Fired VA boss David Shulkin is an Obama holdover. And a good example of why there should be no holdovers.
After being dumped for cause, he's out there posturing as a hero fighting a conspiracy to privatize the VA. That's usually been the Bernie Sanders line. And the spin by every VA death list apologist.
There have been no consequences for the folks, as Obama put it, who let veterans die while blowing the money that might have saved their lives on solar panels.
As many as 40 veterans had died while waiting for care and 1,715 veterans in the Phoenix VA Health Care System had waited more than 90 days for an appointment. A retired Navy serviceman died of bladder cancer after being put on a 7-month waiting list after blood was found in his urine. He finally received an appointment a week after his death.
But each and every year, from 2009 to 2011, the Phoenix VA Health Care System put in solar panels. The solar panels at the Carl T. Hayden VA in Phoenix cost $20 million.
That $20 million could have saved the lives of dying veterans. Instead it went to Green Energy.
The situation at the Phoenix VA wasn't unique. In 2009, Obama had signed a Green Energy executive order. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki announced that "in order to continue providing Veterans with the best health care and benefit services, VA must adapt to climate change."
And then there's Shulkin and his amazing European vacation.
"I came to government with an understanding that Washington can be ugly, but I assumed that I could avoid all of the ugliness by staying true to my values,” Shulkin claims. “I have been falsely accused of things by people who wanted me out of the way.”
Here are some of the ways that he stayed true to his values.
A scathing report released Wednesday criticizes Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin for telling a subordinate to handle personal travel plans for him and his wife during an official trip to Europe. It also criticizes him for improperly accepting Wimbledon tennis tournament tickets as a gift during the trip.
The report, among other "serious derelictions," also accuses Shulkin's chief of staff of potential criminal conduct by making false statements and altering a document so that the Veterans Affairs Department could "improperly" pay for Shulkin's wife to travel to Europe with him, at a cost to taxpayers of $4,312.
The report by the inspector general's office of the VA says that a department worker "effectively acted as a personal travel concierge" to Shulkin and his wife for that trip to Copenhagen and London.
Shuklin and the VA made misstatements to the media about aspects of the trip, the report says, with Shulkin inaccurately claiming to a reporter that he had bought the tennis match tickets.
Inaccurate is one way of putting it.
Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin's chief of staff falsified an email so that the secretary's wife could accompany him and his staff to Europe last year at taxpayer expense, according to an internal watchdog's investigation released Wednesday.
According to the report by the V.A.'s Office of Inspector General(OIG), Vivieca Wright Simpson, the chief of staff, altered a subordinate's email to misrepresent the purpose of the 11-day trip so that Shulkin's wife, Merle Bari, could be reimbursed by the government.
Those values are so true.
nly three-and-a-half days of the 11-day trip were used for official business, the report said. Through interviews and documents, investigators found that the secretary and his wife took a boat tour of Copenhagen and toured two palaces and two castles while in Denmark. They also made an unplanned trip across the border to Sweden for dinner.
In London, the couple visited Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, took a cruise, visited St. Paul’s Cathedral and Windsor Castle, among other places.
Now this isn't atypical of government officials. But it's outrageous from a part of the government that let veterans die to save money.
Finally, that report came from Inspector General Michael Missal, who had been nominated by Obama. Why would he be part of this "conspiracy"?