Free Republic

The director of the Philadelphia regional VA hospital was paid $288,000 in “relocation payments” to move the 140 miles from Washington D.C. to his new home last year.Diana Rubens was tapped last June to take over the Philadelphia hospital, which is one of many currently being investigated over claims that it placed veterans on unauthorized wait-lists.Rubens, who previously served as the D.C.-based deputy undersecretary for field operations, where she oversaw 57 regional hospitals and four area offices, was brought in to help fix the embattled Philadelphia facility.A breakdown of Rubens’ “relocation payments” was not immediately available, according to the...

On August 7, 2014 I made a bet with Mr. Britt Whitmire of the Brand and Britt radio show. He was convinced a radio station in North Carolina was flipping to sports because of recent events. This radio station ( 94.5 WPTI) is predominantly a conservative radio station. Their line up includes The K.C. Odea, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh,Sean Hannity and up until August 1st Jason Lewis. When Jason Lewis went off the air Mr. Whitmire got excited that this radio station was finally failing. I proceeded to tell him he was wrong and a bet was made. Mr. Whitmire...

IOTO, Japan — Dozens of aging U.S. veterans, many in their early 90s and some in wheelchairs, gathered on the tiny, barren island of Iwo Jima on Saturday to mark the 70th anniversary of one of the bloodiest and most iconic battles of World War II. More than 30 veterans flown in from the U.S. island territory of Guam toured the black sand beaches where they invaded the deeply dug-in forces of the island’s Japanese defenders in early 1945. They were bused to the top of Mount Suribachi, an active volcano, where an Associated Press photo of the raising of...

Republican Sen. Rand Paul joined Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand Tuesday to propose legislation to legalize medical marijuana on the federal level. The bill, termed the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States Act, would move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II, allow access for veterans and put a final stop to federal raids on dispensaries, among other things. This is the first time a medical marijuana bill has been introduced in the Senate, whereas the House has seen 15 pieces of legislation on marijuana reform in the last session of Congress, according to Marijuana.com. The move...

Last fall, Patrick Maxwell, a 29-year-old Iraq war veteran now selling real estate in this bustling city, saw something in news footage of Islamic fighters in Iraq that he never saw as an infantry Marine there: the enemy. “We patrolled every day, got shot at, mortared, hit by I.E.D.s, one of my friends was killed,” said Mr. Maxwell, a former sergeant who deployed in 2006 to Anbar Province. “But I never saw the enemy, never fired a shot.” With the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, hoisting its black flag above many Iraqi cities that United States troops...

Stop the inhumane treatment of disabled homeless Veterans in Los Angeles LOS ANGELES - America’s capital for homeless Veterans is not only in a state-of-emergency to house and care for thousands upon thousands of war-injured and impoverished Veterans, but it’s also in a state-of-emergency for trusting and caring VA leadership to end this crisis—NOW—not months and months, or quite possibly, years from now. A small child could tell you that the homeless Veteran problem in Los Angeles is beyond “state of emergency” status. In comparison, downtown Skid Row makes the most poverty-ravaged communities of Third World countries seem safe and...

The irony cannot be lost on U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Can it? The Madison Democrat, whose office dropped the ball on a report last year pointing to serious problems at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Tomah, fired off a press release Tuesday night nodding and saying ‘Amen’ to the initial findings of a review that reiterated what Baldwin’s folks have known for some time. “These initial findings substantiate the troubling concerns my office has heard from current and former employees and patients at the Tomah VA,” the senator said in the statement. “As the investigation builds on this...

"That is the main reason we are free," he said. "The Blessings of God have always been on this country. Today, I am not so sure." A couple of years ago at a Veteran’s Day event in Hemet, California, I had the opportunity to talk to a 92-year-old World War II veteran. Today I spoke with an 89-year-old World War II veteran. Both said the same thing to me. “It was hell, but I was proud to serve.” The elder of the two entered the U.S. Marine Corps the day after Pearl Harbor, and fought in the Pacific theater of...

Audio interview 39:32

If you want to see a blind Iraq war veteran from Tampa go hunting, tune into the Sportsman Channel Thursday night at 9 p.m. Joel Tavera, who was severely burned, suffered traumatic brain injury, lost part of his right leg, the sight in both his eyes and the fingers on his left hand on March 12, 2008 when a rocket exploded near his armored Chevrolet Suburban inside Talil Air Base in Iraq, will be one of three area veterans appearing on Amazing America with Sarah Palin. “It was awesome,” said Tavera of being on the show. Tavera shoots with the...

