Opinion: Veterans Harmed as Lawmaker Wages Political Vendetta

Not only do we need the current whistleblower protection program, we need to strengthen it. Especially when it comes to the Department of Veterans Affairs, whistleblowing is a must; given the disastrous shape this Agency is in. What is being reported is just the tip of a very large iceberg, which needs to be blown to “smithereens”, so the VA can be restructured to meet the needs of those it claims to serve. The article, below just came across my News Ticker....

Military.com

Military.com | Sep 08, 2016 | by J. David Cox Sr.

J. David Cox Sr. is national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 670,000 federal and District of Columbia government employees nationwide, including 220,000 in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The views expressed in this commentary are his.

I've dealt with extremist politicians like Rep. Jeff Miller long enough not to take his insults personally ("Opinion: Union Bosses, VA Bosses Rigging System for Failure," Sept. 5).

But after spending 20 years caring for veterans as a psychiatric nurse, and the past decade representing more than 220,000 VA employees across the country, here's one thing I take very personally: our nation's sacred obligation to serve the women and men who have worn the uniform.

Our members take that obligation seriously, too. That's why they were the first to come forward to blow the whistle on VA managers and executives who were falsifying appointment records to hide excessive wait times for veterans seeking care.

Rather than proposing real solutions to the problem of veterans not getting timely access to care, Rep. Miller chose to exploit the wait list scandal to serve his own political agenda. Miller has introduced a bill that would gut the workforce protections that empowered whistleblowers to come forward in the first place.

Miller's bill is part of a concerted effort by the congressman to strip all federal employees -- not just those at the VA -- of their due process rights, allowing employees to be demoted or fired at will without any protections from partisanship or favoritism.

He also has waged an intense campaign to implement the extreme proposal by the Concerned Veterans for America to privatize the VA and dismantle the patient-centered system that veterans have endorsed time and time again.

Miller's obsession with gutting employees' rights and stripping the VA for parts has distracted the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, which he chairs, from focusing on staffing shortages and underfunding issues that, if addressed, stand to make a tremendous difference for the veterans he claims to serve.

Tell me, Congressman Miller, how is silencing health care providers and shutting down VA hospitals going to improve veterans' access to health care?

A far better VA reform bill has the bipartisan support of Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chair Johnny Isakson of Georgia and ranking member Richard Blumenthal.

Even though we do not agree with provisions attacking the due process rights of VA executives, we support his Veterans First Act because it will provide real accountability at the VA without hanging an ax over the heads of honest employees who choose to blow the whistle on mismanagement.

The Veterans First Act is far from a boondoggle for labor unions, as Rep. Miller suggests -- which is why many employee groups still oppose it. Yet we believe that our veterans deserve quality health care and that they indeed must come first, which this bill would accomplish by empowering VA employees to hold bad managers and opportunist politicians in check.

With its vast network of more than 160 medical centers and 1,000 community-based outpatient clinics across the country, the VA provides its 5.8 million veteran patients the best health care our nation has to offer.

If Congressman Miller would focus on providing the VA with the resources it needs to serve more veterans, instead of scapegoating the very employees who deliver that care, our nation's war heroes would reap the benefits they so justly deserve.

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/09/08/opinion-veterans-harmed-as-lawmaker-wages-political-vendetta.html?ESRC=eb_160909.nl

The Next Salvo - Fire For Effect

To:                      VA Inspector General, Dept. of Labor, 

                           NY State Dept. of Health,

                           U.S. Joint Commission, 

                           U.S. Office of Special Counsel, 

                           Martin Evans - Newsday

                           Valerie Bauman - NY Times, 

                           Kristina Rebelo - NY Times

                           

From:               Hutch Dubosque, US Military Veteran

                        10 Woolsey St., Huntington, NY   11743-2641

                        1-631-223-6107(cell) / 1-631-470-0958(home)

                        hutch.dubosque@live.com / dubosquejr@optonline.net

Subject:           Allegations of mismanagement and misconduct at the 

                        Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center

                        79 Middleville Rd., Northport, NY  11768

To Whom It May Concern,

I am a Vietnam Veteran who has been an outpatient at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY, since 1979. My presence at the Medical Center was limited due to my work schedule until 2009, when I had to retire from work for medical reasons. Since 2009, I have been present at this Facility at least three days a week. There are some issues that have become known to me recently at this Medical Center. I feel these issues need investigating, as I perceive them to be at least unethical, and at most criminal.

