President George W. Bush delivered the most extensive eulogy at the Washington, D.C, funeral for President Ronald Reagan, who died 10 years ago Thursday.
Listen here to the Bush eulogy in its entirety.
by GregC
President George W. Bush delivered the most extensive eulogy at the Washington, D.C, funeral for President Ronald Reagan, who died 10 years ago Thursday.
Listen here to the Bush eulogy in its entirety.
by GregC
Former President Ronald Reagan died ten years ago today, on June 5, 2004. Over the next six days, millions of Americans expressed their appreciation for Reagan by lining highways and streets and standing in line for hours to pay their respects at the U.S. Capitol and the Reagan Presidential Library.
On June 11, funerals for Reagan played out in Washington and California. In the service at Washington National Cathedral, Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush delivered the most emotional eulogy of the service.
Listen to it here.
by GregC
Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review are surprised to see that even liberals are criticizing President Obama’s handling of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release from Taliban captivity. Greg and Jim examine the evolution of President Obama’s Bergdahl defense. They close by highlighting Senator Chuck Schumer’s Bill of Rights bumble.
Also be sure to tune in to HBO’s show Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday. Jim Geraghty said he will be entering the “liberal den.”
by GregC
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry”Boykin says Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is clearly a deserter who should never draw a free breath and President Obama is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors for once again ignoring federal law in pursuit of an administration goal.
Boykin is also ripping the president for releasing five key Taliban figures in exchange for Bergdahl and slamming the Obama administration for attacking the character of Afghanistan veterans who publicly denounce Bergdahl’s actions in Afghanistan.
The general says Obama’s actions in this episode demonstrate why he is unfit for office. He categorically dismisses Obama’s contention that the exchange had to happen to honor America’s commitment to leave no Americans behind. Boykin says that clearly wasn’t true in Benghazi and that the administration seems to have little regard for a U.S. Marine jailed in Mexico, an American pastor imprisoned in Iran or the Sudanese Christian in custody for her faith along with her two American children.
“This was about emptying out Guantanamo. This was a backdoor deal. The reasons for it, the details of it will probably never come out in its entirety, but this is an ugly story,” he said.
The general is also taking the commander-in-chief to task for once again flouting the law, this time skirting a requirement to give Congress 30 days notice of his intent to free any Guantanamo detainees. Boykin says he understands why Obama would feel constrained by the law and admits that it might not be constitutional. However, as long as it is the law, he says Obama is required to abide by it instead of ignoring statutes he doesn’t like, whether on this issue or several others.
“It was really bad form for him not to at least call in the chair and ranking member of the intel or armed services committee and tell them what he was about to do with regard to the release of these prisoners,” he said.
“It’s an example of how this president only obeys the laws and follows the policies that he wants to. In our Constitution, it falls under the category of high crimes and misdemeanors, where you just selectively obey certain laws and ignore others,” said Boykin.
As for Bergdahl, Boykin says he has no doubt the soldier ended up in Taliban custody because he deliberately deserted his unit.
“We know for sure that he is a deserter. In fact, the 15-6 investigation that was conducted immediately after his departure from his base concluded that he had deserted and I think all the evidence supports that conclusion, particularly given the fact that he had asked a series of bizarre questions of his teammates. He also left a very revealing message explaining how he was ashamed of being an American and wanted to help the people of Afghanistan. This guy’s a deserter,” said Boykin.
“The fact that (National Security Adviser) Susan Rice went on television and said that served honorably is just another example of why she needs to be removed and replaced, because this is the second time, Benghazi being the first, where she has gone on television and openly lied to the American public. This administration knows he deserted. They knew how people felt about him and she went out there and called his service honorable. If that’s the case, then you tell me what the concept of honorable service is for this administration,” said Boykin.
The term “desertion” has been used far and wide in media reports this week. While no one applauds a soldier abandoning his unit, considerable debate has ensued about how significant of an issue this ought to be. Boykin says it’s an extremely serious issue.
“Desertion in combat, and I emphasize in combat, which means you are in a combat zone and routinely engaged with the enemy, is punishable by death. That should give you some indication as to how serious this is taken,” said Boykin. “When a man walks off and leaves his post in combat, he jeopardizes everybody else”
Boykin says in addition to leaving his men shorthanded against the enemy, Bergdahl compromised military intelligence whether he he willingly went along with the Taliban or was interrogated.
“You have a tremendous amount of information which would be very useful to the enemy. Whether he was a collaborator or not is yet to be determined. My guess is that he was. Even if he was not a deliberate collaborator, the interrogation techniques of these people is such that he probably provided an awful lot of very useful, valuable information to the enemy,” said Boykin.
So what should happen to Bergdahl as a result of his desertion?
