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During a Per-RICO hearing on VA construction Cabal, “This is a FUBAR on steroids if I’ve ever seen one. …I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone when I listen to this,” Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) In the latest "construction mismanagement" cost the department hundreds of millions of dollars, delayed major projects by years (a gift that keeps on giving). could end up costing more than $1 billion -- more than the lavish U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Speaking in front of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said the department is overhauling the way they...

Doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Tomah hand out so many narcotic painkillers that some veterans have taken to calling the place "Candy Land." They call the hospital's chief of staff, psychiatrist David Houlihan, the "Candy Man." Current and former hospital staff members describe patients who show up to appointments stoned on painkillers and muscle relaxants, doze off and drool during therapy sessions, and burn themselves with cigarettes. They told The Center for Investigative Reporting that Houlihan himself "doped up" or "zombified" their patients and that workers who raised questions have been punished. Data obtained...

VA Offers ‘Free Gun Locks’ in Exchange for Owners’ Info, Addresses & # of Guns Owned Posted on January 6, 2015 by Ammoland By AWR Hawkins Washington DC - -(Ammoland.com)- A number of veterans say they’ve received a letter from the Veterans Administration (VA) offering them “free gun locks” if they fill out a form which asks for their address and the number of guns for which they need locks. The VA is offering up to four locks per veteran. The Washington Times acquired a copy of the letter and quoted it as saying the VA “[hopes] to reach all...

Washington DC - -(Ammoland.com)- A number of veterans say they’ve received a letter from the Veterans Administration (VA) offering them “free gun locks” if they fill out a form which asks for their address and the number of guns for which they need locks.

A Veterans Affairs psychiatrist cleared former Marine Bradley Stone of suicidal or homicidal tendencies just a week before he went on a killing spree, slaying six others and then taking his own life. Stone, who had been in a child custody battle with his ex-wife, killed members of her family Monday. His body was found near his home in Pennsylvania on Tuesday with self-inflicted stab wounds and cuts. He had a 100 percent disability rating at the VA for post-traumatic stress disorder and had seen his psychiatrist just one week prior to the incident, a VA spokesman told The Washington...

The above flyer was being handed out to local businesses in Alexandria Virginia  recently.   A VCDL member observed it and was able to take a picture of the flyer, with the cooperation of the local business owner.  From an VCDL email: The flyer particularly endangers 18 to 20 year olds as it incorrectly tells a store owner that if they see someone under 21-years-old with a handgun on their hip, that is illegal! That is NOT true and having the police show up on a bogus “man with a gun” call endangers everyone unnecessarily. The flyer also makes these...

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius attempted to defend the Affordable Care Act health insurance scheme she helped establish by blaming consumers for its shortcomings. "A lot of Americans have no idea what insurance is about," Sebelius said. "It's a complicated product that few are competent to purchase. In hindsight, our biggest mistake was probably trying to incorporate a modicum of individual choice into the system." "If we had just set up a single-payer government-run health insurance regime a lot of the complaints that riled the general public could have been avoided," she continued. "All of the...

http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/226014-oversight-needed-on-new-va-law “The average person would expect better customer service and professionalism from the local Department of Motor Vehicles. Whether it’s incompetence or indifference, why should we tolerate such behavior in VISN 16 when we’re dealing with veterans’ life-saving medical care?” “By tolerating inappropriate denials, his organization needlessly forces thousands of Louisiana veterans into a lengthy appeals process that can last more than two years.”

A new bill aims to make it easier for veterans to talk to their doctors about medical marijuana. The Veterans Equal Access Act, introduced Thursday by Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., would lift a ban Veterans Affairs doctors face that prevents them from giving opinions or recommendations on medical marijuana to veterans living in states where its use is permitted. "Post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury are just as damaging and harmful as any injuries that are visible from the outside," Blumenauer said in a statement, according to the Huffington Post. “Sometimes even more so because of...

