Tuesday, May 15, 2012

THIS JUST IN! LOOK WHO'S BITCHY!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

WALL STREET'S JAMIE DIMON THOUGHT HE AND CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O WERE FRIENDS BUT NOW HE'S EXPLAINING THAT HE AND BARRY O WERE NEVER THAT CLOSE AND JOINED THE CHORUS ASKING FOR REAL CHANGE IN 2012.

MEANWHILE BARRY O'S GONE BACK TO BEING THE BITCHY BARRY OF 2008 AS HE RESORTS TO NAME CALLING AND MORE INSISTING MITT ROMNEY IS A "VAMPIRE" AND A "JOBS KILLER."

SETTING ASIDE THE LITTLE THING CALLED "THE ECONOMY" AND BARRY O'S GOLFING AND VACATIONING AND PARTYING WITH MILLIONAIRES IN HOLLYWOOD WHILE AMERICA IS STILL IN THE MIDST OF THE WORST RECESSION SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION, BITCH BARRY HAS RESORTED TO "OLD POLITICS."  YES, IN 2012 HIS CAMPAIGN SLOGAN IS "DESPAIR" AND "MORE OF THE SAME."


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


 
At the conservative blog American.com (American Institute Enterprise), Marc Thiessen is noting "what a different five months make," contrasting Barack's December words of eternal ties with Iraq with the New York Times report yesterday, Tim Arango's "U.S. May Scrap Costly Efforts to Train Iraqi Police."  Arango reported that the police training program has already cost US taxpayers $500 million since October alone and is an utter failure with Iraqis having ceased attending training on US facilities and Americans unwilling to train the Iraqi police on Iraqi facilities due to safety concerns. If it accomplishes nothing else, Arango's article forced the State Dept and spokesperson Victoria Nuland to address Iraq in their daily briefing today (here for transcript and video):
 
 
 
QUESTION: Yeah. Iraq.
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
 
 
 
QUESTION: I realize this was addressed by the Embassy yesterday, but I just want to get from here -- you know what I'm talking about, yes? -- in terms of the elimination, or reported elimination, of the Iraqi police training program. This -- the report said that it was being considered that the whole program could be -- could vanish, that it could go away. The Embassy, while it denied that, didn't say that it wouldn't be substantially cut or whittled down to a mere fraction of what it originally had been planned to be. Can you just clarify what exactly is -- what are the plans for the police training program?
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Well, first let me clarify we have no intention to cancel our police training program in Iraq. What we are engaged in, in collaboration with the Iraqis, is a right-sizing exercise for this program along with all of our programs. As you know, we are absolutely committed to, first of all, supporting Iraqi self-reliance. So if they tell us they need less support, we are going to downsize. And in this case, they are asking us to continue the advisory and training program but to downsize it, and also to saving the U.S. taxpayer money wherever we can.  So I can't give you a final size for this. We are in the evaluation process now, working with the Iraqis. But we do anticipate we're going to be able to downsize it considerably while continuing to be able to support the Iraqis on the police training side.
 
 
 
QUESTION: Okay. This is the second time in -- since the beginning of the year that this particular publication has written something about the Embassy which you had a serious dispute with. Both times it has been cast -- the reports have cast these reductions or slashing of personnel as serious miscalculations by the Administration in terms of its Iraq policy. What's your feeling about that, that characterization of it?
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Well, again, it's important to appreciate that we are in a new phase with Iraq. We're in a phase where it is up to the Iraqis to decide precisely what kind of footprint they want by foreign support, foreign countries offering support, offering assistance in the context of their overall approach to their sovereignty. So we very much need to respect that this is a collaborative decision how much support they want on the police training side.  So we're trying to be in step with their increasing self-reliance. We're trying to do this in a negotiated, phased, managed way. But we're also trying to make clear to Iraqis that we think we have valuable training, valuable advice to offer, as we do to some hundred countries around the world. So we're going to work this through, but I think folks need to get on the program that we have a sovereign Iraq who's going to make its own decisions about how much outside support it wants.
 
 
 
QUESTION: All right. So you agree or disagree with the characterization that this is -- that this represents a serious political -- or a serious policy miscalculation?
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Well, of course I'm going to disagree with that. Thank you.
 
 
 
 
QUESTION: Was the report correct that the Administration has spent $500 million so far on the police training program?
 
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: I don't have the total amount here, but as you know, we've been involved in police training from the beginning of the Iraq operation, as far back as 2003. I can take the question if it's of interest to you to sort of tote it all up. But we were involved in police work ourselves, police training for the Iraqis from the beginning, the standing up of their own professional police forces. I don't think anybody in that country wanted to submit themselves to the old Saddam-ite police, so it needed a bottom-up work and cleansing. So --
 
 
QUESTION: One other thing. The report alleged that much of the training provided by the United States, and in particular by the State Department since the departure of the U.S. military from Iraq, was not helpful to the Iraqis, that it consisted of retired or late-in-their-career American state troopers telling war stories about how they conduct their activities in the United States. And it cited one anecdote in which it said that the two key indices of someone possibly going to -- planning to launch a suicide bombing were: one, that they would withdraw a lot of money from the bank; and two, that they'd go out and get drunk. And it suggested that those were perhaps not very apposite indicators for Iraq where: one, a lot of Iraqis don't have bank accounts; and two, a lot of Iraqis don't drink. Do you -- how do you address the criticisms in the story that regardless of how many millions were spent on this, that the training wasn't actually all that useful?
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, I'm not going to get drawn into parsing the anecdotes in a story with which we took considerable issue, both in its macro assertions and in many of its details. We had considerable difficulties with that story, as the statement from Embassy Baghdad made clear.  With regard to the integrity of the police training that we do -- we have done in Iraq over these many years, we stand by it. The Iraqis have a new, modern, more democratic police force largely as a result of the support of the international community led by the United States. I'm obviously not in a position to speak to every individual involved in this, but all over the world we rely on the expertise of retired officers from the United States, from other countries, who are willing to participate in these training programs. And they participate on the basis of their experience in democratic law enforcement, not to hang around and tell inappropriate war stories. So we stand by the program. And if you'd like more on the numbers, et cetera, we can get you a separate briefing.
 
 
QUESTION: Can I just -- the last one this?
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
 
 
 
 
QUESTION: Just given the severity of the differences that you had with this, has there been any contact between the Department or anyone -- any senior officials in the Department and the editorship of the publication in question?
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Well, I'm not going to get into our discussions with the --
 
 
 
QUESTION: Well, have you asked for a correction or clarification or --
 
 
QUESTION: Or a retraction?
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: We have made absolutely clear in our public statements and in our messages to that publication how we feel about the story.
 
 
 
QUESTION: But does that mean that you've asked for a retraction or a correction or some kind of -- I mean, after the first one, you demanded one. And you were quite open about it, and you got one.
 
 
 
MS. NULAND: Yeah. I think we're still working on that set of issues.
 
 
 
They should work on those issues.
 
