VA scandal

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News/Politics 6-22-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. How the media spun the horrific murders in S.C. into a fight over a flag. 

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “It took less than two days for the press to take a story about a white South Carolina man who shot and killed nine black churchgoers, and turn it into a story about the Confederate battle flag flying outside South Carolina’s state house.

For media, the flag as a supposedly influential symbol of racial oppression and hate represented an issue that required immediate attention and hours of coverage. By Friday, the press’ focus on the flag was intense.

“S.C. Confederate flag back in the spotlight after massacre,” CNN noted, tracking the public furor over the state’s choice to display the Civil War leftover.

The Huffington Post featured an op-ed titled simple “Take It Down.”

The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates echoed these sentiments in a separate article titled “Take Down the Confederate Flag—Now.”

“The flag that Dylann Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, endorses the violence he committed,” the article declared.

The alleged terrorist, Dylann Storm Roof, 21, claims he targeted nine parishioners who had gathered for a prayer meeting Wednesday evening at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church because they were black. Pictures of Roof quickly circulated that showed him standing next to a car with a Confederate flag plate. The image stuck, and controversy over the flag found its footing.”

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2. While the media is busy with their agenda, a much bigger angle to the story goes mostly unreported. 

From WND  “As WND has reported, Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof was a known drug user who was caught with the powerful mind-altering narcotic Suboxone when apprehended by police during an incident on Feb. 28.

Suboxone is used to treat addiction to opioid drugs such as heroin. It’s adverse effects include anxiety, irritability, depersonalization, confusion, suicidal thoughts and irrational, sometimes violent behavior.

Other drugs linked to mass killers have more often been geared toward treating mental illness. According to a data set of U.S. mass shootings from 1982-2012 prepared by Mother Jones magazine, of 62 mass shootings carried out by 64 shooters, the majority of the shooters (41) were noted to have signs of possible mental illness — the precise kinds of mental illnesses that psychotropic medications are prescribed for.

It is a well-documented fact that in the 1980s, a shift occurred in the direction of treating the mentally ill. Rather than institutionalize them, the preferred method was to “mainstream” them, encouraging them to function in society while being treated with a mind-numbing array of new anti-depressants being developed by the pharmaceutical industry.

WND has compiled a list of killings committed by persons who had used mind-altering drugs or recently come off of them at the time of their crimes:”

The list is long, and it just keeps growing. 

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3. The Obama admin and the VA continue to fail our soldiers. 

From TheNYTimes  “One year after outrage about long waiting lists for health care shook theDepartment of Veterans Affairs, the agency is facing a new crisis: The number of veterans on waiting lists of one month or more is now 50 percent higher than it was during the height of last year’s problems, department officials say. The department is also facing a nearly $3 billion budget shortfall, which could affect care for many veterans.

The agency is considering furloughs, hiring freezes and other significant moves to reduce the gap. A proposal to address a shortage of funds for one drug — a new, more effective but more costly hepatitis C treatment — by possibly rationing new treatments among veterans and excluding certain patients who have advanced terminal diseases or suffer from a “persistent vegetative state or advanced dementia” is stirring bitter debate inside the department.

Agency officials expect to petition Congress this week to allow them to shift money into programs running short of cash. But that may place them at odds with Republican lawmakers who object to removing funds from a new program intended to allow certain veterans on waiting lists and in rural areas to choose taxpayer-paid care from private doctors outside the department’s health system.

“Something has to give,” the department’s deputy secretary, Sloan D. Gibson, said in an interview. “We can’t leave this as the status quo. We are not meeting the needs of veterans, and veterans are signaling that to us by coming in for additional care, and we can’t deliver it as timely as we want to.”

Since the waiting-list scandal broke last year, the department has broadly expanded access to care. Its doctors and nurses have handled 2.7 million more appointments than in any previous year, while authorizing 900,000 additional patients to see outside physicians. In all, agency officials say, they have increased capacity by more than seven million patient visits per year — double what they originally thought they needed to fix shortcomings.

But what was not foreseen, department leaders say, was just how much physician workloads and demand from veterans would continue to soar — by one-fifth, in fact, at some major veterans hospitals over just the past year.”

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News/Politics 4-20-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

I’ll start things off.

1. Clinton’s cash. 

From TheNYTimes  “The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.

The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.

“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.

His examples include a free-trade agreement in Colombia that benefited a major foundation donor’s natural resource investments in the South American nation, development projects in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, and more than $1 million in payments to Mr. Clinton by a Canadian bank and major shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the time the project was being debated in the State Department.”

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2. A new VA scandal. 

From FoxNews  “Nearly a year after a scandal rocked the Department of Veterans Affairs, revealing that the agency’s centers nationwide were manipulating records to hide dangerously long patient wait times, the bad news just keeps on coming — calling into question the agency’s promise to clean house.

Ignored claims, manipulated records, cost overruns and even one facility infested with insects and rodents are among the latest issues uncovered by a blisteringVA Inspector General’s report. The auditor’s probe found that more than 31,000 inquiries placed by veterans to the Philadelphia Regional VA office call center went ignored for more than 312 days, even though they were supposed to be answered in five. Perhaps even worse, claim dates were manipulated to hide delays, $2.2 million in improper payments were made because of duplicate records, 22,000 pieces of returned mail went ignored and some 16,600 documents involving patient records and dating back to 2011 were never scanned into the system.

“This report is as bleak as it gets, full of systemic malfeasance and deliberate data manipulation,” charged Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, in a statement after the story broke April 15. “The Philadelphia VA Regional Office is in crisis, brought on by years of mismanagement and encouraged by VA’s longstanding refusal to hold employees accountable.””

