My brother is a retired Marine. Our very own Denis is a retired Marine. They use the VA when needed. After all, it’s their healthcare, right? They are cutting over SEVENTY THOUSAND jobs at the VA. What the holy HELL???
I guess they figured the VA didn’t need people when they actually need MORE people. I guess they didn’t think about what it was like to have to deal with the VA because they are so understaffed. It takes literally weeks to get something taken care of. The line at the office. The waiting lists for help. The appointments that get rescheduled because they are overbooked, trying to HELP our VETS. Of course, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised since remember, our vets are “suckers and losers”. Trump didn’t want to see disabled vets in a parade because he thought it would “make spectators uneasy.” I certainly hope it would! If it just makes one person think about what the Armed Forces do for our country, that’s something.
How about Senator Tammy Duckworth? She was IN combat. She lost most of both legs and some use of her right arm. She will be horrified when she finds out about this, if she doesn’t already know. And by the way, after her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, once she recovered as much as she could, she was given a medical waiver to *continue* in the Army National Guard for 10 years, eventually retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. She *continued* for another 10 years! YEARS. “Suckers and losers”. Bullshit.
We should HONOR our vets. We should take care of them after they retire, for having put their lives on the line for our country. They swear an oath to the Constitution and thank heavens they don’t have to swear an oath to the president. People would be running away screaming instead of making that commitment to our country. We NEED to take care of our vets. There are any number of things I would give up if it would help a vet. Goddamn.
Here, have a couple quotes. In a memo dated March 4 addressed to “under secretaries, assistant secretaries, and other key officials,” the Veterans Affairs department’s chief of staff Christopher Syrek said that the VA in partnership with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, will move “aggressively” to restructure the VA across the entire department and “resize” the workforce. And: As part of that, the department will aim to revert back to its 2019-era staffing levels of 399,957 employees, the memo said. That means more than 70,000 employees could be terminated as part of the restructuring, since the VA employed over 470,000 people as of October 2024, according to the department.
The VA grew under President Biden, partly in response to the PACT Act that was signed into law to help veterans exposed to toxins and hazards like burn pits. I’ve seen some news here and there about how those things have affected the people doing them. It’s ugly. So now this is going to be severely constricted, too. Is it going to take years for our veterans to be seen? It was already, in general, months. Will it jump to years? Horrible. How many vets could die while waiting for help?
One more quote, if you don’t mind too much. It’s another person backing up what I’m raging about. “Until Elon Musk and Donald Trump came on the scene, America never turned its back on our veterans and their families,” Everett Kelley, American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement. “Their reckless plan to wipe out the VA’s ability to deliver on America’s promise to veterans will backfire on millions of veterans and their families who risked their lives in service for our country.”
What the holy hell. I’m screaming about all the cuts done with malice and no thought or research. But this takes the cake and a couple slices of pie. These people promised cuts, and cuts they are making. DOGe keeps having to update their wall of receipts since they’re lying through their teeth about all the savings and getting caught for it. I expect this crap will go up on their wall and be yet another reminder of how our vets are getting screwed over. I’m still angry about it. I just don’t have any more words at the moment.
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Friends, we thank you if you have already donated. If you have not, and are able, we use the donations to pay the overhead until our traffic gets back up to normal again. Everything crashed after November 5. We are at war in this country. Truth v. Lies. This blog will always bring you the truth as long as we have internet access and Kash Patel doesn’t carry us off. I have no idea how bizarre things could get. Truly I don’t. But we’re in it together. Ursula
What kept me going at the end of 2024 and into 2025 was the knowledge I was in the queue to again receive counseling – I’ve battled depression for a very long time in case you didn’t know. Many is the day the only thing I can do is spend a few hours here on PZ to tend to behind the scenes stuff. Sometimes I can write but never as much as I want to. It’s simply too mentally exhausting. I don’t have the energy to maintain my apt. I often eat toast for breakfast and a peanut butter or cheese sandwich for lunch and heat up a can of something in the microwave at dinner. Because that’s all I can manage sometimes. I too often go a week or more without a shower because it takes too much effort. Counseling has worked in the past, which is why I reached out to my Psychiatrist for a referral which was made immediately. That was in November.
After the intake session I was told the normal wait period at the time was running four to six weeks. That all the counselors were booked with clients and that as people ended their course of treatment counselors could move on to new clients. Me for example. She did say it might even be two months. Again, that was enough that I turned down the option offered of finding someone in the private sector. No fucking way do I want ANY of my care farmed out that way where my medical info. is accessible to some private provider!
