Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

Sharon Helman, the Phoenix, Arizona Veterans’ Affairs director who was at the center of the scandal there two years ago, is suing to get her job back. The Obama Administration is doing their level best to get her back behind hr desk, according to the Stars & Stripes;

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Tuesday that the law fast-tracking firings is unconstitutional because VA employees cannot appeal a final decision by an administrative judge.

[…]

The decision by Lynch is new evidence of the VA’s faltering efforts to fire executives and employees when it deems them guilty of misconduct. It also undercuts a key reform passed by Congress in the months following the nationwide VA scandal, which erupted after a doctor in Phoenix said veterans were dying while waiting for care at the facilities overseen by Helman.

The Obama administration is sending the message that “the sanctity of a federal bureaucrat’s job is far more important than the health and well-being of our veterans,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona….

Veterans have been a political ping-pong ball for both parties, but McCain is right in this instance – what’s the priority here? Caring for the injured or propping up the bureaucracy?

Lynch said the Justice Department will no longer defend the law in court against Helman and other challengers. But the Justice Department will continue to defend against the other constitutional violations charged in Helman’s federal lawsuit.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said the loss of the reform law will allow “the Merit Systems Protection Board to continue second-guessing VA’s efforts to discipline senior executives.”

There’s your answer.

Thanks to Hack Stone for the link.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars took exception to something the President said the other day. Apparently, Obama doesn’t like that veterans are talking about his policies in a disparaging manner, according to the Washington Times (the emphasis is mine);

During a speech Wednesday in Elkhart, Indiana Mr. Obama said, “I’m concerned when I watch the direction of our politics. I mean, we have been hearing this story for decades — tales about welfare queens, talking about takers, talking about the 47 percent. It’s the story that’s broadcast every day on some cable news stations, on right-wing radio. It’s pumped into cars and bars and VFW halls all across America, and right here in Elkhart.”

The president went on, “If you’re hearing that story all the time, you start believing it. It’s no wonder people think big government is the problem. No wonder public support for unions is so low. No wonder that people think the deficit has gone up under my presidency when it’s actually gone down.”

First of all, a debt of ten trillion dollars to a deficit of 19 trillion dollars is not “gone done”. Secondly, the discussions in “VFW halls” is no less valid than the discussion anywhere else. The VFW National Commander John A. Biedrzycki Jr. responded;

“I don’t know how many VFW posts the president has ever visited…but our near 1.7 million members are a direct reflection of America, which means we represent every generation, race, religion, gender and political and ideological viewpoint.”

He added, “We don’t have confused politics, we don’t need left- or right-wing media filters telling us how to think or vote, and we don’t need any president of the United States lecturing us about how we are individually effected by the economy.”

I’m guessing that the number of VFW halls that the president has visited would be ‘zero’, about the same number of discussions that he’s heard about the failings of his administration.

Thanks to OC for the tip.

Just like when, a few years ago, the President told America that he was going to make healthcare more affordable, he was planning on making it more expensive for members of the military and retirees, now while he’s trying to get Americans a higher minimum wage, he’s letting military languish below civilian pay, according to the Military Times;

All of it is necessary, officials say, to help offset unsustainable costs. Yet as service members’ wages lag behind those in the private sector, what’s known as the military-civilian “pay gap,” several small cuts add up can add up quickly. And that too comes at a cost.

“The Defense Department keeps saying they’ll protect readiness by asking families to pay for it, and thinking that families will suck it up and take one for the team,” said Joyce Wessel Raezer, executive director of the National Military Family Association. “It’s a spiral that’s going to end up hurting families and hurting the military.”

Today, military and civilian pay is about on par. In the 1990s, the pay gap topped 13 percent, said Steve Strobridge, government relations director for the Military Officers Association of America. That era saw a host of changes on par with those being debated now. Housing was shifted off-base. Personnel programs were slashed.

Like when Obama told The American Legion convention that he wasn’t going to balance the budget on the backs of veterans while his secretary of defense was raiding the Tricare healthcare surplus and he was conniving to raise out-of-pocket expenses for retirees, now they’re expecting active duty troops to suck up lower COLA allowances while paying for their dependents’ healthcare and paying more for their groceries.

The troops sacrifice in war only to end up sacrificing more when they come home, while the majority of America goes to the mall.

Thomas sends us a link to MSN which reports that President Obama announced that he’s lifting a weapons sales ban against Vietnam while he’s visiting that country;

Obama announced the full removal of the embargo at a news conference where he signaled a desire to leave behind the troubled history between the former war enemies and reward what he described as modest progress on human rights in the one-party state.

“At this stage, both sides have established a level of trust and cooperation, including between our militaries, that is reflective of common interests and mutual respect,” Obama said, adding that every U.S. arms sale would be reviewed case by case. “This change will ensure that Vietnam has access to the equipment it needs to defend itself and removes a lingering vestige of the Cold War.”

It’s ironic that he would make that claim about the Cold War, because Richard Nixon hugged it up with China in order to negate the military power of Vietnam in the 70s and now it’s Obama’s turn to hug it up with Vietnam to lessen the military influence of China in the Pacific Rim. He’s also concerned with blunting the Russian advance in the Crimea. So, yeah, that lingering vestige of the Cold War is gone.

Human Rights Watch condemns Obama’s lifting of trade sanctions as trading away leverage against Vietnam to force them to improve the treatment of political dissidents there. Just like he traded away leverage against the Castro regime in Cuba. It’s about Obama’s legacy, not about doing anything that benefits mankind.