Happy Veteran's Day!

This got such a positive response last year I am going to replay this song:

Happy Veterans Day to all the vets out there!  Thank you for your honorable service, with the exception of one who's actions on Sept 6, 2014 were less than honorable.

The United States government has a long history of treating it's veterans poorly

From USHistory.gov

Many in America wondered if the nation would survive.
Although the United States had little history of massive social upheaval or coup attempts against the government, hunger has an ominous way of stirring those passions among any population. As bread riots and shantytowns grew in number, many began to seek alternatives to the status quo. Demonstrations in the nation's capital increased, as Americans grew increasingly weary with President Hoover's perceived inaction. The demonstration that drew the most national attention was the Bonus Army march of 1932. In 1924, Congress rewarded veterans of World War I with certificates redeemable in 1945 for $1,000 each. By 1932, many of these former servicemen had lost their jobs and fortunes in the early days of the Depression. They asked Congress to redeem their Bonus certificates early.

 Led by Walter Waters of Oregon, the so-called Bonus Expeditionary Force set out for the nation's capital. Hitching rides, hopping trains, and hiking finally brought the Bonus Army, now 15,000 strong, into the capital in June 1932. Although President Hoover refused to address them, the veterans did find an audience with a congressional delegation. Soon a debate began in the Congress over whether to meet the demonstrators' demands.

As deliberation continued on Capitol Hill, the Bonus Army built a shantytown across the Potomac River in Anacostia Flats. When the Senate rejected their demands on June 17, most of the veterans dejectedly returned home. But several thousand remained in the capital with their families. Many had nowhere else to go. The Bonus Army conducted itself with decorum and spent their vigil unarmed.

 However, many believed them a threat to national security. On June 28, Washington police began to clear the demonstrators out of the capital. Two men were killed as tear gas and bayonets assailed the Bonus Marchers. Fearing rising disorder, Hoover ordered an army regiment into the city, under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur. The army, complete with infantry, cavalry, and tanks, rolled into Anacostia Flats forcing the Bonus Army to flee. MacArthur then ordered the shanty settlements burned.
Many Americans were outraged. How could the army treat veterans of the Great War with such disrespect?

Hoover maintained that political agitators, anarchists, and communists dominated the mob. But facts contradict his claims. Nine out of ten Bonus Marchers were indeed veterans, and 20% were disabled. Despite the fact that the Bonus Army was the largest march on Washington up to that point in history, Hoover and MacArthur clearly overestimated the threat posed to national security. As Hoover campaigned for reelection that summer, his actions turned an already sour public opinion of him even further bottomward.
America sank deeper in Depression.

So all the people bitching about Eric Shineski, shut the fuck up!  I believe he should have stepped down earlier but I'm sick of all the rightwingers who think Obama disrespects the troops.

Sarah Palin is the real death panel

Last week ole Skanky went on Sean Hannity's show for her usual Obama bashing:

When you hold someone accountable, it takes energy and resource, and Barack Obama is lazy," Palin said on Fox News' Hannity. "In fact, he warned us that he was lazy, and he attributed that to having been brought up in Hawaii. It’s his words, not mine."

 The problem starts at the top. And when you have a commander in chief who has not been engaged and was told six years ago about the problems at the VA and has just pooh-poohed the problems,” she said, a reference to a recent CBS News report that the Obama-Biden presidential transition team in 2008 received a document from VA officials saying department problems were “systemic.”

HOWEVER!

Sarah Palin was much more lazier than President Obama:

From ADN.com

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements.

No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In the meantime, frail and vulnerable Alaskans who desperately need the help are struggling. One elderly woman is stuck in a nursing home, for lack of care at home. Another woman, suffering from chronic pain and fatigue, said she's so weak, she often can't even pop dinner into the microwave.

The moratorium is expected to last four or five months. State officials estimate about 1,000 Alaskans will be affected.

A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help.

The programs at issue provide in-home help for thousands of Alaskans with the basics of life, from medication to meals. The goal is to help people stay in their own homes rather than go into nursing homes or other institutions.

