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the insane ways that the VA focused on solar energy and wind towers over vets. Three years before Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki would be forced out of his job because of the veterans who had died under him, he visited the Massachusetts National Cemetery. He wasn’t there to see the men and women who had died because of him. While vets were dying, Obama and Shinseki had turned their attention to something truly important; seeing to it that all the cemeteries where they were being buried had wind or solar power. ... The cemetery turbine had cost $533,000....

The Obama VA may be running a back door gun registry under the guise of a “free gun lock” program. A Progressives Today reader sent in this letter they received with the following worrisome comment attached: Is this a backdoor way of the VA attempting to create a gun registry on vets? I think it is… (Click to enlarge) Dear Veteran:The James E. Van Zandt VA Medial Center is extending the opportunity to request free gun locks to the Veterans we serve. We are providing this opportunity because, as your partner in health care, we are committed to keeping you...

"...we actually put incoming applications aside so we could focus on the ACA related applications that came in over last summer."

(CNSNews.com) -- The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has 59,297 employees – 17.3 percent out of 342,089 workers total -- that make $100,000 or more in yearly salary, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Among those employees, 18,709 of them earn a salary of $180,000 or more.An OPM database, FedScope, contains historical data on the federal civilian workforce going back to 1998. The database holds information about civilian federal workers employed by most Executive Branch agencies (excluding intelligence agencies, the White House, and the Office of the Vice President) and some Legislative Branch agencies. It does...

The Public and Intergovernmental Affairs Office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is very concerned. No, the communications specialists in the agency are not concerned with veterans in need. They're not concerned with citizens and public officials requesting public information. They're not concerned with journalists seeking the truth. What these entrenched government employees care most about, above all else, is the business of spin and stonewalling. The VA mouthpieces are preoccupied with covering their ample bureaucratic backsides, withholding data, monitoring critics, fending off watchdogs and running constant interference for their corrupt, negligent agency. In a string of internal...

When Valerie Riviello, a nurse at a Veterans Affairs facility in New York, saw the clinic restrain a sexual assault survivor to a bed for seven consecutive hours, she released the woman. The next day, Ms. Riviello said, she was removed from her post as senior nurse manager and given a full-time desk job that prohibited her from contact with patients. She eventually was reprimanded and is facing a 30-day unpaid suspension for releasing the woman. Now, Ms. Riviello is one of more than 50 whistleblowers who say the Veterans Affairs Department retaliated against them for trying to do their...

President Barack Obama is getting an update on the problems plaguing the health care system for veterans from his acting veterans affairs secretary and a top aide. The White House says Obama will meet Friday with Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson after returning from a two-day trip to Minnesota. Top White House aide Rob Nabors will join them in the Oval Office. Obama tasked Nabors with leading a broad review of the VA following allegations of treatment delays and preventable deaths around the country. That review is due to the president this month.

Veterans Administration hospitals have spent at least $420 million on solar panels and windmills while vets wait months — or even lay dying — to see a doctor. In total, VA hospitals reported 23 deaths due to 76 instances of delayed care, an April 2014 VA fact sheet said. Then on June 5, Acting Veteran Affairs Secretary Sloan Gibson revealed that at least 18 Phoenix patients died while waiting for treatment on a secret list kept off the books. It is not clear if that number is in addition to the 23 deaths reported earlier. During the past month, the...

More whistleblowers are coming forward from the VA, but this woman from North Carolina gives a special insight into the way that wait-list fraud propagated within the system. Paulene DeWenter makes clear that the use of secret wait lists was no spontaneously-occurring method for front-line workers to deal with overstressed resources, but a deliberate strategy employed by VA management. DeWenter tells WITN that her boss told her to use the secret wait list method, or else she would buy DeWenter a bus pass — one way out of town ... DeWenter blew the whistle after one of the patients on...

A Veterans Affairs nurse who spent 28 years at the embattled agency's facility in Albany, N.Y., says when she came forward to report abuse including stolen drugs and mistreatment of patients, her supervisors turned on her instead of trying to fix things. Nursing manager Val Riviello, 55, was considered an outstanding employee at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center until last November, when she reported that doctors had restrained a patient for seven hours in violation of VA rules. Now she has been banished to an office cubicle, stripped of her nursing duties and supervisory role and faces a 30-day...

Doctors at the Philadelphia Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office are sitting around with nothing to do, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans continue to wait for medical appointments. “Urgent! Need work for In-house Physicians,” wrote the Office’s assistant veterans service center manager Ameen Khabir in the subject line of a June 19 email to colleagues, which he placed on “High” importance. The Regional Office is responsible for processing compensation, benefits, employment and insurance claims. More than 276,000 veteran benefit claims across the country are still backlogged, having been waiting for more than 125 days....

