Shinseki on CNN
So Ric showed up on CNN today. CNN made a big deal that this is the first time Shinseki has sat for an interview in four years and here he is. You really don’t have to watch, because it’s the same old bullshit about how he doesn’t think veterans should have to wait hundreds of days for their claims to get approved, that the backlog will magically disappear in 2015, that the president has increased his funding by 40% and there’s no excuse for his people to be incompetent boobs who can’t get through the backlog.
Candy Crowley asks Shinseki what the President can do to help Shinseki reduce the backlog of claims and Shinseki says that there’s nothing he can do – so obviously, the VA is so broken there’s nothing anyone can do. Shinseki doesn’t even seem embarrassed that the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs can’t even transfer digital files between the agencies, despite the fact that the two agencies have tossed millions of dollars down a black hole trying to solve it.
In other words, no one at the VA is interested in solving any of their problems – but they’re willing to talk about what a big problem it is. It’s no wonder that Ric hasn’t been on any of the news shows – he has nothing new to say.
Oh, and he tells us that the problem is Bush’s fault because it’s a decades-old problem, and if we hadn’t been fighting those damned Bush wars, he wouldn’t be saddled with the growing number of veterans. Any half-way competent manager could solve the problem at the VA in less than two years. But Eric Shinseki isn’t half-way competent.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Hey! I got an idea! And I know Shinseki will love it. Now hear me out. What if, what if…we gave every employee at the VA…a beret? Everyone will feel better about themselves and everyone will feel like part of the VA team and all these problems will go away. Fund it!
Andy beat me to it
It’s the system. They need to fire everybody and start over. then pay them only when they actually work. And while we’re solving problems, fire congress and start over.
You spelled his name wrong.
He shore did! Tis spelt S-H-I-N-S-U-C-K-I
They’ll get a Shinseki beret
The kind that you get as a Chinese import
Put on that Shinseki beret
When you put it on, your performance will soar!
Lookit… Shinseki is an ass. Except for that beret thing. Jonn sure looks good in his.
Seriously though: Us ‘Nam vets were able to make a sea change in how returning vets were treated, but we have never addressed the DVA to the same effect.
Once I got into the system back in the late 80’s it took two years to get a response.
That that timeline is extant sucks.
Does he have ANY concept at all of how absolutely stupid and helplessly lost he sounds? He actually says that ‘no Veteran should have to wait for a claim to be processed’ and then…[insert cricket sounds here.] He sounds dry, bored, and disinterested. If he was supposed to reassure Veterans and their families that things are going to change for the better, he lost that part of the script. Jeez.
I wonder if she would have been so accomodating of a W Admin Secretary of the DVA. I wonder if there’s any video to compare it, back when claims were less than half the current backlog?
The fact is that those coming off active duty, and those that have served in the last 4 years should be a very simple process: “Oh you have a DD214, you’re enrolled.”
The fact is that there isn’t a signicantly greater number of outprocessing Veterans today than there were in 2008, and there are significantly fewer than in 1973, 1952, and 1945, when the system was 100% paper.
The fact is that the number of Veterans today is SHRINKING, not growing, as WWII Veterans die off faster than OEF Veterans are created.
The fact is that Shinsucki failed as a General, and has failed as a political appointee. The only difference is that the latter is more quantifiable, and can be more objectively demonstrated. And this is what happens when Generals (and political appointees) allow their partisan politics to interfere with their mission, and when they are more concerned with appearances than actions.
Shinsucki was a douchebag in uniform, and he’s a douchebag in a suit. Let’s start with firing the 2/3rds of DVA employees that aren’t Veterans, and replacing them with knuckledraggers who understand what happens to the lazy and incompetent. That alone should help fix both the Veteran unemployment rate, and the backlog. And get the union out of the DVA. Their protection of the lazy and incompetent is a large part of the problem.
“Shinseki doesn’t even seem embarrassed that the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs can’t even transfer digital files between the agencies, ….”
There’s a solution to this. It’s called .pdf
It’s a protocol civilians have been using for a while, and it works rather well.
