VA scandal

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News/Politics 5-27-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. First up, a good story.

From FoxSports  “Three years ago, U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Liam Dwyer lost his left leg while on duty in Afghanistan.

On Saturday, he was standing in victory lane with co-driver Tom Long after winning the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut.”

“Dwyer, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was severely injured on May 22, 2011 when he stepped on an Improvised Explosive Device (I.E.D) while clearing a compound in Sangin Province. The blast sheared off his left leg above the knee and caused damage to his right leg and right arm. Four other Marines were also injured in the explosion.

The 32-year-old returned home where he underwent intense physical therapy after being fitted for a prosthesis on his left leg.”

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2. Just a reminder of where some of the blame for the VA scandal should fall.

From BizPacReview  “Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., sits on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee in the House and she told [Larry O’Connor] Wednesday on WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., that the House has passed a dozen bills for reform of the VA and they are collecting dust on [Sen.] Harry Reid’s desk:

O’CONNOR: Are your colleagues in the House doing something about this decades-old problem so we can get something done for the vets?

REP WALORSKI: In the past 18 months, since I’ve been a member of Congress, we’ve passed, on the House floor, at least 12 reform VA bills. Mandating the VA to fix different things, mandating the VA to report different things, mandating them to fix their website, bipartisan bills that went to the Senate, and they are DOA on the Senate side

The Indiana freshman went on to say, “We can pass bills all day long here on the House side, but if the Senate doesn’t get in gear and be held responsible and be held accountable for these veterans, it’s not going to work. … These things have been dead on arrival. Harry Reid has not moved one of these bills.”

Must be that do nothing Congress Harry always whines about. And here I thought he meant Republicans. 🙄

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3. Not shocking. Everyone knows this came from the top, and that it was a coordinated effort.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Republicans on a House oversight panel say the Justice Department asked former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in 2010 to help them build criminal cases against nonprofit groups conducting political activity.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have requested an interview with Jack Smith, who heads the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Unit, after a subordinate revealed the department meetings with Lerner in a closed-door interview.”

““The Justice Department convened a meeting with former IRS official Lois Lerner in October 2010 to discuss how the IRS could assist in the criminal enforcement of campaign-finance laws against politically active nonprofits,” Jordan and Issa said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. “This meeting was arranged at the direction of Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith.”

“Issa and Jordan said they believe the Justice Department, “contributed to this pressure” on Lerner and other IRS officials to stop right-leaning organizations from achieving tax-exempt status, following a Supreme Court ruling lifting restrictions on their activity.”

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4. A new low for Planned Parenthood, and that’s saying something.

From LifeNews  “In a Pastoral Letter to Patients, Planned Parenthood tells women and girls in a crisis pregnancy that there is nothing in the scriptures that says abortion is wrong and that many clergy think abortion is okay:

The decision to have an abortion is personal. Though your reasons may be complicated and private, you’re not alone. As religious leaders from a number of religious traditions, we’re here to support you in your decision.

Many people wrongly assume that all religious leaders disapprove of abortion. The truth is that abortion is not even mentioned in the Scriptures—Jewish or Christian—and there are clergy and people of faith from all denominations who support women making this complex decision.

The beliefs of each person are deserving of respect, and each person deserves care and compassion,
No one should be allowed to force their faith teachings on anyone else.”

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5. Your thoughts?

From CNSNews  “Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said “Christians are under attack by Islam” and that “radical” Islam has nothing to do with it because “it’s just what it is.”

Speaking at the  Watchmen on the Wall National Pastor’s Briefing in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Rev. Graham said,  “The church around the world is under attack. Christians are under attack by Islam.  They keep using this word ‘radical.’ It’s not radical, it’s just what it is.”

“Let’s stand up for our brothers and sisters in faith around the world who are being persecuted for their faith,” he said.  “Because if we don’t stand up for them, there’s no other voice for them.  There’s no other voice.”

“Rev. Graham’s remarks were part of his address “Standing Strong on the Controversial Issues,” in which he stressed the importance of pastors speaking out on controversial issues such as abortion and same-sex “marriage.”

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6. Just a reminder, as always, vote fraud is a myth.

From NewsDay  “Evelyn E. Burwell’s family was surprised to learn she voted in the 2012 general and primary elections. They knew she was an avid voter, but she’s been dead since 1997.

Burwell is one of about 6,100 deceased people still registered to vote in Nassau County, a Newsday computer analysis shows. The former Wantagh resident, who died at age 74, is also among roughly 270 people that records show voted in Nassau County after dying, a group that includes a man who voted 14 times since his death.

