Category Archives: Health Disease

Money, Lies and the White House

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The lure for cover-ups by the White House and issuing edicts to heads of agencies is a farm that incubates and hatches fraud only a daily basis.

Scandals are not only common but expected and there is never a lack of them where in the headlines we find more deception bubbling to the surface with regard to the Veterans Administration.

While we heard last week that the number two placeholder at the VA was Dr. Peltzer had resigned the day after the Congressional hearing on the VA. That is simply NOT true, he in fact submitted his retirement paperwork last year and Barack Obama already selected his replacement as Dr. Jeffrey Murawsky, who in fact comes from the VA located in Illinois, one such location currently in the dragnet sweep of lying and fraudulent actions of at least 11 VA’s across the country.

Now, there is something much worse. It goes back to the Barack Obama/Joe Biden transition team as they made their way to the White House. THEY WERE TOLD THEN ABOUT THE FRAUD AT THE VA AND DID NOTHING.

 

VA neglect

Veterans with serious heart conditions, gangrene, and even brain tumors waited months for care at the Albuquerque VA hospital, a whistleblowing doctor tells The Daily Beast.

Add Albuquerque, New Mexico’s to the growing list of VA hospitals accused of keeping secret waiting lists to hide delays for veterans seeking medical care. And it may already be too late to get to the truth and find out what harm, if any, was done to veterans there—VA officials are already destroying records to cover their tracks, a whistleblower inside the hospital tells The Daily Beast.

Last month, word broke that the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix kept a secret waiting list that allegedly led to dozens of preventable deaths. The VA’s inspector general was brought in to investigate the charges and hasn’t yet found any deaths in Phoenix linked to wait times, but his investigation is ongoing. Since then five other facilities have come under fire, leading to calls for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to step down. And now there’s Albuquerque’s. The evidence for this new secret list may be hard to track down, however.

“The ‘secret wait list’ for patient appointments is being either moved or was destroyed after what happened in Phoenix,” according to a doctor who works at the Albuquerque VA hospital and spoke exclusively with The Daily Beast. “Right now,” the doctor said, “there is an eight-month waiting list for patients to get ultrasounds of their hearts. Some patients have died before they got their studies. It is unknown why they died, some for cardiac reasons, some for other reasons.”

There’s no proof yet that veterans died while waiting for treatment, like what allegedly happened in Phoenix. But the doctor says it’s quite possible that some veterans would still be alive if they hadn’t been pushed through a record-keeping trap door that buried their requests for medical care.

On March 19, 2014, for example, a patient with a deteriorating heart condition requested to see a doctor. The patient was finally seen only days ago, on May 16, when they were admitted to the hospital for decompensated heart failure. “A near miss” as the VA doctor familiar with the case described it. “He could have died before being seen.”

The Albuquerque VA did not respond to requests for comment but Ozzie Garza, director of the VA Regional Office of Public Affairs, provided this statement to The Daily Beast: “We are not familiar with the allegations but will call immediately for an external review as we take all allegations seriously.”

“When everyone found out the IG was doing the audit, the word I heard was ‘Make sure nothing is left out in the open,’” the VA doctor said. “And that ranged from make sure there’s no food out to make sure there’s no information out in the open.” The doctor is not involved in the scheduling process and was unsure of how exactly VA officials would purge the secret wait lists but has heard it discussed among colleagues.

As VA officials reacted nervously to news of an impending audit, the doctor described hearing officials involved in scheduling patient appointments say, “The database had been removed or renamed.” To cover their tracks the doctor said they decided, “Instead of calling it a wait it would be called something like a precedence list.”

When another of the doctor’s colleagues, a physician in a managerial position at the Albuquerque VA, saw the initial story about secret wait lists break he heard him say, “I always knew that Phoenix was better than us at playing the numbers game.”

Secret waiting lists may not be the only problems at the Albuquerque VA, in fact they may only be an accounting trick to mask the deeper issues.

Veterans with heart problems are waiting an average of four months to see a cardiologist at the Albuquerque VA, according to the doctor there who has access to patient records.

There are eight physicians in the cardiology department. But at any given time, only three are working in the clinic, where they see fewer than two patients per day, so on average there are only 36 veterans seen per week. That means the entire eight-person department sees as many patients in a week as a single private practice cardiologist sees in two days, according to the doctor.

For perspective, 60% of cardiologists reported seeing between 50 and 124 patients per week, according to a 2013 survey of medical professionals’ compensation conducted by Medscape. On the low end, the average single private practice cardiologist who participated in the study saw more patients in a week than the Albuquerque VA’s entire eight-person cardiology department.

In some cases, a long wait to see a doctor is just another routine inconvenience of the sort people expect in a large bureaucracy, but other times it can be a matter of life and death.

One veteran’s heart troubles were serious enough that a physician requested they be seen in the next available slot on January 8, 2014. Over three months later, the patient was seen in late April.