“In response to the Philadelphia IG report, the VA said the findings “reflect conditions a year ago.” Once issues were brought to their attention by whistleblowers, reforms were already in high gear during the IG’s inspection, first and foremost with a new director Diana Rubens, who was brought in to tackle the reforms in July 2014. 

“This is not a new thing, this is a last-year thing,” Allison Hickey, the VA’s official in charge of benefits, told The Associated Press. But the IG’s report rejects that notion, saying it was getting complaints as recently as last month.”

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3. Soros’ secret liberal donor retreat. Remember this the next time you hear some liberal whine about all of that money Republicans use.

From TheFreeBeacon  “The contrasts are stark at this week’s meeting of the nation’s foremost liberal donor club. Flashy sports cars ferry climate crusaders to a luxury hotel, a private security company shields prying eyes from speeches on political accountability, and billionaire Democratic donors denounce money in politics.

The Alliance is a hub of liberal and Democratic fundraising. It steers tens of millions of dollars each year to leading political and policy groups strategically vetted and endorsed by its staff of progressive operatives.

“If there was an attack on this building, the Democratic donor base would be gone,” joked investor Joe Sanberg. “There are probably a lot of conservatives who would love to drop a bomb on this building.”

Security was tight at San Francisco’s Four Seasons hotel, as the group hired its own security to prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing the hotel’s conference area.

It set up disposal bins for “confidential” conference materials, where attendees could dispose of sensitive paperwork for “secure shredding.” The group brought along its own paper shredders.”

“Attendees dined on goat cheese and garlic polenta, sourdough French toast, Kobe beef, and chorizo-stuffed dates. They sipped fine Napa Valley wine. The minimum food and beverage charge for the event was $130,000 according to hotel documents.”

Paper shredders? They must be hoping Hillary stops by. 😆

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News/Politics 2-4-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. There’s a reason they call him “Dirty Harry.” But he isn’t the only dirty one here.

From ABCNews  “Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website, an ABC News investigation has found. The shortcomings prompted concerns within the Department of Homeland Security that the boutique immigration program would be exploited by terrorists, according to internal documents obtained by ABC News.

“It is shocking,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican. “Particularly when you have F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies that are saying national security could be compromised or is being compromised — that’s enough for us to be concerned.”

Five different Homeland Security whistleblowers spoke with ABC News about a range of cases where visas were approved despite numerous red flags. They said objections were often ignored because the immigration program is so popular within the Obama Administration and with members of Congress from both parties. Known as the EB-5 visa program, foreigners who are willing to invest $500,000 in an American business can jump to the front of the line and obtain legal status to live in the U.S. for two years. If the investment is shown to create at least 10 jobs, the investors can receive a “Green Card” — permanent residency.”

“In 2013, then-Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was accused by political opponents of trying to prod federal officials to approve visas for investors in an electric vehicle start-up venture he ran. He denied that he sought undue influence. In 2014, questions about an EB-5 investment scheme in South Dakota became grist for political ads targeting then-U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rounds, who was attacked for his role in oversight of investment projects while he was governor. Rounds called the attacks political and “inaccurate” and “defamatory.”

Questions about the SLS Hotel project in Las Vegas first gained attention when an article in The Washington Times revealed that Homeland Security expedited the processing of investor visas after Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D) and his staff began prodding the department to move faster. Reid aides said their push to eliminate longstanding bureaucratic hurdles with the program and was aimed at creating local jobs.”

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2. Anybody shocked? These folks deserve better.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “President Obama’s 2016 budget blueprint proposes rolling back a program that gives veterans the right to receive faster care outside of the long waitlists at the troubled Veterans Affairs medical system.

Obama signed the Veterans Choice Program into law in August following months of partisan wrangling on Capitol Hill that finally led to a compromise measure to overhaul the agency. The Veterans Choice Program was a key GOP provision in the deal.

Authored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the measure provides “choice” cards to veterans that can be used to obtain medical care at designated facilities outside of the VA system.

But Obama announced Monday he’ll send a legislative proposal to Congress that would allow the VA to raid the program’s funding, now set at $10 billion.”

“Democrats have pushed for additional money for the VA to pay for new hospitals and more doctors, but Republicans contend that waste and mismanagement are the primary problems facing the VA, and the Choice Program gives vets a chance to escape the dysfunction by allowing them to receive outside medical care.

Veterans groups were angered by the move to divert funding from the program, noting that Obama had touted the legislation to reform the VA in the months leading up to the November election and did not express opposition to the choice cards.”

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3. The legacy of debt interest.

From TheWallStJournal  “The U.S. has come a long way since the days of trillion-dollar deficits, just a few years ago. The White House projects 2016 will have the smallest budget deficit in eight years. Yet the budgetary impact of the debt that’s been accumulated–$18 trillion in total, $13 trillion of that owed to the public–will reassert itself.

Currently, the government’s interest costs are around $200 billion a year, a sum that’s low due to the era of low interest rates. Forecasters at the White House and Congressional Budget Office believe interest rates will gradually rise, and when that happens, the interest costs of the U.S. government are set to soar, from just over $200 billion to nearly $800 billion a year by decade’s end.”

“By 2021, the government will be spending more on interest than on all national defense. according to White House forecasts. And one year later, interest costs will exceed nondefense discretionary spending–essentially every other domestic and international government program funded annually through congressional appropriations. (The largest part of the budget is, and will remain, the mandatory spending programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Mandatory spending is over $2 trillion and is set to double to $4 trillion by 2025.)”