Seriously, the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected the use of .pdf files for years, insisting that there were “good reasons” why they should have a proprietary system. People would try to use the system, wind up cussing, and revert to using paper. They eventually came around.
@10 – .pdfs are actually pretty cumbersome. The real solution is XML, a universal format that any system, including every browser, can read. It’s been the standard for the private sector for at least a decade. It’s also human readable.
My company interfaces with over 200 newspapers systems. How do we do that? XML.
I know you hate IAVA, but it was IAVA’s advocacy trip this week that forced Shinseki to even face media scrutiny. As far as I know, they are the only vets group holding Shinseki’s feet to the fire on this. I know there are legitimate reasons to criticize Rieckhoff, which you’ve done throughout the years, but I really think, just this once, you should support what they’re doing. You gotta admit, they really got the message out this past week.
If IAVA wants any credit from us, they need to fire everyone on their board who had anything to do with OpTruth. I don’t give a shit if they all immolated themselves on the White House lawn, they did their damnedest to put these shitheels in the White House, they praised the President’s decision to put Shinseki in the DVA, they own this problem.
I really could care less what anyone did in the past. They’re right now and all the other VSOs love to rub elbows with the likes of Shinseki so they kowtow to him and his organization. I think you’re making this too personal, quite frankly. The present is what matters and this issue is bigger than your little feud.
IAVA has little credibility due to it’s partisanship. SVA, TAL and VFW do more effective work in DC since they don’t favor one party.
SVA, TAL, and the VFW just spend the week defending Shinseki and the VA. They get nothing done. And you can accuse IAVA of past partisanship. It has some merit with their congressional report card and some member’s past affiliation with partisan orgs. But they haven’t released a congressional report card in a few years. They just spent the past week lauding republican politicians for signing their petition. In terms of holding the VA accountable, it’s clearly not a partisan issue for IAVA. Just pay attention to everything that happened the past week.
@7 Zee
You know Brother, that’s not a bad idea. I wonder if Gathering of Eagles could pull off a demonstration w/100k+ in front of the DVA HQ in DC calling for the mass firing of Useless-as-mammaries-on-a-boar-hog Shinseki and anyone who has worked there for longer than five years and replacing them with combat arms vets – NO FRICKIN’ General/Flag Officers – Infantry preferred, but Redlegs and Cav boys are ok too.
Any vet, missing arms and/or legs as combat casualties, seems to me to be ideal candidates for hire and give them authority to summarily dismiss anybody who ain’t pulling their own weight, for failure to perform.
Motto: “Real Veterans Working Veterans”
The other VSOs didn’t do their best to put this clusterfuck of an Administration in office. IAVA sucks ass, and they always will until they dump Reickhoff. I DO care what they did in the past, because if they hadn’t done what they did, maybe we wouldn’t be dealing with this shit now.
@10&11
PDF or XML both work for me. The key point being, they’re not proprietary, and it didn’t take a half a Trillion dollars and two generations to deploy.
@14. “I really could care less what anyone did in the past.” That’s the spirit! Forgive or overlook the past and go forward into the future! By the way, Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, and Nidal Midak Hasan are all in need of pen pals. Let me know if you need their addresses.
Reickhoff was in the news recently commenting on something concerning the VA backlog.
That would be “…Working For Veterans.”
@20 LMBO … 🙂
#21, yeah he was pretty much making the same point this post made, but because it’s Rieckhoff he’s still wrong somehow. This place has become completely petty and delusional. Right, Rieckhoff and his merry band of 25 IAVA staff members are responsible for everything bad that ever happened in “the administration” and they single-handedly gave Shinseki his authority. Get the fuck out of here. This place just lost all credibility to me. Hold PR accountable for his stolen valor issues. Criticize him for his past political campaigns that you disagree with. That’s all fair game. But when they dude is actually making THE SAME ARGUMENT YOU’RE MAKING, show a little bit of maturity for the sake of a cause bigger than your own stupid little ego.
Fuck This Ain’t Hell. You don’t care about veterans, you care about yourselves, same as you accuse PR of doing. More in common than you’d like to admit. I’m going to support whoever is fighting for hte issues I believe in.
