2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders Time in Senate wasted?
If you say this then you are saying helping Veterans is a waste of time. http://vetsforbernie.org/bernies-veterans-bills/
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MADem
(135,425 posts)who held more meetings than Sanders did, and might have caught all the fraud, waste and abuse sooner.
Sanders tenure as chair was a failure of oversight. He knows it, too. That's why he quietly apologized for the delays and screw ups--because HE had the power to investigate, and he didn't:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/04/politics/bernie-sanders-veterans-affairs-delays/
(CNN)Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders offered on Wednesday night as close to an apology as he could when pressed on why he -- as the former chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee -- waited so long to act on the burgeoning wait list scandal at the VA.
When pressed by CNN's Anderson Cooper on Sanders lack of action, the Vermont senator responded, "We should have done better."
The admission came during a CNN town hall forum in New Hampshire hosted by Cooper, who confronted Sanders with the candidate's own record.
Sanders has been criticized for his lack of action during the two years he chaired the committee, all but ignoring the government's own investigations pointing out quality of care and wait list issues at VA medical centers across the country....Veterans groups and others criticize Sanders for what they call a lack of oversight of the VA, and for at times coming to its defense in the midst of the scandal that rocked the agency in 2014.
As a retired military member who is LUCKY--and I mean LUCKY--to not have to rely on the VA for care, I wish this topic would get far more attention than it has, to date. Sanders as the Vets' Champ is a Big Honking Lie. He defended the VA when the shit was hitting the fan, putting the patients at the back of the health care bus. He only held a third of the meetings on the Senate side than the House committee did, and he ADMITS that he fell down on the job.
Many of the problems are on HIS head, because he did not do his duty.
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)Look--he CONFESSED to doing a shitty job. In his own words.
I provided you a link, with video. Ignore it if you want. I don't really care--and I am not impressed with his committee oversight. He was too flapping busy to even hold a minimum number of meetings--and the effect of his mismanagement shows. He doesn't deserve that seat. They should give it to someone who will hold more than seven lousy meetings.
I guess you didn't bother to click the link and read this damning collection of facts, from VETS who aren't feeling any Bern:
Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Sanders largely ignored the appeals of organizations like his during a time when media and government reports exposed how veterans were waiting months for appointments and VA officials were covering up the delays.
"For far too long he was apologizing for the VA. He was refusing to acknowledge the severity. He was positioning it as a smaller issue than it was while veterans were dying waiting for care," Rieckhoff told CNN.
For more than a year, CNN reported on veterans' deaths and delays at VA facilities across the country, including detailed investigations in November 2013 and January 2014 examining deaths at two VA facilities in South Carolina and Georgia.
An internal VA audit later uncovered faulty scheduling practices and a "systemic lack of integrity" within some VA facilities.
Rieckhoff says Sanders had to be ignoring what was happening on the other side of the Capitol during this time, when House Committee on Veterans Affairs investigators were digging up records, swearing in whistleblowers and exposing the massive scandal.
During the time the House VA committee held 42 separate hearings related to oversight of the VA, the Senate VA committee -- chaired by Sanders -- held about seven hearings on these issues.
At the boiling point of the VA scandal in 2014, after CNN reported about secret wait lists at the Phoenix VA, the Senate committee held a hearing in which Sanders supported an independent investigation. Yet he also praised the VA for serving 200,000 veterans a day and cautioned about rushing to judgment.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/04/politics/bernie-sanders-veterans-affairs-delays/
Yeah, some "hero" to the vets--he IGNORED them.
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)She's gotten a lot more killed with her votes
MADem
(135,425 posts)deeper and longer than hers.
