When they start pimping out the corpse of a dead veteran for votes…everyone should lose.
The corpse of Jason Simcakoski seems to be popular fodder for political grazing these days. Jason died in 2014 while in the care of the VA. Now, Leah Vukmir and Tammy Baldwin are using his death in their respective campaign adds.
The parents and widow of a Marine veteran who died at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center appear in a pair of television ads that debuted Thursday praising Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and calling attacks against her “shameful.”
The spots are an attempt by Baldwin to counter one of the main criticisms of her lodged by Republican opponent Leah Vukmir and conservative groups. Vukmir has charged that Baldwin failed to respond quickly enough to the crisis at Tomah, where veterans were being over-prescribed opioids leading up to the death of Jason Simcakoski in 2014.
Simcakoski’s parents are in one new Baldwin ad and his widow is in another. In both, they praise Baldwin for working with them to enact a law that toughened opioid prescription guidelines. They also call for attacks against Baldwin on Tomah to stop.
“When I see these attack ads against Tammy Baldwin, using Jason’s death, I think it’s shameful,” his widow Heather says in one ad. “Tammy has literally been there with us every step of the way for three years. She’s the one helping us do right by our veterans.”
It’s not bad enough that two politicians are using his death for political gain…now his widow and parents have jumped into the ring.
In an ad released Wednesday, Vukmir attacked Baldwin over her response to the Tomah crisis. It was the latest in a series of spots by her and conservative groups that have spent millions attacking Baldwin on the issue.
“You knew about the opioid crisis at the Tomah VA and you did nothing,” Vukmir said in the ad.
Baldwin’s office heard from a whistleblower about concerns at Tomah in March 2014. It received a report in August 2014 about its 2½-year investigation into Tomah that cited concerns over the prescription of opioids at the facility, which is about 100 miles northwest of Madison.
Simcakoski died the day after Baldwin’s office received the report.
The family of Jason Simcakoski became effective activists and were instrumental in passing the Jason Simcakoski Memorial Opioid Safety Act. They were also awarded $2.3 million. The practice of treating veterans at “Pill Factories” needed to be addressed.
Everyone is diminished when they are drawn into petty political fights. Vukmir and Baldwin are political parasites feeding on the dead corpse of a veteran. Shame on his family for jumping into this fight. Vukmir needs to STFU and Baldwin lacks the dignity to ask this family to stay out of this petty fight. The lawyers were all paid, the family was paid, even the doctor that was in charge of Simcakoski managed to get his back pay. Now, these two political hacks seek to profit from his death.
I hope my family has the dignity not to pimp out my corpse. Maybe one day they will all find the dignity to let my brother rest in peace.
Category: Disposable Warriors, Health Care debate, Liberals suck, Military issues, Veteran Health Care, Veterans in politics, Veterans Issues
“Jason died in 2014 while in the care of the VA.” That’s putting it mildly. The VA killed him.
There is no politician and no law that can prevent medical malpractice. I also loathe laws that are named for a person (Amber, Jessica, and Megan come to mind.) As for the pols seeking election or re-election, honor and decency are just words used to garner votes. In practice, they are an impediment to a campaign.
Reagan called it the second oldest profession, with a striking resemblance to the first.
And he was dead-on right.
Nope. Whores at least have some standards.
There are no more standards concerning using/abusing people and things for political gain. Even when the mystical media decides something is off limits there is no standard – their rule applies only to individuals and situations they dictate.
This situation is horrendous.
Politicians wallowing in the mud, using dead servicemen as props. This is my surprised face.
“This is my surprised face.”
Mine, too.
Medical errors kill a quarter of a million Americans a year…I wonder why they aren’t attacking HMOs??
Perhaps it’s donations that matter and not the actual life of this kid?
This is why it’s good to remember both parties are essentially the same in their desire to control your life, the only difference being which methodology they will use.
I see they used his death to pass more laws…I wonder who those laws were directed at since it was the government that killed the poor bastard? Seems to me whenever the government doesn’t do it’s job it passes more laws that if can ignore for itself but not the rest of us.
250,000 is an insurance industry number. The CDC thinks the number is closer to 450,000.
Congress seems to think it is closer to 600,000.
You can bet that the number is higher than 250,000.
No doubt, Ret. The number I read about most often is 400,000 and higher.
I hate these corpse-dancing creatures. Never let an opportunity to feed your political greed go to waste.
And pass more laws to make sure it doesn’t go to waste.
And make sure that everybody knows that you’ve really, really done your job, while you were off taking classes instead of doing the job you were really hired to do. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
A new low in the race to the bottom for congress critters? Business as usual for professional politicians? Another example of them doing the job they THINK they were hired to do; ie get re-elected? No surprised face at all for the actions of these parasites. Am concerned and disappointed at the actions of the family. Wonder if it cost more than 30 pieces of silver? Maybe they thought they (the family) was doing the right thing? Sad and disgusting.