Yeah, fuck TAH. We’ve been making the same argument for the past six years and Reickhoff finally came around to our point of view. But fuck TAH. It’s TAH that doesn’t care about the troops. In fact, I quoted Reickhoff in one of my previous pieces on DVA and didn’t even say anything derogatory about him, but you didn’t notice that, did you? And it’s you who brought up IAVA in this discussion trying to make me recant everything I’ve ever said about him because he finally came around on this one issue. But, fuck TAH.
That’s your problem, John. You’re only concerned with being right. It doesn’t matter if you’re right if you can’t actually get anything done, which you haven’t and you won’t. So yeah, fuck TAH, the internet equivalent of a bunch of old men sitting on their porch bitching about all the shit wrong with the world.
@24.
Rieckhoff was an IN Officer with no Ranger Tab.
That speaks volumes in my book.
In a brief summation:
What an asshole, dickweed, scumbag, puke asshole.
Oh for fuck sake, come on Obama, ride in on your unicorn, conjure up some fucking rainbows, and save the day!!!!
Seriously…Obama and Shitsacki can’t fix anything, only make things worse.
The VA big shots should so something honorable, like seppuku. Wait, they have no honor. Just resign, dirtbags.
No excuse for this.
@29.
Now thats funny!
That’s all you got? Because I don’t have an organization like Reickhoff all I can do is sit on porch and yell at the kids to get off my lawn? IAVA got us in this mess, and, yeah, I was right. I spend a couple of thousand of dollars a year to publicize my opinion, I never claimed to be a VSO, I never ran bullshit commercials on TV telling everyone that I’ve got their back. I never sold my asshole to Hollywood.
I’m a guy with a valid opinion and I try to influence policy regarding veterans. My readers are my strength. When I’m wrong, I admit it. Has Reickhoff ever admitted that he was wrong by founding OpTruth? I don’t know what it is you want me to do about Reickhoff finally being right on an issue. I gave him credit for coming out on PTS.
But you made this discussion about Reickhoff for some stupid reason – it’s about Shinseki, FFS.
…and as near as I can tell, the only comments that Tommy G has ever made on TAH is in this discussion right here, so I guess he’s probably not a plant from IAVA, like all those other trolls who have come here to blunt criticism of Reickhoff (because he can’t lower himself to comment on a blog). By the way, most of the staff at IAVA subscribe to our Twitter feed.
Tommy Goob, have you ever even served? Even if you did, you sound like the supply goobs in the rear that always talked trash to us grunts, but screamed “HELL NO!” and that they’d go to IG the moment we invited them to come on a mission with us outside the wire! Shinseki had been little more than a Clinton puppet since the moment he made General, now he’s a loyal myrmidon of B. Hussein 0bama & Co.!
IAVA = Losers.
Eric Shinseki. Fuck that dude. He’s a fuggin’ idiot, just like the lot of other appointed pukes in the beltway. They know they won’t be held accountable, so why even bother?
(Lest, not to say it’s not important to fight for veteran’s rights and clean up the VA, but there’s no way its going to happen under the current administration.)
The fact that he gave an interview with Candy Crowley comes as no surprise either. She didn’t hold the VA accountable to anything, because that’s not what the media does anymore. She didn’t ask any hard questions.
It’s all just a fuggin’ waste of time, and is indicative of what direction this country is heading.
I’m sorry, but I have ti weigh in here. To out myself I’m trying to unscrew the ratings portion on VBA. There are three problems:
I. People or lack of. I sent someone to the Providence RI office and they have two people (!!??) handling claims. Two. This is not uncommon.
II. Legislative direction. The VA has to, by law, accept paper claims as valid first. 99% of fraud comes when a paper claim is submitted and when records are checked electronically and the paper claim doesn’t match. To add to it it takes much longer to review a paper claim than electronic one, (see I).
III. Interfacing with NARA and DoD. Both have no method to pass on documents to anyone but themselves, and they have no incentive to do so because it’s a VA problem, (I.e.: Congress has funded it at VA, but no where else). The biggest challenge now is in regards to people who are still in and need to draw benefits as the current system won’t allow the VA to have a complete picture until 6-9 months after they leave service
“This place just lost all credibility to me.” Well, that’s good enough for me! We’ve been awaitng his verdict. Go ahead and shut ‘er down, Jonn. Jeez.
