Archives for March 2016

Nearly two years after the veterans’ health care scandal broke, hardly any meaningful change has occurred and now reports suggest a growing number of vets aren’t just having to wait for care but are being told they are ineligible.

The latest black eye for the Department of Veterans Affairs is a new report from the veterans group Swords to Plowshares, showing that more and more vets are being denied access to the VA system because of “bad papers,” the military term for anything less than an honorable discharge.

The report indicates that veterans since 2001 are more than twice as likely to be denied medical benefits for an “other than honorable” discharge than their counterparts from the Vietnam era and four times as likely as those who served in World War II.  All told 10 percent of Marines have been denied under these circumstances while the rate across all branches stands at 6.5 percent.

In real numbers, 125,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are being denied care due to “bad papers.”

Even those who regularly advocate for veterans admit this can be a thorny issue for the military.

“You can understand why the Pentagon and the VA would have to draw a distinction between the nature of the service and the nature of the benefits, so if you were kicked out of the military for terrible conduct, there’s a consequence potentially on the backside with your VA benefits,” said Pete Hegseth, a veterans advocate, who served both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He is now a Fox News Channel contributor.

At the same time, Hegseth says the government’s policy punishes a lot of veterans for conduct that stems from their service to the United States.

“The problem becomes maybe you went to Afghanistan, suffer from post-traumatic stress and act out when you come home, which leads to a dishonorable discharge.  Now you’re barred from VA benefits, but you’re the very person that needs those VA benefits.  A lot of those people are falling through the cracks,” said Hegseth.

And sometimes the lesser status on a discharge is just bureaucratic.

“In some cases, we see ‘other than honorables’ given out much more quickly because a medical discharge or another form of discharge is either lengthier or more costly for the military,” said Hegseth.

He explained some of the red tape games that get played.

“Sometimes the military’s taking the easy way out.  They’re just pushing people out the door because they don’t want to have to deal with it.  And maybe there’s a cost trail they don’t want to deal with,” said Hegseth.

“You also have the the other side of the coin, where a veteran may be at the end of their service.  They’re given an option to say, ‘Hey, you can either go down the medical discharge route and it might take a couple years because of all the paperwork and all the things that come with it.  Or you can just jump out right now and get an ‘other than honorable’ and maybe you’ll get access to VA benefits,” said Hegseth.

He says many who took that gamble are now really hung out to dry.

“The problem is that line has shifted, so people who thought they qualified for benefits no longer do.  As a result, they’re caught in the middle,” said Hegseth.

This would be enough of a headache for the VA, Hegseth says, but it still has a mountain of reforms to implement following the waiting time and falsified records scandal that rocked the department in May of 2014.

“Layer on top of all that the utter dysfunction of the VA, which can’t even care for the honorably discharged in a timely manner.  Now they’re trying to deal with folks who have a questionable paperwork trail, maybe some barriers to entry because of their service and the nature of their discharge.  It leads to them waiting longer with more uncertainty,” said Hegseth.

Has any progress been made at the VA in two years?

“Very little, unfortunately,” said Hegseth.  “Veterans now have a choice card but they still can’t use it as widely or as rapidly as they would want.  There’s been almost no accountability for those responsible for the wait list manipulation scandal.  Veterans continue to wait for a long time,” said Hegseth.

“All the while, Congress has been incapable of the larger, deeper reforms that are ultimately necessary,” said Hegseth, who says there is hope for some legislation to pass this year.  “If it doesn’t happen in this Congress, it means more vets waiting for a longer time at a dysfunctional VA that hasn’t changed.”

Why isn’t is happening?

“Mostly a combination of government unions, the AFGE, that want nothing to change and lobby very hard and are very powerful inside certain quarters in the halls of Congress.  They’re blocking this.  The VA bureaucracy is ferocious in trying to stifle anything that looks like change,” said Hegseth, who also says even some veterans groups are afraid to alter the status quo.

“There’s just powerful special interests like in any other area who want things not to change,” said Hegseth.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review applaud CNN’s Jake Tapper for calling out Obama’s hypocrisy on media coverage of politics and reminding viewers that Obama has stiff-armed the press more than any president since Nixon.  They also shake their heads as a new Clinton vs. Trump Electoral College projection shows Hillary with an easy win.  And they groan as Fox News and BuzzFeed fail to redact Michelle Fields’ personal information before showing her police report, leading to harassing phone calls to Fields who no longer feels it’s safe to be in her apartment.