What I found interesting is that Jason Simcakoski’s widow and parents support Baldwin now, but back in 2015 his widow had this to say about Baldwin.
Simcakoski said Baldwin’s visit was too little too late and a response to negative press.
“It’s just frustrating,” Simcakoski said. “It’s unfortunate that it has to work through a (press) release for anyone to care. But I’ve learned very fast that’s how it works.”
https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/26/baldwins-handling-of-va-report-frustrating-for-widow/22380125/
Good catch, Skyjumper. I seemed to remember something like that when I read the story as the names and location ticked my memory but couldn’t come up with it.
I promise that if someone uses my death for political gain like that I will do all I can to haunt the fuck out of them!
Amen!
Further, I have advised the “usual suspects” in my family that if anyone, for any reason, posts a picture of me unconscious/dying/dead in a hospital bed on social media, I will claw my way out of my grave to torment them for their remaining days.
Sad.
1) The family of Jason Simcakoski became effective activists and were instrumental in passing the Jason Simcakoski Memorial Opioid Safety Act.
Generally speaking, any law or bill named after someone is a bad law with far too many holes and unforeseen consequences in it because too many people are trying to placate people rather than solve problems.
2) And the VA is still operating at high levels of competency:
Cancellations of more than 250,000 radiology orders at VA hospitals across the country since 2016 have raised questions about whether – in a rush to clear out outdated and duplicate diagnostic orders – some facilities failed to follow correct procedures. At issue is a concern over whether some medically necessary orders for CT scans and other imaging tests were canceled improperly.
The VA inspector general is auditing mass cancellations at eight VA medical centers “to determine whether VA processed radiology requests in a timely manner and appropriately managed canceled requests,” VA Inspector General Michael Missal said.
Those hospitals are in Tampa and Bay Pines, Florida; Salisbury, North Carolina; Cleveland; Dallas; Denver; Las Vegas; and Los Angeles.
….
This much is clear: in sworn testimony in the disciplinary proceedings against Dettbarn, Iowa City administrative staffer Lisa Bickford saidshe and other employees were told by the hospital’s chief radiologist that they needed to “clean” up a backlog of incomplete diagnostic orders, some dating back years.
The staff responded by “annihilating” thousands of orders in a matter of weeks, Bickford said.
Bryan Clark, a spokesman for the Iowa City hospital, acknowledged the facility failed to follow national VA guidelines for diagnostic order cancellations but said that happened in only a “small number of instances” and “anything closed improperly was reviewed” and actions were taken to try to ensure veterans received any needed exams. He said the process was intended to “ensure the quality and safety of the care delivered to veteran patients.”
more at source: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/10/01/va-hospitals-cancellations-diagnostic-exam-orders-draw-scrutiny/1424298002/
Don’t kid yourself, Dave. Once you reach the end of the trail, The Soviet will probably have you stuffed and put on display like Roy Rogers’ horse…
And the line will form to bid on who gets to comfort the widow.
casket chasers!
Tammy Baldwin is as useless as Feingold was. Feingold filed for bankruptcy when he was a sitting senator from Wisconsin. Probably the first ever, and he wanted to run the budget of America….
Baldwin has never sponsored any bill, she votes 100% of the time with Upchucky Schmucky on everything.
Although I disagree with the characterization made regarding all this, the fact is true that the report sat on her desk for about three years before she did one thing about it.
There was a request for a Congressional investigation regarding the death of this brave young man and Marine.
The story on this goes back a few years, Baldwin got in with oblowme in 2012 in the final election where picture ID was not mandatory and being there to watch it there is no doubt in my mind that the 2012 election was thrown by illegal voting.
The Scott Walker Gubernatorial election in 2012 actually ended in a higher percentage win than he actually won in the 2010 recall special election so the fact was that Baldwin was elected by people that had no idea that Walker was a conservative GOP Governor is more proof that Baldwin won by illegal out of state voters that weren’t given enough instruction on who else to vote for other than oblowme and Baldwin.
I disagree with the pimping of this Marine, but the story runs very deep and I have been following it since the lesbian liberal bitch was first elected…
The other part of the story is that all doctors, not just the VA, one each types are overdoing the painkillers. My mother is 74 and suffering from vascular narrowing which gives her excruciating headaches. They have not followed up on her with any MRI’s and medicare will not allow for botox shots– which can help instead of massive doses of oxy. In two years, she has dropped from 118 to 87 pounds. At 74, my mother is too tired to fight the bureaucracy. She’s going to end up a statistic, but I keep trying to get to them. It’s not working, so I assume that I am on borrowed time.
Tammy Baldwin is another Cindy Sheehag. I despise her.