 
 
They should also work on Victoria Nuland's status of spokesperson.  That's the full exchange on Iraq so we're not accuesed of misquoting her.  But the key passage to her response was this: "What we are engaged in, in collaboration with the Iraqis, is a right-sizing exercise for this program along with all of our programs. As you know, we are absolutely committed to, first of all, supporting Iraqi self-reliance. So if they tell us they need less support, we are going to downsize. And in this case, they are asking us to continue the advisory and training program but to downsize it, and also to saving the U.S. taxpayer money wherever we can." 
 
 
 
That's exactly what Tim Arango reported.   That the program was being downsized, that cuts were being considered and that the program might get scrapped.  That is what he reported.  Nuland can pretend to be upset and outraged but she should be most upset and outraged with herself because she confirmed Arango's report.  Arango did not report, "The State Dept is closing the police training program!"  His opening sentence established the main point of the article: "In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed -- and may jettison entirely by the end of the year -- a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here."  That jibes exactly with what she said in the paragraph above.
 
 
 
At the conservative opinion journal Commentary, Max Boot also takes to gloating ("also" refers back to Marc Thiessen -- not to Victoria Nuland or Tim Arango).  Boot insists, "All of this was utterly predictable -- and in fact was predicted by numerous commentators, including yours truly, who had no faith in State's ability to run such an ambitious undertaking in a coutry that remains so dangers."  So there's Max Boots crowing about his crystal vision.  I think, by contrast, I'll just sing along with Carly Simon, "I'm no prophet and I don't know natures way" ("Anticipation," written by Carly, first appears on her album of the same name).
 
 
 
I didn't need to be a prophet and I don't understand why the conservatives are gloating?  If they really think they stumbled onto something, they've just demonstrated how out of touch they are.  Let's go back to the February 8, 2012 snapshot:
 
 
 
We covered the November 30th House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the MiddleEast and South Asia in the December 1st snapshot and noted that Ranking Member Gary Ackerman had several questions. He declared, "Number one, does the government of Iraq -- whose personnel we intend to train -- support the [police training] program?  Interviews with senior Iaqi officials by the Special Inspector General show utter didain for the program.  When the Iraqis sugest that we take our money and do things instead that are good for the United States. I think that might be a clue."  The State Dept's Brooke Darby faced that Subcommittee. Ranking Member Gary Ackerman noted that the US had already spent 8 years training the Iraq police force and wanted Darby to answer as to whether it would take another 8 years before that training was complete?  Her reply was, "I'm not prepared to put a time limit on it."  She could and did talk up Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Interior Adnan al-Asadi as a great friend to the US government.  But Ackerman and Subcommittee Chair Steve Chabot had already noted Adnan al-Asadi, but not by name.  That's the Iraqi official, for example, Ackerman was referring to who made the suggestion "that we take our money and do things instead that are good for the United States."  He made that remark to SIGIR Stuart Bowen.
Brooke Darby noted that he didn't deny that comment or retract it; however, she had spoken with him and he felt US trainers and training from the US was needed.  The big question was never asked in the hearing: If the US government wants to know about this $500 million it is about to spend covering the 2012 training of the Ministry of the Interior's police, why are they talking to the Deputy Minister?
 
 
 
In that hearing, nearly a month before Barack's speech, Stuart Bowen and Brooke Darby confirmed that the puppet Nouri al-Maliki had over the Minister of the Interior had said he didn't want the US training Iraqis. 
 
 
 
In that same House Foreign Relations Committee hearing, it was also established that the State Dept had no real plan.
 
 
 
Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: When will they be willing to stand up without us?
 
 
Brooke Darby: I wish I could answer that question.
 
 
Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: Then why are we spending money if we don't have the answer?
 
 
[long pause]
 
 
Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: You know, this is turning into what happens after a bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding. It's called "a Jewish goodbye."  Everybody keeps saying goodbye but nobody leaves.
 
 
 
 
Given the chance, by Darby, to retract his remark, he stood by it.  We could drop back further but there's no need to bother, Peter Van Buren's already beaten us to it as he explains (at Huffington Post):
 
 
 
In October I reported on my blog wemeantwell.com that the State Department was on Capitol Hill in front of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, begging a skeptical Congress for more money for police training in Iraq. "Training" was again being cited as the cure-all for America's apparently insatiable desire to throw money away in Mesopotamia. That latest tranche of taxpayer cash sought by State was one billion dollars a year, every year for five years, to pay police instructors and cop salaries in Iraq.
The U.S. has been training Iraqi cops for years. In fact, the U.S. government has spent $7.3 billion for Iraqi police training since 2003. Ka-ching! Anybody's hometown in need of $7.3 billion in Federal funds? Hah, you can't have it if you're American, it is only for Iraq!
Ever-reliable State Department tool Pat Kennedy led the pack of fibbers in asking Congress for the cash: "After a long and difficult conflict, we now have the opportunity to see Iraq emerge as a strategic ally in a tumultuous region." He went on (... and on) promising "robust this" and "robust that." Best of all, Pat Kennedy also said that providing assistance to the Iraqi police and security forces "will eventually reduce the cost of our presence as security in the country improves and we can rely on Iraqi security for our own protection."  
 
 
 
 
Now apparently Max Boot never heard of these hearing or others like it -- there were others -- but he's happy because he had a vision and turned out to be true. 
 
 
Back in the land of reality,  Nicholas Noe and Walid Read (Bloomberg News) note Ahmad al-Muhanna's Al Mada column about "the bitter power struggle between the Shiite Maliki on the one side and the main Kurdish and Sunni leaders on the other.  In addition, Maliki is in a scrape with his fellow Shiite Muqtada al-Sadr, whose parliamentary bloc froms the ruling coaling with the PM's party.  Sadr, who unlike Maliki is a determined foe of the U.S., has openly criticized Maliki for isolation Shiites by mopolizing governming powers.  He joined Maliki's opponents recently in issuing the Irbil Paper, a list of demands including one that Maliki not run again after his current term expires in 2014."
 
 



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Posted by at

Saturday, May 12, 2012

THIS JUST IN! BAD NEWS FOR BARRY O!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

BAD NEWS FOR BARRY O.

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O FINDS 52% OF AMERICANS DISAPPROVE OF HIS HANDLING OF THE ECONOMY AND 65% DISAPPROVE OF HIS HANDLING OF GAS PRICES.

THIS FOLLOWS THE WEST VIRGINIA PRIMARY WHERE A CONVICTED FELON GOT ON THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S PRESIDENTIAL BALLOT AND HE GOT 40% OF THE VOTE AND BEAT BARRY O IN 10 COUNTIES.


AND APPARENTLY TICKED OFF THAT HE CAN NO LONGER GO ON VACATION EVERY OTHER WEEK BECAUSE HE HAS TO CAMPAIGN INSTEAD, BARRY O IS AGAIN WHINING THAT CONGRESS NEEDS TO GET TO WORK.

4 MORE YEARS OF THIS GUY?


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Today the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy in Iraq Martin Kobler declared, "The main challenge will be to find resettlement countries -- third countries where those people who are then recognized as refugees can re-locate."
 
