Podcasts about house veterans affairs committee

On this episode of American Potential, host David From welcomes Congressman Mike Bost, Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, to discuss his journey from serving in the U.S. Marine Corps to fighting for veterans in Congress. He shares why he enlisted, how his family's deep military roots shaped his passion for service, and why the Veterans Access Act is urgently needed to fix the gaps left after the Mission Act. With bureaucratic overreach delaying essential care, Congressman Bost explains how his bill would ensure veterans get the quality health care they deserve—when and where they need it. From tackling mental health crises to holding government agencies accountable, this episode dives into the real challenges veterans face and the solutions needed to honor their service.

The top Republican on the House Veterans Affairs Committee will keep his post in the next session of Congress. Congressman Mike Bost will continue to serve as the committee's chairman for the next two years. Bost says he'll focus on expanding veterans' options to seek health care outside the VA's medical system … and holding the VA workforce accountable to the veterans they serve.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The top Republican on the House Veterans Affairs Committee will keep his post in the next session of Congress. Congressman Mike Bost will continue to serve as the committee's chairman for the next two years. Bost says he'll focus on expanding veterans' options to seek health care outside the VA's medical system … and holding the VA workforce accountable to the veterans they serve.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week's special educational episode shines a spotlight on the incredible work being done by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to support caregivers, families, and survivors of veterans. In this educational episode, Maureen Elias, a Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Benefits at the VA, provides a comprehensive overview of the vast array of benefits and programs available through the Veterans Benefits Administration. Elias expertly navigates the three key buckets of VA support - caregiver benefits, family benefits, and survivor services. From healthcare and respite care to legal assistance and bereavement support, the VA ensures caregivers have the resources they need to avoid burnout and continue providing exceptional care. Equally impressive are the VA's efforts to adapt homes and vehicles and offer educational benefits for family members and robust survivor benefits, including burial assistance, life insurance, and dependency compensation. Listeners are left with a renewed appreciation for the VA's commitment to honoring the service and sacrifice of veterans and their loved ones. About Maureen: Maureen Elias serves as the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Benefits on the development, adoption, and implementation of Department-wide programs and policies related to Benefits. In this role she analyzes and evaluates the effectiveness of these programs and policies and presents balanced recommendations for improvements. She represents the Under Secretary for Benefits in dealings with the senior staff of Cabinet officers regarding Departmental programs, initiatives, and policies. Ms. Elias is a U.S. Army veteran and a U.S. Army retiree spouse. Prior to coming to the VA, Ms. Elias served on the House Veterans Affairs Committee and at two of the “Big Six” VSOs including Paralyzed Veterans of America and Vietnam Veterans of America. She has been recognized as one of the We Are the Mighty “Mighty 25”, 2021 VA Women Veteran Trailblazer, and as a HillVets100. She has appeared on various podcasts, testified before Congress, and written articles for various media outlets. Ms. Elias also volunteers as a storytelling instructor, helping Veterans, servicemembers, their families, survivors and caregivers learn to share their stories in ways that are meaningful. Support the show Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver Sisterhood of Care, LLC Website: www.confessionsofareluctantcaregiver.com Like us on Facebook! Tweet with us on Twitter! Follow us on Instagram! Watch us on Youtube! Pin us on Pinterest! Link us on LinkedIn! Tune in on Whole Care Network

This week's special educational episode shines a spotlight on the incredible work being done by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to support caregivers, families, and survivors of veterans. In this educational episode, Maureen Elias, a Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Benefits at the VA, provides a comprehensive overview of the vast array of benefits and programs available through the Veterans Benefits Administration.Elias expertly navigates the three key buckets of VA support - caregiver benefits, family benefits, and survivor services. From healthcare and respite care to legal assistance and bereavement support, the VA ensures caregivers have the resources they need to avoid burnout and continue providing exceptional care. Equally impressive are the VA's efforts to adapt homes and vehicles and offer educational benefits for family members and robust survivor benefits, including burial assistance, life insurance, and dependency compensation. Listeners are left with a renewed appreciation for the VA's commitment to honoring the service and sacrifice of veterans and their loved ones.About Maureen:Maureen Elias serves as the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Benefits on the development, adoption, and implementation of Department-wide programs and policies related to Benefits. In this role she analyzes and evaluates the effectiveness of these programs and policies and presents balanced recommendations for improvements. She represents the Under Secretary for Benefits in dealings with the senior staff of Cabinet officers regarding Departmental programs, initiatives, and policies.Ms. Elias is a U.S. Army veteran and a U.S. Army retiree spouse. Prior to coming to the VA, Ms. Elias served on the House Veterans Affairs Committee and at two of the “Big Six” VSOs including Paralyzed Veterans of America and Vietnam Veterans of America. She has been recognized as one of the We Are the Mighty “Mighty 25”, 2021 VA Women Veteran Trailblazer, and as a HillVets100. She has appeared on various podcasts, testified before Congress, and written articles for various media outlets. Ms. Elias also volunteers as a storytelling instructor, helping Veterans, servicemembers, their families, survivors and caregivers learn to share their stories in ways that are meaningful.Support the showConfessions of a Reluctant Caregiver Sisterhood of Care, LLC Website: www.confessionsofareluctantcaregiver.com Like us on Facebook! Tweet with us on Twitter! Follow us on Instagram! Watch us on Youtube! Pin us on Pinterest! Link us on LinkedIn!Tune in on Whole Care Network

Rep. Mike Bost has been in the US House for a long time, but he's also the Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee for a reason.  He breaks down "stolen valor" and Tim Walz.  

Legislation to establish a pilot program that would improve veterans' access to disability compensation and legal assistance services is moving forward, according to the office of its sponsor, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA-1st District). The Veterans Collaboration Act passed the House Veterans Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity and now will be considered by the full committee. If ultimately passed by Congress, the measure would create a pilot program at the Department of Veterans Affairs to help qualified veterans service organizations collaborate with educational institutions to help veterans file disability compensation claims and appeals. It also would make pro bono legal...Article LinkSupport the Show.

Explore the unique experiences of Jewish U.S. military veterans with Dave Warnock, U.S. Army Veteran, and Andrea Goldstein, U.S. Navy Veteran and Reservist. If you missed this conversation when it first aired for Veterans Day, here's your chance to honor Jewish American Heritage Month and pay tribute to those who serve our country.  Our guests share what inspired them to join the military, how their Jewish heritage played a significant role in shaping their service, and what advice they have for IDF soldiers fighting now against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Warnock and Goldstein are members of AJC's ACCESS Jewish Military Veterans Affinity Group, a space to convene young Jewish professionals who have served in the American military.  *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.  Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Dave Warnock, Andrea Goldstein Show Notes: Learn more: What You Need to Know About the ICC and the Israel-Hamas War Listen to AJC's People of the Pod: Seven Months In: What Israelis Think About the War Against Hamas, Campus Antisemitism in America, and More What Does it Mean to be a Jewish American Hero? A Jewish American Heritage Month Conversation with AJC CEO Ted Deutch Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Episode Transcript: Manya Brachear Pashman: Earlier this month, during my conversation with AJC CEO Ted Deutch about Jewish American heroes and Jewish American Heritage Month, we paid tribute to those who serve our country in a multitude of ways – teachers, doctors, nurses. As we approach Memorial Day and the end of Jewish American Heritage Month, we thought it would be appropriate to re-broadcast an episode that aired last fall. Guest hosting is my colleague Dr. Dana Levinson Steiner, Director of ACCESS Global at AJC, where she oversees an international program to engage young professionals, including a number of Jewish military veterans. Dana, the mic is yours. Dana Levinson Steiner: Thanks, Manya. I'm so happy that we're here today. It was just over two years ago that we formed the ACCESS Jewish Military Veterans Affinity Group, which is a space for us to convene young Jewish professionals who had served in the American military. And here we are now recording our first People of the Pod podcast episode in honor of and commemorating Veterans Day.  With us today are: Dave Warnock, U.S. Army Veteran, joining us from his home in Seattle, Washington, and Andrea Goldstein, U.S. Navy Veteran and Reservist, who is based in Washington, D.C. Dave, Andrea, thanks for joining us today. Dave Warnock:   Happy to be here, Dana. Andrea Goldstein:   Yeah, I'm glad to be here.  Dana Levinson Steiner: To kick off the conversation, please tell us a little bit about your journey as an American Jewish military veteran. What inspired you to join the United States Armed Forces? Dave, let's start with you. Dave Warnock:   For me, there are two kind of main things when I look back on what propelled me to join the US Army. The first one was my great grandfather, Saul Fink. The family legend is like he emigrated over from the shtetl. His family settled in Harlem. And when he heard about what was going on in Texas at the time, and 1916 and 1914 with the Pancho Villa incursions, he felt so propelled by patriotism and love of America that he had to run away from home and enlist at 16 years old. Which he did. Joined the Horse Calvary, a proper Jewish cowboy chasing after Pancho Villa in New Mexico, in a forgotten war. And he made sort of a career out of the army. So that's the legend that he was propelled by patriotism, maybe hated the tenement, maybe just wanted to get out of Harlem, get some fresh air, see the American West, I don't know.  But his service propelled him forward in American society, through the US Army in a way that I think would have been unavailable to a lot of Jews at the time. It's not to say that it was an easy journey. He was certainly discriminated against; he shortened his name from Finkelstein to Fink for reasons that are not kind of lost to history. One joke is that it couldn't fit on the nametag. But through this service, he was elevated in society, he became an officer in World War I. He served through World War II and in the army of occupation in Germany. And his stature, sort of the patriarch of my family, loomed large. My middle name is Solomon, I'm named after him. So that kind of tradition was part of it. Another part was, I enlisted in 2004. So three years after 91/1 when I was a freshman in high school, and that terrorist attack really did propelled, cemented my decision to serve you know, if that didn't happen, I don't know what I would have done differently. But those are the two main reasons that propelled me to join. And I joined the Army and I volunteered for the infantry because I wanted to be a soldier.  Dana Levinson Steiner: In a lot of ways, it is our family that inspires us to make these kinds of decisions and we learn so much from our family history and our family lineage. Andrea, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your journey too and I'm curious if family played a role in your decision to join the Navy. Andrea Goldstein:   My family decision to do the military was much more related to growing up in the United States, growing up in New York at a time actually, probably when we didn't have the NYPD outside of synagogues. I didn't really think about being Jewish, at least in New York in the 90s. But my family came here in mostly two waves, most in the early 20th century, and then another wave right before the Holocaust, and found everything they were looking for. And depending on which wave, either second generation or third generation where a sense of precarity and being American was gone. We just were American Jews. And I am currently sitting in a home that has embroidery on the wall that was sent to my great-grandmother, by family members who ended up–who perished in the shoah. This country really gave us everything and I wanted to give back to that.  The value of tikkun olam is very central to everything that I do. And so serving my country and wearing the cloth of the nation to me felt like really the only way to do that.  9/11 was not a motivating factor for me, despite growing up in New York City and being in New York City on 9/11. My desire to serve in uniform predated that, in fact, 9/11 led me to really not so much reconsider, but really give even more thought to my military service, because I knew I would be serving in conflict zones, which, with the peacetime military of the 90s, that wasn't clear. But I ended up joining through an officer program. I didn't initially have any family support, because it was such a shocking choice. I had great-grandparents who'd served during World War Two great-uncles, but not from a military family at all. And what became very understood by my family, because it was, what was motivating me was, this desire to serve my country and wear the cloth of the nation, no matter what. Dana Levinson Steiner: I want to pivot a little bit, I want to get back to questions of Jewish identity in a moment. But when we're thinking about American Jews serving in the US armed forces, while there isn't a ton of data, the most recent-ish data suggests that just about 1% of the US armed forces, or the US military, is made up of American Jews. It's tiny, only 1%. And that 1% is of an already really small number of American Jews who already live in this country.  So, you know, thinking about this statistic and also acknowledging American history in serving in the military. What do we make of this small number? And what would you like to tell young American Jews who may be considering joining the military but may have doubts or concerns? Andrea Goldstein:   So there are a couple of things I would say to that. I would comment on that data–first of all, that's only commenting that that only includes self reported numbers because we don't collect demographic data on, it's seen as completely religious affiliation. The military does not collect demographics on Jews as being an ethnic group. So it's actually quite difficult to self-report your religion. So there's going to be an undercount, there are people who are Jewish, who may even practice privately, who are not reporting. And it also doesn't capture Jewish families.  So it doesn't capture the number of people who may be not Jewish themselves, but their partner and spouse is Jewish, and they're raising Jewish children, and they're observing Jewish holidays with their families. So there's a lot that we really don't know. What I would also say is, if you were to overlay where the military struggles to recruit from, with the parts of the country where most Jews live in the United States, you would see probably some very interesting geographic trends.  The military has become a family business. There has also been, there have been some comforts that the military has had in where they recruit from. And that typically is not New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Washington, DC. So in addition to being one of the very few Jews that I know, in the military, I think I know probably even fewer people from New York City, especially officers. Dana Levinson Steiner: Dave, I'm curious, your thoughts on some of these numbers? And also maybe what you would tell–you and I have talked about this before about wanting to really engage in conversation with young American Jews about this experience and what it can mean for them, you know, acknowledging this number a while not perfect, I would imagine it's not so massive. So tell us a little bit about what you think and also maybe what you would tell a young American Jew who might be considering enlisting. Dave Warnock:   Sure. First off, my mom was also very surprised when I joined, perplexed, flummoxed, aggrieved, perhaps she would have much rather me not join the army. But I just have to get that out there because she's certainly going to listen to this. Yeah, so, you know, I don't know where that number comes from, you know, the infantry's a different representation, I would say Jews were less than 1% of the infantry. But when I was at basic training, like for one station unit training, as they called it back then, after your red phase, like your hell phase, or whatever you want to call it, you are allowed to go to religious services on Sunday.  So I went to Jewish services on Sunday, because, you know, it is the army. And I want to do it, like in my basic training company, there were no other Jews. So the company's like 200 guys, and then when you go to religious services, they're all of a sudden, like, 200 guys, they're like, Oh, my God, why so many Jews all of a sudden in every company in Fort Benning, except for mine? And then I realized is because they serve Kiddush lunch and you could get snacky cakes after services. And it turns out there were like three actual Jews at the services. Andrea Goldstein:   I had a completely different experience in officer candidate school where we were allowed to leave on Friday nights. Dana Levinson Steiner: Oh, interesting. Dave, what was your experience?  Dave Warnock:   So again,, this is like 2005, things might have changed. But when you joined a Combat Arms significant you just went to one station unit training and it was a fairly intense experience. Think about Full Metal Jacket, whatever, people screaming at you, doing lots of push ups. And all your time is blocked out and accounted for. So you've trained on Saturdays and religious service time was Sunday morning. That's the time you got, so if you want to go to services, you  had to do that. Something to consider if you join certain aspects of the military is, religious accommodations will be difficult. You know, I served with guys who were vegetarian. And there's one vegetarian MRE. You ate that a lot, like our rations for the field. So you eat that vegetarian ration a lot. Get real used to it.  Certainly that is a consideration and it would be difficult to be religiously observant. In the infantry. I actually there was one guy in my company on the latter half of my service who was a religious Jew. And he basically got a lot of exceptions by his rabbi to serve. Because it was hard. The army would accommodate him to an extent, like, for example, we had to shave every day. And so he was allowed to use an electric razor. But it's something to consider if you are religious, that serving in the US military will be challenging.  But you know, I encourage people to consider it. I don't regret my service, it's difficult to imagine my adult life without it. I'd say, I'm proud of it, too. But it carries costs. You know, when I was 19, on my first tour in Iraq, I was wounded, it took me six months to recover and get back to the line. The, almost five years I was in, I rarely saw my family because I was stationed in Germany and deployed to Iraq twice. So I was overseas, essentially, for the entire time of my service. And that's something to consider, but this is all my perspective.  But the experiences you get, that will propel you forward in life in a way that I don't think you get through other things, certainly, when you're 18, or when I was. That being said, you know, a lot of soldiers in my unit did die in combat. A lot of guys, when they got out, they did struggle with PTSD and suicide. So it's not all sunshine and roses. But for me, it was the right decision. Andrea Goldstein: Military service is really incredible. My field does have more Jewish folks, especially in the reserves where I'm still serving. What's been very interesting is as an intelligence officer, the active duty component doesn't have a lot of Jewish people, but the reserve component, my last unit, we had enough people to have a minyan in a unit of 50 people. And I have found, similarly to just living in society. I mean, your exercises are not–you're going to have exercises that take place during Rosh Hashanah, you're going to be deployed around Christian holidays so that people can be home for Christmas. Maybe you'll be lucky if that's around Hanukkah.  But I've also found people to who I've worked with to be incredibly accommodating up until, up  to the extent that they can. So maybe I was going to be away for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. But people would change their shifts with me on watch so that I could run the service because I was the lay leader, or so that I could break my fast at the end of Yom Kippur war.  And I experienced people being really curious and asking a lot of really good, in good faith questions. And I've had incredible experiences that range from serving with a lot of incredible, not just our military, but partner militaries. The most rewarding was my time with NATO where I got to teach in Norway and Greece and in  Sweden and get to have these incredible experiences with people as the people who– actually the Germans all notice my last name, which was really interesting. And that's a whole other story. But you also see things you can't experience anywhere else. And it's not just the–I saw a meteor shower in the middle of the ocean, on my 26th birthday from the middle of a ship. Like there are certain experiences that you don't think about when you're going into the profession of arms. But you will get to experience these incredibly vibrant experiences just because you've, you've made this choice to go where no one else does. And so it's incredibly rewarding.  I've also found that as a millennial, I mean, there are some very realistic things about the economic environment that we graduated into. And because of my military service, I have no debt, and I own a home. I have a master's degree that the GI bill paid for. So there's some other things. Dana Levinson Steiner: You talked about sort of the things that you learned and the experience that you got as a young person. Dave tell us maybe a little about some of the more rewarding experiences or things were really profoundly important to you in your service. Dave Warnock:   I got out when I was 23. So 13 years ago now and memories once so vivid that I thought I would never forget him kind of faded away a little bit. One thing that I'll never forget, that was quite challenging, because after I was wounded, I was kind of serving in the rear just like in a limited duty capacity, like back in my garrison. And it was a tough tour, you know, lots of us got wounded, we had lots of members of our battalion killed. And I was asked by chain of command, as much as one can be asked in the military to escort a soldier's body back to his parents and to his burial in Arlington Cemetery. And I did that, and that was, I can't even describe just what that moment felt like to do that to be present there. It's kind of like a unit liaison. I didn't know the soldier, we were in different companies. But that was something I'll never forget. Actually escorting a soldier back to his parents.  Another memory I'll never forget is like, because I have a photo of it. And it's on the wall in our living room is, the photo of me and my fire team. I was a sergeant on my second tour. And so I led like a small unit of four guys. And I have a picture when we were leaving Iraq for the last time. And just that sense of accomplishment of, everyone came home safe from my team on that tour. And that's why it's hung up on my wall. It's you know, we're smiling. We're happy. We're leaving. Yeah, so those are two things that tend to stand out in my service.  Dana Levinson Steiner: So Andrea, you started off by saying that the value of tikkun olam, repairing the world is one of the things that really guides you. And what I want to ask both you and Dave is how has your identity as a Jew, also shaped your experience as a veteran, we talked a little bit about, you know, in the beginning about your experiences as Jews or maybe your family, being involved in the military not being involved, being surprised. But tell us a little bit about how your identity as a Jew has shaped your experience as a military veteran and as someone who served in our armed forces. Andrea Goldstein:   So I left active duty in 2016 and stayed in the reserves but left full time service because I felt like I had reached a ceiling on what I could really do for others and that be my full time job. I wanted to keep serving, I wanted to keep serving my country. But a lot of that actually had to do with the way that I saw a lot of my teammates being mistreated by systemic issues, whether they be cultural or policy. And I wanted to spend a lot more of my time actively putting putting more good into the world versus preventing bad things from happening. Because that's what you do in the military, especially if you're in intel, you try to stop the bad you don't do anything that actively promotes the good. And so I've spent the last seven years in my civilian career, either in nonprofit or public service, doing just that.  And about half of that time has been active either actively helping veterans, particularly women veterans, and people who have experienced sexual violence or other kinds of institutionalized harm, and currently serving members of the military. And I also firmly believe that our institutions need to live up to the ideals that we profess. And  I want our nation to represent the ideals that my family came here believing it had.  And so that's what I've been doing with my time. I spent two and a half years on the House Veterans Affairs Committee and helped write over 100 laws that particularly supported women veterans, members of the LGBTQ community, sexual trauma survivors, people living with PTSD, to help them get improved access to healthcare and benefits. And I'm also very proud that I've also had the opportunity to work with the IDF and provided some insight into the way that we've made some policy changes here in the US. Dana Levinson Steiner: Dave, tell us a little bit about your Jewish identity and how it plays into this experience. Dave Warnock:   Well, my unit was very diverse in many ways, not gender, because the unit was closed to, or  at the time that the MLS was close to females, so the unit was,  the job was all male. And, you know, part of the pipeline and being new and being a private is your identity is kind of like stripped away and melted down, you're built up as part of this team, your individualism is kind of knocked away. So when that process happens, you know, whatever is the more like forefront of your identity kind of consumes it. In a sense that, like, if you have a very pronounced southern accent, everyone's going to call you a country guy, or whatever. And if you're from New York, there's a guy from Queens, so like, everything about him became like, you're the New York guy.  And for me, it was like I was the Jew. Because that was the most forefront and center thing of my identity. Also, when you shave my head, I have a really big head. So it was all like, all my nicknames were either about having a big head or being a Jew. And then eventually, when I started to grow my hair back and settled more on the latter.  So it was always very central to my service, because that was me, I was like the company's guy who was Jewish. And that was not  meant in a derogatory term was more of like a statement of fact. And I think the only thing I really had to overcome was like, in 2005, when you're serving with people, like when I said it was diverse, you could be serving with people from all over the country, the US territories and guys from parts of the South I've never heard of, guys from the center of the country place have never been soldiers from Puerto Rico and Guam, like all over the world are serving in the US Army and then we have immigrant soldiers from, you know, Colombia, Nicaragua, Vietnam, like it was a very wide swath of representation and not very many of them had even met a Jew before.  So in a way I was like the first Jew a lot of them had ever met. And I think, you know, rewind back 2005. If you know anything about Jews you probably know like Woody Allen and  Jerry Seinfeld, which are exactly like pictures of guys you want in a foxhole with you. So I had to sort of maybe work a little harder to prove myself in the basic soldiering tasks, but like that didn't take very long. A lot of guys asked me questions about Judaism, because they genuinely didn't know. And I think one of the benefits of my service is, these guys take back their experiences with me, which I hope are positive, and then like, go back to wherever they're from. And they're like, if Judaism or Jews comes up, they're like, Hey, I served with a Jewish guy, he was pretty cool.  But I think that was very important to me, and why it's so important for Jews to continue military service, because you just meet people from all over the country that you never would have met before. And it broadened my experiences too, serving with those guys.  Dana Levinson Steiner: I think, hearing the story about how in many cases you might have been the first few that these folks have met is really important. I think in a lot of ways it helps to demystify, or in most important cases, maybe even act against antisemitic ideas or stereotypes. So I think that that's really important. And Dave, you and I have talked over the years, about how sort of the term of calling you a Jew was like a term of endearment. It wasn't in terms of a term of antisemitism. And in spending a lot of my time with this ACCESS Military Veterans Group, I've gotten to learn some of the interesting elements of how you communicate and what that can look like.  So I have just one more question for us. And I think it's really important to acknowledge this moment that we're in. On October 7, Israel experienced one of the most horrific tragedies in its 75 year history. It was and continues to be a horrific day for Israelis and the Jewish community around the world. As of today's recording, over 300 soldiers have been killed and tens of thousands have been called up for active and reserve duty.  So a question I have for both of you is, what is a message that you have, or that you can share, Jewish veteran to Jewish veteran. And I should even say just veteran to veteran because one of the amazing things about Israel is that there are many who serve in the IDF and who've been called up for reserve duty or who are in active duty who are not Jewish. They're a part of the Druze community. They're Arab Israelis. I think that's really what makes Israel such a remarkable country.  So tell us a little bit about perhaps your reactions to that day. And also a message that you have for your fellow soldiers in Israel. Andrea Goldstein:   I'm struggling to react because – the horror, rage, I'm just going to start crying on this podcast and not be able to actually give words. I was actually in touch on WhatsApp with several women who I've had the opportunity to work with who are veterans and reservists in the IDF. And there's definitely this kind of secret community of women around the world who have served in combat roles. Even if they weren't in combat, occupational specialties in their countries, where we know what we did, and our service has often gone unacknowledged and erased. And that service is also particularly called upon during the most desperate times, which we are in now. And the message that I have is we see you, we're with you and we want to run towards chaos with you.  Dana Levinson Steiner: Thank you so much, Andrea. Dave? Dave Warnock:   I mean, I can't say anything that hasn't already been said. You know, shock, anger. My wife and I are expecting our first child soon. And I didn't think we'd be having a daughter, be worried about like, I just thought, ignorantly, that these sorts of things were perhaps in the past. All I can say to those who are going to go serve is, keep your head on a swivel. Watch out for your battle buddy. All the things we used to say to each other then are still true now. Dana Levinson Steiner: Thank you. I think just knowing that you are in community with them, and that they have love and support is so powerful. And as I think both of you know, our ACCESS chapters are all over the world, including in Israel, where a huge number of our ACCESS leaders have been called up for active and reserve duty. So we're thinking of them in this moment.  And we're thinking of all soldiers as we approach Veterans Day, and we're so grateful for the two of you sharing your story with us and sharing your time with us and giving a voice to the more than 1%, we will hope, of American Jewish veterans and perhaps even encourage some folks who may have been thinking that this is something that's been on their mind. Maybe perhaps it might be the moment for them to lean into that into that journey as a Jewish member of our armed forces. So thank you both for joining us. Wishing you a restful and restorative weekend. And Shabbat Shalom. Dave Warnock:   Shabbat shalom, thank you.  Andrea Goldstein:   Thank you so much, shabbat shalom.

