Category: Politics

Once again, much of the mainstream media that is too lazy and self-serving to investigate the very dubious associations of a Democrat presidential candidate like Barack Obama is hauling out its Roto-Rooters to go after the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump. But the media operatives are still very lazy, or they could have saved themselves the embarrassment of trying to prove that Trump has KKK and far right militia sympathies with a simple bit of Googling.

For several days now, since CNN’s Jake Tapper started this silly business of Trump not disavowing an endorsement from David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, the mainstream media, Trump’s presidential opponents, and even GOP congressional leaders have all made fools of themselves over this non-issue issue. Marco Rubio made an absolute, bobble-head fool of himself on Super Tuesday night endlessly attempting to link Trump with the KKK. And that, folks, is the opinion of a voter who was in the Rubio camp until recently.

Trump could have put this foolishness to bed early and quite easily had he chosen to involve his family, which he most graciously didn’t. You see, Trump’s beautiful daughter, Ivanka, married an Orthodox Jew, Jared Kushner, in 2009 and in preparation for that event converted to Judaism. Jared’s and Ivanka’s two children are being raised in an Orthodox household, where Ivanka keeps kosher and the family observes the Jewish Sabbath. At least one mainstream network, ABC News, seems to have picked up on this.

So all Donald had to do was cite that fact of his personal and family life and ask, “Now, do you really believe I would associate myself with the views of an organization that is so rabidly anti-Semitic as the Ku Klux Klan?” If Trump were really the heartless exploiter his enemies try to make him out to be, he would have paraded his daughter and her family across the stage as he was pointing out their religious affiliation and thus how ridiculous this whole KKK business is. Instead, those denouncing Trump look like fools and have paradoxically made their political nemesis look all the more a statesman and a family man.

Crossposted at American Thinker

The more I watch the presidential campaign, the more it resembles the WWF. A guy with ears bigger than a pick-up truck’s doors makes fun of the other guys face. Then the pundits tell me that the guy with the big ears is more presidential than the guy with the face. What I must surmise from that is that an adolescent insult about someone’s appearance is a presidential attribute. I am not so sure that I like watching presidential politics swirling around the toilet bowl realizing as it goes so goes our country.

We have the so-called outsiders versus “the” establishment. Problem is, some we thought were outsiders are now insiders who have sold their souls to the establishment. When I was a teenager in the 60’s, anti-establishment was the thing, now all of those old hippie protestors and draft dodgers from Bill Clinton, to John Kerry, to right on down through Congress are the establishment. Sad thing is they did not fix the establishment they so hated because they learned rather quickly where the wealth and power resides and one beget the other. Cruz aptly labeled it the Washington Cartel – today’s establishment that determines who gains membership into their club. Who wins who loses and it is never about the country.

I read that the establishment’s Roveshivicks are plotting how to take out front-runner Trump and force Cruz to quit propelling the big-eared kid Rubio into the nomination. If Rubio cannot pull it off, plan B is to introduce Mitt Romney back into the race. And if that fails, there will be a battle at the convention for who will be the Republican nominee. Whoever it was that said give the Republicans a chance and they will lose a sure thing is being proven right again.

Romney took pages from Harry Reid’s book and dropped an unsubstantiated income tax bomb on Trump. Next thing you know someone will want to know if he ever tied a pet dog to the top of the car or gave another kid a haircut while he was in prep school.

Trump’s taxes could be picture perfect and he still will not want to release them. They will show where his contributions went. Some of which may be hard to explain away. Then again, maybe not. But rest assured if there is some potentially embarrassing information in those returns someone will devise a way to have it leaked. That is how it works in politics these days. Just like Barack Obama’s opponent in his Senate campaign had his sealed divorce records released. Mr. Trump should be getting out in front on this one.

If nothing else, this campaign cycle has exposed how the establishment operates. What is more interesting is that they are not trying to hide it. It is kind of an in your face attitude toward Americans. The Democrats have their super delegates that will ensure Mrs. Clinton is their nominee. The Republicans have their establishment to ensure that neither Trump, Cruz nor Carson will be theirs. All of that making primary elections a bad joke on gullible Americans.

