RUTHFULLY YOURS

After all the speechifying yesterday on Memorial Day, this ongoing scandal at the VA is truly appalling and one can only salute and support the ongoing efforts of OpenTheBooks.com.for exposing it….rsk
Adam Andrzejewski is the founder of OpenTheBooks.com. The mission is to post ‘every dime online in real time’ of all federal, state and local public spending. This editorial is based on the data collected and posted within our data commons.

Bonuses at the most troubled VA facilities run virtually unabated

Last year, it took a courageous whistleblower, Dr. Sam Foote at the Phoenix Veteran’s Administration facility, to focus national attention on a ‘cook-the-books’ wait-times bonus scandal. At the Phoenix facility alone, Dr. Foote suggested that up to forty veterans died while waiting to see a doctor and up to 1,300 veterans had to wait up to six months for an appointment.

Although the Phoenix facility was the touchstone, the scandal was national: Memphis, Hines-Chicago, Biloxi, Albuquerque, Miami, Gainesville, Central Alabama and many other facilities were cited as ‘troubled.’

Yet, during and after the worst scandal in Veterans Administration history, not only did the VA continue the practice of doling out bonuses, but nearly half the bonuses in 2014 were paid to the exact same employees as the previous year. Where’s the accountability?

Nero, allegedly, fiddled while Rome burned. Today we have a Commander in Chief who seems equally unhinged from reality. In a world fraught with Islamic terrorists and muscle-flexing autocratic nations, the enemy on which he is focused is climate change. On the Wednesday before Memorial Day, President Obama came to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut to warn the newly graduated second lieutenants of the far-reaching consequences of climate change, and of man’s responsibility to halt its effects. Like the Norse King Canute who, after conquering Denmark, England and Norway, tried to hold back the waves, Mr. Obama went to Denver in 2008 and promised that his Presidency would bring the time “when the rise of the oceans began to slow.” Global warming is the yardstick he has used to define his Presidency.

It seemed to make no difference that the world was being shattered – at least in part because of our neglect. The day before the President’s speech the Iraq city of Ramadi fell to ISIS, the North Koreans revealed they had the ability to attach a nuclear device to an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile capable of reaching the U.S., and the Iranians said that UN nuclear inspectors would not be allowed into Iran. The next day, the ancient (and strategically important) Syrian City of Palmyra fell to ISIS. Two days later, tensions rose between the U.S. and China over the latter’s constructing of artificial islands 800 miles off their coast in the South China Sea.

Just getting news reports that a bomb squad has detonated a device found in a suspicious car near the U.S. Capitol Building.

Breaking 911 reports:

DC Officials, including the bomb squad, have apparently blown up a device from a ‘suspicious’ vehicle parked near Capitol and a Memorial Day Concert.

The item looks like a pressure cooker and propane tanks have been removed from the car.

Thousands of people eager to get into the National Memorial Day Concert were delayed from entering.

Police are still searching the vehicle.

Jay Korff of the local ABC affiliate is tweeting details:

OK then:

UPDATE: The plot thickens…

UPDATE2: The Washington Times identifies the arrested man as Israel Shimlis.

Fox News reports:

The incident began at around 5 p.m. local time, when Capitol police officers on patrol noticed a vehicle they deemed “suspicious” on a street that crosses the National Mall west of the Capitol between Constitution and Independence Avenues. Further investigation revealed that the vehicle contained a pressure cooker and detected an odor of gasoline.

A bomb squad was called in and streets were temporarily closed off. The pressure cooker was detonated at approximately 7:45 p.m. The investigation was closed approximately 35 minutes later with nothing further found.

Senior security officials told Fox News that investigators initially believed that the pressure cooker “might be the real deal.” Pressure cookers have been used in several recent terror attacks, mostly notably the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured 260 others.

Sources told Fox News that the pressure cooker may have been part of a propane tank used in a food truck.

Jeb Bush should withdraw from the presidential contest of 2016. He should do so soon to become a true hero to our country that sorely needs one. And he should accompany his withdrawal with a detailed explanation of his reasons. It is not just because his mother Barbara Bush was correct in her original assessment that the United States does not any more Bushes or Clintons. It is far more.

The Democratic Party looks determined to nominate a woman for president that a majority of the country thinks a liar. A recent poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal found a paltry 25% of Americans believe Hillary Clinton to be honest. And this is before Mrs. Clinton assumes office. Who knows what would happen thereafter when so many presidents find themselves in crisis situations demanding courage and integrity?

If Mrs. Clinton were to win the presidency, she would do so under a cloud of distrust unprecedented in any of our lifetimes. She would have no honeymoon period and would not deserve one. And this would be happening at a moment in history when the entire world is on a knife edge because of the rise of radical Islam and ISIS throughout the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, Latin America and, increasingly, Europe, not to mention having to monitor the controversial nuclear deal with Iran, if and when such a thing is signed.

