I was surprised at the headline because I'd heard Trump say over and over that it was up to Jackson to decide whether he would resign, but I see in the third paragraph that it was Jackson, issuing the statement saying that he was withdrawing:
“Unfortunately, because of how Washington works, these false allegations have become a distraction for this president and the important issue we must be addressing — how we give the best care to our nation’s heroes,” Dr. Jackson said in a statement provided by the White House press office.What was he accused of? What came out yesterday was the worst:
He said that the charges against him were “completely false and fabricated.”
In one instance, Dr. Jackson stood accused of providing such “a large supply” of Percocet, a prescription opioid, to a White House Military Office staff member that he threw his own medical staff “into a panic” when it could not account for the missing drugs, the document said.ADDED: The idea of a White House doctor handing out drugs calls to mind the JFK conspiracy theory buff in the movie "Slacker":
In another case, at a Secret Service goodbye party, the doctor got intoxicated and “wrecked a government vehicle.”
And a nurse on his staff said that Dr. Jackson had written himself prescriptions, and when caught, had simply asked a physician assistant to provide him with the medication.
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77 comments:
This nomination reminds me of when President George W. Bush nominated his White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, to the US Supreme Court.
"The doctor will see you now..."
If Dr. Jackson did wreck a government car it would be easy enough to prove or disprove it.
The prescription stuff is serious business and there should also be proof of missing drugs, if it really happened.
Witch Hunt!
Odd, his efficiency reports by Obama were excellent.
The swamp pulls down and drowns another good man. Jackson's only crime was working for Trump and his Army of deplorables whom the swamp desperately wants to see killed before they are killed by them.
Can't wait to see how Trump gets even with the MSM for this and Senator Tester. I bet Trump will campaign for Tester's opponent in Montana.
So either Obama was an enabler, or this is all BS.
The juxtaposition of the self-prescribing accusation with the stories of intoxication (off duty) and prescribing of narcotics to a patient makes it seem as if he was giving himself mood-altering drugs, but it could have just been a self-prescription for antibiotics for all we know.
Point of order: The MD can always give Rx drugs to patients. That is the only way that anyone gets them. Navy ships have operated that way since the 1700s when the British Navy defeated allof the world when it allowed its Medical officers to give out fresh fruit and vegetables delivered at sea and the crew's daily Grog ration.
Doesn't the tag "Candyman" go back to JFK's doctor? I am pretty sure I have seen that before.
This Administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.
This whole thing annoys me. We kept hearing about these vague accusations of different thing with no details. I can't say for sure, but it certainly feels like a railroading by the swamp using trumped up allegations that ultimately weren't that big a deal.
When a President nominates his White House Counsel to the US Supreme Court or nominates the White House Physician to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, then the President really is rather indifferent to the subject institutions.
The President is treating those institutions as trophies that he can award as favors to his personal associates.
How much time did President Bush spend thinking about who should be the next Supreme Court justice? My guess is about one hour.
I would guess likewise that President Trump spent about one hour thinking about who should be the next VA Director.
President Bush's one-hour thinking went something like this:
What might I do to show Harriet Miers how much I have appreciated the work she has done for me personally as White House Counsel?
President Trump's one-hour thinking went something like this:
What might I do to show Ronnie Jackson how much I have appreciated the work he has done for me personally as White House physician?
Hagar, JFK's WH doctor was female.
She gave him prostate massages and antibiotics for his VD.
It's too bad that Dr. Ronny Jackson's entire credibility wasn't put to the test in a week-long public hearing on the record.
I wanted to find out how he came up with vital stats of 6'3" and 239 lbs. for the just-barely-not-obese President.
#Girther.
Why didn't all this come out when he was WH physician and in a position to do real damage to 2 presidents?
#MeTooLate
Isn't this exactly the kind of bipartisanship LLR Chuck longs for?