In the past, whenever I encountered someone who blamed his poor state on the wealthy I would give him the standard talk about how it is the wealthy that create jobs not the poor. The more I ponder that, the more I come to accept that in a pure capitalist system that is exactly right. Wealth creates wealth and builds a robust middle class – the backbone of any country. I do not see it working that way these days. The door is being slammed in the faces of the middle class and in some cases their work is being given to lower paid and imported immigrants ala Disney. Now this “cartel” is plotting to keep the people’s choice – whoever that may turn out to be – from getting the nomination. Instead, they want to give it to another big-eared adolescent that can make a good speech, but has no life or work experience. Since that approach worked out so well for the country. Or they want to interject a proven loser into the fight. The bottom line, they do not want anyone who might upset the Washington status quo and they are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that. They will even be happy with Mrs. Clinton. And they do not give a damn about what you think about it Mr. and Mrs. America.

© 2016 J. D. Pendry All Rights Reserved.

A look at the news analysis and punditry on heavy voter turnout thus far in the 2016 Republican campaign finds the word “anger” cropping up in many such discussions. That refers mostly to voter anger broadly directed toward the federal behemoth in general, but more specifically to the custodian of that government for the past seven years, the Obama administration, and the entrenched liberal bureaucracy that responds all too eagerly to Obama’s whim. That same term, anger, is also referenced in almost every analysis of the Trump phenomenon, noting voter outrage against the “Washington Establishment,” which, in addition to the Obama administration and the federal bureaucracy, includes the Republican-controlled Congress and ever more frequently to those Obamist Pentagonian princes.

There’s insufficient space here to list all the grievances of today’s voters, but one issue sure to push their ballistic launch buttons is reminding them that they are being governed by an elite political class who exempt themselves from all the burdensome and oppressive laws and regulations they impose on the rest of us. While the truth of this belief may be more pronounced in the perception than broadly grounded in reality, it just may be the one anger issue that has the most impact on the upcoming presidential election for the simple reason that a current contender and her husband have, for the past three decades, been the chief contributors to this perception of politicians being above the laws.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have flouted the law since their earliest political days in Arkansas, after which their contempt for morality and the law continued to grow throughout their years of ascension to and through the White House. To make it worse, their “no corner left uncut” policy toward the intersection of presidential politics and profit has made these two moral jaywalkers immensely wealthy. Millions of Americans would quickly cite the Clintons as living proof that if not crime, then most certainly unethical behavior does indeed pay and pay handsomely. Rubbing salt into our wounds, the Clintons deflect all charges of their corruption with countercharges of national conspiracies by their enemies to discredit them. That kind of chutzpah is guaranteed to generate some serious surliness within us folks looked upon by the Clintons as a sullen political underclass in Flyovia, pitchfork provincials who should be grateful for the generous privilege of looking up and marveling at their vapor trails.

That liberal Democrats perceive themselves as being far smarter than the rest of us is a given, as is their oft-demonstrated tendency to turn a blind eye to corruption and criminality in their favored politicians. But before the Democrat queen-makers decide that they can sweep Hillary’s obvious violations of multiple federal intelligence laws under a mainstream media carpet and then sweep her majesty on to coronation, it would behoove them to take a very careful measure of this anger issue driving these record Republican voter turnouts. Then they should further consider that Hillary is not that popular even among Democrats, many of whom have come to recognize the woman’s serial dishonesty, the likely reason for low Democrat voter turnout in 2016 as well as Bernie Sanders’s surprisingly strong showing thus far.

Think about this situation: not only do the Democratic Party insist on running a candidate who is hands down the most reviled woman in America, but they insist on doing so in the face of revelations that would already have required any other candidate to step down and retire from all politics. But those Democrat power brokers are so hell-bent on their party electing the first female president that they’ll even support a candidate who, were she Jane Doe, would be facing multiple federal felony charges and likely serious prison time. Hillary has had a lot of time since Bill left office to make lucrative promises to a lot of powerful people, so that those folks have a clear interest in seeing her made president, criminal or no – in fact, probably even better if she is, because she’ll be easier to manipulate.