The Center Is Not HoldingFrom ISIS at Ramadi to riots at home, nothing is going right.
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” – W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Things are starting to collapse, abroad and at home. We all sense it, even as we bicker over who caused it and why.

ISIS took Ramadi last week. That city once was a Bastogne to the brave Americans who surged to save it in 2007 and 2008. ISIS, once known at the White House as the “Jayvees,” were certainly “on the run” — right into the middle of that strategically important city.

On a smaller scale, ISIS is doing to the surge cities of Iraq what Hitler did to his neighbors between 1939 and 1941, and what Putin is perhaps doing now on the periphery of Russia. In Ramadi, ISIS will soon do its accustomed thing of beheading and burning alive its captives, seeking some new macabre twist to sustain its Internet video audience. We in the West trample the First Amendment and jail a video maker for posting a supposedly insensitive film about Islam; in contrast, jihadists post snuff movies of burnings and beheadings to global audiences. We argue not about doing anything or saving anybody, but about whether it is inappropriate to call the macabre killers “jihadists.”

When these seventh-century psychopaths tire of warring on people, they turn to attacking stones, seeking to ensure that there is not a vestige left of the Middle East’s once-glorious antiquities. I assume the ancient Sassanid and Roman imperial site at Palmyra will soon be looted and smashed.

“We want your blood. It tastes so wonderful.” — Denis Cuspert, German rapper-turned-jihadist.

Such measures, however, are not likely to deter Cuspert from producing more propaganda videos. They arguably pose more of a threat to Germany than his physical presence there.

“In Germany, sleeper cells lie in wait… Even while you’re in Europe, do your jihad. Allah is going to reward you. Paradise is waiting.” — Denis Cuspert.

A German rapper-turned-jihadist has called on his followers to carry out terrorist attacks in Germany.

In a high-quality video released by the Islamic State in April, Denis Cuspert also warns that terrorist sleeper cells have infiltrated Germany and are ready for activation.

German authorities say they are taking the threats seriously: Cuspert — who has been likened to Nazi Minister for Propaganda Joseph Goebbels — has become the Islamic State’s chief propagandist in the German language and is unusually capable of inspiring disillusioned young Germans to become jihadists.

Trade promotion legislation should discourage Europe from its economic attacks on the Jewish state.

Israel has faced existential danger since its founding. It pushed back conventional assaults during the 1948 War of Independence against Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, the 1967 Six Day War against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War against an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria. Today it faces periodic rocket fire, suicide bombings, and even kidnappings by Hamas. These efforts have tried but failed to demoralize and destabilize a critical U.S. ally.

Mr. Lehman was secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, and a member of the 9/11 Commission.

The president disregards a policy that for decades has ensured effective leadership of the nuclear fleet.
President Obama, possibly unaware of the implications, has made a mistake by nominating Adm. John Richardson as the new chief of naval operations. Adm. Richardson likely would do a fine job in that important role, but by trying to move him from his current position as director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, the president has crossed a line and created a precedent that could have grave consequences for the effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear fleet.

First, a little history is in order. Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the U.S.Navy’s nuclear fleet and one of the fathers of commercial nuclear power, was a great man. Including his time at the Naval Academy, he served for 55 years on active duty and ran the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program for three decades until his retirement in 1982. He created and oversaw a culture of personnel and engineering excellence that is unique in the world.

Vladimir Putin’s recent decision to sell S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran over U.S. objections is more than an embarrassment to the Obama Administration. It is also the latest evidence of an emerging new threat to world order and U.S. security: the rise of authoritarian regional powers.

China, Russia and Iran are taking advantage of American retreat to assert political and (perhaps eventually) military dominance over their corners of the globe. They share a goal of reducing U.S. influence, bending neighbors to their political will, and ultimately using that regional base of power to diminish the global sway of Western democracies, especially the U.S. In addition to the rise of Islamic State, this will be the biggest strategic challenge for the next President.

If President Obama can forgive us our trespasses, he can forgive the Ayatollah Khamenei’s, too.

Can there be a rational, negotiable, relatively reasonable bigot? Barack Obama thinks so.

So we learn from the president’s interview last week with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg—the same interview in which Mr. Obama called Islamic State’s capture of Ramadi a “tactical setback.” Mr. Goldberg asked the president to reconcile his view of an Iranian regime steeped in “venomous anti-Semitism” with his claims that the same regime “is practical, and is responsive to incentive, and shows signs of rationality.”

The president didn’t miss a beat. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s strategic objectives, he said, were not dictated by prejudice alone. Sure, the Iranians could make irrational decisions “with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool.” They might also pursue hate-based policies “where the costs are low.” But the regime has larger goals: “maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their country,” and getting “out of the deep economic rut that we’ve put them in.”