A patient whose initial blood test on December 8, 2013 suggested he might have a brain tumor waited until April 28 2014 before he was seen again. Another veteran, diagnosed with gangrene, was referred for surgery so doctors could try to salvage his limb or amputate it if necessary—it’s 36 days after he was initially supposed to see the surgeons and he’s still waiting now.

A second source inside the Albuquerque VA, a medical technician, said the facility provided high quality care. But the technician acknowledged it could take a long time before veterans get in the door to receive it.

The list of patients waiting for tests grew so long in one department that the technician became disheartened and stopped checking it around Christmas of last year. “I honestly stopped doing that because it just overwhelmed me personally,” the technician said.

The VA’s Office of Inspector General began investigating the Albuquerque medical center last year, according The Albuquerque Journal, after employees there reported that appointments were being manipulated to conceal patients’ actual wait times. That would mean that the inspector general, and the VA itself, knew about allegations of corruption there long before the Phoenix story broke in April.

Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, has been beating the drum about wait times and advocating reform since before the latest crisis  put the VA back in the spotlight. “VA’s delays in care problem is real and has already been linked to the recent deaths of at least 23 veterans,” Miller told The Daily Beast.

Yet it wasn’t until the latest VA scandal broke nationally—months after the inspector general first investigated claims that are strikingly similar to what was later reported in Phoenix—that Albuquerque’s came back into focus. The status of the initial investigation still hasn’t been made public.

Last week, New Mexico Senator Tom Udall requested a new investigation into his state’s VA hospitals. Udall called for the audit after his office received dozens of complaints from veterans about long wait times at the VA, and reports that Albuquerque’s schedulers were forging appointment records.

New Mexico is now the seventh state where allegations have emerged about VA medical facilities cooking the books. As new incidents continue to display the same features uncovered in past cases, the details are revealing a common language of bureaucratic corruption communicated across state lines between different VA facilities.

Yet, even as evidence builds of a systemic problem within the VA, the department itself has been slow to acknowledge it and even slower to act. In his testimony before the Senate last week, VA Secretary Shinseki referred to the six cases that had been revealed up to that point as “isolated incidents.”

Veterans, for their part, are divided over the proper response; many believe that the actual care provided by the VA is good and the problem is primarily about access. But as each new week brings another case that seems to show the same pattern of duplicity inside the VA, some are growing impatient.

“Our members are outraged and are demanding true accountability and systemic reform for what appears to be increasingly widespread problems,” said Derek Bennett, chief of staff for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “We cannot fix the problems until all the facts are on the table,” Bennett said but added that, “scapegoating and politicization of this issue will not reform the Department of Veterans Affairs nor best serve our veterans.”

To encourage getting the facts on the table, the IAVA has started its own initiative to gather stories from veterans and VA employees. “We have partnered with the Project on Government Oversight on vaoversight.org to provide a safe place for whistleblowers to come forward for this very reason,” Bennett said.

Despite the volume of incidents that have already been publicly revealed and the inspector general’s admission last week that he had more evidence pointing to new mismanagement, the VA has not announced any broad reforms or disciplinary actions. In the only major leadership shakeup since the VA became embroiled in the secret wait list charges, Secretary Shinseki announced the resignation last week of Dr. Robert Petzel, his undersecretary for health. But as many were quick to point out, and in what the IAVA called a “cynicial twist,” Petzel was already scheduled to retire this year after a 40-year career.

For Rep. Miller, the time is overdue for change within the VA. “We simply can’t afford to wait for the results of another IG investigation or VA’s internal review when veterans may be at risk,” Miller said. Immediate actions can be taken now, Miller added, even before formal investigations draw their conclusions. “Sec. Shinseki needs to take emergency steps,” he said, “to ensure veterans who may have fallen victim to these schemes get the medical treatment they need.”

On Sunday, the White House, which has remained relatively quiet on the VA’s latest troubles, weighed in with an interview by President Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough.

“The president is madder than hell, and I’ve got the scars to prove it, given the briefings that I’ve given the president,” McDonough told CBS’ Face the Nation. “Madder than hell” was the first echo of Secretary Shinseki, amplifying a phrase he used in his testimony last week to describe his own feelings. The second echo of Shinseki came when McDonough said the president had sent staff to look into the VA investigation and “find out if this is a series of isolated cases or whether this is a systemic issue.”

The VA’s own investigation is ongoing and will continue to attract attention as more revelations, like the claims about the Albuquerque VA, keep coming out. It remains to be seen how leaders who are “madder than hell” will react to the evidence they find and what, if anything, they will order done about the situation.

But hold on it does go back to Barack Obama and it was never about under-funding the VA, it was likely at pilot test of a system of single-payer of Obamacare and gaining access to even see a doctor in a reasonable period of time. Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their transition team knew well about the issues at the VA. Sure you can blame the previous administration, which is common however, Eric Shinseki took the position to clean up the VA and for 5 years has done nothing.

