[USA Today] WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs doled out more than $142 million in bonuses to executives and employees for performance in 2014 even as scandals over veterans' health care and other issues racked the agency.
Among the recipients were claims processors in a Philadelphia benefits office that investigators dubbed the worst in the country last year. They received $300 to $900 each. Managers in Tomah, Wis., got $1,000 to $4,000, even though they oversaw the over-prescription of opiates to veterans -- one of whom died.
The VA also rewarded executives who managed construction of a facility in Denver, a disastrous project years overdue and more than $1 billion over budget. They took home $4,000 to $8,000 each. And in St. Cloud, Minn., where an internal investigation report last year outlined mismanagement that led to mass resignations of health care providers, the chief of staff cited by investigators received a performance bonus of almost $4,000.
As one of his final acts last year before resigning, then-VA secretary Eric Shinseki announced he was suspending bonuses in the wake of revelations that VA employees falsified wait lists to meet wait-time targets -- ostensibly as part of efforts to secure the extra pay. But he only curtailed them for a sliver of VA executives -- those in senior levels of the Veterans Health Administration, which oversees health care.
The agency has continued to pay performance-based bonuses to nearly half of agency employees, including in health administration, according to data provided to USA TODAY by the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. In all, some 156,000 executives, managers and employees received them for 2014 performance.
#3
I'm surprised that they didn't skip the bonuses so they could set up more transgender clinics.
Snark of the day.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/12/2015 14:30 Comments ||
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#4
The bonuses are issued to people who have information on the crimes against veterans committed by the management of the VA. Without them, the recipients might talk.
[AnNahar] Costa Rican authorities on Tuesday broke up a ring connected to an international network that smuggled migrants from Cuba, Asia and Africa willing to pay up to $30,000 each for a chance to make their way to the United States, officials said.
Twelve people were enjugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in raids and near the Costa Rican capital San Jose and in the northwestern province of Guanacaste carried out in cooperation with Colombia and the U.S. embassy, the government's Public Ministry said in a statement.
Investigators found that the network demanded $7,000 to $15,000 for Cubans to be smuggled, and up to $30,000 for those from Asian and African countries, with most aiming for the U.S.
The route used ran from Colombia, through the Central American isthmus, on through Mexico and to the United States.
The Costa Rican cell was allegedly tasked with picking up the migrants at the southern border with Panama and taking them to San Jose for a stay of a few hours or a night before moving them to Guanacaste, on the border with Nicaragua, where they continued their travel north.
Prosecutors said the ring moved up to 17 people at a time and made two or three trips a day.
During Tuesday's operation, authorities said they found 14 Cubans about to cross over to Nicaragua, and 12 Nicaraguans who were aiming to be transported to San Jose. They were taken to a Public Ministry office in the northwestern city of Liberia for investigation.
#2
Twelve people were enjugged in raids and near the Costa Rican capital San Jose and in the northwestern province of Guanacaste carried out in cooperation with Colombia and the U.S. embassy, the government's Public Ministry said in a statement.
The US Embassy immediately granted them political asylum
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/12/2015 17:58 Comments ||
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#3
Costa Rican authorities on Tuesday broke up a ring connected to an international network that smuggled migrants from Cuba
[PEW] A larger share of young women are living at home with their parents or other relatives than at any point since the 1940s.
A new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 36.4% of women ages 18 to 34 resided with family in 2014, mainly in the home of mom, dad or both. The result is a striking U-shaped curve for young women -- and young men -- indicating a return to the past, statistically speaking.
You'd have to go back 74 years to observe similar living arrangements among American young women. Young men, too, are increasingly living in the same situation, but unlike women their share hasn't climbed to its level from 1940, the highest year on record. (Comparable data on living arrangements are not available from before then.)
Back in 1940, 36.2% of young women lived with their parents or relatives. That number dropped over the next couple of decades as marriage rates increased and women began joining the workforce in larger numbers, becoming financially able to live on their own.
#3
Lemmesee....height of the Great Depression was in 1933, which would be 82 years ago. Depression didn't end (according to gov't) until around 1939 or 1940, some 8 years later....74 years ago.
Does that mean we've got another 7-8 years of Champ's 'new normal?'
Aggravating factors: a. Careerism and wymn in the workplace. b. Lower rates of getting hitched, starting families. c. BC pills. d. Popularity of man-hating, father's Oldsmobile, religion, "traditional" roles. d. Obsession with social media and instant gratification. e. Borrowing for education and heavy debt load. f. Gender uncertainty. g. Hollywood. h. Divorce.
#4
The tech reports I read, said 1943 for the end of the Great Depression. Took full mobilization to kick in to get the numbers back aligned.
Yep, pretty much, the rejection of 4000 years of human behavior believing that being modern, hip, and urban could over come that without consequences. Helped along with good Marxists who don't believe in real history - "we invoke year zero to remake society." As ye sow...