In hour 2, Annie is joined by Deroy Murdock, Nationally syndicated columnist  | A Member of Project 21 | Fox News Contributor to talk about the growing number of illegal aliens coming into the country. Later, Annie is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district | Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee who discusses the TikTok ban and talks about how he walked out of the SOTU. They wrap up the hour talking about annoying Facebook Ads.

We're talking with Navy veteran Jenna Carlton, who founded the massively popular Facebook group “The Millennial Veterans.” Between Facebook and Instagram, Millennial Veterans has amassed millions of views, and their content reaches thousands of vets every week.We jump right into her recent spicy article that tells VA why many younger vets do not recommend joining the military.She talked about her days aboard the carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) and like her Millennial Vet followers have come to appreciate, she didn't shy away from sharing personal experiences and the uncomfortable reality of military sexual trauma.Carlton also shared how she was inspired to create a Facebook group to connect with other millennial vets, after her internship with the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill. It was front row seat to the frustration many feel after watching Congress put politics before the immediate needs of our vets.She also delivers fascinating observations on whether the military truly helps younger service members prepare for life after the military. And a great take on whether that's the role of DoD, VA or millennial veterans themselves.We also examine her latest book, "The Veteran Workbook" and learn how veterans from all eras can benefit from putting their thoughts in a journal. And may be surprised by the benefits of looking in the rear view mirror.With one scroll through the MV page, the sense of community found within her audience is apparent, and in this episode she shares exactly how many of them feel.Check out The Millennial Veterans Facebook group here:https://www.facebook.com/themillennialveteransFollow Jenna on Instagram @themillennialveteranhttps://www.instagram.com/themillennialveteran/And even if you're too tough to journal ... check out "The Veteran Workbook" here:https://www.amazon.com/Veteran-Workbook-Jenna-Carlton/dp/B0C6W1GB96To reach CBS Eye on Veterans, Host, Phil Briggsphil@connectingvets.comFollow on X@philbriggsVet@EyeOnVeteransSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In hour 1, Annie is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district | Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to talk about the state of Congress. They wrap up the hour with Wiggins America: Monday Roundup.

Business Spotlight: Talib I. Karim is the Co-Founder and CEO of STEM4US!, an advocacy organization dedicated to increasing the numbers and diversity of our nation's workers and innovators in the Cybersecurity and other STEM sectors. To achieve this mission, STEM4US! engages private and public sector leaders to increase funding for science-related education and training. Recently, the group launched an initiative to divert youth and parents from jail to cybersecurity training at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and community colleges. In addition, Talib serves as CEO of Abe Legal, an app that helps lawyers provide services to families, businesses, and nonprofits. Along with this, Talib manages a Washington, DC-based boutique business law firm that assists entrepreneurs with technology, education, and energy transactional, regulatory, and litigation matters. Talib has taught as a professor at Bowie State University, a Historically Black College & University, based in Maryland. Talib's coursework focused on labor, employment, electronic banking, online business enterprises, e-banking, venture capital, and other economic policy issues. Previously Talib worked as the Legislative Director and Chief Counsel for Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, As a veteran, Talib had the distinct honor of serving as a senior disabilities oversight counsel with the House Veterans Affairs Committee where he helped lead investigations that resulted in numerous reforms of the VA's benefit claims system. Talib's college career was launched at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Ultimately, Talib earned his degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Law from the prestigious Howard University. Advocacy runs in the veins of Talib's family, Talib's wife, brother, sister, and three sisters-in-law are members of the legal profession. Talib's legal career was inspired by his late father, a civil rights leader who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and initiated a federal class-action suit that ended decades of discrimination in Memphis, TN. https://www.stem4us.org/ https://www.instagram.com/stem4us.youth Email your positive music by BLACK artists to melchizedekllc at gmail dot com. Email us your Guest Suggestions too. Rate & Review the podcast. Leave us a message to play on the next episode here. CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION ON INSTAGRAM ⁠@ FRENCHAIRE_GARDNER ⁠ Watch the Live video of this conversation at https://www.instagram.com/p/Cztw5jOO2Ub/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== SHOP FRENCHAIRE'S BOOKS & ARTSY MERCH: ⁠ linqapp.com/frenchaire ⁠https://www.frenchaire.com/shop⁠⁠⁠ Finding Joy in the Journey Vol 2⁠⁠ The "Strategy" in Struggle Mini-ebook Series⁠⁠⁠ http://frenchyswonders.threadless.com/⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/frenchaireg⁠⁠ AFFILIATE LINK FOR OMNIA RADIATION BALANCER: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.omniaradiationbalancer.comE?p=B1dZwBsTD⁠⁠⁠ USE CODE BE FOR 10% OFF Your support is urgently needed. Your contribution will ensure continued programming, assistance with purchasing equipment (mics), and annual fees for streaming services (StreamYard/Zoom). ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com/Frenchaire⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ Paypal.me/Frenchaire⁠⁠⁠ https://www.patreon.com/Frenchaire⁠⁠ Cashapp $Beandusllc Venmo Frenchaire-Gardner ⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/news-you-can-use/message

In hour 2 of The Annie Frey Show, Annie is joined by Jim Carafano, Senior Counselor to the President and E.W. Richardson Fellow for International Engagement at The Heritage Foundation to discuss how useless the Biden Administration is in foreign policy. Later, she is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district | Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee who talks about the fact that Biden has the power to secure the border.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin faces growing pressure to resign after the revelation of undisclosed health issues and complications following his recent prostate cancer surgery. He continues to recover at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The controversy has sparked heated debates on Capitol Hill, with a Democrat now joining the Republican chorus of voices demanding transparency and accountability. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addressed the unfolding situation, admitting the lack of information surrounding Austin's hospitalization. “We did not know he was in the hospital until Thursday. We did not know the condition that put him in the — in the hospital at that time. We certainly didn't know about the prostate surgery that occurred earlier in December,” Kirby stated during a press briefing Wednesday. The growing discontent reached a tipping point when Congressman Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, representing portions of the Pittsburgh area, became the first Democrat to publicly call for Austin's resignation. Deluzio, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and is the Vice Ranking Member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, cited a loss of trust in Austin's leadership. “I have lost trust in Secretary Lloyd Austin's leadership of the Defense Department due to the lack of transparency about his recent medical treatment and its impact on the continuity of the chain of command,” he said. “I have a solemn duty in Congress to conduct oversight of the Defense Department through my service on the House Armed Services Committee. That duty today requires me to call on Secretary Austin to resign.” The Pentagon says Austin is in good condition and that no date has been set for his release. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this segment of the show where Annie is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district | Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to give his thoughts on Illinois attempting to remove Trump from the Ballot.

In hour 2 of The Annie Frey Show, Annie is joined by Steve Moore, Distinguished Fellow in Economics at Heritage | Trump Economic Advisor to discuss  how in the Jobs report there are more people taking second jobs than getting a job. Later, Annie is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district | Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to give his thoughts on Illinois attempting to remove Trump from the Ballot. They wrap up the hour talking about the latest trend: stay-at-home girlfriends.

In hour 1 of The Annie Frey Show, Annie is joined by Mike Davis, Founder and President of the Article 3 project | FORMER: Chief Counsel for Nominations, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary | FORMER Law Clerk for Justice Gorsuch to discuss the recent news about Colorado Supreme Court Removing Trump from the Ballot. Later, Annie is joined by Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district | Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to talk about what it's been like for Mike Johnson since becoming Speaker.

Listen to this segment of The Annie Frey show where Annie is joined by Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district | Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to talk about what it's been like for Mike Johnson since becoming Speaker.