The Obama administration received clear notice more than five years ago that  VA medical facilities were reporting inaccurate waiting times and experiencing  scheduling failures that threatened to deny veterans timely health care —  problems that have turned into a growing scandal.

Veterans Affairs officials warned the Obama-Biden transition team in the  weeks after the 2008 presidential election that the department shouldn’t trust  the wait times that its facilities were reporting.

“This is not only a data integrity issue in which [Veterans  Health Administration] reports unreliable performance data; it affects  quality of care by delaying — and potentially denying — deserving veterans  timely care,” the officials wrote.

The briefing materials, obtained by The Washington Times through the Freedom  of Information Act, make clear that the problems existed well before Mr. Obama  took office, dating back at least to the Bush administration. But the materials  raise questions about what actions the department took since 2009 to remedy the  problems.

In recent months, reports have surfaced about secret wait lists at facilities  across the country and, in the case of a Phoenix VA facility, accusations that  officials cooked the books to try to hide long wait times. Some families said  veterans died while on a secret wait list at the Phoenix facility.

 

 

Hillary and Kerry, Stewards of Soros Policy

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Money buys influence and Soros has both. While much has been written and exposed on George Soros, at the very top U.S. leadership follows the Soros edict, follow my playbook and you will be rewarded.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Kerry have all left a wake of destruction globally as they have been bought by George Soros. Most recently, matters relating to Israel, Russia and the European Union appear to defy logic, when upon a closer look, Soros is at the core of policy.

Quietly, last week, John Kerry welcomed and introduced George Soros at a conference held at the George C. Marshall Center to discuss matters on civil society. When Soros speaks, leadership listens and on the subject of civil society, Soros is dictating society according to his own objectives. None of those objectives are in keeping with America’s best interests. Obama, Hillary and Kerry are complete acolytes of Soros and obey his commands.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will introduce liberal megadonor George Soros at an open forum on Tuesday, the latest evidence of the billionaire using his political connections to benefit his investments and foreign policy goals, critics say.

Kerry will introduce Soros at the 1:30 p.m. forum on May 13 at the George C. Marshall Center in Washington, D.C., according to a State Department event notice.

Soros will discuss “strengthening civil society, democracy and the world economy” with Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Douglas Frantz following Kerry’s introduction.

Soros, a New York City hedge fund manager who amassed great wealth through his company Soros Fund Management, has used his foundation network—known as the Open Society Foundations (OSF)—to dispense more than $11 billion to groups abroad as well as numerous left-leaning U.S. groups in the last three decades.

He is perhaps the Democratic Party’s most famous donor, contributing almost $24 million to advocacy groups that supported Kerry’s failed presidential bid in 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He also donated $1 million to the Priorities USA Action Super PAC that helped reelect President Barack Obama in 2012.

Critics say Soros leverages his political connections to increase the returns on his investments.

While Soros has increased his multi-million dollar investments in both U.S. and foreign companies that extract shale oil and gas, the Obama administration has championed natural gas as a less carbon-intensive bridge fuel toward a “clean-energy future.” The administration’s proposal to offer incentives to companies that use trucks powered by natural gas would benefit Westport Innovations, a company that converts diesel engines for natural gas use and is partially owned by Soros’ hedge fund.

Soros’ political advocacy also tends to blend with his investments. He proposed in 2009 that developed countries create a “green fund” to combat climate change in developing countries by directing billions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) toward forestry, land-use, and agricultural projects. Soros’ fund controls more than a $200 million stake in Adecoagro, a Luxembourg-based company that owns hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in South America and would benefit from the IMF cash infusion.

Soros told the New Yorker in a 2004 interview that “there are occasionally symbiotic moments between political and business interests” that occur during his efforts to influence American policy.

Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and former Pentagon adviser in the George W. Bush administration, said in an email that he hopes “Kerry will take a long shower after the event” because hosting Soros is the “diplomatic equivalent of prostitution.”

Rubin said the optics of the event are “horrible” given Soros’ longstanding ties to the administration and his past record of marrying policy advocacy with business.

“If Kerry wants to sponsor a well-deserving guest at a State Department ‘open forum,’ why not someone like Malala Yousefzai, the young school girl whom the Taliban tried to murder?” he said. “Our diplomats could learn a thing or two about moral clarity from her; they certainly won’t from Soros.”

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told the Washington Free Beacon that criticisms of Soros’ appearance at the event are “wholly ridiculous and have no basis in fact whatsoever.”

“This is a regular secretary’s open forum event intended to inform and educate department employees,” Harf said in an email. “George Soros was invited to discuss his views on support of civil society.”

Harf noted that the forum has hosted “guests from diverse points of view” in the past, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, and Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson.

Soros’ actions abroad have also conflicted with traditional U.S. foreign policy stances, raising questions about his appearance at a State Department-sponsored forum.

The OSF have financially supported groups that support boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel and called it an “apartheid state,” according to a report last May by NGO Monitor.