Newsday’s analysis of voter registration and U.S. Social Security Administration death records found more deceased registered voters in Nassau County than any other New York county, accounting for nearly a quarter of the 26,500 on the rolls statewide. Suffolk County has about 2,490 deceased people registered to vote, with roughly 50 listed as voting after their death.”

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7. The IRS has issued a ruling barring employers from dumping employees into the ObamaCare exchanges as a cost saving measure.

From TheNYTimes  ” Many employers had thought they could shift health costs to the government by sending their employees to a health insurance exchange with a tax-free contribution of cash to help pay premiums, but the Obama administration has squelched the idea in a new ruling. Such arrangements do not satisfy the health care law, the administration said, and employers may be subject to a tax penalty of $100 a day — or $36,500 a year — for each employee who goes into the individual marketplace.

The ruling this month, by the Internal Revenue Service, blocks any wholesale move by employers to dump employees into the exchanges.

Under a central provision of the health care law, larger employers are required to offer health coverage to full-time workers, or else the employers may be subject to penalties.

Many employers — some that now offer coverage and some that do not — had concluded that it would be cheaper to provide each employee with a lump sum of money to buy insurance on an exchange, instead of providing coverage directly.“

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by

News/Politics 5-23-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Add another to the list, with a new twist.

From Miami/CBSLocal  “People are dying,” he finally said, “and there are so many things that are going on there that people need to know about.”

Fiore, a criminal investigator for the VA police department in South Florida, contacted CBS4 News hoping to shed light on what he considers a culture of cover-ups and bureaucratic neglect. Among his charges: Drug dealing on the hospital grounds is a daily occurrence.

“Anything from your standard prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet, and of course marijuana, cocaine, heroin, I’ve come across them all,” he explained.

Even inside the hospital, he says he was stopped from doing his job – investigating reports of missing drugs from the VA pharmacy. When the amount of a particular drug inside the pharmacy doesn’t match the amount that the pharmacy is supposed to have, a report, known as a “discrepancy report” is generated. Normally it was his job to investigate the reports to determine if they were the result of harmless mistakes or criminal activity. But all that changed, he said, about two years ago.”

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2. Let the issuing of subpoenas begin!

From NBCNews  “A House committee will order three top officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs to testify later this month about why they have not turned over documents about a troubled VA hospital in Phoenix.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee asked for the documents in an investigation into why as many as 40 people died waiting for treatment from the Phoenix facility, and into allegations of a secret patient wait list to hide delays in care.

The VA told the committee that it will release the documents in batches, not all at once. The committee, which wants to see VA emails and other communications about the hospital, called that response inadequate.”

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3. This could get interesting.

From TheDailyBeast  “In 2012, the Obama administration produced a draft National Intelligence Estimate that reached a surprising conclusion: al Qaeda was no longer a direct threat to America. That classified assessment, which has never before been publicly disclosed, was in keeping with the message coming from the White House. President Obama rode to re-election in 2012 partly on the success of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. At rallies and in press conferences, the president and top officials publicly said al Qaeda was on the run.

But some senior U.S. intelligence officials, like Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael Flynn, fought hard against that assessment, which amounted to an official pronouncement of the American intelligence community’s collected wisdom. Flynn and his faction won a partial victory, striking the judgment that the terrorist group no longer posed a threat to the homeland. “Flynn and others at the time made it clear they would not go along with that kind of assessment,” one U.S. intelligence officer who worked on the al Qaeda file told The Daily Beast.  “It was basically: ‘Over my dead body.’”

Since that internal clash—and since Obama said in his 2012 State of the Union that “al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America”—the terror group has thrived throughout the Islamic world. In the last year alone, al Qaeda has established safe havens in Libya, Syria  and Iraq.

And so naturally, the White House has softened its earlier position, concluding that al Qaeda and its affiliates still represented a serious threat. But the tension between the White House and many top military and intelligence officials fighting the long war remain.”

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4. Even veterans not relying on the VA for health care are suffering because of decisions from the White House.

From TheFreeBeacon  “A California veteran is having trouble finding a doctor because of a faulty Obamacare plan.

Kyle, affected by chronic Lyme disease he contracted while on active duty, is frustrated with the lack of doctor availability on his Anthem BlueCross insurance plan. “I was on the phone with Anthem for two hours while they were trying to find me a doctor within 20 miles. Finally a supervisor came on the phone and said ‘Sir, we have to go, we have other people to help’ and advised me [that] I need to cancel my plan,” he told KPIX.

State law stipulates that insurers must have enough doctors to enable patients to get an appointment within 15 days within 15 miles of their home. Kyle was not able to find a doctor under these requirements and neither was Anthem. Inaccurately listed doctors are considered a violation of the law. The list of doctors given to CoveredCalifornia was incorrect.”

