Tag Archives: veterans

Some Things To Be Aware Of

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Kamala Harris’ choice of Tim Walz for her Vice-Presidential nominee is an interesting choice. The mainstream media is touting Walz as a long-serving veteran of the National Guard, but there is other information indicating that his service did not necessarily end as indicated in his publicity information.

On August 8, Red State posted an article detailing some of the problems with Tim Walz using his military service as a positive talking point.

The article notes:

The media has been torn over the subject. CNN debunked Walz’s claims that he served in combat (see Even CNN Torches Tim Walz in Blistering Fact Check About Carrying Weapon ‘In War’ – RedState). But the preponderance of evidence is beginning to indicate that Walz himself portrayed his service as duty in combat. A Bloomberg profile posted the day of Walz’s announcement specifically says that Walz served in Iraq. It has since been edited with no explanation of how the error came to be (see NEW: The Tim Walz Stolen Valor Scandal Just Got Much Worse Following Bombshell Report – RedState).

The Harris campaign has sought to minimize Walz’s lack of manliness by denigrating JD Vance’s service in the US Marine Corps in Anbar Province, Iraq. A top Harris surrogate claimed that Vance had not served in the military; see Top Harris Surrogate’s Claim About Vance’s Military Service Is So Disgusting Jim Acosta Has to Jump In – RedState and Harris and Walz Using the ‘Big Lie’ With No Media Pushback Portends a Very Ugly Campaign – RedState.

It is pretty obvious that Walz left the National Guard to avoid being deployed. A lot of people did that. It is not unusual. The problem in Walz’s case has to do with his role in his unit. One of the lessons learned in Vietnam was that units that were deployed intact had a better success rate than units where individuals were swapped out as individuals. Unit continuity is an important part of success, and units that trained together and deployed together generally had better survival rates. Walz was the top non-commissioned officer in his unit, and the unit depended on his leadership. When he left abruptly after saying he would stay, he left a large vacuum. That is a problem the most veterans will acknowledge. Whether or not they will vote for him I don’t know, but it is a problem.

Please follow the link to the article for further illustrations of the media attempting to put a lot of lipstick on a pig.

This Should Anger Every American

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On July 18th, Military.com reported the following:

The Department of Veterans Affairs expects to be nearly $15 billion short of what it needs to pay for benefits and health care this year and next, in part because more veterans are using VA services than expected, officials told Congress this week.

An increase in benefits claims driven by the PACT Act could leave VA benefits accounts $2.9 billion short this year. Meanwhile, health care accounts could be nearly $12 billion short next year because of higher-than-expected staffing and prescription drug costs, among other factors.

In a statement Thursday morning, the VA said it is working with the White House and Congress to address the budget shortfalls in a way that doesn’t harm veterans.

The article also notes:

Congress has yet to approve government funding for fiscal 2025, meaning lawmakers could still allocate more than the VA requested, but they also would have to reach a bipartisan agreement to ignore the previously approved budget caps.

The budget request anticipated that there would be a staffing cut of about 10,000 employees in the Veterans Health Administration. But the agency now expects to have about 20,000 more employees than the budget projected for next year, which is about 5,000 more than there are right now, according to the slideshow.

Pharmacy and prosthetic costs for next year could also be about $4 billion higher than expected if they follow the same trends in price increases as this year, the slideshow said.

More veterans using community care is also a factor in the budget shortfall, the VA said in the slideshow. The community care program allows veterans to see doctors outside the department using VA funding. The department had originally projected a 12% increase in community care costs next year, but now foresees a 16.5% increase.

Let’s remember where some of these cost increases come from. In December 2023, I reported the following (here) (here):

When an illegal immigrant under ICE detention requires healthcare, they are typically treated on-site by medical professionals. However, if specialist or emergency care is required, they may be transported to an independent private provider.

In such cases, ICE contracts with the VA’s Financial Service Center (VA-FSC) to process reimbursements to those providers. According to a report from July, ICE has hundreds of letters of understanding in which ICE’s Health Service Corps (IHSC) will reimburse providers at Medicare rates. That uses the VA-FSC’s Healthcare Claims Processing System — a portal that allows providers to submit and view claims and access other resources.