And that, folks, is who the Democrats think should be our next president. That sort of blatant corruption really angers a lot of honest and patriotic citizens, and as we are seeing in these primaries, angry citizens vote.

Does anyone doubt that should Hillary escape prosecution and continue her campaign, the likely Republican candidate, Donald Trump, will flagrantly fan those flames of voter outrage into a campaign prairie fire out here in Flyovia, as well as in more traditional Democrat strongholds? That could instigate a Republican and Reagan Democrat turnout that could sweep over the Democratic Party and incinerate it into a blackened husk all the way down ballot. Not only will Trump exploit the voters’ anger, but he’ll provide it with an already despised focus point that demonstrates perfectly how Washington and the Establishment are corrupt and require his intervention.

Call the resulting blowback the H-Factor. Adding to its effect, excusing Hillary’s recent law-breaking likely will revive a rehashing of all the other Clinton scandals that this time around may fall on more acutely tuned Democrat ears now that so many in that party, such as youthful Sanders supporters, openly distrust her and revile her serial sexual predator husband. Democrat power brokers should consider that if Republican voters are turning out now, if they nominate Hillary, they ain’t seen nothing yet.

Just wait until that H-Factor kicks into high gear…

Crossposted at American Thinker

Washington Post columnist and Fox News pundit Marc Thiessen, speaking with Megan Kelly last night, raised an excellent point regarding the nomination of a Supreme Court justice. Noting that the Republicans appear to be taking a firm stand against allowing the lame-duck president to appoint a replacement for recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia, Thiessen asked the very cogent question, “Who could possibly want to be that nominee?” He noted that whoever it might be has already been put on notice that it is, in effect, a judicial suicide mission and likened that person to a kamikaze pilot. As soon as Thiessen spoke, I realized he had neatly and accurately encapsulated the situation facing the White House right now into two words: kamikaze mission.

Where are they ever going to find a prominent, accomplished jurist dumb enough to fly into all that waiting senatorial flak, knowing that the mission is a fruitless career-ender? Sure, Obama may fancy himself imperial, but the emperor is clearly bare-butt behind the bench on this one. No eminent jurists who have spent their professional lives preparing themselves for the High Command of the judicial profession want to step forward and volunteer to have that lifetime of preparation blown to smithereens in a clearly unwinnable battle, merely to uphold the imperial legacy for the history books.

On the other hand, if Obama puts forward a sacrificial and minimally qualified candidate who might be willing to don the silk headscarf of sacrifice and volunteer to go down in flames for fifteen minutes of footnote fame, then the Republicans can point self-righteously to those absent qualifications as sufficient reason for grimly blowing the ambitious aspirant from the skies of fleeting legal glory.

From a political history perspective, Thiessen nailed it; it’s a kamikaze mission, and Barry will have to find a fool to fly it.

Crossposted at American Thinker

Over at American Thinker this morning is an article by Rick Moran recounting the results of a visit to Rutgers University by a conservative speaker. Milo Yiannopoulis, a tech editor at Breitbart News spoke to these special snowflakes and so traumatized them that this transpired:

“Students and faculty members held a wound-licking gathering at a cultural center on campus where students described feeling scared hurt and discriminated against,” as a result of hearing the Breitbart editor’s views.

“One student at the event told the Targum that they ‘Broke down crying,’ after the event while another reported that he felt ‘scared to walk around campus the next day.’ According to the report, ‘many others’ said they felt ‘unsafe’ at the event and on campus afterwards.”

“‘It is upsetting that my mental health is not cared about by the University,’ said one student at the event. ‘I deserve an apology; everyone in this room deserves an apology.’”

“A number of organizations were at the event to offer support to the poor traumatized students.”

Just consider that some of these wusses could end up being military officers although with their leftist indoctrination, it’s doubtful. And if you want to see how threatening this ogre, Milo Yiannopoulis is, just Google his name.

Go read the entire article at American Thinker.

Yesterday Thomas Lifson wrote of a university study that demonstrates that the world’s deserts are greening due to higher atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide – that same atmospheric carbon dioxide that has hysterical global warmists wringing their sweaty hands and crying that the sky is falling. Reading that blog post brought to mind another study referenced by Lifson some months ago – a Yale study that upwardly revised the total estimated tree count in the world from 400 billion to 3.04 trillion, a game-changing increase.

