Congress Calls for Investigation of Phoenix VA That Reportedly Denied Vets Medical Attention, Leaving 40 to Die

(The Blaze) – “Why is this happening to me? Why won’t anybody help me?” 71-year-old U.S. Navy veteran Thomas Breen asked his family as his health deteriorated, his years-long struggle with cancer nearing its end.

The veteran’s daughter-in-law recalled his final months in an interview with CNN: “At the end is when he suffered. He screamed. He cried. And that’s somethin’ I’d never seen him do before, was cry. Never. Never. He cried in the kitchen right here. ‘Don’t let me die.’”

Before losing his battle with stage 4 bladder cancer and passing away on Nov. 30, 2013, Breen and his family tried again and again to seek medical help from the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system. But along with thousands of other veterans who gave their youth and energy to serve their country, Breen was reportedly placed on a “secret list” and told to wait.

Breen is one of at least 40 U.S. veterans who died while waiting for treatment, CNN reported, suggesting that the Phoenix VA used the “secret list” to stage a cover-up.

“These are extremely disturbing allegations,” Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said Thursday. “If proven true, these charges will only add to the growing pattern of preventable veteran deaths and patient safety incidents at VA medical centers across the country that are united by one common theme: VA’s extreme reluctance to hold its employees and executives accountable.”

Members of the Senate concurred with Miller, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) vowing to hold hearings on the matter.

“I am troubled when I hear that any veteran may have received substandard service from VA,” Sanders, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee said Thursday. “We, as a nation, have a commitment to provide timely, quality health care to veterans, and I am determined to assist VA in meeting this responsibility.”

The “secret list,” according to the CNN report, is no mistake. Rather, it is an “elaborate scheme” meant to hide from the federal government the fact that nearly 1,600 ailing veterans have been forced to wait for months on end for medical attention.

“The scheme was deliberately put in place to avoid the VA’s own internal rules,” Sam Foote, a retired doctor who spent 24 years working for the Phoenix VA hospital, told CNN, adding that the list is the invention of hospital management. “They developed the secret waiting list.”

There are two lists that the Phoenix VA uses for patient appointments, the retired doctor said. There’s an “official list,” which shows that veterans are being provided timely and effective medical care.

“So then when they did that, they would report to Washington, ‘Oh yeah. We’re makin’ our appointments within — within 10 days, within the 14-day frame,’” Foote said.

Then there’s the “secret” list, which accurately reflects the fact that veterans are being forced to wait months for medical care. Some have been forced to wait “six, nine, in some cases 21 months,” Foote said.

It appears that Phoenix VA Director Sharon Helman, who received a $9,345 bonus in 2013, in addition to her annual salary of $169,900, according to the Washington Free Beacon, is aware of the long wait times and the group’s used of a secret waiting list, according to documents reviewed by TheBlaze. In fact, according to at least one internal email, the Phoenix VA director appeared to defend the use of the so-called “secret list.”

Helman has vowed to cooperate with the proper authorities.

“It is disheartening to hear allegations about Veterans care being compromised,” the VA director said in a statement, “and we are open to any collaborative discussion that assists in our goal to continually improve patient care.”

Part of the secret wait list scheme, Foote said, involves shredding documents. Some employees are even instructed to pretend to schedule veterans for appointments. For example, when a veteran seeks medical attention, a VA employee would “enter information into the computer and do a screen capture hard copy printout. They then do not save what was put into the computer so there’s no record that you were ever here,” he said.

Accurate information regarding when veterans first started waiting for treatment is then destroyed, as a phony list takes its place.

“That hard copy, if you will, that has the patient demographic information is then taken and placed onto a secret electronic waiting list, and then the data that is on that paper is shredded,” Foote said.

“So the only record that you have ever been there requesting care was on that secret list,” he added. “And they wouldn’t take you off that secret list until you had an appointment time that was less than 14 days so it would give the appearance that they were improving greatly the waiting times, when in fact they were not.”

Approximately 1,600 sick veterans have been left to wait on the “secret list,” Foote said. And when a veteran on the waiting list dies, his name is simply removed.

“They could just remove you from that list, and there’s no record that you ever came to the VA and presented for care. … It’s pretty sad,” the retired doctor said.