Don't buy his hype--do some homework:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-troubling-history-supporting-us-military-violence-abroad
Bernie Sanders' Troubling History of Supporting US Military Violence Abroad
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/16/blood-traces-bernies-iraq-war-hypocrisy/
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
Blood Traces: Bernie’s Iraq War Hypocrisy
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
More problematic for the Senator in Birkenstocks is the little-known fact that Bernie Sanders himself voted twice in support of regime change in Iraq. In 1998 Sanders voted in favor of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which said: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”
Later that same year, Sanders also backed a resolution that stated: “Congress reaffirms that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.” These measures gave congressional backing for the CIA’s covert plan to overthrow the Hussein regime in Baghdad, as well as the tightening of an economic sanctions regime that may have killed as many as 500,000 Iraqi children. The resolution also gave the green light to Operation Desert Fox, a four-day long bombing campaign striking 100 targets throughout Iraq. The operation featured more than 300 bombing sorties and 350 ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, several targeting Saddam Hussein himself.
Even Hillary belatedly admitted that her Iraq war vote was a mistake. Bernie, however, has never apologized for his two votes endorsing the overthrow of Saddam. On the rare occasions when Sanders has been confronted about these votes, he has casually dismissed them as being “almost unanimous.” I went back and checked the record. In fact, many members of the progressive caucus in the House, as well as a few libertarian anti-war Members of Congress, vote against the Iraq regime change measures...
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I could say that they all agree with vetsforbernie since Hillary voted to send them to die in Iraq but I won't.
MADem
(135,425 posts)beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)He opposed the war and tried to convince others to vote against it. Too bad Hillary didn't listen.
MADem
(135,425 posts)beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)That was also Bush's spin on those resolutions so no sale. Bernie never voted for military action in Iraq.
Listen to his speech, he knew that the Iraq war was a mistake, you don't get to hang it on him because you can't defend Hillary's extreme lack of foresight and judgment.
MADem
(135,425 posts)There are several links, and several authors. Are you pretending he didn't vote for Iraq Regime Change? Is the Congressional Record that recorded his vote LYING about Bernie, too?
There's a link from CNN that cites the head of the IAVA about his inaction re: vets--is he a liar, too?
Is everyone a LIAR....except Berrrrrrnie?
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)
Is everyone a LIAR....except Berrrrrrnie?
Nope just some people, specifically the ones who lie about his "support" for military action in Iraq.
MADem
(135,425 posts)He speaks--quite effectively, too--for the people who were there.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)"Many of the problems are on HIS head, because he did not do his duty."
No mention of the dickheads that chaired the committee before he did. If you were any more intellectually dishonest you'd explode.
MADem
(135,425 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)As I said, no mention of the dickheads who've been fucking it up since 1971... Democrats AND republicans.
I repeat: If you were any more intellectually dishonest, you'd explode.
MADem
(135,425 posts)And trying to make this about ME by calling me "intellectually dishonest" is a cheap shot by you. Once I can ignore it, figuring you're upset because your hero is being shown to be less than perfect by a wide margin. Twice, I'll have to say "Whoever smelt it, dealt it." YOU are the one with that problem.
Apparently you have a hard time reading, too, because Sanders admitted he did a shitty job of oversight.
And he is right--seven meetings in two years, and excuse-making for the VA.
That is why the vets of the IAVA are angry with him.
itsrobert
(14,157 posts)Plus my Dad, a Korean War area Vet, had extreme wait times. We almost lost him. WE recently learned that San Diego was falsifying wait times.
MADem
(135,425 posts)revbones
(3,660 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)revbones
(3,660 posts)saying the scandal was no big deal.
Which is it? He didn't do enough on a big issue or it wasn't a big issue and he still held 7 hearings and got legislation passed?
MADem
(135,425 posts)But hey....all that matters is some "award."
revbones
(3,660 posts)and Hillary saying it was no big deal.
But hey, if you choose to ignore the facts, then there's not really much else to say...
MADem
(135,425 posts)...a review of his record in the job also shows that in a moment of crisis, his deep-seated faith in the fundamental goodness of government blinded him, at least at first, to a dangerous breakdown in the one corner of it he was supposed to police. Despite inspector general reports dating back a decade that documented a growing problem with wait times, Mr. Sanders, who had served on the committee for six years before he became its head, was quick to defend the agency and slow to aggressively question V.A. officials and demand accountability.