“They should do an Article 32 investigation immediately. It should be ongoing right now. That is a prelude to a court martial. There can be no other option. They must take him to court martial and they must hold him accountable for his actions. If he didn’t desert, then the truth will come out,” said Boykin, who says Bergdahl’s actions are even more severe than desertion.
“There are are other soldiers that were endangered and even some we are positive now that were killed in the efforts to find him. As far as I’m concerned, that exacerbates his crime from being a simple desertion to being one that resulted in the deaths of his comrades. I think that has to be considered as we talk about what to do with him. From my perspective, he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison at a minimum,” said Boykin.
At least one of the other soldiers who served alongside Bergdahl in Afghanistan believes this is a case of desertion at best and treason at worst.
Is Boykin willing to go that far?
“Absolutely. What else could you call it?” he said.
At least a half dozen soldiers who served with Bergdahl are speaking publicly. They all consider him a deserter and not the hero portrayed by the administration. In response, the State Department accuses those veterans of not telling the truth and White House aides tell reporters that their criticism amounts to a swift-boating of Bergdahl, a reference to the criticism Vietnam veterans leveled at John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign.
“Do you think if Bergdahl had served honorably that those guys wouldn’t be coming out now rejoicing in the fact he had been returned. Use a little common sense and just ask yourself. Would they have had this reaction had he not deserted from his unit? ” asked Boykin.
Boykin is appalled that Bergdahl’s return also came at the cost of five high-level Taliban leaders being held at Guantanamo Bay. The general says he would not even have paid such a price for an honorable soldier being held by the enemy, but he would have quickly gathered intelligence by which to launch a rescue mission. He believes the military knew exactly where Bergdahl was but didn’t have any motivation to go get him.
“That’s what should have happened if this was a man with honorable service. He wasn’t. So you have to ask the question, ‘Why didn’t the military go and try to rescue him?’ I’m going to speculate that it’s because they were not willing to risk another life for a guy they knew was a traitor,” said Boykin.
by GregC
Today’s Three Martini Lunch with Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review pulls no punches as President Obama’s approval ratings take another dip. They also discuss the administration’s accusation that U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s former platoon mates are guilty of “swift-boating” their former comrade. And they look at the Republican Senate races across the nation, especially in Mississippi, where Senator Thad Cochran and challenger Chris McDaniel look to be headed toward a run-off to decide a very bitter primary.
by GregC
Evidence of dozens of veterans dying as they waited months for appointments and treatment are likely the tip of the iceberg and the real number of deaths could be in the thousands, according to a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who closely follows the issue.
Jessie Jane Duff spent 20 years in the Marines, rising to the rank of gunnery sergeant. She is now on the organizing committee at Concerned Veterans for America. While the government is essentially admitting to about 40 deaths in Phoenix due to long waits and dozens more facilities are under investigation, Duff says the real number of veteran deaths due to the VA bureaucracy in recent years is exponentially higher.
“Yes, I do estimate it’s in the thousands. Let’s go to the backlog that they had. Fifty-three veterans died a day just waiting on their benefits in 2011. The VA itself has those numbers. We’re talking about egregious mismanagement, a culture of corruption that was allowing all these executives to give the impression that they had 14 days of waiting time, not months and months of waiting time, so they could get bonuses. So I expect it will be several hundred, if not thousands,” said Duff.
Duff says another reason the numbers are likely to soar is because of systemic bureaucracy that grinds the system to a crawl.
“In Albuquerque, New Mexico, veterans were waiting over four months with gangrene, heart disease, brain tumors. I didn’t even know you could wait that long with any of those predicaments. In Harlingen, Texas, in 2010, they decided that men had to come back with three screenings that came out positive before they could get in for a colonoscopy. By that time, it was a Stage Four cancer,” said Duff, who elaborated further on some of the red tape our veterans are forced to navigate in Albuquerque.
“It came out that they had eight cardiologists on staff. But only three would work a day and they would see only two patients per day. I’m not sure if that was two patients per cardiologist or two total. Regardless, the report I read determined that they were seeing in a week what most medical facilities could see in two days,” she said.
She says a final death count may prove difficult since many vets ultimately gave up on the VA system and sought care in the private sector. Duff says the most troubling aspect of this story is not just incompetent mismanagement but the blatant deceit perpetrated by VA officials around the nation.
“What disappoints me the most out of this is that it was deliberate. I used to think it was just mismanagement. I’ve been reporting on mismanagement for the past year. Now I realize it was all deliberate and it was all in the name of an almighty dollar. I’m so shocked and saddened to know that executives at the highest level were training their employees to hide numbers, training their employees to make it look like veterans were only waiting 14 days,” said Duff.
“They were not realizing the reality nor did they care about the reality that this was going to result in many of these veterans’ deaths. And we’re talking often about our Vietnam era and older. Many of those men are not in a position where they can heal quickly and go without medical care for sustained periods of time,” she said.