The VA's Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection (OAWP) – set up in the aftermath of the department's secret wait-list scandal – got off to a very rocky start. It had scandals of its own. According to the government watchdog Project on Government Oversight (POGO), VA has reformed OAWP in ways that have made real progress toward building whistleblower confidence. But there is still a whole lot of work to do. Joe Spielberger is policy counsel at POGO. A few weeks ago, he testified before the House Veterans Affairs Committee about what is needed at OAWP. He speaks here with Federal News Network Deputy Editor Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The VA's Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection (OAWP) – set up in the aftermath of the department's secret wait-list scandal – got off to a very rocky start. It had scandals of its own. According to the government watchdog Project on Government Oversight (POGO), VA has reformed OAWP in ways that have made real progress toward building whistleblower confidence. But there is still a whole lot of work to do. Joe Spielberger is policy counsel at POGO. A few weeks ago, he testified before the House Veterans Affairs Committee about what is needed at OAWP. He speaks here with Federal News Network Deputy Editor Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In honor of Veterans Day, explore the unique experiences of Jewish U.S. military veterans with Dave Warnock, U.S. Army Veteran, and Andrea Goldstein, U.S. Navy Veteran and Reservist. Our guests share what inspired them to join the military, how their Jewish heritage played a significant role in shaping their service, and what advice they have for the Israel Defense Forces soldiers fighting now against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Warnock and Goldstein are members of AJC's ACCESS Jewish Military Veterans Affinity Group, a space to convene young Jewish professionals who have served in the American military. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.  Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Dave Warnock, Andrea Goldstein Show Notes: Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War: What Would You Do If Your Son Was Kidnapped by Hamas? Renana Gomeh's Sons Were Taken Hostage by Hamas: What She Needs You to Do to Bring Them Home Now What Biden's Wartime Visit to Israel Signals to Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah Mai Gutman Was Supposed to Be at the Music Festival: IDF Lone Soldier Recounts Harrowing Week Responding to Hamas Terror: IsraAID CEO on How You Can Help Israelis Right Now Learn: What is Known About Israeli Hostages Taken by Hamas 7 Ways Hamas Exploits Palestinian Civilians in Gaza How much do you know about Hamas? Try to ace our quiz and expose the truth about the terror group today. Donate: AJC.org/SupportIsrael Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Transcript of Interview with Dave Warnock and Andrea Goldstein: Manya Brachear Pashman: This episode pays tribute to our nation's veterans. Guest hosting is my colleague Dr. Dana Levinson Steiner, Director of ACCESS Global at AJC, where she oversees an international program to engage young professionals. In that group are a number of Jewish military veterans who have served in the American Armed Forces. Dana, the mic is yours.  Dana Levinson Steiner: Thanks, Manya. I'm so happy that we're here today. It was just over two years ago that we formed the ACCESS Jewish Military Veterans Affinity Group, which is a space for us to convene young Jewish professionals who had served in the American military. And here we are now recording our first People of the Pod podcast episode in honor of and commemorating Veterans Day.  With us today are: Dave Warnock, U.S. Army Veteran, joining us from his home in Seattle, Washington, and Andrea Goldstein, U.S. Navy Veteran and Reservist, who is based in Washington, D.C. Dave, Andrea, thanks for joining us today. Dave Warnock:   Happy to be here, Dana. Andrea Goldstein:   Yeah, I'm glad to be here.  Dana Levinson Steiner: To kick off the conversation, please tell us a little bit about your journey as an American Jewish military veteran. What inspired you to join the United States Armed Forces? Dave, let's start with you. Dave Warnock:   For me, there are two kind of main things when I look back on what propelled me to join the US Army. The first one was my great grandfather, Saul Fink. The family legend is like he emigrated over from the shtetl. His family settled in Harlem. And when he heard about what was going on in Texas at the time, and 1916 and 1914 with the Pancho Villa incursions, he felt so propelled by patriotism and love of America that he had to run away from home and enlist at 16 years old. Which he did. Joined the Horse Calvary, a proper Jewish cowboy chasing after Pancho Villa in New Mexico, in a forgotten war. And he made sort of a career out of the army. So that's the legend that he was propelled by patriotism, maybe hated the tenement, maybe just wanted to get out of Harlem, get some fresh air, see the American West, I don't know.  But his service propelled him forward in American society, through the US Army in a way that I think would have been unavailable to a lot of Jews at the time. It's not to say that it was an easy journey. He was certainly discriminated against; he shortened his name from Finkelstein to Fink for reasons that are not kind of lost to history. One joke is that it couldn't fit on the nametag. But through this service, he was elevated in society, he became an officer in World War I. He served through World War II and in the army of occupation in Germany. And his stature, sort of the patriarch of my family, loomed large. My middle name is Solomon, I'm named after him. So that kind of tradition was part of it. Another part was, I enlisted in 2004. So three years after 91/1 when I was a freshman in high school, and that terrorist attack really did propelled, cemented my decision to serve you know, if that didn't happen, I don't know what I would have done differently. But those are the two main reasons that propelled me to join. And I joined the Army and I volunteered for the infantry because I wanted to be a soldier.  Dana Levinson Steiner: In a lot of ways, it is our family that inspires us to make these kinds of decisions and we learn so much from our family history and our family lineage. Andrea, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your journey too and I'm curious if family played a role in your decision to join the Navy. Andrea Goldstein:   My family decision to do the military was much more related to growing up in the United States, growing up in New York at a time actually, probably when we didn't have the NYPD outside of synagogues. I didn't really think about being Jewish, at least in New York in the 90s. But my family came here in mostly two waves, most in the early 20th century, and then another wave right before the Holocaust, and found everything they were looking for. And depending on which wave, either second generation or third generation where a sense of precarity and being American was gone. We just were American Jews. And I am currently sitting in a home that has embroidery on the wall that was sent to my great-grandmother, by family members who ended up–who perished in the shoah. This country really gave us everything and I wanted to give back to that.  The value of tikkun olam is very central to everything that I do. And so serving my country and wearing the cloth of the nation to me felt like really the only way to do that.  9/11 was not a motivating factor for me, despite growing up in New York City and being in New York City on 9/11. My desire to serve in uniform predated that, in fact, 9/11 led me to really not so much reconsider, but really give even more thought to my military service, because I knew I would be serving in conflict zones, which, with the peacetime military of the 90s, that wasn't clear. But I ended up joining through an officer program. I didn't initially have any family support, because it was such a shocking choice. I had great-grandparents who'd served during World War Two great-uncles, but not from a military family at all. And what became very understood by my family, because it was, what was motivating me was, this desire to serve my country and wear the cloth of the nation, no matter what. Dana Levinson Steiner: I want to pivot a little bit, I want to get back to questions of Jewish identity in a moment. But when we're thinking about American Jews serving in the US armed forces, while there isn't a ton of data, the most recent-ish data suggests that just about 1% of the US armed forces, or the US military, is made up of American Jews. It's tiny, only 1%. And that 1% is of an already really small number of American Jews who already live in this country.  So, you know, thinking about this statistic and also acknowledging American history in serving in the military. What do we make of this small number? And what would you like to tell young American Jews who may be considering joining the military but may have doubts or concerns? Andrea Goldstein:   So there are a couple of things I would say to that. I would comment on that data–first of all, that's only commenting that that only includes self reported numbers because we don't collect demographic data on, it's seen as completely religious affiliation. The military does not collect demographics on Jews as being an ethnic group. So it's actually quite difficult to self-report your religion. So there's going to be an undercount, there are people who are Jewish, who may even practice privately, who are not reporting. And it also doesn't capture Jewish families.  So it doesn't capture the number of people who may be not Jewish themselves, but their partner and spouse is Jewish, and they're raising Jewish children, and they're observing Jewish holidays with their families. So there's a lot that we really don't know. What I would also say is, if you were to overlay where the military struggles to recruit from, with the parts of the country where most Jews live in the United States, you would see probably some very interesting geographic trends.  The military has become a family business. There has also been, there have been some comforts that the military has had in where they recruit from. And that typically is not New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Washington, DC. So in addition to being one of the very few Jews that I know, in the military, I think I know probably even fewer people from New York City, especially officers. Dana Levinson Steiner: Dave, I'm curious, your thoughts on some of these numbers? And also maybe what you would tell–you and I have talked about this before about wanting to really engage in conversation with young American Jews about this experience and what it can mean for them, you know, acknowledging this number a while not perfect, I would imagine it's not so massive. So tell us a little bit about what you think and also maybe what you would tell a young American Jew who might be considering enlisting. Dave Warnock:   Sure. First off, my mom was also very surprised when I joined, perplexed, flummoxed, aggrieved, perhaps she would have much rather me not join the army. But I just have to get that out there because she's certainly going to listen to this. Yeah, so, you know, I don't know where that number comes from, you know, the infantry's a different representation, I would say Jews were less than 1% of the infantry. But when I was at basic training, like for one station unit training, as they called it back then, after your red phase, like your hell phase, or whatever you want to call it, you are allowed to go to religious services on Sunday.  So I went to Jewish services on Sunday, because, you know, it is the army. And I want to do it, like in my basic training company, there were no other Jews. So the company's like 200 guys, and then when you go to religious services, they're all of a sudden, like, 200 guys, they're like, Oh, my God, why so many Jews all of a sudden in every company in Fort Benning, except for mine? And then I realized is because they serve Kiddush lunch and you could get snacky cakes after services. And it turns out there were like three actual Jews at the services. Andrea Goldstein:   I had a completely different experience in officer candidate school where we were allowed to leave on Friday nights. Dana Levinson Steiner: Oh, interesting. Dave, what was your experience?  Dave Warnock:   So again,, this is like 2005, things might have changed. But when you joined a Combat Arms significant you just went to one station unit training and it was a fairly intense experience. Think about Full Metal Jacket, whatever, people screaming at you, doing lots of push ups. And all your time is blocked out and accounted for. So you've trained on Saturdays and religious service time was Sunday morning. That's the time you got, so if you want to go to services, you  had to do that. Something to consider if you join certain aspects of the military is, religious accommodations will be difficult. You know, I served with guys who were vegetarian. And there's one vegetarian MRE. You ate that a lot, like our rations for the field. So you eat that vegetarian ration a lot. Get real used to it.  Certainly that is a consideration and it would be difficult to be religiously observant. In the infantry. I actually there was one guy in my company on the latter half of my service who was a religious Jew. And he basically got a lot of exceptions by his rabbi to serve. Because it was hard. The army would accommodate him to an extent, like, for example, we had to shave every day. And so he was allowed to use an electric razor. But it's something to consider if you are religious, that serving in the US military will be challenging.  But you know, I encourage people to consider it. I don't regret my service, it's difficult to imagine my adult life without it. I'd say, I'm proud of it, too. But it carries costs. You know, when I was 19, on my first tour in Iraq, I was wounded, it took me six months to recover and get back to the line. The, almost five years I was in, I rarely saw my family because I was stationed in Germany and deployed to Iraq twice. So I was overseas, essentially, for the entire time of my service. And that's something to consider, but this is all my perspective.  But the experiences you get, that will propel you forward in life in a way that I don't think you get through other things, certainly, when you're 18, or when I was. That being said, you know, a lot of soldiers in my unit did die in combat. A lot of guys, when they got out, they did struggle with PTSD and suicide. So it's not all sunshine and roses. But for me, it was the right decision. Andrea Goldstein: Military service is really incredible. My field does have more Jewish folks, especially in the reserves where I'm still serving. What's been very interesting is as an intelligence officer, the active duty component doesn't have a lot of Jewish people, but the reserve component, my last unit, we had enough people to have a minyan in a unit of 50 people. And I have found, similarly to just living in society. I mean, your exercises are not–you're going to have exercises that take place during Rosh Hashanah, you're going to be deployed around Christian holidays so that people can be home for Christmas. Maybe you'll be lucky if that's around Hanukkah.  But I've also found people to who I've worked with to be incredibly accommodating up until, up  to the extent that they can. So maybe I was going to be away for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. But people would change their shifts with me on watch so that I could run the service because I was the lay leader, or so that I could break my fast at the end of Yom Kippur war.  And I experienced people being really curious and asking a lot of really good, in good faith questions. And I've had incredible experiences that range from serving with a lot of incredible, not just our military, but partner militaries. The most rewarding was my time with NATO where I got to teach in Norway and Greece and in  Sweden and get to have these incredible experiences with people as the people who– actually the Germans all notice my last name, which was really interesting. And that's a whole other story. But you also see things you can't experience anywhere else. And it's not just the–I saw a meteor shower in the middle of the ocean, on my 26th birthday from the middle of a ship. Like there are certain experiences that you don't think about when you're going into the profession of arms. But you will get to experience these incredibly vibrant experiences just because you've, you've made this choice to go where no one else does. And so it's incredibly rewarding.  I've also found that as a millennial, I mean, there are some very realistic things about the economic environment that we graduated into. And because of my military service, I have no debt, and I own a home. I have a master's degree that the GI bill paid for. So there's some other things. Dana Levinson Steiner: You talked about sort of the things that you learned and the experience that you got as a young person. Dave tell us maybe a little about some of the more rewarding experiences or things were really profoundly important to you in your service. Dave Warnock:   I got out when I was 23. So 13 years ago now and memories once so vivid that I thought I would never forget him kind of faded away a little bit. One thing that I'll never forget, that was quite challenging, because after I was wounded, I was kind of serving in the rear just like in a limited duty capacity, like back in my garrison. And it was a tough tour, you know, lots of us got wounded, we had lots of members of our battalion killed. And I was asked by chain of command, as much as one can be asked in the military to escort a soldier's body back to his parents and to his burial in Arlington Cemetery. And I did that, and that was, I can't even describe just what that moment felt like to do that to be present there. It's kind of like a unit liaison. I didn't know the soldier, we were in different companies. But that was something I'll never forget. Actually escorting a soldier back to his parents.  Another memory I'll never forget is like, because I have a photo of it. And it's on the wall in our living room is, the photo of me and my fire team. I was a sergeant on my second tour. And so I led like a small unit of four guys. And I have a picture when we were leaving Iraq for the last time. And just that sense of accomplishment of, everyone came home safe from my team on that tour. And that's why it's hung up on my wall. It's you know, we're smiling. We're happy. We're leaving. Yeah, so those are two things that tend to stand out in my service.  Dana Levinson Steiner: So Andrea, you started off by saying that the value of tikkun olam, repairing the world is one of the things that really guides you. And what I want to ask both you and Dave is how has your identity as a Jew, also shaped your experience as a veteran, we talked a little bit about, you know, in the beginning about your experiences as Jews or maybe your family, being involved in the military not being involved, being surprised. But tell us a little bit about how your identity as a Jew has shaped your experience as a military veteran and as someone who served in our armed forces. Andrea Goldstein:   So I left active duty in 2016 and stayed in the reserves but left full time service because I felt like I had reached a ceiling on what I could really do for others and that be my full time job. I wanted to keep serving, I wanted to keep serving my country. But a lot of that actually had to do with the way that I saw a lot of my teammates being mistreated by systemic issues, whether they be cultural or policy. And I wanted to spend a lot more of my time actively putting putting more good into the world versus preventing bad things from happening. Because that's what you do in the military, especially if you're in intel, you try to stop the bad you don't do anything that actively promotes the good. And so I've spent the last seven years in my civilian career, either in nonprofit or public service, doing just that.  And about half of that time has been active either actively helping veterans, particularly women veterans, and people who have experienced sexual violence or other kinds of institutionalized harm, and currently serving members of the military. And I also firmly believe that our institutions need to live up to the ideals that we profess. And  I want our nation to represent the ideals that my family came here believing it had.  And so that's what I've been doing with my time. I spent two and a half years on the House Veterans Affairs Committee and helped write over 100 laws that particularly supported women veterans, members of the LGBTQ community, sexual trauma survivors, people living with PTSD, to help them get improved access to healthcare and benefits. And I'm also very proud that I've also had the opportunity to work with the IDF and provided some insight into the way that we've made some policy changes here in the US. Dana Levinson Steiner: Dave, tell us a little bit about your Jewish identity and how it plays into this experience. Dave Warnock:   Well, my unit was very diverse in many ways, not gender, because the unit was closed to, or  at the time that the MLS was close to females, so the unit was,  the job was all male. And, you know, part of the pipeline and being new and being a private is your identity is kind of like stripped away and melted down, you're built up as part of this team, your individualism is kind of knocked away. So when that process happens, you know, whatever is the more like forefront of your identity kind of consumes it. In a sense that, like, if you have a very pronounced southern accent, everyone's going to call you a country guy, or whatever. And if you're from New York, there's a guy from Queens, so like, everything about him became like, you're the New York guy.  And for me, it was like I was the Jew. Because that was the most forefront and center thing of my identity. Also, when you shave my head, I have a really big head. So it was all like, all my nicknames were either about having a big head or being a Jew. And then eventually, when I started to grow my hair back and settled more on the latter.  So it was always very central to my service, because that was me, I was like the company's guy who was Jewish. And that was not  meant in a derogatory term was more of like a statement of fact. And I think the only thing I really had to overcome was like, in 2005, when you're serving with people, like when I said it was diverse, you could be serving with people from all over the country, the US territories and guys from parts of the South I've never heard of, guys from the center of the country place have never been soldiers from Puerto Rico and Guam, like all over the world are serving in the US Army and then we have immigrant soldiers from, you know, Colombia, Nicaragua, Vietnam, like it was a very wide swath of representation and not very many of them had even met a Jew before.  So in a way I was like the first Jew a lot of them had ever met. And I think, you know, rewind back 2005. If you know anything about Jews you probably know like Woody Allen and  Jerry Seinfeld, which are exactly like pictures of guys you want in a foxhole with you. So I had to sort of maybe work a little harder to prove myself in the basic soldiering tasks, but like that didn't take very long. A lot of guys asked me questions about Judaism, because they genuinely didn't know. And I think one of the benefits of my service is, these guys take back their experiences with me, which I hope are positive, and then like, go back to wherever they're from. And they're like, if Judaism or Jews comes up, they're like, Hey, I served with a Jewish guy, he was pretty cool.  But I think that was very important to me, and why it's so important for Jews to continue military service, because you just meet people from all over the country that you never would have met before. And it broadened my experiences too, serving with those guys.  Dana Levinson Steiner: I think, hearing the story about how in many cases you might have been the first few that these folks have met is really important. I think in a lot of ways it helps to demystify, or in most important cases, maybe even act against antisemitic ideas or stereotypes. So I think that that's really important. And Dave, you and I have talked over the years, about how sort of the term of calling you a Jew was like a term of endearment. It wasn't in terms of a term of antisemitism. And in spending a lot of my time with this ACCESS Military Veterans Group, I've gotten to learn some of the interesting elements of how you communicate and what that can look like.  So I have just one more question for us. And I think it's really important to acknowledge this moment that we're in. On October 7, Israel experienced one of the most horrific tragedies in its 75 year history. It was and continues to be a horrific day for Israelis and the Jewish community around the world. As of today's recording, over 300 soldiers have been killed and tens of thousands have been called up for active and reserve duty.  So a question I have for both of you is, what is a message that you have, or that you can share, Jewish veteran to Jewish veteran. And I should even say just veteran to veteran because one of the amazing things about Israel is that there are many who serve in the IDF and who've been called up for reserve duty or who are in active duty who are not Jewish. They're a part of the Druze community. They're Arab Israelis. I think that's really what makes Israel such a remarkable country.  So tell us a little bit about perhaps your reactions to that day. And also a message that you have for your fellow soldiers in Israel. Andrea Goldstein:   I'm struggling to react because – the horror, rage, I'm just going to start crying on this podcast and not be able to actually give words. I was actually in touch on WhatsApp with several women who I've had the opportunity to work with who are veterans and reservists in the IDF. And there's definitely this kind of secret community of women around the world who have served in combat roles. Even if they weren't in combat, occupational specialties in their countries, where we know what we did, and our service has often gone unacknowledged and erased. And that service is also particularly called upon during the most desperate times, which we are in now. And the message that I have is we see you, we're with you and we want to run towards chaos with you.  Dana Levinson Steiner: Thank you so much, Andrea. Dave? Dave Warnock:   I mean, I can't say anything that hasn't already been said. You know, shock, anger. My wife and I are expecting our first child soon. And I didn't think we'd be having a daughter, be worried about like, I just thought, ignorantly, that these sorts of things were perhaps in the past. All I can say to those who are going to go serve is, keep your head on a swivel. Watch out for your battle buddy. All the things we used to say to each other then are still true now. Dana Levinson Steiner: Thank you. I think just knowing that you are in community with them, and that they have love and support is so powerful. And as I think both of you know, our ACCESS chapters are all over the world, including in Israel, where a huge number of our ACCESS leaders have been called up for active and reserve duty. So we're thinking of them in this moment.  And we're thinking of all soldiers as we approach Veterans Day, and we're so grateful for the two of you sharing your story with us and sharing your time with us and giving a voice to the more than 1% we will hope of American Jewish veterans and perhaps even encourage some folks who may have been thinking that this is something that's been on their mind, maybe perhaps it might be the moment for them to lean into that into that journey as a Jewish member of our armed forces. So thank you both for joining us. Wishing you a restful and restorative weekend. And Shabbat Shalom. Dave Warnock:   Shabbat shalom, thank you.  Andrea Goldstein:   Thank you so much, shabbat shalom. Manya Brachear Pashman: What would you do if your son was kidnapped by Hamas? In this heartfelt conversation with Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, the parents of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg Polin, they shared what they know about their son's abduction from the Supernova music festival on October 7th and the challenges they face in trying to secure his rescue.  Hamas terrorists are holding hostage more than 240 people from over 30 countries, which the couple describes as a global humanitarian crisis that world leaders are not treating as such. They shared ways that we all can keep the hostages' stories alive and bring them home. Go to AJC.org/BringThemHome to do your part.