Last week, with three months having gone by I called the office of another Jarhead I happen to know, or knew from long ago. He’s from my hometown. He’s a Congress Critter in fact. A fire breathing Sedition Caucus Trump asshole! He made a BFD about the PACT Act and providing more care to Veteran’s and I thought at the time BULL SHIT Mikey! You don’t give a FUCK about people like me. So even though I haven’t so much as set foot in my hometown (in fact I went to school with his older sister, who’s know my own older sister’s advisor on some personal stuff) I called his DC office to speak my mind on the VA. I dared the little pissant to call back. He doesn’t have the fucking guts!
It gets worse. Earlier this week, the intake counselor I spoke to in November called to say that due to the new circumstances my wait for counseling would be indefinite. Again I was offered a referral to the private sector and again turned it down and explained why. I also noted that part of the cuts have been to the very department in the VA that staffs the folks who work to find Veteran’s private sector care! They want the entire VA privatized. Frankly I can’t afford the higher co-pays I’d have using Medicare. I’d quickly become homeless again.
I told her I won’t do anything crazy, if only because I KNOW people like Mike Bost, VA head Doug Collins, Musk and Trump (and so many others) want me to just go somewhere and die so they don’t have to concern what’s left of their conscience on me. I WON’T GIVE THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS THE SATISFACTION!. I fully expect my housing subsidy from HUD to be cut soon which means homelessness again sometime this summer probably. And with it access to health care and much needed medications for my heart and diabetes. It’s not crazy talk to say the time might come within a year when I’m found dead in some tent somewhere.
There are lots more like me out there. And even more who aren’t Veterans. Just people who’ve been fucked over by the system that rely on Social Security, and assistance from HUD and Medicaid and Medicare. Many of whom like me have physical disabilities. THAT is the country we live in, because Trump got 1.5% more of the vote and just enough in the right places to slime and sleaze his way back into the WH.
Not a vet, just a Navy Wife. I had a good job in Jacksonville FL,then I.moved to ME. Unemployed. Decent housing was unaffordable. Bade housing was so substandard that it looked like a slum. Something broke every month. One month it was me
. The twisted sister social.worker at Family Services couldn’t understand why I didn’t make friends. “Just volunteer at the school.or daycare and you’ll meet all the mothers.. Or join a church. You’re a Navy E Wife. You have so.much in common with all the other wives!”
“I do not have a children. I can work.with them. But only if I am.paid. I am 40 years old. I have two grad degrees. I am not Christian. I am.Wiccan. There is no such thing as a Wiccan church, just small groups.”
This went on for six bloody sessions. Every week she’d pull out her little list. Every werk I would explain why her ideas sucked. I finally adked how many women like me-older, childless,well-educcated, she’d actually worked with.
She finally admitted,”3. In 11 years.”
“Did you help them.”
“They quit.”
I stood up. “That’s what I thought. This is a waste of my time.”
“You’re the angriest woman I.have ever dealt with! I7 gonna have the last word.”
“No. You’re not. Goodbye. You suck at your job.”
And slammed the door in her face.
Got a great guy who was a civilian psychologist who was under contract.
I can see why the VA would be a necessity for military people. Your experiences need to.mesh A civilian cannot understand what you have seen and done. Privatizing theV.A. is what they want,preferably to.big hospital chains that give them.$$$
The military sucks when it comes to spouses. Often Family Services isn’t staffed by spouses,,so they don’t know diddly about our issues. And Trump is pushing me into anxiety attacks.
Also *speechless* except for saying I can empathize with anxiety attacks.
*speechless*
In the U.S. the executive does not have the right to impound funds already authorized by Congress. ALmost everything they are doing comes under that rubric. The whole thing is illegal as fu… as all get out.
Agreed to both descriptions.
The whole point of this is privatizing veterans’ healthcare– preferably to.a big hospital.chain or religious hospitals who will.give $$$ to.them.
And that would be hell.
A long time ago, 1962 (yes, I’m that old), a Freshman in college, taking a required Creative Writing class, one day the Prof assigned writing a paper advocating an unpopular idea. My bright idea for that was to advocate for folding the VA health system into the general private health system. After the Prof handed back the papers the next day, he called me aside as we were walking out at the end of the period. I don’t recall what he may have said about the quality of my writing. I still strongly recall what he said about my idea. I had never noticed, before, that he always wore a small military ribbon pin on his collar. He said he had served in WWII. That they had all willingly signed over their lives for the duration and the “contract” in return was that the Government would provide the survivors the best health care possible for the rest of their lives. That was why my idea was a non-starter, no matter how well argued, and I should never forget it. I haven’t.