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4. Manufacturing is down for the fourth month in a row.

From HotAir  “For the fifth straight month, US manufacturing sector has slowed, according to the Department of Commerce. Overall orders for manufacturing dropped 3.4% in December, led by a steep drop in transportation. Even without that, orders fell by 2.3%, and the overall decline in November was adjusted downward to 1.7%:

New orders for manufactured goods in December, down five consecutive months, decreased $16.4 billion or 3.4 percent to $471.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This followed a 1.7 percent November decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 2.3 percent. Shipments, down four of the last five months, decreased $5.3 billion or 1.1 percent to $488.2 billion. This followed a 1.0 percent November decrease. Unfilled orders, down following ten consecutive monthly increases, decreased $9.4 billion or 0.8 percent to $1,166.9 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent November increase. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 6.69, down from 6.81 in November. Inventories, down following eighteen consecutive monthly increases, decreased $2.0 billion or 0.3 percent to $653.9 billion. This followed a slight November increase. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.34, up from 1.33 in November.

Durable goods dropped as well, by 3.3%:

New orders for manufactured durable goods in December, down four of the last five months, decreased $8.0 billion or 3.3 percent to $230.6 billion, revised from the previously published 3.4 percent decrease. This followed a 2.2 percent November decrease. Transportation equipment, also down four of the last five months, led the decrease, $6.7 billion or 9.1 percent to $66.8 billion. New orders for manufactured nondurable goods decreased $8.5 billion or 3.4 percent to $240.8 billion.”

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5. The Big Lie: 5.6% unemployment.

From Gallup  “Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news — currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.”

“There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”

“Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class.”

They’ve been fudging things for years. But it’s nice to see others finally catching on to it.

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6. And since we’re on the subject of big lies…..

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The chairman of a special House committee created to investigate the 2012 Benghazi tragedy on Monday instructed his staff to review secretly recorded tapes and intelligence reports that detail Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role in advocating and executing the war in Libya, opening the door for a possible expansion of his probe.

Rep. Trey Gowdy’s decision to seek a review of the materials, first highlighted in a series of Washington Times stories last week, carries consequences for the 2016 election in which Mrs. Clinton is expected to seek the presidency. It could also move the committee to examine the strained relationship between the State Department and Pentagon, which sharply disagreed over the 2011 war in Libya and the response to the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi a year later.

The Times reported last week that U.S. intelligence did not support Mrs. Clinton’s story of an impending genocide in Libya that she used to sell the war against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. The newspaper also unveiled secretly recorded tapes from Libya that showed that the Pentagon and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich so distrusted her stewardship of the war that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime.

The tapes included candid conversations and allegations that Mrs. Clinton took the U.S. to war on false pretenses and was not listening to the advice of military commanders or career intelligence officers.”

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by

News/Politics 12-29-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread. Here’s a few to start things off.

1. The firing of the head of the Phoenix VA where the scandal started has been upheld. Funny thing though it was for receiving inappropriate gifts and not for the actual scandal itself. It seems the govt. didn’t provide enough info to find fault on those charges. Convenient, no?

From StarsAndStripes  ” The government agency charged with making sure federal employees are treated fairly upheld this week the Department of Veterans Affairs decision to “formally remove” Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix Department of Veterans Affairs’ Health Care System and the leader at the center of the biggest scandal in the agency’s history.

But the ruling by the Merit Systems Protection Board could not substantiate that Helman knew or should have known that employees at her hospital lied about health-care wait times for former troops seeking treatment for everything from cancer to post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“In the ruling, Chief Administrative Judge Stephen Mish rejected the VA’s other charges, which said that Helman failed to see that veterans were waiting months or even years to get health care. But the judge said the VA failed to demonstrate any actions or inactions on the part of Helman that caused it.

“To phrase it more colloquially, an agency must connect the dots of fault from the identified failure by the subordinates back up the line to the manager,” the judge wrote. “The agency did not attempt to do so here. Accordingly, this specification is not sustained.”

Similarly, the VA said Helman failed to process 2,500 new claims that were found, which led hundreds of veterans to be without health care for more than a year. But the judge again said the VA did not provide enough information to the board.

The ruling also points out that linking Helman’s removal to the wait-times issue is complex. The report notes that the VA’s office of the inspector general did not interview Helman about wait times during their investigation into the issue.”

So it’s like the IRS scandal, where no one talks to the witnesses, victims, or the accused before deciding the case.

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2. They did it again. But this time it was cops from all over the country.

FromTheWashingtonPost  “The streets of this working-class neighborhood in Queens overflowed on Saturday with thousands of blue-uniformed police officers, state troopers, corrections officers and firefighters from across the country.”

“The outpouring — some estimates were of more than 20,000 officers — was about more than brotherhood and the New York Police Department’s long history of showing support to honor slain officers. This time, the solemn memorial turned into a kind of counter-protest.”

“Hundreds of officers watching the services outside Christ Tabernacle Church turned their backs on the screens when Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke. The mayor has been heavily criticized by New York police union officials, accused of causing a mood of mistrust that they say contributed to the killings of Ramos and Liu. Tensions between the mayor and police had already grown in recent months after de Blasio said he was worried about how police might treat his son, who is biracial.”

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3. Despite the reporter’s attempts to provide cover for Obama, Rudy raises some good points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nCIut7kydMU

More here from NationalReview

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by

News/Politics 12-17-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread, so you tell me….. 🙂

Here’s a few from me.

1. Who needs Congress when you have a king?

From USAToday  “President Obama has issued a form of executive action known as the presidential memorandum more often than any other president in history — using it to take unilateral action even as he has signed fewer executive orders.

