More Whistleblowers Detail VA Abuses, Suffer Retaliation

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Jennifer Griffin.

The allegations of wait times, delayed care for veterans and cooked books began in Phoenix, but new revelations by two more Veterans Affairs whistleblowers in two different states suggest the VA problems are endemic.

“What really bothered me was that this delay was a direct result of this extremely low sense of caring for the patient,” said Dr. Jose Mathews, the chief psychiatrist for the VA Medical Center in St. Louis starting in Nov 2012.

Mathews and another whistleblower in Texas detailed their concerns to Fox News.

According to Mathews, he noticed that the doctors he oversaw who were responsible for seeing veterans with post-traumatic stress and other acute mental health issues were working just a few hours a day. They were seeing about half the patients they could, Mathews alleged in a federal whistleblower complaint filed last year. Meanwhile, there were mounting suicides among veterans being treated at his facility — and officially, the St. Louis VA was reporting to its headquarters in Washington that its productivity was among the highest in the nation.

“They all got bonuses — that’s the sad part. Because in reality we were not really doing a good job, but it shows up on paper as if we are,” Mathews told Fox News.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: YouTube Watch Jay Carney Lie About the Department of Veterans Affairs Scandal

By Jim Treacher.

Most transparent administration ever. This is what you voted for, America. And this is what you’re getting. Congratulations.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst VA Calls Top Official’s Planned Retirement A ‘Resignation’ Amid Scandals

By Patrick Howley.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced its top health official’s “resignation” Friday despite the fact that he was already scheduled to retire in 2014 and has a replacement lined up, records reveal.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki accepted Friday the “resignation” of Under Secretary for Health Affairs Robert Petzel amid a growing scandal about VA secret waiting lists and deadly wait times for veterans.

“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.”

But Petzel was already scheduled to retire.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Top VA Healthcare Official Resigns Amid Scandal

By Cathy Burke and Todd Beamon.

The top health official at the beleaguered Veterans Affairs department abruptly quit Friday amid growing outrage over delays in care for ailing veterans at numerous VA facilities.

VA Undersecretary for Health Dr. Robert Petzel was supposed to retire this summer, but VA Secretary Eric Shinseki asked for his resignation early, Military Times reports.

“As we know from the veteran community, most veterans are satisfied with the quality of their VA healthcare, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care,” Shinseki said in a statement. “I am committed to strengthening veterans’ trust and confidence in their VA healthcare system.”

VA officials wouldn’t elaborate on any specifics on the forced resignation, according to the Times.

Petzel was on the hot seat Thursday along with Shinseki, testifying before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee about the scandal.

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Common Core: ObamaCare for Education

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Photo Credit: The American Spectator Common Core. Rutgers and Condi Rice. Brandeis and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Smith College and Christine LaGarde. Glenn Beck, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie.

Amid all the swirling controversies over campus commencement speakers, seemingly in a separate corner of the political universe another controversy swirls over Common Core. In fact? They are the same controversy. Not to mention the battle for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. You could, in fact, call Common Core Obamacare for Education.

Let’s start with an appearance on the O’Reilly show the other night by Glenn Beck. Holding up an exercise on “Possessive Nouns” Beck read the problems a third grade grammar school student had to solve as a homework assignment. The exercise involved making “each sentence less wordy by replacing words with a possessive noun phrase.”

Possessive nouns. Simple and uncontroversial enough, yes? Here are the six sentences, the “wordy” sentence first and the grammatically correct version second, exactly as sequentially presented by Common Core.

1. The job of a president is not easy.
A president’s job is not easy.

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SunTrust Reverses Decision On Conservative Benham Brothers

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller By Alex Pappas.

After an uproar from conservative customers, SunTrust Banks announced Friday afternoon that the decision to end its relationship with real estate entrepreneurs David and Jason Benham had been reversed.

Earlier Friday, The Daily Caller reported that SunTrust Banks had pulled all of its listed properties with the Benham brothers’ bank-owned property business.

The move came just a week after HGTV announced it was canceling a planned home renovation show hosted by the Benhams because of their conservative views on abortion and gay marriage.

By Friday afternoon, SunTrust released a statement saying the decision had been reversed. The bank didn’t go into detail about why they originally cut ties with the Benham brothers, though SunTrust said the decision was made by a third party vendor. TheDC reported earlier Friday that the vendor had told a Benham Brothers franchisee that the bank itself made the decision.

