Free Republic

The Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General went “hunting for bugs” in the middle of the night at two VA kitchens Tuesday after a Conservative Review investigation revealed allegations of an infestation so severe that cockroaches were served in patients’ meals. The inspectors descended upon Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in suburban Chicago at 3 a.m. to “conduct an impromptu walk-through of the kitchens,” according to an internal VA email sent to union leaders at 7:24 a.m. “They were hunting for bugs, I believe that’s what they were doing at 3 o’clock in the morning,” said dietician Kelvin Gilkey, who...

The popular gunshop NOVA Armory opened in Arlington, VA on March 26th.  The store was filled with customers, in spite of opposition from a small group of anti-rights activists.  The bullying activists were joined with several members of the local government who attempted to force the gunshop to close.  One landlord had already broken a lease under pressure from the local disarmists.  NOVA had warned the politicians that they would sue if the harrassment continued.  From NOVA Armory: March 4, 2016, ARLINGTON, VA — The gun shop planning to open in Arlington, Virginia this month has responded to a...

Almost immediately after Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate #11109-017 completed a 14-month sentence for using sensitive credit card data on his previous employer’s computer system to steal $70,000, he was hired by the Department of Veterans Affairs in a position that ultimately led to his present job — running an office racked with credit card fraud and bribery problems. Braxton Linton is prosthetics service chief at the Caribbean Veterans Affairs hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Service chiefs are the top officials in each department in VA hospitals. VA prosthetics offices procure all assistive devices and use government credit cards...

The popular gunshop NOVA Armory opened in Arlington, VA on March 26th.  The store was filled with customers, in spite of opposition from a small group of anti-rights activists.  The bullying activists were joined with several members of the local government who attempted to force the gunshop to close.  One landlord had already broken a lease under pressure from the local disarmists.  NOVA had warned the politicians that the would sue if the harrassment continued.  From NOVA Armory: March 4, 2016, ARLINGTON, VA — The gun shop planning to open in Arlington, Virginia this month has responded to a...

A vermin infestation has overrun the kitchen of a suburban Chicago Veterans Affairs hospital and is reportedly so severe that cockroaches routinely crawl across countertops as cooks prepare meals. The insects have even found their way into patients’ food, employees say. The bug invasion has attracted the attention of a U.S. senator who is demanding to know how the VA is fixing the problem. It’s just the latest scandal at an agency rocked by allegations of abuse, incompetence and the needless deaths of veterans who wait years for medical appointments.

One of Trump’s most enduring and arguably most endearing campaign lines has been his promise to treat American vets better. When Trump dropped out of a Fox News debate in January he held a separate event at which he raised money for veterans. But three months later, Trump’s campaign adviser for veterans, Al Baldasaro, doesn’t seem too concerned about it. He told the Daily Beast, “I’m not concerned about it, because I know [Trump is] an honorable, honest guy… you guys just want to say, ‘gotcha.’”To be fair, Baldasaro is not a Trump staffer. The real problem is that...

Health Care: In the summer of 2014, President Obama promised swift changes to resolve chronic delays and cover-ups at the Veterans Health Administration. Today, veterans are still waiting months to see doctors and the VHA is still doctoring wait times, an audit finds.

Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary David J. Shulkin gave false information to Congress Tuesday, claiming that a Daily Caller News Foundation post was wrong, only to have department officials be forced to admit shortly afterwards that the story was accurate. TheDCNF exclusively reported in March that Elizabeth Rivera was reinstated to her VA job, thanks to union rules after she got out of jail on an armed robbery charge and subsequent criminal conviction. TheDCNF asked department officials about the situation prior to publication and even got a written statement saying that Rivera’s behavior was not sufficient grounds for termination...

As if local veterans enduring endless waits for government benefits don't have enough to worry about, now there's this: Officials are investigating whether documents were inappropriately shredded at the Department of Veterans Affairs center in Philadelphia, which processes benefits claims from the Lehigh Valley. If a veteran's paperwork is shredded instead of added to a claim file, that could result in disability or pension benefits' being denied or delayed. The Philadelphia office and nine others were inspected without warning last month by the VA inspector general's office. The checks occurred because the inspector general discovered a claims center in Los...

After two years of investigations, the inspector general for Veterans Affairs has found that 40 VA facilities around the country are guilty of deliberately falsifying reports on wait times for clients. To date, only 4 low level VA staffers have been fired despite the fact that supervisors ordered the falsifications of records in almost all instances.