Listen to this segment of the Annie Frey Show where Annie is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee to discuss the current state of the House since Mike Johnson became the Speaker.

In hour 2 of The Annie Frey Show, Annie is joined by Jim Carafano, Senior Counselor to the President and E.W. Richardson Fellow for International Engagement at The Heritage Foundation to give an update on what's going on in Israel. Later, she is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee to discuss the current state of the House since Mike Johnson became the Speaker. They wrap up the hour talking about Brad's award-winning chili recipe. 

Listen to this segment of The Annie Frey Show where Annie is joined by Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to get an update on the current efforts in the House to elect a speaker.

In hour 2 of The Annie Frey Show, Annie is joined by Steve Moore, Distinguished Fellow in Economics at Heritage and author of Govzilla: How the relentless growth of government is devouring our economy and our freedom. They discuss the national debt, the House without a speaker, and how Biden's energy war is strengthening our enemies. Later, she is joined by Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to get an update on the current efforts in the House to elect a speaker. They wrap up the hour discussing what's making Annie uncomfortable lately.

In hour 2 of The Annie Frey Show, Annie is joined by Keith Kellogg, former National Security Advisor to the Trump Administration and co-Chair of the Center for American Security at America First Policy Institute to discuss America's role in defending Israel. Later, Annie is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to talk about Jim Jordan's numbers going the wrong direction. They wrap up the hour with Wiggins America.

Listen to this segment of The Annie Frey Show where Annie is joined by Rep. Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of  the House Veterans Affairs Committee to talk about Jim Jordan's numbers going the wrong direction. 

Listen to this segment of The Annie Frey Show where Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee talks about the Israel attacks and give his thoughts on Matt Gaetz.

In hour 1 of The Annie Frey Show, Annie is joined by Mike Bost, US Congressman for IL's 12th district and Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee to talk about the Israel attacks and give his thoughts on Matt Gaetz. Later Annie and the crew discuss the current status of the Israeli attacks and what Biden is doing about it. 

The Veterans Benefits Administration is looking to accelerate its use of automation tools this summer to keep pace with its workload and break new records on the number of claims it can process in a year. VBA officials told members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee that increased automation stands out as a key part of the agency's five-year modernization plan. Raymond Tellez, VA's acting assistant deputy under secretary for automated benefits delivery, told lawmakers on Wednesday that VBA, as part of its five-year modernization plan, is piloting automation technology to help decrease the time it takes to process claims. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Veterans Benefits Administration is looking to accelerate its use of automation tools this summer to keep pace with its workload and break new records on the number of claims it can process in a year.VBA officials told members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee that increased automation stands out as a key part of the agency's five-year modernization plan.Raymond Tellez, VA's acting assistant deputy under secretary for automated benefits delivery, told lawmakers on Wednesday that VBA, as part of its five-year modernization plan, is piloting automation technology to help decrease the time it takes to process claims. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Not enough new entrants. A lack of accountability. Too many modifications to existing contracts and not enough new awards. The Veterans Affairs Department got an earful from House lawmakers last month over its IT contracting habits. The trends highlighted by the Government Accountability Office and House Veterans Affairs Committee members were not necessarily surprising to VA officials, but nonetheless worrisome. To that end, VA is changing the way it manages and works with contractors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not enough new entrants. A lack of accountability. Too many modifications to existing contracts and not enough new awards. The Veterans Affairs Department got an earful from House lawmakers last month over its IT contracting habits.The trends highlighted by the Government Accountability Office and House Veterans Affairs Committee members were not necessarily surprising to VA officials, but nonetheless worrisome.To that end, VA is changing the way it manages and works with contractors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, May 26th, 2023. https://www.dailywire.com/news/college-enrollment-keeps-sliding-even-three-years-after-lockdowns College Enrollment Keeps Sliding Even Three Years After Lockdowns Enrollment for most forms of postsecondary education in the United States continued to decline three years after nationwide lockdowns forced many students to temporarily continue their degrees online, according to a new analysis from the National Student Clearinghouse. Public four-year institutions saw a 0.8% enrollment decline as of spring 2023, a somewhat less severe decrease than the 1.2% decline recorded in 2022 but more pronounced than the 0.3% decline in 2021 and the 0.2% decline in 2020. Private four-year nonprofit institutions meanwhile witnessed a 1.0% decrease in 2023, compared to the 1.2% decrease in 2022, the 0.4% decrease in 2021, and the 0.6% decrease in 2020. There are currently 7.1 million students enrolled in public four-year colleges and 3.9 million students enrolled in private four-year nonprofit colleges, marking drops from 7.3 million and 4.0 million enrolled students, respectively, from spring 2019, the last year which was not affected by the lockdowns. “Undergraduates at public and private nonprofit four-year institutions are still declining but at slower rates,” the analysis from the National Student Clearinghouse summarized. “Total postsecondary enrollment remains well below pre-pandemic levels.” Community college enrollment nevertheless increased 0.5% as of spring 2023, a phenomenon driven by “dual enrolled high school students and freshmen,” while the number of students pursuing graduate or professional degrees plummeted 2.2% from last year. The postsecondary education marketplace has been critically disrupted by the lockdowns and the advent of virtual instruction, realities which increasingly prompted students to question the time and funds they devote toward their college degrees. Elevated levels of student debt, which officials in the Biden administration are seeking to address through an executive order to cancel $10,000 in loans for every borrower earning less than $125,000, have also prompted many students to pause or discontinue their education. The debt forgiveness policy was recently examined by the Supreme Court, which is expected to release an opinion on the controversial move within the next month. Lockdowns also severely diminished learning outcomes at the primary and secondary levels. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that average reading scores for nine-year-olds plummeted five points and average mathematics scores dropped seven points, marking the first score decline for reading in three decades and the first score decline for mathematics in the history of the initiative. Stanford University economist and Hoover Institution senior fellow Eric Hanushek revealed in a recent study that learning losses could cause affected students to lose between 2% and 9% of their lifetime earnings as they miss the opportunity to learn critical skills, reducing prospects for future nationwide economic growth. Parents concerned about the impact of lockdowns on education have removed their children from government schools at an unprecedented rate. The number of homeschooled students increased from 2.7 million in 2020 to 3.1 million in 2023, according to a study from the National Home Education Research Institute. New Saint Andrews: Today’s culture shifts like sand, but New Saint Andrews College is established on Christ, the immovable rock. The college is a premier institution that forges evangelical leaders who don’t fear or hate the world. Guided by God’s word, equipped with the genius of classical liberal arts and God-honoring wisdom, with a faculty dedicated to academic rigor and to God’s kingdom, New Saint Andrews College offers an education that frees people. Logic and language, hard work and joyful courage, old books and godly professors — New Saint Andrews Colleges provides time-tested resources that can equip your student for any vocation. To find out more, visit: nsa.edu https://www.theblaze.com/news/member-group-of-coalition-pushing-extreme-abortion-initiative-in-ohio-fighting-to-undercut-parental-rights Coalition pushing extreme abortion initiative in Ohio says it isn't trying to undermine parental rights. A member group's explicit agenda suggests otherwise. A leftist coalition is working to roll back Ohio's few remaining abortion restrictions by way of a proposed constitutional amendment. Some opposition groups have suggested that this craftily worded proposal will not only enable late-term abortions, but undermine parental rights on these and other matters of life and death, including the ability to protect children from sex-change mutilations. While proponents of member groups in the coalition have claimed the amendment will not undermine parental rights, recently highlighted remarks made by a key player behind the abortion initiative have done little to inspire confidence. Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom PAC are leading the charge to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution by way of an initiated constitutional amendment called the "Ohio Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative." The proposal to put this abortion initiative on the November 2023 ballot was certified in March by the state attorney general. The proposed amendment further states that the "state shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either: 1. An individual's voluntary exercise of this right or 2. A person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual's health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care." The only ostensible restriction on abortion admitted in the amendment leaves determinations as to whether a viable human being can be exterminated up to abortionists. Parental rights are implicated and eroded under the amendment, argued the pro-life activists, because "'reproductive decisions' is a very broad term, and is intentionally included to stop any effort to put reasonable restrictions or enforce parental rights on a wide array of other destructive decisions—potentially including sex change surgeries." Carrie Severino and Frank Scaturro of the Judicial Crisis Network concurred, noting in National Review that "'reproductive decisions' ... is a very broad term. By explicitly defining such decisions as 'not limited to' the enumerated categories, the proposal establishes its scope as sweeping. A natural reading would extend to any medical procedure that involves the human reproductive system, including sex-change surgery." Extra to potentially affecting parents' ability to protect their children from sex-change mutilations and devastating puberty blockers, Dannenfelser and Sekulow highlighted how "if Ohio adopts the amendment, the state's supreme court can be expected to go even farther than the U.S. Supreme Court ever did in undoing the state's parental consent laws," in part by "outlawing any legal requirement for a parent to be notified about or consent before an abortion—or any other procedure related to 'reproduction decisions'—is performed on their child." https://twitter.com/i/status/1636019433578672130 - Play Video https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/05/23/va-cant-account-187-million-emergency-covid-19-funding.html VA Can't Account for $187 Million in Emergency COVID-19 Funding The Department of Veterans Affairs can’t account for at least $187 million in supplementary COVID-19 funding spread across more than 10,000 transactions related to the pandemic, according to a House oversight committee. Congress and the VA are at odds over the department's handling of nearly $37 billion in additional funding it received to address the COVID-19 pandemic, with House Veterans Affairs Committee leaders on both sides of the aisle critical of its failure to account for every dime. Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., and ranking member Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., praised the department for its pandemic response overall but called the VA out for its inability to account for the money, during a hearing sidetracked by GOP rancor over the department's messaging on debt ceiling legislation. Between 2020 and 2021, the VA received roughly $37 billion to address COVID-19 response, including an initial $60 million, followed by $19.6 billion in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and another $17 billion in the American Rescue Plan. As part of the deal to receive the funding, the department was required to account for its spending, a mandate underscored by passage in November 2021 of the VA Transparency and Trust Act. Across a series of 40 reviews and reports, the VA Office of Inspector General found numerous accounting issues involving the COVID-19 funds, including a lack of visibility over payroll, some contracts and medical supplies. The IG said the problems are attributable to the department's decentralized management structure, as well as an outdated financial information technology software – that it doesn't expect to modernize for another decade. It determined that the department was challenged by inaccurate payroll accounting; used manual transfers and adjustments to its financial management systems that led to at least 53 reporting errors; had problems with supply acquisition, such as duplicate purchases; and failed to properly oversee its efforts to provide telehealth hardware to veterans, namely distributing tablet computers and cell phones so they could access health care but not recouping the equipment when the veteran failed to use it. Given the issues, both Bost and Takano said they have concerns for the $2.1 billion remaining in American Rescue Plan funds, with Bost and fellow Republicans saying the money should be returned, while Takano pressed the VA to be more transparent as it continues using the funding. VA officials told the committee Tuesday that the department will spend the remaining American Rescue Plan money by the end of the fiscal year for programs initiated during the pandemic such as housing and telehealth for homeless veterans; prosthetics and medical research, including studies of long COVID; and on preventing the spread of contagious diseases in hospital and administrative settings. https://www.outkick.com/matt-araiza-jets-workout-allegations-cleared-up/ NEW YORK JETS WORKING OUT MATT ARAIZA TWO WEEKS AFTER PUNTER’S NAME WAS CLEARED OF GANG RAPE ALLEGATIONS Matt Araiza has landed his first workout with an NFL team since being cut by the Buffalo Bills ahead of last season over gang rape allegations. The New York Jets are giving the free-agent punter a look, according to Adam Schefter. Matt Araiza was cut by the Bills in August 2022 shortly after an allegation was made public that he had taken part in the gang rape of a minor while attending San Diego State. Fast-forward nine months to May of this year, and it has been determined that he was not present at the time of the incident that allegedly took place in October 2021. The transcript of a meeting between the accuser and prosecutors was brought to light just over two weeks ago in which investigators explained that they do not believe Araiza was present at the time of the alleged assault. Prosecutors in the San Diego District Attorney’s Office declined to file criminal charges, but Araiza is still facing a civil suit that he has no plans of settling anytime soon. Despite that there wasn’t a single fact was known about the alleged incident, the Bills caved to the portion of the public who had already deemed the punter guilty and cut him shortly before the start of the 2022 NFL regular season.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, May 26th, 2023. https://www.dailywire.com/news/college-enrollment-keeps-sliding-even-three-years-after-lockdowns College Enrollment Keeps Sliding Even Three Years After Lockdowns Enrollment for most forms of postsecondary education in the United States continued to decline three years after nationwide lockdowns forced many students to temporarily continue their degrees online, according to a new analysis from the National Student Clearinghouse. Public four-year institutions saw a 0.8% enrollment decline as of spring 2023, a somewhat less severe decrease than the 1.2% decline recorded in 2022 but more pronounced than the 0.3% decline in 2021 and the 0.2% decline in 2020. Private four-year nonprofit institutions meanwhile witnessed a 1.0% decrease in 2023, compared to the 1.2% decrease in 2022, the 0.4% decrease in 2021, and the 0.6% decrease in 2020. There are currently 7.1 million students enrolled in public four-year colleges and 3.9 million students enrolled in private four-year nonprofit colleges, marking drops from 7.3 million and 4.0 million enrolled students, respectively, from spring 2019, the last year which was not affected by the lockdowns. “Undergraduates at public and private nonprofit four-year institutions are still declining but at slower rates,” the analysis from the National Student Clearinghouse summarized. “Total postsecondary enrollment remains well below pre-pandemic levels.” Community college enrollment nevertheless increased 0.5% as of spring 2023, a phenomenon driven by “dual enrolled high school students and freshmen,” while the number of students pursuing graduate or professional degrees plummeted 2.2% from last year. The postsecondary education marketplace has been critically disrupted by the lockdowns and the advent of virtual instruction, realities which increasingly prompted students to question the time and funds they devote toward their college degrees. Elevated levels of student debt, which officials in the Biden administration are seeking to address through an executive order to cancel $10,000 in loans for every borrower earning less than $125,000, have also prompted many students to pause or discontinue their education. The debt forgiveness policy was recently examined by the Supreme Court, which is expected to release an opinion on the controversial move within the next month. Lockdowns also severely diminished learning outcomes at the primary and secondary levels. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that average reading scores for nine-year-olds plummeted five points and average mathematics scores dropped seven points, marking the first score decline for reading in three decades and the first score decline for mathematics in the history of the initiative. Stanford University economist and Hoover Institution senior fellow Eric Hanushek revealed in a recent study that learning losses could cause affected students to lose between 2% and 9% of their lifetime earnings as they miss the opportunity to learn critical skills, reducing prospects for future nationwide economic growth. Parents concerned about the impact of lockdowns on education have removed their children from government schools at an unprecedented rate. The number of homeschooled students increased from 2.7 million in 2020 to 3.1 million in 2023, according to a study from the National Home Education Research Institute. New Saint Andrews: Today’s culture shifts like sand, but New Saint Andrews College is established on Christ, the immovable rock. The college is a premier institution that forges evangelical leaders who don’t fear or hate the world. Guided by God’s word, equipped with the genius of classical liberal arts and God-honoring wisdom, with a faculty dedicated to academic rigor and to God’s kingdom, New Saint Andrews College offers an education that frees people. Logic and language, hard work and joyful courage, old books and godly professors — New Saint Andrews Colleges provides time-tested resources that can equip your student for any vocation. To find out more, visit: nsa.edu https://www.theblaze.com/news/member-group-of-coalition-pushing-extreme-abortion-initiative-in-ohio-fighting-to-undercut-parental-rights Coalition pushing extreme abortion initiative in Ohio says it isn't trying to undermine parental rights. A member group's explicit agenda suggests otherwise. A leftist coalition is working to roll back Ohio's few remaining abortion restrictions by way of a proposed constitutional amendment. Some opposition groups have suggested that this craftily worded proposal will not only enable late-term abortions, but undermine parental rights on these and other matters of life and death, including the ability to protect children from sex-change mutilations. While proponents of member groups in the coalition have claimed the amendment will not undermine parental rights, recently highlighted remarks made by a key player behind the abortion initiative have done little to inspire confidence. Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom PAC are leading the charge to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution by way of an initiated constitutional amendment called the "Ohio Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative." The proposal to put this abortion initiative on the November 2023 ballot was certified in March by the state attorney general. The proposed amendment further states that the "state shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either: 1. An individual's voluntary exercise of this right or 2. A person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual's health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care." The only ostensible restriction on abortion admitted in the amendment leaves determinations as to whether a viable human being can be exterminated up to abortionists. Parental rights are implicated and eroded under the amendment, argued the pro-life activists, because "'reproductive decisions' is a very broad term, and is intentionally included to stop any effort to put reasonable restrictions or enforce parental rights on a wide array of other destructive decisions—potentially including sex change surgeries." Carrie Severino and Frank Scaturro of the Judicial Crisis Network concurred, noting in National Review that "'reproductive decisions' ... is a very broad term. By explicitly defining such decisions as 'not limited to' the enumerated categories, the proposal establishes its scope as sweeping. A natural reading would extend to any medical procedure that involves the human reproductive system, including sex-change surgery." Extra to potentially affecting parents' ability to protect their children from sex-change mutilations and devastating puberty blockers, Dannenfelser and Sekulow highlighted how "if Ohio adopts the amendment, the state's supreme court can be expected to go even farther than the U.S. Supreme Court ever did in undoing the state's parental consent laws," in part by "outlawing any legal requirement for a parent to be notified about or consent before an abortion—or any other procedure related to 'reproduction decisions'—is performed on their child." https://twitter.com/i/status/1636019433578672130 - Play Video https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/05/23/va-cant-account-187-million-emergency-covid-19-funding.html VA Can't Account for $187 Million in Emergency COVID-19 Funding The Department of Veterans Affairs can’t account for at least $187 million in supplementary COVID-19 funding spread across more than 10,000 transactions related to the pandemic, according to a House oversight committee. Congress and the VA are at odds over the department's handling of nearly $37 billion in additional funding it received to address the COVID-19 pandemic, with House Veterans Affairs Committee leaders on both sides of the aisle critical of its failure to account for every dime. Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., and ranking member Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., praised the department for its pandemic response overall but called the VA out for its inability to account for the money, during a hearing sidetracked by GOP rancor over the department's messaging on debt ceiling legislation. Between 2020 and 2021, the VA received roughly $37 billion to address COVID-19 response, including an initial $60 million, followed by $19.6 billion in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and another $17 billion in the American Rescue Plan. As part of the deal to receive the funding, the department was required to account for its spending, a mandate underscored by passage in November 2021 of the VA Transparency and Trust Act. Across a series of 40 reviews and reports, the VA Office of Inspector General found numerous accounting issues involving the COVID-19 funds, including a lack of visibility over payroll, some contracts and medical supplies. The IG said the problems are attributable to the department's decentralized management structure, as well as an outdated financial information technology software – that it doesn't expect to modernize for another decade. It determined that the department was challenged by inaccurate payroll accounting; used manual transfers and adjustments to its financial management systems that led to at least 53 reporting errors; had problems with supply acquisition, such as duplicate purchases; and failed to properly oversee its efforts to provide telehealth hardware to veterans, namely distributing tablet computers and cell phones so they could access health care but not recouping the equipment when the veteran failed to use it. Given the issues, both Bost and Takano said they have concerns for the $2.1 billion remaining in American Rescue Plan funds, with Bost and fellow Republicans saying the money should be returned, while Takano pressed the VA to be more transparent as it continues using the funding. VA officials told the committee Tuesday that the department will spend the remaining American Rescue Plan money by the end of the fiscal year for programs initiated during the pandemic such as housing and telehealth for homeless veterans; prosthetics and medical research, including studies of long COVID; and on preventing the spread of contagious diseases in hospital and administrative settings. https://www.outkick.com/matt-araiza-jets-workout-allegations-cleared-up/ NEW YORK JETS WORKING OUT MATT ARAIZA TWO WEEKS AFTER PUNTER’S NAME WAS CLEARED OF GANG RAPE ALLEGATIONS Matt Araiza has landed his first workout with an NFL team since being cut by the Buffalo Bills ahead of last season over gang rape allegations. The New York Jets are giving the free-agent punter a look, according to Adam Schefter. Matt Araiza was cut by the Bills in August 2022 shortly after an allegation was made public that he had taken part in the gang rape of a minor while attending San Diego State. Fast-forward nine months to May of this year, and it has been determined that he was not present at the time of the incident that allegedly took place in October 2021. The transcript of a meeting between the accuser and prosecutors was brought to light just over two weeks ago in which investigators explained that they do not believe Araiza was present at the time of the alleged assault. Prosecutors in the San Diego District Attorney’s Office declined to file criminal charges, but Araiza is still facing a civil suit that he has no plans of settling anytime soon. Despite that there wasn’t a single fact was known about the alleged incident, the Bills caved to the portion of the public who had already deemed the punter guilty and cut him shortly before the start of the 2022 NFL regular season.

