Conservative Blogger
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Fool of the Week: America's lap dog, lamestream media
Well, it was a week filled with fools. But who would be "Fool of the Week"?
Would it be Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for calling Republican’s "losers"?
Or would it be ESPN reporter Britt McHenry for losing her temper?
Or would it be Gwyneth Paltrow for dropping her food stamp challenge after just 4 days?
All viable fools.
But by unanimous decision... the Fool of the Week title goes to, drum roll, wait for it.. the “lap dog” media who fell over themselves trying to chase down the elusive “Scooby" van carrying the “inevitable" Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
By the way, when they finally caught up to her, did the media demand questions answered about Benghazi? How they were supposedly broke when they left the White House? Her emails?
Nope.
They wanted to know what Hillary ordered at Chipotle. It was the lame stream media at their finest.
College apologizes for serving Mexican food at space alien-themed party
Idiots for Apologizing.
In a letter addressed to its student body, Stevenson College - which is part of the University of California, Santa Cruz - said it received complaints from students and others within the university who were offended by the decision to serve Mexican food at the Sci-Fi party because of its perceived connection to the immigration debate.
The term “illegal aliens” is sometimes used to describe people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without documentation, but many Latinos and immigration advocates consider it pejorative.
“We would never want to make a connection between individuals of Latino heritage or undocumented students and ‘aliens,’ and I am so sorry that our College Night appeared to do exactly that,” reads the letter, which was written by Carolyn Golz, a student life administrator.
Golz said the incident “demonstrated a cultural insensitivity on the part of the program planners,” but called it an “unintentional mistake.”
Now, as a result of this “poor decision,” the university is requiring cultural competence training for all students interested in putting together on-campus programs as well as other safe guards that “will ensure college programs are culturally sensitive and inclusive.”
College Night is a special monthly event designed to bring students together, according to the college’s website, which includes photos from former themed parties, including “Midnight in Paris,” at which French food was served, and “Harry Potter,” which featured turkey, potatoes and stew.
“For [the sci-fi] event, students landed on Mexican food because they weren't sure what food would work with the intergalactic theme,” a college spokesman told Fox News. “It sounds like an honest mistake - choosing a food for college night without thinking about how it could be perceived by others. The students decided on Mexican food as they hadn't had it yet this year. “
Some believe Stevenson College is overreacting with its decision to not only apologize, but to now require cultural competence training of program staff.
“This seems a bit of a stretch,” said Geraldo Rivera on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends on Friday morning. “This seems like political correctness gone way too far, and now they are going to get much more inferior food at their next gala for fear of offending.”
ISIS continues deadly assault on western Iraq as thousands flee
Iraqi special forces maintained control of the provincial capital, Ramadi, in Iraq's western Anbar province Friday, after Islamic State militants continued to pound the western city with bombings, causing fearful residents to flee their homes.
Anbar provincial council member Athal al-Fahdawi said Thursday the city was "in great danger," the BBC reported. Nine people were killed by militants in the village of Albu Ghanim— four of the victims were police officers, the Kurdish website Rudaw said- and thousands of people fled Ramadi and surrounding areas in recent days.
Sabah al-Karhout, head of Anbar's provincial council, said there were no major attacks on the city Friday but that the militants still maintained control of three villages to the east of Ramadi, which they captured Wednesday.
Suicide bombers attacked government buildings and checkpoints in Ramadi earlier in the week and Friday a series of bombings ripped through Baghdad, mainly targeting public places and killing at least 40 people, Iraqi officials said.
A car bomb went off at a car dealership in the Shiite neighborhood of Habibya in eastern Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 26, police said. Several cars were burned in the attack. A half-hour earlier, a car bomb detonated near an outdoor market, killing 13 people and wounding 24.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks but violence has escalated both in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq in the wake of Islamic State group's capture of large parts of the country last year. The Islamic State has taken credit for similar attacks in the past, especially those targeting Shiites, as well as Iraqi security forces and government buildings.
The attacks come as Iraqi government forces and allied Shiite and Sunni fighters-- backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led international coalition-- are battling ISIS militants to retake key cities and territory in northern and western Iraq.
Sabah Nuaman, a special forces commander in Anbar, said the situation had improved early Friday after airstrikes hit key militant targets on the city's fringes.
Also Friday, Iraqi security forces gained full control over a contested area south of the Beiji refinery, as part of their push to secure the rest of Salahuddin province.
General Ayad al-Lahabi, a commander with the Salahuddin Command Center, said the military, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and Shiite and Sunni militias dubbed the Popular Mobilization Forces, gained control of the towns of al-Malha and al-Mazraah, located 1.9 miles south of the Beiji oil refinery, killing at least 160 militants with the Islamic State group.
Al-Lahabi said security forces are trying to secure two corridors around the refinery itself after the Sunni militants launched a large-scale attack on the complex earlier this week, hitting the refinery walls with explosive-laced Humvees.
Extremists from the Islamic State group seized much of Salahuddin province last summer during their advance across northern and western Iraq.