Kobler also attempted to spin the violence today insisting 600 people died this year.  Pay a little closer attention and you realize he's just talking about Baghdad.  Since the UN's supposedly concerned with all of Iraq, Kobler's little stunt is pretty offensive.  Iraq Body Count not only notes 55 dead so far this month, they noted 290 dead for the month of April, 295 for the month of March,  278 for the month of February and 458 for the month of January.  That's 1376 reported deaths from violence in Iraq since the start of the year.  That's twice as many as "600."  Again, Kobler was being deliberately misleading.  When the United Nations whores what people remember are the rapes by UN peace keepers (many, many times, but try these two who raped a 14-year-old boy in Haiti), the times the UN did nothing while countries were attacked (Iraq for starters -- and then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared the Iraq War illegal) and so much more.  Kobler didn't just make himself into a cheap whore with that little stunt, he reminded everyone of just how flawed -- some would say criminal -- the United Nations can be.  A far more realistic picture on the continued violence came not from Kobler but from a business decision.  Jamal al-Badrani (Reuters) reports, "Mobile phone operator Asiacell has closed its offices in the Iraqi city of Mosul, an al Qaeda stronghold, after attacks and threats by militants, security officials and employees said this week."
 
Now no more smiling mid-crestfall
No more managing unmanageables
No more holding still in the hailstorm
Now enter your watchwoman
-- "Guardian," written by Alanis Morissette, from her Havoc and Bright Lights due out August 28th; "Guardian" is available for download this Tuesday and she'll be performing it Tuesday night on ABC's Dancing With The Stars.

 
I had hoped to include some of US House Rep Timothy Waltz's questions from Tuesday's hearing.  We may do that in a snapshot early next week.  But veterans and family members of veterans in this community asked if we could include all of the points (from this morning) regarding the issue of the Veterans Administration's huge backlog.  Mattihias Gafni (Contra Costa Times via Stars and Stripes) reports:


Veterans wait nearly a year on average for their disability claims to get processed at the Oakland, Calif., regional center, according to a highly critical federal report released Thursday, leading one congressman to call the facility a bureaucratic "black hole."The Oakland office, which processes benefits claims for veterans from Bakersfield, Calif., north to the Oregon border, had almost 32,500 claims pending an average of 269 days - 89 days longer than the national target time - when the Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general visited in December. As of April, the wait for veterans had increased to 320 average days pending.

This is not the wait time issue that the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing on April 25th or that the House Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing on this week.  The issue here is the VA claims processing and the VA's offered tons and tons of excuses over the last years.  They've told Congress it had to do with equipment issues (computers and computer programs -- "IT" problems, that was an especially popular excuse in 2009) and staffing.  In the last years, they've repeatedly insisted that hiring more people wouldn't actually help them because new hires would require training and that would create further delays.  For that argument to be valid, the only ones who can train new claims processors are those people who are claims processors.  Apparently supervisors don't know how to do the job that those they supervise do.

In addition to the claim, the VA's also had to note that production has become an issue.  They have more claims processors than they did in 2005 but the larger number of personnel has coincided with a decrease in the number of claims processed.  So while personnel has increased, productivity has decreased.   And before you think this is because of new veterans being created by today's wars, that's not the case.  Some of these claims have lingered and lingered.  For one example, let's drop back to a February 28th House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing:

Ranking Member Bob Filner: We got several hundred thousand claims for Agent Orange in our backlog. How long have they been fighting it? Thirty, forty years. People get sicker fighting the bureaucracy than they did with the Agent Orange. So you know what we ought to do -- aside from greatly expanding eligibility to boots on the ground, to the blue waters, to the blue skies and Thailand and Cambodia and Laos and Guam? We ought to honor those Agent Orange claims today. You know, let's give people the peace that they deserve. Let's give you finally some closure here. And, you know, they're telling us, "It costs too much." I don't know if it's a billion dollars or two billion dollars. I don't care what it is frankly. You don't think we owe it to you? We owe it to you. 


Among the Congress members calling out the backlog for years now are US House Rep Bob Filner, Senator Patty Murray (Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee), Senator Richard Burr (Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee), Daniel Akaka (former Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee) and US House Rep Phil Roe.  They have consistently attempted to make sense of this problem and why it is just not dealt with year after year.  We're dropping back to a February 15th House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing when VA Secretary Eric Shinseki offered testimony.
Ranking Member Bob Filner: And I just want to ask a couple -- focus on a couple areas that I've been involved with over the years. One is the claims backlog.  In your budget presentation ou title it "Eliminate The Claims Backlog." But I don't see any real estimate or projection or anything of when you think you're going to do that but I still think that -- in the short run, at least -- to get this turned around your notion of -- I think you used the word "brute force" a few years ago, if I recall that.

Secretary Eric Shinseki: It was probably a poor choice of words.

Ranking Member Bob Filner: No, it's okay. It was good. Gives me something to shoot at, you know? I don't think it's going to work.  I just think all this stuff you have is good stuff but it's too big and, as you point out, there's all kind of factors making it bigger.  I still think you have to take some, I'll say, radical step in the short run -- whether it's to grant all the Agent Orange claims that have been submitted or have been there for X number of years or, as I've suggested at other times, all claims that have the medical information in it and have been submitted with the help of a Veterans Service Officer you accept subject to audit. That is, unless you take some real radical step to eliminate a million of them or 500,000 of them, you're never going to get there. It's going to always be there.  You don't want that as your legacy -- I don't think.  So -- Nor do we.  I think you're going to have to take some really strong steps in terms of accepting stuff that's been in the pipeline a long time, again, that has adequate -- by whatever definition -- documentation and help from professional support. Plus this incredible situation of Agent Orange where, as you know, not only have those claims increaded but we're talking about -- as you well know -- your comrades for thirty or more years that have been wrestling with this.  Let's give the Vietnam vets some peace. Let's give them a real welcome home. Let's grant those Agent Orange claims.  Let's get those -- whatever it is, 100,000 or 200,000  of our backlog -- just get them off the books.  I don't know if you want to comment on that but I still think you're never going to get there with -- All this is good stuff.  We've talked about it on many occasions.  But it's not going to fundamentally -- or at least in the short run change it around so you can get to a base  level of zero or whatever you want to be and move forward from there.

Secretary Eric Shinseki:  Mr. Filner, I'll call on Secretary Hickey for the final details but we've pretty much worked through the Agent Orange -- the increase in Agent Orange claims. I think we're well down on the numbers. I'll rely on her statistic here.


And, of course, despite that claim, the numbers weren't down and that's why, weeks later (as we noted in the first Congressional excerpt), US House Rep Filner would be bringing up the issue of claims processing regarding Agent Orange again.

Here's something to consider: What if service members were as slow to process orders from command as the VA is to process the claims of veterans?

On the issue of wait time and mental health care, the editorial board of  Florida's TCPalm.com concludes, "The VA must do a better job than it has been doing in dealing with the very real mental health needs of those who have given so much to this country."  That's true of the wait time and it's also true of the claims processing.

Posted by at

Friday, May 11, 2012

THIS JUST IN! BLOWN OFF!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O IS FINDING OUT JUST HOW UNPOPULAR 4 YEARS OF WAR WHORING AND CORPORATE ASS KISSING CAN MAKE YOU. 