In 2006, while still in Iraq, Jackson was selected as a White House physician. Since arriving at the White House, he has directed the Executive Health Care for the President’s Cabinet and senior staff, served as physician supervisor for the Camp David Presidential Retreat, held the position of physician to the White House and led the White House Medical Unit as its director. He has served as White House physician during the past three administrations and was the appointed physician to the president for President Obama. In January 2017, Jackson made headlines after treating a girl who was bitten by Sunny, one of the Obamas' dogs. He currently serves as the appointed physician to the president for President Trump.
Jake Tapper just said on CBS This Morning that if the allegations weren't true, *he* (Jake Tapper) would have stayed and fought.
But is that true? Maybe for him. But how many people want to see their name get dragged through the mud for no good reason?
It stinks that he had worked for Obama and was fine, and now he’s incompetent because worked for Trump.
Feels like more of Beria’s show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.
I do not think it is going to happen, at least not in these times, but the VA needs to be abolished.
It was put together by Herbert Hoover in 1930 by combining a number of agencies established to take care of Civil War and WWI veterans. The Civil War veterans were then 85 and older and rapidly dying off, and, of course, WWI was "the war to end all wars." The VA thus was established as a dead end agency expected to wither away within the foreseeable future. That is not what happened, but the "corporate ambience" was established and never changed.
I think the care of veterans suffering from war injuries requiring special care should be brought under the Dept. of Defense and other care should be provided by the regular medical industry with "insurance" provided by the DoD.
Chuck didn't take long to go off on his TDS. Disgusting.
Blogger David Begley said...
If Dr. Jackson did wreck a government car it would be easy enough to prove or disprove it.
Yes. I'd like to see that proof, which should be pretty easy.
The previous VA chief was a mess and maybe Trump thought an active duty doc might bring a bigger broom.
A retired Army doc works with me in Phoenix. He has tried to work at the VA part time or even as an unpaid volunteer.
Nothing doing. I thought at one time about applying for part time but the 70 page application turned me off and now I learned from him that there was no possibility anyway. Why the full time obsession when there are lots of us willing to put in a couple days a week?
Maybe they need to have docs dependent on the salary so they are more "malleable."
Phoenix VA is the one with the worst rep.
Passing out Ambien on long trips to help people to sleep is a BS accusation.
JFK's doctor that I am thinking of is the one who gave him injections of odd substances for his Addison's Disease or something, but it may also have been some other president's physician who was said to hand out Quaaludes, I think, as candy to anyone who asked for it.
Anyway, whoever gets appointed to head the VA as it is needs to be street fighter, or he is not going to last. The resistance to any changes is going to be ferocious, and even if there are no changes within the agency, it is going to be under constant fire from those who want changes.
As Glenn Reynolds writes, “Weird how everyone from both parties loved him and praised him until Trump nominated him.”
Shouldn't work this way, killing nominations or driving nominees away with unsubstantiated allegations. But it does. My bigger issue with the guy is that he has no experience managing a bureaucracy of any size, let alone one as large as the VA. Can't understand why Congress wouldn't have just rejected him for that.
-sw
@Mike: "What might I do to show Harriet Miers how much I have appreciated the work she has done for me personally"
Didn't happen that way. Bush most likely tried to pick someone more or less acceptable to Reid and the Dems, then he and she got screwed. Partly for good reasons, partly bad.
LOVE SLACKER!
I hear there's a former NJ gov capable of breaking some eggs who might be looking for work.
Democrat party character assassination successful. Fake Fapper broadcasts the coup de grace: *If the anonymous and unfounded allegations aren't true, then why did comrade Jackson withdraw his name from consideration?* Guilty until proven innocent!
...Aaaaand cucks and saps kvetch about Trump and the chaos "he's" causing.
Blatant smear campaign. Make no mistake-those on Capital Hill that are shocked and morally outraged by the "seriousness of these allegations" are the ones peddling them.
Dr. Feelgood gave JFK and Jackie amphetamines during his first summit with Ksruchev. That and the whores gave the Secret Service fits.
Jackson didn't want to end up like Flynn, selling his house to pay lawyers.