Most likely some of that higher tree count overlaps with the expanded greening of the deserts, certainly in the outer fringe areas. But the bottom line is that there are a lot more carbon dioxide-breathing, oxygen-exhaling life forms on this planet than all these so-called climate change computer models had programmed into it when they were developed to predict the future climatic conditions of this planet.

If these computer models used “settled science’s” accepted figure of that time of 400 billion trees in this world breathing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then their input was so incredibly far off base as to render their projections of worldwide heating and subsequent human disaster worthless. An extra 2.6 trillion trees can suck up a whole lot of all those tons of anthropogenic atmospheric carbon dioxide that was programmed into those models. It just could be that the famed hockey stick has just taken on the predictive dimensions of a hockey puck in all those elaborate equations.

So could someone please give Cheryl Crow a heads-up that there are a whole lot more trees than the poor girl believed when she publicly pledged to use a single panel of toilet tissue for her most intimate cleaning purposes? Bet those musical dudes who ride on her biodiesel bus, or Uber, or whatever she’s using for transport nowadays would sure appreciate it.

Countdown till some pointy-headed liberal professor produces a study that predicts with absolute certainty that mankind is endangered by trees taking over the world: ten…nine…eight…

Crossposted at American Thinker

Jonn stole my thunder by putting his post up first.  It’s not a real red meat piece either way, since it is muddled with various branches, too many villains to count, and chalk full of legal BS.  But for the 2 or 3 interested, I actually read the decision yesterday and broke down what happened.

Cross-linked from paying home.

 

There is a lot of confusion over what happened with VA Employees Rubens and Graves and how they were fired or demoted, and then later not only had the demotions overruled, but got back pay and lawyers fees.  Obviously people are super upset with it, as am I.  But it is important to look at who is actually responsible on this one, and who is not.  Most people think it is the VA protecting their own, and just letting people get away with whatever they want.  That’s not really the case.  This is actually an interesting look at the Federal Government as a whole, because it addresses all three branches of Government, and none of them escape this cloaked in glory.

Let’s start with the VA’s Inspector General report, looking only at Graves, because the other one is substantially similiar, but gets more convoluted in other ways.  So let’s just look at Graves.

Ms. Kimberly Graves was reassigned from her position as the Director of VBA’s Eastern Area Office to the position of Director, St. Paul VARO, effective October 19, 2014. VA paid $129,467.56 related to Ms. Graves’ PCS move. We determined that Ms. Graves also inappropriately used her position of authority for personal and financial benefit when she participated personally and substantially in creating the St. Paul VARO vacancy and then volunteering for the vacancy.

Mr. Antione Waller, former St. Paul VARO Director, told us Ms. Graves initiated discussion with him about relocating to the Philadelphia VARO. Once he expressed a willingness to accept the reassignment, she did an apparent “bait and switch.” She told him that the Philadelphia position was no longer available and he would be considered for the Baltimore VARO Director position. When he said he was not willing to move to Baltimore, Ms. Graves told him, “you will probably get another call, this probably won’t be the last conversation about Baltimore.” In an email, Ms. Beth McCoy, who at the time was the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operations and Ms. Rubens’ subordinate, told Ms. Graves that she spoke to Mr. Waller and told him his name was already submitted to the VA Secretary for Baltimore, so “saying no now is not a clean or easy option.” Once the St. Paul Director position was vacant, Ms. Graves said she contacted Ms. Rubens and said, “I’d like to throw my name in for consideration for St. Paul … I feel like I’ve done my time and I’d like to put my name in.”

Ms. Rubens’ and Ms. Graves’ reassignments resulted in a significant decrease in job responsibilities, yet both retained their annual salaries—$181,497 and $173,949, respectively.

Put more succinctly, Ms. Graves convinced the St Paul director to go to Baltimore, signed off on the paperwork, and then immediately arranged her own transfer from being the East Regional Director to just being the St Paul Director.  At the same time, despite having less responsiblity, she not only kept the same salary, but she also got hundreds of thousands of dollars in relocation fees.