VLADIMIR PUTIN MAY HAVE PUT UP WITH ANYTHING BULLY BOY BUSH TOSSED HIS WAY BUT HE'S MADE IT CLEAR TO CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O THAT THINGS HAVE CHANGED.

BARRY O WAS INSISTING THE G8 WOULD BE "OFF THE CHAIN" BUT THAT WASN'T ENOUGH FOR PUTIN WHO BLEW HIM OFF LIKE HE WAS NICOLE RICHIE IN A KIM KARDASHIAN WORLD. 

PUTIN SAYS HE'S TOO BUSY TO ATTEND IMPLYING THAT BARRY O'S LITTLE EVENT IS THE JOKE OF THE SEASON.

HUFFED BARRY O, "LIKE I CARE.  WE'RE HAVING SMORES.  SO THAT JUST MEANS MORE SMORES FOR ME!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Nouri al-Maliki's Iraq still can't provide more than six hours of electricity a day or potable water in most parts of the country but Al Mada reports the government has announced they will spend $50 million over the next three years to launch a satellite into space.   According to a press release issued by the Ministry of Communications' Amir al-Bayati the government seems to see itself in a satellite competition with Israel.  While Nouri frets over satellites, he still can't provide needed sanitation.  Alsumaria reports that a Karbala garbge dump borders residential areas resulting in people being exposed to waste and fumes and to disease and germs.  Dr. Ahmed Haidari states he is seeing respiratory issues -- including some breathing problems -- as well as skin and eye issues.  Residents complain that the smell is akin to that of rotting corpses.  As Michael Peel (Financial Times of London) observes, "Iraq's economic story after more than four decades of dictatorship and almost nine years of US occupation is a contradictory one of oil boom heavy debts and chronic problems with basic services."
 
 
Meanwhile Kitabat reports on an art exhibit in Amman, Jordan which focuses on Iraqi refugees and how the International Organization for Migration's Mike Bellinger hopes the exhibit will bring attention to the continued Iraqi refugee crisis. The Iraq War created the largest refugee crisis in the MidEast since 1948. Millions have been displaced internally, millions have left the country. Concerns over the crisis really began with the ethnic cleansing of 2006 and 2007; however, the term "brain drain" had already been in use for years by then and referred to the Iraqi professionals who fled the country due to direct threats as well as the violence. This resulted in what Dr. Souad al-Azzawi (Beyond Educide) has termed "educide" ("a composite of education and genocide to refer to the genocide of the educated segments of the Iraqi society") and Dr. al-Azzawi notes:
 
 
During the American occupation of Iraq, well-trained professors, often graduates of highly qualified American or European universities, were replaced by pro-occupation young freshly graduated faculty members. This policy is pursued with grimness by the current puppet government. Educide is still going on.
The minister of high education Ali Aladeeb turned the Iraqi universities into sectarian show-offs. No real attendance of classes, no real learning and teaching processes, and no real scientific advancements. All what he cares about is turning Iraqi universities and youth into sectarian institutes that look like Iranian regime revolutionaries.
 
 
And it continues. Dr. Souad al-Azzawi (Beyond Educide) explains last week Nouri ordered the arrest of Baghdad College of Economical Sciences' Professor Muhammad Taqa who has been in his post since 1996 and is widely published and the author of six books. Professor Taqa was born in Mosul in 1948, received his doctorate in economics in Germany and is a member of the Iraqi Economics Society and the Union of Arab Economists. All Iraqi News notes that the political movement Iraqiya has decried the arrest and quotes spokesperson Khadija al-Wa'ily stating, "The Movement warned from the arbitrary arrests according to malicious charges which means that the democracy is no longer available and replaced by the dictatorship. The Professor, Mohammed Taqa was arrested by a military force which is considered as evidence on the governmental terrorism where the terrorists must be arrested rather than the national figures such as Taqa." Azzaman reports that "both students and legislators" have protested the arrest and the news outlet notes, "No reasons are given for the arrest and the security forces who stormed his office are declining comments." MP Abdudhiyab al-Ujaili heads Parliament's Higher Education Commission and he notes, "The arrest of Professor Taqa is a slap in the face of our efforts to persuade academics who fled the country to return home. There was even no warrant or order by the judicial authorities to carry out the arrest."  Today at Beyond Educide, an Iraqi professor explains how the academic system is being destroyed by the government:
 
 
The most important indications of the higher education collapse could be generally summarized as follows:
1- The most significant indication is assigning the Ministry of Higher Education to a person who has no academic qualifications, whose feet never stepped in campus, only after he was appointed as a minister. This appointment was not based on any skill or efficiency, rather on being a member of the governing political party, and on his Iranian origin (his mother for example does not speak Arabic), and on being Shiite. Of course there is nothing wrong with being of this or that origin, or being from this or that sectarian group, but this identity has become an exclusive passport for anyone to assume any (high) position, especially for none Iraqis.
2- Academic, scientific and administrative positions in public universities are assigned and shared according to sectarian affiliations, not expertise or efficiency. All the universities' presidents and faculties' deans are from a specific sectarian group; and their academic and administrative assistants are from other group in order to achieve a supposedly balanced share in power positions. Thus the criterion for appointment is not academic, but exclusively sectarian.
3- Admissions in universities are again based on sectarian affiliation, especially in post graduate studies. Norms of admission that are based on academic record are totally neglected, and exceptions have become the rule. In addition to that, channels of admission are numerous now: seats for political prisoners of the previous regime, seats for families of the martyrs(1) , seats for graduates of religious schools in Iran, seats for deserters during the Iraqi-Iranian war who sought refuge in Iran (the latter were rewarded pieces of land and 10 million Iraqi dinars- more than $10.000). What remains of seats are assigned to what is called "special" admission, which means those who pay higher and who are admitted outside the rules that are based on academic record. What remains of seats, if at all, are assigned to "real" students who compete on honest rules of marks and academic reports. The result of all these discriminations is that opportunities are given to those who do not deserve them, and are normally not interested in academic research, while serious students are deprived.
4- There is also a familiar criterion now, which is (exception from rules) in other areas, apart from the exceptional admission. For example: transfer from one university to another, or transfer from one specialization to another(2) . To explain this point I tell you the following story that took place to me personally: A person came to me asking that his nephew be transferred from X University to another one. I apologized saying that: we all know that this is impossible, because transferring a student from (an academically) lesser to a higher university is not allowed according to the rules, and advised him to look for another college that admits his nephew's academic degree (marks). Few days later, the uncle came back to me saying (sarcastically): "so you are a well known professor but you could not do such a 'small' thing. I told the butcher in our neighborhood about this story, and he just made a call by his mobile, and my nephew is immediately transferred to the college of Administration and Economics". May be this story can tell about the collapse of the whole system.
5- The public universities are "distributed" between the political parties who control, make decisions and admit students in them. Baghdad University for example is allocated to the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq, while Al-Mustansiriah U. is allocated to the Sadr Group. The Nehrein U. (which was one of the most prestigious academic institutions) is allocated to Al-Da'wa party that totally destroyed it.
 
