How Musk Sold Out America’s Veterans – OpEd

How Musk Sold Out America’s Veterans – OpEd

Former service members around the country already feel the repercussions, which include cuts to transportation programs for disabled veterans, reduced telephone support for caregivers, and the postponement or cancellation of suicide prevention trainings.

Other veterans report the cancellation of therapy groups and longer wait times for appointments as well as disruptions to medical studies, including a clinical trial on a new medication with the potential to treat cancers of the mouth and throat. Some facilities eliminated staff members especially trained or certified to perform certain roles, delaying the requisition and delivery of medical supplies.

As always happens amid Musk’s ham-handed raids, the cuts at the VA commenced without the slightest foresight or sense. Among many other examples, officials summarily canceled hundreds of contracts with outside providers, only to immediately scale back the reckless decision after realizing they needed the help performing essential work like physician recruitment and burial services.

Kaldahl, who receives hearing aids, eye care, and other services from the VA, has to travel to larger cities, such as Superior, Wisconsin, or Minneapolis, to receive care unavailable at a clinic near his home.

CSIS Simulation Highlights Urgent Need to Strengthen U.S. Defense Industrial Base

recent simulation conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) paints a stark picture of the U.S. defense industrial base, revealing critical vulnerabilities in its ability to support military operations in the event of a large-scale conflict. The findings underscore the urgent need for public-private partnerships, increased investment in manufacturing capacity, and reduced reliance on foreign components.

CSIS Simulation Highlights Urgent Need to Strengthen U.S. Defense Industrial Base

Good luck with that! The U.S. “defense industrial base” is beholden to profits!

Related:

Mike Gallagher says that the Pentagon Has Two Years to Prevent World War III

The Pentagon is running out of missiles. After December 1, that will be a big problem.

The Navy only ‘thinks’ it has a schedule for new submarine delivery

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The Navy only ‘thinks’ it has a schedule for new submarine delivery

The first Columbia class submarine is due for delivery to the Navy in 2027. It plans to spend more than a hundred billion dollars for a dozen of them. Delays in this scale of program are inevitable. In fact, sub number one is already late. Yet the Navy, auditors say, lacks a statistical schedule risk analysis to go along with the program. And that means it may not have enough insight into the whole program. To share details, the Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions at the Government Accountability Office, Shelby Oakley, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Ukraine: Imposing the plan

After briefly presenting his Victory Plan at the seat of Ukraine’s national sovereignty, the Verkhovna Rada, Volodymyr Zelensky has continued his tour to try to win the support of the people and institutions that really matter – his foreign partners. In Brussels, the Ukrainian president sought to curry favour with one of his main suppliers, the current support of the Ukrainian state, the European Union, whose Parliament once again welcomed him as a hero. “The last time you were here,” wrote Roberta Metsola, “I promised you our unwavering support on your country’s path to EU membership. Today I am proud to welcome you to the House of European Democracy as the leader of a candidate country for EU membership.” “Ukraine is Europe,” she said, deliberately confusing the continent with the political bloc. However, with EU entry long understood as a decision that has been made and that it is simply a matter of time, Zelensky’s speech did not focus on the benefits of the Union or the enormous benefit that will be obtained by admitting Ukraine into the European family, but on the continuation of his campaign to formalize the Victory Plan as a possible way out of the war. Kiev is acting in the same way that in the last decade it has managed to institutionalize the nationalist discourse, previously only characteristic of a part of the country, as the only possible national discourse. Ukraine is working to achieve the same objective and to make its plan – in reality a wish list that its allies must help it to fulfill and not a roadmap to achieve them – appear as a path to a just peace.

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