The OSF network finances groups such as the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based organization that regularly accuses Israel of being an “apartheid state” and refers to terror attacks on Israeli civilians as “resistance.”

Kerry was widely criticized last month after warning that Israel could become “an apartheid state” if it failed to reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

Additionally, Soros has financed opposition groups and media in countries such as Azerbaijan and Armenia, two countries that are still locked in a violent and decades-old territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Soros’ involvement there prompted leaders to express concerns that he could further stoke tensions and contribute to another outbreak of war.

“He pursues his own vision, undisturbed by his effect on other nations or the interests of his own,” wrote Richard Miniter, a contributor to Forbes, in 2011. “It is hard for foreign governments to hold him accountable, and his goals and methods are usually kept secret.”

 

Soros wrote in his 2006 book, The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the War on Terror, that “the main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.”

Soros has an estimated net worth of $20 billion—much of it made through his controversial investment philosophy of making massive, highly leveraged bets on the direction of global financial markets. His involvement in the East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s drew sharp rebukes from leaders in the region.

He is a major donor to the liberal Center for American Progress and an architect of the Democracy Alliance, a shadowy organization that disburses millions to left-leaning groups but does not disclose its donors.

Additionally, Soros has staked out controversial positions on social issues, calling in 2010 for the full legalization of marijuana in the United States.

Soros’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

 

George Soros

When it comes to Russia and Putin’s aggressive missions towards Crimea, Ukraine, the Baltic states, George Soros has his hands all over the policy of the United States and the European Union where the International Monetary Fund plays in the background.

The billionaire financier says in its tepid response to Russia’s Crimea land grab, the EU flubbed a key chance to breathe new life into the stale union.
George Soros, one of the world’s leading investors, has warned that the European Union is in danger of falling apart if it fails to confront Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression in Ukraine.

The billionaire financier told The Daily Beast that European governments should have seized on Russia’s land grab in Crimea to breathe new life into a union that is disintegrating and stumbling towards oblivion. Instead, he argued, squabbling European nations have failed to meet the challenge and continued to act in their own narrow self-interest. “Europe was totally unprepared for this crisis and Putin outmaneuvered Europe with no difficulty,” he said.

Soros, who became known as the Man Who Broke the Bank of England after making $1 billion by betting against Europe’s previous financial union, has long insisted that the Euro was being fatally mismanaged. His latest book, published this week, is entitled The Tragedy of the European Union. A loud supporter at the launch of the Euro currency and a cheerleader for a united Europe, Soros has been confounded by what he calls the “nightmare” reality 15 years after its introduction.

Speaking in London, he said it was heart-breaking to see European governments shrug their shoulders at the precise moment the continent was finally witnessing an unprecedented popular uprising in the name of the European Union. “Ukrainians have effectively proved that they are willing to sacrifice their lives to get closer to a Europe that is, at the same time, in the process of disintegration,” he said.

With Putin’s troops in Crimea and a referendum on joining Russia due to be held over the weekend, Soros said there was still time for Europe to act, and reinvigorate the European Union’s withering soul.

“I would argue passionately that [the European Union] should not be a failed experiment and events in Ukraine are a wake-up call to face that issue,” he said. “It’s a challenge, and I hope that Europe will respond to it and actually really rediscover its original mission because that’s what got lost in this distortion that has occurred.”

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, indicated that Europe was willing to increase pressure on the Kremlin on Thursday during her most emotional and strident speech since the start of the Ukrainian crisis. She said a referendum orchestrated by Crimea’s pro-Russia parliament would be a “catastrophe,” and indicated that the EU was willing to impose travel bans and asset freezes on people and firms accused of helping to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity as soon as Monday.

Soros argued that it was more important for Europe to offer positive assistance to the struggling Ukrainian government. “It’s very important to respond and respond the right way, which is not necessarily to impose sanctions on Russia, but to actually help Ukraine financially, and also with technical assistance—something  like a European Marshall Plan for Ukraine—that would be the right response,” he said.

In his new book, which asks “Is it too late to save the European Union?” Soros argues that Putin’s attempt to build a new Eastern bloc in Ukraine and beyond could eventually jolt Europe back to life. “We have just witnessed a dramatic test of strength between Russia and the European Union. Russia came out ahead,” he said. “Russia has benefited from the fact that Europe is disunited. But now that Russia is emerging as a threat to Europe, it may once again become a force that brings Europe closer together. I pin my hopes on Chancellor Merkel … one must never give up hope.”

He is hardly holding his breath, however. Soros blames the Germans for eroding Europe’s fragile union by enforcing policies of austerity and allowing southern European nations to build up debts they will never be able to repay. He accused Berlin of doing “just enough” to keep the Euro afloat: “This confirms my worst fears. It’s the nightmare I’ve been talking about and there is little chance we’ll wake up soon.”

Germany’s economic strength makes it the Eurozone’s driving force—Britain is not part of the currency union—but the nation’s history has turned it into a reluctant leader. “Germany has emerged as the imperial power, the hegemon of Europe, but the German public does not want to be in that position exactly because of the painful memory of Hitler. It is in denial and is unwilling to live up to the responsibilities,” he said.