 
Those are five of 14 examples.  And so it goes in Nouri's Iraq, where everything crumbles and collapses including justice -- even if so many Western outlets 'forget' to inform the world of what's taking place.  Kitabat reports that the trial against Tareq al-Hashemi that was supposed to start last Thursday but was then postponed to this Thursday has been postponed to next Tuesday.  This delay is said to be due to an appeal Hashemi's attorneys have filed to move the case from the Criminal Court to the Federal Court.  Currently al-Hashemi is in Turkey.  Al Rafidayn notes that he has the support of the Turkish government.  Alsumaria reports that a number of Iraqi politicians and triabal leaders protested outside the Turksih consulate to lodge their demand that Turkey hand Tareq al-Hashemi over to Baghdad.  That's not at all surprising or reflective of anything.  In the 2010 elections, with over 800,000 voters, Basra awarded almost two-thirds of their seats (14) to Nouri's State of Law (al-Hashemi's Iraqiya won only 3 seats in the province).  The Journal of Turkish Weekly quotes Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stating, "We gave him all kinds of support on this issue and we will continue to do so."  Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag is quoted stating, "We would not hand in someone who we support."  Press TV reports Nouri "lashed out at his Turkish counterpart, saying Erdogan's remarks did not show 'mutual respect'."  Nouri's not thrilled with Turkey's response to the red alert so he took time out from terrorizing academics to make a little statement.    
 
The Journal of Turkish Weekly actually explains the INTERPOL Red Notice posted about Tareq al-Hashemi, "Sources said that red notices were based on national warrants, and published at the request of a member state as long as the request did not violate Interpol regulations.  Sources noted that red bulletin was not an international warrant of arrest, adding that there was not a certain verdict about al-Hashemi.  Sources stressed that al-Hashemi was still the vice president of Iraq and he had diplomatic immunity." 
 
Al Mada reports that the National Alliance held a meeting yesterday that they self-described as important and that they state was part of their efforts to resolve the country's political crisis; however, State of Law was not invited to the meet-up.  The National Alliance is a Shi'ite grouping.  Among the members are the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (Ammar al-Hakim is the leader), Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc, the National Reform Trend (Ibrahim al-Jaafari is the leader), the Bard Organization (Hadi al-Amir is the leader) and the Iraqi National Congress (led by Ahmed Chalabi).  The National Alliance backed Nouri al-Maliki for prime minister in 2010.  Nouri's political slate was State of Law.  It came in second in the March 2010 elections.  Iraqiya, led by Ayad Allawi, came in first.  Eight months of gridlock followed those elections (Political Stalemate I) as a result of Nouri refusing to honor the Constitution and his belief that -- with the backing of Iran and the White House -- he could bulldoze his way into a second term. The Erbil Agreement allowed Political Stalemate I to end.  Nouri's refusal to honor the agreement created the ongoing Political Stalemate II.  Marina Ottaway and Danial Kaysi's [PDF format warning] "The State Of Iraq"  (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) notes the events since mid-December as well as what kicked off Political Stalemate II:

Within days of the official ceremonies marking the end of the U.S. mission in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved to indict Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges and sought to remove Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq from his position, triggering a major political crisis that fully revealed Iraq as an unstable, undemocractic country governed by raw competition for power and barely affected by institutional arrangements.  Large-scale violence immediately flared up again, with a series of terrorist attacks against mostly Shi'i targets reminiscent of the worst days of 2006.
But there is more to the crisis than an escalation of violence.  The tenuous political agreement among parties and factions reached at the end of 2010 has collapsed.  The government of national unity has stopped functioning, and provinces that want to become regions with autonomous power comparable to Kurdistan's are putting increasing pressure on the central government.  Unless a new political agreement is reached soon, Iraq may plunge into civil war or split apart.


The Erbil Agreement allowed Nouri to have a second term as prime minister.  That was a concession other political blocs made.  In exchange, Nouri made concessions as well.  These were written up and signed off on.  But once Nouri got his second term, he refused to honor the Erbil Agreement.  Since the summer of 2011, the Kurds have been calling for a return to the Erbil Agreement.  Iraqiya and Moqtada al-Sadr joined that call.  As last month drew to a close, there was a big meet-up in Erbil with various political blocs participating.  Nouri al-Maliki was not invited.  Among those attending were KRG President Massoud Barzani, Ayad Allawi, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi.  Since December 21st, Talabani and al-Nujaifi have been calling for a national convention to resolve the political crisis.

Nouri spent the first two months dismissing the need for one, arguing that it shouldn't include everyone, arguing about what it was called, saying it should just be the three presidencies -- that would Jalal Talabani, Nouri al-Maliki and Osama al-Nujaifi -- and offering many more road blocs.  As March began, Nouri's new excuse was that it had to wait until after the Arab League Summit (March 29th).  The weekend before the summit, Talabani forced the issue by announcing that the convention would be held April 5th.  Nouri quickly began echoing that publicly.  However, April 4th it was announced the conference was off.  Nouri's State of Law took to the press to note how glad they were about that.

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Thursday, May 10, 2012

THIS JUST IN! WHO KNEW!!!!!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

YESTERDAY CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O FOLLOWED JOE BIDEN'S LEAD AND ENDORSED MARRIAGE EQUALITY.

EXPLAINING WHY HE SUDDENLY DECIDED TO SUPPORT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, BARRY O CITED SASHA AND MALIA.

PRIOR TO THAT ANNOUNCEMENT, PEOPLE HAD ASSUMED THE TWO WERE JUST SISTERS.





FROM THE TCI WIRE:


 
Starting with the US Congress.
 
US House Rep Johnson: I'm going to start off with a bit of a difficult questions. You know, year after year, in annual budget submissions, in annual performance reports, quarterly reports, Congressional testimony and in countless press releases and statements, the VA has consistently touted the 14 day standard as the number one measure of mental health care access. In a five month investigation; however, the IG found that measure to have no real value and to be essentially meaningless. Mr. Secretary, how is it possible that that's not bubbling up to your level? How is it possible that you don't know that? And who is responsible for misleading Congress and the public on this metric? And how will they be held accountable?
 
 
Secretary Eric Shinseki: Uh, Congressman, I, uh, I-I don't think,uh, anyone has, uh, misled Congress here. Doctor Petzel described three methods of, uh, identifying in the scheduling arena. Capacity, desire date, create date. We have -- They have in the mental health areana been using desire date now since 2007 and my understanding this uh goes back to when we had a previous discussion like this. Uhm, I'm not sure how the, uh, results were achieved but it just seems to me that desire date and create date in the report, uh, are brought together in a way, it's hard for me to determine, whether there was a pure assessment of whether desire date was being executed properly, whether staff were properly trained and following the instructions, that would allow us to focus on corrective actions. Right now, part of my discussion with Dr. Petzel is that we're going to sit down with the IG and make sure we come up with a clear standard here so that when we audit in the future, there isn't this confusion about which date we're uh using and we get a cleaner outcome, understanding. I'm not able to address the specifics here but I would assure the Congressman there's no misleading of Congress.
 
 
US House Rep Bill Johnson: I can certainly agree that there is no intention to do so but I think we all agree here that the objective is to make sure those veterans that request mental health counseling get it as soon as absolutely possible.
 
