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Can we help this video by the South Dakota College Republicans go VIRAL!!! Yes. We. Can....
More than 57,000 U.S. military veterans have been waiting 90 days or more for their first VA medical appointments, and an additional 64,000 appear to have fallen through the cracks, never getting appointments after enrolling and requesting them, the Veterans Affairs Department said Monday. It's not just a backlog problem, the wide-ranging review indicated. Thirteen percent of schedulers in the facility-by-facility report on 731 hospitals and outpatient clinics reported being told by supervisors to falsify appointment schedules to make patient waits appear shorter. The audit is the first nationwide look at the VA network in the uproar that began with reports two months ago of patients dying while awaiting appointments and of cover-ups at the Phoenix VA center. A preliminary review last month found that long patient waits and falsified records were "systemic" throughout the VA medical network, the nation's largest single health care provider serving nearly 9 million veterans.The report indicated that as part of its actions to address the problems identified, the VA would “critically review its performance management, education and communication systems to determine how performance goals were conveyed across the chain of command such that some front-line, middle and senior managers felt compelled to manipulate VA’s scheduling processes.”
Last Tuesday, [Federal Judge] Randa halted the corruption being committed by people pretending to administer campaign regulations — regulations ostensibly enacted to prevent corruption or the appearance thereof. The prosecutors’ cynical manipulation of Wisconsin’s campaign laws is more than the mere appearance of corruption.There were two important developments this afternoon. In the first and most important development, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld, pending appeal, the preliminary injunction halting the investigation (full order embedded at bottom of post):
Hundreds of migrants nabbed by the border patrol after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border through Texas have been flown to Arizona and left at Greyhound Bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix during the past month...Critics charge that released border-crossers will vanish into the woodwork. Immigrant advocates accuse the federal government of releasing migrants without providing enough basic necessities such as food and water on days that hover around 100 degrees F. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) calls it "another disturbing example of a deliberate failure to enforce border security policies and repair a broken immigration system" in a letter to President Obama.Yeah, a letter! That'll do it. Although to be honest, I don't know what the remedy would be. Even impeachment wouldn't do it at this point, because fixing this would require that both parties be dedicated to tightening both border security and lessening the cornucopia of services available to illegal immigrants, which would require some harsh and extremely difficult decisions that I don't think our politicians are up to. The CS Monitor offers more background here on why the number of illegal child immigrants has been increasing during the last two years:
Yes, this occurred at the University of Chicago! Now, I’m not interested in defending Dan, because he can defend himself. And John Aravosis is right that there’s a potent and destructive strain in the LGBT world that aims more hate at someone like Dan Savage than at Rick Santorum (tell me about it). What I am interested is condemning this pathetic excuse for a student. This plea in a university to be free of hearing things that might hurt, offend, traumatize or upset you is an attack on the very idea of education itself. And don’t get me started about “trigger warnings.” So many things worth thinking about, grappling with, and chewing over can be offensive at first or second blush. That’s what a real education is about: offending your pre-existing feelings and prejudices with reason and argument and sometimes provocation. Education is not and never should be about making you more comfortable and more safe within your current worldview. It should not be about accusing someone with whom you might disagree of a hate crime.
SAWYER: You've made five million making speeches? The president's made more than a hundred million dollars? CLINTON: Well, you have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt. We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. You know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it's been amazing to me. He's worked very hard. First of all, we had to pay off all our debts. You know, you had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes, and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members.The problem is not that the Clintons made a fortune. This is America, after all. People are entitled to make a fortune so long as they do so lawfully, and we've not yet reached the point where the law dictates when people have made enough. The problem is that Hillary is not being straight with the public.
Are some "cultural appropriations" more equal than others?...
Decison on mandatory consecutive sentences will determine whether Marissa Alexander faces 60-plus year sentence on re-trial...
Updates on Bergdahl story, Obama to issue executive order on student loans, parents outraged over photos shown in sex-ed class...
Emergency room visits spiking, not declining....
"They're not concerned at all. They're happy to have a party with black people drowning..."CNN just hired him as their new political director. Geoffrey Dickens of News Busters has the details:
CNN's New Political Director in 2012: Romneys Would Be 'Happy to Have a Party with Black People Drowning' On Friday, CNN announced that David Chalian would be named as their new political director. Chalian is most famous for making an obnoxious remark about Mitt and Ann Romney during the 2012 Republican National Convention. On August 29, 2012, in live video inadvertently distributed by ABCNews.com, the-then Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief claimed the Romneys didn’t care about New Orleans residents being hit by Hurricane Isaac as he blurted: “They aren’t concerned at all. They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”Here's the clip. Nick Massella of Media Bistro broke the story on Friday:
“Based on our findings and subsequent conclusion, there is no reason to believe that the three individuals engaged in any criminal activity nor do we believe any laws were broken,” a statement by the Hinds County Sheriff’s office read on Thursday. According to the sheriff’s office, the three McDaniel supporters gained access to the courthouse through an employees-only side door that was not meant to be open. Once it closed behind them, they found themselves trapped and searched the building in hopes of finding an employee who could help them leave. They never had access to any ballot boxes, which were in a secure locked area, the sheriff’s office said.Okay, case investigated and closed, right? No. Then a county supervisor asked the Hinds County District Attorney to investigate anyway, and the DA agreed, as reported in the Clarion-Ledger:
"These things are starting to add up you see."...
Among the party faithful, it's a race between Hillary and Liz....