Insider emails suggest a worsening doctor shortage looms. Just like the VA.

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5. Just a reminder of what prominent voices on the left had to say about ObamaCare, and how the VA was the model.

From TruthRevolt  “And herein lies the problem for the left: the failures at the VA, including its bureaucratic incompetence, its waiting lists, and its deaths, all debunk the notion that a government-run healthcare system will work. It’s a fresh slap in the face to all those commentators who, in pushing Obamacare, endorsed the VA as a model.

There are some pretty big names on that list. Paul Krugman in 2011 wrote of the VA’s “huge success story”:

Multiple surveys have found the VHA providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers…the VHA is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it. So it’s free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense.

Krugman added, “Yes, this is ‘socialized medicine’…But it works, and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of US health care more broadly.”

You can add Nicholas Kristof from the NY Times, Ezra Klein, from WashPost, and a Princeton “scholar” to the list as well.

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6. You gotta love it. Some federal workers aren’t paying their fair share.

From TheAP “From workers in Congress and at the White House to active duty troops, more than 318,000 federal employees and retirees owe just over $3.3 billion in back taxes, the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.”

“Those behind in their tax payments include 714 of the roughly 17,000 people working for the House and Senate, the agency said. IRS officials said the data used to compile the report did not indicate whether any of those delinquent taxpayers were members of Congress.

In addition, 36 of the nearly 1,800 people who work at the White House and its various agencies owe taxes, according to the IRS. The IRS provided no further breakdown of exactly where those delinquent taxpayers worked.”

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by

News/Politics 5-21-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The VA has known about the records manipulation since at least 2010. But Obama just heard of it.

From TheWashingtonPost  “Robert Petzel resigned last week as the top health official for the Department of Veterans Affairs, just one day after testifying before a Senate committee that he knew VA health clinics were using inappropriate scheduling practices as early as 2010.

Whistleblowers claim the schemes continued until this year, leading to a recent wave of outrage that sent the VA and White House scrambling to correct the alleged problems and restore confidence in the department.”

“Petzel admitted that he knew of the issue after Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) questioned him about the memo below, in which a top VA executive warned the directors of all VA health networks that questionable scheduling practices would “not be tolerated.”

The message summarized at least 17 tactics that VA hospitals were known to have used to hide treatment delays and give the impression they were meeting the department’s goal of seeing patients within 14 to 30 days.”

Just heard about it on the news. Sure Barry. 🙄

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2. Just how dumb does he think we are? Pretty dumb apparently.

From NationalJournal  “News quiz: President Obama and his communications team hope that Americans are: 1) Dumb; 2) Distracted; 3) Numb to government inefficiency; 4) All of above. Answer: 4, all of the above.

That answer along with utter incompetence are the best explanations for why the White House thought it could get away with claiming that the departure of Veterans Affairs official Robert Petzel was a step toward accountability for its scandalous treatment of war veterans.”

“Well, Secretary Shinseki accepted Dr. Petzel’s resignation this afternoon. He was due to retire early next month, and obviously there has been a nomination made for his replacement,” White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough told CBS’s Major Garrett last week. “I leave to Rick the explanation of his decision, but there is no question that this is a termination of his job there before he was planning to go.”

No. This was neither a termination nor a housecleaning. It was a scapegoating. For all of its 21st-century savvy in the field of campaign technology, the Obama White House has repeatedly proven that its communications philosophy is stuck in the 20th century. Before the Internet gave voters instantaneous access to information, including every public utterance of the president and his team, White House strategists could hope to wear out the truth: If you said a lie enough, people might believe it.“

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3. Another extensively vetted choice by the President. Oh wait….. never mind. Nothing like giving the fox the keys to the hen house.

From HotAir  “In a changing world, it’s good to know that some things don’t change … like the ability of this White House to vet it Cabinet-level appointments. Barack Obama named Julian Castro as the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development last week, but no one checked with the Inspector General at HUD first. Late yesterday, Politico also named Castro as a subject of criticism in a 2012 IG report that alleged San Antonio misused HUD funds while Castro was mayor:

San Antonio failed to properly spend funds approved by Congress to combat the housing crisis while President Barack Obama’s expected nominee to run the Housing and Urban Development Department was mayor of the city, according to a 2012 report from the agency’s inspector general. …

San Antonio was awarded $8.6 million from HUD in 2008 as part of the national Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The city used the money to buy, refurbish and resell homes left vacant after eviction and to also renovate large apartment complexes in the city that were rented out to lower-income tenants.

