Brace yourselves!

It's gonna be a bumpy ride at VA and everywhere

Doug Collins is not a “normie” Republican

Donald Trump announced yesterday that former Georgia Republican Congressman Doug Collins would be his selectee for Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Coming after war criminal advocate Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense, likely sex offender Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, and probable foreign agent Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence it makes Collins seem almost….normal.

He is not. Not at all.

I mean…this was the team that backed him when he dropped out of Congress to run for the Senate against Tommy Tuberville. Yes. That’s Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, and George Papadopoulos. Literally an “all-star team” of the worst people in far-right politics.

Collins is an Iraq war vet and serves in the Air Force Reserve as a Chaplain. He is a Baptist Minister and is known as a pretty extreme Christian Nationalist as you can see from who he hangs out with. Professionally he never served on the Armed Services or Veterans Affairs Committees and has a very thin voting record on veterans issues.

He is neither a doctor or worked at the VA. His claim to fame is simply being a far-right culture warrior and MAGA loyalist. That’s it. He will take over the second largest government agency that oversees the healthcare over around 10 million living veterans.

His claim to fame is that he was a staunch defender of Trump when he was in office and is a far right bigot. I can’t imagine what will happen to any diversity programs, LGTBQ support, and hiring efforts at VA. It will be pure culture war insanity.

What happened at VA last time

We can look back at what happened at the VA last time Trump was in charge. In one word it was chaos. There was a constant air of skullduggery and palace intrigue. Trump first promoted the former Deputy of VA, Dr. David Shulkin to lead the department. He had a long history of healthcare management and was actually a lifelong Republican.

I met him a few times and when he hosted the first Veterans Day breakfast for veterans advocates and others at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters. They had to host it because Donald Trump didn’t think it was important and never once hosted the traditional event in the White House in his entire four years in office as previous President’s had and Biden after him.

This was the last time I was invited to a veterans event under Trump.

Joining then SecVA David Shulkin and his wife on Veterans Day 2017

He was fired by Trump in March of 2018 ostensibly over travel expenses but Shulkin claimed, with good reason, that it was actually a palace coup over his resistance to privatizing more of veterans healthcare. That has always been a major priority of Republicans including the Koch Brothers through their own organization called Concerned Veterans of America.

Who ran CVA at his founding? None other that Pete Hegseth the new DOD Secretary nominee.

That palace intrigue continued. Trump nominated his personal physician Dr. (RADM) Ronny Jackson to take Shulkins place but his nomination was scuttled after weeks of drama over reports that Jackson drank on duty, sexually harassed subordinates, was a toxic leader, and distributed so many prescription drugs off the books they called him the “Candy Man” in the White House.

So, of course he ran for Congress in Texas and is still serving.

They pulled Robert Wilkie over from DOD and he served as Acting and then the SecVA until the end of the Administration. It was chaos. Wilkie was constantly paranoid about leaks. During his time the infamous ‘Mar-A-Lago Three’, friends of Trump’s, became illegal formal advisors to the VA that had to be briefed and worked to get contracts directed to their family members.

Wilkie created scandal when he smeared a woman veteran who went public with accusations of being sexually harassed at a VA Clinic. It’s believed he orchestrated a campaign to damage her reputation through subordinates with right leaning media. It led to a damaging Inspector General investigation and the firing of the then Deputy Secretary Jim Byrne, when he pushed back against their machinations.

In the end little moved forward. No major legislation supporting veterans was signed and the reputation of the Department fell behind after years of work to improve it. I expect no less this time.

Actually, I expect it to be worse.

What they are planning

Look no further than Project 2025 and previous Heritage Project plans to see what they have in store for VA. While Trump denied any association with Project 2025 in the latter part of the campaign…we know better now as the authors have been welcomed with open arms into the transition.

Here are some of the key concerns from a handly graphic from my colleagues at VoteVets:

One of the biggest fears I am already hearing from many veterans is the plans to cut what is known as “concurrent receipt.” This obscure rule means that a veteran who is retired from the military and receiving a pension who is also given a VA disability rating of 50% or higher can get both his pension and disability in full.

For many veterans you are talking as much as $48,000 a year in income. I have had at least two veterans tell me that losing this benefit would put them below the poverty line immediately.

That’s before we talk about the thousands of veterans who will lose their government positions with Schedule F replacing them with MAGA loyalists or having their jobs eliminated without cause. On top of that they plan to put limits on how long a doctor can see a veteran and even what illnesses and disabilities can be treated by the VA forcing millions of veterans to carry private health insurance on top of their VA benefits.

These plans will devastate our 15 million living veterans. Most of whom are elderly. It must be stopped. I am hopeful that the many veterans groups can work together to oppose these monstrous plans.

We will need your help.

The Show

I am excited to roll out a new format for ‘On Democracy with FPWellman.’ Each week we will start the show with a couple of stories from the world and some insight on things from the week in politics. Then we will welcome a guest with some perspective on those issues or others in our democracy.

This week we kicked off discussing the failure of Democrats to understand what I call the current era of Mass Diversified Media and how it meant we didn’t reach enough potential voters with our key messages. Then I talked about how the Democrats can still scuttle GOP plans as they have done in super minority states like Missouri.

Finally, we talked about the upcoming local elections in 30 states and welcomed the Co-Executive Director of Run For Something, Ross Morales Rocketto to discuss their efforts and why it all matters.

I hope you will check it out on our channel and subscribe to the On Democracy Podcasts YouTube while you are there!

Ross Morales Rocketto

Rocketto is the Co-Executive Director of Run For Something. Ross has been a progressive political operative for over 15 years working in campaign management, grassroots organizing, and data/analytics. In 2016, was an advisor at For Our Future. He previously managed Wendy Carrillo for Congress in CA-34 and was a Principal at STG. Rocketto got his start working for former HUD Secretary Julian Castro’s first campaign for Mayor of San Antonio. He is leading RFS as they ride a wave of new candidate recruits wanting to take on saving our democracy.

Note from Fred

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