In January of this year, 2016, the five Operating Suites were shuttered due to contaminants emanating from the ceiling air ducts. Unless you had an operation scheduled, you never would have known of this occurrence. I was not aware of this situation until early June 2016, and it was then that I learned Veterans were being rescheduled for arbitrary dates in the future, or were being told to go to other VA Medical Facilities in the New York Metro area. Apparently, our local, State, and Federal Legislators were not informed of the situation, either, until June. The Hospital Administration was comfortable waiting for $8 million in Federal funding to renovate the five Operating Suites; a process that would reopen these Suites in 2018, at the earliest, if they could acquire such funding. A combination of two U.S Congressmen and the local Press forced the hand of the Hospital Administration, and a temporary fix was implemented. There is only one problem still not being admitted to, or addressed. The air ducts are 44 years old and, being here on Long Island, have collected sufficient moisture over the years to give rise to black mold (also pervasive in the majority of buildings that were constructed in the late 1920’s). I now have it on reliable authority that the major contaminant coming out of those air ducts was, indeed, black mold. The temporary fix that has been installed will curtail the flow of the black mold, but will never eliminate it. We now have two of the Operating Suites back in operation with a high probability that contaminants will still emanate from the ceiling air ducts. This has been deemed acceptable for the treatment of my fellow Veterans.

 REALLY??

The situation with the Hospital’s Operating Suites may be just the tip of a very large “iceberg”. There are a number of other troubling situations that I have been informed of by Hospital employees who I consider very reliable and trustworthy (Medical Staff members). In an effort to keep this brief, I will list summary thumbnails of each situation I am aware of.

1. The basement of the Hospital houses the Radiology Department and other Departments. In May, it was discovered that the air conditioning unit serving just the basement fell into disrepair and is no longer serviceable. The Hospital Administration deemed it prudent to lease portable A/C units for the summer months at a price of $120.000.00 per month. It would cost in the neighborhood of $75,000.00 to repair the existing unit. I will leave the math up to you. This Administration is apparently waiting on Federal Funding to replace the entire system.
2. It has been brought to my attention that a number of senior Medical Staff and Hospital Administrators have been either coming to work intoxicated, or becoming so while on the job.
3. It has been brought to my attention that there are once-senior Doctors who are drawing a full-time salary from this Hospital, and do not actually work here. They have been seen by Hospital Staff and fellow Veterans enjoying private practice in the local private medical sector, thus receiving two substantial means of income.
4. I realize that, nationally, the Veterans Health and Benefit Administrations have been trying to resolve and fix some large deficiencies in the system. In addressing my local situation, The VA Medical Center Administration in Northport has claimed that they have reduced the appointment “wait-times” to an average of 3.55 days. I can personally attest to wait-times in terms of months, not days. I can only conclude that this Hospital is using some sort of “Voodoo” accounting in arriving at their figures. I have the backing of every fellow Veteran I know on this matter. It seems that our Politicians, the local Press, and the VA’s Office of Inspector General are still “drinking the Kool-Aide” on this matter.

In summation, if I am aware of these few practices and situations, how much more is going on underneath the surface. Usually where there is smoke, there is fire. I am asking for a full independent audit of all business practices at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY. My fellow local Veterans deserve no less; our Nation’s Veterans deserve no less. I would appreciate your consideration in this, and am willing to discuss any of these situations with you anytime, anywhere.

Thanking you in advance,

___________________________

            Hutch Dubosque

NEW TERM: “ULTIMATE DOWN-LOADER”

Before the entire world gets all warm and fuzzy with the term “whistleblower”, they need to have some idea of just what a “whistleblower” is, both figuratively and literally. We tend to jump to the Figurative definition when we hear of anyone telling secrets, or uncovering wrong doings, no matter the situation and no matter the accusations. With so much leaking of secrets, governmental, industrial and corporate, the lines between “leaking” and “whistleblowing” are getting blurred. Literally speaking, the act of “whistleblowing” is initiated by an individual who feels he/she has been told to do, or sees, something that he/she feels is, at best not legal, or injurious to others. It really is no more complicated than that.