If this doctor was an on the job drunk, who would bash on women's doors a night creating a toxic work environemnt, and was pushing pills on everyone around him, how in the world did he remain the President's physician when he was the doctor for President Obama? This strikes me as insiders in DC scared that someone who isn' the right type of DC person getting in charge of the VA. The VA's annual budget is 180 Billion dollars. How many billions and billions of dollars go out to contractors, how many companies whose livelihood depends on maintaining their contracts with the VA exist? This event just makes me trust DC even less.
who would bash on women's doors a night creating a toxic work environemnt, and was pushing pills on everyone around him, how in the world did he remain the President's physician when he was the doctor for President Obama?
My question, too.
Ronny Jackson sounds like a bad hombre.
Just more evidence that no one around Obama, including Obama himself, got any scrutiny. "The most scandal-free administration ever" by design.
Has there been ANY proof of the allegations or is this just another character assassination of a nominal Trump supporter?
Personal physician to the President, his family, and the WH staff is a responsible position. If these charges are true, why weren't they brought forward long ago. The charges may be true, but, if so, that makes the previous administration guilty of concealing serious wrongdoing.
Trump is very famously a teetotaler. And his brother died from alcoholism. There is in fact a rumor that he wouldn't put Rudy Giulianni in his cabinet because he though Rudy drank too much. If this doctor was really such a pill pushing drunk as some are trying to make him out to be I doubt Trump would have kept him on.
This strikes me as insiders in DC scared that someone who isn' the right type of DC person getting in charge of the VA.
I would like to see one piece of actual evidence. We've had drunken Secret Service agents bashing into barriers near the White House and drunken orgies with hookers in Columbia.
Where is all this evidence ?
The VA has been a cesspool for years.
It is remarkable like the time John Tower's nomination for Sec. of defense under Reagan went down in flames. At the time all the pundits and dc creatures attached a lot of significance to it but it just came across as inside the beltway score settling to everyone in the outside world. Much like this character assassination the partisan death ray will move on to another target. Zzzzzzzz
Ronny Jackson is a decorated Navy combat qualified medical professional.
Naturally, LLR Chuck jumps on the trash train against him.
Interestingly enough, LLR Chuck is one of the strongest defenders of Dick Durbin who called american soldiers "gestapo" as well as Stolen Valor liar Richard Blumenthal.
If you guessed that both Durbin and Blumenthal are dirtbag democrat political hacks, you would be right.
That's precisely why LLR Chuck passionately, and I mean passionately, defends them.
Repeatedly.
William: "Personal physician to the President, his family, and the WH staff is a responsible position. If these charges are true, why weren't they brought forward long ago."
Because #StrongDemDefenders like LLR Chuck and their strong lefty operational allies attack every single Trump nominee for every single role in every single department every single time.
We absolutely need to get Medical Administration professionals in there....you know, like the ones that forced vets to go on long waiting lists that got them killed, and then covered it all up.
Naturally, once again, LLR Chuck has not expressed any displeasure at all regarding those hacks who helped kill vets.
The reason for LLR Chuck's silence is obvious: vets are predominately republican/conservative.
The more they die off the better off LLR Chuck's lefty operational allies happen to be.
Transparent.
I think all those globe trotting Congressmen who are complaining about ADM Jackson should open their medical files so that we can be sure that they never drank, took Ambien, or Adderal to overcome jet lag.
Gordon Pasha: "I think all those globe trotting Congressmen who are complaining about ADM Jackson should open their medical files so that we can be sure that they never drank, took Ambien, or Adderal to overcome jet lag"
Be careful there!
The last thing you want to do is start casting aspersions about democrats.
LLR Chuck generally will not stand for that sort of thing and is likely to come down on you quite hard for daring to do it.
It will be interesting to watch how LLR Chuck justifies democrat attacks on Pompeo later today.
Let's all pay close attention...
One of the questions I have is why a doctor should head the VA? The problem is not medical, the problems with VA are administrative.
Although I am sure that Adm Jackson is a fine doctor, what has he ever administered?