 
That's from yesterday's US House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.  US House Rep Bill Johnson was questioning VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.  And it may have wrongly seemed like Shinseki answered Johnson's question.  He did not.
 
Johnson asked about the figures that were given.  Shinseki attempted to dispute the report from the Office of the Inspector General. He also attempts to push off his Department's problems onto the IG.  There are these different ways of measuring, Shinseki insists.
 
And we're supposed to say, "Goodness, that is confusing.  That mean old IG!"  But that nonsense is not from the IG.  That is the VA's nonsense.  The VA is the one that wants to bring in "desired date" and other obscuring nonsense.  The IG noted that in the cover letter -- for get the report itself -- back in April: "VHA does not have reliable and accurate method of deteriming whether they are providing patients timely access to mental health care servies.  VHA did not provide first-time patients with timely mental health evaluations and existing patients often waited more than 14 days past their desired date of care for their treatment.  As a result, performance measures used to report patient's access to mental health care do not depict the true picture of a patient's waiting time to see mental health provider."  And if Shinseki wants to object to that finding, it's a little too damn late.  As the next sentence notes, "The Under Secretary for Health conccured with the OIG's findings [. . .]"
 
 
Congress did not invent the 14% number.  The VA did.  And while Shinseki attempts to distract and pin the blame on the IG, someone whould have asked him what Johnson was originally getting at: How did the VA get this figure they promoted?
 
It was a false figure.  They promoted it over and over.  Please note, Shinseki rushed to assure that no one with the VA had intentionally tried to mislead Congress.  He didn't say a damn thing about their attempts to mislead the public.  But then, misleading Congress can result in sanctions.  Lying to the public is a just standard politics.
 
Playing with the numbers and trying to hide behind terms is not leadership.  US House Rep Cliff Stearns, while questioning the reps for the Office of the Inspector General, probably put it best, "Well, I think the bottom line is, you've said it takes 50 days to provide this roughly 200,000 veterans with their full evaluation.  That's what you're saying and that's not good and that should be changed. And I think that's -- no matter what we're talking about, a capacity desire or a create date -- the bottom line is that veterans, almost 200,000, are not getting serviced.  And the Veterans Administration can use whatever terminology and definitions they want, but by golly, these guys -- these guys and gals aren't getting taken care of.  And that's why we're here today."
 
Minutes before US House Rep Johnson went to his line of questioning, Shinseki was declaring, "My guess here is we're doing good work, we're just not able to document it."
 
Is that your guess?  Are you paid to guess or are you paid to suprevise?
 
The metrics have never been in place and that's not just my opinion, that's the opinon of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee based on their own public statements in one hearing after another.  Shinseki was appointed by Barack Obama to supervise the VA.  Supervision is not a guess.  Shinseki's gotten a pass from the press from early on.  When the fall of 2009 rolled around and veterans were without GI Bill checks, when they couldn't afford housing, when this situation continued through Christmas -- as many veterans stated to the press and to Congress, their kids had to do without Christmas because they still hadn't gotten their checks for the semester they'd just completed, they'd had to borrow money to pay for that. When all of that came out, something came out with it.
 
Eric Shinseki admitted that, shortly after being confirmed to his post by the Senate, he was informed that there would be problems with the checks that fall.  That the system wasn't ready for it.  He knew that and Congress repeatedly asked him if there were any problems, repeatedly asked if help was needed and he said no and no and no over and over.  Then when the problem emerged, VA tried to play dumb for months.
 
 
Secretary Eric Shinseki: I'm looking at the certificates of eligibility uh being processed on 1 May and enrollments 6 July, checks having to flow through August. A very compressed timeframe. And in order to do that, we essentially began as I arrived in January, uh, putting together the plan -- reviewing the plan that was there and trying to validate it. I'll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of people telling me this was simply not executable. It wasn't going to happen. Three August was going to be here before we could have everything in place. Uh, to the credit of the folks in uh VA, I, uh, I consulted an outside consultant, brought in an independent view, same kind of assessment. 'Unless you do some big things here, this is not possible.' To the credit of the folks, the good folks in VBA, they took it on and they went at it hard. We hired 530 people to do this and had to train them. We had a manual system that was computer assisted. Not very helpful but that's what they inherited. And we realized in about May that the 530 were probably a little short so we went and hired 230 more people. So in excess of 700 people were trained to use the tools that were coming together even as certificates were being executed. Uhm, we were short on the assumption of how many people it would take.
 
Let's remember too what the VA did in real time: Blamed veterans.  They did the form wrong or it was the schools!  It was everybody but the VA.  No.  As Shinseki finally admitted in an open hearing -- with the press taking a pass on it -- he knew when he started the job.  He heard it from VA employees, he went to an outside consultant who told him the same thing.  Never did he inform Congress of that before the press started reporting what was happening. 
 
That's not leadership. 
 
And over and over, this is the pattern with Shinseki who is supposed to be supervising the VA.  The Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal pre-dates Shinseki.  But there will be many scandals after Shinseki's out of office that result from the lack of supervision right now.
 
 
Yesterday morning, as he called the hearing to order, Chair Jeff Miller noted why they were meeting.
 
Chair Jeff Miller: I think most of the Committee knows that two weeks ago the VA Inspector General released a report reviewing veterans access to mental health care -- something that we're all very interested in, as are all veterans and Americans across this country.  And I've got to say that the findings in the report are really more than troubling.  That's probably an understatement to just call them troubling.  And one of the most disturbing things that the IG discovered is that more than half of the veterans who seek mental health care through the VA wait an average of 50 days --  50 days --  to receive a full mental health evaluation.  So let me be real clear from the outset, a veteran who comes to the VA for help should never, never under any circumstance have to wait almost two months to receive the evaluation they have asked for and begin the treatment they need.  I don't believe anybody in this room thinks there is any excuse for that type of delay.
 
If the topic seems familiar, it was the same for the April 25th Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.  If you missed those hearings, you can refer to  "Fire everyone at the VA,"    "Scott Brown: It's clearly not working (Ava),"   "VA paid out nearly $200 million in bonuses last year (Wally)" and that week's Wednesday's snapshot. and Friday snapshot.   The hearing was made up of three panels.  The first panel was Shinseki and the VA's Robert Petzel, Mary Schohn, Antonette Zeiss, Annie Spiczak and, from the Office of Inspector General, John Daigh and Linda Halliday.  The second panel was noted in yesterday's snapshot, in Kat's "Congress Member Gone Wild" and in "Congress is supposed to provide oversight."  The witnesses were Dr. Nicole Sawyer,Group Health Cooperative's Diana Birkett Rakow, Dr. James Schuster and Health Net Federal Services' Thomas Carrato.  The third panel was the Disabled American Veterans' Joy Ilem,  Paralyzed Veterans of America's Alethea Predeoux and Wounded Warrior Project's Ralph Ibson.
 
From the first panel, we'll note this exchange.
 
