Trump's Assault on Veterans is Already Taking a Toll

[Nevilledog]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-assault-veterans-taking-toll-1235333903/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/MwR1p

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in early February titled “Remaking the Federal Workforce,” basically calling for a bunch of people to be fired. The Department of Veterans Affairs was initially exempted, but that language has since disappeared from the order.

The reversal is emblematic of the Trump administration’s two-faced relationship with the men and women who have given their lives to the United States.

Trump, Elon Musk, and VA Secretary Doug Collins have made a public show about how much they care about veterans, insisting they won’t be impacted by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s widespread gutting of the federal government. They have simultaneously been working behind the scenes to ensure the VA would suffer the most cuts of any federal agency.
How could both things be true? I believe Orwell called it doublethink, and the Trump administration is giving a masterclass in it.

Trump intended to privatize the VA during his first term. According to Trump’s own former VA Secretary, his political appointees inside the VA initially tried to sabotage veterans’ programs by making them dysfunctional or by simply harassing program leads. When veterans groups pushed back and Trump realized it could cost him reelection, the administration pivoted to the MISSION Act, which allowed veterans to choose VA or private care at government expense.

*snip*

[Norrrm]

1. 1+

[Leghorn21]

2. I'm seething and stewing in the dank juices of my unabashed hatred

motherFUCKers

[Wounded Bear]

3. So far, my regional VA hospital has been unaffected, but I'm wary of their plans...