The Navy does have a speciality called Medical Supply Corps. These are not doctors but administrators. Southern New Hampshire University has (had?) a graduate degree in hospital administration. Since it overlapped somewhat with the MBA program, I had a number of MSC types in my classes over the years. I assume the Army and AF have similar specialties.
This is where the VA administrator should probably be chosen from.
The VA is also about more than healthcare too. Other major programs include education and home financing.
John Henry
Ronny Jackson stated after giving Trump a "physical exam" that he was in such good health that he could live to be 200. Obviously, Jackson was trying to scare the worried American people into a premature death. Since when are medical doctors given to puffery like a used car salesman? Trump is a broken down jalopy missing a tire with flats on the remaining three, and a broken, irreparable axle rod despite his claims of "no problem down there." The Trump tiny golf-cart engine runs on premium gasoline, i.e. caffeinated diet coke, and can't stop its ugly gyrating pelvic thrusting (twittering) at 2 a.m. due to its faulty brakes. Trump is brain dead at the wheel. Trump, in Gestapo-like fashion, runs over innocent Muslim and Mexican pedestrians especially those without their papers in order. It has so many missing or loose screws that the Trump-mobile is Unsafe at Any Speed. Ralph Nader warned us about such rickety cars over fifty years ago in 1965, but we failed to heed his advice. We elected a clunker for President in 2016 and are forever trying to repair him at great expense to us all with nothing but his burning, stinking twitter transmissions to show for it. The only solution is to junk the pain-in-the-ass, worthless old banger and his pathetic administration and get a new vehicle, and swap out drivers. We Musk make a change now before it is too late.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed
I am curious about any other vets here and experience with VA medicine.
I have been getting all my medical care for the past 10 years through the VA hospital in San Juan and their outpatient clinic in Ceiba PR.
Service and treatment is fantastic, I could not be happier. Punctual appointments, telephone followups almost to the point of harassment (Are you taking your meds? Do you need a refill? Don't forget your appointment.) Free eyeglasses every year though I've not tried that yet so much time with the doctor that I sometimes run out of things to talk about, assigned doctors and specialists and so on
I've known people who have been hospitalized for minor and major surgeries and illnesses and they are happy as well.
Since I am not retired or indigent, I have to pay. $50/visit, regardless of how many doctors or tests I have. $8/month for prescriptions sent by mail. Seems pretty reasonable.
Speaking with some other vets in other parts of the country, I understand that some of the facilities are like San Juan/Ceiba and others are pretty bad. So I guess I am pretty luck in where I live.
But seriously, vets, if you have not tried the VA, check it out. You may have one of the good ones. If you do, it is a helluva deal.
John Henry
But should the VA be "a helluva deal" for persons not notably suffering from war related injuries?
Blogger traditionalguy said...
Point of order: The MD can always give Rx drugs to patients. That is the only way that anyone gets them. Navy ships have operated that way since the 1700s when the British Navy defeated allof the world when it allowed its Medical officers to give out fresh fruit and vegetables delivered at sea and the crew's daily Grog ration.
The Navy doesn't (or didn't) have doctors on most of its ships. My ship (@175 crew) had a Chief Hospital Corpsman (not Master or Senior Chief) and a 2nd class HM (E-5). The chief was trained and authorized to do quite a bit of surgery up to some fairly major stuff in an emergency.
They could also prescribe and dispense medicines. They even had some brandy that they could prescribe as need arose.
John Henry
One of the questions I have is why a doctor should head the VA? The problem is not medical, the problems with VA are administrative.
I think all the administrators who got us into this mess are administrators. There are lots of MDs who do big time admin. One obvious example is Ben Carson. He ran a big department at Johns Hopkins while doing pediatric neurosurgery.
Maybe they decided it was time to try an MD.
The MSC is Medical Service Corps, not "Supply." I had an MSC commission while I was a medical student.
Privatizing the VA would be one reform. Why not run it like Medicare ?