His major objective as chairman was to expand the menu of veterans benefits. It was an ambitious goal, and as with his proposals today for free public college and universal health care, many viewed it as unrealistic. The cost was so high that even Republicans who normally favor more aid for veterans blanched at the dollars involved — while fearing that more offerings would cause even longer waits at the overburdened V.A.
“His ideological perspective blurred his ability to recognize the operational reality of what was happening at the V.A.,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “The reality was that he was one of the last people to publicly recognize the gravity of the situation.”
One.
More.
Time.
The reality was that he was one of the last people to publicly recognize the gravity of the situation.
AGAIN....
The reality was that he was one of the last people to publicly recognize the gravity of the situation.
rock
(13,218 posts)So the Sanders supporters will just have to feel the bern.
Democrats Ascendant
(601 posts)Too bad you have to keep fighting on here, but your detailed explanations are very informative.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)Which is the spin in another thread..
You think they'd be dizzy enough to pass out by now!
Gwhittey
(1,377 posts)On second thought no I could not Her SoS time was horrid and Iraq vote she did negates all good she might of done. How to make up for helping kills 1000s of Service men and 100,000s of Iraq people. I mean as a normal person I am sure the 150 million she and bill have cures any guilt.
MADem
(135,425 posts)I also think he should remember that as he sows, so shall he reap.
He needs an integrity calibration, IMO.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Anyone who would sneer at that accomplishment should be ignored.
MADem
(135,425 posts)He made it impossible to fire people who kill and injure vets in hospitals--and the White House and DOD and a growing number in Congress are seeing that the little poison pill he put in that bill has made the thing completely ineffective.
Wait times are still horrible, people are still cooking the books, and Obama ain't happy.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)
snowy owl
(2,145 posts)
FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)If so, BRAVO! for capturing it.
snowy owl
(2,145 posts)
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)This is a decent account:
Faith in Agency Clouded Bernie Sanders’s V.A. Response
By STEVE EDER and DAVE PHILIPPSFEB. 6, 2016
There were reports of secret waiting lists to hide long delays in care. Whistle-blowers said as many as 40 veterans had died waiting for appointments. And Congress was demanding answers.
Despite mounting evidence of trouble at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Senator Bernie Sanders, then the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, initially regarded the complaints as overblown, and as a play by conservatives to weaken one of the country’s largest social welfare institutions.
“There is, right now, as we speak, a concerted effort to undermine the V.A.,” Mr. Sanders said in May 2014, two weeks after the story was picked up by national news organizations. “You have folks out there now — Koch brothers and others — who want to radically change the nature of society, and either make major cuts in all of these institutions, or maybe do away with them entirely.”
But the scandal deepened: The secretary of veterans affairs resigned. Reports showed major problems at dozens of V.A. hospitals. And an Obama administration review revealed “significant and chronic systemic leadership failures” in the hospital system.
Mr. Sanders eventually changed course, becoming critical of the agency and ultimately joining with Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, and other colleagues to draft a bipartisan bill to try to fix the veterans health care waiting list.
Mr. Sanders’s chairmanship of the committee, his most notable leadership post in the Senate, has become a go-to credential in his upstart quest to win the Democratic nomination for president. He routinely boasts of praise from the largest veterans organizations, who lauded his fight to expand benefits. And he frequently speaks of how he helped devise the wait time fix and was able to “crack the gridlock” of Washington, as one of his campaign mailers put it.
But a review of his record in the job also shows that in a moment of crisis, his deep-seated faith in the fundamental goodness of government blinded him, at least at first, to a dangerous breakdown in the one corner of it he was supposed to police. Despite inspector general reports dating back a decade that documented a growing problem with wait times, Mr. Sanders, who had served on the committee for six years before he became its head, was quick to defend the agency and slow to aggressively question V.A. officials and demand accountability.
