Category: Government Incompetence

Chief Tango sends us a link to NPR which reports that the Census Bureau has decided that they’ll count deployed troops at their home base instead of their home of record;

For the last census in 2010, all overseas military personnel were counted at the address they provided at enlistment. But in 2020, deployed service members will be counted as residents of the bases or ports they were temporarily assigned away from, according to a memo released this week by the Census Bureau…For many of the communities surrounding military bases around the country, the bureau’s decision is seen as a long-awaited victory after years of advocating for a change in policy.

“When those soldiers are not counted from where they’re stationed, then it has a huge economic impact on our community,” says Kelli Pendleton, president and CEO of the Christian County Chamber of Commerce in Hopkinsville, Ky., just outside of Fort Campbell.

When many of the troops at the U.S. Army base were overseas during the 2010 census, an estimated 10,000 service members were not counted in Christian County, according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who sent a letter to the Census Bureau in support of the policy change. Instead, their numbers were directed to the population counts for the home addresses they provided when they first enlisted.

That means that the census will never be correct. Troops move in and out of congressional districts daily – Congressional Districts where they never vote. I was registered to vote in my home of record for the two decades that I was in the Army, and I moved an average of every two years. This decision artificially inflates populations.

Federal funding and grants for schools and roads could take a hit if there are significant population dips. But now, Pendleton says she doesn’t have to worry as much if any of Fort Campbell’s soldiers are gone again on census day 2020.

So counting a largely single, unmarried, childless demographic artificially inflates a need for Federal funding for schools.

According to CNN, one of their employees found classified documents of a critique of a simulated biological attack on the Super Bowl that had been left unattended in the seat-back pocket of a commercial plane.

CNN was unable to verify who left the documents on the plane. The travel itinerary and boarding pass accompanying the documents was in the name of Michael V. Walter.

Walter, a microbiologist, has been the program manager of BioWatch since 2009, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“I am responsible for developing and operating a budget that has ranged up to 90 million dollars and directed a staff or more than 50 members,” his profile says.
He held previous posts with the Central Intelligence Agency and Naval Surface Warfare Center and has 20 years of experience with biological warfare research.
Walter, 59, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

A DHS official said the missing documents were the subject of an “operational review” and that “DHS does not comment on personnel matters or potential pending personnel action.”

I guess we’re lucky that the documents were discovered by CNN instead of another terrorist group;

CNN decided to withhold publication of this article until after the Super Bowl after government officials voiced concerns that publishing it prior to the game could jeopardize security for the event. A DHS official told CNN that areas for improvement identified in the draft reports had been addressed prior to Sunday’s game and that the agency had “great confidence” in its preparedness.

I guess CNN cares more about our national security than at least one of our government microbiologists.

“We have good news regarding the protection and stability of all the workers,” said Maduro in a televised address. “I am announcing the rise of the national minimum wage by 40 percent for all our doctors and public sector workers.”

Breitbart is reporting the Venezuelan socialist dictator has raised the minimum wage for the seventh time in order to fight back at a claimed “economic war” against the US and other Western powers aligned against his regime.

The latest raise will bring a basic salary of 248,510 bolivares to working Venezuelans, or about $2.02 USD per month. A food ticket increase worth 549,000 bolivars will bring the total monthly income to around $6.48 USD.

These hikes will likely only exacerbate the country’s stunning inflation rate by continuing to devalue its currency.

“According to latest figures, inflation rose by a staggering 1,369 percent between January and November last year. The figures were only released by the country’s opposition, as the Maduro regime refuses to publish them.”

The country faces hyperinflation, defaulted debts, and US and EU sanctions aimed at the country’s state run oil company and a number of government officials. The country is planning to launch a new currency, the “Petro” based on its natural oil and mineral reserves.

These resources are worthless while they’re in the ground, and will be extracted by the Venezuelan government, so I don’t expect the Petro to go very far. Seems to me they’ve run out of other people’s money- are you listening, California?

The Denver Post reports that Matthew Riehl, former University of Wyoming law student, who murdered a Colorado sheriff’s deputy on Sunday, suffered a “psychotic episode” in 2014 and was placed on a 72 hour mental health hold in an unnamed VA hospital after he absconded from his hospital room during treatment.

After that episode, Riehl had an “urgent contact for Mental Health” on July 22, 2015, and another “mental health assessment” on Aug. 26, 2015.

He skipped a Nov. 3, 2015, appointment and was called in August 2016 to “reschedule an internal medicine clinic” — but he declined, according to the report.

Riehl graduated with a law degree from the University of Wyoming in 2010 and joined a law firm. He opened his own practice four years later, but by October 2016, he had withdrawn his membership in the Wyoming State Bar.

The further you get from the scene of his crime, the more you hear about his time in the military. CNN even found it necessary to recount the Columbine massacre to it’s readers because of the proximity of the two shootings. The Post, however, reports that Riehl probably didn’t catch the PTSD as a result of his military service, in spite of his mother’s claims;

Riehl’s mother told authorities that her son had post-traumatic stress disorder from his Iraq war deployment and was refusing to take his medication to treat the condition.

Riehl enlisted in the Army Reserves in 2003, and in 2006 he joined the Wyoming Army National Guard. He deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom from April 2009 to March 2010. He was honorably discharged in 2012.

His last rank was specialist, and he was classified as a medic.

Deidre Forster, a spokeswoman for the Wyoming Army National Guard, said she wasn’t aware of any discipline leveled against him or any issues surrounding his service. She also said she didn’t know whether he saw any combat.

“I’m not aware that he did,” Forster said. “I don’t believe he did.”

Forster said he served during Operation Iraqi Freedom with the 2nd Battalion of the 300th Field Artillery.

“I don’t have the name of the base where he was stationed, but I believe it was in Kuwait,” she said.

The bigger question is “Was Riehl flagged by the NICS background check system when he bought the firearms he used to shoot five sheriff’s deputies?” He certainly should have been flagged because of his mental health issues, which, by the way, don’t seem to be related to his military service. Not much combat going on in Kuwait for National Guard artillery units, or their medics.

Maybe he caught the PTSD from the Hunter Safety course his battalion commander, known as Powder 6, gave them while they were in Kuwait;

We’ve seen an awful lot of stories of people who should have been prevented from buying firearms because of their past and this seems to be just another one. We’re going to see more if they don’t get the NICS system under competent control.

David sends us a link to United Press International which reports that the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs can’t properly exchange the status of veterans which resulted in payments totaling more than $38 million to dead veterans;

The Inspector General for the SSA found a systematic problem in which the SSA continues to send payments to veterans after they were listed as dead by the Veterans Administration. In other cases, the VA listed people as dead who were still alive. But the crux of the problem appears to be deaths that aren’t recorded properly and not put into the SSA system to determine whether a payment should continue or stop.

“SSA reviewed selected instances and stated that VA had not included most of the individuals’ death information in monthly death data transmitted to SSA,” the IG report stated. “Based on our sample results, we estimate SSA issued about $37.7 million to 746 individuals after they died and will issue approximately $7.3 million more over the next 12 months if these discrepancies are not corrected.”

Yeah, I’m shocked that bureaucrats can’t talk to each other. It’s a simple process but the government makes it so hard, and the taxpayers, and the victims, end up footing the bill. The headline makes it sound like veterans are at fault, but, no, it’s the minor government functionaries who can’t use their computers to put the proper check in the proper box. The families are reporting the deaths, as they should.