The Veterans Scandal: Socialized Medicine on Trial

Roger L. Simon

Many have wondered about Barack Obama’s prolonged silence concerning the disastrous situation at the Veterans Administration hospitals and then his odd detached demeanor (well, maybe not that odd for him) when he finally did discuss it at a press conference.

"The answer is simple.  His lifetime dream of a free public (single payer) healthcare system for all just disintegrated in front of him. Forget the wildly ambitious and pervasive “Affordable Care Act,” the government couldn’t even handle the health of our wounded servicemen, acknowledged for years to be by far the group most deserving of medical attention in our country.  With veterans dying while waiting lists are falsified, it’s hard to see government healthcare as anything but incompetent, disgraceful and quite possibly criminal.

"Government has failed utterly ^[1].  Does anyone have any doubt that Halliburton or even the dreaded Koch brothers could have better handled the health of our wounded warriors? Probably almost any business would have.  " ...

 

Krauthammer: Who made the pivot to Asia? Putin.

Charles Krauthammer  ...."This is huge. By indelibly linking producer and consumer — the pipeline alone is a $70 billion infrastructure project — it deflates the post-Ukraine Western threat (mostly empty, but still very loud) to cut European imports of Russian gas. Putin has just defiantly demonstrated that he has other places to go.

"The Russia-China deal also makes a mockery of U.S. boasts to have isolated Russia because of Ukraine. Not even Germany wants to risk a serious rupture with Russia (hence the absence of significant sanctions). And now Putin has just ostentatiously unveiled a signal 30-year energy partnership with the world’s second-largest economy. Some isolation."

 "The contrast with President Obama’s own vaunted pivot to Asia is embarrassing (to say nothing of the Keystone pipeline with Canada). He went to Japan last month also seeking a major trade agreement that would symbolize and cement a pivotal strategic alliance. He came home empty-handed. " ...  (Emphasis added. TD)
...
"Decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. In this case, Obama’s choice. And it’s the one area where he can be said to be succeeding splendidly."

 

 

http://comicallyincorrect.com/2014/03/04/putin-vs-obama/

Alan Caruba: The Slow, Sure Death of "Climate Change" Lies

Warning Signs

 

... "The irony of the latest NIPCC report, of course, is that it responds to the claims of global warming and carbon dioxide’s role at a time when the Earth is cooling. It makes one wish that all the talk about “greenhouse gases” is true enough to help us escape from the present cooling.
 

"One thing we do know for sure is that the Greens talk of climate change has lost its grip on the public imagination and attention. As the cooling cycle continues, people around the world will be far more focused on increased evidence of massive ice sheets at both poles, on frozen lakes and rivers, on shortened growing seasons, and on the desperate need for more fossil fuels to warm our homes and workplaces."

 

Repeal the Minimum Wage; We’ve long known the economic case. The humanitarian case is even stronger.

Amity Schlaes   "The economic case against the minimum wage exists, and has been made by me and others often enough. But there’s another, even stronger case against the rule. That is the humanitarian case. And until that case, too, receives consideration, the debate will always be a lopsided one.

"Consider the current employment culture. Sit down with an employment officer at the company where you hope to work, and something feels strange. After a while, you realize what it is: The party on the other side of the desk is not a company executive, it is Jacqueline Berrien, the head of the EEOC. The process moves in similarly creepy fashion when you are the one offering the job ..."   More...

Amity Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. 

On the bureaucracy that liberals want to control your healthcare

Lawyer: VA Delay Killed Washington State Man  ... "A biopsy confirmed it was cancerous. But it was four months before the hospital scheduled an appointment for him to have it removed — and by then, it had spread, wrapping around a facial nerve and eventually getting into his blood." ...