The Phoenix VA said in an official statement: “We have conducted robust internal reviews since these allegations surfaced and welcome the results from the Office of Inspector General’s review. We take these allegations seriously.”

CNN reported Foote’s claims were later confirmed by additional VA sources. The VA Office of Inspector General will investigate the matter starting next week.

TheBlaze’s Elizabeth Kreft contributed to this report.

[H/T TheBlaze: Becket Adams]

Scientist Claims Human Microchip Implants Will Become “Not Optional”

And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.…

Revelations 13:16-17

(shtfplan) – Technologies designed specifically to track and monitor human beings have been in development for at least two decades.

In the virtual realm, software programs are now capable of watching us in real time, going so far as to make predictions about our future behaviors and sending alerts to the appropriate monitoring station depending on how a computer algorithm flags your activities. That is in and of itself a scary proposition.

What may be even scarier, however, is what’s happening in the physical realm. According to researches working on human-embedded microchips it’s only a matter of time before these systems achieve widespread acceptance.

Chances are you’re carrying a couple of RFID microchips now. And if you are, they’re sending out a 15-digit number that identifies you. That number can be picked up by what’s called an ISO compliant scanner. And they’re everywhere, too.

It’s not possible to interact with society in a meaningful way by not having a mobile phone. I think human implants are likely to go along a very similar route. It would be such a disadvantage to not have the implant that it essentially becomes not optional.

Video Report:

http://media.theage.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-36rne

Your initial reaction to this idea may be one of disbelief. There’s no way society would accept such a device. Why would anyone want to implant this in their body?

Consider for a moment where we are right now. For decades Americans rejected the notion that they would submit to being tracked or recorded.

Yet, just about every American now carries a mobile phone. They’re so prevalent, in fact, that many consider it a “right,” prompting the government to actually provide subsidies to those who can’t afford one on their own.

Embedded in every one of those phones is an RFID chip that can track our every movement via GPS or cell tower triangulation. Moreover, those microphones and cameras that come standard on every phone can be remotely activated by law enforcement surveillance systems, a capability that has existed since the early 2000′s.

But as intrusive as these devices are, they are accepted as the norm by billions of people world wide. Not only that, but no one had to “force” them on us. We are, it seems, the masters of our own enslavement. And we pay top dollar to have the best tracking device money can buy!

Granted, one can simply disconnect from “the grid” by throwing away their cell phone. But, the direction these new monitoring technologies are moving coupled with continued government expansion of surveillance suggests that microchip RFID technology will eventually be non-voluntary.

Michael Snyder of The Truth Wins asks What will you do when you can no longer buy or sell without submitting to biometric identification?

This technology is going to keep spreading, and it is going to become harder and harder to avoid it.

And it is easy to imagine what a tyrannical government could do with this kind of technology.  If it wanted to, it could use it to literally track the movements and behavior of everyone.

And one day, this kind of technology will likely be so pervasive that you won’t be able to open a bank account, get a credit card or even buy anything without having either your hand or your face scanned first.

It’s difficult to imagine a populace that will freely submit to such digital bondage. But as has been the case with the degradation of personal privacy and rights in America, be assured it won’t simply become law over night.

First, the technologies will need to be generally accepted by society. It’ll start with real-time consumer based products like Google Glass. The older generations may reject it, but in a couple of years you can bet that tens of millions of kids, teens and younger adults will be roaming the streets while sporting cool shades, interactive web surfing and the capability to record everything around them and upload it to the internet instantly.

Next, as we’re already seeing from early adopters, RFID chips will be voluntarily implanted under our skin for everything from access to high security buildings to grocery store purchases.

Eventually, once the concept is generally accepted by the majority, it will become our new “social security number.”

To gain access to official services, you’ll need to be a verified human. Without verification you won’t even be able to purchase a six pack of beer, let alone get medical care or a driver’s license.

Whether we like it or not this is the future. Every purchase you make and every step you take will be tracked by a tiny 15-digit passive microchip, meaning that the only way to “turn it off” will be to physically remove it from your body.

In essence, we’ll soon live in a world of Always On Monitoring.

Our children and grandchildren – at least most of them – will likely not only submit to implantation, they’ll gladly pay the costs so that they, too, can “interact with society in a meaningful way.”

