George W. Bush has been painting for several years now, but has only recently become an artist. His first paintings, mostly of world leaders, were remarkably well received, even by an art establishment that had hardly been friendly to his administration. And yet, although those early paintings were…
George W. Bush has been painting for several years now, but has only recently become an artist. His first paintings, mostly of world leaders, were remarkably well received, even by an art establishment that had hardly been friendly to his administration. And yet, although those early paintings were…
Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Tuesday that legislation President Trump will sign today that makes it easier to fire VA employees represents a step the VA needs to take in order to bring accountability back to the troubled agency.
A new ad from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton argues "veterans deserve better" than her Republican rival, Donald Trump. The 30-second video features Trump's most infamous comments juxtaposed with images of military veterans—many of them with physical injuries—and their loved ones…
Donald Trump held up a Purple Heart Tuesday at his rally in Virginia and said that while he "always wanted" the honor, obtaining a copy was "easier."
Donald Trump, at long last, has revealed how much money has been donated to veterans' charities after the Republican candidate's January fundraiser. At a Tuesday press conference in Trump Tower, Trump stated that nearly $5.6 million in checks have been sent to at least 40 different charities. The…
It has been another rough couple of weeks for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). After the long-running scandals of shameful wait times, neglect to the point of lives lost, and the need for new leadership, they have faltered again recently with tone-deaf comparisons to Disneyland visits and…
At the Washington Post, reporter David Fahrenthold writes that Donald Trump appears to have raised significantly less for veterans' groups than he originally claimed after his January fundraiser:
How much money has Donald Trump donated to the veterans? That seemingly simple question has anything but a simple answer. When Trump held his January 28 fundraiser for the vets after backing out of the Republican debate in Iowa, his campaign wasn’t shy about sharing the good news: Trump had helped…
If there’s one thing Donald Trump wants veterans to know, it's that he loves us, he's going to take care of us, and by the way, he's going to rebuild the military so that it's "so big, so strong, so powerful, nobody is going to mess with us." Going into South Carolina — a state where something like…
The Daily Beast is reporting that a small New Hampshire-based veterans charity has refused to appear at a Trump for President rally to accept a $100,000 check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. Liberty House objected to it being given to them in a public setting: a campaign rally for Trump…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on Donald Trump's event last night in Iowa, and Trump's record with the veteran community.
On December 2, George T. "Joe" Sakato died at the age of 94. Enlisting in the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sakato was assigned to the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a fighting force consisting of second-generation Japanese Americans that saw heavy action in Europe. The 442nd…
President Eisenhower’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions–the Bradley Commission—voiced concern in 1956 that if exclusive emphasis was placed on granting generous post-service benefits to prospective soldiers, then military service would become a mere negotiated economic relationship between the…
CNN, which has been on the story of malfeasance and incompetence at the VA for a while now, reports:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has written a letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker asking the news network donate the ad profits for next week's GOP presidential debate to veterans. Trump posted a photo of the letter to his Twitter account. See the tweet below:
A new ad from Veterans Against the Deal features the father of U.S. Army specialist Clay Farr, who was killed by an Iranian bomb in Iraq in 2006. In the 60-second spot, Patrick Farr describes the day he learned of his son's death and expresses his opposition to a deal that will reward the regime…
A new ad from the group Veterans Against the Deal features retired Army staff sergeant Robert Bartlett, who in 2005 was badly injured while serving in Iraq. The supplier of the bomb that "cut me in half, from the left corner of my temple to through my jaw" was the regime in Iran. In the ad,…
The Donald Trump has announced the formation of "Veterans for Trump" in New Hampshire.
