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Saturday, August 20, 2016: Live stream coverage of the Donald J. Trump for President rally in Fredericksburg, VA at the Fredericksburg Expo Center. Coverage begins at 6:00 PM ET. Fredericksburg, VA Watch the LIVE stream and FULL replay of the event below: Fredericksburg Expo Center

There is perhaps no better example of waste in the scandalous Veterans Administration than the millions spent on art instead of on care. You could begin with the $670,000 spent on two sculptures at a California blind veterans rehabilitation center that the blind veterans cannot even see. It may be ludicrous to point out that, as far as the Obama administration and the VA is concerned, it is the blind leading the blind. But that is the way it seems.

The Goals Of Donald J. Trump’s Veterans Plan The current state of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is absolutely unacceptable. Over 300,000 veterans died waiting for care. Corruption and incompetence were excused. Politicians in Washington have done too little too slowly to fix it. This situation can never happen again, and when Donald J. Trump is president, it will be fixed – fast. The guiding principle of the Trump plan is ensuring veterans have convenient access to the best quality care. To further this principle, the Trump plan will decrease wait times, improve healthcare outcomes, and facilitate a seamless...

In the now-infamous VA scandal of 2012-2015, the nation was appalled to learn that 1,000 veterans died while waiting to see a doctor. Tragically, many calls to the suicide assistance hotline were answered by voicemail. The health claim appeals process was known as “the hamster wheel” and the appointment books were cooked in seven of every ten clinics. Yet, in the midst of these horrific failings the VA managed to spend $20 million on high-end art over the last ten years – with $16 million spent during the Obama years. A joint investigation by COX Media Washington, D.C. and our...

It’s been over two years since the Veteran’s Affairs scandal first broke, when whistleblowers revealed that the agency in charge of providing medical treatment to our veterans was grossly callous, negligent, and inefficient. Countless veterans were dying while waiting for treatments, and VA workers were covering it up. And unfortunately, the VA is still just as bad at treating our veterans, if not worse, than it was in 2014. Two years after this scandal first broke however, we’re still learning about some of the terrible things that the VA did while their patients were waiting to be treated. Recently it’s...

The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s executive order restoring voting rights to 206,000 felons, dealing a severe blow to what the governor has touted as one of his proudest achievements in office. In a 4-3 ruling, the court declared McAuliffe’s order unconstitutional, saying it amounts to a unilateral rewrite and suspension of the state’s policy of lifetime disenfranchisement for felons. The court ordered the Virginia Department of Elections to “cancel the registration of all felons who have been invalidly registered” under McAuliffe’s April 22 executive order and subsequent orders. As of this week, 11,662...

WASHINGTON — If what is posted on Twitter is a fair indication, people in Maryland and Virginia don’t much like their jobs. Online jobs site Monster.com and social intelligence company Brandwatch studied a year’s worth of Twitter posts from across the country and analyzed posts specifically about jobs. The study puts both Maryland and Virginia in the top 10 for job haters. It is the second year Monster and Brandwatch have conducted the study. It analyzed two million English-language tweets. The top 10 states where people on Twitter hate their jobs at a higher ratio than loving their jobs are...

The Virginia Board of Education will hold a series of public hearings in July and August to gather feedback from families, educators, and community members on student expectations, how schools are accredited, and school resources. The hearings are scheduled for the following dates and locations: Thursday, July 14 - Manassas 6:30 pm Osbourn High School (Auditorium) 9005 Tudor Lane Manassas, VA 20110 Tuesday, July 19 - Williamsburg-James City County 6:30 pm Lafayette High School (Auditorium) 4460 Longhill Road Williamsburg, VA 23188 Wednesday, August 24 - Abingdon 6:30 pm Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center One Partnership Cir Abingdon, VA 24210 Thursday,...

Health Reform: For decades, lawmakers have tried to fix glaring faults at the Veterans Health Administration, only to find the government-run health program get worse. What's clearly needed is a wholesale overhaul of the system, one that exposes the VA to the bracing winds of competition. Donald Trump's plan, released this week, comes closest to getting there.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Republican Donald Trump pledged Monday to expand programs that allow veterans to choose their doctor and clinics — regardless of whether they're affiliated with Department of Veterans Affairs — and still receive government-paid medical care. In a policy speech announcing a 10-point plan for veterans, Trump said he "begins with a simple promise: Every veteran will get timely access to top-quality care." His plan was not a way to privatize the VA, as some critics have charged, but instead was "a way of not allowing people to die waiting for doctors," Trump said. In an...