The HUD IG audited how the money was being spent from 2009 to 2011 and found that city officials had awarded $2.5 million in renovation contracts without a competitive bidding process. Castro, 39, became mayor in May 2009, a job he continues to hold.”

Another million was misused elsewhere.

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4. And now you know why Obama insisted on a nation-wide database with everyone’s info stored together.

From CNSNews  “The federal government is piecing together a sweeping national “biosurveillance” system that will give bureaucrats near real-time access to Americans’ private medical information in the name of national security, according to Twila Brase, a public health nurse and co-founder of the Citizens Council for Health Freedom. The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response is currently seeking public comment on a 52-page draft of the proposed “National Health Security Strategy 2015-2018” (NHSS).”

“Health situational awareness includes biosurveillance and other health and non-health inputs (e.g., lab/diagnostics, health service utilization, active intelligence, and supply chain information), as well as systems and processes for effective communication among responders and critical health resource monitoring and allocation,” the draft states.

But Brase warns that the NHSS proposal would allow the federal government to monitor an individual’s behavior before, during and after any government-defined health “incident” – which could be anything from a local outbreak of the flu to a terrorist anthrax attack.

“It’s very broad. It doesn’t seem to have any limits, except they say something about, you know, properly protecting the data. But from our perspective, if the government gets access to this kind of data, [and] is allowed to do research with the data…then our privacy has already been compromised. The government has already said that our data is their data for their purposes of national health security,” Brase told CNSNews.com.”

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5. Think he’s right?

From TheHill  “President Obama said Americans were “better off now than when I came into office,” during a fundraiser Monday night outside of Washington.

Obama also slammed congressional Republicans for their focus on the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the implementation of ObamaCare.”

“The president told attendees at the high-dollar soiree in Potomac, Md., that his Republican opposition in Congress had been “captured by ideologues” whose principal focus was on “how to make people sufficiently skeptical, so they can win the next election.”

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by

News/Politics 5-20-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. System wide.

From HotAir  “Add yet another VA facility to the deadly wait-list fraud scandal. The Daily Beast heard from a whistleblower in the Albuquerque VA organization that the same kind of wait-list fraud alleged at seven other facilities occurs in New Mexico as well. Veterans have to wait months to get medical attention, and any investigation may already be too late for some of them:

Add Albuquerque, New Mexico’s to the growing list of VA hospitals accused of keeping secret waiting lists to hide delays for veterans seeking medical care. And it may already be too late to get to the truth and find out what harm, if any, was done to veterans there—VA officials are already destroying records to cover their tracks, a whistleblower inside the hospital tells The Daily Beast. …

“The ‘secret wait list’ for patient appointments is being either moved or was destroyed after what happened in Phoenix,” according to a doctor who works at the Albuquerque VA hospital and spoke exclusively with The Daily Beast. “Right now,” the doctor said, “there is an eight-month waiting list for patients to get ultrasounds of their hearts. Some patients have died before they got their studies. It is unknown why they died, some for cardiac reasons, some for other reasons.”

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2. And the number of victims continues to climb as well.

From StarsAndStripes  “As controversy swirls around the Veterans Administration over deaths caused by delayed care, an investigation by the Dayton Daily News found that the VA settled many cases that appear to be related to delays in treatment.

A database of paid claims by the VA since 2001 includes 167 in which the words “delay in treatment” is used in the description. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle those claims, either voluntarily or as part of a court action.

The VA has admitted that 23 people have died because of delayed care, and is facing accusations that hospital administrators are gaming the system to conceal wait times, including using a “secret list” at the VA in Phoenix.”

“The number of dead veterans could total more than 1,100 from 2001 through the first half of 2013 — including 16 at the Dayton VA Medical Center and 11 at the Cincinnati VA — according to records obtained via Freedom of Information Act. These are instances in which the family of a veteran claimed that a death occurred after something went awry and the VA paid money to resolve the issue.”

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3. What does this teach us?

From NationalReview  “If our government has any obligation to fulfill its many promises on health care, it should be first and foremost to the men and women who served in our armed forces. But the scandal over hidden waiting lists at a growing number of veterans’ hospitals (seven so far) — wherein dozens of veterans died while waiting months for vital treatment, and the VA covered up the lengthy wait times — should make everyone wonder whether we can place our trust in a government-managed health-care system. The Dayton Daily News reported on Sunday that its investigation of a database of claims paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that the words “delay in treatment” were used 167 times. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle the claims. There could well be many more cases of “death by delay” at the VA that never came to light.

Are there lessons in the VA scandal for the rest of us if Obamacare survives and even expands? You betcha. The first lesson is that as government expands taxpayer subsidies for health care, the demand will always outstrip supply.”

