in 2009 to more than $153 billion today. Of...
  • VA health care nominee withdraws

    06/08/2014 12:24:11 AM PDT · by Jet Jaguar · 20 replies
    Stars and Stripes ^ | June 5, 2014 | Matthew Daly
    <p>WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's choice to be the top health official at the embattled Veterans Affairs Department has withdrawn his nomination.</p> <p>The news comes amid a firestorm over long patient waits at military veterans' medical facilities and covering up delays, a headache for Democrats ahead of November congressional elections.</p>
  • Why There Are More Scandals These Days

    06/07/2014 2:10:45 PM PDT · by Aspenhuskerette · 12 replies
    Washington Examiner ^ | June 7, 2014 | Melanie Sturm
    "I’m not young enough to know everything," Peter Pan’s creator, J.M. Barrie, observed, as if reflecting on the Great Commencement Speaker Flap of 2014. Even so, Jimi Hendrix was young when he reputedly offered advice heeded by too few students today – "knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." Aware that wisdom comes from asking the right questions, not identifying the wrong answers, Professor Allan Bloom blasted American universities in 1987 for exacerbating youthful indiscretion. In his seminal book, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Student, Bloom argued that students...
  • VA head says (additional) 18 vets left off wait list have died

    06/07/2014 6:25:40 AM PDT · by xzins · 18 replies
    One News Now ^ | June 6, 2014 | Associated Press
    In a new revelation in the growing Veterans Affairs' scandal, the organization's acting head says that an additional 18 veterans whose names were kept off an official electronic VA appointment list have died. "I will come personally and apologize to the survivors," Gibson said Thursday. Gibson's remarks during a visit to Phoenix were the latest related to the scandal over long patient waits for care and falsified records covering up the delays at VA hospitals and clinics nationwide. The 18 veterans who died were among 1,700 veterans identified in a report last week by the VA's inspector general as being...
  • VA Employees' Union Cautiously Optimistic on Bipartisan Veterans Care Bill

    06/06/2014 6:32:19 PM PDT · by mdittmar · 12 replies
    The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) ^ | June 6, 2014 | The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)
    The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) expressed cautious optimism about recently announced legislation aimed at improving staffing and addressing wait times at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities. AFGE also applauds provisions to extend advance appropriations to the full VA budget, expand GI bill benefits and enhance medical services for victims of military sexual assault.The legislation, spearheaded by Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Bernie Sanders and Senator John McCain, recognizes the severe staffing shortages at VA medical facilities by authorizing $500 million to hire new doctors and nurses. AFGE applauds provisions for expedited hiring authority and urges swift action to fill...
  • "Culture of Deceit" VA Office in New Mexico Investigated Phony Wait Times in 2013

    06/06/2014 11:27:54 PM PDT · by Jet Jaguar · 4 replies
    NBCchicago.com ^ | June1, 2014 | BY RICH GARDELLA, ANDREW BLANKSTEIN, TALESHA REYNOLDS AND JOHN YANG
    Accusations at a VA hospital in Phoenix that patient records were falsified by staff are emerging in other facilities, including a New Mexico medical center where alleged bookkeeping misrepresentations were investigated last year. A whistleblower working at the Raymond G. Murphy Medical Center in Albuquerque, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity, said in a complaint sent to the VA’s regional Office of the Inspector General in September 2013 and again early last month to the national OIG, that “clinic staff were ordered to enter false information into veterans’ charts, because it would improve the data about clinic...
  • Fear of reprisals kept the VA scandal a secret

    06/06/2014 9:23:36 PM PDT · by Jet Jaguar · 14 replies
    wtkr.com ^ | June 6, 2014 | Matt Knight
    <p>It began with secret texts to untraceable phones. Meetings took place in seedy bars, dark alleys, gas stations. Actual documents came in packages without notes, without return addresses.</p> <p>You would think the secrets being passed dealt with national security, organized crime or the corruption of high public officials. Nope.</p>
  • Price of coming forward: 37 VA whistle-blowers claim retaliation