When these two forms of directives are taken together, Obama is on track to take more high-level executive actions than any president since Harry Truman battled the “Do Nothing Congress” almost seven decades ago, according to a USA TODAY review of presidential documents.

Obama has issued executive orders to give federal employees the day after Christmas off, to impose economic sanctions and to determine how national secrets are classified. He’s used presidential memoranda to make policy on gun control, immigration and labor regulations. Tuesday, he used a memorandum to declare Bristol Bay, Alaska, off-limits to oil and gas exploration.

Like executive orders, presidential memoranda don’t require action by Congress. They have the same force of law as executive orders and often have consequences just as far-reaching. And some of the most significant actions of the Obama presidency have come not by executive order but by presidential memoranda.

 Obama has made prolific use of memoranda despite his own claims that he’s used his executive power less than other presidents. “

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2. Probably meaningless here, but let’s hope this is a sign of things to come.

From CNSNews  “A judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania issued a “memorandum opinion” on Tuesday stating that President Barack Obama’s unilateral action on immigration–which would allow some illegal aliens to stay in the United States and work–is unconstitutional.

“The November 20, 2014 executive action on immigration is unconstitutional,” says Judge Arthur J. Schwab in one heading of the “memorandum opinion” he issued in the case of United States of America v. Elionardo Juarez-Escobar.

“President Obama’s unilateral legislative action violates the separation of powers provided for in the Constitution as well as the Take Care Clause, and therefore, is unconstitutional,” said the judge.”

“”President Obama contended that although legislation is the most appropriate course of action to solve the immigration debate, his Executive Action was necessary because of Congress’s failure to pass legislation, acceptable to him, in this regard,” said the court. “This proposition is arbitrary and does not negate the requirement that the November 20, 2014 Executive Action be lawfully within the President’s executive authority. It is not.””

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3. Blow the whistle, face illegal retaliation.

From StarsAndStripes  ” For 24 years, Navy Cmdr. Jeff Hawker served his country, leaving active duty to continue treating his military brethren as a Department of Veterans Affairs doctor. After he started working at the Salem VA Medical Center, though, he said it took just a few months for officials at the medical center to oust him and to destroy his career after he reported dangerous medical practices.

“You serve and you come back and you run into the corruption and malpractice” of the VA , he said.

At a time when the VA is scrambling to hire doctors to make up for a critical shortfall, Hawker said he was the victim of a so-called “sham peer review,” a problem many say is widespread in the VA and little reported because the victims fear bringing attention to their negative reviews.

Hawker said vindictive local VA officials have effectively ended his career after he voiced serious concerns about patient safety at a busy Virginia hospital, including a doctor performing procedures Hawker said he wasn’t trained to do and life-threatening medical errors. Worse, Hawker said, veterans there are still at serious risk months after he reported the problems.”

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4. What a joke. This will help contain costs, right? 🙄

From TheHill  “The White House wants healthcare providers to get serious about bulking up their defenses against climate change.

In a best-practice guide for healthcare providers and policymakers released on Monday, the administration advises them on how to best improve their “climate readiness.”

The guide is one piece of a larger initiative at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  launched by President Obama last year, and provides information to healthcare facilities on how to prepare of extreme weather events the administration says is tied to climate change.

The guidelines released by the White House on Monday include commitments from leading healthcare providers across the country to bulk up climate resilience at facilities and of operations.

“HHS recognizes climate change as one of the top public health challenges of our time,” the White House said.”

And most folks without an agenda recognize this as one of the biggest scams of our time.

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by

News/Politics 10-1-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Yesterday the President blamed others, mostly the intel community, for his not noticing the rise of ISIS. His friends in the media had some excuses too. Eugene Robinson says there’s just too much info for one President to handle.

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But I think it has more to do with the fact that he’s missed over half his daily briefings.

From Breitbart  “A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014.

The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second.

The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at the feet of his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.”

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There’s no accountability with this guy. He was warned by others repeatedly as well.

From TheFreeBeacon  “Top government officials and military brass repeatedly warned of the consequences of sticking to a timetable on full Iraq War troop withdrawal, but President Obama proceeded with the plan in 2011 anyway.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker cautioned against such a move in the years beforehand.

“I am certain that abandoning or drastically curtailing our efforts will bring failure,” he said in 2007. “An Iraq that falls into chaos or civil war will mean massive human suffering, well beyond what has already occurred within Iraq’s borders.””

“The Daily Beast quoted one former Pentagon official saying, “Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bull&%@%%&@#.”

Obama has already tried to rewrite history in the ongoing Iraq debacle by trying to pass responsibility for full troop withdrawal to the Bush administration.”

The buck always stops somewhere else.

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2. Obama’s pass the buck presidency.

From NationalJournal  ”  In attempting to downplay the political damage from a slew of second-term controversies, President Obama has counted on the American people having a very short memory span and a healthy suspension of disbelief. The time-tested strategy for Obama: Claim he’s in the dark about his own administration’s activities, blame the mess on subordinates, and hope that with the passage of time, all will be forgotten. Harry Truman, the president isn’t. He’s more likely to pass the buck.

His latest eyebrow-raiser came on 60 Minutes on Sunday, when the president blamed the failure to anticipate the rise of ISIS on his intelligence community for not informing him of the growing threat. “I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” Obama said. Most early news reports dutifully pinned the blame on the intelligence agencies, with the president escaping any further scrutiny.”