“There’s a lot to be mad about at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute notes that more than 344,000 claims for veterans’ care are backed up and waiting to be processed. It takes an average of 160 days for a veteran to be approved for health benefits, and the VA itself estimates that is has an error rate of at least 9 percent in processing claims. According to VA figures for 2012, as reported by the Washington Post, “a veteran who takes an appeal through all available administrative steps faces an average wait of 1,598 days.” That’s more than four years of waiting.

Obamacare will dramatically expand access to the health-care system at the same time that many surveys show doctors are likely to retire or cut back their hours. It is almost inevitable that we’ll see more waiting-list scandals as the need to ration care grows.”

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4. Gee Harry, don’t you think this makes you a hypocrite after all your ranting on the Koch Bros.?

From TheNYTimes  “Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist, recently contributed $5 million to a “super PAC” dedicated to keeping Democrats in control of the United States Senate, cementing his alliance with the party as the 2014 campaign swings into high gear.

Mr. Steyer, a retired hedge fund manager, has used some of his fortune in an effort to make climate change a more potent political issue in pivotal states like Florida, Iowa and Virginia. He is planning to raise $100 million to run campaigns on climate issues, including efforts to persuade lawmakers and the Obama administration to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

The contribution, confirmed by a Steyer spokesman and the super PAC, the Senate Majority PAC, makes Mr. Steyer the single largest contributor to the group this year as Democratic donors rush to provide funds to left-leaning groups. Republicans have relied far more heavily on political nonprofit groups that do not disclose their donors.

“Our candidates have faced a torrent of outside money of unprecedented scale,” Karyn Brockman, the Senate Majority PAC’s finance director, said in a statement. “As the leading Democratic super PAC, and the only one dedicated to keeping the Senate, we have had record-setting support, but we realize that we must continue to fight back.”

And another 40 million from Soros’ group as well. Yep, the Kochs’ are the problem. 🙄

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5. Back door gun control.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Gun retailers say the Obama administration is trying to put them out of business with regulations and investigations that bypass Congress and choke off their lines of credit, freeze their assets and prohibit online sales.

Since 2011, regulators have increased scrutiny on banks’ customers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2011 urged banks to better manage the risks of their merchant customers who employ payment processors, such as PayPal, for credit card transactions. The FDIC listed gun retailers as “high risk” along with porn stores and drug paraphernalia shops.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has launched Operation Choke Point, a credit card fraud probe focusing on banks and payment processors. The threat of enforcement has prompted some banks to cut ties with online gun retailers, even if those companies have valid licenses and good credit histories.

“This administration has very clearly told the banking industry which customers they feel represent ‘reputational risk’ to do business with,” said Peter Weinstock, a lawyer at Hunton & Williams LLP. “So financial institutions are reacting to this extraordinary enforcement arsenal by being ultra-conservative in who they do business with: Any companies that engage in any margin of risk as defined by this administration are being dropped.””

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News/Politics 5-19-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. How many victims will it take before some heads roll over this? Good question.

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2. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…..

Another already retiring scape goat “resigns” over the matter. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “And then, news broke that one of Shinseki’s top aides had resigned. “Today, I accepted the resignation of Dr. Robert Petzel, Under Secretary for Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Shinseki said in a statement. “As we know from the veteran community, most veterans are satisfied with the quality of their VA health care, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care. I am committed to strengthening veterans’ trust and confidence in their VA healthcare system.”

“By the way, the VA announced in September that Petzel would retire in 2014. And the White House announced May 1 that it intended to nominate Jeffrey Murawsky, director of the VA’s Illinois-based Great Lakes Health Care System, as his replacement.

That “timely access” line alludes to the topic of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing Thursday, at which Shinseki and Petzel both testified, following reports that VA staff cooked the books to hide the fact that veterans were waiting for care beyond the time mandated by department regulations, with some patients even dying before receiving treatment.”

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3. Judge Jeanine destroys the Obama admin’s version of events.

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4. Could it be that our poor excuse for border security and the Obama admin’s “Dreamer” policy are what is responsible for this?

Uh……  yeah.

From StarsandStripes  “Record-breaking numbers of children and teenagers caught in the U.S. illegally and alone have overwhelmed the federal government’s detention network, prompting officials to start housing up to 1,000 on a San Antonio Air Force base.

Kenneth Wolfe, an Office of Refugee Resettlement spokesman, said Friday that the Department of Defense has agreed to start temporarily housing children at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland starting on Sunday.

Resettlement agency officials used the base temporarily as an emergency shelter once before, in the spring of 2012, when the numbers of children caught crossing the border jumped sharply, leaving the federal government scrambling to find adequate bed space.