 

California Veteran Can't Get Care Under Obamacare   "It's not just veterans at VA hospitals who are having trouble finding care. One young Marine veteran in California can't find a doctor who will accept his Anthem Blue Cross insurance plan he purchased through Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange. KPIX-TV reports: 

 

Lucianne is a great go-to source of info, including these next four:

O'Reilly: Obama 'At the Tipping Point,' 'Gives Power to Incompetent People' " .. Bill O’Reilly used his opening “Talking Points Memo” monologue segment to rail against just how bad things have gotten under President Barack Obama’s leadership with not only the VA scandal, but in other areas as well."

 

 Here We Go Again: Dem Senator Says People Who Don’t Like ObamaCare Are Racist Or Something

 

CURL: Obama, the unaccountable president  "Has there ever been a president in the history of America who knew less than President Obama?
"With each new crisis and scandal, Mr. Obama tells Americans that he just didn’t know." ...

However...
Obama transition team was told about 3 audits showing VA misreported wait times  "President Obama’s transition team was warned in 2008 that repeated audits showed the Veterans Affairs Department was misreporting wait times for medical treatment, including one audit revealing delays nearly 10 times worse than the department was officially acknowledging."
How can he blame Bush and still say he did not know about this mess?

Krauthammer’s Take: VA Mismanagement Evidence of Big Government’s Failures .
"Democratic outrage over the fatal mismanagement at the Department of Veterans Affairs is the “precisely the paradox” of the failures of an expansive government that they advocate for, Charles Krauthammer noted on Wednesday’s Special Report. The allegations that the widespread malpractice led to several deaths in facilities nationwide is proof of the perils and limitations of a large bureaucratic, centralized system." More... 

Call (of Duty) Waiting

HopenChange

 

"Despite White House spokesweasel Jay Carney's claim that Barack Obama only learned about the scandalous conditions of the VA medical system by watching recent TV news reports, there is evidence the he was actually fully informed of the problem over five years ago...and did nothing, repeat nothing, to improve conditions for those who have served our nation." More...

Ron Fournier on How Obama Became the Superhero of Excuses

"Meant to mock president's critics, the 'Green Lantern' theory underscores the gap between his promise and his performance."

 Photo from the Ezra Klein article, The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency, explained, quoted from in this Fournier column below.

National Journal   "You helped elect an untested presidential candidate, a man almost as liberal as you. He promised to heal the oceans, make health care an inalienable right, and transform Washington's toxic culture. You mocked Republicans, independents, and squishy Democrats who had the audacity to criticize your guy, much less doubt the inevitability of his victory. President Obama won—twice—and then didn't live up to anybody's expectations, including his own.

"What do you do? Well, if you're Ezra Klein and a coterie of inflexibly progressive pundits, you repurpose an attack used against President George W. Bush's bombastic approach to geopolitics. You call anybody who questions Obama's leadership style a Green Lanternist. In a post for Vox stretching beyond 2,500 words, Klein makes his case against Obama critics."

...

Notice that the broken promises are pawned off to nonhuman forms ("his 2008 campaign" pledged ... "It also promised ... ") rather than Obama himself. The verbal gymnastics are an early hint that the main purpose of the essay is to shelter Obama from blame. There's so much more.

You would think voters in general and professional media pundits in particular would, by now, be wise to this pattern. But they're not. (Emphasis mine, TD)

...

"The launch of the Affordable Care Act and the worsening of conditions at the Veterans Affairs Department are emblematic of Obama's inattention to the hard work of governing. He is slow to fire poor-serving Cabinet members and quick to dismiss controversies as "phony scandals." To the Obama administration, transparency is a mere talking point. The great irony of his progressive presidency: Democrats privately admit that Obama has done as much to undermine the public's faith in government as his GOP predecessor. The Green Lantern Theory is an excuse for failure."

 



MSNBC Suspects Voter Fraud When Kids Make Rush ‘Author of the Year,’ Sharpton Wants to Check IDs

Independent Journal Review

  "Liberals across America are up in arms about Rush Limbaugh being awarded “Author of the Year” by the Children’s Book Council after the group held an online vote premised on it being restricted to kids.