Many Americans have a friend or family member who has served in the military. Now, American Corporate Partners (ACP), a non-profit that helps returning veterans transition into new post-service careers, is promoting a unique way to honor them. It’s called #GiveThem20. Give them 20 push-ups or…
President Barack Obama's brief trip to Phoenix Thursday included an off-schedule trip to a housing development and a policy speech at a local high school. But, as NBC affiliate KPNX noted in its report, the president's motorcade drove past the campus of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital, which…
President Obama is in Phoenix Thursday, and his motorcade drove past that city's Veterans Affairs hospital without stopping. Politico's White House correspondent reports:
Who would have thought that that Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and Zac Brown, accomplished musicians all, would be so, well, tone-deaf? But how else to explain their choice of song—Creedence Clearwater's famously anti-war anthem “Fortunate Son”—at the ostensibly pro-military “Concert for Valor”…
The New York Times has a news article today that's ostensibly about concerns the Pentagon is engaged in historical revisionism in a recent attempt to honor Vietnam veterans. Any legitimate concerns, however, are outweighed by the fact the article gives a prominent megaphone to radical liberal…
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich recently spoke at the American Enterprise Institute about a new way to think about caring for America's veterans. Gingrich argues the federal bureaucracy that has failed in the case of the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital scandal can be replaced with…
The people who run the VA are doing great work and they know this because they have been telling themselves so:
Jake Tapper has a report of VA officials telling members of Congress to buzz off, more or less, when they came looking for information about the sort of thing that has been in the news lately – lost patients, long waits for this who are not lost, and a clever bookkeeping system for covering it up.…
The problems at the VA cannot be laid at the feet of the unions that represent its workers. A leader of one of those unions says so. This astonishing news is reported by Charles S. Clark at Government Executive, who writes that:
General Shinseki may be gone but his leaving has not salvaged the reputation of the VA. As Susan Page of USA Today reports:
The Washington Post reports:
One of the more intriguing aspects of the VA health care scandal is the way the paperwork was creatively done to make it appear that the system was operating as it was meant to. This took serious, sustained effort, as the AP reports:
The expletives were flying during a ceremony for wounded warriors at the vice president's residence on Memorial Day.
From the boss's newsletter, marking Memorial Day:
In his weekly address, President Obama referred to care for veterans as part of a "sacred trust to all who've served." He said our nation has to do "much more … to make sure all our veterans get the care they deserve."
The VA story is still unfolding and the consensus seems to be that it will be with us for a while. Which makes the eagerness of some not-in-office political hacks to wade in all the more unseemly.
It's not just veterans at VA hospitals who are having trouble finding care. One young Marine veteran in California can't find a doctor who will accept his Anthem Blue Cross insurance plan he purchased through Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange. KPIX-TV reports:
CBS affiliate KMOX reports:
I did not get to know Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki when we served together in the Obama administration, but in our limited interactions I liked him. He struck me as polite, smart, earnest and hard-working. Over time he resisted the ego-tripping that many agency heads find…
Speaking at a fundraiser (naturally), the president said what many have been saying. Namely that “Washington doesn’t work.” And, as Justin Sink of the Hill reports, he blamed the dysfunction on:
Senior writer Stephen F. Hayes led a discussion last Wednesday with North Carolina senator Richard Burr and Concerned Veterans for America on the need for Congress to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs. Watch the entire event below:
As far as political odd couples go, it doesn't get any odder than Sarah Palin and Jon Stewart. However, the two have come together to help veterans and have cut an ad in support of ACP AdvisorNet, which helps vets get jobs. ACP AdvisorNet is an innovative idea -- it's a virtual community service…
Daniel Gade lost his right leg in Iraq. But Gade, an assistant professor of political science at the U.S. Military Academy, does not consider himself disabled. Instead, he uses himself as an example of how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs often inaccurately assesses disability.
Beginning at 8:30 a.m., a live video stream of an event co-hosted by the Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) and The Weekly Standard: America's Biggest Threat: The Consequences of Debt, featuring Admiral Mike Mullen , 17th chairman, Joint Chief of Staff, Bill Kristol, and Pete Hegseth.