Since then, their numbers have continued to grow exponentially, driven by what advocates are calling a “humanitarian crisis” in Central and South America. Some 60,000 unaccompanied children and teens are expected this year – up from about 6,560 in 2011, according to the agency.”

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5. It looks like some Nigerians are starting to fight back against Boko Haram.

From CNN  ” Residents of three villages in northeastern Nigeria took security into their own hands this week, repelling attacks by Boko Haram insurgents and killing more than 200 of them, residents and officials said.

Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters stormed the villages of Menari, Tsangayari and Garawa in the ethnic Shuwa-dominated Kalabalge District on Tuesday. Boko Haram — the group responsible for the kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls from the same region — was met with stiff resistance as locals put up a fierce fight, witnesses said.”

“n the three villages attacked Tuesday, gunmen arrived in dozens of all-terrain vans, armored tanks and motorcycles, but villagers quickly mobilized and engaged the attackers in a prolonged battle.”

“When news of the attack filtered out, people trooped out from nearby villages carrying arms.”

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by

News/Politics 5-15-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. But… but…. low-level employees were responsible….

From JudicialWatch  “Judicial Watch today released a new batch of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents revealing that its handling of Tea Party applications was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC.  The documents also show extensive pressure on the IRS by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations. The IRS’ emails by Lois Lerner detail her misleading explanations to investigators about the targeting of Tea Party organizations.

The documents came in response to an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)).”

“A series of letters between Senator Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations, and top IRS officials throughout 2012 discuss how to target conservative groups the senator claimed were “engaged in political activities.” In response to a Levin March 30 letter citing the “urgency of the issue,” then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller assured the senator that IRS regulations were flexible enough to allow IRS agents to “prepare individualized questions and requests” for select 501(c)(4) organizations.”

We also know that the Dem. Rep. Elijah Cummings was up to his neck in it too, and that he’s impeded the Issa investigation from the get go. Now we know why. This has come from DC since day one.

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2. No wonder Obama loves the guy so much.

From FoxNews  “May 13, 2014, marks one year since Philadelphia abortion Dr. Kermit Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder “in the deaths of three babies who were delivered alive and then killed with scissors at his grimy, ‘house of horrors’ clinic,” according to the Associated Press. Gosnell instantly became the face of abortion in the prolife community.

But there’s another, more recognizable face pushing abortion in the U.S. – liberal billionaire Warren Buffett. The so-called “Oracle of Omaha” has donated more than $1.2 billion to abortion organizations from 2001 to 2012.

That’s equal to the cost of roughly 2.7 million first-trimester abortions – more than twice the number of abortions that occur in an entire year in the United States. Unlike Gosnell, however, everything Buffett has done has been entirely legal. But Buffett does share something else in common with the abortionist. Both their stories have been largely unreported.”

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3. And since I mentioned Planned Parenthood….

They’ve been accused of failing to report a serial rapist in order to avoid paperwork. And in doing so they may have allowed others to fall victim to the rapist.

From FoxNews  “A Planned Parenthood counselor in Arizona intentionally miscoded a sexual assault as a consensual encounter to avoid the “hassle” of reporting it to authorities, months before other victims came forward to stop an alleged 18-year-old serial sex predator, a police report reveals.

Tyler Kost, of San Tan Valley, Ariz., has been charged with sexually assaulting 11 girls from the ages of 12 to 17 between October 2009 and April 2014, although authorities believe he has assaulted at least 18 students from Poston Butte High School. The mother of one 15-year-old victim, who became pregnant as a result of the alleged assault, told a Planned Parenthood Arizona staffer about the attack in December, a Pinal County Sheriff’s Office report shows.

“The counselor intentionally miscoded the assault as a consensual encounter,” the report states. “The counselor told them that they did not want the hassle of having to report the assault to law enforcement as they were a mandatory reporter.”

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4. Of course they did. Welcome to the fabulous new LGBT friendly military. I guess they thought it was cruel to not let the traitor dress and act like a woman, and get hormone treatments on the taxpayer dime. Pretty disgusting.

From NBCNews  “In an unprecedented move, the Pentagon is trying to transfer convicted national security leaker Pvt. Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison so she can get treatment for her gender disorder, defense officials said.

Manning, formerly named Bradley, was convicted of sending classified documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The soldier has asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman.

The request was the first ever made by a transgender military inmate and set up a dilemma for the Defense Department: How to treat a soldier for a diagnosed disorder without violating long-standing military policy. Transgenders are not allowed to serve in the U.S. military and the Defense Department does not provide such treatment, but Manning can’t be discharged from the service while serving his 35-year prison sentence.

