The Oh So Competent (evil)Trump Administration (1 Viewer)
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fooferdoggie
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I swear every time she lies, her cross gets larger.
Optimus Prime
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Wow
Wasn’t sure where to put this
If a law specifically changes and they say ‘don’t worry, even though we now can do that we won’t do that’ they most definitely will be doing that
Otherwise why make the change?
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Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.
The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.
Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment.
But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law.
Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.
Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.
The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.
In making the changes, VA officials cite the president’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”.
The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.
Medical experts said the implications of rule changes uncovered by the Guardian could be far-reaching.
They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration.
He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is the nation’s largest integrated hospital system, with more than 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics. It employs 26,000 doctors and serves 9 million patients annually.
In an emailed response to questions, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, did not dispute that the new rules allowed doctors to refuse to treat veteran patients based on their beliefs or that physicians could be dismissed based on their marital status or political affiliation, but said “all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”.
He said the rule changes were nothing more than “a formality”, but confirmed that they were made to comply with Trump’s executive order.
Kasperowicz also said the revisions were necessary to “ensure VA policy comports with federal law”. He did not say which federal law or laws required these changes.
Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”.
Now, several of those items – including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” – have been removed from that list.
Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation”.……..
www.theguardian.com
Wasn’t sure where to put this
If a law specifically changes and they say ‘don’t worry, even though we now can do that we won’t do that’ they most definitely will be doing that
Otherwise why make the change?
===================
Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.
The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.
Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment.
But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law.
Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.
Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.
The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.
In making the changes, VA officials cite the president’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”.
The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.
Medical experts said the implications of rule changes uncovered by the Guardian could be far-reaching.
They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration.
He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is the nation’s largest integrated hospital system, with more than 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics. It employs 26,000 doctors and serves 9 million patients annually.
In an emailed response to questions, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, did not dispute that the new rules allowed doctors to refuse to treat veteran patients based on their beliefs or that physicians could be dismissed based on their marital status or political affiliation, but said “all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”.
He said the rule changes were nothing more than “a formality”, but confirmed that they were made to comply with Trump’s executive order.
Kasperowicz also said the revisions were necessary to “ensure VA policy comports with federal law”. He did not say which federal law or laws required these changes.
Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”.
Now, several of those items – including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” – have been removed from that list.
Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation”.……..
‘Extremely disturbing and unethical’: new rules allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans
Trump order allows VA staff to decline providing healthcare to patients based on political affiliation or marital status
fooferdoggie
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And when you think trump can't get more disgusting he does.
Optimus Prime
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At the Department of Veterans Affairs, some employees had to sign nondisclosure agreements before reviewing plans for firings and organizational shake-ups. At the Administration for Children and Families, career staff were told not to respond in writing to panicky grant recipients whose funding had been shut off to avoid a “paper trail,” one employee said.
And at the Environmental Protection Agency, several months after Elon Musk began requiring federal workers to submit weekly emails detailing five things they’d accomplished, some managers began calling staff to say they no longer had to comply — but refused to put it in writing, according to an employee who received one of the calls.
“What’s particularly weird for me is that, as a regulatory agency, we tend to operate with the idea that ‘if it’s not in writing, it didn’t happen,’” said the employee, who has since left the government. “But we are very much moving away from things being in writing.”
Across President Donald Trump’s administration, a creeping culture of secrecy is overtaking personnel and budget decisions, casual social interactions, and everything in between, according to interviews with more than 40 employees across two dozen agencies, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. No one wants to put anything in writing anymore, federal workers said: Meetings are conducted in-person behind closed doors, even on anodyne topics. Workers prefer to talk outdoors, as long as the weather cooperates. And communication among colleagues — whether work-related or personal — has increasingly shifted to the encrypted messaging app Signal, with messages set to auto-delete.
It’s not just career staffers who are clamming up, fearful they will be tagged as rebellious or resistant to Trump’s policies and dismissed amid the administration’s push to trim the workforce, fulfilling the president’s promise to eradicate waste, fraud and abuse. Trump’s own political appointees are also resistant to writing things down, worried that their agency’s deliberations will appear in news coverage and inspire a hunt for leakers, federal workers said.
Every administration comes in urging at least some confidentiality, usually to protect presidential priorities or encourage the candid airing of views in decision-making, federal workers noted. Government employees’ devices have long been monitored, and the law prevents workers from publicly espousing political opinions or taking part in political activity while on duty.
But this shift is different, workers said — more far-reaching, affecting every aspect of external and internal communications. The overall effect has been to impede honest discussion, slow work, stir confusion and depress morale.