The Department of Veterans Affairs says it's had some major successes in using automation to speed up its disability claims process. But if VA's moving to a world of automation, Congress wants to help guide it. Legislation the House passed last month would require the department to adhere to a list of principles in future automation projects – and to lay out a five year plan for each major IT modernization project in the Veterans Benefits Administration. Congressman Mark Takano (D-Cali.) is chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. He talked with the Federal Drive about some of the issues Congress wants to keep tabs on.

System outages and patient safety concerns have plagued the Veterans Affairs Department's new electronic health record. And not surprisingly, that's leading is leading to more scrutiny. Top members of the House VA Committee are telling the agency to pause future rollouts on the new EHR until these problems can get fixed. Meanwhile, the vendor, Cerner says it's considering its own technical review of the EHR. It also wants to make sure the system is stable and reliable. For an update, Federal News Network's Jory Heckman.

On today's episode of The Daily Scoop Podcast, the General Services Administration is still conducting market research for its Governmentwide Cloud Blanket Purchase Agreement. More than 500 businesses across the United States have been selected for the second round of awards on the 8(a) STARS III governmentwide acquisition contract. Alan Thomas, chief operating officer at IntelliBridge and former commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA, discusses what stands out for government and the vendor community. Meeting the principles of the customer experience executive order is one potential new category for the FITARA Scorecard. Simon Szykman, senior vice president for client growth at Maximus and former chief information officer at the Department of Commerce, discusses the role of federal chief information officers in implementing the EO. The new chief information officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs says he's getting the lay of the land before he makes big decisions about the agency's technology posture. Kurt DelBene, assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, testified about the agency's IT projects at the House Veterans Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Technology Modernization and Oversight & Investigations. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every weekday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

Lawmakers are asking tough questions of the Department of Veterans Affairs about a struggling IT project. And no, it's not the new electronic health record. The House and Senate VA Committee have growing concerns about VA's 2 billion dollar program to modernize its medical supply chain management system. In his weekly Reporter's Notebook, executive editor Jason Miller writes about this emerging troubled program. Jason joins me now with the details.

For two toxic decades veterans have been dying from diseases related to burn pits and other toxins they encountered while deployed. Will Congress finally force the VA to give our warfighters the care and benefits, they deserve? We asked Representative Mark Takano (D-CA) Chairman, House Veterans Affairs Committee. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jayzen is excited to welcome a very special guest to the show for AAPI Heritage Month, Congressman Mark Takano, who proudly represents California's 41st district and serves as Chairman on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Starting his career as a teacher, Mark has always been a huge advocate for education and has worked to improve his community for over twenty years. In 2012, Mark became the first openly gay person of color to be elected to Congress. His family roots in Riverside, CA go back to his grandparents who, along with his parents, were removed from their respective homes and sent to Japanese American Internment camps during World War II. After the war, these two families settled in Riverside County to rebuild their lives. It’s week 3 of AAPI Heritage Month! Each week in May, tune in to hear the stories of amazing leaders who have and continue to shape culture and community, all who happen to be of AAPI descent. In addition, you can check out some incredible shows from Season 1 at www.LeadWithYourBrand.com/AAPI with a number of our favorite APPI voices from the podcast. Let’s amplify AAPI voices and work to #StopAAPIHate! Guest Bio Mark Takano Congressman for the 41st District of California For more than twenty years, Mark Takano has worked to improve the lives of Riverside County residents, both as an elected official and as a teacher at Rialto High School. Born and raised in Riverside, Mark's commitment to public service began at an early age. His family roots in Riverside go back to his grandparents who, along with his parents, were removed from their respective homes and sent to Japanese American Internment camps during World War II. After the war, these two families settled in Riverside County to rebuild their lives. Mark attended La Sierra High School in the Alvord Unified School District, and in 1979 he graduated as the school's valedictorian. Mark attended Harvard College and received his bachelor's degree in Government in 1983. As a student, he bussed tables to help make ends meet. During his senior year, he organized a transcontinental bicycle ride to benefit the international development agency Oxfam America. Upon graduation, Mark returned home to Riverside and began teaching in the Rialto Unified School District in 1988. As a classroom teacher, Mark confronted the challenges in our public education system daily. In 1990, Mark was elected to the Riverside Community College District's Board of Trustees. At RCC, Mark worked with Republicans and Democrats to improve higher education for young people and job training opportunities for adults seeking to learn a new skill or start a new career. He was elected Board President in 1991 and helped the Board and the District gain stability and direction amid serious fiscal challenges. In 2012, Mark became the first openly gay person of color to be elected to Congress. Mark Takano represents the people of Riverside, Moreno Valley, Jurupa Valley and Perris in the United States House of Representatives. He serves as Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and as a member of the Education and Labor Committee. Links To learn more about Lead With Your Brand and the Career Breakthrough Mentoring program, please visit: https://www.leadwithyourbrand.com To book Jayzen for a speaking engagement or workshop at your company, visit: https://www.jayzenpatria.com Please connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayzenpatria Learn more about CAPAW at: https://apawomen.org And follow their channels at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/apawomen/ https://twitter.com/CtrAPAWomen https://www.facebook.com/CtrAPAWomen Get the latest from Congressman Takano at https://takano.house.gov

Army veteran Kristopher Goldsmith reveals the dark forces behind today's political chaos.

In today's Federal Newscast, top Democrats on the House and Senate VA Committees say Secretary Robert Wilkie is using government time and taxpayer money to take politically motivated trips to states key to the upcoming presidential and Senate races.

Welcome back to the latest advocacy episode of the AUA’s podcast, the Inside Tract. In top news this week, the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee held a legislative hearing on September 10 that included a number of health-related bills, including the Veteran's Prostate Cancer Treatment and Research Act (H.R. 60-92).

The whole premise of the mission act, to provide veterans with health care services outside of the VA system, won't work if providers don't get paid. But reports of that very phenomenon keep coming in. That's prompted demands for action by the Veterans Health Administration from members of Congress. Among them, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee, New Hampshire's Chris Pappas who joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to lay out his concerns.

A two-year investigation by Vietnam Veterans of America has found that hackers and cyber criminals from Russia and elsewhere are specifically targeting veterans and military members — partly because social media platforms make it easy for them to do so. And Congress is starting to take notice. The House Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing on the issue Wednesday, and heard from Facebook and Twitter executives. Federal News Network's Jared Serbu had details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Justin is the leader and founder of HillVets, an organization I am proud to be part of. About Justin: Justin Brown is the Founder, of HillVets and is currently the CEO, of the Nimitz Group, a bipartisan consulting firm tackling the most difficult veteran and healthcare issues. He has nearly a decade of Veterans' focused experience and advocacy, fighting on behalf of Veterans and their families to increase educational and employment opportunities, to expand access to benefits and healthcare, and to eliminate homelessness. He has worked for the VA, the VFW, the American Legion, and was a Staff Director for numerous Subcommittees for the House Veterans Affairs Committee.Justin began his commitment to public service at the age of 17 when he enlisted in the United States Navy. There, he completed one deployment in support of Operation Southern Watch and two deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following Justin's service, he attended the University of Utah, graduating with dual bachelor's degrees in three years. He became active in the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) where he served as the youngest All-American District Commander and Department Chief of Staff in its history.https://www.hillvets.org/about/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/theprotectors)

In today's Federal Newscast, Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), the head of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, wants all hands on deck to address veteran suicide.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, details recent legislation to improve veterans’ benefits, and what has him most concerned about the department. In this two-part interview, Federal CIO Suzette Kent discusses the successes of the Federal Cyber Reskilling Academy, and what the new data center guidance means for agencies.

Earlier this week, the House passed nine bills offered up by the Veterans Affairs Committee. They cover a variety of matters from suicide prevention to education. Committee chairman Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to preview what's next for the committee.

In today's Federal Newscast, a bipartisan group in the House Veterans Affairs Committee wants more information about V-A's plans to curb sexual harassment among female veterans and employees.

The state of information technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs seems to finally have lawmakers' attention. Members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee twice in one day aired their concerns with a long list of ongoing IT projects at VA. Electronic health record modernization topped the list, but a few lawmakers are concerned VA is spending too much of its IT budget on maintaining legacy systems rather than on badly-needed modernization. Federal News Network's Nicole Ogrysko had more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

In today's Federal Newscast, the Veterans Affairs Department is forced to change how it pays for veterans' education benefits after IT problems. 

The Veterans Affairs Department's $10 billion contract with Cerner Corporation for a new electronic health record is the biggest IT contract in its history. It's why House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) decided to form a special subcommittee to oversee the project. He appointed two of the committee's youngest members to lead the new subcommittee, both of whom are veterans themselves. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is the chairman of the new House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization. He told Federal News Radio's Nicole Ogrysko about his plans for oversight of VA's electronic health record and other IT initiatives.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee has mixed reviews of the new law it passed nearly one year ago. The committee checked in with the department about its implementation of the new accountability act. The VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act was a long-awaited and hailed piece of bipartisan legislation. But both Republicans and Democrats say they have some concerns. Federal News Radio's Nicole Ogrysko had more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Members of Congress finally got their chance to hear from the Veterans Affairs Department about its plans for government's biggest IT acquisition. VA detailed its plans for a new electronic health record when officials appeared before the House Veterans Affairs Committee. It was the first of what will likely be many hearings on this topic. Lawmakers said they are determined to keep their eyes on this modernization project because they remember how other recent VA initiatives have fared. Federal News Radio's Nicole Ogrysko had more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee has been busy. It recently approved some major pieces of legislation, including the MISSION Act, which provides more support for existing Veterans Affairs Department programs while also enacting some new ones. It passed the House yesterday. Federal News Radio's Eric White spoke with committee Chairman Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) on Federal Drive with Tom Temin for details about the bill,

The Veterans Affairs Department has about a year to get its appeals process off the ground. Congress and GAO are concerned VA doesn't have the tools ready to meet that deadline.