Some officials have said privately that keeping the soldier in a military prison and unable to have treatment could amount to cruel and unusual punishment.“

The Pentagon can afford this, yet deserving veterans are dying awaiting treatment from the VA, and are seeing their benefits cut. Shows you where their priorities lie. Repulsive.

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5. And my theory of a system wide problem at the VA appears to be accurate. The list continues to grow.

From HotAir  “That would put the list to seven facilities now where whistleblowers and/or media probes have discovered allegations and evidence of wait-list fraud at VA facilities. This CBS News investigation into the Hines, Illinois facility adds a new twist — performance bonuses. Germaine Clarno alleges that this facility had multiple, fraudulent wait lists intended to make the facility’s performance look better, and also intended to qualify its leaders for extra cash from the VA:

Germaine Clarno is a VA social worker and employee representative in Chicago. She alleges there are multiple secret waiting lists of veterans kept at the Hines VA Medical Center.

Asked which divisions of the hospital kept the secret waiting lists, Clarno says, “Employees are coming to me from all over the hospital, from outpatient, inpatient, surgery, radiology.”

Clarno says veterans were put on secret waiting lists when they called for appointments, but they wouldn’t formally get an appointment booked in the computer until one came up within the VA’s goal of 14 days. The purpose of the lists, she says, was to hide how often veterans were not being seen on time.”

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News/Politics 5-12-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Better late than never I suppose.

From TownHall“IRS officials have agreed to turn over all emails belonging to former head of tax exempt groups Lois Lerner as the Congressional probe into improper targeting of conservative groups by the agency gets deeper. Earlier this week Republicans and Democrats in the House voted to hold Lerner in contempt after her repeated refusal to testify in front of Congress. Lerner has given closed door testimony to the Department of Justice, but plead the Fifth twice in front of the House Oversight Committee.”

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2. Even if it’s bad news for the Obama admin, the usual suspects will do what they always do. Provide cover, in a unified voice.

From NationalJournal  “When Jay Carney was grilled at length by Jonathan Karl of ABC News over an email outlining administration talking points in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, it was not, by the reckoning of many observers, the White House press secretary’s finest hour. Carney was alternately defensive and dismissive, arguably fueling a bonfire he was trying to tamp down.

But Carney needn’t have worried. He had plenty of backup.

He had The New Republic‘s Brian Beutler dismissing Benghazi as “nonsense.” He had Slate‘s David Weigel, along with The Washington Post’s Plum Line blog, debunking any claim that the new email was a “smoking gun.” Media Matters for America labeled Benghazi a “hoax.” Salon wrote that the GOP had a “demented Benghazi disease.” Daily Kos featured the headline: “Here’s Why the GOP Is Fired Up About Benghazi—and Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” The Huffington Post offered “Three Reasons Why Reviving Benghazi Is Stupid—for the GOP.”

It’s been a familiar pattern since President Obama took office in 2009: When critics attack, the White House can count on a posse of progressive writers to ride to its rescue. Pick an issue, from the Affordable Care Act to Ukraine to the economy to controversies involving the Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi, and you’ll find the same voices again and again, on the Web and on Twitter, giving the president cover while savaging the opposition. And typically doing it with sharper tongues and tighter arguments than the White House itself.“

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3. As I said before, I suspect this is a system wide problem, and the orders to do this came from high up.

From NBCNews  “A whistleblower who worked at two Texas VA facilities claims he was “coached” on how to “cook the books” to conceal long wait times for patients, adding to concerns that the alleged falsification of records first alleged at a Phoenix VA hospital might be widespread.

“We were changing numbers, we were changing dates,” Brian Turner, an Army medic turned VA scheduling clerk, told NBC News. “We were cooking the books.”

Staffers at VA facilities in two states have now made public allegations that they were aware of or participated in the manipulation of records, and an internal email from a facility in a third seems to show that staffers were told how to “game the system” to hide wait times.

Turner said he was inspired to come forward and contact the VA’s Inspector General by the allegations of the initial VA whistleblower, Dr. Samuel Foote, who claimed that the Phoenix facility where he worked until recently had a secret paper wait list in addition to its official electronic wait list so it could hide the length of time some patients had to go without care. He said that as many as 40 patients may have died because of delays.”

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4. More epic failures for ObamaCare.

From Politico  “Nearly half a billion dollars in federal money has been spent developing four state Obamacare exchanges that are now in shambles — and the final price tag for salvaging them may go sharply higher.

Each of the states — Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Maryland — embraced Obamacare, and each underperformed. All have come under scathing criticism and now face months of uncertainty as they rush to rebuild their systems or transition to the federal exchange.