When you add administrative oversight to something new, it increases the cost. The Biden administration and much of the current Congress are not veteran’s friends. We owe our veterans a whole lot more than we owe people who are here illegally.

What Are They Thinking?

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On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about a planned apartment complex in Brunswick, Maine.

The article reports:

Residents of a Maine town have hit out at the $13million construction of a complex of 60 apartments for asylum seekers, where they can live rent free for two years then pay a fraction of the rental price. 

Locals in Brunswick have expressed fury over the project, which is being funded by a mix of private and public money and which has been heavily criticized by Donald Trump Jr. 

The apartment complex in Brunswick is one of the many projects being launched by the town in what critics have labeled a ‘Taj Mahal’, red-carpet welcome for asylum seekers.  

There are currently 180 apartments in the Brunswick Landing complex available for anyone to rent. A one bedroom unit costs $1,800 a month, while a two-bedroom costs $2,300 a month. 

The new buildings for asylum seekers will allow residents to live rent-free for up to two years while they obtain work permits. 

Then, if they obtain a job that pays half of the average local salary of $60,000, they will only have to pay a third of the rental price. It boils down to a monthly cost of around $500 for a one bedroom, and $690 for a two bedroom. 

The article continues:

“Up in this part of the world, and up in Maine, they are giving illegal immigrants free housing — multi-million dollar free housing, while they’re kicking out veterans in the street,’ he said in a news clip shared by the conservative Maine Wire. ‘I mean, what’s going on?’ 

Maine has a population of around 1.3 million people and has recently struggled to deal with a rise in migrants. In Portland, city officials said they received more than 1,600 asylum seekers last year.

But for the 23 families who have already moved into the complex, the facilities are a lifeline. 

Among those benefitting is a woman from Nigeria named Esther, who described the accommodation as ‘life changing’.

She moved into the complex after being moved between hotels and shelters.

‘In [a] hotel, there are rules and regulations,’ Esther told News Center Maine. ‘In a shelter too, we have so many people. We share the kitchen together. We share the restroom together.’ 

Scott Thistle, a spokesperson for MaineHousing, told FOX23 that fewer than  percent of the $1.24 billion the agency has allocated in the last two years was for asylum seeker-specific housing.

Let’s take care of our veterans and Americans struggling with finances first.

Veterans Take Note!

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If you are a veteran, the Biden administration is not your friend. At least the Trump administration made some attempt to clean up the problems in the Veterans’ Administration (VA) health system. The Biden administration is working hard to make it worse.

On Friday, Fox News reported:

A long-standing arrangement between the Department of Veterans Affairs and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to process claims for migrant medical care is drawing scrutiny from veterans’ advocates — who are concerned that it could affect the agency’s mission of caring for veterans — amid an ongoing border crisis and existing complaints about the care delivered to veterans.

“I’d like to understand why the VA is involved,” Russ Duerstine, executive director of Concerned Veterans for America and a veteran of the United States Air Force, told Fox News Digital.

When an illegal immigrant under ICE detention requires healthcare, they are typically treated on-site by medical professionals. However, if specialist or emergency care is required, they may be transported to an independent private provider.

In such cases, ICE contracts with the VA’s Financial Service Center (VA-FSC) to process reimbursements to those providers. According to a report from July, ICE has hundreds of letters of understanding in which ICE’s Health Service Corps (IHSC) will reimburse providers at Medicare rates. That uses the VA-FSC’s Healthcare Claims Processing System — a portal that allows providers to submit and view claims and access other resources.

The article notes that although the VA plays a role, it does not provide or fund any health care services to individuals detained in [ICE] custody. At no time are any VA health care professionals or VA funds used for this purpose. So why then is the VA even involved?

The article also notes:

Darin Selnick, who served as veterans’ affairs adviser on the Domestic Policy Council during the Trump administration and also as a senior adviser to the VA secretary, said the arrangement was also a surprise to him and others he knew who served during the administration. He believes it would have been stopped if it was more widely known among officials.

“In my position, we would have stopped this, because if the VA had the extra ability to do this, then they should have been doing it for the veterans and not for another agency,” he said.