Despite its unwillingness to assume a strong leadership role, Soros argues that Berlin’s fiscal rigidity has created a two-tier Europe where debtor countries are at a permanent disadvantage. If that does not change, he said: “We will have a Europe in which Germany is seen not as a leader but as an oppressor and exploiter. It will not be loved and admired by the rest of Europe it will be hated and resisted.”

That resistance has already begun in a swathe of countries where popular anti-European sentiment has been seen on the street and at the ballot box. Europe-wide elections in May are expected to send a record number of politicians to Brussels who are hostile to the very institutions they will be populating. In Britain, the governing Conservative Party has promised a referendum on leaving the European Union altogether. “That would be a big step forward in the disintegration of the European Union,” Soros said. “Britain’s absence would greatly diminish the weight of the EU in the world … The world badly needs Europe’s soft power.”

Dis-BAR Eric Holder, PERIOD

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The U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is the top law enforcer of America, but that is only his title, it is not his job. This man is an assassin to the rule of law, but he is also complicit in a huge number of deaths for which we are aware of Fast and Furious, but most recently he is giving a pass to the deaths and secret lists at the Veterans Administration.

As the scandal grows state by state within the national VA healthcare program, Eric Holder has said he is not likely to investigate Eric Shinseki, the top slot at the VA. The White House continues to broadcast unbending confidence in both Eric Holder and Eric Shinseki, so the White House is part of this deadly collusion.

 

VA scandal

 

No Plans at DOJ to Investigate Secret Waiting Lists and Veteran Deaths at VA Hospitals

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Department of Justice doesn’t have any plans to investigate allegations that veterans placed on secret waiting lists at VA hospitals died while waiting for care.

“Well, obviously these reports if they’re true are unacceptable, and the allegations are being taken very seriously by the administration. But I don’t have any announcements at this time with regard to anything that the Justice Department is doing,” Holder told reporters at a press conference.

“This is something on our radar screen at this point, but there is an investigation being done by the [VA] inspector general, and we’ll see what happens as a result of that inquiry and other information that comes to light in some form or fashion,” Holder added.

According to CNN, at least 40 veterans died while waiting for treatment at one VA hospital in Phoenix. Members of Congress have said in recent weeks that the inspector general investigation is inadequate and have called on the DOJ to launch its own investigation.

“Because these cases involve individuals working in their capacity as federal employees, and these incidents have occurred at federal facilities throughout the nation, I urge you to work with the state Attorneys General in Arizona and across the country to investigate these preventable deaths thoroughly, determine appropriate criminal charges, and prosecute the offenders accordingly,” Rep. Tom Rooney, a Republican of Florida, wrote in a letter to Holder on May 1.

Holder’s announcement that the DOJ doesn’t currently have any plans to investigate the VA hospital scandal was made Tuesday afternoon at a press conference held to announce that the DOJ was filing a lawsuit against lenders under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which caps interest rates on student loans at 6 percent for members of the military.

“We are here to announce a landmark step forward in our effort to achieve justice for victims of improper lending practices–and to protect the men and women of America’s armed services from anyone who would take advantage of those who wear the uniform,” Holder said.

Shinseki set to testify about alleged secret list hiding VA treatment delays

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki is scheduled to testify Thursday about the state of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with Senate lawmakers poised to question him about VA health clinics allegedly covering up treatment delays.

The hearing, which takes place with the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee starting at 10 a.m., comes just eight days after the American Legion called for Shinseki and two of his top executives to resign over the latest controversy and a string of other troubles, including the agency’s longstanding backlog of disability claims and preventable deaths at its medical centers.

Lawmakers are likely to challenge Shinseki over the amount of time he took to order the preservation of all electronic and paper evidence related to the purported treatment delays. House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) has said he requested the action at an April 9 hearing but that the department did not comply for eight days.

The latest scandal erupted when a former VA doctor alleged the department’s Phoenix health clinic developed a secret system to hide treatment delays, possibly affecting dozens of patients who died while waiting for care.  CNN first reported the claims late last month, and other whistleblowers have substantiated them, according to the news network.

A later report from the VA’s Office of the Medical Inspector said Fort Collins, Colo., medical center falsified appointment records to give the impression that staff doctors had seen patients within the department’s goal of 14 to 30 days, according to a USA Today article.

Shinseki has requested an inspector general’s investigation into allegations, in addition to ordering face-to-face audits of all VA medical centers and placing three of the Phoenix center’s executives on administrative leave while the reviews take place.

Last week, the House Veterans Affairs Committee voted unanimously to subpoena top VA officials for documents related to the growing health clinic controversies.

The White House has said President Obama remains confident that Shinseki will take appropriate action in response to the findings.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars has refrained from demanding removals, instead calling on Shinseki to take strong action to restore faith in the VA and insisting that Congress needs to exercise stronger oversight of the department.