[H/T shtfplan: Mac Slavo]

Black Marine says Clive Bundy is NOT a racist

Below is what a black Marine has to say about the Cliven Bundy comment.

(The Black Sphere)

Charlie Delta

The media distorts information to the point of social division. This is a photo of myself and the resilient, often charismatic, and maybe not so tactful Cliven Bundy. He’s a cowboy and a helluva family man, not an orator. One thing he definitely isn’t – a racist. I found his comments to not only be NOT racist, but his own view of his experiences. Who the heck are we to determine another man’s perspective on the world around him?! Just because Picasso’s view of the world was abstract, does it negate the fact that his art was genuine? Furthermore, if you take the time to do your own research, you’ll find that his statements about some black Americans actually hold weight. He posed a hypothetical question. He said, “I wonder IF” … Hell, I’m black and I often wonder about the same about the decline of the black family. Bottom line is that we are all slaves in this waning republic, no matter our skin color. Mr. Bundy could have used any racial demographic as an example: Native Americans on reservations, whites in trailer parks, etc. He noticed the crippling effects of receiving government “assistance” and the long term result of accepting handouts. It’s not progress at all. I challenge Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, and others to read my comment and reconsider their position in this matter. Individual liberties are at stake here, yours and mine. THAT is the issue. Don’t let the liberal media and ignoramuses like Glenn Beck and that weasel Harry Reid make you lose sight of the real issue here: The federal government is a burgeoning behemoth and a bully on a once constitutional playground.I sincerely hope you real patriots out there who can see through the smoke.

Semper Fidelis

For my part, I say to the Left, shove Clive Bundy’s statement up your Harry Reids!

[H/T TheBlackSphere]

Reid Has Become a McCarthy for Our Time

(Real Clear Politics) – We should ask Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.) the same question once posed to Sen. Joseph McCarthy by U.S. Army head counsel Robert N. Welch: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Reid is back in the news for denigrating the peaceful supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, a popular critic of the Bureau of Land Management policy, as “domestic terrorists.”

McCarthy in the 1950s became infamous for smearing his opponents with lurid allegations that he could not prove, while questioning their patriotism. Reid has brought back to the Senate that exact same McCarthy style of six decades ago — and trumped it.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Reid libeled candidate Mitt Romney with the unsubstantiated and later-refuted charge that Romney was a tax cheat. “The word’s out that he [Romney] hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years,” Reid said.

Later, when asked for proof, Reid offered a pathetic rejoinder: “I have had a number of people tell me that.” One wonders how many names were on Reid’s McCarthyite “tell” list — were there, as McCarthy used to bluster, 205 names, or perhaps just 57?

When asked again to document the slur, Reid echoed McCarthy perfectly: “The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.”

When the Koch brothers donated money that was used for political ads — just as liberal political donors George Soros and the Steyer brothers have done — Reid rushed to the Senate floor to question their patriotism: “These two brothers … are about as un-American as anyone that I can imagine.” The charge of being “un-American” is also vintage McCarthyite slander.

Reid also has a bad habit of racial bigotry. He once praised fellow Sen. Barack Obama because he was, in Reid’s words, a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

When Reid was worried that he would not get enough Hispanic voters to the polls, he condescendingly lectured the Latino community: “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK. Do I need to say more?”

Reid once singled out for damnation just one Supreme Court justice — Clarence Thomas: “I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court.”

Reid has also brought back McCarthy’s custom of vicious and sometimes profane insults.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Reid announced: “I can’t stand John McCain.” Of then-President George W. Bush, Reid said: “President Bush is a liar.” Reid claimed that fellow Mormon Mitt Romney had “sullied” his religion.

When Gen. David Petraeus brought proof to Congress that the surge in Iraq was beginning to work by late 2007, Reid declared, “No, I don’t believe him, because it’s not happening.”

He elaborated on that charge by labeling Petraeus — at the time the senior ground commander of U.S. forces fighting in Iraq — a veritable liar. Reid alleged that Petraeus “has made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual.”

When an African-American and Democratic appointee to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, William Magwood, opposed Reid on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site controversy, Reid called him a “first-class rat,” “treacherous, miserable liar,” “sh-t stirrer,” and “one of the most unethical, prevaricating, incompetent people I’ve ever dealt with.”