The problem is more bureaucratization, which is happening to American Medicine now as we watch.
Blogger Hagar said...
But should the VA be "a helluva deal" for persons not notably suffering from war related injuries?
I assume that you mean "service related injuries"?
In any event, I earned my VA benefits, all of them. Just as you probably work in a job where you get some current cash compensation (paycheck) plus non-cash compensation like health insurance plus deferred benefits like pension, 401K and so on, so it is with the military.
VA benefits were part of the compensation package I signed up for many years ago. Back when my base pay, after a year on active duty was still $150/month. When I got out ('74), as an E-6 with 7 years active, I earned $650/month.
I have no shame in using my VA benefits. I earned them.
No other vet should have any shame in using them either.
John Henry
And BTW, Hagar:
Fuck you and everyone else who does not think we earned them.
John Henry
Michael K,
You are a perfect example of why we don't want doctors running anything. They will kill it off at the drop of a hat, or dope it up on narcotics to the point of oblivion. I wouldn't trust my health to any medical doctor especially one so unqualified as you.
Trumpit: "Trump is a broken down jalopy missing a tire with flats on the remaining three, and a broken, irreparable axle rod despite his claims of "no problem down there."
Team Hillary (who can't walk down stairs and has to be literally thrown into vehicles like a sack of potatoes) speaks!
Blogger Michael K said...
I think all the administrators who got us into this mess are administrators.
It may not need to be a hospital administrator but it does need to be someone who has had some experience actually adminstering or running things
There are lots of MDs who do big time admin. One obvious example is Ben Carson. He ran a big department at Johns Hopkins while doing pediatric neurosurgery.
yup. Which is why I have no problem with him where he is. My question is what has Jackson run? I agree that he seems to be a fine doctor.
The MSC is Medical Service Corps, not "Supply."
Quite right and apologies. I realized that pretty much as soon as I hit the post button.
John Henry
I seem to have touched a nerve there, and it is telling.
There is no "shame" in taking advantage of the system that Congress presumably set up for that purpose. However, VA legislation has been made a lot in patriotic fervor during or just after wartime emergencies, and I do not know that Congress at the time envisioned a future with the US maintaining a large standing military ready to fight a "two front war," i.e., WWII all over again, forever.
The question is if should have been set up that way in the first place, and if it should be continued forever or phased out. If it was promised to John Henry as part of his compensation package, so be it, but maybe the door should be closed behind him.
I think the VA could be reformed and the benefits run like Medicare. The VA hospitals that are teaching hospitals could be run like any other hospital in that setting. The problem is that the VA is a huge bureaucracy and the accusations may be arrows from the fort directed at the hostiles outside.
The whistleblowers at the Phoenix VA were doctors who were disciplined for complaining.
Was Doc Ronny drunk when he did Trump’s physical?
It is not politically feasible to reduce Social Security payments to those of us now receiving them, or are about to, but the program does need to be revised to meet the future realities of longer lifespans, etc. As it is, the program only collects about 67 cents for every dollar it pays out; 33 cents are "borrowed" and then never repaid but require interest to be paid from taxes. This can't go on forever.
“The Navy doesn't (or didn't) have doctors on most of its ships. My ship (@175 crew) had a Chief Hospital Corpsman (not Master or Senior Chief) and a 2nd class HM (E-5). The chief was trained and authorized to do quite a bit of surgery up to some fairly major stuff in an emergency.”
Independent Duty Corpsman or IDC. That’s who the have on ships along with regular Corpsman.
John Henry,
Because of your nasty sense of entitlement, I would cancel your VA benefits. You're not a true American because you live on the "shithole" island of Puerto Rico.
I'm tired of paying for your healthcare with my tax dollars. I don't like your gimme, gimme attitude. There must be some useful work you can do rather that loaf around praising your free healthcare - waiting to get sick and die at my expense. You good-for-nothing lazy bum!
The trolls have arrived.
Odd, his efficiency reports by Obama were excellent.
Exactly.
Gee. I wonder what changed?