“We clarified our policies with our vendor and they have reinstated the listings with Benham Real Estate,” SunTrust spokeswoman Beth McKenna said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APRev. Graham: Christ’s ‘True Followers’ Can’t Endorse Gay Marriage Regardless What President, Media, Courts Say

By Michael W. Chapman.

Rev. Franklin Graham, son of world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham, said that “true followers” of Jesus “cannot endorse same-sex marriage” regardless of what President Barack Obama, the Congress, the Supreme Court, or the media say about the issue, adding that marriage was “settled by God Himself” and cannot be modified by man.

“True followers of Jesus Christ, whose salvation is based entirely upon God’s Word, cannot endorse same-sex marriage, regardless of what our President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the media or the latest Gallup poll says about the matter,” said Rev. Graham in his May 2014 column for Decision magazine.

“This moral issue has been settled by God Himself and is not subject to man-made revisions or modifications,” he said. “In the end, I would rather be on the wrong side of public opinion than on the wrong side of Almighty God who established the standard of living for the world He created. Marriage is a biblically moral issue, not a political or theological one.”

Rev. Graham made those remarks after first discussing how “pressure from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community” on the A&E cable channel had tried to force Duck Dynasty off the air last year because its patriarch, Phil Robertson, had expressed his “biblically based convictions.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Where Did ’97 Percent’ Global Warming Consensus Figure Come From?

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Mike Finn-KelceyThe University of Queensland in Australia is taking legal action to block the release of data used by one of its scientists to come up with the oft-quoted statistic that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that mankind is causing global warming.

Since coming out with this figure last year, climate scientist John Cook of the University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute has been under fire for the methodology he used.

“Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on [anthropogenic global warming] is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research,’’ Cook and his fellow authors wrote in their study which was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters last year.

The university has told climate skeptic blogger Brandon Schollenberger that the data on the study he possesses was illegally obtained and they would take legal action against him if he published it.

“UQ has therefore published all data relating to the paper that is of any scientific value to the wider community,” said Queensland’s acting pro-vice-­chancellor Alastair McEwan.

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Jerry Brown: ‘LAX Must Be Moved Due to Rising Seas From Global Warming’ then ‘Oh, Never Mind’

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Photo Credit: IJ Review California Governor Jerry Brown released his state budget earlier this week and had some strong warnings about future cost impacts due to the effects of global warming.

According to some scientists, over the next couple of hundred years, sea levels could rise up to four feet and that will affect the airports in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as the nuclear plant in San Onofre.

His comments:

If that happens, the Los Angeles airport’s going to be underwater.

So is the San Francisco airport.

Read more from this story HERE.

Park Employee Recalls Near-Deadly Attack by Undocumented Immigrant

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Photo Credit: Al_HikesAZA park employee left for dead at the Chiricahua National Monument nine months ago, speaks out about her attack.

Karen Gonzales, 60, was viciously beaten in broad daylight in one of the park restrooms.

She suffered a brain injury and is now walking with a limp. She tells News 4 Crime Trackers, “I will never forget his face coming at me.”

Gonzales was cleaning the women’s restroom at the Faraway Ranch Campground when she heard a noise, looked up, and saw her attacker come at her with a rock.

The DNA evidence left behind identified 33-year-old Gilbert Gaxiola as her attacker. The Cochise Country Sheriff’s Department confirms Gaxiola is an undocumented immigrant.

Read more from this story HERE.

Marco Rubio, GOP Leaders: We’ll ‘Absolutely’ Try Again on Amnesty if We Gain Control of Senate

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Photo Credit: AFPConservatives who believe that winning back control of the Senate will destroy any chance of amnesty legislation passing are sorely mistaken. In fact, a Republican-controlled Congress may make it easier to provide a path to citizenship for all of the country’s illegal immigrants if this Congress fails to do so.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has his eye on the GOP presidential nomination and was the central figure who backed the Senate’s amnesty bill that passed last year, said that Republicans in the Senate would “absolutely” take up amnesty legislation again if they gain a net of six seats to take back the upper chamber. He indicated that piecemeal or bite-sized bills would be better than his Gang of Eight amnesty bill that he championed and which faced stiff resistance from House conservatives.

If Republicans retain the House, that would mean GOP leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who would become Majority Leader, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) may promptly abandon the conservative base to strike a deal on amnesty legislation.

