Strongly suggest everyone to read the entire article written by Jake Tapper.

[…] …”Many of Bergdahl’s fellow troops — from the seven or so who knew him best in his squad, to the larger group that comprised the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division — told CNN that they signed nondisclosure agreements agreeing to never share any information about Bergdahl’s disappearance and the efforts to recapture him. Some were willing to dismiss that document in hopes that the truth would come out about a soldier who they now fear is being hailed as a hero, while the men who lost their lives looking for him are ignored”…..

(Jake Tapper @CNN) — The sense of pride expressed by officials of the Obama administration at the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is not shared by many of those who served with him — veterans and soldiers who call him a deserter whose “selfish act” ended up costing the lives of better men.

“I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on,” said former Sergeant Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl’s platoon when he went missing on June 30, 2009. “Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him.” (more…)

It should be contemplated the White House position, when trying to get the GITMO detainees moved to -and tried in- New York federal court, was that we were not at war, these were not enemy combatants – they were terrorists and the DOJ was the agency to prosecute them and not a Military Court at GITMO.

Remember that !  Because what you are about to hear in 2014 is 180° in exactly the opposite direction.    You can’t logically call them “terrorists” and NOT enemies of war in 2010, and then turn around in 2014 and claim they are prisoners of a war and not terrorists.

Well, actually you can do that, but only so long as the media don’t call you out on it.  Do you think they will?   Think about it…… then watch.

First the ever pretzellian Susan Rice:

Now Listen To Chuck Hagel’s version of pretzel logic:  (more…)

The process for the deception was actually outlined on the bottom of page #4 of the interim OIG report. The VA facilities, and in many cases the VA regional offices, were keeping two sets of treatment records. One set was what they were using – the second set was what they were reporting to VA in Washington.

To pull off the deception the “audit trail” function on the computer software was disabled. Meaning, there was no way to identify who was manipulating the records and when.

The only way to fix this is to fire all the administrators, fire the top and mid-level managers, fire the auditors and compliance officers, and then deconstruct the SEIU and AFSCME union stranglehold within the VA.

Yeah, good luck with that…

WASHINGTON DC – Appointments’ wait times were manipulated at more than 60 percent of the Department of Veterans Affairs health facilities investigated as part of a new internal audit.

The White House-ordered audit found that schedulers faced pressure to manipulate the system and concluded there was a “systemic lack of integrity within some Veterans Health Administration facilities.”

The audit, issued as VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned Friday, found that 64 percent of the 216 VA facilities reviewed had at least one instance where a veterans’ desired appointment date had been changed.

The review found 13 percent of schedulers had received specific instructions to misrepresent wait times.

“Information indicates that in some cases, pressures were placed on schedulers to utilize inappropriate practices in order to make waiting times appear more favorable,” the audit said. (more…)

AFP: Taliban leader Mullah Omar says prisoner swap which freed U.S. soldier Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was a "big victory"

— Sky News Breaking (@SkyNewsBreak) June 1, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican lawmakers on Saturday accused President Barack Obama of breaking the law by approving the release of five Afghan detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for a U.S. soldier believed held by Islamist insurgents for five years.

The White House agreed that actions were taken in spite of legal requirements and cited “unique and exigent circumstances” as justification.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, of Hailey, Idaho, was handed over to U.S. special operations forces by the Taliban. In return, five Afghans who were held at a U.S. detention facility in Cuba were released to the custody of the government of Qatar, which served as a go-between in negotiations for the trade. (more…)

Street thugs or US government operatives.  It’s getting harder to tell the difference.

Now, apparently, the Intelligence Committee spills the beans in the Congressional Record that there really is no difference in their operating procedures or outlook.

Random, indiscriminate killing of unverified targets now A-OK.  Street thugs spraying random shots in a drive-by, or the US government killing random civilians in an untargeted unverified drone strike.  Same-same!  Doesn’t that make ya feel all squishy-yummy inside?

(more…)

According to a whistle-blowing Op Ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal, doctors and residents in the VA system were prevented from providing care to patients if their actions were deemed to be “making federal workers look bad” :

…”Scott Barbour, an orthopedic surgeon and a friend, trained at the Miami VA hospital. In an attempt to get more patients onto the operating-room schedule, he enlisted fellow residents to clean the operating rooms between cases and transport patients from their rooms into the surgical suites….

Instead of offering praise for their industriousness, the Chief of Surgery reprimanded the doctors and put a stop to their actions. From his perspective, they were not solving a problem but were making federal workers look bad and creating more work for others, like nurses, who had to take care of more post-op patients.”

Imagine that!  Nurses having to take care of more post-op patients!  You’d think they were working in a hospital or something…. It’s not like they can adjust their census to account for that, or anything. /s/.  But, wait, there’s more ……

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Montel Williams epic outrage. Well worth watching:

The House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing last night began at 7:30pm and ended around 11:30pm.   The hearing was held to cover the information contained within the Interim Office of Inspector General’s Report.

Here’s a sense of how it started:

Having watched the entire hearing personally, and listened to the insufferable responses from: Dr. Thomas Lynch, M.D., Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Clinical Operations, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Ms. Joan Mooney, Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and Mr. Michael Huff, Congressional Relations Officer, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, I can tell you the committee has every reasonable right to express frustration. (more…)

OIG Interim Report: Review of VHA’s Patient Wait Times, Scheduling Practices, and Alleged Patient Deaths at the Phoenix Health Care System  (read summary)

[scribd id=226901940 key=key-tT3Iuv8nA0DRskm2lV4v mode=scroll]

(more…)

The U.S. Military and Australian Search Authority in charge of looking for missing Malaysian Airline MH-370 have now admitted what independent researchers announced a few weeks ago.   They have no idea where to look, and admit the initial ping signals were mistakenly interpreted.  The search is suspended.

VIA CNN – The four acoustic pings at the center of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 for the past seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane’s black boxes, a U.S. Navy official told CNN.

The acknowledgment came Wednesday as searchers wrapped up the first phase of their effort, having scanned 329 square miles of southern Indian Ocean floor without finding any wreckage from the Boeing 777-200. (more…)