“The elements of the administration’s blame, deny, and wait-it-out communications strategy has been front and center amid all the recent controversies. When the administration badly botched the launch of the health care exchange website, Obama said he was “not informed directly that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to.” This, for his signature achievement in office. Blame was later pinned on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who left the administration in April.

When officials at the Internal Revenue Service improperly targeted conservative outside groups for scrutiny, Obama first feigned outrage, saying he had “no patience for” the misconduct. But months later, as the public’s anger subsided, Obama said there “wasn’t even a smidgen of corruption” at the agency, and the administration has done little to hold anyone accountable since.”

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3. I feel safer already. After all, Obama’s told us repeatedly that religion plays no part in recent terror attacks all over the world, including Oklahoma. 🙄

From FoxNews  “The Justice Department is set to announce broad restrictions on racial and religious profiling in federal investigations, including those involving matters of national security.

The expected ban comes amid heightened concerns of Islamic militant groups executing a terror attack on U.S. soil and was reportedly opposed by national security officials.

A Justice Department official told Fox News on Monday that outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder will announce the policy change in the coming weeks and that it will also put an end to profiling based on ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Holder intended to announce the policy change several months ago, but the White House ordered a last-minute hold so the Department of Homeland Security could review the national security implications, a congressional aide told The Los Angeles Times, which on Saturday first reported the story.

The new policy will add to long-standing bans on racial profiling and extend them for the first time to national-security probes.”

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4. Northeast liberals losing House seats is a good thing.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “The Northeast, once the nation’s political engine that produced presidents, House speakers and Senate giants including the late Edward M. Kennedy, is losing clout in Washington as citizens flee the high-tax region, according to experts worried about the trend.

The Census Bureau reports that population growth has shifted to the South and the result is that the 11 states that make up the Northeast are being bled dry of representation in Washington.

Critics blame rising taxes in states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut for limiting population growth in the Northeast to just 15 percent from 1983 to 2013, while the rest of the nation grew more than 41 percent.

The biggest impact comes in the loss of congressional representation.”

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5. I wonder why this isn’t bigger news? OK, not really.

From HotAir  “We haven’t heard anything on the debacle at the Veterans Administration in a while, but it’s refreshing to see that when it made it back into the news it was for something good. Three of the original whistle blowers at the Phoenix VA medical center have been granted an undisclosed settlement for the retaliation they suffered for speaking out about abuse in the system.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has come to terms with three Phoenix whistle-blowers who filed retaliation complaints after helping expose mismanagement and health-care breakdowns in the Phoenix VA medical center.

The trio — Dr. Katherine Mitchell, Paula Pedene and Damian Reese — accepted mostly confidential settlements for demotions and harassment they suffered at the hands of VA administrators after exposing delays in patient care, fraudulent wait-time data, bullying and other misconduct.”

But once again, no accountability for anyone involved. Nobody pays for their actions, except the taxpayers paying the bills and judgments.

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by

News/Politics 9-18-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Eric Holder really doesn’t want those F and F documents made public. Gee, I wonder why? 🙄

From TownHall  “Back in July after a long FOIA lawsuit from government watchdog Judicial Watch, a federal judge ordered the Department of Justice to produce a detailed list or Vaughn Index of documents being withheld from Congress and the American people under President Obama’s executive privilege claim. A month later in August, a federal judge ordered DOJ to turn over a privilege log of withheld documents to the House Oversight Committee. Both orders were to be completed by October 1. 

Now, Attorney General Eric Holder is asking a federal judge to delay (again) an order requiring him to turn over thousands of Fast and Furious documents, not just a detailed list. More from POLITICO: 

Attorney General Eric Holder is again asking a federal court to delay the transfer of disputed documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious to a House committee.

In a new court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson not to require Holder to turn over any of the roughly 64,000 pages of documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee until after her rulings can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.”

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2. Is Holder really the best person for this job? He cries racism at the drop of a hat. No doubt he finds what he wants to find, which of course will be racial bias.

From FoxNews  “Broadening its push to improve police relations with minorities, the Justice Department has enlisted a team of criminal justice researchers to study racial bias in law enforcement in five American cities and recommend strategies to address the problem nationally, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

The police shooting last month of an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri underscored the need for the long-planned initiative, Holder said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He said the three-year project could be a “silver lining” if it helps ease racial tensions and “pockets of distrust that show up between law enforcement and the communities that they serve.”

“What I saw in Ferguson confirmed for me that the need for such an effort was pretty clear,” Holder said.”

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3. No surprises here.

From HotAir  “No surprise to Hot Air readers, of course, but this allegation will come as a bombshell in a House hearing today on the VA scandal. This whistleblower claim will just be one of the issues that the Veteran Affairs committee will probe in the wait-list fraud that permeated the VA. Another will be the fact that the number of veteran deaths connected to those secret wait lists has skyrocketed from 40 to 293:

Our source, who works at VA headquarters and who spoke exclusively to CBS News, said officials inside the agency asked for a revision of the first draft. That’s standard practice, but in this case the source said it amounted to pressure on Inspector General Richard Griffin to add a line to water down the report.

“The organization was worried that the report was going to damn the organization,” the whistle-blower said. “And therefore it was important for them to introduce language that softened that blow.” …

But that conclusion, that no deaths were caused by delays, seemed to conflict with the rest of the report. For example: “28 instances of clinically significant delays” were found, including delays linked to six deaths. And findings indicated either “treatment” or “an appointment for this patient might have changed the outcome.””

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4. I still think this is a bad idea.

From TheHill  “The House overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to grant President Obama authority to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels waging war against Islamic extremists.

