Tuesday, June 24, 2014
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary L. Bauer
VA Cover-Up “Beyond Horrible”
There is a stunning new development in the VA scandal today. Yet another whistleblower, Pauline DeWenter, has come forward to describe a cover-up, which she says was “beyond horrible.”
It was DeWenter’s job to manage the so-called “secret waiting list” and to call veterans on the waiting list to notify them when appointments were available. Unfortunately, she would sometimes learn from spouses or family members that the veteran she was attempting to reach had died while waiting in line.
DeWenter would dutifully note those deaths on their medical records. But on at least seven occasions in the past nine months, her notes were changed to indicate that the veteran was still alive. Sometimes her notes were altered to read, “entered in error,” as if DeWenter had simply made a mistake. Other times they were changed to “no longer necessary,” as if the veteran had declined treatment because the issue was resolved.
In December DeWenter and Dr. Sam Foote went to the VA’s Inspector General. After weeks and months passed with no follow-up and after Phoenix managers insisted everything was fine, Dr. Foote finally went public in April. Kudos to CNN for doing real investigative journalism.
Now we have evidence that VA officials were fully aware of the extent of the problem — not that hundreds of veterans were simply waiting too long to be seen, but that VA officials were in fact covering up deaths in order to get big cash bonuses.
In addition, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has just released a report finding that taxpayers have paid out nearly $1 billion to settle malpractice claims against the VA. “The problems at the VA are worse than anyone imagined,” Dr. Coburn said. “Over the past decade, more than 1,000 veterans may have died as a result of the VA’s misconduct.”
Don’t fall for the liberal lie that the VA was underfunded. Last year it spent millions on furniture. It has spent tens of millions on solar panels. Ironically, the VA spent millions on ad campaigns encouraging vets to seek care, which they obviously couldn’t get. Meanwhile, the VA failed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars allocated for medical care.
IRS Update
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was grilled by members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for nearly four hours last night. Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) accused Koskinen of providing false testimony to the committee when he promised in March to release all of Lois Lerner’s emails. Koskinen knew in February that her hard drive had crashed.
Issa said, “You took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Mr. Commissioner, at the minimum, you did not tell the whole truth of what you knew that day.” Issa added that while Koskinen did not personally delete Lerner’s emails, “by your actions and your deception, you now own this scandal.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tried to zero in on exactly what Koskinen knew and when he knew it. Koskinen said he learned sometime in April that Lerner’s emails were unrecoverable, but couldn’t remember who told him or even how he learned of it.
Rep. Jordan was incredulous, saying, “For something that has been a front-page story, you’d think it would have been significant to remember how it happened, when they told you, what the actual date was.”
When President Obama nominated Koskinen to lead the IRS, he called Koskinen an “expert at turning around institutions in need of reform.” But far from being an impartial agent of reform, Mr. Koskinen is a major liberal donor.
David Ferriero, head of the National Archives, told members of Congress today that the IRS “did not follow the law” when it failed to disclose the loss of Lerner’s emails. Think about that, folks. The IRS can tell you to store your personal tax information for seven years, but it doesn’t keep its own records for more than six months!
By the way, for anyone who still insists there isn’t even a “smidgen of corruption” at the IRS, the tax agency today agreed to pay $50,000 in damages for leaking the confidential tax records of the National Organization for Marriage to a radical homosexual rights group.
ISIS On The March
As the ISIS jihadists continue to roll through Iraq, there are increasing reports of massacres. If beheadings aren’t quite your thing, how about a hoodie or a T-shirt? Yes, that’s right — the jihadists are branching out into merchandizing now.
Meanwhile, Jordan is putting its forces on high alert after border check points fell to the extremists. There are reports that ISIS is debating whether to march on Baghdad or Amman in an attempt to depose the king of Jordan. What will isolationists say if Jordan, one of our few Arab allies in the Middle East, gets invaded by an Islamist army seeking to reestablish a caliphate?
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