With this literal definition in mind, a number of folks in the News are exempt from this category. This would include Bradley Manning, Ed Snowden, Mark Klein, Samy Kamkar, Russ Tice, and Babak Pasdar. These are but a few of the people who had daily access to very sensitive documents the Government would rather you and I not see. In neither instance were any one of these people asked to do anything that was harmful, or illegal, to themselves, or anyone else. They have absconded with information entrusted to them, or made available, by their employers and have chosen to share said information to the general public much to the dismay of their employers. In most cases, as with the aforementioned individuals, there was a serious attempt to leak their findings and documents through the legitimate Press in this Country. All the Media outlets who were approached either balked, or outright declined to touch any of this. When these “ultimate down-loaders” got rejected by local Media, they felt justified in seeking other outlets for their disclosures. That is what brought The Guardian Newspaper and Wikileaks into the lime light. And, having successfully leaked all these documents, I would find highly improbable that any of the main actors were at all surprised with the Government’s reaction.

When it comes to the inner operations of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies, there appears to be a heightened degree of overt ego; protracted across the breadth of management in these Agencies. This sense of entitlement to self-importance is usually spurred on by zealots and hawks in the Legislative and Executive Branches of the U.S. Federal bureaucratic maze. With regard to the egos involved, one needs simply to watch C-Span to get a feeling of the total arrogance held not only by the leadership of these Agencies, but also the Assistants, Deputies, Under-Secretaries, and the like (especially in the Intelligence community). I only point this out because of the apparent direction of deception our Federal Government is going. Think about it. We have so many “wars” on so many subjects and issues that the American Public is being driven into accepting secrecy as the normal way we conduct every day government. Take a moment, and try to make a list of the “wars” the United States is currently waging. I did, and came up with over fifty of them before my head started to hurt and I had to stop. To wit; war on drugs, war on women, war on guns (whaaat?), war on obesity, war on abortion, war on voters rights, and on and on and on and on!

So, we are left with the task of coming up with a new name for the folks who leak Classified, Top-Secret, Sensitive government documentation to a democratic public who has paid good money for an open form of said government. Calling them “Leakers” seems so plebeian and mundane. The term “Outers” may confuse them with the LGBT Community (certainly not a parallel worthy of making). Something along the lines of “UDL – Ultimate Down-loader” may be an apt moniker.

Bradley Manning – DoD UDL

Ed Snowden – NSA UDL

Russ Tice – NSA UDL

Samy Kamkar – TELECOM UDL

Babak Pasdar - TELECOM UDL

Mark Klein - TELECOM  UDL

Ultimate DownLoader

So let’s hear it!

Send in your own suggestions.

Keep those cards and letters coming.

The ones you didn’t hear much about:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers

2003	Babak Pasdar	United States Government	Computer security consultant performing contract work for a major telecom carrier, revealed that a U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia had direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voicecalls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance. Pasdar executed a seven-page affidavit for the nonprofit Government Accountability Project in Washington.
2007	Mark Klein	National Security Agency	retired communications technician for AT&T, revealed the details of his personal knowledge of the secret 2003 construction of a monitoring facility in Room 641A of 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco, the site of a large SBC phone building, three floors of which are occupied by AT&T. The facility is alleged to be one of several operated by the National Security Agency as part of the warrantless surveillance undertaken by the Bush administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
2005	Russ Tice	US Government	Former intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Most recently he is one of the sources used by the New York Times in reporting on the NSA wiretapping controversy. He had earlier been known for reporting suspicions that a DIA colleague of his might be a Chinese spy.[citation needed]
2010-2011	Samy Kamkar	Apple, Microsoft, and Google	Computer hacker who exposed the illicit, global mobile phone tracking of all users, regardless of GPS or Location Services settings, on the Apple iPhone, Google Android and Microsoft Windows Phone mobile devices, and their transmission of GPS and Wi-Fi information to their parent companies, which led to a series of class-action lawsuits and a privacy hearing on Capitol Hill.