On the one hand, Tommy Boy says that when Wackoff is right, his past and that of his comrades should be put aside. On the other hand, when Tommy Boy decides that TAH is wrong about something, it is wrong about everything, including its past.
Shinseki was out of touch when he was on active duty (the beret issue was just a tip of his iceberg)…I’m not surprised he is still not out of touch. Simply he was a PC General and got a PC appointment as VA Director. Any other job in the civilian corporate world and given those answers he gave he would be fired by the stockholders.Hey… aren’t we vets somehow “stockholders” in the VA system?
@38. Unfortunately, the CEO is obama and he appointed Shindigski (whatever). Thus, there is no shareholder vote permitted now. The last one–in November–is good for four years.
The beret…
Geeeeezzzzz…….
Sigma66: in terms of medical records, you may have a point. In terms of verifying actual service, to include wartime service – um, no. I’m reasonably certain the services all now maintain electronic personnel records. In fact, since the early 2000s the services have actually maintained the records archives for personnel separating/retiring; NARA/NPRC has custodial responsibilities and answers FOIA requests, but doesn’t actually maintain the records for folks who separated after that point. I’m pretty sure that NARA perform those duties by accessing the service-maintained electronic personnel records for folks who’ve recently separated. All DVA needs it an agreement with the services to do the same thing that NARA/NPRC now does – remotely access those records based on official need. For folks who’ve separated/retired since the early 2000s, DVA could make arrangements for remote access to those same records for service verification. Part of the VA application process could include signing a SF180 giving the DVA full access to service personnel records for service verification purposes. That would allow the DVA to verify (1) whether or not the individual actually ever served at all, or served long enough to qualify for VA benefits, (2) dates of service, (3) any wartime or combat zone service, (4) any Purple Hearts (important for some VA purposes, like dual compensation or healthcare category), (5) type of discharge (important for VA benefits), and some other things. And this would also be verification from official sources, not from documents provided by individuals that may or may not be legit. This would add little if any to processing time, but would allow front-end verification process for VA claims while also providing a decent “BS filter” to catch outright frauds. The same could be done, albeit with some time lag, by putting a smallish DVA liaison office at NARA/NPRC at St Louis to handle cases involving vets who separated/retired prior to the early 2000s. And, frankly, for electronic medical records there is a pretty easy solution too. Print/export existing electronic records to PDF, transfer to removable media (CD-R or DVD-R), handcarry media from DoD to DVA, import PDF… Read more »
Obama probably hired him because he’s from Hawaii. Nothing more.
Rieckhoff has stumbled into being right *for once,* (Jonn credits him with twice).
The IAVA and Rieckhoff have sucked off the teet for years, including bragging about attending sporting events, WH meetings, etc., and his George Soros ties, presumbably because of his *self-appointed* position at IAVA.
When the IAVA and Rieckhoff were singing the praises of those that created this situation, TAH and Jonn were calling it for what it was. Did Rieckhoff finally get tired of being used by the politician in chief? Or is he finally maturing? I don’t know. I don’t really care.
TOMMY G, even if you don’t care about the history, and only care about the current, then you should still be supporting TAH, and Jonn, for being RIGHT, AGAIN.
Past performance may not be a guarantee of future performance, but it does make for one helluvan indicator. I think I’ll stick with the side that is on the right side of the issues 95% of the time (Jonn/TAH), rather than the side that stumbled upon a nut for once.
But if you want admissions of agreement with opponents, I agree with the Occupiers that Credit Unions are a better place to do business than the mega-Banks. On virtually every other thing they’ve said, they’re idiots. And I won’t be joining them to occupy anything, including the outhouse they make of it, even though they stumbled upon that one kernel, for the wrong reasons.