Standby readers it gets worse.

Testing and Care Rationed “Because of Dollars and Cents”

It’s pouring rain in the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare scandal, with a fifth location now accused of gaming the system to conceal unacceptable wait times.  Allegations and whistleblowers have emerged in Arizona, Colorado, and at two Texas facilities.  Now add Wyoming to the list.  CBS News reports:

A Veterans Affairs employee at the VA Medical Center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, has been placed on administrative leave after CBS News obtained an email showing an employee directing his staff on how to game the appointments system to make it appear as though veterans were being seen within the VA’s 14-day directive. The email, written by Telehealth Coordinator David Newman, a registered nurse, describes how patients at the Cheyenne VA Medical Center are always listed getting appointments within a 14-day window, no matter when the appointment was first requested, and no matter how long the patient actually waited. The memo admitted, “Yes, this is gaming the system a bit…” because “when we exceed the 14 day measure, the front office gets very upset, which doesn’t help us.” The employee further instructs staff on how to “get off the bad boys list” by “cancelling the visit (by clinic) and then rescheduling it with a desired date within that 14 day window.”

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has resisted calls for his resignation as this scandal has gained steam, ordering a nationwide audit to review these practices.  But will its findings do any good?  CBS reports that the Cheyenne incident was reported by an informant last year, yet it took media scrutiny six months later for anything to happen:

 

  CBS News has learned that the VA’s Office of the Medical Inspector had already investigated and substantiated claims of improper scheduling practices at the Cheyenne VAMC, sending a report to the Office of Special Counsel on December 23, 2013. It is unclear why it took five months, and an inquiry by CBS News, for the VA to take action against an employee there and order an Inspector General’s investigation.

 

As I’ve written previously, accountability is in short supply these days. Meanwhile, in Texas, another tentacle of the VA’s appalling health system has come to light.  When conservatives warn about poor quality of care and treatment rationing under government-run and -operated systems, this is the sort of thing we’re talking about (content warning — via the Examiner):

 

Patients in a Southeast Texas Department of Veterans Affairs medical system faced denials or long delays in getting routine colonoscopies and other medical tests because of bureaucratic cost-cutting, a former top administrator told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview. Dr. Richard Krugman, former associate chief of staff at the Veterans Affairs health care system based in Harlingen, Texas, said his boss implemented a policy in 2010 that colonoscopies would only be approved if the patient tested positive in three successive screenings for bloody stools. “By the time that you do the colonoscopies on these patients, you went from a stage 1 to a stage 4 [colorectal cancer], which is basically inoperable,” said Krugman. “That was done because of dollars and cents. For the VA, they have to be bleeding out of their rectum before they would authorize a colonoscopy. That was the standard of care,” he said. Since the Harlingen VA health center couldn’t do colonoscopies at that time, all referrals had to go to local private providers…As many as 15,000 patients who should have gotten the colonoscopies either did not get them or were examined only after long and needless delays, Krugman said. That estimate is based on the demographics and total number of veterans treated in the Texas Valley network, about 40,000. Many likely died, Krugman said. But, since there is no VA hospital in the area, their final days would have been spent in a private hospital or at home, where they would not appear in VA statistics, he said.

No further comment is necessary.  This is an abomination.  Where else are these ghoulish guidelines in place?  It took one former doctor to step forward and expose the wait list scheme in Phoenix, which has led to a steady stream of similar revelations across the country.  Are other facilities denying veterans basic screenings and care for budgetary reasons?

_______________

There is no sadder commentary in America right now, than that of the White House, the Department of Justice and the damaged confidence is protecting our own, our veterans.

The Communist Nextdoor

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Alright, this is going to be a long read, however, the work is presented here for your use and you DO need to spend some time on this.

First it should be known there is a ‘One World Government and a One World Legal System’. Once we admit this, all other items listed below will fall into place. Don’t shoot the messenger.

1. If you don’t think there is no Communist Party influence is government today or one that may live next door, then it is suggested you click here.

2. If you don’t think there are Socialists in government today and influencing earmarks, votes and law, then click here.

3. For the younger generation that does not know about McCarthy or for those who were subjected to revisionist history, this is a good time to click here.

 

Communism in America

But as a sample of what you need to know, read on….

[1] . . . As we celebrate the birth of this man who with his whole heart and soul hated war, I

would like to be able to speak of peace in our time, of war being outlawed, and of world-wide disarmament. These would be truly appropriate things to be able to mention as we celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

[2] Five years after a world war has been won, men’s hearts should anticipate a long peace, and men’s minds should be free from the heavy weight that comes with war. But this is not such a period—for this is not a period of peace. This is a time of the “cold war.” This is a time when all of the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps—a time of a great armaments race.

[3] . . . There is still a hope for peace if we finally decide that no longer can we safely blind our eyes and close our ears to those facts which are shaping up more and more clearly. And that is that we are now engaged in a show-down fight—not the usual war between nations for land areas or other material gains, but a war between two diametrically opposed ideologies.

