Homeland Security Warning Debunked By Veterans Group

Homeland Security

Benjamin Krause‘VA is Lying’ debunked a recent warning from Homeland Security that the group’s members planned a protest at VA hospitals connected to the wait-list scandal. That warning quickly proved false, but not before spinning up a bunch of union employees at VA facilities nationwide.

Yesterday, we published an email from an AFGE union president that included a warning from VA Chief of Police and DHS National Operations Center (NOC) to VA employees in anticipation of a protest that was never apparently scheduled or planned.

RELATED: DHS, VA Police Monitoring ‘VA Is Lying’ Facebook Group

The email indicated VA is Lying Facebook group’s members planned a massive protest at the 111 VA health care facilities linked to the wait-list fraud and veteran deaths. The date of the alleged protest was May 20, 2016.

HOMELAND SECURITY REBUKE

According to VA is Lying founder Ron Nesler, there is no protest planned for the month of May. Instead, the only thing Nesler has planned for the Facebook group in the month of May is a Sunday picnic for “ordinary Americans” to talk about “democracy” in southern Indiana many miles from any of the facilities implicated in the wait-list scandal.

Other administrators from within the Facebook group also expressed surprise at the warning and quickly dispelled the false allegations.

So, DHS and VA misunderstood a picnic on the Lords Day held in southern Indiana as a nationwide protest at all VA facilities linked to the wait-list scandal.

RELATED: Homeland Security Police Caught Harassing Sick Veterans

Those idiots at DHS and VA who called this one clearly need to be canned if they are relied on to “protect” our country from a severely disabled Vietnam veteran. That same disabled veteran uses a walker connected to an oxygen tank. He moves very slowly.

He is sharp-witted, but he moves very slowly, like most disabled veterans of the Vietnam War.

Just what does VA and the DHS have to be afraid of when it comes to Nesler and those like him?

Perhaps it is Nesler’s willingness to speak the truth and dissent against VA’s  multi-million dollar public relations machine. His message in those many moments encouraged others to fight for accountability and truth.

Is the message and contagious growth of the VA is Lying movement what DHS is afraid of? Perhaps DHS is truly afraid of grassroots movements like this catching on, where the little guy stands up to the Goliath that is VA?

HOMELAND SECURITY WARNING LIKE A PSYOP

Most reading the email warning from the DHS National Operations Center and VA Chief of Police suspected the warning alert was more of a psyop.

Since the email was internal, simple deductive logic indicates the victims of the psychos were VA employees or those who would be impacted by the increased anxiety of VA employees.

The goal must have been to freak them out. But when you really think about it, bravo. A group of peaceful veterans who expect VA employees to follow the law or else suffer exposure through the press or lawsuits were able to inspire fear without doing anything.

Incredible.

This makes me wonder why DHS is so afraid of First Amendment and Free Speech activity? Why are they afraid of veterans? Why are they trying to freak out VA employees who are already afraid of us with their Patient Flagging and Disruptive Committees?

It is worth thinking through.

ARAB SPRING FEAR

Some speculate the fear has more to do with social media momentum and what occurred in the Arab Spring.

Federalists who support a dominant central government over the Constitution apparently believe any speech activity needs to be guarded against and watched.

Based on this experience, these folks will stop at nothing including psyops to thwart any momentum involving democracy or speaking freely about government corruption that is proven and already common knowledge.

STANFORD TIPPING POINT ARTICLE

One veteran believes this fear is explained in a Stanford article about the “Tipping Point” book written Brad Hunter about Malcolm Gladwell’s book. That article is called Tipping Points on Social Networks,

Writer Brad Hunter believes messages like Nesler’s through the VA is Lying Facebook group and those like it influence the populous in a way mass media and propaganda are unable to accomplish.

Hunter apparently believes that contrived messages via controlled messaging used by agencies like VA are ineffective delivery vessels doomed to fail. No wonder VA pays many millions for public relations services; those services do not work.

Instead, message manipulators making big bucks through VA contracts should learn from Nesler’s message. That message benefited from correct timing and authentic messaging that traditionally controlled media cannot emulate.

The message, according to the Stanford article, encourages agencies like VA to be less control-freak centric. They should instead embrace the real and authentic dialogue that expresses the real concerns of veterans and their family members.

WILL VA CHANGE COURSE?

I have told lawmakers this in the past, and even lectured Democrats about the need to pay more attention to grassroots needs than contrived messages and issues.

RELATED: Krause’s Veterans For Common Sense Testimony CSPAN

Is this a messaging direction VA can emulate or will the controlling agents within the agency like AFGE and SES employees refuse to encourage authentic communication between true stakeholders – the veterans?