    06/06/2014 11:34:03 AM PDT · by jazusamo · 14 replies
    Fox News ^ | June 6, 2014 | Joshua Rhett Miller
    Dozens of Veterans Affairs workers who have come forward with stories of mismanagement and patient abuse say they have faced retaliation within the scandal-scarred agency, according to federal investigators. In one case, a VA employee with a spotless record over two decades was suspended after reporting patients had been inappropriately restrained, according to one of 37 such complaints filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC). In another case, an employee claimed to have been demoted after disclosing alleged mishandling of patient care funds. The employee was temporarily reassigned and an investigation is still ongoing, OSC officials said. The...
  • A D-Day Veteran Politely Declines Obama Invitation

    06/06/2014 9:10:10 AM PDT · by topher · 74 replies
    National Review Online ^ | 6 June 2014 11:08 AM | John Fund
    Brix, France — Some of the veterans attending the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings here in France have fascinating stories. Take George Ciampa, the most vibrant and spry 89-year-old I have ever met. In 1944, he landed in Normandy as a soldier assigned to the 84th Graves Registration Unit. “I spent the next few years going from France to Germany helping to bury people,” he told me. He was involved in setting up the temporary military cemeteries in Normandy that have now become stirring memorials to our fallen dead.
  • Bergdahl and Pentagon loyalty: a disturbing connection

    06/05/2014 10:05:16 PM PDT · by george76 · 11 replies
    Allen West ^ | June 5, 2014 | Allen West
    While many focus their disgust for the federal government towards the occupants housed in the IRS, DoJ, VA, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, this latest deserter-for-Taliban trade puts the spotlight on another particular building. ... It was the late Army Colonel David Hackworth who bestowed the title of “perfumed princes” on senior military leaders who stood not for the men and women in uniform but rather for their own career advancement. As we live through the decimation of our armed forces it’s difficult to say Vaughn doesn’t have a point. Vaughn believes “There is no way that the White House could...
  • Ex-V.A. official walks back suggestion that Bergdahl's unit may've been infested with 'psychopaths'

    06/05/2014 4:11:25 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 32 replies
    The Washington Examiner ^ | June 5, 2014 | T. Becket Adams
    A former Veterans Affairs official apologized Thursday for suggesting that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may have left his post in Afghanistan five years ago because he was surrounded by “psychopaths.” “While I just wanted to make the point that the public should wait before passing judgment, I unfortunately used my own poor judgment in choosing inappropriate language that many view as disparaging to U.S. service members,” Brandon Friedman, who currently serves as a spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told BuzzFeed. “That was certainly not my intent and I regret making the comments on my personal account...
  • Obama’s Casual Contempt for the Military

    06/05/2014 4:41:28 PM PDT · by inkling · 8 replies
    Ricochet ^ | June 5, 2014 | Jon Gabriel
    Sitting in the boardroom, a dozen social workers, salesmen and developers were waiting for the Health IT CEO to kick off the meeting. As we rocked in our chairs, my boss — an MSW-cum-Chief Sales Officer — complained about his “black sheep” cousin who was shaming the family name. “The rest of us went to college but he’s stuck in the Army,” he said. “Sounds like a good start to me,” I replied, as the only employee with military experience. Those assembled rolled their eyes while my boss looked at me with pity. “He enlisted, Jon. He obviously isn’t the...
  • Veterans Affairs police caused fatal stroke by beating patient ‘tired of waiting’ (Heard of this?)

    06/05/2014 1:50:35 PM PDT · by servo1969 · 15 replies
    Thefreethoughtproject.com ^ | 5-27-2014 | RT.com
    A veteran died of a stroke after Veterans Affairs police beat him because he refused to wait any longer for treatment at a VA hospital in California. Now his widow is suing the government over the brutality that led to his death. Jonathan Montano had been at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Loma Linda, Calif. for four hours with a shunt (a needle apparatus) in his arm, awaiting dialysis. Tired of biding his time, he decided to head to a different VA hospital in Long Beach, and asked his wife Norma to get the car. But instead of...
  • Veterans still battling 1973 fire that wiped out millions of service records

    06/05/2014 10:48:55 AM PDT · by US Navy Vet · 22 replies
    FoxNews.com ^ | June 04, 2014 | by Christina Corbin
    While the Veterans Administration struggles to repair the damage caused by shoddy -- and in some cases fraudulent -- handling of health care for American service members, benefits for millions who served their country in four wars were wiped out in a fire more than 40 years ago, leaving many battling to this day to collect their due. The blaze that ripped through the National Personnel Records Center in a St. Louis suburb shortly after midnight on July 12, 1973, consumed 16 million to 18 million official military personnel files long before computers kept such records safe from harm. Few...
  • Why are there more scandals these days?