[4] . . . The great difference between our western Christian world and the atheistic Communist world is not political, ladies and gentlemen, it is moral. There are other differences, of course, but those could be reconciled. For instance, the Marxian idea of confiscation the land and factories and running the entire economy as a single enterprise is momentous. Likewise, Lenin’s invention of the one-party police state as a way to make Marx’s idea work is hardly less momentous.

[5] . . . With only those differences, however, the East and the West could most certainly still live in peace.

[6] The real, basic difference, however, lies in the religion of immoralism—invented by Marx, preached feverishly by Lenin, and carried to unimaginable extremes by Stalin. This religion of immoralism, if the Red half of the world wins—and well it may—this religion of immoralism will more deeply wound and damage mankind than any conceivable economic or political system.

[7] Karl Marx dismissed God as a hoax, and Lenin and Stalin have added in clear-cut, unmistakable language their resolve that no nation, no people who believe in a God, can exist side by side with their communistic state.

[8] . . . While Lincoln was a relatively young man in his late thirties, Karl Marx boasted that the Communist specter was haunting Europe. Since that time, hundreds of millions of people and vast areas of the world have fallen under Communist domination. Today, less than 100 years after Lincoln’s death, Stalin brags that this Communist specter is not only haunting the world, but is about to completely subjugate it.

[9] . . . Can there be anyone who fails to realize that the Communist world has said, “The time is now”—that this is the time for the show-down between the democratic Christian world and the Communist atheistic world?

[10] Unless we face this fact, we shall pay the price that must be paid by those who wait too

long.

[11] Six years ago, at the time of the first conference to map out the peace—Dumbarton Oaks— there was within the Soviet orbit 180,000,000 people. Lined up on the antitotalitarian side there were in the world at that time roughly 1,625,000,000 people…in less than 6 years the odds have changed from 9 to 1 in our favor to 8 to 5 against us. This indicates the swiftness of the tempo of Communist victories and American defeats in the cold war. As one of our outstanding historical figures once said, “When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be because of enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.”

[12] The truth of this statement is becoming terrifyingly clear as we see this country each day losing on every front.

[13] The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only

powerful enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation. It has not been the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this Nation out, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer—the finest homes, the finest college education, and the finest jobs in Government we can give.

[14] This is glaringly true in the State Department. There the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been worst.

[15] . . . Now, let’s see what happens when individuals with Communist connections are forced out of the State Department. Gustave Duran, who was labeled as (I quote) “a notorious international Communist,” was made assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Latin American affairs. He was taken into the State Department from his job as a lieutenant colonel in the Communist International Brigade. Finally, after intense congressional pressure and criticism, he resigned in 1946 from the State Department—and, ladies and gentlemen, where do you think he is now? He took over a high-salaried job as Chief of Cultural Activities Section in the office of the Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations.

[16] . . . Then there was a Mrs. Mary Jane Kenny, from the Board of Economic Warfare in the State Department, who was named in an FBI report and in a House committee report as a courier for the Communist Party while working for the Government. And where do you think Mrs. Kenny is—she is now an editor in the United Nations Document Bureau.

[17] . . . Another interesting case was that of Julian H. Wadleigh, economist in the Trade Agreements Sections of the State Department for 11 years and was sent to Turkey and Italy and other countries as United States representative. After the statute of limitations had run so he could not be prosecuted for treason, he openly and brazenly not only admitted but proclaimed that he had been a member of the Communist Party * * * that while working for the State Department he stole a vast number of secret documents * * * and furnished these documents to the Russian spy ring of which he was a part.

[18] . . . This, ladies and gentlemen, gives you somewhat of a picture of the type of individuals who have been helping to shape our foreign policy. In my opinion the State Department, which is one of the most important government departments, is thoroughly infested with Communists.

[19] . . . I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.

[20] One thing to remember in discussing the Communists in our Government is that we are not dealing with spies who get 30 pieces of silver to steal the blueprints of a new weapon. We are dealing with a far more sinister type of activity because it permits the enemy to guide and shape our policy.

[21] . . . This brings us down to the case of one Alger Hiss who is important not as an individual any more, but rather because he is so representative of a group in the State Department. It is unnecessary to go over the sordid events showing how he sold out the Nation which had given him so much.

[22] . . . When the Un-American Activities Committee called Alger Hiss to give an accounting, President Truman at once issued a Presidential directive ordering all Government agencies to refuse to turn over any information whatsoever in regard to the Communist activities of any Government employee to a congressional committee.

[23] Incidentally, even after Hiss was convicted—it is interesting to note that the President still labeled the exposé of Hiss as a “red herring.”

[24] . . . Ladies and gentlemen, one of the important reasons for the graft, the corruption, the dishonesty, the disloyalty, the treason in high Government positions—one of the most important reasons why this continues is a lack of moral uprising on the part of the 140,000,000 American people.