#8
Who's going to marry me and my crushing student loan debt?
Posted by: regular joe ||
11/12/2015 12:49 Comments ||
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#9
Wymyn's Studies not paying well in the real world
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/12/2015 14:02 Comments ||
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#10
In the late 1930's before they got married, both my future parents lived in boarding houses (not the same ones, either). Boarding houses are often nowadays outlawed by current zoning & city regulations. Not to mention the unlikelihood of modern would-be boarders being semi-civilized to begin with. My parents had already moved hundreds of miles away from their parents, to seek employment in places where such rarities existed, otherwise they would probably have lived with their parents prior to marriage. After their marriage, they started housekeeping in my mother's boarding house. Mother always considered her landlady and landlord her second parents, and was very attached to them for the rest of their lives. These second parents had already lost their only daughter to trichinosis. Parents always described them as tough as nails and with hearts of gold. Decades later, they even assisted my sister getting her start in life out of nursing school.
#11
Boarding houses are often nowadays outlawed by current zoning & city regulations.
That's unless they're illegals being packed well beyond the occupancy rates for converted single family homes (and garages). Then zoning and regs go out the 'moral superiority' window. Of course, no one dare cares the providers the slum lords they are because they're doing the 'good work'.
#14
These days, the young men shy away. They have a good idea what's waiting for them if they marry or even cohabit too long. We're creating a generation of white spinsters. (The black women just have their babies, men be damned.)
h/t Instapundit
Tens of thousands of protesters poured into Warsaw's streets on Wednesday for a demonstration organised by the far right, marching under the slogan "Poland for the Polish" and burning an EU flag.
[Rudaw] The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) exported an average of 595,528 barrels of oil per day (bpd) in the month of October, the government announced Wednesday.
In a statement, the KRG said a total number of 18,461, 357 barrels was transferred through the Kurdistan pipeline network to the port of Ceyhan in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... Of this amount, the KRG said that its fields contributed 13,611,252 barrels (439,073 bpd on average), while fields operated by the North Oil Company (NOC) contributed 4,850,105 barrels (an average of 156,455 bpd).
The current price of oil is $40.70, according to energy markets, meaning the value of the month's export would be more than $750 million.
"Due to circumstances beyond the KRG's control, during October there were three days of downtime for the export pipeline, caused mainly by attempts at sabotage and theft," the statement read.
The KRG added that it has continued to increase its direct oil sales in Ceyhan to compensate the region for the budget shortfalls from the federal government in Baghdad.
"The KRG will continue to work with its counterparts in the federal government to reach a resolution on all the outstanding issues of oil and gas and in this regard it sees an opportunity for solid progress in the forthcoming discussions over the 2016 federal budget," the monthly statement concluded.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli growers say they've moved their exports to other markets, notably Russia; Paleostinians will suffer most from a boycott
The Jordan Valley, the easternmost part of the West Bank, is home to approximately 7,000 Israelis in 21 settlements and 10,000 Paleostinians. Agriculture is the major industry, and there are few other employment opportunities.
"Six or seven years ago, 80% of our exports went to Europe," said Elchaini, the mayor of the regional council. But when labeling initiatives started in Europe about eight years ago to encourage boycotts of the settlements, rather than fight it, farmers just found a new market, he said.
Now Europe accounts for about 20% of the exports from the Jordan Valley. The exports that still go to Europe are things with a short shelf life, like fresh herbs. Dates, the biggest product in the Jordan Valley region, can be stored for long periods of time, so they have the widest range of markets. The biggest export partners for the Jordan Valley are now the US, Russia, India and Singapore, he said.
#1
Yesterday g(r)omgoru said some would deliberately buy goods labelled as being from Israeli settlements. An Nahar reports that there is a movement to do exactly that.
[Breitbart London] On Thursday the Cleveland VA Medical Center is opening the nation's first VA clinic dedicated to providing for the healthcare needs of transgender veterans.
The Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center will provide transgender veterans with primary care, hormone therapy, mental health care, and social work services, says local NBC affiliate WKYC. A calendar of events from the VA states the medical center will celebrate the opening of the transgender clinic on Thursday, November 12.
According to a directive from the Department of Veterans Affairs published in February of 2013:
VA provides health care for transgender patients, including those who present at various points on their transition from one gender to the next. This applies to all Veterans who are enrolled in VA's health care system or are otherwise eligible for VA care, including those who have had sex reassignment surgery outside of VHA, those who might be considering such surgical intervention, and those who do not wish to undergo sex reassignment surgery but self- identify as transgender. Intersex individuals may or may not have interest in changing gender or in acting in ways that are discordant with their assigned gender.