SHENSEKI STONEWALLING STONEWALLING SAME OLD GAME NOTHING NEW! ALL THE VA DOES WHEN THE CLAIMS GET HIGH THEY START SENDING OUT DENIAL LETTERS. STUFFING BROWN ENVELOPES WITH DENIAL LETTERS. THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION IS GOING TO CRASH!! THEY DO A HORRIBLE HORRIBLE JOB OF TAKING CARE OF VETERANS! CENTURY AFTER CENTURY, SHENSEKI HAS DONE A HORRIBLE JOB. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HIRES VETS? YES THEY DO THATS OF COURSE IF YOU ARE POLTICALLY PLUGGED IN AT USA JOBS. NO I DONT WANT WASH FLOORS AT THE VA HOSPITAL! 2014 2015? ONE 1/2 YEARS BEFORE OBAMA LEAVES OFFICE HOW NICE!! FIX THE VA YAH ONE YEAR BEFORE OBAMA LEAVES OFFICE AND SHINSEKI LEAVES THE VA! WHAT A CROCK THE FED IS!!
BTW: If the US Govt can’t admit a few hundred thousand Veterans into the only Govt run Health Care system it has (as opposed to the health insurance programs like MediCare/MedicAid), what’s going to happen when tens of millions need to be admitted into Obamacare and get their ObamaPhone?
Nice job USA. You do an excellent job of taking care of veterans! Aren’t you the least bit ashamed of the way veterans are cared for in this country???
Here’s a public service statement for the VA.
Veterans Administration in America is the BIGGEST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As for shinsucki you are an absolute disgrace!!!
DISGRACEFUL
DISGRACEFUL
DISGRACEFUL
After a couple of unproductive and unpleasant run-ins with the VA after I retired, I found the solution. Never, EVER contact with the VA, For anything. Ever.
Kinda curious, I find it really interesting that somehow the VA budget increased by 40% of the past four years, and yet the backlog that was already inexcusable for most, somehow managed to almost TRIPLE! Something seems wrong with that fact. Either the claims backlog should have, bare minimum, kept flat due to the increase of staff to catch the coming wave, or start to drop the backlog at the time prior to it increasing. Almost seems like someone is pocketing the money, though there is no other evidence to support that idea yet
Even the second coming of the Messiah himself cannot save this bloated joke of a bureaucracy.
On the principle that leaders are responsible for their subordinates acts of omission and commission, Shinseki is fully accountable for the state of the VA. Shinseki is not responsible for it though. One has to look at the institutional inertia found in the GS-7 to GS-13 range of employees: folks who are extremely comfortable with the pre-2003 status quo. Those civilian employees of ours have tenure. They don’t need to increase their workload. They don’t even need to be accurate, astute, or affect empathy. They are unaccountable, unfireable, and many (not all) are union members of a union that always supports Democrats. The VA is a jobs program – a form of welfare and vote-buying. Worse: the money allocated for veterans pensions and compensation – money withheld through denial of claims gets spent as cash bonuses to VA employees of all ranks. There’s a direct connection between denying a veteran, and getting a cash bonus. DoD is no better. DoD has zero love for its alumni below the rank of O-8. Most folks may have forgotten, if they ever knew the truth, the personnel scheme that Rumsfeld put in place. The primary principle of the National Security Personnel System was that it was performance-based. Rummie also tried making civilian employment “At Will” which meant if any yahoo not performing could be fired, on the spot. As most folks know, this system was universally decried by civil servants of all stripes – after all, who wants to be held accountable when a fraction of the power of an organization is held at the top? Shinseki, ObamaTheAnnointedOne, even Reichoff will fail, fail miserably, and pocket huge sums of money doing so. Facts are: there is a technological solution for the medical records that is agile enough for individual vets who travel (like me) to go anywhere in the US and still receive care at any VA – complete with all my records. There’s even apps like that. XML is a solution, with caveats. You’d have to flatten the databases, and ideally you want to migrate up (from Access to Oracle 11g or… Read more »
My favorite is when they have non-clinicians making clinical diagnoses and opining in patient records regarding issues/injuries that relate to benefits/care.
Kinda like seeing an foot doctor for an occular injury. Or a PA practicing psychology. Then when you call them on it, they say you are not a patient.
Really?
So the then you show them the “Patient Bill of Rights” and ask some questions they get quite defensive.
Can we say “malpractice?”