His major objective as chairman was to expand the menu of veterans benefits. It was an ambitious goal, and as with his proposals today for free public college and universal health care, many viewed it as unrealistic. The cost was so high that even Republicans who normally favor more aid for veterans blanched at the dollars involved — while fearing that more offerings would cause even longer waits at the overburdened V.A.
“His ideological perspective blurred his ability to recognize the operational reality of what was happening at the V.A.,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “The reality was that he was one of the last people to publicly recognize the gravity of the situation.”
The bill he ultimately helped write included a hard-fought $5 billion to hire more medical professionals, a provision Mr. Sanders favored. As a compromise, he agreed to a Republican provision to pay for veterans to get care outside the department. It was an approach that some Republican presidential candidates — and a veterans organization backed by the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch — want to expand on, but Mr. Sanders and others have long feared it as a step toward privatization and a shrinking of the agency.
“Bernie initially came out like this was a Republican attack and was extremely defensive about it,” said Dr. Sam Foote, one of the primary whistle-blowers who revealed the delays at the veterans hospital in Phoenix. He said Mr. Sanders’s “impulse is to stick up for the little guy — and the V.A. serves a lot of little guys.”
“But he is no dummy,” Dr. Foote said. “He quickly realized the V.A. was lying, and he turned right around and was all over them.”
In an interview last week, Mr. Sanders rejected the notion that he was slow to respond and lenient in his oversight, saying, “We did the very best that we could to make certain that veterans get the quality health care that they need.” Instead, he spoke of his chairmanship as a period of accomplishment, highlighted by the passage of what he called “the most comprehensive” veterans health care legislation in “many, many decades.”
But when Anderson Cooper of CNN asked him on Wednesday about why he did not act sooner to address the wait times, Mr. Sanders conceded, “We should have done better.”
A conscientious objector of the Vietnam War who later voted against the Iraq war, Mr. Sanders emerged as an unlikely partner of veterans organizations, a relationship that solidified when Democrats selected him to head the committee at the start of 2013. (Though he is an independent, he belongs to the Senate’s Democratic caucus.)
He began his term by calling in the major groups, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. “I said: ‘O.K., guys, what are the issues you are concerned with? How can we address them?’ ” he recalled.
Veterans advocates involved in those conversations said they were impressed.
“He’s just as you see him in the campaign,” said Garry Augustine, the executive director of Disabled American Veterans. “You sit down with him and he’ll lay it on the table and tells you what he’s thinking, and he wants to know what you are thinking.”
Not only was Mr. Sanders uncharacteristically approachable for a senator, they said, but in a time of mandatory budget cuts they found him willing to advocate expensive initiatives on their wish list, from restoring cuts to military pensions to expanding dental care and reproductive health options.
Mr. Sanders packaged the proposals into one 367-page “omnibus” bill, with an estimated cost of $21 billion over 10 years — a cost that would lead to its demise.
“It was everything that we in the veterans community had been working for — everything was in there,” said Diane Zumatto, the national legislative director with Amvets, who said it was ultimately “too much” and impractical. “It would never get passed because it was such a huge price tag,” she said.
The bill drew a puzzled reaction from Republican colleagues who found it overly expensive and who bemoaned what they viewed as a lack of compromise and a failure to adequately address the existing waits. In February 2014, the bill fell four votes short of the 60 needed to advance in the Senate. Only two Republicans voted for the bill.
Mr. Sanders was not happy. “If you think it is too expensive to take care of veterans, don’t send them to war,” he said at the time.
In the interview last week, Mr. Sanders still faulted the Republicans, but acknowledged shortcomings in how he built support for the legislation, his main priority of his first 14 months as chairman. “I take some of the responsibility for that,” he said, “that we did not rally the veterans community as strongly as we should to demand that that happen.”
Less than two months after Mr. Sanders’s legislation went down to defeat, the concerns over wait times engulfed the agency in the biggest scandal in its history.