An image of a state-run veterans’ cemetery posted to the aggregation website Reddit this week is causing a controversy. The image, originally posted by the page "U.S Army W.T.F! moments" on Facebook, captures a scene from Cheltenham Veterans Cemetery, run by the Maryland department of veterans…
Berwyn, Ill.
A live event this morning with Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, and Governor Ed Rendell called, "The Need for Spending Reform: The $17 Trillion Debt Threat & America’s Spending Addiction." Panelists include Veronique De Rugy, Representative Adam Kinzinger, and Pete Hegseth.
An event tomorrow, which will be leave streamed here, and on this website:
Two charts on food stamps spending, provided by the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee, just as the Senate is voting the food stamps program (which is part of the so-called farm bill):
Last week, a contract totaling more than $378,000 was awarded to develop and manufacture signs for Civil War-era cemeteries, including "18 unique interpretive signs for Confederate lots." The contract was awarded by Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Concerned Veterans for America released the following statement, from chief Pete Hegseth, in opposition to the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense:
Another resignation at the Department of Veterans Affairs after the inspector general discovered that “as much as $762,000 was wasted on the conferences for a parody video of the movie ‘Patton,’ trinkets including pedometers and water bottles, and overpriced food and drinks. The total cost of the…
The group Concerned Veterans for America has released a new ad asking the federal government to help "fix" problems that have been preventing military members from voting:
Concerned Veterans of America has a new web video out marking the national debt passing the $16 trillion mark on Tuesday afternoon. The ad focuses on the threat the debt poses to national security, and points out that the "interest on the debt will soon exceed the defense budget." Watch the ad…
In campaign remarks this afternoon in San Antonio, Texas, President Obama made a national security case for a strong economy and suggested that his opponent, Mitt Romney, won't take proper care of veterans if he's elected president.
Vice President Joe Biden visited wounded veterans yesterday in Las Vegas, and told them, "You guys don't have a damn thing to be ashamed of." It is not clear why Biden might think veterans would be ashamed.
Over the weekend, MSNBC host Chris Hayes told his viewers that he's "uncomfortable" with calling "war dead and the fallen ... 'heroes.'" Now, the Veterans of Foreign Wars group have responded by saying that Hayes's comments "are reprehensible and disgusting" and are asking for the MSNBC host to…
From the Boston Herald: The story of Lance Cpl. Evan Reichenthal, an Afghanistan veteran: “It puts life into perspective when you almost die—when you really almost die, not just your cell phone is out of service or something. When I walked again, it was the best feeling ever."
What exactly do we celebrate on Veterans Day? To be sure, we mean to honor the brave men and women, living and dead, who have fought America’s battles, past and present. But honor them how, and for what? About these matters, we lack a clear national answer.
MItt Romney took a thinly veiled jab at his opponent Rick Perry at a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) annual national convention in San Antonio today. "I am a conservative businessman," Romney said. "I have spent most of my life outside of politics, dealing with real problems in the…
This week we celebrate the fact that 235 years ago, our Founding Fathers declared our independence. We should never forget though, that the freedom proclaimed in words on July 4, 1776, did not become reality for five more years – only after the Continental Army sacrificed untold amounts of blood,…
Close after dawn and armed with a local map I take a stroll in empty fields, canyons, woods, but preferably near a creek or river because since childhood I’ve loved the sound they make. Moving water is forever in the present tense, a condition we rather achingly avoid.
TWS pays tribute not only to all our veterans but to those now in the midst of the fight--here, for example, is an article about the Marine battalion (mentioned yesterday here) facing a fierce fight in northern Helmand:
TWS pays tribute not only to all our veterans but to those now in the midst of the fight--here, for example, is an article about the Marine battalion (mentioned yesterday here) facing a fierce fight in northern Helmand:
TWS pays tribute not only to all our veterans but to those now in the midst of the fight--here, for example, is an article about the Marine battalion (mentioned yesterday here) facing a fierce fight in northern Helmand: