CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

LETTERS: Readers air concerns about Veterans Affairs nominee and local abortion services

Waco Tribune-Herald - 2/10/2017

Swamp Thing

President Donald Trump’s selection of a current member of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Undersecretary of Health David Shulkin, to be the next VA secretary is a disappointment to many veterans. How can our new president reform the VA system by picking a person from the most corrupt administration in VA history?

I don’t mean the doctors, nurses or actual people who have contact with veterans. I mean the corrupt leadership who waste billions of dollars that should be spent on veteran care, not bonuses for the select few. To me, this appointment is offensive. Clearly the swamp can’t be drained when you leave the “Swamp Thing” in charge.

It was reported in the Associated Press that many of the largest veterans groups are satisfied with this appointment. Why? As a life member in Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Military Order of Purple Heart, I wonder what makes these organizations believe that the appointment of an Obama appointee will drain the swamp.

I speak only for myself, but I have received excellent medical service through the Doris Miller Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Olin E. Teague Veterans Medical Center from some of the most caring medical people. But the president might have made a better choice if he had chosen a leader from beyond the swamp.

Sam Cryan, Waco

EDITOR’S NOTE: Like him or hate him, Mr. Shulkin faces enormous challenges upon his widely anticipated confirmation. To quote the conservative Washington Examiner: “An engorged bureaucracy, short-staffed medical teams, entrenched employees and a rapidly changing veteran population would make Trump’s vision difficult to implement under the best of circumstances. And a bitterly divided Congress could complicate reforms even further.”

Hitlerian neighbors

Reacting to President Trump’s inaugural address, Chris Matthews of MSNBC called the speech Hitlerian. Really? A despicable hallmark of Hitler’s Germany was state-sanctioned killing of millions of its own people.

There is a parallel in America. Democrats/progressives enthusiastically embrace state-sanctioned killing of pre-born babies. Under Roe v Wade, 58 million babies in the womb have been put to death. Some 19,000 of those deaths were legally administered by Planned Parenthood in Waco from 1994 to 2013.

In recent weeks, we have learned that Planned Parenthood has renewed its Texas license to perform abortions in Waco. I won’t call fellow citizens and neighbors Hitlerian or Nazis. However, enthusiasm for America’s abortion holocaust disqualifies Democrats and progressives from any claim to holding the moral high ground. Waco is poised to follow progressives to a return to her disgraceful and violent past.

John Pisciotta, Pro-Life Waco, Director