The services are paid for by Medicaid, the state-federal health program for the poor and the disabled, and overseen by the state Division of Senior and Disabilities Services. Individuals qualify based on income and need. Private contractors do most of the work. The programs cost about $250 million this year, with the federal government currently paying 61 percent of the bill.

Two broad categories of programs are at issue: One, providing just personal care, serves 3,200 people and the other, with a broader range of services including home health care, helps about 3,800 through what are known as Medicaid waivers. Some clients get help through both types of program.

Division officials on Tuesday acknowledged serious problems, including a backlog of about 2,000 people waiting for a nurse assessment to determine what services they need. They said fixes are coming.
People in the programs are well served, the officials say, once they are signed up for services. They claim it's mainly a paperwork and documentation problem.
"We do believe that quality care is happening in Alaska. Our system for getting that information is not well established. That's what we have to fix," said Rebecca Hilgendorf, director of senior and disabilities services.

One person waiting for her assessment is 80-year-old Esteen Knights-Thomas, who has been at 
 Providence Extended Care most of the last month. She is recovering from an incident in Pennsylvania when her legs were scarred by acid from a strong insecticide used in her rented apartment, her daughter said.

Knights-Thomas said Providence is very nice, but "I would rather be at home with somebody helping me."

For one, she'd like to eat what she wants. "Here you can't do that. You have to eat what they give you," said Knights-Thomas, who also is blind in one eye.

Her daughter La Verne Jones, 60, can't provide the care herself. She can barely get around, suffers from a rare eye disease, and is overdue for a hip replacement. She was approved for personal care services before the moratorium, but that help can't extend to her mother.

In March, the state told officials with the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services about the huge backlog of people waiting to be evaluated.

"That was the first red flag that went up for us, that something was going on there that was not meeting our expectations," said Mary Kahn, a spokeswoman for the federal agency.

"Rather than continue to let the state admit more and more people into what we believe has been a poorly managed system, we just said hold the phone, we're going to try to find other ways to serve these people," Kahn said. "And we're going to stop enrollment in this program because we are quite concerned."

State officials said some private agencies in Alaska provide similar services through grant funding. But advocates say those services are very limited.

Another sign of trouble for the feds: eight lawsuits against the state division.

Most were brought by the Northern Justice Project, a private civil rights firm created in 2006 to pursue class action suits and other big cases.

"I think the lawsuits reflect that these two programs are and have been run incompetently for some time," said Jim Davis, one of the partners and founders of the justice project.

The common thread in the suits is that seniors and disabled Alaskans aren't getting the services they are entitled to, under the law, Davis said. In one big win, the state Supreme Court ruled last year that the state had improperly cut off or reduced services to more than 1,000 needy people.
State officials say they are trying to settle those lawsuits.

As to the backlog, most of the people waiting for an assessment already are getting services but are overdue for their annual check by a nurse to see if they need more or less help, state officials said.

An earlier attempt to reform the personal care assistance program may have inadvertently created some of the current trouble. After costs soared from $8 million a year in fiscal 2000 to $80 million five years later, the Legislature ordered the state Department of Health and Social Services to control the spending. The state eventually decided to hire its own nurses to determine who needed how much care. The cost of that program dropped.

But a nationwide nursing shortage means about 40 percent of the nurse positions stay vacant, hence the backlog, said Marcy Rein, chief of programs for senior and disabilities services.

The state now is looking into allowing other types of professionals, including clinical social workers, to do the assessments -- something the feds say it should have already done.

State officials say a new project manager starts work Thursday to oversee improvements. They also are working to update the division's data collection system.

Doctors and other health care providers wrote to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid with concerns that the state wasn't responsive. Some alleged that the lack of state controls "has resulted in the death(s) of the active clients," the federal review said.

While the people served are frail and suffer from chronic health issues, the state never investigated to determine if any failure in service contributed to the deaths, the federal review found.