The crisis was tipped off in April 2014 by reports that staff members at the veterans hospital in Phoenix were so overwhelmed that they created off-the-books waiting lists to hide delays in care that stretched for months, while top leaders collected bonuses for meeting scheduling goals.
In the months leading up to the revelations, Mr. Sanders’s counterpart on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Representative Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican, had taken a tough tack, holding repeated hearings on the delays and calling for a congressional investigation.
Mr. Sanders held a hearing in mid-May, after the scandal broke, at which he implored colleagues to resist a rush to judgment. He devoted a significant portion of the session to asking each veterans’ organization testifying whether the hospital system provided good care. All agreed it did.
In a CNN interview, Mr. Sanders defended the V.A. so vehemently that the interviewer interjected: “Is it fair to say you sound like a lawyer defending the hospital, instead of a senator trying to make sure the right thing is done?”
In the interview last week, Mr. Sanders said he had been dismayed with “the constant bashing of the V.A.” in the news media at the time, prompting him to focus on what he saw as the merits of the health care system.
“I think by and large most V.A. facilities provide pretty good health care to our veterans,” he said.
During the crisis, Mr. Sanders did support the commencement of an inspector general investigation, which later found manipulation to hide long waits was “systemic throughout” the V.A.
Republicans on his committee, though, were growing impatient, and they wrote Mr. Sanders to demand more hearings, which they said they had been requesting since he began his chairmanship. In the first 17 months, they said, he held “only seven oversight hearings, which did not even begin to address the issues facing the department.” The letter noted that Mr. Sanders had not responded to their earlier requests for hearings.
Mr. Sanders said in the interview that he was deeply engaged in the troubles of the V.A., calling the waiting lists and deceit “an outrage and unacceptable.”
“We had a number of hearings,” Mr. Sanders said.
He said the high marks he had received from major veterans groups showed that key constituents felt he “was doing a very good job.”
In the following months, Mr. Sanders negotiated legislation to fix the V.A., working with Mr. McCain, as well as Mr. Miller on the House side, on what became a $16 billion package that passed with bipartisan support.
The final bill, Mr. Sanders said, included remnants of his earlier “omnibus” legislation.
And a central feature of the legislation, inserted by Republicans, was that veterans who had long waits or lived far from V.A. treatment could use a “Choice Card” to seek care from an outside physician.
Mr. McCain and Mr. Miller, in a call with reporters last fall, said Mr. Sanders had a stronger record on veterans than his rival, Hillary Clinton. “Bernie Sanders worked very hard when he was chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee,” Mr. McCain said. “He and I had many disagreements, but we were able to come together, finally, after very spirited discussions.”
In stump speeches and debates, Mr. Sanders has touted those talks and the eventual law as a signature achievement of his two years as the committee chairman. He lost the position when Republicans took control of the Senate in the 2014 elections.
The law, meanwhile, has proved to be an underwhelming fix: Wait times, the V.A. acknowledged last summer, were increasing.
Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jonathan Martin contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/us/politics/faith-in-agency-clouded-bernie-sanderss-va-response.html?_r=0
Additionally, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) received the VFW Congressional Award 2015
Veteran of Foreign Wars
http://www.vfw.org/DC2015/
MADem
(135,425 posts)fooked up. Big time.
He did not do due diligence over TWO YEARS in charge of a Senate Committee.
He failed in his duty.
He finally got off his ass after the frigging REPUBLICANS over in the House (his former colleagues) --who don't give a shit about anyone unless they can get votes out of pretending to care--SHAMED him into doing something.
He messed up. As Dick Cheney sez: BIG TIME.
Someone applying for the job as leader of the free world should not be "blinded" in his duties running a relatively minor committee, big picture--this is a guy who is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME:
“His ideological perspective blurred his ability to recognize the operational reality of what was happening at the V.A.,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “The reality was that he was one of the last people to publicly recognize the gravity of the situation.”