Rubio conceded that he did not “think a comprehensive bill can pass,” but emphasized that he did not “want us to waste another two years on an approach that has no chance of passing.”

“I certainly think we can make progress on immigration, particularly on topics like modernizing our legal immigration system [and] improving our mechanisms for enforcing the law, and I think if you did those things you could actually make some progress on addressing those who are illegally,” Rubio said on Wednesday, according to The Hill.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz Bill Would Ban ‘FCC’s Latest Adventure in Net Neutrality’

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Photo Credit: AP / Charlie NeibergallBy Joel Gehrke.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wants Congress to ban “the FCC’s latest adventure in ‘net neutrality,’ ” saying the proposed changes to Internet regulations would damage the industry.

“A five-member panel at the FCC should not be dictating how Internet services will be provided to millions of Americans,” Cruz said in a Wednesday afternoon statement. “I will be introducing legislation that would remove the claimed authority for the FCC to take such actions, specifically the Commission’s nebulous Sec. 706 authority. More than $1 trillion has already been invested in broadband infrastructure, which has led to an explosion of new content, applications, and Internet accessibility. Congress, not an unelected commission, should take the lead on modernizing our telecommunications laws. The FCC should not endanger future investments by stifling growth in the online sector, which remains a much-needed bright spot in our struggling economy.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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FCC votes to go forward with net neutrality rules

By Bree Fowler.

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to go forward with the proposal of new rules that could set standards for Internet providers who wish to create paid priority fast lanes on their networks.

The preliminary vote, in which three of agency’s commissioners supported the measure and two dissented, moves the so-called “net neutrality” rules into a formal public comment period. After the 120-day period ends, the FCC will revise the proposal and vote on a final set of rules. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said he wants the rules in place by the end of this year.

“Today we take another step in what has been a decade-long effort to protect a free and open Internet,” Wheeler, a Democrat, said before the vote.

But the idea of allowing priority access, even if it’s regulated by the government, has received heavy criticism from many companies that do business online, along with open Internet advocates. Outside the hearing protesters banged drums and held up signs calling for net neutrality. At least one was ushered out of the hearing after standing up and yelling at the commissioners.

Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, who voted no, called the proposed rules a “regulatory boondoggle,” arguing that supporters of the rules haven’t shown they will help consumers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Trust in Government Down 44 Percent Among GOP in Last Decade

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Photo Credit: REUTERSWhen it comes to Washington controversies, most American voters think Benghazi, the IRS and the government’s electronic surveillance program are serious matters. A Fox News poll also finds that less than four in 10 voters trust the federal government.

The new poll, released Thursday, finds 37 percent of voters answer “yes” when asked: “would you say you generally trust the federal government?” Six in 10 say they don’t trust the government, down a touch from a high of 62 percent (June 2013 and July 2011).

One thing that is sure to erode trust is a scandal, and 78 percent of voters consider the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi a serious matter, including 52 percent who say “very serious.” Just over half (53 percent) see government surveillance of everyday Americans as “very serious” and 44 percent feel that way about the IRS targeting conservative groups.

Partisanship also shapes views on trustworthiness. In 2002, the first time this question was asked on a Fox News poll, 47 percent of Democrats said yes, they trust the government. That increased to 53 percent in February 2009, about a month after President Obama was inaugurated, and it stands at 55 percent in the new poll. The trend is reversed and more dramatic among Republicans: 63 percent trusted the government in 2002, while 32 percent felt that way in 2009 and just 19 percent trust Uncle Sam today.

For independents, trust was 53 percent in 2002, 35 percent in 2009 and 31 percent now.

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Senate GOP Anger at Reid Boiling Over

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Photo Credit: Susan Walsh / APSenate Republicans on Thursday, angered after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blocked amendment votes on a bill, threatened to torpedo legislation they support on extending tax breaks.

If Republicans follow through, it would be the second time this week that a bipartisan bill was stopped in its tracks because of a broader fight over Senate floor procedure.

Reid has refused to allow amendments on a bill that hit the chamber floor that would revive more than 50 tax breaks, commonly known as “extenders,” that lapsed at the end of 2013.

Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, who crafted the tax extenders plan with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), offered to work with the GOP on amendments after the measure cleared another procedural hurdle on Thursday.

But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wasn’t interested.

Read more from this story HERE.