Democrats scrambled Wednesday to tamp down anger among veterans groups who objected to the party’s choice of Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida as ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Compounding the anger was the Democratic leadership’s treatment of the sole veteran among the panel’s Democrats, who was briefly ousted from the committee on a technicality and thus made ineligible to seek to become ranking member. As a result, Rep. Brown was the only Democrat seeking to serve as party leader on the committee that has been a watchdog for the Veterans Affairs Department’s wait-time scandal and the implementation...

The red tape nightmare of firing those responsible for putting our nation’s heroes on death lists In a long-overdue effort, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald announced yesterday that the scandal-plagued agency would undergo the “largest reorganization of the Department of Veterans Affairs since its establishment,” as he told CNN. McDonald took charge of the VA three months ago following the resignation of his predecessor, Eric Shinseki. Shinseki’s tenure at the VA lasted over five years, longer than any previous Secretary, and under his watch an enormous backlog of claims reached a peak of 900,000 in March 2013. Even as...

Unauthorized and potentially counterfeit, dangerous surgical devices and medical supplies have flowed unchecked into the Department of Veterans Affairs supply chain and into VA operating rooms, according to internal agency correspondence from a major supplier who blamed new procurement rules. The bogus supplies gained a foothold when the department started using reverse auctions to fulfill some contracts, according to both department officials and a 2012 memo from Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest medical device business. In the memo, the company told the VA it was getting surgical supplies bought from unauthorized distributors through the so-called “gray market,” and said...

Delvin Barnes, the man suspected of abducting a woman in Philadelphia and a teenager in Virginia, was put on a suicide watch in a Virginia jail today. Barnes' arrest Thursday ended a five day manhunt following the violent abduction of Carlesha Freeland-Gaither off a Philadelphia street Sunday night. At his only court hearing, Barnes agreed to be taken to Virginia where there was a warrant for his arrest accusing him of the Oct. 1 kidnapping a 16-year-old girl, raping her and trying to kill her. The girl escaped.

-- Republican Ed Gillespie conceded the Virginia Senate race Friday to incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. Gillespie said at a Friday afternoon news conference that he had called Warner "congratulating him on his re-election" in a race that turned out to be one of the midterm election's biggest surprises. Polls had shown Warner, a popular former governor who'd been endorsed by his Republican predecessor, ex-Sen. John Warner, with a hefty lead. But Gillespie led Warner for much of the night as returns trickled in Tuesday -- and ultimately ended up trailing by less than one percentage point. Get ready: 2016...

Bob Beckel admits Democrats cheat! He said live on Fox News last night "they always held back votes in Fairfax County, Virginia"

This is the official Virginia Senate (Warner v. Gillespie) recount/challenge thread. Please post all information on this race here to keep everyone up to date. There have been a number of threads spread around, and it would be helpful to have one thread.

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - With more than 98 percent of precincts reporting, Mark Warner now leads Ed Gillespie in the U.S. Senate race in Virginia. Gillespie, the Republican challenger led Warner, the incumbent Democrat, for most of the evening. As some of the last votes are being counted, Warner now leads by around 2,500 votes with more than two million counted, so far. Libertarian Robert Sarvis holds 2.7 percent of the vote. At last count, 98.59 percent of precincts were reporting and Warner led by 0.11 percent.

NBC Projects Mark Warner as Apparent Winner in Virginia Senate Race NBC News projects that incumbent Sen. Mark Warner is the apparent winner in the Virginia Senate race. Warner, the incumbent Democrat and former governor of Virginia, remains popular statewide, but he faced a challenge from Republican Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman and lobbyist.

Two new polls show Republican Ed Gillespie closing in on Democratic incumbent Mark Warner in the Virginia Senate race. Christopher Newport University, which had Warner up 12 points earlier in the month in its survey, now has Warner's lead down to 7. More provocatively, The Daily Caller reports on a new poll from Vox Populi that has Gillespie down only 4 points.

The Philadelphia Veterans Affairs office announced Wednesday that it would hold a Halloween parade on Friday for children of VA employees, but warned employees not to hand out any candy or sweets to the kids. Instead, the VA said the day care center in the office has “joined First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Program,” which means the kids should be given things other than candy. “Please help us teach our children to make healthy food choices!!” the VA said in an email to employees. “If you would like to hand out treats during the parade, please give healthy snacks...