Despite vocal opposition from both war-weary liberals and defense hawks who feel the Syria plan should include more robust steps, majorities in both conferences voted 273-156 to back Obama’s plan to give military aid to vetted members of the Free Syrian Army.

The “yes” vote was made up of 159 Republicans and 114 Democrats; opposition was just as bipartisan, with 85 Democrats and 71 Republicans voting no. The Syria language was considered as an amendment to a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.

A coalition of unusual bedfellows voted against the amendment, including Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern (Mass.) and Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Steve Stockman (Texas). Members on such opposite sides of the ideological spectrum rarely vote together on major issues.”

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5. Up from 12 to 17. It’s not “rare” anymore.

From KTUU2  “Enterovirus D68 is likely coming — if it hasn’t already — to a state near you. 

Since mid-August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed 140 cases of respiratory illness caused by Enterovirus D68 in 16 states: Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

New Jersey also has confirmed a case of EV-D68, according to Donna Leusner, director of communications for the New Jersey Department of Health.

And “in the upcoming weeks, more states will have confirmed cases of EV-D68 infection,” the CDC said in a statement Wednesday.”

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6. Anybody shocked? Didn’t think so….

From TheFreeBeacon  “Federal taxpayer funds continue to flow to a slew of U.S. universities that are spending the cash on programs that promote anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-American viewpoints, according to a large group of Jewish and civil rights organizations that are now pushing Congress to rectify what they call a systemic problem.

Taxpayer funds have been allocated to universities under Title VI of the Higher Education Act (HEA) since 1965. However, Congress and the Education Department have exerted little oversight, leading these funds to be spent on biased educational programs that promote radical views about Israel and even America, according to the groups.

Funding for anti-Israel programs at U.S. universities has fostered a culture of fear among the Jewish state’s supporters on campus and fueled a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents at many schools, the groups warned.”

“Title VI of the Higher Education Act directs federal dollars to support the intellectually corrupt field of Middle East studies, among the most politicized academic disciplines, filled with professors hostile to America, Israel, and the West,” Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, said in a statement. “American taxpayers should not fund programs that aim to weaken resolve and thwart policy.”

The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has been among the top abusers of federal funds, according to AMCHA, which published an in-depth study on the university’s federally funded anti-Israel programs.”

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News/Politics 7-29-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Finally, some action.

From MSNNews  “A bipartisan deal to improve veterans’ health care would authorize at least $17 billion to fix the health program scandalized by long patient wait times and falsified records covering up delays, the bill’s chief supporters said Monday.

The agreement includes $10 billion in emergency spending to make it easier for veterans who can’t get prompt appointments with Veterans Affairs doctors to obtain outside care; $5 billion to hire doctors, nurses and other medical staff; and about $1.5 billion to lease 27 new clinics across the country, the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees said.

The bill also would expand a scholarship program for veterans to include surviving spouses of military members who died in the line of duty, allow all veterans to qualify for in-state college tuition, and grant the Veterans Affairs secretary authority to immediately fire senior executives, while providing employees with streamlined appeal rights.”

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2. Looks like ranchers are the only ones the govt is restricting land access to.

From TheHill  “Federal land protections are hampering efforts to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across the border, Republicans say.

The Interior Department controls about 800 miles along the dividing line with Mexico, or about 40 percent of the total, with other land in the region owned by the Forest Service.

GOP lawmakers argue federal regulations intended to protect land and wildlife have become an obstacle for Customs and Borders Protection officers because they restrict their ability to drive near the border, build infrastructure or install surveillance technology.

“There is no doubt that the restrictions on accessing land along the border have made it more difficult for the Border Patrol to do their job,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who traveled to McAllen County, Texas, earlier this month to meet with officials about the surge of child migrants into the United States.”

Smugglers know this too, and are using it to their benefit.

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3. Yet another ObamaCare failure.

From HotAir  “ObamaCare advocates have spent the summer trying to put the sunniest spin possible on the law, and they’d better make the best possible use of the time. Premium increases will hit in the fall as insurers adjust for the less-than-optimal additions to the risk pools in 2014, and the best that advocates can argue is that the average increase percentage might just barely avoid double digits. That, National Journal notes, was the the pace of premium increases without ObamaCare, too; so much for bending cost curves downwards, eh?

This fall, though, it won’t be business as usual for ObamaCare policyholders in another important way. Most people assume that their existing policies will automatically renew, and after all the struggles that these consumers had in getting enrolled the first time around, they had to be looking forward to avoiding the process for 2015. And they’re right about autorenewal, but they’re in for a big surprise about what it means:

If you have health insurance on your job, you probably don’t give much thought to each year’s renewal. But make the same assumption in one of the new health law plans, and it could lead to costly surprises.

Insurance exchange customers who opt for convenience by automatically renewing their coverage for 2015 are likely to receive dated and inaccurate financial aid amounts from the government, say industry officials, advocates and other experts. If those amounts are too low, consumers could get sticker shock over their new premiums. Too high, and they’ll owe the tax man later. …”

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4. Illegal immigrants are demanding representation at White House meetings. I don’t know why they’re whining, they already have it from Obama and his advisers from La Raza.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Illegal immigrants picketed the White House Monday afternoon, calling on fellow immigrant-rights advocacy groups to refuse to meet with the Obama administration until President Obama specifically includes illegal immigrants in any future meetings.

“We are among the millions of people who will either benefit or be harmed by the decisions the President makes, and we are here to represent ourselves in any future negotiations,” said Rosi Carrasco, one of organizers, in a statement announcing the action.