Like a pre-reform-era politician, Reid entered public service relatively poor and will leave it as a multimillionaire. He has granted lucrative favors to casinos and rich investors who hired his sons’ legal firm. While in office he made considerable profits on private business and real estate deals. Some of those who donated to his campaigns got favorable government treatment.

Reid recently paid his granddaughter thousands of dollars from his campaign war chest to make jewelry gifts for his donors and friends. Only after a storm of criticism did he reimburse his campaign fund.

So how does Reid’s reckless career continue with the Senate leader avoiding the sort of congressional censure that finally did in McCarthy? Why is there is no progressive muckraker to take on Reid the way that Edward R. Murrow once exposed McCarthy?

For the left, Reid’s utility as an attack dog (like McCarthy’s utility to Republicans) outweighs the downside of his crude bombast.

His lurid, unsubstantiated charges against Romney were helpful in demonizing Romney as a rich grandee. His untruths about Petraeus helped shore up Democrats’ antiwar credentials during the 2008 campaign. Environmentalists did not object to his character assassination of nuclear power advocate Magwood.

Reid’s viciousness also serves as a deterrent. Why tangle with the anything-goes Reid when it means endlessly replying to a litany of smears?

Part Tammany Hall-style fixer, part pre-civil rights Democrat and part demagogic Joe McCarthy, Harry Reid is a throwback to a type of American politics better left forgotten.

[H/T RealClearPolitics: Victor Davis Hanson]

Watchdog: IRS Employees Who Owed Taxes Paid $1M in Bonuses

(Fox News Insider) – A watchdog group has found that IRS employees who owed back taxes were still paid $1 million in bonuses.

Read more about this story below, via FoxNews.com:

The report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that while for the most part the reward program for IRS workers complied with federal regulations, employees who had themselves failed to pay their federal taxes and had discipline problems were also rewarded.

“While not prohibited, providing awards to employees who have been disciplined for failing to pay federal taxes appears to create a conflict with the IRS’s charge of ensuring the integrity of the system of tax administration,” Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George said.

The watchdog found that in the period from October 1, 2010 to December 31, 2012 over 2,800 employees who had been disciplined for conduct problems, including issues with federal tax compliance, had received over $2.8 million in monetary awards and over 27,000 hours in time-off awards.

The watchdog found that the more than 1,100 employees who had issues with tax compliance received more than $1 million in monetary awards and more than 10,000 hours in time-off awards.

The IRS said in a statement it has already developed a new policy linking conduct and performance bonuses for executives and senior level employees.

“Even without a formal policy in place over the past four years, the IRS has not issued awards to any executives that were subject to a disciplinary action,” the IRS said in a statement. “We are also considering a similar policy for the entire IRS workforce, which would be subject to negotiations with the National Treasury Employees Union.”

The IRS had about 100,000 workers during the period under review.

In the 2011 budget year, more than 70,000 IRS workers got cash bonuses totaling $92 million, the report said. In the 2012 budget year, nearly 68,000 workers got cash bonuses totaling $86 million.

The report said the IRS considers prior conduct before awarding permanent pay increases. “However, IRS officials stated that the IRS generally does not consider conduct issues when administering other types of awards,” the report said.

There are no government-wide policies on providing bonuses to employees with conduct issues, the report said. However, a 1998 law calls for removing IRS employees who are found to have intentionally committed certain acts of misconduct, including willful failure to pay federal taxes.

Tax compliance at the IRS is generally better than at other federal agencies.

In 2011, 3.2 percent of federal workers owed back taxes, according to IRS statistics. The Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, had the lowest delinquency rate, at 1.1 percent.

The delinquency rate for the general public was 8.2 percent.

Watch the latest video at video.insider.foxnews.com

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) went “On The Record” to discuss a plan he had to rectify the situation. He said he introduced a bill that said IRS employees should be fired or prohibited from being hired if they don’t pay taxes.

Chaffetz said the bill sailed through the House and then went to Sen. Harry Reid, who never took it up in the Senate. He said Reid “doesn’t take up this common sense stuff,” which is why Chaffetz said he hopes to see him as the minority leader after midterm elections.

[H/T FoxNewsInsider]