[25] . . . However, the morals of our people have not been destroyed. They still exist. This cloak of numbness and apathy has only needed a spark to rekindle them. Happily, this spark has finally been supplied.

[26] As you know, very recently the Secretary of State [Dean Acheson] proclaimed his loyalty to a man [Alger Hiss] guilty of what has always been considered as the most abominable of all crimes—of being a traitor to the people who gave him a position of great trust. The Secretary of State in attempting to justify his continued devotion to the man who sold out the Christian world to the atheistic world, referred to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount as a justification and reason therefor, and the reaction of the American people to this would have made the heart of Abraham Lincoln happy.

[27] When this pompous diplomat in striped pants, with a phony British accent, proclaimed to the American people that Christ on the Mount endorsed communism, high treason, and betrayal of a sacred trust, the blasphemy was so great that it awakened the dormant indignation of the American people.

[28] He has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted, warped thinkers are swept from the national scene so that we may have a new birth of national honesty and decency in Government.

Okay take a breather and step outside for some fresh air as the best is yet to come……

Welcome back, you ready?

Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thursday, January 10, 1963

 

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:

[From “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen]

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

It is any wonder know that inside the State Department for the past 50+ years it is almost impossible to really know what is going on much less how much money is being thrown around without ANY accountability?

Please share this….

 

 

Nigerian Taliban, Boko Harem

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Please someone tell Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and the rest of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus they need to attend a few meetings and read a few memos to understand the decades of history of Boko Harem and the killing machine they have been for years regardless of whether the dead are girls, military, political leaders or the very foundation of the poor and begging system throughout the region.

Boko Harem leadership and cult go back to the early 1990’s and the corruption and failed government in an otherwise oil rich country has failed to do anything to stop the essentially national threat.

Someone tell Congresswoman Jackson Lee that even as early as 2000, Osama bin Ladin called on Nigerian Muslims to wage jihad and establish and Islamic State. Boko Harem is affiliated with AQIM and many members have traveled even to Afghanistan joining up with the Taliban. Bin Ladin donated $3 Million dollars to organize the cell in Nigeria in circa 2000. Mohammed Yusef were the beneficiaries of the money and marching orders from bin Ladin. Boko Harem has a reach as far as Chad, Niger, , Mali, Mauritania and Algeria. Some fighters even trained under Muammar Qaddafi in Libya where many weapons from the Qaddafi cache are used by Boko Harem have been traced to Libya.

 

Boko Harem

 

Boko Harem’s leader, Shekau often orders videos posted in a host of chat rooms and websites expressing solidarity with al Qaeda factions.

Money comes from all kinds of sources including kidnapping, theft, extortion and dark money also comes from government officials including the police, armed forces and all sectors of state government.

While Boko Harem operates mostly underground unless they are executing planned attacks on schools, military and business, they get their supplies from helicopters that have been stolen from the Maiduguri Air Force Base. Supplies dropped from the air consists of arms, ammunition, money, medical supplies and food.

So to the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus here is a sample of recent attacks by Boko Harem.

November 4, 2011: A series of attacks on police targets and churches in the northeastern city of Damaturu claimed by the sect kills at least 150 people.

– January 20, 2012: At least 185 people are killed in the northern city of Kano following coordinated bombings and gun battles, claimed by Boko Haram.

– April 19, 2013: Fierce fighting between troops and suspected Islamists in the remote northeastern town of Baga kills 187 people while 77 others are injured.

– May 7, 2013: Boko Haram launches coordinated attacks in the northeastern town of Bama, killing 55 people and freeing 105 inmates.

– May 15, 2013: Nigerian troops begin an offensive against Boko Haram in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, where a state of emergency is declared in order to retake areas which have fallen into the hands of the insurgents.

– September 17, 2013: An attack by Boko Haram Islamists disguised in military uniforms in the northeastern Benisheik area in Borno state kills at least 142 people.

– February 15, 2014: An attack blamed on the sect leaves more than 100 people dead in the mostly Christian village of Izghe in Borno.

– April 14, 2014: A blast at a bus station packed with morning commuters at Nyanya, on the southern outskirts of Abuja, kills at least 72 people, in the most deadly attack to date on the capital. Most of the previous attacks have taken place in the group’s historic stronghold in the northeast.

Read a full report here on Boko Harem.

One last thing Congresswoman, pass this on to your friends in the CBC and the rest of Congress, your friend Hillary, you know when she was SecState….well she refused to list Boko Harem on the terror list for two years.

The State Department under Hillary Clinton fought hard against placing the al Qaeda-linked militant group Boko Haram on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations for two years. And now, lawmakers and former U.S. officials are saying that the decision may have hampered the American government’s ability to confront the Nigerian group that shocked the world by abducting hundreds of innocent girls.

So hey Sheila you want to use drones now but, sadly your gal Hillary hampered any aggressive action against Boko Harem for a long while and remember who died and was terrorized during that time.

Sigh….