“I’ve never seen this much secrecy and lack of transparency from any leadership, including in the military,” said a nearly 10-year veteran of the General Services Administration. “We don’t know anything until it happens.”
The clandestine deliberations cut against long-standing norms and legal requirements — especially the Federal Records Act, passed in 1950, which governs the creation, management and disposition of government records. But that law has faced few challenges, said Margaret Kwoka, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. So while the Trump administration’s aversion to written records is “problematic,” it is hard to know whether it violates the act, Kwoka said.
In an interview Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration views the culture of secrecy pervading the government “as a good thing” because fewer leaks are emerging from the highest ranks.
“The president does not tolerate leaks, especially those that could endanger our national security or our homeland security,” Leavitt said. “We expect every federal worker, whether they are a political or a career, to respect their jobs and to respect the responsibility they have to the American people to execute on this administration’s policies.”
A senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share more candid thoughts, said the administration is determined to crack down on those who give out unauthorized information, pointing to recent firings at the Defense Department and the polygraph testing of suspected leakers at the Department of Homeland Security. The official, noting that the administration bombed Iran with no public leaks beforehand, quoted Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin, who said on television that she had “never seen such operational security” in her 18 years covering the Pentagon.
“Secrecy led to the success of the operation and allowed our pilots to accomplish this highly sensitive mission,” the official said. “With respect to national security, secrecy is demanded.”..................
And at the Environmental Protection Agency, several months after Elon Musk began requiring federal workers to submit weekly emails detailing five things they’d accomplished, some managers began calling staff to say they no longer had to comply — but refused to put it in writing, according to an employee who received one of the calls.
“What’s particularly weird for me is that, as a regulatory agency, we tend to operate with the idea that ‘if it’s not in writing, it didn’t happen,’” said the employee, who has since left the government. “But we are very much moving away from things being in writing.”
Across President Donald Trump’s administration, a creeping culture of secrecy is overtaking personnel and budget decisions, casual social interactions, and everything in between, according to interviews with more than 40 employees across two dozen agencies, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. No one wants to put anything in writing anymore, federal workers said: Meetings are conducted in-person behind closed doors, even on anodyne topics. Workers prefer to talk outdoors, as long as the weather cooperates. And communication among colleagues — whether work-related or personal — has increasingly shifted to the encrypted messaging app Signal, with messages set to auto-delete.
It’s not just career staffers who are clamming up, fearful they will be tagged as rebellious or resistant to Trump’s policies and dismissed amid the administration’s push to trim the workforce, fulfilling the president’s promise to eradicate waste, fraud and abuse. Trump’s own political appointees are also resistant to writing things down, worried that their agency’s deliberations will appear in news coverage and inspire a hunt for leakers, federal workers said.
Every administration comes in urging at least some confidentiality, usually to protect presidential priorities or encourage the candid airing of views in decision-making, federal workers noted. Government employees’ devices have long been monitored, and the law prevents workers from publicly espousing political opinions or taking part in political activity while on duty.
But this shift is different, workers said — more far-reaching, affecting every aspect of external and internal communications. The overall effect has been to impede honest discussion, slow work, stir confusion and depress morale.
“I’ve never seen this much secrecy and lack of transparency from any leadership, including in the military,” said a nearly 10-year veteran of the General Services Administration. “We don’t know anything until it happens.”
The clandestine deliberations cut against long-standing norms and legal requirements — especially the Federal Records Act, passed in 1950, which governs the creation, management and disposition of government records. But that law has faced few challenges, said Margaret Kwoka, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. So while the Trump administration’s aversion to written records is “problematic,” it is hard to know whether it violates the act, Kwoka said.
In an interview Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration views the culture of secrecy pervading the government “as a good thing” because fewer leaks are emerging from the highest ranks.
“The president does not tolerate leaks, especially those that could endanger our national security or our homeland security,” Leavitt said. “We expect every federal worker, whether they are a political or a career, to respect their jobs and to respect the responsibility they have to the American people to execute on this administration’s policies.”
A senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share more candid thoughts, said the administration is determined to crack down on those who give out unauthorized information, pointing to recent firings at the Defense Department and the polygraph testing of suspected leakers at the Department of Homeland Security. The official, noting that the administration bombed Iran with no public leaks beforehand, quoted Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin, who said on television that she had “never seen such operational security” in her 18 years covering the Pentagon.
“Secrecy led to the success of the operation and allowed our pilots to accomplish this highly sensitive mission,” the official said. “With respect to national security, secrecy is demanded.”..................
The first rule in Trump’s Washington: Don’t write anything down
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