VA CHIEF NICHOLSON CAMPAIGNED ON JOB AND TAXPAYERS PAID

CONGRESSIONAL REPORT: FORMER VA CHIEF NICHOLSON CAMPAIGNED ON JOB AND TAXPAYERS PAID (10-16-08) Report shows White House billed taxpayers for trips to get Republicans elected during 2006 election cycle.

White House Billed Taxpayers for Trips to Get Republicans Elected
By Jason Leopold
The Public Record
A draft report released Wednesday by Congressman Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, found that in the months prior to the 2006 midterm elections, the White House Office of Political Affairs, formerly headed by Karl Rove, “enlisted agency heads across government in a coordinated effort to elect Republican candidates to Congress,” directing them “to make hundreds of trips – most at taxpayer expense – for the purpose of increasing the electability of Republicans.”"The White House used its Office of Political Affairs office to orchestrate an aggressive strategy to use taxpayer-funded trips to help elect Republican candidates for public office," the report says.

"From January 1, 2006, until the mid-term elections on November 7, 2006, cabinet secretaries and other senior officials traveled to over 300 events recommended by the political affairs office.

All of these events were held with Republican candidates, and in most cases, the travel costs were paid for with federal funds."The report recommends that the Office of Political Affairs be eliminated and that the federal law known as a the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government resources for political purposes, be amended to further restrict political activity by federal officials.
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http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfoct08/nf101608-3.htm

Did Nicholson's departure from VA really matter?

From 2007 and not much has changed but this is an important voice that should be re-heard. I get Google Alerts so this must have come from someone hitting on this piece from last year before Peake replaced Nicholson.

Changing of the Guard
Does VA Secretary Jim Nicholson's departure matter to the men and women fighting the Iraq war? A veteran's view.
By David Botti Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jul 19, 2007
Botti, a former Marine Corps reservist, served as a rifleman in Iraq in 2003. He is now a freelance writer in New York.
On my first trip to a Veterans Affairs hospital for a post-deployment evaluation after returning from Iraq, the doctor said he didn't have time to screen me. He asked a nurse to do it instead.
Halfway through the interview, she suggested I change one of my answers, or I would be spending all day waiting to speak with doctors in the psych department.

I walked out as soon as the evaluation was over, and I never went back. If Ineeded help, I wasn't going to get it there.
It seems little has changed between then and now, except perhaps for the severity of soldiers' injuries inflicted by a more adept and resourceful enemy.

Nicholson's announcement on Tuesday that he would resign as Secretary of Veterans Affairs came as a surprise to most. The political spin storm still managed to get off the ground in no time. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama released a statement saying Nicholson left the VA worse than he found it. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the president was grateful forMr. Nicholson's service.

It seemed that those with the most to say were the least affected.

This was in 2004, six months before James Nicholson inherited a Department of Veterans Affairs already strained by the nearly two-year-old war. As a Marine among the first wave of veterans to return from Iraq, I simply figured it was going to take a little while longer for the VA to get its wartime footing.
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/32946/page/1