The biggest civilian federal agency has undergone two years of continuous debate and reform. The Veterans Affairs Department is trying to modernize its support systems, rationalize its real estate, improve its workforce and give its constituents more choice of where they get medical care. Much of this work has involved the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Chairman Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin with his take on the VA.

The Veterans Health Administration operates a taxpayer-funded health system to provide our nation’s veterans physical and mental health services. The Veterans Choice Program is a fundamental change to that system as it allows veterans to get taxpayer-funded health care in the private sector. In this episode, learn the history of the Veterans Choice Program, discover the changes that Congress and the Trump Administration have made to the program this year, and get some insights into the future of the program. Please Support Congressional Dish Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Bills H.R. 3230: Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 Allows veterans to get medical care outside the Veteran's Administration system; they can go to any health facility that serves Medicare patients, health centers, the Defense Department, and the Indian Health Service. Veterans are only given this option if they'd have to wait over 30 days for an appointment with the Veteran's Administration or if they live 40 miles or further from a Veteran's Administration clinic. If eligible, the veteran will receive a special identification card. How it works: Veteran notifies VA, VA puts Veteran on an electronic waiting list or authorizes their request, VA works out a payment agreement with the health care provider, VA reimburses health care provider but no more than they would for Medicare services. If the veteran gets treated for a problem that was not related to their military service, their health insurance plan will be responsible for payment and the health care provider will be responsible for going after the insurance company for the money. Veterans can not be charged higher co-payments for care at private facilities than they would have been charged at the Veteran's Administration. This program will end in three years. Orders a private-sector review, establishes a fifteen person commission, and creates a technology task force to review VA practices. Wait times for care can not be considered when determining performance bonuses for top officials at the Veteran's administration and performance goals that disincentivize using private health providers for veteran care will be eliminated. Wait times for health care at the VA, VA facility quality measures, and VA doctor credentials will be published online. The VA will add 1,500 graduate medical education residency positions for five years to address staffing shortages. Extends the program that reimburses medical students for education costs and increases the amounts they'll receive for working for the VA. Expands coverage for mental health care related to sexual assaults, which will include veterans on inactive duty. This will be effective August 7, 2015. Extends a pilot program for assisted living care for veterans with traumatic brain injuries until October 2017. Disqualifies public colleges that charge veterans more than State residents from being qualified schools for veteran education benefits. Makes it easier to fire or transfer senior executives at the Department of Veteran's Affairs. Appropriates $15 billion to implement these changes. S. 544: A bill to amend the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 to modify the termination date for the Veterans Choice Program, and for other purposes Eliminates the end date for the Choice Program, which was supposed to expire when the money ran out of after three years. Changes the payment system from one where the veteran's health insurance plan must pay for non-service related treatments, with doctors getting reimbursed directly from the insurance companies to a new system where the Veterans Department will pay and be reimbursed by the insurance companies. Establishes legal permission for the government to share medical records of veterans with "private entities" S. 1094: Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act Title I: Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Creates a new office, headed by a Presidential appointee, in charge of VA employee accountability and processing of whistleblower complaints. This office will have the power to impose disciplinary actions. The identities of whistleblowers must be protected unless the whistleblower consents to disclosure. The Department of Veterans' Affairs must train employees on the whistleblowing process. Title II: Accountability of senior executives, supervisors, and other employees Gives the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the power to suspend, demote, or fire senior executives as long as the executive receives 15 days advance notice and all evidence against him or her, legal representation, and the ability to argue their case in an official process created by the Secretary that takes no more than 21 days. Gives the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the power to remove, demote, or suspend Veterans Administration employees for performance or misconduct. Demoted employees will have their pay decreased. The demotion or removal process must be completed within 15 business days and the employee has 7 business days to respond. These new procedures "shall supercede any collective bargaining agreement to the extend that such agreement is inconsistent with such procedures.". There is an appeal process but it must be started within 10 business days after the date of the removal, demotion, or suspension. The appeal must be decided within 180 days. The Secretary can not remove, demote, or suspend a whistleblower without approval of a Special Counsel or unless the Assistant Secretary refuses to act on the whistleblower account or unless a final decision has been made regarding the whistleblower's disclosure. Gives the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the power to order the repayment of bonuses or relocation expenses paid to VA employees if the Secretary determines that the employee engaged in misconduct or poor performance before the bonus was awarded. There is an appeal process via the Office of Personnel Management. S.114: VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017 Title I: Appropriation for Veterans Choice Program Deposits $2.1 billion in the Veterans Choice Fund, which will not expire. Title II: Personnel matters Doubles the number of positions that can be labeled has having staffing shortages and gives the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the ability to directly hire people to those positions. "Executive Management Fellowship Program" A program to give VA employees 1 year of training in the private sector and to give private sector employees 1 year of training in the VA. Between 18 & 30 people from the private sector and the same amount from the VA will be selected in August of each year to participate. To accept the fellowship, the person must agree to work as a full-time employee of the VA for two years and is prohibited from working the corresponding private sector industry for two years after completing the program. Performance Evaluations Political appointees of the VA will have annual performance plans similar to the ones administered to career employees. Promotions Gives the Secretary of Veterans Affairs the ability to easily promote existing employees or people who voluntarily left within 2 years, one employment status at a time. Employment Opportunity Database Creates a website that will list vacant positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Title III: Major medical facility leases We're paying to replace VA facilities in 28 locations. H.R. 3236: Surface transportation and veterans health care choice improvement act of 2015 Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD080: The July Laws Additional Reading Article: VA secretary David Shulkin: I don't consider this Texas church gunman as a veteran by Melissa Quinn, Washington Examiner, November 6, 2017. Article: Funding for a new veterans choice program remains the big, unresolved question for VA by Nicole Ogrysko, Federal News Radio, October 24, 2017. Article: AFGE ramping up anti-privatization campaign, as VA readies new Choice draft by Nicole Ogrysko, Federal News Radio, October 17, 2017. Article: Focus on VA hiring, not Veterans Choice, AFGE says by Nicole Ogrysko, Federal News Radio, October 6, 2017. Article: Trump signs bill to speed up VA disability appeals process by Richard Sisk, Military.com, August 23, 2017. Article: Last-minute Veterans Choice funding bill filled with key VA hiring flexibilities by Nicole Ogrysko, Federal News Radio, July 28, 2017. Article: Fix for Veterans Choice shortfalls fails in the House with little funds left by Nicole Ogrysko, Federal News Radio, July 24, 2017. Radio Transcript: VA pane report to suggest more private care choices for veterans, Morning Edition with David Greene, NPR, July 6, 2017. Article: Shulkin offers first glimpse at a new VA Choice plan by Nicole Ogrysko, Federal News Radio, June 8, 2017. Article: Trump extends program allowing some veterans to use local doctors, hospitals by Lisa Lambert, Reuters, April 19, 2017. News Report: Barry Coates dead; veteran was at heart of VA scandal by Scott bronstein, Nelli Black, Drew Griffin and Curt Devine, CNN Investigations, January 27, 2016. Article: How the VA developed its culture of coverups by David Farenthold, The Washington Post, May 30, 2014. Article: Obama accepts resignation of VA secretary Shinseki by Greg Jaffe and Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post, May 30, 2014. References Budget Plan: 2018 FY Homeland Security Budget-in-Brief GAO Report: Veterans health care: Preliminary observations on veterans access to Choice Program care House Amendment Act: S.114 of the 115th Congress Interactive Timeline: Veterans Choice Program Slideshow: Billing Procedures, VA Veterans Choice Program and Patient-Centered Community Care Strawman Document: Proposed Strawman Assessment Sound Clip Sources Hearing: Bills related to veterans choice; House Committee on Veterans Affairs; October 24, 2017. 02:42 Rep. Phil Roe (TN): To that end, I believe it’s important to state yet again that this effort is in no way, shape, or form intended to create a pipeline to privatize the V.A. healthcare system. I want to be completely clear about that. Everyone who participated in the roundtable earlier this month and contributed to the development of this legislation should be completely clear on that. Everyone listening today should also be completely clear on that. Supplemental care sourced from within the community has been a part of the V.A. healthcare system since the 1940s and services to expand V.A.’s reach and strengthen and support the care that V.A. provides. Rhetoric aside, strengthening and support V.A. is what this consideration is about—this conversation is about. It should go without saying that V.A. cannot be everywhere providing everything to every veteran. Expecting V.A. to perform like that sets up the V.A. to fail. That’s why my draft bill preserves V.A.’s role as the central coordinator of care for enrolled veteran patients. In addition to consolidating V.A.’s menu of existing community-care programs into one cohesive program, my bill would create a seamless, integrated V.A. system of care that incorporates V.A. providers and V.A. medical facilities where and when they are available to provide care a veteran seeks and a network of V.A. providers in the community who can step up when needed. Under my draft bill, the V.A. generally retains the right of first refusal, meaning that if V.A. medical facilities can reasonably provide a needed service to a veteran, that care will be provided in that facility. But when the V.A. can’t do that, my bill would ensure that veterans aren’t left out to dry. Press Conference: Trump signs veterans health care bill; C-Span; August 12, 2017. 0:30 David Shulkin: The V.A. Choice and Quality Employment Act has three important components. The first is that this helps us expand our ability to hire medical-center directors and other senior executives to serve in the V.A. This is about leadership, and it’s really important that we get the right leaders helping us to do the job for veterans. The second is that this bill authorizes 28 new facility leases that will be in different parts of the country that provide our veterans with updated facilities, something that, again, we are committed to providing our veterans with world-class care. And third, and most important, this bill allows us to continue to be able to provide care in the community for our veterans to make sure that they’re getting high-quality care and not waiting for care. Already this year, in the first six months of this year, we have authorized over 15 million appointments for veterans in the community. That’s 4 million appointments more than what was experienced at this time last year. So we’re making a lot of progress in expanding Choice. Hearing: Fiscal year 2018 Veterans Affairs budget; Senate Veterans Affairs Committee; June 14, 2017. 12:29 David Shulkin: Two years ago—I’m sure you’re going to remember in July of 2015 we had too little money in our community-care accounts within the V.A., which we solved with your help by accessing unused funds in the Choice account. So we transferred money from Choice into community care. We now have too little money in the Choice account, which we’re working to solve, again working with you, with legislative authority, to replenish funds into the Choice account. So this is the situation that we’ve described before where for a single purpose of providing care in the community we have two checking accounts, and I will tell you, I wish it were easier than it is. We have to figure out how to balance these two checking accounts at all times. And obviously it’s not a science, it’s an art; and we’re having difficulty with that once again, and that’s why we need to work with you to solve it. The Veterans CARE program that we outlined for you last week will solve this recurring problem permanently by modernizing and consolidating all of the community-care accounts, including Choice. Hearing: Examining the Veterans Choice program and the future of care in the community; Committee on Veterans Affairs; June 7, 2017. Witness: David Shulkin - Veterans Affairs Secretary 12:55 David Shulkin: Just in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, we saw 35% more authorizations for Choice than we did in the first quarter of 2016. So far in fiscal year 2017, we have approximately 18,000 more Choice-authorized appointments per day than we did in fiscal year 2016. But we still have a lot more work to do. That’s why we’re seeking support for the Veterans Coordinated Access and Rewarding Experiences program, the Veterans CARE program. Let me just go over that again because you need a good acronym in Washington. The Veterans Coordinated Access—that’s the C and the A—Rewarding Experiences program—the CARE program. I’ve testified before and I’ll report again today that our overarching concern remains veterans’ access to high-quality care when and where they need it. That’s regardless of whether the care is in the V.A. or in the community. Our goal is to modernize and consolidate community care. We owe veterans a program that’s easy to understand, simple to administer, and that meets their needs. That’s the CARE program, and now it’s time to get this right for veterans. So we need your help. 14:23 David Shulkin: Here’s how veterans could experience V.A. healthcare, with your help. The veteran talks with their V.A. provider. That’s a conversation over the phone, virtually, or in person. The outcome is a clinical assessment. The clinical assessment may indicate that the V.A. specialist is the best for the veteran, or it may indicate that community care is best to meet the veteran’s needs. If community care is the answer, then the veteran chooses a provider from a high-performing network. That’s the veteran choosing a provider from the high-performing network. Assessment tools help veterans evaluate community providers and make the best choices themselves. We may help veterans schedule appointments in the community, or in some circumstances, veterans can schedule the appointments themselves. We make sure community providers have all the information they need to treat the veteran. We get the veteran’s record back. We pay the veteran’s bill. This is all about individualized, convenient, well-coordinated, modern healthcare and a positive experience for the veteran. If the V.A. doesn’t offer the necessary service, then the veteran goes to the community. If the V.A. can’t provide timely services, the veteran goes to the community. If there are unusual burdens in receiving care, the veteran goes to the community. If a service at a V.A. clinic isn’t meeting quality metrics for specific services, veterans needing that service go to the community while we work to support that clinic to improve its performance. And veterans who need care right away will have access to a network of walk-in clinics. 19:20 David Shulkin: We want to make sure that if the service is low performing, if it’s below what the veteran could get in the community, that they have the opportunity—they don’t have to leave the V.A. They’re given a choice so that they are able to get care in the community or stay at the V.A., because, you know, if a veteran has a good experience and they have trust in their provider, they’re going to want to stay where they are. But that is the purpose. The whole idea here is to improve the V.A., not to get more care in the community. And the very best way that I know how to improve health care is to give the patient, in this case the veteran, choice and to make those choices transparent to let everybody see, because then if you’re not performing as high-quality service, you’re going to want to provide a higher-quality service, because you want to be proud of what you’re working on. And I want the V.A. to be improving over time, and I think this will help us do that. 24:42 Sen. Patty Murray (WA): Secretary Shulkin, in your draft of Veteran CARE plan, you outline a number of pilot projects that sound to me uncomfortably like a proposals that are made by the so-called straw-man document. It’s from the commission on CARE and by the extreme, and to me unacceptable, plan put forward by the Concerned Veterans of America. And those include creating a V.A. insurance plan and separating it from CARE delivery, dividing the governance of a V.A. insurance plan and the health system, and alternative CARE model that sends veterans directly to the private sector. The goal of those types of initiatives, as originally stated in the straw-man document, is “as V.A. facilities become obsolete and are underused, they would be closed when availability and accessibility of care in the community is assured.” Those policies serve not only to dismantle the V.A. and start the health system down to a road to privatization, I just want you to know I will not support them, and I will fight them with everything I have. So, I want to ask you, why are you agreeing to pursue those unacceptable policy options? David Shulkin: Well, first of all, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and as clearly as you have. I share your goal. I am not in support of a program that would lead towards privatization or shutting down the V.A. programs. What I am in support of is using pilots to test various ideas about governance, about the way that the system should be, organized in the way that we should evolve, because I don’t know without testing different ideas whether they’re good ideas or not. 35:28 Sen. Jerry Moran (KS): You said something that caught my attention: this will not be an unfettered Choice program— David Shulkin: Yep. Moran: —and I wanted to give you the opportunity to explain to me and to the committee what that means. Shulkin: Yeah. There are some that have suggested that the very best approach is just give veterans a card, a voucher, and let them go wherever they want to go. And I think that there are some significant concerns about that, and you’re going to see this proposal is not that. This proposal is to develop a system that is designed for veterans, that coordinates their care, and gives them the options when it’s best for in the V.A. and when it’s best in the community. Unfettered Choice is appealing to some, but it would lead to, essentially, I believe, the elimination of the V.A. system all together. It would put veterans with very difficult problems out into the community, with nobody to stand up for them and to coordinate their care. And the expense of that system is estimated to be at the minimum $20 billion more a year than we currently spend on V.A. health care. So for all those reasons, I am not recommending that we have unfettered access. At some point in the future, if you design a system right, giving veterans complete choice, I believe in principle, is the direction we should be headed in, but not in 2017. 