A week after North Carolina lawmakers passed legislation defining who can use which bathrooms on government property, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is vigorously defending the law against fierce criticism from LGBT activists and some businesses by saying it protects women and girls and actually grants new accommodation to transgenders.

Widely known now as House Bill 2, or HB 2, the legislation was approved 82-26 in the North Carolina General Assembly.  State senators approved it 32-0, although 11 Democrats decided not to vote and another six lawmakers were absent.  Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill on March 25.

Lt. Gov. Forest said the city of Charlotte left lawmakers no choice but to act.

“This isn’t something the General Assembly brought up brought up.  The city council in Charlotte brought this up, against legal counsel’s advice and against the advice of a lot of folks.  They went beyond their constitutional authority and tried to create a public accommodation law in the city of Charlotte,” said Forest.

“That is expressly a responsibility of the state.  The city of Charlotte and municipalities don’t have the legal authority, based on our constitution, to establish public accommodation law,” said Forest.

In addition to overstepping it’s legal authority, Forest says the Charlotte council pursued a very troubling policy.

“The Charlotte ordinance said that the business community had to to comply with this ordinance.  They said it was sex discrimination to have men’s room and women’s room labels on your doors,” said Forest.

When state officials started hearing from sexual assault victims, the effort to reverse the Charlotte ordinance picked up far more steam.

“We have had multiple calls from women who had been sexually abused in a bathroom in a facility like that, who were literally being traumatized by even the thought of that going into law in North Carolina.  We stepped up to address it because it was going to go into effect and become the law in Charlotte on April 1.  That’s why we had to go into special session,” said Forest.

Conservative lawmakers and family organizations became even more alarmed after discovering that one of the leading advocates for the Charlotte ordinance is a registered sex offender.  At the time, Chad Sevearance-Turner was president of the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce.  The Charlotte Observer, citing a story in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, reports Sevearance-Turner was convicted by a jury for fondling a 15-year-old boy while he slept in 1998.  Seaverance-Turner was serving as youth minister in Gaffney, South Carolina, at the time.  The boy was a church member.

The actual text of the Charlotte ordinance only made things worse for concerned citizens.  Forest says the language made bathrooms and changing areas open to virtually anyone.

“The giant loophole they created was that this ordinance would then allow any person to enter any bathroom at any time.  A man can enter a women’s bathroom, a women’s locker room, a shower facility.  They could enter a girls’ bathroom, a girls’ locker room.  A sexual predator could enter in there, somebody that is a pedophile could go into a girls’ or women’s bathroom” said Forest.

Forest says the ordinance only required the person to identify as a member of a particular gender, and to have completed or be in the process of gender reassignment.

He says despite the protests, HB 2 does a few very simple things, starting with who can use which bathrooms.

“What HB 2 did was say that men have to use men’s rooms and women have to use women’s rooms in the state of North Carolina,” said Forest.

At the same time, he says people identifying as transgender benefit too.

“What this bill did is it created accommodation for people that are transgender, for people that view their gender differently than other folks,” said Forest.  “It also provides the opportunity for single-stall unisex bathrooms.  Anywhere that you want to place them.”

Forest says unlike Charlotte, the HB 2 only applies to government buildings and schools.  Business owners are free to make their own decisions.

And he says that’s not all.

“If you go fully through the process of being a transsexual, then go get your birth certificate changed and you go to whatever bathroom you are assigned at that point based on your birth certificate,” said Forest.

As for the critics alleging discrimination and bigotry and businesses threatening to leave the state, Forest says there’s nothing new about this firestorm.

“This is the same cast of characters that we’ve seen before.  We saw this same cast of characters in Houston, when Houston dealt with this problem and had to turn down the same kind of ordinance a year or so ago.  Same cast of characters we saw during our marriage amendment battle here in North Carolina,” said Forest.

Forest contends the businesses were pressured to get on board through aggressive tactics from the most powerful lobbying arm of the LGBT agenda.

“It’s being driven by folks like the Human Rights Campaign, which has a significant in with human resources departments in these companies, who then have an in with their diversity team at these companies as well.  They write a letter and they give it to a CEO or an executive and that executive signs it and sends it out to their employees,” said Forest.

He says a little prodding reveals the “activist” business leaders don’t really have a firm understanding of the legislation.