After both Congress and Veterans Service Organizations called for their firing, the VA Employees were each demoted:

The VA said in a statement that Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves were demoted from senior executives — the highest rank for career employees — to general workers within the Veterans Benefits Administration….

This satisfied nearly no one.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said Rubens and Graves “clearly should have been fired,” adding that, “for those wondering whether VA is committed to real accountability for corrupt employees, VA leaders answered that question (Friday) with a resounding ‘no.’”

The VA’s failure to fire Rubens and Graves “gives me no hope the department will do the right thing and take steps to recover the more than $400,000 in taxpayer dollars Rubens and Graves fraudulently obtained,” Miller said. “The millions of American veterans who depend on VA and the hundreds of thousands of VA employees who are dedicated professionals deserve better than this broken status quo.”

Dale Barnett, national commander of the American Legion, said the VA’s failure to fire Rubens and Graves was “an insult and a disgrace to all veterans. Any promises that VA officials make about accountability in the future need to be taken with a grain of salt.”

So at this point, it appeared the VA was going soft on them, and it still appears that way.  But at least they were being demoted.  And the VA IG report specifically called for the relocation funds to be repaid.

And so, while we were unhappy, at least something was happening….until the Merit Systems Protection Board got involved.  Since most don’t know what that is, I’ll give you the wiki version:

The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is an independent quasi-judicial agency established in 1979 to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices and to ensure adequate protection for federal employees against abuses by agency management.

When an employee of most Executive Branch agencies is separated from his or her position, or suspended for more than 14 work days, the employee can request that an employee of MSPB conduct a hearing into the matter by submitting an appeal, generally within 30 days.^[1] In that hearing, the agency will have to prove that the action was warranted and the employee will have the opportunity to present evidence that it was not. A decision of MSPB is binding unless set aside on appeal to federal court.

So anyway, both Graves and Rubens appealed their demotions.  And the Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) in both cases overturned the demotions, allowed them to keep the reimbursements for moving, paid them wages that they missed, and even made the VA pay for all legal bills.

Among others, House VA Chair Jeff Miller was incensed.  (Here he is discussing a different case, but it is in line with his thinking on the MSPB):

But there are members of Congress that view MSPB’s recent rulings as no more than a stonewall preventing the VA from removing underperforming employees.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., as chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, has been a frequent critic of the MSPB’s rulings and said, in a statement on Feb. 8, that the board’s powers prevent the VA from being able to reform and recover from the scandals that have rocked it at late.

“MSPB coddles and protects misbehaving employees rather than facilitating fair and efficient discipline,” he said. “And as long as we have a system in place that requires a similar standard to discipline federal workers as it does to send criminals to prison, accountability problems at VA and across the government will only continue.”

So fast forward to yesterday.  My 7 month old was getting sleepy and making lots of noise, so my wife said to read to her.  I figure she doesn’t understand a word I am saying anyway, so I might as well read aloud the decision of Michele Szary Schroeder, Chief Administrative Judge that ruled on the Graves demotion.  My kid fell asleep, I got VERY angry.

The judge looked at 3 basic things.

1) Did the Agency prove its charge by preponderant evidence creating a rebuttable presumption that the transfer penalty was reasonable?  

She concluded that yes, the Agency proved that, saying:

The particular language of the statute at issue, Section 713(a)(1) of Title 38, authorizes the removal if the Secretary determines the performance or misconduct of the individual warrants it. This section gives very broad authority to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in determining what constitutes misconduct for an employee in the Senior Executive Service at that Agency….

…by failing to fully extricate herself from the activities surrounding Mr. Waller’s reassignment before and after June 5th, coupled with taking the position he used to hold, equaled the appearance of an impropriety. Bottom line, Ms. Graves should have known taking the job would not look good to the public the VA serves.

So far so good.

2) Did Ms. Graves’ affirmative defenses of harmful procedural error and  a due process violation necessitate overruling the decision?

Again, she concluded that no, they did not.

I conclude that Ms. Graves did not establish by preponderant evidence that the VA committed a harmful procedural error and I further do not find any due process violation.

Again, so far so good.

3)  Having found the first two prongs met, can Ms. Graves establish that the penalty was unreasonable under the circumstances of this case?