 
Chair Jeff Miller: You talked about the press release April 19th.  You've acknowledged also that there's about a 15 -- I think it's 1500 mental health staff vacancies.  It could be more or less.  And you're staffing, your testimony today talks about maybe hiring more than 1900.  So what I'd like -- an answer is, I know you're going to try to fill the 1500 vacancy that exists.  You're going to add additional 1900-plus staff.  And the question is: Is that correct?  Then a couple of other things.  How quickly do you think VA can hire the additional staff?  Where are you going to put the additional staff?  And how will you be able to measure the impact they will have on improving care? 
 
Mr. Chairman, let me just make an opening statement here and then I'm going to call on Ms. Annie Spiczak who does the recruiting and retention personnel work for us because you're asking to see what tools we have and what our expectation here is?  We think that we'll get most of that done in the next six months but some of these specialities are difficult to recruit and  I would, be honest with you, I'm not sure I can pin a date when all of them will be in.  But the vast majority of the work will be done in the next six months.  Some of this may carry over into the second quarter of FY13.  Let me call on Ms. Spiczak to talk about the process here.
 
Annie Spiczak: Thank you, Secretary.  Uh, sir, I would say that we have a four-fold strategy to recruit and hire the mental health professionalsthat we need in VHA. Uh, the first part of that strategy is to have a very robust marketing and advertising campaign to do that outreach to mental health providers and providers by the use of USA Jobs, using social media, getting all of those vacancy announcements posted to specialty sites and job boards. The second part of that is using our national recruiters. We have 21 dedicated health care recruiters and they are very involved with the VISNs and the medical center directors to recruit those hard to fill positions -- especially our psychiatrists and our psychologists.  Thirdly, we're going to recruit from our active pipeline of trainees and residents.  VHA has a very robust training program and they are an integral part to filling that pipeline of our workforce.  And, fourthly, we're going to ensure that we have complete involvement and support of VA leadership.
 
Chair Jeff Miller: I guess --
 
Secretary Eric Shinseki:  Mr. Chairman, I'm going to call on Dr. Petzel to just add some concluding thoughts here.  But I would also point out the, uh, national recruitment program, the 21 high quality recruiters that Ms. Spiczak referred to, all are veterans.  18 of them have extensive experience in recruiting.  And for any new individual who joins the team,  they go through a training program and oversight, mentoring by some of the old timers, so this is a pretty robust crew that we're talking about.  Dr. Petzel?
 
Dr. Robert Petzel:  Thank you, Mr. Secretary.  Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to add briefly, the VA trains -- has 1,000 psychiatric residency positions.  We have over 730 internship positions for clinical psychologists, just to mention a couple of the positions.  We're the largest trainer of mental health professionals in the country.  And this group of trainees is the primary place that we're going to be recruiting those individuals to fill those 1900 jobs. And the last thing I'd like to add is that  the most difficult to recruit group is the psychiatrists. Particularly in more remote and rural areas.  And we have recently sent a memo to the Secretary which I believe he has signed or is about to sign to change the pay table for psychiatrists and to make available other incentives so that we can compete more equitably with the private sector and DoD in terms of recruiting  psychiatrists.
 
Chair Jeff Miller:  Ms. Spiczak, how long does it take for VA to fill a vacancy like the 1500 that are open now for mental health professionals.  What's the average time that those positions have remained vacant?
 
Annie Spiczak:  Sir, it takes anywhere from four to six but for some of our hard to fill positions, it can take up to a year to fill those positions.
 
Chair Jeff Miller: Have you ever been even close to 100% staffed at the full level with the 1500 that you currently have?
 
Annie Spiczak:  Sir, we'll always have a turnover rate, a vacancy rate that we're always trying to close that gap but you have my commitment that we're going to work very hard to close that.
 
Chair Jeff Miller:  At what level is the vacancy rate?  Is it more at the upper level, the lower tier, I hate to say 'lower tier,' but, obviously, the psychiatrist level downward?  Which is the higher rate?  Is it the psychiatrist or is it the person in the --
 
Annie Spiczak: No, sir. Our turnover rate in FY 2011 for mental health professionals was 7.23%.  And the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the health care industry shows a 28% turnover rate.
 
Chair Jeff Miller: Then I guess the last question that I'd like to ask in this round is how are we going to pay for the extra 1900 mental health care professionals?
 
Secretary Eric Shinseki:  For that question, I'm going to call on Dr. Petzel.
 
Dr. Robert Petzel:  Thank you, Mr. Secretary.  Mr. Chairman, we, uh, have estimated that, uh, cost in Fiscal Year 12 will be relatively small because it's going to take some time to get these people on board and we will use money that we have available in 12.  We expect that this will not exceed 29 million and may be a bit less than 29 million dollars. In fiscal year 13, we're going to separately identify the funding for this initiative as part of each one of the VISNs allocations and then the VISNs will receive a hiring target based on their allocation and we're going to keep very close track of that hiring target.  Ms. Spiczak can give more detail about how we're going to do that, but we're basically going to be daily looking at how they're meeting that hiring target.   We've identified -- We will identify each one of these positions  electronically on USA Jobs by special number so that we can track all of the 1900 new people as well as all of the vacancies that exist right now.
 
Secretary Eric Shinseki:  Mr. Chairman, just a data point. Psychiatrists are the toughest to recruit and I think under this new model we say it's about 57 that we're going to go after in this group of 1900. Of 57, 37 have already been recruited.  7 are already serving. 30 are being on-boarded and so we're beginning to hone in on this most difficult recruiting challenge and working it down.  So there's some evidence that we can recruit to what we need here.
 
That's about as much garbage I can take in one excerpt.  Where to begin?  Annie Spiczak asserts, "Our turnover rate in FY 2011 for mental health professionals was 7.23%. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the health care industry shows a 28% turnover rate."  No, they don't.  During the long, long break in the hearing for votes, I called the Bureau of Labor Statistics to check that.  28%?  It was 21.9% in 2006, the highest its been in the last ten years.  In 2010, the turnover rate was 15.8% and in 2011, the turnover rate was 15.5%.  In addition, I was told Spiczak's number for the VA was "questionable" and was asked if I thought they were counting "positions" because if they were doing it that way, all those empty positions would artificially reduce the turnover rate.  I asked for an example on that.  If there are 800 positions and only 100 are filled, are you dealing with the turnover rate of that 100 staff or are you using positions and acting as though you have 800 positions?  If you're going by positions -- and including empty positions -- you can artificially reduce the turnover rate.  If that doesn't make sense, blame me and not the Buereau of Labor Statistics which was very helpful.  (Until yesterday's hearing, I hadn't even registered on the term "turnover rate."  The BLS was very helpful in explaining that but if there's a mistake in this paragraph, it's on me and on my misunderstanding the BLS.  And though I did get a name from a mutual friend and call and speak to that person, I was also told that the BLS works very hard to assist everyone with answers and that they do so via the phone and via e-mail.)


Posted by at

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

THIS JUST IN! HE'S GOT A PLAN!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE


CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS A NEW AD CALLED "GO" AND THOUGH A NUMBER WISH HE WOULD, THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF THE VIDEO.

THE POINT ALSO ISN'T TO SHOW OFF HIS GIRLISH HIPS OR UNDERSCORE THAT HIS 'FANCY BOY' IN CAREFULLY TAILORED SUITS AS OPPOSED TO THE AMERICAN IDEA OF A MAN.