“I called them up and I said, ‘Have you even read the bill?’  And they said no, they hadn’t read the bill but they were handed this to send out to their employees.  It’s a shame that’s the way it works, but that is the way it works,” said Forest.

The most famous corporate blowback came from the NBA.  Charlotte is slated to host the 2017 NBA All-Star Game, but the league says this law may impact those plans.

Forest finds the NBA’s protest especially odd.

“The irony of that is that there is the NBA and the WNBA.  They don’t allow men to play in the WNBA and I’m sure they don’t allow men to go into the women’s locker room after the games either.  But they somehow think North Carolina is discriminatory because we want to protect women and children from predators in the bathroom,” said Forest.

He says the protests reveal who is truly intolerant.

“Really, what this leftist ideology and this leftist agenda says is, ‘You better subscribe to our way of thinking or we are going to come after you.’  They don’t let up.  They keep on coming.  That’s really unfortunate that people can’t sit down in a room and figure out how to get along,” said Forest.

Social conservatives have been plenty frustrated with Republicans in recent years for not standing as firmly as promised on issues ranging from marriage to religious freedom.  Forest says even with the heat from opponents and the media, there was no thought of backing down from this effort.

“You will never go wrong by doing the right thing.  There may be consequences to pay for doing the right thing.  Those consequences may be political and there may be a group of people who say, ‘We don’t want you to be their lieutenant governor again.’  I’m fine with that.  If I do the right thing, I really don’t care about the blowback or whether I get elected again,” said Forest.

He says the most disappointing part of this fight has been the reckless disregard for the truth from the left.

“The real shame of it is people don’t care about the truth anymore.  The truth doesn’t matter in America anymore.  That’s really unfortunate because all of the debate that’s coming against HB 2 in North Carolina is based on a bunch of fictitious matter,” said Forest.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review react to all three Republican hopefuls refusing to promise they will back the eventual GOP nominee.  They also discuss Donald Trump’s comments on Michelle Fields after Trump’s campaign manager is indicted for grabbing Fields earlier this month – and notice how Trump’s comments on women seem to be unnerving some of his most ardent supporters.  And they react to the way Ted Cruz handles questions from a hostile press.

The sponsor of the Georgia religious freedom legislation vetoed by Gov. Nathan Deal says he is “extremely disappointed” in Deal after lawmakers bent over backwards to craft a bill to satisfy the governor and the business community and protect limited freedoms for clergy and institutions of faith.

“I think the message the governor sent with the veto is that it’s open season on people of faith in Georgia,” said State Senator Josh McKoon, sponsor of Georgia’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

He says the veto especially stung after the governor’s office had been directly involved in the crafting of the bill.

“This bill was the result of a lot of negotiation between house and senate leadership.  The governor’s office was involved, as was he business community.  We certainly felt like we had a achieved a compromise that was acceptable to all sides,” said McKoon.

After the bill passed easily in both chambers of the Georgia legislature, a fierce public relations campaign rose up to oppose the bill, especially among big businesses.  Movie studios threatened to stop filming in the state if the act became law and the NFL said it could negatively impact Atlanta’s chances of hosting the Superbowl in a few years.

“I think the governor caved to pressure from the business community, from largely empty threats from out-of-state companies that were suggesting that they would withdraw or reduce their business in the state if the legislation passed,” said McKoon.

Most baffling to McKoon is how much he and his allies “watered down” the original bill to appease Gov. Deal and businesses.

“We had done everything we’d been asked to do to just try to get a modest protection for houses of worship, religious schools and religious non-profits.  If we can’t protect those in a state that’s run by the Republican Party, it was was a very bad day for people of faith in Georgia,” said McKoon.

The original bill had protections for vendors like photographers, florists and cake bakers who believe serving a specific event would violate their consciences.  But that was stripped to win the backing of Gov. Deal and business leaders.  McKoon and other sponsors also agreed to allow the law to be trumped by any federal or state law addressing discrimination.

McKoon says the original bill was much stronger.

“We really narrowed the focus of the bill in terms of who would be protected.  We sort of went from a wide-open person definition that would apply to any flesh and blood individual, any for-profit business, really any entity at all to a very narrow definition that was just primarily limited to house of worship, religious schools and religious nonprofits,” said McKoon.

The fight is not over.  Given the lopsided majorities in the Georgia legislature, supporters of the bill are trying to override Deal’s veto.

