Subject: The Battle of "He Said, She Said" Over the VA Scandal
Ladies and gentlemen, of all the dozens of scandals we have witness during the Obama presidency, there perhaps is no greater tragedy from the perspective of morality than the one involving so many deaths due to red tape causing waiting lines within the Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. Within any government-operated program is joined with it enormous waiting periods and far worse treatment. When you read about the military being required at the directive of both the president and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to switch from religious chaplains to Humanist atheist ones at the outright rejection of personnel, there is an issue with which side the administration is favoring: his constituents comprised of the minority demographics in that classification or the troops who serve their Commander-in-Chief, albeit against their druthers if one reads of the frosty reception received of the president by this year's graduating class at West Point. Ironically, both PBS News Hour as well as the U.S. Department of State edited out the reception to the president's speech from their video footage. The Daily Conversation, however, will be the talk of this speech:
Now compare the current president's reception by the graduates of 2014 to the 2002 class preparing for President George W. Bush's famous trip to Iraq for Thanksgiving in 2003:
Now, if you see this difference, compare these videos to Ronald Reagan from 1986 in Iceland:
The bottom two presidents, particularly "The Gipper," win hands-down. As for President Obama, well, he rewarded the troops in Afghanistan on Memorial Day 2014 by revealing the identity of a major CIA operative. The aphorism by a true genius in Albert Einstein, "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” is a gross understatement for the current president since he at least owns a very expensive television likely paid for with millions of our taxpayer dollars.
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| Sen. Richard Burr (R - N.C.) |
Addressing the Issues of Organization and Accusations by the Left of the GOP Nixing Funding:
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C) warned us what was occurring in VA hospitals nationally in February. The Senate GOP attempted to cut as much of the red tape as possible; the Democrats refused to even come to the bargaining table. They now place the sole blame on the GOP Senators.
Excerpt courtesy of The Washington Post:
On Tuesday, GOP lawmakers tried to trim the VA bill and add sanctions on Iran for that nation’s nuclear program. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) blocked those attempts. (Sen. Reid refused to compromise.)
Veterans groups expressed frustration with the bill’s failure, saying it fell victim to Washington’s partisan politics. The measure was four votes shy of a 60-vote threshold required for it to have advanced.
Aside from the costs, Republicans also were concerned that the bill would add more veterans to a system already struggling with extensive wait times at VA health clinics and a long-standing backlog of disability claims. The legislation would have extended the period of time veterans are eligible to enroll in the VA health-care system from five years to 10 years after deployment.
Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), the ranking Republican on the panel, said on the Senate floor this week that the bill would not provide the resources needed for the program expansions to happen without more frustration and delays for veterans already in the network.
“We have veterans dying from long waits for basic, necessary tests like colonoscopies,” Burr said Thursday. “Veterans waiting for their disability claims to be processed know all about frustrations and delays at the VA, and adding more individuals to an already broken system doesn’t seem wise.”
The measure failed to reach the mandatory 60 votes to advance to the floor 56-41 because of Sen. Reid's refusal to come to the bargaining table. The Huffington Post is placing sole blame on the GOP for the deaths of the patients at the VA.
41 Republican Senators Voted Against a Landmark Veterans Bill in February, Today They Blame the VA
Posted: 05/27/2014 8:27 am EDT Updated: 05/27/2014 8:59 am EDT
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Earlier this year, the GOP had a chance to prove that it could fund veterans' health care as eagerly as it borrowed for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Long before the current VA crisis, an event described as "a gift from God" by Dr. Ben Carson, Senate Republicans had a chance to vote on a landmark bill. Before the Senate vote, organizations devoted to the needs of veterans and their families offered widespread support to the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014.
On January 21, 2014 the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) wrote a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsing the legislation. The IAVA believed, "This legislation would accomplish many of the goals for which veterans and military service organizations have been advocating for years, including strengthening the Post-9/11 GI Bill, expanding advance appropriations for more of the VA's budget... and much more." The Veterans of Foreign Wars was just as enthusiastic in its support, and wrote a similar letter explaining how S.1982 would help veterans:
If signed into law, this sweeping legislation would expand and improve health care and benefit services to all generations of veterans and their families. Most notably, it would expand the current caregiver law to include all generations of veterans and provide advance appropriations to ensure monthly compensation and pension as well as education payments are protected from future budget battles. The bill also offers in-state tuition protection for recently transitioned veterans, improves access to mental health and treatment for victims of sexual assault in the military, and authorizes construction of more than 20 Community Bases Outpatient Clinics to serve veterans in rural and remote communities.
