Free Republic

A furious President Donald Trump on Saturday called for the resignation of the Democratic senator who assembled and released what he called “false” allegations that scuttled the nomination of the White House doctor who’d been in line to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump stepped up his criticism of Montana’s Jon Tester, top Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Committee, in two tweets days after asserting that Tester “has to have a big price to pay” politically in the GOP friendly state for his leading role in Ronny Jackson’s failed VA bid. Tester faces a competitive re-election race this year....

President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs has withdrawn his nomination amid allegations of workplace misconduct and prescription mispractice. The withdrawal of Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson followed a decision by the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee to indefinitely postpone his confirmation hearing. Staffers on the committee were looking into charges against Jackson of creating a "hostile work environment" including "excessive drinking on the job [and] improperly dispensing meds.”

Link to video  On Thursday morning, 29 March, 2018, a English Bull Terrier escaped from an apartment and started attacking people on the street. A man and a woman were bit on the arms and legs and were taken to the hospital.  People attempted to use several items to stop the attacks. They kicked at the dog. They beat it with a hammer.  They used pepper spray. Nothing worked until a man with a gun waited for the right moment, then shot the dog. Twice.  From wsls.com: Paul Burek saw it all unfold and rushed to help. He had...

David Shulkin, former U.S. secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, whom President Donald Trump fired as Veterans Affairs secretary, offered a parting shot in an op-ed for The New York Times – warning that privatizing the VA Department could hurt veterans. "Privatization leading to the dismantling of the department's extensive health care system is a terrible idea," Shulkin wrote. "The department's understanding of service-related health problems, its groundbreaking research and its special ability to work with military veterans cannot be easily replicated in the private sector." Trump fired Shulkin Wednesday, making the announcement over Twitter. The president picked the White...

A proposed City of Richmond School Safety resolution asks Congress to ban “large-capacity ammunition cartridges.” The proposed resolution also calls on Congress to “ban the manufacture, sale, purchase, possession, and use of assault weapons.” It also asks to implement “universal background checks.” Such checks would require a background check for a private sale just like the background check currently required for a retail purchase. Ironically, almost every high-profile firearm-based attacker acquires his or her gun via background checks at retail sales, so such an expansion would do nothing to prevent future attacks. To date, attackers that do not acquire firearms...

An armed man took three hostages during an "active shooter situation" at a California veterans home Friday afternoon, a fire official said. Earlier, it emerged the veterans home was on lockdown after reports of shots fired. The Napa County Sheriff’s Office said officers responded to the Veterans Home of California in Yountville around 10:45 a.m. local time and a shelter-in-place order was issued.

This Obama holdover needs to hear the famous words: “You’re fired!” Will the VA scandal never end? While the Department of Veterans Affairs secretary lives high on the hog and his lying chief of staff resigns in disgrace while escaping any punishment, legions of vets every day in this country are denied the medical care they earned. President Trump was supposed to drain the swamp. But at the historically fraud-ridden and profligate VA, the alligators continue feasting on the public dime. This latest witch hunt for dissenters comes in the wake of a scathing inspector general’s report last month on...

A 23-year-old mother, who vanished from her front yard as her children played inside, was found dead and covered in leaves Thursday, less than a mile from her home, authorities said. Alvin Keyser, also 23, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and concealing a dead body after leading investigators to the remains of TerriLynn St. John, according to Middlesex Sheriff's Maj. Michael Sampson.St. John got into the van willingly, according to Sampson. Investigators say Keyser admitted that he pushed St. John out of the van, continued to hit her, and strangled her until she stopped breathing. Then he covered...

Several months ago, I contacted the White House to recommend that the Trump administration appoint a Czar for Veterans Affairs to resolve concerns relating to Military Toxic Exposure. Nearly 900,000 Marine Corps veterans were poisoned by contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Over the past year, I have been contacted by a number of these veterans who expressed concerns about delayed access to healthcare and disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as being denied tort claim benefits from the Department of Defense. Although VA leaders have expanded online communication relating to Camp Lejeune benefits,...

New Lawsuit for State Department Unmasking Documents VA Secretary Was Misled by Staff about Veteran Prosecuted for Posting Flag Much-Needed New Scrutiny of the Clinton Foundation New Lawsuit for State Department Unmasking Documents In its final year the Obama administration may have used our nation’s spy apparatus to identify, or “unmask,” members of the Trump campaign and subsequently leaking information about them to the press. One of the more curious details about this unlawful effort was that Obama’s U.N. ambassador was evidently engaged in unmasking and was doing so at a frenzied pace. We want to know more. So,...