Veterans earned their VA health care when they signed the dotted line to serve our country. So when American Legion Commander Dale Barnett saw that a commission that is top-heavy with private hospital executives was trying to dismantle it, he had to be blunt. “I don’t understand how commissions paid by the federal government are able to break ranks, create an unapproved report and try to advance self-serving agendas while operating as congressional appointees,” Barnett said. He's talking about the congressionally-mandated Commission on Care, an entity dominated by private hospital executives and Koch Brothers-affiliated "policy experts." The commission's charge under...

Two Senate Republicans are seeking to understand the Veterans Affairs office practice of reporting veterans to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system. Currently a veterans assigned a fiduciary trustee to act on their behalf is automatically declared “mentally defective” and is reported to NICS, the database Federal Firearms Licensees use to determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy guns. As of December 2015, the VA has reported 260,381 individuals to the FBI, effectively making them prohibited firearms possessors under the law. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa lawmaker who is currently the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, finds this...

Army Sergeant Major Jesse Acosta has received notification from the VA that his benefits for a caregiver are ending in 90 days, at the end of May. The letter he received from the VA states “he is no longer appropriate for the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers.” They say they are pleased to inform him of this. According to the VA, even though Acosta, blinded by a mortar attack in Iraq, is still blind, they are excited (with an exclamation point to prove it) to let him know they have determined he’s “graduated,” and no longer needs a...

“Those recommendations are being made and the president will have an opportunity to make some decisions here in the coming weeks,” Dunford said about plans to send in more American troops to help recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State. “I brought it to the Secretary. The Secretary will engage with the President,” Dunford said, referring to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The number of troops deployed in Iraq is already much higher than the American people were led to expect, as the public learned after ISIS fired on a Marine artillery position near Mosul two weeks ago,...

A Bible and Bible verse have been removed from a POW/MIA display inside an Akron, Ohio Veteran's Administration clinic after a complaint from atheist Mikey Weinstein. For decades, these items have long been a part of a "Missing Man Table" commonly displayed at military functions and installations all across the nation. Weinstein said he intervened at the request of nearly a dozen, mostly Christian, military veterans who said they were offended by the Bible display. As usual, Weinstein failed to provide proof that these people actually exist...

There’s a VA facility near my home and I pass by it about three times each week on the long runs I use to keep my body from stagnating as I grow older and achier. Seeing our American flag waving from a tall pole near the entrance to the veterans’ complex always puts a little bounce in my step. So I’m chugging by it last week wearing a sweat-stained PT shirt emblazoned with a replica of the Vietnam Service ribbon when a guy limping toward the entrance and leaning on a cane spots me. He smiles, waves and points to...

Two Senate Republicans are trying to find out why 260,000 vets have been stripped of their gun rights. The Veterans Affairs office has made it a practice to report veterans to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system. If veterans need help doing paper work, they lose their rights. It’s clearly a violation of the Second Amendment. Any veteran who is assigned a fiduciary trustee to act on their behalf is automatically declared “mentally defective” and is reported to NICS, the database Federal Firearms Licensees use to determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy guns.

Provides efficient, streamlined process in support of the MyVA Initiative of Medical Disability Examinations for Veterans WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced the award of twelve major contracts that will enhance its ability to deliver timely disability benefits claims decisions to the nation’s Veterans in line with the MyVA initiative. The contracts make up a $6.8 billion enterprise-wide Medical Disability Examination Program under Public Law 104-275, and represent a major step forward in improving the disability examination experience for Veterans. A unique feature of this multi-contract award will see the consolidation of the contracts under a...

Cruz is always talking about himself as if he is above it all, he is the responsible one, he is the grownup and the honorable one. Yet he allows Glenn Beck to declare that Cruz is "anointed for the time" and Cruz says nothing and I don't believe that this has been brought up on television. Beck has totally gone off the cliff in his grandiose promotions of Cruz and his outlandish insults to Trump voters. He has said "all through out the South the Evangelicals are not listening to their God", "no real Christian says I want that guy"...

Lisa Magin, a former VA Medical Supply Technician tried to do the right thing for the veterans at the Buffalo VA Medical Center, but it cost her a good government job, her medical benefits, and her 4-year ordeal with the VA has been a strain on her family.