Echoing the IAVA and VFW, The Paralyzed Veterans of America stated that "This legislation marks one of the most comprehensive bills to ever be considered in the Senate or House." The PVA went on to state that, "If enacted, S. 1982 would accomplish some of the highest priorities for Paralyzed Veterans and its members." VetsFirst, another group devoted to disabled veterans, also explained "this legislation goes a long way toward fulfilling many of the current and future needs of our disabled veterans."
Furthermore, The American Legion lent "its full support" to the bill since it "addresses several high priority issues for The American Legion, like repealing the 1 percent retiree COLA provision, funding the stalled CBOCs for the VA, increasing access to health care for veterans at VA, employment and education fixes, and other programs that are important to us." In addition, The American Legion explained that the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 was essential to veterans in other ways:
The American Legion also appreciates the many areas in which this bill addresses needed attention regarding Military Sexual Trauma counseling, additional training and assistance for Traumatic Brain Injury victims, improvements and much-needed updates to the Dependency and Indemnification Compensation program, VA's Work-Study program, and its On-the-Job Training program.
Therefore, with so much positive feedback from veterans groups about the bill, it's only logical to assume that Senate Republicans would do everything possible to ensure it became law.
Unfortunately, S.1982 was killed by Senate Republicans, with a vote of 56-41 -- only Republicans Senators voting nay and with only two Republicans voting for the bill. The logic behind every vote against the bill being Republican rests in the following statement from North Carolina Senator Richard M. Burr:
With $17 trillion in debt and massive annual deficits, our country faces a fiscal crisis of unparalleled scope. Now is not the time, in any federal department, to spend money we don't have. To be sure, there's much to like in the Sanders bill. And if those components were presented as separate, smaller bills, as part of a carefully considered long-term strategy to reform the VA, hold leadership accountable and improve services to veterans, we would have no problem extending enthusiastic support.
Also, Republicans called for sanctions on Iran to be included within the veterans' bill, and since it wasn't included within the bill, they voted against the landmark legislation. As stated by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell regarding the Iran sanctions, "There is no excuse for muzzling the Congress on an issue of this importance to our own national security."
So how did veterans feel about the February 26, 2014 vote where 41 Republicans voted against a sweeping bill to help veterans? American Legion National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger expressed his frustration with the outcome by stating, "There was a right way to vote and a wrong way to vote today, and 41 senators chose the wrong way. That's inexcusable."
As for Senator Richard Burr, he recently received a scathing letter from the Veterans of Foreign Wars pertaining to his open letter to veterans groups about the VA crisis. In addition, Burr received another response letter from the Paralyzed Veterans of America stating that, "Rest assured, you do not speak for or represent the interests of Paralyzed Veterans' members-veterans with spinal cord injury or dysfunction or any other VSO."
It should not be overlooked that veterans have been committing suicide, enduring long wait times for disability benefits, and dealing with a wide array of others issues ignored by Congress for the past decade. Also, the most indignant Republicans like Sen. Burr of North Carolina have also voted against S.1982 and now blame bureaucratic issues, rather than funding problems, as the cause of the VA crisis. Therefore, it's safe to say that the latest VA crisis and the deaths of veterans in Arizona served as convenient opportunity for the GOP to feign indignation over issues veterans have faced for years.
What better way to circumvent responsibility for underfunding the VA and voting against veteran's legislation than blaming big government? Somebody should tell Sen. Burr and the GOP that we funded both wars with "money we didn't have" and we should fund veterans health care as enthusiastically as we paid (borrowed) for two war.
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And if this is true, have all of these veterans died since February 27, 2014? How long has this been occurring without any attempt by President Obama to fix the issue that was left over from the Bush administration? In attempts to curtail further deaths due to more red tape contributing to greater waiting time, the measures to cut funding were reshuffled by the GOP to include sanctions against Iran; this was denied in favor of the president's soft-handed approach and support for the current regime in Tehran.
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According to The National Journal, the following can be attributed to the Obama presidency:"And as claims soared during Obama's first years in office, so did wait times. In 2009, there were about 423,000 claims at the VA, with 150,000 claims pending for more than four months (the official wait time it takes a claim to be considered "backlogged"). By 2012, claims had exploded to more than 883,000—and 586,540 of those sat on the VA's backlog list.
The administration did request—and get from Congress—additional funding for the department. The VA's budget totaled $100 billion in 2009. In 2014, it was up to $154 billion. But that money doesn't instantly transfer into an expanded capacity to meet veterans' needs: It takes approximately two years to fully train a claims worker; the blame for the staff crunch doesn't rest on Obama's shoulders alone."
