Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs says investigators have found no proof that delays in care caused any deaths at a VA hospital in Phoenix, deflating an explosive allegation that helped expose a troubled health care system in which veterans waited months for appointments while employees falsified records to cover up the delays. Revelations that as many as 40 veterans died while awaiting care at the Phoenix VA hospital rocked the agency last spring, bringing to light scheduling problems and allegations of misconduct at other hospitals as well. The scandal led to the resignation of former VA Secretary...

Okay. I'm not sure how I missed the updates/reports other than the fact that they appear not to have been posted here at FR. Principal source link is the PDF report to Congress in regards to a prior post here:("Final Report to the Congressional Defense Committees in Response to the Joint Explanatory Statement Accompanying the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014, page 90, “Radiation Exposure” "). (link will open/download the PDF) An update on the USS Ronald Reagan crew lawsuit re their mysterious illnesses in the wake of Operation Tomodachi is here: ("USS Reagan Sailors’ Lawsuit Found ‘Lacking’ Nuclear Expert...

MEDIA CONTACT: Josh Baumgartner 703.766.4467 info@fairfaxgop.org The fight for the integrity of the election process and against election fraud took a big step forward Wednesday in Fairfax. The General Registrar for Fairfax County, Ms. Cameron Quinn, was presented with a challenge to the registration of over 14,500 voters in Fairfax County. The challenge was based upon information showing that those voters are registered to vote in both Fairfax County and Maryland. The challenge was made by Mr. Reagan George, President of the Virginia Voters Alliance (VVA), on behalf of himself and three other residents of Fairfax County, under the provisions...

In 2010, the Veterans Administration rolled out a new online application that promised the nation’s veterans a quick, easy way to access one of the chief benefits of military service: enrollment in the VA’s vast network of hospitals and health care facilities. Veterans across the country responded. In fact, the online system did the opposite of what it promised, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found. Instead of making it easier and faster to apply for benefits, the online system sent some veterans who used it into administrative limbo where their applications received no action, delaying their access to...

the insane ways that the VA focused on solar energy and wind towers over vets. Three years before Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki would be forced out of his job because of the veterans who had died under him, he visited the Massachusetts National Cemetery. He wasn’t there to see the men and women who had died because of him. While vets were dying, Obama and Shinseki had turned their attention to something truly important; seeing to it that all the cemeteries where they were being buried had wind or solar power. ... The cemetery turbine had cost $533,000....

The Obama VA may be running a back door gun registry under the guise of a “free gun lock” program. A Progressives Today reader sent in this letter they received with the following worrisome comment attached: Is this a backdoor way of the VA attempting to create a gun registry on vets? I think it is… (Click to enlarge) Dear Veteran:The James E. Van Zandt VA Medial Center is extending the opportunity to request free gun locks to the Veterans we serve. We are providing this opportunity because, as your partner in health care, we are committed to keeping you...

President Obama touted the newly passed Veterans Affairs reform bill Thursday as he signed the measure into law and lamented the scandal that triggered it. But a review of records by Fox News shows the president – despite the urgency he placed publicly on the crisis – only met one-on-one with then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki once during the scandal. The records, provided through a Freedom of Information Act request, showed they met on May 30, the day Shinseki resigned.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) misled Congress on the number of veteran deaths in its health care system, adding to a growing list of untruths that VA has told congressmen trying to investigate the scandal-plagued department. The House Committee on Veterans Affairs, chaired by Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, is the latest victim of VA’s dishonesty. VA provided the committee an April 7, 2014 fact sheet purporting to show all of the cases of delays and preventable veteran deaths it oversaw in its gastrointestinal care in the last fifteen years. “As a result of the consult delay issue VA discovered...

I' m an old Freeper just getting into the VA healthcare system in Eugene, Oregon. Today's first appt went great. Met my PCP, she gave me a free blood pressure monitor to keep a log. And my monthly prescriptions prices are lower (I don't have any other insurance). I am impressed so far. Look forward to future visits.

A leading veterans group is hailing two key provisions of the proposed Veterans Affairs reform bill as critical to improving care for our nation’s heroes but warns that spending needs to be controlled and oversight must be even more intense to make sure positive changes are really happening. A spokesman for the group also tells WND the director of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care System – which made headlines when 40 veterans died while reportedly waiting for appointments – is still on the federal payroll with an annual salary of $170,000. Over the weekend, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman...