Outting of the email here yesterday did result in an investigation into the leak. Hopefully, its content will outrage any taxpayer who funded the extreme ignorance and idiocy on display for us within this issue.

We need agencies like VA and DHS to keep it cool and focus on the real bad guys, and those bad guys are not us.

DISSENT CONFUSED WITH RADICALIZATION

Unfortunately, the growing research funded by the DoD indicates the focus on radicalization may easily be misunderstood by those who fail to appreciate the nuance and value of dissent. Dissent is an important and necessary ingredient within any organization. But given the current misguided focus of DHS on veterans groups that openly encourage dissent and accountability, perhaps we are too far gone.

Dissent is an important and necessary ingredient within any organization, which is a lesson VA has all too obviously forgotten. But given the current misguided focus of DHS on veterans groups that openly encourage dissent and accountability, perhaps we are too far gone.

But given the current misguided focus of DHS on veterans groups that openly encourage dissent and accountability through the press and aggressive utilization of the nation’s courts, perhaps our nation is too far gone.

Some readers suggested I highlight research grants in the Minerva Initiative published on DTIC.mil. The most recent collection of topics include:

  • Arizona State: New analytics for measuring and countering social influence and persuasion of extremist groups
  • Georgia State: Mobilizing Media: A Deep and Comparative Analysis of Magazines, Music, and Videos in the Context of Terrorism
  • Univ College London: The Social Ecology of Radicalization: A Foundation for the Design of CVE Initiatives and Their Evaluation
  • U Chicago:The Social and Neurological Construction of Martyrdom
  • UC Davis: The Effect of Shocks on Overlapping & Functionally Interacting Social & Political Networks: A Multi-Method Approach
  • CMU: Dynamic statistical network informatics
  • Duke: A Computational Model of Resources & Resiliency: Deploying the Elements of National Power for Strategic Influence
  • GWU: Spheres of Influence and Regional Orders: Assessing Approaches for Responding to China’s Rise
  • U Exeter: Ambiguous and Information Warfare in a Russian and Chinese Age
  • U North Texas: Identity Claims: Expanding the Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Dataset
  • U Kansas: Trafficking/terrorism nexus in Eurasia

Concerned yet? You should be if you are reading this article on your home computer that is easily tracked.

In this context, I certainly will not hold my breath that VA will come around to make use of those like Nesler and the VA is Lying message. Perhaps those holding the purse strings will continue to hold out hope that controlled messaging will eventually win the day against authentic discourse. Though history is not on their side. They may win out for now, but not forever.

They may win out for now, but not forever.

I still dream of a day when we can hope our government will communicate with us in an honest and transparent manner. Though I am sure this day will never come.

Perhaps this kind of encroachment by a perceived social elite is what President Eisenhower warned us about in the second half of his warning about the Military Industrial Complex and danger of rule by Scientific Technologic Elite?

WATCH: Eisenhower On Scientific Totalitarianism

For those who have not seen this video clip, it is my riff against Hilary Clinton when she discounted the wait-list scandal and said it was more a fiction of a right wing agenda to discredit an otherwise hardworking agency. Skip to the middle where Eisenhower warns the American public against Federal employees, government contracts, and rule by the social elite.

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24 Comments

  1. Dear Mr. Krause:
    Dear Mr. Krause:

    Today it is very simple to look into the minds of most politicians,
    they are so transparent they can be read as easy as an open book their
    behavior brings them out like a sore thumb.

    Just watch closely how they have acted against Mr. Trump, from the
    very beginning they became livid with rage at his ideas as how to
    change living conditions for the poor unfortunates, who are trampled
    upon by the status quo in government today: how during their campaigns
    they make all kinds of promises how they are the ones to make life
    easier as mandated by the Constitution, yet when Candidate Trump
    points out all shortcomings and flaws in government today, they treat
    him like a criminal; they revile,repudiate, ostracize, and calumniate
    him, instead of saying yes Mr. Trump you are right we have to change
    all that what you propose, are excellent ideas you are clearly a
    champ of the people and we will support you in your endeavors to make
    life more tolerable for the poor suffering who do not have a voice,
    we will do everything to make living for the poor who are heavily
    burdened so much with taxes which, they with very tremendous
    difficulty must pay.

    Now I ask who in your opinion shows more concern for the poor the
    disenfranchised in our country?

    The one most qualified by my yardstick is “The Trump” considering all
    aspects; the reality is he who is raked over the coals, who is that
    remains the question? think who has been raked over the coals showing
    he has been
    ostracized and fallen in ill repute from the onset answer The Trump?
    that is what happens to anyone telling the truth, they are repudiate.