Freedom is the unimpeded pursuit of happiness and prosperity in America. Freedom is something our veterans fight for and fight to defend. Thank you to all current and former armed service members for standing up to answer the call to defend our freedom. (click link for video)

Governor Sarah Palin brought focus onto the military veterans who have served this nation in a powerful speech delivered at this year’s CPAC conference. Palin focused on the sacrifice veterans and their families have given to this country, and how our D.C. politicians and the current Obama administration have failed their service. It was a well received emotional speech that resonated strongly with the audience. After her remarks, Palin took a few questions from the event moderator. Palin was introduced by Medal Of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer to a packed audience at the Gaylord Resort in National Harbor, Maryland.

Obama is the most incompetent, lying and untrustworthy, not to mention questionable ethics and suspicious dereliction of character ever to hold high office Only mere weeks into the scandals of Veterans Administration’s improper handlings and bingo; the story gets more odorous when Obama’s hand-picked Secretary of that federal agency admits he lied about his own military service. I have to ask you, the general public, is there anything this usurper of America’s highest executive, administrative, elected officer has done in a proper and legitimate way? I hear you now and I agree, he is the most incompetent, lying and untrustworthy,...

And some of them never lived to see their rightful benefits from service to our nation. The VA in Oakland, California routinely ignored the query letters from veterans seeking various benefits, despite regulations requiring a response. When the issue came to the attention of VA leadership in 2012, they assigned a team to go through the records — and then deep-sixed those records when it became obvious that something very wrong had taken place. In fact, as one whistleblower tells CBS News, the cover-up lasted until “a few months ago,” cheating thousands of veterans:(VIDEO-AT-LINK) But whether the veteran was dead...

resident Barack Obama’s proposed budget would allow him to raid a program he approved that was aimed at improving medical treatment for veterans living in rural areas, said a letter signed by, among others, U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo. The Veterans Choice program, which had funding of $10 billion when it was approved and signed last year, was intended to reduce waiting times for veterans who had been on waiting lists for more than 30 days or who lived more than 40 miles from a Veterans Affairs clinic. The proposed budget — which was roundly criticized by Republicans in the...

Robert McDonald, who took over VA last year, says he 'reacted wrongly'Secretary told homeless man that he also served in Army Special ForcesWhite House says McDonald 'never intended to misrepresent' his service   Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has admitted that he lied about serving in the military's special forces. 'Special Forces? What years? I was in special forces,' McDonald said when a homeless man told him he had served among the Army's elite troops. The late January comments were caught on camera for a CBS piece about the continued large numbers of homeless veterans.

The HBO documentary Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 picked up the Oscar for Best Short-Subject Documentary at Sunday night’s 87th annual Academy Awards. The 40-minute film follows staffers at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 24-hour call center as they speak with veterans experiencing emotional crises.

The Veterans Affairs secretary lied about serving in the special forces, a report in the Huffington Post alleges. "Robert McDonald, the secretary of veterans affairs, wrongly claimed in a videotaped comment earlier this year that he served in special operations forces, the most elite units in the armed forces, when his military service of five years was spent almost entirely with the 82nd Airborne Division during the late 1970s," the report reads. U.S. special operations forces (SOF) are composed of exhaustively trained and highly capable troops from each military service, including the Green Berets, Army Rangers, Delta Force and Navy SEALs --...

****snip*** The result is Trooper, a beautiful, heart-wrenching film that offers far more than empathy. It dares viewers to explore a disturbing corner of the Iraq War, a realm that no film has yet to touch: the blight of depleted uranium poisoning, which has infected thousands of Iraq veterans but is yet to be acknowledged by the Pentagon and is virtually unknown to the American public. ****snip*** Trooper has just been released on iTunes, Xbox, Vimeo, Playstation, Google Play, and Shaw on Demand. Martini spoke with me about creating the film and why Iraq and the depleted uranium scandal was...

HUNTER GARTH was in a gunfight for his life — and about to lose.He and seven other Marines were huddled in a mud hut, their only refuge after they walked into an ambush in Trek Nawa, a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan. Down to his last 15 bullets, one buddy already terribly wounded, Mr. Garth pulled off his helmet, smoked a cheap Afghan cigarette, and “came to terms with what was happening.”“I’m going to die here with my best friends,” he recalled thinking.I didn’t know any of this — nor the remarkable story of his survival that day — when I...