As someone who is an actual veteran of foreign wars, the VFW does not speak for me.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Your inflated condemnation versus a primary whistle blower? People can make up there
own mind, considering how close Dr. Foote was to the issue, I'll take his word for it
over yours.
VFW speaks for the group, not individuals....obviously they are more than pleased
with Sanders efforts and work.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Are you saying the founder of IAVA speaks for "individuals?"
Yeah--if those individuals are formed into a group called the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)As I said, they do speak for their group..thus the award to Bernie.
Dr. Foote was not giving Bernie a pass, he's just not inflating his faults as you are.
IAVA does not endorse any candidate and they had no flattering comments
for your candidate:
Updated 6:40 PM ET, Mon October 26, 2015 | Video Source: CNN
Washington (CNN)Some veterans groups are firing back after a comment Hillary Clinton made about the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal. The former secretary of state suggested in an interview late last week that the controversy which shook the VA last year was overblown, and Republicans used it to serve their own agenda.
"It's not been as widespread as it has been made out to be," Clinton said Friday on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" when asked about the scandal and how she would fix the VA.
Yet the federal government's own report contradicts Clinton's remarks.
The VA's inspector general concluded inappropriate scheduling practices at VA medical centers were "systemic" in 2014, after a CNN investigation revealed veterans were dying while waiting for care on "secret" lists at the Phoenix VA. The scandal led to the resignation of then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.
Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, or IAVA, called her comments a "head-scratcher" firing off this response on Twitter.
"That is not a winning argument -- or factually correct," he said.
Clinton also said surveys of veterans show many are satisfied with VA healthcare, but she added, "Nobody would believe that from the coverage that you see, and the constant berating of the VA that comes from the Republicans, in part in pursuit of this ideological agenda that they have."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/26/politics/veterans-group-va-hillary-clinton/
MADem
(135,425 posts)He's avoided scrutiny as to how badly he fucked up to this point--I think, since the gloves are off, that that needs to change. People need to know exactly how shitty a steward he was of veterans' concerns, while they waited in line and many died waiting.
It's on HIS head. His job was OVERSIGHT and he failed at it. He only got off his ass when the shitheads over in the HOUSE screamed that he wasn't doing his job.
By any measure his "leadership" on this issue can only be called INCOMPETENT.
This isn't "Clinton v. Sanders" so stop with the reframing. If Clinton had been in charge of that committee, she would have done the work. She wasn't IN Congress when Sanders was failing to lead.
It was his job--and he did not do it.
Dr Foote, a whistle blower is well placed to judge him and he nor any veterans group is calling for
Bernie's head as you're attempting.
I posted the veterans group you're relying on and their comments about Hillary b/c
its a group who is rightly concerned about how the candidates will treat them and
clearly they're concerned about Hillary as well and the problems of the VA.
The veterans groups that are behind Bernie believe he is best for their interests
going forward.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Sanders was INCOMPETENT in his duties--and now people are noticing.
Which is good. Let's shine a little light on something he did while he was screwing around, screwing up, and screwing OVER veterans:
[font color="red" size="15" face="face"]
Bernie Sanders' Senate work at the heart of VA's latest woes
[/font]
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/election/2016/02/18/sanders-va-firing-problems/80506664/
One major reason the Veterans Affairs Department can't fire troublesome employees: Bernie Sanders.
The Obama administration is moving to undo the Democratic presidential candidate’s past work as Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee chairman in an effort to clean up the department, considering a change in employment rules for VA executives that Sanders fought for vigorously just two years ago.
In recent weeks, the VA has seen a host of job actions against senior employees overturned by the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent, “quasi-judicial” agency that serves as arbiter on a number of federal worker cases. They include the demotion of two VA executives accused of gaming the department’s hiring system for personal benefit, and the dismissal of a New York VA director over patient safety concerns.
