Jasper Craven

1 week ago | lymeline.com | Jasper Craven

On a perfect summer day in late August of 2022, I met Susan Rankin on the bank of the Passumpsic River, in St. Johnsbury. It was the first I’d seen her since the pandemic and we caught up for hours, seated at a picnic table with pizza from Kingdom Crust. I’d brought my then-new girlfriend, Lauren, on Susan’s insistence, even though the reason for our gathering was somewhat grim. We were supposed to discuss her obituary. Susan was then in her early 70s, and for much of her life she’d been sick.

2 weeks ago | prospect.org | Jasper Craven

Jonathon Solonar spent 19 years in the U.S. Navy as a medical corpsman, deploying across the world to help keep America’s fighting force healthy. Among his various roles, Solonar served as the sole medical official on a nuclear submarine, providing primary care to more than 160 fellow sailors traversing the deep seas. Solonar’s service ended abruptly, in 2022, when he was medically retired, forcing him to scramble for a civilian career.

2 months ago | prospect.org | Suzanne Gordon |Steve Early |Jasper Craven |with Suzanne Gordon

At the mid-January confirmation hearing for Doug Collins to be secretary of veterans affairs, many senators, including Republicans, directed his attention to the problematic results of past VA outsourcing to private-sector vendors.

2 months ago | prospect.org | Suzanne Gordon |Steve Early |Jasper Craven |with Suzanne Gordon

If you’re interested in the long history of scientific innovation and advances at the Department of Veterans Affairs, you may want to visit the website for the Office of Research and Development before Elon Musk and company delete it. Though few Americans are aware of it, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has traditionally served as one of the nation’s largest research powerhouses, along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

2 months ago | prospect.org | Suzanne Gordon |Steve Early |Jasper Craven |with Suzanne Gordon

In a scene that has become familiar in Washington these days, angry federal workers and concerned members of Congress gathered outside a government office to protest the latest depredations of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) created by President Trump. On February 13, the venue of the day was the Vermont Avenue headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), an agency with the second-largest workforce and third-largest budget in the federal government.