#2
And they will probably get priority over combat wounded, PTSD sufferers, and other truly needy veterans.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/12/2015 10:05 Comments ||
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#3
I remember back in the 70s a drop of the 509th out of Vicenza. Some poor airborne landed very badly on a small tree or large bush which removed his *&^$#. Guess he'd qualify, though this date its a bit late in the game.
[Breitbart] A cell phone video, taken moments after Muslims received the word that they took over the city council, has surfaced of one of the organizers of the Muslim city council effort saying, "Today we show the Polish and everybody else..." The town has a large but shrinking Polish community.
How ugly. How fast.
They won -- are they incapable of being gracious? Don't answer that. The message is clear: non-Muslims move or else.
Yet when the Muslims gained control of the city council last week, a local reporter, Will Jones, summarized how immigrants had "dramatically changed the face and culture of this community," and said exultantly, "Now, the Hamtramck City Council is going to reflect that diversity."
What's diverse about a Muslim majority? Is there anything less diverse and more oppressive than Islamic law? What Muslim countries are diverse? Muslims won't even let Jews pray at the most holy of Jewish sites. Muslim countries under the sharia subjugate their religious minorities.
[Breitbart] In a week of chaos at the University of Missouri, a popular professor has resigned over criticism that he would not cancel classes after rumors of "threats" to students swept through the campus.
Professor Dale E. Brigham, who is listed as Associate Teaching Professor Nutrition & Exercise Physiology, said in an email that he was resigning and had cancelled an exam and classes.
The career-ending kerfuffle came in the wake of racial tensions ratcheted up by radical black activsts that resulted in the school's President and Chancellor resigning on Monday.
#2
The Klan was (and is a creature) of the Donks. They promoted segregation, which is now in vogue on Mizzou. The Klan must be envious of kill numbers achieved in Chicago amongst the community. Dr. King's vision of 'integration' now lies in shambles. As Asians have found out, that when you successfully integrate, you disappear from the power landscape. And its all about power.
Posted by: regular joe ||
11/12/2015 12:51 Comments ||
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#5
The entire episode is based on fakery. The student who claimed the KKK was on campus has had to retract his statement. The "poopstika", was also faked. The only evidence was a photo which has been confirmed to originate from a Reddit post dated to 2014. It was all pretext for the actions they are taking right now and for spreading the infection to other campuses
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/12/2015 14:42 Comments ||
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#6
Seems that social unrest is on steroids when the Donks are in power. No matter that the reasons for the unrest are ginned up BS. The left, Alinsky and the Devil are reveling about the misery they have created.
On the afternoon of Nov. 4, Catherine Hardwicke trekked to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, laptop in tow, to offer testimony for a federal investigation into the lack of female film and television directors. The Twilight and Thirteen helmer had not received a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as about 50 women have this year. She appeared voluntarily.
"When I read about it, I reached out because I want to be involved in the change," explains Hardwicke. "This is a historic moment, and we cannot let this slip away. We've got to inspire people to be on the right side of history, to make a change."
Despite spending about three hours with federal investigators, during which she described in detail how she lost out on studio directing gigs to male rivals, Hardwicke says she only got about halfway through her story and will return for a second round with lead investigator Marla Stern-Knowlton and her team of agents later in November.
"Why is my testimony so long? Because I have some very sad, disappointing, criminal details of slander and libelous and untrue statements that have been made about myself and other women," says Hardwicke. The EEOC is hoping that she is one of many women who step forward in the investigation, which insiders acknowledge is a difficult one because of the secretive nature of Hollywood and the difficulty of proving discrimination in a creative industry governed by subjective choices. In fact, the federal agency tasked with administering and enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination has set up a system so that female directors can report anonymously their own experiences of gender bias without fear of retribution.
"Traditionally, the problem has been that women are scared of getting blacklisted," says director Maria Giese (When Saturday Comes), the first woman to offer testimony to the EEOC. "But now, it can be totally anonymous, which makes it a whole new landscape. More women are becoming emboldened to go in."
#4
...And it just occurred to me - only in 2015 America can someone whose net worth is north of seven figures go before a committee and cry 'discrimination'....
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/12/2015 7:34 Comments ||
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....or by bringing back the original 14 year copyright along with one 14 year extension by the original individual artist (not corporations). It would be like a dying star sucking its last helium atoms.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Rudaw] The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) exported an average of 595,528 barrels of oil per day (bpd) in the month of October, the government announced Wednesday.
[Breitbart] A cell phone video, taken moments after Muslims received the word that they took over the city council, has surfaced of one of the organizers of the Muslim city council effort saying, "Today we show the Polish and everybody else..." The town has a large but shrinking Polish community.
[Breitbart] In a week of chaos at the University of Missouri, a popular professor has resigned over criticism that he would not cancel classes after rumors of "threats" to students swept through the campus.