“People are continuing to work on that issue to see if there’s the necessary support to override the governor’s veto.  I think we’ve got the numbers in the state senate to do it,” said McKoon.

However, 120 votes are needed to override a veto in the Georgia House of Representatives.  Republicans hold 118 seats, so at least some Democratic support would be needed.

Gov. Deal’s office has not been in touch with McKoon since the veto was announced.  But McKoon says Deal’s reasoning given at his press conference was weak.

“The governor said he didn’t think this law was necessary and suggested people of faith were inappropriate to seek government relief for protection of the right of free exercise.  I just shook my head at that.  I don’t understand the rationale at all,” said McKoon.

“He made a reference to the founders in that the founders left this issue alone.  Obviously the founders thought it was important to attach the first amendment to the Constitution, which explicitly protects the right of free exercise,” said McKoon.

McKoon calls a lack of protection for free exercise of religion “unhealthy for our state” and says Deal is caving to the insatiable demands of the far left.

“He talked about [his veto] coming from a place of wanting to welcome people.  I think what’s he’s done is he’s welcomed radical, far-left activists that want to establish a religion.  The religion they want to establish is one of atheistic secular humanism,” said McKoon.

McKoon says he will also be pushing for a strong statement of support for religious freedom legislation at the Georgia Republican convention in June.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review react to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker endorsing Ted Cruz.  They slam Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal to caving to liberals and big business to veto religious freedom legislation.  And they do a double take as the National Journal’s Ron Fournier suggests prosecutors must meet a higher standard before charging Hillary Clinton because she is running for president.

Republican Oklahoma State Senator Joseph Silk is sponsor of a bill calling for abortion providers to be viewed as murderers under state law but the legislation is now in limbo after his own party’s leaders refused to let it come to the floor.

Silk is sponsor of Senate Bill 1118.  It includes very direct language.

“A person commits murder in the first degree when that person performs an abortion,” the bill states.  It defines abortion as “the use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug or any other substance, or device to intentionally kill an unborn human being.”

Silk says it’s time for pro-life leaders to go after what they really want.

“We need to call it what it is, which is murder, the pre-meditated intentional killing of a human being, and then treat it as such.  We’re trying to change the conversation from the typical pro-life rhetoric to actually being pro-life and getting justice for all these murdered children,” said Silk.

He believes pro-life lawmakers have spent way too long fighting at the margins in this debate.

“We’re essentially regulating abortion.  Your typical pro-life bill, and I say pro-life in quotes, is ‘Hey, you can’t kill your baby with this instrument, but you can with this.’  If we as pro-lifers believe that abortion is murder, then those pro-life bills aren’t actually pro-life,” said Silk.

Silk says the public reaction in Oklahoma was overwhelmingly supportive.

“The vast majority of Oklahomans who heard about the bill and were active in contacting legislators and the Senate in particular were very, very excited about the bill because people are tired of hearing the pro-life rhetoric.  Candidates say, ‘Yeah, I’m pro-life.  We’re going to do what we can do.’  They don’t ever do anything,” said Silk.

He says the people loved the direct language.

“We have the most severe wording and the truth in that wording.  People were excited to see that coming from the state government.  We got huge public support for that bill,” said Silk.

But Senate Bill 1118 was blocked from state senate consideration earlier this month and will not be brought up again until next year at the earliest.

“Two members of leadership decided to block the bill and they did succeed in that despite my best efforts and some of my colleagues and other citizens of Oklahoma,” said Silk.  “They blocked it and it did not get a hearing on the senate floor.”

Republicans control the Oklahoma state senate by a 39-9 margin, meaning GOP brass scuttled the bill.  Silk says thus far he is not satisfied with the explanations given by party leaders.

“They never could give me an answer why they were blocking it.  They just kept saying, ‘It’s a dangerous vote.  It’s going to put members in a hard place.  It goes too far.’  Things like that,” said Silk.

Silk’s appeal to their pro-life position also fell on deaf ears and muted voices.

“Then I would ask them, ‘You believe that life begins at conception?’  They would obviously say, ‘Absolutely.’  I said, ‘Well, that’s what this bill says,’ and then there’d just be blank stares,” said Silk.

Silk plans to re-introduce the bill in the 2017 session and knows it could face the same fate.  He admits the language to Senate Bill 1118 was changed somewhat to accommodate issues raised in a committee hearing.  Silk hopes lawmakers will look at it differently once they’ve had time to soak in the language.