    You might say that is not so the others are fighting one another;
    that is the way they make it seem they know the Trump tells the truth
    so they are taking advantage of this situation to run a successful
    race against an opponent to beat the contender, don’t you see when
    they bring out the issues 85 % is parroted from what the Trump has
    already addressed from the beginning, although they do not mean it,
    this is evident when they deal with one another when they are not in
    this contest they address one another as though they were almost
    were friends, not so when it involves Trump.

    Yours for God and Country
    The vindicator

    Click here to Reply or Forward

  2. 04/20/2016

    Dear Benjamin Krause,

    You asked, “Just what does VA and the DHS have to be afraid of …”?

    The Truth!

    Sincerely,

    Don Karg
    Look at what is now happening in Flint Michigan; criminal charges on the poisoning of its population, a criminal act, wanton gross negligence.

    1. USA A CORPATE Facist police state is now a legal fact hitler would be proud usa usa !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. Wonder How much that Bonus Lie was worth! The VA Secretary McDonald called in an audit firm cause they can’t find 6.8 billion dollars awarded to VA Health Care and the Choice Program and the outside Dr’s won’t take veterans cause the VA won’t pay them! I mean really!! N

  4. How would the VA keep the money train rolling if they ever did manage to kill off all the vets fast enough to suit them.

  5. Pretty sure some ‘Spring Troll’ is in the air with the cherry blossoms. I have never heard one negative thing about Ron’s “VA IS LYING” FB Group. Not one until this crap was flung at us by “Poor Riggsy”, so if anyone wants to start looking where the rat in the woodpile might be, find the ‘troll’, like Find Waldo, within today’s posts. Ron should take notice as well at that particular post because it definitely sounds like someone with a personal axe to grind.
    Not responding to it directly as know better to ever feed a troll. 🙂

    1. @namnibor
      Yep, I’ve also stopped going after trolls. It should have this ‘disclaimer’ attached to it: “Can be hazardous to your health!”

      1. P.S.
        I’d like to see the video of what Robin Mitchell said of the committee today! I wonder what Shulkin’s going to do? Probably, NOT ONE DAMN THING!

  6. Remember the VA employee fired for armed robbery? Elizabeth Rivera Rivera in Puerto Rico? Well, today at the House Veterans Affairs Committee Dr. Shulkin told Rep Jeff Miller she was fired. And, went round and round with Rep. Lee Zeldin (more on that in a minute).
    You have to see the end of this hearing. Miller comes back to interrupt the closing statements to call out Shulkin and tell him he called PR and she is still at work. Awesome.

    And, Rep. Lee Zeldin asked Shulkin by name why my husband John Mitchell was being denied aid and attendance at 100% SC for TBI because they lost his records? Well, SOCOM has them but close enough. I have page after page from the FOIA request from the VA saying they can’t find them.

  7. Awwww. Poor Riggsy. It would be interesting to see the email traffic on how this hoax came about. Did poor little Riggsy send a frightened email to DHS about those scary veterans? What was said to get the attention of DHS and cause them to take swift action alerting how many VAs?

    Finally, why the hell is it DHS and butthurt VA employees have no problem monitoring a veterans Facebook page, but monitoring the San Bernardino terrorists Facebook page was somehow a civil rights violation?

    1. @91Veteran
      Because the San Bernardino “Islamic Terrorist Group” were “Muslims” – and it would have been “Politically (in)Correct” and “Racially Motivated” to “spy on them”! (As their neighbors said just a few days AFTER that “…Workplace Violence…” Act!)

      Whereas, the veterans “Facebook” and other “Internet Veterans Groups” are made up ~mostly~ of “Right Wing Christian Radical Extremists”! Perfectly legal to target these “Groups”!
      It’s only a “Right Wing Conspiracy”! Like Hitlary (Nazi style Collaborator) Klinton keeps espousing!!

      I hope there’s enough “factual lasciviousness” interjected into my distain and disgust FOR all VA’s and DHS in my answer!?

  8. They are all either early release felony snitches (wave 2) or illegal aliens (wave 1) cheap snitch labor justifying their meager existence (and easy unneeded law enforcement overtime) with their ankle bracelets on. What do you expect from an organization headed by a US Army General?

  9. The DHS is watching and scared of veterans groups not just because of what free speech and dissent now represent in this country but because they know what we are capable of.
    Larger numbers of young veterans from the OIF and OEF years are seeking help and benefits from the VA. They are being lied to, put off, receiving inadequate care, being over medicated to shut them up, or are being flagged for being to aggressive/ expensive/insert adjective.
    These vets aren’t pushing walkers and attached to oxygen tanks. They are highly trained, have seen multiple tours oversees, held up their end off their contracts and now the government doesn’t want to keep theirs. And they are pissed.
    So yes DHS is going to monitor and try and turn us into the bad guys. Because their wars have made us crazy and we can’t be trusted to be peaceful, productive members of society. When in reality there wouldn’t be anything to be worried about if they would just do what they said they would do in the first place.