“It’s tragic that these executives became so removed, so removed from the very veterans they were helping that they never looked in the eyes of these family members or went to one of the funerals or watched the pain and suffering that these men went through,” said Duff.
Federal spending on veterans’ health care is up significantly in the Obama administration and the president vowed last week to fight for as much additional money as needed to fix the system. That approach to the problem leaves Duff incensed.
“Oh please. I just want to scream when I hear somebody say, ‘Let’s slap more money onto it,'” said Duff. “They have a $150 billion budget. They requested $160 billion for the next fiscal year. They’ve never been denied anything from the Senate or the House as far as their budget goes. Thirty-nine percent is going to medical costs. Thirty-nine (percent) of the $150 billion,” said Duff.
Duff reports that 52 percent of taxpayers dollars spent at the Phoenix VA went to administrative costs, including the purchase of expensive office furniture. Another six million was spent on a sparsely attended national conference in Orlando, Florida.
“They’ve wasted thousands and thousands and millions of dollars,” said Duff. “The money is simply being mismanaged.”
She is also seething at Senate Democrats for blocking the VA Accountability Act, which easily passed the House and would give the secretary of Veterans’ Affairs. However, GOP attempts to approve the plan in the Senate were blocked by Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont).
“Sanders has another bill of his own, another $20 billion in a pork-funded bill that he’s trying to get through the Senate. He used two false arguments. His first false argument is we need time to review the bill. It’s a three-page bill, 27 lines, Bernie. How slow do you need to read?” asked Duff.
“The second false argument is that he said this would give a greater opportunity when we change administrations for executives to be fired and that would be unfair. That’s another false argument. The Department of Defense has this authority to fire executives. This was in place in several previous administrations. Secretary (Robert) Gates used it during the Walter Reed scandal in 2007. We have heard of no executives being fired when the administrations changed so that is a false and ridiculous argument, said Duff.
She says executives would still have the right to appeal their termination, so punitive firings would be very difficult. Duff says the case of Sharon Helman is the perfect example of why reform is needed. Helman deliberately submitted false information on the number of veteran suicides. Instead of being fired, she was promoted to director of the Phoenix VA, site of the initial reports of falsified wait lists for veterans.
With all of the promises of reform flowing out of Washington, when will America know real progress is being made?
“We have over a quarter-million veterans who are appealing their claims. I want to see where they start getting a very solid ratio of when they grant a claim, it’s not being appealed. That tells me you’re giving a quality assessment to the person who is making the claim. We’re going to see our veteran suicides drop. Right now, 22 vets a day are killing themselves due to mental health issues. Often there is a huge delay of up to three weeks getting in for a mental health exam within the VA. We’ll see that drop,” said Duff.
“We will also see a greater quality in care. I expect that they’ll start serving these veterans and find out how long they’ve been getting care. And I expect the Senate and the House to be monitoring this a hell of a lot closer than they’ve been. Sadly, they’ve all gotten letters from veterans complaining about the VA, but it wasn’t until Phoenix that we heard them do anything about it,” she said.
by GregC
President Obama is moving forward with a central component of his climate change agenda, as the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that carbon emissions must be reduced by 30 percent at fossil fuel-burning power plants by 2030 in order to fend off the devastating effects of a changing climate.
The plan is actually set to take effect next year, but EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says the administration has a “moral obligation to act.”
The reduction in carbon emissions was a critical component of Obama’s “cap-and-trade” agenda that failed to pass the U.S. Senate in 2010, even with a filibuster-proof Democratic majority. This time, the administration is not involving Congress, a move that has Republicans seething.
“That’s been par for the course ever since Republicans took the majority in the U.S. House. The president has just ignored Congress and done everything by administrative fiat, in many cases going beyond his legitimate authority. That’s really dangerous and not living under the Constitution in significant ways,” said Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
“I think it’s dangerous when you have this dramatic (of) an action plan which can’t get legislative support, even in the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate,” said Vitter.
“It can’t get support for good reason. It’s costly. It hurts our economy. It hurts consumers. It hurts the poorest and most vulnerable. And what it is achieving? Less than two percent impact on carbon emissions. So as China and India and other countries do nothing in this category, we’re killing our economy,” he said.
So why would greatly reducing carbon emissions at power plants lead to the “killing of our economy?” Vitter says it’s pretty simple.
“To reduce carbon emissions like that so dramatically, we’d have to get rid of a lot of abundant, cheaper sources of energy right now, starting with coal and many other fossil fuels. Those are the most efficient, the most low-cost forms of energy we have. So we’re simply displacing that for higher ways of producing electricity,” said Vitter.
“So energy costs are going to go up significantly. When you do that, it’s a toll on the economy. It’s basically a tax on consumers and a tax on the economy, so it’s going to slow economic growth even more,” he said.