But to read The Huffington Post, the sole blame is again on George W. Bush. According to the following report from Fox News via The Daily Caller, the most damning indictment on mismanagement of tax dollars is exposed:
"Despite liberal claims that VA needs more funding, based on a report from the labor union the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) that VA is underfunded, the scandal-plagued department actually has a surplus in medical-care funding.
VA expects to carry over $450 million in medical-care funding from fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2015. VA received its full requested medical care appropriation of $54.6 billion this fiscal year, which is more than $10 billion more than it received four years ago.
This is part of an ongoing trend.
VA carried over $1.449 billion in medical-care funding from fiscal year 2010 to 2011, $1.163 billion from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2012, $637 million from fiscal year 2012 to 2013, and $543 million from fiscal year 2013 to 2014.
The Daily Caller reported that VA spent more than $3.5 million on furniture the night before the government shutdown on the last day of fiscal year 2013 so as not to lose that money in the department’s budget the next fiscal year."
Apparently, the Democratic Party is even more incompetent with monetary matters when they have a surplus in one area. Why did they have a surplus? The answer may be found in why the president decided through Sec. of Defense Chuck Hagel to impose the largest cuts in both military funding by percentage as well as number of troops since 1940, and why they made it an under-the-radar de facto Affirmative Action measure for the automatic inclusion of any undocumented illegal alien to join, no questions asked.
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Conclusion: Never Trust Your Piggy Bank nor Lives to a Democrat
"What difference at this point does it make?" Hillary Clinton, who the socialist media has already inaugurated her as president, just hired this very stupid young man to work for her, perhaps on her campaign, provided she reveals her brain damage and more dead bodies in Chicago materialize with ten votes per:
"Dude, that was like two years ago!" This is a prime example of why you never trust a socialist with your life. It is a democratically-elected variation of Stalin's gulags, Mao's labor camps, Pol Pot of Cambodia's "killing fields," and the North Korean regime's variation. If the president and Mrs. Clinton managed to sidestep responsibility with Benghazi just this year by first blaming a director for producing a film with an anti-Islamic message and then four days later acknowledging what all Americans already knew that it was a terrorist attack, why would we be surprised of the VA issues? This has been an issue always difficult for sitting presidents dating to the JFK years to manage, but there have been four years of surplus budgets within the Veteran Affairs budgets, and the president touted this on shrewd budgeting by Sec. Eric Shinseki. Coincidentally, there is a separate Cabinet position for the VA, and yet today we continue to read or watch over the news of the most grotesque incident perhaps in our nation's history of where there is a surplus and yet one hand does not know what the other seems to be doing. I have always said with regards to the continual declining academic standards domestically despite more funding being pumped into the U.S. Department of Education and the state coffers than ever before that more money does not necessarily render to the public a good return on their taxed incomes. When I read that undocumented illegal aliens are receiving better care than naturalized Americans and now the VA hospitals, I am appalled and nearly ashamed to call myself an American citizen save for the fact that I, as a voter, am determined to address the situation as best I can with my vote.
Still worse is how the Obama administration is working to confiscate firearms from veterans under the guise of preventing each and every one since all have post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) might kill innocent victims; it is more likely that the president fears a possible uprising upon further measures to destroy the Second Amendment. Watch again Sen. Dianne Feinstein's very horrifying comment (R-TX):
With more attention paid to kidnapped Muslim girls in Nigeria than an imprisoned Christian pastor in Iran or the Marine in Mexico, I cannot bear to watch what another two years of the Obama presidency has in store. The GOP is on the cusp of perhaps winning super majorities in both houses of Congress, and yet so many of those are borderline Democrats. The party now wants to run another Bush to continue blackening the eyes of conservatives nationally with his initiatives to accelerated Obama's plans for unconditional amnesty and Common Core while killing the will of the voter within the conservative demographic to have a true conservative or a populist like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to hopefully shape up Washington or force those who will not to ship out. The Constitution once meant something; it has not for more than 100 years, and it has been all but placed into the president's shredder as he continues to govern by means of executive orders. As drones are completely legal by the president's revelation to be used against all Americans, the day where I so proudly pledged at Brickey Elementary School here in Knoxville "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty" is no more. The government through Obamacare now has the legal rights to determine who is to live or die; the VA scandal is a precursor to this very dangerous issue of the elderly being allowed to die while homosexuals will be fully funded for transgender operations. America is not yet dead, but we can no longer afford to procrastinate acting.
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