mr. cox, you are recognized for five minutes mr. cox: thank you for the opportunity to testify today. has demoralized and harmless dedicated workforce, one third of whom are veterans themselves. here is what the so-called accountability looks like under the new law. although the v.a. has tried to it from fact by denying congress limits on published data tells a terrible story, of the 196,000 employees fired in the first five months of 2018, only 15 were supervisors. housekeeping aids, virtually all of whom are disabled vets, were the largest number fired, followed by nursing assistants, food-service workers, and other assistance to these groups make up 51% of all removals. the v.a. has refused to provide information on veteran status of my gender or race of those fired. even though we do not have complete data, the disproportionate impacts on veteran workforce is undeniable. forof our current openings housekeeping aids or for veterans and virtually all pay less than $35,000 annually. nursing

many times there are training issues. >> mr. cox, mr. o'rourke talked about the training and whips whistleblower rights. have you heard of any nonmanagement employees receiving training on their whistleblower rights? >> no, sir, we haven't. >> i heard mr. o'rourke sort of say quietly as he was recording his testimony, he was kind of complaining about the veterans preference that that's the reason why there are these vacancies at places like mr. lamb's facility. and i have heard similar complaints made about the ability to hire sufficient housekeeping staff. and let us be clear, housekeeping staff is not an unskilled position. they need to be trained in biohazards. it's a very important role in keeping the facilities clean and keeping everything moving. is that a fair offense that the veterans preference is getting in the way of hiring sufficient staff? >> sir, i believe that veterans who have served this country loyally and put it all on the line so that i have the freedom of speech and all the rights that everyone in this room has. and

mr. cox you're now recognized for five minutes. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify today. the accountability act has turned out to be the most counter productive va law ever enacted. it has demoralized and harmed its dedicated work force a third of whom are veterans themselves. here's what so-called accountability looks like under the new law. although the va has tried to hide the fact by denying information from congress, its own published data tells a terrible story. of the 1,036 va employees fired in 2013, only 13 were supervisors. vets were the largest number fired followed by nursing assistants, registered nurses, food service workers. these five groups make up 51% of all removals. the va has refused to provide information on veterans status, gender or race of those fired. probably to hide the disproportionate effect of this harsh law. the disproportionate impact on the va's lowest paid and veteran work force is undeniable. virtually all paid less than $35,000 annually. nursing

mr. cox? mr. works said that one of the things that they have done to ensure smooth implementation and protection of whistleblowers is listening. including listening to employee unions. do you feel that you are being included or your members have been included in productive conversations with va about the implantation of the law? >> no sir we haven't and i would point out that with this office of accountability and whistleblower protection, we are not aware of any training or any mechanism that the va has done to try to trane rank and file employees. i believe i heard mr. o'rourke say that they had trained managers, we are not aware of any training, at one time we had requested the telephone number, we publicized for our membership to allow them to at least have it and after that the va put up a number. historically i transferred with bonuses and various things and i know the committee has investigated that and you could not deny those facts.>> the picture that my colleagues from pennsylvania pres

mr. cox, thank you for joining us. what's the latest on the situation with that fire? do you have any containment yet? >> yes. so we're still at zero percent containment out here. the number of acres is up to 225. there are multiple structures that we can confirm have been either damaged or destroyed. right now what the priority is, is this fire is moving southeast and we are really putting a large amount of ground and air resources into it. we just had the 747 very large air tanker drop over 20,000 gallons of retardant in one go. this is one of the priorities of getting as much aircraft support as we can overhead right now and to take the wind out of the front of this fire. there's a little bit of a breeze out here and dry vegetation. some really low humidities we're contending with. >> jonathan, we have reported on the evacuations along marsh creek springs near leon drive and morgan territory road. are you expecting more evacuations? what can you tell us about that? >> so right now, those evacuations, the extent of the evacuations, the, um, the -- the concern is unti

fact is some reporters after they know the facts jumped on this, rob cox, editor at reuters tweeted this, blood is on your hands, mrnt, save thoughts and prayers for empty soul, he later apologized. margaret sullivan, washington post wrote this, a couple of days after shooting everybody knew about the shooter and grudge against paper, while there is no cause, there's a connection in the attitudes of this unhinged gunman and the president of the united states, a dangerous failure to understand the role of the media in our society. anne, i hate to put you on the spot but do you think that's fair? >> margaret is correct that there's not any link here. i mean, this guy's beef with the paper to your point went back to 2012. donald trump has nothing to do with why he was angry at this particular paper, why the gunman, the alleged gunman was. but there's a different environment that surrounds anything having to do with reporting, reporting on trump now and i think i agree partially with jason here that, i mean, trump -- when trump says that not only says that the press is enemy of the people but points to specific reporte