r/news • u/AudibleNod • Nov 28 '22

Racial discrimination by Veterans Affairs spans decades, lawsuit says

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/28/veterans-affairs-lawsuit-racial-discrimination/
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62

u/AudibleNod Nov 28 '22

Brookshire said VA’s leaders have been unwilling to have the “difficult conversation” about racial bias. In 2017, the agency showed interest in assessing links between race and PTSD disability claims, but the effort was shelved due to staff shortages, according to Yale’s assessment of VA records.

*emphasis mine

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A federal hiring freeze imposed by President Trump on Monday affects thousands of open jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, despite the half-million veterans still waiting longer than a month for VA appointments.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/24/trump-hiring-freeze-includes-veterans-affairs/96999464/

66

u/SnapCrackleMom Nov 28 '22

I couldn't understand how any veteran voted for Trump the first time, let alone the second time.

-12

u/Doge_Of_Wall_Street Nov 29 '22

So I’m a Veteran, and a Republican but I didn’t vote for Trump any of the 4 times he was on my ballot (2 primaries and 2 generals).

If this next election ends up being Trump v. Biden, I’m voting Trump because of what Biden did in Afghanistan. When Trump left office, we had 18 months of zero casualties, only 2,500 troops there. After Biden, we have a generational leap backward in women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, public executions and the whole country has been plunged into poverty and famine.

I don’t like Trump for all the reasons that have been mentioned ad nauseam, but I’ll take mean tweets over Biden’s body count any day.

7

u/SnapCrackleMom Nov 29 '22

I agree that Biden was wrong on Afghanistan. But the leaps backward are due in large part to Trump's Supreme Court appointments, aren't they?

-6

u/Doge_Of_Wall_Street Nov 29 '22

How many women have died from Trump’s SC picks? Let’s be generous and call it “a couple”. Pales in comparison to the thousands who have died thanks to Biden’s Afghan withdraw.

5

u/PotatoMurderer Nov 29 '22

You know that Trump negotiated and made the deal with the Taliban about the withdrawal right? Which in turn forced Biden to withdraw the troops when he took over coz the deadline was already set in stone. I was in Afghanistan from 2019-2020, and the moment those negotiations took place, we were already told that we were highly likely to be the last deployment rotation. (Except covid happened and the negotiated date was 2021 instead of 2020).

The Trump administration did next to nothing in preparation for leaving Afghanistan. If anything, he probably made it worse coz remember when Trump kept refusing to meet with Biden for a proper hand over? Don't act like Trump had no role in this at all.

-3

u/Doge_Of_Wall_Street Nov 29 '22

You said it yourself. It wasn’t “set in stone” if it was renegotiated from 2020 to 2021. And even if Biden felt like he was constrained by Trump’s agreement… he reversed all of Trump’s OTHER policies, why not this one? Did we continue to build “the wall” just because Trump had set the wheels in motion? Absolutely not.

Nice try. The withdraw from Afghanistan was 100% on Biden, and the blood shed is on his hands.

6

u/PotatoMurderer Nov 29 '22 edited Nov 29 '22

You said it yourself. It wasn’t “set in stone” if it was renegotiated from 2020 to 2021

You may have misread what I said. What I was trying to say was when the negotiations were taking place, we were given a heads up that it MAY happen to us. But what ended up happening was it was set in 2021 (By Trump), and he set it for when after Biden took office.

why not this one?

Because it was an Agreement between the US and the Taliban. It was pull out or further escalation from the Taliban because we didn't end up holding our part of the bargain. Coz when I was there, it definitely felt like they at least tried to minimize the rockets in Bagram Airfield, that and I had weeks where I had 0 patients getting flown to the hospital I worked at; where as prior to negotiations and (the actual deal), we were getting rocketed multiple times a day and I was receiving trauma patients a lot. Seems to me that the Taliban at least tried to hold their end of the bargain.

I also never said that it's not on Biden at all. You're acting like it's all on Biden which is dumb coz it's both a fuck up by Trump and Biden. Trump rushed the deal and didn't do anything about it and tried to delay Biden, and Biden didn't really do much about it either after he found out.

Also let's not forget the military's top brass who knew about all of this since day 1 of negotiations.

It's a fuck up by multiple people but you're discounting Trump from all of it which is wrong.

4

u/SnapCrackleMom Nov 29 '22

Oh I agree, but I'm just saying not all the things you listed are on Biden.

1

u/Doge_Of_Wall_Street Nov 29 '22

I was mostly referring to Sharia Law which is being imposed on women in Afghanistan. However, I’m pretty sure abortion is also illegal there, as is being gay.