"Thus, if someone passed away because a (personal care assistant) did not show up, for example, there was no indication this would have been reported or investigated," the report said.

The state plans to start doing fatality reviews.

Davis, the attorney who has brought many of the suits, said he doesn't believe people are dying because of poor quality care or abuse. While the state doesn't allow as many hours of care as people need, he said, the care itself is good. The multitude of private contractors makes the field competitive, and clients can switch providers if they aren't satisfied, he said.

Federal officials conducted their "focused review" in May and notified Health and Social Services Commissioner Bill Hogan of the moratorium in a June 26 letter.

What do you say Sarah!

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2009/07/14/864670/troubled-alaska-health-programs.html#storylink=cpy

Sarah Palin forgets the facts and blames President Obama over the VA scandal

From Sarah's Fecebook

No Problem With Death Panels, Not Even a Smidgen

Let’s take a stroll down “death panel” memory lane. Here are just a few excerpts for you to draw your own conclusions.

My Facebook Post on August 7, 2009:

“And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

Politifact declared my statement “Lie of the Year.” August 10, 2009, is their first claim:

“We agree with Palin that such a system would be evil. But it's definitely not what President Barack Obama or any other Democrat has proposed.”

Hot Air yesterday, May 15, 2014:

“VA Secretary Eric Shinseki declared himself ‘mad as hell’ over the allegations of wait-list fraud in Phoenix, where 40 veterans passed away before accessing medical assistance while the office falsified records.”

Daily Caller yesterday, May 15, 2014:

“When individuals receive care through the VA, it becomes the only payer and hence, the only decision-maker. The VA decides who gets care, when, and how much. Moreover, as the single payer, the VA bears the risk of loss: If tax dollars aren’t enough to pay for the care demanded, there’s only one result —rationing of care.”

Again, remember what the influential (to other sheep in their leftist herd anyway) Politifact wrote about this “Lie of the Year”:

“We agree with Palin that such a system would be evil. But it's definitely not what President Barack Obama or any other Democrat has proposed.”

Las Vegas Sun on August 10, 2013:

“[Senator Harry] Reid said he thinks the country has to ‘work our way past’ insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program Nevada Week in Review. ‘What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,’ Reid said. When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it [by moving to a single-payer system instead], Reid said: ‘Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.’”

And Barack Obama himself warned he wanted single-payer! June 30, 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care plan.”

Obama repeatedly warned America: http://youtu.be/Kvg8qVKZYuM. So, media, your average Joe Six Pack American (i.e. me) caught those warnings, and YOU didn’t? Riiight.

I love this American Awakening when finally more voters can’t say they weren’t warned. Stamped with the media’s “Lie of the Year”, I had the sticky label on my back for years used as convenient “proof” that commonsense conservatives just don’t know what we’re talking about. Denouncing from the Orwellian Left and a squishy Right ensued. But the truth stares us in the face and pocketbook, especially as we see the unworkable Obamacare.

What happens next is the Left will subtly suggest moving America toward a single-payer system, which was their intention all along. Watch for this gradual, but driving, descent into statism.

So, are you still relying on Obamacare to help and not hurt you? On the Democrat’s watch, health care in the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats proves Reagan’s adage that government is not the solution; government is the problem.

And speaking of the VA scandal, we’ve seen how Obama merely gives lip service to his bureaucrats “investigating” his bureaucracy, so don’t be surprised if he finds nothing wrong in the government’s VA health system – “NOT EVEN A SMIDGEN”!

Who the hell says smidgen and statism?

Anyways for starters I agree this is a serious scandal and needs to be dealt with aggressively and Eric Shineski should be fired over his lax response to it.

But....

This has been going on since at least 2008, when Dumbya was still in office:

Before Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, documents released by the Department of Veterans Affairs said it expected a maximum of 8,000 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.

However, according to a study released last year by the RAND Institute, there are more than 320,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars suffering from major depression, PTSD and/or traumatic brain injury. The report found that the VA has been and continues to be ill-equipped to deal with these cases when soldiers return from combat, especially after multiple tours.