STILL THE COMMERCIAL GETS THOSE POINTS ACROSS IF NOT THE INTENDED ONE.


SAID DAVID AXLEROD, "ALL PEOPLE CARE ABOUT IS BARRY O AND HIS CELEBRITY!  WE'RE GOING TO WIN BIG!  AND THEN, AFTER THE ELECTION, HE'LL START HIS OWN FANCY BOY LINE OF DESIGNER CLOTHES!  WOO-HOO!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:



This morning, the US House Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing.  We may cover it tomorrow in terms of issues discussed.  Today, we'll note that there is no excuse for the behavior of one member.

Corrine Brown made an ass out of herself.  She was so out of control that censure should actually be considered for her actions.  In fact, "actions" is too mature for the behavior she exhibited.  The term is "tantrums."  She threw tantrums.


Democrats better realize most of America doesn't give a damn that you don't control the House.  They do care that you're being increasingly hostile.

Now if that's to other lawmakers, it's not appropriate but people will write it off and roll with it.  When that behavior is directed at witnesses, you need to self-check.


Corrine Brown was out of control.  There was no excuse for it.  A witness, Dr. Nicole L. Sawyer, was answering Chair Jeff Miller's questions when Brown attacked her.  Brown did not have the floor and knew she didn't.  But she jumped in to attack the witness -- the obviously startled witness.  We're being kind and not quoting.  How is that being kind?  I never quote Corrine Brown in full because she can't speak proper English. A member of the US Congress delcaring, this is just one of them today, "You only know what go on in your area!" is a public embarrassment.  Brown got degrees, for something other than learning, and she made it into the US Congress.  You'd think she'd have enough self-pride to have learned how to speak properly.  She can't so, check the archives, we quote her selectively to avoid embarrassing her.  If most of America saw examples of Brown's speaking, they would be appalled.  She sounds like she never made it out of middle school.  As a member of Congress, its upon her to educate herself so that she can speak proper English.


When a witness is responding to the Chair, Brown needs to learn not to interrupt.  The witness wasn't saying anything outlandish or hostile and was clearly confused by Brown's tantrum.   By Brown suddenly yelling out in the middle of the witness' answer.  After Brown's tantrum, Miller again asked the witness to speak.  The doctor did so and attempted to bring Brown into her response which sounded a lot like conciliatory remarks before Brown cut her off and started screaming that the chair better tell the witness not to talk to her, better tell the witness to address her remarks to the chair.


There was no excuse for Corrine Brown's behavior.  She's long been the joke of Congress because of how she speaks and how she never knows what she's talking about.  We'll touch on that last thing.  Corrine at another point in the hearing was throwing a tantrum in defense of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and insisting that this wait time results were skewed -- the results are from the VA's Office of the Inspector General.  They are not skewed, they are not partisan.  They are independent. 


But Brown's loves to show just how stupid she can be.  "They trying to," the uneducated idiot declared at one point.  That would be: "They are trying . . ."  It's called English.  You're a member of the US Congress, you should know proper English.  But, anyway, Brown was going on about how there are so many referrals outside of VA and these referrals aren't factored in.


She is highly uninformed.  2% is the percentage of referrals for last year.  That was established in the April 25th Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.  If you missed those hearings, you can refer to  "Fire everyone at the VA,"    "Scott Brown: It's clearly not working (Ava),"   "VA paid out nearly $200 million in bonuses last year (Wally)" and that week's Wednesday's snapshot. and Friday snapshot


There's no excuse for Corrine Brown's repeated stupidity and there was no excuse for her attacking a witness, for her belitting the witness, for her attacking the degree the witness has ("She's an educational doctor! She's not a medical doctor!"), for her attacking educators (as Chair Jeff Miller noted) and for her sour attitude.


The witness is not a VA employee.  The witness has her own psychology practice in Exeter, New Hampshire.  She has worked on many veterans issues (I don't know her but I do know of her, I believe Elaine knows her) including setting up wellness programs and addressing TBI and PTSD.  She did not deserve to be snarled at and hissed at and attacked.  Unlike Corrine Brown, Nicole Sawyer has gone out of her way to help veterans.  And that includes many efforts that had no payment at all. 


And there was Corinne Brown telling the witness that all the members of the Committee care about is money.  (The Chair rightly took offense to that.)  If I were running against her (she has an opponent in the Democratic Party primary and she'll be facing a Republican in the general election), I'd simply run the video of her declaring all that Congress cares about is money.  Over and over.  With a slogan like, "Corrinne Brown knows her priorities."  "We just care about the money.  We just care about the money.  We just care about the money.  We just care about the money."   I'd run that ad over and over and over.  And she wouldn't be re-elected.


She'll try to claim that she was attempting to say that Congress should care about more than money but that's not what she said, that's not what she indicated.


The witness was explaining that you cannot do mental health in "cookie cutter" fashion.  And she was explaining how, for example, eight visits to a psychologist or social worker or psychiatrist wouldn't be enough for most veterans with mental health needs.


Corrine Brown told her that would have to be enough because that's what they [Congress] had decided and that's what they were willing to pay for.


So Corrine Brown not only attacked a witness, she proclaimed that a veteran who can't manage mental health in 8 appointments is then on his or her own.


I've seen crazy behavior in hearings before.  And since we've been attending for the last six or seven years, I've seen, for example, Steve Buyer attack a witness and then storm out.  Slamming the door as he left the hearing. But nothing before was like today.  In fact, all the worst moments of the last seven years combined couldn't equal Corrine Brown's outrageous behavior and outrageous statements. 


Repeating, you're not there to attack the witnesses.  And if you're on the Veterans Affairs Committee, you never should make the statement that 8 appointments is enough to heal someone.  You should never be that stupid.  I was asked by a veteran attending the hearing, after the hearing, "Did she say that we should be well in 8 appointments?"  Yes, that is what she argued.


At one point she wanted to (loudly) insist, "I've been on this Committee for 20 years."  Well in that time you should have learned how to conduct yourself.  The fact that you haven't learned that doesn't give you permission to attack a witness whose only crime is attempting to answer the questions she was asked.
Brown and others need to realize that the VA's done a lousy job.  Serving the needs of veterans is not playing partisan politics.  Some of Brown's most outlandish behavior today can be pinned on the fact that Shinseki and the VA he heads were being called out and she saw her role as Democratic Party heavy weight.  Next time, she should remember that on the Veterans Affairs Committee, she's supposed to represent veterans and she's on a committee that's supposed to provide oversight of the VA. 



We could point out that with the exception of this latest audit -- the one Corrine Brown attacked repeatedly -- which resulted from the work of Senator Patty Murray (Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee), everything else has been the press.  It was the Washington Post that made the Walter Reed scandal news, not the House Veterans Affairs Committee.  Time and again, the body that's supposed to provide oversight of the VA has done a sorry job of that and when Corrine Brown thinks that, on top of that, she can attack health care providers in a meeting, insist that it's all about money and that mental health issues can be solved in 8 sessions, that woman has serious problems and her peers need to pull her aside and convey that message to her.


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