Billing themselves “undocumented immigrant leaders,” the organizers said they will erect a picket line to symbolize their demand.”

And a real President would have INS there to round them up for deportation. But thankfully for them, we don’t have one of those.

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5. Vive la France!

From MSNNews  “France announced Monday the country would welcome Iraqi Christians forced to leave their homes as ISIS continues to take much of northern Iraq.

In a joint statement, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius and interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve denounced ISIS and extended help to Iraqi Christians.

“France is outraged by these abuses that it condemns with the utmost firmness,” they said. “We are ready, if they so desire, to help facilitate asylum on our territory.”

The announcement followed a rally on Sunday in support of Iraq‘s persecuted Christians, during which about 5,000 people gathered outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Geneviève Jacques, president of France’s refugee N.G.O. La Cimade, told France 24 that the country had to offer help as Iraq’s neighboring countries like Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon have already been flooded by refugees.”

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News/Politics 7-18-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Interesting. It’s a small sample, but it appears to blow the President and Democrats line about fleeing violence out of the water. They blame his policies and lack of border enforcement.

From FoxNews  “A new intelligence assessment concludes that misperceptions about U.S. immigration policy – and not Central American violence – are fueling the surge of thousands of children illegally crossing the Mexican border.

The 10-page July 7 report was issued by the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), which according to the Justice Department website is led by the DEA and incorporates Homeland Security. Its focus is on the collection and distribution of tactical intelligence, information which can immediately be acted on by law enforcement.

“Of the 230 migrants interviewed, 219 cited the primary reason for migrating to the United States was the perception of U.S. immigration laws granting free passes or permisos to UAC (unaccompanied children) and adult females OTMs (other than Mexicans) traveling with minors,” the report said.”

“The intelligence assessment, which is unclassified but not meant to go beyond law enforcement, also cited data from the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime Statistics saying despite an explosion in the number of illegal minors, crime data for Central America actually showed a dip in violence.”

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2. Anti-gun folks won’t like this. More guns = less crime.

From HotAir  “Via Bob Owens at Bearing Arms, a leftover from yesterday that shouldn’t be missed. Detroit PD chief James Craig has spent the past six months encouraging locals to arm themselves, an unusual — and politically perilous — position for a big city police officer to take. No regrets.

Detroit has experienced 37 percent fewer robberies in 2014 than during the same period last year, 22 percent fewer break-ins of businesses and homes, and 30 percent fewer carjackings. Craig attributed the drop to better police work and criminals being reluctant to prey on citizens who may be carrying guns.

“Criminals are getting the message that good Detroiters are armed and will use that weapon,” said Craig, who has repeatedly said he believes armed citizens deter crime. “I don’t want to take away from the good work our investigators are doing, but I think part of the drop in crime, and robberies in particular, is because criminals are thinking twice that citizens could be armed.

“I can’t say what specific percentage is caused by this, but there’s no question in my mind it has had an effect,” Craig said.”

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3. The White House is bribing insurance companies to try and delay the damage before mid-terms.

From Forbes  “Want to know what’s happening with Obamacare? Good luck finding out. The White House recently adopted a new approach for updating Americans on the country’s most consequential law. I call it the “needle in a haystack” method: Bury the announcement in hundreds of pages of regulations and hope no one finds it.

The White House tried a test run several weeks ago. Hidden in the midst of a 436 page regulatory update, and written in pure bureaucratese, the Department of Health and Human Services asked that insurance companies limit the looming premium increases for 2015 health plans. But don’t worry, HHS hinted: we’ll bail you out on the taxpayer’s dime if you lose money.

No wonder there wasn’t a press release. The White House is playing politics with Americans’ health care—and they’re bribing health insurance companies to play along.

The administration’s intention is clear: Salvage the 2014 midterm elections. Typically, insurance companies release their premium rates between summer and early fall—i.e., right before voters cast their ballots in November. If premiums skyrocket—which looks increasingly likely—then voters won’t look too kindly on Senators and Representatives who voted for Obamacare and created this problem.”

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4. Looks like those ObamaCare navigators were a waste of money.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “During the open enrollment period for the state and federal health care exchanges, each staff member and volunteer worked with an average of 1.8 people per day, according to a survey of assister programs released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser calculated the number of people receiving aid between October 1, 2013 and the end of April, 2014:

More than 4,400 Assister Programs, employing more than 28,000 full-time-equivalent staff and volunteers, helped an estimated 10.6 million people during the first Open Enrollment period.

If you do the math, 28,000 individuals assisting 10.6 million people over 210 days breaks down to 1.8 people per day per service representative. While the individualized guidance was time consuming, the study revealed that the assister programs should have been able to help more people in the span of a full workday. The questionnaire answers indicated that 64 percent of the programs spent an average of 1-2 hours with each person, 18 percent took 2-3 hours, and just five percent exceeded three hours.”

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5. The VA is saying they need 17 billion to stop mistreating veterans.

From HotAir  “In which the agency that’s been giving millions in bonuses to people for causing and lying about the untimely deaths of veterans asks for the GDPs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Anguilla, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Equatorial Guinea combined from taxpayers to stop doing that. Super:

The Department of Veterans Affairs needs $17.6 billion in additional funds over the next three years to meet patients’ needs and fix the troubled agency’s problems, its acting director said Wednesday.

Testifying for the first time on Capitol Hill, interim VA Secretary Sloan Gibson told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the money would help VA medical centers decrease appointment waiting times and hire more doctors.