Vitter says that 40 percent of the nation’s electricity comes from coal, which is expected to take the hardest hit if these regulations take hold. He says the green energy movement cannot begin to replace the lost energy capacity expected from these regulations and adds there’s really nothing to replace coal that is even remotely competitive on price.
“So we’re going to pay much higher prices. A big to to consumers and to families and a big hit to businesses in terms of costs. That means fewer jobs,” said Vitter.
Vitter says Republicans in Congress, along with some Democrats, will try to stop the implementation of the new EPA rules, which he calls “illegal and unconstitutional”. He also expects major lawsuits to be filed against the rules, but the senator says the real leverage belongs with the American people in November.
“We’re going to have a big national election this fall. Conservatives have an opportunity to take back the U.S. Senate. That would be a significant check and balance against this sort of unbridled power. I think and hope that energy, energy prices, the very slow recovery we have is going to be an important part of that election debate,” said Vitter.
by GregC
Today’s Three Martini Lunch with Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review spends some time with Geraghty’s new book, “The Weed Agency,” available from booksellers today. They also discuss President Obama’s flawed rationale for trading Taliban prisoners for U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. They finish by talking about a study alleging that hurricanes named after women are much deadlier because people instinctively believe that women are less threatening.
by GregC
Today’s Three Martini Lunch with Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review is all about the recent prisoner swap of five Taliban figures held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. They talk about some of the disturbing facts surrounding the swap, including the possibility that Bergdahl abandoned his post, the fact that the Obama administration has been accused of making a deal with terrorists, and its disregard for the law by failing to give Congress proper notice.
by GregC
The crisis of delayed care through the Veterans Administration is triggering close examination of the federal bureaucracy and the competence of VA management, but some fear the influence of organized labor is also adding to the time veterans must wait for treatment or to have their claims processed.
The issue at hand is known as “official time.”
“Official time is the euphemism for government employees doing the business of their labor union rather than doing the work of the government. Different departments allow different amounts, but even an hour of your time shouldn’t be funded by tax dollars if they’re doing the work of the union. That’s what the union dues are supposed to pay for,” said Fred Wszolek of the Workforce Fairness Institute.
As early as June 2013, Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) sent a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to express their concern that scores of VA employees working on “official time” were busy doing work for the unions rather than making life easier for veterans as they are paid to do.
“Documents from your department list 188 VA employees serving in 100 percent official time capacity during the time period spanning January 1, 2012 through February 2013. During this time of sequestration and tight budgets, it is important to know how so many employees can be spared to serve the interest of outside groups, instead of carrying out jobs that are essential to the health, safety and transition of our nation 19s veterans,” wrote the senators.
Wszolek believes it’s outrageous for taxpayers to be funding union labor for any length of time but he says the problem is most likely worse than the unions will admit.
“We’re not even sure that they’re properly reporting all of the official time that they’re taking. They might be putting down that they did three hours of union business but really it was an entire day. So it’s tough to tell whether this is having a major effect throughout the major workforce. I would suspect that it is being under-reported and the value of the time that is being given away to the unions is probably dramatically higher than what we know,” said Wszolek.
Don’t expect any of that to change. Wszolek says these workers have very little to fear given their current job security.
“Many of these employees are also covered by civil service. So they have two levels of protection. That may be why some of these VA employees were so ambivalent about the whole thing and were providing substandard care. They’re almost impossible to fire under civil service rules and then they’ve got a union going to bat for them as well. So they kind of feel as though they can get away with anything,” said Wszolek.
So why would the federal government agree to federal employees holding virtually all of the cards? Wszolek says there’s no one really advocating for the taxpayers.
“The unions often times control the government, so then they’re kind of negotiating with themselves. They’re negotiating with the people that got them elected, and so obviously they’re getting a pretty good deal,” he said.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the VA Management Accountability Act by a vote of 390-33. It would give the secretary of Veterans Affairs more freedom to remove subordinates for incompetence or nonperformance. Wszolek says that’s a good step but cannot figure out why it was needed or why Shinseki was urging lawmakers to oppose the bill.
“You almost have to scratch your head and think about this but why do we have to pass a special law to allow the senior managers of these departments to fire incompetent employees. Why isn’t that the law? Why can’t you get rid of anybody when they’re doing something so crazy? The idea that the secretary opposes having that authority is mind boggling,” said Wszolek.
As for the the fate of official time, Wszolek says it’s here to stay, at least in the current political environment.
“There’s zero percent chance as long as Harry Reid is the majority leader in the Senate that we’ll ever get rid of official time. His devotion to the unions is absolute. There has to be a change in power in that house of Congress,” said Wszolek.
“It’s a no-brainer. We are borrowing money from foreign countries to pay our bills. It’s not like we’ve got spare money lying around. We should be having every single minute of a government employee’s time focused on government’s business, not the unions’ business,” he said.