Duerstine, of Concerned Veterans for America, said he would like to see Veterans’ Affairs committees in Congress take a deeper look into the VA’s role.

 

 

 

Some Perspective On A Recent News Article

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This article is based on three articles. The Daily Wire posted an Article yesterday, The American Thinker posted an article yesterday, and Breitbart posted an article on Friday. All three articles refute the claim currently being made by the political left that President Trump called dead soldiers “losers” and “suckers.”

The Daily Wire reports:

Four more witnesses have gone on the record to say that The Atlantic’s anonymously-sourced report claiming President Donald Trump called dead soldiers “losers” and “suckers” is false, bringing the total to 10.

Mick Mulvaney, former acting White House Chief of Staff, shot down The Atlantic’s report, saying, “As you all can probably imagine, I have seen more than my share of outrageous (and false) attacks on the President over the last few years. But this whole injured soldiers thing really, really pushes the envelope.”

“So, just to be clear: These claims are simply outrageous. I never heard the President disparage our war dead or wounded. In fact, the exact opposite is true. I was with him at the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy. As we flew over the beaches by helicopter he was outwardly in awe of the accomplishments of the Allied Forces, and the sacrifices they paid.”

Johnny DeStefano, former counselor to the president, also disputed the report, saying: “I was on this trip. The Atlantic bit is not true. Period.”

The article in The Daily Wire concludes:

Fox News correspondent John Roberts further added: “. @AmbJohnBolton told me today that if @realDonaldTrump had said he didn’t want to visit Aisne-Marne because the interred heroes were “losers” and “suckers”, he would have written an entire chapter about it in his book #TheRoomWhereItHappened.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation also reported late this week that the owner of The Atlantic is a Biden megadonor who is in frequent contact with the person who authored the report.

The American Thinker reports:

The evidence is piling up that the easily refutable, anonymously sourced so-called story, claiming that President Trump disparaged veterans, wasn’t really an Atlantic news story at all; it was a coordinated hit job involving the press, Democratic operatives, and associated leftist groups connected to the military, executed with impeccable timing.  The Atlantic is building a name for itself for its uncorrected false stories, and this one’s not at all different.

First, Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic story came out Thursday, claiming that four anonymous sources had told him that Trump, on a visit to France a few years ago, didn’t want to go to a U.S. military cemetery there to honor fallen U.S. troops, because they were all “losers” and “suckers.”  It was raining, see, and he didn’t want to get his hair mussed up. 

This is solid crap,  The official email records, exposed at the time when the media tried to make a flap about it even then, showed that it was indeed bad weather that prevented the trip.

There was a motive, though: to distract attention from Joe Biden’s actual bad record with the military.  Andrea Widburg has an excellent must-read analysis here. 

Breitbart reported:

In an open letter obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, about 674 veterans wrote that their support for Trump, against attacks by the establishment media, remains unwavering because of his record of supporting the United States military and ending foreign wars.

“Recent baseless media attacks against President Trump from anonymous sources are just another example of the depths to which the President’s opponents are willing to descend to divide the nation and meddle in this election,” the veterans write.

Breitbart reminds us why this story was put together:

The story came as Trump has promised to bring thousands of American troops home from Afghanistan.

Unlike Trump, who has long opposed the Iraq War and the invasion of Afghanistan, Biden has supported a long list of foreign interventions by the U.S. that have sent American troops overseas without a timeline of when they will return home.

Former President George W. Bush led the U.S. into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, with more than 4,500 Americans dying in Iraq — including more than 3,500 killed in combat — and up to 205,000 Iraqi citizens dying in the war since March 2003.

In total, Bush’s post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and intervention in Pakistan have resulted in the deaths of between 480,000 and 507,000 people — including nearly 7,000 American soldiers who had deployed to the regions.

Biden voted for the Iraq War and supported U.S. nation-building in Afghanistan. Biden also opposed the U.S. raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, claiming that the risks were “too high.”

I am sure this is only the first of many hit pieces that will emerge about President Trump in the coming days. I am also sure that my liberal friends on Facebook will not bother to look at the evidence that the story is false. That is where we are. Fake news is one of the major causes of division in America. It would be nice if we could get rid of anonymous sources.