Three Democrats Call For Shinseki's Ouster

[Purveyor]

By BURGESS EVERETT | 5/23/14 4:49 PM EDT

For Democratic Senate candidates hoping to topple Republicans in red states this fall, running against the Obama administration’s deepening Department of Veterans Affairs scandal has become a no-brainer.

By Friday afternoon, three prospective Senate Democrats had called for the ouster of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki over allegations of inordinate wait times for military veterans’ care and misconduct at VA facilities. Those calls set these candidates from the conservative bastions of Georgia, Kentucky and West Virginia apart from the current crop of Democratic senators, none of whom called for the ouster of Shinseki this week despite the firestorm.

West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, who’s locked into an uphill battle against GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, was the latest Senate candidate to call for Shinseki’s ouster, joining Michelle Nunn of Georgia and Alison Lundergan Grimes of Kentucky.

“It’s clear General Shinseki has become a distraction from the mission of the VA. New leadership is needed to earn back the trust and confidence of veterans and military families,” Tennant said, noting the problem is deeper than Shinseki. “I can tell you firsthand, our military families are tired of empty gestures, we see right through the politics, and we deserve real results that won’t get accomplished simply by throwing one guy out for political show.”

Nunn beat Tennant by about an hour, declaring on Friday that Shinseki needs to step aside.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/democrats-eric-shinseki-veterans-affairs-107066.html#ixzz32ZooAE2m

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Are they also going to call for the ouster of every Congressperson

who voted for wars that push hundreds of thousands of new soldiers into VA care without bothering to give the VA the resources (money) to build new hospitals and hire enough doctors and nurses to treat them? All we've done is go from an earlier bottleneck to a later one - before Shinseki, veterans waited months or years to get ok'ed to get services. Without new staff to treat them, and new facilities in which to treat them, it was inevitable that the next bottleneck after getting people into the system would be finding time for them in the existing facilities.

Congress created this problem by ignoring the extra strain they themselves voted to put on the system. Shinseki started to clear up one problem, but without more doctors, nurses, and new facilities, you simply can't treat everyone that needs treated. And of course Republicans are trying to pretend the solution is to 'get rid of' the VA and send all of our vets into for-profit hospitals, so that taxpayers can pay money to shareholders, rather than handing over the money to grow the VA.

[AnalystInParadise]

2. Well the way to replace Congress members is usually the ballot box

The way to replace appointed officials is usually firing them or asking them to resign. Seems like the proper forms are being followed.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Still, I haven't heard anyone calling for Congress to be punished.

There are any number of talking heads who have at least mentioned that the deeper problem is that the VA has been underfunded for forever, but I have yet to hear any of them specifically point out that Congress is more responsible for the overall mess than Shinseki.

They want a scapegoat, not a solution.

[Submariner]

3. Well those so-called Dems can go sh*t in a hat with their fellow

republican teabag party critics.

If they need someone to blame they need to go to Dallas and meet with the drunk doing water color paintings in the shower. If he's not in the shower, that asshole might be out back burying his f*cking dog.

This assh*le started two wars without having a VA ramped up to care for this overload problem. The when he and 5 deferment cheney kicked the lost war can down the road and left town, Cheney left right wing career government employees to gum up the works during the Obama administration.

These Dem ass clown critics are using vets for political purposes, nothing honorable about that.

[JoeyT]

5. Tennant has a communications degree?

That's weird, given that she apparently doesn't know what "firsthand" means. Unless Wells Media Group is a branch of the US armed forces I missed learning about.

If she's relating stories veterans have told her, that's secondhand.

Her quote is also self contradictory. It appears to be saying "Throwing one guy out for political show won't do what needs to be done, but let's throw him out anyway!"

Way to take a bold stand.