3 members of Trump's Mar-A-Lago Club have been secretly running the Veterans Affairs Dept.

[Saviolo]

ProPublica has an article here: https://www.propublica.org/article/ike-perlmutter-bruce-moskowitz-marc-sherman-shadow-rulers-of-the-va

The Shadow Rulers of the VA

How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.

Last February, shortly after Peter O’Rourke became chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs, he received an email from Bruce Moskowitz with his input on a new mental health initiative for the VA. “Received,” O’Rourke replied. “I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action.”

O’Rourke treated the email as an order, but Moskowitz is not his boss. In fact, he is not even a government official. Moskowitz is a Palm Beach doctor who helps wealthy people obtain high-service “concierge” medical care.

More to the point, he is one-third of an informal council that is exerting sweeping influence on the VA from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a longtime acquaintance of President Trump’s. The third member is a lawyer named Marc Sherman. None of them has ever served in the U.S. military or government.

Yet from a thousand miles away, they have leaned on VA officials and steered policies affecting millions of Americans. They have remained hidden except to a few VA insiders, who have come to call them “the Mar-a-Lago Crowd.”

VA spokesman Curt Cashour did not answer specific questions but said a “broad range of input from individuals both inside and outside VA has helped us immensely over the last year and a half.” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters also did not answer specific questions and said Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz “have no direct influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

But hundreds of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with former administration officials tell a different story — of a previously unknown triumvirate that hovered over public servants without any transparency, accountability or oversight. The Mar-a-Lago Crowd spoke with VA officials daily, the documents show, reviewing all manner of policy and personnel decisions. They prodded the VA to start new programs, and officials travelled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear their views. “Everyone has to go down and kiss the ring,” a former administration official said.

Lots and lots more at the link in the article. Not that this should come as a surprise to anyone, really. Grifters gonna grift.

More and more we're seeing how the hyper wealthy and super-connected live a life completely divorced from the vast majority of human beings living in the USA or the world.

[niyad]

1. sickened k and r

[superpatriotman]

2. Corruption Kick and Rec

Swamp to swamp covergae

[KT2000]

3. absolute corruption

and this is just one agency. A perfect example of how fellow citizens are used as cash cows for the few. Hope vet groups hear about this.

[oasis]

4. Our veterans are pawns thrown to Cadet Bone Spur's pals for profit.

Can Trump go any lower?

[dlk]

5. Pigs at the Trough...

[Blue_Tires]

6. Epic kick

[Corgigal]

7. Omg, lovely

As a veteran, who has to use the VA for another 4 years, this is spooky.

These knees better hold a bit longer. However, I now know who to blame if something goes wrong and where they are.

[KPN]

8. K&R. Repulsive!

[erlewyne]

9. The VA is problematic for me

It should be a smooth and easy operation but it is redundant.

I get two blood tests a year and a follow-up with a doctor
the next week. I get a 90 day prescription for blood pressure
so the prescription runs out before my next doctor's visit so
I need to use the hated (by me) cell-phone call. It is difficult
for me using text to answer the recordings I get. ..... "all our
representatives are busy .... dah dah dah. I call for a god-
damned prescription renewal and I am not about to commit
suicide and I know how to call 9-1-1. This is a procrastinated
waste of time!
Now I get a card saying they are updating my records and
need my email address (which I have already given numerous
times in years past). They want to speed things up so I call
[phone] again and I go through all this bull-crap, again.
and then have to wait for the next available assistant. BTW,
my prescription runs out after 90 days and my doctor's visits
are a few days beyond 180 days ... duh! Plus the trip to the
VA is thirty-some miles in busy traffic and weather in Ohio
is unpredictable. So frustrating!!! My prescription runs out
before I can get it renewed.
I guess I'll find a personal doctor closer to home being a
veteran feels more like being a victim! They act like they are
doing me a favor. (KMA, I served).


EW

[red dog 1]

10. K&R...Thanks for posting

Every day we hear about more evil that's being done to this once-great country by that stupid, lying, malevolent child rapist now squatting in the Oval Office.

How much more can we take?