Investigators with the Department of Veterans Affairs will release a report accusing VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD, of wrongly accepting Wimbledon tickets and paying for his wife's airfare with taxpayer funds during a European trip last summer, USA Today reports. Here are five things to know about the allegations. 1. Dr. Shulkin's lawyers deemed the accusations, scheduled to be released this week, unfair and questionable. "The draft report ignores critical facts, presenting a one-sided version of events that casts aside evidence contradicting your chosen narrative," lawyers Justin Shur, Eric Nitz and Emily Damrau wrote in draft rebuttal obtained by USA...

A self-proclaimed Christian missionary from Virginia has admitted to having sex with at least 21 boys, ages 5 to 17, while on missionary trips to Haiti.James Daniel Arbaugh, 40, of Stuarts Draft, Va., pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of illicit sexual conduct with a boy under the age of 18. According to court documents, Arbaugh admitted to befriending, grooming, and engaging in sexual conduct with minors while in Haiti on trips between 2008 and 2017.Arbaugh traveled throughout Haiti evangelizing and showing Christian-themed movies, according to a statement from United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle.Arbaugh will be sentenced on June...

An official at the same Los Angeles Veterans Administration facility where an Army vet got prosecuted for posting American Flags took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from a vendor that defrauded the VA out of millions. While the feds went on a witch hunt against the 75-year-old vet for affixing Old Glory at a site honoring those who served their country, the VA director was committing the real crime. This month the corrupt VA official, Ralph Tillman, agreed to plead guilty to two felony offenses for taking over a quarter of a million dollars in bribes from a...

In addition to more than a dozen departed Republicans, something else seems to have gone missing this year from the Virginia House of Delegates: conservative bills on contentious social issues like abortion and LGBT rights. More than 1,300 pieces of legislation have been filed in the House so far, but there are no bathroom bills, no bills to protect opposition to gay marriage and no bills to restrict access to abortion. The filing deadline isn’t until Friday, but many of the Republican lawmakers who attached their names to headline-grabbing bills in past sessions say they won’t push the legislation again...

Police in Fairfax County, a Washington suburb, announced Saturday they filed charges against the teen. His name wasn’t released because of his age. Scott Fricker, 48, and his wife Buckley Kuhn-Fricker, 43, were shot Friday in their home in the community of Reston. Police say the teen knew the victims, who confronted him when he entered their home. Police say the teen then shot the couple and himself. The Washington Post reported Saturday the suspect had been dating the couple’s daughter, but that the family had recently persuaded her to break up with him because he espoused neo-Nazi philosophies.

Since you last filed a VA disability claim, VA has improved the claim process by launching the Decision Ready Claims (DRC) Program. When you file a DRC, you can get a decision on your claim in 30 days or less by working with an accredited Veterans Service Organization (VSO). Your VSO will help you gather and submit all relevant and required evidence so your claim is ready for VA to make a decision when you submit it. You can now file a DRC for the following claim types: Direct Service Connection Claims Presumptive Service Connection Claims Secondary Service Connection Claims...

The Silver Star Families of America, the SSFOA, is well aware of the dangers of opioids in all their various forms and, for the most part, agrees with the new federal and state guidelines that are tightening up the distribution of the drugs as long as it does not adversely affect the veteran population. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/rr/rr6501e1.htm

It was a bad week for establishment Republicans from New Jersey running for governor. And I'm not talking about just Kim Guadagno. Ed Gillespie managed to lose a big race as well. Both were New Jerseyans: Gillespie by birth, Guadagno by marriage. Let us dispense first with Guadagno, who was born in Iowa and came here after completing law school. From the beginning of this campaign it was obvious that her chances of getting elected governor rested with Chris Christie. -snip- Or in other words, it is run the same way the national party is run: by people like Ed...

Veterans returned to the U.S. after fighting in the jungles of Vietnam a half century ago, but hundreds of them may be dying from a silent bullet — a slow-killing parasite living in the men decades after the war, a new study revealed. Liver flukes, parasites that infect a human when raw or undercooked fish is eaten, are being investigated as the cause of a rare bile duct cancer among veterans who served in the Vietnam War. It could take years for symptoms to show up, but when they do, the host is left with tremendous pain and given just...

A hidden video from 2014 showed nurses laughing as a World War II veteran repeatedly called for help and died while in their care. The family of James Dempsey, 89, of Woodstock, Ga., hid a camera in the late veteran’s room in the Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation Center which captured the night he died. The video showed the decorated WWII veteran repeatedly calling for help, saying he could not breathe. It also showed the nurses failing to take life-saving measures and laughing as they tried to start an oxygen machine.