The appeals fight has grown into an escalating intra-administration showdown between VA leaders, who call the decisions off-base, and protection board officials, who blame bad legislative changes for the unsatisfactory rulings.....
I think the "best interest" of vets is keeping Bernie Sanders away from any decisions that impact their health care. He'd rather protect incompetent senior executives and union members than protect the vets those people are supposed to serve.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)and it also included the veterans group you're relying on as well. I take his word
over yours...I have no reason to doubt him...he was not excusing Bernie's
error.
None of the veterans group supporting Bernie agree with your assessment, if
they did they would not be supporting him. This is a fact you refuse to reconcile
with but it does explain your inflated condemnation.
MADem
(135,425 posts)If you think that most vets who use VA facilities like or appreciate Sanders, I have a bridge to sell you.
His name is mud with them. That's not "inflated condemnation"--that's fact. And that is why the Obama administration is working to undo the shit law he passed, where he cares more about the union members killing the vets with incompetence than the vets themselves.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)him, including their representative groups. 9 million vets use the VA, you have a link
with definitive percents of those who support Bernie and those who don't? No, you
do not.
When a primary whistle blower is not accusing Bernie of the nonsense you are,
you've left yourself out in the cold and paired with said veterans groups support,
as I said, you're no where.
MADem
(135,425 posts)so much, using HIS CHAIRMANSHIP as an example of HIS "leadership." It's all HIM when he's pumping himself up, and it's all WE--spread that blame around--when HE didn't do his due diligence.
"We could have done better" is an understatement in the extreme.
And that's why the Obama administration is working overtime to undo the bullshit he created at the VA, making it impossible to fire "union" members who do things like use unclean surgical equipment on vets, and senior executives that don't show up for work and don't oversee their lying, cheating employees.
The GOP hasn't even started vetting him. They'd take him to church on that one, alone. A swift-boating would be gentle by comparison.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)conclusions. Considering how close they were to the situation good luck with your
approach...so far Sanders has ample support from veterans.
MADem
(135,425 posts)mess that Berrrrnie made over at the VA.
Uh huh~!
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/11/at-the-va-same-old-story-for-veterans-facing-long-wait-times
http://www.disabledveterans.org/2016/03/31/massive-veterans-choice-program-fix-on-horizon/
http://www.disabledveterans.org/2015/10/06/news-coverage-of-veterans-choice-debacle-wins-emmy/
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)I get how much that pains you, the veterans and their groups supporting him
and awarding him.. they just don't see him as you do.
MADem
(135,425 posts)But keep pretending they matter.
Watch Bernie defend the "status quo"--what an "establishment" kind of guy:
SANDERS: The answer is you make a very good point, and that is exactly one of the questions that I'll be asking Secretary Shinseki today.
But in terms of these accusations, one of the things, I think, Chris, that we don't want to do is get out in front of ourselves. The truth of the matter is that the V.A. is now -- that the inspector general of the V.A., an independent entity, is now investigating what took place in Phoenix.
And we do not know what took place in Phoenix. The allegations may be correct. They may not be correct. And that's what we're looking at right now.
CUOMO: Why do you not trust the CNN reporting that Drew Griffin and his team did on this? When they talk about the 40 people, the deadly delays, how -- the way the process is run and the waiting game is played, wound up costing lives?
SANDERS: OK. Can I read you a quote?
CUOMO: Please.
SANDERS: All right. This is what CNN said on April 30th.
"At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix veterans affairs health care system, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list," end of quote.
A few days later, this is what CNN said. "Now with Dr. Foote" -- and Dr. Foote is the doctor who made the allegations -- "what Dr. Foote and others have told us is that of the many, many people on that list, all veterans, 40 of them have since passed away.
The allegation is not that the delay in care caused that, only that that is what is now being investigated. Did the delay in care of these people on the secret waiting list actually cause these deaths? We don't know. But that is what the office of inspector general is, in fact, investigating.