Another argument against the bill was that the courts will strike it down and the U.S. Supreme Court is very unlikely to overturn Roe v. Wade under its current leadership.

That doesn’t deter Silk at all.  In fact, he relishes a legal fight at the heart of the abortion debate.

“We need to attack the issue directly.  Life begins at conception and abortion is murder.  Until we start doing that, [the Supreme Court is] never going to be forced to overturn that ruling,” said Silk.

He says activists have changed court precedent many times in the past, most notably with respect to slavery.  He also says the Supreme Court defied it’s own logic on the definition of marriage in just two years.

“Just three years ago, they said marriage shall be defined by the states.  After continuous pounding, what did they do this last year?  They defined it for us,” said Silk.  “Sure, some bills may get struck down, but eventually you’re going to push the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Silk.

 

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review warn GOP voters that most polls show Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clearly defeating Donald Trump in November.  They also rip Pres. Obama for trying to blur the lines between capitalism and communism.  And they unload on parents for turning a kids’ Easter egg hunt into a brawl.

Terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares says Belgian authorities are making some of the same mistakes as other European nations in the wake of a major terrorist attack, and the new foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump is also explaining what Americans could expect on this front if Trump becomes president.

Phares is a longtime Middle East and terrorism scholar, a Fox News terrorism analyst, a lecturer at National Defense University and an adviser to the U.S. Congress.  In recent days, he was announced as one of Trump’s five top advisers on matters of foreign policy and national security.

In the wake of major terrorist attacks earlier this week, Belgian authorities are actively conducting raids and chasing down leads to find the perpetrators of the airport and subway bombings.  Phares says those operations are being run with some competence but don’t get at the bigger issue plaguing Europe and other parts of the world.

“My worry is not about the tactical investigation.  It is really about the strategic investigation with regard to who planted that cell initially.  What kind of communication does it have with ISIS, meaning the metropolitan ISIS back in Iraq and Syria, and the possibility of other networks, not just in Belgium and France, but also on the rest of the continent?” said Phares.

He says the fight to stop the spread of radical Islamic terrorism needs to be at the ideological level, not just in aggressive law enforcement.

“Yes, [the Belgian authorities] could have done a little better on the technological level, but the real battle will always be how to disconnect the radicalization and  indoctrination networks,” said Phares.  “We’re doing everything but that.”

For his part, Trump responded to the attacks by targeting immigration policy, a move Phares says is being very responsive to his base.

“He says, ‘We don’t know what’s happening.’  So now the answer to that is his administration, his  task forces that he will be forming will have to answer one question, in cooperation with Congress of course.  ‘How do we vet?’  The answers to all the questions about the jihadists is, ‘How do we vet them?'” said Phares.

He says the answer on vetting immigrants lies in digging much deeper into applicants’ connections with those driving a radical ideology.

“You have to create the proper institution that is concentrating on the vetting, meaning, number one, determine what the ideology is, who is circulating the ideology, who is actually creating those madrassas, meaning ideological schools online and offline.  Start to work a bit deeper than just a tactical investigation.  It’s a whole change of policy,” said Phares.

He says that is the polar opposite of what President Obama and Hillary Clinton want to do.

“The problem is that the Obama administration and maybe a Clinton administration won’t be inclined to do so.  They have always been remote from dealing with anything related to the jihadi ideology,” said Phares.

As for Trump’s general foreign policy and national security philosophy, Phares says it’s a work in progress.

“Mr. Trump is coming from a different field than the other public policy politicians.  he’s a very successful businessman.  He is arriving to the scene with that huge experience in terms of economics and finances and deals and what have you,” said Phares.

“He is now in the process of forming his strategic thinking with the help of reading a lot, he observes a lot and with the help of the task forces he establishes,” said Phares.

For those looking for detailed Trump plans soon, Phares says they are coming, but not in time for primary voters to evaluate them.

“I think the major activity is going to come hopefully after the nomination,” said Phares.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Ian Tuttle of National Review react to a new poll suddenly showing Ted Cruz with a narrow lead in Wisconsin.  They also rip Obama’s reaction to the Brussels attacks and for continuing to assert that keeping Guantanamo Bay open is somehow more dangerous to Americans than letting detainees go.  And they react to the latest salvo over wives in the Republican presidential race.