    1. Tiffiny – besides being more youthful than the Vietnam era – this time the VA has many, many more horribly affected WOMEN vets! I just hope more women aren’t totally turned off seeking VA benefits they EARNED as Elisa was when [at a Senator Hirono – Hawaii Senate hearing] VA PIHCS told her – [paraphrasing] “no offense, but you’re a woman, how hard could it have been for you?”

      As the wife and caregiver of a 100% s-c Vietnam combat vet, I am fighting VA to my death (in Federal Courts) – hopefully to make life better for him and all vets who continue to face the lack of transparency and cooperation that characterizes these paranoid idiots.

  10. I don’t want the VA or DHS investigating groups that expose the VA’s lies. However, the “VA is lying” doesn’t represent me as a disabled vet. I have been kick out of that group because the administrators are authoritarian control freaks that only want their message heard and they dismiss any opinion that isn’t shared by the group. I remember taking an oath to defend the Constitution. I made a comment about how the Federal Empoyees Union was the problem with the VA. I was kicked out for talking bad about unions. So now that the Union has targeted “VA is Lying” with DHS and VA Police, I wonder if they still feel the same way. Hypocrites every last one of them on both sides!

  11. We never were planning a protest but a silent vigil in memory of the 307,000 Brothers and Sisters who have died waiting on their promised healthcar. And it was never on May 20th it is on May 30th Memorial day. We need all the warm bodies we can get to come out to their local VA and stand for our Brothers and Sisters that can’t……..Admin from VA is Lying.

  12. My father is a crisis public relations guru. A Rockefeller was his mentor. I can tell you no one like him is on Bob’s staff.

    I prefer social media guerrilla warfare since common sense and honor eludes the top VA officials.

    In that vein on Twitter today the Veterans Affairs is using the hastag #Braintrust

    No, I am not making that up but I plan on making good use of it. Sometimes the enemy just hands you one.

  13. IF, and I do mean IF, our government were to hold this AFGE union president (UNION THUG) accountable. It just might take some, not much – but some, of our anger away from VA.
    IF, and I do mean IF, McDonald, Gibson, Congress, DHS and other law enforcement agencies nationwide were to force VA’s (Nationwide) to be “more vetcentric” than “VAcentric”, we just might like going there.
    As it stands, yesterdays FUBAR by an idiot, (UNION THUG), caused undo stress on who knows how many vets. I know it did me, when I read yesterdays blog. Stress which we do not need! Stress which was unwarranted by a union thug!
    I believe EVERY VETERAN who has a VA appointment for the next week or more. Should express their feelings about this to anyone they see. Especially at every VA! Tell them how it effected your thoughts. How it brought anger. Knowing after careful reading, this had to have been a “complete screw-up” to make veterans believe WE WERE THE ONES WHICH WERE WRONG, not VA!
    Stand your ground. Be firm and polite. Yet show your disgust toward this corrupt agency!!!
    Also, If VA employees don’t believe you, show them the two “blogs” from yesterday and today! Show them the video also!
    Some employees may not know this was just a complete HOAX! Perpetrated by one individual, (?), who in my opinion, wanted national notoriety! Well, he got it alright. But not the kind he wanted.
    What was his “agenda”? Was he wanting to get the suicide rate to a higher number? Was he trying to act “GOD-like”?
    Will we veterans hear anything about this on our National or local news? Will McDonald, Gibson or the DHS apologize to the thousands of veterans effected by this? Will that union thug apologize for his (possible criminal) LIES by sending out a “mass email lie”?
    (Rant out for now)

    Also, @namnibor, Very well said, brother!

  14. Homeland Insecurity.
    Projected onto Veterans.
    How about going after all those ‘political refugees’ and ‘social injustice groups’ here in USA that are being radicalized each day via social media instead of worrying about those of us that still believe we will continue to protect our USA from any tyranny, upholding our Oath, including the Federalist VA and the AFGE, which has the VA on it’s leash, a symbiotic relationship, like a lamprey, and it’s Veterans getting lives sucked out of us by these lamprey!!???????

    The VA AFGE Union Chief Turd showed his cards when he barked confrontational, threatening McDonald just recently. This still makes no sense and still seems to me that this was the psyop version of an anxiety concussion grenade.

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