    06/05/2014 7:40:13 AM PDT · by Aspenhuskerette · 20 replies
    The Aspen Times (CO) ^ | June 5, 2014 | Melanie Sturm
    “I’m not young enough to know everything,” Oscar Wilde observed, as if reflecting on the Great Commencement Speaker Flap of 2014. However, Jimi Hendrix was young when he offered advice that today’s college students should heed — “knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” Unmindful that earned wisdom is derived from asking the right questions — not identifying the wrong answers — too many students graduate into a complex and conflict-riddled world without the insights that come from the clash of opposing viewpoints. Is it surprising then, that so many intractable problems plague our society, like military veterans dying from government-provided health...
  • Bergdahl bumps VA from spotlight: Is America in Danger for Obama's Political Wellbeing?

    06/04/2014 8:28:41 AM PDT · by PapaNew · 18 replies
    The Hill ^ | 6/1/14 | Kevin Cirilli
    The Taliban’s release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl dominated the Sunday talk shows, pushing Friday’s resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki from the headlines. The Sunday shows were packed with administration officials defending the decision and Republicans launching into political attacks against President Obama and the administration for transferring five Taliban members from Guantánamo Bay to Qatar in exchange for the release of Bergdahl, the 28-year-old whom the Taliban released on Saturday. "Disturbing" was how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) put it on ABC's "This Week." "Dangerous," echoed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on CNN's "State of The Union."...
  • Facts suggest vets delayed own tests to make Obama look bad

    06/04/2014 8:00:47 AM PDT · by laotzu · 48 replies
    The Peopls Cube ^ | 5/22/14 | Opiate of the People
    After the recent revelation of long wait times and delays in care at VA hospitals shocked the nation, congressional Democrats from both houses and independent journalists undertook their own investigation to determine the cause of the problem. What they found was shocking: evidence of a coordinated conspiracy among numerous ill veterans to avoid seeking medical care and blame their subsequent problems on President Obama. "It's racism pure and simple." said one congressional staffer who played a tape recording of a VA patient telling an undercover investigator "I'm supposed to go for a colonoscopy next week but I'm gonna skip it...
  • Silver Star Families of America calls for expanded use of Non-VA Care Program

    06/03/2014 8:40:50 PM PDT · by Steve Newton · 9 replies
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jeremy P. Amick, public affairs officer Silver Star Families of America Phone: (573) 230-7456 Email: jamick1@earthlink.net
  • Filth, Feces, Urine and Trash – Witness Describes Squalid State of St. Louis VA (Video-Photos)

    06/03/2014 6:09:04 AM PDT · by servo1969 · 11 replies
    Progressives Today ^ | 6-3-2014 | Jim Hoft
    Full Title - "EXCLUSIVE: Filth, Feces, Urine and Trash – Witness Describes Squalid State of St. Louis VA (Video-Photos)" This past weekend, Evita Simone Allen visited the St. Louis VA medical center at Jefferson Barracks to tend to an ailing uncle.“Vita” spoke exclusively to Jim Hoft of Progressives Today on Monday about the filth, feces, urine and trash she saw piled up in her uncle’s room at the VA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx35OoDGESsHere is Vita’s shocking story – along with pictures from her visit:“As we entered the room, we noticed a foul smell that smelled really bad. As we walked around in the...
  • Easy to see one of the main problems at the VA Hospitals..

    06/03/2014 5:51:02 AM PDT · by tired&retired · 16 replies
    Vanity | June 3, 2014 | vanity
    As a former CPA with the Big 4, I have worked with many hospitals, non-profits, fortune 500 companies including manufacturing, service and financial companies. This allowed me to observe many organizational structures in many professions and environments. One general rule of management is that the line of authority must be upward within a company/organization and not lateral if you want performance and accountability. This is not the case at the VA Hospitals. A department head is usually an MD who has the highest and best knowledge in their profession. However the employees under him/her do not answer to the department...