PHOENIX — On her 71st workday in the basement, Paula Pedene had something fun to look forward to. She had an errand to run, up on the first floor. “Today, I get to go get the papers. Exciting!” she said. “I get to go upstairs and, you know, see people.” The task itself was no thrill: Retrieve the morning’s newspapers and bring them back to the library of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital. The pleasure was in the journey. Down a long, sunlit hallway. Back again, seeing friends in the bustle of the hospital’s main floor. Then, Pedene got back...

On Monday, 28 July, a robbery was attempted at a Chesapeake, Virgina Exxon station.      It wasn't the first time.   The reporter stated that it was the second robbery at the station this month.   The robber displayed "a dark colored handgun".   As the robber was leaving the store, the clerk fired several shots. At first, it was not clear if any of the shots had connected.  Then, 35 minutes after the holdup,  19 year old Terry Graves checked into Maryview Hospital with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.   His picture is shown above.  From wavy.com:  Investigators confirmed...

Friend– HUGE NEWS: Today, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed what so many of us know to be true: "Virginia's same-sex marriage bans impermissibly infringe on its citizens' fundamental right to marry." By upholding the constitutional rights of all Virginia families, the Court has joined many Virginians—and Americans—in supporting true equality. Click here to join me now in hailing the Court’s decision to agree that it's time to put us on the right side of the law and history. When I took office, we faced a court date in just a few weeks and had to decide whether...

A House-Senate agreement on how to reform the broken Department of Veterans Affairs will let the VA hand out up to $360 million in bonuses to its employees each year, even though the House voted just weeks ago to strip all VA bonuses through 2016. The compromise bill announced Monday by the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees says VA bonuses will be capped at $360 million annually for the next ten years. But that cap is just 10 percent below the $400 million in bonuses the VA has distributed in recent fiscal years, and will allow...

A veteran is extremely disappointed with the Veterans Administration after he says he was locked inside a community clinic for hours on Monday. Jeffrey Duck explained that he arrived at the clinic located on South Volusia Ave. at 1 p.m. as a “walk in” patient. The Marine veteran sat in a consultation room for more than three hours before he realized he was the only one left in the building. “I was apparently left there and forgotten,” Duck told WKMG. Duck began taking video of him walking around the lobby with his cellphone to show that he wasn’t trying to...

It’s been more than three years since the Fukushima disaster, in which an earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the Fukushima region of Japan and significantly damaged its nuclear power plant. *******snip***** Once the demand for news from Japan waned, however, little follow-up ever occurred in the media to those stories being told days after the tsunami struck, particularly those of American first responders. The USS Ronald Reagan responded almost immediately to the tsunami disaster. The carrier, reports in 2013 noted, may have coasted through a radiation plume. Photos of bizarrely foamy snow aboard the ship began to circulate in some...

PORTSMOUTH, Va. – When a man heard noises in his backyard and heard the back door handle click, he ushered his family upstairs, grabbed his gun and prepared to defend himself. Brandon Watson remembers his wife seeing “guys in all black” approaching the house; when he couldn’t immediately find a phone to call 911, he instead ran back downstairs with his legally purchased gun. Watson recalls warning the intruders, “Who is that? I have a gun,” and immediately finding “two red laser beams” trained on his chest. He then fired a warning shot through a window, and ran across the...

FEATURE: This is what happens when a reporter tries to make an OBGYN appointment with Eric Holder’s wifeI was told the OBGYN practice where the wives of two prominent Democrats are partners reserves its morning appointments for “important people.” It was an intriguing claim, especially given the fact that Foxhall OB/GYN Associates does not accept Medicaid even as the office is being used as a prop in a Democrat’s congressional campaign.I decided to investigate. Could I get a morning appointment? Was I one of the “important people”? After an awkward 15-minute conversation with the office manager, it turned out I...

The Department of Veterans Affairs needs $17.6 billion in additional funds over the next three years to meet patients’ needs and fix the troubled agency’s problems, its acting director said Wednesday. Testifying for the first time on Capitol Hill, interim VA Secretary Sloan Gibson told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the money would help VA medical centers decrease appointment waiting times and hire more doctors. But the request divided lawmakers. Democrats, including Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, supported the appeal, while Republicans, including Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska, questioned whether VA care would improve if it received additional funding....

Another day, another VA tragedy. An Albany nurse claims dying New York Veterans were denied painkillers. Instead they were given salt water mixtures. Valerie Riviello, a nurse at the Albany Stratton VA medical center, claims that fellow employees had reported to her that dying veterans were denied painkillers such as morphine to ease their pain. Instead, they were given salt water mixtures. Riviello told the Times Union: Among stories that nurse Valerie Riviello has heard from other employees at the Albany VA is one about dying patients who were supposed to receive morphine to alleviate pain, but instead got a...