Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.
Kelly Admits White House Fired Shulkin From VA
Reprinted with permission from ProPublica.
White House chief of staff John Kelly contradicted the White House’s claims about David Shulkin’s departure as secretary of veterans affairs, a discrepancy that could lead to legal challenges of decisions made by Shulkin’s interim successor.
In a private meeting last week with major veterans groups, Kelly repeatedly said that the decision to remove Shulkin was President Donald Trump’s, according to several people who were present or briefed on the meeting. The White House has insisted that Shulkin resigned, disputing his assertion, in media appearances, that he was fired. (Whether voluntarily or not, his tenure as VA secretary ended on March 29.)
“Kelly said the president felt he needed to make a change with Secretary Shulkin and went ahead and made it to get the VA back on track,” said Dan Caldwell, the director of influential conservative group Concerned Veterans for America (also known as CVA), who attended the meeting.
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Don’t Let Trump Betray Veterans
Originally appeared on Creators.
Whenever Donald Trump fires a member of his administration, the least likely reason is incompetence, corruption, abuse of authority or wasteful extravagance. If those were causes for dismissal in the Trump administration, nearly his entire cabinet would have been replaced by now. That tweet signaling the removal of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin — an Obama administration holdover widely regarded as one of the few able appointees in the cabinet — wasn’t provoked by any such offense.
The real trouble with Shulkin, as he informed the country on his way out, was his determination to stand up against a scheme fronted by the billionaire Koch brothers to “privatize” the VA health system, a $200 billion public enterprise that currently serves the needs of nine million veterans.…
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