CUOMO: Is it unfair criticism, Senator, to see -- you sound like a lawyer defending the hospital as opposed to a senator trying to make sure the right thing is done.
SANDERS: That is exactly what I want, Chris. I want the right thing to do. The second statement is exactly correct. We don't know.
And that's why we have -- why the V.A. has asked an inspector general to investigate that. The first statement is not correct.
CUOMO: Hold on a second. Senator, with all due respect, we don't know that the first statement is not correct. You're saying you don't have the proof of it being correct to your satisfaction.
This doctor felt that it was correct. And you don't know that it isn't correct.
SANDERS: No. What the second statement said is we don't know.
CUOMO: No, the second statement says we know that they're dead. You're saying you want to connect the dots better. That's fair pushback, but it's not that we know it's incorrect.
SANDERS: We know that people die every day. We don't know why they die. Anyhow, Chris, I don't want to argue that point until the cows come home.
Here's what you've got. You've got a system that by and large, I think, works reasonably well for veterans. I think you've got 300,000 employees out there, many of whom who are veterans themselves who are trying to do their best. You've got cutting-edge stuff in terms of telehealth, complimentary and alternative medicine.
There are problems, and we have got to get at those problems. But we need the facts to lead us to where we want to go.
CUOMO: I hear you, Senator. And you know that it's not my motivation just to kind of cherry-pick and to try to do yellow journalism on this. There is heightened sensitivity because these are the men and women that we've promised the best to.
SANDERS: Absolutely.
CUOMO: And we have to ensure that. Of course there are always endemic problems with health care. We know that story all too well. But it gets a little bit of a bad feeling here about what the motivation is for these hearings, whether it's to defend the V.A. or to do the hard truth of accountability and make change.
SANDERS: OK. Good question. This hearing is to look at V.A. health care. What I have said, Chris -- and I'll say it again -- the day after the inspector general completes its investigation -- I don't know if it's the day after -- but as soon as possible, we will do hearings. What today's hearing is about is to look at the quality of V.A. health care. What are the problems? And as you have indicated, there are problems. And the major problem I think is what you just touched on. There have been reports year after year about waiting lists.
Has the V.A. effectively dealt with that? I don't think so.
There is another issue. When you have waiting lists, may it simply be that the V.A. doesn't have enough doctors and nurses and staff. Are we putting enough money into the V.A.? Is the V.A. appropriating its resources appropriately? Are there some places in the country where, in fact, you may have too much staff and other places where the V.A. population is growing where we don't have enough staff? Those are some of the questions that I think we need to explore.
CUOMO: You have not mentioned the secretary, Senator. Do you believe that the secretary has done his job to date?
SANDERS: I think by and large under very difficult circumstances, Secretary Shinseki has done a good job. I think where he is very, very weak is in terms of communication. I think he does not a good job in communicating with the congress or certainly with the American people and the media.....
http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1405/15/nday.05.html
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)support. Sorry, they do not agree with you in the majority you would like to believe.
MADem
(135,425 posts)His callous disregard for veterans and his inattention to his duties would make a superb 30 second spot. He was a shitty chairman--they should pull him off that committee.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)who gave him the award in 2015 who don't agree with you. He has a great deal of support
and that includes the people who recognized the errors but still do not share your bombastic
contempt for him..so you're different that way.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/06/27/bernie-sanders-surge-partly-fueled-veterans/e1qNTpzFpIaoxIGKygKa9J/story.html
MADem
(135,425 posts)If you kept up, and read the links, you'd realize that. That's why there WILL be new legislation to repair the mess he perpetuated, protecting the abusers and incompetents, rather than helping the vets.
smh~!
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)the whistle blower to the veterans groups.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Answer: Because his "fix" had a poison pill in it. He failed in his duty.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Why you believe that will change is mere speculation...so far they like him,
even the primary whistle blower..guess he knows how to judge the problem.
Evidently veterans support Bernie regardless of what further work needs
to be done..sorry that disappoints you.