You perhaps won’t be surprised to find this request is a-ok with Democrats while Republicans wonder how more money is going to solve this problem when the increasing backlog and problems at the Veterans Administration correlated with a rapidly increasing budget. And, in the case of the aforementioned bonuses, more money actually caused the problems.”

And that’s on top of the money already in current reform packages.

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6. How to renounce America, and still be called a patriot, at least by other hypocrites.

From NationalJournal  “This story is about a gilded class of people and corporations enriched by the new American economy while the rest of its citizens pay the tab. The protagonists could be any number of institutional elites, but this column happens to be about a Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, and his daughter, Heather Bresch, the chief executive of Mylan, a giant maker of generic drugs based outside Pittsburgh.

Her company’s profits come largely from Medicaid and Medicare, which means her nest is feathered by U.S. taxpayers. On Monday, Bresch announced that Mylan will renounce its United States citizenship and instead become incorporated in the Netherlands – leaving this country, in part, to pay less in taxes.

This is the sort of story that makes blood boil in populists – voters from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party to libertarians who follow Rand Paul and including tea party conservatives. These disillusioned souls, growing in numbers, hate hypocrites who condemn the U.S. political system while gaming it.

Populists can’t be happy with how this story was told by Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times. Under the headline “Reluctantly, Patriot Flees Homeland for Greener Tax Pastures,” Sorkin cast Bresch as a helpless victim of a system that has made her wealthy and her father powerful.”

Oh the poor things… 🙄

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News/Politics 7-17-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Nixon would be proud, and someone needs to go to jail.

From HotAir  “carpet treatment. However, they probably didn’t expect the Red Scare treatment, either. In testimony before Congress last night, investigators revealed that the VA office initially gave them offices that were wired to record audio and video. They also found a notebook detailing how one manager instructed employees to obstruct the investigation:

Congressional staffers investigating data falsification and whistleblower retaliation at the Department of Veterans Affairs regional office in Philadelphia were given a workspace there that was wired with activated audio microphones and video cameras, the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs said Monday.

Committee investigators also glimpsed a notebook used by the agency’s regional director that bore written instructions to ignore their requests for information, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said during a late-night hearing.”

“The notepad belonged to Acting Director Lucy Filipov, who insisted on putting investigators into a room where computer microphones and cameras had been activated. One handwritten instruction was “ignore Rory,” one of the Congressional staffers conducting the investigation for Miller. Another note listed two of the whistleblowers that were cooperating with the committee.”

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2. The next scandal is getting the usual response from the White House. Obstruction.

From TheHill  “The director of the White House’s political office defied a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, setting up a new high-profile fight between the White House and House Republicans.

Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said administration claims that White House political director David Simas was immune from testimony were “absurd” and “deeply disturbing.”

“Issa said Wednesday that Congress does “not and should not need a smoking gun” to investigate the administration. He said the committee was justified in demanding testimony from a senior presidential adviser, pointing to when Democrats compelled Harriet Miers, the White House counsel to former President George W. Bush, to testify about allegations of the politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys.

He also played a voicemail in which former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis solicits a campaign contribution while on the job to demonstrate that the Obama administration had previously run afoul of the Hatch Act. Solis was not in any way connected to the political office under investigation.”

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3. It’s way past time.

More from TheWashintonExaminer  “Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, “Independence Day” star Vivica Fox and several other prominent African-American celebrities are urging governments to adopt school choice, charter schools and other alternatives to education to give kids stuck in poor inner city schools a chance at the fame and fortune they have had.

“It’s time for educational choice,” says Sanders in a new video for the American Federation for Children and Alliance for School Choice, which promote alternatives to public education.

The campaign, called “Champions for Choice,” held an event last night in Los Angeles featuring athletes and celebrities in town for the ESPYS, during which star athletes are recognized.

“Many of the athletes,” said Kevin P. Chavous, executive counsel of the American Federation for Children, “come from humble backgrounds. They know what happened to many of their classmates who couldn’t make it out of failing schools. And they know that athletic skills good enough to play in the NBA and NFL shouldn’t be the only way out of poverty for these kids, as is too often the case.”

The former District councilman added, “That’s why they’re supporting school choice.”

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4. The infighting continues in the Mississippi. And further proof the RINO’s can’t be trusted.

From RedState  “I can confirm that the attack ads in Mississippi run by “All Citizens for Mississippi” were funded by Senate Republicans, including Senators Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Rob Portman, Bob Corker, and Roy Blunt. It appears our Senate Republican leaders are willing to risk losing a Senate majority so long as they can get their own re-elected. Yes folks, it is true. I can confirm what we all suspected.

The advertisements attacked Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and painted conservative Republicans and tea party activists as racists. According to documents filed with the Federal Elections Commission, All Citizens for Mississippi received funding from a Haley Barbour backed group called Mississippi Conservatives.

Mississippi Conservatives, in turn, was funded in part by Sally Bradshaw of the RNC’s Growth and Opportunity Project, former RNC Chairman and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the political action committees created for Senators Mitch McConnell ($50,000), John Cornyn ($50,000), Rob Portman ($25,000), Bob Corker ($25,000), and Roy Blunt ($5,000).“

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5. And McDaniel continues his fight to see the voting records. Counties with Cochran supporters in charge are not being co-operative.

From TownHall  “The challenger who narrowly lost a Republican primary runoff to incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran is taking his quest to view original voting records to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

State Sen. Chris McDaniel is trying to prove that some people who voted in the June 24 runoff also voted in the June 3 Democratic primary, which would be illegal. His goal is to force another runoff.

On Monday, he asked the court for an emergency order forcing Harrison County Circuit Clerk Gayle Parker to let him see original copies of poll books.”

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