Why has Inga started to attack Obama doctor, Admiral Jackson?
I detect racism. Any criticism of Obama is racism.
Blogger Inga said...
Was Doc Ronny drunk when he did Trump’s physical?
This is a tell, as if anyone doubts it.
When Jackson was Obama's bud, Inga was his biggest fan.
Inga: "Was Doc Ronny drunk when he did Trump’s physical?"
And there is that respect for the military we've come to expect from the left.
Funny isn't it how the vast majority of military members and retirees know instinctively how much the lefties despise them, despite the little pretend act the lefties put on when they need to.
So the story is this guy was known to be dangerous and a terrible person for YEARS but was allowed to have the highest & most intimate access to the President (and his family & staff, I guess), hold a high security clearance, etc?
None of these awful things were worth pursuing before, but now suddenly it must all come out, because...?
People think this makes Trump look bad. The guy was probably a bad pick, sure, but how much worse does this look for the government institutions that the Media keeps telling me are professional, competent, and should be accorded respect?
Inga has plenty of Hate to go around. A bottomless well, as it were. But she Hates out of the best of intentions, which is why she puts so much energy into it. Hate can be a full-time job.
the vast majority of military members and retirees know instinctively how much the lefties despise them, despite the little pretend act the lefties put on when they need to.
That's why they are so eager to have the left tell them how to handle the transsexuals.
Blogger Hagar said...
The question is if should have been set up that way in the first place, and if it should be continued forever or phased out. If it was promised to John Henry as part of his compensation package, so be it, but maybe the door should be closed behind him.
It is being phased out, Hagar. Those who did not serve in wartime, after the VN war, for example, get much less benefits from the VA than those who are VN War and VNW Era veterans. It affects the medical care available for non-service related injury. They don't get the sweet deal on education benefits that I can my cohorts got. Does anyone know how, or if, it affects VA mortgage guarantees?
John Henry
Blogger Trumpit said...
You're not a true American because you live on the "shithole" island of Puerto Rico.
I could say that you are not a "true" American because you are an asshole. But Puerto Ricans are technically and legally "Americans" and, technically and legally, live in the "United States" and have all rights and benefits of citizens thereof. Just like you, I guess. Though you do seem to have a pretty unAmerican attitude towards our legal system. You make the red queen seem calm and reasoned.
I'm tired of paying for your healthcare with my tax dollars. I don't like your gimme, gimme attitude.
Gee, I wonder if your boss feels like that when you line up to collect your pay in the afternoon? You do have that gimme, gimme, sense of entitlement to what you have earned that day, don't you? With that kind of shitty attitude I'd advise the boss not to pay you.
There must be some useful work you can do rather that loaf around praising your free healthcare - waiting to get sick and die at my expense. You good-for-nothing lazy bum!
My clients seem to think I do useful work. At least they pay me for it and that's what determines usefulness, isn't it? Seems like I must be good for something.
As for "Lazy"? I sure am. That is part of what my clients pay me for, teaching their employees to be lazy. It is damn hard work being lazy. The upside is that it does pay pretty well if you do it right.
www.http://changeover.com/lazy.html
https://www.packagingstrategies.com/articles/83957-machinery-matters?v=preview
BTW: In case I was not clear before, my VA healthcare is not free. It is pretty inexpensive especially considering what I get for my money. It is hardly free.
John Henry
Call this term limited institutions and regs. Fix incentives. Invite participation of all in the Us medical system. Exclude non-profits and those with other public funding, including special tax treatment of property and other assets. Which will in turn encourage non-profit systems to privatize. Add new patients were able. E.g. Disability. Physical therapy. Special needs education, et. Private, tax paying entities only. Take new tax income to care for indigent or buy insurance once risks exceed profits. Use NTSB rules arbitration, when not felonious then a district court of last resort. Divide assets using leading practitioners to create 100 largely consistent lots of goods, services and patients. Sell these lots using a first-price sealed-bid auction descending through all the assets until all have been sold. Party on.
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