Houston, we have our problem.

 Knowledge and acquiescence of Ms. Graves’ reassignment to St. Paul by Ms. Graves’ chain of command are readily apparent and if no one in her chain said, wait, this will not look right when they approved her reassignment, how can a penalty be imposed against Ms. Graves for not saying that.

I conclude Ms. Graves put forward sufficient evidence to prove the penalty of transferring her out of the Senior Executive Service was unreasonable. Therefore, she rebutted the presumption and established that the penalty was unreasonable under the circumstances of this case.

Basically the Judge found that there was so much of this type of activity going on in the upper echelons of VA that Ms Graves is being singled out for things that a whole slew of people ought be punished for, and thus her punishment is unjust.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, you aren’t alone.  It doesn’t make sense to anyone else I’ve talked to either.  Taken a step further, now how could ANYONE be punished, even if they did the exact same thing?  Any VA employee can apparently get an easier job, keep their pay, and get relocation bonuses.  The Judge in this case said that Graves had no way of knowing she would be punished since others were doing it, thereby creating itself the presumption that future individuals who do the same thing are going to again get off without any punishment.

Secretary McDonald was clearly incensed over the decision, as the previously linked Federal Times article makes clear:

A series of scandals at the VA, coupled with appeal restrictions designed solely for the agency as a result of the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act of 2014, have made the MSPB the central battleground pitting accountability versus federal employee rights.

For its part, the MSPB has recently overturned or lessened several VA judgments, including the demotion of two Veterans Benefits Administration executives accused of using their positions for personal gain.

That sustained struggle bubbled over last week, when VA secretary Bob McDonald suggested in a Feb. 10 hearing of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that the agency shift senior executives from Title 5 to Title 38 status, a move that would limit grievance and appeals avenues for executives.

So basically McDonald is looking to limit the Board by shifting where the employees are titled, taking the MSPB out of the equation.

For now, that appears to be the legislative answer.  What is odd, I mean truly odd, is that the MSPB has a disclaimer up on their main page now that (while not intended as such) seems to even indicate that Congress can and should take action of the disapprove of how this went down, to wit:

Recently, heightened attention has been paid to rulings by United States Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) administrative judges involving appeals filed by Senior Executive Service employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs under the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act of 2014 (the 2014 Act). In response to these rulings, some have suggested that MSPB is protecting poor performing employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs. These suggestions are baseless and unfair.

As an independent, quasi-judicial agency, MSPB is required to apply laws created by Congress and legal precedent, as established by Federal courts, when adjudicating appeals. With respect to burdens of proof applied by MSPB, they are contained in title 5 of the United States Code. Moreover, it should be noted that the 2014 Act made no changes to these burdens of proof. Indeed, as MSPB noted in itsAn accessible version of this document may exist, click here to access that version August 21, 2014 Report to Congress Opens a New Window. August 21, 2014 Report to Congress Opens a New Window. , the 2014 Act made only two changes to the MSPB adjudication process: 1) it shortened the time under which appellants must file appeals and which MSPB administrative judges must issue decisions; and 2) it removed the full Board from the MSPB adjudication process. The 2014 Act did not change any statutory burden of proof to be applied in these appeals. Therefore, unless the law is changed, these statutory burdens of proof continue to apply, as they do in all other appeals filed at MSPB. 

None of this helps in the short term.  Both Rubens and Graves will get away what even the VA’s inspector general said was a brazen and perfidious attempt to get funds and the same salary for lessened responsibilities.  The Court itself found that the SES system at VA was so messed up that neither woman could anticipate being demoted, much less fired.   And VA itself is unable to do anything to correct the climate that exists without help from Congress.  And as soon as Congress starts trying to fix this, the SES lobby and unions will jump in with their opposition.

I realize this is long and outside the knowledge scope of most readers, but trust me, VA can’t fix the climate issue right now without some help.  Help they don’t seem to be getting from the Courts, the SES system or anyone else.  And when Congress tries to correct the issue, they will likely run into a brick wall.  This is all looking like it could be one heck of a fight in Congress, and virtually no media will probably report it, and even fewer people will understand the ramifications of what might transpire.