39:05 Sen. Jon Tester (MT): I want to go back to the Choice program, community care versus V.A. care, and tell you where we’re probably all on the same page around this rostrum, but as we’re all on the same page and the budget comes out and gives a 33% increase for private-sector care versus a 1.2% increase for care provided directly by the V.A., it doesn’t take very many budgets like that and pretty soon you’re not going to have any vets going to the V.A., because all the money’s going to community care, and they will follow the money. I promise you they will follow the money. I think that—I don’t want to put words in the VSO’s mouth. He’ll have a chance here in a bit—but I think most of the veterans I talk to say, build the V.A.’s capacity. In Montana we don’t have enough docs, we don’t have enough nurses, we don’t have enough of anything. And quite frankly, that takes away from the experience and the quality of care, and so by putting 1.2% increase for care provided directly by the V.A. and 33% for private-sector care, we’re privatizing the V.A. with that budget. David Shulkin: Yeah. I told you I wasn’t going to say that you were right again, but there’s a lot that you said that I think that we both agree with. And the goal is not to privatize the V.A. What we’re asking for in this is something we don’t have. We need additional flexibility between the money that goes into the community and the money that can be spent in the V.A. Right now we’re restricted to a 1% ability to transfer money between. We are seeking that you give us more latitude there for exactly the reason you’re talking about, Senator. We need our medical centers and our VISNs to be able to say that they need to build capacity in the V.A. where it’s not available. The reason why we’re letting people go in the community now is because the V.A. doesn’t have it. We have to get them that care. Tester: I got it, but if we don’t make the investments so they can get that health care, they’ll never get that health care there. Shulkin: I— Tester: Okay. Hearing: Veterans affairs oversight; House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; May 3, 2017. Witness: Dr. David Shulkin - Veterans Affairs Secretary   16:13 David Shulkin: More veterans are opting for Choice than ever before, five times more in fiscal year 2016 than fiscal year 2015, and Choice authorizations are still rising. We’ve issued 35% more authorizations in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017 than in the same quarter of 2016. 18:00 David Shulkin: My five priorities as secretary are to provide greater Choice for veterans, to modernize our systems, to focus resources more efficiently, to improve the timeliness of our services, and suicide prevention among veterans. We are already taking bold steps towards achieving each of these priorities. Two weeks ago the president signed a reauthorization of the Veterans Choice Act, ensuring veterans can continue to get care from community providers. Just last week the president ordered the establishment of a V.A. accountability office, and we’re moving as quickly as we can within the limits of the law to remove bad employees. V.A. has removed medical center directors in San Juan; Shreveport, Louisiana; and recently we’ve relieved the medical center director right here in Washington, D.C. and removed three other senior executive service leaders due to misconduct or poor performance. We simply cannot tolerate employees who act counter to our values or put veterans at risk. Since January of this year, we’ve authorized an estimated 6.1 million community-care appointments, 1.8 million more than last year, a 42% increase. We now have same-day services for primary care and mental health at all of our medical centers across the country. Veterans can now access wait-time data for their local V.A. facilities by using an easy online tool where they can see those wait times. No other healthcare system in the country has this type of transparency. V.A. is setting new trends with public-private partnerships. Last month we announced a public-private partnership of an ambulatory care development center, with a donation of roughly $30 million in Omaha, Nebraska, thanks to Mr. Fortenberry’s help there. Veterans now have, or will have, a facility that’s being built with far fewer taxpayer dollars than in the past. Finally, V.A. is saving lives. My top clinical priority is suicide prevention. On average 20 veterans a day die by suicide. A few months ago the Veterans Crisis Line had a rollover rate to a backup center of more than 30%. Today that rate is less than 1%. In support of our efforts to reduce suicides, we’ve launched new predictive modeling tools that allow V.A. to provide proactive care and support for veterans who are at the highest risk of suicide. And I’ve recently announced the V.A. will be providing emergency mental health care to former service members with other-than-honorable discharges at all of our medical facilities. We know that these veterans are at greater risk for suicide, and we’re now caring for them as well as we can. 23:19 David Shulkin: The VISTA system is something that, frankly, V.A. should be proud of. It invented it, it was the leader in electronic health records, but, frankly, that’s old history, and we have to look at keeping up and to modernize the system. I’ve said two things, Mr. Chairman, in the past. I’ve said, number one is, V.A. has to get out of the business of becoming a software developer. This is not our core competency. I don’t see why it serves veterans. I think we’re doing this in a way that, frankly, we can’t keep up with. So, I’ve said that we’re going to get out of that business. We’re either going to find a commercial company that will take over and support VISTA or we’re going to go to an off-the-shelf product. And that’s really what we’re evaluating now. We have an RFI out for, essentially, the commercialization of VISTA that we wouldn’t longer be doing internally. 27:33 David Shulkin: We also, as we get more veterans out into the community, out into the private-sector hospitals, we have to be very concerned about interoperability with those partners as well. 38:24 Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL): Given that your goal is one program, are you analyzing which program ultimately would be phased out, because we have a tendency to instead of phasing out programs because they have people with a vested interest in them, simply— David Shulkin: Yes. Schultz: —going along to get along rather than rocking the boat, and so if we’re adding $3 1/2 billion to the Choice program and it had 950 million left, there have been challenges with the Choice program and confusion, and there are still challenges with the community care program, in what direction is the V.A. thinking of going when we—and what is the timeline for ultimately— Shulkin: Right. Schultz: — phasing out one program and only having one? Shulkin: Right. Well, with almost certainty I can tell you there will not be three programs, because the current Choice program will run out of money— Schultz: Right. Shulkin: —by the end of this calendar year. So, that program is going to go away and should be through December of this year. What we are hoping to do is to work with you so that we can introduce a community-care funding program—the chairman referred to it as Choice 2.0—which is a program that makes sense for veterans, which is a single program that operates under one set of rules for how veterans get care in the community. And that new legislation, which we believe needs to be introduced by late summer or early fall in order to make the timeline, would end up with a single program. Schultz: So, you eventually envision phasing out community care with the advent— Shulkin: Yes. Schultz: —of Choice 2.0. 1:33:11 Rep. Charles Dent (PA): In the one-page FY ’18 skinny budget we received in March, there’s a V.A. request for $2.9 billion in new mandatory funding, presumably to complete the FY ’18 funding for the Choice program after the mandatory $10 billion of the program is completely exhausted in January, I guess. Does this indicate the administration’s intent to fund the successor Choice program out of mandatory funding? David Shulkin: Yes. 1:45:37 Rep. Tom Rooney (FL): And many of the providers that are technically participating in the Choice program are refusing to accept Choice patients because they know that they’ll have to wait a long time to get paid themselves. So some providers that don’t accept the Choice patients will only do so if the veteran agrees to pay for the services up front. And that leaves the veterans in that same bind they were in before Choice, which was either face the excessive wait times at the V.A. facility with no option to obtain immediate care elsewhere without paying out of pocket first. And obviously that’s not the point, or that’s not what we’re looking to do. So, I mean, you as a doctor can probably appreciate, you know, with these people that want to take the Choice program to help veterans but they know that it’s going to take forever to get reimbursed be like, hey, will you pay me first, and then, you know, we’ll deal with getting reimbursed later. I don’t know if that’s the rationale, but it sounds like that. The OIG has criticized the V.A.’s monitoring oversight for these contracts and reported that these contracts still don’t have performance measures to ensure the contractors pay their providers in a timely manner, and the OIG made this recommendation January 30 of this year. So, as you work to expand the Choice program, how are you implementing the OIG’s recommendation specifically with regard to timely reimbursements? David Shulkin: Well, there is no doubt that this is an area of significant risk for us, that monitoring and making sure that the providers are paid is critical because of the issues that you’re saying: the veterans are being put in the middle. I would not recommend the veterans put out money for this. That is, as you said, is not the point of it. What we have done is we have done multiple contract modifications. We’ve actually advanced money to the third-party administrators. I’ve suspended the requirement that providers have to provide their medical records to us in order to get paid. We are improving our payment cycles through the Choice program, but it’s not perfect by any means. We have to get better at our auditing of these processes, and those were the IG recommendations, and we are working on doing that. So this is a significant area of risk for us. In the reauthorization, or the redesign, of the Choice program, what we’re calling Choice 2.0, we want to eliminate the complexity of this process. The private sector does not have to do the type of adjudication of claims that we do. They do auto adjudification. They do electronic claims payments. We just are not able to, under this legislation, do all the things that, frankly, we know are best practices. That’s what we want to get right in Choice 2.0. 1:56:40 David Shulkin: Our care needs to be focused on those that are eligible for care, particularly when we have access issues. So, I’d be glad to talk to you more about that. I do want to just mention two things. First of all, our policy is for emergency mental health care for other-than-honorable, not dishonorably, discharged; dishonorably discharged who were not— Rep. Scott Taylor (VA): Sorry if I misspoke. David Shulkin: Yeah, yeah, okay. Rep. Scott Taylor (VA): But I do applaud you for those efforts. David Shulkin: I just wanted to clarify that. Rep. Scott Taylor (VA): I know that there are a lot of wounds that are mental, of course, and— David Shulkin: Absolutely. Rep. Scott Taylor (VA): —I get that. I applaud you for those efforts. Hearing: Veterans affairs choice program; House Committee for Veterans Affairs; March 7, 2017. Witness: David Shulkin - Veterans Affairs Secretary Michael Missal - Veterans Affairs Inspector General Randall Williamson - GAO Health Care Team Director 20:35 David Shulkin: However, we do need your help. The Veterans Choice Program is going to expire in less than six months, but our veterans’ community-care needs will not expire. This looming expiration is a cause for concern among veterans, providers, and V.A. staff, and we need help in eliminating the expiration date of the Choice program on August 7, 2017 so that we can fully utilize the remaining Choice funds. Without congressional action, veterans will have to face longer wait times for care. Second, we need your help in modernizing and consolidating community care. Veterans deserve better, and now is the time to get this right. We believe that a modernized and revised community-care program must have seven key elements. First, maintain a high-performing integrated network that includes V.A., federal partners, academic affiliates, and community providers. Second, increase Choice for all veterans, starting with those with cer—(audio glitch). Third, ensure that enrolled veterans get the care they need closer to their homes, when appropriate. Fourth, optimize coordination of V.A. healthcare benefits with the health insurance that an enrolled veteran already has. Fifth, maintain affordability of healthcare options for the lowest-income enrolled veterans. Sixth, assist in coordination of care for veterans served by multiple providers. And last, apply industry standards for performance quality, patient satisfaction, payment models, and healthcare outcomes. 23:24 Michael Missal: In October 2015, V.A. provided Congress with a plan to consolidate all V.A.’s purchased care programs into V.A.’s community-care program. Under consolidation, V.A. continues to have problems determining eligibility for care, authorizing care, making accurate payments, providing timely payments to providers, and ensuring the necessary coordination of care provided to veterans outside the V.A. healthcare system. 30:30 Randall Williamson: Finally, substantial resources will likely be needed to carry out Choice 2.0. Resources needed to fund IT upgrades and new applications for Choice are largely unknown but could be costly. Proposed changes in Choice eligibility requirements, such as eliminating the 30-day, 40-mile requirement for eligibility, could potentially greatly increase the number of veterans seeking care through community providers and drive costs up considerably. Also, if medical-center staff begin scheduling all appointments under Choice 2.0, as V.A. currently envisions, hiring more V.A. staff will likely be costly and tediously slow. Already, since Choice was established, V.A. medical-center staff devoted to helping veterans access non-V.A. care have increased threefold or more at many locations. 1:04:00 David Shulkin: We are looking primarily at technological solutions, and we are looking at the use of telehealth, which we are doing across V.A. on a scale that no other health system in America is even approaching—2.1 million visits; over 700,000 veterans getting access through telehealth services—and so we are looking at this very seriously about dramatically expanding its use to be able to support where we don’t have health professionals. 1:06:20 David Shulkin: Remember, we have four missions. The clinical care is what we always talk about, but we also have an education mission. We train more American healthcare professionals than any other organization in the country, we have research that’s dedicated solely to the improvement of the wellbeing of veterans, and we also serve a national emergency-preparedness role. So, all four of these missions are very important to us. I would just say two things. One thing is we know from the Choice program that only 5,000 of the several—of more now than a million veterans who’ve used the program chose only to use the Choice program. So they’re saying exactly what your constituent told you, which is the V.A. is essential and important to them. But we are not going to allow the V.A. programs to be diluted, and one of the reasons why that’s so important is that we need to modernize the V.A. system. Our lack of capitalizing the V.A. system in terms of the buildings, the equipment, the IT systems, could make it a noncompetitive system. But we’re going to make sure that the facilities that are open are the best for veterans, and veterans are going to want to continue to get their care there. The community-care program is a way to make sure that we supplement the V.A. in an integrated fashion. 1:10:00 Rep. Mike Bost (IL): The department itself has estimated that it can treat and cure most of the remaining 124,000 diagnosed cases of hepatitis C within the next three years. Is it the V.A.’s commitment that that timeline will be held to and that these will be treated regardless of the level of their liver disease or where they might be at? David Shulkin: Yes. Thanks to the support from Congress, we were provided the resources to meet that timeline. I actually think we’re going to beat it, but with one caveat. What we’ve learned is that our initial outreaches, we were getting thousands and thousands of veterans to come in and to get treatment. We have a treatment, of course, as you know, that now cures more than 95% of hepatitis C. So it’s tremendous medical advance. The doctor to my right is one of those doctors. He’s an I.D. doctor who does this in his clinical work at the V.A. Unknown Speaker: Thank you. Shulkin: What we’re finding now is, and if Dr. Yehia wants to comment on this, we’re finding that we’re now seeing less and less veterans coming in to get cured. There is a substantial number of veterans for a number of reasons, either psychological reasons or social reasons, who are not taking advantage of this care. And so this is now becoming a research question for us. How do we have to begin to approach people that are saying, I have a disease that may end up killing me, but I’m not interested in the treatment. And so I think we’re going to beat your three-year timeline, but there's still going to be a subset of veterans that don’t want to come in and get care. 1:12:50 Rep. Mike Bost (IL): What would happen if we didn’t make that extension go past the August 7, and what would be the final cutoff if we don’t get it past? David Shulkin: Well, first of all, if we don’t do this extension, this is going to be a disaster for American veterans. We’re going to see the same situation that we saw in April 2014, that Senator Kaine started out tonight with, that we saw in Phoenix. And so here’s the timeline. We do need to do this now. As I think Chairman Roe referred to, already today veterans are not able to use the Choice program, because the law states that we have to obligate the funds now for when the care is going to be delivered. So a pregnant veteran who comes to us and says, I want to get care using the Choice program, they no longer can, because nine months from now is past August 7. But this is now beginning to happen with care that is multiple months in length, like oncology care and chemotherapy and other types of therapies. We have a chart that shows that when you start getting towards the end of April to May, this is where you’re going to start seeing a large number of veterans not being able to get access to care, because episodes of care that we’re used to, like hip replacements and other things, are generally three to four months. So we think the time is now that we need to act. Bost: Okay, so, but what we’re doing is not any intention to privatize or anything like that. This is just making sure that those people who are on the Choice program, that we are moving forward to make sure that those services are provided. Shulkin: Not only that, but this is not going to cost any additional money. We are just seeking the authority to spend the money that you’ve already given us past August 7 of this year. 1:17:15 David Shulkin: We are going to go and we are going to start providing mental health care for those that are other-than-honorably discharged for urgent mental health. And we want to work with Representative Coffman on his bill on this, and we want to do as much as we can. But I don’t think it can wait, and so we’re going to start doing that now. I believe that’s in the secretary’s authority to be able to do that.   Hearing: A call for system-wide change; House Committee for Veterans Affairs; October 7, 2015. Witnesses: Robert McDonald: then Secretary of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin: Under Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Brett Giroir: Senior Fellow at the Texas medical Center Health Policy Institute 13:37 Robert McDonald: As you know, we have five strategies: first is improving the veteran experience, second is improving the employee experience, third is achieving support-service excellence, fourth is establishing a culture of continuous improvement, and fifth is enhancing strategic partnerships, and we would be happy to drill down on those during the question period. 14:17 Robert McDonald: In the past year, we’ve moved out aggressively in response to the access crisis, meeting increasing demand and expanding capacity on four fronts: more staffing, more space, more productivity, and more V.A. care in the community. During that period of time, we’ve completed 7 million more appointments for veterans of completed care: 4 1/2 million in the community, 2 1/2 million within V.A. We’ve added more space, we’ve added more providers, we’ve added more extra hours, all in effect to get more veterans in. But because of that, and because we’ve done a better job of caring for veterans, we have more veterans desiring care. So even those 97% of appointments are now completed within 30 days of the needed or preferred date, the number not completed in 30 days has grown from 300,000 to nearly 500,000. 16:15 Robert McDonald: We simply can’t make many necessary changes because of statutory limitations. We need to consolidate our various care in the community programs. We need a freer hand to hire, assign, and reward the executives we task to act as change agents. We need a freer hand in disposing of outdated, unused, or little-used facilities. We need a freer hand in the management of existing facilities so facilities’ managers can adjust their use of resources to the changing needs of veterans. 25:47 Brett Giroir: As background, in 2014 9.1 million of 21.6 million U.S. veterans were enrolled in the VHA. Of these, 5.8 million were actual patients, and on average these patients relied on the VHA for much less than 50% of their healthcare services. These demographic data combined with access challenges suggest reconsideration of whether the VHA should aim to be the comprehensive provider for all veterans’ health needs or whether the VHA should evolve into more focus centers providing specialized care while utilizing non-VHA providers for the majority of veterans’ healthcare needs. Either paradigm could be highly beneficial to veterans as long as the demand and resources are prospectively aligned and there is a consolidation of current programs to simplify access to non-VHA providers. 