"Interestingly, several leftists of MSNBC’s ilk attempted to get the book banned from the election process, knowing that the hot-selling children’s book was a candidate to win the title. Reverend Al and his panel of unremorseful left-wing zealots splashed as much haterade as possible, spewing as much denial and contempt as they could on Rush winning the award.

"It is clear that the MSNBC ‘s left-wing zealots were freaked out at the possiblity that some children had somehow slipped by them. In a fascinating moment of irony that nearly exploded TV sets across the land, the notion that ‘voter fraud’ might have been committed led to Sharpton wanting to see the children’s IDs!" ...

MSNBC has quite a bit to say about rush Limbaugh.  Apparently if they use the phrase "Rush Limbaugh" viewership goes way up, much like the word "bikini" helped ratings during sweeps weeks back in the day.

Irony/ Karma alert: NC Restaurant With "No Weapons" Sign Robbed at Gunpoint

Townhall

 

"North Carolina restaurant The Pit was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday. Normally, local crime stories like this wouldn't merit a Townhall post, but this one is different: The Pit has a "no weapons" sign displayed prominently on its door declaring the restaurant a gun-free zone, and bans patrons from carrying concealed weapons. "

‘Over My Dead Body’: Spies Fight Obama Push to Downsize Terror War

 

The Daily Beast
The Obama administration concluded in 2012 that al Qaeda posed no direct threat to the U.S.—and has sought to scale back the fight ever since, over intel officials’ rising objections.

... "Since that internal clash—and since Obama said in his 2012 State of the Union that “al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America”—the terror group has thrived throughout the Islamic world. In the last year alone, al Qaeda has established safe havens in Libya, Syria  and Iraq.

"And so naturally, the White House has softened its earlier position, concluding that al Qaeda and its affiliates still represented a serious threat. But the tension between the White House and many top military and intelligence officials fighting the long war remain."...

What happens when Pat Sajak calls libs ‘unpatriotic racists’

BizPac Review  “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak, a rare Hollywood conservative, is known for expressing his point of view, and for having a little fun along the way.

"As he does frequently, Sajak took to Twitter Monday to share a bold opinion on global warming and the predominantly liberal “alarmists” who are shoving it down our collective throats. Boy, did he ever stir up a fuss:..."

Pat Sajak        ✔ @patsajak Follow

I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends. Good night.

 

Then later:

Pat Sajak        ✔ @patsajak Follow

Sometimes it's fun to poke a stick in a hornets' nest just to hear the buzzing.

 Pat is a virtuoso of snark, as we saw when he tweaked Mayor Bloomberg's ban of large sweet drinks.

Watch the American left run foreign policy

Krauthammer’s Take: Obama’s Foreign Policy Has ‘Psychologically Demobilized’ America

 

"President Obama’s eagerness to end the War on Terror has “psychologically demobilized the country,” according to Charles Krauthammer.

“ 'We have a president whose last foreign-policy address had one major theme: ‘The War on Terror must end, because it has corrosive effects on the country,’” he said.

"A country can’t unilaterally end a war when the opponent survives and doesn’t agree to it, Krauthammer said. Obama ”downplays the threat,” Krauthammer argued, so no one should be surprised that there is not a “robust opposition to terror” among Americans.

"The president’s job is to recognize a threat and mobilize support against it, Krauthammer said, “and [Obama's] done precisely the opposite.' ”

As George Orwell wrote, "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."

Blackfive: Worst Foreign Policy Team Ever (Thanks, Twitter!) ... "The girls were taken from their school by Islamic terrorists.  So this Twitter attack is designed to build pressure.  On who?  

"According to the WH, the pressure is on the Nigerian government. Riiiight."
....
"Anyway, the Ranger Up guys posted this photo (of one of their own, Jack) which sums up my feelings about pouty Twits believing that social media works better than action...