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Home / Benjamin Krause - Page 101

Author: Benjamin Krause

ABOUT FOUNDER Benjamin Krause is an award winning veterans rights advocate, attorney, and investigative reporter fighting to advance the rights of veterans for more than a decade. His advocacy work has been featured in national publications such as Bloomberg News, Foreign Policy Magazine, Washington Times, Fox News, CBS, NBC, Star Tribune and more. Author of the Voc Rehab Survival Guide for Veterans, Benjamin earned degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude. Contact Benjamin at Krause Law, PLLC with any legal questions. _____________________________________________________________
Facebook Live Voc Rehab Talk
Veteran Readiness and Employment

Krause Holds Facebook Live Talk On Voc Rehab Games Counselors Play

Numerous veterans in our Facebook group, Disabled Veterans – Chapter 31 Voc Rehab, have been reporting problems and confusion…

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VA whistleblower
News & Legislation

FBI Investigates Drug Ring And Death Threats Against VA Whistleblower

One African American VA whistleblower who is also a veteran started receiving death threats after exposing an illegal drug…

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ChampVA Collections
News & Legislation

ChampVA Pays $16 of $15,000 Hospital Visit Then Sent To Collections

ChampVA, the insurance for dependents of qualified veterans, paid a whopping $16 toward a $15,000 bill before it was…

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HHS Top Slot
News & Legislation

White House Denies VA Sec Shulkin Candidacy For HHS Top Slot

Despite Wall Street Journal’s article that VA secretary David Shulkin interviewed for the top slot at Health and Human…

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VA Wait Time
News & Legislation

Second Secret VA Wait Time Scheme Exposed This Month

OMAHA – Another secret VA wait time scheme has emerged from within the Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System obstructing…

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Veterans Choice Program
News & Legislation

Veterans Choice Program May Undergo Massive Change Soon

Veterans Affairs is looking to expand the use of Veterans Choice Program by removing the 30-day, 40-mile limitations currently…

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Wall Street Journal Shulkin Interview
News & Legislation

Wall Street Journal: Is Secretary Shulkin Set To Leave Veterans Affairs?

On Friday, Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell on veterans in a story showing Secretary David Shulkin is actively…

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Art Levine just published a hard-hitting piece on continued problems veterans face in combating opioid addiction fueled by VA. His piece highlights some background and quotes from me and whistleblower Brandon Coleman amongst other advocates. Be sure to check it out, in addition to Levine’s recently published book, Mental Health, Inc. Relevant sections from the piece citing comments from me follow. My critique about President Trump keeping Shulkin, which de facto meant Trump would not be draining the swamp, at least in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Senior executives abiding by “the code” keep secrets quiet while law abiding employees cower in fear of retaliation: To some VA critics, Trump's selection of Shulkin to head the agency makes it unlikely that significant changes will be made. “For veterans who voted for Donald Trump, this is going to feel like a bait and switch,” says Benjamin Krause, founder of DisabledVeterans.org. “Keeping Shulkin will keep a host of flunkies and criminals who should have been part of the whole ‘drain the swamp’ promise.” (His own reputation as an ethically pure reformer was undercut by The Washington Post report in late September that he billed the government for his wife’s travel during a 10-day business jaunt that also included side-trips to the Wimbledon finals and a visit to Copenhagen’s “Little Mermaid” statue; these expenses were somehow approved by the VA’s ethics team but are now under investigation by the department’s Inspector General.) The fetid VA swamp has been spreading for years under the last three VA secretaries, including Shulkin. It’s an institution long notorious for vicious retaliation against whistleblowers and a penchant for falsehoods, obfuscation and delay, as well as rampant cover-ups of unsafe and sometimes deadly conditions—or even fraud—by the VA's watchdog agencies. This is all kept from view by what some longtime employees call “the code”—the institutional silence and protection offered wrongdoers. Likening it to the mob’s “omertà,” one high-ranking VA administrator, who insisted on anonymity, tells Newsweek, “You don’t break ‘the code,’ or your career is over…. It’s a fearful environment. “The code,” that VA official says, “is designed to do this: don’t fix the problems.” Whistleblower retaliation is still allowed because VA has failed to hold anyone truly accountable for their actions: All told, nearly 2,000 VA whistleblowers were forced in fiscal year 2016 alone to appeal to an independent federal agency, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), to protest retaliation while reporting fraud or unsafe conditions—more than the next four problematic federal departments combined. As The Boston Globe reported in September, these employee complaints included nursing home residents at the Bedford, Massachusetts, Veterans Affairs Medical Center allegedly being starved of food for hours or left to lie naked in bed amid the squalor of soiled sheets. Shulkin has established a new office given a mandate to protect whistleblowers, but that hasn’t yet halted the retaliation. “I don't know of a single instance when a VA employee has been held accountable for harassing whistleblowers," says Krause. This turf-protecting has perhaps been most apparent in the VA's belated response to the national opiate crisis it helped usher in. The VA doesn't even keep an accurate count of how many veterans have died of legal or illegal drug overdoses, even though it officially launched an Opioid Safety Initiative in 2013 that has brought the VA's opiate prescribing down 30 percent. Nor does it regularly monitor opiate use by its patients who seek legal or illegal drugs outside the VA. Be sure to check out the Newsweek piece - - and share the heck out of it on social media to show the magazine we notice and support when reports do a great job highlighting our plight. Source: https://www.newsweek.com/2017/10/20/va-fueled-opioid-crisis-killing-veterans-681552.html
News & Legislation

Newsweek: How VA Fueled The National Opioid Crisis And Is Killing Thousands Of Veterans

Art Levine just published a hard-hitting piece on continued problems veterans face in combating the opioid crisis and addiction fueled…

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Benjamin Krause

Benjamin Krause

Attorney. Journalist. Activist. Founder of DisabledVeterans.org, a VA watchdog news source that holds the Dept. of Veterans Affairs' feet to the fire.

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