More allegations of wrongdoing plague the VA across the country Tuesday. A new report from an Oklahoma senator says that the death toll related to VA mistakes over the past decade could be over 1000. Some are wondering if Congress is to blame for failing to take action earlier. If you ask Congress, the answer is no. A lot of what's been going on had been covered up by the VA in some way due to fear of backlash, and you can't fix something if you don't know it's broken. Senator Cobun's (R-OK) report blames VA mistakes mixed with improper...

Imagine how much better off America's veterans would be if the federal government spent more time delivering actual care and less time compiling tyrannical lists. The death-inducing secret waiting lists for patients are just the tip of the iceberg. Did you know, for example, that the VA keeps a database on "disgruntled" and "disruptive" vets that results in arbitrarily restricted care? Disabled Air Force veteran and veterans advocate/attorney Benjamin Krause has been raising questions about the system for months and warning his peers. Under the VA policy on "patient record flags" (PRFs), federal bureaucrats can classify vets as "threats"...

Records of dead veterans were changed to hide how many people died while awaiting care at Phoenix VA hospital, whistle-blower tells CNN. Records of dead veterans were changed or physically altered, some even in recent weeks, to hide how many people died while waiting for care at the Phoenix VA hospital, a whistle-blower told CNN in stunning revelations that point to a new coverup in the ongoing VA scandal. "Deceased" notes on files were removed to make statistics look better, so veterans would not be counted as having died while waiting for care, Pauline DeWenter said.

Despite the newest revelation in the Veterans Affairs scandal Thursday that one in ten veterans have to wait at least one month before they can get an appointment to see a doctor, CBS and NBC refused to cover the latest news in both their evening news shows on Thursday night as well as their morning shows on Friday morning. ABC News only gave 14 seconds of coverage to the issue in a news brief during the 7:00 am hour on Friday’s Good Morning America. CBS News chose to instead publish an article about it on their website Thursday afternoon.article about...

".........The green office isn’t merely a desk and telephone tucked away in the dark corner of a nondescript government building. It’s a substantial undertaking, with all the luxury, bells and whistles of a bureaucracy that means business. Eric K. Shinseki, who resigned as secretary in the wake of the VA scandal of the sin of omission, traveled the country to boast of the green initiative. In one instance, he traveled to Massachusetts to flick the switch at a half-million-dollar windmill project at the Massachusetts National Cemetery. “Nationally,” he said, “VA continues to expand its investment in renewable sources of energy...

They don't care." As Obama administration officials pivot like haywire jewelry-box ballerinas to divert attention away from the nationwide Veterans Affairs disgrace, a reader who has been fighting the system urged me to urge Capitol Hill and the American public to stay focused. This former Special Forces soldier and medic served his country for 25 years. He worked in the health care field managing military field medical clinics. "I know how health care is supposed to run, even in austere or low-budget environments," he says. And in his nightmarish, ongoing experience, the VA is an epic, deadly, monstrous failure. He...

June 17, 2014 Stay focused: One VA victim’s plea Michelle Malkin ‘They don’t care.” As Obama administration officials pivot like haywire jewelry-box ballerinas to divert attention away from the nationwide Veterans Affairs disgrace, a reader who has been fighting the system urged me to urge Capitol Hill and the American public to stay focused. This former Special Forces soldier and medic served his country for 25 years. He worked in the health-care field managing military field medical clinics. “I know how health care is supposed run, even in austere or low-budget environments,” he says. And in his nightmarish, ongoing experience,...

In case you had any remaining doubt as to the Department of Veterans AffairsÂ’ commitment to addressing the horrific mistreatment of our nationÂ’s vets, this ought to clear things up: Veterans Affairsï‚™Verified account @DeptVetAffairs Our ocean is under threat. Join people all over the world and make a difference. #OurOcean2014 http://thndr.it/1tP7rrQ

In a Monday National Journal column about how many Democrats are allegedly saying they have "quit" on Obama — claims I find quite hollow, given that no one asserting this has yet had the guts to go on the record — Ron Fournier quotes "a senior White House official" with a head-shaking take on the Veterans Administration scandal. Specifically, "Questioning why the Veterans Affairs Department hadn´t been overhauled months ago as promised by Obama (actually that was seven years ago, plus six other times, Ron — Ed.), a senior White House official conceded privately to me, ´We don´t do the