The battle for Tikrit was seen as a key step toward eventually driving the militants out of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the capital of Nineveh province. In November, Iraqi security forces said they had recaptured the town of Beiji from the militant group. The refinery had never been captured by the militants but has been subjected to frequent attacks by the group.
Obama immigration order back in federal court
How many Demonstrators are Illegal?
Justice Department lawyers urged a federal appeals court to lift an injunction on a plan that would let up to 5 million illegal immigrants live in the country, obtain work permits and receive other benefits.
In February, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen granted a preliminary injunction at the request of 26 states that oppose Obama's action. Hanen's rulings have temporarily blocked the Obama administration from implementing the policies that would shield illegal immigrants from deportation.
“We have health costs,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose state is leading the lawsuit, said. “We have law enforcement costs. Then there’s additional costs to the federal government, because basically this is a benefits program for people who are not actually supposed to be here.”
Victor Ibarra, a 43-year-old protester from Houston, was with a group of restaurant workers. He said it's time to change immigration policy.
"We are human. We want family to be together. We just want to be OK in this country, cause no trouble and have the opportunity to be in the U.S. all our life,” Ibarra said.
Obama announced the executive orders after the November midterm elections, saying inaction by Congress forced him to make sweeping changes to immigration rules on his own.
A coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, sued to overturn Obama's executive action, arguing that it is unconstitutional and would force them to invest more in law enforcement, health care and education.
Justice Department attorneys have argued that maintaining the temporary hold harms "the interests of the public and of third parties who will be deprived of significant law enforcement and humanitarian benefits of prompt implementation" of the president's immigration action.
The appellate court is taking up the case at a special hearing. It was uncertain how quickly the panel might rule following the hearing. Each side was to get an hour to argue their case.
The first of Obama's orders — to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — had been set to take effect Feb. 18.
The other major part would extend deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for several years. That provision was slated to begin on May 19.
New VA scandals call into question agency's ability to clean house
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 blistering VA 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.”- Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.“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.”
The report also found that more than 150 employees were forced to work in a dilapidated, leaky warehouse infested with insects and rodents.
It wasn’t the only black eye for the VA, which has been trying to pursue system-wide reforms since Robert McDonald took over for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who resigned during last spring’s VA scandal. After reports in April 2014 that some vets may have died waiting for appointments with the Phoenix VA facility, the IG found that wait times for thousands had been electronically manipulated while some 1,700 vets were put on a secret list to cover up their long waits. It was later revealed that 18 of those on the secret ledger died before getting their appointments.
Related Image
The damning Inspector General's report found widespread problems at the Philadelphia facility. (Va.gov)
This week, lawmakers grilled VA officials on another front: reports that the construction of a new VA facility in Denver, which has been in the works for years, has so far cost a budget-busting $1.7 billion, and is still incomplete. Officials have run out of money to pay for it.
Miller’s committee held a hearing this week at which members asked VA officials why contract specialist Adelino Gorospe, who said he was fired after warning department executives in 2011 that the hospital would cost more than estimated, was fired, but Glenn Haggstrom, the VA’s top construction executive, was able to retire with full pension benefits amid the investigation.
“What’s most disappointing about this situation, however, is that Haggstrom left on his own terms – with a lifetime pension – even though any reasonable person would conclude that he should have been fired years ago,” said Miller, calling the VA’s construction program, “a disaster.”
The VA did not respond to an inquiry by Foxnews.com on Friday.
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.
Meanwhile, tensions also mounted over whether VA officials who retaliated against whistleblowers have been held accountable during a subcommittee on oversight hearing this week.
“If you want to send a message that wrong-doers are going to be held accountable, you have to hold at least one person accountable,” charged Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y.
Meghan Flanz, director of the VA’s Accountability Review, responded by saying the agency had myriad investigations open and would take measures when the evidence required it. However, she did not feel that a new whistleblower protection bill mulled in the House would be necessary.
“We will, whenever the evidence shows retaliation is engaged in, hold them accountable,” Flanz said.
Garry Augustine, executive director of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), agreed that VA’s continued bad press as each scandal is exposed paints a grim picture. But he thinks much of this shows how much more proactive the national office has been since last year.
“For too long, the VA has depended on reports coming into the central office saying everything is fine, with no one taking a closer look,” he told Foxnews.com. “This team is actually sifting through the garbage and finding the nasty stuff… what’s rotten, and what needs to be fixed.”
One success story was reported by the Tribune-Review earlier this month, citing VA data that showed the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare system has all but eliminated its secret waiting list, and cut the number of vets waiting for more than 30 days for an appointment to half.
Hal Donahue, an Air Force veteran who writes about veterans issues and works with the American Veterans Committee, agreed that McDonald – who was confirmed last July -- is on the spot to clean up a huge mess that has put thousands of veterans at risk of missing out on benefits and getting timely health care.
“I’m seeing progress but it's like unraveling a big ball of knots,” he told Foxnews.com. “The VA is so vast it’s going to take a while.”
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