Of the 84,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by VA, only half, about 42,000, had their disability claim approved by VA. Instead of expediting PTSD claims, Bush's political appointees at VA actively fought against mental health claims. 

In early 2007, the Washington Post put a spotlight on the human consequences resulting from the combination of Bush’s wars and the budget squeeze.

The Post published a series of articles documenting the substandard conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which is located only 4.7 miles from the White House. Wounded vets were housed in rooms with moldy walls, leaky plumage and an infestation of vermin, underscoring how out of touch Bush had become regarding the nation’s veterans. (Remember Skanky)

Even after Nicholson’s resignation, the Department of Veterans Affairs continued to be buffeted by scandals, including a cover-up in an epidemic of veterans’ suicides and attempted suicides.

Last year, internal VA e-mails surfaced that showed how top agency officials tried to conceal the information from the public about the sudden increase in suicides and attempted suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around the country.

And last November, internal watchdogs discovered 500 benefits claims in shredding bins at the 41 of the 57 regional VA offices around the country.

And get a load of this:

On any given night 200,000 U.S. veterans sleep homeless on the streets of America. One out of every four people -- and one out of every three men -- sleeping in a car, in front of a shop door, or under a freeway overpass has worn a military uniform. Some like Brantley have been on the streets for years. Others are young and women returning home wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan, quickly slipping through the cracks.

So Skanky quit pretending you care because you don't.  You don't care about the Nigerian girls anymore than you care about our troops.  Instead of offering solutions you attack the president.  You hate President Obama more than you love your country.  Treasonous cunt you are.

A tribute to our veterans

Thank you to all the veterans:

American Revolution
War of 1812
Mexican American War
Civil War
Spanish-American War
World War I
World War II
Korean War
Vietnam
Iraq War I
War on terror (Iraq and Afghanistan)
Peacetime

Sarah's AIP colors shine through

From Color Lines

 Over the weekend, a gaggle of Tea Party enthusiasts in trucker hats and veterans gear descended upon the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. for a rally to protest Obamacare, though at times it sounded like they were protesting President Obama himself.

One of the speakers was Larry Klayman, an attorney who founded Judicial Watch, a conservative legal non-profit that teamed with True the Vote last year to sue states that didn’t aggressively purge voters from rolls. Klayman, who now works with another conservative nonprofit called FreedomWatch, called for the crowd to engage in “a second American nonviolent revolution” using “civil disobedience” to demand that Obama “leave town.”

He called for Obama “to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, the Tea Party leader from Texas, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin were also at the rally, which moved from the World War II Memorial to the White House. Photos from the rally showing one protestor waving a Confederate Flag has circulated heavily across Twitter and other social networks.

Sarah Palin committed treason and sedition by hanging out with these assholes.  Arrest her!  So did Ted Cruz but he's Canadian.

Calling for a revolution is what the AIP stands for.  And you all know that Sarah has been in bed with the AIP for years.

President Obama signs veterans job bill into law

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now this is supporting our troops and veterans!

Reason #63 not to vote for Sarah Palin for anything

She invites herself to events she is not welcome at.

From MSNBC

WASHINGTON — One day after Sarah Palin announced her bus tour, a group sponsoring a Memorial Day weekend event she plans to attend said they never invited her.

"She wasn't invited. We heard yesterday she came out with a press release she was coming to Rolling Thunder," Ted Shpak, national legislative director of Rolling Thunder, told "Andrea Mitchell Reports." Shpak is one of three members of Rolling Thunder's current leadership who says he had no idea Palin was coming until it was posted on her website.

Also at the rally, she uses her fake teleprompter.  Memo to Sarah: It's not cute anymore!

Acts like a slut:

Shoves a guy out of the way so she can talk to a reporter:

She and Todd were not wearing their wedding rings again, and Ted Shpak was not pleased that she upstaged the rally and jumped in front of the motorcycle line.

She also wore heels on a motorcycle. WTF!