Monday, July 11, 2016: Live streaming coverage of Donald Trump’s speech on Veterans’ Reform in Virginia Beach, VA at The Westin Virginia Beach Town Center. Coverage will begin at 1:00 PM EDT. Virginia Beach, VA Watch the LIVE stream of the event below beginning at 1:00 PM EDT The Westin Beach Town Center LET'S GET ON BOARD THE TRUMP RALLY TRAIN FOR VIRGINIA BEACH. I'LL MEET YOU IN THE CLUB CAR @ 2pm for Champagne and Cocktails and Brunch @ 3. Attire: Your Sunday Best. Pleaes RSVP

The FDA is stockpiling military weapons — and it’s not alone AMERICA’S GUN CULTURE has been a subject of intense interest and controversy for years, with concerns frequently raised about shadowy militias, paramilitary extremists, and unstable zealots in possession of alarming quantities of explosives and firearms. Amid the current din over assault weapons and body armor, consider one domestic organization’s fearsome arsenal of military-style equipment. In the space of eight years, the group amassed a stockpile of pistols, shotguns, and semiautomatic rifles, along with ample supplies of ammunition, liquid explosives, gun scopes, and suppressors. In its cache as well are...

The week will be make or break time for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as it may be decided whether or not to privatize medical care for veterans. Congress created the Commission on Care to overhaul the VA and it is expected that this panel will release its final recommendations on whether to provide the option for private care for veterans enrolled in the VA’s system of hospitals and clinics. Efforts to privatize health care have caused blowback from national veteran’s groups. Fearful of losing their jobs, unionized VA employees have been staging opposition rallies. corporation. The American Federation...

The nation’s leading veteran services organizations are rallying behind the Department of Veterans Affairs and its beleaguered health care system, touting the experience of staff, the breadth of services and its holistic approach to care delivery that they argue the private sector cannot match. The VSOs are warning of politicians and groups with agendas that constantly criticize VA health care, refuse to acknowledge reforms and thus advance a camouflaged campaign to dismantle VA health care. They also say it is time to better educate their own members on actions being taken to improve to the healthcare system that millions of...

A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday. The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has angered and frustrated lawmakers by deciding to stop using their authority to fire senior employees, an authority Congress gave the VA in response to the wait-times scandal of 2014. "Everyone knows VA isn't very good at disciplining employees, but this decision calls into question whether department leaders are even interested in doing so," House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said Friday. The expedited firing process was designed to help VA leaders flush out senior officials who had overseen the manipulation of wait times, which prevent veterans from receiving timely healthcare. But it...

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that it has removed three senior officials at the Phoenix VA Health Care System. The move follows an announcement in March in which VA proposed the removal of Lance Robinson, the facility’s Associate Director; Brad Curry, Chief of Health Administration Service; and Dr. Darren Deering, Chief of Staff. In addition to other causes, the three were removed for negligent performance of duties and failure to provide effective oversight for not ensuring Veterans were either properly scheduled for appointments or placed on an appropriate wait list. “We have an obligation to...

We spend an inordinate amount of time talking about the various scandals engulfing the VA in general and the abysmal healthcare received by our veterans in particular, but solutions thus far have been hard to come by. Tinkering with the existing system and replacing bad actors seems to be simply nibbling around the edges of the problem. There have been improvements in some areas, but wait times for veterans remain unacceptably long and the quality of care available in some regions is still far below where we need to be. Is it time to scrap the entire system and start...

Daily Caller News Foundation VA Proposes To Remove Ban On Transgender Surgery For Vets Jonah Bennett National Security/Foreign Policy Reporter The Department of Veterans Affairs has proposed to a rule to remove the ban on transgender sex change surgery for veterans, which has existed since the 1990s. According to the proposed regulation, gender reassignment surgery wasn’t previously considered medically necessary for gender dysphoria, a condition transgender individuals claims makes them feel as though they were born in the wrong body and assigned the wrong gender.

Most of the time, major political figures try to stay on the good side of the nation’s leading veterans’ organizations, but Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is comfortable going in a different direction. The Republican senator appeared on his daughter’s radio show late last week – just a few days before Memorial Day – and Meghan McCain asked about the need for improvements in the VA system. The GOP lawmaker, facing a tough re-election fight this year, didn’t hold back. JOHN MCCAIN: I blame some of the old veterans’ service organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American...