The federal government is caught between writing still more exorbitant checks to give them a second chance at creating viable exchanges of their own or, for a lesser although not inexpensive sum, adding still more states to HealthCare.gov. The federal system is already serving 36 states, far more than originally anticipated.”

“The $474 million spent by these four states includes the cost that officials have publicly detailed to date. It climbs further if states like Minnesota and Hawaii, which have suffered similarly dysfunctional exchanges, are added.”

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by

News/Politics 5-5-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. First up today, the problems at the VA are spreading. And in typical Obama fashion, they’re trying to cover it up.

From TheFreeBeacon “The Department of Veterans Affairs purged more than 1.5 million medical orders without ensuring patients received medical care, the Washington Examiner reports:

Since May 2013, veterans’ medical centers nationwide have been under pressure to clear out 2 million backlogged orders for patient care or services.”

“What happened to other 1.5 million appointments is something that no one, including top officials at the veterans’ agency, can answer.”

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The cover-up.

Also from TheFreeBeacon  “Whistleblowers say officials have been destroying evidence at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital where at least 40 patients died from delays, despite requests from Congress to preserve records.

Dr. Katherine Mitchell came forward to the Arizona Republic with records that show the hospital was using a secret list to hide the long wait times veterans faced. According to the Republic, Mitchell sent the documents to the paper after receiving a call from a coworker that evidence was being destroyed.

“I had no doubts they were capable of destroying evidence, or altering evidence,” she told the Republic. “So there I am, a 47-year-old doctor with two degrees, trying to figure out where to hide stuff.”

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And now we know the problems are more widespread than just one rogue office, so that excuse is out.

From USAToday  “A VA investigation of one of its outpatient clinics in Colorado reveals how ingrained delays in medical care may be for an agency struggling to rapidly treat nearly 9 million veterans a year amid allegations that dozens have died because of delays.

Clerks at the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Fort Collins were instructed last year how to falsify appointment records so it appeared the small staff of doctors was seeing patients within the agency’s goal of 14 days, according to the investigation.

A copy of the findings by the VA’s Office of Medical Inspector was provided to USA TODAY.

Many of the 6,300 veterans treated at the outpatient clinic waited months to be seen. If the clerical staff allowed records to reflect that veterans waited longer than 14 days, they were punished by being placed on a “bad boy list,” the report shows.”

This is system wide.

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2. And since I mentioned cover-ups……

They picked a good one to lead the select committee. That happened after this interview.

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More here, from TheWashingtonTimes  “House Republicans accused the Obama administration Thursday of “perhaps criminal” behavior for having withheld for months key email that sheds light on how the administration framed its post-Benghazi talking points, potentially violating a congressional subpoena.

House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Secretary of State John F. Kerry will have to come before Congress to explain why his department refused to release the email until forced to do so by a judge.”

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And now that Kerry has been subpoenaed,  Hillary is probably getting a little nervous, as she should.

From TheNYPost  “Because the Obama administration ignored legal requirements and a pursued a possibly criminal cover-up, they’ve just ensured Congress is going to talk about nothing but. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Friday he’ll be forming a select committee to investigate Benghazi.”

“The Rhodes memo is just the beginning. It and other e-mails were obviously selected from a much larger set of internal administration communications on the Benghazi cover-up that remains hidden from the public and from Congress. The person who should worry most is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

For example, until now we have seen zero documentation to explain how Clinton out of the blue concocted the statement she issued on the evening of the attacks, which first raised the notion that the attacks came “as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”

In all the material released by the administration to date, there are no notes, e-mails or drafts of Clinton’s Sept. 11, 2012 statement similar to the back-and forth e-mail chain released last year showing how the CIA talking points evolved during three days of inter-agency discussion.”

Now why do you suppose that is? 🙄

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I won’t get my hopes up, but maybe it’s time to mention the I word.

All of this to cover up an Iran Contra style gun running operation to Syria by the CIA, at the order of the White House.

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3. Funny, this seems to have been left out of most coverage.

From Fox5Vegas  “An emotional crowd gathered for a town hall meeting on Thursday evening in Bunkerville.”

“Residents and council members praised militia members gathered there in support of embattled rancher Cliven Bundy, but had nothing but vitriol for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie and the local and national media.

“The day the militia [came] was the day I felt safe again in Nevada,” one meeting attendee said.

The meeting was standing-room only. City council members had harsh criticism for the media’s take on the standoff between Bundy and the BLM.

“I heard things said down there. And then when it came out on the air it was a completely different animal,” Bunkerville Councilman Duane Magoon said. “Tell the whole truth. Don’t spin things to get your ratings,” another council member added.”

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