30:05 David Shulkin: The V.A. approach is to find the very best care that serves the veterans, and I think that we’ve shown that in response to our access crisis that we have encouraged the use of community care to address our access issues. I think the difference here between—maybe what I would expand on what Dr. Giroir said is that the care that V.A. provides is very, very different than the care that the private sector provides. The V.A. provides a much more comprehensive approach than just dealing with physical-illness issues. It provides psychological and social aspects of care that actually meet the needs of what veterans require. And that's why I think that we really do need to do what Dr. Giroir said, which is to see what VHA provides best for our veterans and what care can be provided by the private sector, and it’s that hybrid-type system that's going to meet our veteran's needs. 34:39 Former Rep. Corrine Brown (FL): I think the elephant in the room is that there are people out there that would actually want to just completely close the V.A. and privatize the entire V.A. system, which is totally unacceptable and it is absolutely not what the veterans want. And as you begin, I want you to discuss flexibility, but I want you to let people know how many people we actually serve every day throughout this country. Robert McDonald: Thank you, Ranking Member Brown. As I was going through my confirmation process, I often got the question from senators why—you know, from some senators, small group—why don't we get rid of the V.A. and just give out vouchers? So I studied that—as a business person, I wanted to know—and what I discovered was V.A.'s not only essential for veterans, it's essential for American medicine and it's essential for the American people. Three-legged stool: research. We spent $1.8 billion a year on research. We invented the nicotine patch. We were the ones who discovered the aspirin was important for heart disease—take an aspirin every day. First liver transplant. First implantable pacemaker. Last year two V.A. doctors invented the shingles vaccine. I could go on. That research is important for the American people, and I didn't even mention posttraumatic stress or traumatic brain injury or prosthetics, things that we're known for. Second, training. We trained 70% of the doctors in this country. Who's going to train those doctors without the V.A.? We have also the largest employer of nurses and the largest trainer of nurses. Third leg is clinical work. Our veterans get the best clinical care because our doctors are doctors that not only do the clinical care but also do research and teach in the best medical schools of our country. So I think the American people benefit from the V.A., and it would be a big mistake to even think about privatizing it. 1:06:06 Rep. Phil Roe (TN): Let me go right to what I wanted to talk about which is my own veteran’s officer at home—person that does my work at home—and basically what she’s saying is, how do you get an appointment through the Veterans Choice Program? She said she had been trying to put together a summary, and what's happening is there’re two ways you get in there: a veteran can either be eligible by a 30-day wait list or more than 40 miles. And the most of problems she saw were the 30-day list. And this is what happens. Below is the information’s been given to me by the roll out of the program. In my experience, there appears to be a breakdown somewhere in this process but have been unable to get clear answers on how to fix it. The V.A. blames TriWest; TriWest blames the V.A. Eligibility is determined by the V.A. primary-care doctor if the appointment’s passed 30 days. The non-V.A. care staff then uploads this list of eligible veterans to the V.A. central office here in Washington nightly, and the veteran’s told to wait five to seven days and then call TriWest. The central office then sends the information to TriWest, can take three to seven days. If the consults don't get added, medical documentation didn't get uploaded, authorizations gets canceled, then the veteran’s on a merry-go-round. Look, when they came to my office to get an appointment, I said, you need an appointment with Dr. Smith. They went out front and made the appointment. That's what should happen. It ain’t that complicated. And all of this in between—and I could go on and on—TriWest has a different view of it, and I want to submit this to the record because it really gets to the bottom of what’s actually going— Unknown Chairman: Not objection. Roe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The non-V.A. care staff were given no training on this, and they basically were left just to wing it, how to make these appointments. That was one of the things was brought up in the report. Our local V.A. care—non-V.A. care staff—increased from 5 to 15 but still are struggling to make all these appointments, and there's talk of—now, listen to this right here—there is talk of calling each patient for every appointment to make sure they keep it. If the patient says, I don't want to go, they still are told to call them two times a month until the past the appointment time. That's a complete waste of time. And the outpatient clinics also ought to be able to add patients to the electronic wait list instead of sending them over because appointment may come up; veterans get left out like that. And the TriWest portal is not very friendly. Private doctors did not like jumping through all the hoops of the Choice programmers saying they must give a percent of their fee to TriWest in order for TriWest to file the claim. So, we have a clinic that’s closing in our office, in our V.A., on a chiropractic and pulmonary clinic, because the doctors are just fed up with the way the system is. It’s so bureaucratic. So, anyway, I could go on and on. This is a very extensive—this is on-the-ground stuff that’s going on today at our medical center, and I bet you it's going on around the country. And I think these are things I will submit to you so you can get to work on this, and, again, appreciate the effort that you put into it. Mr. Chairman, there’s some valuable information here for the V.A. to use. And I yield back. Unknown Chairman: Thank you. Ms. Brown, you had a question. Corrine Brown: I do, because I want the secretary to answer that, because I think—I'm meeting with TriWest today—but the important thing is, you can't send a veteran to an agency or anywhere until they get prior approval from the V.A. because the most important thing is that that doctor get that reimbursement. So can you clear this up? I mean, no person in my office can send someone to a doctor; it must go through the system so that you get prior approval. And once that's done, how long—why does it take so long for that physician to get reimbursed, and can he answer that question? Robert McDonald: We have flowcharted that process, and let me let David talk about the improvements that we’ve made to that process. He'll answer questions one and three, and I'll take two on the facilities. David Shulkin: Okay. Dr. Roe, I think your old adage on the three A's is exactly right. And you have to remember we brought this Choice system up in 90 days. This is a national, very complex system, and what we've heard after bringing it up in 90 days is exactly the type of feedback that you've been hearing from your constituents. The secretary and I are both out in the field, we understand that these problems are happening, and so what we've begun to do is to redesign the system and to process-map it out. Both the secretary and I spoke to the CEO of TriWest last evening, and we are beginning now to make outbound calls to the veterans before they had to call in. We are beginning to actually embed TriWest staff in the V.A. so that they're working in teams, and we're beginning to start eliminating some of those steps. It is going to take a while. It is painful to watch this when you hear stories like what you're hearing, but we understand the problems there, we are working very hard, we think TriWest and Health Net are working to help us make the system better, and we're committed to doing this with urgency. 1:58:08 David Shulkin: We do have a crisis in leadership. We have too many open, vacant positions. We have too many people in acting positions and interim positions. You can't expect that you're going to have a transformation in a health system unless you have stable leadership in place. We need your help on this. We need your help to help create the V.A. to be an environment people want to come and serve and to be excited about, and we are asking for your help in Title 38 for the—Hybrid Title 38—to be able to help get the right type of compensation for leadership positions in V.A. That will help us a lot. Hearing: HR 1994 VA accountability act and HR 3236 surface transportation and veterans health care choice improvement act; House Rules Committee; July 28, 2015. 1:28:40 Bradley Byrne (AL): We don’t need to have a government-run healthcare system for our veterans. We need to transition out of it and give all of our veterans a card, just like an insurance card. Hearing: Veterans Affairs health care and budget; House Veterans Affairs Committee; July 22, 2015. 19:20 Robert McDonald Clinical output has increased 8% while budget has increased 2%, 35% more people (1.5 million beneficiaries) 20:22 Robert McDonald Increased Choice authorizations by 44% (900,000), 4% more appointments, percentages of wait times, wait times for types of care 21:50 Robert McDonald Care crisis of 2014 was caused by an imbalance in supply and demand, VA has been governing to fit a budget, not making budget fit the care, stats on new enrollees, 147% increase. enrolled veterans use VA for 34% of their care 56:00 Robert McDonald Here is a packet explaining the transformation of the VA, we have an advisory board full of CEOs, VA is going through the largest transformation in it’s history 1:09:40 Tim Heulskamp (KS) Concerned that money will be redirect away from Choice and he thinks “many employees” are not supportive of Choice, throws out bullshit numbers James Tuchschmidt corrects him and said they took money out to pay for the Hepatitis C drug 1:11:50 Tim Heulskamp wants to know why only two people have been fired for the wait time scandal. Robert McDonald many have retired, one indictment, 1,300 have been fired, new leadership, 7 million more appointments this year 1:27:30 Rep.Jackie Walorski (IN) Veterans died because of the Veteran’s Administration, I wanted to see people go to prison, list of things she’s pissed about, "Nothing is working” Robert McDonald 300,000 on wait list a year ago, low wait times, 1:35:00 McDonald we need a better system for anticipating what demand will be. 34% of eligible people are using VA system right now 1:35:20 Robert McDonald the crisis in 2014 was due to Vietnam vets, not Iraq & Afghanistan and we need to prepare as they age 1:36:00 Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) Why don’t we “refer out" the care that’s not directly related to military service? Robert McDonald people like to have all their doctors in one place, private sector doctors have to treat veterans differently - different questions to ask 1:41:00 Phil Roe (TN) Getting veterans outside care should be be through 1 program because it "aught to be easy" 1:43:50 Robert McDonald Moral is low because people don't want to be called out for not caring. They work hard every day 1:46:00 Kathleen Rice (D-NY) Why is there a budget shortfall? Robert McDonald 7 million more veterans needed care. "That's the reason" 1:56:00 Mark Takano (D-CA) New way of operating with non-VA providers - "Care in the Community" - not a conspiracy to "disappear the VA" - That's why we changed the name 2:05:00 Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) We should "outsource" collections” of payment from veterans with other insurance James Tuchschmidt We are looking at doing that. Wenstrup we should take bids. 2:18:00 Robert McDonald We are in favor of Choice program & we need to know about any employees who aren't because "that would be wrong" - Don't care where they get care as long as it's great care 2:20:00 Jerry McNerney (D-CA) Do you favor public private partnerships? Robert McDonald Yes, it's part of our transformation strategy. we have an “office of strategic parterships” 2:22:55 James Tuchschmidt We thought more people would use Choice, the goal was to not have vets waiting more than 30 days for care, we're asking to use that money to pay for care we purchased, we want a bill before you leave in August 2:28:00 James Tuchschmidt We’ve treated over 20,000 veterans with hepatitis C and veterans can use the Choice Program to get their treatment Rep.Ralph Abraham (LA) $500 million would be designated for Hepatitis C treatment Robert McDonald yes Hearing: Non-VA care: An integrated solution for veteran access; House Veterans Affairs Committee; June 18, 2014. 50:40 Rep. Beto O’Rourke (TX): Why have the V.A. at all? Why not privatize that care? The private sector could do it better. What’s missing in the V.A. is competition. Our veterans deserve the very best. Let’s not keep them in this institution that’s not working. From veterans, almost to a person, I hear, if I get in the V.A., I love the care. I’m treated very, very well. The outcomes are great. Don’t touch the V.A. So, what do you do best, and what does the V.A. do best? And five years down the road, after we get out of this current crisis, what will this look like? Unknown Speaker: That’s a great question. And it’s an honor to serve El Paso, where I spent part of my childhood when my dad was in the army as a doc. I will tell you that I hope it does not take five years. And I think everybody else would echo that statement. My belief is that the first phase is to make sure that the program that the V.A. has invested taxpayer money in—VAPC3—is put in place, is mature, that the processes on the V.A. side are mature, that our processes are mature, and that together we’re identifying where those pockets of veterans are that might not otherwise be able to get what they need in a complete capacity through the direct V.A. system because they lack the capacity to deliver on all the needs, and that the V.A. syst— Yes, sir. O’Rourke: Let me—I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I do want to understand what you think beyond taking care of capacity issues when the V.A.’s not able to see someone in a reasonable period of time. Are there specific kinds of care that you all would be better equipped to take care of? For example, I often think the V.A. is or should be better at handling PTSD or the aftereffects of traumatic brain injury because they see so many people like that as opposed to your typical health system or hospital. Maybe that’s a V.A. center of excellence. Is there something on the outside that we should just move all appointments or consults or procedures in a given area over to the private sector or let the private sector compete for? Unknown Speaker: Great question. My personal view is that it’s too early to ask that question—or to answer it, probably a better way to put it. It’s early to ask it, it’s right to ask it, you’re looking over the horizon line, but that we first need to get the pieces plugged together. And then there needs to be a make-by decision, category by category, and facility by facility, to look at what’s best done with taxpayer funds. Is it best to have the direct system provide care for four veterans in a particular category? Is that really necessary? Or should we buy that on the outside because it’s more efficient and more effective? 54:30 O’Rourke: You know, I’ve been on this committee for a year and a half now—it’s my first year in Congress—but I’d never been approached by a lobbyist on my way in to a meeting. Today I was, who represents providers in the private sector in El Paso and said, we have a hard time getting paid. It takes us a year sometimes. We want to see these veterans who are not able to be seen by the V.A., but it’s going to be really hard to do this if we don’t get paid. 1:34:00 Jolly: We need to do even more in providing a veteran choice. This, bottom line. The question, though, is how do we do that in a way that’s fiscally responsible? And so my question for you generally—and again, if you don’t have enough information, that’s certainly fine—in your role of supporting non-V.A. care, can you give either an assessment, if you have the technical information, or if it’s just in a working opinion on the cost effectiveness compared to traditional care, realizing that we have hard infrastructure costs within our V.A. system that aren’t reflective when you go to non-V.A. We can look at all sorts of data. I’m somebody who thinks typically data’s manipulated to get whatever outcome or position we want to finally be able to support. But can you give an opinion or assessment on the cost effectiveness of non-V.A. care versus within the V.A.? Ms. Doody: I can tell you from our experience with Project ARCH—and I wish I could give you specific numbers, sir—the company Altarum, who was contracted to collect this information—my understanding is they’re going to report back to you folks in 2015—are looking at the cost of care per veteran. From my understanding, it is less than if they would have gone to a V.A. facility for certain procedures. So, again, it’s anecdotal. It may be geographic; I can’t comment on the other regions or other states in our nation. But also just limiting the amount of mileage, the travelling that the veteran would have to do travelling to a V.A. hospital to receive care as a savings to the system also. 1:45:00 Titus: You confirm that you can’t talk about the cost effectiveness; there’s just not enough data there, yet you think it’s working pretty well, but we don’t have any hard figures, and we also know that CVO’s been kind of unable to assess the cost going forward, and nobody’s talking about how to pay for it. Yet, we are moving pell mell towards more veterans using this kind of non-V.A. care. And it’s not that I’m opposed to that, but I want us to do it right or else we’ll be having hearings five years from now, talking about all the problems with non-V.A. care. Now, to hear y’all talk about it, you’re not having any problems; things are working great under your networks. But we know that’s not true, either. I mean, there are problems out there, and we need to be serious about how to address them from the beginning. Now, as I understand it, y’all are just kind of like the middleman, like Sallie Mae and Medicare Advantage, where you have a contract to provide a service. That’s fine, but as you push more people out into the private sector, do you see your kind of business growing, or is your network going to cover more areas, or are more new networks and competition going to come on to be part of this new system that we’re going to be creating? Hearing: A continued assessment of delays in VA medical care and preventable veteran deaths; House Veterans Affairs Committee; April 9, 2014. 2:35 Rep. Jeff Miller (FL): On Monday, shortly before this public hearing, V.A. provided evidence that a total of 23 veterans have died due to delays and care at V.A. medical centers. Even with this latest disclosure as to where the deaths occurred, our committee still doesn’t know when they may have happened beyond the statement from V.A. that they most likely occurred between 2010 and 2012. These particular deaths resulted primarily from delays in gastrointestinal care. Information on other preventable deaths due to consult delays remains unavailable. Outside of the V.A.’s consult review, this committee has reviewed at least 18 preventable deaths that occurred because of mismanagement, improper infection-control practices, and a whole host—a whole host—of maladies that plagued the V.A. healthcare system all across this great nation. 8:53 Rep. Jeff Miller (FL): Mr. Coates waited for almost a year and would have waited even longer had he not personally persistently insisted on receiving the colonoscopy that he and his doctors knew that they needed. That same colonoscopy revealed that Mr. Coates had Stage IV colon cancer that had metastasized to his lungs and to his liver. 13:55 Barry Coates: My name is Barry Lynne Coates, and due to the inadequate and lack of followup care I received through the V.A. system, I stand here before you terminally ill today

Congressman Jack Bergman (R-MI 1) is a former three-star Marine general, the highest ranking military official ever elected to the United States Congress. Congressman Bergman joins Michael Steele and Rick Ungar to celebrate Veterans Day and the 242nd birthday of the Marine Corps and talk about what the House Veterans Affairs Committee is doing to help our vets. The guys discuss the emerging cracks in the "House of Steele", the GOP House majority that Michael built as RNC chairman.

In today's Federal Newscast, the House Veterans Affairs Committee introduces the Asset and Infrastructure Review Act, which calls for VA to set up a commission to look at old and underused VA facilities.

Congressman Jodey Arrington (R-TX 19), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity for the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, breaks down why we need the recently-passed VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein updates us on the diplomatic crisis brewing in the Middle East after five Arab nations cut ties with Qatar.

Congressmen Dr. Phil Roe (R-TN 1), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Tim Walz (D-MN 1), the committee's ranking member, discuss some of their recent initiatives and successes as we approach Memorial Day. Rick and Michael review the most recent CBO score for the American Health Care Act.

“The Editor’s Desk” sits down once again with Congressman Jeff Miller, R-FL, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee to talk about the state of the VA, veteran hiring, the war in Afghanistan, and the upcoming presidential election. Download